Cause you're a force of nature
Look at what you've done
I can taste the danger
But I don't wanna run
Muggshot's hotel lobby was quiet. A few dogs lounged about on the center stairs, bored out of their minds but stuck on guard duty; the most excitement they'd seen in the last hour had been their boss hauling a cowed dalmatian out of the building before retreating back to his penthouse suit.
Then the front doors got busted in by the force of a single, powerful kick.
The guards all jumped up at once, but they had no time to react before the intruder made her first move. Inspector Fox shot three rapid electric bullets at point blank range and with pin-point accuracy. Her targets hit the ground almost simultaneously, and the lobby turned quiet once more.
Behind the cop who was now reloading her weapon, a raccoon carefully stepped over shattered wood as he made his way into the room. His eyes trailed up the stairway, falling upon the giant model of the bulldog's face in all its self-centered glory where it had been built into the wall like a bulbous growth.
"Ugh." Sly hated it. He wanted to rip that stupid cigar out of its mouth and then use it to burn the whole thing down. "Look at that ugly mug."
"It is…certainly a very bold statement," Inspector Fox replied with a wrinkled nose, not entirely knowing the reason for his disdain but obviously agreeing with it. "Even among all the egotistical types I've come across in the past."
He made a face and turned to his left, where what used to be the hotel's front reception desk now sat empty, devoid of practically every room key in the building. There was a noticeable closed-off cubby among the shelves behind the desk with a heavy-duty padlock keeping it shut.
"I think we found our secret way to the penthouse," the raccoon said, gesturing to the spot.
She followed the direction of his hand and raised one eyebrow. Taking out the key they had gotten by the skin of their teeth, she walked around the side of the desk and carefully inserted it into the lock.
It turned with a loud click. The padlock came undone and she pulled open the rough wooden cover to reveal a remarkably shiny metal lever. The fox made a move as if to yank on it, then paused and drew her hand back cautiously.
"What if it's a trap?" She stared at the lever as if it might grow teeth to bite her if she touched it. "That criminal could have said anything to make me let him go. It might be an alarm or something."
"It'll work."
The cop shot him a look. "How can you be sure?"
"I just am."
He met her gaze head-on, completely unfazed in the wake of her suspicious squinting. Let her try to crack through his poker face – she wasn't the first and she'd be as unsuccessful as all the others before her.
Then, as if taking his calm assertion as a challenge, she reached over and pulled the lever without breaking eye contact with him. There was a loud rumble and suddenly that giant bulldog face at the top of the stairs opened its mouth to reveal the promised secret elevator.
"Would you look at that," Sly said coolly while Inspector Fox gaped. "Guess I was right and the dog wasn't lying after all."
"Yeah, well." She closed her mouth and folded her arms in an obvious attempt to save face. "I suppose even criminals can tell the truth. Sometimes."
He snorted, beginning to turn away. "Uh huh. Anyway, that should lead straight to Muggshot's personal rooms. Now that you've got your straight path, you can wait for – what are you doing?"
The fox was heading up the stairs towards the open passage. She paused to look back at him with a raised eyebrow.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to apprehend Muggshot if he's up there!"
"But – you –" Now it was the raccoon's turn to gape. "Why? All you need to do to keep your job is lead your buddies straight to him, not try to take him down alone!"
"I risked this entire case and potentially the lives of my fellow officers. I can't only do the bare minimum for reparations. If there's a chance to apprehend such a dangerous individual with as few casualties as possible, I have to take it."
She explained it so simply, so matter-of-factly, as if she was talking about writing a heartfelt apology letter instead of taking on the physically-strongest member of the Fiendish Five without backup or even a proper weapon. It was stupid, and foolish, and practically suicidal.
It made Sly angry.
"Are you sure it's not just to show off to your boss so he doesn't demote you?" He accused. "Trying to get all the glory before anyone else does to heal your wounded ego?"
The cop's face pinched up in shock and anger, and he wondered with a touch of smugness if this was the first time a "civilian" had ever called her out.
She turned abruptly on her heel before he could dig that in, too. "Believe whatever you want. I'm going to confront Muggshot. Stay here where it's safe."
Sly shook his head with a scoff. The blind, overconfident arrogance of this woman was on a whole other level. He should have known she was no different than the rest of them.
Inspector Fox stepped into the elevator, then turned to look at him one last time before the doors closed. He hadn't moved an inch, watching her hold her head high like she was really about to make a difference.
The exact moment they disappeared from each other's sight, the raccoon shot off like a rocket, taking the stairs two at a time as he started ascending the hotel floor by floor as high as he could go. "Stay here", she'd said to a civilian. But Sly wasn't a civilian, and he definitely wasn't going to let this golden opportunity go to waste.
Technically, only the secret elevator could reach the top floor, but that was from inside the building. There were still windows up there, just as there were on every other floor, and Sly could see them as he climbed onto the outside ledge and craned his neck upwards. There was his old room in the same place he'd clocked it when he'd first come here with the cop, obvious by the bars Muggshot had installed the minute he'd settled on this being his base of operations. And two windows to the left of that, easily reachable with some careful scaling, was the mobster's personal office.
Sly pulled his cane out of his backpack and extended it to its true length for the second time in one night. The Five had let him keep it all these years as a form of mockery, taunting him for his clumsiness with it, daring him to learn how to use it without any help from his father or his book. Daring him to impress them.
Well, here I go, assholes, he thought as he aimed the hooked end for the ledge above him in preparation for a jump.
Eat your fucking hearts out.
Carmelita wasn't entirely sure what she'd been expecting when she reached the top floor. Piles of guns and cash everywhere, maybe, or more of the gangster's imagery strewn about. What she hadn't expected was to step into a large open room of what had probably once been a ballroom or club, expensive crystalline lamps scattered all across the purple carpet, and Muggshot himself sitting on a stolen plush chair on the other side of it all. She froze as they locked eyes, and her shock pistol was whipped out of her holster in an instant to aim up at him.
For his part, the bulldog looked just as surprised as she was.
"Wha?" He leaned forward in his chair, sounding completely bewildered. "My boys have been yapping about some big scary cop runnin' around taking them down and, heh, and…and this is it? You're the monkey wrench in my operation? Some scrawny chick with a pea shooter?"
The inspector inhaled, deep and steadying, and took a few steps forward. "Muggshot. You are under arrest. Put your hands up where I can see them and don't make any sudden moves."
Her free hand flashed her badge by the light of a nearby lamp. The mobster squinted at it, unbothered to even consider complying to her command.
"Ey, wait a second…I've seen that logo before."
"I should hope so," she snapped, quickly losing patience, "considering it belongs to me – Inspector Carmelita Fox."
"Inspector? Wow. You're with Interpol?" Muggshot leaned back again as if physically struck with offense. Still, his body language remained relaxed. "They really just let any average joe have a badge these days, huh?"
"Not just anyone – someone who is about to apprehend you for multiple instances of grand larceny, domestic terrorism, illegal gambling, and a whole other list of charges. Now, are you going to give yourself up?"
Now the bulldog finally tensed, but not in fear or worry. In fury.
"Wha-ha-ha-ha-what, are you kidding?" He stood up, staring her down, and she could see his raised hackles clear across the room. "You break into my place, attack my boys, trash the joint – I feel transgressed and violated!"
Carmelita tensed herself as he unholstered two huge, custom-made pistols.
"Let's rock!"
Muggshot's private office was filled with a lot more paperwork than one might expect from the meathead mobster, but most of what was probably juicy evidence that would have Interpol salivating was completely ignored by Sly as he started sweeping aside papers and pulling open drawers. The bottom drawer of the desk was full of stacks of cash, and the raccoon poached a strap of twenties without even slowing down in his search.
When the desk proved fruitless for what he was really after, he moved ahead to the nearest bookshelf and began flipping through binders filled haphazardly to the brim with God knew what – tax evasions schemes and casino renovation plans, probably.
A booklet fell out between the pages of one such binder, hitting the floor with a solid enough sound to catch Sly's attention. When he glanced downwards, his own face stared back.
It was the passport the Five had forged for him, back when they had still used public airlines to ferry him between them before Muggshot had eventually gotten his own private plane. Sly picked it up and quickly leafed through it; the expiration date wasn't set for another two or so years, which meant it was something he could use. He pocketed it alongside the appropriated cash and kept moving.
Almost a minute had passed from when he'd started ransacking the room, and nothing was turning up. The raccoon could hear bullets flying from down the hall, and his fur prickled with the knowledge that any moment those sounds would stop and he'd be fully out of time. He needed to get out of here, but he couldn't leave without finding what he was looking for, but he couldn't find any hint of where –
His eyes alighted on a giant portrait of Muggshot's mother hanging on the wall behind the desk chair. As if compelled by some ancient instinct, Sly made a beeline for the thing. He lifted the heavy metal frame with no small amount of difficulty and set it carefully aside, revealing a hidden safe embedded into the wall.
It would have been laughable to see one of the only things Muggshot had learned from Conner Cooper's legacy being how he'd hidden the Thievius Raccoonus, if it weren't even more infuriating. The raccoon gritted his teeth and clenched his cane tight in his hand a moment to dispel the familiar wave of rage threatening to cloud his mind. He could be angry later, when he had stolen his pages back and was safely out of Mesa. Right now, he just needed to focus.
It was a fairly standard wall safe with an old-fashioned dial lock. Sly spun it several times to wipe it, then pressed his ear against the safe's side and placed careful fingers to the knob. He closed his eyes as he slowly began turning the dial to the right.
Tuning out the world around him to hear only the slightest clicking beneath was second-nature by now. Numbers were passed one by one in a careful, gradual method, oblivious to the time crunch he was on. Haste makes waste – and gets you wasted. Even after all this time, his father's voice was a powerful echo in his head. An echo that was right, to boot. He couldn't afford to rush these things.
The first number of the combination was hit with a nearly imperceptible click of inner gears. Sly stilled his hand, made sure he could still hear Muggshot's gun going off, then started running the dial counterclockwise for the next one.
A bullet whizzed through the air, cleaving the space Carmelita had occupied milliseconds ago as she ducked behind another crystal lamp. She didn't know why the mobster had so many of these things, nor why they were bullet-proof, but she wasn't about to question the only thing protecting her in this fight.
Halfway across the room, Muggshot growled when his shot missed, and began closing the distance between them way too quickly for someone his size. The inspector felt her heart pounding in her chest with every thump of his fists against the ground.
"You got a lotta nerve comin' after a guy in his own home!" He hollered, firing again when she sprinted for more cover farther away. It ricocheted into the nearest window and shattered the glass into a thousand shards. "Ain't there something in the cop rulebook about needin' a warrant to do that?"
"Only if it was your rightfully owned property to begin with!" She couldn't help yelling right back despite knowing that heckling criminals always made things worse. At least it gave her a little time to reload her own weapon as he sputtered and raged like an angry toddler.
Her original strategy when she'd come here was to intimidate Muggshot into surrendering quietly, and hitting him with a powerful shock or two if he refused. But he'd tanked four of her shots already without even flinching, and all it would take was one stray bullet from his end to put her down for the count. She was surviving on a mix of adrenaline, training, and pure dumb luck, and they both knew it.
Briefly she considered trying to flee for the elevator, to escape to the ground floor where it'd be easier to hide and snipe from an actually safe distance, but that idea was nixed as she remembered the raccoon waiting for her in the lobby. Even if she made it all the way down there unharmed, he didn't have the instincts to survive a shootout, and she was not going to put the civilian she'd rescued in danger for a second time tonight.
Another bullet hissed just over her head. Inspector Fox took the cue to throw herself forward into a sprint for the next nearest lamp, aiming and firing her pistol wildly in his direction. The sounds of a grunt and electricity sparking against flesh weren't very satisfying when it was followed by an almost literal hail of gunfire right on her heels.
She needed a new plan fast. There was only so much ammo she had on her, compared to Muggshot who seemed to pull spare bullets straight from thin air. Additionally, her breathing was labored, going on ragged, and at this rate it was only a matter of time before she was too slow to dodge a shot.
Rounding another crystal lamp - why were there so many lamps?! - Carmelita nearly tripped on something thin and long. It was an electrical wire attached to the base of the appliance, trailing out into the dark corners of the huge ballroom. Now that she had noticed, they were spread all across the floor, connected to every lamp and no doubt plugged into various outlets.
The lamps were all turned off, but if those outlets were live…
Muggshot growled, much closer than before, and there was no time to make a different decision. The inspector grabbed the wire, snapped it off the lamp, and jammed the newly-free end into the charge port of her shock pistol. She locked her jaw, steeled her nerves, and threw herself out in the open.
She could see the mobster react almost in slow motion – the bobbing of his head and the swivel of his body as he turned to aim both guns at her. But she had already been aiming when she'd jumped out from behind her cover, and those precious few seconds were all she needed to pull the trigger with Muggshot's colossal chest directly in her crosshairs.
Her pistol lit up as if on fire, burning under her hand, and the kickback was enough to knock her flat on her back. She gasped for air as color exploded somewhere down in front of her, followed by a flickering of the chandelier above.
The fox lifted herself on one elbow just in time to watch Muggshot hit the floor like a sack of bricks. Smoke steamed lightly off his clothes and he twitched with electricity – then went still.
He was down for the count.
Carmelita heaved a sigh both relieved and exhausted, and let her head fall back against the carpet. She'd get up to properly disarm and restrain him in a second.
Right now, she just…needed a moment to catch her breath.
They were in his hands. The pages were actually in his hands.
Sly crouched against the wall under the safe, overwhelmed with contradicting emotions as he stared down at the eight or so pages held between trembling fingers. They were crumpled, and stained, and torn violently at the edges, but they were here. Real. In his possession again.
His free hand came up to his mouth as nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He was ecstatic. He was spellbound. He was – he was –
Eight years old and they're tearing apart the book why are they doing that why isn't dad getting up –
Ten years old and they're taunting you with it laughing at you saying you'll never read those pages never be a real Cooper –
Thirteen years old and gold eyes are staring you down and your chest hurts and let's make a deal, Sly Cooper, you and I –
The lights suddenly flickered, startling him out of his head and into the real world again. Sly fumbled for his backpack, stuffing the pages as quickly but delicately into the front pocket as he could, and managed to stand on only slightly-shaking legs. The sound of bullets had stopped.
If there had ever been a sign that he was out of time, it was that.
Scaling back down the outer side of the building was a lot harder than going up, mostly because he was still on some terrible, wonderful high of elation and terror. The raccoon clambered back in through a lower-level window, then started a light jog down the stairway until he was on the first floor again. He could hear sirens somewhere in the distance. It was impossible to tell whether those were Muggshot's goons sounding an alarm or the actual cops finally arriving to help their Interpol inspector.
Didn't matter much either way when he was going to be long gone before they ever showed up.
Sly passed the bulldog's giant head-elevator without a second glance, but he began to slow as he reached the lobby's front desk where he'd been told to wait. He didn't know why he stopped when his eyes landed on that lever, but he did.
She was probably long-dead. No one went toe-to-toe with Muggshot and came out the other end without several bullets in their chest. He'd seen it firsthand, too many times to count. Even so, the raccoon found himself standing there, looking up at the elevator entrance, as if waiting to confirm the outcome for some reason he couldn't name.
Maybe it was because she was one of the few people who'd shown real kindness and respect to him in the last eleven years, even if it was under the false assumption that he wasn't a criminal. Maybe it was because the realization still hadn't quite sunk in that he was finally free, finally able to go where he wanted and do what he wanted without it being at the beck and call of someone else.
Maybe he was just morbidly curious.
Whatever the reason, Sly decided to wait a minute. Just one minute. Sixty seconds to count down and see if anyone would come out, and then he'd blast out of here.
With fifteen seconds left to spare, the elevator started rumbling. The raccoon's heart leapt into his throat and he jumped over the lobby desk to hide behind it, peeking carefully over the counter as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened.
Sly stared, and couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Out came Inspector Carmelita Fox, fully alive if not extremely worn-out, and without so much as a scratch on her body. She trudged down the shallow stairs and stopped only when she realized that her temporary ally wasn't there to greet her. She lifted tired yet triumphant eyes to meet those of the raccoon who was still crouched behind the desk with his mouth agape.
"I did it, Ringtail," she said, with an exhausted smile. "Muggshot's reign over Mesa is no more."
For the first time in years, Sly was at a loss for words.
A/N: Aaaand that's the end of Muggshot! One down, four to go.
This was one of the first chapters I finalized months ago when I first started writing this fic out. It was really fun trying to merge the game's boss fight with how Carmelita would have to go about it, and how that might look like with just a tiny bit more realism.
Thanks again for reading!