SLINGING THROUGH THE TREES

Operation: Water You Waiting For

The group of them leaves the safe-house all at once, then split up to get to their stations. Murray knows Sly is nearby as he walks the streets, but that doesn't mean he can see Sly. It's more a sense, an idea of shadows a little too deep to be real, a flicker of movement by a chimney every now and then, that alerts Murray his friend is nearby. Their jobs start nearby.

Murray takes out his binoc-u-com when he's across the street from the waterwheel building. "I'm in position to start," says Murray.

The camera cuts to Sly, on a rooftop with a clear view of both Murray and the building. "I'm ready to go when Neylabot shows up," he says.

"And Tennessee and I are at the square," says Carmelita, the camera showing her standing in the center, her gun at the ready. On a rooftop behind her, Tennessee may be trying to juggle the bombs Bentley gave him (and failing. Thank Guru they need a detonator to go off).

"Okay, I've got the whole situation monitored. Murray, you're up."

"Check," Murray says, and puts away the heist is on.

With that, Murray walks to the door of the waterwheel building and unlocks it. Lets himself in.

There are guards dozing in here. They don't doze for long. Not with Murray barreling at them, roaring at full volume, and throwing himself at them like he wishes there were a dozen more.

Shortly after, they're all unconscious, and Murray can take a proper look around. The waterwheel is held on with a massive screw, secured in place by an immovable bolt. Fortunately, there are plenty of barrels and other throwable materials to destroy it. Then he stomps to grab the bolt and, with much button-mashing, turns it. Turns it. Turns it. Until it comes off.

With one strong punch, Murray sends the bolt through the door, releasing the waterwheel. With a massive, jarring crashing noise like a train full of marbles going over speed bumps, the waterwheel takes off downstream. "Oh yeah! Now that was some FINE DESTRUCTION!"

"Now to see how long it takes the robot to investigate," Sly says as the camera cuts to him. Murray leaves the waterwheel house, and Sly waves his hat at him; Murray waves back, then continues heading back to the safe-house. Sly plops his hat back on his head and stays alert, looking around, as the robot arrives with a handful of guards.

"You, go inside first and see if the perpetrator is still there," she orders. "It seems unlikely they'd be that stupid, but then, I doubted my target had the brains to do something like this to begin with."

When the guards are inside but the robot isn't, Sly jumps from the roof and lands in front of her. "So, is it really Neyla in there?" Sly asks pleasantly. "Or just a piece of machinery with a bad accent?"

The robot snarls at him. "Cooper! I wouldn't've thought to see you around here, you ruddy blighter. Guess I'll have to pull out the ol' bag of tricks and arrest you."

Sly raises one eyebrow. "Really?"

"You're right," she says, uncoiling her whip. "I'd rather tear you limb from limb."

Leading an enraged robot through the level to the rendezvous isn't as easy as it may first appear. For one, while she isn't quite as fast as Sly, she has her whip, and she knows how to use it. Chimneys shatter into fragments of dust as Sly dodges; ropes snap under Sly's feet, sending him tumbling to the ground. If he starts climbing, she sees where she's going and jumps ahead to meet (beat) him. All of it makes a straight path impossible.

And the first time he gets close, Bentley pipes up, "You need enough of a lead that she can't tell where you went when you get to the square, Sly. Keep going!"

"Got any advice?" Sly puffs out.

"Move faster."

"Gee, thanks." Sly turns left instead of right and keeps running, his legs burning.

Finally getting to the square and dodging behind a building is a relief. Carmelita's waiting on a different rooftop, and when the robot comes out, Carmelita jumps down. "This is Inspector Fox of Interpol. You're under arrest."

The robot stops in her tracks and laughs. "Well, if it isn't old ironsides! Still chasing after the likes of Sly Cooper?"

Carmelita aims her shock pistol. "Drop your whip and put your hands up, robot."

"You could call me Neyla. I've just got a better form." The robot grins. "A'course, you should know all about that, shouldn't you?"

"I know you're supposed to be programmed to obey the law," Carmelita says. Behind the robot, Tennessee eases closer, bombs in his hands. "And that means obeying orders. As a cop yourself, you should know this. Hands. Up."

The robot laughs. "Did you actually believe what that old fool Foxworthy was told? No, the whole 'obeying the law' bit was just to get the rotten man to go along with it. Most of us aren't even cops."

Carmelita growls. "All the more reason to take you in."

Neylabot ignores her. "No, I've just got one objective. Once I've paid back Lady Patch for this nice new body, I'll have no restrictions whatsoever."

Tennessee trips. The robot turns. Tennessee waves. "Well, howdy."

"Target acquired," says the robot in a flat, deadly, metallic voice. She cracks her whip where Tennessee was a second ago.

It is a very, very good thing Tennessee is quick. Objective? RUN. Because there's no way to get those bombs on her, and if you thought she was fast before—yeah, no, that was nothing. Tennessee jumps on a vine and railslides up it, and the robot is right behind her. "Keep moving, Tennessee," says Bentley. "Shoot her if you can—it might slow her down, maybe do some damage."

Tennessee doesn't have time to duck and dodge and choose where he goes: regular volleys of shots keep the Neylabot from reaching him, but never enough speed to get off the vines, turn and look around. There's a target coming up along the vine he's on, and he nails it, opening a path deeper into the jungle. "Guess I'm goin' on a ride, fellas!" he calls out. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this."

Uh-huh. Tennessee is being chased by a robot moving faster than any robot has a right to, while shooting out targets with his crackshot and taking potshots at the robot that never seem to do any damage. Into the jungle, into the canopy, they go. Neylabot snarls behind him the whole way: "LOW DOWN, NO GOOD THIEF! I SHALL DESTROY YOU!"

They run out of vines eventually, and land in a large clearing ringed in trees. Tennessee turns to face her then. "Looks like it's time for a firefight, then, missy," Tennessee says, propping his gun on his shoulder. "Jest you'n me."

Neylabot snarls at him and comes to a stop a few feet away. She cracks her whip a few times. "Soon as I take care of you, Tennessee Cooper, I'll have fulfilled my contract. Nothing more will hold me back."

"Well, you're sure'nuff welcome to try," Tennessee says. "But I recon I can take you on one-on-one, gizmo or no."

"Who says you're alone?" With the grinding of boots on vine, Sly slides up and summersaults to a landing next to Tennessee. "You need to teach me how to move that fast."

"Later. Right now, we've gotta get these here bombs on the little miss crabby-pants."

Neyla snarls and cracks her whip, driving the two of them apart, then a second time, destroying the end of the vine they rode in on: there's no escaping that way. "Tennessee Cooper, Sly Cooper, you're all the same! I'll take care of you first, Sly, since you personally foiled my plans with the Klaww Gang. And then, it will be easy to take out your relative." She snarls, showing all her teeth (sharp, silver, shining) and moves.

Play takes over as Sly. Neylabot can move, fast, and she uses her whip to try to corral Sly into areas she can hurt him. Tennessee fades into the shadows; Sly lets his eyes roam over the clearing. There are vines to climb, and one spiraling around the clearing's edges, perfect for railsliding, and two more crossing the center of the clearing in an X to slide down. A few small, half-grown trees—half Sly's height and thin as his arm—stud the clearing. No cover.

"You need to plant those bombs on her and set them off," says Bentley in both of their ears. "Tennessee, you stay railsliding until there's an opportunity."

"Like what?" Sly asks, climbing a vine at full speed; Neylabot chases him up. He jumps off and railslides down. "She's a robot. How do I stun her?"

"She attacks with her whip. If it gets wrapped around one of those saplings, you'll have a chance to strike. A few blows to the head should make even a robot disoriented for a few seconds."

Easier said than done. Neylabot always rears back before she unleashes her whip, so there's an obvious tell: a signal, a sign that Sly needs to get out of the way. But making sure he's in front of a sapling is harder, because he has to move at exactly the right time.

But then her whip wraps around a sapling, and Sly comes in and knocks her one, and she releases it and stumbles to the ground. Tennessee jumps from the vines and slaps a bomb on her back; it blows up as soon as the pair of them get out of the way.

A chunk of the robot's health drops. "Insolent fools!"

"You could just go to jail without a fight," Sly suggests. "I'm a cop now; got a badge and everything."

Neylabot laughs loud and long, grabs her whip (destroying the sapling), and comes after him again. This time, when Sly climbs to get out of the way, she uses her whip to grab the vine and yanks. There's a good dozen vines around the clearing, but soon he's down three of them.

This is... a strange boss fight. With every bomb Tennessee plants, every time one goes off, Neylabot gets slower. Gets easier to read and deal with. Of course, there is one problem with that: there are four bombs that need to go off, and only three saplings.

When she destroys the third sapling, Sly tries confronting her again. "We both know how this is going to go. Why don't you stop and-"

"Stop?" Neylabot laughs. "Do you even know who my current employer is, boy?"

Tennessee lands next to Sly. "We do now. You jest told us, earlier. Lady Patch, inn't it?"

"Lady Patch," Neylabot snarls, "and her family have been working for generations to take down lowlifes like you. And if they can give me a nice robot body for helping? For taking revenge on the one who foiled my plans? It's on."

"There's a whole family?" Sly demands. "Generations? Wasn't Clockwerk enough?" Sly turns to Tennessee, holding his hands out. "How many people have we ticked off?"

"Oh, just a couple, here and there."

"Silence, you no-brained old fart," says Neylabot. "If I kill the both of you, I bet she'll give me immortality once she's uncovered its secrets!It's on!"

The fight is on then, Tennessee taking back to the railslide, but Sly's out of saplings. "Bentley, what's the plan?"

"I don't know, give me some time!"

Sly climbs one of the last remaining vines and starts railsliding next to Tennessee. "Tell ya what, Sly," Tennessee says, "I'll handle the last of this."

Sly raises his eyebrows. "You sure?"

"Course! It's nothing me and Bessie can't handle." With that, he passes Sly the last bomb, cocks his gun, and aims.

Sly gets out of the way as Tennessee takes over the last of the fight. Neylabot is fast, so fast that only using crackshot is enough to get her. Everything else in the world slows down when using crackshot, so that Tennessee has time to aim: not her. She keeps coming at full speed, changing direction, dodging, and Tennessee winds up shooting her whip hand (making her drop it, so she scrambles to pick it up) or one of the remaining vines (making it drop to the forest floor) before getting a shot to her head.

She's stunned for less than a second before shaking it off and coming at Tennessee again. It takes four solid blows for her to slow enough that Sly can get the last bomb on her, and Bentley explodes it.

With a last high-pitched scream of rage, the Neylabot collapses face-first into the muddy floor of the forest. Tennessee stands beside her; Sly jumps to the ground as well.

JOB COMPLETE

Tennessee picks up Neylabot, hoists her over his shoulder, and he and Sly start the long walk back to town.