Chapter 10 Jailbreak
"Come on, Sly, please!" said a young husky voice.
"You did promise," added a high-pitched nasally voice.
"Alright, alright already," said the voice of a raccoon child, and with a click of a flashlight, his face was illuminated inside the blanket fort, allowing him to see the small turtle and hippo just as young as he was huddled beside him. "Which story do you want to hear?"
"Tell us the one about the cowboys!" said the hippo child eagerly.
The little raccoon glanced at the turtle. "That sound good to you, Bentley?" he asked.
"Sounds great, Sly," the tiny turtle said, leaning forward so he would miss a word.
"Alright," said the young raccoon as he sat back to spin his tale. "This is a story about my ancestor, Tennessee Kid Cooper…"
"Hey, are you alrigh'?" a voice asked.
Sly snapped awake from his dreams, seeing the face of another raccoon staring down at him in a bowler hat and black and white striped suit, but he was still too woozy from the blow to his head to really comprehend it.
Whatever face he was making must have tipped the other off, as the other raccoon clicked his tongue, then took hold of Sly's face to tilt it and better see the bump. "Shewt, them guards must'a hit you good," he said. "Whad'ya do that was so bad they knock you flat and toss you in 'ere?"
It was then Sly noticed he was now dressed in matching black and white stripes, and from the clinking of metal, saw there was a chain linked to a metal ball as big as he was clipped to his ankle.
Oh, right, he'd purposefully let himself get arrested.
"Carmelita would bust a gut if she could see me now," Sly muttered mostly to himself.
"What?" asked the other raccoon, who could only be the ancestor he'd gotten arrested to save.
"It's nothing," Sly said as he slowly got to his feet. His head was clearing quickly, and he didn't feel dizzy, so the hit couldn't have been too bad. He then turned to face the other raccoon. "Uh, howdy," he said.
The raccoon, Tennessee, looked bemused. "Howdy yourself," he said. "Looks like you musta ticked ol' Toothpick off pretty good. Ah like that. You got a name?"
Sly shook off the rest of his brain fog, and said, "It's Sly. Sly Cooper."
Immediately any friendliness was gone from Tennessee's face. "Now Son," he said hotly. "You should know not even that lump on yer head will stop me from startin' something if yer funnin' on my family name."
Sly immediately put his hands up in surrender. "Woah, I'm not joking, I swear. I can expla-"
But before he could even start explaining, Sly's words died in his throat and came out as a scream as another attack ran rampant through his systems.
And it wasn't just him. Tennessee was screaming too and curling in on himself in pain.
Then, to Sly's horror, the flickering was back, this time on both of them. Before his very eyes, he could see straight through his own hand to Tennessee, and then through Tennessee to the wall behind him.
The attack soon faded, leaving Sly on all fours panting for breath, and Tennessee shouting out some of the most colorful swears Sly had ever heard.
Outside their cell, a guard rapped on the door and yelled, "Shuddup!"
Tennessee cut off from his curses to send an icy glare back at the guard, who sneered in return before moving on down the hallway and out of sight, grumbling all the way about noisy raccoons and going to guard someone quieter.
"What in tarnation just happened?" Tennessee demanded, rounding on Sly. "Them pains an-and lookin' like Ah'm about to disappear! Here Ah'm thinkin' Ah might not even make it to my own execution, and then you come in and the same darn thing is happenin' to you!"
"It's happening to a lot of Coopers," Sly said grimly, picking himself back up. " I'm trying to fix it, but it's a really long story."
Tennessee blinked in surprise before his expression grew determined. "Well, talk ain't worth spit, boy! Ah don't know what those pains got to do with bein' a Cooper, but there's one surefire way to prove you are one'a us- Bust us out of here!"
"Right," Sly agreed, having been in that jail cell for five minutes and already being sick of it. "I've got a friend who's working on it… I hope."
"I heard that," said Bentley's voice in his ear. Guess the guards had missed his communicator.
"Sorry," Sly said into his com and getting a strange look from Tennessee. "I was worried that me getting knocked out and my clothes stolen might throw things off."
"It did," Bentley admitted. "Thankfully, those guards also provided the perfect alternate solution. Pick up that ball attached to you."
Tennessee watched in bewilderment as Sly crouched down and did as Bentley instructed.
"Now throw it at that weak point in the wall. It'll make a great battering ram," Bentley continued.
Sly hefted the ball up as high as he could (man, was that thing heavy) and tossed it at the part of the wall with the most cracks.
The wall shattered on impact, giving Sly and Tennessee a wide-open hole to escape through.
The two raccoons gaped at the hole, then down at the ball, then at each other, and then back at the hole. "Why would they provide prisoners with something with enough weight to do that?" Sly asked incredulously.
Tennessee chuckled as he climbed out of the hole. "Well, Ah don't know if you noticed, but most'a them folks workin' 'round here ain't that bright."
"All the better for us, I guess," Sly said as he climbed out after him, hefting the ball along with him.
It took plenty of sneaking, some snooping around to find their clothes and gear, many more creative uses of the ball and chain, and a whole lot of dynamite, but soon enough the two raccoons were out of the building.
"Ah just want to say Ah knew you was a Cooper the second Ah laid eyes on you," Tennessee said, giving Sly a hearty slap on the back as they ran out of the jail with a hail of gunfire behind them.
"Uh, when I was thrown in unconscious after getting arrested?" Sly had to ask as he shrugged on the backpack Bentley had given him that they'd thankfully been able to find.
Tennessee threw back his head and laughed as they ducked behind a rock at the edge of a cliff to avoid more bullets. "Alrigh', maybe not the firs' second, but the second second Ah knew for sure."
"Thanks," said Sly, glancing around the rock at their pursuers. "But we really need to go."
"Go?" asked Tennessee, looking around and seeing nothing but the sheer drop in front of them. "Go where?"
Sly didn't answer and instead tackled Tennessee off the cliff towards the river below.
Tennessee yowled and clung to Sly for dear life, which was fortunate, as it left Sly's arms free to open the paraglider inside his backpack.
His ancestor's scream turned into a cheer as they drifted down to where Bentley and Murray were waiting on a boat, and soon they were up the river and home free.
A/N Tennessee is just so fun to write for. I love the way he talks.
