Fragments of a Broken Timeline [Book 3]

Ch.20 Ice-Ice Bentley!

After Sly and Rae had gotten the ancestors to the cave they were using as the hideout, Murray offered to help train Bob up to climbing condition while Rae handled getting Sam back into top speedster condition. While they were handling that, Bentley was off to go try and find Grizz so that they could track him and get more information on his inner sanctum. In order to do that, Bentley had to travel deep inside of an ice cave that would take him right to the Grizz. When Bentley had reached his waypoint, he sat just outside of the cave, but before he went inside, he wanted to double check a few things first.

"Data systems, check. Dart ammo, check. Tire pressure, check..."

"Bentley, how many equipment checks are you going to do?" Sly asked through Bentley's earpiece.

"I'm just being prepared, Sly." Bentley reasoned. "A field operative can never be too careful, you know."

"Or watch too many spy movies, apparently." Sly joked.

"They're good reference!" Bentley frowned. "Those ice caves are a textbook example of a villain's hidden operation!"

Sly chuckled a bit. "Okay, relax there, pal... Look, it's simple -- use the thermovision to find Grizz, tag him with a homing dart, and let him lead us to his lair...avoiding any lethal obstacles or bloodthirsty guards along the way, of course."

Bentley frowned again. "You're not funny..."

Sly laughed. "Oh, please, you know that I am!"

The turtle merely rolled his eyes. "Right, sure, whatever you gotta tell yourself at night... I'll see you back at the hideout..." Bentley rolled his eyes, disconnecting before Sly could give a snide remark.

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As Bentley wheeled himself through the cave, he paused when he reached an opening, his brow furrowing a bit. "A dead end? Hmph... I think not!" He chuckled, pulling out his binocucom, and sure enough, his thermovision proved that there were multiple pathways to take.

In order to find the right one, Bentley would just have to bomb each path in order to find the correct one. So, pulling out his dart gun, the turtle aimed and fired at the patrolling rats. The first jumped, only to abruptly fall to the ground face first a moment later, now completely out like a light. The second rat was soon to follow in the other's footsteps, falling unconscious as soon as Bentley fired a second sleep dart. With the rats dealt with, Bentley went to the first path on his left, bombing through the ice. When he had a new opening, the reptile frowned, finding this one really was a dead end. He spun around and bombed the pathway adjacent to where he was, only to find yet another dead end, but not before discovering a nest of ice beetles. Bentley immediately turned tail and wheeled off in the opposite direction, bombing the last pathway, finally discovering the correct cave he needed to go through. When Bentley had reached a new area, he scanned around for a moment, until he noticed some dinosaur bones piled on top of the platform he needed to use to reach the other side of this area. He easily tossed a bomb over, watching as the bones toppled to the ground, freeing up the platform for him. Bentley easily used the booster in his wheelchair to propel him over to the platform and onward to the ledge of the path he needed to continue down. And sure enough, upon exiting through the path he had taken, Bentley stumbled upon the black bear himself, seemingly rapping to himself in front of a strange looking mural.

"Oh yeah, they say I'm like Divinci, master with a brush. When my art is on the wall, it makes the crowd hush..." Grizz said to himself, whispering the last part of his rhyme.