Prologue
A full moon shone down on the tall clock tower above the city of Southampton, England's police headquarters. It was approaching one o'clock in the morning.
A, large, hulking figure with glowing yellow eyes peered out from the bell tower as the wind whistled over metal feathers. Clockwerk shifted his talons and stared down at the object he clasped in them; Sly Cooper's cane.
"Slyyyy! Slyyyyyy!"
Sly Cooper struggled in Clockwerk's beak. He grunted as he tried to wedge it open enough for him to slip out but was no match for his unrelenting, mechanical strength.
"This is the end, Sly Cooper," the metal owl told him, softly.
The raccoon grit his teeth and glared at him.
Crunch.
"Slyyyyyyyyy!"
He blinked as his mind returned to the present. It had been a year since Sly Cooper's defeat. A year since he had finally brought an end to the Cooper line. For the first time, then, an emotion other than hate and jealousy had surged through him. He had won. After all these years, his plan had finally paid off. But the feeling swiftly faded. And with no one left to hate or envy, so had they. New emotions, or perhaps old ones long forgotten began to take their place. For a while, he felt content. But as the year wore on, that faded too and he began to feel more and more, the wear of time. He had lived far longer than any of his species. Far longer than anyone. Outlived many lifetimes over the ones he had once cared about. With his one purpose for living fulfilled, what now? Petty thievery was below him. Challenging heists no longer held any challenge.
Clockwerk pulled his gaze off the cane and looked out at the vista. A column of smoke was curling up from one of the houses situated on the outskirts of the city. A fire, no doubt. He listened for the sound of sirens blaring but heard none. The giant owl admired the way the smoke wafted in the gentle breeze for a moment before, motivated by sheer boredom, spreading his enormous, metal wings and lighting from his perch.
Clockwerk landed in the front garden as lightly as he could. Although he had many years to accustom to his increasing weight as he became more and more machine, it was still not enough to prevent him emitting loud wumphs everytime he did so.
There was the crash of some pottery breaking inside the house. He observed a face poking out from behind the curtains of what he assumed was the front room. The face promptly vanished when it saw him and he heard a frightened exchange. The giant owl snorted. Petty thieves no doubt. How pathetic.
He shouldered open the front door and entered. The thieves had already scarpered. A pity. He'd been in the mood for mindless slaughter. Clockwerk looked around. The robbers had ransacked the place, littering the floor with all manner of objects. He wandered around the house, paying the fire no mind and quickly came across the robbers' main focus of attention; a safe, now a gaping hole above the fireplace in the front room. The corpses of the house's occupants, a raccoon and his wife, were sprawled on the floor. Cuts and bruises on their bodies suggested they had put up a fight before they died. Clockwerk blinked, not unaware of the parallels with his own attack on the house of Sly Cooper. He turned with the intent of leaving not only the room but the house as well; the robbers would have taken or destroyed anything of interest. The giant owl was surprised to find a young raccoon child standing in the doorway. He looked to be no more than the age of five. The raccoon child's eyes darted to the bodies of his parents and his eyes began to water.
"Are they sleeping?" he asked even though it was clear even to him what the answer was.
"No," Clockwerk replied. "They are both dead."
The raccoon child sat down in the doorway and began to cry. He looked up when the metal owl approached him. "Wh-what do I do now?"
"The fire is spreading. If you stay here, you will die as well."
"Can I stay with you?"
He blinked. "Why?"
"You frightened the bad guys away."
"Your logic is questionable, child. What makes you think I am not a "bad guy"?"
"I'm not 'child'," he sniffed. "I'm Horatio. And you're not a bad guy because you haven't done bad stuff."
"Not that you've seen."
"No. So you're not a bad guy," Horatio replied as if this was the end of the discussion and then crawled onto Clockwerk's talons.
The giant owl stared down at him, momentarily taken aback by Horatio's total lack of fear. He looked up, around and back down at the young raccoon.
"Can we go home?"
"My home is not your home, child. Get off."
Horatio shook his head and stayed put.
"Remove yourself of your own accord, or I will."
Again the child shook his head and refused to budge.
Clockwerk was about to yank him off roughly by the scruff of his neck when he froze and looked up sharply. Sirens! Usually he would have no reason to run from the police, or fire brigade in this case but usually he, the ruthless Clockwerk, widely feared, widely renowned, did not have a reputation ruining five year old clinging to his right leg.
"Child," he said.
"It's Horatio."
"Fall, and I will not catch you."
Horatio swallowed and nodded. "Okay." And hugged the giant owl's right leg tightly.
Clockwerk barrelled through the back door and jumped, pounding the air with his large metal wings to gain altitude.
Horatio was shivering from a combination of the chill wind and adrenaline by the time they reached the clock tower. He climbed off Clockwerk's talons and looked around.
"This is home?"
"Indeed."
"It's so. . . empty."
"It suits my needs. I need no more than that."
The raccoon spotted Sly Cooper's cane propped against the wall and picked it up to look at it closer. "What's this?"
"A souvenir. Put it back."
"Of what?"
"Put. It. Back."
Horatio swallowed and did as he was told.
"You may sleep here for tonight. We will see what the morning brings."
"Where?"
"Sleep where you will."
He considered his options for a second before climbing back onto Clockwerk's talons and curling up into a ball. The giant owl stared down at him, somewhat impressed by his boldness even if this was mostly down to ignorance. After a while, Clockwerk pulled his gaze away from a now sleeping Horatio and looked out once more at the vista. The smoke still curled from the racoon child's house and he wandered how much would be left when they returned once the morning came. Slowly, he allowed his own eyes to close and soon he too was fast asleep.