Disclaimer: I do not own Sly Cooper. Everything else is fictional.

Slowing Down

My cousin Gale Cooper is here. She looks like a fun Cooper family member, where is she from again? England I think. This will be really cool. An English Cooper who knows…wait…who are those three big guys with her?

Ding dong, ding dong; someone is at Sly's home door. Mr. Cooper stands up but the little one rushes down the steps and gets to the door before him. He grabs the knob wrenches it open and looks up at his relative, a beautiful adult female raccoon wearing an electricians clothes. The lovely cousin looks down at her flesh and blood with a smile. She picks him up, gives him a big hug and finishes with a nose rub.

"And who might this little crook be?" inquires the lady. "Are you that Master Thief I've heard so much about? The infamous Sly Cooper of the cooper household?"

"I'm not a thief now, but I'm getting there, my dad won't let me help him steal anything."

"But you've already stolen something."

"What?"

"My appreciation and love for growing to one day put forth effort into being a Cooper."

"Gale," a rough voice says from behind Sly. The conversationalists look at a tense head household owner. "Let's get this over with."

"What's the rush cousin?" replies the female visitor, "We should take our time planning this out…"

"We planned it out over the net, the phone, now let's get this done so you can go."

"Why can't she stay for a bit dad?" inquires the young master of the house.

"Go to your mother, we've got a big heist to pull."

"Dad, why can't Gale stay, I want to show her something."

"Sly…"

The visitor gets down and smiles. "What do you want to show me?"

"You're an expert on electronics, right?"

"I am."

"I built this really cool device that might be able to help in your heist."

"Really? Well, let's go see it."

The visitors push their way in past Mr. Cooper whose tense form is now fury. He's got reasons though. There's a reason that she shouldn't stay too long. Gale Cooper isn't part of the norm, she's gifted, too talented with being able to work with electronics, hacking, she's cursed with math and something else. She needs to leave, her henchmen need to leave- her crew - those guys tick him off.

"Sly?" the head of the house hold calls out. He takes off up the steps after five minutes to his son's room. He finds all the visitors admiring Sly's device, a clock that can hack into a system under ten minutes. Gale pats Sly on the head and Mr. Cooper rushes in, picks up his son and sets him outside his room. "Stay out here while I talk to your cousin," says the head of the household. "We need to go over the plan for our heist."

"I want to go with you!"

"No! Go to your mom!"

"But…"

"Go to your mother!" Mr. Cooper yells and slams his own son's bedroom door shut in his face. He then turns to his crew for tonight. "Look, I want you to stay far away from my son, got it?"

"What's the problem?"

"You're not even allowed near us, remember what happened back in the Amazon?"

"It was a simple mistake."

"I wouldn't call letting half of our team get injured by a giant spider a mistake."

"You know my magic…"

"That's the problem, it's not magic, what you do is wrong."

"Really? And thieving isn't it?"

"Are you saying you want to back out of the heist?"

"No, I actually would rather do this with my crew alone, but I do love your handy work."

Mr. Cooper walks up to his cousin and grabs her by the throat. "Go ahead," he says looking around at the henchman whose eyes are blank. "Tell them to do it, or I'll do it to you."

"Taking my life has been a dream for you, or at least when you learned about how I get such a good looking crew together."

"I should kill you, but I do need you for this job," the head of the household whispers. He let's go of his visitor and looks around at the strangers. "Are these the guys that'll blend in while we sneak in? Do they have the drill down?"

Gale smiles and begins to laugh. "I'm a genius at everything. Including the power of words. Don't worry, things will be ok," she replies and pats Mr. Cooper on the shoulder. "If things should go bad, all will be fixed, or should I say, they'll cover our escape, ok?"

The head of the household looks away and groans. "This better not be another Amazon fiasco. I swear, things will be different after this."

"You always say that, but nothing ever changes. You will always need my help," replies the visitor. She picks up the young master of the house's invention and pockets it. "Perhaps our little thief can help by letting us have his invention."

"Please don't involve him."

"We're just taking his toy."

"Leave it."

"Ok, we'll leave it behind, but think of how happy he'd be if we tried out his device?"

Mr. Cooper narrows his eyebrows and stares deep into Gale's eyes. "You really know how to piss me off, Gale," he replies and opens the door. "Let's go, we need it move it to the spot we talked about on the map," he adds, but when he turns around his eyes meet his son. "Sly, go help your mom make dinner, ok?"

"What? No way…" replies the little master of the house.

"You'll have to learn someday Sly," says the visitor. "In the grown up world, mom and dad can't help you out, you've got to fend for yourself and one way is being able to make your own meals."

"Fine," replies Sly. He turns and walks down the steps where a nice smell from the kitchen can be found wafting upstairs towards the noses of all, meatloaf tonight folks. "This sucks."

"You don't like it now, but later on, you'll learn to enjoy it."

"Whatever."

Time passes in the Cooper household. Sly and his mom cook, clean the table, setup it up then end with washing their hands. A meal of delicious food has steam flying from it up into the air, now all the pair needs to do is wait for the other four. Click, urk; the door opens but it slams with a loud bang. Someone is very angry, Mr. Cooper that is. His face has a shade of blood red and is holding his share of the loot. He tosses it to the side with his gear. The cousin does the same.

"What happened?" inquires the female house hold owner. "Someone didn't see you, did they?"

"No," replies her husband, "it was something else," he says and looks at the cousin who takes a seat with her crew members, "we'll talk about it later, ok?"

"Did you use my invention?" inquires Sly.

"Well, to be honest son…"

"We did," Gale says.

"No, we didn't."

"I used it."

"When? When did you use it?"

"I used it on the door to get to the vault."

"I thought you used…"

"Nope, no gadgets of mine."

The father looks at his son and shrugs his shoulder. "I was too busy looking out."

"Be honest dad."

"I didn't but if your cousin says she did then she did."

"I can show you how I built it if you want," says Sly.

"Later but let's first eat, ok?"

"Sure."

All but Gale's minions take a seat. The youngest raccoon stares lost in confusion. As he fixates on them, his senses escalate, but the three big guys finally take a seat at the table. He watches them fumble with the eating tools. They don't look like neanderthals, but then again, Sly has met some strange people in his life. However, these guys really take the cake, especially when they eat…

"Cousin?" inquires Sly. "Why are those big guys struggling to eat their corn-on-the-cob?"

"Oh no, not now," says the beautiful relative. She watches her henchmen bite into the meal over and over again. "Why do they always do this? I worked out their mechanics."

"What are you saying? They're not robots."

"Actually…"

"No! Sly doesn't have to hear this!" screams Mr. Cooper.

"You're right," replies Gale. She looks at the youngster of the group. "Why don't you knock on their heads and squeeze their arms just for a second?"

"No!"

Too late Sly moves a hand feeling an arm of a big guy. It's strong, but then again, that could be bone. He moves a hand up, knocks on the head and within a second a banging sound echoes through the air. The little raccoon jumps, falling out of his seat and begins to shake severely. He notices something from underneath the lip of the large figure, metal.

"He- He- He really is a robot!" screams Sly with both fear and awe.

"They all are Sly. The only thing that's not is their skin."

"Their…skins…"

"Its flesh of a criminal I stole from corpses in my hometown…"

"Get out Gale!" screams Sly's dad.

"What? I'm just joking."

"No you're not…"

"Cousin, you need to relax, we've all got our own moves…"

"But not everyone uses dark means to pull off a heist."

"It worked tonight though, right?"

"I shouldn't have invited you…."

"Then how were you going to rob that site tonight?" replies Gale. Mr. Cooper looks away, leaving a slot open for his cousin to smile. "You always come crawling back to me."

Mrs. Cooper grabs her flesh and blood relative. "Listen here Gale, don't go putting my husband in a corner and whipping him with words that aren't true. He can always come to me…"

"But what about your son?"

"He's grown up enough that I believe he can look after himself…"

"Yet here's the scenario tonight, huh?"

"Just leave and take your robots."

The beautiful visitor looks at Sly and smiles. She snaps her fingers and the minions stand up. They all begin to head towards the door, but their movement is slow. In a matter of minutes they stop, their power is down. Gale shakes her head, walks over to them and grabs their hands. She walks out of the kitchen, but the little raccoon follows and watches her stop.

"Sly, follow the path of your parents, don't remember tonight, ok?" says the visitor.

"Huh?" replies Sly.

"Follow the path of your parents and don't remember tonight."

The little raccoon watches his cousin open the door. The robots stand up, following her out with the last one closing the door behind him. Sly looks at his parents who shutter. His mom grabs him and holds him tight, weeping softly.

"What's wrong mom?" inquires the son, "Did I do something wrong?"

"Please Sly, don't fall into the darkness!" screams Ms. Cooper.

"What?"

"Don't become a dark ancestor. Do as she says and forget tonight."

"Mom, I wouldn't sink to what she's done," replies Sly. "It sickens me to be honest."

Mr. Cooper walks over and bends down to be eye level. "Sly, we want your word that from now on you will never sink to inventing tricks that are mad and go against true theft."

"I won't."

"You promise?"

"Yes," replies the son. He closes his eyes and begins to cry a bit himself. "I didn't know our family tree was like this…"

Screech. A loud bird sound echoes in the air. Something is coming. The mother takes her son and throws him into the closet, locking it quickly. She can her hear him banging but its best he not be out for the events that take place. However, the little thief has been practicing the family business and does his first trick. He unlocks the door to see his parents die by the hands of an Owl wearing armor. The winged animal scans the area and exits. (Gale…is she dead too?)