Sly Cooper

And

The Shadow Thief

Chapter Ten: Reunion

Last Time:

Carmelita thought about it for a minute, and then she looked to Nick, who shrugged.

"I don't see why we can't help," He said.

"Alright," Carmelita said to Merah and Sly. "Run us through all the details of the plan. We'll catch Maxwell."

"Sly…?" Merah whispered weakly into the microphone she had attached to her collar. An ear piece was in her ear, and she wanted desperately to hear Sly's comforting voice come through it. She was just outside the gates that would lead her up the walkway of Max's large manor house. She was shivering violently.

"I'm here," Sly said calmly. "You feel okay?"

"Yeah… I guess… Sort of… Not really… No. No, I don't feel good at all."

Sly chuckled softly. "Don't worry. We're all here."

"Run me through the plan one more time?" She asked.

"Carmelita, Nicholas and I are behind the building, waiting for Penelope's signal." He said. "When she sees you go through the gates, we'll make our way into the manor from the back. I'll go through the vents, and they'll force entry in their cop-like style. Okay?"

"And Bentley and Murray?" Merah asked. They had changed the plan a lot since Carmelita and Nick showed up at the house. Merah had had a nervous breakdown, and said she didn't want to go in alone, and wanted at least Sly to find his way into the manor with her. Bentley found this understandable, and concocted this plan in a matter of minutes. She still doubted if it would work…

"Once Carmelita and Nick go to find Max and you're in the house, I'll go around and take out security. Then I'll contact Bentley on the Binocucom, and he and Murray will stay in the van, ready to make a fast getaway. I'll call them in if we need them."

"Okay…" Merah breathed.

"You nervous?" Sly asked.

"Scared out of my mind," She confessed, though she managed to smile. "You do know that this is incredibly dangerous."

"I do…" He said slowly. "Especially for you. Just… try not to fall, or… get hit at all, okay? You know, 'cause of your 'condition'."

Merah smiled. He was with Carmelita and Nick right now, so he didn't want to say anything of her pregnancy.

"Sure thing, Daddy," She said.

"Good luck, Merah," Sly said. "I love you."

"I love you, too." Then the line went dead. She took a deep breath, twirled her cane in her hand a few times, and rang the doorbell that would open the large gates for her. Then she walked through. Merah looked to her right, and saw Penelope crouching in the bushes. She saw her say something into her own Binocucom, and she knew Sly, Carmelita and Nick were moving into their position.

Merah took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. Not that anything going on right now was very truthful, but… forget it. You know what I mean.

"Showtime," Merah muttered under her breath, and she pulled the visor of her hat down lower, so her eyes were hidden in shadow. Her cane was being gripped tightly in her right hand, and she slowly brought up her left to ring the doorbell to the house. Max himself answered the door. Merah stiffened when she saw him.

"Merah," Max said pleasantly. "How wonderful to see you – and so alone."

She narrowed her eyes. He was messing with her head, trying to get her angry. It was working.

Max wore the same grey, pin-stripped suit she had seen him wear in all of the pictures they found of him when his face was hidden by shadow. His hair was combed back neatly, and if she didn't know what a monster he was, she would have admitted he looked very regal. His broad shoulders looked even broader by the shoulder-pads in his suit jacket, and he held his head high with confidence, but Merah also noted on the arrogance.

Without a word, Merah shoved passed him into the house, and looked around. She crossed her arms over her chest, her cane still in her hand.

"Nice place," She said, though she really didn't care. "You fixed it up nicely after Sly and I trashed it when Shadow was occupying it."

"So you were working with Cooper then?" Max asked, walking up to stand next to her, his hands behind his back.

"I was technically working with him when you blew up our hiding spot," Merah shot back, turning to glare at him, but the hat was so low over her eyes, she doubted he could see. "I thought then you had just gone klutzy, like you usually do, and accidentally set off one of our bombs. But –"

"But I had actually set it off to fake my disappearance so I could go back as leader to the Shadow Organization," Max finished for her. He nodded, and a smile spread across his lips. It didn't reach his grey eyes. "You're a smart one, Merah. You always were. Too bad you didn't that out earlier."

"Yeah, it kind of is too bad," Merah said. She was loosing her sense of self. Uncrossing her arms, she held her cane at the ready, and after saying quickly, "I could have finished you then!" she lunged at him, ready to smash the cane over his head, but he grabbed her, and twisted her arm behind her back easily. The cane clattered to the floor.

"You know you can't fight me," Max said calmly, twisting her arm even more. The pained whimpers Merah had been giving before turned into a pained cry. "You've never been able to win against me in any competition involving strength. I would overpower you easily."

He let her go so abruptly that she fell to the floor hard with a thud. Her arm ached. But she was close to her cane. She heard Max take a step towards her, and grabbing it quickly, she turned and kicked him in the side of the head hard, all in one fluid movement. Max seethed in pain, and Merah immediately got up and ran for it, down the hallway away from the lobby. His footsteps followed a few minutes later.

Along her path, she knocked a few big statues over with difficulty, hoping to slow him down. If anything it just slowed her down. Now more than ever, she needed to hear Sly's voice.

"Sly!" He said loudly into the microphone. "Sly, are you there?"

"Where are you?" Sly asked, his voice sounding worried.

"Well… I'm running away right now," Merah said. "I pissed Max off; I don't think trying to beat him with my cane and kicking him in the head did anything for this situation."

"No," Sly said sarcastically. "You think? What did you do that for?"

"I needed to get away," Merah said. Then she noticed it was suddenly getting warmer. She had an idea. "Sly, I'm heading to the boiler room in the basement. Get Carmelita, Nick, and yourself down there. Stay hidden, keep to the beams. I'm going to try and fight Max off; if things get messy, don't be afraid to jump in, okay?"

"There's no worry there," Sly said. "You're almost there now?"

"I think so…" Merah said. "Uh… okay, I dunno. I'm going to… look around frantically for a little bit, and if you get there before I do, direct me… or something…"

"You're not very good at working under pressure, are you?" Sly asked.

"Damn strait, I'm not!" Merah yelled.

"Okay, okay," He said, trying to calm her down. "Just… find your way there, and… yeah, find your way there."

"Right. Okay," She said, trying to take a deep breath.

"You're not getting away, Merah!" Max yelled from down the hall. He was far behind her; good. It gave her time to find a place to hide. A lone door at the end of a hallway caught her eye, and she sprinted, full speed, towards it. She wrenched it open, dove inside, and slammed it shut.

Her heartbeat was going a mile a minute and she panted from the run as she slowly packed away from the door, expecting Max to burst through it any second. Her fear only increased when she suddenly felt an arm grab her around the neck, and she screamed bloody murder.

"LET ME GO!" She screeched, trying to fight the person off, but what she heard next was something she thought she'd never hear again.

"Serenity…?" A voice asked softly in awe, and Merah stopped struggling. Serenity was the name her mother was known by. And the way this voice said it, this man, was incredibly familiar to her.

"Dad….?" Merah asked, just as softly.

"Merah!" The man cried in a mixture of joy and relief, and she was suddenly pulled into a tight hug then she had no problem returning. It… it was her father… He was alive!

"I thought I'd never see you again…" Her father whispered softly into her ear.

"I thought you were dead…" Merah admitted softly. Then she pulled away to look at her father through the darkness.

Arthur Zeke Ringo, known as Zeke, was the man who had trained her to become a thief. The last time she had seen him, he had been wearing his thieving outfit, ready to go out for a heist; but there had been an explosion in the building where he was trying to steal something, and all who were in the building were proclaimed dead; the off thing odd, no one managed to find remains of his body. The reasoning behind that was Zeke Ringo had never died in the first place. His warm blue eyes, which Merah had inherited, looked at her with all the love and fondness in the world. His mouth, which she couldn't really see because of his graying moustache, was turned up in a smile, and she could tell because of the way his moustache seemed to bristle slightly. Though he looked healthy, and strong, he was definitely looking old, and on the thin side. But her same old Dad was still there.

"What are you doing here?" Zeke asked his smile suddenly faltering. "It's dangerous."

"I had to come," Merah said. "Ever since that explosion in your last heist, Max and I have teamed up, and… well, I found out what he did to Mom, and…"

"Merah!" A voice said suddenly through her Binocucom. It was Sly. She held it up to her eyes, and looked over at a wall to talk to him. "Where are you? I can't get a hold you on the microphone."

"It's probably an area of the house where there's no signal," Merah said. "I'm… well, I don't really know where I am, exactly. It's pretty dark."

"Who is that?" Zeke asked suspiciously, but Merah held up a hand for him to wait a minute. Not something you usually do to your father.

"Max is still thundering around the house looking for you," Sly said.

"Probably…" Merah said. "Um… okay, Sly, listen… I, uh… I'm just… going to find the boiler room, and… we'll meet up, okay?"

"Alrighty… be careful. Max is mad."

"I'll try," Merah said, and then she put her Binocucom away. Zeke was looking at her suspiciously.

"Sly?" He asked. "Sly Cooper?"

Merah bit her lip. "Yeah…"

"Merah!"

"Dad, it's okay!" Merah said. "He… he's helped me… a lot. I've been acting as Sly's 'shadow' for a while now; trying to get him framed enough so he'd eventually get arrested so our family would become better known. I stole the Mona Lisa, and he caught up with me, and I told him to read the beginning of the Thievius Raccoonus, the whole… ordeal of Socrates Cooper and Lucien Ringo, and… then Max blew up the place we were staying at, and I went to see if he was okay, and Sly followed me, and when I saw Max had kinda disappeared and that the house was up in flames, Sly offered to help me find Max and let me stay at his place, but the Thievius Raccoonus, which Sly let me read, by the way, because he said it technically belonged to me, too, was stolen, and because Sly offered to help me out, I decided it was only right to help him out, so we went around… everywhere, try to steal the book back from the members of this gang called the Shadow Organization, that Max happens to be the ring-leader of, and when I found out Max was 'The Master', he called me, and threatened to kill Sly if I didn't come here by myself."

Merah took a deep breath. She had said that all in one sentence, and her father was looking at her with a fairly flat expression on his face.

"So… that sums up everything you've been through with Cooper?" Zeke asked.

"Yeah, pretty much." Merah said. She decided she wouldn't tell her father just yet that she was pregnant. "Well… all of the important stuff, anyway."

"Max said he'd threaten to kill him if you didn't come alone?" Zeke asked. "But he's here."

"I… was scared." Merah admitted. "So… we called…. Um… these two cops, one of them the cop who's been after Sly for years, and… they're here, too."

"C-c-co-cops!" Zeke spluttered. "M-Merah!"

"Trust me, Dad, if there was any other way, I would've have called them." She said. Zeke sighed.

"This isn't exactly the way I wanted my daughter to be a thief, but…. If it's working, then… Fine." He said. "What's all this about the boiler room.

"Yeah…" Merah said. "We'd better go see to that."

She headed for the door, ready to exit out of it, but her father stopped her.

"It locks itself from the inside," He said. "Why do you think I'm still in here?"

Merah reached for the door anyway, and pulled it open. Zeke stared at her, then looked down at the floor and saw there was something in the way of the door to keep it from closing all the way.

"Oh." He said. "Well that works."

"Come on," Merah said, and she and her father tried to find their way through the maze-like manor to the boiler room.

Fifteen minutes later, they finally found it. Zeke opened the heavy door, and ran inside and just as Merah was about to follow, a bullet hit the wall right next to her. She turned and saw Max, and he had a gun. He looked scary, too. He was still in his suit and it still looked as nice as it did when she first came into the house, but his hair was messed up, and he had a nasty looking bruise forming on the left side of his face where Merah had kicked him.

"You can't run forever, Merah!" He called to her. "I'll kill you eventually!"

"Drop dead, Max!" Merah snapped, and she slammed the boiler room door closed behind her, scooping up a metal pole from the floor, and using it to bar the door.

"Merah!"

She turned, and saw Sly running towards her, and with a feeling to great relief and seeing him, Merah ran into his arms. He held her tightly.

"Are you alright?" He whispered softly. She nodded.

"We don't have much time," She said. "Max is going to find a way to get through that door soon. Does he know you're here?"

"No," Sly said, and Carmelita and Nick came up behind him. "Not yet."

Then Sly noticed the old raccoon standing a few feet away, a dark expression on his face, his arms crossed.

"Uh…" Sly said, keeping his eyes on the old raccoon. "Who's that?"

Merah turned to look, and she felt shock seize her. Sly didn't know about her father and her father definitely didn't know they were together. Well, if he didn't before, he did now.

"Um…" Merah said, stepping away from Sly. "Sly, this is my father, Zeke. Dad, this is Sly Cooper."

"Merah, isn't you dad… dead?" Sly asked softly.

"Turns out he isn't," She said.

"You never told me you two were a couple, Merah," Zeke said, glaring at Sly. He shrank back slightly. Old Mr. Ringo here was the one who had drilled into Merah's head that all Coopers were scum. If he was alive, he would most likely still hate Coopers. Suddenly, there was a bang at the door. Max was trying to get in.

"Look, we don't have time for this," Merah said nervously, glancing at the door. She turned back to Sly. "Max doesn't know you're here. Go back up to the rafters, or whatever's up there, and keep hidden. Dad, go with them."

"What?" Zeke asked. "I'm not –"

"Dad, please," Merah pleaded. "I… I need you to help me out."

Zeke sighed, and looked at Sly, who tried to make himself look more worthy in the eyes of Merah's father. Then Zeke smiled at Merah.

"Alright," He said. She smiled and hugged him, and he hugged her back. "Just be careful."

"As careful as I can be," She said, smiling at him. "Thanks, Dad."

Zeke let Merah go, and before she would walk away, Sly grabbed her and kissed her, afraid that this would be the last time he would get the chance to do it. Normally his attitude would be positive when it came to things like this, but when it came to the danger she was about to face…

"I'm not going to leave here without you," Sly said firmly. She smiled at him.

"You won't," She said. "Remember; don't be afraid to jump in."

"With both feet," He said with a smile, and let her go. She took a deep breath, and turned to face the door that Max was still trying to break down.

"I thought we were going to arrest this guy," Carmelita said to Sly. They all made their way to a corner of the square room, and in this corner, there was a pole that they would have to climb up to get to the walkway that was above them. It was there they would be spectators on the fight that was about to take place between Merah and Maxwell.

"We are," Sly said. "I… just don't know when. Maybe after Merah bashes him up a little?"

"So much for sticking to the plan," Nicholas said, climbing up the pole after Carmelita. Sly offered for Zeke to go first, but before he climbed up, he gave Sly a hard, long look.

"What do you have going on with my daughter?" He asked suddenly.

"S-Sir?" Sly asked. He may as well be respectful, right…?

"I would have thought a Cooper like yourself would want to try to get rid of her, just like all of your ancestors who've tried to get rid of us Ringos." Zeke said.

"Not all family members are the same," Sly said, repeating what he had said to Merah when they first met. "I understand the pain your family must have gone through for centuries, living with the thought that us Coopers have wanted to out-do all of you. That's not the case with me."

"What is the case, then?"

"I would do anything for your daughter," Sly said honestly. "If she had known that you were alive, I would have helped her find you in a second. I know that what Socrates Cooper did to Lucien Ringo wasn't noble, and I'm trying to make up for that. I don't want our families to be in this feud any more than she does. I want the Cooper and Ringo clans to be at peace again. And I'm hoping it'll start with Merah and I. I love her very much."

Zeke surveyed Sly for a few more minutes, and then climbed up the pole without another word. Sly wasn't sure if he had changed Mr. Ringo's mind on him or not, but he sure hoped he did. Once Sly was up on the metal walkway that ran all the way around the room, he joined Carmelita, Nick and Zeke, and looked down at Merah, who was twirling her cane in her hand.

'Stay safe, Merah…' He thought.

Meanwhile, as Max was trying to break down the door, Merah's heart was pounding so hard, she wouldn't be surprised if anyone standing close to her, they would hear it. That pole keeping the door shut would hold forever, and she quickly looked to make sure her father, Sly, Carmelita and Nick were all safe and in position. Max bust open the door then, and the pole clattered to the floor. He stepped into the room, an evil, twisted smile on his face, and a look in his eyes that made him look like a maniac.

"I hope you've enjoyed your life thus far, Sister Dear," Max said, holding his gun up, aiming at Merah. "It's gonna end soon!"

A/N: Whoa! Max is a maniac!

I didn't much like the flow of this chapter. It was kind of choppy. Typing it out wasn't all that great, either. Oh, well. At least it's down.

Hope you liked this! Next chappie is gonna be… wow. BIG! R&R!