With the seven keys in hand, Sly and Coco returned to the floor of the massive hotel complex. Once all seven locks were unlocked, the wall spun around, revealing the lever they knew was hidden there. "You ready, Coco?" Sly asked softly. "This guy we're going up against is going to be pretty big. I don't think your knock out needles are going to be effective."
"I didn't think they would," Coco responded softly. "But I've prepared something else that I think will work somewhat. Do you have a gas mask?"
Sly blinked in surprise. "Well, yeah, but why?"
"For Plan B," Coco replied, nestling into Sly's back. "Pull the lever."
Reaching out, Sly grabbed hold of the lever, only to accidentally press a button on his cane, triggering the 'eject seat' on the back of his coat, meant to give Coco a quick exit if they were in trouble.
"Wrong lever..." Coco whispered into the comms as she was propelled towards the ceiling. Thinking quickly, she caught hold of a light cord with her cane hook and slid back down to more reasonable height, plopping back down onto Sly's back. "...why do you even have that lever?" she asked petulantly.
"Your Mom insisted," Sly replied contritely, hoping to ameliorate his daughter's antipathy. He pulled the lever he meant to pull.
The giant Muggshot face opened its mouth, extending a tongue-like set of stairs leading to an elevator door.Nodding to each other, the pair boarded the elevator, riding it up into the fire hydrant shaped penthouse.
As they arrived, they found themselves in a large single chamber, a wide open floor between themselves and a large throne-like chair, upon which sat the biggest bull dog they'd ever seen. He easily stood twice Sly's height, with a pale purple coat over his heavily muscled limbs, with a dark blue mustache and eyebrows. "What?" he demanded as he caught sight of Sly and Coco. "My boys have been yapping about some big mysterious dude running around cracking skulls and...and this is it?" He burst into laughter. "Daddy-Daughter Duo with sticks? I didn't know it was take your kid to work day!" He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Wait a second...I've seen that stick before..."
"When my father knocked your block off with it, perhaps?" Sly suggested tauntingly.
"Your father?" Muggshot gasped in surprise. "You lot are Coopers? Wow." He smirked impudently. "You know, that Thingumus Raccoonus had a lot of nice pictures, but way too many big words."
Coco blinked. "Wow. That's...sad."
Muggshot frowned. "What is?"
"I'm six and I have no trouble with the language in the Thievius Raccoonus," Coco pointed out. "And yet you do. That's...just sad."
"So, if it's no good to you, can we have it back?" Sly asked hopefully.
Muggshot shot to his feet. "You break into my place, steal my stuff, trash the joint, insult me to my face, and have the gall to ask for handouts? I feel transgressed and violated-"
"Get the ball!" Coco called out, hurling a ball at Muggshot.
Muggshot backhanded it out the window. "Just cause I don't get big words doesn't mean I'm stupid! I saw what you did to my guard dogs! That ball was laced with something to knock me out, wasn't it? And it'd release either when I bit it or by blowing up in a cloud!"
Coco blinked. "Uh...Plan C, Daddy?" she asked hopefully.
"C stands for Cane," Sly agreed, readying himself for battle.
Muggshot shifted into a fighting stance, then paused. "Listen...could ya maybe set your little girl aside? I got no qualms with smashing you into paste in front of her, but actually pasting a minor would leave a bad taste in my mouth."
Sly hesitated, but Coco hopped off his back. "I'll wait in the upper floors," she promised, heading over to an elevator and riding it up.
Muggshot smirked. "Nice kid. Reminds me o' me before I started bulking up." He glanced over at Sly. "If I end up winning this, I'll keep an eye out for her, make sure that Seft fellow doesn't get ahold of her."
"You heard about that?" Sly asked in surprise.
"The whole criminal underworld knows about that bastid'," Muggshot confirmed. "And offin' yer old man weren't nothin' personal. It's all business, but I don't let that get in the way of looking out for youngins."
"I appreciate the gesture," Sly offered gratefully, sincerely, "but I seriously doubt you'll be the one walking away from this."
"That's the spirit!" Muggshot proclaimed happily, lumbering over on his oversized arms like a gorilla before pulling out his twin tommy guns and firing them off.
Grates fell down around the outside fo the room, sealing it off. At the same time, large glass crystals and rotating mirrors fell to the floor. Quickly seeing a solution, Sly raced ahead of Muggshot, rotating the mirrors to shine light into the crystals. As they all illuminated, the focused light burned Muggshot and overheated his guns.
"Dammit!" he snapped out angrily. "Ah well, I've got another set upstairs." Racing over, he rode an elevator up to the second floor of the penthouse...at which point Coco rotated the last mirror on that floor into place. "GYAH! Why you little-" Retreating to the elevator, he rode up to the chandelier...where he saw too late all but one of the mirror's already in place. "Aww, hell naw-"
Coco, having hitched a ride up on the elevator, flipped over his back to strike the last mirror, spinning it into place before bracing herself on a lamp on one of the cables holding it up using the Spire Jump technique. As Muggshot collapsed back onto the chandelier, Sly rode the other elevator up to that level.
To their surprise, Muggshot started to chuckle. "I thought the only way I could beat the bigger and stronger guys...was ta get bigger and stronger than them. But you two! Ya beat me fair and square by tag teaming me, and using my own place against me. I think youse two can look out for yourselves. ...the rest of the pictures I got are in my safe behind my throne, but if you want the rest, you're gonna need to head to Haiti and cross paths with Mz. Ruby. But don't think you'll have as easy a time with her as you did with me. She won't pull the punches I did. Dark that lady is..." With that, he lost consciousness.
Muggshot wasn't all that bad, really. The idealistic little pup that just didn't want to be picked on anymore was still in there. I let Mom know about that when the opportunity presented itself, in hopes he could actually find a way to be a good dog again.
The pages in Muggshot's vault contained an entry from 'Tennessee Kid' Cooper, a gun-slinging Cooper from the Olde West times. The techniques the pages covered were the Rail Walk and Rail Slide, techniques that were especially useful to me as I could adapt them to walk along the ropes that Daddy had to climb across before.
Getting out of town was a bit complex. After all, Mom was already there, both after Daddy and to take Muggshot down. After that, we went back to Paris to recuperate and let me sleep in my own bed. I miss that on our longer trips.