Now, if you know of my Mom and Dad at all, you know how Mom reacts to the idea of them working together. Even if she isn't actively hunting Dad at any given time, the idea of working with 'criminals' is anathema to her. So while she was fine with getting out of the situation with Seft's men, she still wasn't too keen on working with Dad, or even leaving me with Dad...
"You expect me to work with a pack of criminals?" Carmelita snapped out as she faced Sly down at the entrance to the Gang's temporary hideout, a cliffside cave near Seft's camp. "Don't be absurd! I would never stoop as low as to take orders from you."
"I'm not asking you to take orders from me," Sly insisted calmly, trying to calm things down. "All I'm saying is that we both want to take Seft down, and you've already seen where trying to take him on without backup is going to get you. And since there's no telling when he might pull up and leave, you don't have time to get more officers as backup."
"And you think that means I should accept your help?" Carmelita demanded acidly.
"We're going after him anyway," Sly pointed out. "I see no reason why we shouldn't coordinate."
"If you think for a moment-"
"Would you both keep it down?" Murray demanded as he gently rocked Coco back and forth in one arm, feeding her from a bowl of porridge with his free hand. "I just got Coco calm enough to eat something, and 'Mommy and Daddy' fighting is upsetting her!"
Carmelita growled in her throat as she heard that. While she did want to make sure the youngling was alright, the idea of sharing parenting with 'the ringtail' was unpleasant. This wasn't helped by the fact that Coco had bonded with 'Uncle Murray' and 'Uncle Bentley' on sight, proving just how lonely and desperate for familial companionship the little one was. But Carmelita was a Chief Inspector. She wasn't about to let a gang of thieves see just how much Coco's desperate need for love and belonging tugged on her heart strings. "Fine!" she snapped out finally. "It's not like we even know what we're doing yet, anyway, let alone what Seft is up to. I'll at least stick around for the intel."
"Fair enough," Sly agreed quickly, glad for anything to keep the peace...and keeping the peacekeeper near and relaxed. "Would you care for a drink? Maybe some snacks? Pretty sure we've got something around here Murray hasn't devoured yet."
"Hey!" Murray complained, though in a good natured tone of voice that set Bentley and Sly to laughing, and even got Coco giggling.
Carmelita rolled her eyes as she took a seat, letting Sly courteously bring her a drink and some snacks. If nothing else, he's a gentleman, she mused silently as she watched Bentley working away on his computer to decipher the documents they'd obtained. She decided not to think about whatever it was they had done to obtain those documents.
After a time, Bentley finally finished deciphering the material, though he took the time to read through it before speaking about it. Sly and Carmelita both kept their eyes on Bentley's face as he did so, and concern became mirrored on their faces as Bentley's grew paler and paler as he read. When he finally reached the end, he swallowed convulsively, licking his lips as he struggled to calm himself. "Murray," he began carefully, "why don't you take Coco to the back of the cave and put her down for a nap? You could read her a bedtime story or something."
"Story?" Coco gasped happily, looking excited even as she fought a yawn.
"Oh boy!" Murray bellowed softly as he stood up. "And I know just the one to tell you! Hansel and Gretel! It's my favorite! ...at least the way I tell it..."
Carmelita glanced towards Sly with a raised eyebrow. "The way he tells it?"
"Hansel and Gretel take the gingerbread house with them as snacks after finishing off the witch," Sly explained with a smirk.
Carmelita rolled her eyes again as Bentley cleared his throat. "I've managed to finish decoding the documents," he explained morosely. "It's not pretty."
"Go on then," Carmelita insisted. "I'm certain we can take it."
"This first use of the portal device is a proof of concept," Bentley explained. "The overall concept is straight forward. Gather enough energy to bridge dimensions however briefly and snatch an individual from the other side. Next, plug the individual into the portal device, and their life energies and any other energies unique to the other side of the portal is used to stabilize the link, so Seft and his troops can go in and conquer. If a world's to his liking, he uses it as his base of operations using it to go after other worlds. If not..." He swallowed convulsively. "If not, he intends to strip mine it of all available resources, including all residents and any unique energy sources, leaving behind a 'useless dead husk'. And the latter is what he intends for Coco's world."
Carmelita looked stricken at the very idea of it. At worst, she'd dealt with criminals dealing in grand theft or illegal activities in a conquered area, and the occasional bit of organized crime. She had difficulty even conceptualizing the idea of someone who would willingly condemn an entire world just to take all it had to offer...especially when she visualized a world full of creatures like Coco as the target.
Sly, on the other hand, was very familiar with just how vile the criminal world could get, and how little those that thrived in the depths of the abyss cared for the suffering of those it swallowed up. "Why is he intent on consuming Coco's world?" Sly asked firmly. "He hasn't even been there yet."
"Apparently, Coco's world is rich in an unusual energy resource he refers to as 'magic'," Bentley explained. "There aren't many details here in the papers we've got, but apparently even the individual living creatures of the world are rich in this resource." He didn't notice Carmelita's cheeks starting to turn green. "So he wants to strip it of resources...because this 'magic' will make it far easier both to open portals to other worlds, and to achieve dominance - of whichever source - in this one."
"By the heavens..." Carmelita moaned out. "That's..."
"Can the portal be opened again without plugging Coco into it?" Sly asked calmly, managing to keep his own disgust hidden.
"No, Sly," Bentley replied readily. "There's simply not enough energy available. Not only that, the act of opening the portal destabilized the boundary between the dimensions. Coco being plugged in would stabilize it...but otherwise, it won't stabilize enough to open another portal for a decade, give or take."
"Then we can't use it to send her home," Sly concluded simply. "Then our goal should be destroying the portal device, and any documents regarding its construction."
"And we'll also need to take Seft," Carmelita added. "I'm not sure how the interdimensional aspect fits into this, but his plans around it are definitely war crimes and Sapients Rights(1) violations. With this level of crimes confirmed now..." She cleared her throat carefully. "At this point, orders from headquarters would be to take him in...dead or alive."
"That we can certainly agree on," Sly confirmed grimly, shifting his cane from one hand to the other as he limbered up for what was to come.
Nodding, Carmelita stood up. "I'm going to get some air," she murmured as she turned towards the mouth of the cave. "Let me know when you have a plan." With that, she exited the cave, plainly disturbed.
"Sly," Bentley whispered worriedly, "there's more."
"How much worse can it get?" Sly groaned out.
"From what I've been able to determine...the design for the portal is Seft's own," Bentley explained. "Not only that, there's only a piece of the data for portal construction in these documents...specifically, the piece the group Murray was disguised as needed to do their part of the job, which tells me that Seft either keeps the only complete plan on him...or has it memorized."
Sly shuddered. "Which means that as long as he's alive, he can rebuild it...and there's no guarantee everyone dealing with him in the law enforcement side of things would be above brokering a deal between him and whoever might want to use that tech for a bit of profit."
"You...know what that means, Sly," Bentley offered nervously.
"I do," Sly offered, his voice sounding somewhat sick. "Carmelita said take him dead or alive. But for the sake of Coco, her world, and ours...the former is preferred..."
(1) A world where anthropomorphic animals of various sorts are the dominant life obviously wouldn't have Human Rights.