1.1

It was funny, but waking up in modern day Paris had not been something that Sly Cooper had expected, since he had last gone to sleep in Ancient Egypt. In fact, it wasn't just modern day Paris either. It was the gang's old Paris Hideout, 3 days before the Police HQ job was set to be pulled.

He wasn't quite sure if this was a dream or not. Then again, how could he be sure that Egypt wasn't the dream and this wasn't the real world?

A knock on his door quickly derailed his train of thought. It was Bentley.

"Sly, are you up yet? Come on, we've got surveillance to do."

"Yeah, just give me a minute." Sly answered, getting up and throwing on his jersey. This just had to be some kind of dream. Any minute now he'd wake up in Egypt, probably with sand in his shoes.

"I'm coming in Sly, I can give you a run-down of what we need while you get ready." Bentley said, opening the door and walking in.

Wait… walking in?

Rubbing his eyes, Sly got a clearer look at Bentley. No wheelchair. He was actually walking.

Losing his balance and falling to the floor, the impact must've gotten Sly's cane to fall over and konk him right on the head. He shook his head. Still the Paris Hideout.

That cleared it up at least. This wasn't a dream. This was real.

Trying to make some sense of that dream, he went through the whole Fiendish Five ordeal again, with a couple of changes during the assault on Clockwerk's volcano base to make things easier. Some pre-emptive hacking from Bentley allowed Sly to rescue Carmelita without the gas trap triggering, and a quick bit of foresight (or was it hindsight?) allowed Sly to avoid losing his cane soon after. On the way up he'd also managed to avoid breaking too much of the structure, with Carmelita on the Binocu-Com and waiting in the same position as the first go around.

"Look Ringtail," Carmelita said as she waited at the little outcropping that overlooked the power source for Clockwerk's Death Ray, "Why am I waiting here again?"
"You got here by jetpack, right Inspector Fox?" Sly replied, waiting for the answer he knew was coming.
"Yeah, I did. I never mentioned that, so how did you know?"
"Call it thief's intuition. We had to work to be able to get in from the ground, despite Bentley working out that an aerial approach was easier. It's at the top of that Death Ray, right?" He explained.
"…Yeah, they captured me and stuffed me in that gas trap as I landed, it should still be there. Why do you ask?"
"Because it's going to take the both of us to bring down Clockwerk. You from the ground, me from the air."
"What? What makes you think that'll work?" Carmelita asked, stunned. Where had Sly gotten his intel?
"Perhaps I can explain, Carmelita. Sly's been better than usual recently. He knew where each of the other Fiendish Five members before reading that file we took from Police HQ, and he was the one planning each attack on them. Kind of made me feel a little left out."
"Sorry Bentley, I guess you could call it Déjà vu, but I feel like I've done all this before. It's like I remember being in a volcano, scrambling to get to the top of that thing while it started to sink." Sly explained, "Basically I figured all that stuff I passed by just now was what was keeping the Death Ray in place. Once I grab the Jetpack, Carmelita can start destroying the equipment with her pistol and then it's 'Bye Bye Death Ray'."
"Well whatever's the cause, it's really helped us out. Half of the stuff that we'd been dealing with could've been the end for us." Bentley replied, "Still, I don't think it's going to help when we need to fight Clockwerk proper."
"I'm inclined to agree with Bentley, Sly." Carmelita added, "I mean, couldn't all this be some kind of trick?"
"Tell you what, if my plan works, we'll sit down and try to work this out afterwards. I'm making the run for the Jetpack." Sly answered, disconnecting from the call.

The plan had gone smoothly, for the most part. One of the advantages of trying to climb the Death Ray as it was sinking was that it wasn't in the way during the battle with Clockwerk. Half the time he was having to manoeuvre around the darn thing as it sunk, all while dodging energy blasts from a giant mechanical owl.

One stray shot caught a part of the Death Ray, sending a part falling onto Sly, knocking him out of the sky and into the lava below.

It was then that the strangest thing happened.

He woke up again, back at the Paris Hideout.

"OK, that was no dream. I died. How'd I get back here?"

1.2

"Alright, so whatever's going on, I'm stuck in some sort of time loop." Sly said to himself as he explored the back alleys of Mesa City, Utah. Like last time, he had wound up back at the Cooper Gang's Paris Hideout, just prior to going after the Fiendish Five and reclaiming the Thievious Raccoonus.

He'd already beaten Raleigh and gotten the pages that were in his base, but something must've scared Muggshot because there looked to be more guards around Mesa City.

Nothing too difficult mind you, four major adventures and one repeat of his first one had done much to sharpen his skills. With a grin, he spotted the area's vault and went to unlock it. One more section of the family heirloom taken back.

Back here again. The Krack-Karov Volcano and Clockwerk's fortress. If memory served, letting the structure for Clockwerk's Death Ray sink into the lava before climbing it had made getting to the top a pain in the neck. Getting it to start sinking after getting to the top meant a stray shot ultimately gave him a lava-bath and a restart. Maybe taking a slightly different approach this time would prove useful.

"Hey Carmelita you know that stuff that I passed by to get to this point?" He asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah, what about it?" Carmelita replied, a little confused.
"What're you getting at Sly?" Bentley asked, before a flash of realization struck. "Wait, you think that equipment might be-"
"Connected to that Death Ray of his, I wouldn't be surprised. Something that big has got to take up a lot of power, right?" Sly replied, grinning.
"Well yeah, it would. The design of the thing means that it's probably part of a larger whole too. OH! I gotcha! Carmelita, that equipment that Sly passed by may be the power supply for the Death Ray! If you take that out, it shouldn't be able to fire, and whatever's keeping it standing might just give out too."
"Seriously? You want me to destroy it then?" Carmelita replied.
"Yeah, sounds like that'd do the trick. Just give me a couple of minutes to start climbing, and then start firing. Something tells me that messing with this is going to get that owl's attention." Sly explained.
"Wait, why do you want to climb it?!" Murray asked, entering the conversation.
"I'll get to that. Carmelita, we had to rig something up to get in from the ground, and Bentley said that there was only one route to get in that way. How'd you get here?" Sly asked.
"I got into the fortress using a Jetpack. I ended up on top… of the Death Ray. Cooper, did you know that my Jetpack was there?" She asked, shocked.
"I'm looking at the structure now and I think I can see it. Two red tanks and a couple of attached guns, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. You must be able to see it then. You're planning to fight Clockwerk in the air, aren't you?" She asked. There were a lot of questions being raised.
"Yeah, and given the power on your Shock Pistol, I think using the jetpack's guns and your pistol may be the key to bringing him down. I just need to get to that jetpack first." Sly explained. It did feel a bit better to be letting them work it out. Couple of nudges in the right direction were all that was needed.
"Got it. Let me know when I should open fire Ringtail." Carmelita replied, "and be careful."
"I will be. Right then everyone, I'm starting the run for the jetpack." Sly said, getting ready to run.
"Go for it Sly!" shouted Murray.
"We're counting on you!" Bentley added.
"Thanks guys. Stay safe, all of you. I'm going!" Sly said as he cut the Binocu-Com connection.

Turned out that waiting until he was partway up was the perfect alternative to his previous attempts. He wasn't stuck a few feet above molten lava and during the battle with Clockwerk, nothing had really gotten in the way, meaning that the battle was a rousing success.

All that was left to do was to knock Clockwerk's block off directly to disable the Auto-Repair and thing's would be golden.

"Cooper! You will never be rid of me! Clockwerk is superior!" The owl declared as the last strike from Sly's cane finally dislodged the head, disabling the Auto-Repair circuitry. Clockwerk was done.

"You may be superior, and you may be eternal, but there's one last thing that you are too. You're a pile of scrap metal."

A couple of years had passed since then and no looping had occurred. Sly wasn't too sure if it was just a one-time thing, or if something had to happen to trigger it. He brushed it aside though when Clockwerk's body had been recovered and put in a museum, as expected. Like before, it was the Klaww Gang that had taken them, and just like last time, the final battle was against Neyla who had merged with the Clockwerk body parts to become Clock-La.

There was one major difference though that had made for a happier ending to the adventure though.

"WE DID IT! WE GOT THE HATE CHIP!" Bentley cheered, before Sly quickly pulled him out from Clock-La's beak, just as it slammed down. The first go around, Sly wasn't so close to them and as a result, the beak had slammed shut on Bentley's legs, crippling him from then on.

This time though? Well, Sly had stuck close to them and managed to pull Bentley out of there in time, preventing his legs from getting crushed.

"Careful there Bentley. You were almost snapped up there, buddy." Sly said, relieved. Hopefully this meant that things would go a little smoother from then on.

With Bentley having avoided injury, Murray never left the gang and that made some things go smoother when it came to setting up for the Cooper Vault heist. There were a few things that required them to go back to Italy though.

After all, it was during the job to convince Murray to come back that Sly had run into his former foe Dimitri. If Sly hadn't let Dimitri go when he did, he'd have no way of getting to Blood Bath Bay where he had joined the gang.

Cue running into Dimitri again during the ACES tournament in Holland, and owing him a favour as thanks for his help. That favour got called in at about the same time as it had before, Blood Bath Bay and recovering the diving gear that had been stolen from Dimitri's grandfather. Once that had been resolved, things had progressed more or less as they had done before. Faked amnesia thanks to the Dr M showdown, LeParadox, and Time Travel.

It had gone a little too closely to the original path though for Sly's liking, and once again he was stuck in ancient Egypt. At least he had given Carmelita a clue, now he just needed something specific to send them.

1.3

Well, this was certainly a change of pace.

It turned out that not all of these Loops (Sly had probably gone through a little more than 40 or so by now if his count was right) had the same circumstances.

"So Boss, how're we going to go about this? We need to lure Rajan out of hiding." Said the cigar smoking tiger that was now apparently the muscle of the gang.
"Jeff, we've got the blueprints to his spice operation. It needs a lot of water to keep the system running efficiently," was the response from the Dutch mouse that was now their tech specialist. "If we can open the floodgates as it were…"
"Then Rajan's operation goes under." Sly finished.

Apparently in this version of events, Bentley and Murray at the orphanage had been replaced by a young El Jefe (now Jeff) and Penelope. He didn't know it yet, but one Green Baron would eventually join his ranks, and a warmongering Hippo would be the first major enemy he faced on his trip through time.

1.4 (Thanks to Valentine Meikin)

Sly picked up part of Slytunkhamen's treasure, satisfied that it would be from the right era, before he put it in his pocket. "That'll work..." He muttered, careful to not let the rest of the gang hear him.

Several weeks later, shortly after Sly's apparent demise, Bentley frowned as he noticed a ancient egyptian ankh sat on a piece of paper. "Dear Bentley, I need you to do something, Sly...?" He read, reading the piece of paper.
A short time later, Carmelita was looking very annoyed as she was dumped in Ancient Egypt, Sly's gang having left, tossing the ankh they'd used at her feet, as soon as they dropped her off. As she was about to yell at where they were, she was tapped on the shoulder by a familiar cane.
"Ringtail?!" She exclaimed, for him to nod, "Care to explain?"

When he found himself back at the beginning of this time loop, he had a grin that just wouldn't go away on his face. Yes, he'd strand them both in Ancient Egypt a few more times if he could. Well, He'd spent long enough in that era to know that, as far as anyone knew, Slytunkhamen appeared out of nowhere...

1.5 (Thanks to Valentine Meikin)

Sly frowned. Something was going on. He'd woke up, as usual, with the break-in at Police HQ, to find, first, that the safe code had been changed. It was now 3150, and someone had etched 'BC' into the right-hand side of the lock. "Bentley, Cross-reference 3150 BC with, well, anything," Sly asked.
"3150 BC was considered the year that what we consider as Ancient Egypt first came to be..." Bentley exclaimed, "I didn't know Carmelita was into ancient history..."
"Me either..." Sly muttered. Especially not ancient history that he got stranded in whatever he did.

Carmelita contemplated not shooting Sly for breaking into her office. She knew why he was doing it, she had read the book once or twice herself, but it was still breaking and entering. Now she just needed to work out why she was repeating this particular break-in again and again...

1.6

"So, I'm the inspector now?" Sly asked himself, a little surprised. Unlike last time, he hadn't woken up at the Paris HQ, in fact he'd just come to on the rooftop where Carmelita usually appeared on the night of the heist. Looking himself over he had a Cooper Cane in the form of a nightstick and some weird looking handcuff-pistol thing that was locked onto his wrist.

"Huh. I guess this is my answer to Inspector Fox's shock pistol."

Then the memories came in. He still couldn't work out why that happened, but apparently in this version of events he came from a long line of law enforcers, and his primary foe was Carmelita Fox, master thief, and the latest in a family line of lawbreakers.

"If only she could see me now. She'd probably bust a gut laughing."

Sure enough, Carmelita tried to grab the Fiendish Five file (funnily enough, she had an answer to Sly's cane, albeit the crook was a stylised F instead of a C). Sly figured that he may as well play along.

"Where do you think you're going, Miss Fox?" He asked, readying his handcuff launcher.

"Sorry Inspector, but I need this file for the score of the century. I hope you don't mind me borrowing it." Carmelita replied with a grin.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but you know I'm going to have to try and stop you," Sly answered, "and this handcuff launcher'll do just that."

"That looks pretty cool, but I'm not that big into jewellery. Well, wearing it at least." She replied, "Anyway, I'll be taking my leave, so see you around, Cooper!" She added, bolting for her escape route.

It had been an interesting experience, being the one behind the badge, he had to admit. Being the one to actually lock up the Fiendish Five was something that Sly enjoyed immensely, but when it came to the Klaww Gang incident, he knew what was coming. When Neyla had gotten him arrested, he had been put into the same predicament as Carmelita had been in. Of course, she had come through and rescued him from the Contessa, just as he had done for her so many times before.

Then the stuff with Clock-La came around again. No matter which side of the badge he was on, it still pained him to see Bentley crippled. Carmelita agreed to turn herself in quietly on the grounds that Bentley and Murray would be allowed to walk, and he had no real intent to argue with that.

On the chopper...

"I see why you do this, Cooper, it's actually pretty fun." Carmelita said with a grin, "So tell me, how long have you been repeating things?"

"What?! You know about that?!" Sly asked, stunned.

"Remember when we saved you from the Contessa? You were a little out of it. I believe your first words were 'How can Inspector Fox get right back to work after going through that?'" She explained, "That's when I realised that this was happening to you too. To be honest I thought you'd have worked it out after that Egypt code on my safe, or at least realised that something was up."

"It caught me out, but that was a long time ago for me. I've been doing this for a long time."

"Right, well, at least neither of us is going through this alone anymore, takes some of the repetitiveness out of it." She replied.

"It does, a bit. But let me get this straight. Someone like you, with such a black and white view of justice, actually enjoys being a criminal?" Sly asked, intrigued.

"Well after however many reruns of events from the same role, it gets boring you know? I figured that if I was the thief, may as well have fun with it and break the boredom a little." Carmelita replied.

"Well then, who am I to keep you here? You know what happens here, so shall we continue this game of cat and mouse another day?"

"It'll be my pleasure." She answered, revealing that she had gotten out of her handcuffs and grabbing her cane. "I'll see you next time, Ringtail." She added, making her escape.

"Bring it on, Ms. Fox." Sly replied with a grin. "I'll catch you one of these days."

This was going to be fun.

1.7 (Valentine Meikin)

For Carmelita, this was an odd situation. She had got herself stranded in ancient Egypt, instead of Sly, because it had been one of the loops where she had been the criminal instead of him. She was surprised, then, to see Sly walk over to her with a pair of drinks, wearing nothing but a pair of trunks.
"Ringtail?" Carmelita asked, "How did you?"
"This happens the same way every time, whoever is the enemy..." Sly offered, "I actually came here for a different reason..."
He then got down on one knee, getting out a ring box, and opening it.
"Carmelita Montoya Fox, Will you be my wife?" He asked, "Not just for this loop, not just for now, but..."

When Sly approached Carmelita's office the following loop, he was surprised to notice, as well as the safe reading 3150, the door for her office read 'Carmelita M. Cooper', a certain ring catching the light caused by the searchlights and that she had the nightstick 'cane' that he had when he was in her place.
Oddly, he somehow avoided Egypt that time round, helped by the fact that, instead of him going straight due to 'amnesia', Carmelita quit the force due to issues with corruption in the force stemming from his second caper, and was able to plan a way to defeat Paradox without Sly being at Ground Zero.
It felt so right, Sly and Carmelita Cooper, co-leaders of the Cooper Gang...

1.8

What.

Waking up at the start of a Loop more often than not landed Sly in one of two roles, either a thief or an Interpol agent.

This one wasn't the Interpol one, but the part that was a bigger surprise was that he wasn't even a raccoon this time. Ever since he and Carmelita had discovered that they were both experiencing these Loops, they had been sure to keep track of a lot of things, namely the fact that while for Carmelita, Loops were one after the other, like clockwork (not the owl), for Sly, those same Loops that Carmelita was aware of could have any number of other Loops between them where she wasn't aware of the previous takes. When they discovered that, Sly made sure to keep a count of how many Loops he went through before the next one for Carmelita, that way they'd be able to pick up wherever they'd left off. The memory thing was handy as well. According to the ones he'd gotten this time, he was a drifter, just arriving into a place called Empire City. He'd almost tripped because he came to mid-stride. Looking into a shop window, he got a better look at himself.

For the most part, his normal look had stuck with him. The same hat, jacket, boots and backpack, and his usually bare legs were now clad in a pair of jeans that were the same grey as his fur was back home. No cane though, that was a little disheartening.
"Huh, so this is what a human looks like. Weird." Sly muttered to himself as he examined himself.
"Sounds like you've never been human before," said a voice from behind him "Lemme guess; does the word Loop have any special meanin' to ya?"

Turning around, Sly got a look at the person talking to him. He had black hair, a yellow shirt under a black jacket, light grey jeans and black sneakers, finished off by a pair of black lens, gold rimmed sunglasses.

"The name's Zeke, Zeke Dunbar." Zeke added, offering a handshake.
"Sly Cooper." Sly replied, taking him up on the offer. "It does have a bit of significance, yeah. Never seen anything like this though."
"Sounds like you and me got somethin' in common, Sly." Zeke said, "So, Anchor or Looper?"
"You lost me."
"Do you catch on to all the Loops, or just a few of 'em?" Zeke clarified.
"Ah, right. I know about all of them. Carmelita's the second one." Sly answered.
"Nice, so that means you're an Anchor like me, and yer friend's just a standard Looper. First thing's first though. Welcome to the Multiverse, Sly. Looks like I'm the one who's got the job of explainin' all this to ya. I don't get that all too often, gotta say." Zeke said with a slight pout. "I'm none too good at this part. You'd have probably been better off bumpin' into one of the original seven, or maybe Twilight or Hiccup, those nine are much better at it. They got presentations ready to go for this sort of thing. Come on, we've got a week before the big event here in Empire City, so I'll give ya the rundown on what's happening, and a heads up on what sort of things you and yer friend can do now that you're both Looping."

1.8 Extended (DrTempo)

Carmelita Fox-Cooper was confused.

First, she and her husband were in a time loop. Now, they were in a place where everyone looked like hairless apes. Apparently, she was part of the Empire City police force here.

While her husband explored wherever they were, Carmelita went to her work. And now, she had encountered an odd rabbit-like thing, who wanted to make a 'contract' with her, and grant a wish. Carmelita wasn't stupid, but this was odd even by her standards.

And then a girl with red and yellow streaked hair appeared out of nowhere. "Got you, Kyubey!" The rabbit-thing tried to speak, but the girl summoned an odd-looking sword, and tried to slice the thing in half, only getting its ears. The girl growled. "Get back here, you menace to Loopers..."

Before the girl could give chase, Carmelita removed her gun, and tried to fire. The girl turned around, grabbed the gun, and slammed Carmelita to the floor, saying, "No time for this."

After looking around, the girl cursed. "Dumb thing got away. For NOW." Carmelita went for her gun, but the girl made a gesture with her hand, and the gun just flew to her. The girl then relaxed, and said, "I suppose you want answers." Carmelita nodded. The girl said, "First things first. What's your name?"
"Inspector Carmelita Cooper." The girl looked at Carmelita, and snapped her fingers. "Related to a Sly Cooper?" Carmelita said, "He's my husband."

Cue a shocked expression on the girl's face, and her saying, "Looks like I owe Cadence a few bits on Looping couples."
Carmelita raised an eyebrow, and the girl chuckled. "Oops. My name's Sunset Shimmer. Have you been experiencing time looping again and again?" Carmelita nodded. Sunset then said, "Well, here's what's going on, odd though it may be..."

After Sunset gave the explaination, Carmelita thought over what she had just heard. Crazy though it was, it made sense with what she'd experienced. Sunset had also explained why she attacked what she called 'Kyubey.' Carmelita made up her mind, and said, "Let's go find this Kyubey. If what you've said about it is true, then it needs to be brought to justice. I'll call my husband. Let's catch us a monster."
Sunset chuckled. "The game is afoot."

So then, Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the first compilation of the Sly Cooper branch of The Infinite Loops, where characters from all over the Multiverse are stuck repeating their lives again and again. Here are the basic details.

One person in a Loop, often the main character, is an Anchor. They are the person who first starts time looping. In this branch, that's Sly.

There is always at least one Anchor present in any given Time Loop snippet, but it may not be the local one.

The standard pattern for a Loop is that the Anchor, along with anyone else that is Looping there, become aware of the Loop at a particular point in the story. From there, events play out as influenced by the Loopers present, acting with the added benefit of their foreknowledge, until either a preset end point is reached or all the Loopers have been offed. Becoming aware of the Loops is called being Awake, with a capital A.

In each Loop, the only one that's guaranteed to be Awake is the Anchor. For regular Loopers, they may not always be Awake in a given Loop. To regular Loopers, the Loops where they're Awake are perceived as being one after the other. For example, if Sly experiences 10 Loops, and Carmelita experiences Loops 2 and 8, she'll feel as if she's left Loop 2 and directly gone to Loop 8, while Sly experiences all of the ones inbetween. Since I'm still new to the idea of Loopers being married (there's only one other well-known Looping couple in Spike/Rarity over in the MLP branch), I'm still not entirely sure how that affects things.

Loops shown may not be in chronological order, but it is strongly preferred that they don't contradict one another (It's preferred that if A happens before B, then B cannot happen before A)

Just about every Looper goes very, very stir crazy, and as such, hilarity typically ensues when they have fun.

1.1: It begins...

1.2: At least he's learning.

1.3: Penelope taking Bentley's place was easy. I was torn between Jean Bison, El Jefe and Panda King for whoever took Murray's spot. May have to do another couple of Loops covering those options.

1.4: Time for a little bit of fun futzing with established canon.

1.5: Carmelita joins the fray.

1.7: The first response to this one was 'They have no clue what a monumental occasion they just sprung...and no other Looper will realize it unless they look at the Hub source material.'

1.8: There was a bit of a discussion on this one, but I'd say these two snippets came out alright.