Hello, and greetings my fellow reality-forging friends, and welcome to another chapter of my story. Thank you all for complementing my story. I am particularly proud of my fight scenes. Squirrels are cool.
Sly, Murray and Bentley returned to the van and quickly shed their biker disguises. Murray revved up the van while Bentley began tinkering with his computer, tuning it to the homing device frequency. After a few seconds, Bentley nodded and began feeding Murray directions.
"I know this isn't your style Murray," said the diminutive turtle "but you need to be inconspicuous. We can't let those bikers know we're following them, or they'll lead us on a wild goose-chase. Normally your driving is more Italian Job style, but you need to be sneaky"
"Don't worry little buddy. I can tail them and they won't even notice. They won't notice so much, they'll notice not noticing anything!"
"Right. Just drive and I'll tell you which way to go. Sly, I want you to ride on the roof with some binoculars. We won't be going very fast, and I want you to double check my directions and tell us if the bikers start getting suspicious. Between the homing device and Sly, we should be able to follow them straight to their lair."
Murray eased off the gas and began following the bikers into a series of hills and outcroppings, following a twisting winding road. Twice Sly told them to hide around a bend to avoid the outriders Tex sent out when he thought he heard the Cooper Gang following him. Eventually the bikers reached what appeared to be an abandoned mine. The bikers stopped outside it and just seemed to wait. In a few minutes however, several more bikers stepped out of the rocks, seeming to appear out of thin air. If Sly hadn't had years of experience looking for hidden doors and panels he wouldn't even have spotted the hidden alcoves they had come out of. Unlike Tex's bikers, who hadn't been armed with anything more than knives or chains, these ones carried submachine guns. Three of them pulled out devices that Sly didn't recognize, but when he quickly leapt down and told Bentley about, made the turtle turn pale.
"Those are frequency detection readers. They pick up alien frequencies that shouldn't be in the surrounding area. In simpler terms, they're bug and homing device detectors."
Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox took a left and drove down one of Paris's multitude of streets. Her mind was on the case, not her driving, but she had been living in Paris so long that most of the driving was automatic. She was going to meet her new partner, Wallace Grey, who insisted the partnership had nothing to do with the fact she hadn't caught Sly Cooper yet. In fact, he was remarkably sympathetic about it. Some of her coworkers mocked her about her inability to catch the infamous thief, or worse, whispered behind her back about the flirty way he always talked about her. She thanked God that they didn't know about that incident in Russia. Grey on the other hand, were waved it off with a "pish posh" and told her about one of his mentors in MI6, who had spent ten years pursuing a wanted terrorist. She slowed down at the cafe and pulled into the alley that led into the parking lot at the back of the building. She walked out of the alley and into the courtyard of the restaurant.
"Over here Inspector Fox, over here," called Grey from the table in the corner he was sitting at. As he spoke, Carmelita realized his voice sounded remarkably like that of Sean Connery. She walked over and took a seat.
"I've gone over the files you gave me on Zhaov and Xavius," Carmelita began, "and they seem like pretty bad characters. I've also heard of this Obsidian League they both belong to, but it's only whispers in the underworld. It's supposedly some kind of worldwide thieves' guild. It could just be a bluff to make themselves seem more influential, but that doesn't seem like the kind of thing either of our perps would do. What surprises me the most however is that Sly Cooper is working for them. He's a thief, but he has his own twisted code of honor. With the crimes Xavius in particular committed, you wouldn't think a person like Cooper would help him."
"Perhaps he doesn't know about the experiments Dr. Xavius performed," said Grey "due to the extreme nature of the materials seized, MI5 decided to seal all of his records unless one has the proper access. As far as your man Cooper might know, Xavius is just another run-of-the-mill criminal. What we need to worry about is catching them, not their inner motives. Interpol, MI6 and various police departments have tried catching these men, but have failed, as your branch knows from experience. We can use Cooper as bait to catch the rest of the targets, and everyone, except our criminals, loses. A, friend of mine who works in an airport reports, in her own words, a dashing raccoon traveling with a ugly green biker hippo and a punk turtle in a wheelchair. Due to the airport security cameras I then checked I believe this may be who we're looking for, and they've headed for America. As they were getting up, Carmelita decided to hazard it and said,
"You know, you sound just like Sean Conn."
He cut her off and said"Please don't start Inspector Fox. I work for MI6, sound like Sean Connery, and, if I do say so myself, have a certain rugged charm. There's another reason I don't like to be reminded of it, but I don't think I'll go into that right now. If you'll join me Inspector Fox, I've acquired tickets to the same airport the Cooper Gang flew into, and I would be happy to have you accompany me. By the way, may I call you Carmelita?"
"Sure," Carmelita said. As they walked away, she thought "maybe having a partner won't be so bad after all."
"A bug detector?" Sly whispered harshly, "so if they find your tracking device they'll scatter and we'll lose the lead."
"Don't worry about it," replied Bentley, "the device is of my own design, and I've incorporated a special feature. There is no single device. There are several very small beacons, that when broadcasting together to the properly attuned systems cause a frequency. The detectors probably won't even register the devices, and if they do they'll hardly cause a blip on the scanner. We should be fine." The armed guards slowly ran their detectors over the bikes, moving in a professional manner that was at odds with their biker dress. Sly, Bentley and Murray noted this, but continued plotting their entrance.
"Okay, Sly I want you to move around towards the far right side of the mine. The farthest alcove to the right is over there and I want you to take out the guard in it, then call for us and we'll all go in on this one. My online therapy classes say I should loosen up, so, against all better judgment I'm going to let this fly on the seat of its pants. On the bright side, how dangerous could some bikers be?" Sly and Murray just laughed and Sly grabbed his cane and began moving in a wide arc towards the hidden alcove that Bentley had signified. He approached it, and after staring at it for a minute or so, spotted the guard inside it. He took a risk and slunk towards the left of the alcove, nearer to the rest of the guards. He remained undetected and swiftly climbed up the rock until he was directly over the nook. He grabbed the edge and swung down, lashing out with both feet and slamming them into the guard with all his strength. The move knocked the guard right off his feet and Sly reached for the binocucom, only to see his opponent groggily begin rising to his feet. Sly whacked him solidly in the head several times with the cane, and he dropped again, not getting up. Sly noticed an unusual tattoo of some kind of green twisty shape, resembling a snake, but he only glanced at it for a second, so he barely noticed it. He called for Bentley and Murray and they snuck across in the same wide arc he had. Once their Bentley quickly located and dismantled an electric keypad, messed with some wires, and a section of rock slid aside to reveal a clean white room. The gang rushed inside and opened the door on the other side, revealing a long hallway that would be at home in a top secret government facility, with tiled floors and featureless walls. The Cooper Gang moved forward slowly and quietly towards one end of the hall, but as they were about to turn the corner two men in green uniforms with side arms and batons turned the corner first, seemingly oblivious to the Cooper Gang for about a second. Then one looked up and went for his gun.