Chapter 10

Rioichi scaled his way across one of the rooftops of the village building, the time for the main battle against El Jefe was getting close, but he had to do one last thing first before they could do that. He jumped down from one of the rooftops and made his way inside the fishing cave. Once inside he took a long look around studying the new traps that were scattered among the cave and the rat guards in yellow jumpsuits and gas masks. Making sure he doesn't get seen by the guards he hid in the shadows before pulling out his binocom to get further instructions from Bentley.

"Okay, Rioichi, we need to collect samples from those strange plants growing high on the cave walls." Bentley stated, "Commonly known as the Spiky Wall Climber, it secretes a mild toxin we can use to make sushi rolls that will put any guard to sleep instantly. Just be careful not to be overcome yourself."

"Bentley-san, did I not explain." Rioichi sighed, tired of the green turtle thinking he would have trouble completing the task and would actually inhale the toxins.

"You're a Ninja Master. I know, I know!" Bentley replied quickly.

"Hai! Now allow me to show you how it's done." the raccoon said with a smirk.

"Well, now at least I know where Sly get it from." Bentley commented, noticing the similarities of personality between Sly and his ancestor.

With that said Rioichi made his way deeper into the caves; he silently took out the rat guards in the area. Avoiding the mammoth lightning bugs which were huge bugs that could give anyone a nasty shock, he finally reached the first poisonous plant up on the wall. He held his breath as he used his cane to strike the blossom. He watched as the plant shook before opening up, releasing toxic gas and revealing it's seed. Rioichi used his cane to grab the seed and used his ninjato sword the separate the seed from the plant's vines. After he got the seed he made his way over to the second plant and repeated the process, feeling that two seeds were enough to knock out all of the boards guards that were guarding the dragon gate, he returned to the hideout. The gang began preparing for the big battle to take down El Jefe. Rioichi had prepared the sushi rolls, Asami was assigned to sneak it to the guards, Bentley gathered up the supplies needed, and Sly would open the Dragon Gate for the others. Finally it was time and everyone was prepared; Asami put the first part of the plan in motion.

She walked up to the guards, holding the tray of spiked sushi rolls. She silently smiled as she offered the sushi to the board guards. At first the boar guards were suspicious of the female raccoon standing before them, but they quickly pushed all those thoughts away when they saw the tray she was holding had sushi on it. Before Asami could even blink the boar guards had scarfed down all of the sushi. She grinned as she watched the guards stumble around a bit before passing out on the ground. Using the binocom that Bentley had given her she told Sly that the coast was clear before hiding away to avoid getting captured again.
Sly grinned at this, glad to finally get in on the action. Quietly he approached the unconscious boar guards and dug around their pockets until he found the skeleton key. Quickly he unlocked the locks that held the wheel switches to open the dragon statues' mouths in place. He activated the switches to open up the dragons' mouths, causing fireballs to be blasted at him. The male raccoon was able to easily deflect the fireballs using his shield from the samurai armor. The fireballs flew back inside the dragons' mouths, destroying the locks, and successfully opening up the dragon gate.

Seeing the dragon gate was now open Rioichi, Sly, Murray, and Bentley all walked through the gate, beginning their long walk to the palace El Jefe was hiding out in. It was a long walk, but they managed to reach the palace. They were fixing to take another step until they felt the ground begin to rumble. To everyone's shock a huge blimp began to rise up, leaving them speechless. They knew that blimp did not belong there.
Cyrille Le Paradox glanced down at them from his window, snarling at the fact he had been followed through time.
Penelope stood next to him with her head pressed up against the window, her brown eyes staring down at a certain green turtle. A small frown formed on her face when she stared at the Cooper Gang, a part of her wondering if she did the right thing by betraying them.
Deciding to ignore the blimp for now the gang ran to the palace's bridge, only to find El Jefe there, waiting for them.

"Ha ha ha! End of the line, Cooper!" he said before taking a long smoke of his cigar.

He order the rat guards to get the gang while he closed up the gate. Sly, Bentley, and Murray got in fighting positions while Rioichi got ready to do his part.

"Ok, you all know what to do. Time to kick some butt!" Bentley said.

"My favorite time of the day!" Murray proclaimed as he punched his knuckle into the palm of his head.

"Let's do this!" Sly said with a grin.

The trio began instantly fighting the rats, knocking them unconscious and even sending some of them flying off of the bridge. While this brawl was taking place Rioichi made his way under the bridge, using his leaping dragon technique to leap from rock spire to rock spire. Finally he managed to make it to the wheel switch that controlled the bridge's gate. Using all his strength he ran as fast as he could on the wheel, slowly lowering the bridge's gate. After a few minutes the gate opened up, allowing the gang to access the palace. Rioichi climbed up on the bridge to see all of the rat guards lying unconscious in a pile. Sly turned toward his ancestor and winked at him, silently telling him that he had his back.
Rioichi grinned before they all ran through the gate to continue through the palace.
But none of them had any idea El Jefe was hiding on top of the gate's archway. When he saw Rioichi come into view the male tiger jumped on top of the male raccoon and grabbed him by the neck.
Riochi chocked and struggled as El Jefe held him in the air by his neck.
Without a word El Jefe grabbed a hold of Rioichi's cane and pulled it off of his back.

"Ha it's mine!" El Jefe said with a grin before he tossed Rioichi to the side.

The red panda raccoon hit the ground, his body tumbling for a bit before landing in front of Sly and the gang. Quickly he sat up, reaching out his hand in panic.

"My cane!" Rioichi exclaimed.

El Jefe placed the cane on his back before pulling out his two swords. He clanged them together, setting them on fire before running across the wooden bridge, setting it ablaze. When he reached the other side he stabbed both of his swords into the ground, the force of it causing the fiery bridge to collapse, separating him from the Cooper gang. He turned toward Sly and the other's pulling out Rioichi's cane once more to taunt them.

"Sorry, Cooper, you lose! I need to deliver this puny stick to a new owner!" El Jefe said before walking away.

"No! El Jefe's getting away!" Bentley yelled.

Sly clenched his teeth in anger, he saw how defeated Rioichi looked from allowing El Jefe to easily get the jump on him and steal away his cane. Sly knew what he had to do next.

"Don't worry, Rioichi. Watch after these two. I'm going to kick some tiger tail and get your cane back!" he insured his ancestor.

Without another word Sly used the spire jump to make his way across what was left of the fiery bridge and went after El Jefe.
Everything was silent until Rioichi's ear twitched to the sound of running, he turned around to see Asami and Henriette running to him. The two female raccoons embraced him, saying about how they grew worried when they saw the blimp in the sky. Rioichi's ears flattened against his head, he wasn't sure if he had the heart to tell his family that his cane was stolen.
Back with Sly he managed to make it to the foot of a huge statue of El Jefe where the tiger himself awaited.

"Ha ha ha! Hey, Cooper, what do you think of my statue?" El Jefe said as he petted a small pigeon.

"Heh! It looks like a real pigeon magnet." Sly smirked.

This caused the male tiger to snarl in anger and swat away the pigeon he was petting before.

"Bah! I hope you can fly like a pigeon, Cooper. Otherwise you'll never catch me!" El Jefe said before jumping and a rope and cutting it with his sword, allowing it to lift him up to the top of his statue.

"We'll see about that!" Sly yelled at him.

With a sigh he held his cane in his mouth and began the long climb. He kept a firm grip and firm footing as he climb up the statue though it became difficult when it began raining. At times his foot would slip, almost causing him to fall to death. Though before he climb up further he noticed someone watching him, his blood ran cold when he saw familiar red eyes full of hate that filled his nightmares for many years; he had come face to face with Clockwerk. Sly couldn't move his body; he knew there was a possibility that he would ran into Clockwerk since they went into the past, back when he was still alive, but the sight of seeing the deadly ancient owl that killed his father still terrified him.
Clockwerk stared at Sly, his red eyes glaring at the frightened raccoon. He noticed how his features were similar to Rioichi's, making him wonder if the raccoon was a Cooper as well.
Due to fact Sly kept focusing on Clockwerk his grip slipped from it's hold, causing him to start plummeting to the ground. He tried to pull out his paraglider, but it's string to open it up refused to budge. Before he could hit the ground he found himself snatched up in the talons of none other than Clockwerk.

The mechanical owl flew up higher and higher, holding the raccoon firmly in his talons.
Sly clenched his teeth together, fearing his life was going to end right there. But to his shock Clockwerk landed on a platform and released him from his talons. Sly stared up at the mechanical owl, confused on why he had saved his life.

"Why did you save me?" Sly asked in a confused tone.

Clockwerk stared down at Sly, glaring at him with his red glowing eyes.

"You'd think I would allow a Cooper to be killed by something or someone other than I?" he said.

The gray raccoon nearly froze in fear at the fact the ancient bird from his ancestor's past managed to piece together that he was a Cooper. He thought for sure that Clockwerk was going to seize the opportunity to kill him right then and there, but to his surprise Clockwerk turned away from him.

"I will let you live for now, but I insure you the next time we meet, Cooper, I will kill you." he said before flying off.

Sly stared in bewilderment, it was the second time in his life that Clockwerk actually allowed him to live, though he knew the first time would ironically be the next time for Clockwerk, the night his father was killed. Deciding not to think about what had happened for now, he climbed up what little remained of the statute and reached the top. Now that he could see the statue more clearly he stared at it with an odd face, wondering how big El Jefe's big ego is. He was snapped out of these thoughts when he heard the tiger himself speak.

"A magnificent likeness isn't it, Cooper? Almost as handsome as the real thing!" El Jefe said.

"Yeah, it looks almost big enough to contain your over-inflated ego." Sly smirked.

El Jefe took a long smoke of his cigar and said "Take a nice, long look. I want you to remember the one who crushed you!"

He crushed his cigar into the palm of his hand, ignoring the fact the lit cigar was burning his hand as he crushed it.

"Looks to me you've got nowhere left to run, El Jefe. Ready to face me now?" Sly replied.

"Ha ha ha! Sticking up for the family, eh Cooper? Too bad you'll never see any of them again!" the tiger taunted.

Sly didn't want to admit, but those words actually pained him because they were true. This was the first time in his life ever since Clockwerk killed his parents that he has been able to actually be with his biological family, but when his business there was done he would have to return to the present and never see his ancestors again. He clenched his teeth in anger when El Jefe's laughter filled the air.

"Oh Cooper, you've climbed so high and now you're gonna fall!" he said before jumping down on a platform.

Sly chased after El Jefe, dodging the fireballs the tiger launched. He chased him up on a higher platform where he found the tiger meditating.

"You know something, Cooper? You're actually starting to annoy me." El Jefe snarled.

"Oh, don't worry. I have that effect on all cowardly crime lords." Sly said with his arms crossed.

The male tiger snarled at the raccoon's words, especially when Sly taunted him by saying the El Jefe means "Big Baby" in Spanish. El Jefe pulled out his two swords once more and the battle began with Sly. He launched fire blasts and electricity attacks at the raccoon, but much to his misfortune Sly managed to counter each of the attacks. Whenever he felt like he was losing he would run away from Sly over to a different platform but no matter what he did Sly was always able to catch up with him.
Finally after a long struggle Sly managed to land the finishing blow, knocking El Jefe unconscious. Before he could grab Rioichi's cane a stink bomb grenade was dropped at his feet, thinking fast he jumped off of the platform, clinging on the edge to avoid falling to his death. The blimp flew above the platform, two rat guards dropped down from it and grabbed Rioichi's cane. The rat guards quickly scurried back inside the blimp, but one of them dropped a sheriff's badge. Sly managed to stop the badge from rolling off the platform with his foot once he got up there. He stared up at the blimp staring at the shadowy figure of a certain skunk before the blimp vanished into a flash of light.

Sly returned to the gang with his head hung low, confessing how the person behind the entire mess had escaped with Rioichi's cane.
Bentley insured everyone that they would get the cane back no matter what and figure out who is behind the entire mess. Back at the hideout the communicator got a call from Dimitri telling the gang that their next location was the Wild West where they must help Tennessee Kid Cooper.
Rioichi was a bit shocked that he actually had a descendant that lived in a land he had never heard of, due to the fact America didn't exist yet. After Sly, Murray, and Bentley left to help Tennessee Kid Coop to Rioichi's surprise the van returned shortly with Bentley claiming he needed his help, it was there he met his three ancestors and his descendant, leaving him shocked he got to meet the very people he read about. He successfully managed to retrieve his cane along with his ancestor's from the ice age before returning back to his timeline.
Kenta was so enraged at this that he forced his twins to train harder, wanting one of the two to finally make the Le Paradox line successfully.
Asami announced to Rioichi that she was pregnant with their second child.
Henriette was thrilled at the idea of having a sibling.
Rioichi smiled at this, feeling the time travel experience has made him stronger.

1 Year Later

Rioichi placed his cane in the door that had the Cooper cane symbol on it, watching as the vault opened up. He smiled at his daughter, wife, and infant son. He had wanted to show his family the legendary Cooper vault.
Asami stared around in wonder, cradling her son who was starting to become a bit fussy. Henriette giggled as she ran around the vault, saying how when she get older she was going to place her things in the Cooper vault as well.

"This is amazing, Rioichi." Asami said as Rioichi placed his treasures and drawings next to his mother's section of the vault.

"Yes and one day I hope our children will have treasures of thier to place in the vault." Rioichi said as he stroked his son's head.

Rioichi was fond of his son because the infant raccoon was born with white fur, just like Ling's. The infant snuggled into his mother's arms, his father's strokes lulling him to sleep.

"Rioichi, your mother would have been proud." Asami said with a smile.

The male red panda raccoon turned toward the section of the vault that belonged to his mother's a smile crept on his face as he stared at an ink drawing of her.

"Yes she would." he said with a smile, knowing that indeed his mother would be proud.

He knew that his tale would be passed down through the generations, he even liked the thought of a young Tennessee Kid and a young Sly reading about his tale. Though this would only be one of the many Tales of the Cooper Clan.

The End