~~~Where God Went to Die~~~

Ayleen looked at the pose again and sucked in a deep breath. "Calm down girl. Focus…" she told herself, closing her eyes. After a few minutes of slowing down her mind, she braced herself to try the stunt once again. Left foot first… keep your body straight, only arch your back once you land. You can do this. Ayleen felt her legs gracefully expel her from the ground, keeping her a few feet above the carpet, with her tail steady behind her heels. With her jump, she twisted her body around, careful to keep her momentum in check. When she had made a full three-sixty spin, she almost instinctively raised her arms at equal width to her shoulders, perfectly mirroring the raccoon depicted in the book. She couldn't read Japanese, but the diagrams were drawn with obvious care, and were descriptive in themselves. Finally, she felt her right foot make contact with the spike. She didn't have a twenty foot pole like the one used in the book, but she figured an empty umbrella bin would suffice for basic training. It had a thin cage surrounding a nearly two foot rod in its center. If she were to fail again, she'd only hurt her ankle. Fortunately, she felt the rod hit the direct curve of her toes. With her other foot following close behind, landing exactly parallel to her other one, she arched her back to keep her balance. Almost perfectly, her body completely (and gently) stopped moving. Not even the base of the bin shook or wobbled under her weight. The entire time, Ayleen refused to let her breath escape her lungs, but after her success, a loud, happy gasp erupted like a cannon. The sudden shift in her weight forced her to fall backward onto the carpet, but she didn't care. She had done it. What few English words the page had to offer proudly displayed a few tips in a thin blue ink, but she didn't need them. She had done it through only the pictures. She had completed what that blue ink had called The Ninja Spire Jump perfectly. And that was only the first page.

Chapter Four

Denmark - 2035

Sly's voice was garbled and weak when a fellow officer, a blue jay, helped him through his door, carrying the raccoon by the arm around the bird's shoulders. Ayleen had seen the car pull up through the windows and had enough time to properly hide the mysterious book by the time she let the two in. The Blue Jay in full uniform set her father down on the couch. "Officer Marsh…" Ayleen started, at first scared for her dad before the realization of Sly's state replaced her fear with concern. "Is he okay?" She knew the answer was no, but something must have happened to put Sly like this. He was still wearing his street clothes, but his hair was a mess, and he reeked of liquor. His eyes were closed, but she could see wet streaks carve melancholic rivers down his cheeks.

Marsh wiped the sweat off his forehead and let out a sigh. "Hey Ayleen. He and a couple others went for a drink. Guess he went a little too far." he spoke. Sly was groggily moving around on the couch, holding his temples and rubbing his forehead like it was about to explode. He was trying to speak, but nothing legible in any known language came out. The most Ayleen got was "Pen…" or "Gun."

"He said the station needed him back?" she asked, a bit fearful her dad lied to her to get away from some unseen demon. She figured he would need some water, but she didn't want to leave his side without an answer.

Officer Marsh nodded. "Just for some paperwork problems." He adjusted his belt and sighed again. Sly wasn't huge, but hauling him in and out of a car must not have been easy. Even for a big bird like Marsh. He had been somewhat of a family friend of the two since Sly helped him set his life out as a cop about a year ago. He wasn't over often, but whenever Sly and Ayleen would go out to eat or stop by a BBQ party, Marsh was usually right by their side. He wasn't local, as evidenced by his thick french accent, but his danish was good enough to pass as a born-and-raised. "He wouldn't stop talking about Tahiti. Has he ever been?" he asked innocently.

"Probably…" Ayleen sighed after sitting down by the raccoon, who had started groaning like he had a fever. "He's pretty secretive. Doesn't talk about his past much."

Marsh shrugged. "No kidding."he chuckled after a few seconds, trying to lift the mood. "Maybe hes hiding something?" his tiny laughs died quickly when the silence didn't return his humor.

Ayleen, not in the mood for jokes anymore, stood up and shook the bird's hand. "Thank you for taking him home, Julius. You're a good friend."

Marsh took the hint, and shook back. His hand was sweaty, like he was nervous. "Just call if you need me, okay? You guys are my first priority." he was thanked a second time, and waved to as he drove off. Even though he had joked about it, Ayleen felt a growing worry that maybe her father WAS hiding something. She would be lying if she said she's never thought about it before, due to Sly's vaguity of his past. That bizarre martial arts book she found full of thieving and sneaking maneuvers certainly didn't diminish her theory.

"Dad?" she asked the raccoon. He rubbed his head, still holding his brain in place, and nodded, somehow able to understand her. "Is…is this about mom?" she knew that bringing it up would only make things worse, but when you're this close to the bottom, the fall wouldn't hurt much. Sure enough, sly nodded and started breathing heavily. A few tears rolled down his cheek, deepening the rivers, and his lips quivered and twitched. "What happened to her?" Ayleen pushed, holding her dad by his arms. She could almost feel his jagged heartbeat through his skin. His fingers were starting to scratch at his eyelids, and his tail was wrapped tightly around one of his legs. Again, sly wasn't able to say anything, just weep and breath in a sporadic way. Whenever he opened his mouth, a huge aroma of booze clouded out, like smoke from a chimney. So much so, Ayleen was nervous she might get tipsy just smelling it. Sly enjoyed a drink every now and then, but would never let himself get drunk. This portrait of a once happy and controlled man now crying on the couch scared of his memories must be why.

Finally, a few audible words emerged admits the drunken sighs. "Penelope… frozen…"

Penelope? Ayleen thought. She knew her mother's name wasn't Penelope. She was pretty sure- tragically, not positive- that it was Spanish. Carmelita? "Who is Penelope?" She asked, expecting no answer, only more groans and tears.

Surprisingly, Sly looked up at her and held a puzzled face. "…How… you know?" he managed to choke out.

Ayleen nodded and was about to speak again when her dad rolled over to face away from her, almost seeing her curiosity as a threat and wanting to cover himself from any more questions. She bit her tongue and felt her lips quiver. Its not fair… I deserve to know... "Good night, dad.." she whispered, rubbing her fathers arm. His gray fur was cold and matted. She found a blanket for the raccoon and left a pillow under his head. She wasn't mad at him, just concerned. She wanted him to be better. Sober, and better. She pushed her way back into her room, sitting down the hall form the living space and past the kitchen. The book was lying under her pillow. Her room, decorated with posters of various music groups and age old knick knacks from her father's collection. She was actually set up in what might be considered the master bedroom, it being the largest space in the house. She had a walk in closet and a bathroom splitting off from the same room. Two windows allowed the gentle blue lights from the city skyline in the distance to seep in perfectly. A warm breeze pushed her curtains with a stoic sway to welcome her in. Any other night, she would have found this to be perfect to make some tea and read some cheesy romance novel, but tonight, everything seemed to annoy her. Plus, she had another book she was preoccupied with. She locked her door, slammed her windows, drew her curtains and didn't bother undressing herself for bed. All she could do to take her mind off her mother, was to read her father's mysterious tome. She had skimmed through every page before, but had only really studied the first few chapters. The ones she seemed drawn to were the ones that featured the blue ink. One appearance of the inking was in a chapter detailing a raccoon stealing the wallet out of a silhouette's pocket. The ink read;

Better with larger targets, as they have a tendency to focus on walking more than their six. Focus on keeping a tail's length behind them. Avoid their tails though.

Ayleen noticed the ink to stand out from the pages, as if it was added more recently than the diagram itself. Probably true, as most of the wording in the book was Arabic or some kind of hieroglyphic alphabet. English being the youngest actually-printed-in-the-book language fit with the text. "Is this you, dad?" she asked aloud, running her fingers over the ink, recognizing some similarities with the calligraphy and her father's signatures.

Finally, she found something to help her understand. Something that horrified her, something completely unexpected. It was a large photograph of a robotic owl, snarling right through the frames. The only thing written on the page was in English, and with that blue ink.

I did it dad, I killed him. I finally avenged you and won back our honor. I don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I could feel your presence with me every step of my way. I wont let you down. The cooper legacy will live on.

~ Sly Cooper, July 25th 2002