//------------------------------//
// Time Out: The Heist 
// Story: Dressed to Steal 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

The plan to get into the museum to get the dagger was rather classic.  Uncle Murray got into place where he could use his muscle.  Uncle Bentley went through the sewers to get an access point to the security networks.  Dad and I went via the rooftops, dodging security choppers.  While Dad had trouble and needed to duck behind cover, I'd been practicing with both magic and Cooper family techniques for quite some time.  I could now activate my invisibility in a split second, as long as I was standing perfectly still.  Combining that with the Slow Time technique that enhanced my reflexes to the point time seemed to slow made it next to impossible for the choppers to catch me.  Deik-Beck stuck close to Sly, making his own way across the rooftops and dropping in the form of some metal junk if the spotlight swung his way.

As we went, Bentley called out reminders to Dad of his various skills and abilities as a Master Thief via the binocucom, just in case he didn't remember one in particular.  Understandable, since Dad admitted himself that there were still holes in his memory.  It was rather fun.





Sly continued his careful hops from spire to spire, Coco and Deik-Beck following him.  After a time, he took a glance off to the side as they landed on a rope they could walk up to a new rooftop...and saw Murray, riding atop one of La Paradox's trucks up to the entrance of the museum.  "That was...not his entrance strategy," Sly pointed out dryly.

"Looks fun, though!" Coco piped up happily, giggling as they watched.  "And he is in position now," she added as she leapt over Sly to go further up the rope to the next roof.

Rolling his eyes, Sly followed along before once more taking the lead.  As they continued, security started to get tighter, though it remained less than a challenge for the trio.  "It feels good to be doing this again," Sly murmured thoughtfully to himself.  "Doubt Carmelita would be accepting of it, though."

"You might be surprised," Coco murmured thoughtfully, keeping her voice low.  Deik-Beck clicked a few times in a silent giggle.  He'd been the one directing Coco's call to Carmelita when she'd told her about the planned heist.  He knew what had been said.

After a bit more hopping along spires, the trio was forced to detour as security choppers began actively patrolling areas that would allow a Cooper approach, specifically the ropes that Sly and Coco were actively using.  "That was too close," Sly murmured as they dropped down into cover.

"I don't like this," Coco murmured softly.  "We've had bad experiences any time someone was specifically prepared for Coopers.  Seft and Neyla weren't pushovers, and did us a lot of damage..."

Sly nodded, bracing himself.  "...if you say so," he admitted finally.

Coco lowered her eyes.  She hadn't realized that was part of his past Sly hadn't recalled yet.  Probably something his mind was specifically avoiding, for any number of reasons.  She instead silently followed as he made his way to a flagpole...only for it to fall as he shimmied up it, creating a bridge back to the roof Coco was on.  "...guess I'm a little out of practice," he murmured apologetically.

"Too much rich food, not enough exercise for anywhere but the hips?" Coco offered teasingly.

Sly frowned irritably.  "You are much too young to be making jokes like that," he chided firmly.

"I just turned 13, Dad," Coco pointed out dryly.  "Be lucky this heist came up now.  Otherwise I might be heading out and bringing home boys instead of loot."  At Sly's stunned expression, she smirked and decided to really push his buttons.  "Or maybe girls.  I haven't really thought about that part of my life yet.  Then again, there are some species who are both at the same time, or so I've heard..."

"Nope nope nope nope nope!" Sly repeated to himself as he raced off towards the museum, making Coco burst into giggles again.

Before long, the pair reached the skylight that was their intended entrance.  A single guard stood before it with their backs to them, a rat-person dressed in a skin-tight hazmat suit complete with gas mask.  Coco frowned as she caught sight of this.  "There's nowhere I can slip a needle in..."

"Still prepared for us," Sly murmured darkly.  "I'm not liking the looks of this-"

Their words were cut off as Deik-Beck scampered up behind the rat and drove a single pointed leg into the base of the rat's tail, sending him tumbling over as the little bot pulled back the skylight key.  "Drive in deeper!" he declared, showing how the leg had reshaped into an extra-long and sharp hypodermic needle.

"Good work, Deik-Beck!" Coco praised happily.





With us in place, we just had to wait for Uncle Bentley to shut down the security lasers so we could rappel down and grab the dagger.  It was a longer wait than expected, both because Uncle Bentley himself was out of practice when it came to thieving, and because - much like on our approach - security seemed designed specifically to take our usual tactics into account to catch us unaware.

Uncle Murray ran into a similar trap.  It seemed almost as though the security were designed based off reports of us, but by someone who'd never actually seen us in action leading to the designs underestimating us.  What was impossible to tell was whether said underestimation was luck...or design.

Still, the security system was successfully disabled, and Dad and I slipped down to swipe the dagger.  However, just as Dad was placing the calling card...





"You didn't really think you could get away with it, did you ringtail?" Carmelita called out as she opened the door, her new shock pistol leveled right at Sly.

Sly swallowed as he caught sight of her.  She'd chosen a different outfit, possibly specifically after Coco's call.  She still wore the same jacket and boots...but in place of her previous top and jeans, she now wore a blue tube top that shaped to her so well it was practically a strapless bikini top, and a blue mini-skirt held up by a black belt with a gold buckle, drawing the eye to her flat stomach and shapely legs.  "H-hey Carmelita," he managed to greet as he hid the dagger behind his back.  "Fancy meeting you-"

"Coco called and told me everything," Carmelita pointed out flatly.

"Aw, Mom!" Coco complained.  "Why'd you snitch on me?"

"So Sly can know why I need you all to escape via the southern exit," Carmelita responded.  "That's his private warehouse, which isn't open to public officials."

"...what?" Sly asked in confusion.

"The first thing Mom said when I told her you were planning a heist here was, 'It's about time'," Coco explained with a giggle.  "She knew you'd been casing the place, and was counting on chasing you to get her the evidence she needed to act against La Paradox."

"Don't worry, I'll be careful," Carmelita promised.  "Time manipulation's no joke.  I'm not about to take any chances...even if you are in trouble for trying to pull this without telling me."

Sly crossed his arms defensively.  "I'm not going to apologize for trying to protect you," he pointed out flatly.

"In that case, I won't punish you for your 'misdeed'," Carmelita countered teasingly.

"...I am so glad I bugged Uncle Scrooge into soundproofing my room," Coco murmured softly as she and Sly shot back to the roof.





After a rather more intense getaway than usual given Mom's request to open a path into that warehouse, we reached a straightaway where Uncle Murray was able to build up enough speed to trigger the time machine.  Thankfully, even if we were travelling through time, Uncle Bentley'd found a way to keep in contact even through time...an offshoot of the Time Travel tech that used linked devices that communicated via two halves of a split chroniton, which resonated in response to influence on the opposite halves.

Of course, we needed someone who was reliable and could track alterations to the time stream without being affected...which meant someone with magic strong enough to resist the influence of the time stream.  I always knew my time babysitting Felicia would go to good use.  She'd already researched a time displacement circle before we'd even approached her.  On top of that, she was the perfect one to track changes to the Thievius Raccoonus, since I'd given her a copy to read through once that she'd kept inside said circle, so it wasn't being changed.  Between that and her book on time magic, she'd be the perfect contact.

Now if only the trip through the time stream hadn't been so trippy to me.  It did not agree with my magic.