Fortune favors the bold - so where does that leave us?

The sirens had started blaring not long after the fight between Muggshot and Inspector Fox, and the latter recognized them instantly. They weren't criminals calling for backup or store security systems going off from a break-in – they were real police sirens, which meant her team was on their way.

Carmelita ultimately decided that leaving the mobster up on the top floor was a bad idea. He was unconscious and properly cuffed, sure, but there was no telling how many other secret passages out of the building he might have already built, and she didn't want to risk going out to meet her fellow officers, then coming back up to an empty room.

So, she decided to lug the giant bulldog downstairs.

Sly, strangely, seemed to go back and forth about helping her do so. He nodded along when she explained her plan, but the moment they went back up and he saw the man lying on the floor, he suddenly became very skittish about actually touching Muggshot. It took the inspector snapping at him to either start pulling or clear out of the way for him to reluctantly grab a fistful of the criminal's wife beater.

The rest of the dogs in the hotel were either preoccupied elsewhere or had fled entirely, as they encountered nobody else all the way down to the ground floor. Carmelita was secretly grateful for it, because she was, quite frankly, exhausted. Then she felt guilty immediately afterwards, because those were still dangerous criminals who could do a lot of damage if left unchecked.

When Muggshot was finally sitting at the foot of the bottom stairwell, wrists cuffed to the handrail, the two spared a moment to catch their breath.

"I can't believe you actually did it," the raccoon said between gasps. He pulled his hood back to wipe the sweat over his brow. There was a strange quality to his voice that was hard to identify, and it took a moment for her to realize it was amazement.

"Of course, I did it! I mean…" She suddenly felt self-conscious. Not many people had ever been amazed by her in a way that wasn't tied to a crush. "It was my sworn duty. I had to at least try."

He shook his head and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like "suicidal." The fox gave him a sharp glance, but he was staring too hard at the limp body of the mobster to see it. In fact, that seemed to be all he could focus on at all.

Carmelita wondered what he was thinking about.

"In any case, my team will be arriving soon, so we should probably go out to greet them."

That, at least, appeared to jolt him out of his bizarre mood, and he followed silently after her as she walked out into the hot evening air. The way she was intensely aware of his presence was the only reason she noticed the moment he was no longer right behind her. When the fox turned, it was to see him standing just outside the entrance to the hotel.

"Aren't you coming?" She asked, watching the way he almost seemed to blend into the shadows of the building.

"Nah. The spotlight isn't really my thing, and I sure wasn't the one who took Muggshot down with my bare hands."

The inspector frowned and considered telling him that she had much more than her bare hands in that fight, but she knew that the most she'd get for her troubles were rolled eyes and a sarcastic remark.

"I didn't do all the work, you know. I wouldn't have been able to even find him in the first place if it hadn't been for your help."

The raccoon shrugged, leaning against what was left of the wooden barrier she had splintered on her way inside. "I'm fine right here. You probably shouldn't keep your team waiting, Inspector."

He was right, and that was the only reason she left him behind, albeit reluctantly. Crossing the bridge into the lower half of the city, Carmelita followed the shrill sound of police sirens until she finally turned a block corner and saw a group of armored squad cars making their way down the street. She waved her badge in the air, knowing its flash would be seen easily in their headlights.

Sure enough, they all slowed to a stop. The nearest one rolled down its window as she approached to reveal a pig in a United States police uniform.

"Inspector Fox!" He said. "We're with the Utah State Police. Chief Inspector Barkley contacted us as backup to help you storm Muggshot's hideout."

"Thank you for the support, but that won't be necessary." The inspector opened the passenger side door and climbed into the open seat. The vehicles all began moving as one unit again towards the hijacked hotel. "I've already successfully apprehended the criminal leader. All that's left is to capture his remaining hired men."

The pig gave her a startled glance. "What? Really? How did you manage that?"

She could hear the skepticism in his voice; the doubt that someone as young and small as her could have possibly taken on the bulldog and won. It was a far cry from the genuine recognition Sly had shown her just minutes earlier, and she gritted her teeth in frustration.

"It wasn't an easy fight, but with the use of my training and instincts I was able to come out on top. He's currently restrained on the first floor of the hotel we're heading to."

"If you say so…"

It took a Herculean effort not to snap at the other officer to respect her word. Carmelita settled on folding her arms and sitting stiffly in her seat until the group parked in front of the hotel. As everyone stepped out, covered head to toe in body armor and weaponry, she started to lead them across the lot – and then stopped short.

Sly wasn't in front of the entrance anymore.

She blinked and looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Painfully aware of the group at her back that probably thought she was stalling for time, the inspector took them all inside, hoping that perhaps the raccoon had simply decided to wait in the lobby.

He wasn't there either. Only Muggshot, still just as unconscious as when she'd left. She could hear the shock ripple through her team at the sight of the incapacitated gangster as they all realized that she had, in fact, been telling the truth.

For some reason, it wasn't as satisfying as she'd expected. She chalked it up to exhaustion-induced indifference.

"Well, ma'am, I don't know how you did it, but I can't say I'm not impressed," said the pig as he came up to stand beside her. The rest of the officers were already starting to maneuver the bulldog onto an outlandishly large stretcher in order to carry him out to the waiting vehicles.

"It was really nothing," she replied distantly, still scanning the room in the hopes to catch even a glimpse of that striped tail somewhere. There was nothing to find. "I was simply doing my job."

No one came out to greet or confront them, and Muggshot was securely loaded into the biggest armored car they had. Most of the team began combing the streets to find the mobster's men – those who hadn't fled the city at the sound of sirens, at least – and Carmelita led the rest in searching the entirety of the hotel to retrieve stolen goods and look for hiding criminals.

Besides the remodeled ballroom where the fight had taken place, there were three other rooms of major interest. The first was one that had been boarded up from the outside, but all the furniture within was still intact, and they found signs that someone might have been staying there until very recently. The problem was that the bed – in fact the entire room was most definitely too small for someone of Muggshot's stature to fit in. Additionally, there were freshly-installed bars on the window; whatever this room had been meant for, it certainly wasn't for the mobster.

It was a specific oddity among regular oddities, and they all made a note of it for later.

The second room was Muggshot's bedroom, filled to the brim with guns and ammo and stolen loot. The third was his office – ransacked to pieces.

Inspector Fox and her team stopped short at the sight. Papers were scattered all across the desk and the floor. Binders had been pulled off the bookshelf and left haphazardly open, clearly dropped wherever the intruder had been standing once they had stopped looking through each. A wall safe had its door swinging open idly, completely empty, and the window overlooking the city had been shattered.

"Wow…" Said one of the other officers. "Was Muggshot getting ready to flee cause he heard we were coming?"

Carmelita opened one of the desk drawers with the butt of her pistol. Countless stacks of money sat tightly packed inside. Her detective mind was whirring, trying to connect the dots to the puzzle before her.

"I don't know," she replied, looking around the room again. "He was more surprised than worried when I showed up to apprehend him – it might've been one of his men who did this."

"Okay, but who bothers with a safe when there's plenty of cash to steal if you're planning to run?"

"Someone who knew that whatever was in that safe was valuable."

"More than whatever's already here?"

"It's possible."

She motioned them all back so that the officer with the camera could take all the necessary pictures. As he did so, her attention drifted back to the broken window. The glass littering the carpet implied it had been broken from the outside, but that was impossible. This floor was easily twelve stories high, and for all his physical prowess, Muggshot would not have been capable of such a feat; nor were any of his goons, for that matter.

Carmelita chewed her lip as a particular thought came to mind about the raccoon who had been helping her. One who could keep up with her as easily as if he'd done the same training she had; who had saved her from two incredibly dangerous dogs within seconds; who had disappeared into the night without so much as a witness statement or even a goodbye.

Who hadn't even told her his full name.

No, that was ridiculous. It was a conspiracy theory as laughable as if Muggshot had been the one who'd broken into his own office, and she refused to entertain the idea any longer. Sly had open disdain for the police – it made sense that he wouldn't want to stick around an entire investigative force…even if it did make him look incredibly suspicious.

She closed her eyes and banished the thought immediately. There were much more important things to worry about than one lost ringtail when an entire city still needed to be saved. She wasn't going to let herself get distracted by the small details again.

It was time to focus on the big picture for once. Just like Barkley said.

The next few hours passed in a blur.

Muggshot's hired men were completely unaware and unprepared for the SWAT teams that came for them, and while a majority fought back to no avail, some fled or hid and had to be flushed out. The sun was peeking out over the distant buttes by the time Mesa City was officially declared clear of criminals.

Carmelita helped until they were done, refusing every suggestion that she stay behind and rest. She had to borrow an extra weapon as her own pistol was a smoking, sparking mess, and she was practically dead on her feet when the "all clear" was called, but it was worth it. She would have hated herself if she'd sat out on such a crucial clean-up.

It was around that time that another armored car rolled in, and out stepped Chief Inspector Barkley with a cigar between his teeth. He caught sight of the fox nursing a cup of black coffee on the front steps of the hotel, surrounded by police tape, and made a beeline for her.

"Inspector Fox," he grunted as she quickly stood up to greet him, "I heard you managed to take down our wanted mob boss all by yourself. Well done."

"Thank you, sir," she said breathlessly, bracing herself for the reprimand she knew was still coming.

"That being said," – and here it was – "you still have a lot to answer for your behavior earlier today."

"I – I know, sir, and I apologize for everything. It was wrong of me to put the mission in jeopardy."

"Damn right it was." He took a long puff of his smoke, then turned to stare out at the flashing lights of the police cruisers all around them. "Luckily for you, there were very few casualties tonight, and we were still successful in recovering the city. I don't know why your blunder didn't put the entire wasp nest on high alert, or how you managed to pull off everything you did, but you were lucky. Very, very lucky."

She thought back to Muggshot's casino, and resisted the urge to rub the bump on her head hidden under her hair.

"Incredibly lucky, sir."

"Anyway, I didn't come all the way out here in person to confirm that Mesa City is officially safe. I came to give you some important news."

Carmelita looked at him. "News?"

"Yeah. Word has already spread fast through our department about what you've done." When she winced, he hurried to clarify. "The part about apprehending Muggshot without any help, not the rest of it. Frankly, I hadn't even worked up the nerve yet to tell my colleagues about your mistake when you called in with that new update. You should have seen how many jaws hit the floor."

The way he said it was incredibly pleased, and she knew without having to hear it that his jaw had not been one of them. She couldn't help but smile at his confidence in her, as gruff as it was.

"So, because you performed above and beyond in the field today, there's been a group decision."

Barkley paused. He seemed both proud and wary of what he was about to say next.

"You're being placed on the Fiendish Five case. Lead detective. You start effective immediately."

Inspector Fox felt like the wind had been knocked straight out of her. She stared at her boss, uncomprehending, as he tapped his cigar to let ash flutter down to the concrete in a tiny pile. He met her astonished gaze and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, Fox? Are you going to say anything, or just stand there like an idiot?"

"I'm not – I mean – I – the whole case?" She asked incredulously. "With all due respect, sir, Interpol has been trying to apprehend the Fiendish Five for at least fifteen years – there's no way I'm qualified enough to –"

"It was an almost unanimous vote yes," Barkley interrupted, "and the only reason the Contessa voted no was because she thinks she can find the rest of that gang herself when she gets her hands on Muggshot. Now, I know you're not exactly used to these people giving you the credit you deserve, Fox, but trust me when I say that what you did tonight has turned a lot of important heads for the better."

Carmelita suddenly felt faint, and not just from exhaustion. She sank back down onto the steps again in shock. An hour ago, she had been afraid she would lose her rank or even her job by the end of the night. Now, she was the head detective of a case for some of the highest-priority criminals of the last twenty years – barring perhaps the late Conner Cooper himself.

"I…really don't know what to say," she murmured, dumbly, staring down at her chilled coffee.

"You don't have to say anything. Just take the offer. The case information has been sent to you already, and I've brought equipment that you'll most likely not need, but better safe than sorry. Get some guys to help load it into your car before you go back to wherever your safehouse is around here." He looked down at her with a crooked smile. "Then go take a shower and a nap, because you look like hell."

Her head was still spinning, but she still had enough brain power to huff out an offended breath. "Thanks, sir."

"Anytime."

Half an hour later, Carmelita was on the road with highly sensitive information on her laptop in the passenger seat and about twenty pounds of shiny new equipment in the trunk. An armored vest, an encrypted radio, night vision goggles, an evidence-gathering kit, camping equipment, and a freaking jetpack, just to name a few.

She had no idea why they thought she needed a jetpack to arrest the rest of the Fiendish Five, but she certainly wasn't about to question their line of thinking.

The motel was still just as sad as when she'd last left it, but now she felt Sly's absence all too keenly. Why had he disappeared? He'd told her that he didn't live in Mesa. They could have helped him go home after he'd given them a witness statement. Maybe even a commendation for the assistance he'd given an Interpol Inspector. She was all too aware of the fact that the night would've gone very differently had he not been with her.

With a shake of her head, Carmelita tucked her laptop under her arm and stepped out of the car. There was no use thinking about someone who was probably long-gone. Especially not when she was so tired that she could barely get her keys out of her pocket. Right now, what she needed to do was get inside, get some well-earned rest, and then start working on a game plan for this new case.

Heavens knew she already had her work cut out for her; Muggshot might have boldly announced his presence, but the rest of the Five had disappeared into obscurity within the last few years. It was going to take a miracle to find any kind of lead.

There was a sudden, loud thump on the roof above her. Inspector Fox froze, heart beating out of her chest, and quietly looked up. Her shock pistol was still broken in her holster, and all that fancy new equipment was halfway across the parking lot.

If this was one of Muggshot's men who had slipped through the cracks and was now looking for revenge, then she was potentially in a very dangerous situation.

The sound had all but disappeared from above, replaced by a gentle pitter patter across the roof that she had to strain just to hear at all. It was coming towards the edge of the overhang, so Carmelita flattened herself against her apartment door with her keys held defensively in her hand. She held her breath, trying to stay as quiet as possible, as the sound stopped altogether.

For a terribly long moment, there was absolutely nothing. Just when she was starting to think she had imagined it all, a dark shape dropped down and landed on the railing right in front of her. The fox tensed, ready for a fight –

And then stopped short as a familiar pair of brown eyes in a black-furred mask locked with her own.

"It's about time you showed up," Sly said, straightening out of his crouch and sliding off the rail onto hard ground. "I've been waiting here for hours."

Carmelita stared at him, completely gobsmacked.

"Was starting to wonder if maybe a stray dog had gotten to you," he continued, apparently oblivious to her shock – and growing anger. "But then I figured, nah, you probably just stayed behind to wrap the entire city in that yellow tape you guys love so much."

The raccoon finally seemed to realize he was the only one having a conversation. He tilted his head and looked her up and down.

"Uh…are you –"

"Where were you?"

It was, admittedly, not the first question she should have asked him, but it was all the fox could think to blurt out as she finally processed the fact that the impromptu partner she had written off as gone forever had, in fact, come back. He blinked, and she could practically see the lightbulb go off in his head right before he relaxed with a nonchalant shrug.

"I told you I don't do spotlights, didn't I? Sorry if you wanted a proper notice of evacuation, but I wasn't exactly keen on sticking around in a city that was still full of people who'd shoot first and ask questions later."

The explanation was accompanied by a significant look, and it took Carmelita a moment to realize it wasn't just the criminals he was referring to. She bristled and stepped towards him.

"I don't know what you think you're implying –"

"Nothing about you, so don't get so worked up."

The inspector gritted her teeth and moved past the insult to her profession with no small amount of effort. "Fine. Next question – what are you doing here?"

Now Sly looked a little less sure of himself.

"Well, I never really took you up on your offer."

"What offer?"

"The one where you'd let me stay the night and get some food. We sorta booked it straight back to Mesa after your phone call, remember?"

She had forgotten all about that. It was an eternity away now.

"It's - it's morning, Ringtail," she reminded him, as if she wasn't two seconds away from collapsing on the floor and sleeping through the day herself.

He shrugged again. "Yeah, well, I'm more nocturnal anyway."

They stared at each other, and suddenly he couldn't quite meet her eyes anymore, hunching in on himself just a little bit as his sneaker scuffed at the ground. Carmelita was struck with the sudden thought that he might not have anywhere else to go. She closed her eyes, exhaled through her nose, and prayed that she wouldn't regret this.

"Alright. You can stay one night. But don't try anything funny, or I'll shoot you point blank."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

The raccoon stuffed his hands in his pockets and acted like he hadn't just been looking like a kicked puppy. She started to doubt herself a moment, worried that maybe this was all some kind of act he was putting on to – to manipulate her, or take advantage of her kindness somehow, but when he didn't try to jump her the moment they both entered the room, she relaxed marginally.

"Okay, um, there's re-heatables in the fridge, but you can help yourself to anything you like."

"Cool. Thanks."

Carmelita watched him make a beeline for the kitchenette. He opened the fridge, pulled out two boxes of TV dinners, and started microwaving them while swiping an orange from the little fruit bowl on the counter. Then he leaned against said counter and began unpeeling the orange as he waited for his food to be done.

She didn't have the energy to be miffed at how fast he seemed to make himself at home after a second invitation, so instead she set her work laptop down on her bed and turned towards the dinky couch on the opposite end of the room. Supposedly, it could turn into a pullout mattress, and she began messing with it with an inner hope that no false advertising had been involved.

When the furniture finally unfolded after a few minutes of frustrated wrestling, the fox let out a quiet noise of triumph. Sly had been watching her the entire time, and he tilted his head with an amused twitch of lips.

"Finally tamed the couch into submission, huh?"

"I could have done it a lot faster if I had a little help," she said pointedly. His upturned mouth became a fully smug smile.

"And make you feel like you've failed your guest as a hostess? No way."

The microwave beeped. He pulled out his pre-packaged food and began eating without even giving it time to cool. Carmelita watched him do so with no small amount of envy; she was incredibly hungry too, now that things had calmed down enough for her to notice, but she couldn't rest just yet.

Not until she at least had the rundown on her brand-new case.

Sitting down on her bed, facing her guest as he ate like a starving man, the inspector put on her reading glasses, opened her laptop, and found the files Barkley had promised had been sent to her. The members of the Fiendish Five were listed alphabetically, so she clicked the first one and started reading.

Clockwerk. Owl. Exact species unknown. Exact age unknown and un-estimated. Exact size unknown, but estimated to be at least ten feet tall. Leader and strategist of the Fiendish Five. Whereabouts unknown; last known sighting six years ago in China.

There were photos when she scrolled past the laughably short description, but they were all blurry and dark. A large silhouette caught under the light of the moon; a shadow blocking most of the frame of a corrupted security camera feed; the glint of bright yellow eyes and what seemed to be a metallic beak – aesthetic, or augmentation, perhaps?

Not enough information for a lead. The fox blew out a frustrated breath and clicked on another member's file at random.

Sir Raleigh. Bullfrog. Forty-six years old. Five-feet, nine inches tall, not including attire. Chief Machinist of the Fiendish Five. Whereabouts unknown; last known sighting three years ago in Wales, United Kingdom.
• Living relatives
• Criminal activity previous to affiliation with Fiendish Five

Her mouse hovered over the additional links without clicking them. Three years was a lot closer than six, and Raleigh had actual photos identifying him. She'd have to check every member, of course, but as far as starting points, this one sounded awfully promising.

"What are you doing?"

Carmelita jumped, having forgotten all about the raccoon. He was standing in the middle of the room, munching away nonchalantly at a piece of bread but watching her with such intensity she nearly closed her laptop on instinct.

"Nothing, just – looking at a case. Which is confidential, so don't even think about coming over here."

"I won't," he said, still watching her in that strangely focused way. She frowned at him from over her glasses.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Sly's expression shifted, but not because of her question. It became more tense and closed off, and his gaze flickered up to hers where before they had been settled on –

Her reading glasses. Her eyes widened as she realized that in the dark room, the brightness of the laptop screen was reflected in her glasses. Photos of Raleigh's sneering face danced just below her line of sight as if to mock her.

She shut the laptop fast, but it wasn't fast enough.

"Are you going after the rest of the Fiendish Five?" He asked. There was none of the previous playfulness in his voice – only something incredibly cold.

It nearly made her shiver.

"Whether I am or am not is none of your business," she snapped, fighting back the dawning horror that she had leaked confidential information to a civilian, albeit unintentionally. "You shouldn't have been looking at any of that! Do you even realize how much trouble we could both get in?"

Instead of responding to the question, the raccoon slowly sat down on the end of her bed, staring at her the entire time. His eyes were sharp and shrewd.

"I'm going to help you."

That…what?

"What?" The inspector asked, not sure if she'd heard right.

"I'm going to help you take down the Fiendish Five," he repeated with a tone she couldn't read at all.

"Absolutely not. You're a civilian. I was pushing the line already letting you help with Muggshot, and the only reason I did that at all was because I didn't have much of a choice. This," she gestured to the closed laptop, the thing that had betrayed her so thoroughly, "is a far cry from any of that."

Sly's eyes narrowed. Whether in frustration or something stronger, she didn't know. "You're saying it like I haven't already proved I can hold my own. I kept up with you just fine in Mesa, didn't I?"

"You got lucky."

"Bullshit," he growled, and it was enough to make the fur rise on the back of her neck. "I saved your life and helped you get that key. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

"And I appreciate that, Sly, I really do, but this is different! I'm not working blindly or under a time crunch, I have resources at my disposal, and I will be able to approach it however I want to, now. I can't let you risk your life for something you wouldn't even be allowed to be a part of in the first place! There's a reason this information is confidential!"

"Confidential, huh?" Without breaking eye contact, the raccoon reached over his shoulder into his backpack, and pulled out a set of papers to wave at her. "Does any of that 'confidential information' have stuff like this?"

Her breath caught as she saw exactly what he was taunting her with – printed emails between Muggshot and other members of the Fiendish Five, and probably recent to boot. Those papers could very well name where any or all of the rest of their gang was hiding, depending on how smart they were about letting that kind of thing exist on something recordable.

And the bulldog was not very smart.

"Where did you get those?" She breathed in shock. Something ugly twisted in her gut as she thought about the ransacked office. The broken window.

The opened safe.

"Doesn't matter," he shot right back. "What matters is that you need them, right? I skimmed over them earlier, and I know for a fact that there's evidence here that would have you and all your buddies salivating. Not to mention, all that police procedure is gonna make looking through Muggshot's stuff take forever. Could be weeks, maybe months before they send stuff your way. If you want to see this information anytime soon then you're going to take me with you."

Carmelita stood up abruptly, trembling in anger and indignation, and he stood as well to match her height. How dare he try to coerce her like this – how dare he! To think so lowly of her that she would accept what was practically blackmail just to solve her case and bring in a gang of criminals.

A gang of highly dangerous, world-infamous criminals with stolen goods worth millions and a collective body count in the triple digits, who had gone uncaught for nearly two decades.

"...Let's just entertain, for a moment, the idea that I'd say yes to that," she ground out with her fists clenched tight. "Why the hell would you even want to go along with me? What could you possibly hope to gain by risking your life and going up against such a powerful group?"

Sly's eyes flashed with some terrible, deep pit of emotions that was impossible to parse out. The only thing she knew for certain was that all of it was layered with a barely restrained, almost primal drive, the reasons for which she was not privy to.

"Because I won't feel safe until every single one of them is gone or behind bars, and I'm going to go after all of them to make sure that happens."

Inspector Fox stared at him. She stared at the papers in his hand. Stared at the way he shook almost imperceptibly, the same way she did. There was something else she could see, something just on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it with visible difficulty.

"I'm going after them," he finished, quiet and absolute, "and if you really want me to 'stay safe', then you'll let me come with you. You're the only cop on this planet that I think has any kind of chance to actually succeed."

Her knuckles were white from how hard she clenched her fists at her sides. The urge to tell him no, to strike down his offer-slash-blackmail almost overwhelmed her. But she knew, just from looking at him, that her words would not stop him. He would follow her against her will or go after the Five by himself with whatever evidence he was holding onto, and there was only one way she could minimize the danger he was throwing himself into.

She closed her eyes and made her decision.

"Fine. It's your funeral, Ringtail."

Sly lifted his chin in triumph, but there was no self-satisfied smirk on his face. Only grim victory and steely determination. She met that gaze unflinchingly.

"But before anything else…we need to make a pit stop."

A/N: Oh Carmelita, the one time it would have been prudent of you to actually look at all the small details around you instead of taking your boss's advice...

Fun fact: in the first draft of this fic, Sly was actually going to tell Carm that the Fiendish Five had stolen "something precious" of his that he was going to get back no matter what. Obviously, that would lead to more questions from our favorite cop, so I had to ditch it. You sure can see it on the tip of his tongue though, huh ;)