The moment Gilda and Derpy returned to the hideout, so they could see what else they needed to do in order to help Bentley prepare for the heist he had planned, they discovered that Murray and Diz would be heading out for the turret so they could take out the chopper as soon as possible. The reasoning behind that decision was because Bentley needed it to be removed before they could do any of the other major missions he had planned, as he feared that some of them might draw the attention of the chopper if it was around during those missions, meaning Rajan would know that someone was doing something in the grounds of his new palace. If such a thing happened Carmelita and the others would be forced to leave without arresting anyone and the operation would be a bust, and Bentley was sure that Neyla would use that as an excuse to get rid of them. As such the chopper needed to be taken out immediately, that much he knew for sure, so both Murray and Diz agreed with what he told them and headed out of the hideout the moment the sisters returned, where they and Bentley watched as the duo headed into the palace grounds.
Diz made sure to knock out the guards that were patrolling the grounds while Murray carefully made his way towards the mission beacon, where he also looted them of anything and everything that Bentley might be able to sell upon their return, before they reached the top of the building that the turret was located on.
"Murray, that chopper is a menace to all future aerial operations while we're on this job." Bentley said, telling them what they already knew, mostly because he found that sometimes he needed to remind one of them what their current mission was.
"Yeah, it's all covered in missiles and guns and stuff." Murray stated, though his eyes were locked on the turret that was resting in front of him and Diz, as he knew that this was they key to taking out the chopper, while at the same time noticing that Diz was prepared for anything.
"Now, be a team player and take it out with that rusty, pre-war turret." Bentley replied, to which their binocucoms locked onto the turret in question, even though Murray had been staring at it already, though instead of saying anything else he waited for one of them to speak before the line was disconnected.
"Okay, I had a potato gun once; I bet it works just the same." Murray happily said, as he liked the thought of smashing that chopper, even if he couldn't do it with his fists, to which he put away his binocucom and approached the lever that was right in front of them.
"You had a potato gun?" Diz commented, as that was something that he hadn't known before this point in time, despite the time he had spent with Sly, his sisters, and their friends, who were his new family, before he chuckled as he stood guard over Murray, "For the longest time all I had was a slingshot, that I eventually lost... but that doesn't matter at the moment. I'll watch your back while you get that turret operational."
Murray nodded as he stopped in front of the lever, grabbed onto it, and started pulling on it, though as he did that Diz found something interesting while he stood guard and watched Murray's back, there weren't any guards that wanted to mess with them. He could have sworn that someone would have noticed that someone was messing with the power to the turret and was planning on operating it, but all he did was stand there and found that none of the guards even came up to where they were standing. It was strange, mostly because of what he knew from the previous operations that the gang had been on in the past two years since he joined them and the fact that the guards of those areas always came after them when they did something like this, but he guessed there was a reason behind the guards not wanting to come and mess with the turret. Fortunately Murray was able to flip the switch and restored power to the turret, to which he climbed onto the structure the turret was resting on and took control of the turret itself, where he raised into the air a little and zeroed in on where the chopper was located.
The instant he was in place Murray started firing at the chopper, pausing every now and then to make sure they didn't overheat, while at the same time the chopper, realizing that it was under attack, turned towards the turret and starting firing missiles at them. Murray, noticing the missiles coming, used the turret to take them out before returning his focus to the chopper, while Diz stood there and remained silent as he watched the chopper take damage while Murray and the turret took no damage at all. Even when the chopper started firing more missiles at Murray and the turret, in an attempt to take them all out, Murray proved that he was skilled on a turret and blew all of the missiles up before they could even reach him, before loosing another burst from the turret and caused the chopper to explode. That was instantly followed by Murray proclaiming that he was triumphant while the turret returned to the position it had been in before he activated it a few seconds ago.
When Murray started to head back towards the hideout, since that was the only thing that Bentley needed him to do, Diz said that he'd take a moment to do something else, as Bentley had asked him to slip something to Sly and Carmelita, as there was something he needed to do when it was time for the heist to begin. It was a pair of small communicators, ones that would beep once when it was time for them to assist them in the actual operation, though while Murray headed back to the hideout Diz noticed that Gilda and Derpy, now free to fly around the palace, flew out to gather the various clues and treasures that were scattered throughout the palace. Diz chuckled as he saw them moving around the area, as they enjoyed flying as much as being thieves, before he jumped down to the street below him and made his way towards the guest quarters. The reasoning was because, thanks to seeing Sly and Carmelita head into the ballroom with their tuxedo and dress on, he knew that he needed a tuxedo to get by the doorman that was letting people into Rajan's party, though finding one would be easy if he looked through the guest quarters.
As such he avoided the guards, making sure to rob them of their loot in the process, before heading towards the main door of the guest quarters, where he carefully opened it and slipped inside the building as fast as he could, as he didn't want anyone to see him. When Diz entered the building, and closed the door behind him, Bentley informed him that the specific building he had entered happened to have five rooms he could search, none of which were the ones that Sly, Carmelita, or the other Interpol officers had been given, meaning that it was fine to ransack all of them until he had what he was searching for.
Attention guards, this is Lord Rajan. an intercom said, causing Diz to pause for a moment, as he had to wonder if there was anything special he could learn from hearing the gang's target speak for a few seconds, The party here is in full swing and all visitors are now in the ballroom. Now, while this ball may be on the up-and-up, not all of the guests are, so be careful to look out for prowlers. I don't want any bad press on this event.
Diz, finding that Rajan wanted this to be a successful party, also discovered that the tiger didn't have anything interesting to reveal to him, so he moved up the left hallway and entered the two rooms that were on that side of the building, where he found guards patrolling the entire area. Since there were more guards in all the rooms, at least four to five and knocking one out would draw the attention of the others, Diz activated the spell he had used when Secretary Sen brought him to see the Cooper Gang two years ago, where he faded out of existence. Before he became a thief, and had been spending his years as a prankster, he had spent some time pretending to be a poltergeist and freaked out some families with his various antics, only leaving when they brought someone in to 'exorcise' him. It had been fun, especially since it was hard for people to figure out what was going on, but eventually he was caught by Secretary Sen, which was what prompted him to bring him to the meeting with the gang.
Now that he had been trained to be a thief, however, his invisibility spell came in handy for areas like this, as he could walk in front of the guards and they would have no idea he was there, though the flashlight guards he ended up sneaking around, just to be on the safe side. The downside to the situation was that he found that it was easy for him to slip back into his old ways, as while he was looking for the pieces of a tuxedo he moved things around and watched as the guards that didn't have any flashlights were getting freaked out as they watched something move on it's own. He had no idea if they believed in ghosts, poltergeists, and everything else, but he found it amusing to watch them shake in fear as they watched what he was doing, only to relax when he eventually stopped moving things and walked out of the room when he found a piece of the tuxedo he was after. It was far too tempting to do that in all five rooms, as the guards were so easy to mess with in such a manner, and he spent a few minutes in each room, doing identical things to all the people that were guarding this area, before he gained what he was looking for.
When he had the pieces of a tuxedo, and was done messing with the guards, he returned to the main entrance of the building and let his invisibility fade, to which he headed outside the building and headed towards the ballroom door the moment he was outside... where the doorman allowed him to enter the ball, as Diz had shown up wearing the tuxedo he had taken from the guest quarters.
Sly and Carmelita, despite the fact that they were both undercover at the moment, spent their time making it seem like they were enjoying the party, which they actually were enjoying despite the fact that it was one of their target's parties, while at the same time keeping their eyes on Jean Bison, Arpeggio, and Rajan. From what they could see the three members of the Klaww Gang did visit each other a few times during the party, acting like business partners that would immediately make guests think twice about interrupting them. What they overheard, however, revealed that Rajan not only made off with Clockwerk's Wings, but also the powerful pump that was his Heart, which only Rajan knew the location of by the sound of things. Jean Bison happened to have the Lungs, Stomach, and the Talons of the ancient owl, though the mention of the last ones made Sly remember what happened to Derpy when they fought Clockwerk two years ago, but Carmelita was able to negate any anger rising to the surface with her mere presence. Oddly enough Arpeggio seemed to have possession of Clockwerk's Brain, though that left out the hypnotizing Eyes that Sly had read about in the Thievius Raccoonus, making him wonder if there was a fifth member of the Klaww Gang that hadn't shown up to the party... though if that was the case Rajan didn't appear to be upset over the fact.
While the two of them were gathering any information they could use in the future, once they had Rajan's Clockwerk parts, they stopped at a snack bar and grabbed some fruit drinks, as they needed to be thinking straight the entire time they were here... though as they did that they spotted a familiar hyena, now dressed in a tuxedo, move into a small room and remain there for a few seconds, but the bound wings that they could see through the back of the tuxedo drew their attention and cased them to follow after him.
"Diz, what are you doing here?" Sly asked, though he meant the ball, since none of the other members of his family or gang had been invited to actually attend the ball, and he expected them all to be working to get the Clockwerk Wings before Rajan figured out that cops were at his party.
"Bentley wanted me to give you guys these." Diz replied, to which he pulled out two earpieces, one for both Sly and Carmelita to wear, and let them take the items from him, before he hid his hands again, "He's got a plan to get the prize, but he said that to make sure no one sees whats happening there needs to be a distraction... like the two of you dancing or something like that."
"He wants us to dance, to distract Rajan and the others?" Carmelita inquired, as she had always imagined that her first actual dance with Sly would be somewhere of their own choosing, but at the same time she had to admit that Bentley's plan already sounded good, "When does he want us to start our 'distraction'?"
"Those are designed to go off when he's ready for you to make a move," Diz explained, remembering what Bentley had told him before he left the hideout, before coming to the second part of the statement, as this was his role when the operation went into effect, "and, in case he forgets to activate the sensor to give you the news, I'll be back when the heist begins, to let you two know when to move."
"Bentley, he's always got a backup plan for everything." Sly said, to which he and Carmelita fitted their earpieces into their ears, where they seemed to disappear entirely, before he turned back towards Diz, "You should get out of here before someone asks you to dance... especially since Neyla's been dancing with a few partners and stopping whenever they make the wrong move."
Diz nodded and excused himself, making it seem like the conversation was just some friends meeting in the strangest place, before he headed towards the entrance he used to get inside the building, telling the doorman that he only needed some air and that he'd be back in a few minutes... before heading back to the hideout to give Bentley the good news and see if he had figured out what to do next.
Upon Diz's return to the hideout, and he had changed back into his thief attire, they all sat around the table as Bentley explained that they were going to have to use the electronic winch above the ballroom to get at the Clockwerk Wings, but that meant they needed to gain control over it. Bentley already had the location of the control room, meaning that they didn't have to waste time getting it, though at the same time he also explained that they would need a really good saw to cut through whatever was holding the Wings to the statue they were attached to. Fortunately he had an idea for that as well, as Rajan's prized elephants had some headdresses that contained three gemstones a piece, which he concluded would be perfect for cutting the Wings free. In addition to all that Gilda and Derpy discovered the existence of a surface-to-air defense system that needed to be taken out as well, something that Bentley was going to do with his RC-chopper that he had brought with him, thus allowing them to put the heist into action... which all of them happened to be looking forwards to, especially when Bentley said they were close to retrieving the Wings.
Gilda and Derpy headed out the moment Bentley was ready to go, as hacking into the control room for the winch was going to take all of them since guards were likely going to swarm them once they knew what was going on, so while Murray, Diz, and Bentley headed for one entrance the sisters headed for the drain that would let them enter the back way. Even with the surface-to-air defenses patrolling the area it didn't take them long to reach the back side of the building and enter through the drain that they discovered, which brought them to what appeared to be a pool or a hot spring of some sort. The two of them noticed some rhino guards patrolling the area and, in accordance to what they usually did, went to work knocking them out as they went, though at the same time Bentley informed them, via the earpieces he insisted they wear for this part of the operation, that the code they were looking for, to get to the switch that would open the doors on the upper level, was under one of the tables near them.
What they discovered was that there were four tables for them to crawl under, which Derpy did without hesitation, and that the code happened to be at the far end of the room, on the opposite side of the drain they entered through, but once she found the code she headed towards the laser door in the middle of the room and opened it. After that she and Gilda made their way over the lasers that were on the floor, smacked the snakes that rose from their vases, and reached the switch in question. Before pulling it Derpy turned towards the vault that was beside them and input the code Bentley had gotten from the clue bottles they had recovered, which was 8-5-7, and opened the vault, allowing her to swipe the blueprints for a melee weapon that forced enemies into berserker state, where they'd become confused and attack their former allies instead of their real enemies. Once they had the vault's treasure the two of them flipped the switch and the door above them opened, to which they headed up there and regrouped with Bentley, Murray, and Diz.
"Thanks for breaking us in guys," Murray said, though he definitely looked ready for a fight, which made sense considering what they were able to attempt with Bentley's assistance, but whether Murray remembered that or not was the real question, "'The Murray' approves."
"Let's get down to brass tacks." Bentley stated, drawing attention to himself, though this time around he was serious and showed no sign of his earlier nervousness, back when they were in Paris or hitting the Cairo Museum, "I need to hack both the vault room computers to get control of the electronic winch above the ballroom."
"And we're here to guard you while you work." Diz replied, as he remembered the briefing that Bentley had given them before they left the hideout, though he said it so Murray would remember that they were going to be fighting some of Rajan's guards soon enough.
"Precisely." Bentley said, as he was happy that someone, besides Sly and his sisters, seemed to understand what he was trying to say, even when he did so slowly for Murray's sake, "The second I enter their servers they'll be onto us. You guys need to work together to keep the thugs off my back."
"Leave the guards to us Bentley." Gilda stated, though at the same time she, Derpy, and Diz held their canes at the ready as they prepared themselves for what was ahead of them, to which Murray joined them by pounding his fists together as he stood behind them, while at the same time Bentley moved towards the first computer.
"Okay, I'm in." Bentley said, to which he put his crossbow down and started hacking into the terminal that was right in front of him, allowing his full concentration to be on it and nothing else, as he was sure that the others could protect him from the guards, "Hacking the level six barrier."
Sure enough the instant Bentley started talking the door he and the others had walked through opened and the guards started to move into the area, where Derpy, Gilda, Diz, and Murray engaged them immediately, knocking them out so they wouldn't be able to harm their friend. It was pure madness as the four of them used their canes, or in the case of Murray his fists, and beat up the guards that were coming at them, where they fell down on top of their allies and created some nice piles that they'd be waking up in later on. While all of this was happening Bentley moved to the second computer as he moved to the level five access, though the group focused on the guards and simply fought them as they entered the chamber that they were standing in. Murray was having the most fun out of all of them, as he enjoyed bashing his enemies together and even threw some of them at groups of approaching guards, leaving Gilda, Derpy, and Diz to deal with the stragglers. Bentley, not having to deal with the guards, continued to call out which levels he was breaching as he moved between the two computers, going from the level six barrier and descending towards the lowest barrier that was in his way... until eventually he succeeded in his mission and claimed total control of the winch.
Fortunately once he had control of the winch the guards stopped coming, meaning that the fight was officially over, to which he thanked everyone for assisting him and they immediately headed out, as they had more missions to take care of before the heist and knew that both Sly and Carmelita were waiting for the order to begin the distraction... and then they would take the Clockwerk Wings from Rajan and celebrate their victory over the second member of the Klaww Gang.