It was a bit of a shocker for sure. But when you're in my line of work, surprises just come with the job. In fact, it's the story of my life.

As a kid, there was no greater surprise to me than learning I had been born into the infamous Cooper line of master thieves. That came with some downs, like losing my parents to a psycho with a grudge and getting stuck in an orphanage. But some ups too, like meeting my lifelong friends: Bentley, the one with the big brain, and Murray, the one with the big belly. Sticking together, we'd gone on all kinds of adventures and taken down some of the most ruthless thugs to crawl out of the woodworks.

No doubt I've worked my way into the Cooper hall of fame at this point. With all the hijinks we've gone through, from beating down crime syndicates to meeting my ancestors, I'd have thought nothing could surprise me anymore. And after a short period of semi-retirement, the way that last great caper nearly ended was one of the closest calls in memory.

Yeah, let's… let's not mention 'memory' in terms of one particular aspect.

It's funny, really. Having delved into my family history, seeing techniques, exploits, and even an ancestor I had no idea existed, there come the thoughts that never get put down. At the end of every story, there's always the questions left unanswered or thoughts of things that could have been. It makes you wonder how much you know at all.

That's the feeling I get from looking at this Cooper calling-card. A call from an anonymous tipster earlier this evening led to holding this distinctively cut piece of aged paper. Each second it's in my fingers is worth a million questions in my head.

No doubt things are gonna be interesting this time around.


At Sly's insistence, Murray slammed the gas pedal and rushed down the street. Given his total abandon to the speed limit and any traffic lights along the way, it took less than a half hour to make it back to their hideout. Bentley had to be scraped off the interior metal by his friends before they could get inside.

Messy and less than fanciful compared to the standard fare of Parisian abodes but it was enough of a home to three lifelong bachelors. The turtle rushed their way past the floor littered with old boxes of takeout and spare coins swiped from one thief's lair to end in another to his observation table. With everything methodically placed, his observation tools were at his side instantly and the aged Cooper calling-card was at the bottom of a microscope for hard analysis. It wouldn't have surprised the other two if he could see the fibers making up the paper.

Sly came from behind after several few silence-filled minutes. "So, what do you make of it, Bentley?"

"Hard to say." He typed at his turtle shell-themed laptop. "Based on my investigation so far, it does appear to be quite aged."

"Fascinating." He drawled sarcastically. "Next you're gonna tell us it's blue."

"No, Sly. I mean this is several years old. I'm applying carbon dating and DNA and fingerprint scanning to find out who left it and when. With any luck, this is just someone's idea of a prank."

"Some prank. Who leaves a Cooper calling card other than a Cooper?" Before he'd even processed the words blurted out, the master thief felt a sense of itching excitement. Any kind of word of his family generated that raw thrill that little else could produce. "It could be, I don't know, something left by my dad."

"Kinda weird, but still sounds like a face-smashing good time!" Murray slammed his fists together.

"As likely as that might end up being, I wouldn't go making assumptions if the fact that we have no idea who contacted us about this is anything to go by."

"So it could be, is what you're saying?"

"What I'm saying is that it could just as easily be some kind of elaborate trap that ends with us beaten black in prison tied on spits over a vat of boiling oil with lasers waiting to fricassee us with a single movement!"

"You have a dark imagination, you know that?"

"So leave me to figure this out and I'll give you some dark facts."

"My favorite kind." And with that, Sly and Murray left the turtle to his work.

The pleasant thing about their quaint criminal abode was that it was much like their team. A makeshift home as a sum yet each of its parts served as a relaxing haven to the three rag-tag criminals. Each member could go into a space where he was surrounded by his passions, when dangerous heists and clashes of personality therein needed to be escaped.

Bentley's space where he typed away was a den of knowledge where logic nearly took form with digital numbers and lines of code arising from the spotless patch of floor. All meticulously arranged by the turtle's side were books, charts and graphs detailing meticulous data on crime lords and cops across the continent. Almost to shield from the world's viral ignorance outside his info-filled bubble, books and files were set cross-referenced and indexed so they'd be at his disposal in seconds flat. It was hard for his friends to say if the space could be considered 'lived-in.'

Murray was a simple guy with simple pleasures: eating, punching, and fixing up the van. Satisfying those pleasures with a ratty punching back near both the refrigerator and door leading to the garage was just as simple. The pink enforcer once considered a slab of meat to fulfill two desires at once (punch then chew) but the smell of raw meat nearly gagging him to tears made Bentley one hundred percent against the idea. At present, Murray was satisfying himself with his weights, bench-pressing a relatively light two-hundred pounds or so.

As for Sly, what greater pleasure was there for a thief than to be surrounded by his treasures? All around him was a small gallery of priceless items swiped from everything from museums to mafia hideouts over the years. Vases, jeweled figurines, paintings, trinkets gained from pickpocketing the occasional roaming guard, right down to wallets and bags full of money. So long as these symbols of his past exploits were there, all else Sly needed was a simple desk to sit back and enjoy a book by a tall lamp.

The three kept themselves preoccupied with calming ambiance provided by an old stereo playing saxophone tunes for a couple of hours. Though it eased the shock from before, Sly found all that was left were lingering questions. Every two seconds he'd look back at Bentley typing away inspecting the card, just stopping himself from inquiring as to his intelligent friend's progress.

"Sly?"

Sly blinked, not noticing the hippo had set down his weights. "What's up, big guy?"

"… well, I was wondering…"

The raccoon's eyes widened slightly while lowering his book. Murray had never been one to think about the big stuff, yet here he was about to ask the nagging question apparently on both their minds. It was a surprise.

"Do you ever wonder why hot dogs come in ten-packs and hot dog buns come in eight?"

He nearly fell out of his seat.

"Uh… best to file that under 'World's Greatest Mysteries."

"But that's what you said when I asked about what dress I should wear for that dance during that job in Venezuela!"

"No Murray. I said the reason you'd ask that is a mystery." Sly smirked.

"Oh…" As if suddenly realizing the situation at hand, he asked. "Oh yeah, uh, you think Bentley's had any luck with that card?"

"Hey, you know how Bentley gets when he busts out the ol' laptop. You wanna find out? You're gonna have to grab that stick and prod the beast."

"You know, a fun bit of trivia." Bentley's voice called out from across the room, accomplishing the challenging task of startling the two veteran criminals in a way only true friends could do. "A 1998 university study shows that while sleeping, the frontal lobe of the brain along with primary auditory cortex respond to environmental sounds."

"Wait," Sly joked. "Don't tell me you've been napping over there."

Bentley shoved his entire desk clear to look cross at Sly and Murray. "I don't have to be asleep to hear every word you've been saying!"

"Oh!" Murray smiled. "So… did you find out anything?"

"We're all ears!"

"Look, guys! It's going to take a little longer than a few minutes to figure this thing out! Whoever planted this made sure to cover their tracks!"

Murray blinked in surprise. "Really? We kinda figured you'd be done already. That's kinda how it goes – you do your… computer-y stuff, Sly does some monologuing, and I get the van rolling to whatever lowlife chump we gotta beat down first!"

"Wait, how do you know about the monologuing?"

"It helps when I have a name to look up! What I'm dealing with here is pretty much the proverbial 'needle in a haystack' scenario!" Bentley took the chance to rub his eyes clear of fatigue. "Do I need to once again remind you how nerve-wracking it is to hack into Interpol's forensics database? Especially for something like an unknown fingerprint?"

In truth, Bentley wanted to say as little as possible about his utter bafflement of the mysterious sender's identity, which was quickly growing into a Murray-sized migraine. As someone who held facts and figures like a winning hand in a game of cards, having all the answers to ensure maximum profit with minimum risk was how Bentley best operated. And normally, he'd have met his friends' expectations in a matter of seconds, without the tense knuckles and heavy eyelids. For the team's resident brainiac, he had to admit it was rather unsettling, if not embarrassing.

"Look Bentley, we get it." Sly began, tipping his cap. "Some mysteries are easier to solve than others. But prank, trap, or otherwise total cliché, I don't think it's a good idea to pass this up. The paper it's on, what it says, the fact that we were deliberately led to it; it all seems to point in one direction."

"And that's the real mystery. What is that direction?"

Sly sighed. Bentley's concern was rational, but sometimes it made him such a killjoy. He held his hands up and backed away. "Okay, you need your thinking space. I'll take that as a hint to take my distracting self and duck out the door."

"Another bad idea." The reptilian genius shook his head. "Interpol's still got all the streets blocked. You'll be spotted quicker than a sent email."

"Please. That's if they decide to look up. Murray, why don't you be the Watson to Bentley's Sherlock and help him out?"

"Oh, uh…" The hippo had casually strolled towards the refrigerator in the middle of the conversation. His pink cheeks flushed red at being caught with several sandwiches in his arms and a half-eaten hamburger in his mouth. He tried to mumble out a response before apparently realizing the food item was there and swallowed it. "Yeah, I'm more of a 'whack-it-till-it-works' guy when it comes to computers. Bentley can handle it without me. Besides, I gotta figure out a mystery of my own – how many of these sandwiches I can get into my mouth!"

"Yeah, there's one for the record books." Sly chuckled heading out.

Murray watched the team's cunning leader duck his way out the door and took a thoughtful look at his sandwiches. "Hey, Bentley. You wanna spot me while I stuff myself?"

"Pass."


Paris morphed into a gothic-styled gauntlet whenever Interpol managed to catch criminals in the act. The only rats that managed to scurry away from the army of officers were the actual rats from out of the alleys. Any criminals poised to pounce could try to slink back into the darkness before the collars were slapped on them.

Though many times considering himself a tempter of fate, Sly knew better than to take risks now as police cars swarmed the streets. The flashes of red and blue marked a dead end for anyone who considered themselves an enemy of or above the law. And so, Sly made sure to cloak himself in a long trench coat and hat just before stepping outside the hideout. Sure enough, such a simple disguise made him practically invisible to the men in blue.

His little corner of the city of lovers was infested with every face ever poorly portrayed on a wanted poster. Either them or those who sought to find their next meal from the dumpster, test their mettle on the hard streets or simply disappear altogether. What made Sly a criminal as successful as any businessman or entrepreneur was his connection to every one of these people. But one face he didn't know came right as he passed by.

"Hey, dude…" The boy answered in a scratchy, forlorn voice. "Got any spare change?"

Sly looked down with pity, saddened at destiny's cruel whim to leave a young boy here in tattered clothes with his health hanging by a thread. He was a teenager, just barely, obviously having a few years of experience on the streets for himself. He gave a sad smile reaching into his pocket and tossing a coin into his dirty metal can.

"Chin up, kid." He said walking off. The boy kept an eye on his back as long as he could before his mysterious donor vanished.

Bentley had said back during the Klaww Gang affair that the view was always better from the rooftops. Sly couldn't help but agree as he bounded upon walls and spire jumped from atop pipes to be greeted with the evening sky's mirror image below him. Windows, lampposts, and lanterns all flickered and glowed like stars casting the architecture around them into faded black. Though Benedict's casino, even with its staggering amount of neon lights shutting down bulb by blub, could still arguably have been brighter than the moon.

The raccoon's thoughts then drifted with a stray chuckle to Inspector Fox, who was most likely still there rounding up Benedict's staff in chains. A sad thing for any man who was courting her, as determined as she would be to carry on with her work bringing to life every Hollywood cliché regarding policework for any kind of leisurely activity. But if nothing else, said man sighed dreamily, he admired her almost single-minded drive to keep the streets cleared.

Maybe one day. Without sirens, shock pistols, or pretenses involved.

He let such thoughts fade while revitalizing his musings with new thoughts regarding the mysterious card as he breathed in the infectious spell of romance and adventure the city cast. Police sirens radiating in the distance, casting ripples in the reflective landscape. The mouthwatering scent of coffee from the neighboring cafes, perfumes matching with an artificial tinge the flowers dotting every windowsill. All carried on the caressing evening breeze ruffling his fur.

And footsteps.

"Huh?"

Sly turned with his body on full alert. It almost passed him in the moment he blinked but there he saw it. A figure shooting across the rooftops silhouetted by moonlight, with such immense speed it appeared to be running on the air.

"Bonjour… where's this guy off to in such a hurry?"

His feet sprang into action wanting to find the answer. He stayed hidden by moving to an adjacent row of buildings or hopping onto higher vantage points whenever he could. An old technique that offered constant success when dealing with several far more menacing crime lords only allowed him now to barely keep in pace with some common burglar. The master thief had to double his acrobatic pace while on the brink of throwing caution to the wind.

At last the figure had stopped atop the rear of an old looking brick building with a glass ceiling. Sly had rushed so fervently to keep up with the mystery thief he had to put the brakes on hard when he had suddenly stopped. As he melted into shadows once more behind a rooftop exit, his eyes widened slightly when the figure had come into more proper lighting and his face was revealed.

"What the...?"

What Sly had thought was some poor excuse of a man was only partly right when he saw the figure was in fact… a boy. A teenage raven whose black feathers attempted to guise him from any watching eyes and even the sinister lights of Paris as a meaningless silhouette. Yet his wings, his fluttering tattered scarf, and spiky hair with tinges of blue from the ebony made him stand out. One of his wings, giving the metallic sheen of a gauntlet, was used to cut a hole from within the glass large enough for him to slink through.

Sly rushed to the window and kept his eyes trailed on the near invisible young burglar. The Binocucom he always carried kept lock on his fleet figure as it hoped to meld into shadow once more.

With a flap and an admittedly impressive backflip the boy sent quills in every direction on the grounds. At first focused glance, it seemed like a waste of energy with nothing to show for it but an immature flair and lack of aim done to emulate some two-bit actor. The raccoon had to suppress a grimace as the boy landed, clearly trying to look cool.

But as flashes came from every corner of the building, he noticed each of the security cameras shorting out. A feather accurately placed in between the wires had shut each one down.

"Okay. Clearly you're past rifles and ski masks…"

Whether the boy ran or flew, the darting speed at which he had done so made it unclear. He ran through the aisles past the shelves picking up as many items as he could and placing them in the bag Sly had just noticed. He had to admit from his veteran perspective the take-all attitude the boy displayed was gutsy, to say the least.

But what the master thief could really appreciate, from his own experience, was how the boy seemed to toy with the guards. The sparse number of flashlight-toting officers were blind and deaf to his presence as he leapt above them and shot past the walls while they failed to even noticed the breeze left in his wake. At times the boy landed on the ground and danced around them more nimbly than their own shadows to avoid their flashlights. He would duck and dodge the beams of light like they were searing sunbeams that would disintegrate him at the touch.

And just like that, he would be gone again, ducked behind some massive crate and camouflaged so perfectly into shadow. Any other person with eyes far less keen than Sly's own would have to rely on mere memory to find just what corner the boy had slunk to. But then he would vault up towards the rafters and leap and backflip all over. He twirled while upside down or spun on the precarious balance of a single finger, and with a free arm he'd swipe anything in reach. Far beyond anything a standard burglar was physically capable of, Sly noted with a mental nod of approval.

The only time the guards moved towards his presence was when he stomped down on the ground, his step giving a thunderous crack upon the tiled floor. The burly men jolted awake and turned their flashlights in his direction, while he snapped back to behind the wall he peeked out from.

"Wha?"

"Someone here?"

"Kid, what are you doing?" Sly seethed.

The guards had run towards the corner where the young raven had been hiding. Keyword: had. He was already on the other side of the building and picking up everything remaining on the shelves. The guards hadn't even caught the flap of his wings as he took off.

"Alright!" Sly pumped his fist. "Now that's how you do it!"

"Must've been something falling." One of the guards spoke from below.

"I honestly don't care. Even food warehouses like this can get creepy around this time."

"Wait… food warehouse!?"

Sly dashed to the end of the building and hooked onto the balcony with his cane. Sure enough, there was a vibrant yet somewhat tacky logo, 'Mark's Munchies & More,' painted onto the brick wall. The lamps cast every inch of the formerly shady stronghold in a decent light: plain delivery trucks, standard graveyard shift guards, and crates of food halfway between fresh and spoiled. He blinked in surprise at how he'd been taken in by the whole situation. Though, any building that had a thief breaking in would looked suspicious, even if he was only speaking from his own experience.

The excitement welling up in the raccoon's gut dissolved into disdain, with his own family pride as the poison. The Coopers had made their reputations on stealing exclusively from other thieves, the only breed of folk that could provide the challenge to fuel their passion. Ordinary people were defeated as soon as their treasures were snatched from their hands without any resistance. He didn't have to meet his own ancestors once again or raise his father from the dead and ask to know that all of them would click their tongues and seethe at this.

Yet he could not hold the frown on his own face or deny the boy's prodigal skill in the art of thievery. That was clear enough regardless of his target. He could no doubt steal diamonds and dollars as easily as he had stolen bales of bread from this warehouse. And maybe this high-flying heist puller would be open to the winds of change.

As Sly could attest as he chased after the boy, they blow when one least expects them.


Ten or so blocks away from the scene of the crime allowed the raven to breathe in some relief, however slight it was from his pounding lungs. The weight of the stuffed sack behind him rolled away as he set it on the ground and stretched his spine with an audible crack. From there he cracked his knuckles and spun around shaking his legs, anything and everything to snap his body into the realization that the adrenaline-boosted spur of speed and nimbleness it gave during his escape was no longer required.

His weary wandering in adjusting his bones brought him under a nearby lamp which revealed scars and cuts of all sizes slashed right through his feathers. They all appeared ages old, worn like the raggedy scarf around his neck which he flapped out to give his neck some air to clear the sweat. He made sure to scan his surroundings as soon as he recollected himself, as the scars had numbly flared as he left the warehouse. A foreign sixth sense alerting him to danger.

No one for miles. Another successful run from all bodily accounts.

"Bravo, kid, bravo," came a clapping sound from behind him. He jumped and turned to face the smirking ring-tailed figure emerging from the shadows. "Really loved the show back there."

The raven remained defensive as he looked at him with a suspicious glance. "If I'd known I had an audience, I would have curtsied at the end."

"Don't hold back on my account." The boy scoffed. "No, really, take a bow, uh…" Sly rolled his hand inviting the input.

He sighed. "Blake."

"Of course. Should've seen that one coming." The raccoon went to rolling his eyes now. "But, you do know there are easier ways to get a meal? I know takeout's not exactly healthy, and who can say what your opinions are on automated can openers…"

"Haha."

"Sorry." Sly held up his hands. "But I mean, what? Did you leave your wallet at home? What's with stealing a few cans and some bread?"

"For your information, I did purchase that bread. Surprised you don't know about the ol' five-finger discount. Always on." He gave a smirk and wriggled his feathered fingers.

"Should've seen that one too." He chuckled.

Almost move for move in gesture and face the two seemed to mimic one another, the master thief noticed in the pause that followed. Sly always was a firm believer he and his friends were both young and young at heart, and so maybe it was that this boy reflected him in body and soul, past and present. His interest rose to new peaks by the second: rough around the edges and roughed up to boot, but this boy Blake definitely had the makings of a suave master criminal.

"Well, I like a kid who shops smart. Though I think you could score some better deals than groceries that way."

"Probably so. What are you getting at here?"

"Let me just cut to the chase, kiddo." The raccoon had been willing to level with him in the criminal world's dangerous game of words, but he felt he could let up on the psychological assault maneuver and be more inviting here. "You got skill, and that skill can take you way farther than just local bread thief."

"Thanks for the kind words but there isn't much of a job market when it comes to theft."

"What if I told you I was offering?"

"Really? Did you find some ads rooting through the trash cans?"

"Oh, look who's funny now." He chuckled hoisting his cane behind him. "Think of it as the opportunity of a lifetime for a promising young vagabond such as yourself. My gang's got a bit of a reputation if you want to check the papers on that."

"Yeah, no need. That glorified back scratcher you've got there's a dead giveaway." Blake joked. Sly's grin dissolved only slightly at the jab at his precious heirloom. "Sly Cooper, leader of the infamous Cooper Gang."

"Infamous is just another word for famous, and we definitely fit that bill." Whether he intended to or not, the raccoon spoke with an air or smugness. "We've got quite a list of exploits: a few priceless jewels, some ancient artifacts, the occasional foreign chocolate bar. Not to mention we've taken down some of the nastiest crime lords around the world."

"How I love hearing stalkers recite their resumes…" Blake sighed.

"We've always kept it a threesome but, you know, four's the new three. We're not really all that picky when it comes to new talent: trust me, I once had my eye on some smack-talker who worked at a fast food restaurant." He held out his hand to make it official. "So, you wanna sign up?"

The young raven looked to his open palm and then to him with a not-too promising look of boredom on his face. A trademark poker face that was necessary in the world of crime, used by the insects crawling along the underbelly of society when making deals and adding to fortunes and empires. But he did catch the twitch of his open hand, a moment of betrayal to his nonchalant expression. He was good, but raw talent still needed refinement.

But things looked hopeful when Blake widened his eyes more and his hand started to raise sightly, while the bag of trifles and petty theft in obtaining it slumped from his shoulder. He might have just accepted after all, and Sly let his defenses slip himself to beam slightly. The two stood there for an eternity of a moment, frozen in those positions.

And in an instant, with his raised hand to his hip and his bag repositioned, it was over. "Yeah… as appealing as you've made grand larceny sound, pass."

Sly blinked. "Say what?"

"Big time jobs, tussling with Interpol, it's not my thing. But thanks for the offer. That fast food guy doesn't know what he's missing." That was as much of the time as Blake was willing to give as he flew off. His free wing caught the evening breeze and he glided away from sight.

The raccoon just watched it all while feathers fluttered past, silently cementing what his mind took several unneeded moments to realize was rejection. Maybe the boy had acted on some hidden spark of wisdom that came alive when he caught sight of a master criminal standing on a hairpin line between freedom and arrest. But he made targets of the innocent, his loot a denied comfort to those in need, and maybe morality meant nothing to some punk just looking for a free meal. And maybe, Sly had just wasted both their time.

He looked out to nothing but the empty space of monotonous building straight in a row like a bridge to the known and seen. Everything in the city – the sights, the sounds, the smells – all familiar and stagnant. Like every step in his long and winding career, and every villain he faced. Dimwitted and consumed by greed, with self-serving goals not even the purest saint could draw them away from.

But this was different.

He was young, and the raccoon knew from experience even those unfortunate few twisted by harsh realities and tragic circumstances still had a sliver of innocence in them. He'd developed that innate sense, that way to read a person and sense from a mere twitch of his tail any malice or wrongdoing spirit. There wasn't a sliver of that all-too familiar greed in the boy as there was in every other lowdown thug he had ever stared down. The boy was misguided, but there was hope that he could be brought onto the right path. And if that was so, then it was for the best that Blake join their ranks.

Besides, when the Cooper Gang wants something, they will get it.


I am SOOO sorry this took so long. But I have a story and a half to tell as to why this got held up. But hey, you're not interested in me.

In my defense, this chapter was a little tricky to write: I had the second part a lot more clear in my mind but the first part was a little blurry. I am still brushing up on my writing skills, and of course, I bounce around from interest to interest. Frankly, I think I should do what a friend of mind did and plot out each individual chapter, which is like what I did for the next handful of chapters in Dragon's Hero.

But yeah, Sly's got his eye on a possible new fourth for the gang. Blake was a character I had in my mind for the longest time and I wanted to take a crack at seeing how well I could do with a character of my very own. I took the time to fully flesh him out and I did have some inspirations for his personality as well as his development. It's something I really should have taken the time to do with TNLFAH. With any luck, along with if I've gotten at least some character crafting skills down, you'll all enjoy him as we progress further into the story.

So if any of you just here on the Sly pages were checking out my other works, I made an announcement on my HTTYD stories. I have two new stories thought up, which I will put on the backburner for the time to get these out. Because it's not good to just release new projects wily-nilly and not update any of them for ages. I kept you waiting on this one chapter long enough, I'd say.

Also I am happy for the reviews I got for the first chapter. I'm glad this was both an inspiration and true to the original games as Johnny Beast and NinjaRiderWriter pointed out. The latter is sort of my intention, for this to be as true to the games as possible yet offer up something new for the readers. Reviews like that are what helps keep this going, especially with how the fan base has gotten a little quiet in recent memory. I believe next year is the 15th anniversary of Sly, so let's hope something happens to change that!

Hopefully the next chapter will come out a lot sooner. Until then, review, favorite, follow!

And P.S., if you get those references near the end of the chapter, then congratulations, you are a true Sly Cooper fan!