Sly 5: Thieves Forever Part 4
In modern day Chile, the Cooper gang raid Lapitz's vault, and joyously reclaim the team van. But Bentley is extremely worried that Clockwerk's eye is nowhere to be found. On the way back to Paris and the Thievius Raccoonus, Bentley runs through everything he knows. He takes out the postcards he received from Penelope after the endgame of Sly 4, and is stunned to notice one of the images changing before his eyes…
Sly and Wolfgang arrive in Victorian London, and immediately have to escape street level as a huge number of police (or people dressed as police) are patrolling the area. They set up shop in a *ahem* shop and Sly takes the opportunity to query Wolfgang about his knowledge. He asks him how he instinctively knows what ancestor is in danger, and Wolfgang shows him his time machine, and tells him that it begins to bleep loudly whenever anything disrupts the time continuum. Wolfgang begins to tell Sly about the future he comes from, a dystopian society run by a figure of authority that has never been seen but their troops patrol the streets and keep the population in line, working, endlessly towards… Wolfgang breaks off and tells Sly to go and do reconnaissance work. Irritated and still suspicious, Sly leaves the shop and begins to photograph the area. He notices a cluster of Jack the Ripper posters, and is shocked to notice that they have been stamped over with a CAUGHT sign. Instantly Sly knew something was wrong, as from his history lessons with Bentley he recalled that the Ripper was never identified, or caught, and yet police in 1888 claim to have done both.
Sly watches from the roofs as a man is dragged into the police station, overlooked by a serious-looking snail who is clearly the chief of police. Sly hears one of his officers call him Escargot. Sly investigates the station, crawling in through the air ducts, he sits on top of one of the lights and watches Escargot interrogate the man. Escargot begins to laugh and tells the man that he is grateful for taking the fall for the crimes of the greatest criminal in history, and making his job easier. The man in the chair simply replies in an elegant and gentlemanly manner that "justice will catch up to the corrupt Escargot". Escargot laughs again and says "I am justice!" and slithers out of the room laughing hysterically. Sly crawls down to investigate the man, and realizes he is Thaddeus Winslow Cooper. Thaddeus looks at Sly and says "Well here's the cavalry. That was quick. Tell me young man, do you really want to risk your life for me?" Sly tells him that he is his descendant, and Thaddeus politely tells him that the asylum is just around the corner. Sly nonetheless of his ancestor's retorts, breaks him out and the two escape through the air vent.
The Cooper Gang arrives in Paris, where Bentley shows them the altered photos. Now where it originally depicted her symbol of a mouse's face, it now showed Penelope holding the Clockwerk Eye, triumphantly. Bentley is alarmed as it means she has developed another time machine incredibly fast after her prison break. The gang check the Thievius Raccoonus, and notice the pages of Slytunkhamen, Henrietta and Otto now make mention of the assistance of their future descendant, Sly Cooper. On the page of Thaddeus Winslow Cooper, however, things seem to be in flux, with his words disappearing and re-appearing at an equal rate. Deciding that hat is where Sly is currently located, the Cooper Gang arrange for an unfortunate heist of a legit Victorian England coin from a nearby treasury, and slotting it into the time machine, whirl into the time vortex once again.
Back in Victorian England, Sly is midway between telling Wolfgang of the developments he has uncovered when Wolfgang's time machine begins to bleep very loudly, and Wolfgang grins and says "Looks like we may finally be able to catch the benefactor behind all this". The two plus a slow-walking Thaddeus move towards the source of the disruption. A vortex has opened in the middle of the street and Ripper posters are fluttering around in the whirlwind. Wolfgang stands in front of the vortex, pounced ready to attack anyone coming through. He is thrown back by a huge object flying through the vortex that narrowly misses him, as it skids to the end of the street and crashes explosively. As smoke billows out from the back, a familiar license plate hits the ground in smoke. Sly rushes to the van and Bentley and Murray rush out and embrace him. "We finally found you!" Bentley exclaimed, and Murray spoke in a rapid rumble about Leo Lapitz, Jeckles and lots of other stuff that Sly didn't understand, but he nodded and laughed along with the story, just pleased to back with his friends. Carmelita steps out and kisses Sly passionately. Sly grins and says it's good to see her too. She then slaps him hard and tells him not to do that to her ever again. Sly hugs the other members of the gang, even Dimitri who is soaked with sweat. Wolfgang watches with a contained air of suspicion and resentment. He calmly tells Sly that they have a job to do, but Sly ignores him. Thaddeus arrives, pursued by multiple police officers. As the entire Cooper party turns and runs from the approaching threat, Dimitri yells "It's good to be back baby!"
Once everyone is filled in back at the safehouse, Bentley begins to draw up a plan of attack against Escargot. He is clearly a member of the time travel syndicate, but his aims are clouded with mystery. Sly doubts that he was simply aiming to disgrace Thaddeus Cooper's name, and decidedly ventures out to investigate him. Carmelita accompanies him, wanting to stay with him permanently. Meanwhile, Bentley bugs several patrolling police officers, and Murray captures and interrogates the head of security, a man named Geeko. Geeko (a chameleon) proves very hard to catch due to his illusive colour-changing antics, but when caught, reveals guard patrol routes. Sly and Carmelita eavesdrop on Escargot as he patrols the town. He curses Thaddeus Cooper but claims that his job is done. With the Ripper's so-called identity revealed to the public, the media simply overlooks the outdated methods involved in the police work and allows them to continue in a poorly functional state. Carmelita recognises him as a disgraced cop from her office in the present day, fired for tampering with evidence that pointed to him dodging a parking fine. Sly suggests that he is out to ruin the police throughout history by letting them believe that their methods are still viable, when they need to evolve to survive. The two reckon that they must expose Escargot as a liar so that the police re-evaluate their method and time will be fixed.
Back at the safehouse Bentley plans the final assault. He reveals what he and Murray learnt from the guards that Escargot keeps encrypted audio files (from the future) in his office, which is tightly locked down by two keys hidden somewhere in London. With the audio files they can prove that Thaddeus is innocent of being Jack the Ripper and get Escargot arrested. But first they must locate the keys, which intelligence suggests are hidden in two locations. The first is at the top of Big Ben in the clock face, and the other at the bottom of the Thames, in a treasure chest. Sly climbs Big Ben and retrieves the key from the clock face, but slips and is hanging onto the hour hand. He drops his cane and it drops into the town below. As he looks around desperately for help, he sees a blur of silver rush past. It was only for a split-second, but Sly knows only one thing could have looked like that. That concern has to wait, as he is slipping from the hand at an alarming rate. Suddenly he is rescued by Wolfgang who pulls him up. Sly asks him what he is doing there, and Wolfgang tells him he is looking out for him. Wolfgang is about to speak again when Bentley comes in on the binocucom, telling the pair that Dimitri has retrieved the key from the Thames. Thaddeus goes out to look for Sly's cane, and discovering it has landed in a rough area, he manages to easily defeat all the thugs in the area with his own cane, that has a ruby on top. Upon seeing Sly's cane he realises he was telling the truth about him being a Cooper.
The plan is then put into action. The police station is heavily guarded due to Thaddeus' escape, and Bentley reckons they need Sly to impersonate a policeman to get in. To do so, he steals the parts of uniform from around London, including a futuristic umbrella, which deflects projectiles. Donning the Policeman costume, Sly infiltrates the police station and retrieves the files. Bentley discovers a future-tech radio transmissions tower has been put into place, 20 years before the invention of radio, that they can use to transmit the audio files, and then they will destroy the tower. Murray busts into the tower with Panda King's fireworks and take it over. After playing the audio message, they are alarmed to discover the tower rigged with future explosives, which blow, collapsing the inner structure of the tower. Panda King tells Murray to run, and that he will hold up the foundations long enough to let him through. Murray refuses to leave him, so the Panda King knocks him out and shoots him on a large firework through the gaps in the structure. He stares defiantly into the rubble collapsing on top of him, and shouts "Redemption! I'm sorry Sly Cooper! I'm sorry that I was weak and that I helped the Fiendish Five! In death, I am more honourable than in life!" Then the tower collapses. The Cooper Gang desperately search the rubble, but conclude that it is useless. Bentley holds a sacred Chinese memorial ritual, and the gang tearfully place flowers on the rubble. Thaddeus pops the ruby of the top of his cane and places it next to the flowers and bows in respect. Sly swears revenge against Escargot, and sets out to kill him.
Escargot is held out in the police station, and Sly successfully defeats the last of his guards and confronts him. Escargot taunts him about Panda King, and tells him about his benefactor, who gave him the chance to make his plan for revenge come to fruition. Sly, in a rage, attacks him. Escargot fights using mounted rocket launchers on his shell, but Sly repels them using the Policeman Costume and knocks him on his back. Escargot pleads for mercy, but Sly isn't listening and he prepares to kill him. Carmelita rushes in and stops Sly, saying that Panda King, a man of peace, would not have wanted this. While Carmelita talks Sly down, Escargot manages to revive and shoots Sly, who hits the wall and is unconscious. Carmelita turns to Escargot, who tells her that he remembers her as the stuck-up cop who arrested him. Carmelita calls him a disgrace to the uniform, and the fight begins anew. Defeated a second time, Escargot's shell breaks and he lands on his back. Carmelita tells him that he is quite literally a slimy ******, and chains him up for the police.
With Escargot's plans in tatters, time is now fixed. Thaddeus thanks Sly, calling him a great man that he is proud to be related to. Then he strides down the street, cane in hand, likely looking for more fun to be had. Back at the safehouse, Sly tells the now smaller Cooper Gang that Panda King's sacrifice would not be in vain, and that the orchestrators of the syndicate are within reach. He tells Bentley about his vision on the clock face, and he is equally worried. Wolfgang loudly announces that Slaigh MacCooper, Sly's Celtic Scottish ancestor is being targeted. The Cooper Gang sets off for Scotland, but in low spirits. And yet they are right to be worried, because only one person matches Sly's description…
A camera pan reveals Penelope standing smugly on the roof of a nearby house near to the old Cooper HQ. She is holding the Clockwerk Eye. It is the photo that Bentley had seen. A large thud behind her indicates the arrival of her client. She turns to face them. "This is it. This is the design that you followed when building suit mark one". She holds out some blueprints. "And these are the ones you should use for mark two". A metal wing grabs the prints, and beady red eyes flicker. "Yes. These are suitable." The moon shone brightly on the owner of the voice, revealing that Sly's fears were justified. Clockwerk laughed gutturally as his eye seated in Penelope's hand began to glow yellow, and just in that second, the whole world seemed darker…