FISHING FOR FEATHERS
OPERATION: FOX FRIED CHICKEN
Everyone leaves the safe-house at about the same time. Murray makes his way through the streets to the tea shop, then jumps onto the roof and pulls out his binoc-u-com. "Okay Bentley, I'm in position."
"I'm all ready here, chaps," says Henriette.
"I've taken my position," says Carmelita. "As soon as he shows his face..."
"Just don't move too early," says Sly. "Bentley and I are ready to head up the tower the second Tsao comes out."
"And remember: once I've released that black orb, there's no telling what will happen," Bentley says. "I won't hit that button while any of us are in the tower. Having it vanish from underneath us, or suddenly being beneath the ocean, would be disastrous."
"We know!" Sly interrupts.
"All right. Murray, Henriette, you're up."
"Already on it, lubbuh."
"Check!" Murray says, and puts away his binoc-u-com. Then Murray does what The Murray does best: destruction.
He leaps off the roof and belly-flops in the middle of the tight knot of guards in front of the tea shop, knocking them all silly with one blow, and then punching until he's sure they'll stay down. Then he enters the tea hut and gets to work. Everything that can be broken gets broken. That includes the things producing the laser fences. Some laser emitters just can't handle being hit by three or more tables. Some spotlight generators can't keep working after being belly-flopped by a hippo. Some of these things explode and damage the structure's stability, bringing pieces of the roof down.
The Murray has to squeeze in through the oven and down the slide to escape. Since he's less... maneuverable than Sly, going down the slide is a bit more of a challenge. But he manages. Yelling 'WOO HOO!' and 'YEAH!' and 'THIS IS AWESOME!' the whole way down.
"Okay guys, I'm at the rowboat," says The Murray. "I'll start making my way to the wall. How are things over there?"
REWIND
"All right. Murray, Henriette, you're up."
"Already on it, lubbuh," says Henriette, one hand to her ear. She leans back in her tiny sailboat and grabs the bullhorn. A pair of reins lay in her hook. "Those lubbuh's won't know what hit 'em."
With that, she sails into the bay by General Tsao's tower and grabs the bullhorn. "OY YOU LOT OF BABBOON-FACED FLEA-BITTEN CABIN BOYS! YOU CLAM-TONGUED WHALE FARTS HAVE GONE AFTER MY FLEET FOR THE LAST TIME! I AM GOING TO TAKE OUT EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUR LEAKY, SPLINTERED EXCUSES FOR BOATS BEFORE DESTROYING THE DOCK AND MAKING EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU COWPIES AS ONE-EYED AS I AM."
That... gets the intended result. A dozen boats get launched at once.
Henriette lowers her sail. "It's time, Sushi," she says, taking the reins between hook and hand and giving them a little tug. The sticky squid rises to the surface, rubbing its front tentacles together. "We'll have to start with them as smaller than you, my boy, but we're gonna take them all out."
The controls for Sushi are identical to the chariot Murray drove in Egypt. There are a few differences, of course. Sushi doesn't turn as well as the chariot. And Sushi doesn't seem to have brakes. But there are LOTS of things for Sushi to, uh, absorb?, as Henriette guides him along, her tiny fishing boat bouncing along behind him, laughing with glee when she's not insulting the idiotic, pus-filled wastes of skin who have tried to stand against her.
Sly, Bentley, and Carmelita just stand on the guard's house and watch it happen. Sly and Carmelita are cheering for all they're worth, making excited commentary and suggestions as though watching a sporting match of some sort; Bentley is the only one consistently speaking to her over the binoc-u-com, telling her when Sushi's big enough to go for larger ships and reminding her which ones are too big as of yet (though Sly and Carmelita can be heard cheering in the background); he has his laptop on his lap and continually checks it. Sly even uses his 'pirate accent' to mock the swabbies.
"Okay guys, I'm at the rowboat," says The Murray over the binoc-u-com. "I'll start making my way to the wall. How are things over there?"
"Henriette's just about to take care of the dock," says Bentley. "Oh! Carmelita, Tsao's on the move. Get to the beach."
"About time," says Carmelita. "Time to roast some bird."
"Just take care of yourself." Sly puts a hand on her arm and squeezes. "Bentley and I will be by pretty quick, but if it gets to be too much, get out of there. I'm sure Sushi would be happy to pick you up."
"I'm not gonna need it, Ringtail," says Carmelita, and leaps off the guard's hut. She runs to the middle of the beach and stands there, waiting.
Sly and Bentley make their way closer to the tower, using anything and everything they can to stay hidden as they get close. They're in position to watch as General Tsao slams open the door and saunters out, light flashing off his golden armor. "My shipping fleet... destroyed! What fiend has caused this dishonor?"
"All right, Tsao," yells Carmelita on the beach. "Hands up! You're wanted for breaking probation, piracy, looting, and—"
"You think to arrest me?" Demands Tsao, stalking towards her; Bentley and Sly sneak behind him, through the open door and inside. "You have no surprise this time, Miss Fox."
"That's inspector!"
"You are a female—weak. Emotional. You are destined to lose. Lose to the Black Magic of the FAMILY TSAO!"
All right, there are three different characters we could follow right now: Carmelita, in a fight with a giant chicken; Bentley, about to make his way back through the laser-and-water obstacle course; and Sly, who's going to climb the tower and steal. Who should we do first?
Well, let's go with Sly. That should be interesting. Don't worry, we'll check on the other two soon.
Sly stops a step inside the tower and looks around; Bentley moves past him towards the basement. A staircase winds its way up the edges, full of gaps that aren't meant to be crossed without a guard triggering them to open. Pennants flap all over the place, hung on the walls and on poles from the staircase, orange triangles with white tips; ropes stretch between some of them. Sly doesn't even bother checking the smoothness of the walls as he makes his way up. Really, between the ropes, poles, and hooks with pennants hanging from them, they couldn't have made his climb easier if they tried.
In fact, just taking the staircase like normal would probably be slower. But hey, if you can't have fun doing crazy acrobatics climbing up a tower without touching the staircase while your closest friend sets up bombs and the love of your life is fighting a magic-wielding rooster, when can you?
Yes, that was a rhetorical question. In any case, Sly reaches the top of the stairs very quickly... and discovers the door to the main room is locked. By a combination lock, of all things. He has to stop right where he is and start turning the wheel, feeling for the click of the tumblers with his eyes half closed, while listening to the hiss of the shock pistol and General Tsao's yells from outside.
It is rather distracting, but at least none of the sounds are Carmelita in pain. Sly wouldn't be able to handle that.
The lock clicks open. Sly shoulders open the door and finds himself in the room Bentley was in earlier, the large room with well protected gems at intervals around it like the numbers of a clock. There's also a rope ladder to continue higher, which Sly will definitely check out if there's time. Right now, though, he has another problem.
Sly removes the bag Bentley gave him from his back and sets it on the ground, undoes the zipper. Then, starting with the smallest gems and using the sort of skill other thieves would kill for, he reaches his cane through the laser wall and uses the same motion as pickpocketing to pop them off the table and into the bag. "Ya know, Bentley, if you figure out how to get the mind control charm off these, I'd really like to sell them," he mutters as he moves to the third pedestal.
"That would be rather profitable," says Bentley, "but I'm more concerned with how many of the guards we've seen may have been wearing these things. Have you been pickpocketing?"
"Not much," Sly says, working with the heavier gems of the fourth pedestal. "You were so worried about the timeline."
"Well, just something to keep in mind."
Sly's finished six of the pedestals now and has started needing to hit the gems off the pedestals and golf them into the bag, so why don't we leave him alone?
REWIND
With a press of a button on his wheelchair, Bentley moves the RC car back into position to turn off the laser security. Behind him, Sly starts his climb up the tower, but Bentley can't focus on that right now. He wheels himself down into the basement at top speed and, from there, makes his way through the hallway death gauntlet of water, floating debris, and weird water wheels.
Once in the orb room, he pauses for a moment to study it. There are six large poles going around the room, stirring the water at the edges; in addition to moving in a circle, they're also going up and down. Each of the six poles has a chain attached to it, with the other end going into the orb: two are attached at the bottom, two at the middles, and two at the tops. There's nothing good to jump on around, and Bentley certainly isn't going to go in the water.
Even if it's shallow, which he highly doubts, it's the nastiest water he's seen since the last time he was in the sewers. If he fell in there, he'd have to buy a new shell—and probably build himself a new chair as well.
"All right, let's see," Bentley says. "I usually only use one grapple cam, but I have extras, and their explosion was much easier to enhance. What I need to do is throw a grapple cam, maneuver it into position where the chain meets each moving stick, then exit the screen and throw a new grapple cam. I can trigger them all at once when I'm out of here."
And so begins the Grapple Cam trials. In normal game play, Bentley would throw a grapple cam and either make it self-destruct or go back into its viewfinder to continue moving it around. This time, once each grapple cam is placed, the game permits him to throw another and allows the player to maneuver that. Hitting a thin moving target in precise locations with a grappling hook is precise work... but not that difficult.
Well, I suppose it is. But it's not like the player is actually on a time limit. Bentley, sure, Bentley feels pressure. If turtles could sweat, it would be rolling in his eyes. But there's not a ticking clock... just the knowledge that his friends are probably in a bad situation and the sooner he finishes this, the sooner he can help them.
Because blowing up the thing keeping evil in the 1600's totally isn't helping.
He's got four of them set up when Sly murmurs in his ear, . "Ya know, Bentley, if you figure out how to get the mind control charm off these, I'd really like to sell them."
"That would be rather profitable," says Bentley, then pauses mid-sentence to take care of a tricky shot, "but I'm more concerned with how many of the guards we've seen may have been wearing these things. Have you been pickpocketing?"
"Not much," Sly says. Bentley fires his next shot and misses. "You were so worried about the timeline."
"Well, just something to keep in mind." Bentley gets the last grapple cam on the last stick. "I'm just finishing up. How are you coming along?"
"Things are just fine here. I think—"
REWIND
"You are a female—weak," says the rooster in gold armor advancing on Carmelita. "Emotional. You are destined to lose. Lose to the Black Magic of the FAMILY TSAO!"
"Ugh, a so-called tough guy," Carmelita mutters, readying her shock pistol. "These guys always brag the hardest when they're gonna lose, and lose hard."
Of course, as anyone who had to fight General Tsao in Sly 3 knows, there's a problem with Carmelita's statement. You see, General Tsao does have access to some sort of black magic. While some of the spells he used to fight Sly in game 3 were keyed to the fighting grounds they were using, he still has plenty of tricks up his sleeve.
Which means he can't summon the hands of the undead to reach from under the ground and try to drag her down—at least not here, where they practice burial at sea—but he can give a loud crow call and summon every rock, shell, and coconut in the vicinity to pelt her at high speed.
Shooting him doesn't seem to stun him; in fact, nothing seems to work. Though Carmelita doesn't know it, all she has to do—all she can do, here and now—is run down the clock. General Tsao is angry. And he's acting on it. And yeah... he's pretty dang tough.
Carmelita's panting for breath when Tsao knocks her backwards with his shield, slamming her into the stone of the cliff, then pauses. He turns his back to her as she struggles to get up. "Who is messing with my tower?" he demands. "The alarms are disturbing my thoughts."
"There are no alarms... you..." Carmelita gets to her feet. "What are you—"
General Tsao turns and runs for the tower.
"GET BACK HERE YOU CHICKEN!" Carmelita yells, but by the time she reaches the tower entrance the door is closed and locked before her.
MEANWHILE
Up where Sly is golfing, he's still talking to Bentley. "Things are fine here, I—"
CRASH.
Hello. There is a bird in the tower. Nice to make your acquaintance.
Oh, sorry. It's General Tsao. He just broke through the door. "We meet again, Sly Cooper. Have you come to try and make up for your pitiful lineage?"
"Heeey, Tsao, nice to see you buddy," says Sly. "I was just enjoying some practice at golf. Would you care to join me for a round sometime?"
"So it is not enough that you must destroy my love life and force me to live among commoners. You must now destroy my chance at redemption?" Tsao still blocks the door. "This is an outrage!"
Sly steals a glance at the door to the balcony—closed and locked, of course, he can't get through there even if he wanted to leave the mind control jewelry behind—and smiles at Tsao. "Come on, all this stress can't be good for your blood pressure. And your love life? Really? Jing King was crying and begging for you to let her out."
"She's a woman! Misguided, easily distracted... they are not to be trusted," says Tsao. "And you? You are no better than a woman yourself. I will destroy you, Cooper; destroy you, in the name of the Family Tsao!"
Fighting General Tsao isn't easy for a variety of reasons. He's fast, he defends himself well, and he's very, very strong. But he's also enraged, and he's wearing two large gemstones, one on the back of each gauntlet, where they will be very hard to get to.
But there are a few things in the area Sly can use to his advantage. Namely, those large stones he still hasn't golfed into the bag. Their faceted surfaces reflect (refract? Redirect?) lasers, and each one is in a circle of lasers.
Granted, dodging an angry chicken to 'pickpocket' a gem the size of his fist from a pedestal and golf it into place is... difficult. As you can probably imagine. And the conversation doesn't help.
"Tsao went inside. The doors are all locked; I can't get in!" says Carmelita.
"I just finished up with the bombs. He's not here. Sly, you holding up okay?" says Bentley.
Sly knocks a gem into place, making the laser bounce across the room and straight into Tsao. One of the gems on his hands/wings shatters as Tsao howls in pain. "An exit would be nice, if you can make one."
Yeah... Tsao doesn't stand a chance. I mean, Sly's pretty dang beaten up by the time the second gem on Tsao's hand shatters and Tsao slumps over unconscious, but Sly still won. He golfs the last gem into his bag.
"Door's open. Sly, come on!"
"I'm on my way."
One paraglide down the center of a tower later, Sly jumps onto the beach. Bentley blows the bombs as soon as Sly shows his face.
"You're hurt!" Carmelita rushes up to him. "Sly, are you—"
"I'll be fine," says Sly. "Let's get out of here before anyone else shows up."
Author's Notes
Okay everyone, here we are at the end of Area 2, so it's time for another update on how things are going. Or... close enough to the end of area 2. Next week'll be the official ending cutscene for it; area 3 will start in December.
Area 3 finally got finished near the end of August. I swore at it a number of times and referred to it as 'the area that wouldn't end' because things got... a little out of hand. I'd tell you exactly when I think it'd be finished, except the last time I tried to count things out and plan ahead, I thought you'd be getting this chapter on Oct. 30. Take that as you will.
Area 4 got finished Nov. 7; it's still unedited and unformatted, but it's all written. Area 5 is coming along nicely, but I've been Having Words with my outline, and need to fix a few things before I can write the third slideshow and beyond. Who knew it was so difficult to make Thiefnet abilities needed early on, so they're not surprises during the final area? I'll get better at planing someday...
Hope everyone reading this is enjoying it. Please leave a review just so I know who's reading—I like seeing them. Even if they're all from unique 'anonymous' people. It's a surprise over and over again, because every week it seems there's someone else following or favoriting it (or following and favoriting me the author—and I'm flattered, people, except I only have the one story so I really doubt I deserve it). Where are all you COMING from? Is the fandom growing, or do people just get tired of seeing this get updated over and over and finally click out of morbid curiosity and be glad they did? Did I get a fanfic rec on TVTropes or the Cooper Wiki or something when I wasn't looking? How the crud did I become popular?!
...Okay, that's enough freaking out over somehow acquiring fans. What I meant to do was thank each and every one of you for reading. I knew I wasn't the only fan who hated how Sly 4 ended, but knowing so many of you love the way I'm taking that and running with it makes me determined to try to be just as awesome as you think I am.
That's all from me for now. Stay awesome, everyone.
-EikaPrime