Harley Keener had been coughing persistently for a few weeks now. He wasn't sure if it was whooping cough of if he had bronchitis. He certainly felt like he had either whooping cough, bronchitis or pneumonia. It wasn't often that he got sick like this. Harley was usually very healthy. He never had whooping cough, bronchitis or pneumonia before. He began coughing up a thick black substance that looked similar to motor oil or the Venom symbiote from Marvel Comics. Harley didn't yet know that he was slowly physically transforming into Clockwerk, one of the Cooper Clan's greatest foes. Harley was possessed by both the souls of Clockwerk and Neyla, meaning that he possessed their mannerisms, personality and their actions.
It had been a couple of days since Neyla had coaxed Harley into assassinating one of Interpol's best officers Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox. Unfortunately, Neyla couldn't have taken into account that the raccoon thief known as Sly Cooper was sneaking into Carmelita Fox's office to obtain the canvss that held the map to the Cooper Vault from her. Neyla's soul luckily exited Harley's body in the nick of time, leaving him confused as to how he ended up inside of Carmelita Fox's office in Interpol. Then all of a sudden Clockwerk's soul began to take over Harley Keener's human body, shocking both Sly and Carmelita. They didn't expect nor anticipate Clockwerk to return so soon after they both defeated him a few weeks prior. Now Sly had a difficult decision to make: should he have to deal with the soul of Clockwerk being inside the body of his human friend and risk dealing with Clockwerk for a third time in a row or shouls he and his friends try to ignore the fact that the soul of Clockwerk is in the body of their friend Harley and try to sweep it under the rug and accept the fact that Clockwerk and Neyla were both dead.
It was bad enough that Sly had to deal with Clockwerk twice in the past two years, once going up against all four members of the Fiendish Five before dealing with Clockwerk atop a volcano in Russia, and the other time he and his friends going through a scavenger hunt for Clockwerk's metallic body parts from the Klaww Gang. They had almost succeeded in getting all of the Clockwerk parts until Jean Bison stole back all of the Clockwerk parts from the Cooper Gang and sold them to Arpeggio, who wanted to fulfil his desire to fly by rebuilding Clockwerk's body parts. His attempt was foiled by Neyla when she betrayed him to merge her consciousness with Clockwerk to become Clock-La who promptly killed him Sly Cooper, with help from Interpol officer Inspector Carmelita Fox defeated Clock-La and destroyed the hate chip, at the cost of Bentley losing his legs and psychologically scarring Murray. Sly seriously didn't want to have to deal with the menace of Clockwerk yet again. The last time they dealt with Clockwerk, Bentley lost his legs and it scarred Murray.
Sly didn't want to deal with Clockwerk again for the third time. Two times was bad enough, just imagine Sly and his friends having to deal with Clockwerk again for the third time. Sly Cooper wanted to focus on forming a team of world class thieves to open the Cooper Vault. Sly was convinced that when he and Carmelita had defeated Clock-La and destroyed the hate chip that Clockwerk was gone for good and that he didn't have to deal with him ever again. Little did he realize that he couldn't be further from the truth. Soon, Sly would have no choice but to have to deal with Clockwerk again, for unbeknownst to Sly, Bentley and Murray, their friend Harley Keener was slowly transforming physically and mentally into Clockwerk.
Harley, Sly, Murray and his sister Emily were at the hospital where Bentley was at to try and bust him out of there. They'd missed Bentley and they all wanted Bentley to join the Cooper Gang again. They felt like Bentley was taken care of enough by the nurses and doctors at the hospital and felt like that they needed to break him out of there. Sly, Harley, Murray and Emily were all disguised as doctors and nurses to avoid suspicion from the authorities who were scouring the hospital. Sly, Murray and Harley were disguised as doctors while Emily, despite her small size and the fact she was twelve years old was disguised as a nurse. They blended in incognito with their doctor disguises. They soon reached Bentley's room at the end of the hall. Sly knocked on the door where he heard Bentley's voice telling them to come into his hospital.
Sly, Murray, Harley and Emily walked into Bentley's hospital room. The turtle was in his hospital bed reading a book. He was hooked up to various medical equipment. Bentley looked up from his book to see three doctors and a nurse standing beside him not knowing that these "doctors" were his friends in disguise.
"I've already had my sponge bath for the day. Please tell the other nurses that I won't be needing another one until tomorrow afternoon." Bentley said to the doctors before they revealed themselves to be his friends in disguise. Sly, Harley and Emily took off their doctors jackets while Murray kept wearing his doctor disguise. Bentley was surprised to see his friends visiting him at this time of night. He hadn't expected his friends to show up so soon.
"Sly? Murray? Harley? Emily? How'd you?-" Bentley asked, surprised to see his friends were visiting him at this time of night.
"Who'd you expect? The doctors from Grey's Anatomy and St. Elsewhere?" Harley said to Bentley, refrencing his two favorite medical drama television series.
"What's Grey's Anatomy and St. Elsewhere?" Bentley asked.
"They're my two favorite medical drama television shows that I like." Harley explained.
"What are you guys doing here?" the turtle asked his friends. He was excited to see his friends visiting him in his room.
"We're breaking you out of here, of course. We need your expertise on a big heist we're planning. Me, Murray Harley and his sister Emily all tried to hit a museum in Italy last week. There's a map, Bentley. A map that leads to my family's fortune, no time to explain here-" Sly explained to Bentley. "Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well for us."
"The Murray blames himself." the hippo interjected.
"Now, we were lucky enough to improvise a last-minute plan to get the map. But it should never have come down to that. You're our eyes, our ears and our brains. We need you back out there. We could use our help." Sly said to Bentley.
"Besides, we missed you." Harley said to Bentley. Bentley looked into Harley's eyes and for a few seconds, he could see flashes of the events of a Clockwerk possessed Harley visiting him in the very room they were him. The events of that day still haunted him. Bentley wasn't sure if it was real or if it was just a horrifying nightmare. He had to ask Harley whether or not he terrorized him by claiming he was possessed by the spirit of Clockwerk or if was a dream.
"Say, Harley. Do you remember visiting me a few weeks ago? I could've sworn you looked different to me." Bentley asked Harley.
"Yeah. I visited you a few weeks ago. I came in and we had a conversation together." Harley said to Bentley. Flashes of the memory in which a Clockwerk possessed Harley visted Bentley in his room suddenly flashed through his mind. Suddenly, he heard Murray say, "Ugh, guys. Maybe you all should've left your disguises on." Harley turned around to see a bunch of policemen standing in the doorway of Bentley's hospital. Neither Harley, Sly, Murray or Emily expected the cops to suddenly show up out of nowhere to be at the hospital. It was the last thing that Harley wanted to deal with at the moment.
"You gotta be fucking kidding me!" Harley said upon seeing the policemen standing in the doorway. "Why the hell are you guys here? Can't you guys see we're visiting our friend here?"
"You guys are all under arrest!" one of the cops said to them. "Keep your hands where we can see them!" All of the cops had their firearms pointed at them. Harley soon felt energy surging throughout his entire body. It was the energy of Clockwerk that emanated inside his body. He suddenly felt himself starting to transform into his Clockwerk persona. His right eye was once again replaced by Clockwerk's metallic eye while his left eye suddenly turned yellow. His mouth and nose morphed into a beak. His fingers morphed into metallic talons. He slowly began to float off from the ground. Sly, Murray, his sister Emily and Bentley were all shocked by Harley's sudden transformation into Clockwerk. They hadn't expected him to transform into his Clockwerk persona so soon. Then again, Harley was kind of glad that he had transformed into Clockwerk in the first place since there were a lot of cops that he could easily defeat by himself.
"Put your hands in the air where I can see them." one of the police officers told him. "You guys are all under arrest!"
"I don't think so." Harley/Clockwerk said to the uniformed officer in a metallic sounding voice. "How about you put your hands up in the air?"
"Look we can make things easier on yourselves if you guys would all just put your hands where we can see them so that we can arrest you guys. Don't make me have to shoot you guys!" the uniformed officer told Harley and his friends.
"Go ahead and shoot me. I'm already immortal as it is. Nothing can hurt me." Clockwerk said to the cops. The cops wasted no time in firing all of their weapons at the human boy. Emily quickly picked up Bentley from his hospital bed and ran to cover along with Sly and Murray, for they didn't want to risk being shot by the police. Harley was unfazed by the barrage of bullets hitting his body It was as if he was bulletproof. He had barely felt any pain at all. If anything the pain he did feel was mild pain. It was equivalent to a bee sting or a BB bullet. To him, the bullets felt ticklish to him. The officers stopped firing at Harley.
They were shocked to see the human boy still standing where he was They half expected him to be on the floor bleeding profusely from all of the bullet wounds he recieved Harley had more holes in him than there was in the Nickelodeon cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, yet he felt fine. Normally everybody who had that many holes in them would be beyond dead. But not Clockwerk since he was immortal, meaning that he couldn't be hurt by anything. He was essentially impervious to everything and anything that hit his body albeit with mild pain.
Well he was temporary immortal whenever he transformed physically or mentally into Clockwerk or Neyla. He had temporary immortality whenever Harley was in his Clockwerk or Neyla personas, as Clockwerk was immortal before he died. It meant that he was temporarilly immortal whenever he was in his Clockwerk persona. Unfortunately, Harley Keener, unlike Clockwerk or Neyla wasn't immortal like them, since he was still a mortal human boy. It meant that he could be hurt in his normal self but not when he was in his Clockwerk or Neyla personas. It meant that whenever he reverted back to his normal self, he was vulnerable to everything that hit his body unlike his Clockwerk persona when he was invulnerable to everything that hit him.
"That tickles!" Harley/Clockwerk said to the cops. They were astounded at the fact that he was still standing there after they had finished firing at him. Blood and thick black motor oil poured out of his bullet wounds, which slowly began to heal back up.
"That's not possible! How are you still alive?" one of the police officers asked Clockwerk.
"You want to know what else is not possible? This!" Harley/Clockwerk said before grabbing the cop by his uniform and began to fly through the hallway, knocking over the remaining cops as if he was a bowling ball and they were the pins. The human boy crashed through a window and flew into the night air, still holding the helpless officer by his uniform. They were now hovering in mid as the moonlight shone down above them.
"You want me to show you what's not possible?" Clockwerk asked the cop, who was too petrified with fear to respond to his question. Harley/Clockwerk then proceeded to show the cop what his idea of impossible was by throwing the officer through the wall of a building that was located across from the hospital like he was a football quarterback about to score a touchdown at the Super Bowl. The police officer's officer's body was violently flung through the brick scaffolding as his body hit the wall like it was made out of cardboard. His body flew through the wall and into the bedroom of a little anthropomorphic dog. His body, or what remained of it was obliterated instantly upon the impact caused by Clockwerk's powerful superhuman throw.
The human boy flew through the wreckage of the apartment building. He found the cop's barely alive body inside a little kid's bedroom. The bedroom, or what was left of it, was, for a lack of a better word, totally demolished. Well, not totally demolished. Just partially demolished. The bedroom had a television set that used to be there before it was obliterated by the impact of the officer's body which caused the big flat screen TV to fall down to the ground where it shattered into a thousand pieces. The little boy who was just moments ago sleeping soundly in his bedroom was suddenly awoken to the sound of plaster exploding into a thousand pieces as a police officer's body was violently flung thrown through the wall. The little boy was an anthropomorphic dog: a male Border Collie. To say he wsa frightened would be a massive understatement. He saw a dark shadowy figure standing by the foot of his bed with glowing yellow eyes. The figure looked like a teenage human boy on the outside but on the inside he was anything but.
Harley/Clockwerk saw the trembling dog boy in his bed. He turned to look at the police officer who he threw through the wall into the bedroom. His lifeless body was on the floor of the boy's bedroom. He was covered from head to toe in blood. Several of his bones were beyond broken.
"How's that for not possible?!" the teenage human boy yelled at the deceased police officer's body in a robotic, metallic voice. Clockwerk then turned his attention on the anthropomorphic dog boy who was cowering in fear upon the sight of him. Clockwerk figured that this boy might tell his parents about what he'd seen, assuming that they weren't awake already considering how much noise there was in the bedroom from the impact of the police officer's body being flung through the wall.
"I wouldn't tell your parents about this if I were you." the teenage human boy said to the dog boy.
"W-Who are you?" the little canine boy asked the teenage human boy, working up the courage to speak to the mysterious boy who continued to stand by the foot of his bed.
"I am your worst nightmare. You can call me Clockwerk." the teenage human boy answered before flying out of the hole in the window in the bedroom back toward the hospital located across the street, leaving the frightened little Border Collie boy alone in his bedroom. Upon returning back to the hospital where Sly Cooper and his friends were at, Clockwerk's soul suddenly left Harley's body, who reverted back to his normal self. He had no recollection of the events that transpired while under the influence of Clockwerk. Harley went looking for Murray, Sly, Bentley and his sister Emily in the halls of the hospital wing. He eventually found the hippo who was also looking for Harley within the hospital. When Murray found his human friend, he was concerned, relieved and worried at the same time.
"Where the hell were you Harley? Me, your sister and Sly have been trying to find you for ages!" the hippo asked Harley. Harley just shrugged his shoulders having no recollection of what he did while under the influence of Clockwerk. The bullet wounds he had sustained earlier were all gone, nowhere to be seen.
"I don't know. One of the officers must've knocked me out." Harley told Murray.
"Thank god you're okay. We thought you might've been arrested by the police." Murray told Harley.
"Where's Sly, Emily and Bentley? Did they go back to the safehouse?" Harley asked Murray.
"Yes. They've been waiting for you to return back to the safehouse. I already took care of the cops. Now let's go before more officers start to arrive back at the hospital!" the hippo told Harley, who looked down at the dozens of unconscious uniformed police officers Murray had taken care of while Harley was momentarily gone. Harley then followed Murray through the floors of the hospital before they exited out of the hospital back toward the safehouse where Sly, his sister and Bentley were all waiting for them to return.