A/N: This will probably become clear as we progress through the story, (mostly this chapter), but it should be pointed out thatin the Sly Cooper timeline, this story takes place somewhere between the first and second games. Sorry if that confused anyone before now.

Special thanks goes out to my lovely reviewers! Particularly AntiGravity 5-1-0 and Heiduska, two reviews a pop on one story, you guys rock!

Disclaimer; Nothing belongs to me in this chapter except the Nameless Casino. Hmm… catchy name!

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Thief for a Day

Raven Ehtar

Chapter Two, 'Hunted'

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Sly screamed at the top of his lungs and clutched his cane reflexively. His heart was beating so fast it felt as though it would burst from his chest. He fought to yell and breathe at the same time through a throat that was constricted in terror. His eyes watered as he plummeted in semi-freefall, then his stomach dropped out as his momentum suddenly went from straight down to straight up.

Wheels rattled and Sly whopped even louder as the tracks went up, up, and up until they were upside down, then going down again, then they finally leveled out, creating an entire loop-to-loop. Sly barely had time to inhale before the roller coaster went into a tight cobra roll, once again plummeting to the ground.

By the time the coaster came to a stop, Sly was thoroughly dizzy, both from the coaster itself and from oxygen depravation. Weaving slightly, he made his way to the back of the train to find the friend he had dragged with him on this excursion. In the very last car sat a large, pink hippopotamus with goggles on. He appeared frozen in place, but as Sly approached, he jumped out, shouting, "That was awesome, Sly! Let's find one that does ten of those corkscrew things!"

Sly laughed at Murray's enthusiasm. Anything with speed or destruction involved was likely to be a sure thing for the hippo, "Sure, bud, but next time, try not to grip the bar so tight."

He pointed at the restraint bar of Murray's car, which instead of being a straight rod of metal, was now bent and twisted in several places. Murray blushed, "Yeah, well, that first drop is really freaky."

The comm. units in their ears hissed, then cleared with the slightly nasal voice of their third and final gang member, "I suggest that you two get back to the van, rather than go on another nauseating roller coaster."

"Aw, c'mon, Bentley," Sly wheedled into the comm. receiver, "what's the point of coming to Las Vegas if we can't enjoy it a little?"

"Yeah, Bentley," Murray chimed eagerly, "why don't you come out and try this? It's like grabbing onto the back of a speeding truck while crashing through the Grand Canyon!"

"Uh… tempting… and disturbingly vivid. But really guys, we're supposed to be lying low after that heist in London."

"And we are," Sly said. He grabbed Murray by his shirt front and starting leading him to an even bigger coaster. If Bentley was going to drag them back to the van, then they might be able to get in one more ride. Bentley was a bookworm – or turtle, as the case may be – and didn't appreciate thrill rides as much as Sly and Murray did. And talking to an unseen third person was less obvious to others when they were walking. "Who would come to Las Vegas and not hit every piece of entertainment here?"

"People who sleep once in awhile?" Bentley suggested.

Sly chuckled. Out of the three of them, Bentley had taken to a nocturnal schedule the worst, and he stuck to his new set hours pretty strictly. Fluctuations tended to make him crabby. "Hey, how 'bout we head for Treasure Island after this coaster?"

The turtle groaned, "Sly, what is it with you and pirates?"

Instead of answering, Sly said, "Why don't we steal the pirate ship prop?"

"What!"

Sly dodged a small group of giggling, teenaged girls taking up the sidewalk. They looked about to be in college, and were probably enjoying their summer with a vacation away from parents. They were certainly enjoying themselves enough to not notice other pedestrians. "Well," he said into the comm., "what are the odds we'd ever steal a real one?"

"Not very good," Bentley agreed reluctantly, "but we're not stealing a fake one, either!"

"Bentley, can't you loosen up a bit?" He took a hard left into the New York, New York building. Seeing how crowded it was, he pushed Murray in front to act as a makeshift plow.

Over the comm., Bentley sighed, "Maybe you're right, Sly. Maybe I should relax a little."

Sly grinned, "Now you're talkin'!"

"I mean, it's not like we've stolen anything important recently. Nothing that anyone would come and look for us for."

Sly and Murray made it to the New York, New York coaster line, which was remarkably short. With no entry fees to pay to ride Vegas coasters, people could ride them whenever they wanted, which usually meant short or no lines. Sly spoke more quietly into the comm. set, "You haven't even broken the encryption on that thing yet. For all we know, that's just where the guy keeps his laundry bills and grocery lists."

"I find that highly unlikely, seeing as how it had been carefully locked in a high security vault."

"You never know with these uppity types. They might be embarrassed if anyone found out that they go through a pound of Miss Persnickety's caramelized almond pops every week."

There was a pause over the comm., then, "We're straying from the point of this conversation, which is: would you and Murray please get your tails back to the van!"

"Alright, alright…" The cars rattled down the track and stopped in front of Sly and Murray, "Right after this last coaster!" Sly jumped in and brought down the restraint rail. Behind him he could hear Murray pumping himself up for the coming adrenaline rush.

As the cars began their steady climb, neither of the coaster fiends heard Bentley's disgusted sigh.

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The van was hidden on a back street off of the Strip, where there were a surprising number of cheap steak houses. At the moment, the van was parked right by one of Murray's favorites.

Inside the van, Bentley was briefing Sly on a small, local job. "Just because we're laying low doesn't mean we can't liberate a few casinos of excess cash," he'd said. What had caught Bentley's interest was one of the newer casinos on the Strip, noteworthy because it had been an instant success and its owner was practically unknown in the business. What was known was that one of his previous attempts to set up a much smaller casino had been a complete failure. Why this one was making so much money was a mystery to the average outsider. It was easy to understand, however, when you knew two simple facts: the casino cheated. A lot. More than was usual for casinos. Worse, the machines all played a semi-hypnotic tune that called players back, creating compulsive gamblers out of passer by.

"For a casino, there's hardly any security worth mentioning," Bentley was finishing, "Maybe a laser barrier or two and a couple guards. This should be a cakewalk!"

Sly was examining the photos Bentley had hacked out of the casino's security systems. It was amazingly open, and didn't seem to have any kind of theme, like most of the casinos in Las Vegas. The security wasn't what was worrying him. "What about that hypnotic music? Won't that just make me start gambling as soon as I step in?"

"Normally it would take a few minutes for the effects to really set in, and you should be in and out fairly quickly. However," he reached under the table and brought out a pair of small, metallic gizmos, "I've made these. They'll broadcast on a sub-audible frequency and counteract the hypnotic hum in the casino." He handed them to Sly, who carefully set them inside his ears. "Unfortunately, it will mean that we can't communicate over the comm. units. You'll be completely on your own for this one, Sly."

Sly shrugged, adjusting the left unit, "Like you said, it should be a cakewalk." He grabbed his cane on the way out of the van, calling over his shoulder, "You'd almost think we were on vacation or something!"

He began making his way to the targeted casino, using the highly varied rooftops found in Vegas. It was quite pretty, looking on the city from above. The towering hotels cut a range of silhouettes in the skyline – from the wedge of the Luxor, to the big-top of Circus Circus, to the fortress of the Excalibur. Looking straight down onto the Strip, the view reminded Sly of a river, a river beset by hundreds of thousands of fireflies. A myriad of people cast tiny shadows in the neon sea. Paris was the city of lights, and New York the city that never sleeps, but here they seemed to converge. Despite the light and staggering number of people, Sly felt he could relax a little. The distractions of the city provided more cover than mere shadows could have offered him.

Reaching the casino, he entered through a top floor window – which was conveniently unlocked. Who would expect an intruder fifteen floors up? Landing softly in the plush carpet, Sly crouched in the shadows, listening. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that this was one of the hotel rooms, and from the lack of sound, unoccupied. He made his way to the door, careful to avoid knocking over anything. The hallway was long, and deserted. He ducked back inside in room to throw on a jacket over his normal blue shirt, then headed downstairs.

This was one of the few times that Sly would allow himself to be seen while on the job, but it was necessary. The room that had the vault he wanted was at the back of the casino itself, and the only way to get to the room was to walk through the casino – which was sure to be packed. The room would be guarded by a pair of flunkies. To get past them, he intended to create a distraction.

The casino was loud, bright, and full of patrons – which was expected of a Las Vegas casino. What was out of the ordinary were the crazed looks on the faces of the people sitting at all of the machines. The average slots player would have a calm, almost tired look about them. Wide eyes and violent handle pulls were a little odd. Weaving his way through the people and machines, always being careful to show at least polite interest for the benefit of any observers, he made his way to the back room. Sure enough, there were two burly guards standing on either side of it. Very subtle.

Avoiding eye contact with the guards, he stopped by a particularly large and gaudy one-armed bandit. Pretending to examine the particulars of the machine, he leaned in close and placed his right hand on the side for support. When he stood and left the machine, even one of the hawk-eyed guards would have been hard pressed to tell the difference between the original symbols decorating the sides and the newly deposited one.

Near the heavily guarded door was a bar, and Sly headed for it. Technically he was still too young to drink, (or gamble), but he wasn't thirsty. Sly sat quietly, watching the gamblers until the barman started approaching. When he was just on the verge of either asking what he wanted to drink or for ID, Sly pressed a tiny button in the palm of his glove.

Immediately there was chaos as revelers were abruptly in the center of a cloud of smoke. The sounds of people asking where their friends were, where the smoke had come from, and most importantly, where the coin slot on their machines were, all came from the miasma. A few coughing patrons and waitresses stumbled out and collapsed, but many of the hypnotized gamblers stubbornly stayed with their machines of choice. The guards looked up, but didn't leave their posts. Sly didn't care. He had already slipped through an air vent behind the counter that the barman had abandoned to help the stunned people.

The vent twisted around inside the wall, which made maneuvering his cane an interesting challenge. Eventually, with a few unusual contortions, he came out inside the guarded room. The lights were on, but a swift survey of the room revealed no surprise guards. There was a bank of monitors for various parts of the casino on one wall behind a desk, a barred window overlooking the fountains outside, and a few other, smaller pieces of furniture. Most importantly, however, was the safe, tucked into a corner and nestled in a tangle of lasers. A quick pick of the vault, an escape out of the ceiling vent leading to the hotel floors, and home free to the van. It was so easy it was almost boring.

The lasers were easy enough to avoid for someone who was used to picking locks from odd positions. The vault opened with a pop, and Sly swiped the contents – two small, heavy bags that clinked musically when moved, and left behind his calling card. Despite what Bentley said about laying low, not leaving behind a calling card would lack the style that made Sly a true Cooper. If there was anything that Sly loved more than gold, it was doing things with style. Standing on top of the vault, he reached the escape vent and scrabbled up. It came out in an upstairs hallway, and Sly made for the window overlooking the Strip.

Just outside the window was a flagpole, which he used to spring up to the roof. It didn't completely work, he still had to climb up the side of the building the last few floors using his cane, but it saved a little bit of time. On the roof, Sly shucked the tourist jacket and readjusted his shirt and cap. It was hot enough in casinos without having to look like a tourist with bad dress sense. He was just beginning the long trek back to the van when a voice behind him shouted, "Freeze!"