Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Sly Cooper or any characters or any stuff associated with this game. All that belongs to Sucker Punch and Sony, after all, I am just a mere fangirl writing a fanfic! Note: I don't own ANY copyrighted content except the fictional characters I made up for this (namely, the villains and other nameless folks).

(Chapter Two: Sly's Storytelling)

Sly entered his room after being introduced to the owl secretary (whose name was Gertrude Deuducle), gripped the folder that he had received from the headmistress tighter and flopped down on the bed. Sly couldn't help but notice how stiff the mattress was. He nudged it a couple times while lying down and felt a spring pushing against his back.

Sly quickly sat up and inspected the room. There was small bathroom in a cramped looking room with a door that led to it off to the left of the bed. There was a medium sized window with a ragged navy blue curtain to the right of Sly's bed. Ahead of the bed were a desk and a chair with a reading lamp, a telephone and a small mirror on the desk. Next to the desk was a small trash bin. Other than that, there was nothing else to note.

With that, the raccoon stood up, left the folder on the bed and picked up the mirror that lay on the desk. Sly felt the top of his head and glared into the mirror.

'Stupid Doctor Luke! He never had anyone take off my bandages at the hospital! Probably got too excited...' Sly thought angrily as he marched off to the bathroom and began peeling the bandage off in front of a mirror over a sink.

Gradually, Sly saw more and more of the fur on his head where it was covered by the bandage. To Sly's amazement, there didn't appear to be any fur cut off. He quickly divulged a tuft of gray fur that curled just the slightest bit upward after throwing out the bandage. Rubbing his head thoughtfully, Sly mentally pointed out that if there was a wound that the bandage was supposed to cover, then it had been closed shut.

Walking out of the bathroom, Sly picked up the folder, sat down at the desk and cracked it open, opening up to the fifth page. Sly would return to the first page later, using an odd reading habit.

[Important rules and guidelines to follow at the orphanage...

1) You must obey all regulations. This is a must if we want to set a good example for the young ones.

2) You must be in proper attire—clean, neat and organized. No shirts with writing on them or pictures or other inappropriate content. There also must be no rips, tears or holes in clothing.

3) No profanity or inappropriate slang of any kind is allowed while you are within the premises of the orphanage.]

Sly's mind wandered. He had been told Cody would come and get him at 5:00 for supper preparations, but the raccoon was already bored. He looked at a clock that was sitting on the desk that he didn't notice before.

4:05.

Time was going to pass forever if Sly was going to be bored like this for the rest of the time...He focused his attention back to the paper in front of him.

[ 4) You must be at your post for the whole period of time that you are demanded to be at that job until the end of the time period or if it is an emergency.

5) All accidents must be reported to the headmaster (or headmistress). NO EXCEPTIONS! ...]

'Yeah...boring,' Sly thought in annoyance as he looked out the window.

There were children playing in the yard, ranging from ages two to eleven. They were all fenced in by a tall, wooden fence. There didn't appear to be too much things to do at first, but then Sly looked closer and saw a sandbox, a set of swings and a tetherball pole. Unlike when he first entered the orphanage, there were at least a few large patches of green grass to look at, but not enough to compensate for the lack of trees and bushes. Something else caught the raccoon's eye as he saw two young critters (a Black Labrador pup wearing a blue shirt and a smaller one in a white shirt with pink denim overalls) breaking out into a fight. There weren't any adults nearby to stop them.

Sly sighed after realizing how hard it would be to work in such a place. He'd have to re-teach the young ones not to fight so much. If he was going to impress Madam Teresa, he would have to do so much work.

He closed the folder shut and stood up, leaving the folder on the desk. Sly flopped back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He was thinking about what he should do to pass the time by until Cody would come and get Sly for supper preparations at five o' clock.

'I can't just sit here and watch the kids and I can't leave the room since I was told to stay here...' Sly thought as he walked over to the window. He observed the surroundings again and opened the window. Sly looked to his left, and there was a metal pipe attached to the wall. 'I wonder...' Sly sat on the window ledge and carefully edged to the left, and then he carefully grabbed the pipe, slowing inching down it so that he wouldn't fall (his room was on the third floor).

(Madam Teresa and her suspicion...)

Madam Teresa was sitting in her chair waiting within the darkness of her office. The door creaked open as Cody poked his head in.

"Come sit, Mr. Bryan. I have a couple questions to ask you," the headmistress said. Cody rushed over and sat down quickly, not wanting to upset his boss.

"What is it, Madam? Is this about the regulations by any chance?" Cody questioned. Madam Teresa shook her head, smirking in the most mischievous way.

"No. It's about your little friend, Mr. Smith." She paused for a moment, leaning back in her chair. "Isn't it awfully suspicious that he has all that cloth on his head?" Cody perked up, not wanting to get his fellow worker to be in trouble.

"Well...I did pick him up from the hospital!" he quickly answered. The headmistress narrowed her eyes, frowning.

"The hospital? You picked your friend up from the HOSPITAL?!" Madam Teresa stood up, knocking her chair back and pounding the desk with her paw in a fist. Cody shuddered as he was quickly reminded of his boss's temper. "HE COULD BE DAMN SICK FOR ALL WE KNOW!"

"Don't worry, Madam, he was just in there for a head injury. Nothing like pneumonia, AIDS or anything else contagious," Cody answered quietly, trying to coax Madam to calm down. "The doctor said he was injured to the head by a light post." The enraged Teresa sat down, breathing heavily in order to release stress.

"Head injuries, eh?" To Cody's relief, Madam had calmed down and was speaking rationally now. "Well, did Daniel Smith get reported for amnesia?" Cody shook his head.

"None at all, thankfully."

"You go then...you go then..."

Cody stood up and tip-toed quietly as he left the room. As soon as the door closed, Madam Teresa smirked as she stood up, searched amongst her many file cabinets and pulled out a file labeled "Cooper, Sly" and read through it thoughtfully, observing the photo attached closely.

"I still have my suspicions." She smirked as she put the file back in its place.

(Down in the backyard...)

Sly's foot touched the ground gently as he reached the bottom of the pipe. He let go of the pipe and found himself standing on solid ground. He pivoted around and saw that the children appeared to have gone inside the building while Sly had been climbing down. With all of them gone, Sly decided to take an opportunity to inspect his surroundings more.

There were all of the things he had seen before, but Sly was able to spot new things this time. Sly, looking over his shoulder, located a door into the first floor of the building and a large, sturdy looking box with jump ropes, hula hoops and a bag of balls. In the sandbox, there was a plastic pail and a plastic shovel sticking out from the sand. Nothing much else to see...

Sly was about to climb back up the pipe, but to his horror, he heard a voice coming from behind.

"Who are you, mister?" a young voice demanded. Sly looked over his shoulder and saw a five year old joey with a white shirt and baby blue scarf, making Sly assume it was a boy. He turned around with a smile on his face.

"The name's S—Daniel Smith," Sly greeted. "I might be hired here if I'm lucky enough." The young kangaroo grinned evilly, concocting an idea in his own mind. "What's your name? I might as well get to know the kids here..."

"Oh? Me? My name is Chandler..." Chandler paused for a moment. "I was supposed to come out here to pick up the sandbox toys, but I think I'll..." He paused for a moment as he dragged Sly over to the sandbox and walked over behind the raccoon. "...LET YOU DO IT!" Sly was pushed over into the sand face-first, hearing the laugh of Chandler grow more distant. The raccoon's face felt hot under the fur with annoyance.

"Daniel's" eyes watered as he rubbed the sand out of them, getting up and leaving the toys in the sandbox out for Chandler to clean up later. Sly also brushed his pants and shirt off since he couldn't leave any evidence of him ever being in the playground area. He smirked as he scurried back up the pipe and climbed into his window.

Back in his boring room, Sly quickly checked the clock once more: 4: 55.

'Only five more minutes!' Sly thought in relief as he headed off to his bathroom. He checked in the mirror for any sand that may have gotten caught up in his fur. Sure enough, there was a clump of sand and dirt stuck. He ran a paw through water, then his fur. After using a wash cloth located on the edge of the small bathtub/shower, his fur looked as it did before. It was all done just in time too.

A knock on the door soon followed. Sly rushed out of the bathroom and opened the door. There was Cody, his tail twitching nervously and his eyes worried. He guided Sly down two levels of the building and led him over to the main level. The stairs and floor were all creaking, making the trip noisy. To add to the volume of the creakiness, Cody was silent the whole way down, not letting Sly guess why the cat was so worried.

A twisted hallway led the two animals into a large dining room. Unlike the rest of the building, this room had a tile floor that was white—almost exactly like the hospital. It made Sly want to be sick all over again, as it was paired with white walls and at least ten windows. It also seemed to hurt Sly's eyes, with its brightness compared to the gloominess of the other rooms.

"This is the dining room," Cody pointed out as he motioned Sly to follow him through a white door that had a sign above it stating "Employees Only".

And there lay ahead the kitchen. There was a fairly large counter in the middle, with a counter along the edge of one of the walls for storage underneath and sinks. There were also cabinets and two closets for even more storage. One wall had at chunk of counter, a stove, a refrigerator combined with a freezer and a large, aluminum trash can.

"Nice kitchen," Sly said in awe. The kitchen was quite large and spacious.

"Hm...Well, you're lucky you're not actually assigned to cleaning up tonight. It can be a ruckus in the kitchen after meals sometimes since everyone is rushing a lot to get everything done," Cody announced. He paused for a moment and then smirked. "You're going to watch the five through seven year olds tonight."

"That's just great..." Sly trailed off.

"There's about twenty of them all together. A little less than that..." Sly glared at the ground. "Still quite a lot though, eh?" Sly nodded in agreement. "Well...we do need some help with cooking tonight, so why don't you hang around in here and help out?"

"Sure." Sly and Cody washed their paws in the sink, waiting for their orders from the head chef of the kitchen.

"Little rascals...They're here early and they're more hyper than usual!" a worker warned as they poked their head into the kitchen. "Whoever is supposed to be watching any of them better get out there now!" Sly's mouth dropped as Cody grinned at the nervous raccoon.

"Don't worry, Daniel, you'll do just fine!" Cody assured. He pulled Sly towards the door and opened it. "Those are the five through seven year olds." Cody pointed towards a table at the farthest corner of the room—also the noisiest table. "Good luck!"

Cody went back into the kitchen. Sly felt sweat under his fur and gulped nervously. He was shaking slightly as he walked over to his destination. He mentally counted fifteen children at that table in all—even that was a pretty large group.

There was chatter amongst the youngsters and pounding of fists (or paws) on the table. Sly tried clearing his throat once, but it didn't seem to catch the attention of the children. "Excuse me, kids..." That didn't work either. Sly's voice was too quiet for them to hear. There was only one thing he could do.

With a smack, Sly pounded his fist on the table as hard as he could. The sound surprised the little critters as they looked up at Sly with huge eyes. They weren't exactly shaking in terror, but Sly had achieved his goal by grabbing their attention. They were quieted down. In fact, most of the noise in the room was drowned out because of Sly's action. Now to introduce himself...

"Hey, it's, Mr. Bushy-Ring-Tail!" an annoyingly familiar voice. Chandler's head popped up from behind a female Siamese kitten that had long, dark brown hair pulled back into a braid.

"Hello again, Chandler," Sly greeted as he rolled his eyes. "And it's Mr. Smith."

"Mr. Smith?" a male squirrel asked. Sly nodded in approval.

"I'm a bit new here, so I'd like it if all the five year olds raised their hands." A third of the table raised their hands, including Chandler. "Six year olds?" Another third of the table raised their hands, including the squirrel. "And last but not least, the seven year olds?" The last third of the table, including the Siamese kitten, raised their hands. "Well...I'm supposed to watch you guys tonight." There were groans coming from the table.

"You're really boring!" the squirrel whined.

"Um...uh..." Sly was tongue tied.

"I want something to doooo!" the Siamese kitten whined. Sly suddenly had a light bulb idea.

"Why don't I try telling you guys a story?" Sly proposed. Chandler looked a little dismayed at the idea.

"All the stories they tell us are the same! Always about the good guys beating up the bad guys! They never have any stories about the bad guys beating up the good guys!" Chandler explained. The others nodded in agreement. Sly thought for a moment, trying to make his idea effective.

"Then you guys can stop me if it starts becoming something you hate. Okay?" Sly asked. The children looked at each other for a moment and then nodded to Chandler, the kitten and the squirrel, who nodded to Sly.

"We'll stop it if we hate it then," the kitten and the squirrel commented in unison. Sly cleared his throat and then began to sort out his ideas. Suddenly, one popped into his head: a story about the thief, Sly Cooper (who Sly still wasn't sure if he was actually that thief).

"You guys know of the famous raccoon thief, Sly Cooper, right?" Sly asked. Whispers burst amongst the group.

"He's the coolest!" Chandler exclaimed. "All of us have heard the adults talking about how bad they think he is!"

"We think he's awesome though!" the kitten added. "We heard he actually came to this orphanage before being a thief!" Sly smiled as he decided the kids were definitely going to like the story...He was going to make up a story for the thief that was easy enough for the children to understand, building off what information he had heard from Cody, whether he believed it or not...

"And now our story begins..." Sly started.

(Sly begins his story...)

Sly Cooper was running in the city of Barcelona, Spain. He had begun his search of something important he had lost after escaping the imprisonment of the orphanage and the beginning of preparation for his thieving career five years before: his police file. This file contained evidence of five criminals, who had stolen the most prized possession of an important treasure in his family of thieves: the Thievius Raccoonus. Sly was—

(...a random interruption...)

Chandler had burst into laughter.

"What? Do you hate my story already?" Sly asked, trying to keep a straight face.

"NO! WHAT KIND OF NAME IS—" this was cut off by Chandler's laughter for a moment. "'THIEVIUS RACCONOOS'!"

"'RaccoonUS'!" Sly corrected. "And 'raccoonus' is Latin for 'raccoon'!" Chandler stopped laughing.

"Hm...that makes sense. I mean, SLY is a raccoon...Go on."

"Anyway..."

(Back to our feature presentation...)

(Ahem!) Sly was going to get this book back at all costs. If it fell into the wrong hands, the world could be brought to ruin, but you see, children, when you plan a big heist, you can't just go on without any information. You'll cluelessly wonder. If you want to get ahead, you have to take small steps. Sly was taking a small step by looking for the police file.

It was a Saturday night—most adults would be in partying clubs or children would be out with their parents in malls and such, so Sly had to take the utmost caution when looking around in the police station. One false move would set all of the police on our "hero". This is why, he snuck along the rooftops, treading softly as to not make any noise.

And on he went, amongst the Spanish speakers. He managed to stay undercover in the crowd when he had to sneak into an alleyway and climbed up a ladder or pipe of some form. I will skip this part—it's much too boring...

After much prowling on the rooftops out of the watchful eyes of the crowd and inquisitive eyes of the children in the families, Sly was on the roof above the police station. At this point, he spoke into a microphone tucked neatly into his collar.

"Bentley, where is the file?" Sly asked. Sly waited for an answer from his friend, Bentley the turtle, who was back in the Cooper van watching the area around Sly for any possible threats or dangers. He was the genius of the group, specializing in computer hacking, area surveillance and being a worrywart.

"Sly, there should be a vent you can break open right ahead," Bentley replied through an earpiece that was in Sly's ear. "Are you sure you want to do this? I have a feeling this isn't the right place!"

"Even if I'm not able to find the file, at least I'll have a little fun!" Sly commented as he smirked. "I'll head to that vent now!" Sly ran along the rooftops once more and came across the vent Bentley had spoken of.

Sly's elegant cane shone in the moonlight as he broke the vent with it. He hopped down into it, avoided some laser alarms (did you expect to be none) and found himself within the premises of the office.

"The file should be in the office to your left!" Bentley pointed out.

Sly saw a blue door to his right reading "Senor Jose". He opened the door, being careful not to make the hinges on the door creak. Sly shut the door quietly behind him and found a safe.

"THE SAFE, SLY!"

Sly crept over to the safe and knelt in front of it. He waited for Bentley's usual comment whenever he had figured out the combination to any safe.

"This one was pretty easy: Try 1-9-0-4!" Sly followed the instructions and as always, the safe became unlocked. Bentley's thinking and solving never failed. At least not anytime soon for them...

The thief looked inside the safe, and to his dismay, he couldn't locate the police file he had been looking for. Although, he did find a sheet containing the location of the police file: the file was in Paris, France in another police officer's space.

Sly moved back out to the van and met up with his friends. Sly's second friend, Murray the hippo, was the driver of the group. As to his duty, Murray helped Sly escape from being caught by the police for reasons of crime from previous skirmishes.

There was one important place to go now that their business in Barcelona was done: Paris. So—

(Dinnertime!)

Sly was cut off when the children's dinner plates were being set in front of them, along with a pitcher of water and a pitcher of lemonade (the tables had been set with silverware previously). To Sly's surprise, the children seemed to be in a hypnotized state, ignoring the food in front of them and looking up at Sly. All of them had smiles plastered onto their faces.

"Um...you guys?" Sly asked, trying to snap the children out of their trance.

"Wow...that was an awesome story, Mr. Smith! I want you to be our story time teacher!" the squirrel exclaimed. The tone of his voice expressed awe. The others nodded in agreement.

"Yeah...you're not so bad!" the kitten added. "You're so cool! I wanna hear more of the story soon!" Chandler looked down at the floor for a moment and then looked up at "Daniel" with sad eyes.

"I'm sorry I was such a meanie earlier, Mr. Smith," Chandler apologized.

"That's okay. Apology accepted," Sly replied to Chandler. "I guess you guys aren't so bad either. Say...what are your names?" Everyone said their name once. Sly found out the kitten's name was Charlotte and the squirrel's name was Mike.

"Hey, Mr. Smith, what's your other name?" Mike asked.

"Daniel. You guys can call me Dan or Danny if you want..." Sly trailed off. The children nodded happily as they began eating their meal.

The rest of the night went much smoothly, though even after trying to tell the story of Sly Cooper, no memories appeared in his mind. Once more, everything was blank. The slate in Sly's mind was empty, void of anything.

Now the real challenge would come the next day...

(Random notes if you wish to bother!)

Hello, fellow Sly Cooper fans! Thank you guys (and girls) a bunch for making me feel so welcome here! I always get nervous whenever I write in a new section for , but you guys (and girls) have been so welcoming so far!

I apologize if you were peeved at the length of the chapter—I promise I'll try making the next chapter shorter!

Anyway, thanks y'all!

Shady Fetish