Now, if you know of my Mom and Dad at all, you know how Mom reacts to the idea of them working together. Even if she isn't actively hunting Dad at any given time, the idea of working with 'criminals' is anathema to her. So while she was fine with getting out of the situation with Seft's men, she still wasn't too keen on working with Dad, or even leaving me with Dad...
"You expect me to work with a pack of criminals?" Carmelita snapped out as she faced Sly down at the entrance to the Gang's temporary hideout, a cliffside cave near Seft's camp. "Don't be absurd! I would never stoop as low as to take orders from you."
"I'm not asking you to take orders from me," Sly insisted calmly, trying to calm things down. "All I'm saying is that we both want to take Seft down, and you've already seen where trying to take him on without backup is going to get you. And since there's no telling when he might pull up and leave, you don't have time to get more officers as backup."
"And you think that means I should accept your help?" Carmelita demanded acidly.
"We're going after him anyway," Sly pointed out. "I see no reason why we shouldn't coordinate."
"If you think for a moment-"
"Would you both keep it down?" Murray demanded as he gently rocked Coco back and forth in one arm, feeding her from a bowl of porridge with his free hand. "I just got Coco calm enough to eat something, and 'Mommy and Daddy' fighting is upsetting her!"
Carmelita growled in her throat as she heard that. While she did want to make sure the youngling was alright, the idea of sharing parenting with 'the ringtail' was unpleasant. This wasn't helped by the fact that Coco had bonded with 'Uncle Murray' and 'Uncle Bentley' on sight, proving just how lonely and desperate for familial companionship the little one was. But Carmelita was a Chief Inspector. She wasn't about to let a gang of thieves see just how much Coco's desperate need for love and belonging tugged on her heart strings. "Fine!" she snapped out finally. "It's not like we even know what we're doing yet, anyway, let alone what Seft is up to. I'll at least stick around for the intel."
"Fair enough," Sly agreed quickly, glad for anything to keep the peace...and keeping the peacekeeper near and relaxed. "Would you care for a drink? Maybe some snacks? Pretty sure we've got something around here Murray hasn't devoured yet."
"Hey!" Murray complained, though in a good natured tone of voice that set Bentley and Sly to laughing, and even got Coco giggling.
Carmelita rolled her eyes as she took a seat, letting Sly courteously bring her a drink and some snacks. If nothing else, he's a gentleman, she mused silently as she watched Bentley working away on his computer to decipher the documents they'd obtained. She decided not to think about whatever it was they had done to obtain those documents.
After a time, Bentley finally finished deciphering the material, though he took the time to read through it before speaking about it. Sly and Carmelita both kept their eyes on Bentley's face as he did so, and concern became mirrored on their faces as Bentley's grew paler and paler as he read. When he finally reached the end, he swallowed convulsively, licking his lips as he struggled to calm himself. "Murray," he began carefully, "why don't you take Coco to the back of the cave and put her down for a nap? You could read her a bedtime story or something."
"Story?" Coco gasped happily, looking excited even as she fought a yawn.
"Oh boy!" Murray bellowed softly as he stood up. "And I know just the one to tell you! Hansel and Gretel! It's my favorite! ...at least the way I tell it..."
Carmelita glanced towards Sly with a raised eyebrow. "The way he tells it?"
"Hansel and Gretel take the gingerbread house with them as snacks after finishing off the witch," Sly explained with a smirk.
Carmelita rolled her eyes again as Bentley cleared his throat. "I've managed to finish decoding the documents," he explained morosely. "It's not pretty."
"Go on then," Carmelita insisted. "I'm certain we can take it."
"This first use of the portal device is a proof of concept," Bentley explained. "The overall concept is straight forward. Gather enough energy to bridge dimensions however briefly and snatch an individual from the other side. Next, plug the individual into the portal device, and their life energies and any other energies unique to the other side of the portal is used to stabilize the link, so Seft and his troops can go in and conquer. If a world's to his liking, he uses it as his base of operations using it to go after other worlds. If not..." He swallowed convulsively. "If not, he intends to strip mine it of all available resources, including all residents and any unique energy sources, leaving behind a 'useless dead husk'. And the latter is what he intends for Coco's world."
Carmelita looked stricken at the very idea of it. At worst, she'd dealt with criminals dealing in grand theft or illegal activities in a conquered area, and the occasional bit of organized crime. She had difficulty even conceptualizing the idea of someone who would willingly condemn an entire world just to take all it had to offer...especially when she visualized a world full of creatures like Coco as the target.
Sly, on the other hand, was very familiar with just how vile the criminal world could get, and how little those that thrived in the depths of the abyss cared for the suffering of those it swallowed up. "Why is he intent on consuming Coco's world?" Sly asked firmly. "He hasn't even been there yet."
"Apparently, Coco's world is rich in an unusual energy resource he refers to as 'magic'," Bentley explained. "There aren't many details here in the papers we've got, but apparently even the individual living creatures of the world are rich in this resource." He didn't notice Carmelita's cheeks starting to turn green. "So he wants to strip it of resources...because this 'magic' will make it far easier both to open portals to other worlds, and to achieve dominance - of whichever source - in this one."
"By the heavens..." Carmelita moaned out. "That's..."
"Can the portal be opened again without plugging Coco into it?" Sly asked calmly, managing to keep his own disgust hidden.
"No, Sly," Bentley replied readily. "There's simply not enough energy available. Not only that, the act of opening the portal destabilized the boundary between the dimensions. Coco being plugged in would stabilize it...but otherwise, it won't stabilize enough to open another portal for a decade, give or take."
"Then we can't use it to send her home," Sly concluded simply. "Then our goal should be destroying the portal device, and any documents regarding its construction."
"And we'll also need to take Seft," Carmelita added. "I'm not sure how the interdimensional aspect fits into this, but his plans around it are definitely war crimes and Sapients Rights(1) violations. With this level of crimes confirmed now..." She cleared her throat carefully. "At this point, orders from headquarters would be to take him in...dead or alive."
"That we can certainly agree on," Sly confirmed grimly, shifting his cane from one hand to the other as he limbered up for what was to come.
Nodding, Carmelita stood up. "I'm going to get some air," she murmured as she turned towards the mouth of the cave. "Let me know when you have a plan." With that, she exited the cave, plainly disturbed.
"Sly," Bentley whispered worriedly, "there's more."
"How much worse can it get?" Sly groaned out.
"From what I've been able to determine...the design for the portal is Seft's own," Bentley explained. "Not only that, there's only a piece of the data for portal construction in these documents...specifically, the piece the group Murray was disguised as needed to do their part of the job, which tells me that Seft either keeps the only complete plan on him...or has it memorized."
Sly shuddered. "Which means that as long as he's alive, he can rebuild it...and there's no guarantee everyone dealing with him in the law enforcement side of things would be above brokering a deal between him and whoever might want to use that tech for a bit of profit."
"You...know what that means, Sly," Bentley offered nervously.
"I do," Sly offered, his voice sounding somewhat sick. "Carmelita said take him dead or alive. But for the sake of Coco, her world, and ours...the former is preferred..."
(1) A world where anthropomorphic animals of various sorts are the dominant life obviously wouldn't have Human Rights.
Yeah... not punning here.
Oh boy... This is going to be rocky...
SEFT.MUST.DIE!!!
But besides that amazing chapter man, keep up the good work
It's what i would do.
seft is tirek.
i'm calling it right now,
just because i have nothing better to do.
intent
Well, you're doing a great job making me hate Seft. Although I have to wonder how successful his plan would have been anyway. Yes, he's got henchmen with guns, but Equestria has multiple godlike beings, ponies that can jackhammer giant boulders into nonexistence with their bare hooves, Twilight Goddamn Sparkle, an army of dragons commanded by a close friend of Spike who can crunch diamonds with their teeth…
7535972 It's possible, considering the thing about stealing magic, but probably not. Aside from explaining how he escaped from Tartarus again, you'd also need to explain how he jumped to another universe and how he changed into an anthropomorphic scorpion. And why he'd bother changing his name if he's operating in a completely different universe where nobody knows who he is anyway.
When Murray has to play the mature role you need to take a step back and calm down.
Huh, didn't know there were several ways to deal with scorpions. But given Seti's plans for Cocco... there is no kill like overkill and the gang should try them all.
7535982
He also knows the way to keep honorable adult warriors from going all out against you is to have child hostages. Or did you not wonder why he grabbed a filly?
7536018 ....Fair point. That would only work as long as he manages to hang onto the hostage, though. There are plenty of ways of dealing with that:
Unicorn teleportation
The Inexplicable Pink One
Luna invading his dreams and keeping all of his henchmen asleep while the rescue takes place
Shining Armor putting a bubble around the filly from a distance
Discord being Discord
7535972 actually he reminds me of Shao Khan from the mortal kombat series
7536032
All of those require the one in question being made aware that there are hostages before said hostages are being actively used against him.
My point in stating that Seft is competent is that he follows a variant of the Overlord list. Here's what his approach to invading Equestria would be.
Once the gate is open, snatch a bunch of foal hostages, then withdraw until enemy troops march in.
Have bomb collars on foals. Tell the troops to surrender or the foals die. Demonstrate by killing the youngest one.
When the troops surrender, plug them into war machines as visible but shielded power sources with life support systems, scan their brains, and send the machine each troop is in to attack their hometown and closest comrades, with orders to kill any who fought back too hard and drag back anyone who surrendered.
Repeat second and third step as necessary with whoever comes through the portal after him until he can march on the world's capitols.
7536040 i think i see the what you mean, i don't really KNOW Shao Khan in general, i was never interested in those games (let alone the history of it).
7536052 Ok, yeah, that would do it.
Jeez! You actually made a villain that can stand up to Clockwerk in terms of vileness!
Will Sly really go through with that? I mean he's a thief not a assassin.
7536120 ask Clockwerk.
Another enjoyable chapter. Good work.
7536150
Before he fell in a volcano or after he got stringed up in a museum?
7536150 I'm pretty sure that this is before clockwork...I think...
Wonder if this Cooper Crossover will actually be completed, or even hit over a few chapters. If I recall, there's been, like, three attempts, and none of them got off the ground, but still got positive receptions.
Well, hope you continue, this is interesting so far.
Nice to see someone knows the difference between sentient and sapient. Dogs are sentient (in our world), doesn't mean they can vote though.
7536360
Don't worry. This one will certainly reach completion.
7536360
If Tats is writing it, you can be damn sure he will finish it. The man is a machine; he's got 49 fics he's working on, and the vast majority of them are complete.
Wasn't aware that he started this one though. I didn't follow his Undertale/mlp crossover, so I wasn't aware that he started this one to replace the slot.
Hm. Sly Cooper/FIM crossover, something I'm interested in. Rating is good, and it's by Tatsur.... oh, crap, it YOU again.
Welp, guess I have to see what you're getting me into again.
Hm... since this is a sly crossover, I have to ask: what's the time line in the three sly games? I know of the main three sly games, but I just have to make entirely sure that I'm in the right area for it.
7536430
These events are set two years before the first game.
Kinda reminds me of the Tyranid M.O.
OOooooh myyy... I do hope they take down Seft, this is villany of the highest caliber!
Dang him to Tartarus!
Nice job Tat me boyo
Want to know what would be funny and fitting? Give Carmelita a cane of her own, then have them both use their hooked levers on Seft's tail. Then apply force. Nutcracker or just dislocate his tail, one is potentially lethal, both are good to disable one method of attack he could use. Plus, it's a big hook with poison on the end, yank it straight through a door, then slam until it separates.
7536119 hang on
*Shifting though some documents comparing them.*
wow you're right...If they send him into this world though he won't last long with me around.
...I'm SURPRISINGLY okay with this...
I don't blame them...
can...can we see that version too? that actually sounds kind of epic...
...dark
on one hand, this has got to be one of the sickest plans I've ever heard of; on the other, between the Elements of Harmony, Chaos personified, and the Solar/Lunar monarchs with prophetic dreams, I'm not so sure how well it would work...
okay, 1) doesn't the whole "we can't send her home" thing kind of ruin the overall premise of these stories? 2) nice job more or less establishing the plot, but:
3) is it me, or is this story getting darker?
...this story's getting darker
makes sense to me...
7537394
In most of these stories, the "going home" isn't a deliberate action set in motion by the main characters. Mostly, it either happens accidentally, or is arranged by someone else...generally someone from Equestria.
I just had a thought: In a world filled with anthropomorphized animals of a variety of species, and there any "normal" animals running about in nature as well? Is Sly Cooper every startled during a job by a non-sentient raccoon loudly knocking over a trash can? Or do they have a host of weird creatures completely unlike the animals we know of to fill out the fauna part of nature?
7537824 ...fair enough
*Looks at story box, sees tons of chapters and a new story by Tatsurou*
ALL HAIL TATSUROU! KING OF CROSSOVERS AND A COMMANDER OF DIABEETUS!!!
Looks good so far if a little bare bones. Personaly i wouldent mind slower updates if it ment i got more time and detail put in however if you cant find the time i understand....
Can I say I love Sly?
Can I say I love how you write him?
This enemy is LEGITIMATELY terrifying, nearly as power-hungry as Clockwork! And that owl was MAD WITH POWER.
I'm staying for this :D
Top 5 rated crossover, this story is
Well, looks like you're doing a great job explaining why we should hate Seft and why Coco can't go home, all you need to do is explain Carmalita's changing voice and you've got a hat trick.
7543064
Actually, I think I already have in the previous chapter when I addressed how old Sly and Carmelita are.
7539470 ALL HAIL TATSUROU!
7537061 I second that motion!*loads grenade launcher*
I'm guessing that when Coco meets Ms.Ruby and The Guru, they will both recognize Coco's magic as something similar to their power?
Sly... Do what you have to do. I'm liking what I'm seeing so far.
7545800 Dat's my cannon!
7536052 I hate to say it but seft is sounding a lot like me.
7508679
You could have written that crossover as soon as you had the Mane Six stories done. There is no need to add thirty something characters like it was a fighting game. The reason you have not written it yet is because writing the adopt a pony stories is way easier. Heck Coco didn't exist (or had only one episode) when you wrote the first adopt a pony story here.
I know stuff like this is always a mess, the PonyEarth verse got abandoned because it had to cordinate so many authors. Mary is Mare got cancelled when it finally crosser over for real with the Twi as a human story and so on.
Your most popular story lately is the Woona one, that's isn't part of that massive crossover you been promising for years.
Is still had been intering to read because you have tried every option ever or at least the most popular ones. I think you made a mistake giving the CMC so much magic on the CMC story because it kind of ruins it but whatever, is your choice.
Just like I think the Harem was a mistake in the Twilight story or I couldn't stand the way you handled Spike in Metroid, but that's cool.
Heck you were so darn green in the Twilight story that you linked videos instead of just writing for some things. I hope you are finally over that.
7551414
...you know, at this point it feels like you're just being bitter to be bitter. That's the last thing I need.
I hate to put it this way...but either confine your comments on stories to the stories themselves, or I'd prefer you didn't comment at all. The complaints about what I choose to write do nothing for my productivity, and only make it less likely I'll ever have the drive or energy to write the stories you seem interested in.
7551529
I think by this point most people are just ignoring or blocking. No point in replying.
7536052 That's actually a REALLY damn good plan. And if it weren't for 2 things, I actually can't see it failing. However these two flaws stand out to me. Luna and Discord. While Celly's been softened by centuries of peace, Luna still remembers the 'bad times' clearly because for her they weren't all that long ago. If anypony could find the will to go "For the good of the many" and go after Seft anyway, it would be her. As for Discord, he's a god. Even if by some miracle Seft could prevent him from snapping his talons and flashing the children back, Discord strikes me as the guy who LIKES kids. (Just look at the chaos of the CMC for why) An angry God of Chaos is going to be a downright bitch for Seft to deal with, if even possible at all.
7551529
7551414
Now, in Pinklestia's defence Tats, ALL of the PWNY series is pretty much the same story. X raises Y in world setting Z. And personally there were other stories I would have rather seen continued than another PWNY-verse. HOWEVER! I've personally enjoyed the majority of the PWNY-verse. (AJ's gets some flack but it's more my issue with the source material than your actual writing) You've admitted that the muse isn't there for the 2 that I really want to see continued (Megas CMC and Daughter of Darkness) to which there is legitimately NOTHING anyone can do. If you don't have the drive to write than forcing yourself to write it will only hurt the story. And you gave your fans the choice as to "what next?" and "MORE PWNY!" won by a HUGE margin as I recall.
Now then, to address Pinklestia's other points.
Easier? Relatively speaking perhaps. Tats does get some of the load for outlining eased, but you forget the butterfly effect. Tiny changes can cause MASSIVE ones later. Using the Pinkie one as a great example, GoW 2 & 3 didn't even happen, as the story had gone off in an completely different direction. Even then just knowing the general direction something is going in does NOT make things easy by any definition to write. Then you have ones like Nightmare Moon, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, whose stories do NOT take place during a game or movie, thus there isn't even an outline to work from at all. Merely a potential cast of characters and an otherwise blank page. And those examples are actually among the most popular of Tats' work, with Fluttershy and RD taking first and second place respectively.
Actually Rainbow Dash, Spike, Cadence, Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis AND Fluttershy all beat out Woona in likes. Even Twilight did, though that's only by 1. Woona doesn't even get to claim lately, as both Spike and Sparkle have updates well after Woona ended.
The CMC having quite a bit of magic makes a great deal of sense when you consider that Equestrian infants put off so much magic that they literally have surges of it. Then you have the same fillies with magical surges being taught not to just control those surges, but to CHANNEL them as well. And now put them in a setting where magic is a rare and powerful thing. They're going to stand out.
What harem? Unless you're talking about a different story, Twilight in "The Sparkle in his Eye" does NOT have a harem. Her only major romantic interest that's been more than a passing fancy has been Nefarious. (Which IMO is still strange in the fact that it seems to work...)
You know it DID seem odd that Spike seemed to continuously get New Powers as the Plot Demands. Even to the point it was starting to get annoying. Then the ending came around and explained WHY Equestrian dragons are designed as they are. It gave me a headache wrapping my brain around the quantum paradox of the closed time loop, but it made sense. "Why is Spike getting more and more powers?" because his designer happened to be an ACTUAL GOD whom stole the design for his kind from the future... from Spike himself..." My head hurts again but that 'logic' makes perfect 'sense' because Discord. Now I can't tell if Tat's pulled that out of his ass just for the ending or if that was "All Part of The Plan" from the start, but it works either way.
...
...
Yeah I got nothing there. He's got you cold with that one Tats.
7566227 I agree with your discord theory but not for the same reason. Discords good now and friend to the ponies. actively trying to "harvest" them might send discord over the edge into a blind rage (specially if fluttershy is hurt) and only Faust knows what he would be capable of then