Merry early Christmas, everyone! Wow, I actually got this done in time for the holidays! Two chapters in one month, like I initially planned for last month. Better late than never, right? I was going to save uploading this for Christmas eve, but I honestly just couldn't wait.
I'm apparantly really awful at describing my own self-insert, so I put some links on my profile to Nyx's profile pic, and another pic that I did of her. So go take a look at those, if you want a better visual image of her.
Also, since apparantly some people are already shipping things for reasons unknown to me, Nyx won't be hooking up with anyone throughout the course of this story, nor in any others that will follow. Sorry, guys, but she's my self-insert, and I don't ship myself with any of the Cooper Gang. Now, platonic sibling cuteness? That I shall supply in bulk.
I hope everyone has a great Christmas! Onwards with the story!
Chapter Five: Foreign Languages and Venomous Snakes
I missed Monaco already...
While Monaco had been crowded and loud, and I'm really not a people person, it had also been sort of fun. I'd never been there before, and it was indeed beautiful. Sure, everyone spoke French, and I didn't know a lick of it (so Sly had to play translator between me and literally everyone), but it wasn't that bad. I honestly tried to just train myself to ignore the people, and look at the pretty stuff.
Sly playfully got on my case many times about living in Paris and not knowing French, and vowed that one day he'd teach me. I tried telling him that wouldn't be necessary, but Sly is probably more stubborn than a mule, so that was a battle I shamefully lost.
I had really hoped that I was still too young to enter the casino that was right near our hotel (I suspect that Bentley chose that hotel specifically for it's location), but unfortunately, I wasn't. I did not at all want to go into that casino, but like I mentioned before, Sly's stubborn as a mule and there was no use arguing with him. So, I reluctantly went into the casino, after Sly practically dragged me across the street to it's door.
Watching a game of poker when you can't understand a word that's being said is... Frustrating, to say the least. I don't know the first thing about poker, and having to listen to everything in French wasn't helping the confusion. All I could really gather on my own was that Bentley was winning, by the way he was grinning and everyone else was scowling at him. Sly tried to explain to me what was going on, but even in English, I didn't understand it.
I got the feeling that if Murray hadn't been there, some of those other players would have definitely tried to jump Bentley, the looks they were all giving him screamed 'murder'. I didn't even need to know French to figure out when someone had cussed him out.
I was honestly confused about how Bentley didn't seem at all afraid of these burly cigar smokers who were probably threatening him; I know I was definitely afraid of them. That was actually the whole reason I didn't want to go into the casino in the first place. I was a five foot, one inch teenager with social anxiety, who'd never won a fight in her life, and probably never would. I didn't want to assume that any of the guys in the casino were bad people who would try anything, but paranoia and past experience left me sort of restless.
Sly eventually picked up on my nervousness, and decided to finally let me leave. I would have been entirely okay with going back to the hotel and staying there while they gambled, but no. Sly is apparantly an extreme extrovert with too much energy, and whisked me off to go sight-seeing, insisting that I come tour the city and see the culture. I still really didn't like all the people, but the bright streets were a lot better than the casino and the intimidating people inside it.
Half of me regretted all this tourism by the time the day was over with, as I was in a sort of snappy mood from being drug around the whole city practically all day. But, looking back on it, it wasn't so bad. Though it did make me realize that being an introvert sucks, sometimes.
Bentley is apparantly a deity of poker, as I learned that he cleaned out literally everyone he played that day. I wondered for a moment if maybe he'd cheated, but I quickly dismissed that idea; Bentley is definitely smart enough to dominate poker without needing to be under-handed.
I found it more than a little humorous that Bentley had only stopped gambling because no one else would play him. Any new people who came in were immediately advised to not challenge him, and apparantly the messengers were very convincing. Bentley seemed pretty pleased with the money he'd aquired, and it was indeed an impressive amount. I wondered how they managed to afford travelling so much, and now I was getting a slight idea.
I could probably go on for hours about weird French cuisine, but I'm honestly wondering if Sly made up some of the things he'd said were on the menus. The language barrier means that we might never know, but I wouldn't put it past him at all. So, I'm just going to say thank god for McDonald's being a world-wide phenomenon. Though it did make Sly tease me for being a 'hopeless American', but oh well.
And while all the people and the loudness of Monaco really wasn't my thing, when we got to India I would've given anything to go back to Monaco for even a day. Because India? India was hot and muggy, and I did not like it. There was also venomous snakes and locals that spoke languges even Sly and Bentley didn't know. Bentley had to get a translation book before we even got on the plane.
The plane. The plane was awful. We had to deal with body and luggage searches, luggage check-in, the TSA in general, the slow lines, the noisy and annoying people, and waiting for the plane to arrive.
I don't even want to know how Bentley got the van onto that plane, nor how he got it off.
The flight itself was awful, as well. Flying is sort of one of those things that I just downright abhor. We lucked out and there weren't any annoying passengers to make my headache worse, but there was my ears popping from the pressure change. The only thing that kept me calm and from having a complete panic attack was Sly sitting next to me and distracting me with conversations about random things, and awful jokes that I couldn't help but laugh at.
I wished we could have just driven everywhere. Driving to Monaco had been great. We shared stories, listened to music, and laughed at each other being stupid. It had been like a campfire on wheels. Why did oceans and long distance travel have to exist? Why could we not have the luxury of driving everywhere?
If it weren't for the heat, how tired I was, and the threat of venomous snakes, perhaps I would have been admiring how beautiful India was. But after the flight, I was feeling sort of pessimistic, and did not want to admire anything other than a bed.
So when Bentley decided that we should stop in an Indian town for supplies, I decided to just sit and wait in the van. I did not want to deal with any more foreign streets where the people would speak god-knows what language. In Monaco it was one thing, because Sly knew fluent French. But here in India they were using that translation book, and I did not want to be there when someone said the wrong thing and pissed some local off.
"Are you sure you want to wait here? We might be a while. We're basically grocery shopping," Bentley asked as he read over the translation book one more time.
"Yes, I'm very sure. You guys go have fun with the foreign languages and the snakes," I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
"Suit yourself," Sly shrugged. "You're missing out, though, India is pretty exotic,"
"Maybe on our way out. Right now I'm too tired to even care," I yawned.
"That's understandable. We'll try to not be too long," Bentley nodded and then closed the van doors.
I adjusted my position, leaning against the back of the driver's seat and the side of the van, and began browsing my Tumblr dashboard. Taking time to wind down felt really good. However, winding down meant coming down from the adrenaline high the flight gave me. This caused me to realize that I was much more tired than I previously thought. I honestly don't even remember falling asleep, but apparantly I did.
I felt infinintely less pessimistic when I woke up, though I had no idea where we were, nor did I remember falling asleep. But, oh well. Someone had draped a blanket over me and put a pillow under my head, and I sort of assumed that it was probably Sly, considering that he was usually sitting in the back of the van with me.
I rubbed at my eyes as I sat up. The van wasn't moving, but that told me nothing about where we were.
"Good morning, sleepy head," I turned my head towards the van doors, where I could just barely make out Sly's silhouette standing at them.
"It's not actually morning, is it? If it is, I'm going to cry,"
Sly chuckled and climbed into the van to offer me a hand up. "No, it's more like four PM,"
"Okay, yeah, that sounds more reasonable," I reluctantly took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet.
"We're just outside the walls of Rajan's palace, Bentley's found a great place for our safehouse," Sly said, gesturing behind him to somewhere outside the van.
"Wonderful. Please tell me it has air-conditioning," I asked, twisting my neck and massaging it with my right hand to ease some of the tenseness from sleeping in the van.
"Well, it's in a cave, but if it's got plugs for Bentley's tech, then surely it's got A/C," Sly replied.
"It better," I yawned as I scooped up my backpack, the blanket, and pillow, and then followed Sly out of the van and to the cave entrance.
When Sly said that it was a cave with electricity, I wasn't really sure what to expect. And when I climbed up the steps and walked into what basically looked like a small apartment made of stone, I still really didn't know what to think. Someone had apparantly taken quite a while to carve out this place. It had individual rooms, and sure enough, electricity. I couldn't believe that this was an actual stone cave we were standing in, it looked more like those fancy decor themes that are designed to look like nature. But no, the stone that made up the walls was real.
I dropped my backpack into a corner of the room, and then tossed the pillow and blanket onto a chair. Then I went back out to the van (being mindful of any snakes...) to grab my suitcase and bring that in, too. Then I took a moment to actually observe the safehouse. The room that the entrance led to was wide, with couches and chairs off to the right (this was where I'd dumped my stuff), and a large table to the left that Bentley had claimed with his tech and blueprints. Next to this table was a very deliberate and giant hole in the wall, that I guessed was meant to be a window. A very small hallway almost opposite of the entrance led to a small kitchen type of area on the left (where Murray was setting up a microwave and the coffee machine), and a bathroom to the right.
All in all, it wasn't a bad safehouse. After figuring out where everything was, I moved to the 'window' to take a look at the scenery.
We owed this trip to India to a tiger named Rajan, whom was born a poor kid on the streets, and made himself a living by selling the potent spices (that are illegal because of how strong they are) that were common in his area. And now he was trying to pass himself off as royalty by holding a lavish ball at his 'Ancestral Palace'. He had possession of the Clockwerk wings, and was displaying them as a decoration.
It's also worth noting that once I saw a picture of this guy (that Bentley hacked Interpol to get), I immediately recognized him as the other man who'd been in the alleyway with Dimitri. At least that mystery was now solved... Some part of me said that I should totally be concerned, being relatively near someone who tried to kill me, but perhaps I was starting to trust the Cooper Gang a little too much? I wasn't sure if that was bad or good, but not being scared out of my mind sounded like a good thing at the time.
After learning about who Clockwerk was, it was almost cruel to think that so far, the Klaww Gang had just been using the parts to improve their standard of living. I was certain those parts could lend hand to some destructive and dastardly deeds, and yet no one was using them as such. Sure, it was a relief that no one was attempting world domination with them, but it was an odd kind of cruel. A sort of ironic kind.
'Well, this Rajan guy certainly isn't shy...' I thought to myself as I took in the outside view of the palace. Rajan had a huge wall around both his palace, and the marketplace in front of it, implying that he owned the whole thing. The land between the wall, and the cliff face the safehouse was in was grassy, with some tall trees, lots of bushes, and an elephant spotlight patrolling around. There was a river off to both sides of the marketplace, and a small trench leading from it that warranted the need for a drawbridge to the marketplace. Said drawbridge was up, so the guys were probably going to have to find some other way in.
"I told you that India's pretty," suddenly Sly was standing right behind me, and I jumped a little bit.
"Yeah, it really is. Save for the heat and the snakes," I agreed.
"I take it you don't like heat or snakes?" Sly asked teasingly.
"Nope. Especially the snakes," snakes are up there in my top five biggest fears list, and India was probably crawling with venomous ones.
"Sly,"
Said raccoon turned towards Bentley and then gestured for him to say whatever he needed to.
Bentley motioned out the window to the walled marketplace and the palace beyond. "I need you to scope out the palace, and then find a way to break into the ballroom. Let's find out who's at this party,"
"You got it, pal," and then with a saluting wave, Sly was bounding across the room, and out the door. Though there... Actually wasn't a door. It was just a stone tunnel of steps leading from outside.
...I hoped no snakes tried to come inside...
"How are you holding up, Nyx? With all the travelling and everything?" Bentley asked as he set up his laptop and all his tech.
"I'm doing okay. I'm really out of my element right now, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. The sights have been pretty nice so far," I replied.
"Minus the snakes, right?" Bentley teased.
"Exactly! As long as the snakes stay far away from me, all will be well!" I said with exagerated cheer.
I continued to look out the window while we waited for Sly to reach the palace. Despite being around only four o'clock, the tree coverage made it look a bit darker. At least around the drawbridge, anyways.
I turned to look at Bentley as he made a humming noise that implied deep thinking. A moment later, and he turned on the microphone and started talking. "I figured out how to sneak in above the ballroom, without being detected. The only problem is there's no way to climb up to that balcony door,"
"Not a problem," Sly's voice came over a moment later. "There seem to be plenty of branches for me to walk on. I'll figure it out,"
I pulled up a chair and sat down next to Bentley. "I take it I'm still allowed to watch?"
"Of course," Bentley replied, turning the laptop towards me a bit.
I propped my elbows up on the edge of the table and used my hands to prop my head up, and watched as Sly crossed a bunch of tree branches, and entered the ballroom through the second floor balcony window.
"Easy does it, Sly," Bentley advised the raccoon. "Just don't go out onto that balcony, and you should remain undetected,"
The most noticeable thing in the ballroom was the gold Indian goddess statue that the Clockwerk wings were somehow attatched to. And woah. Those wings were huge.
"Bentley...? How big was Clockwerk?" I asked incredously.
"Very. You're lucky you'll never have to see him," Bentley replied, before turning his attention to the detail shots of the wings that Sly had just taken.
The concept of someone like Clockwerk still sounded so surreal to me, but seeing those giant wings really made me realize just how powerful he must've been. ...How had Sly taken down such a huge owl?
"Looks like the wings have been welded onto to that statue... They look heavy. Getting the wings out of here will be a real challenge..." Bentley mused, drawing my attention back to reality.
The next picture Sly took was of some kind of winch or pulley that was in the ceiling. "An electronic winch... That could be useful," was Bentley's comment on it.
"Hm. Think you'll be able to lower someone down to detatch the wings with that thing?" I asked.
"If I can access it's controls, yes, we should be able to. Though that'll just be the groundwork of the plan," Bentley answered.
Sly snapped another picture, this time of Rajan himself. "That's him," Bentley said. "Rajan's really pulled out all the stops to impress people with this party,"
"And I thought you were full of yourself, Sly," I teased. Sly snorted just loud enough for me to hear it.
"'Full of himself' doesn't even begin to describe Rajan," Bentley agreed. "Sly, maybe you should get some shots of the guests?"
The first guest Sly located was a red-furred guy, holding some kind of wooden staff. "Jean Bison," Bentley supplied us with his name. "A member of the Klaww Gang, and Canadian shipping baron. He owns half the trains in Canada!"
"Does this mean that at some point, we might be going to Canada?" I asked hopefully.
"Yes. Yes it does,"
I couldn't keep back the giant grin on my face. "Okay, I'm really looking forward to that one because snow," I said eagerly. "I really like snow,"
Bentley laughed. "As long as you promise to not start a snowball fight with Sly,"
"I cannot garantee anything," I snickered.
Another picture then arrived of a small bird (maybe a parrot? I couldn't tell) in some kind of fancy mechanical perch cage. "Another Klaww Gang member. Arpeggio specializes in exotic technology,"
"Exotic technology sounds vaguely threatening..." I mumbled, trying to think of what sorts of things might be considered 'exotic technology'.
Bentley nodded in agreement, and then sort of gawked at a photo of a spider woman in a red dress. "That's the Contessa! A high-ranking prison warden for Interpol. ...She must be working undercover to expose Rajan's spice ring!"
I looked over at Bentley with a 'well that's an inconvience' type of look. "I assume that makes your job a lot harder, huh?"
"Indeed," Bentley sighed in reply.
Next up was a picture of a fox in a black dress. "Carmelita's here, too! She must be undercover with the Contessa to help bust Rajan!" Bentley exclaimed. Then he rolled his eyes as Sly hummed suggestively at her outfit.
"Soo is there actually anything between the two of them, ooorr?" I leaned towards Bentley to nudge his shoulder, probing for gossip.
"Carmelita's been chasing us - or specifically, Sly - for as long as we can remember. Sly keeps flirting with her, and even escaped getting arrested by kissing her back at that volcano he dumped Clockwerk in," Bentley said, sounding amused at the memories. "While she's never actively responded to his flirting, and has only relentlessly tried to arrest him, I definitely think there's something between them,"
"Mmmm, forbidden love," I purred exageratedly. "Juicy,"
Bentley snickered a little, and then examined another photo, this time of a small-framed tigeress with magenta fur. "Neyla. Another officer undercover! Watch yourself, Sly, this party is crawling with cops!"
Bentley clicked around and checked a few things on his laptop, before deciding that apparantly that was enough photos. "That's all the photos I need. Come on back to the safehouse, and we'll start building a game plan,"
"Sorry, Sly. I somehow entirely overlooked the need for formal wear. That guy's not going to let you in without a tuxedo,"
I stared at Bentley's laptop with a blank look. How was it that none of us had thought of this minor roadblock? It was a fancy party being hosted by a guy with an ego the size of the Michelin man! Of course you couldn't go in wearing street clothes.
"Don't beat yourself up, Bentley. At a party this ritzy, there has to be a spare penguin suit around here somewhere," Sly replied.
"Try the guest house, someone may have overpacked," Bentley suggested with a shrug.
Sly nodded and headed off towards the guest house. He lucked out a little, and there were no guards currently in the area, so he just went straight into the guest house through the front doors.
"Okay Bentley, I'm in position inside the guest house, have any intel for me?"
"Uh, well, I'd recommend searching all the rooms. It's statistically probable that each should hold at least one portion of a tuxedo," Bentley suggested. This plan had been pretty short notice so he probably didn't have much time to find any other information.
"What do I look for inside the rooms?" Sly asked next.
Bentley shook his head. "This isn't an exact science; Ransack the place until you find part of a tuxedo,"
"Any plan which involves ransacking is okay with me," Sly purred, and then he was off, slinking around the hallways of the guest house.
"Sooo. Even if he does find an entire tuxedo... What's the chances of finding one that fits?" I asked slowly.
"About fifty. But we're going to have to bet on it," Bentley replied.
I shrugged. "Hm. Well, if worst comes to worst, I have general knowledge of sewing,"
"I'll keep that in mind,"
While Sly was ransacking the guest house, Bentley switched windows to speak with Murray, who had finally reached that old turret atop one of the buildings. I seriously hoped that he knew how to operate it, and that he was a good shot. Because getting in a firefight with a trained security chopper sounded possibly life threatening.
"That chopper is a menace to all future aerial operations while on this job," Bentley declared.
"Yeah, it's all covered in missiles and guns and stuff!" Murray agreed. All things considered, he should have sounded more scared of this job than he did. And I figured that he was either incredibly brave, or didn't realize that this was incredibly dangerous.
"Now, be a team player and take it out with that rusty, pre-war turret,"
I bit back a comment about how that turrent looked like it hadn't been used in years, and might not even work anymore. I also wondered why a modern town had a pre-war turret on it's rooftops...
Murray nodded eagerly. "Okay, I had a potato gun once; I bet it works just the same,"
"Uh..." I couldn't quite figure out how to put into words that a pre-war turret and a potato gun probably had nothing in common. And so I was just looking at Bentley with a very confused look.
"I know," Bentley said, seeming to be getting at what I was thinking. "But he'll figure it out,"
I sighed, and really hoped that he did. We watched as Murray hefted up a huge lever that had something to do with the turret, and then climbed into the seat of it. He took a moment to aquaint himself with the controls, before lining up his crosshairs, and beginning to fire at the chopper.
"Be careful, Murray! If you fire too quickly, that turret is likely to overheat!" Bentley warned. "Try firing in shorter bursts,"
Murray took Bentley's advice and did just that. He was actually a pretty good shot, though being that the chopper could move around and the turret couldn't, it seemed like he might be at a slight disadvantage... I tried to just not think about that.
It was a bit hard not to, though, because that chopper wasted no time in beginning to fire back at Murray. And it's firepower definitely looked a lot more powerful than whatever that turret was firing. And Murray couldn't move the turret to avoid them...
Thankfully, Bentley had an answer to this. "Shoot down the enemy missiles before they hit you!"
However, shooting at missiles that are heading right for you is apparantly a lot harder than it looks. Especially when said missiles travel in a spiraling pattern. And while Murray was trying his best to get some hits in on the chopper, as well as shoot down it's missiles, he was having some issues with that second part, being that the missiles were constantly moving.
Therefore, Bentley and I sort of both had miniature heart attacks when one of the missiles connected with the front of the turret with a sickening bang and crunch, sending up a huge smoke cloud.
Murray coughed a few times, but didn't stop firing. "I'm okay, guys! But I'm not sure if this turret will hold up if it keeps getting hit!"
"Keep trying, Murray! You've got this!" Bentley encouraged his teammate.
Meanwhile, I started studying the missiles, thinking that there must be some way to know where to fire. I soon noticed a pattern in the way they spiraled, and came up with an idea... "Bentley?"
"Yes?"
"Look at the smoke trails those missiles are leaving... They're spiraling, and it looks like a pretty even pattern. Do you think if Murray aimed at the up/down axis one of those trails was on, he could hit the missile when it crossed back over that point, only closer?"
Bentley hummed as he considered this idea. "Yes, I believe that should work!" he then turned on the microphone. "Murray, Nyx had an idea. Aim over the smoke trails the missiles leave, they should cross back over that same point once they get closer!"
"You got it, pal!"
We then watched with baited breath as Murray gave my idea a shot. Literally. Actually, it was more than one shot. I lost count of how many missiles he shot down. That chopper had no shortage of ammunition...
But my idea was working, and none of the other missiles came anywhere close to hitting Murray, or any part of the turret. I couldn't help but be silently proud of myself for the idea, though I didn't doubt that Bentley would have figured it out had I not. Sometimes you just have to appreciate your little victories.
When the chopper's engines finally gave out, it sputtered into an erratic dive, and then crashed into the river off to the side of the palace, leaving a glorious cloud of smoke in it's wake. We all let out sighs of relief, and I leaned back into my chair. That had been quite the adrenaline rush, and it would probably take me a while to come down from it.
With the life threatening job over with, I got up to walk off some of the jittery energy from the adrenaline, and grab a can of soda while I was at it. As I opened the lid of the can and took a sip, an especially confused thought began to suddenly bounce around my head...
I had just helped a criminal gang, hadn't I? And why in the world did I feel some form of pride for that?
