A/N: I have no excuses for myself and my tardiness.

London Operation

Operation: Sewer Rat

Sly was careful in his movements, ascending up the drainpipe with ease. He hauled himself over the concrete banister as a few loose pieces of rock fell a couple dozen feet to shatter on the pavement below. The master thief froze for a minute and listened around, but heard nothing but the sounds of the London nightlife. With a flick of his ringed tail, he was off in a streak of blue and grey. In the middle of the area was a skylight, the panels propped up like a little pup tent. Those things were easily removed. Raking his cane along the edges, Sly was able to carefully and quietly remove one of the glass panes. Again, he held still and listened, but nobody appeared to have heard or noticed. Setting the transparent object to the side, he slipped in like a panther, grabbing hold of a nearby rope and sliding down it cautiously.

He dismounted, landing gracefully onto a suspended platform. Sneaking up behind a man on the other end, Sly was able to quietly subdue him. The man, however, was working the large spotlights hanging off the platform. Sly cursed his luck and reached down to move them, in order to stay hidden. Someone was bound to notice if the lights suddenly stopped moving. This, he soon came to realize, wasn't such a bad thing. He had a clear view of everything below, and right below him was the esteemed actress he sought to take out.

The master thief decided to play stage crew for a while. It wasn't like there was anything else to do for the time being. He moved the lights, watching the movements of the bird below him. Elizabeth really was graceful and a natural for the stage. It was a shame that she had to go. Sly couldn't help but wonder why she even bothered getting involved with a criminal ring anyways. He noted the way she moved and spoke as if she were a different person. Maybe she was. It was difficult to recognize her, dressed in a medieval gown that seemed to be tailored just for her.

Sly decided that Arpeggio had good taste when it came to the fine arts.

Elsewhere, in an alley not too far away, the cover of a manhole was lifted, placed onto the ground, and dragged back into place.

"How repulsive." The turtle moaned as he wheeled along. "Disgusting. Horrible. Sickening…"

The list was endless, needless to say, and his companion, Murray, decided to think about other things, like breaking, destroying, wrecking…

Well, at least Murray knew what those words meant. He didn't understand half of the worlds tumbling from Bentley's ever-complaining mouth, but he guessed that they were all synonyms. Or homonyms. Whatever the word was. And this sewer wasn't so bad. Much nicer than the ones in Holland that he had to row through. At least there weren't explosives in the water.

So instead, they were going to add them. As they continued down the path that Penelope had marked down for them, Bentley would stop at regular intervals and hurl an explosive into the sewer water and the two of them would just stand there for a moment and watch the silvery device sink quietly to the bottom and gaze at the blinking red light for an additional minute in some sort of sense of mutual silent connection, or perhaps extreme boredom.

It turns out the latter was the real reason, and upon reaching their destination, (they had an hour to kill) Bentley had taken to amusing himself by fiddling with his latest invention, some kind of doohickey that everybody was certain would do something really cool and innovative and useful once it was finished. After all, he had been working on it for every waking moment of free time he had during the past few weeks.

Actually, it was just his equivalent of a stress ball. Who knew that tinkering with machinery could be therapeutic?

Murray plopped himself down next to Bentley, and quickly learned that in the future, should also bring something to do on long jobs like this. Normally, he would've just tried to start a conversation with Bentley, but although they were second-best-friends, they were vastly different. The hippo decided to relive memories of epic fights past as he punched at the air, mimicking the movements as he immersed himself.

Beside him, Bentley scooted over slightly when he felt the air from Murray's powerful fist sweep past his glasses.

Above ground, Penelope and Lucas pressed themselves against the building wall as a hulking brute with a flashlight came trudging by, muttering about how incredibly routine his life was, and then wondering whether he should stop for tea or fish and chips on the way home once his shift ended.

Penelope envied him. Like her friends and teammates, she wished her life could go back to routine, well, as routine as a ragtag gang of larcenous criminals always on the run could be. But no, now they were a ragtag gang of larcenous, homicidal criminals now fleeing for not only their freedom, but their dignity as well. She felt like crying again, but she promised herself she would be stronger, tougher, and less cowardly.

Once mister woe-is-me had turned the corner, the two of them made a break for it, dashing down the stone road towards the huge mansion. Once there, the bat hoisted Penelope over the protective wall and landed in the safety of a tree in the courtyard on the other side. They looked around for a little bit and descended. Penelope picked some leaves out of her long, blonde hair and they scurried again towards a nearby door. There was a keypad on the door, and normally, she would have worked out the security codes to get inside, but instead, she spent her time wondering if she should braid her hair in the future to keep it from getting in the way. Unless there was a change in the system, (very unlikely, for it would take days to get everything coordinated and distribute all the codes to the guards) Lucas knew how to get in. As the door unlocked for them, Penelope decided to keep her hair the way it was.

Inside, they found themselves in a familiar place, the room where they had first met. Revenge might have been their top priority, but the Cooper Gang still won't let money just sit there unattended. After all, what if somebody came along and stole it? That wouldn't be right, now would it?

Like always, time was of the essence, and the two of them set to work loading as many sacks onto the pushcart in the center of the room. If they worked fast enough, they should be able to clear it out within an hour.

Sly idly pushed the lights around. He had been playing crewman for a while and now he was half asleep; however, he managed to snap himself awake in time. He would credit that ability of knowing exactly when to react to his Cooper lineage. But then again, lots of things were somehow related to his family. His acrobatic skill, his quick thinking, and the delicious toast he had that morning to eat. Yes, he had somehow managed to convince himself that the toaster made such good toast because he was a Cooper.

No, it never did dawn on Sly how incredibly stupid that sounded. Besides, he had more important things to think about, such as clearing his family's name.

Coopers were known for being top notch thieves. The absolute best of the best, but what made them really unique was the way that their record was completely about thieving, no casualties at all. Of course, this doesn't count the thousands of nameless guards who have been knocked into submission and their bodies dragged where they were not so easily found, but nobody ever died during a Cooper job. Even Bentley's bombs and Murray's punches were not lethal, though they did pack enough punch to knock someone out for hours.

Sly did not want himself to be remembered as the Cooper who tarnished the family's name, reputation, and claim to fame in one fell swoop, especially when he was framed. He always thought himself, and his clan, as Robin Hood-like rogues. Except that they didn't rob the corrupted rich to give to the poor. They kind of robbed the corrupted rich and left them dangling like a piece of meat to Interpol to sink its teeth into.

Ah, well. Morality in thieves can only go so far. Robin Hood was an unrealistic, perfect goody two-shoes, anyways. Or Sly thought, because there was if he did exist, he'd be better than the Coopers, and nobody was better than the Coopers. So there.

Now that he had finished rationalizing why he was better than a fictional personality, it was time for Sly to work. The big, important monologue by the main character was about to begin. According to Arpeggio's database of the performing arts, the script called for Elizabeth to move across the stage and over the trap door used for the character who played the witch to pop out from beneath the stage. Sly was supposed to creep down and pull the trap door lever. And, if things went correctly, Bentley would blast a hole through the floor of the room below the stage and they would take the prize and run.

Again, this is assuming that things would go as planned.

As gracefully and silently as he came in, Sly dropped down from his hiding place and crawled over to the trapdoor lever. He waited for the perfect moment…and then he pulled on it, hard, as if his very life depended on it. And in a way, it did. The panel swung open, revealing nothing but black down below.

However, one small, but crucial detail had been omitted in the formation of the plan: swans had wings.

A loud honk filled the air as the startled, but clearly angry actress landed safely beside the hole. She drew a fan from the pocket of her outfit and fanned herself as her eyes darted around the area.

"What trickery is this?" Elizabeth demanded to nobody in particular. "Show yourself, knave!"

Sly had no choice. He darted onto the stage into plain view.

"Scoundrel!" She shrieked when she saw his face. "So you are the one who has been prowling. I should have guessed."

Sly drew his cane, prepared to fight. "You're the one who's the scoundrel. You and your cohorts ruined the lives of my friends, ruined my life. And I'm stopping you now before you have the chance to wreck any more."

"Brave words." She replied. "But can you back them up?" Without waiting for an answer, she lunged at the raccoon, swinging her fan. Sly felt cool metal graze his face followed by a sharp sting of pain. He then realized that the fan was razor edged, and that this wouldn't be a simple fight. When the bird spun around and swiped at him again, Sly was prepared and was able to jump back in time to narrowly avoid getting cut. Backing up, he got a running start and vaulted over his opponent, taking the precious second he had to give her a solid blow with the cane.

Ruffled, but hardly down for the count, Elizabeth lashed out again, only to have her attack blocked by the cane and whacked again. Again, she attacked, and Sly again defended himself. But when he didn't feel the fan connect with his cane, he was confused for a second until he felt metal slash into his arm. Looking up, he saw the swan and saw another fan in her other wing. Not wasting anymore time, he launched himself at her, swinging his cane around to deflect oncoming blows and land another hit. Except he connected with nothing. Glancing around wildly, he could only see the danger out of the corner of his eye as he leaned back as a fan came whizzing by his face and into the wooden floor of the stage.

It seemed as if they would have to fight in the air, and having no wings of his own, Sly was surely at a disadvantage. Still, he could not give up as he grabbed onto the nearest rope and started climbing as quickly as possible. As he ascended, another fan flew by, cutting off the rope beneath him. It looked like if he made one slip up it would be over. The master thief leapt off the rope and grabbed onto another one, dodging fans as he went. Finally, with one last leap of faith, he tackled the bird and the both of them went tumbling down.

From beneath the stage came a rumbling followed by the sound of a blast. Sly and Elizabeth fell through the trap door and a hole in the floor of the room below. They emerged into the sewers as Bentley and Murray quickly got out of the way.

"What took you so long?" Bentley snapped as Murray pulled out some rope to tie up their prisoner. There was no time for an answer as the three of them fled. As they emerged, they found the team van revved up and ready to go. Penelope jumped from the driver's seat and threw open the back doors. The inside of the van was lined with bags and bags of British pounds. After tossing in their prize, Murray took the wheel and pressed the pedal hard. The van was gone in a flash.

We dropped off our extra cargo at the Interpol station not too far from where we were, along with a couple of recorded phone conversations we managed to pick up. It was all over the newspapers the next day; the entire country was shocked to see their role model was actually a crook.

It was a victory for us, the Cooper Gang, which now featured a new, supposedly temporary member. I didn't know what it was about Lucas, but there was something that told me that he was more than just a small-time crook. He was too good. But we had more important things to worry about, like what our next move was going to be.

What upset me was that I didn't see Carmelita at all during our stay in London. But then again, I didn't think I was ready to face her yet. The way she looked at me in Berlin…I just couldn't take it. I just couldn't…