Running Like Clockwerk
I don't own Sly Cooper, Carmelita, Neyla or any associated characters. I own Douglas, Jason and Veronica.
Chapter 24 - A Deadlier Dance
"Welcome to the other side, Douglas Smicktor..."
Douglas' eyes snapped open upon hearing the voice ring through his ears.
"What the?" He exclaimed, looking around him. "Where, huh?"
Very confused would be a light term for how he was feeling right now. One minute he was in a van with Bentley, the next...
He was standing on what looked to be a large tooth inside of the 'jaws' of a huge dragon made out of rock?
"Over here boy!" The voice called again. "Don't say you've forgotten about me already have you?"
Douglas looked ahead, and saw the owner of the voice. Mz. Ruby
"My oh my..." Ruby grinned darkly. "You found out that Clockwerk killed yo momma and papa..."
"Like you didn't know!" Douglas went to pull out his shotgun, only to find it had vanished.
"Oh, we all knew, except that knucklehead Muggshot. We can't trust him to remember what day it is, let alone keep a secret. But back to business!" She laughed, raising a hand to the sky. "The dark purple mist around us is one of the most powerful voodoo spells ever created... It allows us to access a void between the living and the dead, the past and the present, the truth and the lies..."
"What are you talking about?" Douglas demanded.
"This is where it all ended for me... Despite all the Vicious Voodoo at my disposal, A Deadly Dance was to be my downfall... Here, Sly Cooper defeated me fair and square... And now it's time to see if you can do the same!"
"What?"
"Remember in Paris? Your meeting with Muggshot was no accident. We set him up to fight you, and you did very well to outsmart and beat him."
"So what? Now you guys are turning on your own team?" The fox said, slightly relieved to find his nightstick still in his possession.
"Don't be so naive my friend... Unlike Muggshot, I know what's really going on here... If you'll listen to what I have to say, you'll learn more than any file could tell you!"
Douglas stayed silent, but did not let his guard down for a moment.
"Although Clockwerk is all machine now..." Ruby continued. "He was once flesh and bone, so his soul still exists, trapped inside a frame of steel and bolts. I can see into spirit of his heart, of his mind, of the body that once was. I can see what he sees, and I can hear what he hears.
I've known for a long time what the true purpose of the Fiendish Five was, but it was only after he was rebuilt that I found out our new purpose - and it involves you.
Don't you realise your meeting with Cooper have been no coincidence? Don't you see that you and Sly are quite similar?
He once broke into Inspector Fox's office, and you broke into a prison.
He rebuilt a legacy when he put the Thievius Raccoonus back together, and so did you in rebuilding Clockwerk.
I'm disappointed in myself for not seeing it sooner... You and Cooper... You've both got that same vibe... Most distastefully bad juju."
"Sorry for disappointing you then." Douglas spoke. "I'll make it up to you by sending you to the graveyard. Then you can play with all the zombies you like!" He pulled out his nightstick, ready to fight.
Ruby laughed. "Oh Douglas... I see your mouth moving, but all I hear is blah... blah... blah! Well, if jaws need to flap... THEN LET THEM FLAP!"
Suddenly, the jaws of the rock dragon began moving, it's fanged teeth coming down on sharpened teeth sticking out from the deadly voodoo swamp water below.
Douglas looked around him. The only route was seemingly to head forward, but how was he going to get across those large gaps? It's not like he can land on the points of those fangs can he?
"See you in the next world..." Ruby grinned again, gesturing for Douglas to come and fight. "...Douglas Smicktor..."
Douglas easily jumped from the flat tooth he was on to the next one. Now there was a problem. There was a sharp fang-like tooth sticking out of the swamp, with a similar tooth above periodically crashing down onto it.
'How am I gonna get past this?' He thought, looking ahead to the flat tooth on the other side of the fang.
It was then Douglas noticed something. When the above tooth wasn't smashing into the other, there were odd little 'stars' floating around the point of the lower tooth.
They were that odd, he'd seen them before on ladders, pipes, small tunnels and tight ledges, but he'd always written them off as just his eyes playing tricks on him. That or he needed some food, and quickly.
But somehow, just now, they seemed to mean something...
'Jump...' A faint voice seemed to speak through the voodoo mist.
'What?' The fox thought. 'Did I hear that?'
'Jump... Circle...'
"...Ah forget it..." Douglas said, giving up on trying to understand what was going on, and just jumped towards the tooth, and thought 'circle'.
Rioichi Cooper's Ninja Spire Jump - developed when breaking into the heavily fortified temples of Japan, became a commonly used manoeuvre by the members of the Cooper clan. The ability to land on sharpened points, such as the tops of stalagmites, rocks, but also small areas like the tops of flagpoles became extremely helpful in heists.
Only a master thief could learn it and use it well.
Douglas therefore had no idea of the importance of the fact that he'd just done so, even as he leapt to the far flat tooth.
He looked back at the fang as the deadly tooth above came slamming down in complete shock. He couldn't believe that he'd just pulled that off!
'That same vibe...' Ruby thought to herself, watching as the purple fox, now full of confidence, began making his way across the path of teeth towards the platform she was on.
Barely moments after Douglas landed on the platform; Ruby slammed her tail down, causing a wave of mojo energy to spread out towards him. Jumping (and also flipping in mid-air without really thinking about it) over it, he landed near her and struck out with his nightstick.
But Ruby had vanished, leaving him only hitting thin air.
"Sunva..." Douglas muttered, seeing that Ruby had appeared on a far-away platform at the other end of a stretch of swamp water.
"Don't look so annoyed..." Rub spoke as if everything going on was perfectly normal. "Just because I didn't bring your little 'boomstick' into this memory. You look so distant over there... How about I have my servant Chumley escort you over here?"
"Oh, so now you're inviting me to come over there?" Douglas was rightfully cautious. "No dice. Why should I trust you and your crazy dream world? How do I know you're not just gonna have me dropped into this voodoo gunk?"
"Quite true! Quite true..." Ruby smiled. "But the only catch is just a little game I like to play with all my... Annoying guests! I want to see how well you pay attention... I'll unleash my mighty mojo magic upon you... If you repeat what I do, you'll dodge it just fine! If not, you'll get fried!"
Douglas looked down, and saw a turtle shell come out off the water.
'Looks sturdy enough I guess...' He thought. 'All right, I'll play this little dark side game of Simon Says...'
The turtle started moving across the water, with Douglas carefully watching Mz. Ruby up ahead.
"Dig! Dig! Dig!" She chanted, clapping her hands to her right, unleashing what looked to be like three bursts of voodoo magic in the shape of floating pink squares.
"Dig! Dig! Dig!" Douglas shouted back as he dodged each shape as it passed his left side.
"Voo! Voo! Voo!" Ruby chanted again, clapping her hands above her head and unleashing three green triangles.
"Voo! Voo! Voo!" The fox ducked under the blasts coming at him.
"That! That! That!" Now she fired three red circles.
"That! That! That!" Which were dodged on his right side.
"Dig! That! Dig!" A different combination of magic, but one that failed to hit. "Dig! That! Dig!"
"That! Dig! That!" "That! Dig! That!"
"Dig! Voo! That!" "Dig! Voo! That!"
"That! Voo! Dig!" "That! Voo! Dig!"
"Dig!" "Dig!"
"That!" "That!"
"Voo!" "Voo!"
"Doo!"
Douglas leapt over the final blast, that seemed to completely destroy the poor turtle servant, and landed safely on the platform. He wasted no time in leaping forward, and striking into Mz. Ruby. But once again, she seemed to disappear into thin air again.
"Not bad... Not bad at all... It's obvious what he sees in you Douglas..." Ruby's voice called out. "But let's try something else..."
"What, another one of your games?" Douglas shouted out, looking around him.
"You could say that..."
The purple mist floating around the area suddenly swelled up around Douglas, covering his whole body for a moment. Just a quickly as it had appeared, the mist then settled and floated away, leaving Douglas to take in the new surroundings he was in.
"Behold!" Ruby's voice called out again. "Deep inside the thickest, darkest swampland of my home was a place where I sent those unworthy of my time... A place where sin is an entry fee, and lives are devoured as if they meant nothing!"
Douglas seemed now to be in a thick swamp forest, full of trees sticking out of the unhealthy looking water, and branches lying on the surface. He turned around to see an almost cell-like structure made out of decaying wood.
"Welcome... To The Lair of the Beast!" Ruby called out, before laughing.
As she laughed, the water around the patch of ground he was on seemed to move hard and splash upward. There was something in the water, and it was big.
'This ain't good...' The purple fox thought, taking a tentative step onto the branch connected to the ground he was on.
As soon as he did so, The Beast burst out of the water, destroying the tree cell.
Douglas only needed a second to look at The Beast before he ran along the thin branch on the water, using his nightstick to smash the candles that were blocking his way, fearing for his life.
He leapt across a gap onto the next branch, hearing the snap as the monster giving chase easily destroyed the previous branch. A short run and Douglas jumped again, using his nightstick to hang onto a hook-like branch above the water before swinging quickly to the next branch.
Douglas had no time to think, so did not give any thought to the fact that he was able to easily run across such thin spaces like he was doing, or the fact that his nightstick automatically extended to allow swinging on the hook just moment ago.
Probably because he'd never attempted, or needed to, run or move like he was currently doing.
Another jump, and Douglas was now running up a sloping branch above the water, quickly jumping to a high branch on a tree. Moments later he jumped again to a similar branch inches away, before landing on a slippery vine that allowed him to go around a tall trunk like he was on a helter-skelter.
At the bottom, he quickly continued on across a branch on the water as The Beast charged through the trees in front of it with frightening ease.
'Why are all these candles here?" Douglas was able to think as he smashed through them while running along the branch, before jumping off the end, swinging on a hook and landing on the next branch.
'This doesn't even make any sense!' He added to himself, before repeating the swinging process and running up another sloping branch, smashing more candles as he went up.
'Oh man, it's catching up!' he thought, hearing The Beast draw closer, as he jumped to another branch, ran along it, then to a slightly bouncy branch off a tree.
Douglas barely had time to make the final leap across from the tree to the large stone hand platform, before The Beast snapped its way through it, before diving into the water.
Douglas breathed heavily, slumping down onto the stone, looking up at the full moon night sky through the purple voodoo mist.
He hadn't noticed before, but it was also raining right now. Yet the rain didn't seem to be having any effect on the mist, or himself. The rain wasn't making anything wet, even though it was quite a bit.
"Well done Douglas..." Ruby's voice called out again, just as the purple mist swelled around him once again. "There's one last test I have for you..."
The mist cleared again, and Douglas found himself standing up, now armed with his energy shotgun, standing on what looked like a rickety wooden dock on the bank of a swamp river.
"Let's see you fire your way though this little river path!" Ruby said. "If you can make it to the end, then I'll concede defeat... If not... Then I'll leave your soul to rot in the realm of the undead!"
"Hmm... Tough choice..." Douglas said, clicking his gun ready to fire, and running along the dock.
At the end, he found a riverboat. He stepped onto it, and as soon as he did, it began travelling up the river.
"More voodoo tricks..." He mused, glancing around at all the trees and strange ceremonial masks hangs from poles in the river. "Speaking of voodoo!"
He noticed a green, glowing monument on a small piece of ground. As the boat approached, a dark ghost suddenly burst out of it, lunging towards him. Quickly, he fired his gun, blasting at the ghosts that were appearing from it into thin air, before destroying the monument itself.
'Alright...' Douglas thought, switching his gun to it's rapid-fire mode. 'Destroy the towers, destroy the ghosts.'
A short time later, the boat began to approach another glowing monument. Douglas blasted away again, but this time found a crude barrier of stone and metal spikes were blocking his fire. In between blast the approaching ghosts, he fired at the wall. Breaking through it, he was then easily able to destroy the tower.
A banshee-like scream then caught his attention, and Douglas had to roll out of the way of a huge flaming skull as it came flying towards him. Firing again, he aimed for the wall in front of the monster that was throwing it's own skull head towards him as it regenerated. In between rolling for safety, he was ably to reduce the wall to small pieces, taking out the creature with one blast.
'This is getting too spooky for me...' Douglas thought, as the boat approached dry land. 'Oh WHAT? Two towers?"
Indeed, Douglas was now facing two glowing monuments on the land ahead. Quickly blasting away, he had to carefully dodge and roll out of the way of the many ghosts coming out of them. After blasting the right tower, he leapt onto dry land, taking out the left tower behind and the remaining ghosts.
He shook his head, before turning his attention to the route ahead. Stepping between the tribal masks sticking out of the ground, he blasted away at the wall blocking his way, before stepping through the gap he created.
As soon as he did, another flaming skull monster appeared behind a wall blockade up ahead and began launching heads at him.
Zigzagging his way from one side of the small area he was now in to the other, Douglas fired away at the wall, taking out the many candles in front of him as he did so while crumbling the wall with each shot.
His agility was more than enough to avoid death by fiery head, and in no time Douglas had broken through the defences and the monster was history.
Before going on ahead, the fox took a moment to look ahead, and saw - to his dismay - that there another two glowing monuments ahead, guarded by similar wall defences.
"Here goes..." He sighed, running into the area and firing like there was no tomorrow.
Using the same method of running from one side to the other again, Douglas was able to keep the onslaught of spirits at bay while still working away at the walls that stood between him and the towers.
"Is this your idea of fun?" Smicktor shouted out, directing his question to Mz. Ruby, as he finally took out the first tower, then the second.
He got no response, so took out his anger on an innocent candle by blasting it, before moving onward and up a sloped ramp.
He grumbled again, pushing his way through some thick plants and grass that were in front of him. He ducked under a tree-branch, before stepping through another bush and onto a ground path.
"This is different..." Douglas remarked, looking down on the ground. "Doesn't really look so... Swamp like... In fact..."
Douglas looked around him. He wasn't in a swamp anymore. By the looks of things, it looked like he was more in an Indian jungle.
He looked straight ahead, and saw the Cooper van up ahead.
He ran up to it, ignoring the many chicken feathers around it and the fact the purple mist had vanished from around him, opening up the driver's side and getting inside.
He found Bentley sleeping in the passenger's seat, just like he had been before all the engine problems had just happened.
Confused, he got in, strapped himself back in, and turned the engine on.
It roared into perfect life, as if there hadn't been a problem.
The noise woke the turtle up, who yawned back into alertness.
"Wow... That was a strange dream..." He said, adjusting the position of his glasses. "Reminded me of the time in the Haitian jungle when me and the gang fought..."
"Mz. Ruby?" Douglas finished the sentence for him.
"Why, yes!" Bentley said, a little surprised. "How did...?"
"Lucky guess." The fox quickly answered, before driving as fast as he could out of jungle.
Location: Commissioner Barkley's Office, Interpol HQ, Paris, France
Time: 14:32
"There's something wrong about this..." Barkley thought out loud, rubbing his moustache. "Inspector Fox is too black and white to work with Cooper like Neyla is stating..."
He picked up the newspaper on his desk, and read the front page.
Sinister Sixth Evidence No. 55-KB
The Sucker Punch Daily article on the arrest of Mz. Ruby
'Big Bad Voodoo Mama Turns Herself In!
In a shocking turn of events, the sinister Mz. Ruby - head voodoo priestess of the Fiendish Four - last night turned herself in to local police authorities in India, just a few miles from the scenes of the arrest of Sly Cooper just yesterday.
Mz. Ruby offered only that she 'Had served her purpose' and that 'Douglas Smicktor had proved himself'.
So it seems that in two weeks, Smicktor has taken out two members of the Fiendish Five, now reducing them to the Fiendish Three. One must wonder: Why the sudden change of heart? Is Clockwerk the next target?
Please turn to pages 3-10 for a full round up of these and yesterday's events.'
Barkley smiled. He was very right in thinking that Douglas was alive after all, and that there was a chance he could come over to the right side of the law.
Maybe Carmelita's arrest could be a good thing. After all, there was still a member of the Cooper Gang at large, who would probably try to break his team-mates out soon. If the rumours are true, then if Douglas and her met again...
Only time would tell...