//------------------------------//
// Band: Theft on the Rails 
// Story: Sly Cooper: Family of Thieves 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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It took a few moments for Carmelita to calm down, after hearing the recording of her co-workers telling Neyla that they all believed that she wasn't innocent and that she deserved what the Contessa had done to her, which revealed that it had been made before the Contessa's truth had been revealed, but in the end Carmelita pulled herself out of Sly's embrace and said that she was ready to continue the operation. Bentley then nodded and told them that the best way for them to get the Clockwerk Lungs and Stomach was to hit all three trains at the same time, meaning that the security on them, in terms of who was supposed to be on guard anyway, would be low enough so that they wouldn't have a lot of resistance in the way of their goals. The first thing Bentley wanted them to do, before they actually attacked the Iron Horses, was strange, as he needed Murray and Diz to find a pair of juvenile bear cubs and place them in a metal container that a hand car was trapped in, as that would help them catch up with the third and final Iron Horse, the one that Sly, Carmelita, Gilda, and Murray would be tackling when the time was right. He then revealed that he and Diz would, after the hand car was freed, tackle the first Iron Horse and claim it's Clockwerk part, then they would fly over to the second one and see if Derpy needed assistance in taking the second part... allowing the other four some time to tackle the third Iron Horse and take the last part.

"That's an impressive plan, Bentley," Carmelita commented, though she had a smile on her face, because she had to imagine the look on Jean Bison's face when they robbed him of all three of his Clockwerk parts at the same time, as he was going to be furious about it, before she thought of something else, "but what will we do if Neyla tries to interfere?"

"We'll knock her into the snow and leave her be, for now." Gilda said, flexing her claws for a moment, knowing that their focus should be on the Clockwerk parts, but at the same time she had to imagine what it would be like to beat Neyla up and let Secretary Sen throw her behind bars.

"We should be able to get aboard all three Iron Horses the next time they come by the town," Bentley stated, though as he looked at the timetable in front of him, which he had set up once he had all the information about the routes the trains took, he knew that they had an hour, maybe a little less, before that happened, "though we really should get started before we end up missing one of them."

The rest of the gang nodded and moved out, where Bentley headed over to a rock platform that would allow him to join down on Iron Horse number 1, while at the same time Murray and Diz separated from each other, each going after one of the two bear cubs that they needed to get the metallic cage open, allowing the others to stand on a nearby roof as they waited for that part of the operation to be complete. As it turned out the first bear cub, the one that Murray decided to go after, was located near the cabin on the right side of Jean Bison's base, one of the three that Sly and Carmelita had gone into earlier, though not a few minutes later Murray came running into town and carefully set the sub he was carrying in the cage. Diz, on the other hand, had to venture into the nearby lair that the bears called home, which was perfect for her since she had her invisibility spell, though not moments later she flew out of the cave with the bear cub in hand, which she dropped off in the cage and landed near the others so they could watch their handiwork. As Bentley predicted the two juvenile bear cubs attacked each other the moment they saw each other, leading to a fight inside the cage, one that caused the mother bear to come running... and, with one mighty swing of her incredibly powerful claws, she tore the cage apart and freed her cubs from their confinement.

The gang then watched as the mother bear huffed and shuffled back towards the cave that it called home, where the two cubs growled for a moment before they followed after their mother, who also crushed one of the guards on her way out of the town... though the gang was fortunate that they had chosen to remain on the roofs where it was safe, as none of them wanted to get in the way of that sort of power. With that done Diz flew over to where Bentley was standing and waited for their target to arrive, while at the same time Derpy positioned herself in another prime area that would allow her to jump onto the second Iron Horse, while leaving the others to get ready for when the third one arrived. It was a daring and dangerous plan, as they weren't taking the time to see what sort of defenses these trains had, but with the fact that Arpeggio wanted all of the parts for himself, to resurrect Clockwerk for some unknown reason, they had to act fast, take Jean Bison's parts, and then hide them somewhere safe, so that way they could tackle Arpeggio without worrying that he got his hands on the parts they had already stolen.

"Here comes Iron Horse number 1." Bentley said, seeing the train coming along the tracks, while at the same time snapping everyone out of their thoughts, as they had all been thinking about how well Neyla had played them and Interpol at the same time, "Diz and I will go in, bypass the guards, and get the Clockwerk Lung that's attached to the front of the train, though while we do that you guys will need to move in and attack your Iron Horses at the same time."

The rest of the gang announced their agreement to what Bentley said, as they were all ready for this heist to happen, before he and Diz jumped onto the top of the caboose for the first Iron Horse, where they opened the lid and jumped down into the car itself. Once they were inside the caboose both of them moved into the car ahead of them and noticed that there were three laser walls in front of them, each of them moving in a certain pattern, though at the same time they were able to carefully make their way through the walls when an opening revealed itself, allowing them to make their way through the car until they were on the other side. The next car they entered had some floor lasers, both still type and moving type, but at the same time that didn't pose a challenge for either of them, as while Diz was able to simply fly over the obstacle Bentley was able to figure out the pattern and jump through it before he met up with his companion again, where they moved forward and continued their mission. Fortunately they didn't have to go through the next car that was in front of them, rather they used a jump pad to get to the top of the car and walked over the top, where they dropped down into the next area, a cargo area, and finally found some guards patrolling the area.

Bentley considered himself lucky at the moment, because Diz could expand the shroud he created and turn them both invisible at the same time, to the eyes of those around them, allowing Bentley to silently and stealthily put each of the guards to sleep so they could pass them without hurting them. When they needed to jump up to the top of the car in front of them Diz removed the Shroud of Invisibility for a moment and let Bentely get to the area above them, where he caught up with him and covered them once more, allowing Bentley to knock their opponents asleep before they even knew what had hit them. From there they dropped down onto another cargo car and continued moving, using Diz's shroud as they climbed up some cargo boxes and moved themselves behind the guards that were in front of them, not even bothering to take them out, before entering another car with moving floor lasers. It didn't take them long to get through that obstacle, though once they were out of that car Diz found that the next one was yet another cargo car and that she could simply get them on top of the cargo containers to survey what was in front of them... which was two guards that he could get around with ease, and that's what she did as she grabbed onto Bentley and pulled him to the very front of the train.

The moment Diz brought them to the front of the train, and landed in front of the engine, Bentley stepped forward and examined the large robotic Lung that was sort of attached to the engine, which he was able to remove with ease and Diz, seeing that they were ready, grabbed Bentley before taking off, letting the Iron Horse slowly loose power as they sought out Derpy and the Iron Horse she was taking on.





Derpy's plan was simple, she waited for Iron Horse number 2 to come rolling into town, landed on top of it's caboose, and then waited for it to head out into the open area, where she could take to the sky and fly to the front, which sounded really simple when she thought about it. What she wasn't expecting, however, was that when she moved over the first car in front of the caboose that it deployed rocket launchers that were designed to take out intruders, be it walking on the roof or enemies that had the potential to fly, like an RC chopper or herself. As such her first course of action was to avoid the incoming attacks before she directed her power at one of the square rocket launchers, blowing the entire thing to pieces in the process, but that didn't mean that she was out of the woods just yet, especially with a second one still operational and ready to hurt her. The moment the two of them were taken care of she started to move up towards the next car in line, where she had to contend with a number of RC planes that were designed to bombard a target until they collapsed and some RC choppers, ones that were different looking than Bentley's device, though she discovered that however was using them was definitely a skilled pilot.

Despite the manner of skill that the enemy pilots had Derpy was better than them, because she could fly circles around the remote controlled toys and broke all of them before they could even hurt her, allowing her to move forward and see what the next car had to offer.

The next car, as she discovered, had four square rocket launchers that were deployed the moment she was above the car in question and they all fired at her, forcing her to dodge their attacks once more as she started blasting them to pieces, though she hoped this was the last car that had them since she didn't have time to waste on destroying the toys of the guards. Of course as she moved forward she had to contend with a number of planes and choppers that the pilots were sending at her, almost like they were using everything in their arsenal to stop her in her tracks, but she prepared her power and knocked them all out of the sky, blowing them to pieces in the process, before she flapped her wings and moved forward once more. She wasn't surprised when the next car sent a wave of planes and had two square rocket launchers deploy when she arrived, though she did take them out rather quickly since none of them were actually a threat to her, but as she attempted to move forward, and started to fly over the next car, she found an even larger amount of planes heading for her, trying to hit her, though she simply tore them apart like all the other toys she had broken so far since she started this mission. That was followed by what had to be the last of their aerial defenses, a few choppers and two more square rocket launchers on the last car before the engine, though she smashed them all with several blasts of her inner power and let out a sigh of relief when she found that she was no longer under attack.

"Derpy, do you acquire any assistance?" Bentley asked, indicating that he and Diz must have already finished with the first Iron Horse, which had to have been the most vulnerable of the three trains and meant that they were lucky, though that also meant that they must have the Clockwerk Lung they were after.

"No, I'm just finishing up here," Derpy replied, to which she landed between the engine and the car behind it, before she walked up to where the second Lung was resting and a smile appeared on her face, "We're extremely lucky that we're hitting all of these at once, otherwise I'm sure that Jean Bison would have welded them to the engines and forced us to bomb them or something to get them loose... but, since he didn't do that, this Lung is as good as ours."

Derpy pried the Lung from it's resting place and immediately felt the train shudder for a moment, though it would take it come time before it finally shut down completely, to which she took to the skies and flew back towards town, while at the same time she watched as Diz did the same thing, though she was carrying both Bentley and the first Lung. The three of them would return to the safe house and start loading up the van for when Sly and the others returned, as Jean Bison still had the Talons and Bentley already had an idea of where he might have hidden those parts.





Sly, Carmelita, Gilda, and Murray waited for a few minutes, watching as Bentley and Diz jumped onto the back of Iron Horse number 1 and started their part of the operation, while at the same time Derpy was able to do the same thing with Iron Horse number 2, leaving them to wait for the third one to arrive. When Iron Horse number 3 finally came through the town the gang got on the hand car and Murray got them underway, where they followed after the caboose of the train and picked up speed as they went. While they did that Sly decided to voice something he had been thinking about since they came to Canada, and it didn't have to do with Neyla this time, because he was still disturbed over the fact that Jean Bison walked away with both of Clockwerk's Lungs, his Stomach, and his Talons, though he was more disturbed by the fact that he got the Lungs and Stomach. Fortunately the conversation didn't last long, as Murray was able to get them to the caboose rather quickly and managed to prevent them from hitting the back of the train, though as he stabilized the hand car both Sly and Carmelita jumped forward and landed on the backside of the caboose, allowing them to climb up the ladder and drop into the actual car.

From there they entered the next car in the line and found some guards waiting for them, which had to be the ones that were normally stationed on this particular train, to which Sly pulled out a music box, one of the few that Bentley was able to craft from the blueprints in a short amount of time while waiting for him to comfort Carmelita, and hurled it towards the guards. Together he and Carmelita watched as the music box hit the ground, without falling apart in the process, and started to play a tune, one that lured the guards towards it and, instead of smashing it, they fell asleep and crumbled to the ground, totally knocked out from the music that was coming from the device. Both of them were shocked by the outcome, as neither of them were expecting it, but once the guards were down Sly and Carmelita moved forward and headed out through the door in front of them, though Carmelita, having learned some lessons from Sly, picked up the music box and slipped it into her pack, knowing that they could use it again later and that it was best not to leave evidence of their existence behind.

The next car, as it turned out, had a maze of moving lasers and, as Sly discovered, the only way forward was through one of the two paths through the luggage in front of them, meaning that they would have to crawl their way to the other side of the car, something that Carmelita was perfectly okay with since she was the first one of them to move once she understood what they needed to do. Since there were two entrances and one exit Sly quickly found himself stopping for a moment to let Carmelita use the exit first, before he followed her through the exit and picked himself up, which was followed by them heading through the opening and sneaking their way alongside a train car that looked like it would have had someone standing inside it at one point, if the worn floor was anything to go by. Sly was sure that if they had taken their time, and had gone for the first Iron Horse and then the second one, instead of attacking at the same time, that this was where Jean Bison would have been standing, but since they took a different route it was easy for them to get to the other side of the train car.

When they climbed up to the top of the next car in the line, however, they both heard a sound and moved out of the way as Neyla, in a hovercar of some kind, likely stolen from someone, flew over their heads and eventually came to a stop in front of them, indicating that they would need to fight her to move forward.

"Oi, Cooper! Thought I might find you here." Neyla commented, not even glancing back at them while she spoke, indicating that she didn't care about them and simply wanted them to leave her to her business, "You just can't stay away from these Clockwerk parts can you?"

"Of course we can't stay away from them," Carmelita stated, as she had enough of Neyla and wanted her out of her life, and she could tell that Sly was getting annoyed with Neyla was well, which was good news in her eyes, "Neyla, the Clockwerk parts must be collected and their evil destroyed... there's no other way for this to happen."

"Actually, I can just gun you down and take both the Lungs and the Stomach for myself," Neyla said, to which she tapped a few buttons and prepared herself, as she knew that she had the two criminals cornered at the moment and that Barkley, who she honestly didn't care about, would be happy regardless of what happened here, "There's nothing the two of you can do to stop me."

"But that's where you're wrong, Neyla." Sly replied, though at the same time Carmelita noticed the binocucom that he was holding onto and that it was transmitting, where she joined Sly and smiled as well as she looked at Neyla, who had no idea what was going to happen next, "We're not the only members of the Cooper Gang... there's seven of us, though there are three of us with the power to take you out without a moment's hesitation, and two of them were responsible for helping us beat Clockwerk all those years ago. GILDA!"

"With pleasure." a voice said, to which Carmelita looked and found that Gilda had flown up to the point that they were at, though at the same time she could feel the wind in the air shift as the griffin readied herself, with Neyla as her target at the moment, "Wind Blades!"

That was followed by Neyla shouting as the wind, shaped by Gilda's innate magic, became a dozen razor sharp blades that flew through the air and pierced the wings of Neyla's craft, six blades in each wing as it turned out, before they blew apart and severely damaged the vessel, causing a string of curses to erupt from Neyla as she lost control of her vehicle and crashed into the snow nearby. Without anything to use, like a jetpack or something, it was impossible for her to catch up with the speeding train and soon they lost sight of her, to which Gilda chuckled as Sly and Carmelita continued to move towards the train's engine. From that point forward any guards they came across were put to sleep by one of the remaining music boxes that they were carrying, and Carmelita picked up as they moved forward, or simply ignored as they used their environment to navigate their way around the area a group of guards was in. Even when using the wall hook technique that Bentley had informed them about, and Sly must have remembered from one of the pages in the family tome, they were able to make their way through the rest of the train cars and around the remaining guards... before arriving at their destination, where they took the Stomach from it's resting place and got out of there as they felt the train slowly starting to slow down.

On the way back to where they were supposed to meet up, so they could leave with the Lungs and Stomach before Jean Bison found out, Sly was happy to see that Carmelita was smiling, with a genuine smile no less, over the fact that they had shut down Jean Bison's shipping empire, and stopped the spice in the process. It was almost like she had put the last week or two behind her, all the terrible memories of her time trapped in the Contessa's tower, and was looking forward to a bright future, one that he believed that she deserved with all his heart, especially since Neyla was trying to tear her down to the best of her ability. At the same time, however, he knew that she was hurting on the inside, that her dream job at Interpol, where she must have been following in her family's footsteps, just like he was following his father's footsteps, was slowly disappearing before her eyes and that she'd never be able to face her family again if she was dismissed from Interpol because of this mess. He knew Carmelita well enough to know that she was acting, because while she enjoyed being a member of the team, and actually taking to being a thief like it was second nature, she also loved being a cop and helping them bust other criminals... and yet that future was disappearing before their very eyes.

Sly still had no idea what else he could do to help her, because they had given Secretary Sen every bit of information they could get their hands on to prove that Carmelita was innocent and that Neyla framed her, and yet it seemed like someone in Interpol, not Secretary Sen since he was on their side, wanted Carmelita expelled from the force... but he forced himself to put it at the back of his mind, as there were two more parts they needed to collect before the week was done and the possible resurrection of Clockwerk to stop.