Disclaimer: Sucker Punch owns Sly Cooper. I own the story.
Chapter 9: Mind Games
Sullivan was in a tunnel system in a cave made of pure gems; diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, topazes, amethysts, and other such precious compounds. The walls were polished enough to slide around in, which he did, laughing happily as he slid up and down the curving tunnels. He reached a chamber in the caves of gems and saw a small crowd there. He couldn't see their faces in the dimness, but he knew that they were smiling and were waving at him. Happiness filled his heart; the kind of happiness only felt when one finds their old, true friends, and he laughed, sliding down the curved cavern to meet them. But before he could come among them he woke up.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Morning, Todd."
"Morning, Hooper; desk."
Thump!
"...We have reallygot to move this thing someday."
"I wouldn't recommend it, sir; that's my desk."
"See you later, Todd."
He got his work done quickly and found himself leaning back in his seat, flipping a pen around in his fingers with his feet propped up on the desk. A cuckoo bird woman name Lacy, a co-worker of Sullivan's, watched at Sullivan easily flicked the pen up and down from between his fingers, catching it, spinning it around, and even balancing it on the tip of his muzzle.
"You're getting better," she suddenly said.
Sullivan caught the pen and looked at her oddly.
"You're getting better," Lacy repeated. "You're not as clumsy."
Sullivan looked at her, then his pen, then tossed it high up in the air, flipping it over frequently. The pen came back down to him and he caught it easily. Sullivan examined the pen, as if looking for magic trickery, then grinned.
"Yeah," he said, "I guess you're right."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Another bank robbery, Kent read from the newspaper he held. Forth this month, same guys, same deal: Swarm in, take all the money, leave like a ghost. Cops, as usual, are too slow from their doughnuts to do jack.
He looked up at the heavy overcast winter sky from where he stood on the corner and looked around the empty street. Everyone was inside, enjoying the warmth, and here he was, bundled up and waiting for someone. Behind him, a wheelchair-bound turtle hobo (probably a reject army veteran, Kent had thought) and koala hobo (looks like an immigrant who didn't get on his feet, Kent had noted), shuffled through the trash behind him, seemingly ignorant of his presence. He couldn't help but smile in amusement as the koala picked up a box and promptly dropped it over him, making an adequate shelter. He turned his gaze back to the empty winter afternoon street and his thoughts back to the robberies.
Now, if they would just let us feds on the case, we'd be there in a snap and stop those no-good crooks in their tracks. But no, they all want to do it themselves! Ha! Keep it up like this and this city will be bone dry in the way of money in the banks!
Now where the hell is…? Ah, there he is.
A taxi pulled up to the corner and Kent got in. Inside, the large pink hippo driver began driving before Kent had even suggested a location.
"So," Kent said to the hippo. "What's the dirt on this Dorm guy?"
"Who?" the hippo asked, eye brows furrowing in confusion.
"There is an iguana man called DD 'Ladies' God' Dorm," Kent sighed, impatient with the hippo already. "He's been hanging around one Sullivan Hooper and I've been ordered to check the Dorm guy out. What do you know about him, because he looks clean on his records."
"Sorry, I don't know anything about him," the hippo replied.
"Are you sure?" Kent asked sternly. "You're the informant, and this guy looks pretty well off for a frog man."
"Wait, I thought you said that he's an iguana?"
"He is, and he's a frog man."
"How does that work out? Iguanas are reptiles, frogs are amphibians."
"No, he's—"
"Does he have the tail of an iguana and the webs of a frog?"
"No—"
"Or does he look like an iguana, but has the skin of a frog?"
"Actually—"
"No, no that would make him a salamander…"
"He's an iguana who dives for stuff!" Kent yelled.
A moment of silence.
"So where does the frog man thing come in?" the hippo asked.
"Oh my god," Kent groaned, smacking a hand to his face. "Look: DD Dorm is an iguana who dives for stuff and seems too well off for a man in that profession, just know that bit. Forget the frog man thing. Dorm has been hanging around a raccoon man accountant by the name of Sullivan Hooper, and I have reason to suspect that Dorm's intentions with Sullivan are not pure."
"You mean he's--?"
"NO!!!" Kent screamed. He reeled himself back in, taking some deep breaths to calm himself down.
Easy, Kent, easy, he thought. Okay, so Dorm's covered himself too well to be on the radar. Let's turn this to more important business…
"Then what do you know about Sullivan Hooper?" he asked.
The hippo slammed on his brakes and Kent jerked forward, knocking his head against the back of the driver's seat. He sat back, growling and rubbing his head.
"Look, mister," the hippo said, looking at Kent in the rear view mirror. "I don't know what kind of weird ring you're trying to start up, but I don't know anything about this frog-iguana-mix man, Dorm, and as for the accountant, I'm not in that deep with stuff like that."
"Look," Kent hissed. "Just find out who DD 'Ladies' God' Dorm is, what he wants with Sullivan, and what kind of underhanded things Sullivan is up to, too, and report back to me, alright? You'll be paid well. It's for a lady friend of mine."
"Can't do it yourself, fed?" the hippo asked.
"Like I said; I checked and Dorm's clean on paper. Plus, Sullivan happens to be the lady friends' gem of her heart," He gagged on that last bit with the idea of the gorgeous vixen and clumsy raccoon being a couple. "Find out what's not on paper for them both."
With that final, somewhat dramatic statement, Kent got out of the taxi and left. He had no idea that he had climbed into the completely wrong "informant's" taxi.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The hockey game they had that day actually had an audience, and a large one at that. Apparently, the other team Sullivan's team was facing had a lot of fans, which encouraged the fans (even false ones) of Sullivan's own team to come out to a game, for once. Hence, when the starting buzzer rang out, the stands were actually populated by troops of cheering fans. The cheering encouraged more adrenalin to flow and for attitudes to flare, thus causing a fist fight with in the first ten minutes of the game, much to the fans' delight. Sullivan felt a shiver run up his spine when he saw a wombat on his team be carried off the rink on a stretcher. The runty grizzly bear coach turned to him and suddenly spoke.
"Alright, two of our guys are out, so Sullivan, Kyle, you're in."
"Woo hoo!" the sea lion whooped, zipping out onto the ice eagerly.
"Oh boy," Sullivan whimpered, following his more enthusiastic friend.
His skates pointed outwards and he practically did the splits, but he managed to push up with his hockey stick and keep himself from hitting the ice. Looking at his opponents, he realized why the other team had more fans: These guys were big, powerful, and mean looking. It was clear that before the game was over, someone's skull would be splattered on the ice.
"Oh dear god," Sullivan whimpered, ears and tails drooping.
The starting buzzer shouted and Kyle swatted the puck, knocking it to Sullivan.
"Run with it, Sully!" he shouted.
Sullivan managed to catch the puck, then looked up to see a herd of muscle-bound men on blade-mounted shoes(ice skates) coming at him. Yelping, Sullivan kicked off, ducking below arms and jumping over hockey sticks. A warthog appeared in front of him and he turned from him, only to find himself surrounded. The other team mates were busy trying to keep a majority of the other team off of him or defending the goalie.
"Hey! Fatso, over here!" Kyle yelled, trying to distract the enemy players from Sullivan.
One pig turned around to look at Kyle and some inner instinct seized Sullivan. Darting forward, he hooked the pig's belt on his hockey stick and pulled upward, flinging him in the air. At the peak of the toss, Sullivan withdrew the stick and adjusted it to pull down, pulling the pig down faster than gravity to slam into the ice, dazed. As the enemy team mates, as well as practically everyone else in the arena, "oohed" in sympathy, thus providing the distraction Sullivan needed.
Turning to the enemy's goal, he swatted the puck, sending it streaking like a black lightening bolt across the ice to slam into the net for a legit point.
"Hey!" a horse on the opposing team yelled. "I call that a foul!"
Sullivan didn't know if it was from knocking the pig down, or the adrenalin, or the goal, but he felt cocky enough to start skating around the horse.
"What was that, 'hay'?" Sullivan asked, drawing the snickers of some other people. "Now's not the time to eat, my friend."
"Why you--!" the horse began.
"Shut up and we'll take this out in the game!" Sullivan whooped, stopping suddenly and sending some ice shavings showering onto the horse's leg.
The horse looked down at his ice shaving-covered leg, then looked up and narrowed his eyes at Sullivan.
"Fine," he hissed.
Thus the game passed. Sliding under arms, jumping over legs, jumping and spinning around lunges, whacking people with his stick, and even doing a hand-stand when he scored a couple more goals, Sullivan grew more and more confident. He didn't slip or fall, he didn't fumble or miss the puck, and he didn't feel like screaming like a little girl when the opposing team charged him. When he didn't have the puck, he managed to tick the opposing team off in all sort of clever ways, mostly sly jokes about their intelligence, appearance, and mothers, but sometimes in more subtle ways…
Like dropping a coyote's pants.
After that last bit, everyone in the arena had laughed as Sullivan had been kicked off of the ring by the referee, but he had slid back to the bench, grinning like a fool. The fog in his mind was mostly gone and he felt great!
They wound up winning the game and congratulations were shared all around at the bar they went to in celebration afterwards. Sullivan had to frequently readjust his shades as everyone kept clapping him on the back.
"Here's to Sully!" Kyle whooped, leaning heavily against Sullivan with a tall beer in one flipper while the other grasped the raccoon's shoulder. "For growing a pair!"
Everyone crowed in a good manner and Kyle glugged down his drink. Sullivan laughed and raised his glass.
"To hockey!" he cheered. "The only good sport where you get to kick the crap out of your opponent!"
Everyone in the bar cheered at this and Sullivan jumped up onto his stool and held his drink out over the crowd.
"Drinks are on me!" he yelled.
After the cheering came the drinking games, things dissolved into the off-tune drinking songs, and eventually crumbled into confessing deep things to one another. By the time the bar closed late that night, the handful of people left were off their tail ends drunk, with Sullivan included. Laughing, Sullivan waved his team mates good bye before stumbling in the direction of home. Strangely enough, though, he sobered up incredibly fast and was able to take his keys out of his pocket with not too much fumbling by the time he got to the building. But what ever steadiness had possessed him in the day was gone and his keys slipped from between his fingers to hit the slush on the steps outside the building. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, he knelt and began to paw at the slush in search of the keys.
"Not just gonna picklock it?"
Looking up, Sullivan saw Kent Rashfuner leaning against the wall beside the apartment doors, arms and ankles crossed.
"Oh, hey, Kent," Sullivan said, grinning in a friendly manner. "Nah, roof top access would be more classy."
Kent looked at Sullivan with his eye brows and ears raised. Laughing, Sullivan shook his head as he finally found his keys.
"Oh, relax, Kent, I was just kidding! Honestly, Carmelita told me that you were a fed, but ease up, will you?" He stood up and began to examine the keys in the light spilling out of the apartment building, looking for the proper one. "So, what brings you here?"
"Carmelita wanted me to check up on you."
"Aww, isn't that sweet? Um, you want to go upstairs and grab some coffee? It'll be warmer," Sullivan suggested, finally unlocking the door and holding it open.
"Sure, Mr. Hooper, that sounds nice," Kent said coolly, following the raccoon into the building.
"So, how's the tricks?" Sullivan asked, starting the long hike up the apartment building's stairs.
"The tricks are good. Hey, I watched the hockey game. Where'd you learn all that?"
"Good question; it just kind of happened. Do you think I was a hockey player in my old life, too? The one I can't remember? That would explain why I like the sport so much."
"Maybe it's just because you get to whack people you don't like with a big stick."
"Yeah, we would all like a sport like that!" Sullivan laughed.
"Yes," Kent said, clearly less enthusiastic. "So, how's work been?"
"Oh, the usual; crunch numbers, make sure no one's laundering, stuff like that."
"Just curious, is it possible for you to transfer money from their account to yours?"
"Probably, but why would I do that?"
"Oh, I don't know; more spending money, perhaps? Or you could just get a kick out of screwing someone else over? I know that it would be a great temptation for me to pickpocket such an exposed source of wealth."
"Mr. Rashfuner," Sullivan asked curiously, stopping out side of his apartment and flicking through the keys. "Are you concerning going rouge and becoming a criminal?"
"I don't know, are you?" Kent growled.
"Hey, you're the one wanting to skim numbers off the top!" Sullivan objected. "I'm perfectly happy with my life as it is!"
"Are you, Sullivan?" Kent asked. "Are you happy knowing only half of your life while the first half is shrouded in mystery from the curse of amnesia? Are you happy suffering a permanent fog and being clumsy? Are you happy having to live with a woman you hardly know and being dependent on her? Are you really happy, Sullivan Hooper, knowing that your name is only one given to you at random because you can't remember your real one? Are you really happy, Sullivan?"
Sullivan stared at Kent, key in the lock of his door and clearly stunned by this sudden flow of cold, sarcastic reasoning. Finally, Kent tipped his hat to Sullivan and turned away.
"Good night, Sully."
Thus speaking, Kent left. Slowly, Sullivan looked back at the door, unlocking it, and entering the apartment with in. He shut the door, staring into space, and leaned his back against it. Closing his eyes, he sighed and shook his head, his ears drooping sadly.
"I was happy, Kent," he whispered to the empty, cool apartment. "But now that you mention it, no. I'm not happy. I'm miserable."
