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whisker-biscuit · 2 months

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The Lines We Cross: Chapter 29

The Cold Heart of Hate

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His Last Word Was My Name…His Last Thought Was of Me

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They were going after Clockwerk. They were going to take down Clockwerk.

Just thinking about it felt like treason; something Sly had dared not voice even in his own head for years after the Incident. Actively trying it would have once been enough to send him into a panic at the slightest hint of something going wrong. Two months ago, if he’d considered something like this, he probably would have given up and turned himself back in to the Fiendish Five for the sake of his own survival – freedom be damned. It was an impossible task against an untouchable foe, and one beaten-down failure of a thief would never have been able to get even this far on his own.

But he wasn’t beaten-down anymore, nor was he a failure like he’d been led to believe for too long. And, most importantly, he was no longer alone.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t scared shitless, though.

Sly flexed the fingers around his cane in a constant, nervous tic as he followed Inspector Fox into one of the caverns littering the volcano’s inner walls. She was dragging the robo-falcon she’d shot behind her, but it barely slowed her down at all, and once again he marveled at how incredible she was. Once they were sure the cave that they’d picked was free of birds, cameras, mines, or any other security, the two of them hunkered down in the shadows and began working out the details of their haphazard plan.

As the raccoon watched the crater in case of a sudden appearance by the Five’s leader, Carmelita pried apart the metal shell of the smaller, downed bird and pulled out the weapon inside of it – along with the tangled mess of wires that made up half its innards. She let out a contemplative hum as she examined what she’d found.

“Just as I thought; this is a military-grade British gun turret. Lightweight and small enough to hold for easy use and transport, but still deadly with even a single direct hit. It’s supposed to be highly regulated, classified technology. How the hell did Clockwerk get his claws on this?”

“You said it’s British? I’d bet all my money on Raleigh either having someone on the inside or just stealing the blueprints himself. The guy was obsessed with recreating anything machine-related he could hear about, especially if it was outside of public knowledge. He and Clockwerk loved to talk shop and haggle over tech information.”

She looked at him with surprise, and his shoulders drew up subconsciously.

“What?” He nearly snapped, defensive.

“No – nothing,” the fox was quick to reassure. “I just…I didn’t expect you to be so forthcoming about that. Stuff about the Fiendish Five.”

“Well…yeah. The cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it? I don’t really have any reason to be secretive about it anymore.”

“I guess not.” She began untangling the cords and wires around the miniature turret, speaking absently as she worked. “I thought about that a lot while we were separated, you know. How much you knew about where we were going, and about the Five.”

Sly turned his gaze back out the cave entrance to continue watching the skies. “I knew approximate things. I knew Mz. Ruby lived in a swamp and that it was somewhere in Haiti, but they always dropped me directly in her territory, so I didn’t have the exact location down. Same with Raleigh, and the Panda King.”

“So…those emails from Muggshot weren’t just for my benefit?” Her tone wasn’t confrontational, only curious, but he still gave her a brief sideways glance.

“No. I swiped them from his office when you were fighting him – back when I didn’t think you’d come out of it alive.” He snorted and shook his head. “If only I’d known it’s literally impossible to put you down.”

“You flatter me, Ringtail. I was just extremely lucky.” Carmelita paused long enough that it was obvious she had thought of something. “Wait. That ‘special package’ they were talking about. Was that…?”

“Yours truly.”

“I’m so sorry, Sly.”

He would have closed his eyes to avoid the pity on her face if he wasn’t currently playing lookout. “I said it then and I’ll say it now: there’s no use getting our tails in a twist over it. It happened, it’s over, and now we’re going to make sure it never happens again.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” Another, longer pause. “Hang on, you didn’t know exactly where most of the Five were hiding, but what about Clockwerk? How did you find him?”

“I mean, it’s a lot easier to find someone who lives in a single volcano compared to, say, an entire mountain range. But, yeah, I knew where he was. He told me when he dared me to win my freedom back. I always thought it was a weird throwaway comment, but…” The raccoon gestured around them. “Guess I should’ve known him better than that.”

“Don’t give him credit he doesn’t deserve. There’s no way he could’ve predicted something like this, and we both know he wasn’t aiming for me on that statue.”

“Sure, but we can’t underestimate him either, Carmelita. He’s the leader for a lot of reasons beyond his size and strength.”

Her fingers snagged on an exposed wire. She let out a quiet curse as it shocked her. “You know what? I’m done talking about him until we have to. Let’s change the subject. How long has it been since Kunlun? I was unconscious for a while, and it hasn’t been easy to keep track of time since I woke up.”

“Uh…”

Sly shot her another glance, noticing the angry pull of her mouth and the way she was glaring at the turret in her lap like it was the evilest thing in the world. It was very clear what – who – she was actually directing her fury towards. He wisely did not bring it up and followed her lead instead.

“Sixteen hours, give or take. Sorry it took so long.”

“Sixteen –” the inspector’s head shot up to stare at him. “Sly, Krakarov is a long way from Kunlun. Forget the apology, it’s amazing you got here as fast as you did! How on earth did you do it?”

“Hitched a ride on whatever plane got me the closest, then hiked the rest of the way.”

Carmelita stopped working entirely. “You got on a plane.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You flew here to find me.”

“How else was I supposed to get here? By car?” He asked, making her huff in good-natured exasperation. The reason for her shock wasn’t lost on him, however, and his sarcasm dropped in favor of something more genuine. “Listen, I’m not saying it was easy. It actually really fucking sucked, but I wasn’t going to leave you in the claws of that monster any longer than necessary. Rescuing you was worth the trip. Hell, I’d board the longest flight in the world if that’s what it took.”

“Sly, that’s…”

A sudden chill ran down the raccoon’s back – a preemptive warning for something all too familiar. He took a few steps further into the shadows of the cave, planting himself between the exit and where Carmelita was sitting on the ground with the falcon corpse. When she looked up at him, confused, he put a finger to his lips and turned his attention to the crater beyond.

He felt rather than saw Clockwerk approaching from a distance, sweeping the area in search of them. With a nervous, protective hiss, painfully aware of the fact that the cave ended in a rock wall just a few meters back, Sly curled protectively around the inspector and held them both still, watching the sky. The owl’s giant silhouette blotted out the stars above as he circled the crater once from a great height, then swooped low for a second, more discerning pass.

The raccoon risked tilting his head just enough so that his mouth was right next to Carmelita’s ear. His eyes never left Clockwerk’s silent, deadly form, terrified that the minuscule movement had tipped off their enemy to their location.

“Hold your breath as long as you can,” he whispered to his partner. She obeyed without question, inhaling deeply and quietly, and he had never been more grateful for her trust in his life.

Immediately, Sly became invisible, hoping beyond hope that the ability extended to who he was holding and not just what. The fox stiffened against him but didn’t exhale, thank god, and he wordlessly apologized for catching her off guard with this unexpected thing he could do. He didn’t dare look to see if it had worked on her. All he could do was stay motionless, breathless; watching and waiting for the owl to make the next move.

Clockwerk did a third and final circle through the area. He passed so close to the rock wall and the cavern the two were huddled in that they could hear the mechanical whirring of his body for the briefest of seconds before he moved on. The sound set all of Sly’s fur on end; his chest burned in rhythm to terrible memory.

And then, just as suddenly as he’d arrived, the ancient bird flew off over a distant ridge and disappeared.

Neither of them moved for a solid minute afterwards. The raccoon held his breath until he couldn’t any longer, releasing it only when his vision started going spotty. Carmelita did the same against him. They remained that way, panting silently together and watching the dark skies.

When it finally felt safe enough, he began to uncurl from around the inspector only for her to grab him by the shoulders and swivel him so they were nose to nose.

“What was that?” She whispered as she stared at him. “Sly, you were invisible. I was invisible! How the hell did you do that?!”

“It’s a technique I learned from the Thievius Raccoonus,” he murmured, feeling a prickle of fear pass through his mind at the intense look on her face. He couldn’t read her expression, and that was the scariest thing of all. “I don’t – I’m not really sure how it works, just that I have to hold my breath to do it. I’m just glad that it worked on you; that was a gamble I was making when I grabbed you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

Carmelita continued to stare at him, still clutching his shoulders, then released him with an incredulous shake of her head. “Increíble. You really are something special, Sly Cooper. I hope you realize that.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Seemingly taking his silence as agreement or at least acquiescence, the fox picked up the turret she had been working on before their scare.

“I think I got this thing figured out. We can definitely use it against Clockwerk. Now all we need is a proper plan.” She peered out at the open crater, then over at him. “I have an idea, especially now that I know you can disappear at will, but…I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

“I doubt I’ll like any plan that’s going to put us at risk, but if it’s enough to take him down, then it’s worth it. Hit me with your best shot, Inspector.”

So, she did exactly that – and she was right, he didn’t like it. But they had precious few options and precious little time, and it was the only real chance they had. Against all his instincts screaming at him to forget about this, to flee before it was too late, Sly agreed with the grim understanding that it was now or never.

It was finally time to end the Fiendish Five once and for all, and earn his freedom back.

For however much longer that was worth.

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This was what they were going to do:

Sly, armed with both the jetpack and the mini-turret, would climb as high as he dared along the cliff walls above the lava pits, visibly and openly, in an attempt to goad Clockwerk into appearing. Inspector Fox would remain on the rocky paths below, out of sight and waiting for anything to attack her partner. The moment the owl arrived, she would shoot him with her shock pistol in an effort to stun him and send him plummeting into the fatal pools below. If the electricity wasn’t enough right off the back, the raccoon would unload the turret into him to finish the job and get the hell out of dodge before any retaliation could happen.

Best case scenario, all it would take was one hit from the pistol to down the bird. Worst case, Sly was supposed to flee using the jetpack and his invisibility while Carmelita disappeared back into the caves around her, and they’d try to regroup outside of the volcano or hunker down and hide until Interpol arrived to deal with the furious owl.

It was a messy, impromptu plan that relied on luck just as much as their own skills, but they were going to bank on Clockwerk’s obsession with the Coopers to blind him to the assault until it was too late. The leader of the Fiendish Five thought himself untouchable; tonight, the two of them hoped to prove otherwise.

Sly huddled between two large cracks in the wall for a quick breather as he worked his way up the side of the crater. For all that he was only pretending to try and escape, there was no acting in the way he constantly scanned the scenery and pressed himself tightly against the rocks in paranoia. He couldn’t allow himself to be caught off guard by Clockwerk before Carmelita could do her part. His heart hammered in his scarred chest and his tail flicked about in uncontainable stress.

He double-checked the jetpack straps to make sure there was no chance they’d come loose on him if he took to the air. His partner had checked the fuel tank and assured him that it had several hours’ worth of constant flight, which was a minor relief, but he had only gotten a crash course from her about how to adjust his height. There hadn’t even been time to test its speed. One bad maneuver and the owl could clip him with a wing or a talon.

Send him falling out of the skies and straight to his –

The raccoon shook his head and continued climbing. Catastrophizing was pointless, now. It was time to trust Inspector Fox.

Himself, too.

Just as his foot found another crevasse to hoist himself up further, foreboding hit the back of his neck down to his tail. Sly twisted in place to face the crater, catching the faintest glimpse of that familiar silhouette high above before it dove straight for him. He froze, hypnotized by the glowing yellow gaze trained on him, and found himself unable – unwilling – to move.

“Found you.”

The owl’s beak was open in a twisted grin of triumph as he came down at his prey. His claws came out from under his body, open and ready to grab, to take, to break, and his eyes were alight with hateful glee. Everything else disappeared under the great and terrible presence of Clockwerk.

I’m going to die.

Pure, concentrated energy arced up in the shrinking gap between them. It hit the bird square in the head with an eruption of blue. He reared back in a flurry of flapping wings as if blinded, and that was all the cue Sly needed. The raccoon came back to himself just in time to turn the turret on and fire – right where the shock pistol blast had just connected. Clockwerk screeched, loud and pained and furious, and crashed into the volcano wall where his quarry was flattened up against.

Sly stopped firing and leapt instead, narrowly missing the enraged owl by the skin of his teeth as he began to freefall. Amidst his fear and the horrible scraping of metal to rock, he barely had the presence of mind to fumble with the jetpack controls, turning his rapid drop into a midair float. Holding his breath against the urge to hyperventilate was done through sheer force of will; he disappeared from sight just as the owl regained his bearings and launched off of the wall back into the sky.

“You cannot escape me, Cooper Raccoon!” Clockwerk roared. His eyes glittered with loathing as he searched for his prey. “You’re the weakest Cooper I’ve ever encountered. My intellect is refined; my experience is greater! I will thwart this pitiful attempt at fighting back and show you what true terror looks like!”

He made several wide swipes into the air around him, hoping to catch the raccoon with sheer reach alone, but Sly had already fallen as low as he dared above the bubbling lava pits. The heat was so strong he could feel it through the soles of his sneakers, but he remained invisible underneath the ancient bird as he hunted him.

A second electric bullet slammed into Clockwerk talons from below. The digits went momentarily limp; the owl’s head whirled towards Carmelita, who stood out in the open on the rock path beneath the battle with her pistol at the ready. His beak opened in a silent approximation of a snarl as all his murderous intent zeroed in on the inspector who’d dared get in the way of his goal.

Before he could even dive-bomb after her, Sly reappeared in his line of sight long enough to shoot at him again. Bullets ripped into the vulnerable metal around his claws until two of them were hanging by a thread. There were no nerve endings there to further debilitate the owl; he course-corrected without any hesitation and aimed for the raccoon while he was still visible.

“Enough, Sly Cooper! It ends here. I’ll finish you like I finished your father. Then the Cooper line will be erased, and the only master thief will be Clockwerk!”

Sly yanked on the jetpack controls, sending him rocketing skywards so fast it nearly gave him whiplash as Clockwerk followed right behind. Each wing beat matched the throbbing in his chest.

“You can’t dodge me forever.” It was a promise, not a threat, as the ancient bird began to close in on his prey. His damaged talons rose in preparation to snatch him straight out of the air –

“Sly! Behind you!”

The owl swerved, suddenly losing control of his flight as Carmelita shot out his tail feathers. He spiraled leftward, attempting a desperate grab for the raccoon that was easily avoided right before crashing into an outcropping of metal and machinery that had been embedded in one of the walls. Sly turned and stared in disbelief at the monster who had plagued his life; the monster who had now found himself momentarily trapped as his shredded claws caught against his own contraption.

Bizarre didn’t even begin to describe it. It was downright surreal. And it was all thanks to the force of nature that was Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox.

A force of nature that wasn’t done yet.

As Clockwerk struggled to free himself and regain the upper hand, the fox found her mark a fourth time. His right wing lit up from electricity, and its frantic flapping slowed considerably. Sly didn’t waste the opportunity given to him – he laid into that wing with the last of the turret’s ammunition. Metal feathers were ripped from their master’s shell in flaming shards, plopping into the lava pool like dozens of tiny comets.

All at once, the wing went limp, as did the rest of the ancient bird. Sly hovered high and uncertainly above him, clutching the empty weapon while waiting for the next thing to dodge or react to. Far below them both, he could see Carmelita taking advantage of the brief reprieve to begin reloading her pistol.

He looked in her direction a second too long, and that was all it took.

Clockwerk lurched, sudden and startling, and dropped dead weight towards the lava. What seemed like a victory at first became horrifying realization as the owl twisted midair to turn his freefall into a glide with the last bit of control he still had – aimed straight for Inspector Fox in her distraction. Her eyes went wide and she dropped the shock pistol in her panic, turning tail and sprinting for all she was worth from the creature determined to slaughter her.

Time slowed to a crawl. Sly felt himself move in slow motion; turning off the jetpack, throwing aside the useless turret, pulling his cane out as he rocketed down towards Clockwerk. Sparkles flashed across the broken metal frame and he followed them, landing on the plummeting owl’s back as easily as if it were solid ground. As the ancient bird made one last bid for an attack, the raccoon brought the cane down against the back of his skull.

Clockwerk screamed. His head twisted in place to fix loathing eyes on the last Cooper, and it was just enough to save Carmelita’s life. He crashed into the lava centimeters shy of the fox’s rocky sanctuary, thrashing wildly as molten liquid poured into his body. Even in his flailing, even as he began to sink further and further into the lava, Sly did not jump off of his back.

He slammed his cane into the owl’s head again. And again. And again. For every garbled sentence Clockwerk said as his brain failed him, for every twitch of dying machinery, for every part of him that was still impossibly alive, Sly Cooper struck him over and over. There was no blind rage or even blind terror to the onslaught; just the crystal-clear understanding that if he did not stop until this monster was well and truly dead, then he would never have the chance again.

Within the battered, broken head of the owl, a single coherent word rang out.

“Cooper!”

The sound of his last name was enough to finally make the raccoon pause. He stilled with his cane raised, prepared for one last trick.

“You will never be rid of me,” the monster declared. “Clockwerk is superior–!”

His voice cut out as the cane cracked his head clean off.

Yellow eyes dimmed to blank black and wings drooped into lava as the struggling stopped in an instant. Sly stood there on what little was left of Clockwerk, staring down the body slowly melting beneath him. His own body felt heavy, and his senses were behind a wall that he could not pass through. Distantly, he heard Inspector Fox call out to him, pleading for him to get off of the owl and join her, but registering it was a delayed process.

When he finally began to turn towards the safety of the nearby rock, something under his foot caught his attention. The raccoon looked down to see papers jammed in the open hole that now made up Clockwerk’s neck. He crouched, picking them up before they could be burned to a crisp, and jumped from the husk of his previous life to the uncertainty of his next.

Carmelita was waiting for him there. She looked at him for a long moment, then at the pages held almost reverently in his hands.

“Are those…?”

“Yeah.” He answered without really being there, staring down at the thing he’d worked so hard for that had been a lie all this time. “The rest of the Thievius Raccoonus. It’s complete again.”

Saying it out loud didn’t make it feel any more real. Sly continued to stare at them, and suddenly had the urge to put them back where he’d found them. Watch them dissolve into nothing along with Clockwerk.

Maybe he should just let the whole book burn.

A pair of hands wrapped around his own, where he was clenching the pages so tightly that they seemed ready to tear. He startled, unsure when he’d started doing that or how long he’d been looking at them.

“Let’s get out of here, Ringtail.” Her voice was calm and quiet and left no room for argument. “Before you do something you’ll regret.”

She began pulling him along with her as she walked away from Clockwerk’s corpse. He followed without resistance – except for a single glance back which was intercepted by her gentle touch to his cheek before he could complete the movement. The raccoon blinked, surprised to feel cool wetness there in the space between her fingers and his fur.

The two of them walked for an indeterminable amount of time, only stopping to climb ledges or pick a different direction. Sly’s mind slowly began to escape the fog it had found itself in, and by the time he finally stopped dissociating, they were standing on a catwalk overlooking the entire volcano. Far below, the owl’s body had seemed to stall in its melting; it sat in the lava, half-submerged, and did not sink any further. Above them, countless stars twinkled, reminiscent of the blue sparkles that promised endless possibilities limited only by himself.

Beside him, Inspector Fox spoke quietly into her radio before setting it back on her hip. She met his gaze with a cautious expression, as unsure about his thoughts as he was about hers.

“Interpol will be here within the hour,” she said, watching him carefully. “How are you feeling?”

The raccoon took a long, deep breath. He looked out at Krakarov and the great expanse beyond. The pages in his left hand and the cane in his right didn’t feel quite as volatile anymore. With another, longer exhale, he stuffed the rest of the Thievius Raccoonus in his backpack and ran his fingers along the edges of his cane.

“Not great,” he admitted. “But…not the worst, either. I think…I think I’ll be okay.”

“Good.”

An awkward, expectant silence fell heavily between them. Neither moved or looked away, each waiting for the other to say or do something first. Finally, after a full minute of quiet studying, Carmelita pulled her shock pistol out of her holster and pointed it at him.

“Ten.”

She said it softly yet firmly, as if convincing herself as much as she was him that she was really going through with this.

“Nine.”

Sly stood frozen for a moment. Then he took a step forward.

“Eight.”

He moved slowly, bit by bit. There was no hurry for what he was about to do. Or, more precisely, what he wasn’t going to do.

“Seven.”

The raccoon came to a stop right in front of her, close enough for either of them to reach out and touch and touch each other.

“Six.”

Without breaking eye contact, Sly leaned forward until his chest was pressed up against the barrel of her weapon.

“Five.”

Inspector Fox didn’t respond to the action. She didn’t react at all beyond the briefest furrow of her eyebrows, as though unsurprised that he was choosing this.

“Four.”

He reached for her right hand; the one holding her weapon.

“Th-three.”

Now she stumbled over her words, finally caught off guard by what he was doing. Even then, she didn’t flinch when his fingers intertwined with hers.

“Two.”

Sly never stopped staring at her. He committed every detail of her face to memory for the precious last second that he had it. The touch he’d dared to steal from her would forever be the only thing he stole from her.

“One.”

It was his voice that finished the count, barely a whisper of a word as he let go of her hand. They were nose to nose, neither blinking. He closed his eyes and began to back out of her space, waiting for the pull of a trigger.

But she surged forward instead.

Faster than he could react, her lips pressed to his. He made a startled noise against her, stiffening for a moment before melting into the unexpected kiss; her free hand came up to hold his cheek, and his hands burrowed into her hair. The trust, the heartache, the need for each other was shared in one simple, desperate gesture of love.

And then, just like that, it was over.

They pulled away from each other at the same time, both trembling with emotions they couldn’t contain and yet couldn’t express. The pistol remained a barrier between them.

“Get out of here, Sly Cooper,” Carmelita murmured, gaze bright and burning. “Go show the world that you’re worth so much more than a name.”

She closed her eyes. Opened them.

He was already gone.

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A/N: I really hope the Clockwerk confrontation was satisfying. It was harder to adapt the fight than I expected - he's got lasers and those electric rings in the game, but otherwise he himself doesn't do much while facing you. I wanted him to be more "active" so to speak, so took away the weapons to make that happen (and to even the playing field a little bit because our heroes were struggling otherwise). I know a lot of people had high expectations for the climax of this fic and I apologize if it fell short.

(Can you tell I'm nervous? I'm really nervous, ahaha.....)

See you all next week for the epilogue.

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #clockwerk #fanfiction #the lines we cross

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whisker-biscuit · 2 months

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The Lines We Cross: Chapter 28

A Temporary Truce

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Ashes, ashes, dust to dust The devil’s after both of us Lay my curses all to rest Make a mercy out of me

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When Clockwerk had announced that Sly Cooper was here and then given his ominous statement that Carmelita would lead him to death, the owl had disappeared and left her alone in her isolated prison. She didn’t give herself a moment to panic as soon as he was gone – instead she threw all her energy into trying to escape again, knowing that it was only a matter of time before her partner was either caught or killed in his attempt to rescue her.

She re-tested the glass with punches, kicks, and – after gently removing the SD card to pocket in her jeans – even the camera. It was bashed into the cylindrical walls to no avail over and over again until it broke in her hands, but she didn’t dare stop trying while her ringtail was at risk.

When the mirror wall was abruptly destroyed by said ringtail, her heart had plummeted into her stomach at the sight of him looking haggard, determined, and utterly unaware of whatever trap had been set for him. When the poisonous gas began spewing into the room and he fell coughing and choking to his knees, her pleas for him to run became sobs as she remained helpless to do anything but watch him die.

And when he looked up at her and she saw his lucidity return long enough for him to throw something round and blinking into the wall behind her, Carmelita didn’t waste another second.

She dropped to the ground and covered her head with her arms just in time for the device to explode, shattering the glass around her in an instant and nearly blowing out her eardrums in the process. The fox staggered to her feet; hand pressed tightly against her face to deter the gas as much as possible as she found Sly lying face-down a few meters away. The blast had ripped a huge hole in the wall where she could see rock and a faint orange glow beyond, and either it had also destroyed the vents containing the deadly vapors or the hole was enough to filter it out, because already the green haze around them was rapidly disappearing.

Still afraid to draw breath but even more afraid that the raccoon had already drawn his last, Carmelita crouched beside him and grabbed him by the waist, relieved beyond all measure to feel the stuttering rise and fall of his chest. As she hoisted him up in a position she could carry him by, his head fell forward against her shoulder and she could see cloudy eyes drifting shut.

“C’mon, Ringtail, don’t give up on me yet,” she pleaded, unable to shake him awake as she walked them both towards escape. “We’re almost out. Stay awake. Please.”

Miraculously, it seemed to do the trick – he opened his eyes with a moan and even began trying to drag his feet in step with hers. It didn’t technically help, but she was so grateful that he was lucid enough to understand what she was doing that she didn’t care. He could be dead weight in her arms so long as he remained alive.

When they crossed the surprisingly-thin barrier from death trap to hopeful escape route, the fox paused only a moment to look around and take in the fact that they were apparently in a volcano. Everything around her was rock and, in the distance, she could see lava pouring out of a metal pipe and into an enormous fiery pool that she wasn’t keen to get close to. Somehow, it wasn’t as surprising to learn as it felt like it should have been, and it certainly explained the heat.

She chalked it up to the strange saga her life had become. Nothing else was likely to faze you when you’d already encountered storm machines and swamp snake monsters, after all.

Eventually, Carmelita felt safe enough with the distance they’d made to slow down a bit, debating whether to stop to properly take in the state of her partner. Sly answered her inner turmoil for her when he began to shift and fidget against her back.

“Hey, Inspector…” He whispered, only audible because he was right next to her head. “You hurt?”

“That’s my line,” she answered immediately, stopping mid-step to look at him. He blinked back at her, weary but aware, and that was all the cue she needed.

The fox propped him up in a crevasse in the wall that was just big enough to hide both of them from sight, then began to carefully catalogue him for injuries and lingering effects from the gas. The Cooper cane was gripped tightly in his hand and she did her best not to glance at it while she studied him. He didn’t so much as twitch under her touch; she wasn’t sure how to read that.

“…Feels like I should be the one doing this,” the raccoon murmured after nearly a minute of silence between them, “since I was supposed to be the rescuer and all.”

Carmelita pursed her lips at the ragged sound of his voice. “Please don’t speak if it’s straining to do. You inhaled a lot of gas and I don’t know what that means for you yet.”

She found scrapes, bruises, and a bump on his forehead from where he’d hit the ground after his bomb had gone off, but nothing life-threatening. The rhythm of his chest was growing stronger with every passing second, and it showed as his words became louder and steadier.

“The fact that I’m still breathing at all means I’ll survive. Clockwerk doesn’t do anything in half measures; he calculates everything perfectly. He wanted me to die choking on poison, not from any aftereffects.”

The inspector didn’t ask him how he knew that for sure. The look in his eyes was answer enough. Her hand trailed down to the front of his dirty hoodie. He was still wearing the one she had bought for him in Haiti. She realized, with a start, that he’d been wearing it in Kunlun, too, but she had been so focused on him that she’d missed it.

Hundreds of photos flashed through her mind in an instant, accompanied very quickly by overwhelming guilt. Carmelita sat back on her heel and wrapped her arms around her middle.

“Thank you for saving me, Sly.” Shame made her want to avert her eyes, but she kept her gaze firmly on him. She needed to be open and honest with him about this. “After everything I said and did to you, you would have been well within your rights to wash your hands of me. I’m practically your enemy, but you still came.”

He sat up a little straighter, no longer relying on the wall to keep himself upright, and his own eyes were soft. “Carmelita, you’re not my enemy. You never were, even when I was too stubborn and afraid to realize it.”

“Even when I was gunning you down on the Panda King’s turf?” She countered, in genuine disbelief over his statement.

“Especially then,” the raccoon confirmed. There was a grim set to his mouth. “I’ve been surrounded by enemies for half my life, and I know what that really looks like. That night in Kunlun, I was more afraid of what would happen to me when I was taken to Interpol than when you specifically caught me. I knew you’d never hurt me the way my real enemies would, no matter how angry you were.”

What a sobering thought that was. The fox vividly remembered her fury while chasing after him, willing to hit him with enough shock pistol shots to take down someone twice his size. He had clearly considered the threat real and reacted accordingly, but even then, it had not been anywhere near the dangers he’d lived under for so long.

The danger he was still in, so long as they remained in this volcano.

She turned her attention to the giant bulky thing strapped to his back. It had registered in the back of her mind when she’d carried him out of the gas trap room, but only now did she realize that it was hers.

“How did you get ahold of my jetpack?”

“Oh, uh…borrowed it from your Interpol friends. Figured you – we could use it to get out of here once I found you.”

He gave her a careful look. Carmelita knew what he was searching for and was quick to push all her instinctive judgement out of her mind and off her face. Instead, she smiled at him.

“That was smart thinking, Ringtail. I knew I could count on you to have a plan.”

The raccoon blushed, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet as he looked away. It was so reminiscent of their earlier time working together that her smile nearly faltered. Now, she had context for why he struggled so hard to take a compliment – before, it had been endearing, but right now all it did was make her blood boil. Her right hand twitched as if to grip tighter at a weapon she no longer had.

His eyes caught the movement and he brightened. “Oh! I didn’t just get the jetpack, actually. I also got all of – here.”

He reached behind him, to his backpack that she hadn’t realized was hidden under the jetpack, and began pulling out equipment one after the other. The inspector’s jaw dropped as her shock pistol, radio, and GPS were all offered to her nonchalantly; as if it had been an easy task to just steal from an elite team of officers.

She realized that, for him, it probably was.

It was only a delay of a few seconds that she stared at them, but it was a delay too long. Sly’s ears fell back and he began to hunch in on himself, still offering her stuff but looking ready to disappear the moment she took them.

“I mean – I didn’t – I just thought…”

“Thank you,” she said, firm and honest, before he could spiral into an assumption that she very much didn’t want him to make. “This will be crucial to our survival, Sly. I wish I had even half the foresight you do. You’re still the best partner I ever had, and I mean that wholeheartedly.”

Carmelita reached out and clasped her hands around his, holding the equipment between them – and his cane – as she looked him squarely in the eye and tried to make it clear that she wasn’t angry over what he’d done. He tensed at the touch at first, then slowly began to relax as it sunk in that he hadn’t done something terrible in her eyes. That she was accepting him for who and what he was.

Later, she would kick herself for her inattentiveness in enemy territory.

A screech echoed through the air and that was all the warning either of them got before suddenly a pair of talons latched around the jetpack from above. Sly could only stare at her in shock before he was hoisted off the ground and her equipment clattered to the ground. Another screech behind her was all the warning she got to throw herself sideways – just in time as a second pair of talons made a grab for her and missed.

The robotic falcon didn’t change course when it failed to snatch her; instead, it made a beeline for Sly, who had already gotten one of his arms out of the jetpack straps in his attempt to escape. The bird wrapped its claws around his flailing legs, holding him tight as they all began to fly away.

“No!”

Carmelita didn’t even realize she’d yelled as she dove for her shock pistol lying on the rock floor. She didn’t know if it was loaded but didn’t dare waste precious seconds to check – her arms swung towards the birds and their struggling hostage, eyes desperately searching for a way to shoot Sly down without shooting him.

She wasn’t finding her window and they were getting away. There was no more time to look for something safe. The inspector set her sights on the one holding her partner’s legs, fired, and watched the sizzling bullet impact.

The falcon screamed – as did Sly as the current flowed through its talons and into him – and seemed to lock up from the electricity. Its wings halted mid-beat and it began to plummet towards the ground. Its hold on the raccoon didn’t stay; he slipped out of its grip just in time for it to fall out of the air.

And fall it did. The robot bird crashed into stone and the resulting crunch was loud enough to confirm it was out of commission for good. Carmelita looked up to the other falcon still holding her partner hostage only to see him finally remove himself from the jetpack’s harness and fall as well. He angled himself towards a high ledge and tucked into a roll right before hitting it, tumbling over and over until he came to a stop on his back. The remaining falcon, unaware it had lost its prize, clutched the jetpack close and flew higher and higher into the volcano.

Inspector Fox aimed carefully, waiting until she was certain the bird was over rock and not lava, and pulled the trigger a second time. It hit its mark perfectly; the falcon screamed and froze just like its brethren had, landing in a heap out of sight on a distant rocky shelf. The smoke from its broken body was the only indication of where it – and the jetpack – now was. Threat neutralized, she sprinted towards the ledge Sly had landed on.

“Sly! Are you alright?” She called, skidding to a stop at the bottom of the cliffside to look for footholds to climb. “I’ll be right up there, just give me a minute!”

A black-ringed face peered over the edge down at her. In the low light, she couldn’t tell if he was hurt, but the sound of his voice coming down was a stark relief.

“I’m fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me for a bit. Don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come up, though.”

“Why not?”

“It’s completely exposed up here. Nothing to hide under or even against if something attacks us again.”

The raccoon began sliding down the rocky wall, slowly and carefully, until he was low enough for her to help him down the rest of the way. He cracked his back with a grimace.

“Fuck me, that was close. ‘S what I get for forgetting to look up. Sorry for losing the jetpack.”

“The important thing is that you’re alive,” Carmelita pointed out. “That’s all that matters to me.”

His lips thinned. “Yeah, well, if we don’t get it back soon, there’s not going to be much of either of us left to think anything matters. I had to block off the way I used to find you, so this is all new territory for me. The longer we’re stuck here, the more likely it is that Clockwerk finds us.”

“Then let’s not give him more time than he already has.” She holstered her pistol, picked up her radio and GPS to clip onto her belt, and began walking in the direction of the smoking husk. “We’ll retrieve the jetpack, fly out of here, and then contact Interpol for a rescue.”

He kept pace with her without any hesitation. “I already did that.”

“You –” the fox tripped over nothing, then turned to gape at him. “You contacted them?”

“Yeah.” Sly gestured to the GPS. “Turned that on before I entered the volcano. I figured that since you’ve been missing almost a full day in the middle of an important raid, they’d probably be on high alert for any sign of where you went.”

Sure enough, the signal was still going strong when she checked it. Carmelita felt a weight lift off her shoulders knowing that Interpol was already on their way. If nothing else, they moved with incredible speed when one of their own was in danger.

“I didn’t try the radio, though,” he continued before she even had a chance to thank him. “Doubted they’d take me seriously since they have no idea who I am. Was kinda banking on the tracker being enough.”

“It probably is, but it wouldn’t hurt to let them know I’m alive.” As she pulled the radio up to her mouth, she paused and looked at him. “Is that okay with you?”

“What kind of question is that? ‘No, I have a problem with you increasing our chances of being rescued’? Call them while you’ve still got battery left in that thing, Inspector.” The raccoon turned his eyes to the skies. “I’ll be on bird watch in the meantime.”

There was an odd note to his voice. It wasn’t anger, or wariness, but neither was it excitement. Watching him cautiously, unsure what he was thinking but knowing he was right, she flipped the radio on and began tuning for viable frequencies through the static. They walked together for a few minutes with nothing but that static and the occasional loud crackle that made them both wince, until finally she could make out muffled, proper sound on the other end.

“Inspector Fox to Interpol! Come in, Interpol!” She said as loud as she dared into the receiver. “Requesting immediate assistance!”

For a full twenty seconds, there was no response. Carmelita gripped the radio a little tighter, waiting and hoping, and very nearly touched the tuning dial again when suddenly a voice rang through.

“Inspector Fox, this is Interpol’s Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.” The voice was distant and dangerously close to cutting out at points, but still audible despite all odds. “Please state your badge ID and your reason for using this frequency.”

The inspector did so immediately, so relieved that tears nearly sprung to her eyes. Beside her, Sly continued to watch the air, but his ears did a strange back-and-forth of flicking forward to listen and then pinning against his head. When she shot him a questioning look, he briefly met it with a persistent nod.

“We’re making contact with the French branch now, Inspector. As soon as they corroborate your story and your location, we will send a team out to retrieve you. Stay alive as long as you can. We’ll be there soon.”

“Thank you,” she said. Her partner leaned subtly into her shoulder. “Thank you so much.”

“Over and out.”

With the call for help successfully made, she turned the radio off to conserve battery, and they continued their climb towards the lost jetpack. Sly remained concerningly quiet for a long time, but Carmelita was almost afraid to break the silence first for fear it would drive him away from whatever he was working through in his head.

When they ducked under a rock outcropping to avoid being spotted by a group of robo-falcons, he took a deep breath as soon as they were gone. She could feel his heart beating where he was pressed up against her.

“I need to take Clockwerk down.”

The fox looked at him, thoroughly surprised. They were nose to nose in the tight space, and she could see every line of stress in his face. She could also see the determination in his eyes that refused to back down no matter what.

“I don’t know if Interpol can do it,” he rushed to add, as if afraid she would try to dissuade him. “They don’t know anything about him, not like I do. And when they show up, there’s a good chance he won’t even engage with them. He hates direct confrontation unless he’s orchestrated it, so he might just take to the skies and disappear. If he escapes tonight, then he’ll never let any of you find him again. This is the best chance we’ll have. It’s…it’s the only chance I’ll have.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. This wasn’t just about them getting payback; it was about Sly Cooper getting his life back.

“He’ll expect something like that from you,” she warned. “He already knows we’re here and he’ll be taking precautions.”

Sly shook his head. “No. He expects me to run, or surrender. He knows I brought that jetpack, so he’s probably waiting for us to use it to try and escape, and then he can just pluck us out of the sky. As far as he’s concerned, we’re not even worth being considered a threat.”

At that, the raccoon paused, looked her up and down, then let a crooked smile cross his face.

“Well, I’m not considered a threat,” he amended. “You, on the other hand, have probably pissed him off so bad that he hates you almost as much as he hates me.”

She thought about the conversation she had with the owl right before her rescue. The single-minded interest he had only in Sly was still enough to make her want to shiver. “I highly doubt that, Ringtail.”

“…Yeah.” The smile disappeared. Exhaustion was all that remained. “It’s nice to pretend I’m not alone sometimes, though.”

“You’re not alone.” Carmelita grabbed his wrist; the one holding the Cooper cane. He startled but didn’t pull away. “If you’re going after Clockwerk, then I am, too. No – don’t say anything. You went through hell to save me, and I’m going to make sure you never have to do it again. Besides, I promised you back in Mesa that we’d do this together, didn’t I?”

Her partner stared at her for a long moment, so much so that she reflexively glanced up to make sure they weren’t ambushed again. When he finally found his words, his voice was soft and his eyes were wet.

“Inspector Fox, believe me when I say that you’re the only person in the world I trust to be able to do that. You’re so strong, so much stronger than me, and I don’t –” he cut himself off, and she would forever wonder what he was really about to say. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through. I meant what I said right before you were abducted, you know. After this is over, if we both survive…I’ll still turn myself in. You can bring me in…well, if not as part of the Five, then as the last Cooper. Cement your legacy as the best officer at Interpol, because it’s what you deserve.”

She opened and closed her mouth, unable to form a response that could truly show him the turbulent emotions in her head. Part of her, the part that upheld the law to an iron T and demanded justice from the world around her, wanted greatly to do exactly that. It was a small voice, drowned out and made tiny from everything she’d learned about Sly and the twisted conspiracy that made up his life, but it was still there all the same, and she doubted it would ever fully leave. Another even smaller part whispered traitorously about recognition and respect, and how she’d never have to worry about either of those things ever again if she did what he was suggesting.

The rest of her, though, did not want that. The rest of her wanted to tell him that none of this was his fault, or that he had been forced into crime against his will, or even that the law and her reputation could shove it. She wanted to tell him about the camera, and his feelings for her, and her own feelings for him. She wanted to ask him to join her when Interpol arrived – not as a detainee, but as her friend. Her confidante.

Her partner, declared to the world.

Carmelita wanted to do all and none of these things, but she didn’t, because there was no time and she could see the self-loathing in his eyes that wouldn’t be swayed by kind words, no matter how heartfelt they were. So, instead, she held out her hand to him in an offer of a handshake.

“After this is over, when we both survive, I’ll give you a ten second head start.” She didn’t know why she picked ten seconds, when it should have been ten minutes or ten hours or forever, but she refused to falter on her promise once she’d made it. “And after those ten seconds, I’ll do exactly what I should have done a long time ago.”

Sly took her hand with solemnity. “It’s a deal.”

With that agreement in place, they scaled the last few cliffs to reach the jetpack without much more conversation. The fox’s mind was racing, wondering if she’d made the right decision, or if she’d change her mind when it was time for that head start, or if they’d even survive the inevitable confrontation with the leader of the Fiendish Five. For all that she had asserted that they’d be fine, it was obvious to both of them that this was bordering on a suicide mission.

But Sly didn’t have any other choice, and Carmelita refused to abandon her partner when he needed her most. So, on they went together.

It wasn’t much further before the two of them helped hoist each other up to the miniature plateau that the robo-falcon had crashed onto, and both were relieved to find that their precious means of flight had skidded only a meter or so away from the center of impact. As the raccoon approached the broken, smoking body, Inspector Fox crouched beside the jetpack and began looking it over for signs of damage. They each kept one careful eye on the sky for aerial enemies.

“This thing is definitely busted,” Sly confirmed, kicking at one taloned foot while knocking the end of his cane against a metal wing. “Your pistol really knocks them out quick. Hopefully it didn’t signal where we were to its maker before it died.”

“Let’s hope for the best and plan for the worst,” she replied, standing back up with her equipment slung across her back. “Jetpack is a little banged up but otherwise functional. I think it’s safe to use as long as it has fuel.”

When she offered it to him, the raccoon began to shake his head no. Carmelita was having none of it.

“Take the jetpack, Sly.”

“No offense, Inspector, but I’m a lot more agile than you. If something goes wrong, you’ll need it more than I do.”

Her eyes narrowed, seeing right through the excuse. “I have a weapon that shuts down those robots with one hit. How effective has your cane been against them?”

He didn’t immediately answer. She pushed the jetpack into his chest.

“We’ll treat it as a last resort, okay? On the odds that my shock pistol doesn’t work against Clockwerk like it does on his minions, you’ll be quick enough on the draw to maneuver us out of here with it. It’s supposed to be strong enough to carry weight that’s way more than the two of us combined, so this isn’t me giving you the only avenue of escape. I’m trusting you to have my back with it.”

That seemed to finally do the trick. Sly took the jetpack and begrudgingly buckled himself into it again, staring at her in a mix of frustration and reluctant agreement the entire time. The fox folded her arms and met his gaze unblinking.

“Almost forgot how stubborn you are,” he said. The words were equal parts biting and fond. “I hate that I missed that.”

“Get used to it, Ringtail, because my stubbornness and I aren’t going anywhere until we take this bird down. Speaking of…any ideas on how to do that?”

Sly’s expression sobered. “Nothing concrete. That bomb I used to free us was the only thing I’d had enough time to make before coming here. I’ve been winging it since I got here.”

Carmelita drummed her fingers against her holster in thought, eyeing the landscape around them. Her gaze fell on the destroyed robo-falcon, and for the first time she noticed there was some kind of weaponry built into its body that looked completely intact. She looked at it for a long moment, then down at her pistol.

“Well, since winging it has pretty much been our thing from the very beginning and we’ve still made it this far…” She said, slow and thoughtful, “…then we might as well make our last stand something truly special, don’t you think?”

He followed her gaze, silent and calculative, before baring his teeth in an almost manic grin.

“You know what? I think I can get behind that. Let’s show Clockwerk what happens when you mess with the two of us.”

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A/N: Finally a chance to talk, and yet the most important things still left unsaid. Here's hoping our duo survives so those unspoken things don't become unspoken regrets.

We're in the endgame now, folks. Till next week.

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #fanfiction #the lines we cross

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whisker-biscuit · 3 months

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^^^I don't mean to be rude but Whisker what the fuck

(I mean, who am I to say this, I have also been affected by said curse)

But seriously please rest

Yeaaaaaah life really decided that January needed to suck for me and me specifically.

Don't worry though, I've definitely had time to recover from everything that's happened. Writing has been very helpful and being able to update was a major stressor off of my mind. TLWC is my baby and I'd been itching to return to it for a while.

#ask #been binging Critical Role and Dragon Quest games for the long stretches #Highly recommend just losing yourself in a big time-sink of something you love #But yeah come hell or high water I'm finishing this fic

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whisker-biscuit · 3 months

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The Lines We Cross: Chapter 27

A Daring Rescue

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You're the future I pretended I no longer wanted.

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Krakarov was perhaps the world’s only forgotten volcano.

Officially declared too dangerous for public access for well over two hundred years, it sat amid an uninhabited stretch of land in the northwest corner of Russia, so far from civilization that it had quietly slipped out of collective memory. Scientists did not study it when there were much more accessible ones. Local and international governments found no need to warn people about it because it was only taught in the most thorough geological studies. Any thrill-seekers looking to climb it were few and far between, and those few who tried never came back. It was a mystery among mysteries, so obscure that the only agreed-upon thing was that it was to be left alone for reasons lost to time.

There were only a handful of people who knew what those reasons actually were, and not a single one of them had ever actually entered the volcano itself.

Until now.

Sly was exhausted. He had left Kunlun by Interpol escort, posing as one of the town survivors and given a ride down the mountain until they reached a proper city. He’d slipped easily away with all of Inspector Fox’s gear, hid in the first abandoned building he could find, and had promptly had a breakdown. Then, he’d locked everything down in the same mental vault that held his parents’ deaths and the source of the scars on his chest, looked over the stuff he had stolen, considered his options, and began planning.

Leaving Carmelita to die at the hands of his greatest nightmare had not been an option. Even if Clockwerk had killed her the instant he’d realized he hadn’t grabbed his real target, the raccoon couldn’t handle the uncertainty of not knowing. If it turned out she was still alive and he had turned tail and ran without even trying to save her, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

And so here he was nearly fourteen hours later, standing at the base of a forgotten volcano, armed with his cane and an assortment of Interpol equipment, running on what little sleep he’d managed to get on the airplane he’d snuck onto to get this far north, and feeling as though he’d just taken a beating from every Fiendish Five member at once.

It was a small price to pay for the quelling of his conscience.

The outer perimeter of Krakarov had a large metal fence wrapped around it, almost two kilometers from the volcano proper. Faded warning signs detailing hazards like falling rocks as well as threats of criminal fines and detainment for trespassing littered the fence in both directions as far as the eye could see, but there were no security measures to reinforce it. No barbed wire, no electric currents, no cameras or guards or anything of the sort.

Just a single, taller than average fence, and for some reason that alone scared him more than anything. Either Clockwerk was that adept at defending his home, or he had anticipated Sly’s arrival and was holding the metaphorical door open in invitation.

Well, if it was an invitation, then there were going to be a lot more visitors than the owl expected. Sly reached into his backpack, slightly smushed underneath the jetpack strapped to his back, and pulled out the GPS tracker he’d stolen from the Interpol truck. He turned it on, stared at it a moment to make sure it was working, then tucked it away again. With any luck, Interpol would come running the moment they realized it belonged to their missing inspector.

Maybe, if he was really lucky, they’d arrive in time to save her before Clockwerk finished him off. She deserved to survive this mess he had gotten her into, even if he didn’t. Especially if he didn’t.

Sly looked the fence up and down with both his hands curled around the jetpack’s harness. There were no signs of life here; not a single person, unevolved animal, or even plant to be found. Everything around him was dust and dark rock in the shadow of the volcano ahead.

With one last glance to the left and the right just to be certain that he was alone, the raccoon began climbing. It was difficult with all the equipment weight, and he winced with every rattle of metal as he had to sacrifice stealth just to be able to scale the thing at all, but after a few minutes he had finally cleared the top and jumped down to the other side. Here, he paused for a moment to catch his breath and wipe away the sweat that had been creeping up his neck for far longer than it took to climb that fence.

Then he began to walk towards the volcano.

It was eerily quiet as he picked his way through the rocky terrain. The air was still and thick with distant heat; there was no wind to blow relief against his fur or his clothes. He kept his stress clamped tight under a lid and stayed alert to the slightest changes around him. The sky was a gloomy grey but devoid of clouds – and concerning silhouettes – and he periodically looked up to scan it in his vigilance. No one ever looked up until it was too late, and he’d made that mistake twice in his life.

Never again. Nothing was going to catch him off guard anymore. He refused to let it until he knew for sure what had happened to –

There.

A change in the landscape.

Among the cracked, uneven ground, he saw a shred of orange. Sly approached it, confused and then immediately alarmed as he realized it was a small tattered piece of Inspector Fox’s heavy coat she had worn in Kunlun. Eyes wide, he dropped to his knees to pick it up, terrified that he would find blood – or worse. It was clean, thank god, but it did little to ease his fear for her safety. All it meant was that she had been here at some point, alive or dead.

Clenching the cloth tightly in his left hand, the raccoon began to stand, but a strange glint between the rocks nearby caught his attention. He tilted his head, catching the light of the shrouded sun just so to find its source. Then his heart stopped for a completely different reason than when he’d found the scrap of coat.

It was a camera. There was a camera embedded in the ground.

Panic seized Sly’s chest. Before a single conscious thought could cross his mind, he had already jumped to his feet and started sprinting away, back towards the fence – back towards that flimsy physical barrier outlining the ancient owl’s territory. Clockwerk knew he was here. He knew he was here and he was going to come after him again if he stayed here, those claws would come after him again, he’d be dead and Carmelita would be doomed –

Carmelita would be doomed if he ran away, too.

He skidded to a halt. Looked down at the ripped fabric in his hand. Looked at the fence, then to the empty sky. Closed his eyes and forced all his panic away, stuffed in that familiar box with the rest of his emotions until he did what he had come here to do.

Turned around and began walking again.

It didn’t matter if Clockwerk had confirmation that he was here. Clearly, he had expected Sly to show, because leaving such obvious evidence out in the open was sloppy at best, and to insinuate that about the owl was an insult of the highest degree. Everything he did was calculated. Everything he did was for a reason. It was a taunt, plain and simple, and it had worked.

It didn’t stop the raccoon from glancing up more often, though.

When he finally reached the base of the volcano, his eyes jumped across the harsh rock to look for a way inside. He found it about five meters to his right; the rock curled inward in a way that was definitely not natural. It was a cave, and it led straight to the heart of Krakarov if the sudden spike of heat was any indication.

The cave opening was deceptively large – it was wide, not tall, so that someone like Muggshot or bigger would have to duck their heads as they entered it but could easily stretch their arms horizontally. For Sly, who was small in both ways, there was no issue at all. He pressed himself against one wall, held his breath to turn invisible just in case of more hidden cameras he couldn’t see, and headed in.

It was slow going. The ground was hard to walk on and often dipped both uphill and downhill for long stretches of time. Every few minutes he paused and crouched to catch his breath, holding perfectly still and perfectly silent in fear of detection until he was ready to move on invisibly again. The temperature was rising steadily the farther inside he got, and all the extra stuff he was carrying – the jetpack, the GPS, Carmelita’s shock pistol and radio, and the two “special” homemade gadgets in his hoodie pocket – added to his fatigue and the sweat trapped under his fur.

It felt a little like he was going into hell. Not too far from the truth if he thought about it too hard, and he was doing everything he could to avoid that.

Nearly half an hour into his trek, the slope evened out into something manageable for once. It was his only warning before he came upon a giant double door blocking him from continuing. The raccoon stopped, craning his head upwards to study the sudden obstruction. It was embedded in both walls and the ceiling, similar to how the camera had been, with no cracks to shimmy through to get around it. In the center of the door were two large handles – built for someone with talons to grab ahold of – and locking them in place was a single, bulky padlock.

The most straightforward barrier ever, and yet Sly was wary to take it at face value. He approached it cautiously, still invisible, and scrutinized it for any sign of unseen security measures or even some of Mz. Ruby’s magic, but no matter where he looked or how much he strained his eyes, there was nothing to be found. For all intents and purposes, it really was just a simple gate.

Still not trusting the circumstances of this first true roadblock set up by the Five’s leader, he pressed into the corner where the wall and the gate met, making himself as small as possible as he became visible again, and stared up at the padlock. It looked standard and easy to pick, but it was too high to reach while his feet were on the ground, and he refused to use the jetpack for fear of draining its fuel prematurely.

That left only one option. The raccoon did one more cursory search for traps, cameras, or anything else, then shoved himself off the wall with as much speed as he was capable of. He took a running leap towards the gate and hooked onto one of the handles by his cane; the momentum of his jump was enough to swing him high enough to grab the padlock with his free hand. With his shoes braced against the metal of the door, he began working the lock suspended a solid three meters in the air.

When it clicked open, he carefully pulled it free of both handles before twisting around to throw it as hard as he could down the tunnel he’d come from. It landed out of sight with a quiet clang, which made him wince, but he wasn’t going to touch anything of Clockwerk’s for more than strictly necessary. There was no telling what might or might not be boobytrapped.

Padlock discarded, Sly turned back to the door he was still clinging to like a barnacle. It hadn’t budged much under his weight until he’d removed the lock, but he could feel how it seemed to want to move inward instead of outward. Crouching with all his weight coiled into his legs, he launched himself off the door with a powerful two-footed kick. It did the trick; the gate shifted open just enough for him to shimmy through after he picked himself back up, and he continued further into the dark cave.

For the first time since Kunlun – since Wales, really – the shaky confidence that had built itself up during his time with Inspector Fox began to trickle back. He had successfully gotten through the first of the ancient owl’s obstacles, simple as it seemed, and that made his heart beat a little faster for different reasons than fear. It was only the first step, but he’d done it.

So caught up in his momentary victory, he very nearly walked onto death.

Sly froze with his foot hovering a centimeter above the ground, having barely caught the glint of metal with his sharp nocturnal vision. He looked down at the slightest displacement in the earth – uneven dirt that had been dug up recently, covering a lump that seemed just as natural as every other lump along the bumpy cave floor if not for that tiny, damning bit of metal that had made itself visible. Feeling suddenly sick as he realized how close he’d been to stepping on it, he backed up and very gingerly pushed aside the dirt with the tip of his cane, careful not to touch the metal. It revealed a round device big enough that he’d have to hold it with both hands, with a red blinking light in its center.

He’d almost just stepped on a land mine.

Nausea growing ever deeper, he looked up towards the path ahead, where he could now pick out more of those unassuming mounds scattered across the ground, just waiting to be triggered by one careless intruder. The raccoon swallowed, hard, and began to reach for his backpack – for the shock pistol tucked safely away within. Then he aborted the action before even touching the zipper. There was no telling how powerful these things were; if he shot one, it could cause a cave-in or set off the rest in a fatal chain reaction. And even if neither of those were to happen, the noise alone would surely be enough to bring the owl swooping in. Using Carmelita’s equipment would have to wait. Again.

He crouched in front of the bomb he had unearthed, taking a mental measurement of its size and comparing that to the litany of still-hidden ones in his way. They had all been placed with just enough space between them that he could theoretically maneuver through so long as he was sure-footed and precise, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it had been set up that way on purpose. Clockwerk had goaded him inside his lair with evidence of the inspector’s survival, and now he was deliberately testing him. Seeing how far he had come on his own; pushing him to prove that he hadn’t just stolen back the Thievius Raccoonus, but was actively taking its lessons to heart.

It was time to trust his ancestors. Sly stood up, backed up a few paces, then sprinted forward and took his first jump.

It became a dance. On the world’s deadliest stage, not a single audience member to witness his act, the raccoon flitted across the landmine field with the grace of a ballerina. His feet barely touched the ground when he found a safe place to land, only there for seconds until his gaze had found the next one, and then he was already leaping again.

By the time he finally reached the end of the buried bombs, there was a thin sheen of sweat down his back and he was panting from exertion, but it was accompanied by the bittersweet sting of success. Bittersweet, because he’d proven himself as capable as any other prior Cooper – had been proving that for weeks – but it was at the cost of his former partner. He had wanted the confidence, but not at this price. Never, ever at this price.

After a few minutes of catching his breath, he shook his head to clear his lamenting and continued on. Every second he wasted was less of a chance to fix his mistakes.

One sharp turn left, another right, and then very suddenly, the tunnel opened up and Sly found himself standing over an enormous pit of lava. He nearly staggered at the sudden spike of heat, strong enough to steal his breath, and could only gawk at the very heart of Krakarov.

Rock paths – either naturally formed or intentionally carved – twisted out from where he stood for as far as the eye could see in a dozen directions. Some veered off in towards other caves in the inner cliffside of the volcano, while others went on and on beyond the limits of his vision. There was no ceiling or cover above him, yet the open sky seemed confined from inside the crater. The glow of lava overpowered everything to the point that it was almost painful to look at directly.

And on the opposite end, easily two or more kilometers away, was a cluster of metal structures that could, technically, be classified as buildings. They looked more like the owl had dragged an entire scrapyard into the space, then smashed it all together to save space.

The raccoon scanned the sky for a solid minute, nervous about how much he was now out in the open even with all of his precautions. Then, he took another minute to study all the branching paths ahead of him. There were a lot of places here that could be hiding a kidnapped inspector, and there was no clue as to which direction to search first. If it took all night to find her, he’d do it without a second thought, but the longer he was here then the more likely it was that Clockwerk showed his face in one way or another.

Wasn’t anything to be done about it except to push on. Taking as deep a breath as he could manage, Sly began walking along the biggest path in the vague direction of the distant metal architecture. Every time he came across a particularly large boulder or an especially deep crack in the ground, he hunkered down behind or in them to get his breath back, and never took his eyes off the sky while he did so. It was excruciatingly slow going, even worse than traversing the landmines had been, and he could practically feel the minutes ticking away from whatever remained of Carmelita’s limited safety.

Halfway across the crater, a familiar sense of foreboding made him stop. Up ahead, the path continued towards the metal buildings, and he could finally see another cave that presumably led straight to them. Nothing had changed since he’d started his trek, nothing was out of place and now shadow loomed from above, but instincts honed from half a lifetime of tiptoeing around volatile people kept him from moving another centimeter further. On a whim, knowing all too well how much Clockwerk loved his patterns, the raccoon began suspiciously sweeping along the ground with his cane like he had done in that first tunnel.

It was with expectation, not surprise, when he uncovered metal and tiny blinking lights for a second time.

Sly inhaled quick and sharp through his teeth, painfully aware of the fact that he had become visible from the reaction, and peered farther down the path. Unlike before, there were no identifiers for where the bombs had been buried here. No bumps in the ground, no glints of metal, not a single speck of dirt out of place. Without a metal detector or some other tech he didn’t have, nothing could tell him what was safe to walk on and what would blow him sky high.

He glanced behind him, where the rocky ground had branched off to the left a few meters back in a diverging pathway. It had led to another tunnel in the cliffside; he had ignored it – along with every other separate path – in favor of heading towards the most obvious man-made structure, but now it was looking far more tempting in lieu of walking through another literal minefield.

Sly doubled back to the other path after only a moment of consideration. He’d chosen his original route because it had seemed logical to head that way, but Carmelita could be stuck in any of the dozen other caves. There was no way to know for certain without checking each until he found her – or at least another clue pointing him in the right direction – and he wasn’t in the mood to test his luck with hidden mines a second time just yet. He was careful to sweep the ground for them on this new road, but nothing came up no matter how much he checked, and that innate sense of danger rapidly disappeared the farther he walked.

When he reached the opening of the new cave, he ducked just inside the shadow of it to get some air, a mild reprieve from the heat, and to scan the open crater. Still no sign of Clockwerk, which was either really good or really bad, but so long as he stayed alert, the raccoon was sure that the Five’s leader couldn’t catch him off gua–

Two bright red lights flickered to life within the pitch black of the tunnel. Then a second pair. A third. A fourth.

Six. Nine. Fourteen.

Sly stared in mounting horror as things began to move and shift in the dark. Metal clanged against rock, against other metal, and the raccoon backed out into open space again with his hackles raised and his cane at the ready. So startled that he’d remained visible, his reaction caused every set of lights – eyes, they were eyes – to zero in on him immediately. A synchronous chorus of screeching was his only warning to turn and flee before an entire flock of robotic birds exploded out of the cave after him.

He ran for all he was worth as they chased him. Panic sent his thoughts into overdrive, his mind desperately trying to come up with an escape before they could catch up. He swerved right towards the cave he had arrived into the crater by, hoping that they had a limit to how far they could follow, or at least make it harder for them to fly in the confined space.

Movement flitted in and out of the corner of his eye barely ten steps in; Sly pivoted on his heel on instinct and whipped around with his cane arcing outward in a defensive swing. His reaction saved him from being disemboweled. A silver falcon, much smaller than Clockwerk but still deadly by the glint of its talons, screeched as its body was struck and swerved backwards in the air to right itself before it could fall into the lava below. Three more took its place immediately, cutting him off from moving any closer to his goal and forcing him to backpedal. He ducked raised claws by the skin of his teeth and turned left instead towards the metal structures.

Towards the landmines he couldn’t see.

There was no time to do anything else. There was nowhere else to go. Over a dozen frenzied robots bore down on him with intent to kill, and only one path was clear. He had to risk death to avoid a certain one. Sly barreled into the minefield –

And something strange happened.

Blue erupted across his vision; a spattering of sparkles that were sprinkled seemingly at random throughout the path ahead. Something about them tugged at his soul, urging him closer, to connect with them wherever possible. The raccoon didn’t think twice about it – he let that pull lead him forward and he leapt.

He landed perfectly on a cluster of sparkles. Nothing exploded under his feet. A screech to his left gave him enough forewarning to keep running, to jump to the next array while he still had momentum, and he narrowly avoided two falcons trying to slam into his shoulder. The way ahead was free of robotic birds as they came at him from behind and both sides, trying to snatch him up or knock him off balance and onto a waiting landmine.

The odd twinkles protected him from the ground, his dexterity protected him from fatal claw strikes, and his cane made up for those that veered too close in attempts to body-check him. Somehow, miraculously, Sly kept going through the bombardment from above and below without ever getting a scratch, and when the blue sparkling finally faded away, he stopped leaping and went right back to sprinting. He had no idea if he was clear of the bombs, but something in him said that he was, and that same something had just kept him from being blown into a hundred little raccoon pieces. He couldn’t slow down to question it when there was still an entire bloodthirsty flock gunning for him.

Up ahead, he could see the tunnel entrance that surely led to the buildings he’d been so focused on before, but it looked large enough to welcome the robots on his tail. Already, Sly could feel his adrenaline waning under heat and his low reserves of energy, and he knew that he’d be either caught or mauled within minutes if they continued their chase unless something changed. Another screech and whoosh of hot wind made him whirl around to block claws with cane. He continued his three-sixty turn to redirect the screaming falcon sideways into one of its brethren, then stuck his free hand into his hoodie’s front pocket as he righted himself to face forward again.

His fingers found one of the two devices hidden there – as well as the button on it. He pressed down on it at the same time that he pulled the device out, coming closer and closer to the yawning cave mouth. Right before he rushed through, Sly threw the thing as hard as he could at the rocky overhang looming over his dark escape.

It hit its mark. The device – the bomb exploded above him as he threw himself forward, narrowly missing the tumbling rocks that instead came down on the robotic birds right behind him. He hit the ground but staggered back to his feet, not daring to stand still in the blast radius of the cave-in he had just caused. Dust kicked up the air around him so thick that he could barely see even with his nocturnal vision, and the entire tunnel shook as boulders fell in an overwhelming cacophony of noise.

As suddenly as it had started, it was over just as fast. The last of the rocks hit the ground, the rumbling ceased around him, and silence took its place save for the strained breaths of one frazzled raccoon. He leaned heavily against a wall and risked a glance back, grimacing when he realized that the entire opening had been completely blocked off by the cave-in. There was not a single shred of light from the outside crater he could see, and he wasn’t about to tempt his tenuous luck further by trying to move the rocks aside.

The robo-falcons weren’t anywhere to be seen or heard, which he hoped meant they had either all been crushed or had given up pursuit now that their target was impossible to reach. Even so, he kept his cane at the ready and remained alert to the point of jumpiness as he began walking down this new tunnel that he’d trapped himself in.

It occurred to him, belatedly, that they might have been leading him down that single path and not letting him stray for more reasons than killing him with landmines. It was very possible that they had intentionally funneled him this way because it was where he needed to go to find Carmelita. The realization made him nervous at the same time that it gave him hope; if she was dead, they’d have no reason to do this. Clockwerk could have let him wander aimlessly through the volcano until he collapsed from exhaustion or the heat, and then finished him off without any effort. Surely, the fact that he was going to all this trouble to string Sly along meant that she was still alive, and he was still on the right track.

But it also meant the owl was lying in wait for him somewhere or somehow, and he had just wasted one of his precious few means of fighting back. He didn’t know if bombs even worked on whatever Clockwerk was made of, but having some semblance of perceived power in his hands had given him courage. Now, he only had a single chance left to leave a dent in the monster’s armor.

There was nothing to do but keep going and hope that it didn’t come to that. If he could find Carmelita and free her before Clockwerk bared down on them, there was still the jetpack. They could still make a clean getaway into the night, and then she could come back with the full force of Interpol to take down the final member of the Fiendish Five for good. As for what happened to him, well…he doubted the inspector would let him go free after putting her life in danger. If she wanted to arrest him for the part he played in this entire mess, he’d already given her his word that he wouldn’t run anymore. Before, it had been out of despair from the realization that his life was forfeited no matter what he did. Now, even if he made it out of here alive, he didn’t have anything left to return to. A criminal, raised by other criminals, who only knew how to steal and lie and cause problems; there was no “normal” he could even pretend to mimic, and he was done hurting innocent people for his own survival.

Sly was either leaving this volcano in cuffs, or he wasn’t leaving at all. His only goal was living long enough to save the person whose life had been irreparably damaged just by knowing him, just by trusting him.

His train of thought halted as his surroundings caught his attention.

Something was different about the walls. He frowned, unable to place what it was with the limited details his gaze could provide in the dark, and moved to the nearest one to press his hand against it. The fabric of his glove threatened to snag on the craggy surface as he trailed his fingers along it while he walked; until suddenly, it became smooth under his touch. Semi-cool rock had cut off into warm metal instead, and continued that way ahead as far as he could tell. Cautiously excited in the change, the raccoon picked up the pace, grateful to feel the temperature slowly dropping the farther he went.

Then, in the distance, there was light at the end of the tunnel – literally. He trapped the air in his lungs and disappeared from sight before it came anywhere near him, and then stepped out into the blinding glare.

As his eyes adjusted to the harsh light of the new room, the first thing he noticed was machinery everywhere. Computers and processors lined the walls, cords of all shapes and sizes hung from the ceiling, and the ground was alight with security lasers and overhead spotlights. Perches large enough for a particular owl to land on were littered everywhere, and a quick glance up showed a giant metal door that no doubt would have led out into the sky if it had been open.

And then he saw Carmelita.

She was in another, smaller room, separated from this one by a layer of glass, and he could see even from here that she had been trapped there in a tall, see-through cylinder. Her back was to him as she pounded on the glass, clearly trying to break out of her prison, and his heart swelled to see that she was still alive, still fighting.

Sly didn’t shout or whistle to attempt to get her attention. Even if she could hear him through the distance and multiple barriers between them, Clockwerk had eyes on her. He could see cameras in the room that was holding her – although, bizarrely, not in this one – and if she reacted to his presence too early, it would alert the owl. Nothing to do but hope she could hold on a little longer while he made his way through the maze in front of him. The most straight-forward path was a death trap. Even without the lasers and the spotlights, he could see metal tiles across the floor that he recognized from his time working on Raleigh’s ship; they were pressure plates, highly sensitive to touch and guaranteed to set off alarms at best and automated weapons at worst. Invisibility was no help against that.

His eyes trailed left, where one of the large iron perches sat several meters above him and the traps ahead. The faintest hint of blue began to creep across it the longer he stared. It wouldn’t get him all the way across the room to where Carmelita was being held, but it was certainly a start. The raccoon rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, readjusted the weight of the jetpack, and started running.

He jumped for the perch and caught its end by his outstretched hands, dangling for only a moment before pulling himself up onto it. It was round and precariously slippery, threatening to send him falling with the slightest misstep, but he kept his mind on everything he’d learned from the Thievius Raccoonus instead of letting the nerves overtake him. Centimeter by centimeter, he edged along the perch until he reached the other end without so much as a teeter.

Here, he could see the rest of the room and all its hazards very clearly. But with the addition of those sparkles popping up everywhere, he could also now see all the possibilities, too. Sly’s gaze jumped back and forth, calculating the best way to work around the security and reach the glass separating him from the inspector.

A spire jump here, a rail slide there – he’d done this a million times. Now he just had to do it a million and one.

Onto a hanging cable he latched, scaling up it like a monkey on a vine. From there, a leap to land delicately on top of a roving spotlight. Springing off of crouched legs to throw himself halfway across the room, to a second perch several meters from Carmelita’s “room.” Flattening himself against a computer to avoid a rotating laser that could probably saw him in half, then taking advantage of the gap in its cycle to find and move towards the next waypoint.

On and up and down and around he went, until finally his feet touched lightly down in front of the glass wall through which he could see the fox. She had turned around sometime in his maneuvers so that she should have caught sight of him, but her eyes remained fixed on the container she was still trying to get out of, and never once glanced his way.

The raccoon had a few guesses as to why she seemed unaware of his presence, but they didn’t matter when he was about to make himself known. After one quick glance behind and above to make sure nothing robotic had snuck up on him through his complicated balancing act, he pressed his hand to the glass and tested it with his bodily weight. It shifted under the sudden force. Emboldened, he took a few steps back, braced himself, then swung his cane into it with all his might.

It shattered instantly. Carmelita’s head whipped around to stare at him with wide eyes as he picked his way through the glass-littered ground and into the room with her. Before he could do anything – say anything, even – she slammed her hands against the last barrier separating them with more panic than he had ever seen on her face.

“Sly, you can’t be here!” She cried. “It’s a trap!”

There was a strange hissing in the air as something green and noxious began spilling into the room from the vents all around them. The raccoon whirled on his heel at the sound of a reinforced metal door slamming shut behind him, sealing the hole in the glass he had made. He pulled his mask out from beneath his shirt collar and pressed it against his nose and mouth, heart hammering in his chest, just as every screen in the room lit up to reveal Clockwerk’s hateful, patient gaze.

“You sentimental fool!” He chuckled, sounding more like he had just won a bet than any stronger emotion. “Empathy has always been the downfall of the Cooper clan.”

The thin layer of protection Sly had tried to give himself wasn’t enough. Already, dizziness was overwhelming him and he felt the treacherous urge to cough as the fatal gas filled both the room and his lungs. Carmelita, momentarily spared from the trap because of the container she was trapped in, began throwing her shoulder against the glass, screaming at him to find a way out before it was too late. His eyes darted all over the room, trying to do exactly that, but there was only one exit, surrounded by machinery and the mocking camera feed of his worst nightmare.

He turned around to swing his cane at the door that had sealed him in. The reverberating shockwave that traveled up his arms and through his body staggered him instead, sending him to one knee as he gasped on instinct. The gas greedily took advantage of his mistake, and suddenly the entire room was spinning. The raccoon tried and failed to stand back up; he could barely hear Inspector Fox’s desperate voice through the ringing in his ears. He lifted his head just enough to lock eyes with her.

There were tears in her eyes. She was crying. She was crying over him.

It was like a stream of ice down his neck, jolting him to just enough awareness to remember the second bomb still in his pocket. With fumbling fingers and spotty vision, Sly pulled it out and somehow managed to turn it on, already feeling his brief energy bump disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. He looked back at the metal door, reinforced and impossible to penetrate, then forward, beyond Carmelita’s glass prison to the handful of computer screens where Clockwerk watched everything with cold, detached delight.

Blue sparkles.

Sly didn’t think twice. With the last of his strength, choking on his own breath, he threw his last trump card.

The resulting explosion flattened him even further than he already was. His head hit the metal floor and it would have made him see stars if his vision wasn’t already going dark. He didn’t know if it had worked. He didn’t know if it had broken open the wall, or Carmelita’s prison, or if she had even survived. All he knew was that he couldn’t breathe, he was choking, he was dying –

Warm hands wrapped around his middle, hoisting him up against a warm body. His cheek lolled into the crook of a shoulder – her shoulder – and he decided that this was a very nice place to be.

“C’mon, Ringtail, don’t give up on me yet. We’re almost out. Stay awake. Please.”

Stay awake. That sounded so hard, but her voice was so very nice. Sly moaned in protest but forced himself to open his eyes, watching wisps of green gas disappear around him as Inspector Fox carried him through the hole in the wall and into the unknown.

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A/N: The Ao3 Author's Curse is real and it finally got me. In the month since the last update, I have 1) been stranded at work for a few days because of bad weather, 2) been in two separate car wrecks (no one involved hurt, thank goodness) and 3) had a close family member rushed to the ER after a bad accident. Chronologically. It's been a time.

Enough about that though - Sly is finally seeing our favorite hint to Jump and Press the Circle Button! Betcha thought I wasn't going to include that little mechanic, huh? It's a little different in this version; instead of literal thieving opportunities, it's more of a realm of possibilities for self-preservation. Was incredibly fun to figure out where best to apply them throughout this chapter. As for why they didn't manifest until now...eh, we'll call it the power of love or something. I'm tired lol.

Also! I got an amazing gift fic over on Ao3 from the lovely @brainsforbreakfastt that's set in this AU! Please please please give it a read if you haven't already, it made my entire week and they worked very hard on it.

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #fanfiction #the lines we cross

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whisker-biscuit · 3 months

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i am plagued by silly character loving thoughts

#why are so many of my faves like this #genuinely i keep getting attached to The Sillies and then get disappointed when nothing happens with them #except Scanlan cause Sam Riegel is a freak like the rest of us #anyway i've been watching Critical Role

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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The Lines We Cross: Chapter 26

A Strange Reunion

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Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

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Murray had no idea what time it was when his phone startled him awake. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, hand reaching blindly for the thing that was blaring like a siren on his nightstand. Squinting at a number he didn’t recognize, the hippo silenced the call before laying it back down, then rolled over towards the wall in the hopes of falling back asleep quickly.

No such luck. After barely twenty seconds of blessed quiet, the phone lit up again just as obnoxiously loud as the first time. Murray groaned in irritation as he realized that this was still that same strange number and they weren’t going to go away any time soon. What kind of telemarketers called multiple times in the middle of the night?

The most stubborn ones, apparently.

Against his better judgment, the hippo answered it with a groggy “hello?”

“I need to talk to your coworker right now.”

“Whuh…” He sat up with a frown. That voice was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t for the life of him place it. “I’m sorry, what? Who are you?”

“It’s Sly – the, the raccoon with Inspector Fox. You gave me your phone number, remember?”

It took a few moments for him to remember the quiet guy who had come in with Miss Fox several weeks back. He sounded impatient and stressed, and that made Murray sit up in bed just as much as recognizing the caller did.

“Oh, uh, yeah, hi Sly, it’s good to hear from you? Why are you calling in the middle of the night?”

“It’s not night where I’m at right now,” Sly said, still impatient although now he seemed a little apologetic about waking him up. “Look, I need to talk to your coworker. Do you have his number so I can call him?”

“Uh…”

The hippo glanced at his shut bedroom door. He and Bentley were roommates, and it was more than likely that the turtle was still awake and working, but he wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to tell this stranger. Everyone always told him he was too trusting for his own good, and that it wasn’t polite to share personal information about other people without asking them first.

“…Why do you want to talk to him, exactly?”

Sly let out a loud, frustrated huff. “It’s really important. I need – I – it’s – Inspector Fox and I were working on a case together, but she’s in danger. I can’t help her without your friend’s help.”

Murray’s eyes went wide. He clutched the phone closer to his face. “Wait, Miss Fox is in trouble? Is she okay? What happened?”

“I don’t know if she’s okay.” The stress in the raccoon’s voice was even stronger now. “I can’t tell you what happened, but the more time I waste, the more likely it is that she’s – that I can’t help her. So I need to talk to Bentley. Please, Murray.”

He bit his lip and began making his way to the door. “Okay, um…hang on just one second, okay?”

Sly made another noise, like he was being strangled, and that got the hippo moving even faster. If it was true that Miss Fox was in danger and only Bentley could help, then he couldn’t waste any time!

He headed down the hall to his roommate’s room and was relieved to see light filtering through the crack under the door. When he knocked, he heard Bentley jump in his chair.

“Murray?” The turtle asked as he opened the door to squint at him. There were large bags under his eyes beneath his glasses and he looked like he hadn’t even tried to go to bed the whole night. “What are you doing up this late?”

There would be time to scold him for not sleeping later, after they dealt with whatever scary thing Miss Fox and her friend were involved in. He shoved his phone into Bentley’s hands, making him blink rapidly in surprise.

“That raccoon guy who was with Miss Fox just called me,” Murray told him as fast as he could. “He said she’s in danger and he needs your help! You gotta help him, Bentley!”

“I – wha – hold on…” He put the phone to his ear. “Hello? This is Bentley. Why did you call Murray in the middle of – what?”

The hippo watched, anxious, as his friend’s expression changed from confusion to shock to concern in seconds.

“Well, that’s awful, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to…her tech? You’ll have to be more specific; I don’t even know what you have – okay. Uh huh. Shock pistol and a…a jetpack? What model? You need to find the serial number! It – yeah, it should be somewhere on there.”

Murray twiddled his thumbs while Bentley began talking about special technology and how to use them and other things that just went completely over his head. He tried very hard not to shuffle in place, afraid that it might distract him.

“…Okay, that covers everything, I think,” the turtle finally said after several minutes of back-and-forth. “Are we finished? Cause I’d really like to go back to bed. I know you’re worried about Inspector Fox, but I’m sure you’ll be able to – pardon?”

He got quiet very suddenly, eyes growing wider and wider over whatever Sly was saying.

“You want to make a – hang on, hang on, I need to –”

With one quick, nervous glance at his roommate, Bentley turned around to disappear back into his room, still on the phone. His door slammed shut before Murray could join him. The hippo stood there in shock for a minute, unsure if he should follow or not, before deciding that his friend had closed the door for a reason and probably wanted some privacy.

Why he wanted privacy was a mystery, but there were a lot of things the turtle did that were mysteries to Murray.

Almost half an hour later, Bentley finally came out of his room. He trudged over to the tiny kitchen where the hippo had started making a midnight snack while he waited, and gave the cellphone back with a glazed look in his eye.

“Uh, Bentley? Everything okay?”

“I sincerely hope that was a trusted coworker of Inspector Fox,” he said, slow and anxious, “because if he isn’t, I might have just done something incredibly illegal.”

Murray gasped. “You mean he might have stolen her stuff and you just helped him figure out how it all works?”

“No. Well, yes, but also…”

Bentley gulped.

“…I just helped him build a bomb.”

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Sly watched the Panda King turn his back and leave the medical room without looking even the slightest bit upset, despite the fact he had just dropped a bomb on the raccoon’s life and destroyed it in a single instant. He should have known not to trust one of the people who had attacked his home and killed his family, who had helped kidnap him, but after all these years, he’d thought – he’d hoped – that things had changed. He’d really thought that the panda would protect him when it came down to it.

He should have known better. He should have known that the Panda King was just as much of a monster as –

“You cry over false hope.”

The kit froze with tears still streaming down his face.

He had not forgotten who had perched in the far corner during that fight, but that presence had not felt like the most pressing threat while he had been pleading with King to delay his fate. Now, as his wide eyes slid from the door to the yellow gaze burning straight through him, he felt very stupid for ever thinking otherwise.

“The Panda King was never interested in your wellbeing, and you are foolish to have ever believed otherwise,” Clockwerk continued. He had not moved a metallic muscle from his spot since speaking. “There are no allies for you here. Even his daughter, who you thought cared for you, has turned her back on you. She was the one who told me that you had fled. She is the reason you were caught.”

Sly didn’t dare protest; he didn’t even think of doing so. This creature had always cut to his core by speaking only the truth. He had taken great pleasure in it on the night he had told the raccoon that he belonged to the Fiendish Five, long before he fully understood what that meant. Even now he could feel it – under the hatred still radiating off of his metal shell, the monster bird was delighted that the few people Sly had cared for in this nightmare had betrayed him.

He took a deep shuddering breath and did his best to remain perfectly still. His chest ached horribly under its bandages. The owl studied him in silence for several agonizing seconds.

“Our conversation from here out does not leave this room.”

It was a statement, not a command, and the boy swallowed alongside a stiff, terrified nod. Seemingly satisfied by the agreement, Clockwerk stepped forward until he was standing at the foot of Sly’s bed. He had to hunch heavily forward, too big for the room’s ceiling; it made him loom even more over the tiny, trapped subject of his attention.

“As the Panda King said, you will join the rest of my team in their criminal exploits beginning next week. The consequences have already been laid out for if you refuse, or attempt escape again. These parameters will always remain in place.”

The raccoon didn’t close his eyes in despair like he wanted to. He continued to stare at the monster, paying attention for all he was worth.

“It is clear how much you despise us. You would run from us again if given the chance. The only reason you will not is that as much as you hate working for those who killed your parents, you fear death and pain even more.”

Clockwerk leaned down until his beak was an inch from Sly’s face. Now, there was nothing but hatred in those terrible eyes.

“Make no mistake, Sly Cooper: your survival from my attack was deliberate. I could have killed you as I did your father, and no one – not the Panda King, not the rest of the Fiendish Five, not anyone – would have dared to stop me. You despise all of us, but it is nothing compared to the loathing I have for you. Your name, your blood, your heritage, everything. You live by my word alone, and you will die by my claws. Sooner or later, you will become bold enough to retaliate against the others, or think you are capable enough to slip out of their grasp. And even if it is neither of these things, you are not infallible. You will eventually outgrow your usefulness to my team. They will tire of your presence, and they will ask me to relieve them of the burden that you are. It is not a prediction; it is a fact.”

The child could feel his breaths coming out faster, shallower, but it was as though all his panic was locked deep in his body as he stared into that yellow gaze while the owl told him exactly what his fate would be. He couldn’t flee, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t even blink as the words sank into his brain and his heart. All he could do was clutch the blanket in his lap for all it was worth, waiting for things to end.

Finally, miraculously, Clockwerk pulled away, giving just enough space for Sly to feel in control of himself again. He let out one single, quiet choked sob, trying desperately to keep his body from falling apart for how much it had started shaking. Never once, though, did he take his eyes off of the threat still standing before him.

“There is one exception to this outcome, however.” The monster shifted so that he could lift one of his clawed feet into the air. Sly’s eyes locked onto the Cooper cane he was holding. “I told you, five years ago, that we would see how well you would measure up to your father. The Fiendish Five all believe that this referred to how useful you would be to them as a criminal, but that is not my true intent. Only you will have that knowledge. You have made yourself known as a Cooper, now, and thus you have earned my utmost honesty. Do not take it for granted.”

The raccoon gave another stilted nod, unsure if he was even supposed to respond but not willing to risk it.

“You see, I play a very different game than the rest of them. When we stole the Thievius Raccoonus, they saw it only as a means to an end; they have been using the book as a mere tool without understanding what it truly does. It does not simply give you a better way to achieve your criminal goals, but instead makes you a better criminal. The fools in your bloodline have flaunted this book of secrets, of betterment, for centuries upon centuries with no struggles in their lives. They inherited it through the ages, as if not thieves but kings, until this chain of arrogance and ego was finally broken with your very existence.”

Clockwerk placed the cane on the bed in front of Sly. He leaned forward again, scrutinizing the boy as if daring him to take it. The kit didn’t move.

“Let’s make a deal, Sly Cooper. You and I,” the owl said. His tone was unreadable. “I want to see what becomes of a Cooper who is forced to rely on his own raw talent instead of the Thievius Raccoonus. I want to see if you can keep up with the Fiendish Five, but more than that, I want to see if you can surpass them. I want to see if you can prove that a Cooper is worth more than the falsehoods and thievery that they are known for.”

He tilted his head, and the expectation was clear. Sly Cooper picked up the cane.

“I want you to steal back your Thievius Raccoonus from every member of my team. If you are caught in your attempts to do this, it will be treated as a betrayal, and we will kill you. However, if you succeed in restoring the book completely…you will be free. Free of the life you are living, and free of the name that you carry. Do you accept these terms?”

The very idea of freedom from all of this made his heart beat out of his still-bloody chest. He thought about the deal this monster was offering. This monster who had killed his father – the strongest person he’d ever known – and had hurt him so terribly. He was no more trustworthy than the rest of the Fiendish Five, and yet…

And yet, what other choice did the raccoon have? He was condemned no matter what. At least in this way, there was the tiniest bit of hope for a future he no longer dared to have.

Sly Cooper took one deep breath, then another, and held the cane out towards Clockwerk. His voice, thin and raspy from screaming, did not waver.

“I accept.”

Clockwerk took the offered hook by two talons. He shook it with deadly honesty, gentle as could be, then released it and turned towards the door.

“I have left my portion of the Thievius Raccoonus here with the Panda King to give you a sporting chance,” he said, staring at Sly as though he was a powerful rival and not an injured child. “My home is in the Krakarov Volcano, but I do not expect you to make it that far. In fact, let us assume that the only time you will ever see it is if and when you fail in this game we have begun. I think it would be a fitting place for the death of the very last Cooper.”

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When Carmelita woke up, it was to the loud, constant hum of machinery.

She groaned as she gingerly sat up, aching from head to toe as if she’d just been hit by a car. The ground beneath her was metallic, but deceptively warmer than she would have expected. When she looked up, she was surprised to see the slightest reflection of light in front of her. She did a slow three-sixty to the exact same sight at every turn.

She was in a large, glass…thing.

The inspector pressed one hand against the glass. It felt warm as well. Realization set in that it wasn’t just the container that was like this; the very air itself was thick with heat, despite the room she was in having no obvious source for it beyond the half dozen computers and their ridiculously-sized monitors lining the walls. From every top corner, four cameras were trained on her, and she could see heavy-duty vents embedded all over the floor outside her odd cage seemingly at random.

The single exception to all the fancy technology was one wall-to-ceiling mirror, which mocked her as she stared at it and her own face stared back. Her winter coat was in tatters – probably ripped to shreds by the talons of whatever had carried her off. Her hair was a knotted mess of a braid, and there were tiny grey flecks scattered about in it that was definitely not snow. Carmelita began lifting her arm to investigate and immediately regretted it as her body protested with pain.

She pulled up the rim of her shirt, mysterious hair dirt momentarily forgotten, and grimaced when she found a dark purple bruise wrapped around her entire midsection. It was visible through her fur, in the exact shape of the crushing grip that had stolen her breath and knocked her unconscious. Holding back the full-body shudder that threatened to overtake her at the memory took more willpower than she would ever admit.

Aside from the bruising, she was unharmed. The fox viewed it as a silver lining in this terrible situation she had found herself in, and next began cataloguing what she had available for escape.

Her jetpack and shock pistol were missing; it took a moment to remember that she had removed them while talking Sly down from his near-homicide and hadn’t picked them back up before finding him outside of the observatory. Taking them off was something she didn’t regret, even though she kicked herself for her lack of foresight after the immediate threat had ended. The only thing still on her was her radio, but, as she scrambled to turn it on, it was a hope quickly dashed when all it spit out was static.

Without the radio working, she had no way to contact Interpol. Her GPS tracker had been left in the truck with most of the rest of her stuff for the sake of mobility and speed over anything else. None of her team knew where she was; she doubted any of them had even seen her get carried off. Clockwerk – because it had to be Clockwerk, who else would it have been? – had ambushed her and Sly so silently that she hadn’t even heard his approach until it was too late. No one else would have thought to look up while they were preoccupied with securing the Panda King’s fortress. The inspector was on her own when it came to getting out of here.

She had the thought, for a moment, of her former partner – and then firmly pushed it away before it could give her false hope. There was a good chance he had no idea where she’d been taken, and even if he did know, he was terrified of the Five’s leader. Expecting him to follow her to the ends of the earth with his worst nightmare waiting there was expecting far, far too much.

Even if he didn’t hate her anymore.

Mind made up, Carmelita began testing the glass to see if it was thin enough to shatter with her feet or even the radio. It didn’t give no matter how much force she hit it with, so instead she turned to the floor where it met metal. There wasn’t the slightest weakness she could find in the entire circle. The glass rose high above her, capped by a metal cover, but the diameter of her container was too wide for her to climb up the cylindrical walls.

Frustrated and sweating up a storm, she began taking off her shredded coat, then paused as she realized there was a slight weight to one of the pockets that she hadn’t noticed before. The inspector pulled the thing out quickly, hoping it was something she could use.

It was Sly’s camera she held in her hands.

Carmelita’s mind stalled with surprise. She hadn’t seen this thing since Wales. She remembered it, of course – the raccoon had gotten it somewhere between the USA and Haiti, and she’d often catch him taking pictures of just about any novelty he saw while they traveled, which had been a lot.

In hindsight, maybe she should have taken more note of the fact that he considered mini-marts and migrating birds to be among such novelties.

Thinking about Sly and his terrible lot in life made a rush of righteous anger flow right through her. The fox tucked the camera safely away back in her coat, deeming it a mystery to solve at a later time, and turned towards the open room beyond her odd prison.

“Hey!” She yelled up at the ceiling. “Is anyone there? What’s the meaning of this?”

There was no response except for that continued, constant hum of machinery. Carmelita worked her mouth before taking a step closer to the nearest barrier.

“I know you’re watching me. I can see those cameras. What do you want? Is this a ransom for Interpol? Some kind of retaliation? What demands do you have?”

Still nothing. The inspector let out a frustrated growl and kicked at the reinforced glass. All it gave her for her troubles was a smarting toe.

“You’re Clockwerk, aren’t you?” She called out one last time, hoping to get a reply through that. “Kidnapping doesn’t fit your known MO. Is it because I’ve arrested all your colleagues? If you were afraid of getting caught too or wanted revenge, why not just kill me?”

The cameras all stared at her in mocking silence. She bit her lip, running over the few facts she had. Clockwerk didn’t do things like this. He worked in the shadows, never revealing himself except to help his fellow Five escape at the very end of a heist. The bird was as elusive a criminal as Conner Cooper had been.

Cooper.

Inspector Fox stiffened as she remembered that night in Kunlun. Sly, dejected and certain his life was over. Offering to let her arrest him because he thought it was the only choice of fate that he could make for himself. The pure horror on his face as he looked up at what had felt like the grim reaper bearing down on them both, and then even worse – the resignation that he had clearly fallen into without even trying to run.

She thought about Jing’s story of his failed escape and the price he had paid for it. His strange shift from just wanting to get away for good, to going back over and over to steal his family’s book back for no rational reason.

“This isn’t about me at all, is it?” She asked, as much to herself as to her absent captor. “It’s about Sly Cooper.”

It was like the name alone had flipped a switch of a long-dormant machine. The computer screens all over the room turned on, and Carmelita was suddenly, finally, face to face with the dark silhouette of the leader of the Fiendish Five.

“It has always been about Cooper.” The giant owl said. His voice was cold. Emotionless. Robotic, even. It sent a shiver up her spine. “From the very beginning to the very end.”

“But why?” She questioned, understanding the actions but not the motive. “You killed a rival criminal in Conner Cooper, and then kept his son alive because he was useful. But why the – why toy with him all this time? I know he was trying to take back what you’d all stolen from him, but…he doesn’t actually care about that, does he?”

Clockwerk didn’t respond. He simply stared at Carmelita, his yellow eyes the only detail she could fully make out in his shrouded visage.

“I asked him why he kept risking getting caught by you guys, and all he could say was that he needed to get his book back. He told me right before you attacked us that he had to do that, and then he’d be able to ‘escape for real.’ It sounds like someone obsessed with fixing their family’s reputation, but that’s not what was going on at all, was it?”

Her voice came out louder and louder as the revelation hit her in full, terrible force.

“All he’s ever wanted was to be free, but he knew you’d come after him. He’s terrified of you because he fully believed it wasn’t possible to escape while you were out there. You made him think that you – that you’d let him go if he stole his book back? That you wouldn’t chase after him if he, what, if he humiliated your team enough? Is that what this is all about?”

The owl’s head twitched to the side in a perfect forty-five-degree angle. “I suppose I can indulge in this thread you’ve managed to untangle, just this once. It has been a very long time since someone who wasn’t a Cooper discovered one of my plans, after all, and you are certainly not in a position to do anything about it for much longer.”

Carmelita suppressed another shiver, and refused to look anything other than the confident, collected Inspector she had become over the course of this entire affair.

“While it is true that I allowed Cooper to believe he had any fate but death waiting for him by recovering the Thievius Raccoonus, you are only half-correct about my motives. I do not care about such shallow, insignificant things as the Fiendish Five’s reputation. Any failure on their part to protect their stolen pages of that book was entirely on them, but I would never allow the world to assume that I would let Cooper go if he were successful. It is not possible for him to succeed, you see. Even though the rest of my cohorts disappointed me, I expected it. I planned for it.

“I wanted to show the world that without their precious book, the Cooper line was nothing. It has been their crutch for thievery for as long as I have known them, and now that I have taken it away, the proof of that is known to all. Sly Cooper was not even able to get this far on his own; he was so weak that he was forced to seek aid from you.”

The dark glee in his voice made her skin crawl. Her tail twitched without consent while she absorbed his twisted words and motives.

“I don’t understand,” she said, very slowly, as every alarm in her mind suddenly went off at once. “You keep talking about the Cooper family, like – like you’ve been around as long as they have. How old are you?”

Clockwerk regarded her for a long, silent minute. Eventually he tilted his head in the opposite direction, almost as if amused by the inquiry – or perhaps deciding she was worth an honest answer for her part in the game he had been playing without anyone else knowing.

“Perfection has no age,” he finally said. “I have kept myself alive for hundreds of years with a steady diet of jealousy and hate.”

Carmelita couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What are you saying? That you’re…immortal?”

“Revenge is the prime ingredient in the fountain of youth. I have been patiently awaiting the day when I would finally eclipse the Cooper family’s thieving reputation.”

The glee was gone. All that was left was the darkness and the spite. It was so powerful that the inspector nearly averted her gaze even though she wasn’t the target of it.

“Those arrogant Coopers dared to claim they held the title of master thieves, but they were always inferior. I am a master thief. I was the master thief. The original. The antecedent. And I have proved it, time and time again.”

“How…how would you prove something like that?” She asked, dreading the answer but compelled to learn.

“By achieving the ultimate crime.”

Soulless yellow eyes burned into hers. The eyes of a predator.

“To steal the lives of such master thieves – that is how I prove my superiority.”

Carmelita recoiled, appalled and horrified by the thing she was talking to. “Criminal” was too kind a word to describe him, even among his Fiendish companions. He was nothing less than a monster.

“How many?” The question came out in a whisper against her own will.

“Nearly all of them. Those who did not succumb to sickness, or injury, or unfortunate circumstances. I hunted entire family trees through the generations. I diluted their sprawling lineage across the entire world, narrowing it down meticulously until only one pitiful, struggling bloodline remained. I nearly completed my goal with Conner Cooper, but he evaded me for too long and became too well-known through his exploits and his book. So, I found fulfillment in his son instead.”

She finally let herself shudder. Sometime in their “conversation”, her fur had begun standing on end and hadn’t stopped. It was no wonder Sly had believed himself out of options the last time she had seen him. She had no doubt that if she hadn’t intervened, he would not have survived the trip to wherever Clockwerk had taken her.

That thought gave her pause.

“…What about me?” The fox dared to ask. “I stopped you from doing what you wanted to with him, and now I’m…here. Why let me live when I wasn’t even your target to begin with?”

“Your actions are inconsequential. Your life is inconsequential. You are alive only because I found a use for it.”

“And what use is that?” She demanded, drawing her shoulders up as high as she could to hide the way her fur was still puffed out in fear.

“Bait.”

The word caught the inspector completely off guard. Her bravado faltered just a little bit in the wake of confusion.

“I’m…what?” She blinked. “For Sly?”

Clockwerk’s answer was the slightest tilt of his head back to a vertical position. Carmelita would have pretended to scoff if not for the sick pit growing in her stomach.

“That’s not going to work. We were only partners for a month before I found out who he was, and I’ve been trying to arrest him since. He hates me.”

“Does he?” It was asked with something actually bordering on an emotion other than hatred and delight; the first he’d shown. The fox had been starting to wonder whether he was even capable of it.

And yet, that emotion was one she couldn’t identify at all.

“Of course he does!” For some reason, convincing Clockwerk of this suddenly felt very important. “He nearly killed me in Wales. And – and in Kunlun, I tried to gun him down when we ran into each other again.”

She pushed the last interaction they’d had out of her mind. Even if they had made some tentative form of reconciliation in the moment, it wasn’t enough to repair the chasm of hurt she’d caused him. Surely not enough for the raccoon to risk his life for her.

“If you truly think so, then perhaps I’ll simply kill you right now.”

Carmelita froze. The owl continued.

“You won’t survive either way, of course, but maybe a different lure would work better if you’re so certain you won’t be enough to draw him out. Considering the Panda King was the only of my former colleagues he had any attachment to, and has since been…compromised, his daughter may be an ideal substitute.”

“Don’t you dare harm that girl!” The inspector slammed her hands on the glass in thunderous, instinctive fury. “She has nothing to do with any of this!”

Clockwerk cocked his head. “What a peculiar response. I would have thought you’d beg for me to spare your life if I were to switch your places.”

“I will not let you threaten an innocent person,” she growled. “Not her, not Sly, not anyone.”

He chuckled. It was a low, terrible sound. “It’s too late for empty platitudes, Inspector Fox. We shall see whether Sly Cooper is willing to come and save you. If he does not, then I will dispose of you and find a better lure.”

And with that promise made, the ancient leader of the Fiendish Five disappeared from every screen. Carmelita collapsed to her knees, knowing she was still being watched but pretending otherwise as she stared at the giant mirror across the room and wondered whether it was worse to wish for Sly to save her or not.

Eventually, almost without thinking, she reached for her discarded winter coat and found the camera within. She ran her hands over it but didn’t turn it on, thinking over everything that Clockwerk had just confessed to. Her mind spun over the utter depravity of the creature she was trapped by. Knowing that Sly, or Jing, or any other number of people would be at his mercy was as bitter a pill to swallow as knowing that regardless of what happened from here on out, her life would probably not last long enough to witness the aftermath.

For the first time in a very long time, Inspector Carmelita Fox felt well and truly helpless.

She didn’t know when she finally began looking through the camera. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but at some point, her brain snapped out of its stupor long enough to realize that this inconspicuous little device was all she had left of her former partner. She didn’t know how it had gotten into her coat pocket, but she didn’t care – right now it was the most precious thing she had ever owned, right next to her lost shock pistol.

At first, they were exactly as she expected: pictures of stores and streets and cities, pictures of scenery, pictures of the occasional oddity that stuck out more than usual. But as they moved from the U.S. to Haiti to Wales, she began noticing herself popping up more and more. What had started as a sporadic appearance of blue hair or orange jacket in the background started moving to the foreground, and then became the focus completely.

There were pictures of her admiring the street vendors at a farmer’s market; pictures of her arguing with an officer over whether her parked car was a registered police vehicle; pictures of her up close, clearly looking at Sly behind the camera with a bemused yet open smile. Almost every single one was without the fox knowing the picture was being taken, and the few that weren’t featured the same slightly confused, honest happiness as Past-Her seemed to find it funny that her partner had wanted photos of her.

She’d had no idea. All the time they’d spent traveling together, that month or so of his snark and irritability and gradual trust, she had thought he surely couldn’t have felt the same way about her as she had started to feel about him. Whether he was aware of it or whether it was a subconscious thing, Sly Cooper had gone from seeing her as the cop who could be his means to an end, to someone he seemed to truly care for.

Carmelita cycled through all of them slowly, drinking in every detail so that she could commit them all to memory as she sat curled up against the wall of her glass prison and waited for her fate to be decided. This camera and its contents had been a candid snapshot into the raccoon’s mindset; she wanted to hold on tight to the feathery feeling in her chest every time a new picture of herself came up for as long as she possibly could.

And then, very suddenly, all pictures of her were gone. It was back to scenery and cities again, as it had started out, although she recognized very few of these locations. The personality he had started to grow in his photography – both with her as the subject or without – disappeared just as abruptly. All the new photos were almost clinical; no longer snapshots of lives and what it was like to live, but simply back to the basics of seeing something and taking a picture of it just to show he did.

Understanding hit the fox like a freight train, but she still gave the new batch her full attention. There were hundreds of them stored on the thing from when Sly had first bought it all the way to Kunlun; she recognized some of the scenery at the base of the mountain as the exact same that she had passed with her Interpol team probably days later. By the time she reached the end, her throat was dry from lack of water and her muscles nearly cramped every time she shifted.

And then, she came to the last one.

It was Sly – the only picture of him across the entire gallery – sitting on a bed, in a room that Carmelita didn’t recognize. He had his chin propped up in his hand and he was staring out the nearby open window at the night sky, obviously unaware of the camera aimed his way. There were bags under his eyes and he looked both contemplative and melancholy.

She could see historical Chinese décor all over the room, and the reason for the picture clicked in her head – as well as how the camera had ended up here with her. Either the raccoon had left it out where Jing had gotten ahold of it, or he had given it to her directly. She wondered when the teenager had slipped it into her coat pocket and couldn’t help but be impressed for not noticing it. Clearly, she had not been lying about learning a few things from her surrogate brother regarding sleight of hand.

Just as the inspector began working her way through the photos a second time, the screens in the room booted to life again, startling her to her feet in preparation for fight, flight, or another harrowing conversation.

This time, Clockwerk did not waste any time before cutting to the chase.

“Sly Cooper is here.”

Carmelita swallowed and flexed her hands at her side. She fought the icy panic and the dangerous hope that were both creeping across her mind, pretending instead to be indifferent to the announcement.

“He knows you are alive, but not where you are. I am curious if he will be able to find you before my security measures overpower him.” If the owl had seen through her bluff, or was worried that Sly would succeed, he did not show it. His metal countenance was as unreadable as always.

“I believe in him. He’s made it this far on his own,” she dared to say over the fear that her captor would take it as a challenge that he was underestimating her former partner.

“Indeed, he has. His luck has certainly held out longer than expected.”

Clockwerk leaned forward, and she very much did not like the sudden gleam in his eye.

“But this time, Inspector, you are not going to be his savior. You are going to be his doom.”

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A/N: I love villains. I love monologues. I love villain monologues. I may love these things a little TOO much because I think I made Clockwerk awfully chatty compared to canon, oops. The cat is finally out of the bag, the truth is finally revealed, and now we know exactly why Sly was so single-mindedly obsessed with recovering the Thievius Raccoonus instead of simply disappearing into the dead of night.

Also, kudos to everyone who predicted that Bentley and Murray would make another appearance! There were quite a few of you and I was delighted at how many remembered that Sly had a way to contact them.

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #clockwerk #fanfiction #the lines we cross

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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You guys ever think about how good the Tomb of The Sharkophagus level in Psychonauts 2 is. The mood whiplash. The slow dreadful realization of what Ford and Lucy have done. "No, Raz, you didn't." David Kaye's whole performance there really. Man it's just such a good part of such a good game

#psychonauts 2 #psychonauts #straight up the dread that locked up my heart when he said that #it went from “haha what war crimes did Grandpa commit”#to “oh shit oh no he really committed War Crimes”#god i love this series forever

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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The Lines We Cross: Chapter 25

A Desperate Race

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It’s not when my voice is raised that you should worry. It’s when I have nothing more to say.

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The Panda King’s bedroom was deceptively modest compared to the rest of his fortress. There was no glamor or declarations of wealth; the furniture was simple and functional, the walls were bare, and the only real indication that this room belonged to him was the bundle of fireworks propped up against a corner. Fireworks were forbidden inside the stronghold for everyone except the crime lord, and these were ones that he always carried for personal protection.

Sly didn’t give a damn about them. What he was scouting for, as he slipped inside and began tearing the room apart, was much more flammable.

The dresser yielded nothing after scattering its contents, so he turned to the futon – ripping sheets away, flipping the mattress, checking the lining for secret pockets. When that proved fruitless as well, the raccoon began banging his cane against the floor and walls with growing frustration.

There – a hollow sound in the seam between two wood panels in the wall closest to the bed. Sly pressed the cane more firmly into the hidden pocket to find the very center, then pulled back to swing at it with all his might. It cracked apart easily, leaving a large hole for him to stick his hand into until his fingers closed around a small metal box.

Its lock came undone with just a few turns of his lockpick. He opened it to the sight of the Panda King’s portion of the Thievius Raccoonus, and when he gently pulled them out, there was a separate paper underneath that did not belong to the rest despite looking just as old. The raccoon felt relief flood his body as he recognized the symbols matching those of the safe he couldn’t crack.

This was the last thing he needed. He could go back, get those last few pages from Clockwerk, and then the game would finally be over.

He’d be free.

The sound of heavy, familiar approaching footsteps made him hold his breath. He pressed himself up against a wall and disappeared from sight just in time for the Panda King to slide open the door. The panda froze at the sight of his room turned upside down, then hurried inside to gape at the hole in the wall that blatantly told him what had been robbed. Sly was still holding the box and its precious contents; his grip tightened possessively when King’s gaze passed unknowingly over his imperceptible form.

“No…” The crime lord muttered in horror. “No, no!”

He turned and rushed from the room, leaving the raccoon alone with his prize. Sly waited until he was certain that the other wouldn’t return before exhaling to drop the invisibility and creeping towards the open door. He peered out cautiously, still hearing King’s heavy footfalls heading in the direction that he himself was planning to go.

Well, there was little point in stealth now. It was obvious what Sly had taken, and it was obvious that the panda expected to intercept him there. If this was going to be a confrontation, then he’d face it as the final hurdle to this entire ordeal that it was.

He closed the box and stashed it in his backpack, retracing his steps to the top of the statue at a much slower pace. His heart was pounding in his chest and his hands were sweating under his gloves, but his mind was crystal clear with what he had to do. Any shred of fear was replaced by adrenaline and grim determination.

As expected, he was not alone when he reached the observatory. The Panda King stood in the center of the room, blocking the safe from sight of the only entrance. Sly’s lip curled as he stepped out from the shadows and into the light, making his presence undeniably known.

“Move,” he growled, hefting his cane to add weight to the command.

King did not move. He was stiff and rigid, staring the raccoon down with a face pinched in pity. It riled Sly up even more.

“Move, King, or I’ll make you.”

“You are welcome to try,” the panda said solemnly. His hands came up in a pacifying gesture. “But I will not go easy on you, Sly Cooper. I have warned you that this path was not a good one to take.”

“And I told you that you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sly yelled. “What gives you the right to act like you care now? You never cared about me. You never had a conscience about what happened to me, no matter how much you pretended you did.”

“You are welcome to believe that, Cooper. I know there are no excuses to my actions – but please, if there is a single thing in which I can convince you, let it be that opening this safe will not save you. It will only doom you.”

The man was trying to placate him. His voice was soft and stressed, and he was looking at the raccoon like he was having a tantrum; like he was still the tiny terrified child constantly trying to escape while King was right there to stop it every step of the way.

Sly felt his lips curl back into an ugly snarl. Two could play at this game.

“You think you’re so high-and-mighty,” he said, voice low. “You think you’re so much better than them because you never laid a hand on me, but you’re not. You hurt me in ways that scarred just as deep as what he left on me. You’re not a hero, you’re not an innocent bystander – you’re not even a good villain, because at least they never deluded themselves into thinking what they were doing wasn’t evil. You’re just a frustrated fireworks forger turned homicidal pyromaniac who’s convinced himself he still has the moral high ground so he doesn’t have to face reality!”

King’s expression contorted in a flash of anger. Whatever nerve the raccoon had struck, it had struck hard; flames began to spark against his palms and up his arms. He shifted, placing one foot behind him to form a defensive position as his hands began to burn. Sly tensed with his cane at the ready.

“Since you are so intent on rushing blindly to your death, I see I can no longer convince you. To honor your life, your struggles, and your tenacity, I will give you a proper, glorious end with the beauty of my firework technique – Flame Fu!”

He launched the first fireball.

Sly was already running.

--------------------------------------------------

She was crying. When had she started crying?

Carmelita touched her hand to her cheek and was startled to feel it come away wet. She blinked until she was certain it would stop, then looked at Jing King, who had no such qualms about hiding her emotions. Tears flowed freely down the poor girl’s face as she finished recounting everything her father had told her about Sly Cooper.

The inspector still remembered seeing the scars. There was no way she could ever forget them – those three jagged marks across Sly’s body that he had insisted was nothing more than a machinery mishap. His careful sidestep of that truth had matched every other lie by omission he had fed her for all their time together, but now she had all the missing pieces Jing had placed before her. How they lined up perfectly to form a picture she had been almost willfully blind to.

Different emotions warred within her; horror at what he’d gone through, rekindled anger at the Fiendish Five for the compounded list of atrocities they had committed to no one’s knowledge but their own, her own sense of justice struggling to drown out everything else to shout at her that he was still a criminal who had to answer for the things he’d done.

And beneath all of that, quiet and concerned and persistent – confusion. Hurt. They had worked together. He had trusted her; had told her how difficult that was for him to do, and now she knew exactly why. He had even told her, in the midst of their terrible falling out, that he’d believed she was strong enough to take down the Five for good.

So why hadn’t he told her any of this? Had he still thought so lowly of cops – of her – that it didn’t cross his mind? If she had succeeded in arresting everyone in the group before their blowout had happened, would he have realized he was safe enough to share those secrets without risk of them coming after him, or would he have kept up his lies as long as he could regardless?

She didn’t know. And now, after seeing the way he had looked at her the last time they met, she doubted she’d ever get the chance to learn.

“…Inspector Fox?”

Jing King’s voice was soft and uncertain. She wrung her hands nervously, watching the fox and waiting for a proper response to all the secrets she had just shared.

“I – give me a minute,” Carmelita said, eternally grateful she didn’t sound as shaken up as she felt. “It’s just a lot to process. Did you – can I ask a few more questions?”

The panda nodded, setting her hands down in her lap as she patiently waited for the follow-up. She looked considerably calmer than she’d been when she’d first started talking. Inspector Fox was envious.

“Did you ever see him again after that? After – after they took him away, I mean. Not the…you know.”

“I did not see him while he was working for them, no,” she replied somberly. “If he was ever brought to my father’s territory here in Kunlun during those six years, I was not aware of it. After he escaped, he found his way to my aunt’s house where I was living at the time, and stayed with me for a few days to search for pages of the Thievius Raccoonus…and to recover.”

She gave her a long, slow once-over as she said it, and Carmelita wondered what she was being judged for. Had Sly told her about their fight, or did the girl simply blame her for his condition in the aftermath? She chose her next words carefully, mindful of the layer of mistrust that still persisted between them.

“You mentioned earlier that he wasn’t interested in getting the book back when he was first trying to escape. What changed?”

Jing pursed her lips. “I am uncertain. My father does not know, either, but he suspects it has something to do with Clockwerk’s original prediction that Sly would go after it, and the conversation he had with him that my father was not privy to. Whatever was said between them changed Sly’s priorities.”

The fox thought back to the moment Sly had declared that he would come with her after the rest of the Five. He had told her that he was doing so because he wouldn’t feel safe until they were put away, but she still remembered the look on his face, and even back then had known that there was something else to it. He had been almost manic in his reaction, as though his entire life hinged on convincing her to let him join. After learning he had been part of their team, she’d thought the root of that obsession was revenge – and perhaps some of it still was, knowing the full story now.

But there was something she was missing, something they all were, and as theory after theory crossed her mind as to what, she couldn’t help but wonder, once again, why Sly would willingly throw himself back into the line of fire for the sake of a single book.

“Jing…do you know where your father is now?” She asked as a different thought suddenly occurred to her. “Because I was following Sly when I made it into this statue, and I haven’t seen him since.”

The girl looked up at her sharply. “He has been alternating his time between his room and the security station. Do you think they will encounter each other?”

“If the Panda King still has what Sly is looking for, then it’s very likely. In fact, it might have already happened.”

That statement seemed to terrify Jing. She stumbled to her feet as if to run off, but stopped immediately as she caught eyes with the inspector again.

“…You have yet to tell me what you plan to do,” she said, looking as though she wanted nothing more than to bolt from the room to find her family. The fact that she stayed put was a testament to her will, and Carmelita couldn’t help but respect it. “You said you want to help him; to right every wrong and ensure justice is done, but what does that mean? What will you do if we find my father? If we find Sly?”

“I…”

Honestly? She didn’t entirely know.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, hoping the truth was enough for now. “This is a more complicated situation than I realized, and Sly might not – well, he isn’t exactly trusting me anymore. But I’m hoping that he’ll at least be willing to talk. If we find him alone, I’m not going to threaten him. I just want to talk and – and figure things out from there.”

Jing studied her. “And…if we find my father instead?”

For that, there were no reservations. “I’m going to arrest him. I know you care about him, and it sounds like he has a lot of regrets, but he’s still done terrible things, Jing. Just today, even, he buried an entire town under snow. I can’t let him walk away from that.”

The girl took a deep breath and bowed her head with her eyes closed. When she seemed to come to terms with whatever future was in store for herself and her father, she opened her eyes, squared her shoulders, and held her hand out to Inspector Fox.

“I will help you find them,” she promised as the older woman took the offered hand. “I’ve been complicit in all of this for far too long, even though I was not aware of it. I refuse to be a pawn for evil any longer.”

Carmelita nodded, feeling a surge of her old resolve return for the first time since Wales. One way or another, it was time to make things right.

--------------------------------------------------

Flames singed the fur along Sly’s cheek as he ducked a fist covered in fire by a hair’s breadth. He took advantage of the brief window in the Panda King’s defenses to slam his cane into his knee, watching with vicious satisfaction as it buckled under the blow. Then he was forced to dance out of range again when King’s other burning hand almost caught him around the waist in retaliation.

They were both breathing hard, slick with sweat from the heat and the fighting. Sly was fast but inexperienced in combat; his left arm throbbed from where the panda had grabbed it and nearly snapped it in two before he’d slipped out of the deadly hold, and shallow burns peppered his hoodie and his body. King, meanwhile, was struggling from the toll of old age; his hulking frame kept his endurance strong against a dozen harsh impacts by the metal cane, but it could only last so long as his energy waned more and more as the minutes ticked on.

Sly hurried to close the distance before the panda could gear up to start throwing fireballs and rockets and god knew what else, slipping in out of reach like a persistent butterfly and waling on his enemy at every opening he could find. The fight had led to them circling the room so that the safe was at the raccoon’s backside, but he dared not turn around to sprint for it until the threat was down for the count. King had not been bluffing about killing him, and he threw everything he had at him.

In some sick, twisted part of Sly’s mind, it almost felt good to be taken seriously for once in his life.

Finally, the fight hit its apex. He feinted right as though he was going to take aim for King’s knee again. The crime lord lunged low for him – and Sly jumped instead. He vaulted onto his giant outstretched arm, for a single moment, and sprang into the air again with the added height to bring his cane down directly over his head.

The Panda King collapsed with an audible thud.

Sly landed light as a feather in front of him despite the heave of his lungs and the burns across his body. He looked the panda over to make sure his fall wasn’t faked, then looked over at the safe still waiting for him. With one last venomous kick to the Five member’s side, he walked towards his prize while pulling the stolen box from his backpack.

It was child’s play to translate the code from paper to keypad; perhaps, ironically, the easiest thing to overcome among every trial he’d faced in the months it had taken to get here. With his heart practically beating out of his chest, feeling the rising hope that this game was finally over, the raccoon entered the final symbol and opened the safe door.

It was empty.

Sly stilled. No, that couldn’t be right. He put his hands inside, searching for an illusion or a hex that must have made the final pages invisible. When that yielded nothing, he felt about the inner walls for hidden compartments. Something cold and acidic began creeping its way up his throat and into his brain as the seconds ticked by and he couldn’t find the secret to the safe.

He closed the door. Opened it to the same sight. Closed it again and relocked it, then re-entered the code and swung the door open a third time.

Nothing. There was nothing there.

Static pressed into his nerves. His fingers were numb. Sly felt his legs give out beneath him and let them, collapsing to his knees in front of the farce of a safe as his cane slipped from his grip. It couldn’t be true. There had to be something there, or else he’d come all this way for nothing. He’d succeeded again and again, facing death and worse over and over to reach this ending, this promise – and it had led only to failure. He had failed.

No. No.

No.

A groan behind him redirected all his panic into rage in an instant. Sly picked up his cane and turned towards the Panda King, who was struggling to get to his feet with one hand against his head.

“Where are they.” It was a demand, not a question.

King looked up blearily, confused until his clouded eyes fell on Clockwerk’s open, empty safe and the dangerously motionless raccoon beside it. He shook his head, fighting another groan as he did so.

“Don’t give me that shit!” Sly stalked forward to jam the wooden end of his cane hard into the other’s shoulder. The firework forger lost his balance and what little ground he had gained, falling to his hands and knees almost instantly. “You’ve had this thing sitting here all these years, holding onto it for him. Going on and on about my goals having no good ending. There’s no fucking way you don’t know where they really are!”

He shook his head again in silence.

“Tell me where the last pages are, King!”

“I do not know,” the panda finally said in the face of his shout, looking just as lost as him. Sly didn’t buy a word of it. “I was tasked with keeping the safe protected and told never to open it. I know just as much as you.”

The raccoon snarled and hooked the cane around the man’s neck. He yanked it forward, forcing King to remain kneeling as a shocked gaze met a blazing one. They were pressed nearly snout to snout.

“No more lies,” he growled. “No more mind games. No more turning a blind eye to what’s around you for your peace of mind. Tell me where Clockwerk hid his portion of the Thievius Raccoonus in your stronghold, or I’ll show you exactly how those talons felt across your own body.”

Sly stared at the Panda King. The Panda King stared at Sly. Nothing was said because nothing needed to be said as it hit him all at once. King wasn’t lying. He didn’t know any more than the raccoon did, but one truth had made itself clear between them.

The last of the book was not here. It had never been.

The weight of that comprehension nearly staggered Sly. He stared down at King’s remorseful form, still caught precariously by the weapon around his throat, and struggled to think through the sudden haze of a mocking, metallic voice in his head.

Oh, how stupid he was. How very, very stupid.

A delirious, frantic laugh bubbled its way out of his mouth. It was a single sound, one loud horrific realization that echoed around the room, as Sly Cooper looked back at the game he had played for over half his life and finally understood that he had never been another player to begin with. He had been its prize, that coveted thing that the Five had played for and used and fought over until it had finally slipped out of their greedy hands and into patient, waiting claws.

And those claws would not make the mistake of letting him live a second time.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t cry. He didn’t even get angry again. A heavy sort of finality settled over him in the wake of this revelation, scrubbing away all emotion and leaving only emptiness. Sly stared down at the Panda King, who stared back with wide eyes that – for the first time since he had ever met him – suddenly recognized the sight of someone well and truly having nothing left to lose.

--------------------------------------------------

They found the crime lord’s room torn completely apart.

Jing stood in the doorway, shocked, while Carmelita searched the area just long enough to figure out what the path of destruction had been. Neither of them had to guess as to who was behind it.

“He must have found the rest of the book,” the inspector said grimly as she studied the empty hole in the wall. “He’s probably long-gone by now.”

“I hope so,” the girl replied, stepping aside to let her out of the room and into the hallway. “I hope he found everything he was looking for, and that he never has to return here again.”

Carmelita frowned, hearing the melancholy in her voice and unsure of whether it was her place to comfort the panda. Before she could decide either way, there was a sudden, distant shout from somewhere above them.

“Tell me where the last pages are, King!”

The fury in Sly’s voice startled her just as badly as the fact that she had heard it at all; never in her time knowing him had he ever been so loud. She whirled on Jing, who was staring up at the ceiling with her mouth agape.

“We need to find them now – where are the nearest stairs?”

The girl snapped out of her bewilderment and grabbed Carmelita by the wrist, hurrying towards the opposite end of the hall and around another corner until they found the way up. They both sprinted for all they were worth, making their way higher and higher until at last they came to the very top.

It was the room Inspector Fox had come in through with her jetpack when she’d followed Sly. That was the first thing she registered upon entering. The second thing was that of him standing over a kneeling Panda King, both looking banged up and exhausted.

The third thing was the Cooper cane wrapped around King’s neck.

Carmelita froze. Jing, behind her, did as well. Sly didn’t even seem to realize they had arrived; all his attention was on the crime lord at his mercy.

“I could kill you like this.” His voice was soft as a fallen snowflake and just as chilled. It sent a shiver down the fox’s spine. “I should kill you. After everything you’ve done, you don’t deserve mercy.”

The Panda King remained silent, head bowed and eyes closed. He appeared to have accepted his fate.

But Carmelita did not.

“Sly.”

Later, she would be surprised by how quiet her call to him had been – how it had sounded more like she was pleading with someone standing on the edge of a bridge instead of being about to kill a man. But right now, all she could focus on was the raccoon standing perfectly still in front of her.

“Sly, don’t do it.”

His head swiveled her direction first. His eyes followed at a delay as though detached from the rest of him.

“Oh. Carmelita. Hey.”

The way he looked at her was like nothing she had ever seen on anyone. Even in Wales, it had still been him under the walls he had put up. Right now, there was no sign at all of the ringtail she’d grown to care about.

There was nothing there at all.

“Funny seeing you here,” he continued without any inflection, as if they were simply conversing about the weather while he was two seconds away from snapping King’s neck. “You missed all the action, I’m afraid. Didn’t make it in time to kick ass and make arrests like you’re so good at.”

His blank gaze bore holes into her. She could see his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the handle of his cane.

“Or maybe it’s not too late for that. I’m still here, after all. You could always go after me again.” His voice remained toneless, but his body began to shake. “You’ll probably catch me this time if you do. I’d call it a draw, since I won the last round, but I think you’ll win regardless in the end. What do you think?”

“Sly,” Carmelita repeated, slow and cautious. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, it’s not worth it. Please don’t do it.”

The raccoon tilted his head at her words, bizarrely similar to the way a bird would. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

There was no accusation there like she expected. Just a fact, stated simple and blunt.

“You’re right. I don’t know.” Her hands came up in surrender. His eyes tracked the movement with a lazy, deceptive precision. “I’ve been learning that more and more tonight – I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know how hard it must have been for you. I don’t know what you’ve had to do to survive. I’ve made a lot of assumptions about you all this time, and I have no excuse for the way I’ve treated you.”

Slowly, broadcasting every move she made, the inspector reached for the belt around her waist. Sly didn’t blink a single time as she removed it – and by extension, the holster containing her shock pistol – and dropped it to the ground. She picked the gun up by the toe of her foot and kicked it away, keeping her gaze on him as it skittered out of both of their ranges.

His expression did not change. The hold on his cane squeezed even tighter.

“I met your sister tonight, and she told me a little bit.” Carmelita leaned back on her heels to acknowledge the panda standing silent behind her, and she saw the moment Sly realized she was there too. For the very first time, his face flickered out of its emptiness, in and out in a blink, and she almost missed it. “She set me straight on all the things I’ve been wrong about.”

Next came the jetpack. It was harder to take off as smoothly as her pistol had been, but she tried her best. One strap off of one shoulder, the other off of the other, and she let it fall the same way. It clacked harshly against the hard ground, but neither of them flinched.

“What have you been wrong about?” He asked without any real weight to the question. “I’m a criminal. I’m a Cooper. I’m not worth anything except for how much I can get into trouble. That sums it up pretty well, doesn’t it?”

She swallowed. Searched the deepest parts of her training for every de-escalation tactic she had ever learned. Searched even deeper for the truths she had not allowed herself to face until now.

“You’re worth everything to me, Sly. I wouldn’t have even made it out of Mesa without you. I’d be dead countless times over without you. You believed in me when no one else would. I was a failure before we met. Everyone thought I was too impulsive, and a screw-up, and – and that I didn’t deserve my title or even my badge. I wasn’t just getting into trouble; I was getting everyone around me into trouble. That includes you. I made you believe you could trust me, and then I destroyed that trust out of stubborn ignorance.”

Carmelita held her hands out again – not in placation, but in welcoming. Recognition. An offer of peace between two equals.

“I’m sorry, Sly. I’m sorry for making you feel like you weren’t worth enough. You are. I –”

She hesitated, and then refused to do so any longer.

“I care about you, Ringtail. I have for a long time. And that’s never going to change, because you know how bull-headed I get when I set my heart on something. So please, please don’t do something that you’ll regret. Don’t do something that will make you hate yourself more than you already do. You deserve better than that.”

It was silent for a very long time. She didn’t know if her words had sunk in, if they had made a real impact, but it was all she could hope for as she continued to hold her hands out and waited for the reaction. Sly stared at her, studying her in that way that pierced to her very soul, and she held her head high to show that there was nothing left to hide. She had said her piece.

Whatever happened next, she would face it without any regrets.

When Sly finally pulled his gaze from her, it was to look instead at Jing. The fox didn’t know what she was thinking, or even the expression on her face – she was still standing behind her – but nearly a full minute passed as they shared a conversation known only to them. Eventually, as if waking up from some far-off dream, he looked down at the Panda King still waiting for his verdict.

The raccoon startled like he’d been hit. He took his cane off of King’s neck and backed away skittishly, eyes darting back and forth between both pandas and the inspector as though they might turn on him anyway despite his moment of mercy. Before anyone could say a single word, he turned tail and ran out the shattered window, where he disappeared from sight in the dark night.

Carmelita nearly collapsed where she was standing. The only reason she didn’t was because she sensed Jing about to do the same, and instead turned to grab her arm to steady her. The girl gave her a grateful look before running straight for her father.

The inspector wanted to do the same, to go after Sly before he was gone again, but she couldn’t. There were still people counting on her to do her job. She wasn’t going to let them down again.

Her radio was clipped to her hip at one of the belt loops; the only piece of police equipment she hadn’t dropped during her intense stand-off with the raccoon. She pulled it up to her mouth and somehow found her voice to be steady.

“Inspector Fox to Team Alpha. I’ve successfully infiltrated the fortress and have taken the Panda King into custody. What is your current position?”

It took a few seconds to gain a reply, but the officer who answered only sounded mildly distracted. “Team Alpha to Inspector Fox. We have just reached the base entrance and have overtaken King’s men here. ETA to sweep the fortress for remaining hostiles: fifteen to thirty minutes. Where should we meet you?”

“I’ll be waiting at the top right observatory.”

“Copy that. Over and out.”

As she attached the radio back onto her jeans, Carmelita looked over at the infamous crime lord and his gentle daughter. The former had yet to stand from his place on the floor; his expression was thoughtful as he absently rubbed at his neck. The latter kneeled beside him, running her hands over his body to catalogue his injuries.

“The rest of my team will be here soon, you know.” It was not stated as a warning, as neither seemed willing to flee, but she still watched them both with more than a little tension.

“I know,” Jing said, looking out at the open window. She sighed, quiet and watery, before giving the inspector a soft, sad smile. “We will wait for them and face whatever comes together. It is the most honorable thing we can do.”

“It is the only thing I can do,” the elder panda added. His voice was full of resignation and regret. “Nothing else will atone for the things I’ve done in this life. Perhaps that isn’t even enough.”

He finally met her eyes. She was startled by how cold they were towards her despite his heavy words. Despite everything she’d learned about him, he was still a ruthless, terrifying man even in defeat.

“Go,” he told her. “We will not flee when your back is turned. Go, and find him. Do what I…what I could not.”

For the first time in her life, Carmelita fully believed the words of a criminal. She gave a single, firm nod, turned on her heel, and rushed for the broken window.

He’s probably long gone, she told herself as she reached the empty frame. He’s probably halfway down the mountain without a trace, just like last –

He was sitting just outside.

Carmelita froze for half a second, almost afraid that the raccoon would disappear like a mirage if she made another move. His ear flicked backwards at the sound of her, but he didn’t turn around. She took it as a tentative sign to approach.

Carefully, the inspector came over and sat down next to him. His cane was draped across his lap, as was a handful of old, tattered papers, and he stared at them without really seeing them.

“...Sly?”

“I don’t know what to do anymore.”

It was said so quietly that she almost didn’t catch it. The fox wrapped her arms around her knees as she waited for him to elaborate.

“I thought I knew what I was doing,” he continued after several moments of silence between them. “That first night we met, when I offered to help you find Muggshot…I didn’t give a shit about you or your job. I just saw an opportunity to get what I needed, and a chance to screw over at least one of the monsters who made my life hell in the process.”

Sly started turning the cane over and over in his hands. Carmelita didn’t move a muscle to take it away or even stop him. She wasn’t as surprised as she figured she should be to realize that she didn’t fear him anymore.

Not like this.

“Then, when you started going after the rest of them, I joined you because it was an opportunity to steal my family’s book back. It was what I was supposed to do. It was what was expected of me. I steal the whole book back and then I’d finally be able to escape for real.”

He lifted those worn pages just enough for her to catch a glimpse of old drawings and even older handwriting.

“But getting it back didn’t do that. All it did was tell me that I was an idiot for ever believing otherwise. Going after this thing meant either getting caught by them again, or ending up dead. I don’t know why I ever thought my life would go any differently.”

At the base of the fortress, they could both see other Interpol officers making their way up, visible by their flashlights even in the pitch black of the night. It would probably be ten minutes tops before they reached the observatory.

The raccoon wasn’t making any move to leave. He stared at the incoming team down below with despondent eyes.

Carmelita shivered and rubbed her arms, but not from the cold. “But – but it doesn’t have to be either of those options, Sly. You got out. You’re free of them now.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves, Inspector,” he said quietly. Bitterly. “I’m not free. You’re going to arrest me, or your team will, and I’ll just be in a brand-new kind of cage. Maybe an even worse one, once word gets out that I worked with the cops to save my own skin.”

“We can – figure something out,” she responded, struggling to think of some way, any way, to help him without compromising her job or her morals. “You could get representation, make a case for your – your unusual circumstances. If you testify against the Fiendish Five and explain everything, surely a judge will understand –”

He was shaking his head before she was even finished speaking. “You know that’s not how it works. They’re going to hear my last name and then it’s all over. And even if that’s not enough to doom me, it will only be a matter of time before I’m caught by the one person who will never let me go.”

Before she could ask what he meant, Sly carefully folded the pages of his family treasure and tucked them in his backpack. Then he stood up, gaze on the distant horizon. She did the same if only to stay at his eye level.

“I’m done, Carmelita. I tried to get out, and I couldn’t. I tried to get revenge, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t even put the Thievius Raccoonus back together all the way. I’ve failed, and it’s over. So I’m going to choose that end on my terms, because it’s the only choice I have left.”

He turned to look at her. His expression was tight with pain and exhaustion, but there was the smallest, genuine smile on his face.

“For what it’s worth, though, I did have fun with you. Traveling the world, having someone actually watching my back, taking down scumbags who deserved it. It was nice. And if you meant even half of the things you said back there…”

The raccoon held out his cane to her, wrists up as if waiting for her to cuff him.

“Then let me make it up to you for all the trouble I’ve caused. One last member of the Fiendish Five to put away.”

Carmelita stared at him in shock.

“…Sly, I –”

A shadow fell over them.

Both their heads snapped up. Coming down from the sky like a speeding bullet was a set of giant wings that glinted in the moonlight. Talons sharp as death were aimed right for them – aimed right for him.

Sly was rooted to the spot, staring up at the incoming monster in pure transfixed terror. The horror in his eyes was matched only by hers as she realized that he was too petrified to try to run.

Petrified, and then resigned.

Instincts took over. Carmelita moved.

Her body collided full-force with his, sending him tumbling from the statue’s eyes to its nose and into deep snow right before deadly claws swiped at the place he had just been standing – and closed around her instead. They squeezed tight enough to make her lose her breath and the world lurched around her as suddenly she was in the sky.

The last thing she saw before the lack of air consumed her and her vision went dark was Sly’s stunned face, watching helplessly as she was carried away.

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A/N:

;)

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #fanfiction #the lines we cross #panda king #jing king

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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ratchet being an ANNOYING LITTLE BITCH compilation

#ratchet and clank #guess who's back on their bullshit #made the mistake of playing Rift Apart again this week whoops #anyway I love Ratchet literal definition of poor little meow meow

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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Other people: *mocking the assumed foolishness and negligence of Clockwerk to knowingly pull a Batman’s parents on Sly Cooper* *complaining about what is assumed to be a cheap writing excuse to explain Sly’s survival of the Fiendish’s Five’s attack on his home*

Me: But actually? No? It wouldn’t have been smarter on Clockwerk’s part to “finish the job” with Sly back then. Clockwerk pigeonholed himself into a fruitless job that is not meant to be finished.

Like if you really want to ponder on it, Clockwerk could be forced, in a way, to ensure the continuation of the cooper line, not the end of it. When you define and depend your whole existence on that which you hate, what do you have left when the object of your ire is no more? Clockwork would have died if his hate was ever allowed to diminish or find resolution. He’s like a ghost bound only to his power and body by a single remaining tether, and that tether is the drive to tread on the grave of the Cooper Clan’s legacy.

He doesn’t loathe them personally, he hates everything they represent and stand for, because he once envied it to the point of madness. That’s why he sundered the Thievious Raccoonus and left our Cooper untouched. He told you so himself. Notice how coincidentally the attack was timed on the very day Sly was meant to inherit the book? It was all about letting the boy learn what it meant to be a Cooper and then ripping away from him the access to everything his ancestors learned and built to help him carry that torch.

This gamble of his, this experiment he planned out that involved letting Connor’s son escape the slaughter, that’s the way he keeps himself going while staring down the barrel of the only real threat to his immortality. Killing them all, he reckoned in his centuries of reflection, wouldn’t fulfill his vendetta. He wanted to prove without any shadow of doubt that there was nothing about the Coopers that made them inherently superior to him- who himself was once only an owl. He was after their reputation. Murder was one of many methods, but complete humiliation was the actual goal. Clockwerk was probably snickering to himself all the way from the volcano for years, giddy at the thought of this child he reduced from the son of a master thief to an orphaned pauper. What he wanted was for Sly to live on… live on and be the last pathetic, miserable shred of the Cooper memory that Clockwerk could compare himself to once he has achieved everything him and the Five had set out to accomplish.

Giving their line the final glory of a tragic and sudden end like that after one unlucky slip of Connor’s vigilance was more than he could stomach. His greatest enemies don’t deserve to be remembered with that honor intact. Had Sly moved on and done literally anything else with his life but successfully take up that mantle and reap revenge, then the bird would have won. He would have never been bothered again by the owl either, I bet. Clockwerk just had to take that (astronomically unlikely) risk to see the boy’s potential through. It’s the only reason that dark force has kept him going literally up to and through the second game.

#sly cooper #clockwerk #hey op how does it feel to be objectively correct #love this analysis so much #clockwerk is simultaneously the pettiest and scariest creature in existence

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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The Lines We Cross: Chapter 24

The Thievius Raccoonus

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It must be difficult to be caught between their rules and mine. Their rules offer a confusing tangle of morality, whereas mine are so.

Very.

Simple.

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“I suppose I should begin by asking how much you know.”

Jing said the words carefully, studying the woman in front of her and trying desperately to find reasons to trust her – or to not. She had said she wanted to help Sly, but the panda had learned the hard lesson that what one wanted to do and what one was able to do were two very different things. It was just a single night ago that her own father’s confession and revelations had reaffirmed that lesson, and her heart ached as she remembered the way he had begged her forgiveness for failing both of them.

She shook her head with a pursing of her lips. This was no time to be distracted by any of that; not when there was someone here who could still be a threat to her family.

“I know that Sly had been working with – for the Fiendish Five before I met him.” The slip of the stranger’s tongue had been corrected without Jing even having to glare at her for it. The panda hoped it was a good sign. “I know that there’s something he’s stealing from each of them. Something they took from him…I think?”

Jing waited a moment longer, seeing how the inspector seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Sure enough, she continued with a pinched brow.

“And…I know now that they were the ones who murdered his parents, and then kidnapped him afterwards. I hadn’t been certain of that until what you just told me.”

“All of those things are correct,” the younger girl said, slow and thoughtful while she determined how to explain a lifetime of hurt within a short window of time. “And that was everything I knew, nothing more, until very recently as well. But there is so much more to this story, and I am still uncertain to tell you the rest.”

Inspector Fox gave her a sharp, upset look. “I already told you I need to know if I’m going to help both of you. Do you still think I’m lying?”

“No. Your conviction convinced me. It is just…” Her eyes drifted towards the dusty dresser, to the other picture frames which also contained cherished snapshots of her time with Sly. “It is not really my story to tell. I am trying to reassure myself that I am not betraying my brother by sharing these things with someone without his permission.”

So much had already been done without his consent by so many people. She hated the idea that she would be another, but she saw no other way to help him. If this woman was truly able to do what she claimed, then it was more than Jing had ever done.

She took a deep breath and then took the plunge.

“The Fiendish Five invaded Sly’s home and killed his family eleven years ago, and decided to let him live because they believed his skills as a Cooper would be useful when he was older.” She watched the fox shift her weight across from her, no doubt as to prepare herself for what they both knew was going to be a long and terrible story. “There were two other things that the Fiendish Five stole that night – the Cooper cane, and a special book called the Thievius Raccoonus.

“According to my father, the Thievius Raccoonus is a book containing notes from many people in the Cooper bloodline. It was passed on to each new generation to teach them the ways of thieving. He told me that the Fiendish Five used the knowledge they had gained from that book to great effect even in the modern age. It was split into five equal sections for each member of the group to use as they saw fit when working separately. The Cooper cane was kept in this stronghold, and they gave it back to Sly when he began officially working for them. The book, he was not allowed to see in any capacity, and they taunted him with that fact quite frequently.”

Jing stopped. Inhaled again, deep and slow, and continued.

“My father brought him to live with us so that he could grow up relatively safely until he was old enough to work for the Fiendish Five. He was with us for five years, primarily as my personal servant and playmate. I am amazed, now, that Sly did not harbor hatred for me as he did my father and the others who irreparably altered the course of his life. I do not know if it was because I was so young, or because he had no one else, or for a different reason, but he decided to trust me. We learned to love each other as we grew together – first as friends, then as siblings. But in all that time, he only mentioned the book and the cane once to me, and did not seem interested in them compared to his bigger goal of escaping the fate that loomed ahead of him.”

Inspector Fox frowned, a question clearly on the tip of her tongue, but she remained silent. It was a small relief, because Jing was starting to realize that if she stopped talking, she might not be able to start again. Already, her hands were beginning to tremble as bittersweet memories rose with her recounting.

“When he finally found the courage to tell me about the monstrosities that had been committed against him, I did not believe him at first. I knew he was working for us against his will, but I thought he was telling falsehoods because he was so angry at his own circumstances and wanted someone to blame. I could not imagine my own father partaking in such horrors. We had a terrible falling out and did not speak to each other for quite some time. I imagine I still would have remained stubbornly ignorant if not for what happened after that, on the anniversary of his arrival to this place.”

Jing paused again, not to find words that evaded her but to stop her body from betraying her with a shudder. It had been years since she had seen her father’s cohorts in person, but even the memories were strong enough to flood her heart with fear and fury.

“I suppose I should explain a few things about my father, first,” she said when at last she continued. “For most of my life, he would spend long periods of time away on ‘business’, as he called it. Sometimes it would be weeks, sometimes it would be months, but never more than a few consecutively. He was always very careful to leave me in the dark about the nature of it, and he never brought strangers here. When Sly came to live with us, my father stayed home for that entire first year, and I was overjoyed. I know now that it was to ensure that Sly wouldn’t hurt me or find a way to leave, but I was too young to understand or even care about the reasons behind his extended stay. Then, at the end of that cycle, he informed me that he would be entertaining guests for a weekend and that I was not to leave my room the entire time.

“You see, the Fiendish Five would meet once a year as a single group to exchange information and discuss business, among other things. The locations they chose always alternated between one of their personal hideouts; I do not know if my father’s stronghold was one of them before I was born, but I know that he refused to let them visit afterwards. I also do not know what reasons he gave them to refuse his home. Most of them did not know of my existence for many years, except for their leader.”

She bit her lip. Clasped her shaking fingers together in an attempt to calm them. Did not look up to meet Inspector Fox’s intense gaze.

“After Sly joined us, those annual meetings always took place here. I was ordered to shut myself in my room and never show my face until I was told my father’s ‘guests’ had left. Sly…was not given the same luxury. He was forced to join them for every meeting during that timeframe, acting as their only waitstaff. I do not know if the intent of this was to ensure his obedience or to slowly integrate him into the world that they were planning to force him into, but he was always stressed and distant for weeks after they had all left. He refused to speak of what went on except to reiterate that they were the ones responsible for his parents’ deaths, and that he was afraid they would finally decide for him to face the same fate. Sheltered as I was, I still could not wrap my mind around the belief that my father had anything to do with such things, but the change in routine and Sly’s behavior made my unease grow with every passing year.

“I desperately wanted to believe in my father’s innocence, but I also desperately wanted to help my dearest friend. I began looking for ways to help Sly escape as we grew older. I naively thought that if he left, he would be able to build his own life away from those wicked people, that things here would return to the ‘normal’ that I had known before, and I would not have to face any uncomfortable truths about my father. We started planning together; he taught me how to be quieter when I moved, as well as…other tricks, and I in turn used that knowledge to further our plans. I visited places he could not, learned the schedules of staff and guards alike, and searched for the easiest, safest path for him to get out. I asked my aunt to take me outside as much as possible, and I committed the layout of this entire place to memory.”

Jing closed her eyes.

“There was always one roadblock that we faced no matter what we tried, however, and it was that my father always had eyes on Sly. When he was home, it was his own eyes, and when he was out on business, it was those of his security which was always doubled for as long as he was away. We could never find a safe time for Sly to sneak out without bringing attention to himself – except for that single weekend every year when the Fiendish Five came to call. Security was lax because my father did not want to imply that he distrusted them, and he himself was too busy with them to watch Sly. It always seemed too dangerous for us to try at such a time, however, because of these powerful people present. The leader, in particular, was one who Sly was terrified of crossing. So, we planned and bided our time, hoping to find a different opening.”

She opened her eyes and finally looked at Inspector Fox again. Her voice was steady with resignation to tell the truth to its very end, as her father had a night and an eternity past.

“The choice was made for us anyway, six years ago, on one of the annual visits. And the fact that it failed was all my fault.”

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The Panda King opened the door of his daughter’s room to what had now become a standard sight – Sly Cooper, son of his former enemy, curled against Jing’s side under the strange shelter they had made out of spare sheets and blankets. He blinked, taking in the sight of bedding messily draped over furniture that turned the entire room into a mismatched tent, before turning his attention to the two children who had disappeared from sight of the door as soon as it had opened.

“No one is home today!” His daughter called, gentle even in her scolding. “Come back another day!”

“An exception will have to be made today,” he said, squatting in front of the entrance of the fort to peer inside. “You know why I am here. I cannot leave this room by myself.”

Both raccoon and panda huddled further away from him; the latter did the best she could to shield the former from his sight. She was nearly Cooper’s size, now, King noticed wistfully. Within the year she would be taller and then someday perhaps catch up even to her father. So much time and growth slipping out of his reach like sand between his fingers.

“Please do not make things harder than they need to be, children,” he chided softly. He waited without reaching inwards, knowing that patience was the best course to take at times like this. Forcing Sly Cooper out against his will often made him cagey and flighty, which put King in a bad mood to have to deal with; neither of which they could afford tonight.

His daughter looked crestfallen as her friend slowly uncurled himself from behind her and began to crawl out into the open side of the room. The child’s bushy tail was flicking in agitation as he got to his feet in front of King, betraying the blank expression already sliding into place on his face.

“It will be a short meeting tonight,” the fireworks master promised both of them, placing a heavy hand on Cooper’s shoulder as he began to lead him out into the hall. “My guests arrived later than expected today, and plan to retire early. You will be able to return soon.”

The raccoon didn’t say anything. He simply threw a glance over his shoulder at Jing before the door slid closed to separate them, then shuffled along obediently when King prompted him forward. There were no more words exchanged as they walked – a tentative acknowledgement of each other had formed between them over mutual love of Jing, but the crime lord knew that some wounds scarred too deep for real reconciliation. Sly Cooper no longer looked at him with hatred whenever they interacted. Just wariness and tired resignation.

That did not extend to the rest of the Fiendish Five.

They were all waiting in the large conference room that King had long ago built for this exact purpose, and barely spared the panda or his young partner a glance before returning to their food and hushed conversations with each other. Mz. Ruby and Sir Raleigh seemed to be having a quiet argument about the logistics of their next heist, Muggshot was spearing chicken on the ends of his chopsticks between great gulps of alcohol, and Clockwerk watched it all from his place at the head of the long table without engaging in either meal or speech.

The Panda King gave the boy a nudge towards the large food cart that had been placed against one wall, waiting until he was situated beside it with a drink pitcher in hand before taking his own place at the owl’s right side. He was very careful to stop paying any attention to the young Cooper and instead tuned into his cohorts’ heated debate.

“We don’t have that kind of reach,” Raleigh hissed at Ruby across the table. His tongue slipped out of his mouth in irritation, more reminiscent of a reptile than the amphibian he was. “If I wanted to become a shipping baron, I would have learned trains instead of ships. This idea is asinine.”

“You just ain’t thinking big enough,” the alligator shot back, picking up pieces of her meal and swallowing them whole without a single press of her jaw. “Ships have plenty of reach. We can easily form an agreement with the folks that have land on lockdown. Twice as much power with a simple business venture!”

“Dealing in spice is beneath us! I am not stooping to the level of such low-brow, brain-dead scum that are just as often doped up on their own product as they are selling it!”

“I dunno, it sounds like a pretty good deal ta me,” Muggshot finally chimed in. King watched a bead of alcohol slide down his chin and drip onto his plate with a single pull of his mouth. “What’s not to like about more money and more power and all that? I ain’t above anything that gives us more of that.”

Raleigh snapped his fingers and held his empty wine glass out to the side. Sly was there in an instant to refill it, and the frog sipped at it again without even glancing in his direction. “Of course, you would think that we should do it. Trust a dog to chase the next easy target like he chases his own tail.”

“Say that again and it’ll be your legs on my plate next!”

King looked over at Clockwerk, who was idly tapping his foot against the floor in thought as he considered the points being made on either side. Whatever the leader’s opinion was, he kept it to himself, leaving the rest of the group to squabble without coming to an immediate resolution. Eventually, the idea was shelved for tomorrow’s fuller discussion, and everyone turned their full attention to their meals. It was clear they all were tired from travel and this evening meeting was only a formality until they could retire for the night.

Out of the corner of his eye, the fireworks master watched Sly Cooper stand silently against the wall as far away from the table and its inhabitants as possible. The stress around the edges of his mask betrayed his carefully-neutral posture every time one of the Five snapped for him to refill their drinks, or clean a spill, or retrieve more food from the cart. It was a yearly routine that he had learned to form himself into, and King resolved to himself to ask the head chef to make the kit’s favorite food in the morning as a subtle recognition of his obedience.

Of course, it was at that exact moment that the routine was disrupted and everything subsequently fell apart.

Clockwerk, who always kept his eyes trained on Sly for as long as the boy was present, had never called him over. Not once in the five years that they had done this annual performance had he ever addressed the raccoon in any way, shape or form except to stare at him with that cold gaze that he had only ever reserved for Conner Cooper. Tonight had been shaping up to be that way as well, right up until the owl suddenly lifted a claw and crooked it towards the child.

All activity stopped. No one uttered a word nor continued to eat as they watched their leader command the boy to approach him without a sound. Sly’s fur puffed up within a single blink, but he didn’t dare disobey. Slowly, he began to shuffle forwards towards the owl, still silent even in his terror.

When they were about a meter apart, Clockwerk turned his talon around in a gesture to stop, and the kit froze. With a calculating tilt of his head, the ancient bird leaned forward until he was so close to the trembling child that one wayward movement from either one would make them touch. The raised claw lifted Sly’s head by his chin.

“He has grown more than usual since last we were here.”

The Panda King removed all traces of emotion from his entire being. It was never a good omen when the owl spoke without outside prompt. “He is thirteen now, as of this morning.”

Clockwerk let out a low, metallic hum. The raccoon remained deathly still under the touch of that talon.

“Damn. Has it really been that long already?” Muggshot asked, really looking the young Cooper over for the first time in the entire meeting. “Dunno how you could tell, boss. He still looks like a scrawny little runt ta me.”

“Everyone looks like a runt next to you, Tony,” Mz. Ruby said, watching the interaction between Clockwerk and Cooper as raptly as King was. It was impossible to read her, as always. “But Clockwerk is right; our little kit has definitely had a growth spurt or two. He hit puberty yet, King?”

“He is in the process, yes.” The panda did not like the sudden gleam in their leader’s eyes. Neither did Sly, who was starting to tremble under the weight of it. “…But I can assure you that he is not ready to join us just yet.”

Four heads turned to look at him, Sly included. Even Clockwerk tilted his gaze sideways towards his right-hand. The question burning in that gaze felt more like a challenge than anything else.

Convince me that he’s not ready, it said. Give me your best excuse, and we shall see if I find it good enough.

“It is true that he is growing faster than usual, but that growth has come at a price.” King’s words were slow and steady, and he was careful to keep his eyes on the ancient bird and no one else. “He has been clumsier as he has struggled to coordinate his longer limbs. Last week he dropped a stack of plates and shattered most of them.”

That was only half true – plates had indeed been shattered, but it had been from a cook’s carelessness as she ran into the boy. In fact, if Cooper hadn’t been the one holding them, they would have lost the entire stack. He had caught many before they could hit the ground.

The only person here who could call out his lie appeared to be wishing he could turn invisible instead. The raccoon’s eyes were squeezed shut; head tilted almost up to the ceiling by the claw at his neck.

“Once Cooper has adjusted to the changes in his body, he will be ready,” King promised. He hesitated only a moment before pushing his luck. “I am certain that will be the case by our rendezvous next year.”

Clockwerk narrowed his eyes, and for several agonizing seconds, it seemed as though he could see through the panda’s indifferent façade straight into his heart. Just when King feared that he would be called out for his weakness, the bird removed his talon from under Sly’s chin and returned to his previous posture at the head of the table.

“Very well. I trust your judgement in this matter, King. If you believe Cooper is not yet ready, then we will wait.” Those burning yellow eyes turned back to the boy who appeared afraid to retreat. “But no more than a year. We do not want him to think he does not have a debt to repay for the courtesy of sparing his life.”

His giant wings nestled in closer to his body, a sign of relaxation, and the raccoon took it as a safe dismissal to finally back away to the wall. His fur was still standing on end down to his tail and he was clearly struggling to maintain his blank expression in the aftermath of the heart-stopping scrutiny. The Panda King turned back to his food, as did everyone else after a few more beats of silence.

They all retired soon after that. He did not dare give Sly Cooper a single glance for the rest of that time.

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Jing looked up at the knock on her door, right before a servant slid it open and gently pushed Sly back into her room. He stumbled forward with an unsteadiness she had never seen before, his face pale under his fur and his hands gripping his elbows so tightly that she was afraid he was hurting himself.

“Sly?” She stood up and rushed over to him, terrified that he had finally been harmed by those scary strangers like he had always feared. “What is wrong? Are you injured?”

When she touched his shoulders, he flinched as if hit and gave a sharp, shaky inhale. “No. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

The trembling of his body under her fingers said otherwise. Carefully, the panda led him over to their blanket fort and steadied him as he slowly sank to his knees to enter it. He was still hunched in on himself and she wondered if there was an injury there.

“Please don’t lie, xiǎo gē,” she pleaded, starting to gently pull his arms out so she could make sure he wasn’t hiding anything he shouldn’t be. “I want to help you, but I cannot do that if you lie.”

The raccoon grimaced, eyes squeezing shut for a long moment. When he finally opened them again to look at her, his shoulders drooped in resignation.

“I’m not hurt, I promise. But you can’t help me with this, Jing. It’s – they’re going to – I’m running out of time.”

She frowned, not understanding his meaning. Sly’s grimace grew deeper and he looked down at the bedding beneath them.

“They’re starting to talk about taking me away,” he murmured. “They think I’ll be old enough to join them. To…work for them. Your dad convinced them to wait a little longer, but it’s…it’s still going to happen soon. Within the year, they said.”

Jing’s breath hitched in her throat. “That is…why would they do such a thing? You do not like them, and they do not like you. I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter that they don’t like me. They think I owe them for letting me live.” The raccoon wrapped his arms around his knees and drew them up to his chest. “They’re going to make me do horrible things for them, and if I refuse, or I mess up, then they’ll just – they’ll –”

He swallowed. She did not ask for clarification.

“I don’t know what to do.” His confession came out as a whisper as he buried his face into his knees. “There’s no way for me to escape this place, no matter how much we try. They’re going to take me away. I’ll be trapped like this until I die.”

The panda felt tears welling up in her eyes and blinked them away before they could fall. Crying wouldn’t help her friend when he was already in despair. She wracked her mind, desperately trying to think of how to help him in the face of such a terrible fate.

A plan came – one that they had always considered impossible, but now seemed like his only option.

“…Not if you leave tonight,” she whispered back, as if afraid that saying it out loud would bring her father to the door. “We could do it tonight.”

Sly lifted his head to stare at her, looking shocked by the very idea. There were stains on his cheek fur. “I thought – that’s too dangerous, Jing. For both of us. We can’t risk –”

“It is very dangerous,” the girl admitted, “but what other choice do we have? It is the only time that my father lets his guard down, but if we wait until next year, it is very likely they will simply come and take you immediately. They will expect you to run in your last few days here, but not right now. And – and I am willing to take the risk for you, Sly.”

He swallowed, seemingly torn by her reason versus his terror of being caught escaping with all of the scary guests visiting. Eventually, the realization that his fate would be unchangeable within a year if he did not take the leap now finally won out, because he gave a shaky nod. She did not smile as they crawled out of their fort together, for there was no reason to; this was not a victory until he had gotten away forever.

The raccoon stood behind her as she carefully opened her door and peeked her head out. A staff member was waiting at attention, as she knew would be the case. Someone was always there to retrieve things for her during these times to ensure she had no reason to leave the safety of her room.

“Excuse me?” She asked him in a timid voice, making her eyes big and pleading like what she knew worked with her father. “Can you please find me something to eat?”

The servant nodded and walked off, leaving the hall blessedly empty. Jing felt Sly wriggle forward under her arm to listen for the man’s retreating footsteps and anyone who might be incoming. When he confirmed it was safe, they both crept out and tiptoed off.

At every corner they came across, they would both stop short of it so that the raccoon could make sure there was no one ahead. They made slow but steady progress this way – waiting out distant sound, hiding wherever they could to avoid approaching staff, and keeping their senses sharp for signs of the Panda King’s guests.

The entrance at the base of the fortress was the only official way in and out, and it was always watched over carefully by a dozen armed men. With the Fiendish Five present, however, that number had been dropped to four. All were still alert and attentive, which would normally make slipping through impossible.

But Jing had another ace up her sleeve; one she had discovered just a few short weeks ago on one of her outings. A series of vents ran through the entire statue to heat it during the coldest months. Most were only connected to two or three rooms at most, and did not have an external exit. There was a single place, however, that did do such a thing – she had watched a group of guards standing under it as they smoked, letting the smog drift up and through the small opening to the outside. It was small and very high up, and Jing didn’t know exactly where it led out, but it was the only option they had.

All four men were standing just inside the entrance and staring outwards. No one thought to look behind them, because there was no reason to. Even so, the panda was as careful as she could be with every step she took, following Sly’s exact path as he crept to the single vent that would be his way out.

When they reached the wall it sat in, they shared a glance and came to the same conclusion. Jing was still a little shorter than the raccoon, but she had filled out considerably in other ways and could easily carry him. She did so now, helping him scramble up her back and onto her shoulders where he stretched his arms in an effort to grab the vent’s grating. It wasn’t quite enough; he was still a few centimeters short.

Gingerly, hyper-aware of the guards right around the corner, the panda grabbed Sly’s ankles and began to lift him higher. He wobbled at first, which made her wobble, which nearly toppled them, but then he found his balance and corrected himself before disaster struck. His fingers found the vent and he pulled out the makeshift lockpicks he had created out of a few of her hairpins, starting to pick at each individual screw in the grating.

All too soon and yet an eternity later, he was able to remove the cover and carefully opened it. With a single glance downward to give her warning, the raccoon crouched and jumped out of her hold and into the vent. His lower body wriggled wildly as he fought to pull himself inside the rest of the way. The entire time, Jing wrung her hands and listened for oncoming footsteps, terrified that they had made too much noise and would be found out.

But no one came, and Sly made it into the vent. She watched as he turned around to close the cover behind him – impossibly small in an already small space – and gave a shaky smile when he pressed his palm against the grate in a silent goodbye. He disappeared out of sight, completely silent as he headed towards the outside.

And that was that.

Jing headed back the way she’d came, trying to be mindful of every trick Sly had used to sense others and avoid detection. The elation that she’d just helped her best friend escape his prison was overwhelming. It overrode all the other messy emotions she was still avoiding about her father and the entire situation, and she couldn’t help beaming with pride at what she had just accomplished.

She was just turning into the hall where her room was when a different kind of thought occurred to her.

When her father and his guests realized that Sly was gone – hopefully not until tomorrow, when he’d have plenty of time to run away – they would be searching everywhere for him. Her father would be furious with her if he learned that she had helped, and he would probably not let her outside again for weeks after the guests left. Going outside was her favorite thing in the world; she couldn’t bear the idea of losing her best friend for probably forever and then immediately being trapped in the fortress until her father’s wrath finally subsided.

Everyone was supposed to be asleep by now. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to visit one of the big windows before she returned to her room. One last glimpse of the mountain before she was in trouble for the rest of her life.

Mind made up, Jing turned the opposite corner and headed instead for the observatory at the top of the statue. It didn’t take very long to get there as she found she didn’t have to avoid anyone the entire time; these halls were strangely empty of both guards and staff, even for this time of night. Instead of unnerving her, however, it only made her certain that fate was smiling down on her and wanted her to reach her destination.

When she finally crept into one of the two rooms that made up the observatory, the panda ran straight for the giant windows at the other end, where she pressed her nose up against the cold glass so that she could stare down at her father’s territory. It was always active down there no matter the hour, and she could see tiny people moving under the glow of spotlights. It was like watching ants, and the thought made her giggle.

A sudden, strange feeling went down the back of her neck. A foreboding sense of danger, as though she were being watched, and Jing turned around with her heart pounding in her chest; afraid that her father had caught her where she was not supposed to be. When she looked, though, there was nothing in the doorway, and no one else in the shadowed room.

Still feeling uneasy, she slowly looked back out the window, past the lights and buildings to the dark mountain beyond. She couldn’t see Sly from here no matter how hard she squinted, which she supposed was the point. He needed to be very sneaky indeed if he was going to escape. She wondered if he had made it past the outer wall to the trees yet.

It hit her, then, that she would probably never see him again. He would run away and never come back, and he’d finally be able to live his own life, but that meant he would no longer be in hers. Tears grew in her eyes and fought to fall past her eyelashes. She kept them trapped because she was supposed to be mature, and to cry over someone leaving would be incredibly selfish.

“Oh, Sly,” she whispered, leaning her cheek against the window, “I hope you’re safe out there.”

“I believe we both share that sentiment.”

Jing gasped and whirled around as a great shadow fell over her from above. She looked up, and up, and up, until her eyes met those of a burning, terrible yellow. The person – no, the thing – standing in front of her was so tall that its head nearly brushed the high ceiling. Its body looked like nothing she’d ever seen before, all metal and shiny and so, so big. She shrank back, pressed to the glass, and had never felt so small in her life.

The thing tilted its head. “You are Jing King.”

“I…” the girl swallowed. “How – how d-do you know that?”

“I know many things. Despite what your father may think, his home is not as secure as it could be. I have known about you for quite a few years.” The thing let out a sound that Jing thought could be a laugh, before it leaned down towards her until its frightful eyes were all she could see. “What I don’t know, however, is why you seem to think that Sly Cooper is currently outside. Would you care to tell me what I’m missing?”

Jing trembled under the weight of the monster staring her down. She opened her mouth, not knowing what to even say, and found that her voice had fled from her entirely.

“How curious. I had expected my associate’s child to resemble him, but it appears that only extends to the physical. Since you seem to have lost your courage, perhaps someone else can return it.”

The thing lifted its head and opened its beak, letting out a screech that had Jing throwing her arms over her ears in pain. It was loud and metallic and so very ghastly, and for a moment the panda wondered if this thing cornering her was actually an evil spirit. Nothing could make a sound like that – nothing could exist like that – and be of the living.

Within minutes, several pairs of feet came running up into the observatory. The girl couldn’t see them because of the thing blocking her sight of the rest of the room, but she could hear her father’s labored breathing among the rest.

“What’s goin’ on, boss?” A gruff voice called out, sounding the least winded out of all of them. “I ain’t ever heard you screamin’ like that before.”

Jing was so focused on the thing’s eyes that she did not see the giant clawed foot until it clamped around her shoulders. The grip was cold and firm yet somehow gentle, as if it knew exactly how to hold the panda without hurting her. She was pulled away from the window to stand next to the monster, where she saw the rest of the guests that came here every year, all out of breath and looking confused and irritated.

And her father among them, who had just gone very, very still.

“Cooper may no longer be in the fortress,” the monster announced. It was speaking to everyone but was staring at her father. “I found this child wishing him well as she was looking out at Kunlun.”

The Panda King took a halting step forward with his eyes locked on the talon around Jing’s shoulders. “I can send for someone to find him. He was locked in his room for the evening. He should still be there.”

Jing held her breath, shocked by her father’s small lie. Sly never slept in his own room when these people visited; he stayed with her until long after they left, when the nightmares finally stopped. She didn’t understand why the older panda wouldn’t tell them the truth, but she did not dare challenge it in front of the monster.

“It would be much easier to simply ask her, wouldn’t it?” The thing sounded like it was about to make the laughing sound again, but the girl didn’t know what was so funny. “Unfortunately, I have already tried, and she will not tell me what she knows. I think one of you would have better luck.”

Her father took another step forward, steadier this time, but she could see the fear in his eyes even though his face was very stern and angry. The people behind him were watching, and something about them was almost as scary as the monster.

“Jing,” her father started, very quiet with a tone she’d never heard from him, “Tell me why you are out of your room, and where Sly is.”

She stared up at him, feeling eyes on her from everywhere and suddenly afraid in a way she’d never experienced before. These were the ones who had hurt her best friend; who he was so scared of that he had risked the harsh mountain at night just to get away. If she told them the truth, then they would hurt him again.

Jing didn’t answer.

“Daughter,” the Panda King said, even quieter than before, and he kneeled in front of her to put his hands on her shoulders, in the space between where the giant claws sat and her bare neck. “You must tell me. It is the most important thing I will ever ask of you.”

Jing didn’t know if the way she was shaking was from her own body or her father’s hands. He looked at her as though it would be the last time that they’d ever see each other. She felt the talons squeeze very lightly against her skin as if to encourage her instead of scare her.

“I…I’m scared, father,” she whispered, hoping that the monster could not hear her. “What is going to happen if I tell you?”

“Everything is going to be alright.” One hand reached up to cup her cheek, and this time she knew for sure that it was him who was trembling so terribly. “Please, qiān jīn. Do this for me, and I will take care of things.”

The girl stared at him. He looked as afraid as she felt, but there was also the promise of safety in his gaze. He would fix things, surely. He would protect her, and Sly, and not let these people harm them.

She trusted her father. She had to. She still believed he was different.

“I helped him leave the fortress,” Jing said, not looking away from him even as the claws around her shifted at the confession. “He wanted to leave, so I helped him. He is not going to come back.”

The talons squeezed, so sudden and painful that the young panda cried out, before releasing her entirely and pushing her into her father’s waiting arms. She pressed her face against his shoulder as he enveloped her as completely as he could.

“I suggest you take your daughter back to her room and then return here immediately, Panda King.” The monster’s voice was icy with fury. “We have a very short window of time to fix this mistake, and I will not let the sentimentality of others ruin that.”

Jing’s panicked breathing hitched as her father picked her up for the first time in years. He held one hand to the back of her head to keep her face tucked away as he left the observatory, but she could still hear one of the others jeering at their backs.

“This is what happens when you show mercy to children, King! Even the bloody waif knew to exploit you for it!”

The Panda King did not respond, nor did he say anything to his daughter as he hurried away. He did not put her down all the way back to her room, and she could feel the haste of his wide, quick strides. When they finally arrived, he set her carefully down just inside the doorway, looked her up and down very briefly for injury from the monster’s claws – her arms were bruised beneath her fur, but the skin had not been broken anywhere �� and then shut the door without another word. She didn’t even have the chance to say anything before she heard the clink of him locking her in from the outside, and then he was gone.

Jing stood there, stunned by everything that had just happened and struggling to process it. She shivered, still feeling the touch of that freezing metal, and then shivered again as she realized Sly had to face the monster every single year.

The monster.

It had been so angry over what she’d done. Her father was very strong, but he had seemed so scared, and she was suddenly unsure whether he would be able to win if they fought each other. If the panda won, then Sly would be safe, but if the monster won, then what would happen?

The chill was still in her body and her heart was practically in her throat, but Jing forced shaking hands up to her hair, where several tiny pins had been stuck just out of sight. She had promised her brother that she would help him escape, and she had to make sure she didn’t break that promise even if she didn’t know how. She would just have to take things one step at a time.

Growing up with someone like Sly meant that she had learned things. He had taught her how to get herself out of trouble, and no one had ever suspected that Jing could do any of the things that he could. It had worked to their advantage before; it would work for her now.

A locked door was child’s play to the sister of a thief.

--------------------------------------------------

The Panda King returned to the observatory with the speed of a runner and the dread of a man on death row. The Fiendish Five were waiting for him at the window, which had been swung wide open in his absence to let in the cold evening wind. None of them said a word to him, although it was clear that they all wanted to, and instead looked towards their leader, who was perched on the windowsill to stare out at the mountain.

“It seems you’ve lost Cooper.”

King tensed as Clockwerk swiveled his head around to look at him without ever moving the rest of his body.

“I have not lost him,” he said, watching him carefully. “He has escaped.”

“Is it not the same thing? You took responsibility for him, and he has fled from under your care. Of course,” the owl turned his head back towards the open air, voice dangerously unreadable, “if you truly want to argue semantics, it was your daughter who caused this.”

King closed his mouth and glared at his leader’s back. His fingers twitched at his side, wishing desperately to reach for the fireworks stashed under his belt, but he did not dare turn on the ancient bird even if he were not outnumbered by his colleagues.

“Should we continue this argument, or would you prefer to rectify the mistake you’ve let happen?”

“…Let us move on,” the panda replied through gritted teeth. “Allow me to contact my men down below. They will find the boy within the hour; there is no way he has left my territory yet.”

Clockwerk didn’t immediately respond. He had leaned forward to study the compound, and the windowsill creaked under his weight. When he finally spoke, it was razor sharp with triumph.

“No need.” His wings began to unfold from his body. “I have already found him.”

The owl launched off of his perch and into the air, leaving the rest of the Five to rush to the open window to watch. King tracked his movement with a terrible sense of foreboding.

“How much you wanna bet he’s gonna kill the kid?” Muggshot said as he elbowed Mz. Ruby in the ribs, making her scowl at him.

“It would be a waste of time if he does,” she growled. “All of us thinkin’ of things for him to do when he finally joins us and then it doesn’t matter in the end. I might as well bring him back as a zombie to get some use out of him.”

Clockwerk was making lazy circles in the air, high above any of the buildings. It went silent for a few moments as they watched their leader hunt. Cooper wouldn’t know he had been found until the owl was already bearing down on him, and by then it would be too late.

“You’ve made yourself look like a fool, you know,” Raleigh hissed at King. “Giving us some bollocks speech about the waif not being ready while he’s slipping out from under your nose. If I had been the one raising him, this never would have happened.”

“If you had raised him, he would cower at the slightest raised hand.” The panda gave him a frigid look, aware that now was a dangerous time to throw barbs but needing to turn his anger at a target. “He would have been useless in our line of work.”

The frog’s lips curled up into an awful smile. “Better than him being dead, right?”

Before King could respond, Clockwerk finally dived. Everyone fell into a hush. The bird disappeared farther out than expected, somewhere just inside the northern wall of the compound. When he came up again, he was clutching something small and struggling between his talons. Clockwerk rose into the sky, higher and higher until he was nearly eye-level with the fortress.

Then he dropped his cargo.

The cry that rang out across the air was young and terrified. King watched in horror as Cooper went plummeting. He was too far away to see his face, but it did not take any imagination to picture it; Clockwerk had employed this technique many times with many enemies. It was one of his favorites for the disorientation and torment it caused.

Just as it looked like the boy was going to hit one of the temple roofs, the owl swooped down and plucked him right out of the sky. Cooper went silent again, but they could all see the way he kicked and flailed in the iron hold. Clockwerk lifted his prisoner high into the air a second time.

King closed his eyes before he could see the second drop. It did nothing to tune out the second scream.

When ancient bird caught Cooper again, he dropped down out of sight, right where he’d first dove after the raccoon in the midst of his escape attempt. The Five shared confused looks, unsure of why he hadn’t just returned to the fortress now that his fun was seemingly over. Just as Mz. Ruby began to lift her hands in an effort to contact their leader telepathically, a sound stopped her instantly and made King’s blood turn to ice.

It was not a shriek. It was not even a scream. It could only be described as a wail that tore across the compound, so loud that the panda’s employees all stopped in their tracks below to look for the source of it. It went on and on and on, rising in pitch and agony in an impossible climb.

And then it cut off in a chilling finality, leaving the world silent with horror in its aftermath.

Clockwerk lifted into the air for the third and final time, heading towards the observatory with a limp body in his claws. The Five did not speak another word until he landed and laid the bloody form of Cooper onto the floor among them.

King was no stranger to the atrocities committed against children. He had killed many in his efforts to build a ruthless reputation, and never once had he flinched away from it – not even after the birth of his little girl. But there was a stark difference between cruelty with a purpose and cruelty for sport, and he had never found satisfaction in torture even to his enemies.

The sight that gripped him now – this child with wide, unseeing eyes and blood leaking from his mouth, his chest torn from one shoulder to opposite hip by three colossal, hideous slashes – was not one he would wish on his worst.

“If you want Cooper to survive, I suggest he get medical attention,” Clockwerk said, emotionless, as he stalked off without another glance at either his motionless team or the motionless boy. His bloodied talons left a red trail across the floor all the way to his exit.

It was Muggshot who picked the boy up, the gentlest they had ever seen him act, and began to carry him out of the room. “King, you gotta first aid kit somewhere around here?”

“I – have an infirmary,” he stumbled on the words only once before finding his steel again. “I will take you there.”

They walked out as a group, each silent for very different reasons. Well, perhaps not all that different – the bulldog had a pensive pinch to his brows that mirrored King’s own face – but he did not assume mercy from any of them. What had happened tonight was a natural consequence of crossing the owl, no matter how gruesome it was, and they had known those consequences for as long as they’d been a team.

The Panda King’s personal medical staff was exceptionally trained and exceptionally loyal. They did not panic at the arrival of Cooper bleeding out in Muggshot’s arms, nor did they ask questions as they found him a bed and began working to save his life. The canine was directed elsewhere to wash the blood off his body, and the remaining members of the Five were ushered out of the infirmary to give the team space to work.

“Raleigh.”

Clockwerk’s voice from down the hall startled all of them; they had not seen him there among the shadows. He extended a claw still covered in red towards the frog.

“Come with me. We need to talk.”

Raleigh didn’t question it or even hesitate. He hopped off after his leader, throwing a single sneer over his shoulder at King as a final reminder of his utter disdain over the situation. They both disappeared out of sight, leaving the panda alone with Mz. Ruby.

“You really fucked this one up, cher,” she told him. It was matter-of-fact, with no inflection in her voice to betray her real thoughts. “You’ll be lucky if he lets you join a job within the next year.”

“I am well aware.”

“Cooper ain’t gonna be able to hide behind you after this.”

“He will not.”

The alligator squinted at him. Just as she was hard to read, so now was he. Eventually she sighed and gave up on the scrutiny with a shrug. “Well, here’s hopin’ you don’t get kicked off the team entirely. You’re the only one worth good company, far as I’m concerned.”

He stared down the opposite hall in the direction of the observatory and didn’t respond. Truth be told, the possibility had already crossed his mind. It would not be a blessing if the Five decided to cut ties – either he would be killed for the knowledge he carried out of fear of betrayal, or they would take something precious from him to keep him in line for the rest of his days. He did not need to put much thought into what that would be.

“Never seen Tony so shaken up,” Mz. Ruby changed the subject, seemingly callous to his inner turmoil. “Didn’t think he still had a heart inside that big muscled –”

The way she suddenly cut herself off caught his attention, right before the sound of tiny, rushed footsteps appeared and the door behind him slid open. He turned around just in time to catch the tail end of his daughter’s nightgown as she disappeared into the infirmary.

“Mā de!” He swore, hurrying in after her while Mz. Ruby remained motionless in the hall. “Jing! Do not go in there!”

But it was too late. He stopped in the doorway at the sight of her, frozen, standing at the foot of Cooper’s bed. The boy had been bandaged thoroughly, but blood was already seeping in through his dressings and he was laying slack and unconscious, dead to the world around him.

“Sly!” His daughter sobbed, falling to her knees at the end of the bed. Her hands hovered over the raccoon without touching him, and that restraint was the only reason he did not immediately remove her. “I’m so sorry, Sly! I’m so sorry!”

“Jing.”

She cried harder at King’s voice, shaking her head furiously against a request he had not even asked yet. “No! I won’t leave him! You cannot make me!”

The older panda hesitated. He glanced backwards once, where his colleague stood with her back to him – standing guard in an unspoken agreement until he solved the problem he had found himself in.

“Jing, you must leave him be.” He tried again, careful to keep his tone calm in the face of her despair. “He needs rest if he is to recover.”

She shook her head a second time and looked up at him. “What happened? What did they do to him?”

King could not find an easy answer. He remained silent. It was the wrong thing to do when she shakily got to her feet to face him fully with her hands balled into fists.

“Tell me, Father!” The girl cried. Anger began seeping into the grief. “What did that monster do? Why didn’t you stop them? Why – why are you so calm?!”

“You would not understand.” It was all he could say in the face of her accusations. Nothing would quell her furious judgement in this state. She would not believe him even with the truth. “Please, return to your room where you will be safe. I will let you know when he wakes.”

Jing glared at him with more venom than he had thought her capable of holding. She trembled head to toe in rage; a startling mirror image of the boy he used to be, who had once directed that poison at the nobles who had looked down on him. He drew a breath, shaken by the comparison, but before he could explain that it had been to save her life, she was already running past him out of the room.

He followed her out to the hallway and watched her flee in the direction of her room, hoping that she would come to realize the reasons for his actions on her own. Beside him, Mz. Ruby clicked her tongue in a way that could mean either disapproval or sympathy.

“She’s gonna remember this night for the rest of her life,” the mystic warned as he stared after his daughter but did not follow. “Them childhood scars last forever.”

King shook his head. “Not her. She is different from us. Loving and forgiving.”

“Here’s hopin’, cause otherwise you’re just perpetuatin’ that cycle all over again. Same as it ever was.”

He hoped desperately that she was wrong, but he found that he did not have much faith. There had never been a prediction by Mz. Ruby, supernatural or not, that had not turned out exactly as she promised.

--------------------------------------------------

Sly Cooper remained bedridden for two weeks. He woke up sporadically and only for minutes at a time, and his health wavered on the brink more than once as the medical team did everything in their power to stabilize him.

Within that time, Mz. Ruby and Muggshot returned to their respective territories to further their criminal exploits while waiting for further news. Raleigh remained both a constant guest of King and a constant visitor of Cooper. Clockwerk came and went periodically – never once checking in on the raccoon but always keen to hear updates of his condition.

Near the end of the second week, when the boy’s injury-induced fever broke and it was clear he would pull through, the owl disappeared for four days and returned with a large, unusual safe, which he placed in one of the observatory rooms – along with a single slip of paper holding the code to it, which he gave to King with no explanation except to keep the code well-protected and to never open the safe. The panda took it without complaint or question, painfully aware of the precarious state of his leader’s trust in him.

When Sly began to awaken for longer periods of time, cognizant of his surroundings, Clockwerk cornered the Panda King outside the infirmary with the Cooper cane in his talons. How he had found it when King had never shared the knowledge of where it was hidden in the fortress was another thing he dared not ask about.

“Once Cooper is able to move on his own again, Sir Raleigh will take him with him when he leaves. Cooper will work for us from now on. You will tell him this yourself.”

The owl paused, waiting for potential protest. King supplied none.

“Make no mistake, Panda King; this was fated to happen eventually. If not to you, then to any of the others. It may yet happen again. The Coopers have always had such a troublesome habit of crawling their way out of what they deserve.” His eyes were warm like molten lava as he held the cane up to study it. “But in the end, fate always catches up to them. It will be no different for this one.”

The fireworks master did not say a word. Clockwerk was never finished with his musings when one first expected it.

“I must admit, the only part of all of this that caught me by surprise was you. I knew of your child from the day she was born, but I had assumed it would not affect the way you handled yourself. You certainly had me fooled for longer than I would like to admit. I suppose that is just as much on me as it is on you. I know the trappings of empathy on the average man, and I did not look hard enough for the signs in you. That being said…”

He loomed over the panda, all pretenses of a non-threat gone in an instant.

“If you ever jeopardize the plan I have in place for the very last Cooper, I will burn down your precious fireworks factory from within until you have nothing left. I will ruin your criminal reputation so thoroughly that even the pettiest of thieves will scoff at the idea of working with you. I will destroy everything you built in a fraction of the time it took for you to make it. And then, at the very end, I will tear your precious daughter limb from limb while you are helpless to stop me.”

The Panda King held perfectly still under his leader’s promise. He did not shake. He did not even breathe. All that existed was Clockwerk and the horror that was his very existence.

“Do we have an understanding, Panda King?”

“…Yes,” he said, thinking of a bloody mess of fur that was not gray but instead black and white. “Yes, we do.”

“Excellent.” The owl backed off and pointed the cane towards the infirmary door. “Let us visit our disobedient child, then, shall we? I believe we have kept him waiting long enough.”

King entered the room with Clockwerk right behind him, feeling just as much a hostage as the boy sitting in bed. Sly’s eyes widened straight out of tiredness the instant he saw the ancient bird, and he began to tremble. The blanket around his lap he clutched high against his bandaged chest as if it could shield him from further harm.

“Sly Cooper,” the panda began slowly, feeling rather than seeing his leader settle in a corner of the room to watch. “The doctors have told me that you are recovering well, and are no longer at risk of death. They estimate that you will be able to leave this place within another week.”

The raccoon’s gaze remained locked on Clockwerk. There was no indication he had even heard the words spoken to him.

“Sly,” he said, harsher than intended, but it finally pulled the child’s attention towards him. “Once that milestone is reached, you will no longer live here in Kunlun. Sir Raleigh will take you for the foreseeable future.”

“Take me…?” Sly whispered, hoarse and confused and clearly struggling to connect the dots in the midst of his pain and fear. His eyes darted back and forth between King and Clockwerk; the former saw the exact moment realization set in.

“W-Wait. King, wait,” he pleaded, sounding every bit his age instead of the front he often put up. “I can’t – I’m not ready!”

“He will wait until you are well enough to travel.”

“That’s not what I meant! You know it’s not what I meant!”

The panda did not close his eyes in his attempt to block out the stressed pleading in the other’s voice. He remained the perfect representation of stoicism. There was nothing else he could be under the watchful eye of the ancient thing in the room.

“Rules have been established in anticipation of this change,” he finally continued when he was certain his voice wouldn’t waver. “You will follow every order given to you by all of us. You will not attempt to sabotage our work in any way. If you are ever questioned by outside forces, you will not share any details about us. If you are separated from us for any reason, you will endeavor to return to us immediately so we do not think you have tried to escape again.”

“No…no, no, I can’t do this! Please tell them I’m not ready yet!”

Sly was so beside himself with fear that he seemed to have forgotten Clockwerk’s presence entirely as he begged for more time When he made a move as if to climb out of bed, King lunged forward and pressed his hand flat against the raccoon’s collar bone with his thumb sitting just above his bandages.

The boy froze. There were tears in his eyes.

“It is not up to me anymore!” The Panda King’s voice rumbled through the room, loud and angry. “You did a terribly stupid thing and must face the consequences. We have all decided that if you are so ready to risk your life to flee, you are also ready to work for us.”

Sly was actively crying now. He searched King’s face – the man who had spared him from death, who had trusted him with his own child, who he had finally, finally started to trust on some level even if it was clear he would never fully forgive him.

He looked at him, searching for any kind of compassion.

And found none.

The raccoon slumped back against the bed, and the panda removed his hand. It was obvious to both of them that the fight had left him. The reality of his situation had fully set in.

“You will stay here and recover,” King said as he stood up to leave. “And next week, you will be a member of the Fiendish Five.”

Sly looked away as the man headed for the door. He didn’t turn his head even when he stopped in the doorway. The panda wanted to apologize for everything he’d done. Everything he didn’t do. He wanted to promise that Jing would see him one last time before he left, even if that was a promise that he wouldn’t be able to keep.

He wanted to say many things, but he didn’t dare in the presence of his leader. Instead, he walked out of the infirmary with all the steadiness of the heartless crime lord that Sly would now see him as.

Clockwerk did not come out with him. He remained in the room for quite some time afterwards, and when he finally left as well, the Cooper cane was no longer with him.

“If he escapes again, he will return to try to steal back the Thievius Raccoonus from each of us. I have already informed the rest of the Fiendish Five about this. It is a courtesy that I am telling you now.” His eyes burned as he stared at King. “If he is caught by us or arrested in the meantime, that will be considered failure, and we will kill him for it.”

“And…if he succeeds?”

Clockwerk was not capable of smiling. But somehow, looking at him now, the panda could tell that he was.

“He won’t. I have already ensured that.”

With the finality of that statement in place, the owl walked off, leaving King with a deep-seated uneasiness that he would never be able to expel.

Just over a week later, as predicted, Sly was considered healthy enough for travel. He swayed on his feet, leaning heavily on his father’s cane just to remain upright, but it did not concern Raleigh in the slightest as he stood beside him and said his goodbyes to the fireworks master.

“Oh, don’t look so glum!” The frog jeered, pinching the boy’s cheek in a mockery of affection. “I’m not taking you to your death. Only a lifetime of servitude! Think of it as switching custody with a new guardian!”

Sly flinched under the touch and tried to pull away, but Raleigh kept hold of him with a snarl. The raccoon looked up at King one last time; one last plea for him to change his fate before everything changed forever.

The Panda King felt cold yellow eyes on him from afar, and turned his back instead.

He regretted it six months later, when he was finally allowed to work with Sly again and saw a dark bruise ringing his masked face. He regretted it the year afterwards, as the begging in the raccoon’s eyes slowly changed to a burning, constant hatred towards him. He regretted it for every mission where the boy was forced to do more heinous crimes under colleagues who were either indifferent or gleeful about it.

He regretted it all the way to the news of Muggshot’s arrest, where the first spark of hope ignited for the young Cooper in a long time. And then he regretted it again, not long after that, sitting on the floor of his daughter’s room as he told her every shameful detail of the last six years and his part in cultivating it.

Most of them had come from broken lives, falling into the criminal world because it was the only place that accepted them for everything that they were. But Sly Cooper’s life had been broken by them and then shattered completely when he was forced into that dark world against his will, playing a game he could not win, all on the whims of a creature who saw him as nothing more than the name that he carried.

And no matter the circumstances behind it, the Panda King would carry that regret for the rest of his life.

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A/N: HAPPY EARLY NEW YEAR

In celebration, how about the biggest chapter in the entire fic? Hopefully it was worth the wait! I've been waiting ages to reach this point, almost more excited for it than the reveal chapter. Lots of things finally understood, and perhaps a few more lingering questions....

Now that the holidays are over, I should be back into a weekly posting schedule (knock on wood). Only six chapters left!

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #clockwerk #fanfiction #the lines we cross

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Psychonauts (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Razputin “Raz” Aquato/Lili Zanotto Characters: Razputin “Raz” Aquato, Lili Zanotto, Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello Additional Tags: Mission Fic, Infiltration, Battle Couple, Friendship/Love, Minor Sasha Nein/Milla Vodello, Psychonauts Secret Santa 2023, Gift Fic, Dancing, Jazz - Freeform Summary:

Lili and Raz are saddled with both the hard and boring part of a job. But as the band plays, the music pounding through the speakers in the control room, and they wait around for Sasha and Milla to finish their part, Raz offers a fun solution to pass the time.

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hi, @whisker-biscuit! i took on your gift as your santa had to drop last minute, so i hope you enjoy it, and had a merry christmas!!

#Thank you so much!!#It was such a sweet fic #loved every second of it #really made my day a lot better when I needed it #psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #razputin aquato #lili zanotto

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whisker-biscuit · 4 months

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And The Cracks Grow Ever Deeper

Fandom: Psychonauts

Rating: T

Summary: Ford knew that Raz would get hurt in the Meat Circus if young Oleander was. Of course he knew; he had firsthand experience. Ford/Lucy/Cassie

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What do you think it will be like?”

Lucy turned her head from where she’d been quietly watching Ford and Otto bicker on the other side of the room, looking instead at Cassie who was sitting beside her. The taller woman’s legs were crossed on the floor pillow and her hands sat idly in her lap, but the rigidness of her back betrayed the last-minute nerves she seemed to have as she asked the question.

“I mean,” Cassie continued without giving her girlfriend a chance to answer, “will it all be mashed together? Will we be separated by some kind of barrier, where we can see each other but can’t interact? Oh, dear, what if some of my memories end up in your minds and I can’t get them back?”

A smile rose on Lucy’s face. “I don’t think it works that way, Cassie.”

“But you don’t know for sure, do you? None of us know!”

“That’s why we’re doing it. That’s what makes it fun.” The shorter woman’s eyes trailed back over to Ford, who had finished his little spat with Otto and came over to plop grumpily down on Lucy’s right.

“That man has no idea what he’s doing,” he grumbled, just loud enough for everyone to hear. Across the room, fiddling with the giant, blocky machine against the wall, Otto chuckled to himself but didn’t even spare a glance over his shoulder. “‘It just needs more psitanium’, my ass. Not every energy issue can be solved by just throwing more juice at it.”

Lucy cleared her throat, giving her boyfriend a scolding look before glancing over towards Cassie, who had started wringing her hands. The man had the self-awareness to look sheepish. Before he could talk his way out of giving a proper apology, however, he was interrupted by Otto.

“Now that Ford has finally stopped busting my chops about my own inventions, who’s ready to see what the human mind is truly capable of?” He presented three clunky helmets with a telekinetic flourish, which they all began to strap to their heads with varying degrees of hesitation.

“Have you tested these yet?” Cassie asked.

“Tested?” The scientist looked positively befuddled by the word. “Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?”

Cassie groaned. Ford huffed and crossed his arms. Lucy’s excited grin widened.

“Make sure to commit this entire experience to memory! Preferably a memory vault so I can review it personally later, if you can!”

With that, Otto pulled a tiny remote out of his pocket and pressed a series of buttons, and all three helmets began to glow simultaneously. Lucy closed her eyes, feeling her body becoming weightless with each passing second. The world melted away as she drifted out and out and out…

When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in her boathouse.

Lucy raised a curious eyebrow and looked around, seeing everything exactly in place as when she’d left it this morning. The only immediate proof that she was in the mental version of her beloved home instead of the physical one was that when she glanced up, she could see many small objects floating in the air just out of her reach. She chuckled as she realized they were all things she had recently misplaced and hadn’t found yet; she could always trust her subconscious to bring such silly, inconsequential worries to the forefront of her mind.

That chuckle trailed off when she didn’t see anything different from the last time she’d been here. Had Otto’s invention failed? Had he simply sent them all into their own heads, still separate from each other?

The woman headed to the doorway overlooking the lake, where a heavy mist covered the water. It was still an odd sight, the mist – it had started pooling there about two months back, coinciding with the experiment she’d done to explore the deepest, most base instincts of her mind. The mist hadn’t done anything but take up space, although moving through it felt like wading through thick soup, and she highly suspected that it was related to the period of her life back in Grulovia after the war had begun. The threat of invasion, heavier rationing for a family that already struggled to make ends meet, and her husband being drafted almost immediately into the start of the fight had stressed her out so terribly that her memories for that entire year were hazy at best.

Gelsin’s death had been like freezing rain water over her brain, snapping her thoughts into crystal clarity with the knowledge that she had to leave the country before she was drafted for her powers and suffered the same fate. It had broken her heart to leave everything behind, but her sister had convinced her in the end, and it was a decision she didn’t regret even now.

Stress manifested in strange ways – trauma even more so – and so Lucy wasn’t afraid of the mist that seemed to have found a semi-permanent home in her mindscape. If anything, she was fascinated by it, and already had plans to explore and understand it as much as possible. At a later date, of course, because right now there was a different experiment going on.

Doubling back to the other end of the boathouse towards the path that should have led to the heptadome, Lucy stopped short as she realized that the docks on this side were not made of wood but instead giant honeycombs. She blinked down at the yellow hexagonal ground only a moment or two before stepping out onto it. It was waxy and deceptively soft under her feet, like she was walking on an unwrapped half-melting stick of butter, and the comparison made her lift up her skirts so she could gleefully stomp on it without tripping.

As she aggressively walked along the honeycomb, the woman glanced back at her boathouse, and was delighted to see that from the outside, it looked like a giant lump of glowing psitanium shaped perfectly like a brain. Cassie’s influence from the mindscape-meld was fun; Ford’s was just plain funny. She had never thought anyone could be more obsessed with the psycho-reactive mineral than Otto, but her Crulley was certainly giving him a run for his money.

Emboldened by the evidence that this experiment had worked, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Ford! Cassie! Where are you? We’re exploring a mind, not playing hide and seek!”

There was movement away from the path, between several trees blooming with patchwork quilts and copies of Mindswarm. A paper-thin person stepped out of the forest with an equally thin notepad in her long, flimsy fingers. The ink pen holding her bound hair up clued Lucy in immediately that it was the Writer.

“Cassie! There you are!” She called out again, waving excitedly as she hurried to join the archetype. “Have any of you seen Ford?”

“Not yet, but only a few of us are looking for him. The rest are exploring this integrated mindscape.” The Writer finally seemed to notice that there was an entire walkway made out of honeycomb. Her eyes lit up and she began scribbling furiously at her notes. “I mean, look at this! Most of the bee-related things in my mind were built around a singular structure as if to mimic the brain’s interpretation of a beehive; I’ve never seen honeycomb winding across the ground like this with no end in sight. The visuals are incredibly inspiring!”

“If you write a book about our experiences here, make sure you mention how cool I am,” Lucy teased as she started down the squishy path again. “I want my biographical debut to make a big bang in the psychic community.”

“Oh, dearie, you’ve already done that a hundred times over.”

“A little embellishment never hurts!”

They walked side by side for a while, pointing out oddities as they came across them and comparing theories about how in-depth the mind meld was. Occasionally they ran into more of Cassie’s archetypes, who all ran around the mindscape in perfect sync with each other like the bees that she loved so much, but there was still no sign of Ford.

Neither woman was particularly concerned about that. Ford Cruller could get as distracted by a potential new psychic discovery as he did with bacon. They had all the time in the world to find each other. In the meantime, Lucy found herself also getting distracted by the things in this combined mindscape, having to be redirected more than once by the paper representation of her girlfriend so they never became separated.

“I’ve noticed that we have yet to encounter any censors…” The Writer mused almost half an hour later, sitting in a booth at the Lumberstack Diner while her companion rummaged through a deceptively deep minifridge sitting on a carpet-covered counter several feet away.

Only half of the giant room they’d found themselves in resembled the restaurant; the other half looked like the bowling alley Lucy and Ford had snuck away to for their very first date, before they’d realized Cassie also had feelings for the hydrokinetic. This place seemed to be one of the few with a clear cut down the middle, separating the different spaces; although the bowling ball lights hanging over the booths and the neon signs shaped like stacks of pancakes still kept up the trend of their merged minds looking like everything had been run through a blender and then splattered onto a single canvas like an abstract painting.

Lucy let out a sound of triumph as she pulled out an entire plate full of bacon – one that also had her favorite chewing tobacco, fresh dumplings, slightly out-of-date carp, and a single uncooked and uncracked egg. She set the plate down carefully on the booth table so as not to spill anything before plucking the juiciest-looking piece of bacon from the pile.

“Oh, you’re right,” she said, leaning over towards the window with the meat. Her hand passed through the glass as though it was a shallow stream of water and she began waving the bacon enthusiastically out in the open air. “By now, we would have been swarmed by at least a dozen of the little ones. They’re very dedicated to their job, after all!”

The Writer tapped her paper pen against her paper wrist, paper chin in paper hand. “I wonder if, because our minds are all connected, none of us can be considered outside entities in this state. An exception to the rules that we’ve never been able to bypass before?”

“That, or we’ve finally gone off the deep end.” Lucy grinned when the archetype gave her a flat stare. Her hand holding the bacon continued to flap diligently. “Maybe this is the experiment that will prove all of Otto’s naysayers right about him.”

“Which naysayers? The ones who claimed he was a quack with aspirations too lofty for his craft?”

“The ones who said he’d permanently scramble someone’s brains if he was allowed to continue inventing.”

“Ah.” The Writer coughed politely into her fist, but there was no hiding her smile. “Well, one can only hope that we’re not his first victims.”

“Helmut would be disappointed if we were – he told me if there was anyone here who deserves to go out in a blaze of glory, it’s him.”

Before Cassie’s archetype could respond, the bowling ball light fixture above them began to creak. They both looked up just in time to see Ford’s head squeeze out of one of the three finger holes.

“Mmm…I knew I recognized that smell!” He licked his lips, eyes closed as he sniffed deeply at the air. When he finally realized that he had been summoned, Ford looked back and forth between the two women, still hanging upside down by only his head and shoulders. “Well, it’s about time! I was wondering when you would show up.”

“When we would show up?” Lucy shot her boyfriend an unimpressed look. “We’ve been together for ages. You’re the one who needed bacon bait just to join the rest of the group. What have you been doing this entire time?”

He squeezed his right hand and arm out of the bowling ball lamp and offered it to them. “Want to join me and see for yourselves?”

Lucy shared a glance with the Writer, who held up a finger. “Give me just a moment. I can see the way your eyes are shining and I think we’d all like to be together for whatever it is you’ve found.”

She whistled, loud and high-pitched in a sound similar to playing the flute on a blade of grass, and within seconds the amalgamated restaurant was filled with a dozen archetypes who all began assimilating into each other. Ford and Lucy waited patiently until Cassie appeared before them, fully three-dimensional. Only once that was done did they each grab the man’s hand and let him pull them through the makeshift portal he’d made.

Teleportation was one of those things Lucy could never quite get used to no matter if it was someone’s powers or just a component of a mindscape. She came out the other side dizzy, having to take a moment to steady herself and let her mental body adjust to the jarring change of scenery while the other two placed hands on her shoulders to help. When her senses finally cleared, she looked around to find what had caught Ford’s attention so thoroughly.

They were all standing on the edge of a massive cliff. The space beyond was an endless void of fluctuating colors, blurry and vague and seemingly random. As Lucy stared out at it in wonder, she saw Cassie turn to look behind them out of the corner of her eye.

“It’s a long, vertical path down to the rest of our combined mindscape,” her girlfriend noted. “We’re so high up I think I might get vertigo. Ford, how did you find this place?”

“My instincts were calling and I answered,” he said, joining Lucy in her watch of the great expanse. “Felt the urge to travel without a specific place in mind, which led me here. What do you think that all looks like?”

Lucy tilted her head and squinted. The colors began forming shapes that were almost familiar. It hit her at the exact same time that Cassie gasped aloud.

“Is that the Collective Unconscious?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering,” Ford replied with an excited gleam in his eye. “If it is, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it so close to a mental world. Usually, it takes significant psychic energy or help from one of Otto’s inventions to make the jump from the inside, but what if what we’ve done today has made the connections that we already share even more accessible than usual?”

“Are you saying that combining our psyches might make it easier to hop into other mindscapes?” Cassie asked.

“Or make it easier for someone to do the same to us…” Lucy answered before Ford could, feeling a sudden wave of unease the longer she stared at the distant distorting colors.

It was no secret among them – all seven of them – that they had been exploring things that had brought their mental security down beyond what even a non-psychic person could manage. It made them vulnerable, but they were safe with each other, and everything was being done in a real desire to learn and explore what the human mind was truly capable of. Not to mention, they could all build those barriers up again if they truly needed to.

But something about standing here on the precipice of open access to countless minds, with none of those natural safeguards in place, made Lucy’s stomach turn in a way that went beyond an instinctive reaction to vulnerability. It was a learned reaction, born from hardships and trauma and the knowledge that such perceived weaknesses could easily be exploited by the dangers of the world, and from the way Cassie’s mouth was tightening into a thin line, Lucy knew that she was not the only one who felt that stress.

Ford, bless him, had not experienced life in the ways that the other two had. He seemed oblivious to his partners’ growing unrest, too distracted by his enthusiasm for discovery to consider quitting while they were all still ahead.

“Well, no use standing here gawking when we have an entirely new avenue to explore!” The man rubbed his hands together excitedly, unaware of the look Lucy and Cassie exchanged. “What do you two think is the best way to get out there without losing our connection to this world? I could probably teleport out that far myself, but then I might get booted out of everything.”

“Maybe…if you were still tethered here before you went out?” Cassie offered, sounding more tentative than anything. “I’m sure I could conjure up something for you to hold onto…”

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temple, and a long length of rope appeared in her outstretched hand.

“Fantastic idea!” Ford grabbed one end and tied it around his wrist. The other he handed to Lucy, who took it without a word. “I’ll just be a hop, skip and a levitation away. Send me a mental message if anything changes.”

He disappeared from sight, reappearing several feet out in the void in a single blink before doing the same thing again. The rope slackened and then pulled taut with every jump as Ford grew further and further away, still miraculously attached by his wrist despite them not being able to see the end of it regardless of whether he was visible or not. Eventually, his form was nothing but a distant dark speck in the ocean of color.

“What do you think he’ll find out there?” Lucy asked after several tense seconds of silence.

“Hopefully nothing that will get him in trouble,” Cassie muttered. “Does he really have to be so reckless all the time?”

“Although some foresight would be appreciated every now and then, it is one of the things that made me fall in love with him.”

The other woman sighed, rolled her eyes, and smiled. “Yes, I know. Just like your own recklessness is what helped me fall for you.”

They each took their free hands off the rope to instead link together, each giving the other a squeeze. Lucy’s heart swelled despite the situation as she looked up at her girlfriend. How lucky she was to have found love again, and with two of the most wonderful people she could have ever hoped to meet!

“I hope you two aren’t gossiping about me,” Ford’s voice appeared in their heads at the same time. “I could feel your happiness all the way out here.”

“Not everything is about you, Crulley,” Lucy said, more amused than anything else as she leaned her shoulder into Cassie’s side. “Have you reached the Collective Unconscious yet?”

“I’m already there, I think. It’s strange, though – I don’t see any doors or entrances or anything indicating that I’m close to someone else’s mind. Just a blank walkway and enough color to strain even Helmut’s eyes.”

“Perhaps because of our mind meld, our psyches are inherently closer to the Unconscious, but other minds are inaccessible,” Cassie mused. “Like a submarine in ocean waters. Individually, we were all on boats where we could dive into the ocean – other minds – but now, instead, we are wading deeper than we ever could before but completely sealed off from everything else.”

“What a delightful metaphor!” Lucy exclaimed. “You have such a way with words, Cassie. I can’t wait to see what mental images you paint from everything we’ve seen today.”

“Delightful, maybe, but I’ll be pretty disappointed if we can’t even visit Otto’s mind from here,” Ford interjected with a grumble. “I was really hoping I could pop into his head for a quick scare. Ah, well, maybe instead I can…hold on. Something’s changing.”

He fell silent for a while, leaving them to do nothing but wait. When his voice filtered through again, it was distracted and much more distant.

“It looks like I came across another psychic. I can’t make out their mental projection but there’s definitely something more solid than anything else I’ve – wait, don’t–!”

A sudden, searing heat shot straight through Lucy’s body, nearly knocking her flat with the shock of it. Cassie let out a cry and stumbled several steps back from the cliff, still holding onto the rope by some miracle – Lucy realized she’d dropped her portion of it only when she looked down at her shaking hands for signs of damage.

There was none at all. No marks, no burns, nothing. Somehow, that fact was scarier than if she had been visibly burned to a crisp.

“…ttacked me!” Ford came through like static, broken up and hard to focus on. Lucy grabbed onto the rope again and pulled it as tight as she could. “I’m……scape but…….blocking my………ay put!”

No warning came for the second assault either – they were both just getting their bearings again when they felt the psychic flames lick up their legs, scorching them with invisible agony that they could not fight or even see.

“Ford, get out of there!” Cassie cried out. “Something’s happening to us!”

In the far distance, as a tiny speck, they could see their partner blipping towards them. Following him was a dark shape of something that glowed a terrible ruddy orange as it shot another psychic attack at its target. Ford anticipated this one, though, swerving out of the way just in time for it to graze him along one arm instead of hitting him dead-on. The mental skim burned at Lucy’s own arm at the same time, and she clutched it to her chest as realization hit with the same impact as the mental assault did.

Linked minds also meant linked psychic wounds.

Ford made one last, long, desperate teleport forward, clearing just enough distance for them to grab him telekinetically and pull him onto the ledge they stood on. He collapsed on top of them, sending them all tumbling backwards and down the lengthy drop towards the rest of their shared mindscape. The crackle in the air warned them of another incoming blast just as Lucy managed to pull her smelling salts out of her sleeve.

“Out!” She screamed, cracking the thing open and letting the foul smell snap her out of her mind, out of her head, right as pain sizzled across her skin –

And found herself laying on the cushioned floor of the heptadome, gasping for air as she stared up at a stained-glass ceiling. Two familiar, pain-filled gasps to her right and her left told her that Cassie and Ford had woken up as well. They all laid there for a moment, hurrying to pull up every mental barrier they could think of to protect themselves while simultaneously trying to process what had just happened.

A pair of large round glasses against light blue skin suddenly appeared over Lucy’s line of sight. “Goodness, that was quite the dramatic exit! Did something go terribly wrong? Don’t leave a single detail out!”

She sat up slowly, biting back a groan, and checked herself over. No physical wounds. No pressure against her head from an intruder. Mind and body completely intact, if quite a bit sore and shaken, and adrenaline was pounding away in her ears and her chest. Her partners both seemed to be doing the same check-in, although the scowl on Ford’s face said that he was about two seconds away from smacking Otto if the man didn’t stop bugging them with questions.

“I think I’m quite done with mind melds for the time being,” Cassie announced. “You two can leave me out of this particular activity next time you attempt it.”

“Why?” Otto asked. “What happened?”

“I think that might be wise,” Lucy agreed, putting her hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder as they stood up together on shaky legs. “At the very least, we should probably lay low for a while until we’re certain that other psychic won’t be able to find us.”

“Other psychic? What other psychic?”

“I’ll tell you later, Otto,” Ford said, tiredly, before turning his head to mash his face against a pillow. The sweat on his brow under the helmet was the only sign of the harsh mental assault he’d just endured – that they’d all endured. “Go find another invention to blow up and leave us alone to rest before I give you a live demonstration of exactly what happened.”

The scientist opened his mouth, no doubt to say that he’d love a live demonstration, but one warning look from Cassie had him close it immediately. He scurried off, leaving the three to recover from the discovery they’d just learned in the worst way possible.

Afterwards, when they’d all had time to catch their breath and debrief over the whole ordeal – long after the threat of attack had subsided and it was clear they were safe – Lucy was surprised to find her hands trembling just the tiniest bit. She tucked them under her arms and followed Ford out of the heptadome, ignoring the pounding still in her chest and behind her ears. She was clearly more shaken up than she’d realized, but the feeling would pass eventually even if it seemed to be taking longer and longer each time.

There was no reason to worry. No reason to tell anyone else about it. It always passed.

Always.

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A/N: This is a Psychonauts 2023 Secret Santa gift fic for @portalcartoon! I kinda screwed around with how the Collective Unconscious might work cause I needed a threat big enough to cause harm for these three and Maligula didn't actually surface until well after Lucy left.

Hope you like it!

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #psychonautssecretsanta2023 #lucrecia mux #ford cruller #cassie o'pia #ford x lucy x cassie

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