oh my god this is super old and i wrote like a weeabo lmao. anyways. i will write this differently now, and harmony won't be so so so so shy the guys anymore - she will be more confident as well. i hate writing really shy/weak characters HAHA. who reads this anymore.
Getting across the Dragon Bridge looked to be pretty simple at first— that is, until Sly stepped on the most obvious trap and set the whole bridge tumbling down. We would need to carefully hop across the stones that remained to get to Rioichi, all while avoiding the fireballs being blasted out way. As the bridge had fallen down, giant stone dragons had risen up and began firing at us, making this mission twenty times harder than what it was.
"Oops..." Sly had laughed nervously as we stood, watching the bridge crumble. I sighed and shook my head, knowing that the game had to add a little spice to a simple mission.
Bentley's voice had crackled through, and both Sly and I tuned in to listen to his advice of using the armor against the fireballs. That did make sense, seeing as the armor was already fire proof, it should do well to repel fire as well! We hopped onto one of the remaining stones, poised with our armor on to repel the blasts that came our way. Well, he was poised pretty confidently, I was the one who was trembling slightly underneath my armor. Would it hurt when the fireballs bounced off my shield? Or would I feel the burn for a second?
My worries were cut off as the dragon shot a fireball towards me, and as I squeaked in fear and raised my shield, the collision nearly sent me flying backwards as the fireball bounced off the shield and back towards the dragon. As it crumbled and joined the ruined bridge beneath me, I stared in shock. But I had no time to congratulate myself; Sly was already moving towards the next set of dragons. I changed out of my armor and joined him, hopping across stones and landing next to him, albeit clumsily. Now that I knew what the collision felt like, I had time to prepare myself and dug my heels into the ground, raising my shield in time to repel the attack and destroy the stone dragon. And after a few more stones and another set of dragons, we had reached the cage of Rioichi, who held a look of surprise.
As we both hung onto the cage, he spoke to Sly, "I do not know you, but only a true Cooper could have reached this cage."
"Yeah, I didn't wanna alarm you— my full name's Sly Cooper. I'm your relative...from the future," He nodded towards me, and I gave a shy smile towards Rioichi. "That's Harmony. She's a new addition to our gang."
"Nice to meet you, Harmony-San. And do not worry, ninja are never alarmed. With all that had happened recently, I believe you." Just as he said those words, the cage began to tremble, and both Sly and I nearly fell off. "Perhaps now you would like to open the cage so that we may escape certain death?"
"Oh, right! Of course," Sly made quick work with his cane, busting the cage door open in no time. The entire cage gave another tremble, the chain holding it up nearly giving out. I held on to dear life as Sly and Rioichi made their way to the top of the cage, helping me up with them.
The chain finally gave way, and the cage began to fall at an alarming speed— I nearly screamed if it weren't for Sly barely catching me by the collar of my shirt. I looked up to briefly see he was barely caught in time as well, by his own cane and Rioichi. He tossed both of us upwards onto the chain; my new cat reflexes sure came in handy. I grabbed on and glanced downwards towards the ruined bridge and cage, getting dizzy at the height before finally following the two raccoons out of the prison.
It occurred to me then that I had faced death in the face. My adrenaline was still pumping through my veins, my hands were trembling a bit even, and I was panting by the time we made it out if the prison through the roof. I turned to Sly, who was helping the ninja onto the rooftop, and voiced my excitement. "That was-That was so much fun!"
"It was fun to nearly fall to your death and get scorched by fire? Your definition of 'fun' is really different than most." He chuckled, Rioichi hopping onto the roof gracefully.
My tail swished anxiously behind me ad I turned to the ninja, "Are you alright?"
He nodded, pulling up his hood over his ears. "I have faced more difficult escapes than this. Do not worry," he asked next, "where are you two staying?"
Sly pointed towards the hideout, which was actually took me a while to finally notice. "Over there, our gang has got a hideout set up. The others can't wait to meet you."
After we made it back to the hideout, Rioichi explained everything. The tiger that Sly and I had spotted earlier turned out to be the boss around here, a lieutenant that had been responsible for taking over several small countries. He had shown up and locked Rioichi up in jail for supposedly serving the shogun bad sushi— shutting down his sushi restaurant also. He notified us that he hid his cane in his restaurant, so that the guards or El Jefe himself would not find it.
Bentley immediately set to work on trying to figure out how to infiltrate the restaurant to get his cane back and take back his sushi place. I knew that right about now was when he came up with the jobs for each character, and I was anxious to find out if I had any jobs to do. I didn't know if he trusted me completely yet, seeing as I did look a bit out if place the first time we met. But maybe after seeing me help Sly bust his ancestor out, he saw that I can handle anything that comes my way— albeit clumsily and probably after crying a bit.
I could not really strike up a casual conversation with Rioichi Cooper. Well, I couldn't strike up a conversation with any of the Cooper gang, due to my severe anxiety of even being in the same room with them. I was still trying to figure out for myself what was going on exactly, and how I got sucked into the game, when I heard Rioichi ask something in Japanese by mistake. My first instinct was to reply in Japanese, of course, seeing as I was raised speaking both German and Japanese by my parents.
When I had replied, although I thought it was to myself, both Sly and Rioichi had given me looks of surprise. I had to say it was pretty funny to see both of their eyebrows shoot upwards— you can already spot the family resemblance!
"You can speak Japanese?" Sly asked.
A blush formed on my cheeks. "Y-Yeah. I, uh, grew up speaking Japanese and German f-from my parents, so, yeah...it's n-not that big of a deal."
"Still, it is surprising. Seeing as the rest of you are western. I would not have guessed you could speak it so fluently." Rioichi nodded thoughtfully,
"You're way too modest. I barely know any French and I live in Paris," the gray raccoon replied, "we can definitely use that on missions."
"Speaking of missions," Bentley chose then to intervene on our conversation, snapping his laptop shut and adjusting his glasses. "Rioichi, are you up for a little breaking and entering?"
The ninja nodded in return, and if he was eager to take back his restaurant, we could not tell. He hid his emotions very well, only letting his eyes smile for him. Which was very charming, if I could say so myself. Of course, I could barely breath even being next to the guy; I was sure my hands were shaking when I handed him his tea earlier that evening. If he noticed, he was extremely polite in not mentioning anything.
"Once we get your cane back and take back the sushi restaurant, Murray and I can go fishing," as the hippo cheered, the turtle seemed to suddenly remember something as he dug around in one of his desk drawers for something. "I know I put it somewhere around— ah! Here it is. Harmony, this is your binnocucom. Use it whenever you need to get a closer look at something or when we need to contact you and vice versa."
He handed me the object, and immediately my eyes went wide with wonder. The binnocucoms in the games have always looked to be high-tech and very complex to use— but quite the contrary. It was a dark teal color, and overall had the look of regular binoculars, but once I put it over my eyes, everything was suddenly in 1080p definition. The quality was so much more fine, and I found that I could zoom in and out easily with a knob on the side of the device. Also, as I accidentally pressed down on a button towards the top of the binnocucom, there was a brief clicking noise— this served as a camera as well, just like the others'! I was so excited, everything about this was super cool and I could not help but give a little happy cry as I stood from where I was seated, hugging the device to my chest.
"Thank you, thank you!" I squealed, carefully tucking it into my back pocket. My tail swished eagerly behind me and I remembered then that I was not alone, so I tried to ignore the oncoming blush and opted to cough into my fist. "Thanks, Bentley— I h-hope it didn't take t-too long to m-make."
While he did look slightly amused and surprised by my earlier outburst, he only replied in a somewhat dry tone, "Don't worry, making simple technology like that is a piece of cake. And be careful with it, it can take a few beatings but don't go flinging it off of a roof."
Something told me that one of them had actually flung a binnocucom off of a roof, so I nodded and swore that I'd be extra careful with it. With this new gadget, it only meant one thing: I was definitely in with these guys!
Bentley also handed one to Rioichi, who accepted it gracefully and responded with a bow of respect. It would only make sense to give one to him, seeing as he was going to help us with a lot of things around here. Sly was also oddly calm about meeting his own ancestor, something I would not have guessed. Judging from how he always seemed so excited when talking about his ancestors (hell, the Cooper vault was like candyland for him!), one would think he would be jumping with joy. But, I guess that would be a bit out of character for the raccoon, and if anything, he was one to have a cool head in most situations.
After we had all had our tea and snacks, Bentley decided it was time to get busy with taking back Rioichi's restaurant. The raccoon was only happy to agree, and began giving details of the kind of security had been placed around and within the restaurant. We each listened with interest and focus— well, Murray was focusing as much as he could with food in front of him— and once the plans were made and orders were given, we were sent out into the field. Since Murray and Bentley could only do their parts when he restaurant was up and running, they stayed back in the hideout while Sly, Rioichi and I headed out into the town for some action.
My heart was racing. I don't think I'll ever be as calm and quiet as I used to be, seeing as this is probably what I'll be spending my next few weeks doing; fighting crime and taking back sushi restaurants. Of course, I was thinking and trying to figure out ways to possibly get back home, but it was hard to think of going back to my boring life when this life was so much more interesting. So for the time being, I would focus on the job at hand, and focus on not losing my balance on these thin ropes. The two thieves made it look so easy.
As we avoided a burly guard and turned a corner, we came to a stop near the restaurant. Bentley had warned that the front doors would be tightly secured, and he was right. The only way to get into the facility was to use the armor Sly and I had stolen before, which should not prove to be a problem. Bentley also had decided that I should tag along with Rioichi while he infiltrated his restaurant, and of course, I was only all too eager to agree. Eager, but also incredibly nervous— I was sure I was going to puke any second. I only knew I was going to make a fool of myself somehow, be it through conversation or my horrible attempts at being sneaky.
Fooling the guards was easy enough as predicted, so as Sly stood guard by the door still donned in his disguise, Rioichi and I made our way into the restaurant.
This was gonna be fun.
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