As we near the conclusion to this story, I want to take the chance to give an early thank you to everyone who has stuck with me so far. This has been getting harder and harder for me to write and it's you guys that give me the motivation to keep going. So thanks again.
Chapter 9: The Plan
As Sly prepared his plan to rob the Sisterhood, he found himself once again missing Bentley. Not only did he lack the turtle's intellectual might, he lacked even a way to develop the photos he had taken and had to settle for drawing lines in the sand with his cane. Not exactly the most professional mission brief. Neema and Le Paradox sat on the other side of him, the former looking excited to be a part of a heist and the latter looking like he'd rather be the one making the plan.
Sly finished sketching a (very) rough outline of the Sisterhood's hideout and cleared his throat to begin. "Alright guys, here's what we're going to do. We know where the cats keep their goods and we also know that the place is locked up tight with a steel door." He pointed his stick to a drawing of a door with a big keyhole symbol on it. "We don't have the time or resources to try to break into that thing, so we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."
He next pointed to a crude stick figure with cat ears, a tail, and a mean expression. "I'll track down Isis and pickpocket the key from her. If we're lucky, she won't even notice until I'm long gone."
"Hold on," Le Paradox interrupted. "How do you know Isis has the key? Maybe one of her lieutenants is holding it instead."
Sly shot him a knowing smirk and simply handed him the binocucom. Confused, the skunk put it up to his eyes and immediately saw the picture Sly had taken of the sand cat leader. There was the unmistakable glint of a small metal object sticking out of a wallet on her waist. "So...she has it?" Neema asked, at this point giving up on trying to understand the technology. Le Paradox just grumbled and handed the binocucom back to Sly.
See? Told you that picture would be useful. He just barely restrained himself from saying that out loud. "As I was saying, I'll pickpocket the key, then make my way up to the door. That brings us to the next problem. I can't just waltz into that place, it's sure to be watched at all times. That's where you come in, Le Paradox."
The skunk glared at him suspiciously, instantly wondering what kind of asinine plan Cooper had in store for him. No doubt something meant to quietly kill him off while he escaped with the time machine. Well you're not going to get rid of me that easily. Bring it on, Cooper.
"You're going to create a little distraction for our bandit friends." Sly gestured to what was supposed to be an outline of the walkways inside the hideout, but looked more like an overzealous game of tic-tac-toe, an image that he completed by drawing three X's over certain spots. "I'm no expert on architecture, but if you were to use your rapier to cut the beams here, here, and here, it should bring the whole thing crashing down. That's sure to cause enough chaos for me to sneak into the treasure vault and out again with no one the wiser."
"While I'm conveniently stuck at the bottom with a bunch of angry sand cats," Le Paradox said dryly. "Why can't you be the distraction?"
"Because my cane isn't sharp enough to slice through those beams. Besides, surely a thief as great as yourself could get out of there unscathed."
Le Paradox, unable to come up with a response that wouldn't make him sound like a wimp, simply glowered at him from across the "drawing board".
"What about me?" Neema asked eagerly. "What's my role in the plan?"
"The same role as last time. You'll stay out here and be lookout."
Her face fell. "What? But all the action is going on inside."
"And so is all of the danger," Sly chastised. "You're not like us, Neema. You don't have the skills to sneak through a den of thieves without being caught. You'll be safest out here."
"But, I-"
"No, Neema!" She finally gave up and her head drooped. He knew he was being a bit harsher than he needed to be, but this was literally a matter of life or death. No, even worse. He wasn't even supposed to be in this time period in the first place, so what would happen if he got someone killed here? What kind of temporal anomaly could that cause? If he wasn't careful, he could end up back in a future where everyone has two heads. He couldn't risk screwing with the timeline anymore than he had already.
The fact that she was really pretty and reminded him of Carmelita had nothing to do with it. Honest.
"Are you done yet?" Le Paradox asked impatiently, already walking over to the cliffside.
Sly took one last look at Neema. She didn't look back.
"Yeah. Let's go."
And so it was that Sly Cooper and Cyrille Le Paradox were working together once again. This didn't mean they were getting along any better—both parties still saw the other as just a means to an end—but Neema would probably see their willing cooperation as at least some kind of progress. Too bad Neema wasn't here right now, because neither of them felt the same way. As soon as they got back into the hideout, they immediately and silently split up to tackle their separate missions.
Sly climbed up to the top of the hideout once more, while keeping his eyes peeled for Isis. It took very little time to find her as she was still in a fit over the incident that morning. The guards went out of their way to keep a wide berth from her, which made his job easier as he simply followed right behind the sand cat leader without anyone noticing. He trained his eyes on the key hanging so temptingly out of her wallet and crept closer and closer. As he did, she began talking to herself, as crime lords had a tendency to do.
"This is the last thing I need right now," she mumbled bitterly. "I thought that if I brought that weird machine back, he would be happy. I mean, who knows how much something like that could go for on the black market? We could make a fortune!" Ignoring her banter, Sly reached out with his cane and attempted to snag the key. Isis turned a corner at the last moment and he mentally swore to himself as it escaped his grasp. "But noooooooo! He's more interested in that stupid raccoon than the priceless treasure he was carrying! Ugh! I'll never understand the gods!"
Sly botched another attempt to grab the key as that bit of monologue made him freeze on the spot. Oh yeah, Neema mentioned something about the Sisterhood working for a god. Could that really be true? And if so, what does he want with ME?
Realizing that he had let himself be distracted, Sly snapped back to reality and continued after Isis. The feline left the wooden walkway and stepped off onto the solid ledge surrounding the "pit". Sly was about to follow after her when he saw two sand cat guards appear and had to fall back, crouching behind a thick beam. He waited for these guards to clear out like the rest, but unfortunately for both he and them, they didn't get away fast enough. "You two, come with me!" Isis ordered. The sand cats glanced at each other and gulped, but followed after her regardless. Sly watched Isis, now with two escorts, continue around the perimeter.
I hate to say this, but I hope Le Paradox is having better luck than me.
As a matter of fact he was. The skunk had a pretty good idea which beams he needed to slice, even with Cooper's horrendous drawing skills, and had already cut the first without any trouble. It helped that he kept his distance from the guards. He wouldn't acknowledge that his smell greatly hampered his stealth, because that would admit to having a weakness, but he did think it would be better if he remained as far away as possible.
The downside to this was that it was taking him a good while longer to get to his next destination than it would have taken Cooper, which he also didn't acknowledge. Unaware that the raccoon was being held up as well, Le Paradox became more reckless in his desire to outdo his rival. That recklessness got him to the next beam quicker, but also brought him just a little too close to a nearby guard.
"Hey, what's that smell?" Le Paradox froze. He was currently standing in the middle of a walkway, too far away to escape up another ladder, and too high up to jump off. So as the guard climbed up behind him to investigate, he had no choice but to give her a sharp kick to the head. She fell backwards off the ladder and Le Paradox crouched low to the wooden surface as he heard her hit the ground.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Looks like she's unconscious."
"What a clutz, falling off the ladder like that."
"Seriously. She's gonna need another crash course in basic thievery when she wakes up."
The skunk sighed in relief. That was too close. He stood back up and looked around frantically, not for more guards, but for Cooper. He could practically feel the other thief silently judging him from above.
He tried to put that out of his mind as he cut the second beam and headed for the third. I know you've had setbacks like this too, Cooper. Don't even TRY to tell me otherwise.
Sly panted heavily to himself as he hid behind a stack of crates. The two sand cats that had been following Isis lied unconscious at his feet. The leader herself was too focused on her ranting to notice that she was no longer talking to anyone. That lack of attention was exactly what he needed, if only he could get that damn key already.
Sly took one last deep breath to calm his nerves and shot out of his hiding place again. As he snuck up behind Isis, he was once again close enough to overhear her. "I just don't get it! If he has all of these amazing magical devices at his disposal, why does he care about something as petty as thievery? Surely a bunch of lowly desert bandits can't offer him much." She stopped in place, almost making Sly bump into her swinging tail. "I guess I shouldn't complain. He has given us so much already. Who are we to question a divine being?" Still as she was, Sly had no trouble sneaking his cane into her pocket and snagging the key. He couldn't resist the urge to hold the object up into the air triumphantly.
Yes! Finally! Now to get out of here and-
A tremendous crash echoed through the cavern. It's source was clear, as Sly could plainly see the structure of walkways in front of him shudder and collapse to the ground. Coinciding with this were the panicked screams of multiple sand cats. Le Paradox must have completed his mission, but at the worst possible time.
Sly knew he was in a dilemma now. In a few seconds, Isis would do one of two things. Either she would turn around and spot him instantly, or she would call out to the other sand cats below, allowing them to take notice of the raccoon standing behind their leader. Neither option was appeasing to him, so he took a third.
He raised his cane slightly higher and pushed Isis over the side.
The bandit leader let out a loud, feline screech as she fell. The others, stuck in a state of panic over the collapsed walkways, didn't even notice. Sly wasted no more time in getting over to the treasure vault. As he predicted, there were no guards in sight. He was not alone however. "I see you've finally made it," Le Paradox said, leaning casually against the metal door. "What, you weren't expecting me to actually make it up here?"
In all honesty, he wasn't. Nor was he happy that he did. It wasn't that Sly genuinely wanted to cheat Le Paradox out of returning to the present, but he also didn't want to have to deal with the inevitable dispute once they found the time machine. Oh well, might as well get this over with.
With only a snort in response, Sly walked past Le Paradox and up to the door. He quickly jammed the key into the lock and gave it a sharp twist. There was a loud click, which was completely drowned out by the chaos from below, and Sly pushed the door open.
The room inside made his jaw drop. There were piles of treasure everywhere he looked. The whole place was a thief's wet dream. Le Paradox had a similar reaction as he edged his way towards a particularly shiny diamond. Sly grabbed his wrist just before he could grab it. "Don't do it. Bentley told me about this kind of thing before. If we take anything that we're not supposed to, we could change the future drastically."
"And how could that make things any worse for me?"
"You wanna find out?" Le Paradox bit his lip and glanced back and forth between Sly and the diamond, before finally relenting. "Fine. Let's just find that time machine already."
They scoured the rest of the vault, struggling to resist temptation, until Sly caught a glimpse of metal. "There it is!" he called out and sprinted straight for the machine. But as he lifted the device into his paws and examined it, he immediately noticed something unusual. "What the-?
"What is it?" Le Paradox asked nervously as he came up behind him. "Don't tell me those primitive felines wrecked my machine even further."
"No, it's not that," Sly said in disbelief. "It..it's fixed."
"What?!" The skunk grabbed it out of his paws, Sly too astounded to stop him. Indeed, the time machine was now functioning perfectly, all of the components in their proper place, and lights blinking on and off to await input. "That's impossible! How did those idiots fix it when I couldn't?!"
"We can worry about that later. Right now, let's just get the heck out of here." He saw Le Paradox start to pull the machine away. "Do you really want to fight over this thing again? Now? When we're the middle of an enemy hideout?"
"You...have a point," he conceded. He turned his attention to the machine, where he started pressing buttons and flipping switches. "Let's see...Paris, France...a few hundred years from now...alright, let's-"
He was cut off by a piercing shriek from outside. It wasn't feline.
