This chapter took me entirely too long to finish, and I'm super sorry about that! The power to my apartment got cut shortly after uploading chapter one, so all I could do for well over a week was draft possible scenes from how I remembered the game off the top of my head. Once I got power back, other projects kept taking center stage, and I also wasn't really sure how to proceed with this chapter.
I wanted it to focus less on the game plot, and more on getting to know Nyx, and her getting to know the gang. I'm not the best at writing casual conversations, so there were lots of scrapped ideas and writer's block. The long conversation with Sly and Bentley actually happened entirely by mistake, but it's really funny in my opinion, and actually worked out really well for beefing this chapter up.
I really hope you guys enjoy this and that it was worth the wait! I'm going to try and work on this a lot more now, because it's really fun to when the plot bunnies aren't stalking me.
Originally there was a comment here about apologizing for using five x's as linebreaks, because I didn't know how to use a proper gray-line linebreak. But I found the linebreak button! So I've updated all the chapters so far to use them.
I'd also really love to hear what you guys think so far, so don't be shy about submitting a review, I promise I don't bite!
Chapter Two: Getting Aquainted With The Situation
Murray, the pink hippo whom I'd only caught a blurry glimpse of before I'd passed out, had returned to what I now knew was a safehouse, not long after I had agreed to 'run' with the Cooper Gang. Murray told Bentley that some recon photos would be arriving soon. While curious, I didn't ask about the photos; It wasn't my business.
Murray and I exchanged sort of akward greetings (apparantly neither of us know what social skills are) before he dissapeared into the kitchen.
I had been trying to fall back asleep because it was practically midnight, but my mind was still racing, mulling over the multitude of things that had happened in what felt like such a short time, rendering that idea impossible. Maybe having been unconcious for almost four hours had something to do with it, too.
So, Murray and I ended up sitting on the safehouse floor, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and playing Uno. I found myself feeling comfortable there with the pink hippo. He's friendly and easy to be around.
Bentley continued his computer work, occassionally talking to Sly about his jobs, via what he called a 'binocucom'. I decided to also not ask about that, even though I was curious about it, too. Being that Bentley was less than ten feet away from me, and didn't seem to be trying to be quiet, I couldn't help overhearing him telling Sly to bug Dimitri's office with a painting, and how to get into said office via an air vent. It wasn't my business at all, and I felt like I was eavesdropping, so I just tried to focus on playing cards with Murray.
"You don't sound like you're from France, do you come from somewhere else?" Murray asked as he placed down a blue seven onto the stack of discarded Uno cards.
"Yup, I'm from America. I moved down here last year when I turned eighteen," I replied, laying a blue four over the seven. I had six green cards, and one yellow, now. The blue four was the only blue card I had.
"America's cool, we've been there a few times! What part do you come from?" Murray put a red four over my blue four.
Darn it, I didn't have any red cards. I drew another card; A yellow eight. I added it to my hand and motioned for Murray to go again. "Well, I was born in Oklahoma, and grew up there. And when I was ten, my mom and I moved to Florida,"
"Florida is where the beaches are, right?" Murray seemed excited by that idea as he put down down a red two.
I mentally cheered and laid out one of my green twos. "Yup. Florida is what they call the 'Sunshine State'. Personally, I liked Oklahoma and it's snow better. I'm not a beach person," I laughed.
"Beaches are pretty fun, if you can swim," Murray nodded. He put down a draw four wild card. "Red. Sorry,"
I narrowed my eyes at him in mock anger, though I was trying to not laugh as I drew four cards. Thankfully, there was a red nine, and I put that down. "If you can swim. Which I cannot,"
"Don't feel bad, none of us can, either," Murray said, playing a red three.
I laughed a bit. "I can dog paddle in like three feet of water, but that's pretty much it. It's not enough to consider it swimming," I put down my yellow three, getting that out of my hand.
"Swimming is hard," Murray nodded in agreement. He played another red three, leaving him with only one card left. "Uno,"
I gave the hippo a fake look of harsh judgement, but couldn't hold it long before smiling. "Yeah. Swimming is very hard and Florida people don't understand," I put down a green three.
Murray gave a big smile and placed down his last card; A green nine. "Uno! 'The Murray' wins again!" he cheered, nearly knocking over his empty ice cream bowl.
I couldn't help but laugh at his excitement. "Two in row. And I thought I used to be good at this game,"
"No one can triumph over 'The Murray'," he announced proudly, as I started rounding up all the cards.
Bentley started talking to Sly again, this time about ringing a bell to get Dimitri outside and then following him through the city. I purposely tuned out my hearing from Bentley's voice, and focused on the sound the cards made as I gathered them all up.
"Want more ice cream?" Murray asked as he stood up.
"Sure," I replied, grabbing the worn rubber band the cards had been wrapped in when we found them off the coffee table. I caught a glance of the clock on the wall and realized that it was two in the morning, now. I should have been tired but unfortunately for my sleeping schedule, I wasn't.
Murray picked up both our empty bowls and headed back into the kitchen. Thankfully by then, Bentley had finished talking to Sly and was back to typing, so I could stop trying to not hear anything.
I wrapped up the cards in the rubber band, being careful not to snap the old thing. Once they were wrapped up suffiently, I put them on the coffee table. Murray returned momentarily and handed me another bowl of ice cream. "Thanks," I said as I carefully set the bowl in my lap.
"So why'd you come to France?" Murray asked through a mouthful of ice cream.
"I needed a fresh start to my life. To get away from all the bad memories associated with Florida and open up roads to new and better places to take myself. I heard that France is a good place for artists, so I figured why not give it a try?" I explained with a casual shrug.
"Do you like it here?" was Murray's next question.
I nodded. "Yeah. It's nice here. Feels kind of weird living alone, not knowing any one, and not knowing how to speak French, but I think I might find what I'm looking for here,"
"Well, I hope you do. It would suck to move down here and find out that what you want is elsewhere," Murray said, adjusting his goggles with his wrist (I idly wondered why he was wearing driving goggles all the time).
I laughed to hide the fact that I was legitimately worried about that. "Yeah, that would definately suck,"
"You said you came down here 'cause you're an artist?" Murray moved to this next question without much of a segway.
"Not in the 'painting gorgeous landscapes and pretty women' sense, but yeah. Drawing and art in general has been my passion since I was little," I said. "I wanna try to get a job involving something along those lines,"
"I think I've got some paper around here, we should totally draw some stuff!" Murray suggested excitedly.
"Yeah, that sounds great right now!" I agreed. Drawing was always relaxing, and that was definately what I needed at that moment.
Murray got up and went down the hall, heading into a room that I assumed was his. I heard him start shuffling through things.
"Oh great, there's going to be crayons everywhere again," Bentley rolled his eyes and tried to not laugh.
"I'll try to clean them up, I swear," I laughed. To that, Bentley made an exagerated 'Mhm' sound, as if he did not trust that I would keep my word.
Murray re-emerged from his room a moment later, carrying a whole bunch of art supplies in his large arms. He dumped them onto the floor between the two of us, in a very disorganized heap. I saw Bentley sigh and shake his head out of the corner of my eye.
"Let's be crafty!" Murray announced.
I laughed and grabbed a sheet of paper and laid it out in front of me. Murray handed me a pencil. "Thanks," I said as I took it from him. I wasn't sure what to draw, so I stared at the paper for a moment, before deciding to just start designing random characters for the fun of it. Kept my mind busy, focusing on what to make the character look like.
Murray and I continued to idly talk about ourselves and our similarities while we drew. Through this, I learned that he likes fast food and fast cars, and that he's an expert driver. He talked about how he started off as the Cooper Gang getaway driver, but evolved into someone emotionally stronger, and thus became 'The Murray' as the strongman of the gang. That actually surprised me, because he'd been nothing but gentle and kind during our whole conversation, I hadn't seen him as someone who enjoyed a physical fight. Can't judge a book by it's cover, I suppose.
I can't say how Murray interpreted the things I told him about myself, but I talked about how I was sort of just a normal teenager who played way too many video games and was glued to the internet too much. I talked some more about my love for art, and also the kinds of music I liked. We connected over the enjoyment of unhealthy fast food, as well, which led on to a conversation about resturaunts in Paris.
Bentley started talking to Sly again at almost three in the morning. While I once again tried to not listen and instead talk to Murray (who was telling me about a great resturaunt in town that I should check out sometime), I heard something about a waterpump that might come in handy.
Murray and I had both used a heck of a lot of drawing paper, and had aquainted ourselves with each other quite well, by the time the door creaked open. I looked over my shoulder to see that Sly had returned.
Sly looked at Murray and I, and then the messy pile of art between us, with an amused smile. "Glad to see you two getting along,"
"Yeah! Nyx is really cool!" Murray proclaimed, making me nervously laugh. I wasn't exactly used to being complimented so directly. That's not to say that it wasn't nice, but I wasn't sure how to react to it.
"She wouldn't be here if she wasn't," Sly chuckled. "You doing okay?" he pointed this next question at me.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Still kinda shaken up, but Murray's company is really helping me calm down," I replied.
"'The Murray' is glad to be of assistance," Murray beamed.
"Good to hear," Sly nodded, setting down his weird cane onto the table that Bentley was sat at. This seemed to be Bentley's cue to start talking.
No one else spoke, so I couldn't really avoid hearing what Bentley was saying. "I've analyzed that waterpump room you followed Dimitri to, Sly. And I think it will prove to be very crucial to our plans. Murray," the pink hippo looked up eagerly at the mention of his name. "I'm going to need you to head down to the waterpump, and put it out of commission,"
"'The Murray' is on it. Prepare to be un-commissioned, waterpump!" Murray got up from the floor and headed out the safehouse door (I thought to myself about how I was sure 'un-commission' was not a word). He had a sort of superhero air to him, and it made him that much more fun to be around.
"Looks like you're stuck dealing with me," Sly chuckled as he came over and crouched across from me, where Murray had been previously sitting. "I haven't gotten the chance to properly introduce myself," he held out a blue-gloved hand towards me. "I'm Sly Cooper,"
I took his hand and shook it, smiling. "I kind of already guessed. I'm Nyx,"
"Your name definately seems to suit you," Sly nodded to himself, picking up my stack of doodles from next to me. Normally I would have complained, but those doodles were nothing important, just random characters, so I let him look at them without fuss.
"You must be very smug to make that judgement when we've only just met," I joked.
"You'll learn that he is always smug," Bentley commented dryly. I snorted and tried to not laugh.
"Wow, Bentley. If I didn't know you better, I would say that you're hitting on me," Sly was sort of stifling his own laughter as he said that.
I pursed my lips to try and smother my laughs, but I wasn't doing very well at it. I pressed a fist to my mouth to at least try and hide my ridiculous smile.
"Oh, ha ha, Sly. Very funny," Bentley was doing better than me at hiding it, but he had actually found that funny, too.
I turned to Sly who was hiding his grinning face behind the drawings he was still looking through. "I think I'm going to like you,"
"Now look who's being smug..." Bentley shook his head.
Sly chuckled and turned to lay on his back, propping his feet up on the coffee table. "Sooo. You're an artist?"
"I suppose. I told Murray that I'm not a 'gorgeous landscape and pretty women' painter artist, but yeah, I draw," I shrugged. I find it a little unfortunate that a lot of people think that unless you paint like the old proffessionals, you won't get anywhere as an artist. As a side-effect of this social idea, I kind of never call myself an actual artist.
"You're pretty good at it. I bet you could get a good job as a sketch artist. I hear it pays pretty well," Sly said as he flipped through my stack of doodles.
I looked at him sort of funny. "Did the criminal just suggest I get a job as a cop?"
Sly laughed and gave me a sidelong glance. "I may be a wanted criminal, but the cops aren't my enemies,"
I blinked twice at him, now very confused. "But it's their job to arrest you and put you 'out of business', isn't it?"
Sly rolled onto his left side to put my drawings back where he'd gotten them from. "How much did Bentley tell you about our gang?"
"He said that you guys are kinda like Robin Hood? And that it's your family tradition?" I actually couldn't remember many of Bentley's exact words, I had probably still been a little more shaken up than I had thought I was at the time.
"I thought I ought to let you properly explain it, since it's your family line," Bentley interjected.
Sly gave a one-shouldered shrug (considering he was laying on the other) that implied he agreed with or approved of Bentley's decision. "Well, comparing us to Robin Hood isn't too far off. The Cooper family line goes as far back as anyone can remember, and it's always been the family business to be a thief," Sly got this look on his face and I got the feeling that storytime with Sly was something that was about to happen.
"But stealing from common people who've done you no harm is no way to create a respectable legacy and prove yourself a master thief. So the Cooper clan prided themselves on stealing from even bigger criminals who actually used their power to do harm and abuse. A Cooper knew that he or she was a master thief when they stole from a master criminal," Sly seemed to study my face, probably looking for any signs of me being confused. Upon seeing none, he continued.
"So, while Interpol might be trying to arrest me for breaking the law, they're only doing their jobs and what they think is right and justified. It doesn't make them my enemies just because we do good in our own ways," he gave another one-shouldered shrug that was more indifferent than the previous one.
I didn't really know what to say at first. "Well now it sounds heroic no matter which way I look at it," I laughed, after a moment of just staring at Sly.
"You're already corrupting her, Sly. You need to stop talking," I could hear the almost joking accusation in Bentley's voice, even without having to look at him.
"Aw, c'mon Bentley. I'm not corrupting her, just telling it like it is. She's forming her own opinions," Sly was laughing and smiling up at Bentley from his spot on the floor, in a very clearly guilty manner.
Bentley returned this childish look with an unamused stare that could only have been practiced and learned over time.
Looking from Bentley to Sly and back again, I found their odd staring contest to be infinitely funny for some reason, and I started laughing sort of really hard.
My inability to not laugh caused Sly to start laughing, too. And with both of us laughing our heads off, I ended up sort of choking on my laughter and started coughing a little. Which then prompted me to try and stop laughing, which then only made me cough more.
Bentley sighed, shook his head, and turned back to his computer, trying to not look amused as I atempted to remember what breathing is.
Sly snorted back another laugh and turned to look at me. "You okay?"
"Yes. Storytime with Sly is amusing," I sighed as I finally stopped laughing and choking, wiping a few tears from my eyes.
"I aim to please," Sly chuckled.
Sly gave me a moment to catch my breath before he started talking again. "Okay, it's your turn to talk about yourself, now. Your accent says you're American?" he asked as soon as I'd composed myself.
"That's the first thing Murray asked me about, too," I made a mental note to point out that none of them had French accents, either. "Yeah, I'm American. I was born in Oklahoma, and moved to Florida with my mom when I was ten. Came here last year by myself when I turned eighteen, to look for a job in the art field somewhere,"
"See, that sketch artist suggestion might actually work," Sly joked.
"Yeah, sure. I might like watching crime shows and all the cool ways they catch scumbags, but I'm definately not cut out for anything like that," I shook my head. "I'm looking for something a lot more creative. Like maybe doing character design for a video game?"
"That is a much better place to apply your skills," Bentley offered his opinion without turning to look at us. "Don't ever listen to anything Sly says you should do,"
I snorted and tried to not all-out laugh again. "Note taken," I eyed the raccoon with joking suspicion. He returned the look with very obviously guilty puppy eyes that he couldn't hold long before laughing.
"You are the most goofy thief I've ever heard of," I shook my head.
"Now see, Bentley? Media has corrupted this one, not me," Sly chuckled. "I might be a master thief who's sneaky and skillful, but it doesn't mean I don't know how to have fun," he gave a wry grin.
"The problem is that your definition of 'fun' is very twisted," Bentley let out an exasperated sigh as he appeared to be remembering something awful.
"To each his own?" it sounded like less of a question and more like a peace offering. "At least I only shot myself out of a cannon that one time,"
My face went blank and I stared at Sly. "You... Shot yourself out of a cannon?"
Sly laughed at my expression. "Yeah, two years ago, taking down this guy called Sir Raleigh the Frog. The only way up to his huge weather machine blimp was a cannon,"
"Which you were entirely too enthusiastic to shoot yourself out of," Bentley had pretty much deadpanned by now. Apparantly things like that were common with Sly, and Bentley was more than done with them.
"Adreneline junkie or lack of self-preservation?" I pointed this towards Bentley. Sly snorted and rolled his eyes.
"Both. Also he's just really stupid sometimes," Bentley stared behind me at the raccoon who was trying hard to not grin and instead pretend that Bentley's words had insulted him.
"I think that comes with the lack of self-preservation," I postulated.
"Self-preservation sounds boring," Sly scoffed. He'd given up trying to look offended and was openly smirking now.
"I'll be the first to say that sometimes, it actually kind of is," that comment earned me a slightly betrayed look from Bentley. "I'm not saying that everyone should shoot themselves out of cannons, but there's a lot of people who are entirely too scared to do anything, and they kinda just box themselves in. Sometimes being fearless is a good thing," I shrugged. I was one of those people who'd boxed themselves in, and I was well aware of this huge mistake I'd made.
"And with self-preservation comes logic. Which you clearly know how to manipulate..." Bentley sighed. "You two are going to be dangerous, I can tell,"
Sly and I laughed and exchanged mischievous looks, just to make Bentley suspicious.
I didn't even think about the fact that it was past five AM, until Murray returned to the safehouse only a few moments later. After taking care of the waterpump, he'd been tasked with destroying some local alarms. He announced that the alarms were history, and then excused himself to go to bed, bidding us all a good night.
"Y'know, Nyx, maybe you should get some sleep, too. You look pretty beat," Sly suggested. "It's five in the morning, I'm surprised you managed to stay awake this long,"
"To be honest, I haven't been on a proper AM/PM sleeping schedule since I was fifteen. I am more than aquainted with five in the morning," I said. Five in the morning was probably the only thing I was aquainted with at that point. "But, I suppose you're right,"
"I wish our safehouse was set up for more than three people sleeping in it, but I'm afraid it isn't," Bentley said, closing his laptop and getting out of his chair.
"Don't worry about it," I waved off his concerns. "I'm sure we can make the couch comfortable enough,"
"You sure? I wouldn't mind taking the couch and letting you sleep in my room," Sly offered. He was being so sweet and considerate and that was definately not something I was used to. In all honesty, I wasn't much used to people in general.
"No, no, it's fine. I'm sure I've slept in worse places," I assured them.
"If you insist," Sly shrugged. "Let me know if you change your mind,"
While I cleaned up the paper, crayons and other art supplies like I'd promised, Sly and Bentley rounded up a fair amount of blankets from around the safehouse. I proceeded to then layer them accordingly to make the couch more soft and comfortable. Didn't seem like it'd be so bad, really. And it wasn't like my back and neck didn't always hurt from my awful posture, anyways, so what would it matter?
Sly handed me a pillow and turned out the lights in the room. "See you in the PM,"
