It feels so wrong to suggest it. Even more to say it is true but the results constantly point to a match. It's not a full match to Sly, but it is a direct match to Otto. It's what prompted Bentley to attempt this undertaking, all of the similarities between Otto and Penelope constantly being bellowed out by a raccoon in love. Personalities can be the same and they have the same interests, so maybe it could be even more than that. Penelope had never talked about her family history, not much was known about it either, and the only thing they thought of her past was that she was rich. How else could she afford to keep her passion for aeroplanes and fund the ACES competition every year? Connecting the dots begins in their minds. Trying to make themselves believe that is true.
In a few seconds following things go through Sly's head. The initial reaction is rejection; all of his family's history is in the Thievius Raccoonus. If she were truly a Cooper, he would know about it. And if she is, why hide it from everyone? Maybe it was a one-night stand that went all the way. Everyone in the Cooper line was a raccoon, maybe Otto was afraid of what might happen to his standing, the past is what this family is remembered by, and when you have the pen that writes it, you can choose what to put write down. The second is to try to find a way around the rejection, Bentley is his best friend and much smarter than he will ever be, he has to have a certain degree of trust in what he says. Bentley isn't one for practical jokes on such a personal level. He doesn't go after that cheap of a laugh.
"It explains the similarities between them, their love for flying and gadgets, how Penelope can learn your families abilities." Bentley tries to explain out loud to Sly, who is also doing the same but in his head. The shock still ripples through his body like a tidal wave to a rowing boat. All emotions go through him at the same time, all of them taking their turns to shape the course of the next few seconds. The internal control over Sly is gone; he has gone back to being the primeval and instinctive being he was in Egypt.
"Bentley." Sly says, a small sniffle sneaks out of his mouth like he would do on any rooftop. A brick leaves the dam of tears susceptible to breaking. Sly takes a step back like he's just been pushed. He can't recover and falls over. It is embarrassing for himself to fall over like this when he can routinely stand on points and run across wires like it's childsplay. But embarrassment is not what he is thinking; it is similar to what Otto was feeling before. Bentley tries to move him but he has collapsed and doesn't move. It is the second collapsed raccoon for the day; they keep dropping like flies when subjected to immense mental changes. The mind is what controls the body, no matter how strong and fit the body; the mind is the master of it all.
"Sly?" Bentley says as he leaps out of his wheelchair to get close enough to his chest. He feels for vitals, they are alright, he is not dead, what a sigh of relief. The cane is resting awkwardly under his body, Bentley gets it to move from under him but the hand it is attached to will not let go. This is amazing. Coopers have learned to control themselves whilst unconscious. No matter how hard Bentley pulls, the hand will not loosen it's grip. Bentley looks around for anything to help him, he dare not go outside, they won't cope with another motionless body in such a short space of time. He thinks back to the incident in the prison, trying to see how Sly got up in the first place. That's what he needs to do. He drags himself back into his wheelchair and loads up a sound, the sound of footsteps getting closer. One eye opens up on Sly and he jumps back up and points the cane at Bentley, ready to strike the intruder he thinks is coming towards him. Bentley draws his head back into his shell to avoid it. Sly realises who it is and what he has just done, he is better prepared now this experience has happened. Sly remembers what has happened just before an continues like nothing happened.
"She's not a Cooper." Sly leaks out of his mouth, dismissing the possibility.
"Maybe not a full blood Cooper, she would be about 1/32 or 1/16 Cooper depending on which woman had the child." Bentley corrects.
"She isn't even a Raccoon." Sly says dismissively, desperately fishing for a reason to reject Bentley's claims.
"I know, but that's the truth, I don't know what else to tell you Sly." Bentley states, worried at how he has affected Sly.
"It's not that Bentley. You haven't done anything wrong, it's just I don't want it to be this way." Sly says, allowing a little acceptance to the situation, but he still doesn't believe it. Bentley goes on to deliver one of his better pep talks.
"Life is full of surprises. If there weren't any surprises it would be a boring life we all had. You wouldn't be where you are right now. I know not all surprises are good and go your way but we keep going. Look at me. I've had many different surprises. Do you think I would be the same if I weren't in a wheelchair, if I didn't have backstabbing girlfriend, if I didn't meet you?" That last one really hits Sly, he understands the logic behind it. Sly can't think of the possibility of never meeting Bentley and Murray. Being a lone thief is so, lonely. He wonders how Joey does it.
"Everyone has these days. We didn't stop once you disappeared; we kept going. Hell, we even got better. We bounced back and now you are going to do the same." Bentley says, putting an arm around his waist. This talk has really lifted Sly out of his mood, he is forever grateful.
"Thanks Bentley, You're a true friend." Sly says as he is about to walk out of the room.
"I'm just being myself." Bentley states. History won't record these kinds of small interactions that have a profound impact on someone. The world may be hearing about all of Sly's thefts and the price on his head. However, it is on the inside like this where we see the inner workings of a thief. No one outside of this gang knows about his compassion, love and his honour. The world is being fed lies that shall grow into an uproar when the spark is lit. Sly doesn't even know about it yet, If Sly was still here Bentley would explain it to him as well, he decides the Sly needs some time to himself, time to think it over, time to acclimatise to the new world around him. Bentley peaks out of the room, the gang has all disappeared from sight, only Sly is there, looking through the Theivius Raccoonus for answers. Bentley has read the book as well, he knows there is nothing that he has seen that shows another hidden ancestor. Maybe it is something that only a Cooper could fully understand.
Meanwhile, Sly's head is racing at the same speed that Sly is turning the pages. "Nothing, absolutely nothing in here about another ancestor. Nothing about Otto van Cooper having another child. But how can this be? She isn't a raccoon!" Sly thinks as he shuts the book and replaces it to it's pedestal, he then goes over to the other Cooper artefact, his old cane. "No matter how true Bentley says it is, I try to refuse to even give in to that thought, but I can't." Sly compares the two canes. "Like these two canes, one represents my past, everything that they know and did, everything that I knew. This new one is the now, the present, where I am right now. I guess what is new can also be good. But I struggle to think of any good that could come from this." Sly thinks as he turns away from the cane. Bentley sees Sly walk away, still looking confused. But he picks something up in the air, it is a smell, the smell makes him feel warm inside, like Carmelita herself is giving him a hug. It is the smell of BBQ pork ribs, more of Murray's cooking. That's where they all went, to get some food. No complicated answer is needed. The raw simplicity of it is, in itself, confounding and more difficult to accept. Just like the simple truth that Sly is trying to wrap himself around.
The ribs are all around the table for all to see, the steam rises off the perfectly char grilled ribs with the BBQ sauce slowly rolling down their curved edges, making for a delectable treat that would be more than acceptable in all restaurants. The others start to dig in as Sly arrives. He looks around expecting some sort of reaction to his late arrival but they don't know the significance of what happened just before. Bentley rolls on by Sly and gets into the food himself, it will help him get over what has just happened. Sly sits down himself, still looking around at the faces of the gang who are looking down at the food in front of them, their hands race to take whats left of the shared plate between them. The taking makes a small mockery of Sly, who barely touches his plate. The smell is ever inviting but he doesn't want any food, he wants answers.
"Oh Sly, Didn't see you there." Murray states as he returns from cooking another set of ribs from the grill. It is typical of Sly to sneak into settings like this; it's what he does best. But Murray spots his empty plate, untouched by the messiness of the sauce and the bones of the ribs. Murrays walks over to Sly's spot and dumps some ribs on his plate.
"Here you go Sly. Food always makes me better." Murray remarks as he puts the rest in the centre for the others to share. Sly takes glance at the food again, the smell interacting with the receptors in his nose to release a chemical concoction that causes him to dig in for himself. As the meat is hastily consumed, Sly does feel better about himself, even a few jokes are passed across this table. They laugh and eat as the night goes past, more food is brought out and they continue with their ways. Still joking and talking like its just another night in. They all feel so relaxed now, all that constant uprightness is not their style. As they keep talking, someone lets it slip and Sly breaks from his happy mood.
"You must be joking." Sly says across the table to Joey. The wallaby grabs out a phone and loads up the speech. Sly gets to hear it all; the threats to him, the things that the director says. He had no idea that this was doing all this while he was in the air.
"If this guy wants to get me, he'll have to drag me kicking and screaming." Sly challenges. The gang unite behind that, no way is Sly going to be caught without putting up one of the most committed and ferocious fights possible. He is unstoppable with his gang with him. Bentley turns to one of the more pressing issues at hand.
"Penelope said that the boss would be returning tomorrow morning in order to get Sly. If Penelope doesn't have you, then she won't get her payday or contracts, it solves the problem for us." Bentley explains. It is simple what they have to do next. "All we have to do is stay here and wait. We prepare for her almost certain attack and capture that mouse. I would like to ask her a few questions." Bentley schemes as he thinks of all the ways to get back at her. She may have newly discovered origins but that doesn't take away from anything she did before in Bentley's mind.
They conclude their eating and get set to barricade the already secure laboratory, Bentley gets the armoured doors down. They can withstand and nuclear explosion, either from the outside or inside in case of an experiment gone very wrong. Joey goes through the entire vent system arming them with laser guards, Murray prepares his fists and Carmelita prepares her shock pistol. Sly however, isn't doing anything like that, he is just thinking how he would break the news to her. Sitting on a couch, flicking through the news channels, the only face being himself on every station. He even gets to watch a documentary about himself. This lightens him up a bit for two reasons. He gets to re-live all of his old heists and secondly he laughs at how inaccurate some of the parts are.
As the night wares on, they get restless, they start to loose their concentration little by little. They try to keep watch but doing that for constant hours is boring and monotonous. The hours keep passing as the 27th turns into the 28th. Slowly, they all start to nod off, they were used to these very late stakeouts early in their career but now they have a more 'normal' sleeping pattern. Even the eyes of Sly close momentarily; this is broken by the sound of a ping on the ground. His ears prick up and he looks at the bouncing object that has landed in front of him. No time to see what this is as he dives behind the couch he was napping on. The explosion rips around him, not of flying shrapnel, but smoke. It fills the area around Sly, he calls out to the gang.
"She's here!" He shouts to anyone in hope of waking them up. They all come rushing to the smoke; they can't see anything, not even Sly. The smoke dissipates as Bentley turns on the fans to suck the smoke out. It reveals a rope attached to the ceiling and Penelope beside it.
"Hi, I'm just…"
"Don't say it!" Bentley shouts.
"Dropping in." Penelope states, the gang face palms on the inside at such a bad joke. Sly tries to take the initiative on Penelope and take a swing at her, briefly forgetting what he has been told about her. This turns out badly as she reverses the attack and takes his cane away. Sly is surprised at her skills; the cane looks more like a staff to Penelope. She inspects this new cane.
"Nice cane, it's certainly better than that stupid wooden one." Penelope remarks. That really touches a nerve, all his ancestors had their canes stolen and now he has his taken twice by the same person.
"This will make a great souvenir of your capture." Penelope taunts. The others in the gang are ready to fight, 6 on 1, how hard can it be? But Sly holds them back, he doesn't want to win unfairly despite it being on such a personal level.
"If you want to get me, come get me. Stop talking and fight." Sly says as he prepares himself for a fight without his cane. This reminds him of their fight in Holland when Penelope was still masquerading as the Black Baron. Except this time, Sly will have to use his 'fisticuffs' and Penelope holds the cane. They start quickly, the others seeing the blur of fighting in front of them. Even though Penelope is too short for the cane, she uses it proficiently as if she's had one forever. The reach that it gives Penelope is a game changer, the length of Sly's arms is not enough to connect. They dodge and parry eachothers attacks. The fight is turning into a stalemate. It is too even, they can see Sly's shoulders sagging from all the stress and failed punches. Penelope is also tired and breathing heavily. They still circle, desperately throwing more punches that never connect to their target. Bentley decides to step in, taking the opportunity that is in front of him. He takes out one of his sleep darts from the dart gun and quickly injects the serum into Penelope when she comes past. Sly doesn't see the deception as it looks like Penelope has become so tired that she has collapsed. She lies asleep, unable to move. Sly looks at her on the ground and picks up his cane.
Bentley gets moving to put her in a very secure room before she wakes up. He has to pick her up with his robotic arms in the chair. Bentley doesn't even dare to look at her, his face is dead straight, looking for the most secure room to put her in. Eventually he puts her inside her old room. The gang slowly walk over to Bentley to see him furiously working on the fortifications. He's moving in lasers, heavy machinery and bobby traps around all possible points of escape. To the gang, Bentley looks like he is possessed by his hate for her. The sheer determination is making them feel awkward, they don't exactly want this. Sure, they got her, but this is another level. Otto tries to force his way in.
"Please, let me in with her!" Otto shouts as he bangs on the door. He will never break down the huge door that has been converted from an industrial safe. There is no reply from Bentley though. He works just as hard to even further modify the fortifications to paranoia levels. Once he is done, he turns to the gang.
"That should be enough. Don't you think?" Bentley asks. Laser cannons, laser grids not even an ant could pass through, bomb traps and electric shock cannons are some of the items stationed outside of this one room. Bentley just wheels away from them all, going back into his room. No one chases after him for an explanation. There is just the silence of them wondering about what has gone through Bentley's mind. One by one they walk slowly for some sleep. Only the two raccoons remain. Otto gets to work, trying to open the door; his ear is pressed against the door, hearing for the clicks that can unlock this beast. Sly knows that it is fruitless; the door has an electromagnetic lock. No moving parts mean no clicking. He admires his determination, the things some people do for love and the things that some people do for retribution.