"Ughhh" Judy groaned as she slowly woke up some time later.
She looked around to find herself sitting on the floor of a small, dull bathroom. To her left sat the bath tub and toilet, a dingy curtain hung from the silver bar spanning the top of the tub. On her right stood the door, the only thing separating the sore rabbit from her captors, it was closed and probably barred from the outside. The constant, metronomic drip of a leaking faucet only added to the room's discomforting atmosphere. Judy attempted to grab her head, which was throbbing with the worst headache she had felt since her time at the police academy. Her hand only moved a few inches however, before jolting to a stop. She could feel the distinct cold metal of ZPD handcuffs tugging against her wrist. Judy looked over to find her right arm cuffed to a pipe running out of the wall to the sink sitting next to her. She pulled at the restraint a few times while searching her practically empty duty belt for the key.
"Don't bother." Nick's voice called from the other side of the sink's counter, out of Judy's line of sight.
"Nick? What happened?" She was relieved to hear her partner was okay.
"Well, 'Inspector I-Told-You-So' knocked us out, borrowed all of our gear, and was kind enough give us the executive suite."
"How long was I out?"
"An hour maybe, I don't know what time it is."
"Great, so how do we get out of here?"
"That's on you carrots, seeing as my input is no good." Annoyance was clearly present in the fox's voice.
"Come on Nick, don't be like that." Judy replied, awaiting one of his smart remarks to lighten the mood. Silence was the only response. "Nick?" Again nothing. She understood he was upset, but this seemed a bit excessive. "Fine, you were right, I should've listened to you, I'm just a dumb bunny who should know better."
"That's more like it." Judy looked up to see her partner standing over her, smug grin and all.
"How did you..." She was happy to see he was free, angry at him for messing with her, and curious as to how he got out of the handcuffs all at the same time.
Nick raised a paw to reveal his sharpened claws, which he then used to pick open Judy's set of cuffs. "What kind of con man would I be if I couldn't pick a simple set of handcuffs?"
"Sly fox." Judy was impressed, although the ZPD cuffs were notoriously easy to pick.
As her restraints fell free, Judy heard muffled talking just outside the door to the bathroom. The two officers went quiet, trying to make out what the voices were saying. A deep, heavy tone was conversing with another figure, probably Jim. They could only make out one word here and there, but it sounded like the two were disagreeing over something. The voices stopped after a moment, Nick and Judy let out a silent sigh of relief. Before they could figure out an escape plan, however, the handle to the door turned.
"Listen guys, I'm really sorry about all this, but I brought you some lunch." McSweeney said as he opened the squeaky door, holding two bags of fast food. He was met by the sight of Nick awkwardly standing in front of him.
"Is that Bug-Burga?" Nick said in a nonchalant tone, "Because I love that place, but you might want to ask carrots what she thinks."
At that, Nick ducked out of the way as Judy leapt from behind him, delivering a kick directly to the raccoon's chest. The bags of food fell to the floor as he was knocked backwards out of the doorway.
"Sorry, looks like it's a no." The fox remarked as they made a break for the door.
The two pushed past their captor and into the area just outside the bathroom, they could see the exit of the apartment in the next room over. The escapees booked it in the direction of freedom. Nick only made it a few feet before a golden hook caught his foot, tripping him.
"Murray!" Jim called to the hippo walking past, carrying a large crate. Judy looked back to see her partner on the ground yet again, McSweeney holding him down with a cane. She faced forward to see the huge pink creature had dropped the box and was now towering above her, blocking the passage into the main room of the apartment. Judy dodged to the left, attempting to slip by him, but Murray easily stopped her, grabbing the squirming rabbit with only one hand.
"You know, I think I'll take that lunch now." Nick joked, surprisingly he wasn't the only who found it funny.
"Alright, get up." The raccoon said with a smirk as he removed his cane from the fox, who looked slightly confused. "Obviously locking you up wasn't the best idea, but we really didn't have too many options."
Nick got up slowly, running the situation through his head. The only way out was past the hippo, and he was still standing in the doorway holding Judy, who had stopped trying to wriggle free at this point. He decided his best bet was to talk his way out.
"How we doin' down there Bentley?" McSweeney said to the turtle, who the two officers assumed was in the other room.
A strange silence followed.
"Don't worry, I'll be out in a minute." Jim appeared to be having a conversation with a nonexistent Bentley. "Go ahead and take the rest down Murray, I've got these two."
"Uhh are you sure Sl- er Jim?" The hippo, who was actually present, spoke slowly in a deep if not confused tone.
"Don't worry big guy, they're not going anywhere."
"Okay." Murray released Judy, picked up the crate and headed out the door of the apartment. The second the hippo's hands let go, Judy had to decide if she was going to run or stay with her partner who was still within striking distance of the raccoon's cane. She opted for the latter.
As the door closed behind the exiting hippo, Jim walked up to Judy, gently moving her out of the doorway so he could get by into the main room. The two partners looked at each other, both shrugging, not knowing what to make of everything. After a moment, they slowly followed the raccoon's lead, coming back to the room they were knocked out in. The mess of gadgets and maps that greeted them the first time had disappeared, in fact the room was practically empty. The only thing remaining was the central table, completely stripped of computers and wires, all that rested on it was a single folder. Jim was seated on the side closest to the window where the satellite dish had been, two additional chairs were set up opposite to him for the still confused fox and rabbit. Judy looked cautiously between the table to the left and the door on her right.
"You can leave if you want." McSweeney said in his cool, confident tone. "But Mr. Big might not like it if you walked out on your only lead."
At this, all attention fell on the grinning raccoon.
"It's a very interesting file," He said, motioning to the folder lying on the table before them, "and I may be able to help you out with it."
Hesitantly, both Nick and Judy sat down at the table, unable to quell their interest in his statement. Nick dragged the folder over to him, slowly opening the case file that brought them to the encounter in the first place.
"What do you got?" Nick spoke, without looking up. He was checking his peripherals for any more surprises.
"I can give you the names of everyone involved, and the location of his missing artifact."
"Let me guess," The fox could tell exactly where this was going, "you want us to keep quiet in return."
"Bingo." Jim replied, maintaining his relaxed demeanor.
"And why should we trust you." Judy questioned the raccoon harshly. She knew a deal that seemed too good to be true often was just that. Besides, the two officers had no reason to believe anything he was saying, even though their freedom was right behind them the whole time.
"I don't expect you to trust a word I've said." He replied, getting up from his chair.
"Then what makes you think we'll accept the offer?"
"Curiosity." McSweeney smiled, turning around to face the open window behind him. He pulled out a long black mask and tied it around his head. "Come find me tomorrow and we'll talk."
"Where?" Judy called as he climbed out the sixth story opening.
The raccoon turned his head, simply offering a grin and a wink before leaping from the building. The two officers quickly got up and ran to the window. They looked outside but saw nothing, just like that, he was gone.
"I'm not sure what to make of that, but he might have been telling the truth." Nick broke the silence after the two had stepped away from the window.
"I don't know if it was all true, but he definitely got one thing right." Judy replied to her partner.
"Yeah? What's that?"
"I am curious."
"Great, so how are we going to find him tomorrow?"
"Woah, hold on, I said curious, not 'let's trust every word the strange raccoon said'. We should probably talk to Bogo about this one."
"Aren't you forgetting the whole look-the-other-way portion of this?" Like his partner, Nick had his doubts, but he had dealt with enough criminals and other delinquents to respect a deal. "Listen, we only have to leave it be for one day, if we meet him tomorrow and it's no good, Bogo will be the first to know."
"I guess." Judy still didn't like it.
After taking a moment to think everything over, Nick spoke up.
"There's something about that guy," he paused, trying to find the right words to express his thought, "I've never met anyone like him, and I've met a lot of people." The point wasn't directly relevant to the situation, but Judy understood exactly what he meant. The raccoon's actions didn't match the situation at all, none of it really made much sense. They both had more than a few questions, Judy voiced the biggest one.
"Where are we supposed to find him?"
"I have a feeling he will find us if we look hard enough." Nick grinned, it was clear they weren't the ones making the decisions.
"And how do we explain to Bogo that all of our gear mysteriously vanished."
"Excellent question carrots," Nick's responses didn't help the rabbit much, but then again she never expected them to, "and one that we can discuss over some nice free lunch."
Nick walked back towards the bathroom, picking up the two bags of food sitting on the floor.
"You are impossible." Judy rolled her eyes. "Come on, I'll go buy you some lunch. That stuff is probably poisoned anyway."
Nick put the bags back and proceeded to open the front door of the apartment. The two officers exited and Judy made a mental note to come back and take some reference photographs once she got her phone back. If she got her phone back. As they walked down the stairs, she quickly inventoried everything on her to see what else had gone missing. The list of what she had was far shorter than what was stolen. Almost everything was gone, her phone, wallet, carrot pen, the keys to cruiser, the cruiser itself was probably gone too for all she knew. Nick was a similar case, he was relieved however to find he still had his sunglasses, which he donned as the two walked out the front of the building.
"Whew, glad that's still here." Judy said, they were both relieved to find the ZPD cruiser still parked on the side of the road. Unsurprisingly, the van they were investigating was nowhere to be found. "I'll radio Clawhauser to send someone our way." She tried the door, hopeful that Ben wouldn't question their situation.
The door was unlocked and opened easily. "That also works." Judy didn't expect to find all of their gear sitting neatly inside the cruiser, topped off with a familiar blue card.
The two gathered their equipment and replaced all of it into their belts and pockets. Both their phones were dead, no surprise there. Same case for their radio batteries, which was unusual considering they would generally last all day. Their wallets had no money missing and all personal effects were intact, only adding to the odd nature of the encounter. Judy placed the new card in the shrew's case file along with the other one, they were identical.
Much to Nick's delight, the two stopped for lunch on the way back to the station. It wasn't anything fancy, but it's the thought that counts. The break for food gave them some time to think up an explanation for Bogo as to what they were doing that day. Judy didn't like lying to the chief, but she justified it as a special circumstance. Her partner called it stretching the truth, his plan was to say there were looking into one of Carmelita's leads. Odds were that Bogo wouldn't question it, if he decided to ask them at all, seeing how he was busy dealing with Interpol on top of his normal duties.
After a satisfying break, Nick and Judy returned to the ZPD station. They parked the cruiser in the garage and walked inside. The bustle of everyday operations greeted them in the main lobby, Interpol officers were still moving about everywhere but nothing seemed too out of the ordinary.
"Hey guys, how'd it go out there?" Clawhauser cheerily asked as they approached the front desk.
"Eh, same old same old." Nick replied.
"Is Inspector Fox still around?" Judy inquired of the cheetah.
"No, she took a squad out a little while ago."
"That explains why it's so quiet in here." Nick joked.
"Alright, well we've got some work to take care of, later Ben." Judy quickly walked away, heading for the meeting room. Nick shrugged, following the rabbit.
"What do you have in mind carrots?" He wondered as she hastily jumped on one of the computers in the back of the room.
"I want to know who this raccoon of ours is, I'm not walking into that meeting tomorrow completely blind."
"Why? I thought going into a situation with absolutely no information worked just great today."
She ignored her partner's remark, opening up the ZPD database. Navigating to the search box, Judy typed 'Jim McSweeney' and hit enter. The computer took a moment to process, looking through every record the ZPD had access to. Unsurprisingly, the computer denoted a total of zero results on the request. After a second of disappointment, the rabbit had an idea. She pulled up Interpol's information, seeing as the computers in the bullpen were now wired in to their network. Again she searched for 'Jim McSweeney'. This time the system actually spit out some data.
"According to this, McSweeney is a walrus currently serving a life sentence in Heathrow Prison." Judy read off the information displayed next to a picture of a large tattooed walrus who was missing half of his left tusk.
"So who's our mystery raccoon then?"
"I don't know," She said, scanning the page for any useful information, "Jim was a member of the original Cooper Gang," She continued reading aloud, "along with Dr. M and headed by one Conner Cooper, raccoon."
She navigated over to the page on Conner, thinking they had identified their suspect.
"Let's see, Conner, you are…deceased. Great."
The picture for Mr. Cooper did bear a striking resemblance to the raccoon they dealt with earlier, but it clearly wasn't him. Judy quickly looked over his information, hoping they were at least going in the right direction.
"Hold on." Nick grabbed the mouse from his partner, scrolling back up the page. "Right here, family, he has a son."
He went over to the file on Conner's child, displaying a huge amount of information. They took one look at the picture and knew without a doubt this was their guy. Judy printed the first page and closed out of the database. Nick walked over to the printer and collected their information. The two officers took another look at the newly identified raccoon. The photograph displayed the same smug character they had met, his eyes were surrounded by the mask he put on earlier, and he was wearing the same blue and gold outfit, even the smirk on his face matched perfectly. The name at the top of the file was one that Nick and Judy were sure they wouldn't easily forget, his name was Sly Cooper.
Says I have more free time, puts up chapter late. Sorry guys, this chapter fought me to the end. From various interruptions to a multitude of rewrites it just wasn't going smoothly. The transition is a little funky as I'm attempting to keep everyone in character but things should smooth out soon. Anyway, it might not be the best thing I've written but at least it's something. Let me know what you guys think of it, your reviews and feedback have been really helpful and I thank everyone who writes one. Next chapter will be done on time, I promise, and its going to be a good one. Thanks again for reading.