Sly Cooper and the Silver Dust

by Kingdom Harmony

Chapter 1: When the Dust Settles

When the Dust Settles

Inspector Carmelita Fox was not pleased. She sat at her desk at Interpol wearing blue top and pants, yellow jacket, boots, and gloves, and her badge on a necklace. She sat there thinking with her new red and gold shock pistol to the side. It had been over a month since Cooper's last appearance. Even worse was that the head detectives, Clue and Print Dust, have not contacted headquarters for weeks. This wasn’t only a setback, this was relatively out of character for the ace detectives and Carmelita was beginning to fear the worst.

To calm her nerves she decided to ask the director, James Barkley, for information. It was an odd procedure, but no one spoke directly with the Dusts. Any and all communication went through Director Barkley, and he only let the most difficult cases reach the Dusts. In all honestly, Carmelita was surprised that finding Sly got through, but not as surprised as the difficulty they had completing it. Almost every case sent to them was solved in only a few weeks. As long as they were sent pictures of the crime and the evidence on hand, there wasn’t a case they couldn’t solve. When it came to locating someone, using past sightings and the suspect's personality, the Dusts could pinpoint a location almost every time. Even so, they have never been able to give them a location on the Cooper gang’s hideout, and even when a location was sent by the time Interpol reaches it, Sly always gives them the slip.

Inspector Fox reached Director Barkley’s office and knocked on the door. “Come on in,” James Barkley called out and Carmelita walked in.

“Oh, It's good to see you Inspector. Is something wrong?” the director asked from behind his desk, wearing a white colored shirt and a red tie. Despite his calm tone of voice and demeanor, Carmelita could tell he was stressed about something from his appearance. His tie was loosened, his white hair and mustache were a mess, and his most recently smoked cigar laid in the his ash tray, only half smoked.

“Director Barkley, I can tell something’s bothering you,” Carmelita admitted. “If I had to guess, it’s the Dusts, isn’t it?”

Barkley smiled slightly. “I suppose I didn’t promote you to Inspector for nothing,” he commented. “Yes, I haven’t heard from them in weeks, and they haven’t been responding to my emails either. I’m beginning to fear the worst.”

“That’s actually why I’m here,” Inspector Fox responded. “I’d like permission to check their place of residence to see if everything's okay.”

The director seemed to think this over for a bit. “I think I can permit it on a few conditions,” he started. “One, I will be going with you. Two, it can only be the two of us. Three we must go in disguise, we can’t give away their position.”

“Why all the secrets, I mean, what if we need back up?”

“The location’s not all that far away from a police station. They could have officers there in say, half an hour.”

“Half an hour, that’s ridiculous! Sir, you can’t be seri…”

“You must understand, the Dust’s have been investigating some extremely dangerous people. In order to keep them safe only I know their location, any and all communication goes through me and I take many measures to make sure it can’t be traced.”

Carmelita stood there in shock for a few seconds. “Well that explains alot. Also you must really trust me if you're not only telling me this, but inviting me to their location. Thank you sir, and sorry, I was out of line.”

“Don’t worry. It’s that attitude that makes me trust you. Go home and change, then we will meet at the Eiffel Tower. From there we’ll take my car to the Dusts. It’s a few hours away so prepare yourself.”

“Yes sir,” Carmelita said before turning to leave.

-----------------------------

Carmelita sat in the passenger seat wearing a cheap yellow dress, and Director Barkley drove, wearing a blue collared shirt and brown dress pants. As they drove to the Dusts’ house Barkley went over the procedures of meeting them in person, such as the fact that the Dusts would be referred to as Patrick and Caroline Smith and that they would never speak about cases directly.

“Sir, if I may ask,” Carmelita interrupted, “who on earth are they investigating to need so many precautions.”

“The Fiendish Five, most importantly, the whereabouts of Clockwerk,” Barkley answered. “By the way, when we get there, refer to me as John.”

“If you have an alias, then I assume I will need one too,” Carmelita observed.

“Yes,” Barkley confirmed. “Although this has been such short notice, I haven’t thought of one yet,”

“Cathy.”

“What?”

“My alias, Cathy.”

“That should do nicely.”

As they still had a ways to go Carmelita took out her laptop and looked over her files on the Fiendish Five, a criminal group Interpol has been hunting for almost fourteen years. Of the five members the name suggests, only four had been identified, and of that four, only two were located, Sir Raleigh Frog, and the Panda King. However the only two they had any hard evidence on were Miss Ruby and the leader, Clockwerk, and they had both gone into hiding. Carmelita could see way the director took so many precautions now. Clockwerk was extremely dangerous, according to his file he had unnatural strength and speed. On the few occasions Interpol tracked him down their fire arms didn’t even slow him down as he escaped. And as even as Clockwerk fled the scene of the crime, flying high in the sky he launched a barrage of missiles down at the officers.

“Were almost there,” Barkley informed Carmelita. “I must ask you to close the computer and store it under your seat.”

“So what do the Dusts look like?” Carmelita asked as she did as the director requested. “It would be helpful to avoid any surprises.”

However, director never answered. “Uh, sir did you... “Carmelita started again before trailing off at the sight of the destroyed town. “What happened here?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say Clockwerk.” Barkley answered as they pulled the car up to the town’s entrance and parked.

“But I thought only you knew where the Dusts live,” Carmelita countered.

“Well it’s apparent someone found out… somehow,” Barkley said as he parked the car and got out. “Inspector Fox, follow me.”

Carmelita did so and she was lead to a house with a tall roof, which was good because there wasn’t one wall left standing. As they walked around they found a hole smashed into the side of the roof. When Carmelita looked inside, she saw a unicorn mare and a pegasus station lying dead on the ground. Well Carmelita was shocked and upset about what happened here, she was a professional and didn’t let it’s get to her.

“I was afraid of this, we're too late.” Barkley observed.

“So these are the Dusts,” Carmelita commented. “I’ve never seen anyone like them.”

“Their ponies, this is top secret but they actually come from another dimension.”

“What?” Carmelita said, breaking her professional attitude.

“Yes, well, a portal opened up on a small island about ten years ago and Interpol was quick to set up a headquarters there. There hasn't really been much contact between us, but we let a few of them move here, and of those that did were the Dusts. ...Quite a shame,” Barkley explained. “Well inspector, you start looking for clues, I’ll call in some back up. With a little luck this tragedy will be the spark we need to put the Fiendish Five away for good.

As Director Barkley walked away, Inspector Fox took a flashlight out of her purse and went over to inspect the bodies. They each had a deep cut wound, and well as scratches and bruises that suggested a struggle. Judging by the state of the wounds the time of death was at the soonest five hours ago. She moved over to the rubble the ballistic markings would need further testing, but on first inspection, it seemed the house was destroyed after the death of the Dusts. Surprised Carmelita move over to the entrance that was broken into the side of the roof. The hole was created not by explosives and from what she could tell, it was made really recently. It was at the most one hour old. The inspector then notice a picture frame on the floor and picked it up. The frame contained a photo of Clue and Print Dust, but the bottom left corner of the photo had been removed for some reason. Carmelita shined her light on the bodies once more and noticed a small puddle. She walked over to it and realized it was a puddle of tears. Considering the size, it couldn’t be more the twenty minutes old.

“Have you found anything?” Barkley asked as he came in.

“Nothing substantial yet, but I think I’ve found a few places to start,” Carmelita said as she took a camera out of her purse and took a picture of the puddle of tears.

-----------------------------

As Murray drove the gang back to their hideout in the outskirts of Paris, Sly sat in the back with the little colt, who had cried himself to sleep. Bentley sat behind them, crunching numbers on his computer to figure out the new budget. He would have sat in the front passenger seat, but it was too cramped for his equipment.

As Sly slid his hand through the child's silver mane, the colt’s eyes began to twitch slightly before opening. “So you're awake,” Sly greeted the boy. “Feeling any better.”

The colt looked up at Sly with sad eyes. “Not really,” he sniffed. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel better, even if I can’t cry anymore.”

“You can cry all you need,” Sly reassured, “we won’t judge. Bottling up those feelings will only hurt you in the end.”

“It’s okay, I meant it more literally,” the boy told him in a depressed voice. “I don’t think I have any tears left.”

“Oh, sorry…” Sly paused. “I don’t think you ever told us your name.”

“Silver,” he sniffed. “Silver Dust.”

“Silver Dust,” Sly repeated. “That's a nice name. Be proud of that name, especially your last name. Through you your family will live on and while you may never feel the same, you will feel better. You will carry this hurt around for life, but this hurt is a part of you now and to loss it would be to loss your family again. It may not be the best thing to carry around, but it’s better than forgetting. The pain well weaken as you enjoy your life, and sometimes something will tear the wounds open and remind you of how painful it is but that pain can do wonderful things.”

"Like what?" Silver choked.

“Well my pain lead me to you in your darkest hour. Seeing you there, I relived my own father’s death, but unlike you no one was there to tell me it was okay to cry. I saw you there and knew I had to help you any way I could. It may hurt, but you need to accept that it’s part of you now and move along."

“Don’t you mean move on,” Silver asked still depressed.

“No. To move on is to forget or at least put behind you. We must move along with the past alongside us, because to forget or leave our past behind is to abandon our families.”

Silver looked at Sly once again with still teary eyes but a small, somewhat forced, and somewhat natural smile. “I glad that you found me.”

“So am I. If there’s anything you want to talk about, I will always listen.”

Silver looked Sly in the eyes for almost a minute before busting into tears once again. “I know who did it. Some guy named Clockwerk.” he said through his tears.

Sly was shocked. “How do you know?”

“From the panic room I heard my father say his name.”

“He’s the one responsible for father too. Why don’t you tell me about you parents? I may hurt, but telling us who they were and what happened will relieve the strain in the long run.”

“My parents were the top detectives for Interpol and were researching the whereabouts of Clockwerk. They were getting close, so he came after them and well, you know the rest.”

Sly and the gang were speechless. “What?” Silver asked after wiping away his tears as his eyes went dry once more.

“Sly, maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Bentley said, sounding upset. “Thieves raising a child of Interpol detectives, it would just be insulting to his parents’ memory.”

“Wait, you guys are thieves?” Silver asked in shock.

“I realize I didn’t tell you my full name,” Sly explained. “It’s Sly Cooper. I assume you parents told you about me.”

“Yeah, they said you seem to only steal from criminals for some reason.”

“That’s a Cooper family tradition. To withhold a sense of honor we only steal from criminals and corrupt governments.”

“So my parents were right you,” Silver said joyfully for the first time. “They said you had a sense of justice. Every documented case of theft you committed was from a criminal that got arrested soon after you got away and they said that it was probably you that made it happen.”

“True,” Bentley started, “but it doesn’t change the fact that we are criminals and you are the child of Interpol. I don’t want to harm your parents’ memory. Don’t worry though, we know a good orphanage. You’ll be safe ther…”

“No!” Silver yelled. “I… I want to say with you.” He said looking at Sly with giant puppy dog eyes, once again beginning to well up with tears.

Sly looked at Bentley and turned Silver’s face towards him as well. “I can’t say no to a face like that. Can you?”

Bentley sighed, with a sigh that it sounded like sigh of relief. “No, I can’t,” he replied. “In all honestly I thought he wouldn’t want to stay.”

“Are you kidding?” Silver asked calmly. “If my parents respected you, why shouldn’t I. After meeting you all, your even better than what I’ve heard about you.”

“Thanks,” Sly said.

“By the way, how old are you?” Bentley asked

“Seven,” Silver answered and Bentley got back to running the numbers.

“Were almost home,” Murray announced.

They arrived at the gang's hideout and Murray parked the van a platform that blended in with the ground. The four got out of the van and Bentley pushed a button. The van lowered down and another platform slid out and covered it up. The four then turned to the abandoned train boxcar that was their hideout. “Come on, it looks better on the inside," Sly reassured.

They walked in and there was many rooms set up, small but there. Four rooms to the sides and one slightly bigger room in the middle that they walked into, with a TV and game system in it. “That room over there,” Sly said as he pointed to the room in the far back right of the the boxcar, “we’re currently using it for storage, but I can have it fixed up for you in few minutes.” He pointed to the room in the front right “that there is my room.” He then pointed to the room in the front left. “that’s Murry’s room.” Sly pointed at the room in the back left next. “and that’s Bentley room.” he finally gestured to the bigger room. “And this is obviously the living room. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

To Be Continued...

Comments

[treegrowth]

“Their ponies, this is top secret but they actually come from another dimension.”

“What?” Carmelita said, breaking her professional attitude.

“Yes, well, a portal opened up on a small island a few years back and Interpol was quick to set up a headquarters there

ok that makes more since.