"Sly, are you sure about this? We could be walking into a trap."
"Bentley, I've walked into too many traps in my life to be scared about them anymore. Besides, we all know why you don't want to come: You asked me specifically to rob a jewelry store."
Murray snickered, almost crashing into a sign on the narrow highway. Bentley began to stutter quickly, desperately denying Sly's accusations.
"I'm not gonna-you really think I'd-me and-" He yelped, face blushing a dark green.
"Oh, come on Bentley," The raccoon said with a smile, grinning at the startled turtle through the mirror, "It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just hilarious, that's all."
This provoked more snickering from Murray and more denial from Bentley. It was no secret amongst the tight-nit group that the ol' brainiac intended to propose by the end of the year, despite Bentley's best attempts not to let his plans to slip out to the gang (or, God forbid, Penelope). The Cooper gang had reformed a few months after Sly had developed 'amnesia', when the master thief thought it would be better for him to leave on his terms than for Carmelita to figure out that Sly had just elaborately fooled her into thinking he'd turned over a new leaf for several months, with the express intent of flirting with her. Sly had left her a note saying 'That was fun. I should get amnesia again sometime.', hid on another building where he could see her read it, and watched the fireworks. Despite squatting on an absolutely filthy Paris rooftop, it had been worth it to see her face. Sly quickly rounded up the old three-man Cooper Gang (Penelope would sometimes help them out on jobs), and got back to thievery, messing with Interpol, and teasing Bentley about his imminent nuptials.
However, it wasn't all teasing to Sly: The fact that Bentley was going to be starting a family soon convinced Sly to look more into the story of his own. Using bits of information from the Thievius Raccoonus, information in prominent Cooper hotspots around the world, and local folklore about 'Dang raccoons comin' in and takin' everything', he worked diligently to find what information he could about his family, and the goal he knew from the beginning was hopelessly futile: Finding remnants of the Cooper Clan.
And to his complete and utter amazement, he found them.
They were holed up in Russia, south of Novgorod, in a small village with an unpronounceable name (Bentley's coaching in Russian hadn't helped with the written language; 'It's written in Cyrillic, Sly: The letters are supposed to look like that!'), trying to get through life as anonymously as possible. If Bentley hadn't run a search of world government databases, the name would never had come up, and when it did, it was a reference to a neighbor in a small stolen object report that had been filed at a nearby police station.
Still, Coopers were Coopers, and Sly had part-bribed part-snuck his way into the country to see what could very well be the last line of the family on Earth.
They pulled off the narrow road into the town, and were greeted by the sight of a small, generally left-alone town, crouching as a bulwark of civilization in the otherwise uninhabited forest. Tall pines grew on either sides of the dirt road, and Sly couldn't help but wonder: A line of master thieves lives here?
They pulled into even narrower, dirtier streets, until Sly spotted the right house. Though it was pretty much the same as the ones next to it, there were little clues that the family was better-off than its neighbors: The paint was new, the roof was in good condition, there was a rare imported tree from Japan in the backyard, etc.
The van, painted a duller tone to blend in (against Murray's wishes), pulled up in front of the driveway-less home, as little faces peeked fearfully out the windows before being pulled back in by older hands.
Sly stepped out of the van, and was greeted by a middle-aged woman, also a raccoon, who stepped out of the house, rubbing her hands together nervously.
"Can I help you?" She asked, obviously worried Sly was bad news. They looked like a family that had been in hiding for a long time, and any attention was therefore a bad thing.
"Yes, ma'am, I think you can," Sly said, "You see, I think we're long-lost cousins or something."
The woman looked confused, but her confusion descended into outright shock when Sly pulled out his cane.
For a few long seconds, nothing happened. A cold wind blew down the street. Suddenly she screamed in delight, and began rapidly yelling Russian back to the house too fast for Sly's non-native mind to comprehend. Faster than he could react, he was swarmed by small children hugging his legs and yelling things like 'Cousin!', while their elders thumped him on the back and pinched his cheeks, all telling each other how incredible this was. Bentley and Murray were dragged out of the car, Bentley yelling like he was being devoured by piranhas, and the entire group was stared at, hugged, and viciously hair-tousled by about forty of Sly's kin.
Suddenly, a sharp, loud voice called out through the crowd, instantly hushing the tumult and parting the relatives: "Let me see him!"
They quickly stepped aside, making a pathway for an old, withered woman, who advanced determinedly but slowly, hunched over a thin walking stick. Her dull grey clothes and squinting face suggested an old woman who ruled her family domain through ear-pulling and scolding, and she reminded Sly immediately of his third-grade math teacher. Still, she was obviously much loved and respected by the family: Little children grinned at each other and whispered 'Babushka!' to those who couldn't see.
The old woman came forward, then tilted her head and stared at Sly with her right eye, probably the only one she could still see out of. The critical look on her face turned to open astonishment as her mouth fell open, and the waking stick slid out of her hand, breaking the silence with a small thud.
"Heaven help us!" She whispered, "A Parisian Cooper! You must be… You're that Sly one we heard about! Good God!"
The old woman stumbled forward like she was having a heart attack, but instead grabbed the cane and twisted it in her hands, mouth moving slightly, fragments of sentences coming out. "The cane… This is the same one they made in these woods… This must be where… This came from… Good God!" She said again, turning to look at the gang.
An ecstatic grin came over her face. "An active Gang! There are still Coopers thieving in the world… Yuri, get the pork! We're going to be very good hosts for these young men!"
What followed can best be described as a massive furry wave sweeping up three very scared master thieves, carrying them forcibly into a small, overcrowded house to a dining room that extended back into the backyard, and then proceeding to the unconventional and unintentional method of murder labeled by survivors as Death by Borscht. This consists of being seated at a table by very enthusiastic, probably very bored relatives, and being given round after of very filling food, accompanied by 'Good, yes?' and 'You're too skinny! You've got to eat more!'
Bentley fared the worst: All his advanced technology was useless in this horribly crowded situation, and he moaned for help as wave after wave of Coopers swarmed him with dumplings and turnip-based soup. Sly suffered more in physical trauma: People mussed up his hair, his cane made rounds around the room, and his cheeks were pinched viciously by old women who were surprisingly comfortable around the greatest thief in two decades.
Murray, to his credit, was faring very well: He was shoveling pound after pound of food into his stuffed mouth, much to the enjoyment of the old women of the family who probably had nothing better to do than cook food and watch people eat it.
"You're family's awesome, Sly!" The already-overweight hippo said, "You gotta get some kids so there'll be more!"
This provoked a round of laughter from the Cooper Clan that drowned out Bentley's cries of 'I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!'
"Uh," Sly said, trying to avoid having the reddish soup in front of him shoved forcibly into him mouth, "I was actually here too learn more about the family."
The old woman who had examined him out front grinned at him. "We'll tell stories later. Now it's time to eat." She grabbed a spoon, and shoveled up some borscht. Never had a piece of silverware looked so threatening.
"I'm kinda in a hurry-I've gotta-Bentley's getting-I'M ALLERGIC TO TURNIP!" He yelled desperately as the steaming hot food threatening to be force-fed to him hovered menacingly above his mouth.
The old woman frowned. "You don't want borscht?" She asked irritated.
Sly nodded.
She rolled her eyes. "All right…" She said, setting down the spoon. Sly sighed in relief.
"Dumplings then!" She said brightly, holding up a heavy plate of food.
Several hours later, a very full Sly was sprawled in a lawn chair next to Bentley.
"That wasn't too bad…" Sly said slowly, watching as Murray introduced football to the crowd of children.
Bentley grunted. "I'm glad you got sent to the orphanage and not to these people."
"Well, we just got force-fed about forty pounds of Russian food, so we won't have to eat anything for a week," Sly reasoned, "Plus, we found out that the Cooper family line is alive and thriving, so-"
"Get what you came for so we can leave." Bentley said in a monotone.
The old woman, obviously the matriarch of the family, came and sat next to Sly. "Sorry about that. We haven't had any guests for a while, and you're a Cooper… Well, the only way we know how to treat guests is with dinner. It's just incredible to see you. We thought everyone else had been killed by that… Well, I'm sure you know about Clockwerk."
"Oh, not really," Sly said sarcastically, "He just broke into my house when I was eight, killed my parents, and stole the Thievius Raccoonus, so then I had to travel around the world to get the pages back, until I finally confronted him in a giant volcano, blew him up with missiles and the help of an Interpol cop, and then finally smashed his head open with this cane."
The woman gaped.
"Other than that, though, nothing. I actually came to learn more about Cooper family history, especially the parts involving the giant metal owl I blew up."
She was silent, mouth agape, for several long seconds, before she croaked out the words, "You… killed… the thing that has murdered hundreds of Coopers over the years… that wore us down to a mere hundred in this village and yourself? You killed Clockwerk… by yourself?"
"Well, Bentley and Murray were there to help me. Of course, there was the cop from Interpol, but she doesn't really count."
The woman grinned and laughed with joy. "Oh, happy days!" She cried, "The beast is dead! Our family is safe once more! Blessed day, oh blessed day!"
Bentley shot Sly a weary look. "Great: Now we're gonna get swarmed by everyone again."
The old woman laughed. "No, I won't do that to you: I'll tell them when you're safely out of town."
Bentley grinned thankfully, and Sly leaned forward. "So how about those stories, eh?"
She frowned. "The story of Clockwerk and our family are intertwined with the Thievius Raccoonus. You yourself saw the ending, and you can read the of the middle in the book. I can only tell you of the beginning… Believe me, it's not a happy story."
"I didn't come for happy stories. I came for the truth."
The aged raccoon eyed him again, before finally sinking into her wooden chair. "Very well then… I will tell you the story… It begins not far from here, in those very woods…"
And there, under the aged tree brought over from Japan growing in the Cooper family backyard, the old woman told her far-removed cousin a story. It was the story of a great family of thieves, stretching back to the dawn of history. It was the story of friends Cooper and Vladimir, who together set into motion a series of events that would change the world. Above all, it was the story of Clockwerk, the incarnation of hatred itself, and his lowly origins…
And, indeed, it was not a happy story.
Fanatic Drone N Presents:
It runs in the family