Disclaimer: Never owned Sly Cooper, never will.
"I have much to meditate over." I bit my lower lip as I sat on my bed thinking over all that's going on with us going after Panda King's daughter. Well, I was really thinking over what the heck is wrong with me letting one of my father's murderers live in the same building as me, even more with having him sleep in the bedroom next to mine. I saw Bentley leave the panda's room and all the turtle did was look over into my dark room where I was sitting on the bed with a scowl on my face and all the lights turned off so that all anyone could really see was my form in front of the moon lit window. Despite being here up in the Kunlun Mountains, one would think that sitting next to a half open window would freeze you to death, but even with the chill on my back and tail, it was nothing like that old mountain I climbed those few years ago.
After a few minutes of dwelling in my hatred to Panda King, the said panda stepped out of his room and I silently vowed that if he took one move that looks like he's going to kill me, I wouln't pull back any punches. Panda King only made one move of poking his head into my room and I could see that he had a look of worry on his face as I reached over to my bedside table and grabbed the small box of matches. I pulled a small match out and struck the head of the match against the side and as I lit a candle and I let the candle illuminate my face for King to see. "Just so you know, as soon as I leave my family vault with my family treasure, I never want to see your face. Ever. Again." I heard my voice dripping with venom before I gave out a quick exhale to extinguish the candle's flame and my whole room fell back into darkness.
"I was not going to ask for forgiveness. I know that I would never get that for what I did to you. I was merely checking to see if you were hungry for anything." Panda King bowed his head curtly before he quietly stepped back into the hallway and continued his way down to the half living room and half kitchen area of the safe house. I growled as I clenched my gloveless fists letting my unclipped nails dig into my palms. As I felt every second with Panda King in the same building as me increase the anger in me, I huffed a sigh as I slipped through the darkness and into the living area and when I entered, the cheering between Bentley and Murray's game suddenly became silent and I saw Panda over at the stove with open flame cooking what looked to be stir fry. I kept my jaw and set as I walked past everyone as I went over to the door and as I placed my left hand on the door knob, Bentley's nasally voice cracked the silence.
"Sly? Where are you going?" I only looked over my shoulder at the turtle for a few minutes as I saw everyone else watching me. Murray with a look mixed of fear and innocent curiosity, The Guru's face was plastered with seriousness, Penelope had the look of lover's confusion and worry, and Panda had kept his face out of sight. "Nowhere." I muttered as I turned back to the door.
"Don't stay out there too long." I knew that Bentley was going to kill me for where I was going, but I gave a mumble of confirmation as I slipped out the door. When I heard the game start back up again, I gave a long exhale and let the cold air enter my lungs and I unlatched my concealed cane from my belt. After figuring out how to separate my cane into two due to the old modification that Bentley made back during the last few days of the Clockwerk Affair when we were up in a logging camp up in Canada, I took the two canes and ran their blades on the snow that hugged the side of the mountain.
"shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-taclick!"
I gave a small smirk as I raised one climbing cane over my head and cracked the snow off a plate of ice I could climb up on. As I stabbed the ice with the second climbing cane into the ice, I heard a falcon up in the skies cry as it flew over my head. I took one last look at the safe house before I pulled the first cane out of the ice and placed it in the ice above the second and I kicked my feet up onto the ice and I started climbing up the steep ice.
When I finally reached the top of the mountain, I scanned the mountains for any sign of that old wall Murray drove across to get to Panda King's old fortress. I saw the wall just a mile away from where I stood, and there was only two ways for me to get there. Drive the van there, or swim through the ice filled water. I sighed as I jumped off the mountain and fell from the top all the way down to the cave where Murray had placed it for where we recharged it's battery.
When my feet hit the ground in front of the back doors of the van, I snapped the two climbing canes back together to form my old cane and I opened the door up with my free hand. Climbing through the back of the van, I got myself into the driver's seat of the van and for a second, I thought I was going to need to hot wire the van, but I remembered a bit from every famous movie where the main antagonist finds the keys to the vehicle up in the sun visor and I couldn't help but crack a grin as I lowered the visor and...nothing, but then I noticed a small button and I shook my head as I pressed the button and the keys fell down into my open hand out of the small concealed box Bentley put them in. Bentley and Murray would have cracked up to see the look on my face when I lowered the visor.
I sighed as I slipped the key into the ignition and I hesitated for a few seconds as I realized that the van is going to make a lot of noise, but I simply shrugged and started the van up. I switched the gear to reverse and I drove the van backwards until I saw that the front bumper was clear of the mouth of the cave and putting the van into drive and first gear, I saw a tiger guard staring at the van in shock. Giving a smile and a wave, I slammed my foot onto the gas and sped right past the tiger and I found a road big enough for the van to go onto that would take me to the wall.
My booted feet crunched the snow as I stepped out of the van and onto the old path I went down just a few years ago. When I shut the driver door of the van, the slam echoed out across the mountains and I saw Tsao's palace down the several thousand feet where I was standing. As my breath escaped my lips, I saw that the old gate that I had to go through still had some police tape on it, but there was no sign of life up on this old mountain. I sighed as I stepped through the gate again and I saw flurries of snow drifting down from the never ending night sky.
As I slowly walked up the mountain, I would hear the small explosion of someone down in the lower mountains setting off a firework. I almost half expected a firework to go off when I reached the mountain where I saw Panda King bury that small village in snow. I looked up at the giant panda where Panda King was waiting for me when I came here to take back the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus and where he was going to put me to my doom with his firework technique Flame Fu. I gave out a huff of breath as I walked over to what was left of the broken bridge to the Panda King's old lair, and I saw that a few more boards were broken, but the wooden planks still held and I placed my left foot onto the wood.
After placing all my weight on one plank, the thick peice of wood kept it's form, but my good luck did have a price. The next ten planks suddenly had the rope keeping them together snap and the ten pieces of the bridge fell what looked to be almost a hundred feet to where they slammed into a tree and snapped several of it's branches and they created some pretty painful looking spikes that I would not want to land on. I pulled my cane back out and harshly rapped the board that was across the ten plank gap and the board seemed strong enough, but the rope was questionable. I bit my lip in thought before I realized that I could really just swing from the ropes unless they can't hold my weight, but with a few testing tugs on the ropes, I was going from one rope to the other until I got to the planks that were still strong.
When I reached the area that required me to preform a hook swing, the lantern that I swung on was broken and the hook swing was missing. That was perfect. I gave a shout of anger and I mindlessly swung my cane to my right and cut the rope that was beside me. Letting my anger take over, I put a death grip on the cut rope and I slowly walked back to where the part of the bridge started. Letting out another shout, I went into a full sprint and as I reached the last board, I launched myself off my right foot and swung from the last plank of the bridge and I was launched forward into a three sixty degree swing in which at the end I launched myself off the rope and I flew right to the path and I froze as something flashed and hummed to life.
I blinked in shock as I saw the old hologram checkpoint that Bentley set up almost three years ago. That thing was still here and there were probably others scattered around that none of the cops found when they busted Panda King three years ago. There was one good thing, those deadly icicles that regenerated so quickly were no longer forming on the sides of the mountain, so that let me take my time into getting to the main entrance to the old fortress. When I came up on the entrance, I saw how three years really has changed.
The building that held the safe that concealed the page that was a upgrade to the Shadow Move was no longer standing and the garden of trees that were to the left of the main entrance were starting to fall over and rot away. The entrance to the fortress was hardly even touched, but there were signs that no one was living there since there was a few holes in the ceiling. The long hallway that led to center of the stronghold was dark and cold and there were a few drifts of snow that would fall in and cause a small thump that echoed through the hall. Reaching the entrance to the stronghold, I saw what the three years of neglect really did to the place.
The bridge was completely gone and the lantern was just hanging up with a old candle which it's flame gone for good. The bridges which let me access three different areas were gone and the hole that was caused by the firework was even bigger from the constant wind and snow and the path to where I got to three other locations was snowed in. It was as if it never stopped snowing up here, much like how my hatred for any member of the Fiendish Five has never stopped and my hatred to them never will. I will hate them until the end of time, just like how the leader hated my family to the end of his days.
I growled in anger and I saw my vision turn red as I shouted out again in anger and hacked at the snow with my cane. I just wanted to bash something or someone's head into something untill there was nothing left. I wanted to see and feel something or someone die by my hands and in my hands. I just needed to see the blood of my enemies spilt on my hands.
Giving another shout of pure rage, I got back up onto my feet and I ran faster than I ever have back to the van. I wanted to feel Panda King suffer for what he did to me, and I knew exactly what to do.
I slammed on the brakes and let the van come to a stop in the cave where it was parked just a few hours ago. I saw that Carmelita was coming over to check out the loud screech from the van, but I was up at the safe house before she even saw that everything was normal. The safe house was dark and quiet as I slipped into the house and I saw leftover and cold stir fry that was left from the others before they all retired. I kept to the darkness as I came up to Panda King's room, and as I quietly opened the door, the meditating panda suddenly spoke up.
"Cooper. Your mind is clouded by untold levels of anger and hatred. Much similar to the levels of hatred Clockwerk had. That is not healthy and it is not you." I growled as I clenched my fists, wishing that either his or Jing King's throat were in them. I needed to kill one or the other and Jing was stuck in Tsao's fortress. "Sly Cooper. Let go of your anger or it will consume you and turn you into the creature you should never be." The stupid panda continued to try and turn me back into what the weakling I was, but it is too late.
I gave out a chilling laugh before I said coldly, "No. I do want to become this. I won't be weak and I can do the one thing my father couldn't do and I can do what I should have done three years ago, kill you. Now. Either you will let me bash your head into the walls and strangle you until there's nothing left of you, or I will go straight for your daughter and bash her head in. Tsao won't become your son in law." This felt wrong, but good at the same time. I loved it. More than anything. It gave me power.
"Cooper. Blood and killing is not the answer to all your problems." My fists shook with anger as I found myself unable to just lunge forward and choke the life out of him. "Will you shut up!?" I let my voice raise a few levels, but not high enough to wake anyone else up. The panda gave a sigh before he stood up on his two feet and said, "If a fight is what you want, then I will fight you, but I will not kill you, because I was the one who called the police and had them come and help you." Panda King turned around and let me see the tears that were slipping out of his eyes and made the fur under his blood shot eyes slick with the salty water.
I gave out shaky breaths as my cloud of rage seemed to clear and my vision went back to normal instead of the red I was seeing. I saw my vision become blurry as tears welled up in my eyes and I realized what I was almost becoming. "N-n-no." I let my cane fall to the ground as I fell to my knees and I covered my face with my hands. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill a man who killed my father, but he's just recently felt the pain I felt with his daughter being kidnapped by Tsao.
"Wh-why? Why was I going to kill you?" I sobbed as I realized how truly evil I almost became. "Anger does several things to our heads." Panda King got down to his knees in front of me as he softly placed his left hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him before I did something I thought I'd never do. I suddenly lunged forward and wrapped my arms around him and cried my eyes out into his fur.
It took him a few seconds to process what I just did, but Panda King realized what was going on with me, and he softly wrapped his arms around me. "Woah." My eyes flew open as I brought my head out of Panda's fur and I saw the others staring either in shock as they saw two former enemies in a embrace. "is the argument settled?" Bentley asked with no humor or sarcasm as I got off my knees and wiped the tears off my face. "Yes. We have settled out our problems."
"Yeah. He can kill me another day."
And that's my little one shot I finished today that marks that I have gotten through my writter's block. Yeah. There's the explanation as to why I haven't updated on anything. I must say that this did get a bit dark. I honestly had the whole thing differently planed. I was gonna have Sly get up to where he and Panda King fought and he was going to realize that maybe things should change after three years and Sly was going to go back to the safe house and tell Panda King that he would like to have him on the team and they'd go and blow up those vampire mantis, but then at the snow drift, I guess I let myself get carried away and have Sly go down a dark path.
Anyway, pick up a rare complimentary plate of chocolate chip cookies before you go on your way and I'll see you guys later!
~Jak Cooper the Lombax