Sly was out on another mission, heading for the nightclub, when out of the blue, he briefly saw someone dash right past him. He immediately came to a halt, only to see a red and black blur whip right by, perking up a bit. "Hello~ Who are you?" He wondered aloud, quickly following after the mysterious figure.
"Sly, what are you doing? You're going in the wrong direction, you know that, right?" Someone said in his ear.
"Yeah, I know, Bentley, but something came up." He replied in a rushed tone.
"What could possibly be more important than your mission?"
"I think I found something...interesting. Look, I'll call you back when I have some more info."
The one known as Bentley sighed irritably. "This had better be worth it..." The line then disconnected.
Sly continued to follow after the figure when it stopped. In the darkness of Paris, lit up by the city lights and the full moon, Sly could easily make out the figure to be female, and she seemed to be some sort of fox at that, with red and white fur, dressed in black and red, and in her hand, a cane. Sly's eyes widened a bit, until the cane changed into a sword, surprising the raccoon.
It can transform...?
It was then she leapt from the building she had been perched on, Sly following after her. She seemed to be following someone, that much Sly was able to tell, though couldn't be sure as to who she was following. Suddenly though, the fox appeared behind what seemed to be some sort of dog, quickly covering his mouth as she rammed her blade into his back and out through his chest, killing him instantly. She then yanked her blade out, allowing the body to fall limp on the ground before she reached up and pressed on her earpiece. As she was dialing a number, she reached into her pouch and pulled out a cloth to clean her blade.
"Yes, this is the Scarlet Rose. ...I've completed the task you have asked of me. I will drop by to collect my payment, and I suggest you have it ready, because I don't like to be kept waiting." She then ended the call, only to pull out her cell phone and dial a different number. "I need a clean-up. ...No, nothing big. This one should be simple to deal with since I managed to keep it as clean as possible. ...I'll leave your payment by the body, just make sure you get it before disposing of him. ...Yes. ...Of course. ...Alright. ...Yes, I'll be sure to give you a call if I ever need you again, so until then. Ciao." She then ended the call, reaching into her pouch to take out a wad of money, placing it by the body along with a red calling card of a rose. "Now then... I should go try to catch that jewel thief; can't let those beautiful gems go to waste, now can I?"
"Need some help, hun?" A feminine voice chirped.
Sly perked up, his eyes scanning the area, until he managed to spot a black and blue feline sat atop a nearby building. A cat...? Who is she, and where did she come from? I don't remember her being there a second ago... Sly wondered in confusion.
When the fox turned to face the cat, she scoffed, frowning. "Oh, wonderful... Look at what the cat dragged in... What do you want with me now, Kisara?" The fox asked, sounding annoyed.
The cat chuckled. "Play on words, nice. And I was just wondering if you'd like some help on those jewels I overheard you musing about."
"I've said it once before, and I'll say it again: My answer is still no." The fox replied sternly.
"I know what you said, but—"
"No, Kisara, and that's my final answer on the matter." The fox emphasized.
"Oh, come on, Rai-Rai—"
"Call me that irritating nickname one more time, and I'll rip out your vocal cords and show them to you. It's Rai, so stop calling me that damn name."
Kisara raised her hands, but was still giving that same sly grin. "Alright, alright, no need to get violent."
"With you, that seems to be the only way I can get you to listen..." Rai replied harshly. "Now get lost, I have jobs to attend to."
"You mean like murdering the innocent?" Talia teased.
Rai rolled her eyes. "Oh, spare me the dramatics... He was a corrupt business man, so he had it coming."
Kisara merely shrugged. "I'm not judging."
"I didn't say you were. And besides, it's not like you're gonna try and arrest me, because you're just as corrupt too."
The cat shrugged again, holding her hands out as she did so. "True, but I digress."
Rai rolled her eyes again. "Whatever... Just do me a favor and stay outta my way, why don't you?" And with that said, the fox took off into the night.
Once gone though, Kisara chuckled whilst getting to her feet. "Oh, Rai... You haven't a clue what you're getting yourself into." She mused. "Well, no matter, because sooner or later, I'll still get what I want, so I won't stress, for now at least." She said before turning and strutting off.
Meanwhile, Sly was all around confused as to the confrontation he just witnessed, shaking his head in confusion. "Alright, just what did I watch, and who exactly were those two?" Sly questioned out loud. "Rai and Kisara... Hmm..." He pondered. "I already knew of the Scarlet Rose's reputation, but now I know the name of the fox lady behind that mask of hers." Sly then smirked. "Heh, well, notes for later. I'd best get back to my mission before I get chewed out again." Sly said to himself before taking off, though the Scarlet Rose never once left his mind.
"Hey, Bentley..." Sly called from the couch.
"Yeah, what?" Bentley asked from his computer.
"What do you know about this Scarlet Rose character?" Sly asked.
"Hmm... The name does ring a bell, but let me look into it on ThiefNet. Just give me a sec." He replied, typing.
The Scarlet Rose... Sly had heard about her, and even more once he had arrived in Paris, but after seeing her in action, she had caught his attention. There was just something about her that seemed to interest him; maybe it was the fact that she was a master thief like him as well as a secret assassin, from what he's heard and witnessed. He wanted to get to know her; what drives her, makes her tick, everything he could get his hands on, he wanted to know.
"Ah, here she is." Bentley called.
Sly got up and walked over to the turtle, leaning over to see the computer screen. "So, what do we got?"
"Well, she's a master thief, like you, obviously, but no one seems to know her name or where she came from, except for maybe Carmelita, though even that's a stretch, but there's not much hard background information on her from what I can see." He explained.
Sly smirked to himself. No one knows her name, huh? No one except for me, and that cat, Kisara she was talking to, of course.
"From what I can see, it appears as though she's an assassin and doesn't like to stay in one place for too long – maybe a few weeks at most. Also, it seems like she's never been caught without this black mask that covers part of her face, and it looks like she has a..." Bentley suddenly stopped short.
"A what, Bentley?" Sly raised an eyebrow. "Why'd you stop like that? And it was just getting good too..." Sly complained.
"A cane..." Bentley then said. "Satisfied now?"
"Ah, yes, I remember seeing that." Said the raccoon, a bit of confidence in his voice.
"Excuse me?" Bentley raised an eyebrow.
"That was what came up the other night. She had breezed past me and I decided to follow her." Sly explained. "Oh, and as for her name, it's Rai, but that's all I've got for you on that front."
"Right... Anyhow, yes, she uses a cane, but it's a special type, one she modified, and quite well too since it's been reported that it has multiple forms."
A smirk formed on Sly's lips as he stood up straight, placing a hand on his hip. "That right? Does it say what kind of cane it is?"
"It can separate into two smaller canes, turn into a katana sword, twin daggers, oh, and twin batons."
"Interesting... Maybe we could use her to help us get the Clockwerk Parts back, eh, Bentley?" He nudged the turtle, who rolled his eyes.
"Sly..." Bentley started in a warning tone.
"Hey, does it say anything else about her?" Sly quickly changed the subject.
"Hang on, let me see..." He said, beginning to scan through the files that were available to him. "Past experiences with the Klaww Gang, though it was short lived. Other than that, I can't find much else..."
"Really, the Klaww Gang?" Sly questioned, seeming very interested now. "Oh, we have got to find her, because she might know something about the Klaww Gang that we don't."
"One thing at a time, Sly. First, let's just get the tail feathers." Bentley cut him off. "I can't have you getting distracted over some fox you haven't even met and only encountered once. We need to focus here, Sly."
"Yeah, yeah, no need to lecture me, Professor." Sly waved him off.
Bentley just rolled his eyes. "Just get out there and go bug Dimitri's office before I have a mental breakdown." He pointed.
Sly chuckled. "Alright, alright, I'm going. Take a chill pill why don't ya?" Sly joked before making his leave.
Meanwhile, Bentley just sighed. "How has he not been the death of me yet, I wonder?"
Rai slipped into the window of her apartment, letting out an annoyed sigh as she tossed her cane onto the nearby couch. "I swear, that damn cat just doesn't know when to quit!" She exasperated, removing her mask as she tossed it onto the couch in a fit. "She pisses me off..." Rai huffed, flopping down onto her velvet sofa. It was then though that she lifted a hand, placing it just above her bust, letting out a sigh this time. "It was because of her that I almost lost my own life, and got this damn scar as a result because of it... I don't trust her, I can't trust her, not this time... I've already fallen for her traps one too many times, and I'm not about to do it again. Still though, at the very least, I have to look into what the Klaww Gang is up to..."
Rai sighed again, getting up from the sofa as she head into her bedroom. She hastily changed out of her thief costume and into a simple tank top with some shorts, throwing her hair up into a messy ponytail. However, just before exiting her room, Rai couldn't help but pause for a moment, glancing back as her eye caught something on her nightstand. Slowly, the fox trudged over toward the bedside table as she reached out, only to grab a photograph sat atop. She stared at the photo, which was of a beautiful woman with the that same vibrant red as Rai's, and in her lap sat a child. This child...was Rai herself, sitting with her late mother. For a moment, Rai grit her teeth before taking the picture frame and placing it face down on the nightstand before turning and exiting her bedroom with her laptop under her arm.
Even now, it still hurts, even after it's been over a decade since then... Rai thought sorrowfully. They say that wounds heal if you give them time, but scars... Scars don't ever heal, only remind you of the pain you felt... This is just one scar that won't ever get easier to deal with over time; the pain will always linger...
Rai let out another sigh, seating herself back on her sofa as she placed her laptop in her lap, opening it up so she could get into ThiefNet. "At the very least, I should get to know my enemy before I do anything hasty, especially if I'm going at this alone." She said aloud as she began to type.
For the next couple of hours or so, Rai just sat there, doing her research and finding any and all information she could on every single member of the Klaww Gang. True, Rai was familiar with them, but ever since her time with them, she had gone off in radio silence, wanting nothing to do with them, especially since Kisara was a contributing factor to that. Regardless, most of the information Rai came across wasn't anything relatively new to her, but anything that was current was worth looking further into. To start, she wanted to go through each member, thinking that dealing with them one by one was the best course of action in picking them off before getting to the mastermind behind it all, whoever that may be. Rai started off with getting to know the first member of the Klaww Gang, Dimitri. He was the local disco dancer host at his very own nightclub, who also specialized in late night back alley crimes, so it was pretty standard stuff to say the least. However, what Rai found most interesting about this disco-loving lizard, was what he was in possession of, and that was the Clockwerk Tail Feathers. With this part of the old bird, Dimitri seemed to be using the tail feathers as printing plates so that he could forge his own counterfeit money, so he was basically rolling in it. Needless to say, forging money was certainly a federal offense, but Rai wasn't interested in any sort of counterfeit money, she was more drawn towards the tail feathers themselves. Now the task of the day was to somehow figure out how to get her hands on those tail feathers...
"Hang on..." Rai just had an epiphany as she began typing furiously. "Ahh, there you are... Sly Cooper... You also seemed to be pretty interested in the ugly suit wearing lizard, so I wonder what your story with the Klaww Gang might be." Rai smirked a bit. "Tell me all your little secrets, Monsieur Cooper. Just what kind of dirt do you have on you, I wonder~"
The longer Rai looked further into Sly Cooper's history, the more she began to piece everything together. Given all the information she's gathered, Sly had encounter Clockwerk when he was only eight years old. At the time, Clockwerk was apart of a group known as the Fiendish Five, and they were the ones who killed his parents and tore the pages of his family book, scattering them everywhere as they all traveled to separate parts of the world. Soon enough, by the time Sly was around maybe nineteen or twenty years old, he finally managed to confront the members of the Fiendish Five, taking them all out one by one, including Clockwerk, all the while, reclaiming all the pages of his previous family book. Needless to say, Sly did his part in taking down the ancient bird, but now his parts were scattered. Sure, he wasn't in one piece, but even so, the threat of Clockwerk still lingered, and that was something that had to be stopped. After a little while longer, Rai closed her laptop and set it aside, rubbing her eyes for a moment before sighing heavily.
"Well, given his history involving Clockwerk, I can understand why he was tailing Dimitri now... He's after the same thing I am - the Clockwerk Parts." Rai pondered to herself for a moment before letting out an irritable groan. "I need to go at this by myself, but...both of us have a history involving Clockwerk, so... Ugh..."
Rai got up from the couch, stretching her stiff muscles, a few of her joints popping in the process, before finally letting out a content sigh. "I need to shower... I can't think straight like this..."
The fox head into the bathroom, turning on the water for a nice hot shower, and as the water was heading up, she undressed herself. However, before stepping into the shower, she paused in front of the mirror. Rai turned a bit, pulling her long hair over her shoulder, but frowned a bit when she managed to notice a small indentation that was a bit down and off to the right of her left shoulder blade where no fur was growing in this small section of her back.
Had she been just a little more toward the left, she would've struck me right in the heart... Rai turned to face the mirror again, placing her hand against her chest, just above her left breast as she exhaled through her nose.
"Just a couple of inches closer, and I'd be dead, yet she feels no remorse and brushes it off like it's no big deal. And she wonders why I'm so adamant on keeping her away..." Rai turned, quickly climbing into the shower as the hot water hit her back.
As the water came cascading down, soaking into Rai's fur, she let out an exhausted sigh as she began to rub her tense shoulders. This is stressing me out... Kisara is nothing but toxic, I'm aware of that, and I hate how she constantly loves to drag me into more and more bad situations. I'm just setting myself up to fall once again, but... Rai tensed up for a moment, biting down on her bottom lip. ...I have to put an end to Clockwerk, permanently. After all, he's the reason I became who I am today... How could I ever forgive something like that? How could I ever forgive them for the deaths of my parents?
Rai merely shook her head, deciding not to dwell any further into it, otherwise she would just end up stressing herself out even more than she already was. With that in mind, the fox hastily washed her hair and body, trying to distract herself from her own thoughts. After rinsing off all the body wash from her fur, Rai turned the water off, pushing the curtain to the side. With a quick shimmy, she managed to shake away most of the water from her body before grabbing a set of towels, wrapping one around her hair and the other over her body. Once her towels were on, Rai opened the door to the bathroom, steam flooding out the doorway as she head for her bedroom, where she proceeded to slip into a pair of black panties. She got ready to pull a tank top over her head, when suddenly-
Bang!
"Ugh?!" Rai jumped a little when she heard a sudden banging noise coming from outside. "What was that just now?" She asked aloud, quickly grabbing her towel to wrap around her body as she hastily approached the nearest window.
After pulling back the curtain to peer outside, Rai was a bit confused when, off in the distance, she could see the front peacock sign of Dimitri's nightclub, but it was driven into where the fountain used to be. "What in the...? Who could've...?" The realization then hit her. "Don't tell me... Only two people could've done that, and I think I know who my money's on... I'd better go check this out, otherwise I won't get another chance to get those parts."
And with that, Rai quickly tossed her towel aside before throwing her thief outfit on. After grabbing a black backpack and stuffing a few items inside of it, she slung it onto her shoulders before grabbing her cane and placing her mask on her face as she made her leave from her small little apartment. However, little did she know that this was about to be the start of an adventure she was not planning on making...