Sly Cooper: Family of Thieves

by Blackdrag-rose


Interlude: Times Change

Six years had gone by since Sly and Carmelita's wedding ceremony, when they finally became tied to each other in more ways than what they had currently going for them, and both of them were extremely happy with how their lives had gone since that fateful day. True to Bentley and Penelope's word their honeymoon in the part of Venice that they had picked out had gone wonderfully, as they were able to sit back, relax with each other as they gazed out at the city, and simply enjoyed themselves without having to worry about what sort of criminal they were taking out next. It reminded Sly of what happened after he and the gang beat Clockwerk the first time around, even though they helped train Diz to become the thief he was now, and the same thing happened after they bested the Klaww Gang, save for assisting Carmelita in adapting to her new life as a thief and adapting to the ancient owl, who had been put back together, being a permanent addition to the gang as well, with a new personality, or old one according to Derpy, to match. The only difference for them was that there weren't any missions they needed to prepare for, any enemies they needed to keep their eyes out for, and no police officers looking for them so an arrest warrant could be served... they were free to actually relax and unwind for real, and the two of them intended to make the most of their time together, before they rejoined the rest of the gang.

Despite the fact that they were supposed to be on their honeymoon, however, they still looked at some of the artifacts and 'priceless' items that were in some of the museums that they were in Venice, as both of them had the same idea to come back in the future and swipe a few items from some of the exhibits. Just because they were a married couple now, and were supposed to be leaving all the thieving to Derpy, Gilda, Diz, and the others didnt't mean that they couldn't stake out an area and jot down some notes for later, as they knew that Bentley would like having them do some of the legwork before they got back to him.

Their return to Paris two weeks later was met with the gang greeting them at the airport, where they were taken back to the warehouse that served as their base of operations, though at the same time they had some news to tell the gang, as they intended to move out of the warehouse and start living in the house that Carmelita's parents had gifted to them. The arrangement, as Carmelita found out, was for three months, giving them time to get their affairs in order and move in, as well as set up a payment system that wouldn't lead cops to their door when they returned to the field in the future, even though Bentley said he'd figure all that out in no time. Gilda, Derpy, and Diz were a little sad that Sly and Carmelita were moving out, even if they were only a short distance away from the warehouse, but at the same time they all knew that the time would have eventually come when they settled down and had their own families, even if it was going to take some effort on their part to find someone that liked them for who they were, especially since one of them was a pegasus, the second was a griffin, and the third was... well, they weren't entirely sure what to label Diz now, what with one wing that matched Derpy's, a second wing that resembled a bat's wing, and the oddly shaped tail that he had gained, but they'd figure something out in the future.

The two story house was everything that Sly and Carmelita needed, and it reminded him of the house that he had grown up in despite it being in a completely different part of Paris, and they managed to set up everything where they wanted it to go, which was easy since Murray was kind enough to help. While they worked to set up their house the two of them discovered that the rest of the gang had done like they said they would, as the Panda King went back to live near his daughter and sister, the Guru went back to the Outback, and Dimitri had plans for a new club that seemed to be working out to his benefit. Murray, having waited until they were back in Paris and had moved into their new house, bid them farewell for now and headed to the airport, so he could travel to the Outback and complete his training that they had interrupted to get into the Cooper Vault, and everyone wished him luck in his training. Bentley and Penelope also stayed true to their word and revealed that they had gone on their first date a few days after the wedding, and right now they were absolutely loving the time they spent together, meaning that they were likely well on their way to what Sly and Carmelita had gone through... provided the duo stopped talking about their inventions and actually stayed out of their labs for more than a few hours, but Sly was sure that they would make it work out in the end.

Clockwerk, despite all the time he had spent with the Cooper Gang, remained at the warehouse and made sure that the defenses were up to Bentley and Penelope's standards, since his old standards had included a fortress that rested inside a volcano and happened to be protected by robotic flying minions and a death ray, though he did make sure to set up hidden cameras around the exterior of the warehouse, in case any potential threat poked it's head out of the ground and tried to mess with them.

As the first week went by, and they adjusted to living in a house that they owned and didn't have to worry about being interrupted, Sly and Carmelita really got to know each other better and thoroughly enjoyed the time that they spent with each other, and made sure to keep their night time activities to themselves. A few weeks later, however, it was hard for them to really hide what they had did from the rest of the gang, because at first it looked like Carmelita had put on some weight during their time off from thieving and being with the gang, but then she told them that she was pregnant. Even though they intended to stick true to their nature as thieves, and practice their skills whenever possible, both of them told the gang that what they wanted right now was to settle down and try their hand at being a normal family, and the first step was having kids of their own, or just one since they weren't entirely sure what they were having yet. This news thrilled Carmelita's parents, as they had been hoping that she would have kids some day and had feared that she was going to drive off any potential boyfriends with her attitude as a police officer, but then they discovered that Sly was in her life and they were more than happy for the two of them.

Carmelita soon discovered that practicing the Cooper Techniques wasn't all that practical while she was pregnant, even though she wanted to stay in shape, and told herself that she'd find the time after their first child was born to make up for the time she missed and burn off the weight in no time. As such the months went by and she gained the weight that was associated with being pregnant, as well as her breasts growing in the process, though she made sure that she was wearing clothing that made this somewhat easier while Sly ensured that one of the rooms was ready for when their first child was born. What neither of them were expecting, however, was for the doctor to tell them, upon one of their checkups, that Carmelita was carrying twins at the moment, so instead of a single child they were going to have two of them, causing Sly to make sure that they had more than enough supplies ready for when the big day came. Carmelita was surprised as well, since she wasn't expecting this to happen at all, but in the end she smiled and let life happen, and she counted themselves lucky that her parents had bought them such a big place to live, that way when the kids were older they wouldn't have to move when there wasn't enough room for two grown kids in the same room.

When the big day finally arrived, and both the gang and Carmelita's parents were there to see the next generation of Coopers, they were in for one more surprise, as one of the kids was a girl and the other was a boy, though what was really surprising about that was what they were. The little girl looked like a fox, just like from the few pictures that Carmelita remembered her mother showing her of the day she was born, but at the same time there were some dark raccoon strips in her tail, dark markings on her arms and legs that matched Sly's, and a raccoon mask marking around her eyes. The little boy, on the other hand, appeared to be a raccoon at first, once again reminding Sly of the few baby pictures that he still had in his possession, but while he still possessed the dark raccoon markings the main coloration of his body was lighter than Sly's was and, at the same time, there was an orange hue to it that resembled Carmelita's coloration. Despite the fact that their children were clearly raccoon-fox hybrids, or fox-raccoon to some people, both Sly and Carmelita didn't care, as they had been waiting for this for a long time, and smiled as they revealed the names that they had come up with, which were Elizabeth and Daniel Cooper.

At first living with two babies was just like the stories that Margret Fox told them about, some sleepless nights where they would wake up dog tired in the morning, but at the same time, since they were constantly being interrupted, it gave Carmelita a chance to actually practice some of the techniques she had learned before she was bothered. Of course Sly also stepped in every now and then, as he didn't want her to work herself to exhaustion, and helped quiet the children when they woke up in the middle of the night, letting Carmelita rest up by sacrificing some of his own sleep in the process. There were also days where they visited Carmelita's parents, letting them spend some time with their grandchildren, and it was clear that neither Elizabeth or Daniel seemed to dislike them, though since they were still young it was hard to tell what they were thinking. Gilda, Derpy, and Diz had to refrain from using their magic around them, since they were barely a year old and couldn't control their bodies very well, though they did enjoy playing around with the end of Diz's tail whenever he was near them, which he didn't seem to mind since they were his brother's kids. Clockwerk, on the other hand, simply stayed in the shadows and watched over them from afar, since he wanted to make sure that the kids didn't suffer like Sly did... and there was the fact that he was a robotic ancient owl that was terrifying in his true form, so he stayed away so there was zero chance that he traumatized the kids and earned Sly and Carmelita's wrath.

As the weeks and months went by Sly and Carmelita were happy with their lives, as their kids made things much more interesting and, despite some hiccups every now and then when one of the kids broke something or puked on the floor, they wouldn't trade their experiences for anything else.


Penelope smiled as she put the finishing touches on the project that she and Bentley had been working on, even though her partner had fallen asleep earlier because Sly and Carmelita's kids had been playing around with the light obstacles that he had designed for them, safe ones so they didn't hurt themselves, leaving her to finish their project. The last six years had been interesting for them, as she got to observe how the gang operated when they weren't under pressure, like they were when they were gathering the other members for their team so they could assault Dr. M's forces, and she had to admit that, even with her added to the mix, the gang operated like a well oiled machine. Sure, there had been a few moments where she had wondered what it would have been like if it had been just her and Bentley, using their brains for whatever they desired and Sly wasn't around to steer them towards justice, but then she would sigh and realize what she was thinking about, that if she demolished the Cooper Gang, by going back and stopping Sly's gang from forming, she'd rewrite history and possibly make it even worse. There was no telling what sort of shape history would have taken had Sly's gang never gotten together, save for the fact that she was sure that she and Bentley would never have met, and she was happy that she had the mind to steer clear of what she had been thinking about.

The only reason she had thought about going back into the past was because she and Bentley had completed their work on a time viewing machine, allowing them to observe a moment in time or a particular part of history, all so they could see the true history of Clockwerk... and, at the same time, they had accidentally created a working time machine, one that they had tested for a few seconds to determine that it was operational before they turned it off, since tampering with time was something they both agreed not to do.

With the final touches put in place, and the machine completed, Penelope put her equipment down and realized that the list of items that they needed to further improve their lab, as they had built one using a fifth of the warehouse that was the Cooper Gang's base of operations, had yet to be fulfilled and that the only store that would take their order was going to be closing in the next hour. As such she sighed and threw a blanket over Bentley, since he was sleeping at the table near where she had been working, and let him a note saying that she was going to take care of the supply order and that she would be back soon, before she put on a jacket and headed outside. As she headed outside the warehouse, and started on her walk towards the store since it wasn't too far away, she reflected how she was the only one of the gang to change over the last six years, despite the fact that Carmelita had retained a small increase to her breasts, and that she had grown up in more ways than one. Back when she joined the Cooper Gang she had been a young adult, but now, six years later, her figure had finally reached maturity and had become a little slimmer while her own breasts had grown as well, meaning that if she tried to pull off something like the 'Black Baron' again she'd be hard pressed to hide her true form... not unless she built a mechanical body or something to completely hide her, but she pushed that thought back into the trash can where it belonged and continued moving.

Despite everything that went through her mind she was able to get to the store, make sure that the order was placed and that it would arrive by the time that she and Bentley felt that they would be needing the parts, and then headed back outside so she could walk back to the warehouse... though only a few minutes later she was stopped by a group of rats that were wearing yellow jumpsuits and some other pieces of gear that made them look like exterminators.

"Ah, Miss Penelope, it is good to see you on this fine night." a voice said, to which Penelope turned around and found a skunk, with short legs, a long torso, a full on white colored mustache and same colored hair, and happened to be wearing a jumpsuit that resembled what the rats were wearing, despite having some green to it, standing behind where she had stopped, "Do you mind if I bother you for a few minutes? I have a proposal that I'd like to talk to you about."

"A proposal?" Penelope asked, though at the same time she knew that she was boxed in, as there was no way she was going to get away from the rats before one of them decided to do something to her, to which she focused on the skunk so she could figure out what his game was, "Why should I listen to you, since you have me surrounded by your lackeys and haven't bothered to tell me your name?"

"Oh, you're right. Where are my manners? I am Cyrille Le Paradox," the skunk said, bowing his head a little, like he was a gentleman or something, before facing Penelope once more, telling her that there was something that he wanted to talk about and that she'd listen, even going as far to make sure that the rats backed up and gave her some space, "you might know me since I am a collector of rare artifacts and that I happen to open a museum here in Paris."

"Right, I remember now." Penelope replied, as it was impossible for her to forget about the museum, because it was something that Sly and Carmelita were working on at the moment, as Interpol believed that the owner wasn't who he said he was and that there might be something dark going on, but she said nothing about that as she faced him, "So, what sort of proposal do you have for me?"

"I'll cut right to the point: I want to use your time machine for my benefit." Le Paradox stated, though at the same time he raised a hand and stopped Penelope before she could say anything, as he didn't have time for this and knew that she would agree once he revealed his hand to her, "There's no use denying that you've had a breakthrough in regards to the ability to travel through time, as I've seen you and that cripple checking out all sorts of books on the subject, and the smile on your face earlier was all the information I needed to know that you have succeeded. There are a number of dates that I want to go back to and retrieve something, or rather send someone I trust to acquire what I am looking for, and all I needed was a reliable way to get to the past and get what I want... though, if you're finding my request unreasonable, then I'll go ahead and call the professional hitman that is currently waiting for my call."

"H... Hitman?" Penelope inquired, though at the same time she didn't like where this was going, as everything that she had heard about Le Paradox appeared to be right, that he was shady and up to no good, and right now she was caught in whatever scheme he was planning.

"You see, I recently learned that Sly Cooper not only got married, but also has had two wonderful children of his very own to love and spend time with," Le Paradox commented, to which he pulled out a tablet and clicked on something before showing the screen to Penelope, where she found that he had an active feed to the exterior of the Cooper house, where Sly, Carmelita, and their kids were sleeping soundly without knowing that someone other than Clockwerk was watching them, "I hired this hitman to take them out in whatever manner he desired, which is usually by killing everyone in a building and planting evidence that it was either the husband or wife who did the deed before killing themselves, to ensure the total destruction of their reputation. Since you don't seem to care about my little request, and haven't said a word about it so far, I guess I might as well call him and..."

"Wait! Don't do it!" Penelope cried out, though as she said that tears formed in her eyes, as she couldn't believe that there was someone like Le Paradox, who would even threaten children to get what he wanted, still out there in the world, before she focused on him, "What is it that you want from me?"

"First, I need your time machine to put my plan into action." Le Paradox stated, to which he smiled as he put the tablet away and pulled out a note that held the address that she was supposed to meet him at later tonight, because the sooner she completed her task the sooner he could enact the next stage of his plan, "Come to that address, with the time machine in your possession, and then I will explain what I am after in the time periods that I have selected... and if you so much as tell anyone about what has happened here, well, I'm sure that you understand what would happen next."

Penelope nodded her head and watched as the goons followed their boss out of the area that they were in, before letting the rest of her tears fall to the ground as she hugged her legs for a few minutes... but when the tears were done she headed back to the warehouse and hoped that Sly and the others would forgive her when they learned what she had been forced to do, if they found out anyway.


When Bentley woke up the following morning, and wasn't surprised to see the blanket thrown over him by Penelope the night before, since this happened more times than someone would think by just looking at him, he discovered that Penelope was gone. That wasn't very alarming, not with the note explaining that she had gone to the store to set a new order for supplies that both of them agreed that they needed, and he simply went about his day like it was normal, which meant more work on the time machine and his side project. Despite the fact that they agreed that having two time machines was dangerous, despite them being locked away in a safe whenever one of them weren't in use, he was very determined to figure out how to bypass the need for an item from the time period that someone wanted to travel to, so someone could head to Ancient Egypt, for example, without needing something from that point in time. Unfortunately he, and by extension Penelope, were no closer to solving how that was supposed to work, leaving the machines in a state where an item was required to head back to the point in history, which was easy for them to acquire since they had access to the Cooper Vault and had at least three thieves that could find what they were looking for.

That same day he met up with Sly and Carmelita, who were slightly concerned when they discovered that Penelope wasn't around, but Bentley waved it off and said that she was likely busy working on one of her biplanes, since they had kept the one from when they entered the ACES Competition, or she had decided to visit Holland once more, as it felt like home to her since she had lived there once the 'Black Baron' one his first competition. As the days went by, and he didn't receive any calls or messages from Penelope concerning where she had wandered off to and where she might have gone, he started to get worried about her and tried to pin her binocucom, since she was a permanent member of the team she had been given one in case she took to the field and was out of range of normal communications, only for that to fail when he found it where she normally left it. He tried a few more ideas that sprung into his head, as he had a number of ways to figure out what had happened to Penelope, and his heart sank when each up came back to him as a failure, making him wonder if she had gone back in time to test her own time machine and hadn't decided to come back, like she was studying something that happened to her.

After two weeks had gone by, and he received the shipment from where it was dropped off, he stopped by his side project started glowing, as he had been studying the Thievius Raccoonus, with Sly and Carmelita's permission when they weren't using it to tell their kids some of the more exciting and less dangerous or strange tales of Sly's ancestors, and the machine informed him that something was wrong. That 'something', as he soon discovered, was that someone was actually tempering with the history of the Cooper Clan, as he turned to some of the pages that Rioichi Cooper wrote and watched as some of the lines that had been written centuries ago unraveled before his eyes, meaning that his thoughts were correct. As such he got his equipment together, made sure that Murray and the rest of the gang was ready for another adventure, and headed out for Sly's house, as he knew that both his friend and Carmelita were going to be annoyed that he was bothering them... and even more so with whoever was trying to erase the history of the Cooper Clan from existence.

When they pulled up to the house, however, he found Daniel and Elizabeth, or 'Beth' as she preferred to be called sometimes, playing outside with Sly observing them, though when Sly noticed the rest of the gang stop in front of the house he smiled and welcomed them inside, while the kids smiled and greeted their aunts and uncles before they all headed inside so Sly could tell Carmelita that they had guests.

"So, Bentley, what's going on?" Sly asked, though he waited until both of his kids were settled down, as they both thought that a story was going to be told, and for Carmelita to arrive, as she sat next to him, before he bothered to ask what had brought them all to their house.

"Sly, Carmelita, I'm afraid that I have bad news," Bentley said, to which he pulled out the Thievius Raccoonus and opened it to the entries that Rioichi wrote, the ones that were still inside the tome, and placed it before the duo, just in time for them to witness both pages have their writing disappear like he had seen earlier, "Someone's tampering with the history of the Cooper Clan, as their currently targeting Rioichi's time period, and the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus are starting to disappear, meaning that the ancestors that wrote the pages didn't write them because something or someone is messing with that ancestor's history."

"That's horrible." Carmelita stated, as both she and Sly knew the stories that were inside the family tome, as did Gilda, Derpy, and Diz while both Daniel and Elizabeth were only beginning to understand what stories were written on the pages on the ancient book, "Is there anything we can do to stop them?"

"Yes, there is." Bentley said, to which he pulled out a picture he had taken and set it on the table, where he revealed a circular device that could be set on something like Murray's van, which it had been originally intended for when he first designed it, "I'm one hundred percent sure that whoever is doing this has a time machine, how I'm not exactly sure since Penelope and I were the only ones that knew this machine had been invented and there's no way that Penelope would betray us, so the only way to counter this is to use my time machine and go back in time to stop whoever is messing with the history of the Cooper Clan. The only problem is that we need an artifact from the time period in question, meaning anything from Rioichi's time period since he's the only one we know is being targeted, and I'm not sure how long it'll take to get something to go back to that point in time."

"It's funny now the world works sometimes." Sly spoke up, to which he got up for a moment and headed into the study area that he and Carmelita had set up, where he returned a few moments later with a catalog of items that were in a nearby museum and put it down in front of Bentley, "We're surveying this museum as a favor to Interpol, since Secretary Sen is positive that the owner is shady and is lying about something, and we actually have our eyes set on a few artifacts to add to the Cooper Vault... and one of them just so happens to be a dagger that looks like it might just be from Rioichi's time period, based on the article and the inlay on the scabbard."

"Are we correct in assuming that you have a plan to get the dagger already?" Gilda asked, because if they knew their brother and his wife, or friend and his wife in the case of Bentley and Murray, they already had a plan of attack and had been getting ready to tell the gang about what they were doing.

"We do." Carmelita answered, though at the same time she picked up her phone, as there was someone they needed to call before they did anything, because there was no way she was going to let her kids get caught up in something that they weren't remotely prepared for, "I'm going to call my mother and see if she and my father will watch the kids for a few days while we sort out this mess... and I'm not going to argue with either of you about it. Neither of you are ready for this sort of adventure and you could get seriously hurt, or worse used as a hostage against your father and I."

"Ok mom." Elizabeth and Daniel said, though while their faces and tones said that they were disappointed that they wouldn't be allowed to come on this adventure with them, for a few seconds anyway, that was later replaced by them recalling all the fun they had at their grandparents' place and they were excited to get going a few moments later.

Bentley smiled as Carmelita made the call and Sly told him everything that they knew about the museum, as it was clear that neither of them had lost their skills over the last couple of years and he knew that they were right to leave the kids in this time period, because if someone was going after the Cooper Clan bringing the two youngest members of the clan to the past was a bad idea... but for now he had to go over their plan of attack so they could get the dagger and head back to Rioichi's time period to see what was going on, and stop whoever was messing with history.