After going over the plan that Sly and Carmelita had come up with, and making a few alterations to it to be sure that it was as good as it could possibly be, Bentley got to work on the team van for a few seconds to make sure that the time machine could work with it, especially since it was designed for that. He was actually impressed that the couple was able to make such a good plan on their own, without him there to correct a few of the errors that he had found, and was also impressed that Murray was able to keep the team van in such good condition, despite the fact that he was in the demolition derby before they called him back to the gang. The only thing he found odd was that the van was much larger than it was on the inside than it was on the outside, as he remembered Diz using his magic on the van when they were out and about during their mission to take out the Klaww Gang, but it actually seemed larger than he remembered, where Carmelita commented that it reminded her of that 'TARDIS' that Judy told her about, from a show that she watched occasionally. It took Bentley a few seconds to see that she was right, as he never considered that before, but at the very least there was enough room for all of them in the van's interior... though he was mainly focused on installing the time machine and making sure that the tests told him that everything was operational, as they should be.
When he finished the tests, however, both of Carmelita's parents arrived to pick up the kids, though they did stick around for a few moments to understand what was going on, because they were surprised by the sudden request and, upon hearing that the Cooper Clan's entire history was in jeopardy, they told both Sly and Carmelita to stop whoever was messing with history, because if they succeeded they might destroy the happiness that the two of them had created. Just as her parents were getting ready to leave Bentley also revealed something else to all of them, that they would be leaving the Thievius Raccoonus in this time period and that it would be in the hands of Carmelita's parents, along with a new communication device so they could see if there were any other changes once they stopped however was messing with Rioichi's time period.
A few hours later, when night fell at last, the gang headed out for the museum and moved into their positions, as this was going to be a quick operation and, if they were lucky, they'd be able to get out of here with the dagger, and any other incriminating evidence that was in there, before the alarm was raised. For the most part Sly and Carmelita would be approaching from the roofs, Murray and Diz would be taking care of the security system after Bentley and Clockwerk took care of what was in the sewers, leaving Gilda and Derpy to make sure that the van was ready for their getaway, where they'd use the time machine to head back to feudal Japan and see who was messing with Rioichi's history. To someone who didn't know the Cooper Gang this plan was simple at it's best, but in reality it was just as complex as the plans that they came up with back when they were facing the Klaww Gang or when they were recruiting more members for the mission to attack Dr. M's forces on Kaine Island. One thing that both Sly and Carmelita had to be mindful of, since they were taking the roofs, was the security choppers that were in the air, as they were really the only obstacles that they had to be worried about at the moment, though they also used some points and the Ninja Spire Jump to bypass a spotlight before using a rope to get out of the roof area that they had been in.
As they did that both Sly and Carmelita watched as Murray, and possibly an invisible Diz, laying flat on the roof of a truck that was delivering items to the part of the building that they needed to head to, so they could smash the security systems, before chuckling as they moved forward, as while they might have changed the plan it appeared that they were still following the overall plan.
The duo continued moving forward after seeing Murray and Diz, where they used the skills that they had learned from the ancient tome to bypass the security measures that were along the path that they were following, even though they had to carefully hide themselves for a moment when a chopper flew close to them, but fortunately it didn't see them and soon enough, when it was gone, they resumed moving. After a few seconds of bypassing the next spotlights they climbed up to the top of a structure and used their canes on the power wire that was above them, allowing them to ride down to the side of the museum, where they carefully jumped off it and grabbed onto the pipe that was in front of them as the wire snapped from the strain of two people using it in such a manner, but they were already on the other side when that happened and the guards in the area didn't seem to notice it at all. The downside was that the pipe also couldn't handle their weight, not like all the other pipes they used on all of their other missions, and it bent backwards until it was parallel with the area they had just come from, to which the two of them pulled themselves up and walked over to the side of the museum once more, where they dropped down so they could sneak around the edge of it to get to the area that Bentley said that they needed to be in... and at the same time they could have sworn that they heard Le Paradox, the owner of the museum, on the other side of the glass, but instead of sticking around they continued moving forward so they didn't get found out.
A few seconds later and they were on top of the museum, to which the two of them carefully made their way over the roof of the building and headed towards the skylight that was right above the dagger that they had come for, and when they found their target they noticed a guard standing in front of it with the key to the lock in his pocket... to which Sly and Carmelita smiled as Sly carefully picked the guard's pocket and swiped the key, before Carmelita knocked him out so they would be able to get the dagger once the others were done with their objectives.
Sly then opened the skylight, allowing them to see the lasers that were blocking the dagger, and waited for the signal that they were allowed to move once more, where he and Carmelita listened to a few bombs going off on Bentley's side of the binocucom, meaning that there were some obstructions that he and Clockwerk needed to tear their way through so they could reach the computer that was their target. Fortunately it sounded like they were able to reach their destination with ease, allowing them to hack into the computer that controlled the gates near where Murray and Diz were waiting, as well as giving them the ability to open the way for Gilda and Derpy to drive the van into position once the dagger had been grabbed, so they could all get out of here as they were picked up at designated locations. Once the hacking part of the operation was taken care of, and Bentley gave the go ahead, both Sly and Carmelita heard the sound of Murray, and a few instances of Diz, beating the stuffing out of the enemies that were in their way, or Diz pulling a prank on them so they wouldn't know that they were under attack by someone. Eventually the sound shifted to Murray hurling things at the junction boxes that were his main targets, while Diz held off the enemies that were trying to stop them from succeeding with their mission... and, once the two boxes were destroyed, Bentley confirmed that the security system was down, which was followed by the lasers turning off.
Sly chuckled for a moment, because the plan had succeeded better than he could have ever hoped for, before he helped Carmelita into the harness that would allow her to be lowered into the room with the dagger, though not a few moments later he pulled her back up and saw that she had the dagger, and had left their calling card behind. From there it was a simple matter to get off the museum's roof and land near where the van was located, especially since Bentley and Clockwerk had sabotaged the alarms and communication system that had been put in place, meaning it would take some time before Le Paradox's men, who clearly had been ill-prepared for such an assault, even realized what was going on. There was also the fact that their foes weren't going to find the van, not with Diz's invisibility powers being used on it and allowing them to disappear from sight, giving them the chance to slip away before any alarms were raised and let Murray, who was in the drivers seat again, get to the area that Bentley wanted to use the time machine in, even though the short drive gave him time to make sure that the dagger was from the correct time period, once Carmelita put it in the receptacle that he had set up.
Once they reached their destination Bentley told Murray to punch it and the gang held on as the time machine aspect of the van awakened thanks to Murray's driving and Bentley's machine, before they slipped through reality and entered an interesting blue colored tunnel... but none of them got comfortable, as the moment they reached the other end they were going to have to hide themselves and figure out what happened to Rioichi, who was attacking his time period, and what they needed to do to set things right.
Upon arriving in the era of Rioichi Cooper the gang discovered that the peaceful village the ancestor had written about now seemed to be a heavily patrolled military base, with guards in samurai armor that happened to be wielding some deadly looking crossbows and other weapons. According to the history written in the Thievius Raccoonus, which the majority of the group knew by heart at this point, Rioichi was not only a Master Thief, but he was also a Master Chef, as he apparently invented sushi and that allowed him to establish a sushi restaurant in the village, which was currently closed and protected by several guards. What Bentley discovered was that Rioichi was currently locked up in a new high level jail, allegedly for serving bad sushi to the Shogun, and that their first course of action, after locating a good spot for their safe house for this venture, was to figure out how they were going to get into the jail and release Rioichi from where the guards had put him, and then they would help restore his history to what it should be by defeating whoever was currently messing with the flow of time.
After taking a moment to get used to their new safe house, which might have been one of Rioichi's old hideouts before he opened the sushi restaurant, Sly and Carmelita were the first ones to leave the safe house, as before they did anything else Bentley needed some recon pictures of the area, the guards, and the restaurant before they really formed a plan of attack. At the same time Clockwerk informed them that he could do something without alerting their enemies of his presence, as he flew off into the distance and used the cover to transform back into his true menacing form, where he returned to the village and landed near the prison, so he would look out at the area and see if he found anything that might put a wrench in their plans. The ancient owl informed them that since there was a version of him hunting all the ancestors, and the one for this period was chasing a lead somewhere else and wouldn't be back for some time, he was able to take it's place and make it look like nothing was out of the ordinary.
Fortunately it didn't take them long to find a lone boar guard that they could take a picture of, without any of the other guards noticing them, and with that one in hand they left the area that the guard was in and continued walking around the village, getting the lay of the land for the others when it was time for them to head out and complete the missions that Bentley assigned them. From there they snapped a picture of the prison itself, or at least of the entrance since they couldn't see anything else, and then continued towards the odd gates, with dragon statues outside it, that they also snapped a picture of, where both Sly and Carmelita wondered what was on the other side. After that they used the ropes and the roofs to get over to where Rioichi's suchi restaurant was located and made sure to get a good picture of the building, though they were both upset that someone was messing with Rioichi's history, as this should be open for Rioichi's regular business and not closed because of a lie, but they'd fix this in due time. When the picture of the suchi restaurant was taken Clockwerk informed them that there was a commotion near the Geisha House, to which the two of them headed out and crossed over the distance between them and the area that the building was located in, where Sly snapped a picture of it as well, just to complete the collection of important areas that Bentley needed to know about.
That was, however, followed by a tiger wearing a black gi that was decorated with golden insignias, along with a pair of swords that were on his back, would scream to the locals that he was a powerful individual in the area and that he had the power to back his claims... but Carmelita, on the other hand, recognized him and the Cuban cigar that he happened to be smoking at the moment, as Judy was hunting for El Jefe, who was a mercenary general from their time period that was responsible for overthrowing several small countries. Unfortunately this confirmed Bentley's fears, that there was someone else that had created a time machine around the same time that he and Penelope did, and that they were using it to damage the history of the Cooper Clan, but both Sly and Carmelita headed back to the safe house to see what sort of plan Bentley came up with to fix this mess.
The plan that Bentley eventually came up with was that the only way to get Rioichi out of the prison was that they needed to collect some armor pieces to outfit at least Sly in a set of armor that matched what the boars were currently wearing at the moment. The first guard that had a spare piece of armor was near the sushi restaurant, allowing Sly to pull out a spare helmet and wander off without being caught, while at the same time Carmelita headed towards the Geisha building and found the second guard behind it, where she swiped the chest portion and wandered off before the strange guard woke up from his slumber. From there Sly found the third guard, who wasn't facing the village and seemed to ignore what was going on around him, allowing him to take the leggings portion of the armor before they returned to the safe house, where they dropped the armor off and let Diz work his magic, as one part of his chaotic powers seemed to include the ability to manipulate things and even shrink whatever he wanted. While he did that, and they waited for the task to be completed, Carmelita wandered around for a moment before Clockwerk, in his miniature form, swooped down and dropped a matching shield for the set they had gathered, to which a slight smile appeared on his mechanical face as he flew off and assumed his task of surveying the area for anything else they might be able to use.
Once the manipulation was complete, and the gang was surprised by how form fitting the armor was now, where Diz told them that he had a lot of practice since he had to modify a good number of his own clothing because of the fact that he had a new tail, which he had since grown used to having in place of his old tail, but in the end Sly headed out with the armor and, just in case things happened, Diz took to the shadows and followed after his brother with his invisibility power, but that didn't stop him from stealing the treasures that were in the pockets of the guards around them.
"You there! Open the door!" Sly commanded, pointing at the boar guard that was standing in front of the prison, as he had managed to get really close to the prison without the guards discovering him and Diz made sure he got up here without needing to take off the armor.
"Hmmph! A little short to be a commander, aren't you?" the boar guard replied, his tone indicating that he didn't believe what was going on at the moment and glared at Sly, who was doing his best to act like all the commanders that he had read about in Rioichi's section of the Thievius Raccoonus, "Who are you?'
"Why, I am.... Major Muggshot!" Sly answered, though at the same time he put the pause in his statement to create some tension and suspense, and since he was sure that their enemy was only focused on his family's past there was no way that they would even realize that something was happening when they heard about this.
"Hmmph! Muggshot?! I've never heard of you!" the boar guard stated, to which he lifted his crossbow and pointed it right at Sly, his actions indicating that he was growing tired of someone pretending to be a guard, even though Sly still had one more card to play before the jig was up.
"You dare question me?!" Sly barked out, taking the persona of a military commander, or at least the best he could do since he had never tried something like this before, and he could see that the sudden change in his attitude caught the boar guard off guard, as he lowered the crossbow as he approached him, "Son, I've been a guard since you were just a squealing piglet!! Wait until I tell the General about this! I hear he LOVES porkchops..."
"Wait! I'm very sorry, sir! I didn't recognize you!" the boar guard quickly said, where he stepped to the side and waved a hand towards the prison entrance that he had been guarding, while at the same time Sly noticed the sweat that was rolling down the sides of his face, "Please go right in!"
Sly, with Diz following his footsteps, marched into the prison and let the door close behind him, though at the same time he decided to keep the armor on for now, despite the fact that Diz was using small bursts of his power to knock out some of the guards that were in their way as he reached the end of the line... which was where they looked up and found a cage that was hanging in the middle of a large open area, making it impossible for any normal thief to get up to where Rioichi was imprisoned.
"Hey! Rioichi Cooper!" Sly called out, because since the guards were knocked out by Diz's power, as in asleep and wouldn't be up for some time, he was able to raise his voice while Diz sought out a way to get to where the Cooper Ancestor was located, "Are you okay?"
"You guards all seem to make very poor jokes!" Rioichi replied, though while his voice was rough and gravelly both Sly and Diz were able to see that the ancestor was a brown furred raccoon that was dressed up in a blue ninja outfit, but he did glace over in Sly's direction at the same time.
"C'mon! I'm not one of those bozos!" Sly stated, though he didn't fault Rioichi for thinking that, because he was still wearing the armor that Diz had worked on, to which he quickly removed it and showed Rioichi his true self, "I'm here to bust you out! The name's Sly...."
"Ah, I see. A fellow ninja! Very good!" Rioichi said, as it seemed that his mood had improved the moment he noticed what Sly was, to him anyway, before he grew serious once more as he continued talking, "You will need to make your way to the Dragon Bridge..."
"Actually, no we won't." Diz interrupted, to which Sly watched as his brother appeared once more and waved his hand, where a number of the metallic doors removed themselves from where they had been bolted down, without even damaging any of it, and built a walkway that connected where Sly was to Rioichi's cage.
"Another fellow ninja... who has the powers of a mystic." Rioichi noted, as for a moment he might have sounded a little surprised, or maybe he was curious as to what was going on, but once the walkway was complete Sly headed up to the cage and freed him, allowing him to leave the cage he had been confined in, "You have some explaining to do..."
Sly chuckled for a moment, because Rioichi was asking for a story that might actually be more than he was expecting, but at the same time he promised his ancestor that they'd tell him what was going on when they were back at the safe house, to which Diz hid himself once more, and did the same to Rioichi, as he donned his armor, before the three of them marched out of the prison. Sly knew that Bentley was already thinking of what they needed to do to restore everything to what it should be in this time period, and make it so Rioichi could write his portion of the Thievius Raccoonus, and he was interested in what sort of plan he had... as well as eventually bringing down whoever was trying to mess with this time period and his family's history, before they figured out who was behind this entire mess.