For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.

When Sly had jumped down from Jing's window that night, he didn't immediately leave the estate.

He'd been shaking with rage and adrenaline and a thousand other things that clouded his thoughts. Distracted with how the Panda King had condescended to him – pretending to care with his so-called warning, but only waiting to pull the rug from under his feet and knock him flat like with every other honeyed word he'd ever spoken – the raccoon knew that trying to climb the rest of the way up the mountain as agitated as he was would probably lead to him falling off a cliff and breaking his neck. There was just enough presence of mind amongst his turmoil to remember his sense of self-preservation.

Not to mention, it would ruin all the hard work Jing had put into nursing him back to health. That wouldn't be fair to her and everything she had risked for him.

He had ended up finding an eave along the house that couldn't be easily seen from either the ground or any windows and camped out there for the rest of the night, huddled out of the snow and wind as best as he could as he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to go about things from here. He had to get the rest of the missing pages and complete the Thievius Raccoonus, no matter what King implied his fate would be for trying. There was absolutely nothing the man could say to deter him.

Not when he was so close to finally winning this twisted game.

Sometime in the late morning, well after the sun had risen, he was woken up by the sound of people walking in and out of the house beneath him. He peered over the edge of the roof to see King and his sister directing staff and luggage to a series of large vehicles where they packed everything away. Everyone's faces were solemn, and not a word was spoken between any of them.

When the raccoon scanned the entire scene a second time, he saw Jing sitting in the passenger seat of one of the smaller cars near the front of the procession – no doubt waiting for the rest of her family to join her. From this angle and with the windows heavily tinted, he couldn't make out where she was looking or what her expression was. His mouth twisted as his eyes drifted back to King.

The staff moved so efficiently that they were ready to leave within ten minutes. The panda and his sister went to join Jing and they began to drive as a single long line of around six cars. Sly couldn't help but think that there were more discreet ways to go about returning to his mountain stronghold, but they seemed to be prioritizing speed over stealth.

He wondered what had King so spooked, then shook his head before the obvious conclusion could plant itself in his mind. There was no way that she could possibly find her way here if she hadn't already. She had probably forgotten his slip of the tongue and was now stuck on a dead trail back in…wherever it was her cop headquarters was.

Without giving himself time to think, because thinking was only going to lead to awful things, the raccoon backed up and took a running leap from the house roof to the roof of the last vehicle in the procession, landing so lightly he doubted there had even been a thud to hear from inside. Even so, he flattened himself across the top and focused on remaining quiet for the entire ride up the rest of the mountain.

As they finally approached the enormous gates leading into the Panda King's stronghold several hours later, Sly dutifully held his breath to disappear from sight. Spotlights swept over the car's roof harmlessly and they all went in without issue. He watched tall, familiar buildings come into view all around; places he had not seen since he was much younger. King hadn't allowed him back here once he'd started officially working for the Five, always taking him to other places across the country and the world instead. The raccoon didn't know if he just didn't want to risk him running into Jing, or if it was for some other reason, but he honestly had never cared to know.

It was better that he hadn't come back, anyway. It would have hurt too much. It hurt too much even now, but he couldn't let that distract him from what he was here to do.

Before any of the cars got very far into the base, he carefully slid off the roof of his makeshift ride to land in the shadow of a shrine and regain his breath. Everything looked much the same as he had remembered with the exception of a new building or two, and it was almost eerie how he could see the exact path he had once taken from the giant stone fortress to the outer wall.

He wondered, if he retraced his steps after all these years, whether he would find his blood still staining the snow.

Sly shook his head and pulled out his cane, turning his attention to the guards going up and down the temples around him instead. He needed to keep his mind clear. He couldn't get distracted by the past, or by Inspector Fox, or even Jing anymore. It was time to start searching.

He had a pretty good feeling that the rest of the Thievius Raccoonus was stored away in the stone statue, but that had been the direction the Panda King had gone with his family and his staff, and he knew the place would be buzzing with activity until they arrived and settled in. Security would also be on high alert for the raccoon, and as much as he silently scoffed at the idea that any of them would ever see him – much less kill him like the fireworks forger had threatened – he would rather not take any unnecessary risks.

So, he began searching the grounds for any sign of the missing pages, and tried to figure out the best way to break into the fortress short of climbing into an open window. The trick that had worked at Jing's aunt's house would definitely not work this time around.

Several hours into the day, turning afternoon into evening, Sly hadn't had any luck in his main goal, but instead stumbled across a group of King's men bustling about with heavy-duty fireworks outside one of their factories. He climbed a tree as close as he dared and nestled in its branches, watching the commotion below him with curiosity.

"Is that everything?" One of them asked in Mandarin.

"Yep. Best of the best, just as the boss requested."

The group grunted as one and began sorting through the three or so boxes of fireworks, tossing aside the smaller ones until they had dwindled the count to a mere handful. These, larger than any Sly had ever seen, were picked up by a burly gorilla who began walking in the direction of the fortress.

Just as the raccoon was debating whether to follow him for an easy trip past security, he heard a few members of the group below continue their conversation.

"What is he going to do with those?"

"You didn't hear?" Another asked, incredulous. "Hinkau Village has yet to vacate when our lord ordered them to do so days ago. He has been left with no choice but to force them out."

Sly's mouth twisted in a horrified grimace. He knew what constituted "force" by the Panda King. Immediately, he jumped from his hiding place and took off running after the guard who had carted off the giant fireworks. None of the others heard or saw him leave.

He ran as fast as he could until he finally saw the gorilla just as he disappeared inside the base of the stronghold. There were guards and spotlights lighting up the entire entryway, and when Sly slowed down to get a better look, he realized with mounting irritation that he could also see the faintest of red lights glittering across everything.

Sensors for motion, or heat. Whichever one it was, there was no way he could follow the man inside.

Just in case there was a path he was missing, a place where he could sneak in without being caught using his invisibility, the raccoon crept in a wide circle around the very edges of the spotlights, taking care to stay just out of the guards' lines of sight while he studied the setup before him. No matter where he looked, however, there was not a single weak spot he could find. The Panda King had expected him to try and break in here, and had made every effort to prevent it.

Frustrated, Sly found a rooftop nearby where he could sit and consider the situation without any risk of being snuck upon. The infrared sensors went up a solid twenty meters of the stone statue, and there wasn't a building close or tall enough that he could feasibly leap from to reach above that threshold. He began scanning the fortress from the top down, looking for another way inside.

As he was debating whether it was possible to disguise himself as a guard and simply walk through, there was a glint above him that drew his attention. The raccoon looked up just in time to see a firework come flying out of one of the eyes of the giant statue, streaming through the sky until it exploded into the side of the mountain. Transfixed and horrified, he watched it cause an avalanche so massive that the ground trembled even where he was standing. He couldn't see what was in the avalanche's path nor where it stopped, but he felt the tremors stop the moment it was over, barely thirty seconds later.

Sly gaped, unable to do anything but hope that that firework had not been one of the ones he'd seen being taken back to the crime lord, and that Hinkau Village was still standing and safe.

He didn't have a lot of hope left anymore.

There was no use dwelling on what he just witnessed, because there was nothing he could do about it. Just another horrible injustice he was forced to turn a blind eye to for his own sake and safety. The raccoon turned back towards the statue – or more specifically, the eyes of the statue, which he could now see were made of two large tinted windows. King had sent that deadly rocket flying from there, which meant they could be opened. That also meant they could be infiltrated.

With an entry point discovered, Sly started trying to work through the next problem in his plan – how to reach said entry point. It was impossible to climb the smooth stone of the fortress, and the mountain it had been built into was a sheer rock face. Short of flying, there was no feasible way to reach those fake eyes.

…Flying…

He turned his attention back to the fireworks factory he had come from. An idea began to form in his mind; one that was completely insane the more he thought about it, but what other choice did he have?

Shooting one last venomous glance towards the entrance at the base, the raccoon began jumping from rooftop to rooftop, using the ropes connecting them with paper lanterns as an easy way across when the distance between them was too great for a single jump. He would have scoffed at how easy it was to make his way across the crime lord's territory if not for the reminder that he had placed the best of his security in the one place it mattered most. That reminder turned his disdain into anger all over again, leaving him in an even darker mood than before.

The factory wasn't nearly as tall as most of the buildings around it, but it made up for that fact by sheer width – taking up easily twice as much space on the ground than anything else Sly had come across in here. He landed in the same tree by one of its doors and began studying the guard lineup. There were two posted just outside, armed with guns and knives and god knew what else. From this vantage point, he could also see the occasional shift of movement from a shadowed balcony on the second floor; obviously a hidden post meant to add unexpected back-up at the drop of a hat.

And of course, the ever-present automatic spotlights lighting up the whole place like a circus stage.

Sly chewed the inside of his cheek while he considered the best path to take. He could slip past those ground guards without any trouble, but getting through the large heavy doors behind them without drawing attention was a real gamble. There were several windows along the factory's wall, but all looked to be reinforced glass that he wasn't entirely certain he could break through with his cane – not to mention the sound it would make if he were successful.

As much as he believed King a coward, he knew to take the man at his word. There would be no mercy shown to the raccoon if he were caught tonight.

Finally, his eyes drifted up to that second floor with the hiding guard. There was no way to know if it was only one person up there or half a dozen, but so long as he landed on the balcony completely invisible and without a sound, the actual number wouldn't matter. All he'd have to do was slip inside and he'd be golden.

Path set, Sly found another tree closer to that balcony that was considerably taller. He shimmied down his current one and booked it for the other as loudly as he dared. Once he had scaled the second tree a little higher than was safe under his weight, he estimated the distance for a jump from tree to railing.

It would be a close one, but not impossible so long as he kept his head. The raccoon held his breath and let invisibility shimmer across his body before carefully inching out onto a precarious branch towards the balcony. It creaked under his weight, bringing him back for a moment to the swamps in Haiti, but there was no monster waiting to snare him out here, nor someone below to catch him if he fell. Just the branch and the snow and himself.

The end of the branch was pointed towards the sky, and Sly decided to take a risk. He sprang forward to land on it in a Ninja Spire Jump, holding the technique perfectly even as the entire limb bobbed dangerously up and down from his action. It held, miraculously, and he thanked Rioichi Cooper for his help from beyond the grave, just like every other Cooper whose skills had gotten him this far.

He was still invisible, and up this close he could see that it was indeed only one guard waiting on the balcony for something to happen. The monkey picked his teeth with a toothpick, leaning against a large bo staff and looking incredibly bored. He hadn't seemed to notice or care about the branch that had suddenly dipped deeper than it should have in the wind, and that was his own fault as Sly launched forward and landed right on top of him. He didn't even have a chance to blink before he'd been knocked unconscious with one cane swipe by a silhouette he couldn't even see.

Sly pulled him out of sight of the balcony doors and tied him to his bo staff with twine from his backpack, then used the monkey's pants belt as a makeshift gag so there was no chance of him alerting anyone if he woke up while the raccoon was still in the factory. Then he slipped quietly inside, and the chilly air was replaced immediately by cozy heating. He crept out of the room and into the manufacturing ground floor, where he could see dozens of employees working diligently on assembly lines, constructing fireworks piece by piece as they passed through. Most were small and simple, all meant to overwhelm with sheer numbers despite not packing much of a punch individually. He watched the scene below for a few moments, gaze taking in every possible detail, before he turned towards the hall to his left that led to the proper second floor of the factory.

This was another series of assembly lines, but not nearly as large nor as populated. Almost half of the number of employees below were up here, working on fireworks that were considerably larger and more dangerous-looking. These, Sly had no doubt, would be a lot more deadly by themselves when lit.

There was one more set of stairs leading to the third and final floor, on the opposite side of the room. The raccoon climbed into the rafters and began delicately jumping across light fixtures above the workers, leaving them none the wiser to the intruder in their midst. He landed right in front of the stairwell and took them two at a time, keeping his ears perked for the slightest sound of someone coming his way.

Third floor turned out not to be a place for building firepower, but instead a storage facility for many of the more specialized rockets – all placed inside locked glass boxes. Sly knew without really looking that every single box most likely triggered an alarm the moment they were tampered with, and he weaved between them without ever getting close. They were all large and clearly powerful, and he even recognized a few models that the panda had used on heists in the past.

No guards were up here from what he could see or sense, which was odd, but he didn't dare look a gift horse in the mouth when his luck had been so utterly shitty for weeks now.

As he made his way around the room, trying to figure out which rockets would work best as a makeshift jetpack, the raccoon passed an open window and glanced out of it, towards the stone fortress. Then he slowed, stopped, and turned back around to get a proper look.

There was something perched on the head.

Sly stopped breathing. He froze at the window, staring at the unidentifiable shape in the distance and squinting through the falling snow in a desperate bid to figure out what it was. His fingers tightened on the windowsill and his chest began to ache against the frantic beating of his heart.

He was seeing things. It wasn't real. His exhausted, paranoid mind was playing tricks on him. There was no way he was here – he couldn't be. Sly had been so careful this entire time! He had been doing everything perfectly! He was playing the game perfectly!

Sudden, bright light blinded him from below. He jumped and looked down, only to meet the eyes of a guard on the ground who had just happened to shine his flashlight onto the startled raccoon standing exposed at the open window like an idiot. They stared at each other for all of two seconds before the other man turned around and ran off, pulling his radio off of his belt to hold it to his mouth as he shot a look over his shoulder before disappearing around the corner of a building.

Shaking, but not from the cold nor the fact that he'd just been seen, Sly looked back up at the Panda King's statue, but the snow made it impossible to tell whether the shape was still there. Or maybe he had just imagined it the first time and it had gotten him caught for no reason.

Whatever the situation, he couldn't let himself get distracted anymore – not when there was now a time limit before guards began swarming this building and he lost his narrow window to get what he needed.

Blinking back a surge of desperation that would do nothing to help him do what needed to be done, he turned away from the window and looked across the wide variety of rockets before him. His hand clenched tightly against his cane at the thought of all the lives these things had taken while he could do nothing but watch.

Well, not anymore, they wouldn't be. If there was one thing he could risk taking the time to do before he left, it was to stop being a useless, helpless accomplice in the countless crimes these monsters had forced him to partake in.

He ran back down to the second floor and looked over everything again, making note of where the finished fireworks were being put once they had reached the end of the assembly line. Most were packaged neatly into large crates, which were then stacked along the walls in an intimidating display of prepped firepower. He crept down to where all the employees were working, hiding behind machinery and barrels of gunpowder and parts until he reached one of the walls containing the countless rockets. With a quick glance around to make sure no one could see, Sly reached into the nearest box and grabbed an entire armful of fireworks, then ran invisible back up the stairs.

There was still no one on the third floor, so he dropped the technique to get his breath back and began implementing his plan – placing a few rockets across the room at random, then finding a place against a wall to dump the rest in a large pile. He pulled his backpack around and rummaged through the front pocket until he found what he was looking for: a small, slightly damp pack of matches.

The fuses of the fireworks were long enough that he would have probably a minute max from the moment they were lit to when they went off. That was more than enough time to get everything he needed and get out before it all blew sky-high.

Probably.

Not giving himself a chance to second-guess this plan, Sly struck a match and pressed the tiny flame against the first fuse he could reach, waiting only to make sure it was truly lit before turning back around to the rest of the room, where the closest giant firework taunted him through its guarded glass prison. He raised his cane and swung it as hard as he could, shattering the box and sending glass everywhere. An alarm began ringing overhead, shrill and loud, but the raccoon paid it no mind as he grabbed the firework inside and made a beeline for the next one, looping his prize over his shoulder by its ridiculously long fuse.

Another shattered box; another blaring alarm. In a matter of seconds, seven rockets had been nabbed – all clanking against each other and his backpack as he sprinted between pedestals. Thundering footsteps from ahead made him flatten against the wall, just in time for three gun-wielding guards to come barreling up the stairs and towards the source of the alarms. In the moment that they all skidded to a stop at the sight of the robbery before them, Sly began to maneuver around them towards the empty stairwell –

The fuse he had lit found its rocket almost twenty seconds earlier than he'd predicted.

The explosion from the firework set off a chain reaction of the pile it was trapped in, and suddenly that explosion increased tenfold as King's goons were tossed straight off their feet and slammed into the opposite wall, knocked out cold instantly. Sly himself barely managed to throw himself to the ground the moment he realized what was about to happen, and that was the only thing that saved him from the same fate as the blast tore straight through the roof in a vortex of heat and flame.

He could hear the piercing alarms dying down, replaced instead by countless fireworks getting launched into the new open space the hole in the roof now provided. Smoke filled his lungs and his eyes, threatening to overwhelm him, and he knew he had to get out of here before he either suffocated or the rockets on his back caught fire as well.

There was an open window just a few meters to his left – the same window that had betrayed his presence earlier, but was now his only chance at escape. Sly struggled to his feet, head ringing, and ran for his very life.

As soon as he felt open, fresh air on his fur, he twisted his body forward to catch the oncoming ground at a roll, feeling the impact right to his bones and knowing he wasn't going to walk away from this without serious bruising. But there wasn't any time to stop and catch his breath as he heard shouting all around him; he got his feet back under him and kept sprinting as fast as he could without even daring to look back.

It wasn't until he could no longer hear the commotion he had left behind that the raccoon finally began to slow down. His lungs were burning and his legs felt rubbery, but with seven giant intact rockets strapped to his back, an entire factory of King's going up in flames, and his main plan still in the cards, he barely noticed it. He found a short, small building that would make a good place to rest until his body stopped feeling so stiff, and climbed up to its roof feeling awfully pleased with himself.

He should have known better. The universe truly was out to get him.

There was a sound behind him, the familiar sound of shoes on roof shingles, but it did not belong to him. He turned around just in time to see it.

See her.

"Freeze, Cooper."

Sly's heart stopped in his chest. She looked exactly as when he'd last seen her – posture rigid, ready to fight, and sheer fury in every line of her face. Her shock pistol was aimed straight for him from where she stood on a roof of similar height just a few meters away.

Her hands were trembling.

Swallowing all the physical aches from the last five minutes plus every emotion he'd ever had in his life, the raccoon made a show of leaning on his cane as nonchalantly as he could look. He knew it worked from the way she immediately bristled.

"Inspector Fox," he greeted, a blank stone wall. "Fancy seeing you in a place like this."

"Shut up, Ringtail!" She growled. The use of the nickname sent his mind reeling from whiplash. "I don't know what you're doing here, but from what I've already seen, I know it can't be good."

Sly's mask cracked just a bit. "What, you have a problem with a little property damage all of a sudden? I don't recall that being the case when we were visiting every other lowlife on our list."

"My list. Mine, that you used for your own personal gain." Her gaze wandered over the cache of fireworks slung over his shoulder. An assumption clicked in her eyes that he decidedly did not like. "How many buildings have you blown up already with those? Did – did you start the avalanche that buried that poor town?!"

The raccoon recoiled, stunned by the accusation. Of all the ways he expected her to view him, mass-murderer had never once crossed his mind. It stalled his thoughts to a screeching halt.

Then it made him furious.

"You must only have eyes for me if you're too blind to see what's really going on around here," he snarled, throwing his arms out wide in a sweeping gesture. Seeing the way she tracked the movement of his cane pissed him off further. "Open your eyes, 'Detective': we're in the home of a homicidal pyro-maniac who blows people up for looking at him wrong, but you accuse me of causing that avalanche? What would I even hope to gain by doing such an awful thing?"

He watched as she started to lower her pistol just a little bit, clearly considering his words. It wasn't enough to calm him down, so he took a step forward and continued his rant.

"Do you think I'm here by choice? That I just swung by to say hi and indulge in a friendly chat with the Panda King with a bit of murder on the side? Do you really think that low of me?!"

"I…"

Inspector Fox hesitated and glanced towards the giant, distant statue. Her lips thinned as she lifted her weapon again and stared him down with hardened resolve.

"Maybe you had nothing to do with that, then," she admitted, sounding as if it was a difficult thing to do, "but it doesn't mean you're not causing harm. A lot of people have probably gotten hurt from that explosion you just made."

"Anyone who did, deserved it. No one on this mountain is innocent, Inspector."

"Not even you?" The fox challenged.

"I think you and I have very different definitions of that word," he said, quiet and bitter, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet as his gaze darted every which way for a clean escape. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be here right now."

It would be impossible to outrun her in the condition he was in; his muscles were still shaking from adrenaline, and he could feel the urge to cough with every rise and fall of his chest. What he needed to do was outmaneuver her. Down his immediate line of sight over the fox's shoulder, he could see a large, dilapidated stone statue of a dragon. It looked ready to fall apart at the slightest breeze – or, perhaps, the slightest shock.

"We're here right now because you lied to me," Inspector Fox growled again, looking like she was one wrong word away from pulling the trigger. "You used me, Cooper. I don't care what your reasoning was or whether you actually started caring about me by the end; you still built this partnership on a falsehood."

The sound of his last name coming out of her mouth felt like talons across his chest. It made his insides twist up in knots, and a deep, mechanical voice whispered across his brain as he struggled to keep his expression blank.

You'll only ever be known for that name, it taunted. You'll only ever be worth that name.

"You're right," he said. To her. To him. "You're right."

She began to lower the pistol again, seemingly unconsciously this time as she stared at him in surprise.

"It was all a falsehood. Everything. I never saw you as more than an easy tool to dispose of the Fiendish Five while I got what I wanted. It's just my nature as a Cooper. That's all we're known for, you know. Falsehoods and thievery."

He met her eyes, and wondered if she could see that no matter how much she hated him, it was nothing compared to how much he hated himself.

"We're not worth anything else."

Sly threw himself off the roof.

He jumped forward, down onto the street between both of them, banking on catching her off-guard just long enough to get out from her line of sight before she could start firing at him. It worked, as her enraged yelling followed him a second after and she jumped off her own roof to chase him.

The whine of her shock pistol was the only warning he got to move, and move he did.

A bullet of pure, concentrated electricity slammed into the wall so close to him it lifted the fur on his arm. Sly swerved in the opposite direction from the blackened brick and took off running, desperate to just get away in time as another blast nearly singed his tail.

"Stop running!" Inspector Fox screamed behind him. "There's nowhere you can run anymore, Sly!"

The raccoon didn't answer. He dodged a third shot that tore up the ground under his feet, feeling the crackle of lightning brush up against his skin, and veered sideways down another street to throw her off so that she couldn't catch up to him. It worked when he heard her overshoot the new direction with a very loud curse and the skidding of boots in snow, but he didn't slow down for a moment.

With the precious few seconds that he had just bought himself, Sly reoriented back towards the stone dragon and ran for it with all the stamina still left in him. He heard the terrifying whine behind him again and ducked, unable to be awed as the charge arced over his hooded head in brilliant blue like its own kind of firework. He just kept sprinting, and dodging, and weaving, and his eyes remained locked on that statue even as his pursuer got louder and louder in her frustration at not being able to hit him.

The dragon had been built in such a way that it seemed to loom over an entire street, with angry claws poised to strike at anyone who dared get under its shadow. The raccoon took a running leap and landed on one such claw with enough force to jostle his bruises. He dragged himself up onto its wrist with gritted teeth, then began scaling its arm with what little energy he still had. Inspector Fox slowed down at ground level as she saw where he'd gone, and he could see her begin to take careful aim with her weapon out of the corner of his eye.

He kept climbing, seeing his target within his reach as his hands gripped the spikes on the dragon's back. Instead of hoisting himself onto its long, thin back, however, he turned around from where he was perched just in time to see her shoot.

The electric bullet buzzed straight for him, dangerous and beautiful, and he had a single second to think about her fights with Muggshot and Mz. Ruby and Sir Raleigh. Wondered whether they had seen this before they had fallen, and if it had been as harrowing for them as it was now for him.

He let go of the spikes right as it was about to hit him, making a dead drop towards the ground while it crashed into the neck of the dragon with enough force to crack the fragile stone straight through. Sly barely caught himself when he hit the snow, avoiding injury by some miracle, and rolled out of the way just in time for the entire statue to come crashing down behind him. It barricaded the street and sent plumes of dust and dirt into the air, obscuring everything in a ten-meter radius around it. He could hear Inspector Fox coughing and yelling for him from the other side of the debris, but he couldn't see her and he knew that she couldn't see him.

Entire body screaming in pain, Sly turned and ran, and didn't stop until he was certain he had lost her for good.

He did not look back. He feared that if he did, even once, then he would not find it in himself to keep going.

A/N: Woof, this one got away from me. I thought I had more time to iron out the kinks than I actually did, so apologies for the late post.

Not a lot to say on this one, mostly because I'm very tired and really need to get to bed, lol. Hope you enjoyed it and that the inevitable confrontation was a satisfying one!