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 – Well as your review was rather short I shall do my best to expand on the questions and things you've brought up. I'm glad you like their estranged relationship, as I have decided to change up their usual one and create a more dynamic take on it. And I just wanted to let you know I've done a double release, and have also typed out the twelfth installment of Sly as a Fox, so be sure to read and review that whenever you're able.

To Bananab0mb – No no, I assure you that he is very much deceased. No clone or decoy. Same as above, I've made a double release, so be sure to read both new chapters. Cheers! See you next chapter!

That was possibly the shortest response I've ever done for reviewers ever on this site. I take it this story, seeing as there isn't any fluff that appeals towards a younger audience I won't be receiving too many readers or reviewers. Shame really, I think this story has merit and potential. Anyway, with all that said and done, here is chapter four of: Heart of Darkness, enjoy.

Chapter Four: Kindred Spirit

The next Morning, I woke up and did my routine exercises. After my shower, I put in the SIM card, the battery, powered on the cell phone I had on the table. I entered my passcode, and a small indicator flashed across my screen in the form of an envelope. I hit the necessary commands to access my text messaging logs, and opened up the single message left for me during the time I had the phone disassembled, it simply read: "Call me." I stared at the short message, and did the only reasonable thing to do. I powered off the cell phone and went down for breakfast.

I enjoyed another leisurely breakfast in the hotel's café, and then whiled away an hour browsing the hotel shops, all of which offered splendid views of the lobby. But Scar never showed. Around noon, I met up with Juliette and we went around the main casinos and shopping districts. Later that afternoon I asked if she would like to grab a bite to eat, to which of course she agreed. I inquired about which restaurant she would prefer to dine in, but she surprised me by saying she wanted us to try out the local cuisine. I saw no harm in this, and decided to take her up on the offer.

I had actually forgotten that although Juliette was a Parisian, the service I had hired her from was stationed in Macau, which goes to prove how professional the ladies were to make you forget such an important fact. She brought me to Senado Square, where we entered a small locale and took a table near the back. I looked around, and couldn't help feel a little out of place. Surrounding us, were the local Macanese population in their t-shirts and shorts, speaking in their native tongues, while Juliette and I were in an assortment of brand name goods. There were glances towards our direction, but nothing more. I met their glances with a warm smile, in which they return with one of their own, and the occasional friendly wave.

Probably sensing my confusion, Juliette placed her hands atop of mine.

She held it there, and said "Relax. I come here often."

I raised my eyebrow in a quizzical manner. "You? Here. Really?"

She laughed, "Me. Here, yes."

Before I had time to ask in a more coherent manner, a male in a grease stained smock came up to our table, and in broken Macanese Chinese-English asked for our orders, "Hallo, what you order? I see you not from here, everything here very good. Beu-ti-full lady, and handsome man, you married? What you want, I'll be sure to get every-ting right. Only the best, for such a lovely cup-pol."

I looked over the menu and was dismayed when I saw that it was all in Doci Papiaçam or "Sweet speech" a nickname which poets gave to the Macanese language, which was a mix of Chinese and Portuguese.

"It…it all just looks so good, I don't know what to choose. Why don't you order first, dear?"

She saw through my discomfort and couldn't help but smile. "Why don't I order for the both of us sweetie."

I conceded and allowed her to do just that. She impressed me by spouting out random phonetic syllables which apparently when spoken back to back, actually meant something in Macanese. We continued small talk until our food was prepared and brought to us. Along with each additional dish that was brought to our table, she would point at it with her chopstick and would go into detail about: what it is, what is in it, how it was prepared, in great detail and all I had to contribute to the conversation was: "Oh, that's interesting," and "That's tasty!" Needless to say, it wasn't exactly the highlight of my culinary education.

"Wong Chi Kei which is a signature dish in Macau. It is shrimp roe noodles cooked al dente, and sprinkled with salty shrimp roe." She would say, and I'll contribute with "the noodles are a bit too firm for me."

"Minchee is a dish made from minced or ground meat. They take beef or pork and flavored it with molasses and soy sauce; they serve it with a fried egg on top." She'd educate me, and I'll be too busy with a mouthful of food to be able to respond to her properly.

"This is a pork chop bun. Very crispy outside, very soft on the inside, it has pan fried pork in the middle, glazed in a flavorful meat sauce. This is probably the most common and most famous item in Macau." She'd explain before picking up one of the buns the size of orange and chowing into it, and gesturing me to do the same.

"Now, for dessert. This is a Portuguese egg tart, it is a soft caramelized egg custard filled in a crisp puff pastry case. It's sweet and very rich and flavorful, and the one that is on your side is Douhua. It's a tofu pudding. They add liquid sugar syrup and soy milk and a very delish dessert."

She gingerly ate her egg tart, making sure to only use her thumb and index finger, and carefully positioned herself over her plate to catch the crumbs. I did something similar to that, and by "something similar" I mean I popped the entire tiny morsel into my mouth to tease Juliette about her delicate manner of eating. She smiled and threw one of her unused napkins at me. This apparently allowed her to forget about eating etiquette as she gestured to my unfinished Douhua. I returned with a go ahead gesture, and she removed my spoon and brought the bowl to her mouth and gulped down the rest.

"Atta girl." I said to her, and we both laughed.

I paid the bill and left a generous tip, and we both bid the owner and the waiter that served us a good night, and thanks for the wonderful meal. We left the place linking arms, and I suggested that we take a small leisure stroll to aid our digestion of the feast we just partook in. As we did so, I did my subtle counter surveillance as we walked and talked.

"So, you go there often?" I asked steering out conversation to her display of knowledge of Macau.

"It's a quiet place, the atmosphere and the diners are really nice. I like to go there." She replied.

"When you're not hired to be an escort."

I felt her body go rigid for a moment, before she relaxed back again. All she said in response was "yes."

"So why did you bring me there tonight? It's not exactly a place I'd expect to see you, or any of the people who would use your service would be."

She unhooked my arm and stopped walking. I turned around to face her.

"Je ne sais pas" – I don't know – she responded back in French. "There's something about you, which is a lot like me." She stated, although she couldn't put her thumb on it.

"There's just something about you," she repeated. "That gives off the feeling that you don't really live, this life. As if you are part of a whole other world, like me." she said softly.

"It's because of business that I'm here." I said solemnly.

"Business," she said to herself. "That's it, we're both only here because of business, something that forces us to stay here even though it's not something we both want to…" she stopped in mid-sentence.

I walked over to her and held her close, resting her head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her, and I put my lips next to her ear. "It's okay; life gets the best of us sometimes. We can't always do what we want, and can only play with the cards we're dealt. But it's how you handle yourself, and the twists and turns that life throws at you, is what defines you as an individual."

She nodded after a while and after she composed herself, she apologized for her lack of professionalism. I finally understood why I felt such a strong affiliation towards her; it was because we're both creatures who dawn masks, hiding behind fake personas and identities in order to survive. I reassured her with a smile and she returned it.

"I just knew you were different. You have a way about you, an aura if you will. It's extremely subtle, but there's something about you that screams in contrast to what everything else says about you. It's a very difficult thing to explain."

"I know," I smiled again. "It takes one to know one, I suppose." We left it at that, and walked back towards the hotel.

"Again, I'm sorry for tonight. I don't know what's gotten into me." Juliette said.

"It's no problem. It must take a lot to keep up a façade with an outlier such as myself."

"An outlier?"

"You know a figure that is completely detached from the main body or system. The odd ball of the group."

She was wide eyed. She opened her mouth to correct my assessment of her view of me, but she quickly saw my playful smirk and knew she was being teased yet again.

"Well at least, you're not like my previous clients, most if not all of them, were affair having sex deviants. To which I have to remind them, time and time again that our company doesn't provide that 'service,' and only provide a platonic companion to accompany them during their time here in Macau. Them, I can handle, but you Monsieur Benneteau..." I mentally cringed when she called me by my alias. "Are indeed, in a way. An outlier."

"Who's to say that I'm not an affair having sex deviant?" I winked at her.

"As I've said before, we're a lot alike. There's that aura about you. I doubt you're married, or even seeing anyone at this very moment. You live in your own world, not of this one." She stated matter-of-factly.

"But..." her voice became stern. " Just in case, I'll have to remind you that our company doesn't provide that 'service.'"

I chuckled, but stopped when she followed that up with: "But I can make an exception."

I cleared my throat, and adjusted my collar. "That is a very tempting offer. Trust me on that." I looked her up and down. "But I'm afraid I can't accept it." I said.

She opened her mouth to inquire, and I sealed it with a kiss on her cheek. "You're only being this forward with me, because you felt a connection. I'd be lying if I said I didn't also notice it. But you're vulnerable now, and that's the only reason why you're saying all of this. Go home, sleep off the euphoria, and you'll be back to normal soon enough.

She reluctantly nodded, and with flushed cheeks allowed me to put her in a taxi. We both waved goodbye and wished one another good night. I watched as the taxi's taillights round the corner, before I made my way back upstairs to my room.

I took a shower to wash away the day, and couldn't help get the feeling I was forgetting something.

Oh crap. I quickly dressed and reassembled the phone that was given to me by Bentley. I powered it on, and checked my messages. There were twelve of them, all of it read in some form or fashion: "Call me." and by the looks of it, every subsequent message seemed to get angrier.

I punched in the number I had memorized, and promptly on the first ring a voice could be heard.

"Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to reach you all day."

"You know what they say about 'having fun.'"

There was a seething grumbling noise on the other end.

"I've been trying to reach you all day," he repeated.

"Unless I'm talking on it," I said, "I leave this thing turned off."

"Saving the battery?"

"Guarding my privacy."

"You're the poster boy for paranoia," he said, and I could see him shaking his head on the other end. I smiled again. In some ways I liked Bentley in spite of his choice of employer, I'd been impressed by the countermeasures he'd taken in his method of contacting me, and for us to keep tabs with one another. He even went out of his way of getting me this encrypted phone.

"Our friend just got in," he said.

"I know. I saw him last night."

There was a pause.

"You seem to know this, without me informing you. Meaning this was a vital piece of information that you neglected to tell me in our last phone call?"

"Are we seriously going to start this again?"

"You know, the agency is tracking him, if you'd leave the cell phone on, I might be able to contact you with some timely information."

Although I didn't know for sure, I suspected the CIA had been keeping tabs on Scar through a compromised cell or satellite phone. I wasn't going to make the same mistake.

"Sure," I said, my tone neutral to the point of sarcasm.

There was a pause. "You're not going to leave it on," he said, his tone half-resigned, half-bemused.

I laughed.

"Alright, fine. Do it your way."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. It would be really nice if you could account for me for some of those disbursements. It wasn't exactly easy to wire that amount of cash into an unknown account without the agency finding out about it."

"We've been over this. I need the cash to get into the right rollers' rooms. I saw someone from China drop a million U.S at one of the baccarat tables the other night. That's where our friend plays. I need to get near him, and they don't allow spectators. Or low rollers."

"And will I be getting the cash back?"

"Maybe. Depends on how well I do at the tables."

"What if you actually win something?" he said.

"I'll be sure to report it as taxable income."

He laughed at that, and I said, "We're done?"

"Sure. Oh, just one other thing. A little something that I'm sure you'll want to hear about."

With raised eyebrow, I said "okay, shoot."

"Last night, someone got killed in your neighborhood."

"Really?" my voice not betraying me.

"Yeah. Broken neck."

"Ouch."

"You would know."

"Actually I wouldn't know," I said. "But I can imagine."

I heard a snort. "Just remember," he said, "even if I'm not there in the room watching you, I'm still watching."

"Didn't know you had a thing for voyeurism."

"Very funny."

"Who's being funny?"

There was yet another pause; I said "There's something I need you to do for me."

"Okay…" he responded uncertain. "What is it?"

"I need you to look someone up for me. A 'Juliette' from 'Macau's exotics', it's an escort service."

"I… what does this have to do with your mission?"

"It just does." I snapped at him.

This time there was a prolonged pause. Before he finally said, "Okay, I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks." I responded.

"You know, you're going to owe me for this one right?"

"Gee, because it's a good idea for you to keep tabs of favors from a guy who you personally sought out to help you with a little problem you were having that involves an international terrorist arms dealer?"

There was a befuddled onomatopoeic sound. "Um, call it even?"

I laughed, and said "I'll call you again tomorrow, send whatever you find out to the electronics message board I told you about."

"You got it," he said. "Good luck."

I pressed the "end" key, purged the call log history, and turned the unit off.

I noted that he wasn't exactly perturbed in any way about the late Super spy. Possibly indicating that he wasn't in fact, an undercover agent of the CIA. Or maybe there was an affiliation, and Bentley was simply out of the loop. Either way I had to wait twenty four hours before the money that Bentley wired to an account I had access to go through. So I decided to call it a night and scout out the Lisboa Casino tomorrow in hope of finding Scar.

Scar, though, is tough because of security-conscious tend to eschew patterns In favor of randomness. Meaning random times; random routes; when possible random destinations. They deliberately avoid getting hood on anything that the opposition can dial into.

But Scar's security wasn't perfect. His behavior suffered from what software types like Bentley would call a "security flaw", in this case, his compulsion to gamble. That compulsion was most likely the reason for how Bentley, and even Super spy, were to track him to Macau, the gambling central of Asia. Scar could have easily gone to a smaller locale to do his gambling, but one must get inside a target's head. A creature like Scar would never play anywhere except the best and grandiose, "to hell with security", he was a tiger of power and confidence, he will only play at the biggest and best tables in all of Macau.

All there was to do now was to rest up for tomorrow.