Alright, my first story on ! ^^
I was inspired to write this for two reasons. The first reason is the one stated in the summary… the ending of Sly 3 was the result of Sly being willing to give up his former life for Carmelita, and I really wanted to see what would happen if the reverse had happened.
The second reason came when I realized that (apparently) the full Cooper Gang won't be reuniting for Sly 4: Thieves in Time. Although it's understandable, considering how much effort they put into expanding their ranks I felt it was a pretty big waste of potential to have the gang split apart at the end. So, this fic is a potential jumping-off point for me to make future stories about the Cooper Gang and their exploits (in fact, I already have another story idea in mind).
So, without further ado, please enjoy "Trial Period". I know the introduction is very abrupt, but just to clarify this begins immediately after Sly jumps in the way of Dr. M's attack on Carmelita at the end of Sly 3.
The laser blast connected with Sly, sending him flying onto the upper level of the inner sanctum. Carmelita gasped, then turned her attention to Dr. M, glaring at him furiously.
"No one hurts MY criminal!" she shouted. Taking aim with her shock pistol, she fired a single shot that collided dead-on with Dr. M, knocking him to the floor. Carmelita frantically made her way over to Sly, rushing up to him.
"Sly! Are you alright?" she asked as the raccoon began to stir.
"Yeah… I-I think so." he replied shakily, only for Bentley and Murray to appear in the doorway.
"We've gotta get out of here!" Bentley yelled up to them. "This whole place is gonna go!"
Getting to his feet, Sly glanced over at Carmelita. The two shared a nod, then jumped back down beside Bentley and Murray. Sly paused, noticing Dr. M getting up as well. "Come on! We need to go!" he called out, but the mandrill shook his head.
"I'm not going anywhere!" Dr. M cried out, his voice shaking with rage. "I've spent my whole LIFE trying to get this fortune! It's mine, ALL MINE!"
"But-" Bentley began to say, only for Murray to take action.
"No time, the ceiling's about to come down!" he exclaimed. Without waiting for a reply, he hoisted his two friends (and Carmelita) onto his shoulders, carrying them over to the window Carmelita had broken through to get into the vault. As a large slab of the ceiling broke free and fell towards them, Murray leaped out of the window, sending them all tumbling to the ground far below… only to be saved by the sudden appearance of the Cooper airplane!
"Somebody call for an air rescue?" Penelope asked with a grin, turning back to face the others.
"Penelope, you're a lifesaver…" Bentley remarked with a huge sigh of relief. With their fall stopped, the passengers of the plane all looked back at the collapsing mountain behind them. For several moments they watched as the vault crumbled, its treasures buried beneath tons of rubble. Then Bentley and Murray chanced a glance over at Sly, and were surprised to see that although their friend had a stoic frown on his face, his eyes were beginning to water!
At this, the other members of the Cooper Gang looked away, unsure of what to say. Penelope simply turned her attention back to the sky in front of her, pretending she hadn't seen anything, while Murray awkwardly glanced around in all directions. Bentley, on the other hand, turned back to the mountain with a bitter look. He had never seen Sly with tears in his eyes before… it only served to emphasize the feeling of failure inside him. The Cooper Vault was a true testament to the Cooper Clan's thieving ability, perhaps even moreso than the Thievius Raccoonus. It was a grand compilation of the fruits of their individual labors, an exhibition of all their accomplishments across the generations… and now it was lost forever. It wasn't fair. Sly had just wanted to get inside, to reclaim what his family had worked so hard to earn, and now it was gone.
And as the moutain continued to collapse, Bentley couldn't help but wonder how it had all gone wrong. If only he'd managed to stop Dr. M from entering the vault… no, if only he'd planned their initial approach better, all of this could have been avoided.
Only Carmelita continued to look at Sly, her expression unreadable as the tears began to leak from Sly's eyes. Then she slowly reached forward, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. "So… this was what you were after the whole time, wasn't it?" she asked softly. "This is why you started expanding your gang's numbers, to get inside the vault?"
Turning his head slightly to look at Carmelita, Sly gave a silent nod, before returning his attention to the vault… or what was left of it.
It wasn't until the plane had begun its descent that someone finally spoke again. Murray stood up, a determined frown on his face.
"That's it!" he exclaimed. "I'm not gonna sit here and feel sorry for myself another MINUTE! Look at what we just accomplished, we should be happy! We just broke into one of the most secure places on the PLANET with what, seven people?!"
Everyone looked at Murray with a startled expression for a second, as if uncertain of what he had just said. "Yeah, and now it's gone. And my family's legacy is gone with it." Sly replied sourly, his frown returning.
"You're wrong, Sly." Bentley said, having finally found his voice. "Do you really think that everyone's going to forget about the Coopers just because the vault collapsed? Nonsense. Most people didn't even know this vault existed. YOU didn't even know the vault existed a year and a half ago."
"Yeah, but-" Sly began to retort, but Bentley hadn't finished. While Murray's words had been coarse, Bentley understood the point his friend had been trying to make.
"Besides, your family left behind more than a big pile of loot." he continued. "Did you forget about all the trouble we went through to recover the Thievius Raccoonus from the Fiendish Five? And did you forget that you're still alive? The Cooper Vault may be gone, but your family's legacy is still going strong as long as you continue it!"
"And who knows?" Penelope piped up. "The treasures inside the vault… or some of them, anyways… might have survived. If we can recover them, maybe we can rebuild the Cooper Vault."
Sly looked around at all his friends, astonished. Then he shook his head, chuckling. "Should've known you guys weren't gonna let me just sit around and mope." he remarked as the plane touched down on the ground. "Thanks."
"Ah, what are friends for?" Bentley replied with a smile. When the plane came to a stop, the five people aboard piled out. As soon as Carmelita had stepped out of the plane, however, she reached for her shock pistol, pulling it out of her holster and taking aim.
"Alright criminals, put your hands where I can-" she started to say, only to trail off when she realized that the Cooper Gang had apparently been expecting this. While Murray stepped directly into her line of fire and cracked his knuckles, Sly grabbed for his cane and Penelope for her RC Chopper controls, and Bentley prepared to fire a sleep dart through his Binoc-u-com.
"Save it Carmelita, we've gone through this same song and dance plenty of times before." Sly remarked, smirking.
Frowning, Carmelita put away her shock pistol, realizing she stood little chance of taking down all four of them at once. "Fine then, Cooper." she said, turning away. "I'll let you go today, but someday I'm going to bring you in."
"What is your problem?!" Bentley suddenly shouted, causing everyone to turn to him in shock. "Could you show a single bit of gratitude for once in your life? For crying out loud, we're a gang of thieves, and we've still got a better sense of honor than you!"
"What are you talking about, Turtle?" the police inspector asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Time and again, we go out of our way to help you, and almost every time you turn on us as soon as the danger's over and try to bring us to jail!" Bentley explained, glaring at Carmelita. "It doesn't matter what's just happened, it doesn't matter if we've brought down a master thief and his Death Ray, or saved all of Paris from being brought under mass hate hypnosis, all that matters to you is that you finally nab Sly! Even now, after we saved you from a collapsing mountain and just watched an important part of Sly's family history come crumbling down, all you care about is catching him! Face the facts, Inspector, you're obsessed!"
For several moments, Carmelita stared at Bentley in disbelief, completely taken aback by his outburst. Then she glanced at Sly with a puzzled expression. "Do… do you think the same thing?" she asked quietly.
"Hey, I'd be arguing with him right now if I didn't think he had a valid point." Sly replied with a nonchalant shrug. "You do kind of have a problem showing gratitude from time to time."
Rendered speechless, Carmelita simply stared down at the ground, still confused. "Maybe you're right…" she muttered after a minute, before looking back up at Sly and the others. "You've helped me out quite a bit in the past, and I've done a pretty lousy job showing any appreciation."
"Yeah, it was pretty uncool of you to try and arrest us after the whole Clock-La thing." Murray pointed out, causing Carmelita to wince.
"I guess it was…" she remarked, her face falling as the full weight of her past actions hit her. "I'm sorry, I should have realized how tasteless it was to try and bring you in after one of you had been injured and you'd stopped such a huge threat to the world. When it comes to honor, I guess it's hard to tell which of us is the criminal, huh?"
"Just because we're criminals doesn't mean we don't have honor, Carmelita." Sly said, shaking his head. "There are plenty of criminals who act with honor, and more than a few cops who don't have any honor at all. The only thing dividing us is whether we follow the law or not."
"True, but it's a big divider." Carmelita argued.
"Is it?" Sly asked. "Look at all the times we've had to work together, even though we're on opposite sides of the law. We've helped you more times than you know, Carmelita, and we've done it without the law holding us back."
"Sly, where are you going with this?" Carmelita asked uncertainly. It had only just occurred to her that the others had snuck off while they had been talking… now it was just her and Sly.
"Listen Carmelita, I've been thinking about this ever since I got grabbed by Dr. M." Sly began. "We've been playing this game of cat-and-mouse for years, and what have we gotten out of it? Mostly a bunch of shallow flirting. I care about you, and from everything you've said and done I know you feel the same way… but we're never going to get anywhere as long as we're on opposite sides of the law."
"Are you saying you want to turn yourself in?" Carmelita asked, clearly confused.
"No, that wouldn't accomplish anything." Sly replied, shaking his head again. "I don't really see us having anything resembling a quality relationship with me in jail. A thief is what I am, and I don't plan to change that. But… would you be willing to come with me?"
"You're… you're asking me to be a part of your gang?" Carmelita scoffed, frowning in disgust. "So, you don't want to change who you are, but I'm supposed to change who I am?"
"You don't have to change who you are, though." Sly retorted. "Look at it this way… I can't be a thief and still operate inside the law. It's contradictory. But you can still catch criminals from outside the law. In fact, I find it makes things a bit easier."
"I don't know, Sly…" Carmelita said anxiously. "Even if I can still put a stop to criminals if I'm with your gang, you're asking me to throw away everything I've worked to accomplish with Interpol."
"Why don't we give it a trial period?" Sly offered.
"Trial period?!" Carmelita exclaimed incredulously. "What happens if I decide I don't want to be a thief, how am I supposed to go back to Interpol after running with a gang of thieves?"
"Same way you got back in last time." Sly said with a smirk. "With me in tow. You can tell your bosses that you realized the only way to catch me was by going undercover, and that you didn't tell them because you figured we could hack your communications."
Carmelita stared at Sly in shock. "You… you'd turn yourself in so I could go back to Interpol?" she asked.
"Sure, I know my gang could bust me out… and then we can pick up right where we left off." Sly said with a shrug.
For several minutes, Carmelita was silent, contemplating Sly's suggestion. Then she nodded, stepping forward. "Alright Sly, I'm willing to give it a shot." she said. "Let the trial period begin."
She and Sly both smiled as they stepped into each other's arms, kissing one another. They held that pose for just a few minutes, but to the two of them it felt like hours. Then they stepped away, staring into each other's eyes.
"Not bad for a second kiss." Carmelita remarked.
"Yeah, and this time it didn't have to end with one of us handcuffed to a railing." Sly joked, prompting a laugh from his new partner.
From the crow's nest of their ship, Bentley watched the scene between the two unfold through his Binoc-u-com, looking away from them with a smile as they kissed.
"Okay Bentley, I found the van!" Murray exclaimed as he drove across the gangplank onto the deck of the ship. "Once Sly ditches Inspector Fox, we're ready to go!"
"Oh, I don't think we have to worry about him ditching Carmelita, Murray." Bentley replied. "Besides, we've still got some business to attend to on this island… we've got a vault to rebuild!"
Of course, just to be safe he'd also have to start gathering intel on various Interpol prisons… never hurt to prepare for the worst.
And there we have it, this story has come to an end! Feel free to drop comments, but please keep them constructive. : )