Chapter 2:The Beginnings of Silence

Ludwig von Stoopehd was flabbergasted. He could not believe his plan had actually worked. Pretending to be drunk was a favorite pastime for him, as it allowed him to relax under the guise of intoxication. Being that frightened of everything all the time was not only scary, but draining on all the senses. It was an amazement to the rich rat that someone such as Sly Cooper could fall for such a ruse that was so simple in execution. All I did was pour something into his drink, how non-observant can one person be? thought Ludwig, chiding Sly Cooper mentally for being so thick.

Ever since that stranger had contacted him nearly a month ago, things in his life had started looking up. Ludwig now had more money than he knew what to do with (and before he had only had enough to do what he wanted and nothing more), his phobia of actors and acting has lessened slightly, and to top it off if tonight went the way the stranger wanted, Ludwig would never have to fear anything in his life ever again. Now for part two, thought Ludwig as he made his way to the back entrance of his manor, making sure to still appear to be drunk as that was what all the townspeople would expect him to look and act like after one of his trips to The Drunken Idiot. He chuckled to himself just a tiny bit, to add to the image of inebriation he was portraying at the moment, but the laughter was genuine.

When von Stoopehd realized what he was doing, he shut up instantly. Laughing was something he had elected not to do ever again since he was five years old. But even with all his morose thoughts, and his promise to himself that he should never laugh again, Ludwig found it harder and harder to stem the tide of joy inside him. He contorted his face into all manner of disgusting shapes in an effort to block the thing that was filling him to the brim. He fought and fought to keep it inside, but ultimately failed as a loud and singular "HA!" escaped from him. Several passersby gave him strange looks as they always did.

Slowly but surely all the laughter that Ludwig had ever kept down, deep inside him, bubbled to the surface. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop himself. After several moments he stopped trying to hold back and just went with the flow. He spent the next two or three minutes rolling about in the street, giddy with laughter. Even more people passed by him than before, not one of whom could resist turning to their fellow and whispering about the crazy old man in the street, and how it was very lucky that no one was out driving tonight.

When Ludwig recovered from his bouts of laughter he stood himself up rigidly, until he realized he was supposed to be acting drunk and decided that the mad laughter had only aided his disguise of intoxication. The rat made his way to his manor using a long meandering route, as though nothing had just happened. Tonight will bring an end to all my worldly problems, thought Ludwig as he stumbled, drunkenly past two lovers who only a moment before had been enjoying their night time stroll in the light of the half-moon.


Sly Cooper was on his way to von Stoopehd's mansion, none the wiser of the actions that were at the moment conspiring to bring him down. The master thief kept to the roofs of the houses in town for as long as he could, but eventually found himself once again on terra ferma because Ludwig feared that if people lived too close to him that they would get strange ideas that included murder, arson, robbery, and defacement of private property.

Of course, in case keeping the neighbors away wasn't a good enough deterrent the mad rat had built one monster of a wall. It was fifteen feet tall, pure concrete, and it ran around all of von Stoopehd's property. There was a small gate up in front where Ludwig had constructed a driveway, but that wasn't the only entrance. According to Bentley, at the very edge of von Stoopehd's property was lake and the fearful master of the manor had built himself his very own sewer pipes, having been afraid of people getting access to his house through the public sewer lines.

Sly traveled parallel to the mammoth wall, making sure not to make any loud noises. Even though these walls had been erected at nearly five hundred feet from the actual house, Ludwig had put all manner of sensory machines on the top of his walls, just in case someone tried to enter using any form of grappling hooks. After what seemed like an hour, but in actuality was two minutes, Sly finally came to the end of the wall.

Unfortunately for Sly, the entrance to von Stoopehd's private sewer system was another five minutes away. He left the looming walls behind, and headed out into the deep brush of the forest that bordered the rear end of von Stoopehd's property. Faintly at first, a soft sound reached Sly's ears; the gurgling sound of flowing water. The sound gradually increased as Sly crept closer and closer to its source.

Bingo. The sewer entrance jutted out of the side of the hill like an ugly zit on an adolescent's face. There was a metal grate screwed into place on the entrance (or exit rather, as this was the place where everything left the sewers and was dumped into the river). After a few attempts, Sly managed to dislodge the grate from its place, as the screws that held the piece of iron in place had rusted over the years.

Sly peered down the sewer pipe and didn't like the look of things one bit. Sure, he had crawled around in the occasional sewer pipe, but they had never been as cramped or as smelly as this one. Even raccoons, who could eat anything, would disgusted by the sewer pipe that lay in front of Sly. The master thief kept his mind concentrated on other things as he took his first, squelching step into the sewer.

If only I had a nose plug or something, thought Sly as he started off into the sewers, trying within all his power to stop the smell from reaching his nose. Heck, even a clothespin would've been better than just walking in. Jeeze... you wouldn't think a sewer system that serves one guy would smell this bad.

Finally, the ladder Sly had been looking for loomed into view. He wouldn't given out a sigh of happiness, but that meant uncovering his nose and letting more of those foul sewer particles into his nose, which was not something he was prepared to do. Taking a final breath of the dirty air, Sly practically launched himself up the ladder.

He found himself in sort of a boiler room, minus the boiler. In fact, it seemed that the entrance to the sewer was the only reason this room existed. Sly closed the sewer entrance behind him and pulled out his binoc-u-com. "Bentley, I'm inside." No response. "Bentley, you there?" Static. Perfect, von Stoopehd must've built a signal scrambler in the center of his property. Hopefully Bentley can find a way around that. Now I just need to find the terminal for this security key, and the painting will be mine!

The enormous sparsely decorated halls of Von Stoopehd's manor magnified the noise of every step Sly took. What's the problem with building things small? Why does everything need to be so big? The halls that Sly walked through were lit only by most reusable type of light available, light from the moon. Because of this, Sly didn't need to worry about sticking to the shadows so much.

Just as he was about to round the corner and start down another long hallway, without a single clue as to where he was supposed to go, an illuminating bolt of lightning struck the earth followed seconds later by a deafening clap of thunder. The thunder wasn't what had caught Sly's attention however, what had caught his attention was a shadow that ran the length of the entire hallway he was about to turn on. Sly concluded that only one person inside the manor at this time would be going about their rounds, Francois Bellevue.

With a quick turn, Sly headed stealthily back the other way. He hadn't liked the look of that hallway anyways, it obviously didn't lead anywhere important. Also, there was no where to hide, and currently Sly smelled pretty bad. He was sure that even if he had found a place to hide, the Tail Eater would have found him just the same.

Heading off down the corridor, Sly came at last to a set of fine double oaken doors. He picked the simple lock that had been placed into the door's knob and stepped into a lavish living room of sorts. The floor was covered in a heavy carpet, decorated with many intricate designs. Sitting in front of a fireplace were two high-back velvet chairs. In between the chairs was a chestnut table, standing no higher than Sly's knees. On the fireplace's mantle were a number of portraits, mostly of von Stoopehd himself. Above the portraits of the current master of the manor hung several photos of his deceased family members, a father, a mother, and a sister. The walls of the room weren't visible, as they were hidden by ceiling high book-cases, each of which were filled to the brim with tome after tome.

The room was so full with expensive things that Sly almost missed what he had been looking for, the security panel. It seemed so out of place, a metal box hanging on the wall surrounded by mountain high collections of books. Sly crossed the room to the security panel, his normally quiet steps now silent thanks to the thick carpeting. As Sly inserted the key he had swiped from von Stoopehd into the panel and turned it, something occurred to Sly. Apart from that shadow I saw back there, have I seen any actual security? The master thief stopped for a moment to consider this, and then decided that he hadn't seen any laser trip-wires, spotlights, pits of death, patrolling guards, or anything. That's definitely odd, he concluded as he watched with a grin as the security panel displayed a message saying that all the security had been turned off. Now to find the painting I came to steal.

Sly crossed the room back to the oaken double doors and opened one of them slightly, taking a quick peek outside. After all, if what Bentley had said was true, well then Sly would rather not chance an encounter with this Francois Bellevue. After seeing nobody in the deserted hallways, Sly exited the living room and closed the door behind him.

After searching around the maze-like corridors for nearly two minutes (Bentley hadn't been able to find a floor plan for von Stoopehd's manor. This Ludwig guy really liked his privacy.) Sly finally found the art gallery. The gallery would normally be hidden behind an enormous steel plated door that came complete with electronic lock that had a 15 digit long code. Even if would be thieves had gotten this far, what lay behind the door would stop all but the most masterful of burglars from proceeding any further. But Sly Cooper, who had already turned off the security, had no need to worry about any of this. The steel door had been shut off, and all Sly needed to do was to slide it out of the way.

Inside, the art gallery was a long hallway like affair that was decorated a lot like the living room Sly had been in earlier. The only difference was the distinct lack of a fireplace, and that between all of the bookcases were paintings. Some of the paintings were worthless, and others were not. Sly was here to steal one of the latter variety.

The master thief made his way down the long gallery, towards where the most valuable paintings were hung. Cauchemar, the painting Sly had come to steal, loomed into view. Sly couldn't make out exactly what the painting was of in the darkness, but it didn't matter. What did matter, was that he'd able to sell the thing on for quite a chunk of coin. Sly's hands reached out to grasp the painting by its sides when a sound reached his ears. Someone was... laughing.

The laughing started slowly and quietly but soon grew louder and faster. Sly whipped around to see that he had company. Von Stoopehd sat in one of his high-backed chairs and glared at Sly Cooper, as he laughed. "Go on, take it," said von Stoopehd between laughs. "I dare say you'll need it more than I!"

"What are you talking about?" questioned a confused Sly. I'll need it more than him? What's that supposed to mean? In all his years of thieving, no one he had ever stolen from had let him get away with it on purpose. Also, Sly noticed that von Stoopehd no longer seemed intoxicated, and the master thief (while never having been inebriated from alcohol more than twice, both times being occasions that he didn't like to bring up) was quite sure it took longer to bring yourself out of a drunken stupor than it had taken Ludwig.

"He's already won, don't you see?" said von Stoopehd cryptically.

It sounded to Sly like something bad was going down, and the master thief quickly decided that he'd try to get information out of this rat before making off with the purloined painting. After all, von Stoopehd didn't seem to have any qualms with Sly taking the painting. "Who's won?" Sly asked, openly curious as to the answer.

"He has, of course! I dare say he's more intelligent than you or I," said von Stoopehd as though it hurt him to say it. "I mean, spiking your drink with... HEEEUURRRGGHHH!" From Sly's point of view it appeared as though a sword point had burst through the rat's chest, as though it were an alien. Von Stoopehd gazed down at the sword that had sprouted from his chest and at the growing crimson spot surrounding the wound. Slowly, and with great effort, von Stoopehd looked up towards his assailant. "You bastard..." were the last words von Stoopehd ever uttered.

A voice, heavily french accented, spoke from behind von Stoopehd's chair. "Just making sure I carry out all aspects of my contract with my real employer. It's nothing personal you see." The owner of the voice spoke to Ludwig's corpse as though it were still alive. "You shouldn't have mentioned the drink Ludwig, otherwise you'd still be alive. Such a pity," it said as it pulled the sword back through the chair. Von Stoopehd's limp body tumbled forward out of the plush chair and landed on the ground with a soft thump.

The speaker stepped out from behind the chair, and Sly's dreadful suspicions had been confirmed. In front of him stood the imposing figure of a white husky, Francois Bellevue. Francois took a look at Sly Cooper and said, "He shouldn't have mentioned the drink you see." Sly merely nodded, almost paralyzed with fear. Subconsciously, Sly wrapped his tail around his mid-section. That eye of Francois's was much more hypnotic in person. Looking at that eye reminded him of another eye, one that had been powered by pure hatred. When Francois saw that Sly wasn't going to go anywhere, he continued speaking. "My part of the contract has been fulfilled, you are free to go. I have no further business with you or von Stoopehd here. You might as well take that painting, you're probably going to need it." Francois sauntered forward, and placed one of his hands firmly around the base of von Stoopehd's tail, and with a swift twirl of his weapon along with a horrible splortching noise, separated the rat's tail from its body.

Sly stayed still as Bellevue exited the gallery, blood dripping onto the floor from the open end of the rat tail. That was intense, thought the Master Thief as he made his own towards the exit, making sure that Francois had really left. When Sly saw that the Tail Eater had left down the corridor to the left (he could see the small droplets of blood on the floor), Sly decided to head back to the right, just in case.

I think this house is making me just as paranoid as von Stoopehd was! was Sly's last thought as he found his way back to the sewer entrance. Mere minutes later, Sly found himself once again on the outside of the manor. After a quick check to see if the painting was still in good condition, Sly was off darting between the trees that stood a ways away from the mile-high wall. Sly easily found his way back to the village, and hopped to the top of the inn.

Sly reached down to his red leg pouch and removed his blue colored binoc-u-com. "Hey Bentley," he said nonchalantly into the voice transmitter, as though he hadn't just witnessed a murder. "You there?"

The communication line crackled to life slowly, as if the signal scrambler inside von Stoopehd's manor had left lasting impressions on the device. The binoc-u-com finally shook off whatever weird mojo had been placed on it by the scrambler and Sly had to hold the thing away from his face instantly. On the other end, Bentley had been yelling very loudly, as he is wont to do when trouble is near, and Sly got blasted by the final words of Bentley's yelling which had been, "... don't do anything stupid!"

"What Bentley? I didn't quite catch that," said Sly calmly, still gazing through the binoc-u-com's lens. He saw what Bentley's message had been about before the turtle had time to repeat his warning. Rushing towards the master thief at top speed was the loveliest of all Interpol Inspectors, Carmelita Fox.

"Get out of there Sly! Carmelita knows we're here! No time! Get out of there and for the love of everything that is good in the world, don't do anything stupid!" Bentley yelled, louder than before. Bentley sounded worried, but then again when was he not? Over the past couple of years he turtle had begun to trust the master thief more and more, but when it came to being chased by the Inspector he reverted back to his old doubting ways.

That was when the oh-so familiar call of "COOPER!" rang out in the crisp night air, followed the by equally predictable (but not unwelcome) appearance of the loveliest Inspector, Carmelita Fox. Like always, the Inspector had her trusty shock pistol in her hands pointed at her quarry, the master thief Sly Cooper. "I've chased you down Cooper. Tonight is the night where I finally bring you in." She said the words as she always did, believing that tonight would finally be the night where she would put the ring-tailed rascal behind bars. No matter how many times she had said the exact same thing, albeit with a different wording each time, she always fully and whole-heartedly believed that she would catch Sly. "Stealing from old, distinguished men... that's a new low even for you thief."

"An old man who was part of a gang that extorted money from innocent people, killed those who wouldn't pay, and imprisoned some people for the hell of it," said Sly with a hint of disdain in his voice; there were just some people in the world whom he couldn't stand, not one bit and von Stoopehd had been one of them.

"You're lying Cooper," said Carmelita, her temper slowly rising as she spoke. "What else would a criminal do but lie, cheat, and steal?" Sly tried to interject, but Carmelita's anger steamrolled over Sly's weak attempt to talk. "I know your type Cooper, I've known your type for all of my professional life, Cooper. You take what you can on impulse, and never stop to think of the consequences of your actions!"

"Oh, I know the consequences alright Carmelita," said Sly calmly. He stood on the rooftop, leaning against his cane, waiting for the inevitable question.

"You think you're so smart Cooper," said Carmelita. Her tail began to twitch behind her as she grew impatient with the thief. He was always so damn cocky. Sometimes, it helped her to imagine that Sly's head was filled with nothing but hot air. "What are the consequences then?"

"Well let's see there's the thing when... no wait, that's no consequence," said Sly with a ponderous air. "You see, the word consequence gives the result a negative connotation while all of the results are not negative things in and of themselves." Sly and Carmelita both blinked for a few moments, letting the depth of Sly's last statement sink in fully. I guess you can't spend as much time with Bentley as I have and not come away with a few things.

"You see Carmelita, what I'm trying to say is that, each and every time I steal something, I have the indescribable pleasure of viewing your lovely visage," said Sly. Without waiting for a response, Sly sprang back from Carmelita and landed on a roof top that was next to the The Drunken Idiot. With several loud Spanish curses ringing out from behind him, Sly knew it was time to make his get-away.

"Get back here ringtail! You can't escape me forever!" yelled out the fiery Inspector, as she fired shell after shell from her shock pistol at the infuriating thief. She had seen the raccoon getting ready to jump away from her just a moment too late to stop him, and so here she was chasing him yet again. She couldn't even remember how many times she had ran in pursuit of Cooper, but she didn't care. Capturing Cooper would be the crowning achievement of her career, and she wasn't about to let an opportunity to put the thief behind bars get away from her.

Unfortunately for Carmelita, she just wasn't as fast as the speedy 'coon. Maybe I'm not quite as fast as him physically, but I'd bet I'm smarter than him! With confidence Carmelita slowed her pace down just slightly and took careful aim over Cooper's right shoulder. She squeezed the trigger on her shock pistol and the bullet rocketed forth from its prison, heading towards the Master Thief. Sly looked back just in time to see the glowing energy bolt headed his way. In order to avoid being electrocuted Sly leapt off the building to his left, but had miscalculated the distance between the roofs and fell to the pavement, hard.

"You're mine Cooper," said Carmelita triumphantly as she dashed over to the edge of the building's roof. Her hopes, which had risen higher than they had been in a long time, crashed horribly as she saw Cooper getting into the back of that infernal panel van of his. "You can't run forever!" she yelled in a futile attempt to instill some fear into her quarry. She stood on that rooftop for a minute, watching the van as it drove farther and farther away.


"Sly, didn't I tell you not to do anything stupid?" said Bentley with a serious look on his face. It took Sly a moment to realize that his turtle friend was joking with him. Small smiles began to creep their ways across the turtle and raccoon's faces.

However Murray, who was currently driving the van at an almost breakneck pace, hadn't caught the drift and asked seriously, "Yeah Sly, couldn't the Inspector have finally caught up with you and put you behind bars?"

"Don't worry big guy," said Sly, clapping his brawny friend on the shoulder. "I've gotten away from Carmelita every time we've ever faced." Murray's eyes broke their connection with the road to look up into the mirror that allowed him vision behind his van, and was greeted by a smiling Sly. Slowly, Murray's face broke into the biggest smile of the three as he understood what was going on.

"Oh, I get it Sly," the Murray said, with a huge wink in his little friend's direction as he turned back to driving.

A small sound of distress from Bentley let Sly know that something had gone wrong. "Sly! The painting! It's... It's..." Sly turned to look at the painting, Cauchemar, and saw that in his escape from the fiery Inspector his loot had taken a hit. Now the canvas hung tattered from its gilded frame. "... It's ruined!" Bentley finished.

"Hey what's this though?" asked Sly, as he reached out to retrieve that had fallen onto the panel van's floor. It was an innocent looking envelope, addressed to one, Mr. Sly Cooper, in blue ink. The hand writing was very hard to distinguish as it was curly to the extreme. Sly flipped the envelope over in his hands a saw that the letter had been sealed with, not somebody's spit, but a small amount of wax.

Bentley's eyes widened when he viewed the seal that had been stamped into the wax. "Hey, let me get a look at that envelope Sly," said Bentley, who took the letter when Sly offered it to him.

Sly suddenly felt an irresistible urge to fall asleep wash over him. He tried to tell his buddies that he was just going to take a nap, but found he was too tired to even do that or maybe it had been that small tickle in the back of his throat that had prevented from saying anything. Ah well, I'll just let them know I fell asleep after I do so... Sly Cooper, renowned thief, fell sideways onto the hard panel van floor, fast asleep.