Sly Cooper: Armed and Dangerous
2 miles Southwest of West Berlin, Germany
5 minutes before the end of the previous chapter
Sly and Carmelita made it to the fence just as the guard turned back around. The dog did a double-take, blinked twice, and shouted, raising his shotgun. But, before he could begin to draw a bead on the two officers, Sly had darted forward and knocked the guard over the head with the handle of his shock pistol. The guard dropped like a sack of potatoes, and Sly, with some help from Carmelita, hauled the dog into the bushes. Then, they both turned back to the fence, guns at the ready, in case someone had heard the guard's shout and came running. However, there was no alarm, no thunder of approaching footsteps.
Having processed this turn of events, and with Sly covering her, Carmelita quickly leapt over the fence, landing nimbly on top of a truck on the other side.
Leaping down, she did a 180 of the area, and whispered "OK, Cooper, its safe."
Sly leapt over the fence and onto the truck, but before he could get onto the ground, three shots rang out from a warehouse. They were pretty loud, too.
'Must've been a magnum' thought Sly, crouching down on top of the truck as Carmelita did the same on the ground.
After about two minutes, nothing else had happened, and Carmelita stood up, ready to investigate the gunshots, when six explosions ripped through the night, and the warehouse crumbled in on itself, followed by an even bigger explosion that swept Sly off the truck and into the space between it and the fence. It was over two seconds later, but Sly lay there for a little while longer, trying to dispel the pain in his head. After about ten minutes, his headache subsided to a dull throb, but the pain in his left ear had not decreased in any way. Getting up slowly, Sly held his head with his hand, while groping around with the other for his gun. When he found it, he wasn't surprised to see that it had been destroyed by a chunk of cement crammed into the barrel. It was, at that moment, that Sly heard a groan, and instantly remembered Carmelita.
"Oh—SHIT!" he muttered, eyes widening.
Tossing the ruined firearm aside, he quickly ran over to where the groan had come from, a pile of rubble. Sly quickly shoved away some of the rubble to find himself looking at a broken, bleeding Inspector Fox, trapped underneath more rubble. Working even quicker than before, he started pushing away the rubble around her, desperate to free the vixen. Finally, when he could lift her out, he saw the extent of her injuries. Her left arm and both legs were broken, and her jaw was dislocated, with a small trickle of blood coming from a cut on her forehead.
Shaking, Sly whispered "God, Carmelita, please don't leave me."
He quickly felt for a pulse and, finding one, let out his breath, which he didn't realize he'd been holding. He heaved her still form onto his shoulder and started back for the thicket the police cruiser was in. It was time to pay Bentley a visit. Strange, but now he couldn't feel any pain at all.
Prague, Czechoslovakia
3:14 am
2 days after the Germany raid
As the boat continued downriver, Prague just in sight, Marty McCoy closed up the file he'd been reviewing. The two rats, German brothers who had gone to Italy in hopes of kick starting their criminal career in a mafia, were currently hiding out in Paris and London, and had their own criminal empires.
One of them, 'Slick' Hanz Shuker, was at war with Interpol at their HQ in Paris, and was slowly taking ground. Therefore, in order to keep the war going, he'd need guns and ammunition, and if they took out a few hubs, then some rackets, he'd be crippled and start losing. Knowing men like these, Marty knew that Hanz would attempt to flee the country if this happened.
The other brother, 'Gentleman' Lars Shuker, was quite different from his brother. He did crime in what he considered a more effective, underhand, yet elegant way; the art of persuasion. Sources claim that Lars had such a silver tongue, he could convince someone to commit suicide. So, by simply putting his extortion prices lower than other crime lords, he managed to take over just about all of London in a short time. The police couldn't get enough proof, however, to convict him, since he almost never left any evidence. Marty didn't care about evidence. All he knew was that somewhere back at the hideout, there were two bullets reserved for the Shuker brothers' skulls.
As the boat pulled up to the dock, Mikhail began tying the rope at the nose of the boat to a pillar, while Julio started sabotaging the craft. Marty took all their guns, save for a few snub nosed revolvers, and put them into a suitcase. Julio's sniper rifle, however, was too long, but Marty had come prepared, and packed the weapon away in a guitar case, snapping it all shut quickly. Thanks to Julio, there was a special lead lining on the inside of the cases, which would put off any X-ray detection. In order to not arouse suspicion, he'd created a pattern of sorts in the lead to make it seem like there was only clothes and a guitar in the cases. The guns were all set in specially created foam that weighed the approximate measure of a suitcase full of clothes and a guitar in its case; minus the weight of the guns and ammo of course. They always had to leave some ammo that they'd bought behind, but they knew where to get more in Naples; Don Cordasco's weapons racket, disguised as a butcher shop.
Julio looked up as Marty finished packing the guns away and said "Polícia at ten o' clock."
Marty and Mikhail looked up as a vulture came limping over, a crossbow in his right hand. Ever since the Contessa had ruled over Prague with an iron fist, the so called 'police' carried the silent but deadly weapons wherever they went. This was no different. Marty stepped up onto the dock and started speaking in German, hoping to sound like a tourist.
"Hallo Offizier! Können Sie uns helfen zu gefallen? Meine Freunde und ich suchen nach der Zugstation, so können wir unsere Ferien in Italien fortsetzen." 1
The vulture fell for it, hook line and sinker, and replied, in German, "Selbstverständlich Sir. Gerader Abstieg die Straße, Sie können nicht es vermissen." 2
The officer then pointed at the boat and continued "Ich kam einfach, das Boot auf ungültige Materialien überzuprüfen. Standardverfahren, Sie verstehen?" 3
Marty nodded and gestured the vulture over to the boat, which, thankfully, Julio hadn't gotten very far on with sabotaging. Julio nodded, smiling, and Mikhail simply nodded. Both grabbed their supposed luggage and climbed out as the vulture inspected the craft.
A few minutes later, he climbed back out and said "Gut, Ich fand nicht nichts, Sie sind frei." 4
Marty nodded, then jerked his head in the direction of the station, which he already knew. Mikhail and Julio followed him, stealing glances back as the vulture walked away in the opposite direction.
There was silence until, upon reaching the station, Mikhail said, in English, "Why did we not simply kill him, comrade? It would have saved us a lot of trouble."
Marty sighed and replied, slightly annoyed, "Julio?"
The wolverine cleared his throat and said "A body is evidence, Mikhail. If someone had found him near our craft, hidden or not, they would've made the connection. Even if we dumped him in the river, forensics can do just about anything. The current wasn't moving very fast and he would not have gone very far, so they would've been able to tell how long the chemicals in his body had been bloated. They would've found the boat anyway and then become suspicious."
"Besides," Marty continued. "I'm not one to stoop so low as to kill someone who hasn't committed a crime."
With that, the conversation was over. Now, they just had to wait for the train. Or so they thought.
Paris, France
2:21 am
3 days later
"Aaaannnd…NOW!"
With a bang, sparks erupted from the machine as a turtle in a wheelchair and a mouse were both flung backwards, out of the contraption, and into a desk. After a few more smaller bangs, the machine suddenly went quiet, then started humming softly.
Bentley Montgomery, struggling to pull himself off of his girlfriend, breathlessly said "Not-huff-exactly-wheeze-what I-cough-expected."
Said girlfriend, one Penelope Black, stood up and helped Bentley back into his wheelchair, saying "Well, at least it didn't implode like last time."
Bentley, now secure in his wheelchair, nodded and started rolling back over. Penelope followed him and they both examined the damage. There wasn't really that much, to tell the truth. Just a few scorch marks on one or two circuit boards, a burned out connection here or there, and some missing wires from a few places, but other than that it was fine.
Rolling over to a computer, Bentley began typing at high speeds, looking up every now and then, checking the screen. Penelope stood off to the side, her view switching between her boyfriend and the contraption that had currently taken two years of blood, sweat, and tears to cobble together. It was the time machine she had thought up after Murray Green, the other member of the original Cooper Gang and great friend to both, had left.
Finally, Bentley looked over to her and said "Okay, currently, the system is stable, but we're missing one or two data packets. I suspect we may have lost them in the explosion. That must've been what fried everything last time; too much data. Hmm…"
Penelope spoke up just then. "What if we made another system? A smaller, less complex one that linked up to the original database? It could hold all the basic data and software while the more advanced programs could be kept on the original machine?"
Bentley simply sat there for a few seconds, then a grin appeared on his face and he wheeled over to her, taking her hand and saying "No wonder I love you."
Penelope blushed and said "Aw, it was simple problem solving. Honestly, even Sly could've-"
At that moment, the door was thrown open, exposing the thunderstorm that was currently rumbling outside. A silhouette stood in the doorframe, illuminated by the lamp inside and the lightning outside. After a second or two, the figure limped inside. It was now apparent that it was TWO figures, one holding the other over its shoulder. As the two came further toward the light, both Bentley's and Penelope's eyes popped wide open in shock and surprise. Bentley was the first to speak.
"Sly? Is that really you?"
Sly didn't look so good. His clothes were soaking wet, his boots were caked with mud, and there was a trickle of blood coming out of his left ear. However, the person he was carrying looked even worse.
As Sly knelt and lay an unconscious Carmelita Fox on the floor, he looked up at them and said "Guys, I need your help."
Meanwhile…
Naples, Italy
3:36 am
As the McCoy Gang made its way back towards their hideout, Don McCoy's old house, there was no conversation whatsoever. The need for weapons at the moment was unnecessary, for Don Cordasco had managed to drive Don Taloreso out of Naples. Of course, the rhino had simply set up his HQ in his newly acquired neighborhood in Venice, which had once belonged to Don Octavio.
For ten minutes, not a sound was heard or made as Naples began to wake up. However, as the McCoy Gang made its way past a shop with a sign that said 'Genco Fruit,' they failed to notice a large figure walking on its knuckles down the street, on the other side. Of course, they noticed when the figure kicked open a door, pulled two machine guns out, and opened fired. There was a yell, a grunt from the figure, the shattering of glass and the splintering of wood and then…silence. The large figure pulled something out of its arm, threw it down, and walked on. Or rather, rolled on, since the figure was walking on its knuckles.
The McCoy gang peeked out from where they had taken cover, behind a bench. They were lucky they'd been in the shadows, for they knew that if they'd been spotted, they'd have been killed too. No one likes to leave witnesses.
Rummaging in the suitcase, Marty pulled out his Desert Eagle, checked the load and safety, and whispered "Keep me covered."
The other two nodded, pulling their guns out. Marty waited a few seconds, then rushed forward at a crouch across the street. Reaching the other curb, he felt around, then found the object the figure had pulled out of its arm. It was a spear. Not a long spear, like a savage would use, it was more like the spear that would get launched out of a spear gun. There was still blood dripping off the head.
Marty stood up slowly, looking at the bullet holes in the window. Branching out from the holes were what looked like fibers. This was supposed to be bulletproof glass. There were only two types of machine guns in the world that could penetrate it, and he owned one of them. The figure's guns didn't look or sound anything like Tommy guns.
Slowly, he walked through the door to find a wreck where he was sure a normally clean house would be. Bullet holes in tables, chairs, the walls, and more importantly, the occupant. Marty could see a purple, spiked tail peeking out from behind an easy chair that had tipped over.
Pulling out his pistol, he walked towards the chair and stepped around it. He found a purple lizard, dressed up in clothes that clashed distastefully. The lizard had a few bullets in his chest, but he was still breathing. Still alive. Marty walked back to the door and waved Julio and Mikhail over, then went back to the lizard when he heard him muttering something. He knelt down next to the lizard, listening to what he whispered, then nodded and walked into another room and found an intact telephone. Quickly, he dialed a long distance number and waited, listening to the ringing.
Paris, France
3:39 am
As Bentley began finishing up his medical work on Carmelita and Sly, the phone started ringing.
Penelope, stripping off bloodstained gloves, picked up the receiver and said "Hello?...Who is this?...Have you done something to him!...What!...Uh, Ok, don't move him, we'll try to get over there as soon as possible. DON'T CALL ANYONE ELSE, you hear me?"
Quickly, she hung up and strode back over to Bentley, who had heard the whole conversation and was looking at her curiously.
Penelope took a deep breath, then said "That was a man in Naples, name of Marty McCoy. He and his friends were passing by Dimitri's house when they heard gunfire. They checked on him, and he told them to call us and tell us something."
She took another breath, trying to calm down, and finished "Muggshot almost killed him."
Translations:
German to English;
1. Hello officer! Can you please help us? My friends and I are looking for the train station, so we can continue our holidays in Italy.
2. Of course Sir. Straight down the road, you can't miss it.
3. I came simply to examine the boat for illegal materials. Standard procedure, you understand?
4. Well, I didn't find anything, you're clear.