A/N & Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the characters that are affiliated with Sucker Punch Productions (2002-05), Nihilistic Software (2011), and/or Sanzaru Games (2012-Present). I do however, own their products and highly recommend to those who don't, to please support the creators of the franchise. The portrayal of their characters in this fan fiction is just that, of fiction; they do not in any way reflect the "actual-true fictional storyline" created by the *stated above* developers of the Sly Cooper franchise.

To NinjaxSketcheartx – Thanks you as usual for being the first to always review my work and I'm glad that I was able to make you "visualize it happening," however you are misunderstanding something. Sly wasn't knocked out in any form or manner; he only closed his eyes in acceptance of his death as Scar's razor is thrusted towards him. As you will see in this chapter, I basically made this story starting off in the middle of things to see if I can rope in an audience that would want for me to continue. With three reviews, I can at least feel confident that this story isn't being written in vain, although to be perfectly honest I'd like more reviews but you can't win them all.

Either way, this chapter will start at the beginning, and will eventually lead back up to the "present point in time" when he closes his eyes. Nothing special about Scar's legs, just very well trained. Savate users have extremely powerful kicks and because of their years of training, they lose all feeling in them, because of the constant kicking; it deadens the nerves in them. It'll be more realistic, sure, but I might sneak in some abilities of his, because it is Sly Cooper after all, but I won't have him turn invisible because of himself, but of some scientific manner or reason, you know that sort of thing. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I'll be sure to update this one, as well as Sly as a Fox whenever I get around to it.

To BananaB0mb – Hey bud, thanks a lot for your review. I'm sorry if I in any form, "stole your thunder," and would recommend still writing a more gritty story, delving into another genre rather than continue the mundane and pedestrian ones you see on this site where it's all "Character A X Character B" fluff, it allows for you to grow as a writer and help you formulate ideas and experience you would never receive from conforming. Fear is a good motivator, you just need to be confident enough in yourself to not let that fear control you, and you control it. It sounds cliché I know, but it's true.

Thank you for your positive reviews towards my action scenes, as they were rather entertaining for me to write. A lot of the moves that Sly do, I've personally tried myself or at least dabble in, I'm no expert by any means, but I've taken at least a few lessons in my life for the sole purpose of using the experience as potential writing material (That's a form of initiative you can take in your own life). I can tell you from personal experience, that the moves that I've been writing about? Are rather effective and they friggin' hurt (trust me *ow ow ow*).

I hope the first person view isn't a negative point of the story from your point of view, but I believe it's more interesting to write in first person perspective. You begin to feel the pain of your character because he or she is essentially you. However it can lead to certain biases, because the protagonist is you, you want to win, you want to be the best, and that could lead to skewed perspectives.

Well sorry to say, you're going to have to wait as I begin the next chapters from the starting point, and eventually lead up to the part where the first chapter takes place, hopefully you'll still be around then. Thanks again for your review.

To Aj – I'm glad you enjoyed my story, this is the first time you've reviewed my stories I believe. I'm always honored to receive a new review from an interested fan of my work, please feel free to read my other Sly Cooper fan fiction entitled: Sly as a Fox, or if you have any interest in myths, feel free to read my Brobdingnagian take on Beowulf.

I'll also be sure to get right on it, and write up another chapter so that it can continue to hold your interest. I'll be sure to update as soon as possible with all my chapters, but I will have to alternate between my two Sly Cooper fan fictions. Thanks again for the review and I hope you continue along with the rest of your fellow readers and reviewers with this story.

Well that's all of my reviewers for the first chapter, I know you all get this a lot, but I cannot be more sincere when I say: "Thank you for reading and taking your time to review, hopefully there will others that feel the initiative to also write a positive or even a negative review to the likes and dislikes of my story. It not only just helps myself, but also yourself as readers/writers become more eloquent with words by being able to act as a community and create a forum for our audiences to interact with one another."

With that said and done, please enjoy chapter two.

Chapter Two: From the Beginning

My target as identified by the gang was a hulking tiger that went by "Scar." His real name was Malakh Solomon; he had earned his moniker from the long skin deformation of the same name that ran from his left eyebrow to his cheek.

By the way I saw it, saving Scar from the guy I now thought of as "Super spy" would be doing myself as well as his handler's a favor. After all, Super spy could easily jeopardize his, as well as my mission by getting caught, or doing some other sloppy thing, which would lead to misunderstandings, suspicions, and accusations. Exactly the kind of things I would like to avoid.

I thought of this guy as Super spy because my suspicions about him had first jelled when I saw him the first time at the airport, and then again at the hotel. It could have been a coincidence but in my line of work, one doesn't believe in coincidences. It was further solidified when I saw him skulking about when I was doing my routine SDRs or "surveillance detection routes." He was oblivious to my presence but I was aware to his, I had to survey the area before I made my move against Scar, but wherever I went, Super spy was there.

The third time that I met Super spy was in the gym of the Macaw's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where we were both staying, and where Scar was soon to arrive. I went in an hour after the gym had opened. I was happy to see that there were a number of fellow guests of the hotel in the gym along with Super spy; it would be less conspicuous to him that I was indeed a familiar face. He was avoiding the facility's tangle of Lifecycles and Cybex weight machines; instead he had focused on a series of physical kata, or forms. So Super spy is trained in martial arts too, Karate it would seem like from his routine workout. He was doing a series of punches, blocks, and kicks to the air that, to an untrained eye, would seem like an awkward dance routine. Actually, his moves were good. They were smooth, practiced, and powerful.

I do some similar solo exercises myself, from time to time, but nothing so formal and stylized. And when I do decide to work out, I don't do it in public. It draws too much attention, especially from someone who knows what to look for, someone like me.

In my line of work, drawing attention is a serious violation to the instilled laws of common sense, and therefore of survival, and sabotages the success of a mission. Because if someone notices you for one thing, he'll be inclined to look more closely, at which point he might notice something else. A pattern, which would have remained quietly hidden, might then begin to emerge, after which your cloak of anonymity will be methodically pulled apart, probably to be rewoven into something more closely resembling a shroud.

Super spy also stood out because of his physical characteristics. Super spy was the size of a defensive linesman; he was two-hundred and some odd pounds of solid mass, standing over six-foot-tall, which tends to stand out when you're surrounded by slender, short, Asiatic business types that visit here to get away from it work, and do a little bit of gambling. He had close-cropped black fur, with a pale white undertone underneath it, giving him a salt and pepper look.

Although I myself am not of Asian-descent, I still fit the role of a guest that wanted to escape from the mundane daily lifestyle of work, to grab a tipple at the afterhours Dragon's Den bar in Macau, where, if one can manage to secure one of the coveted six seats in his hidden basement establishment, owner and bartender, Wei Shen, will recommend one of his rare bottling's to help melt away, however briefly, the world you came to him to forget. To indulge in one's dark, secret fantasies of hitting the big jackpot in the casinos, and getting a taste of the local cuisines, liquors, and women.

So between the conspicuous fur color, the sneaking around, and now the kata moves, Super spy had managed to put himself on my radar screen, and it was then that I began to notice more. The most predominant thing was his habit of hanging around the hotel: the gym, the café, the terrace, the lobby, the bar inside the hotel. Wherever this weimaraner was from, he'd come a long way to reach Macau. His failure to get out and see the sights didn't make a lot of sense, unless he was waiting for someone.

Of course, I might have suffered from a similar form of conspicuousness. But I had a companion, a young French lynx, which made the "hanging around" behavior that I was exhibiting similarly to Super spy a little more explainable. Her name was Juliette, which I guess made me Romeo, or at least that's what she introduced herself as, from the escort agency through which I had hired her from. She was around the same age as me, in her mid-twenties. She was beautiful, surprisingly intelligent, and I was enjoying her company. With her next to me, it was much easier for me get around, using her as an excuse to visit areas that would have been suspicious if I were alone. Two lovers searching for a quiet place so that they can have some alone time together to reminisce, or a dark enough area to do something a little more daring.

We walked by the gym and I carefully logged in my peripheral vision that my new friend Super spy was in there doing another one of his routine workouts at the usual time, not slowing down or giving any sign I had any other intention besides using a new found shortcut to reach the lobby.

I asked Juliette that afternoon if she wouldn't mind shopping by herself for a little while. She smiled and told me she'd be delighted, which was probably the truth. She might have thought I was going off for a taste of the area's exotic buffet of prostitutes. No doubt she assumed I was married, and was in Macau to satiate whatever depraved lusts I was prevented from indulging upon when I was back home. She would associate my counter surveillance to that of simple paranoia and nervousness of a man fearing that he might get caught, and be exposed for what he truly was, an affair having pervert.

But I doubted she would have found the notion of additional philandering excessively shocking. Juliette worked in a line of work where she and all the other girls of her agency were professionally trained to smile, and act the submissive and ignorant role. The happier the client was, the more they would be lavished in materialistic things: new clothes, brand name bags, sport cars, and in one extreme case, a five-star hotel.

As I watched her walk out of the front entrance to catch a taxi service into the town, I felt a pang in my heart. Most of us would think of someone in Juliette's line of work as being anything but innocent, but the word "innocent" aptly described her. Her job was to offer me pleasure, and she was doing very well in that aspect, her company had been exquisite. However she was unaware of her role in my plot to get to Scar, and she was just as oblivious as Super spy to her situation in all of this. As much as I hated to use her, I'd just have to live with it.

I used the lobby and called room 709. There was no answer. This was a good sign, although not a hundred percent fool-proof, it was something I could work with. I returned to my room and picked up a few items I'll need for a quick look into Super spy's room. I rode the elevator to the eighth floor. From there, I took the stairs, the less trafficked route, and therefore the one less likely to present problems like witnesses. The hotel didn't have any cameras installed in the corridors of each floor, most likely to prevent the possibility of getting sued by guests being recorded when they were up to no good, rather than a protection of privacy.

Strapped to my wrist, concealed under the sleeve of my baggy windbreaker, was a device that looked like a large PDA. The device was a similar take on the Soldier Vision that was used by the military. It takes a radar "picture" of a room through walls, it emits a pulse that tracks the feedback it receives when it hits a solid object, like a wall for instance, and it takes that information and creates an image on the wrist unit. It was initially deployed during the Gulf war, where soldiers needed to see what was behind a door, an empty room, or a room full of insurgents. Only except, that my version of it was more advance than the ones you'll see in the military, I have some tech savants that were able to improve on the original, and create this little number, which we promptly named it "Cooper Vision." Imagine a device that allows the user to have X-ray vision, and sonar echolocation.

Once I confirmed that everything within the room posed no threat, I looked carefully around the door. I had to make sure Super spy didn't put some form of entry detection technique that would alert him that someone was in his room. However, I wasn't after anything that would take me more than a few minutes, a simple in and out job. Once he realizes that nothing of value was moved or searched, he'll just assume it was the cleaning service doing their daily room cleaning, and deem the person wasn't a persona non grata.

Earlier in my stay I had taken the trouble of securing a master key for just this sort of occasion, although at the time it was Scar I had in mind, not Super spy. The hotel used punched-hole mechanical plastic key cards, the kind that looked like plain gray credit cards with specific patterns of holes cut into them. The hotel used a now-a-days common system whereby the key had to be inserted into a wall slot next to the door for the room lights to become operable. When you withdrew the key in preparation for leaving the room, there was about a one-minute delay before the lights would go out. The same key was used to operate the door mechanism, and each room was key specific, unless you held a master key. The maids of the hotel carried them, of course, and it had been easy enough to walk past a room that was being cleaned, pull the maid's master key from the reader, make an impression in a chunk of molding clay one could pick up at your local toy store, replace the key, and slip out unnoticed, all in a matter of seconds. All I had to do was use the impression in the clay, and punch the additional holes in my room key, fill in the inappropriate ones with fast-setting epoxy clay, and voilà, I had the same access as the hotel staff.

Once I was sure that there was nothing, I slipped on gloves and readjusted the sleeves of my windbreaker to overlap them, no sense in leaving evidence behind. I inserted the "master" key, and was satisfied to hear the internal workings of the digital card reader identifying the type of key being inserted, and the result being the sound of locks being released and the indication of "good to go" with the universal symbol of the green light. I carefully opened the door and made sure to take a look behind me, down both ends of the corridor, to make sure the coast was clear before entering.

I did a quick once over around the room and immediately found the safe. I went over, and from my bag that I had with me attached to my leg, pulled out a small aluminum spray bottle, and spritzed the keypad of the safe. I waited a minute for the chemical known as "DFO" or 1, 8-Diazafluoren-9-one, to set before I pulled out a miniature black light wand, and illuminated the keypad with it. The DFO had done its job, it's a common chemical used to detect the natural oils we secrete on the porous level, and when shown under a blue or green light, it turns white.

I mumbled to myself the numbers that lit up brighter than Times Square. "One…four… eight… and nine." I tried a number of combinations with the four digits; it wasn't until my fifth attempt with "8149" did the safe finally unlocked. I looked inside and gingerly removed its contents. There was a wallet, a cellphone, and a watch. It was suggested to leave all your valuables in your room, as the hotel was not held responsible for items that are lost or stolen when using their facilities.

I skimmed through his wallet, no identification, just a couple of thousand in a number of different Asian currencies: Hong Kong dollars, Taiwanese Dollars Singaporean Dollars, and Macanese Pataca. I then picked up his cellphone and powered it on, there was a blue screen with four empty white boxes, and on the bottom it asked for a pin code. I thought about it for a second, and then punched in 8149. The screen unlocked and the sound of it being successfully turned on and the cellphone logo showed up on the screen. When choosing between convenience and security, everybody chooses convenience.

I took out a cellphone of my own and an adapter cable. I connected both cellphones to one another with the cable. I punched a few commands and sequences on mine, and soon a loading bar popped up. I was cloning his phone; it'll take about two minutes for the cellphones to sync. I walked over to the phone and called for room service, promptly after the first ring a Filipina-accented voice said, "Yes, Mr. Conrad, how may I help you today?"

"Oh, I think I must have hit the wrong button. Sorry to bother you."

"Not at all, sir. Have a pleasant day."

I hung up. Mr. Conrad then. I nodded to myself.

A soft beep alerted me to the completion of cloning. I pulled out a handkerchief and carefully and methodically wiped down every surface I had touched: The phone, the cellphone, the wallet, the watch, the safe, and took special care to clean up the DFO off of the keypad. I double checked to see if the cloning process had successfully taken place, and when satisfied I powered down his phone, and replaced everything back into its rightful place; it was as if I was never here.

I did a quick mental run through from the very moment I stepped into the room, everything was clear. I strolled back to the door and used the Cooper vision to see if the coast was clear, I opened the door carefully, wiping the handle as I did so, and slipped out as it closed behind me. The whole thing had taken just under ten minutes.

Scar arrived early that evening. I was enjoying a drink with Juliette in the lobby, where I had a view of the registration desk, and made him in an instant. He was huge. I put him at about six-foot-two, but surprisingly enough he wasn't as massive as Super spy, where Super spy was more bulk and heft, Scar was dense, and of a muscular build. He was wearing an expensive-looking navy colored suit; from the cut it seemed to be personally hand tailored to fit his physique, and a white shirt open at the collar. In his left hand he gripped the handle of what looked like a computer briefcase, something in black leather, and I caught a flash of gold chain encircling his wrist. But despite the clothes, the accessories, the jewelry, there was no element of fussiness about him. On the contrary: his presence was relaxed, and powerful. He looked like the kind of tiger who wouldn't have to raise his voice when speaking to his subordinates, who would command the attention of strangers with only a look or a gesture. Someone who wouldn't need to threaten violence to get what he wanted, if only because the hint of it would always be there, in the set of his posture, the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice.

Even from this distance, the feeling I get off of him, his "aura" if you will, would have been enough for me to identify him even without the case file I had liberated from the CIA database. He was with two large wolves, also in suits, which I made as bodyguards. One of them started a visual security sweep, but Scar didn't rely on him. Instead, he did his own evaluation of the room and its occupants. I watched in my peripheral vision, and when I saw that he was finished and had turned his attention to the front desk, I looked over again.

A striking female had just come through the front doors. She was wearing a black pant suit and pumps. Practical, but classy. What you'd see on a traveler carrying a first-class ticket. She was tall; too, maybe five-nine, five-ten, with long legs that looked good even in pants, and a ripe, voluptuous body. A porter followed her in, gripping a pair of large Vuitton bags. He paused near her and leaned forward to ask something. She raise a hand to indicate that he should wait, then started her own visual sweep of the room. I hadn't expected that, and quickly returned my attention to Juliette until her gaze had passed over us. When I glanced over again, she was standing beside Scar, her arm linked through his.

Something about her presence was as relaxed and in tune with his. Everything about her seemed natural: her hair, her face, and the curves beneath her clothes.

A minute later, she returned her attention back to the porter and spoke briefly, before the porter, herself, and one of the bodyguards headed toward the elevators. Scar and the other bodyguard remained at the front desk, discussing something with the receptionist.

The front door opened again, I glanced up and saw Super spy.

Christ, I thought. The gang's all here. I wondered half-consciously whether he'd been tipped off somehow. I kept him in my line of sight as Super spy walked slowly through the lobby. I saw his gaze move from one to another, as he must have made a mental note of Scar's two bodyguards whom I now affectionately deemed them: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, before he set his gaze on Scar. His eyes harden in a way that would mean nothing to most people but what meant a great deal to me. From his gaze I understood that Super spy wasn't looking at another guest, no, what he saw instead was a hunter acquiring his target.

I felt a wave of nausea, thinking: there's no way Super spy would do it right here and now… right? But that feeling soon subsided as he simply walked by and continued his way to the elevator. Scar and his bodyguard finished whatever they were discussing and heading for the elevator. After they were gone I gave them five minutes before I made my move.

I told Juliette that I needed to use the lavatories and would be right back. Instead I went to a house phone and asked the operator to connect me to the Macaw suite. There were only two suites in the hotel, the Macaw and the Oriental, and judging from his appearance, I had a feeling Scar would be occupying one of them.

No answer at the Macaw. I tried again, this time asking for the Oriental.

"Allo," a male voice answered.

"Hello, this is the front desk," I said, doing a passable impromptu Asiatic accent. "Is there anything else we can do to make Mr. Sc…" I managed to catch myself in time. "Solomon's stay with us more enjoyable?"

"No, we're fine," the voice responded.

"Very good," I said. "Please, enjoy your stay." And I hung up.

I breathed a deep breath, held it, and let it out through my nose. Now that everyone was here, time to get this show on the road. I pulled out my handkerchief for show, and walked back out of corridor that connected with the restrooms. I pretended to dry my hands before re-pocketing the cloth; I looked around the room as if I had forgotten the position of the lavatories in relation to where I previously was. When from across the lobby, Juliette raised her arm to grab my attention, and I walked over to her.

"Désolé, j'espère que vous n'avez pas eu à attendre longtemps," – Sorry, I hope you did not have to wait long – I smiled a warm smile.

"Pas du tout," – not at all – she greeted my smile with her own.

"Now shall we go? Our dinner reservation waits."

I offered her my arm and she took it, locking hers with mine.