Chapter 15:

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"Okay, move, move!"

Following the command, Nick, Jack and Judy made their way out through the overgrowth, racing on all four paws to cross the extendable ladder. It shook as they crossed, the water roaring down beneath them as they moved.

A few seconds later and they made it, diving into a set of ferns and bushes, keeping their eyes and ears open. Waiting…

Up ahead, Carmelita looked around and nodded, gesturing over.

From up the hill, Tigress and Murray raced down, crashing through the undergrowth and hunkering down, making their way across the ladder one after the other. It took a few seconds for them to reach the other side, Tigress hunkering down into a gulley the smaller mammals hadn't even seen before, her stripes balanced against the grass. Murray set down, pulling out a few bushes and holding them in front of him.

"We okay?" Judy asked, looking around then up.

Carmelita nodded. "Quick run up to the next piece of cover and… -Where's the sheep?"

They all looked around, the path up to where they'd just been distinctly sheepless.

"-Outperforming you as usual." Looking uphill, they saw him under the treeline, a bored look on his face. "Just because you require to cross in the open doesn't mean I do."

Judy narrowed her eyes at him, only for Nick to cut her off. "-Well, who's to say a sheep has to follow the crowd?" he smiled, giving a thumbs up. He got up, starting to move on. "Anyway, we better get into actual cover or…"

"-Wait," Skye said, paw up. "We're almost here."

Jack, ears up, nodded. Pointing up the mountain a few of the mammals saw the small figure of their drone coming in.

"You go ahead," the swift vixen began, "I'll just…" She was shaken as Tigress slid a paw around her and hoisted her up. "-Tha… That also works."

"Well," Murray said, standing up. "Let's…"

"STOP!"

All eyes turned to Jack, the hare standing up, a terrified look on his face. His ears seemed stretched, practically pointed, while his arm trembled in front of him before racing back down to where his gun should be. "Cuss, CUSS!" He glanced at Judy, then Carmelita. "Lance! Lance! Kill it!"

The female bunny looked around confused, stepping forwards. "What the…"

She didn't get a chance to answer as Jack leapt forward, tackling her away from where she'd been going. "Wha…"

"Snake," Skye said, her ears suddenly going back as she looked around. A second or two and she spotted it, arm stretching forward. Murray followed it before leaping back.

Finally, getting up, Judy's eyes focussed and her ears fell, nose twitching. Small, light and dark browns, coiled up it slowly moved, stretching a little within the ferns just in front of Murray. Right where he would have stepped through.

"That's…" Nick said, taking a calming breath as he stepped back and around. "A nasty one, right…"

"That's death," Jack gulped, paw out as he practically mammalhandled Judy away and around from it, eyes out and looking for any more. "Even with our antivenom… It'll kill us."

Murray, very tenderly, stepped around it. "Well… We just leave him alone, he's more scared of us than…"

"-There's another one," Carmelita warned, pointing down near here.

Jack pulled himself tight, glancing around. "I want my gun back. I want it back now."

"It's…" Judy said, calming him. "It's okay, we get out of here. Slowly."

"Right, right," he managed to say.

The group slowly began pushing through and around, a warning coming up from Nick of a third.

"We…" Jack began, breath heaving in and out. "We walked right through them. In the dark. In the…"

"No," Carmelita said. "I think Rattigan dropped them."

Dave, working his way around the edge and back to the track, shook his head. "You know just when you think that jerk can't get any worse, cruelty to animals."

"It's not the cruelty I care about," Jack hissed as they made their way back to the other side, back onto the trail and under cover. A few looks around, the area seemingly clear of snakes. "It's the fact he threw a fer-de-lance at us!"

Getting down from Tigress, Skye put the drone controls to the side for a second to walk up to him, paw out to comfort… "It's okay…"

"NO!" he yelled, walking up to her and grabbing her, pulling her in as he looked around. Finally he held her out at arms length. "There was a chance you'd have stepped on one of those monsters and died in agony! I'm not going to let that happen, you hear! And he's going to pay for even putting you at that risk. Do you hear me!"

He shook her, the vixen blinking before answering in the affirmative.

"-Real question is, does Rattigan?" Doug asked.

A few eyes looked at him before the mammals settled down, Skye taking back the remote and guiding the drone back in, Tigress leaping up and grabbing it, settling it down.

"Okay," Carmelita said, walking towards it. "How do we do this?"

"-Well," Doug said, grabbing one of the few packs they hadn't abandoned and opening it out. A few different supplies fell out, the sheep immediately grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "Cut off the top, hang it bucket style under the drone with a pull-flare attached on top. Fly it onto Rattigan's machine, tip over to douse while pulling and activating the flare. If fire doesn't flow in and cook him, the damage to the control systems will almost certainly cause him to crash."

Skye nodded, starting to walk over to the drone only to freeze. "-She's in there."

"What?" Carmelita asked as Skye looked up.

"-To make a prisoner swap, he'd need her in there," she said. "If we take it down… -We can't."

Carmelita sighed, clutching the breast of her jacket. "We need to…"

"Cuss that!" the tan coloured vixen snarled. "We're not risking her!"

"If he takes out the vehi…"

"-We fight him then!" Skye yelled. "That's my sister he's got! So don't talk about her being some military mammal who knew the risks or is willing to die for this mission. I'M BRINGING HER BACK!"

The mammals backed away from her, her teeth bared and fur on end. A second or two of silence followed before she wiped her eyes with her paws before turning back to the drone. "Come on, think, think…"

"Do… Do we have any trackers?" Nick asked. "Sneak one on, let him have it and intercept…"

"No," Carmelita cut in, tail swishing.

Skye turned to her, her eyes narrowing. "No, we don't have any or no we're not going to risk it?"

"Yes on both counts," the red vixen said. "I'm sorry, I…"

"I don't want your apologies, I want a solution to this."

"I…" Carmelita looked at her shock pistol. "From a lower altitude, onto the trees, they'd likely survive."

"Likely…"

"We knew the risks when we came in," the red vixen said softly, backing off as Skye focussed on the drone, rubbing her head. Instead, she looked at Jack, gesturing at him to go over and comfort her.

"I… -We have antivenom."

She turned to him, head tilting.

"-If he wants to make us do the swap, what better way than letting one of those monsters bite her," Jack said. "Swap her for the talisman, so we might have a chance to get to town and get her a cure. -We wouldn't, no chance. But he doesn't know we have the cure, I…"

"-And he'd keep her until he got that thing," Carmelita said, shaking her head.

"-Why don't we turn the tables then?" Murray asked. All eyes turned to him. "Drop the snakes on him."

Jack shook his head. "Her sister would get bit, we…"

"-But didn't you say we had the cure?" Murray asked.

"I… -We've got the cure for car crashes, that doesn't mean we do it," the hare spat. "And chances are we'd use it all up fixing ourselves first from trying to catch those things and be walking zombies by the time we reach them."

"I…" Nick began. "Snake plan could still be a neat little way to turn the tables if it comes down to the wire. So, put that one in the bank."

Jack looked at him incredulously only for Skye to very unhappily interject. "She signed up for the Rangers, being bitten by things like that was a known risk. -We've got more a cure for accidental snake bites than we have for fire."

"Okay," Nick began, "and we transport these how?"

The mammals were quiet for a second before Tigress walked over to the jungle edge and with a flash of her foot snapped out a bamboo stalk before laying it on the ground, giving a paw chop to cut a smaller length.

"Or we could use the bag," Doug said. "Which would look more natural as we hand it over to him."

"Okay," Nick agreed. "Though it has one disadvantage."

"Which is," the sheep asked. "Apart from not being 'snake shaped.'"

Nick looked at him. "You have to admit, big disadvantage."

Doug just glanced off to where most of the non-vulpine members of the group were standing. "You see this is why fox humour never really amounted to…"

"-Will you just zip it!" Skye snarled, snapping to him.

Doug just glanced back. "And you're taking out your ire at me because?"

The vixen got up, marching to him. "I bet you've been waiting a while for this, haven't you? You're enjoying this. Feeling power again, predator lives in your hooves, getting your own back at the fox who…"

"-I volunteered to work under?" he asked. "I'd like to ask what I did to deserve this treatment."

"Do you want the list?" Judy asked.

The sheep just turned to Murray. "You ever had to work with large numbers of predator supremacists and their sycophants?"

"I…" the unsure hippo said, stepping back.

"Shut it!" Carmelita snarled. "All of you. Right now I don't care if we're a suicide squad with the worst group of mammals in the world. Our job is to get this Talisman back safely, and if we can save one of our own or capture or kill Rattigan on the way, that's a nice bonus. But not something worth sacrificing the mission for." Skye began to speak, only for Carmelita to march up, cutting her off. "If we rescue her but lose this Talisman, we are all dead. Understand? Understand?"

Skye looked back, blinking. "Dead like the years of our lives where Clockwerk was alive?"

Carmelita wrinkled her nose. "Dead like the years before nineteen-thirty seven when Hirschler was alive? -And that's not counting if Rattigan actually succeeds in his entirety. Ask yourself this, right here, right now. When you came on this mission, you were willing to risk your life, die, to make sure we succeeded. To make sure Clockwerk didn't return and Rattigan failed. Right. Right?"

Face writhing up, Skye managed a nod.

"Well, so was your sister. Got it?"

Another angry nod, Carmelita turning. "Very carefully capture some of the snakes. We can load them in a bag, if he wants a swap, he can get that and hopefully die from a bite."

"And if not?" Skye asked.

"I expect we're going to have a big fire fight," Carmelita muttered.

"And if we all die and he captures it then?"

The red vixen was silent for a second or two, thinking.

"Why not… -Eat it?" Murray asked. "I could do that."

They all looked at him before Judy shook her head. "It's touch telepathic or something. It'd flood you with visions, make it impossible for you to fight."

"-Only with direct contact," Nick countered, shaking his head and chuckling. "We wrap it in plastic, it should be okay for a while."

Carmelita shook her head. "Fine, last reserve plan thing." She pulled out the Talisman and threw it over, Murray pocketing it.

"Or…" Nick commented. "We destroy it like the last one. We've got one half of what we need." He pointed at Carmelita's shock pistol, the vixen's ears going up.

"And do we have any heavy drills, grinders or things?" Skye asked, eyebrow rising. "As however impressive I think she is, I don't thing Tigress can karate chop it."

"She and I could try dropping that rock on it,," Murray said, the gang looking over to a large rock.

Carmelita nodded, gesturing over for them to try it. Unwrapped, placed on exposed rock, she aimed as the two larger mammals strained to raise the large boulder. Hoisting it up, walking it over, Skye stepped forward and back, failing to start raising an objection and never following it through.

Finally, Carmelita fired, the thing sparking bright as the heavy boulder came crashing down on it.

A second or two later it was pulled off, nothing changed.

"Well, worth a shot," Murray said, wrapping it up again. "Seems it's back to the stomach plan."

"And the snake one," Carmelita said, managing a comforting look at a fretful Jack. "Unless anyone else has any better ideas."

"-Could we try thermiting it instead?" Nick asked.

"Do we have thermite?" Judy asked.

"Do we have the stuff here to make it?" the fox asked Doug.

"Well we have iron oxide," he said, hoof tapping a rusted out rail on the ground. "And aluminium." He held up a can. "Now we just need to grind these into an ultrafine powder somehow and we'll be fairly sorted on that front.

"Okay," Nick agreed. "Snake plan."

"Snake plan," Carmelita agreed.

"Snake plan," Skye muttered.

"-Does anyone have any other plan apart from the snake plan?" Jack asked, looking around.

Doug, shrugging, spoke. "You know I was wondering if any of you would be open minded enough to take one of my suggestions seriously…"

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Sly walked into the entrance of the Kung Fu temple, somehow feeling all the more smaller as Bentley wheeled himself alongside him. Everything was quiet, the early morning rain schedule down below turned off and just the simmering mists left to climb up and curl around the top of the peaks. There was even a brisk chill, a strong gust of air whipping up the cold from Tundratown and pushing it back over and down the mountain ridge.

Even though he'd resisted far worse in the Tian Shan, the Yukon, the palaeolithic… It cut through his bones.

"Woah!" His eyes cut to the left as he saw Po jog up, panting. "I heard what you did."

"Ah…" The racoon began.

"It was AMAZING!" Sly quirked his head a little, only for the panda to carry on. "I mean, two jobs in one night! -First off, going into the Palm Casino all John Wolf, battling through a nightclub and then escaping on a parasail and then going in and breaking out of a mental hospital or something… -Not sure why you did the last bit unless there's some super kung fu master in there you were able to encourage to come out to help win the day or for me to battle in an almighty clash of good or evil… Both will count. BUT IT WAS AMAZING."

"Okay," Sly said. "Quick question, or three. How did you know about the casino heist?"

"Dik-Dok."

"Right, makes sense," the raccoon nodded. "-And the asylum escape… -I'm afraid sans any kung fu masters."

"Aaaahhhhhhh… -Oh, ZNN buletin."

"Also makes sense…"

"Yeah, update on their new Dik-Dok account."

Sly nodded, rolling his paw along. "And… -Is this John Wolf another kung fu master or…"

He trailed off as he saw Po's eyes widen in shock. "Wait… -When did you get lost in time again?"

"Twenty-thirteen…" Sly began, only to be seized on the shoulders by the panda.

"You haven't seen John Wolf!" The panda exclaimed, turning to Bentley. "He hasn't seen John Wolf!" Back again to Sly. "You haven't seen it, or two, three or four. You haven't seen it!" With that, the raccoon was pulled up under arm by the bear, who immediately turned and began jogging off.

"Wait, what are you…" Sly began, snapping to attention and starting to tug and pull.

"Rectifying this major problem," the panda said, turning down. "We are going to binge ALL FOUR."

"I, let me…"

"-I mean, you wouldn't even get the 'cussin' pencil' scene."

"I don't…"

"We called him BIG BAD. -What, 'cause he's 'the big bad wolf'. Not exactly, he's the one you call to KILL the big bad wolf… You are going to…"

Sly sighed, before forcing Po to release him by unleashing a brutal nerve attack.

"-HEY! THAT TICKLES!"

Sly slipped from the grip of the panda, landing and then jumping backwards, standing with Bentley. The panda turned to him, a look of concern on his face. "Hey, is it me or is something not quite right…"

And with that Sly sighed. "So… Me heisting the palm was a spur of the moment stupid thing mainly to try and distract me from an awful truth I had come to realise. -A truth that Bentley then made me go to that asylum to get out to a psychiatrist…"

"You mean, a truth that I wanted you to get out to any shrink but you decided to do in the most convoluted way possible," the turtle said, crossing his arms.

"And was there a faster way of getting an appointment?"

"...Marginally, yes."

"Well, the past is history," Sly started, carrying on.

"-Oooh, and the future a mystery," Po filled in. "-Saying by a cool mentor of mine, Bentley would like him, they're the same species. -Well, almost."

"Anyway," the raccoon began, fumbling with his paws. "While I was in ancient Egypt, I found this… Time and Dimension traveller, who offered me a way back. -But as he charged up his ship, I realised he was Clockwerk. -Pre converting his whole body, but… It was him. So I knocked him out and stranded him a billion years or so back in time and… -Well, turns out I just set up a stable time loop. Stranded there, he fully converted himself, waited all that time to get his revenge but… -Turns out he mistook my father for me, hitting us one generation early and traumatizing me so… -Yeah, stable timeloop."

Po nodded along, quietly. "That's rough buddy."

Sly could only nod a little. "Yeah, I… -I wouldn't put it quite like that, but… Yeah. Don't think I could have put it better myself."

The panda paused for a second. "Wait a sec, you haven't seen…"

"-I'm certain it's very fun but now is not the right time," Sly said, paw up. "I… Well…"

"His guilty conscience would be more assuaged if he was yelled at or something," Bentley explained. "As it is, we're being unreasonably reasonable at the moment."

Po looked on, turning to Sly. "I mean, I'll try to be more mad if that helps, might struggle a bit or…"

"No, no," Sly filled in. "Nothing much for me to do than just, hope it fades with time or..." He breathed in and out. "How are the others doing?"

"Last I heard they knew they were in the right place, but Rattigan and co were nearby in the wrong place. But I haven't heard much from them in a while, so that could be good! Or bad."

"Right, right," Sly agreed. "Just got to hope they do come back and this nightmare will be over."

The plaza was quiet for a second or two before the panda spoke up. "I can think of one mammal who might be less receptive to this news. If that helps?"

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It took them surprisingly little time to reach him. Though it helped that they were on the border of Tundratown, some of the mountain passes open. Pushing down, they quickly arrived at the specialist hospital they'd arranged him to be transferred to. Sly walked down the corridor, quietly, calmly, somewhat hoping that a bunch of staff would recognise him as the mammal who'd just escaped a high security mental institution and an ensuing battle-escape would commence.

As it happened though they had an easy walk over towards the private room, Sly knocking before letting himself in. Already hating himself as the polar bear inside looked at him with deeply undue reverence.

Kozlov was looking stronger, his fur regrowing, his body healthier. Certainly he now lived with a far greater likelihood of some diseases, but the time for them to manifest was generally longer than that he expected to have left anyhow. He had a new optimism and determination about him, managing to shine through even as he saw the morose expression on the raccoon.

"Is… There problem? Expedition, they are…"

"No, no," Sly said, sitting down. "Last I heard, they're doing okay. I… I just wanted to speak to you, fully, mammal to mammal."

The smile returned to Kozlov. "If you feel my struggles with our common enemy are anything to do with you, then…"

"Well, they are. To do with me." He said.

Kozlov blew some air, laughing. "What, you think you should have taken him down earlier. When voice was still high or something? That your family owes us debt for our failures…"

"No," Sly cut in. "But I do, for mine. And I believed I should have taken him down earlier. In fact, I tried to."

The polar bear looked at him, confused. "I do not understand."

"Then let me explain," Sly said, and he did. Retelling the story. Le Paradox, the battle over Paris, his life and exploits in Ancient Egypt. His encounter, his realisation, his return to the present expecting glory only for the other realisations to flood in. All that time, looking down, just telling it out.

He didn't even look at Kozlov during that time, he just acknowledged his silence until the very end. When he waited for… Something. As if he'd felt the charge grow in the thunderhead all this time and now, his fur on end, was just waiting for the lightning to strike.

"-And so, yeah. Everything you went through, it was because of me. Here I am. Your hero."

The room was silent before a chuckle rolled out. Not a happy chuckle, not a sadistic one, but there was a darkness, a mirth to it. The raccoon looked up, seeing the polar bear staring up at the ceiling. Finally, a few seconds later, the bear spoke. "They say don't meet your heroes…"

"I'm sorry," Sly said. "-That I couldn't be…"

"What? Not mammal? Not just a normal Yenot." He looked down with tired eyes. "I… -We all wish there is more than just us. There are some, greater, for us to look up to. That is why we have heroes, I guess. And you? I suppose that after knowing you took down the great devil himself, you and the Inspector could be those."

"Well, you still have her," Sly said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Da, I suppose," he said, looking off. "And knowing where Sizogo came from, I feel… -He is just another, like us. Life is funny, hmmmm… Hmmmmm…" He sighed. "Where I come from, we tried to say that there were no gods, no demons, just… -Just people, and people alone could rise to be heroes for the people, and people alone could be monsters that deserved to be eliminated. And yet I found a true demon, so I, so Jorin, so the others chose to rise up to meet him. To fight. To bring him out. To end him. Because in our world, such a thing like him… Did not even deserve to exist. Even if he had been alone, just waiting in his roost until it was time to seek his one revenge. It was our duty to bring him down and level him out."

"To be a hero," Sly said. "Unlike me."

"And how many suffered for that," Kozlov said. "How many who we could have left alone lost their lives. How many…" He sighed. "To get a chance to find out about him, about what happened to my brother, I became the one that knocks, the one in the car to take the enemies away silently. To judge and weigh others' souls. My superior felt those of a fox weigh far more darkly than any other and I, seeing my revenge far away, used them as stepping stones, crushing under foot, to reach it. It would be worth it, once I was hero."

He looked down at Sly. "I led soldiers into battle on roof of the world, by fluke only I survive. Soon we had chance to start shaking the hive, we did everything we could to make sure we not stung. We soon knew he sting others in lieu, but we carry on. Revenge, glory, I…" He gestured down at himself. "Mammals were put in beds like me at the end of that road. Only theirs ended. They saved world and died, we lived on. We lived on."

A silence filled the room. "Which could have been avoided if…"

"If he had not killed your parents, no?" Kozlov asked.

"If I had not destroyed him," Sly said back, brow furrowing. "I don't… -Your brother died because of this, I…"

"He died because of Clockwerk. He died because of Ratsputin, because of Tsar and their family, because of revolution, because of mammal exploring mineshaft, because of fun little idea to keep me occupied on last day of term. Could I be mad at all those, I…" He sighed. "I know one day, I will be judged for all my sins. Those I stepped over, those killed in my crusade. If you are confused why I not mad at you… -It because I know, I want, to be where you are now." He reached over, cupping the raccoon's head in his giant paw. "At foot of everyone who suffer. From young pioneer and family, to dead soldier, to clueless passenger, to firefighter, to those many after when I did not even have good reason, just what I was good at. To tell my story, to let them know why. To let them judge me. To give unto you, what you just gave me. Truth, reasons why, closure… Thank you, Yenot." He smiled. "You are just clueless mammal, like I, like all of us."

Sly didn't know how to respond. Eventually, a single question came out. "Like him?"

Kozlov didn't respond for a second or two, eventually shrugging. "Da, maybe… If… If I ever saw him again, god forbid, I always thought I would give him piece of my mind. And you, now?"

Sly looked down. "I'd tell him it was me."

Kozlov just nodded. "Da. Good way to blue screen of death him."

Sly choked out a chuckle before he even realised it, looking up. "I… Well, that might work. He does run off hate."

"Did you try 'This statement is false' him before," the bear asked, a small grin growing on his face.

"No, but I think he's smarter than that," the raccoon carried on. "I… -We're treating this as a joke, how is this a joke…"

"Life is a joke," the bear sighed. "One giant one, is it not? We can only laugh at ourselves, stupid mammals. Chasing each other's tails. "We could get mad at it, but then what? No… Better just laugh at stupidity, to save anger for things that really deserve it."

"Like…"

"No vodka," Kozlov said, crossing his paws. "After hearing that, I really want vodka."

"At this time in the morning?" Sly teased.

"No, earlier."

"While still recovering from radiation?"

"Mostly fixed."

"Well," the raccoon sighed, pulling a small bottle out. "Think I could join you?"

Kozlov looked at him, a hearty laugh bellowing out as he pulled the raccoon into a hug.

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"So, he wasn't mad," Sly recounted, the others waiting around him. "Not one bit. 'That was life, that was history, etcetera." He shrugged, looking on.

"Well, it's good that you got it out to the ones that mattered," Bentley said.

"Mostly," the raccoon agreed, sighing. "Mostly."

"Ah, don't worry, the others will be back soon, sooner than soon," Po said, glancing at the turtle. "How soon exactly?"

"I'm still waiting a response to come in," he said. "But the lack of a distress signal so far is also positive. Hopefully."

"-I wasn't talking about them," Sly said, finally. "I want to talk to him."

The room was quiet.

"To tell him the truth?" Bentley asked.

"Yes. If he doesn't know already, from me touching his talisman, or… -I don't know if he knows now or…" The raccoon shrugged.

"Well, we won't bring him back or anything just for you I'm afraid," Bentley chuckled.

"And if he comes back anyway?"

A long pause filled the air.

"Then you can tell him as you take him down."

"Yeah," Sly pondered. "Who knows, he might crash, he might surrender himself, I… Who knows what this stupid future is going to bring. This, that, I don't know. I don't know anything. Just… Just I'm not better. I mean, I'm feeling better, but I'm not better better yet, I… Tomorrow I might find we've won, forever, or we've lost and he's coming back to finish the job, and…" He shrugged. "I don't know what I'm going to do next."

Bentley was silent, Po eventually speaking up. "Hey, you know that quote I was saying. 'The past is history, the future a mystery?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's all true. But today? Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present." He pulled Sly in tighter. "Now, let's do a John Wolf marathon."