AN ICE SURPRISE

Operation: Out To Sea

Sly leads the way out of the safehouse and through the snow, leaping from building to building and only stopping once to finish a snowman that either Murray or Tennessee left half-completed earlier. Based on the snowman's proportions and its gun, possibly both. Anyway, it's not long after that he arrives at the small pipe in the wall marked as the heist's start.

Thaddeus and Tennessee are waiting for him there. "This is gonna be more fun than singin' trail songs with a mongoose," Tennessee says, slapping his hat against his leg. "Think I'll get to blow anything up?"

"Stranger things have happened," Sly says. Tennessee goes through the pipe first, and Sly turns to Thaddeus. "How are you holding up?"

"Perfectly well, thank you," Thaddeus says. "Once this is done, perhaps we can go someplace warm for a time?"

"Uh, sure," Sly says. "We hadn't planned on a vacation, but now that you mention it, that would be great ."

"I would appreciate staying there until this snow is no more than a terrible memory," Thaddeus confirms, then ducks through the drainpipe himself.

In Sly's ear, Bentley, mutters, "If he's here for that long. Tennessee sure seems to be sticking around."

Sly raises an eyebrow. "Weren't you saying that the effects of time travel should suck him back to his own time any day now?"

"But it hasn't , Sly. And it should have. I'm working on another theory, and for once, I don't want to be right. But it would explain why they haven't been sucked back in time."

Sly sucks in a breath. "Care to share?"

"Not now. We've got a heist to pull on. Ask me some other time—when they're not around and listening."

"But—"

"Don't you have a job to do, Sly?"

Sly does indeed, and with that, he ducks and goes through the drainpipe himself.

The three of them split up to search the different buildings. It's a stealth exercise: don't get caught. Sly takes the building Thaddeus didn't show Carmelita around in earlier, the one Thaddeus referred to as Morty's building: to do so, he has to climb a drainpipe, edge backwards along a ledge, wallhook to a spare bit of rope, and climb that until he can edge some more to an open window. He emerges in a large, empty conference room; a phone with enormous speakers built into it lies near the center, and the walls are covered in old-fashioned chalkboards. Partially smeared drawings catch Sly's attention.

One shows... well, it's definitely an owl, though too smeared to undeniably be Clockwerk. Scribbles point to different locations—wings, talons, eyes—but cannot hope to be read, save for one word: recreatable.

On another board, another drawing of the owl, this time with drawings of various weaponry, each with X's through them.

An obvious drawing of a single computer chip sits on the last, with decidedly angry looking scribbles and cross-outs all around. A single word is visible in one corner: research.

Sly doesn't need to take pictures to remember these, so he swallows hard and slips out quietly to search the building. He locates Morty at last, or close to it: he can't get in the room, but he can hear Morty talking through a wall on the top floor. "This is taking too long," he shouts at someone. "I should've had that no-good raccoon on the ocean floor by now! Why, that wretched—"

Yeah, I don't think we need more details of his angry shouting. "Got him, Bentley," Sly says.

"Keep an eye on him while we move on to phase two," Bentley says. Thaddeus should go to the plane we stashed from earlier, just in case it's needed. Although the probability of that is less than one percent."

"Always with the contingency plans, huh, Bentley?" Sly asks.

Thaddeus nods. "I shall do so, then. I have no question in my ability to figure out how to fly such a device."

He's also shivering, even through his thick layers of clothing, and the plane is somewhere warm . Tennessee claps Thaddeus on the back. "A'course'ya can! Thanks for leavin' us the fun."

As Thaddeus leaves, the screen fades out, and a LOADING screen flashes by.

When the loading screen clears, Murray is standing on top of an igloo, the large statue in view, binoc-u-com out, talking to Bentley. "Okay Murray, due to the way that thing is designed, enough force should cause it to explode just as violently as fire. Which is good, because there's so much ice any fire you tried to use would put itself out."

"So I get to punch it?" Murray punches one fist into the other palm. "I can do that."

"Don't! If you're too close to the blast, why, you'd be blown to smithereens along with the wall." Bentley leans forward in the view finder. "I've marked a circular area in your binoc-u-com; don't go in there. What you need to do is stand outside that area and throw things at it. Icicles, barrels..." Bentley gets a wicked smile on his face. "Guards."

Murray shows a matching smile. "Can do, buddy. Everyone will fear the wrath of... The Murray."

Murray tucks the binoc-u-com away, straightens his belt, and looks around for guards. Sure, there are other things he could use... but honestly, chucking guards at it seems like the most fun. And efficient, because throwing things at a giant gunpowder-filled ice statue is bound to make a lot of noise, and attract guards anyway. Why not just start with them?

"Here, guardy guardy guardy guardy," Murray mumbles under his breath as he searches. The guards are surprisingly scarce at the moment, but Murray locates one patrolling at last. He knocks the guard up into the air, grabs him, and the guard screams .

Here are the other guards now! Murray descends into the brawl with a yell of glee, periodically surfacing with another guard to throw at the statue. It takes six, seven, eight hits without cracking, but on the ninth hit it goes BOOM!

It's a very good thing Murray isn't in the area Bentley marked as a blast radius. As it is, there's an outline of him—and any remaining guards nearby—in soot on top of the snow. As for the wall, well, there's a jagged hole stretching almost to the top and larger than two igloos put together.

Sly's voice cracks over the binoc-u-com, "Was that you ? I thought we were having an earthquake!"

"I haven't felt anything like that since I went swing-dancin' with the grizzlies!"

Bentley's voice follows. "That was perfect, and sure to get that penguin's attention. You should clear out now, Murray, because it's time for Carmelita to take over."

The screen fades to black, and when it fades back in, Carmelita's standing on an igloo with a clear view of the hole in the wall. Over the binoc-u-com, Tennessee says, "That metal penguin just left the room. I'm'a'goin'ta go in an' steal everything."

"Don't!" snap Bentley and Carmelita.

"You lot are absolutely no fun."

Sly laughs in the background, then coughs. "He's going down the stairs. I'll tail him."

"You there!" shouts a voice by Carmelita; she turns to see one of the seals point his flashlight at her. More guards appear. "This is a restricted area!"

"Inspector Carmelita Fox of Interpol," she says, tapping her badge. "You may want to clear out."

Instead, he charges her. Looks like it's Carmelita with a fight on her hands, this time.

"Make sure you don't get too far from the hole in the wall," Bentley says over her binoc-u-com. And repeats variations on the warning every time she gets one building away. It's not hard to guess what this job's fail condition is: if she's not there when Morty arrives, she'll lose her chance to arrest him.

And Sly gives regular reports on their progress: "He stopped halfway down the second flight of stairs to tie his shoe. I don't think he even has shoelaces."

Yep, sounds like all is well, as Carmelita kicks and shoots as many tails as dare challenge her. She's out of breath but the guards have given up by the time Morty leaves the building and crosses the snow. "Interpol! This is an illegal weapons factory. Hands up; you're under arrest."

Carmelita's a seasoned Interpol officer, one of the (if not the very) best, but she's still shocked when his reaction is to laugh at her. "Oh, this is delightful," he says, crossing his wings in front of him. "What do you want, officer? Is money enough of a bribe, or do you require real estate? A solid investment in the business?"

Carmelita growls. "Attempting to bribe an officer is an additional charge. Hands. Up. " Sly comes into view a good way behind him, ready to assist if necessary, but he clearly thinks Carmelita has it covered.

Morty studies her, glaring. "I see. You're like that insufferable Thaddeus. Does social standing mean nothing to you?"

"All I care about is the law," Carmelita says, "And you're breaking it. If I have to ask again, I shoot."

Morty raises his hands.

And lowers them, fast, the metal feathers on his wings catching the air and—"I thought penguins couldn't fly!" Sly shouts as he runs forward (too late) to help.

Carmelita fires a shot in the air, which Morty dodges. He snarls at her. "A woman cop, no less. This time period disgusts me. Women are always too soft on their inferiors."

Carmelita growls. "I deal with criminals . Their social standing has nothing to do with it. Come peaceably, or I'll make you come!"

If ever there was a line to start a boss fight, that was it. Morty dives at her, Carmelita dodges out of the way. Due to Bentley's modifications, Carmelita's shots do damage him... but he's freaking fast . And when a quarter of his health is gone, he reveals a freaking jetpack and starts going even faster.

Seriously, why a jetpack?

It's not up to Bentley's design standards, based on the way he's muttering, but it makes Morty go super fast. Carmelita has to hold still long enough to use her aiming sight to hit him reliably; a difficult thing, when being dive-bombed by a is close enough to help, but she yells at him to stay out of it, and Bentley backs her up: one on one, there's a good chance she can take him in for questioning, still. If Morty actually hurts her, then they can disconnect his circuits.

Tennessee looks forward to that part. Every now and then, he takes a potshot from the sidelines.

Of course, the plan changes when Carmelita gets Morty down to half health and he takes to the air. "I suppose this isn't a fight I'm meant to win. Goodbye, and good riddance," he says, and flies off.

He flies off .

"Bentley, we need the plane," Sly says.

"This is a disaster , how are we supposed to get the plane before he gets away, I don't know how I didn't see this-"

The plane Sly and Carmelita 'acquired' earlier coasts to a stop next to Sly. Thaddeus opens the door and sticks his head out. "I'll shoot, if one of you will fly."

Sly jumps in, and they take off. I hope you like flight controls, people, because you're getting them again.

Now, Thaddeus isn't as vulgar as Carmelita when it comes to Sly's piloting skills, but that's okay. Carmelita and Murray and Bentley and Tennessee are all on the binoc-u-com, cheering and groaning and offering bad advice. And, occasionally, arguing with the insults Morty throws at them, as he leads them over the ocean and shoots.

Only he's not shooting regular bullets.

He's shooting the sorts of things Tennessee dodged in the basement, and Sly's dodging them, and Thaddeus is shooting them, but they've only knocked off a small portion of his health when Bentley asks, "Don't these attacks seem kind of... familiar?"

"Familiar how?" asks Murray.

"Like... Clock-La familiar."

The only sounds are the engine and the sound of firing. Even the music stops.

Then Sly makes a sound that can only be described as a growl, and the music starts again. "Tell me they're not still bothering you in this time period," Thaddeus says as he shoots.

"Clockwerk was thrown into a volcano, then his pieces were rescued and used for evil, so we gathered those up and destroyed each individual part," Sly says.

"I suppose that may be sufficient for Clockwerk, yes," Thaddeus confirms.

A quarter health left.

Morty's plane starts to glow a pale pink. "Pour it on, Thaddeus!" Sly shouts; Thaddeus does so.

"YOU FOOLS!" Morty shouts; looks like we're in the temper tantrum stage of the battle. Bullets fly through the air, more and more, a ridiculous amount; Thaddeus keeps shooting, but he's not hitting much, because Sly can't hold still for a second. "What do you hope to accomplish, Thaddeus?"

"Putting you into jail," Thaddeus replies, his voice calm, "where you should have been our whole lives, rather than getting away with everything because you were rich and influential."

Morty laughs. "Do you really think THAT will accomplish anything?" he yells, glowing a sharper pink; a chunky pink laser blob fires from him and hits the plane hard, making Sly and Thaddeus yelp with the impact. "This was planned before either of us was born, you sentimental old fool. And I am on the right side of the past, present—and now the FUTURE!"

That's the last thing he gets to say before his health bar drops entirely and his plane falls to the sea. He screams the whole way down, until, with a gigantic SPLASH, the plane lands and sinks.

There's a moment of silence, then Sly says, "Well, so much for questioning him."

JOB COMPLETE

The plane does a barrel roll and heads back to shore.