I was so paralyzed by the fear and horror that had just gripped me that when I felt somebody place their hand on my shoulder, my first instinct was to bolt away as fast as I could. My second instinct was to fight because I was being prevented from doing so. "Calm down... it's just me." Yep... it was my companion, the mysterious fox; needless to say, I felt a bit stupid.

"I..." "No need... I'd have been more worried if you HADN'T reacted that way. Well, what are we going to do now?" "What are WE going to do?" "I could argue that I saved you and as such that you owe me... but we both know that when I was chanting, I thought the end result would be my sole survival. No offense, but that's what I thought would happen." "So, you really don't know why I was protected along with you?" "If I did, I might have been able to protect more than just the two of us. However, back to the point. I said "we" because my abilities make me better suited to make decisions for the two of us for the time being. I won't insult you by saying that i won't give you a choice in the matter, or that it will remain that way. However, the world as we knew it no longer exists... and my abilities could mean the difference between life and death for quite a while. Besides, you aren't any good at fighting without your cane."

"My cane? So you know who I am?" "Sly Cooper, master thief. It was a good thing that you got captured... or would have been had that box you and I both attempted to take never been opened." "Hey, don't blame me for not knowing what was inside that box!" "I'm not... I was the only one who knew what was in that box... and thus should be the only one held responsible for the failure to prevent its opening." "Not that again... it's not going to change anything to beat yourself up about that... what's done is done." "You say that like it's nothing that the world has been destroyed because I failed to keep the box in my possession long enough to hide it someplace that nobody would ever find it again."

I decided not to argue with him about that; it was a no-win situation. "You're right about me not being any good at fighting without having my cane. So what do you say we try and find it?" "I'll try... but there's a very good chance that it's been destroyed along with everything else... but then again I was wrong in what I thought about me being the only survivor." My companion closed his eyes and sat down for a few minutes. When he reopened them, he walked past me and pointed to one of the piles of rubble. "It's there... or at the very least part of it."

Sure enough, my cane was under that pile of rubble, but it took a while to uncover it even though my companion was helping me. "Ok, that's great! If it's not too much trouble..." "Forget it... when I used my abilities to search for your cane, I would have also detected other objects as well... if there were any other objects left. That's all you're going to find." "You just don't want to try again, is that it?" My companion turned and said to me, "If there were any other objects, I would have detected them. If you don't believe me, you're welcome to try and search for yourself." I did so, but as night fell (and until it was dark, I tried to avoid looking at the sky as it was even more creepy-looking as the sun began to set) I had discovered nothing else... and I'd searched every single pile of rubble.

" I can't believe this... my family's book... it's been destroyed!" "What's so important about this book? The world's been destroyed... isn't that far worse!" I had a feeling that one of two things was about to happen: my companion was about to get seriously annoyed with me (which was bad), or he was going to start beating himself up again about getting taken down and losing the box (which would be both somewhat annoying and completely useless.) I decide to tell him about the "book" and what it had contained; The information on Clockwerk, the records of my exploits and those of my ancestors, the thieving secrets of the Cooper family (although I obviously did not tell him how to perform the techniques that fell under that category,) and that I'd had to recover it piece by piece from the Fiendish Five. "I can understand now why you're so upset about its destruction... but don't you realize that much of that information would be useless anyway?" "What do you mean USELESS!" "What is the purpose of you being a thief if I'm the only other creature still left alive? I don't have much except the clothes that I'm wearing and my abilities. If, and I mean IF there are other creatures still alive, there won't be a lot of them, and most of what they had will most likely have been destroyed as well. You and your family were renowned for stealing from master criminals... but do you really think there can be any of those left? Those who aren't dead will have just as little as we do. It's going to be a struggle to survive as it is for everybody who's still alive."

I realized with horror the truth of what my companion was saying, and the bitter irony in it. My family had specialized in stealing from master criminals because of three things that you couldn't find in the act of stealing from anybody else: fun, challenge, and honor. The fact of the matter was that if I'd been able to escape from the prison with the possessions I'd been forced to turn over upon my arrival to the prison, I'd have gone back to my old ways of stealing from master criminals and messing with Carmelita's head before making my getaway. I'd grown up quite a bit since I'd left that orphanage so long ago (or that's how it seemed to me,) but I'd just learned one of the most important lessons of my life. There was no place for a thief in the world the way it now was to be able to steal and say that they were honorable. As I thought things couldn't get any worse, something hit me; something from the news broadcast everybody had heard over the PA... before everybody in the prison except me and my companion were killed by the contents of the box. "... and we're coming to you live from beautiful Paris..." Paris... Interpol... Carmelita! Wait... the world... Bentley and Murray! Were they all alive and fine or...? So I ended up frozen with fear and horror again? Nope... I went straight past that stage to "complete blackout."