Already working on the next chapter for the Sly 4 story, I totally realized that I should have posted the second and third game chapters first. Oops. Oh well. These chapters will be on how Crystal Feline and Sly Cooper began working together.
I don't own the Sly Cooper series.
As the ball continued, Sly entered in his new disguise. He straightened his tie as he walked into the main room.
"Your disguise is working perfectly; no one will recognize you in that outfit. Now during the heist, Sly you'll need to dance with Carmelita to keep both her and the crowd distracted, only problem is that she's picky about dance partners so you'll need to impress her first." The tech expert of his gang Bentley said through his ear piece.
As he says this he walked down a set of stairs and look around so more before spotting Neyla nearby. Sly smirks at the sight of the pink tiger.
"Alright, I know just the girl for the job."
As he began to walk over to her, he noticed that she was talking to someone. She was a snow leopard but instead of the usual random spots, her spots were patterned like a tiger's stripes. She had a sleeveless black silk dress on with black heels. The two stopped their conversation as Sly approached them.
"Constable Neyla, you look lovely this evening." He told the tiger with a smile.
Neyla blinks with wide eyes before crossing her arms and stares at him.
"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"You had me chasing after you back in Paris."
"Paris…? Sly Cooper!? You aren't by any chance here to turn yourself in? Old Ironsides would fall out of her dress." She asked with a smirk.
Her friend gave a small smile. "You know Sly Cooper? Wow Neyla, you weren't kidding." She joked.
"As good as that sounds, how would you two ladies like to dance first?"
Neyla grins back at the raccoon after a moment of thought.
"Enchante."
Just as she said that music started to play so she walks off of the dance floor leaving Sly behind with the snow leopard.
"Would you like to dance?"
She rolled her bright green eyes as Sly jesters to the other dancers.
"Dance with Neyla first. Just save a dance for me." She told him. Sly smiled at the girls' kindness and quickly turned to get to Neyla before the dance started.
"Are you using me to get at Old Ironsides?" Neyla asked during the dance.
Sly gave a small smirk. "Yes I am…do you mind?"
"Not at all."
As the dance came to an end, Sly went to his waiting partner. He outstretched his hand and the waiting snow leopard took it as the music started up again. As they danced, Sly was surprised on how graceful his new partner was.
"You are quite the dancer miss…"
"Crystal. Crystal Feline (Fee-lin)." The snow leopard replied with a wink. As the song came to a close, Sly spun her around one last time before dipping her. Clapping sounded around them as the music stopped. Sly brought Crystal back up as Neyla approached them.
"You are quite the dancer Cooper. And I think someone else agrees." She said as Carmelita neared.
"Neyla, your friend here is quite the dancer."
"We tried to make him look good." The tiger replied crossing her arms over her chest.
"Perhaps you and I could share a dance later miss..." Sly asked his target.
"Miss Fox. Carmelita Fox. And I accept." She told him before walking off.
"It was an honor to dance with you Mr. Cooper." Crystal said before turning in the other direction as the fox did.
"Nice work Sly. Now head back to the safe house." Bentley told him. Sly turned to leave but noticed Rajan talking to the snow leopard.
"I saw you dancing with the raccoon earlier and I must say you are quite skilled. Would you care to dance with me later on?" He heard the orange tiger ask.
"It would be my pleasure Lord Rajan." She answered.
"This couldn't be more perfect! Now Rajan will be distracted from the wings as well."
XxX
After getting a briefing at the safe house, Sly spent the next hour getting rubies off of Rajan's elephants. Sly grabbed the last ruby as the elephant wacked him with its trunk. He landed on the rooftop and examined the stone.
"Hey Bentley, this ruby feels lighter than the others do." Sly told Bentley as he handled the gem. He looked over the gem in his hands carefully. He felt along the surface of the stone slowly and found three slashes along the smooth surface. "What are these scratches?" he wondered out loud.
"Not scratches. Claw marks." A voice said behind him causing the raccoon to turn. It was a snow leopard with short black hair. She wore a black tank top with a hood and black cargo pants which contrasted with her snow white fur. The black outfit was outlined in dark blue and the color fell against her combat boots. He noticed she had a grappling hook attached to a belt on her waist and a dark blue drawstring bag on her back. He scanned her for any weapons but only saw fingerless gloves on her hands. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave a snug smile. "Not many notice my replicas until they're back at their hideouts. Guess it proves that Cooper's are good thieves."
"Who are you? What did you do to the real ruby?" Sly asked with anger in his voice.
"Chill bandit boy." The snow leopard told him as she walked over to him. "Did you forget me that easily? I mean, we only danced together about an hour ago." She hinted as her tail flicked behind her.
Sly was stunned and surprised he hadn't made the connection sooner. The same fur pattern, same eyes, even the same voice! "C-Crystal? Crystal Feline?"
The cat smiled as she stopped only a few feet in front of him looking him in the eyes. "You know, you should really do research on other thieves. You never know when we'll show up." She told him as she reached for her bag. She reached inside and grabbed out a ruby and handed it to him. "This is the real ruby."
Sly took it after a moment's hesitation. "Why are you helping me?" he asked as he put the gem in his pouch.
Crystal turned her head towards Rajan's palace with a lost expression in her eyes. "It's not just for you.' She growled. 'I don't want that robotic owl brought back as much as you do. I never got my revenge on him for killing my family." She told him with darkness in her voice.
"Why don't we work together then? We both want to prevent Clockwork's resurrection so we could work together and-"
"No.' Crystal interrupted as she turned to look back at him. 'I work alone. Clockwork may have caused you to get your gang together but I had no one. It's always been me. Maybe in the future we could work together but only when you figure things out about our families but until then." Behind her, a monkey guard ran towards the two silently, unknown to Crystal. She suddenly unsheathed her claws and quickly turned to slash at the guard, causing it to fall to the streets below them. Sly looked at her claws with wide eyes and realized why he didn't see any weapons on her earlier. Her claws were her weapons. They seemed larger and sharper than normal claws as they shined in the moon light. She reached to her belt and grabbed her grappling hook and fired it to a guard tower. "I work alone." She repeated as she flew off after her hook.
Sly only watched through his binocucom as the snow leopard disappeared past the guard tower. "Hey Bentley, did you hear all of that?" He asked.
"Yes I did. Head on back to the safe house. I found some information on our new friend." Bentley told him through their link.
XxX
When Sly got back to the safe house outside of Rajan's territory, he found Murray already by Bentley's computer. "So what's up with this Crystal character?" He asked as he sat next to the hippo.
Bentley brought up a picture of the snow leopard on his laptop. "Crystal Feline is a thief who makes fakes of treasure and replaces the real thing with one of her replicas. Her replicas have been known to look so realistic that any thief would believe that it was the real thing. In fact, I would be surprised if we have some of her replicas."
"What about her history?" Sly asked, become more interested in the cat by the minute.
"I was getting to that." The turtle replied as he switched pictures. Sly assumed it was Crystal when she was younger with her parents, a snow leopard and a large tiger. "Crystal Feline actually shares a similar past to your own Sly. For one thing, she comes from a line of family thieves.' At this Sly's jaw dropped to the floor. 'And around the same time for you, her family was attacked and killed by Clockwork!" At this Murray's jaw joined Sly's on the floor. "That was my reaction as well." Bentley told his shocked team mates with a small smile.
Sly recovered from the shock first. "Any idea why Clockwork would go after her family?"
Bentley shook his head before turning back to the computer. "Sadly, there's nothing in here about her family. Her file reveals nothing about the Cooper family as well so there's no way she'll be helping us any time soon."
"Isn't she supposed to dance with Rajan later on?" Murray asked speaking up.
"That's right!' Bentley exclaimed. 'She must be doing this to assist in distracting Rajan in order for you steal the wings Murray."
"Well what do ya know? That cat is helping us after all." Sly said with a cheeky grin on his face.
"With Crystal helping us by dancing with Rajan, the operation will work smoothly." Bentley said as he typed up another plan on his laptop.
Well that's it for now. Read and Review, you know all that jazz. I'll update this one and the story for Sly 3 as fast as I can so I can work on Sly 4.