Bentley's Background

[prideindeviousness]

According to the wiki, Bentley was dropped off at the Happy Camper Orphanage while still an egg, where he hatched and spent his childhood. His nervous and somewhat stressed nature through most of the first Sly Cooper game hints that he probably didn't spend much time with the other children, though that changed a little when he befriended Sly Cooper, and Murray, the three becoming almost brothers.

The most noteworthy thing during the time at the orphanage was the first job they pulled as the Cooper Gang: the Cookie Connection...aka Cookie Stealin' Plan. There was a cookie jar the children were never allowed in, and Murray became unable to sleep because he wanted the cookies. So Bentley wrote up the plans, centering around getting the cookies between the time of night the head lady went home and the janitor came to clean. Sly did the actual stealing, though it was a close call, and Murray was the "getaway driver" even then, providing a quick escape via big wheel and wagon.

Not much is known about the time in the orphanage up through the first game, though by that time, the Cooper Gang had a decent reputation as thieves and was already the target of Inspector Carmelita Fox of Interpol. Age twenty, Bentley provided Sly with information Sly needed for various jobs, albeit in a cynical, very nervous or stressed out manner despite being safe in the team van. But this was due to his constant worrying that something bad would happen to Sly.

Sly Cooper began with Sly breaking into Carmelita's office to steal a file on the Fiendish Five, a group of criminals who had murdered his family and stolen an ancient thieving manual he was supposed to inherit, the Thievius Raccoonus. Even then, Bentley was able to guide Sly with information and blueprints.

He and Murray were there to aid him in taking out the the villains, Bentley giving Sly all the information he needed to proceed through each stronghold from the safety of the van, as well as making any necessary connections...all the while worrying greatly that any one of these jobs would be Sly's last.

The first four members of the Fiendish Five went mostly without incident, Sir Ralley the Frog, Muggshot, Miz Ruby, and the Panda King all defeated by Sly, their pages of the book recovered, and their evil deeds stopped while they were left behind for Carmelita to arrest.

When they came to Clockwerk's lair though, things got difficult. It was a fight just reaching his lair, requiring weapons and Bentley's hacking skills, as well as Murray's driving. Once they got Sly in, they found a confined Carmelita. Even though Bentley warned against helping her, Sly wouldn't abandon her, falling into a trap where the two of them would have been gassed to death. Working quickly to save them, Bentley hacked the computer systems to turn off the gas and unlock the room, leaving them free to escape so Sly could confront Clockwerk with Carmelita's help. Though he had no role in the final battle against the mechanical owl, he heard about Clockwerk's connection to the Cooper family through Sly's Binoccucom.

After defeating Clockwerk, Sly tricked and cuffed Carmelita to a rail and the Cooper Gang made a quick getaway.

In the two years following, Bentley continued to provide information, connections, and technical support for various jobs, becoming a constant presence on ThiefNet using the handle "Spex Guy" to chat and handle online business for the Cooper Gang...including selling loot to earn money. He also began to work with a remote control helicopter and began planning out their heists in more detail, also becoming the team's resident demolitions expert.

At some point, they heard news that the Clockwerk parts had been salvaged and were being put on display in a museum in Cairo. Sly decided the parts needed to be stolen and destroyed to prevent any chance of Clockwerk returning to the world. Bentley not only drew up the plans for the heist, but also took to the field for the first time to deprogram the security and provide technical support for the operation...though he was a little tense and became flustered when Sly wasn't taking things seriously.

However, it turned out that the parts had already been stolen. Constable Neyla, who was there on a stakeout with Carmelita, hinted that the guard casualties and method of break-in said the theft had most likely been by the Klaww Gang. Sly acted as a decoy to Carmelita so Bentley and Murray could get to the van and be ready to move out when he caught up.

From there, they had to research the Klaww Gang and determine what to do.

Through some research, they found the first of the Clockwerk parts in Paris, owned by the local Klaww Gang operator, Dimitri. Before they attempted to steal the parts from the shady nightclub owner, Bentley had Sly help him get access to Dimitri's database by rewiring the local sattelites and then sneak into the nightclub and take recon photos of the printing press room beneath it...where they found the Clockwerk Tail Feathers being used as printing plates for forging money.

Realizing he would need more intelligence to plan any direct action, Bentley then had Sly place a bugged painting in Dimitri's office so they could listen in on him. When the opportunity arose, he also had him tail Dimitri. This got them access to the pump room for the nightclub, which he had Murray sabotage to force the water to be rerouted into the water tower. Then he planned the next stage of the heist.

He had Sly pickpocket keys so he could gain access to the security spotlights in the theatre and take out the junction boxes powering the security in the printing press room. He also had Murray break all of the outside alarms to prevent any trouble during the heist. Constable Neyla also appeared to Sly to offer her help so long as he could keep up with her, giving them the key to the disco which Bentley needed access to. He bombed the supports for the disco ball to drop it, causing the peacock sign in front of the club to loosen. The it was time for Operation: Thunderbeak.

First, Bentley entered the water tower and redirected the flow so the fountain in front of the club stopped working. Sly stole a truck key off the repairman, letting Bentley and Murray steal the truck and use the winch to pull the peacock sign down to break the fountain and let Sly into the printing press room. After Sly beat Dimitri and got the tailfeathers the gang spent a week in Monaco to unwind, in which Bentley tested a card-counting formula he'd devised.

The Clockwerk Wings appeared in India under the ownership of an illegal spice dealer named Rajan. They found out he was hosting a party and used that as their opportunity to sneak in and plan their heist. Bentley first had Sly sneak into the ballroom to get pictures of Rajan, the Clockwerk Wings, and some of the party guests. Using Sly's recon, Bentley realized most of the guests were Klaww Gang and undercover cops, and that the heavy Wings were welded to a large statue in the center of the ballroom. It would be tricky, but it was possible to work around this to succeed.

Sly had to infiltrate the dance, but Bentley hadn't taken formalwear into account so he had Sly ransack the guesthouse for one. The idea was for Sly in disguise to impress Carmelita enough for her to dance with him during the heist to distract both her and the crowd. Bentley also had him steal the keys to the drawbridge winch so it could be opened to allow them inside. Then he had Murray use one of their turrets to take out the security chopper patrolling the palace.

Needing access the the winch above the statue, Bentley had Sly get them access to the guard room so he could hack the two computers there while Sly and Murray protected him. He also constructed a durable saw blade from rubies that Sly had to steal from Rajan's prized elephants to so they'd be able to cut the wings from the statue. And then he entered the field alone with his RC chopper to bomb the ground defenses on patrol. Then it was back to the safehouse to plan out Operation: Hippo Drop.

Both to cut off reinforcements from the guest house and to lure away the guards around the statue, Bentley demolished the bridge between the guest house and palace first. Then Sly went in to dance with Carmelita for that distraction, while Murray used the winch to lower into the ballroom and cut the wings loose and slipped out with them. Once the van was ready, Bentley deployed his RC chopper again to bomb any guards trying to intercept Murray and they hightailed it out of there when everyone was in the van. Afterward they went for some downtime in Bollywood.

Back on the trail of the Clockwerk parts, they found that Rajan also had the Heart and was using it as a pump to increase the production rate of his illegal spice tenfold. They had to walk miles through dense jungle to reach the ancient temple that acted as the center of Rajan's spice operation, but there was no choice in the matter. As usual, Bentley had Sly go in first to get photos so he could start planning their heist. It turned out that Rajan was only using half of the Heart, but kept the other half on him at all times.

Using what Sly's pictures provided, as well as intelligence he gathered himself, Bentley made the first plans. Sly needed to take out Rajan's elephant-driven satellite first. to keep their messages from being intercepted. This required Sly to climb up and collect spice plants growing around the temple, then put them in the elephant's feedbag. The spice made it go berserk and it damaged the satellite as it broke free to rampage. Next, he had Sly take a special type of bug, the insect, not the device, and plant it in Rajan's office where it would act as a bugging device because it transmitted sound waves at a frequency Bentley could monitor.

Bentley's first part of the operation was to steal blueprints from Rajan while he was out inspecting the spice operation. Because his sleep darts weren't strong enough to knock out the tiger, Bentley decided to play on two of Rajan's weaknesses instead: his curiosity and his taste for Indian watermelons, which when eaten whole knocked people out. He outfitted his darts to make unusual sounds to draw Rajan to the watermelons, then once he'd eaten and fallen asleep Bentley would approach and steal a blueprint. He did so until he had all three. After this, Rajan became paranoid and withdrew deeper into the temple, so Bentley devised a plan to draw him out using Rajan's short temper to their advantage.

Planning in part to flood Rajan out and force him to bring them half of Clockwerk's Heart, Bentley took control of Rajan's newly arrived attack helicopter and blasted the dam. He also had Sly blow up the center of the spice operation. Neyla also appeared to Sly again, this time to help him find the entrance to the chamber where the active part of the heart was. Then The three of them worked together to obtain and transport a giant ruby to trade for some high explosives. Then it was time to plan Operation: Wet Tiger.

First Murray pried open the temple's elephant mouth while Bentley covered him with the attack chopper. Then Sly planted the traded for explosives, blasting the mouth and fully flooded the temple grotto. An angry Rajan appeared as planned, but Sly was injured trying to confront him with Neyla. Murray defeated Rajan, but he and Sly were trapped in one of the drained pools. When Caramelita, the Contessa, and Neyla appeared, Neyla turned not only Rajan, Sly and Murray over to the Contessa, but framed Caramelita as well and she was arrested with them. This left Bentley all alone with no immediate way to help.

The long trek back to the van pushed home the misery ad loss of direction that his friends' absence left behind gave Bentley the resolve to save them no matter what it took. After he learned to drive a stick shift and a sleepless week on Thief Net later, he found the Contessa's prison in Prague. Upon arriving, he ventured out to gather more intelligence. Using a high up position on a parabolic dish and the fact the feathers of his sleep dart vibrate near sound, he was able to eavesdrop on the Contessa from a distance by tagging her with his darts. In this way he learned that the she was a member of the Klaww Gang as well and she was not only rehabilitating criminals through her special hypnotherapy, but also using it to find their loot and keep it for herself...and that illegal spice was key to this. She intended to start working on Murray, but wanted to break Sly by leaving him to rot in "The Hole".

Reversing the polarity of the electromagnetic train by hacking the terminals along the tracks, Bentley caused it to crash through the prison wall near "The Hole" so Sly would have an escape route. Then he used the RC chopper to bomb all of the guards on the wall, as they were equipped with motion sensors which would have prevented Sly's escape. As soon as he reached Sly, because the Contessa hadn't had his cane or Binoccucom confiscated, Bentley sent him the safehouse coordinates and they met up there to start working on freeing Murray, who was in cell block D.

Sly entered the prison via drainage pipe to tell Murray that he needed to get himself thrown in solitary. Murray was also being forced to eat food covered in spice, so there was no time to lose. He also had Sly get an encryption codes from the alarm systems around town, so he could use them to crack her other security codes, and pickpocket two tank keys and a tank schedule from the Contessa while she was out on patrol. Sly provided cover for him while he bombed the pipes feeding power to the security systems as well. He also had Sly disable the lightning rods around town that were placed to protect a giant attack robot disguised as a water tower, allowing lightning to strike and deactivate it...despite Sly's skepticism until Bentley was proven right. Everything set, it was time to put Operation: Trojan Tank into action.

Stealing a tank, Bentley got them into the prison and blasted the doors to Murray's cell block open. Sly open the doors to solitary and they tried to reach Murray, who was suffering the effects of too much spice. They saved him by using hypno inducers to drive Murray into a spice-induced rage so that he'd not only break out of his reinforced cell, but smash the inducers as well. They tried to pursue the Contessa, but she escaped to her estate. Rather than pursue her immediately, the Gang spent a few weeks just catching up, relaxing, and just bonding more than ever before after their separation. The entire ordeal had also served to boost Bentley's self-confidence also.

They tracked the Contessa to her estate, both to get revenge and because she had the Clockwerk eyes. This would be among their most dangerous jobs yet, because of the battlefield the estate and surrounding town had become due to Neyla and the Contessa's forces all but waging war on each other. Falling back on the usual strategy, Bentley had Sly go out and do recon of the area and then sneak into the reeducation tower...and learned the Contessa was hypnotizing Carmelita to take the fall for her.

Bentley made several plans toward manipulating the war to their advantage and to disable the Contessa. He had Murray kidnap her head of security for interrogation, using tickle-torture to get him to tell him the gate security codes. Then he entered several death-trap-filled tombs to steal a bad mojo collector and collect enough bad mojo to build a bomb that could destroy the Contessa's mind scrambler...despite the fact that taking any damage while carrying it would cause it to explode and kill him instantly. At the same time, he had Sly capture several ghosts and secretly release them into Neyla's headquarters to spook her into hiring more firepower to use against the Contessa.

For the next stage, Bentley had Sly steal a voice modulator that the Contessa had planned to use to fool and give Neyla's mercenaries orders, and then place it under Neyla's headquarters so they could control them with it instead. To prevent them from being overambitious and moving in too soon he had Murray steal one of the Contessa tanks to take out some of the mercenary ones. And then he paid the crypts another visit so he could get the unused terminal in the reeducation tower back online, first retrieving a mobile acid battery source from what Sly called a "complex, medieval gauntlet of death" so that he could power up and hack into each crypt's computer and boot up the tower terminal. It needed to be online so that they could use it to free Carmelita and and get Clockwerk's eyes. Of course carrying an acid-filled battery meant he could take no hits so this was just as dangerous as making the bad mojo bomb.

Finally it was time to pull off Operation: High Road. First Murray had to take out the searchlights near the Contessa's main gate. Then Bentley used the voice modulator to tell the mercenaries to attack while the defenses were down. He then hitched a ride on Sly's back while he para-glided to the Contessa's blimp, which they took control of and rode to the reeducation tower since all ground routes were now too dangerous. They arrived in just as the Contessa was sending her elite guard to engage the mercenaries, leaving herself alone in the main room with Carmelita. This allowed Bentley to free Carmelita to chase the Contessa off. Bentley then used the bad mojo bomb to destroy the mind shuffler and retrieved one of the Eyes. Neyla appeared and swiped one the other, so Sly took off after her.

Bentley reluctantly left him to it and escaped on the blimp, but was attacked by Neyla's air forces and had to take them on alone. A shot from Carmelita's shock pistol downed the blimp while he was making his way to the rendezvous though and while he was unharmed, Carmelita had him at gunpoint a moment later. She had thought that the Contessa was in the blimp...but then she stole the other Clockwerk Eye from him and tried to escape in one of the Contessa's tanks. Murray had to get it back byusing a tank of his own and taking out the tank and grabbing the Eye before she could get out. Then he grabbed Bentley and Sly caught up with them after defeating Neyla and the Contessa and retrieving the other eye and they escaped after helping Carmelita evade arrest because she was still counted as a criminal. This time they just kept their heads down for awhile though instead of going on vacation.

In Canada they tracked down Jean Bison, who had a large number of the parts. Bentley sent Sly to Bison's cabin to gather intel to help him narrow down the likely places for his Clockwerk parts and they overheard him talking to Arpeggio, another Klaww gang member. Bison was using the Clockwerk Stomach and both of the Lungs to power three of his best trains, and was eying Arpeggio's Clockwerk Brain as well. Arpeggio was also apparently coming out in a week to pick up a special battery. The Klaww Gang seemed to be planning to take over Paris somehow. Using some stolen blueprints and pictures of the train route schedules, as well as having had Sly climb the mountain to access Bison's satellite so tracking the trains would be easier, Bentley was able to start plans for the three train robberies needed to get all three Clockwerk parts.

Because the Clockwerks parts made each train able to run endlessly, the heists had to be done on the move. First Bentley had Sly paraglide around to collect spice gas, which was used to blow the lock off of each caboose hatch on all three of the trains. Bentley had a moment of panic due to Muray being caught by Carmelita though, afraid that his friends would be taken from him again. Sly was able to somewhat reassure him, as well as to follow her to where she was keeping Murray, steal the keys from her, and free Murray. Then Bentley entered the first train, jumping onto the caboose hatch with much nervousness because jumping onto the back of a speeding train was scary. Once aboard, he maneuvered around all of the security and took the first Lung.

For the second train's air defenses, Bentley boarded and then deployed his RC chopper to take out those defenses, allowing Sly to safely board and steal the train's Lung. Murray then had to round up a pair of bear cubs and put them in a handcar inside a fence that was too strong for him to break, so the mother would come running and smash the fence to free them, leaving the handcar free for them to use to catch train number three. Stealing Clockwerk's Stomach would require much more work and Bentley devised Operation: "Choo Choo" to claim the part.

The train was too fast to jump onto in passing, so they used the handcar to catch up, powered by Murray. While Sly made his way inside the train, Bentley used his RC chopper to take out the defenses up top...which turned out to be a godsend for Sly when Neyla flew in and kept him pinned down with her weapons. Bentley sent her off long enough for Sly to reach the Stomach, but it was bolted in place so Bentley dropped a bomb down the smoke stack after taking Neyla out a second time. Having claimed all three parts and shut down spice distribution in North America, they made their escape.

Random outbreaks of violence up north and the odd disappearance or sudden brightness occurring with the Northern Lights drew the gang to an uncharted lumber mill run by Bison who, they learned, also had the Clockwerk Talons. But getting the Talons wasn't the only thing Bentley had to plan around, as Arpeggio was due to arrive soon and they needed to also sneak aboard his blimp to get Clockwerk's Brain. So he had to plan everything into that time clock. But Sly had to do some serious recon before anything could be done, because Bentley had no information at all to draw on about the lumber mill.

The best chance to get the talons came with the fact that they were the prize of the lumberjack games Bison was hosting. The plan was to win them and then stow away on the battery, once they figured out its location. To learn what they needed to prepare for the games, Bentley had a lumberjack guide that had been frozen in ice excavated, which also released a frozen mammoth...that promptly ran into some frigid waters and got itself refrozen. He had Sly and Murray infiltrate the lumberjacks' RC combat club to win a match and therefore learn the location of the battery. And he had Sly steal radio trackers from the local bears so that they could be used to bug Bison's cabin.

Concluding that that they could not win the games without cheating, Bentley came up with several ways to tip the odds in their favor...the first of which required theft of an eagle egg. To get it, Bentley had Murray lead an old blind and practically nerve dead bear to destroy the oil mains in the area using fish. The burning oil would give Sly updrafts to para-glide out to the eagles' nest and steal an egg. Bentley used explosives to send fish flying out of the water for Murray to use as bait. Next, Bentley used the grappling hooks on several nearby boats to short out the battery so it would be safe to travel inside when the time came. Then, to make sure the battery remained empty, the three of them infiltrated and sabotaged the device inside the lighthouse that collected energy from the Northern Lights for the battery. With that, Operation: Canada Games was a go.

Murray went in on the wood-chopping competition, earning a high score with the judges, while Bentley slipped the eagle egg into Bison's pocket so the eagles attacked him in an attempt to get it back and messed him up. But Bison easily intimidated the judges into giving him a perfect score anyway. Sly excelled at the ice climb and Murray used grappling hooks to make Bison fall...but he again scared the judges into giving him a perfect score. For the third game, Bentley took the challenge to keep his balance on the rolling logs. Desperate to keep him from winning, they lured away and knocked out the judges and disguised themselves as them to take their places. Bison saw through this though and knocked them all out with his walking stick and locked them up.

When they woke, Murray busied himself with the door while Bentley crawled through a small space to try and find another way to free them. He was confronted by Bison and found out that their safehouse had been found and raided, and that their collected Clockwerk parts sold to Arpeggio along with the Talons. With time short, Bentley directed Sly in using the lumber mill controls to take out Bison and they rushed to the battery just in time to be picked up by the blimp as it passed. This tiny bit of success did very little to soften the blow that came from having all of their hard work over the last few weeks, all of that success, having now amounted to nothing since they had nothing to show for it. Even the van which was Murray's life had been set adrift in the ocean on a chunk of ice.

After they spent some time grieving the blow their loss had dealt them, they studied up on Arpeggio. Bentley then sent Sly to do some recon and they found that Clockwerk was inactive but fully reassembled already...and that Neyla had been working for Arpeggio from the start. Sly decided a quick plan was needed so Bentley gave him what was the most likely way to dismantle Clockwerk off the top of his head, reversing the polarity of the magnetic inducers that seemed to be holding the parts together. This only succeeded in knocking the parts perfectly into place though, as well as drawing the attention of Neyla and Arpeggio. They found out that Arpeggio planned to merge with Clockwerk and become immortal by hypnotizing the people of Paris who had eaten illegal spice, to generate the necessary hate to fuel Clockwerk's hate chip...but Neyla double-crossed him too and merged with Clockwerk herself, becoming Clock-La, also killing the protesting Arpeggio.

Figuring out that she wasn't at full strength and that their best bet was to defeat her before the blimp reached Paris and the hate chip was empowered, Bentley drew up plans to deactivate the ships engines to keep her from drawing power from them. He received a message from Carmelita, who wanted to help take Clock-La down but couldn't get a fix on the blimp. Bentley arranged for Sly to send out the necessary signal and then help her dogfight Clock-La. The resulting battle ended with the blimp destroyed and Bentley and Murray being carried off in their battery-safehouse in Clock-La's talons, Sly saved them, but as long as she had her hate chip, Clock-La wouldn't die.

Murray pried open her beak and Bentley used his bombs to get at the chip and remove it, but the beak clamped shut on him before he could get clear. Murray pried it back open so that he could escape but, unable to walk, he had to be carried to safety as Clock-La's body exploded.

Carmelita turned up just in time to destroy the hate chip, and then went on to tell them that they were all under arrest. Seeing that none of them were in any condition for a quick getaway, Sly offered himself peacefully if she let Murray and Bentley go free and the two left their gear behind and left...though not before rigging the helicopter so that Sly could escape too.

Bentley was taken to the hospital, where he fretted because he saw his condition as a liability for his friends on any future Cooper Gang jobs. But it wasn't long before Sly and Murray came back disguised as a doctor and nurse. Sly explained that he had met a guy who ran with his dad's old gang and had learned of the vault containing the entire Cooper fortune. He and Murray had tried to break into a museum in Italy to steal the map leading to it, but without Bentley there it had been a disaster.Despite his reservations, Bentley was convinced he was still needed and agreed to help, though he'd need a way to get around now. But before they could leave the police appeared to arrest Sly and Murray. Murray attacked the police to distract them long enough for Sly to escape with Bentley.

Leaving Bentley to construct himself a suitable solution to his handicap, Sly went to get the map. Bentley made himself a wheelchair that was outfitted with many gadgets to allow him to continue working with his friends, but a guilt-ridden Murray returned to the hideout only to tell them that he had decided to leave the team though, and it was just him and Sly. Bentley remained with Sly and helped him to locate the vault on Kaine Island, but the island it was located on had been purchased by Dr. M...who had already spent years trying to force his way into the vault and turned the island into a fortress. Realizing that they couldn't do this alone, Bentley began to plan to expand their team, needing experts in several fields.

First up was getting Murray back on the team. His raw power aside, he was their best friend and they missed him. He had been studying under an Aboriginal guru in Austrailia and since been out on a walkabout, and they tracked him to Venice, Italy, which was the territory of mob boss Don Octavio. Bentley suggested that Sly check the jail to see if Murray had been picked up due to his criminal record. But all they found was Dimitri who, to keep him from ratting Sly out and because he said he could find Murray for them, Sly freed from his cell. As Sly was getting the key, they overheard that Venice had a pollution problem in which someone was dumping tar into the water around town and Octavio was the prime suspect. Sly acted as a decoy so Dimitri who could escape and was saved by Murray when he reached the metting place at Rialto Bridge.

Murray refused to rejoin them due to his new, nonviolent path in life...at least not until "the black water ran pure" according to him. Sly spent a little time with him catching up, which Bentley overheard but apparently didn't participate in. Since the city was suffering from tar-polluted waters, Bentley reasoned that if they cleared that up then Murray would be free to join them. Willing to do whatever it took to get their friend back, they began to work to expose Octavio's operations.

First off, he had Sly tail Octavio and snap some pictures of him polluting in increasingly deplorable places: a fountain, a birdbath, a waterwheel...and most disturbingly to Bentley, an aquarium full of fish. Octavio had even had a Ferris Wheel rigged to pump tar, as part of some scheme to bring back opera. Outraged by this, Bentley sabotage the Ferris Wheel as soon as Octavio had left. Bentley then had Sly help sneak him into the opera house Octavio used as a base of operations, so he could he hack a computer for data on his plans. Sly helped him out and when the computer's security slammed down, Bentley asked him to protect him from the arriving thugs so that he could finish the hack.

Bentley also monitored communications in the city, learning that Octavio had hired the Blue Viper Gondola Gang to take out Carmelita. Knowing Sly would want to save her, he told his friend and then hot-wired a police boat to give chase, manning the gun to take them out while Sly drove. The boat was stowed away for later use, and Bentley warned Sly that by saving her they had also made their objective harder overall.

From the computer data Bentley had obtained, they learned that Octavio was going to host a concert soon. His plan was to blackmail the city into returning for more of his concerts by demonstrating his power to sink buildings into the canals if they refused to come to his opera recitals. Bentley made plans to ensure that no one would come to the recital so there would be no point in the demonstration, as well as to sabotage Octavio's operations as a whole so the water would clear.

To start, Bentley decided that they needed to destroy the signs advertising the recital Octavio planned to demonstrate at. No audience, no extortion and so no reason to sink a building. He took over a fireworks stand for the job and created the powerful explosives that Sly needed to take out the signs. The two balloons and the sign were successfully destroyed, but he wound up having to call for help when Otavio found him alone while Sly was setting the explosives. The mob boss had done his research and knew that if Bentley was out of the picture Sly couldn't mess up his plans. Sly arrived just as Octavio had broken into the stand and was leaving with him, but thankfully Sly was able to pursue Octavio and rescue him before his life was ended and his brains used for tomato fertilizer. The chase ended with him literally being thrown at Sly, chair and all, but overall the only thing hurt was his pride.

Having found out that Octavio kept the blueprints for the tar vacuum in three of his "legit" coffee houses, Bentley made plans to steal them but since he had destroyed the Ferris Wheel Octavio had tightened security and had his guards checking up on each other. Working together he and Sly infiltrated each one, with Sly disguising himself as a guard and Bentley giving him the passwords so that he could relieve each on-duty guard and take their place...despite the fact that Sly had the worst Italian accent that Bentley had ever heard. Once it was clear, Bentley went in and accessed the painting-hidden safes...and Sly admitted that Bentley was faster with locating the safe codes hidden in the paintings than he was. The only problems that came up were a self-centered guard that wouldn't let him take over unless he also gave him his "famous" nickname and then an extra alarm in the safe set as a security measure at the third shop that made escape dicey.

Bentley also helped set things in motion for Carmelita and her men to take out the Vincenetti goons Octavio hired, acting as bait to lure one of the airborne thugs to the station while Sly used his fake Italian accent to insult the mercenaries inside so that they started fighting. His plan worked perfectly as Carmelita was drawn to the chaos and took out all of the goons by herself.

After things had cooled off, he finally met up with Murray to both try and soothe his guilt because he had never blamed him for his current handicap and wanted his longtime friend back, and to recruit him to smash several tar drums around the city using the the Aboriginal Ball form...which Murray could do since it didn't involve fighting people in any fashion. Once they were done, Bentley expressed his happiness in working with Murray again and they parted ways on a good note.

Finally, Bentley drew up the final plans form Operation: Tar-Be-Gone. He had Sly enter the opera house in his disguise to sneak into the tar pump room and let him in so that he could use his bombs to destroy the tar vacuum. There was a hitch in the form of a double-button door but Sly was able to work around it. Bentley got to work, and Sly defended him while he blasted all of the key points. Then, as part of the plan to get the detonator Octavio kept on him, Bentley confronted him in an opera singing contest. He was actually intending for Sly to drop a chandelier on the mobster once he lured him beneath it. Carmelita's interference blew their trap though and Octavio fled in a speedboat. They gave chase and Bentley took on the gun in their own speedboat again and shot out his motor, causing him to crash near Murray who was excited by the destruction and looked on as Sly demanded Octavio hand over the detonator. Octavio retaliated by sinking a building and Bentley was knocked out and out of his chair while demanding he stopped. The last thing he did was to plead with Murray for help before he passed out.

When he came to, it was to Murray and Sly helping him back into his chair, Murray having beaten Octavio. They escaped Italy together and Murray was ready to rejoin the gang finally. They returned home to catch up and relax for awhile, but over time realized that Murray still felt guilty about abandoning his training. So they headed to Australia to get permission from Murray's Guru for him to stop his training so that he could help his friends. Murray's stories along the way also convinced them the Guru would make a good team member.

The place in the Outback where the had Guru lived had been taken over by miners who were digging for opals and, upon investigating the area they learned that the Guru had been locked up in a stockade. Bentley was also unsettled by the lack of respect for the cultural insensitivity of the miners as they had drilled into everything in their greed. When Sly found and spoke to him, they also learned that his walking staff and moonstone had been taken by the miners when they captured him. He strongly expressed the importance of both items and of purifying Ayers Rock of all miners, as well warning them of the recently dug up Mask of Dark Earth. Those things aside, he wanted to speak with Murray and to meet Bentley, separately.

After Sly got the staff and stone, Bentley guided Sly and Murray through "purifying" Ayers Rock of all miners...by capturing and releasing 20 giant red scorpions into the mine there. Sly used the drill to force the scorpions to the surface while Murray captured them in a giant truck.

Bentley convinced Murray to go see the Guru first after soothing his worries that the Guru would be upset that he'd gotten into a fight even though it had been to protect a friend, guiding him through the mine and the first encounter with the Mask of Dark Earth...which made its wearer larger and more aggressive. Murray defeated the wearer, but the mask apparently ran away so there was nothing to be done. He then went to meet the Guru and return his staff and moonstone. When the Guru had escaped, he guided him in destroying some of the digging equipment by bashing miners into them.

The Guru informed them that he'd be happy to go with them provided they could drive off the miners and the mask was destroyed, so Bentley began to make plans to that end. First he had Murray feed a bunch of miners to a giant crocodile that lived nearby so that it would take to eating them. It worked, but though a guard wearing the mask was eaten, the mask escaped again. Then he, Sly, and Murray went to take over the lemonade bar that the miners relaxed in, to lower their morale...something Bentley was insecure about because he's less than intimidating by nature. But it actually came down to a lemonade drinking contest though, something that he liked even less but did anyway. They won, but the fact that he had spilled more than he drank ticked off the miners and started a bar brawl. They won that too, but a dingo miner wearing the mask appeared and they had to work together to beat him...only for the mask to flee again. Bentley then sent Sly and Murray to drill for radioactive oil as part of his final plan to stop the Mask.

With everything in place Bentley started Operation: Moon Crash, to put an end to the miners and mask once and for all. First, he asked the Guru to destroy the patrolling gyrocopter by smashing miners into it from a distance. Then Murray, suspended from a crane and disguised as the Moon Spirit who opposed the mask using the radioactive oil, lured in and attempted to crush the mask and the miner wearing it using his Thunder Flop. However, things got much dangerous and complicated when it escaped yet again and possessed Carmelita, who had just arrived to the mining camp in search of the Cooper Gang. She grew in size and tried to attack Sly and when Bentley shot her with his sleep darts to stop her, she just grew larger still and the gang had to flee in the truck with her chasing them while carrying another truck and lobbing explosives at them.

Cornered. it was up to Sly to climb up Carme-Larga and remove the mask. He succeeded and it was destroyed by her mercenaries. Rather than leave Carmelita unconscious, they spent the night watching over her and playing with her camera. Later, the Guru became the first new member of the Cooper Gang.

Bentley poured over the island blueprints for a number of nights, looking for ways in and finally came to the conclusion that they needed a true RC expert, one with skills on an entirely different level than his own. Two weeks on ThiefNet had them a promising candidate in the form of a girl called Penelope, a pro RC expert from Holland. She wouldn't consider them at first because she only worked for the best though. But she later contacted them with a challenge: defeating her boss in his dogfighting competition in Holland. So Sly stole a pilot license while Bentley and Murray built a plane for the dogfights...Bentley also fell in love at first sight from the picture on her profile.

As they only had the one plane, Bentley realized they needed to find a way to narrow the competition or make sure the focus wasn't on Sly in each round. But the rosters for match-ups was a secret to keep teams from sabotaging each other. Sly found out from Dimitri, who was providing color commentary for the competition, that the flight roster was stored in portrait safe in the Black Baron's hangar. With Sly's help, Bentley made it inside and stole the roster so they would know who to sabotage first.

Noting that they were up against Team Iceland and Team Belgium first, both teams sporting fifteen planes each, Bentley made plans to sabotage both teams and make it look like they sabotaged each other. He had Sly and Murray use a sewer route to steal a Team Iceland helmet, since picking their locks would leave possible evidence to their innocence. Then Murray had to wreck one of Team Belgium's planes, leaving the helmet at the site to place the blame on them.

Bentley then had Murray distract a Team Belgium pilot and make him laugh so that he could sneak over and steal one of their embroidered handkerchiefs. Then he had the Guru bash open a truck carrying Team Iceland's lucky ice sculpture, which he had given bad directions to give them enough time to work, then had Sly steal the sculpture and leave the handkerchief to be found.

Bentley then focused his attention on setting up traps around their hangar that same night, which was good because Muggshot turned up to smash their plane with a number of the Black Baron's guards that he'd bribed. Bentley and Murray defended the plane to the best of their ability, though Bentley had to call in some help from Penelope and her RC chopper when things got too tough for them to handle alone. She was more than happy to help beat down anyone who would go against the Black Baron and made sure they survived to fly the next day.

Sly won the dogfight got them into the finals, where they found that they would be up against both Team Muggshot and Team Black Baron. With the goal for the finals being to be the first to shoot down the defending champion, the Black Baron, Bentley realized that they seriously needed to even the odds...especially with Muggshot as an opponent and the Baron's tendency to call in unfair backup if he was close to losing. First, despite some slight concern for Carmelita which was easily soothed by Sly, Bentley located and baited Muggshot into a fight, luring him to the town square...where Sly was likewise luring Carmelita by having her chase him. They let Inspector Fox take down and arrest Muggshot, removing him from the competition altogether.

Next, Bentley located a giant and extremely vicious wolf that lived in the area and drugged it with sleep darts that he'd laced with skunk balm...a feat that required him to sneak up just a few meters behind it, then shoot it and escape several times without being caught by it or the patrolling guards. Once it was asleep, the Guru took control of it and put a sizable dent in the Baron's number of pilots. Then Bentley hacked into the computers on each of the local windmills and the aircraft control tower with the help of his newly-installed hover pack. He wanted to gain access to the Baron's radio communication with the gunships that he often called in if he came close to losing...discovering the added benefit of a bug that made the windmill blades like throwing stars in the process.

Beginning Operation: Turbo-Dominant Eagle, Bentley had Sly board each of the gunships during the B-cup finals, when he wouldn't be noticed, and leave tracking devices on each one. At the same time he had Murray destroy the communication antennae so that the Baron would have to use an unscrambled frequency to call in his gunships when he needed backup. From there it was mostly up to Sly to win, though Bentley monitored the radio and took out the gunships with his windmill throwing stars when they tried to move in. They won...but got the surprising news that Penelope was the Black Baron. But with that out of the way, she was free to join the gang starting with a relaxing week long tour through the skies in Holland. Sadly Bentley wasn't able to really enjoy it.

Despite their pictures having exaggerated on their looks, Bentley still harbored feelings for Penelope...she, however, focused her affections on Sly. This would lead to him becoming gradually more jealous and resentful toward Sly the more she tried to flirt, even though he didn't return her affection in any way.

More blueprints review led Bentley to decide that his demolition skills were inadequate, and he suggested they recruit the Panda King to fill that role. Despite Sly's understandable objections to having someone who helped murder his father on the team, Panda King had the skills that they needed. They approached him with the offer, but it was only because the Guru somehow hit it off with him that he even considered joining them...and only on the condition that they help him save his daughter, Jing King, from a forced marriage with General Tsao, a man who was so cruel that Bentley actually saw him kick a puppy twice while observing him.

In disguise, Bentley approached Tsao as a wedding planner, offering his services for the ceremony so that they would have free entrance to his home. Tsao's ego was so large that he found this insulting, but he mentioned the need of a photographer so Bentley put Sly in that role and had him take sample photos of the guards to prove his skill. It was enough to get them inside thankfully.

Next he and Sly teamed up to steal a pair of keys to another building on the grounds so Bentley could access the computer there. Using a combination of his new grapple-cam and sleep darts, he successfully got past the security and hacked the computer. He also sent Murray to investigate a strange radio signal with Penelope and they discovered the team van, frozen and somehow having floated in. Through a team effort and Murray's outright refusal to abandon it again, the van was brought safely to the hideout.

Despite things having initially gone well and them being ready to try and save Jing King, Bentley had a major breakdown due to Tsao finding their safehouse and stealing his laptop. That computer had all of their plans on it and the idea of someone just walking in and stealing it upset him to the point that Sly had to make the plan. The priority was just to get the computer back now and started with Bentley sneaking into the palace and ransacking it until he found a computer, and then hacking it for anything that might help. He unlocked Tsoa's journal and helped Sly follow him to a battlefield imbued with mystic energy. Sly defeated Tsao and got it back, but Bentley had to change up the plan to be safe as well as to make sure they hit Tsao everywhere it hurt....including his treasure vault now that they had the van.

Because the van's battery was unusable, he and Sly stole a new one. To charge it Bentley had Sly put it on his back and let Carmelita, who was of course in the area to arrest them, shoot him several times with her shock pistol before pretending to faint and sneaking away later. With that done, he approached the Panda King to help Sly blow up a vampire crypt to stop the vampires Tsao had summoned...willing to give him a fair shot despite his somewhat pompous attitude in the face of the risk the gang was taking for his daughter. There was a close call in Penelope trying to rewire the phone lines to eavesdrop on Tsao that nearly got Murray killed, but Bentley had her use her RC car to save him.

Everything done, it was time for Operation Wedding Crasher, where they'd save Jing King, rob Tsao blind, and get him arrested. Sly had to let Penelope and Murray into the treasure temple, then make sure none of the vases set to detect subterranean infiltration alerted Tsao while the Panda King and the Guru tunneled to Jing King's room. Then Bentley used his grapple-cam to lure Carmelita to the palace where Sly disguised himself as Tsao and let her overhear a phony plan to steal the bride, so she would disguise herself as the bride and bust Tsao thinking he was Sly in disguise. Then Bentley waited for the loot drop...but Murray's enthusiasm broke the temple foundation and Bentley narrowly avoided having the building drop on his head instead, followed shortly by the treasure being punted to his new position. The enraged Tsao summoned a dragon which kidnapped Penelope and Sly saved her while everyone else got the loot and Jing King to the van so they could escape.

Tsao believed he had won and went on to his wedding, but was arrested by Carmelita and the Panda King joined to repay his debt. But before anything else the gang took a vacation in in Shanghai.

Not long after, Bentley was contacted late at night by Dimitri, who they owed a favor for his help in Holland. He wanted their help in recovering his grandfather's diving gear from a pirate in Blood Bath Bay named Black Spot Pete. But in order to earn his trust Bentley had to have Sly steal the clothes and peg-leg of Pete's old partner, Cantankerous Tim so Sly could impersonate him. That worked, but they found out that unfortunately the map to the treasure had been taken by a much more vicious and intelligent pirate called Le Fwee.

They needed not only the map but also a ship to get to Dagger Isle, where the treasure was buried, but the pirate wouldn't have let them just steal one so Bentley had Sly and Murray steal and jollyboat to take out the rudders on any ships that would pursue them as well as the harbor patrol.

With Penelope, Bentley tried sneak into Le Fwee's stronghold, first using a scanner to find where the map might have been. The device was destroyed and was rigged to explode if anyone tried to pick up the pieces, so Bentley had her use her RC car to gather the data. He then tried to impress her by sharing his experience in understanding the bad guys...but ended up saying he was the brains and Sly was "just the field man" when she said that he must have learned a lot from Sly. But she picked up on his jealousy, which he admitted to being jealous that he was stuck in his chair while Sly had great athletic skill. Penelope told him that he could do things Sly couldn't though and they began to bond. Shortly after, Penelope was blinded by a booby trap in Le Fwee's fortress and Bentley had to get her out and guide her back to the safehouse using only his grapple-cam, which he outfitted with the turret from her RC car, and bird noises.

They got the map and a ship, escaped the harbor and made it to Dagger Isle safely to start figuring out the map. But when they found the treasure chest with the gear, Le Fwee caught up with them and took Penelope prisoner. Not willing to risk her life, they returned to the ship. Bentley focused all of his intelligence on her rescue, having Dimitri use the diving gear to get blast collars for their cannons, taking out a fleet of mercenary pirates, and trying to learn about and control a sea monster that the pirates feared.

To confront Le Fwee, Bentley had them engage him in a ship battle, then had Sly board the ship to figure out where he kept Penelope. Le Fwee tried to trick them, but Bentley predicted the trick and lured his ship into open water where the Guru and the monster could attack while he worked on freeing Penelope. They freed, but Bentley was again knocked out of his chair when Sly paraglided in to help out and it was Penelope who saved him, taking Le Fwee in a swordfight and marking the start of their relationship...Dimitri also joined as their frogman, though no one had asked him. They then got the van on board and set sail for Kaine island.

The Cooper Vault job seemed to go without a hitch at first, Sly making it up to and opening the vault without trouble, but Dr. M attacked him. Bentley had been on his way to meet Sly and arrived just as Dr. M was demanding he hand over his cane, and shoot the scientist's hoverpack and help Sly as they retreated. He used his bombs to keep Sly's path clear and they almost made it to the boat, but Bentley was attacked by a monster created by Dr. M and Sly was nearly killed saving him...throwing his cane into the monster's jaws and making it drop Bentley, only for it to toss the cane and snatch up Sly to crush him.

Carmelita and her mercenaries saved Sly, and Bentley got him back to the ship to rest while he and the others tried to recover the lost cane...but Dr. M got it first. Sly came to and was insistent on getting his cane, so they helped him take to the air in their plane to challenge him and Bentley overheard their conversation, Dr. M calling Sly an egomaniac who took more credit than he was due and using his friends. He'd been a member of Sly's dad's gang, playing Bentley's role and always being in Cooper's shadow...making Bentley begin to wonder if it wasn't true.

When Sly got the vault open, Bentley and Murray were invited because Sly wanted to share this with them...but they had to wait at the entrance because only a Cooper could proceed. This fed Bentley's growing resentment and he asked Murray if he felt that Sly was only using them, his friend helping him recall that if it were Bentley going into the vault and Sly couldn't, Sly would still have his back. This restored his resolve and he helped protect the vault, the Dr. M managed to get in.

When the vault began to collapse, Dr. M wouldn't leave the treasure he'd lusted after for years and was crushed. Murray helped Bentley escape but they didn't find Sly. Bentley found Sly's gear and the Cooper cane though, as well as another way into the Cooper Vault, left behind by Sly.

After months had passed with no word from Sly, most of the team split up and returned to their lives, though Bentley and Murray stayed close friends. He and Penelope also started dating and built a new Cooper vault for Sly's legacy. He knows Sly's faking his amnesia because while he was spying on Sly one night, Sly looked in his direction and winked. Bentley also built a new laboratory and turned his attention to building a time machine to see how the future will turn out.

Bentley had been enjoying his new life with Penelope and had just finished working on his time machine with her, when she just up and vanished. He tried to find her but couldn't and became very worried. Soon after, he noticed that something was wrong with the Thievius Raccoonus and learned from it that something was erasing Cooper history. Without a second thought he left to find his friends to investigate, first Murray, then Sly.

In their old hideout, he explained the situation and revealed his time machine as the way to solve the problem, as well as installing it into the van. But for it to work they needed an artifact from the time period they were going to, and had to hit up a shady museum for an ancient Japanese dagger. Bentley took to the sewers for this job, getting into the security room to hack their computers, with only minor difficulty from being out of practice. Sly got the dagger, but was seen by Carmelita, and they escaped to start their adventure. But first they left the Thievius Raccoonus in Dimitri's care along with a communicator because they couldn't risk taking it with them through time. Then it was off to feudal Japan to check on Sly's ancestor, Rioichi Cooper.

When they arrived in the village, they found that it had been turned into a military camp and Rioichi was nowhere to be found. It turned out that he had been thrown in prison on the accusation of trying to give the shogun poisoned sushi, while his restaurant was closed down and kept guarded.

The first job was to free Rioichi so they could get to the bottom of things, so Bentley started Sly out with recon around the village...including one very out-of-place tiger that Bentley recognized as a wanted criminal in their time, which confirmed his hunch that someone else was using a time machine. Realizing that the only way into the prison was through the front doors, he had Sly steal a set of samurai armor to fool the guards so that he could get inside and free Rioichi.

Once that was done, Rioichi also confirmed that the tiger, El Jefe, was the source of the trouble and Bentley pulled up his file so they could plan the way to stop him. This started with him having Sly relieve the guards in front of the sushi restaurant so that Rioichi could get in without raising alarms before he got all of his knife-keys back and his sign back on. The Bentley took Murray to Rioichi's secret fishing caves to get a bunch of fish to help get him back in business.

Doing some snooping in an attempt to learn more about El Jefe, Bentley learned that the tiger frequented the geisha house to speak with Madam Geisha, and that she was on vacation but El Jefe didn't know that yet. So he had Rioichi sneak in and unlock her outfit so that Murray could impersonate her. He also used his RC car to follow El Jefe around town to eavesdrop on him before he visited the geisha house, and Murray got him the blueprints for the statue fortress.

Having overheard that the gate guards had a weakness for sushi, Bentley had Rioichi collect toxic plants to use to make drugged sushi rolls that would knock the guards out. They he had Sly steal keys that would access the gate switches and open the gates. When confronted by El Jefe's lackeys, he helped Sly and Murray in the brawl while Rioichi slipped under the bridge to open the palace gates and they went after El Jefe...only for the tiger to pounce Rioichi and steal his cane before destroying the bridge and retreating into his statue. Sly was the only one who could follow, but while he defeated El Jefe, the cane was lost and all he brought back was an authentic sheriff's badge.

They returned to the present long enough to send El Jefe to jail, but when they learned from Dimitri that Tennessee Kid Cooper was the next that their mysterious enemy was after, Bentley used the badge to transport them back to the old west. Like Rioichi, they found Tennessee already in prison thanks to the new sheriff. Bentley quickly figured out that the fastest way to break him out, since he was scheduled to be hanged, was for Sly to get himself arrested as an outlaw. Bentley had him deface the sheriff's posters, steal his specially imported lollipops, and tear down his parade banner. Once Sly was inside, Bentley did some recon around the outside of the prison and then guided both Coopers in blowing a hole in the prison's back wall to escape.

From Tennessee they learned that sheriff Toothpick had arrested him just before the heist that was to be his greatest...but the bank had been robbed right after and him charged with the crime. Bentley's research revealed that the sheriff was actually a modern day gangster from Europe. Knowing that he had been behind the bank robbery, Bentley made the plans needed to right history, starting with getting Tennessee's gun back. He tailed Toothpick to a closed down mine and then hacked the computer so that Murray could open the door for Tennessee to slip inside.

To spy on Toothpick in his office, Bentley took a job at the saloon as bartender while Sly slipped his RC car into a vent. Once most of the men were passed out from his special sarsaparilla, Bentley drove the RC car to Toothpick's office and left it there to eavesdrop.

Tennesse spotted Carmelita being carted off by Toothpick and Bentley immediately sent him after her while he grabbed Sly at Murray. They arrived just as Tennessee saved her but he, Sly, and Murray were captured and imprisoned. She and Tennesse freed them. Bentley then got her story for how she'd been caught at the museum and sent there...though all three of them then kept their heads as low as possible to avoid her wrath, which was mostly directed at Sly.

With Toothpick planning to move the gold he'd stolen on a train that was turbo-charged by their van, Bentley planned their next move. To steal keys needed to reroute the train Bentley entered Sly, Murray, and Carmelita in three different competitions against Toothpick's toughest lackeys. Then he had Tennessee reroute the train.

Boarding the train, Bentley had Murray free the van while he hacked a terminal to access control of the train whistles since Toothpick hated loud noises, with Carmelita covering him. Then Murray picked them up and Bentley helped Tennessee get the gold on board. Sly beat Toothpick, but Tennessee's gun had been stolen again, the train was headed for a broken bridge, and the van's brakes weren't responding so they hurtled off the cliff. Desperate, Bentley grabbed Murray's necklace and threw it into the time machine to prevent their deaths...leaving Tennessee, Toothpick, and the gold behind.

The necklace transported them through the time stream and into the Ice Age, but the van was damaged so there was no way to get back to Paris or reach Dimitri on the communicator. Needing to get the missing pieces of the van back, Bentley sent Sly out to investigate some prehistoric penguins that had swallowed the pieces. He also had Sly investigate where a bunch of cavemen were tormenting another that Bentley was able to identify as a primitive ancestor of Sly's...who they named Bob.

Sly saved him and brought him back and Bentley looked up the guy who had imprisoned him, The Grizz was using pterodactyl eggs for something and his taking of those eggs had ruined Bob's role as the top food provider for his village, but when he let himself get out of shape from depression the Grizz captured him. First Bentley had Murray train Bob to get him back into shape...though he later had to comfort Murray after having to have Bob replace him. Using both of them though, he was able to get the missing parts back.

Bentley tailed the Grizz to his art gallery, where he found out that he was planning to beckme rich in the future by planting "ancient art" to be "discovered" in the present. Then he had Sly tail him to get security codes and even though they overheard him talking to Le Paradox. Thankfully Carmelita appeared with the code and schematics.

They entered the egg-processing factory, working together to sabotage Grizz. Sly was supposed to beat Grizz, but Murray got separated from them and ended up facing Grizz alone which gave him back his confidence.

Traveling back to England next, they found that Sir Galeth Cooper had been reduced to circus jester. Bentley decided he'd need to make Sly an archer's disguise and sent Sly out to get the materials. Then he had him go free Galeth and bring him back to the safehouse.

From Galeth they learned that the area had been taken over by a mysterious black and his robotic guards, and even Bentley couldn't dig up any info on him. But when the Knight and a few guards began moving a secure object elsewhere in towan, Bentley correctly guessed that it was Galeth's cane and had Sly do some recon and helped him steal the cane back. He also had Galeth destroy the surveillance balloons in the area.

When Galeth insisted on there being a moat monster guarding the castle, Bentley was skeptical and thought it might be superstition...but it was a giant mechanical dragon that Galeth woke trying to defeat. Thankfully Carmelita was there to save the knight. After they returned Bentley sent Murray, Sly, and Galeth to destroy the tavern, shoemaker, and bakery which the knight was using to build and power his army...though Sly's job was actually just to get his remote hacking device there so he could hack the system.

When the Black Knight was spotted out, he had Sly tail him. But it was Bentley who followed him into the blacksmith...only to find out that the Knight was Penelope in robotic armor and that she had stolen his time machine plans. Utterly crushed, Bentley returned to the safehouse and crawled into his shell where no one could coax him out. No one could afford to wait on him though and they tried to confront Penelope without him. But Bentley eventually salvaged parts from her moat monster and came to Sly's rescue in a mech of his own.

Penelope tried to make Bentley see how Sly was stealing his potential, and he tried to make her realize that she was being used by the mastermind Le Paradox. But she wouldn't listen and he had to fight her. Afterward he apologized to Sly for having lost sight of his real friends. When they contacted Dimitri, it became clear their next stop was Arabia to help Salim au Kupar, a former member of the 40 Thieves.

Carmelita provided the artifact needed and they set out, with Bentley showing more confidence now then ever before. But when they arrived there was no sign of Salim as he had apparently just disappeared. To help locate him, Bentley outfitted Sly Binoccucom with the ability to spot Cooper DNA and had him go try to track Salim down as well as get recon.

Sly found Salim and convinced him to come back with him, and they learned Salim was trying to figure out how to save his fellow thieves from Miss Decibel, who was of course there thanks to Le Paradox. To earn Salim's trust, Bentley had Sly steal several gems to buy back the thief costume that Salim had to sell awhile back. Then he had Sly follow Le Paradox and Miss Decibel to learn about the captive thieves and their locations...also learning Le Paradox's plan to use forged documents to claim royal lineage in the present.

Bentley had Salim infiltrate the tower that acted as the current prison of his captured friend, who was under the spell of a hypnotizing machine that Bentley had to hack to free him. The second thief was in a much more secure prison, and with time short Bentley was forced to use his RC chopper to cover Sly and Salim so they could get inside rather than the safer route of disabling the security. Once he hacked the machine they escaped. He lost contact with Sly and Murray for a little while they tried to free the third thief, but they managed it fine.

Bentley had Salim let him into Miss Decibel's office so they could plant a bug. To get her out so they could place it, he played rock-and-roll. Then they planned to stop Miss Decibel and Le Paradox, with Carmelita having to dress as a belly-dancer outfit that Bentley made her in order to distract some guards while the rest of them forced open a door. Bentley used his RC car disguised as a mouse to lure more guards away from a terminal he needed to hack, and to take out the security lasers, then hacked the security...though it reactivated soon after. Le Paradox escaped with Salim's cane, the forged documents, and Carmelita, leaving behind a defeated and betrayed Miss Decibel.

When they returned to Paris, Le Paradox had already claimed royalty and had control of the city. Bentley pulled up his background and then Bentley told Sly how to get onto Le Paradox's blimp. In the meantime he and Murray rounded up the other Coopers to steal back their canes, to correct the abnormalities that had formed in time. They also saved Sly and Carmelita, but Le Paradox accidentally tore a hole in the time tunnel he'd had built, causing the blimp to start to be pulled apart and into it. He made them take Carmelita and escape, determined to settle with Le Paradox, but the blimp disappeared and only Le Paradox was found.

Everyone waited weeks for Sly to return, but he never did. Bentley hasn't given up searching for him though, despite having no leads that could help him. He doesn't plan to either. He has also since gotten a postcard from Penelope, who escaped the high security prison that she had been sent to.