Chapter Text
THE NEW SLY COOPER CHRONICLES
THE FROZEN HEART
Sly had finally come this far…He had entered the stronghold of the Fiendish Five's leader, the most dangerous and most elusive person in the world. The one whom gathered Sir Raleigh, Mz. Ruby, Muggshot and Panda King as a murderous mercenary force to kill his parents. He had to go through robotic falcons, rocky avalanches, lava slugs and a deadly gas chamber, but he made it. For this face-off, Sly had equipped himself with Carmelita's jetpack, which had a pair of powerful turrets on top of it as well.
The person…no, thing in front of him had the appearance of a robotic bird. It was clearly some sort of own, but it also seemed to have the most frightening aspects of other birds of prey. Its yellow optics glowed menacingly. While being robotic, in these optics you saw he was no mere machine, but that he was intelligent and merciless. “Sly Cooper…You’ve made it this far. You defeated my cohorts, you escaped my gas chamber and you destroyed my Death Ray. You Coopers always found a way to stop me.” His voice sounded distorted, unnatural, yet sophisticated, and it sounded frightening as hell.
“So the drawings and pictures in the Thievius Raccoonus. That was you! How old are you?” Sly asked.
Clockwerk responded; “Perfection has no age…I have been rivals with your Clan from the very start. They prided themselves as being 'honourable'. Those sentiments were a weakness and I discarded those to be utterly efficient. Yet I always fell behind to your ancestors. I refused to lose to such bleeding hearts. My hate became the prime ingredient in the Fountain of Youth, keeping me alive for millennia. And over time, I discarded the limitations of a mortal body for a machine of utter destruction. That way I would never be overshadowed again.”
“You have been causing all this misery, all this suffering, you have been killing my family and innocent people just because you were jealous?” Sly ask, disgust present in his voice.
“I was not jealous! Your family didn’t deserve the title of Master Thief. So by exceeding them I would prove myself the only one worthy. And I nearly had you and that meddling vixen, but your little reptilian friend managed to hack his way through…No one has ever done that, I would be impressed if I wasn’t this angry. Last person whom tried…Didn’t live to tell the tale. He didn’t even mean to, he just wanted to find another meddling cop vixen that got in my way. Wasn't be anything left of her to find anyway, so it was a fool's errand.” Clockwerk said.
Carmelita, whom has been listening in, froze. Things started to click. “Mom…” she muttered. Her mother went missing after a mission in Russia. That meant Clockwerk had killed her too.
And Bentley…he knew how close Ulysses was to Carmelita’s mom. The explosion. “Uli…He killed them. He killed them all!” Bentley’s voice shook, like he didn’t know how to process the similar sentiments of shock, anger and sadness.
“You! You killed all of them! They did nothing to you and you killed them! You are not a person, you are a monster, you’re insane!” Sly said, venomous rage dripping from his voice.
“Survival of the fittest. Back in my time it was a thing. People over the years have deluded themselves that there is anything else to life. They were obstacles, and for me to thrive I had to remove them.” Clockwerk said. He had no regret, no remorse in his voice, he rather spoke…fondly of it.
“Then there is one more thing I don’t get. If you hated my family so much, why did you let me live? You knew Connor Cooper had a son, right?” Sly asked.
“I wanted to prove something. That without your precious book, you Coopers are nothing!” Clockwerk said. “Even when you did take up the thieving mantle of your father, I had expected you to get killed by your foolishness.” Sly then chuckled slightly. “What is so funny?” Clockwerk asked. The sophisticated robotic tone was still there but there was some frustration.
“You are the real fool, Clockwerk. The Thievius Raccoonus didn’t create great thieves. Great thieves created the Thievius Raccoonus. The Cooper Clan’s power comes from conviction, skill, wits, honour, will and perseverance, the book is just a tool. You can take tools away, but we'd always could make another. I’m still a Cooper regardless of whether I have the book or not. But as for you, you take your tools away, the robot body, the army of monsters…and you are just a pitiful old bird.” Sly said.
“ENOUGH!” Clockwerk’s voice raised and anger was clear in his voice. “Enough idle prattle. I am going to finish you like I finished your father. Your bloodline will end and the only Master Thief will be Clockwerk!” The old metallic bird was done taunting and intimidating Sly and just wanted to rip him limb from limb. He shot at Sly, whom managed to fly out of the way of Clockwerk’s sharp claws and beak. He had quickly gone used to the jetpack. Sly then fired the cannons on the jetpack at him, but it didn’t even scratch him. “Pathetic!” Clockwerk charged into Sly, whom was sent spiralling through the sky.
Sly barely managed to regain control before he would have fallen into the lava, shooting back up, and firing at will. But again the bullets didn’t do anything. He did have to play it differently. Clockwerk gave Sly little time as he fired energy blasts from his eyes, Sly flying to avoid. Clockwerk on his heels. Sly remembered he was still in a volcano. He then did several aerial tricks, luring Clockwerk in. Being a bird, he may a master of the sky, but he was still arrogant. Sly avoided his energy blasts and switched up his strategy.
First, after taking a sharp turn he had Clockwerk crash through a stone pillar, but he charged through like it wasn’t even there. After that failed, Sly shot up, and then straight down, with Clockwerk after him. He pulled up at the last second before he touched the lava. Clockwerk due to his size, couldn’t pull up in time and plunged in. Sly thought he had won until Clockwerk emerged from the lava, red hot but still intact. “You fool! You thought I’d have set up shop in a volcano if I didn’t know I could survive here?”
Sly responded by pelting Clockwerk with bullets from the jetpack’s turrets. With Clockwerk still fresh from his lava bath, his armoured form was weakened and the bullets shredded through. “You’re not looking so hot now, are you?” Sly said with a confident smirk.
Clockwerk responded angrily: “You think this is a joke?”
“You are a joke. Thousands of years and you still couldn’t catch up to my family. And for what? Your pettiness? Just to stroke your ego? You used to haunt my nightmares. I was afraid of you as a kid. But no more! I have grown up and learned the boogeyman doesn't exist. You have no power over me!” Sly said, with determination in his eyes.
Clockwerk responded coldly: “I’ll renew your fear!” The bullet holes in Clockwerk’s armor started to close. “I have an autorepair system. Nothing you can do can keep me down. And I won’t fall for the same tricks again.”
It was then that an electric shot hit Clockwerk in the chest, making him stagger in the sky. Sly noticed part of the chest still sparked. He took a shot at it, and the weakened armour was blasted off. Sly turned around to see Carmelita, aiming her shock pistol at the old bird. “Let’s do this Cooper…For our parents!” she said with determination. Sly nodded in agreement.
“You…she-dog!” Clockwerk fired missiles in Carmelita’s direction, whom used her jumping abilities to jump out of the way, and landing on a different bit of rock wall. Clockwerk wanted to resume the barrage, as several other bullets struck him in the back. At the edge of the lava pool, the Cooper Van stood. Murray at the wheel, Bentley at the turrets.
“This one’s for Uli, you murderous mechanical monster!” Bentley said.
“Yeah, what he said!” Murray added.
Clockwerk was then struck by Sly’s bullets again, in the back on the same spot where Bentley had fired. “Argh! The only thing almost as annoying as you Coopers, are the little helpers whom are foolish enough to want to follow them in death!” The holes on Clockwerk’s chest and back started closing.
“Guys, fire at will, give him no time to recover!” Sly said. He opened fire at Clockwerk. Carmelita unleashed the rapid fire of her shock pistol while Bentley manned the turrets. Each of them separately couldn’t scratch him, but the three together tore through his armour, putting his healing factor to the test. Clockwerk was losing ground. He was blinded by rage. Sly’s proficiency with the Jetpack, Carmelita’s agility and Murray’s driving skills prevented him from catching them or hitting them. They were relentless in their onslaught of projectiles, knocking holes in his armour big enough that they could not heal fast enough.
“Sly, the turrets are overheating, I’m not sure if you can keep up the onslaught long enough to finish it.” Carmelita noted.
“Oh, I think I can still deliver the final blow.” Sly undid the straps of the jetpack, swung on top and rode it as a hoverboard. He then stabbed his cane at a vital part, then jumped off as the jetpack shot at Clockwerk like a big projectile, right at the hole in his chest, and it blew up in the robotic owl’s face.
His frame was torn apart, his head, half of the face blown off, landed next to the lava pool. But the eye was still sparking. “I will not die…I will never die…You didn’t achieve nothing. I will haunt you, Cooper, for the rest of your short miserable lives. I am the alpha, and the omega, I am Clockwerk. You will never be rid of me.”
“Sly, his auto-repair still works!” Bentley said. The parts of the frame, still floating on the surface of the lava, twitched and floated towards each other, trying to reassemble itself.
“Not for long!” Sly rushed at Clockwerk’s head, which desperately shot lasers out of its one remaining functioning eye. But Sly easily avoided the desperation moves and with a few final whack of the cane, broke the head of Clockwerk apart. The bodyparts in the lava stopped drufting towards each other and sank beneath the magma. By smashing the head, he disabled the auto-repair system. He then kicked the inactive head of Clockwerk in the magma pool, before it sank between the lava like the other parts.
“It's over…it is finally over…I did it, Dad.” Sly dropped down on his knees, exhaustion catching up with him. Sly and Murray came out of the van to support him. “I want to thank you guys. Without you…without Bentley’s brains, without your heart, Murray…I wouldn’t have gotten past Paris.”
“Hey, what are friends for?” Bentley said.
“Not friends…brothers!” Sly assured them.
“Brothers!” Murray said, lifting Bentley and Sly in an arm, each and giving them a tight hug.
“Finally the demon of our childhoods is gone. My family, our friends, will no longer be plagued by him. The world is safe from his evil…from that monster.” Sly noted.
Carmelita caught up with them. But she walked slowly and hadn’t raised her shock gun. She gave a small approving smile. She had gained a newfound respect for them over the course of this journey. She would raise up her shock gun and give Sly that ten second head start that came after, but for now, she was as glad as Sly was that justice was served. For her mother…
Clockwerk was no more. The world would be at peace…at least for two years. Because two years later, it was not a phoenix but still a bird whom may rise from the ashes.
An archaeological dig at the Krackoroff-Volcano, a bear worker was chopping at some hardened magma. As the pieces of volcanic minerals broke off, a single optic was becoming visible from the crack he made. It sparked briefly as it started to glow with an eerie, yellow light.