Sly Cooper and The Amnesiac Tag-Along - Chapter Five - The Descent into a Suicidal Wager Race
As Murray swung the van around, Sly was mentally preparing himself for the rocky road that lay ahead. Before him was a new task, a fresh opportunity to prove himself, yet again, that he was worthy of his family name. Although wary of facing the steroid-fuelled hound, he felt a new confidence slowly begin to develop within him.
"Go get him, Cooper," Dougie said with a warm smile.
"That's the plan," Sly replied, adjusting his cap before opening the back doors of the van.
"And even though you don't need it," she continued, brushing the hair from her face, "good luck, mate."
"Thanks Dougie." And with that, he scampered out of the van. A large gate towered over the tiny raccoon, with 'Mesa City' written above it in neon tubing. Running along the right-hand side of the gate was a severely crooked pipe. Knowing that it was his only way in, he gripped his cane between his teeth and scrambled up the pipe. As soon as Sly reached the top of the gate, he leapt off the pipe and landed on the platform which was most likely used for security purposes, most likely as a watch post, once upon a time. He looked ahead and saw what he initially thought was a junkyard, until he realised that it was the main road into the heart of Mesa City. The breeze that ruffled his fur felt like a ghoul whispering in his ear, intrusive and uncomfortable. Something didn't seem right.
He heard his binocucom beep and proceeded to fish it out of his backpack.
"Hey Sly!" Bentley greeted. "I thought you said Mesa City was going to be loud and busy. This looks more like a ghost town!"
"Something's happened," Sly observed. "Where is everyone?"
"I don't know but it's starting to give me the creeps. What do you say we take off?"
"No way, Bentley," Dougie interrupted. "We've come all this way and I don't think anyone will be happy if we leave empty-handed."
"You make a good point," Bentley replied sheepishly, embarrassed by his brief moment of cowardice.
"Just crack on, Sly," she continued, "we'll find out what's happened soon enough." The binocucom monitor went black. Sly put the gadget away and spied a string of lights, each with a narrow point on top. It was lucky for Sly (and unlucky for Muggshot) that the portion of the Thievius Raccoonus Raleigh had was authored by Rioichi Cooper.
Having read it thoroughly, the eighteen-year-old knew just what to do. He sprinted towards the edge of the platform and leapt into the air, focusing his concentration onto the tiny landing zone he had targeted. As he descended upon the limited point, the cable flexed beneath the sudden addition of Sly's weight, before springing up to its normal altitude. As Sly adjusted his balance to ensure he didn't plummet to the ground below, he felt a large grin begin to creep over his face. He had done it! His first spire jump!
"Well done Sly!" said Bentley through the raccoon's earpiece.
"Nice one, buddy!" added the rabbit.
"Thanks," Sly quickly replied, his focus on the task at hand.
Time to move, he thought, before pressing on ahead.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Bentley murmured apprehensively as he wrung his hands together.
Dougie cocked her head to one side. "Don't take this the wrong way but I get the vibe that you always have a bad feeling about everything," she said delicately. A knot formed in her stomach as she watched Bentley wince in response. That was not what she intended.
"I suppose you're right."
"You guys are new to this, aren't you?" she asked, quickly scratching her small, pink nose.
"We've done a few jobs before, but this is something entirely new for us," Bentley admitted, staring at his feet.
"It shows. I get that this is new and scary and frankly terrifying but look at how well you guys did in Wales. You really held your own." She paused to lean forward towards the turtle. "You guys have got this."
"Th-thanks..." Bentley said bashfully, unsure of what to do with himself. He gazed up at the sweet girl's face, which was beaming back at him. After a few seconds, he watched a flush of pink begin to slowly emerge on her face, before feeling a similar heat on his own. In a quick attempt to distract herself, Dougie took a quick sip from some bottled water lying about in the van. She grimaced.
"Eugh," she said, examining the bottle. "That's warm."
"Uh, Dougie?" Murray enquired from the front, having noticed what Dougie was drinking.
"Yeah?"
"That water's been open for months."
"Eugh!"
The raccoon prepared himself to swing his family heirloom as the tied-up bulldog frantically charged at Sly. As the dog prepared to chomp down on its thieving raccoon snack, its head connected with the metallic curve of the Cooper Family cane with a satisfying clang. The dog's eyes rolled as it slumped to the ground, motionless. Sly breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. He wasn't ready to be dog chow today.
He gazed up a small shack with a green roof yet couldn't spy any pipes or ladders to help climb up there. A dead end. Beside the unconscious dog sat a mattress, which Sly tested with his foot. It seemed incredibly springy, which gave him an idea. He jumped onto the discarded mattress, which launched him over and onto the target roof, causing him to roll as he landed. He clambered to his feet and saw that the road had collapsed in front of him, becoming a waterway instead. He strongly suspected that Muggshot's goons were responsible for this deliberate damage.
To his right was a metallic chimney with a pipe running up along it. Placing his cane in his mouth, the teenager clambered up the pipe. He took a quick look ahead to see that he could swing from a small, rubber ring that was hanging from a cable. Carefully considering how he was going to do this, Sly used his feet to push himself away from the pipe, smoothly removing his cane from his mouth as he did so.
Using every ounce of strength in his arm, Sly heaved his cane towards the rubber ring, hoping he had aimed well enough for it to hook in. The reassuring pull in his shoulder said that he had, and the thief dangled in the air while breathing a sigh of relief. He had to keep moving. He shifted his weight backwards and then forwards in order to make himself swing from his cane. Once he had gained enough momentum, he detached the cane and landed softly on the edge of the demolished road.
A few metres in front of him was another dog, sleeping, tied to a post and blissfully unaware of the ring-tailed snack before it. The uncomfortable proximity to the snoozing canine caused Sly to feel a prickly heat emerge under his collar. Not daring to breathe, he slowly inched his way past the dog, using slow, delicate steps. Under the blue shirt, more prickling sensations radiated across the raccoon's body as he tip-toed past.
Unbeknownst to him, lying on the pavement beneath the raccoon's booted foot, was a small, thin twig. The sturdy sole crushed the stick as Sly placed his foot down.
Snap.
The raccoon froze. He stopped breathing and didn't dare move a muscle as he watched his canine opponent snort in its sleep. Was that just a snort? Or was it stirring? He felt a bead of sweat run his face and build at the end of his nose. He watched the dog shuffle again, slowly, as rising from its snooze, while trying to ignore the burning desire to wipe the drop of salt water from his face tickling his nose. It was agony.
Finally, the dog rolled away from Sly as it sunk into a deeper slumber. Slowly, Sly released the breath he had been holding through his nose, while wiping the salt water drop from his face with a gloved hand. Sweet relief! He tiptoed, at a slightly quicker pace, to the wooden fence blocking the road ahead and scrambled over it.
Dougie had chosen the large rock by the main Mesa City gates to sit and smoke, a habit that she was quickly falling slave to. Now that she was outside, she too could feel that something was off with this place. It was too quiet: all you could hear was the occasional whistle of the wind. It felt unnatural and it sent a chill down Dougie's spine.
The last few weeks had been interesting for the rabbit. She had been whisked up in this whirlwind world of Robin Hood-esque thievery and that was all she knew. To her, her life was a blank canvas. She needed to take the time to concentrate and now was the perfect opportunity. She took a deep drag as she tried to recall the major details of her life.
Parents? No idea, she thought, exhaling slowly. Siblings... no idea. Childhood home? I got nothing.
Angrily, she sighed, throwing away the cigarette and burying her face in her hands. "This is hopeless!" she groaned.
"What's hopeless?" a voice asked, causing the rabbit's head to snap up.
"Murray," she said, her frown fading, "I didn't realise you were here."
"Are you okay?" he asked softly, sitting beside her on the rock.
She was reluctant to answer, staring at the dusty ground instead. "I guess so," was her response.
"It didn't sound like it," the hippo noted, unconvinced.
"I can't remember jack, you know that," she replied grumpily, shuffling on the rock. "It's driving me mad."
"We haven't forgotten. We can help you," Murray offered. "Once we've got Sly's family book back, we will help you with whatever you want."
The rabbit turned to look at her pink companion. "For real?"
"Of course, we all agreed when you went out to smoke."
A small smile opened up on Dougie's face. "I love how you say it like it's an isolated event," she pointed with a small laugh. "Let's be real here, the habit's taken over my life."
"Have you thought about quitting?" Murray offered.
"How dare you!" she squeaked with mock-seriousness.
Sly was getting sick of these dogs. Standing atop a small, rocky plateau, Sly spied two of them were tied up ahead, gnawing at bones. Below him was a wrecked car on its side which was his only way down. The daring raccoon hopped down, the metallic clang ringing as his boots hit the car door. The dogs didn't look up.
Good, Sly thought, creeping up towards them. He was going to slip past them. At least, that was the plan. Looking ahead, he saw that he didn't have many options. There wasn't anything he could climb on and he couldn't see a way of accessing the roof to the derelict building to his right. Disgruntled, he hung back, trying to think of a plan. He needed a decoy, but he didn't have one. As Sly scratched his head, one of the bulldog's looked up. In a frantic moment of sheer disbelief, the dog's eyes widened, its squat frame leaping to action. With several deep, boomy barks, it charged towards Sly, setting off its other flat-faced companion.
Sly watched in silently amusement as the dogs reached the end of their leashes and went flying back against the posts they were tied to, before getting an idea. Provided he stayed beyond the length of the leash, Sly could wind up the dogs all he wanted, and they wouldn't be able to hurt him. Unfortunately, the distance the dogs could travel meant that the path ahead was blocked: there was no way the thief could go ahead without getting munched on. Unless...
He had an idea.
While Sly thought through his plan, Murray was certain he had found a new friend in Dougie. The enigmatic rabbit was surprisingly quick-witted and entertaining considering she didn't have any anecdotes to tell the hippo. He found her interesting in a way that she always found a way to keep talking, constantly asking the getaway driver questions about his life. Murray appreciated the effort she was making but started to feel uncomfortable over how one-sided the conversation was getting.
He voiced his concerns: "I wish I could ask you questions, Dougie," he admitted, his pointed ears drooping slightly. "You seem like you would have some interesting stories."
"Well," she responded, flicking her hair out of her face, "once I know some, you'll be the first to know."
"Awesome!" he yelled as a large grin grew on his face. "I bet you have some great tales to tell," he continued and then added as an afterthought, "You seem like such a nice person."
Dougie rolled her eyes and waved the compliment away with a hand. "Thanks man. Here's hoping I can figure everything out."
It was time to move. The dumb dogs, who still hadn't tired of attempting to eat Sly, were still at the end of their leashes, snapping and snarling all the while. This was his opening. Taking a few steps backwards, the raccoon felt the nerves tickle at the pit of his stomach. He had only one shot at this and he couldn't afford to waste it. One wrong move would result in dinner time for the moronic mutts, who were so eager for the raccoon they were half-choking themselves.
Sly wasn't prepared to let that happen. He took a few slow, deep breaths to try and settle the fluttery feeling in his chest and some small hops to psych himself up. He then ran straight at the dogs. As he charged, he spied the two posts the dogs were tied to. The tops of them were flat and wide, which Sly concluded would be easy to spring between compared to the narrower points that required the more precise spire jump, a move he could only just about do.
He sprung off the ground and soared over the dogs, both of which were taken aback by the raccoon's sudden disappearance. Like a graceful dancer, Sly landed on the first of the posts, using his leg to launch himself towards the next one. He landed perfectly, propelling himself away from the dogs and towards a large metallic stretch of ground. Unfortunately, Sly had pushed off the second post too hard, causing him to fly closer to the ground than originally desired.
In a last-ditch attempt to counter the poor trajectory, Sly went along with the fall, rolling over his shoulder as he landed on the ground. There was one factor Sly hadn't considered in his plan, given that he had been so preoccupied with the dogs - the car crusher ahead. As Sly was mid-somersault and was looking upwards at the crusher, he saw it come toppling down towards him. Uselessly, he stared at the large metal plate, watching it come down, slowly, agonisingly, as if time had started to crawl.
He couldn't stop the sinking feeling of defeat from creeping into his brain. Was this the end? Sly and the gang had barely progressed with their quest to stop the Fiendish Five and retrieve the Thievius Raccoonus, but the fact that he had retrieved one section had filled the young thief with confidence. He believed that he, with the help of his friends, could defeat them all and reclaim his family book.
Not anymore. He had underestimated how far he needed to jump because he had completely forgotten about the crusher. Now here it was, metres from his face and crawling closer, as if to say 'you forgot about me, here I am'.
This was it. This was the end.
"Here's a thought," Dougie said, everyone sat in the van again. Bentley and Murray looked up at the rabbit, waiting for her to continue. She stretched her arms over her head, in an attempt to relieve the stiffness she was experiencing from spending a hefty amount of time in the van. "Maybe we should move from here. If Carmelita is on our tails, which I strongly suspect she will be, then she'll find us here."
"Agreed," Bentley responded, rubbing his chin. "We'd be sitting ducks."
"She seems to like going to main gates," she joked. "If we go elsewhere we can give Sly an easier route to extract," Dougie continued, breaking out her packet of cigarettes again. She popped open the packet and examined its contents. Deciding on which cigarette to pick out, she elaborated on her reasoning. "Getting out of Wales was a little tight for my liking. If Sly wasn't as athletic as he is, then getting out would have been impossible."
"I know where we can go," Murray offered, his stomach giving him an idea.
"Where?" Bentley and Dougie asked simultaneously.
"I saw a hotdog stand as we were driving here. It's close to Muggshot's place but it means Sly has a different way out."
Dougie cracked a smile. "Hungry, pal?"
"Starving."
"Then let's get moving."
Without needing to be told twice, Murray pulled off, making his way back town the rocky, unsteady, and lethal path they had navigated before. As the van rumbled along, Dougie couldn't help but voice what she was thinking. "I hope Sly's okay," she said with a hint of concern in her voice. "We haven't heard from him in a while."
"This place is a junkyard. Literally," a suave voice piped up over the comms link.
"Speak of the devil," she laughed, "how are you, mate?"
"I'm getting through this place," he replied, "but it's challenging. It looks as if this place has been left to fall apart. What about you guys?"
Bentley took over from Dougie, saying, "Fine. We're moving from the front gate."
"Why? Did something happen?"
"No, but Dougie pointed out that Carmelita would be able to find us, and Murray thinks he knows someplace better."
"Where?" Sly asked.
"Nearby hotdog stand on the other side of the city," Bentley said.
"And we're here!" the hippo eagerly declared, pulling up and parking the van. Excitedly, he sprung out of the van and ran up to the stand, only to be cut off by a suit-wearing Dobermann.
"Hey you," he said sharply, "we're racin' for a wager. You in?"
Murray looked back at his companions, who had only just managed to climb out of the back of the van. Dougie looked nervous, Bentley terrified. He turned back to the Dobermann. "What's the prize?" he asked, trying hard to mask the fear from his voice.
"We all pool in a few coins, winner walks away with the lot," the dog replied simply.
The hippo thought for a moment. He was an excellent driver, and with the prize money he could buy plenty of hotdogs. He needed to keep his energy up and he was starving! Murray found it difficult to turn this opportunity down. "I'm in," he responded, his facial expression determined.
Dougie and Bentley stared at each other in sheer terror, both unable to believe that Murray had accepted this race.
"It was nice knowing you, Bentley," Dougie said as she watched the colour drain from the turtle's face, "because I think we're gonna die."
It's been nearly two months since I last updated this and we're slowly ploughing through the game's plot! And this story's now at 4 favourites and 9 follows... crazy! Where did all you people come from?! I've never had such an influx of story interest between chapters before and this has blown me away! Thank you!
You guys know the drill - if you're new to this and want to come along on this journey, follow/fav this story! And if you've been here for a little while, feel free to drop a review. Every bit of support helps!
Until next time,
Subtle.
