A/N: My third son was born December 29th, 2005 at 8:20pm. 18 inches, 6pounds, 22 days early. Tyler DeForest Carpenter-Weaver. Pro.
Chapter 11 "The Butterfly Spreads Its Wings."
Carmelita rubbed her eyes with the back of her paws. Her short nap proved to be a spirit lifter, as her mood had improved since her last argument with Chintzy. As the cloud of her dream lifted and her mind became clear again, she realized the man speaking to her in her dreams was actually Sly Cooper. She wasn't actually sure why she couldn't remember his voice in the dream itself, however.
Memories of his words, recalling some of the lexis he'd said to her in the dream, caused her to blush. She'd never had a man simply, bluntly and yet so very romantically asked her to make love before and the thought sent shivers down her spine. It was a dream yet she wasn't about to let it run her life, either.
The door to her room was still shut and the lights were still off. There was a window on the facing wall; drapes were a pile of dusty cloth on the floor. For the most part, they were ruined from moths. The window let in just enough evening illumination to allow her to see and from what she could tell, the snow had tapered off for the moment.
Inspector Fox approached a grimy old mirror in the dimly lit room. She fluffed her hair with her fingers, eyeing the beauty mark upon her left cheek. She then lifted her chin, glancing down the length of her muzzle at herself. "You look like hell," She finally mused aloud. Indeed, in the dark, she did. Foxes possessed a natural ability to see in dim lighting. Their pupils were slitted in a vertical line, which allowed in more light, like a cat's eye.
While Karla Chintzy, being half cat and half fox, could probably see better in the dark than most, Sly was very capable as well, being a nocturnal raccoon. Carmelita continued to fluff her hair for another moment before simply shaking her head from side to side. She wasn't quite vain enough to try and fix anything this futile. She needed a shower and a fresh pair of clothes.
Some saw her as slightly narcissistic. Whenever Sly had stroked her feminine ego, whether she was conceited or not, the vixen would reflect on her looks at a later time. The thing is, she even let herself get to the point where she would come to work in red lacquered nails and tacky crimson lipstick. That came to an end once she and Cooper started a short relationship. She never went back to the bold makeup.
Constable Cooper… He was a short lived memory that occupied several months of her life. Was it even real? Perhaps it was a dream and her dreams were reality. She didn't want to think about it. She once had everything and now she had nothing but confusion, hurt and memories.
She felt that a relationship with him was futile; he would always go back to his thieving ways. Now, she was questioning herself over how true that statement really was. He left and by the time she caught up with him, he was quoting rumors of Clockwerk's return.
However, now she realized it was a realistic possibility. If what he had in his case-file was true, his family was haunted by that metallic freak. Laying the bird to rest a third and final time was something he needed to do to secure his future family, before settling down. She vaguely understood his reasoning for leaving so very suddenly. Was a future together a possibility?
The vixen was voracious for vengeance against those that caused her relationship to fail. She was beyond rapacious for revenge. No, Carmelita Montoya Fox wanted to see these evil doers laid to waste the way they were strewn about the battlefield in her last dream. She had to wonder if that's what the dream meant.
She felt sort of selfish; acquisitive, covetous, materialistic. She felt predatory; for the first time, she felt as aggressive as her reputation had labeled her to be. The Inspector wanted to go in and finish this once and for all.
Carmelita knew no other way of getting everything settled. These were the criminals that took her job away from her. And the worst part of everything was, no matter how evil they were or how powerful they were… they were still just common criminals in the end.
She went for the door and turned the knob, stepping out into a slightly brighter room. Seeing Karla sitting on a sturdy looking shelf on the wall caused Carmelita to smirk. She muttered a plainly vituperative word beneath her breath, so that the cussword went unheard. Continuing through that room, she passed Murray who was still dancing to his less-than-purchased iPod.
In the final room of that floor, she stopped in front of Sly, offering him a slow nod. "What's the plan, Ringtail?"
Cooper's eyes flitted pensively about, returning to Carmelita and offering a weak smile. "Bentley is running late and I'm afraid we're running out of time to stop them from finishing Clockwerk. Feeling better?" He asked.
"Much," She replied with an assertive tone. Her firm retort told him that she was, indeed, feeling much better. She shrugged then asked, "What about you? You look tired, Cooper." He nodded, but gave no rebuttal. It caused a frown to mar her features slightly. "Do you need to rest, Sly?"
"No, I'm just worried," He finally admitted, turning back to a window on the corner of the building. "The snow is getting worse and I can't contact him via Binoc-u-com. I don't have a means to check the internet and see if his train was delayed and we can't afford to wait for much longer."
"He may be the brains of many operations but together, we're not stupid," Carmelita explained. She paused, perhaps for effect, then added, "We could work out some sort of proposition with the Czech Republic Government and level that building."
"I've got to say that I've noticed it takes some time for Governments to work up to that point," Sly chuckled dryly. "First they try diplomacy. But they don't even realize what sort of force is in that building to begin with. The rest of the world doesn't believe someone can manipulate shadows, teleport or that immortality is real."
Carmelita laid her ears flat for a moment before simply announcing, "Bentley will find a way here, if the train is delayed. If he's as smart as our criminal psych profile makes him out to be, he should be arriving soon." She turned, leaving the room, moving around the dancing Murray again.
In passing Karla, she narrowed her eyes and laid her ears flat once more, grumbling, "What're you looking at, lady?" In reply to her attitude, Karla simply smiled. Not just any smile, but more of a Cheshire grin was offered. Carmelita clinched her paws into fists, approaching the finicky Felox on the shelf, whose thick brush (A/N: Brush is the technical name for a Fox's Tail) was swishing to and fro. Before Carmelita could say something else, a bolt of pure energy lanced in through the window across the room, slamming into the wall between the girls.
Both were thrown to the floor hard. Karla was dazed and didn't teleport away, just yet. She brought her gaze to the burn mark in the drywall, where an exposed metal rod could be seen, glowing orange, with heat from the electrical charge. Sparks fluttered from the end of it, where an electrical socket used to be.
Carmelita noticed it too, then jerked her head away, to peer out through the window. "What the hell was that?" Asked Inspector Fox.
"Only one being known to mankind can throw a javelin made of lightning," Karla moaned.
"Zeus and Jupiter, Greek and Roman god of thunder?" Carmelita wondered aloud in a sarcastic reply.
"No," Karla growled softly. "The Reaper," She said, turning to face Carmelita who was still peering out through the window. "Stay down!" She hissed to the Inspector, causing the vixen to slide beneath the window, staying out of the line of fire.
"Friends of yours?" Carmelita grumbled.
"Hardly," Chintzy huffed, keeping low as well. "You're damn lucky I don't teleport out of here and save my own hide. Although… I'll do that if things get ruff," She promised, adding, "But if they do get bad, indeed, you guys are on your own. So do what I'm telling you to do and stay down." Karla sighed softly, muttering to herself about how this situation was now on the verge of getting out of control.
"This guy is pretty nefarious, Karla?" Inquired the ex-Inspector, staying flat on the floor, beneath the line of sight of the window.
"They call him The Reaper for a reason," Karla exclaimed, "He kills people and that's it. It's the end of the line. The only person who got close enough to attack him had decided to jam a sword into Reaper's chest. The man was electrocuted through the metal of the blade, as soon as it touched Reaper's body." Karla Chintzy paused and the half-breed shook her head slowly before continuing. "Being immortal, he used lightning to cauterize the wound. I guess he has no heart because that sword should have pierced it; I don't know how to beat him."
"Then it's time to learn until Bentley arrives to figure things out for us," Carmelita said, crawling across the floor, staying beneath the window line of sight, heading into the next room, towards Murray and Sly. It was time to warn them to get down without shouting, to attract attention, not knowing how far away this guy was. Who knew if he was only the next rooftop over, or something? Worse yet, Murray couldn't hear over the iPod headset.
Cooper, on the other hand, had not only heard the blast, but he saw the lightning bolt attack, as he'd been facing a window in the room further down the building. He, too, had dropped to the floor, crawling passed Murray in a windowless hallway, towards Carmelita. The hippo had his eyes shut, performing off-time dance steps and Sly thought it best he stay where he was, as it would be safe for the burley target.
"The Reaper has come for us," Karla muttered. Sly continued to slither across the ground, approaching both women, staying low. He came parallel to Carmelita, minus his cane and his hat. She turned to face him, looking like she expected him to belt out a plan.
"I've got something to tell you," Sly told her with a half smile.
"You've got a plan?" The vixen asked, expectantly. "What is it; can we beat this guy or what?" Before Karla could shoot down Carmelita's hopes of stopping such a foe, Sly said something to catch both women off guard.
"I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry for lying about my amnesia," He expressed in a thoughtful sort of manner. It made no sense. Here they were, getting lightning bolts thrown at them like the hand of a demigod itself, and he was speaking friendly to her, apologizing about something that made no difference at this point. Carmelita just blinked.
Sly's half-smile turned into an awkward sort of grimace. He felt like this was going down the wrong path and so he decided to try something a bit blunter for once. "I tried to talk to you while you were sleeping, and I sort of practiced what I wanted to say, but you were repeating things back to me all wrong and, for the first time ever, I got nervous… so I left. Anyhow, I'm sorry. I did it because I wanted to be with you and I left because I wanted to protect you."
"Sly… I," She paused, shaking her head then with an equal bluntness, replied, "I don't know what to say."
"You don't need to say anything," He told her. "For once, it's the other way around and I just wanted you to listen. That said, with the truth out, I think we're ready to fight side by side. Something a little more personal than back at the café the other day. What'd'ya think?"
"I think I'm ready to fight side by side," She said. Karla rolled her eyes, crawling over to the two as another flash of energy lanced over her head, with a violent arc at the tip. The bolt was at an angle, meant to hit the three on the floor, but it curved at the end, upwards towards the wall, hitting the exposed metal pole that lead into the electrical line. The lights went out.
Even Karla Chintzy's breath had caught for a moment, followed by a sigh of relief once the metal conduit of a plainly exposed electrical socket had absorbed the flow of lightning current. "That was luck! Scatter, now!" She ordered. Carmelita rolled to the left and Sly went to the right, snatching his hat and cane from their resting place up against a wall nearby.
Karla, predictably, teleported into the room where Murray was, then teleported again, bringing Murray to another floor of the building, where he'd be safe. Using teleportation, she returned to the upstairs room, quickly zapping Carmelita and Sly to safety. From there, the gang was secured in a room with no windows.
Another explosive noise came from upstairs. Smoke began to pour out through the heat register and Karla narrowed her eyes in the darkness. She could see the thick film even through the inky void. "Get down. A fire has started upstairs; the smoke is coming in through the heating vents. Guess we'll have to relocate."
"Guess so," Sly muttered, tugging on Carmelita's sleeve as the two came to their feet. He approached Murray and tugged one of the headphone pieces out of the hippo's ear. "C'mon bud, we're under attack, hit pause and let's get out of here."
"Who's attacking us?" Murray said, blinking his eyes rapidly, seeing that the room was now dark and from the sound of his own voice, he knew he wasn't in a hallway anymore. "And where are we?"
"We're downstairs! If you didn't dance with your eyes closed, you'd know what's going on," Carmelita said, approaching him with her paws extended, pushing him towards the nearest door. "We've got to move. We're being attacked by some jerk that has more powers. I'm tired of seeing people with powers and I don't even have my gun; let's go."
"Some jerk?" Murray exclaimed, almost immediately ready to fight. "And don't feel bad Carmelita, I'm here without the van! I sure miss my van; what jerk is attacking us?" He asked, cycling through the topics like an attention deficit child.
"Yeah, Sire's assassin," Karla replied, coming besides Carmelita to push Murray towards the door. "Let's get out of here. Run now; talk later, let's go!" She said which Carmelita actually had to agree with.
The group headed for the stairs, moving down to the first floor. Carmelita groused softly about wasted time in having set up a safe house that was now under attack. Meanwhile, the rest of them kept relatively quiet. They ran through an old laundry room on the first floor. It was lined with washers and dryers that looked rusted out and useless, the emergency fire-detection auxiliary lighting was on in this room.
The coterie headed out through the door at the back, dashing into a snowy alleyway. To their surprise, an old pickup truck was there, waiting. Sly was the first to speak, exclaiming, "Bentley! Good timing, buddy! Everyone, get in the back, let's roll!" Murray snatched Carmelita and Karla around the waist in his arms then hopped up into the frost-shrouded bed liner.
"HIT IT!" Sly called, somersaulting into the back of the truck bed, wrapping his paws around the metal frame where the back window of the truck cab was still open. His paws clinched into the ice covered metal but his adrenaline kept him from feeling the bite of the cold just yet. The Truck lurched forward and Murray released Karla, using the free arm to grab Sly to secure the lightweight raccoon from flying off the back of the pickup.
"Gotcha lil' buddy," Murray bellowed over the truck's roaring engine. The pickup truck cut to the right, hard, causing everyone to shift to the left. Luckily, Murray allowed his body to be the one to hit the side of the truck bed; everyone else sandwiched up against his overly soft torso, so that no one was really squished.
The hippo hooked his right arm around Carmelita and Karla, keeping them pressed together, but ensuring that neither would go flying, then he used his left hand to pull Sly into the dog-pile. "Oof," Sly grunted, sandwiched up against the others, "Uh, thanks big guy. I think we're all safe now," He reassured Murray, whose grip loosened slightly, allowing Karla and Carmelita to breathe, finally.
The truck increased in speed, occasionally jerking to the left or right in anticipation. Bentley skillfully evaded the lightning strikes, which curved towards the occasional metal lamp posts for the most part. One came very close, however, slamming into a metal manhole cover, narrowly missing the old, rusted out Chevrolet.
"Why does he keep missing?" Sly shouted towards the square window in the back window of the pickup truck.
Penelope was quick to reply, leaving Bentley to concentrate on the road. "Because we're sitting on four rubber tires, so we're not as grounded as the objects that he IS hitting!" She called back, shouting over the roar of the Chevy's motor, which reacted to the accelerator that was mashed to the floor.
Bentley downshifted into second gear, which caused the truck to lurch forward again, increasing dramatically in speed. He was redlining the old pickup, which shuttered hard under the stress. The dashboard was rattling loudly from the demand that the pickup was under. The engine, however, responded reliably.
"Can't we go any faster?" Carmelita shouted, from where she was in the back of the pickup.
"Not without flipping us over, in this snow!" Bentley called back, adding, "Now let me drive, you guys!" Silence among the peanut gallery had resumed, leaving only the roar of the engine. Sly glanced up, seeing the building they had come from, fading into the distance. It was an orange blob now; the roof was in full flaming glory, lighting up the midnight sky like a beacon on the horizon.
The tortoise was clever, however. He knew something would come to an apex and only had once chance to use his next device, so he'd saved it during the ride here. The truck pulled into a loop, making a figure-eight around the block, avoiding the lightning strikes as best as possible. "He's eventually going to get lucky and hit us," Bentley mused aloud. Not that those in the back of the truck could hear him, but Penelope could.
"It is probability," She added, causing Bentley to nod in agreement. He pulled the truck into a parking garage and quickly pulled into a parking space, immediately backing out of the space and pointing the truck towards the exit, the way they came in.
"Everyone, stay completely still out there," Bentley instructed through the back window of the truck's cab. "I'm going to engage a cloaking device that mirrors what's beneath us, so from his elevated position, all he sees is the ground. We're going to drive back over the road tracks we've already made, leaving him to believe we're staying in this building!"
Sly sat up, blinking rapidly. "Bentley, that's amazing!" He said, too impressed to say much more than that. Bentley reminded them to get down, stay low and not to move. It may have been cold in the back of the pickup truck but it was their only way of getting out safely. With Bentley being as clever as a fox, going back over his own track prints, they felt confident in their escape.
Murray was directed to hand the remaining duffle back through the open window into the truck cab. Penelope pulled the object out from the bag and handed it to Bentley, who placed the flat panel machine on the dashboard, running two wires into the old radio of the pickup truck. Once the grounding probes were attached, he pulled a zip-cord wire out of the machine and yanked several long feet of slack free.
Passing the last cable out through the back window, he handed it to Murray. "Now clip the end to the metal siding of the truck bedding," Bentley ordered. The hippo did so with haste. Then Bentley opened the driver side door, moved from the truck's driver seat, putting his metal legs on the ground.
The tortoise leaned into the pickup truck and reached for a cordless drill that was in the duffle. With a large attachment on the front, he began to drill a hole into the floor of the truck, avoiding the transmission box. "This mission's zenith is far from being in sight at this rate," Groused Bentley, garnishing no rebuttal.
Once the hole was facing down towards the ground, he pulled one last telescoping cable from the machine on the dash. Penelope was only too happy to help with this endeavor, and he ran the thick wire into the hole in the floor, so that the end of the cable hung beneath the truck. It was thicker than the other cables with a rounded lens on the end.
Bentley quickly drew out a piece of paper and a pencil, licking the tip before writing. "…And if Y Mx+b, the plot of interception should equate to Y being here. I would gauge one half mile," He noted to himself, projecting an angle of the slope from which the lightning bolts had been coming. "Mathematically, he's far enough away and at a steep enough angle that this should work!"
"I think we're all ready to believe in your machine," Carmelita said before Sly had the chance to do the same. Then she added, "But if you don't hurry, he's going to fry this building with US inside of it! Impress us all you want, but will you hurry it up, already?"
Bentley adjusted his glasses, offering an awkward, lopsided sort of half-grin. "This is a fiber optic cable that is used to see the image of the ground beneath us," He explained for everyone. "Whatever is beneath the truck is projected upwards so it's a grainy form of stealth. Anyone approaching the truck at a close distance would see a heavily distorted blur and know where we are, but from wherever this guy is, at his distance, we'll blend in with the snow and the tracks in the snow that we've already made. We're ready!"
The ever impressive Turtle climbed back into the truck, handing the cordless drill over to Penelope who stashed it in the duffle again. Bentley buckled his safety belt, started the truck, punched in a few keys on the machine then put the truck into gear. He would have had Murray drive but there was just no time. Murray was also of a larger build, able to stand the cold better than Bentley's scrawny frame.
It was certainly Bentley's time to shine. He eased the truck out, onto the road, following the path previously used to enter the building. While tricky, Bentley kept the wheels perfectly over the formerly made tracks, slowly driving out the way he came in. They followed their tracks in the snow, so as not to make new ones, just yet. So far, the plan was working perfectly. The Reaper leapt from rooftop to rooftop, occasionally throwing deadly bolts of lightning at the now-abandoned parking garage.
Sly and the crew continued to watch as the tiny figure of a man hopped from building to building, throwing massive beams of white hot light into the garage that shrank in the distance. Bentley, once again, proved to be incredibly brilliant. Once the building was out of view, he turned the truck away from the path.
A new set of loops were tracked around the block, surrounding multiple buildings in the area. Once a confusing set of snow tracks were left, masking their destination, Bentley headed back towards a new abandoned building. This new building would become the safe-house and before long, the tracks would probably cover themselves up. It all depended on the weather, which just happened to be calling for more snow within the hour.
In the distance, two rooftops were now raging with flames on the Prague Skyline. The Reaper was obviously a deadly opponent. Carmelita and the rest of the mob could only hope that Bentley wouldn't run out of tricks any time soon. At this point, the lil' green guy was surly at the top of his game. Sly finally sat up, leaning his head in through the open window in the back of the truck's cab.
Cooper was full of compliments, telling his friend, "You're my little green guardian angel, buddy. Murray's back here saying… that as a get-away driver, he couldn't have done a better job himself, even if he tried his best. Good job, Bentley!"
The tortoise smiled sheepishly. "Aw, thanks guys," He said, trying not to blush when Penelope leaned forward and placed her lips against the side of his face. The truth of the matter was, he went from a fried green tomato to a bright red one, in skin hue.
"I'm worried though," Carmelita said, sitting up in the back of the truck. Bentley backed the pickup into an old loading dock at the back of the building, cutting the engine off. Power to the cloaking device had also become exhausted. An orange light began to blink on the metal device on the dashboard and the truck fizzled back into a detailed object, filled with occupants.
"What's on your mind?" Sly asked, pulling his head from the window and turning to tilt it slightly at her.
"We've got a power-hungry demigod assassin on our trail," She mused with a frown.
Bentley shook his head slightly, "Don't worry about the sullen semantics, Inspector Fox. We'll stop these guys, expose them to the public world if we have to, and let the government fight them. Then we'll fade out of the picture and you'll have your job back when everyone has forgotten and your suspension has become old news, replaced by new news of super naturals among us."
"No," Carmelita said, moving up to the window of the cab, besides Cooper. "I'm worried that this Sire guy has already figured we'll outwit and outmaneuver this Assassin and in the mean time, they'll have bought themselves enough time to finish Clockwerk. Then we'll have that much more on our shoulders to worry about!"
Steven lowered the welding gun, shutting off the soft blue flame that emanated from the tip. He lifted his welding goggles and glanced up at Clockwerk with a grin. "The time has come," Cogitated the skunk. He beamed up at his creation, almost leering at it with a distorted sort of pride. "We have to change the tide of this war, art thou ready to do thy part, mine creation?"
"After we take care of Sire," Clockwerk mused softly, taking but a moment to ruminate his own involvement in this plot. He paused then asked, "You give me my legs and we leave this tiny place?"
"Indeed, such is the plan of action," Steven replied, with a firm nod. "I shall fetch the lion. Know thy job and execute with precision, minion of mine. Cleft him in twain; cut him down. With exacting accuracy, smite him in one fell swoop!" It was obvious that Steven had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He no longer wished to answer to anyone but himself. Now, he had the means to make that wish possible.
The one problem was that he was growing too emotional over this. Clockwerk narrowed his gaze at the tiny clockmaker, for whom he owed his life many times over, throughout the years. All that mattered to Steven was that his thousand year-old creation would mark the downfall of order and tip the scales of balance. The Millennial metallic menace pondered ulterior motives, however.
Once the plan was in motion, he left the room to find The Sire and bring the Bishonen-faced lion into the workshop. It was a ploy that he had planned out, completely. Now it was time to execute the plan and to equally execute The Sire. The Civil War among the circle of evil was about to begin. The metaphorical butterfly and its effect of the proven chaos theory was about to spread its unholy wings throughout the world. The ripple of the strongest earthquake was about to be unleashed on the dark-side of the railroad tracks.
Only the creator would know if that seismic ripple would reach the rest of the world and shake cities to their foundations in the wake of such a war. With The Reaper preoccupied on the streets of Prague, only one thing stood in Steven's way: Devine intervention of Fate. But with a world of Freewill, would such a thing come to pass, or would the war of Evil against Evil grow beyond all means of control, like a snowball rolling down the side of a snow-covered mountain?
A/N: Well, was the chapter pro? Carmelita didn't recognize Sly's voice in the dream because he was speaking out loud in the room, practicing what he was going to tell her while she slept. Her unconscious mind distorted some of what he said into parables and messages that may or may not play into later events. Karla wasn't as much of an important factor in this chapter; sorry Karla Fans. More Karla next chapter than in this one. :)
My home internet has been down or this chapter would have been posted 2 or 3 days ago. Blah! It's time to eat... a chocolate chip cookie. Yum.