Uncle Bentley's plan took details from everything we'd done and put it together for the final big score. First, Uncle Murray helped Uncle Bentley break into the old water tower to shut down the plaza fountain. When a thug was sent with the keys for the repair truck to fix it, I pickpocketed them to hand them off to Uncle Murray, so they could take the truck while Dad climbed to the top of the Peacock Sign, which had lost many of the rivets holding it in place from the shock of Uncle Bentley dropping the disco ball inside the club. Of course, once the repair truck's winch was hooked to the sign, the guards came to investigate...which was where I came in. Taking a spot atop the truck, I threw my knock-out needles at each guard as they rounded the bends into the plaza, rendering them unconscious. At the same time, Dad hopped down to take them out further back.
By the time the guards stopped coming, the peacock sign had come crashing down beak first into the fountain, smashing through the roof of the counterfeiting operation. Dad and I immediately leapt down to get the Clockwerk tail feathers...and, as it turned out, confront Dimitri. He was...not happy to see us...
Once in the tunnel, it only took a few leaps for Sly and Coco to reach the center of the counterfeiting operation, shut down due to destroying the power supply. Dimitri was waiting for them, his pink-purple skin clashing violently with his puke green suit. He took one look at the pair as they approached and nearly spat. "Ack! So it's true that being a parent harshes all vibes, however old. You're totally crashing my house and bringing me down. Why can't you let birds and bees be free?"
"Because a certain bird needed to stay in the ground where we left him!" Coco snapped out, glaring at where the tail feathers were still hooked into the machine.
"You don't know what you're playing with, Dimitri," Sly warned. "Clockwerk was pure evil, and fed on hate and suffering. We may have killed him...but having already seen the dead walk, I'm not so sure it's permanent, and I'm not about to let you use parts of him in further criminal activities 'for the lulz' if there's a chance they might collect that energy to bring him back."
Dimitri rolled his eyes, a rather overstated facial expression for a lizard. "And if these tail feathers be so evil and dangerous, why do you not come and try and talk me into giving them up mapahce a lagarto, instead of trashing my club and beating up my employees?"
Sly and Coco exchanged a surprised glance. Truthfully, neither of them had thought about trying that even for a moment. "Truth to tell, Dimitri, I didn't think it was worth the attempt. I mean, after our last encounter, I probably wasn't high on your list of guests to give face time, right? If I'd come in as a customer, I'd have probably been shown the door."
Dimitri sighed. "I suppose I can give you that one. A reasonable conclusion, even if until your interruptions my operation had left me feeling quite magnanimous. You probably weren't aware of that, though."
"And even if you did hear me out, would you have listened?" Sly continued.
"Well, we'll never know now," Dimitri pointed out acidly.
"So...is this where we fight, or can we settle this diplomatically?" Coco asked hopefully.
"Ah, so the little one can see the big picture," Dimitri purred. "Look at all this money-"
"You do remember we're only here for the tail feathers, right?" Coco interrupted. "My question was more do we have to beat you up to get them, pay you for them, or are you going to just hand them over?"
"Well I'm not about to give them up with you coppin' that attitude!" Dimitri snapped disdainfully. "And what could you possibly give me that would be worth more than the money I'm printing?"
"Respect?" Coco suggested teasingly.
"You...you would actually respect me?" Dimitri asked hopefully, his eyes almost pleading.
"...honestly, no," Coco admitted apologetically. "Your fashion sense is eye-wateringly terrible, your brush technique on your forged paintings are subpar, your behavior is off-putting, and your 'kinetic aesthetic' is an insult to the nature of painting. It's all about control, patience, and vision. Swinging on ropes and brushing as you go by is little better than throwing paint at the canvas and calling it art-"
"And yet those paintings are accepted!" Dimitri roared in frustration. "At least with my kinetic aesthetic, I'm struggling to create a genuine image as the world itself fights against me! And yet 'paintings' of color flung carelessly at canvas and given clever names sell for thousands, while mine are ignored or derided!"
"If the point is the struggle against the world to create the masterpiece, why not revamp your 'kinetic aesthetic' as performance art?" Sly suggested as he leaned back against the counterfeiting machine. "Make the struggle to create part of the piece?"
"...performance art?" Dimitri asked thoughtfully, the gears almost visibly turning in his mind as he thought that over. "Do...do you think that could work?"
"Certainly!" Coco spoke up eagerly. "There are all sorts of new styles of performance art, and that reaches a much wider audience than just paintings. Beyond that, you could tape the performance, make copies, and sell good quality tapes of the performances with proper special effects for more than the painting would sell for, and it's easy - and legal - to make dozens of copies of the same tape to sell."
"Yes!" Dimitri crowed happily. "Dimitri's art will rise again! And fall, and rise, and swing on a trapeze with wings made of breeze!"
"We'll leave you to it, then," Sly offered as he turned to leave with Coco. "We should give you privacy to work here."
"Thank you friends, thank you!" Dimitri offered exuberantly. "I shall have a true masterpiece before the day was out!"
As Sly and Coco left, they shared a chuckle as Sly pulled out the tail feathers he'd swiped from the counterfeiting machine while they'd distracted Dimitri with talk of his art.
Because of the quiet nature of the confrontation, we made it out of there with the feathers in more than enough time to miss Mom and Neyla busting in to 'investigate the commotion' from our break in. They found Dimitri there surrounded by functional counterfeiting equipment (minus the print plates he was using the tail feathers in place of) with everything covered with his personal logo...while he was recording his attempts at making a true performance piece of his kinetic aesthetic. Would you believe he actually tried to claim it was storage space he was renting to someone else?
With Dimitri safely in jail and one Clockwerk part recovered, Dad decided we deserved a week off, so we drove down to Monaco to relax. I suspect this decision might have had something to do with overhearing Carmelita discussing her own plans for 'time off' with Neyla while taking Dimitri in...though I didn't say anything. Mom and Dad deserve to spend some time together too, after all.
Nicely done, though I do not think you got Dimitri down quite right.
I bet
against the counterfeiting machine. Make the struggle to create part of the piece?"
1. Forgot your opening quotation mark.
Guess the peacock wanted to take a little dip.
See kids, this is why Cable tends to be a bad idea, you could bring the house down!
Guess Dimitri's art was truly a swing and a miss.
with what I have seen in the game... it is very hard to get that character down right no matter what or who was writing it. He is a one time performance.
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Seconded. in the games he was much more of a Jive Turkey (well, Jive Iguana). He even calls Sly a "cracker-box" at one point, which was just plain silly to my young mind at the time.
it's official: Coco Cooper and Rarity Wayne/Batmare are going to be BMFF (Best Masked Friends Forever) when they finally meet up...
Hahaha, wow man, you got Dimitri down path dude, hehee. Quite an epic read if I do say so myself, I wonder if all of their confrontations will be this easy? ... Probably not, considering who they'll be going up against next, bleagh...
Nice job
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yeah, near the end he seemed to speak almost normal, which could imply that he knows how to speak normal, but chooses to speak his way, maybe in a way to remember the good times when he learned English. I mean, he learned from some music video's, right? don't know: I'm not a phycologist.
Well, i didn't see that coming. A few wise words and suggestions and they have a criminal doing mostly legal activity again, fulfilled their goal and didn't have to fight. I like it!
I take it Coco doesn't like Jackson Pollick? (Not sure on how his last name is spelled.)
I was kinda hoping Coco would say:
While I'm glad you've made Dimitri better, I hope you don't reform 80% of the villains like you did with Sly 1. I'd like to see Rajan and The Contessa remain baddies. Jean Bison, I can see this route be taken, slightly. No hope for Neyla and Arpeggio. Neyla's a backstabbing b**** and needs to stay that way. And Arpeggio? Well, we all know what happens to him.
A pity Dmitri was thrown into jail; would be nice to see him go straight with his performance art
7859636 He'll get a chance to later. Unlike most every other criminal, Dimitri's crimes seemed to all be non-violent and counterfeiting really isn't a terribly severe offense. He could easily get paroled in relatively short order.
Add in that he would probably be quite willing to go that 'Criminal Informant' route that Carmelita mentioned a few chapters back, and Dimitri won't stay in jail for too long.
... You know, looking back, it would make a bit of sense that diplomacy between thieves is possible, especially considering the title of the third game. "Honor Among Thieves".
On a personal note, Honor Among Thieves is by far my favorite Sly Cooper game, with Thieves in Time taking a very close second. Thieves in Time would be my favorite... but after that stunt with Penelope, I was not happy. I'm eager to see what you do with it.
Dear god if you somehow make Contessa in diplomacy... im going to drink a shotglass of Ratsdaputz (it burns)
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Yeah I honestly hoped they make a Sly 5 to cover up some loose ends, show Penelope as a ally again, maybe add some finale with Carmelita and Sly. Three was a good one and probably could've ended with it for the series. These days it's remakes or retcons like DMC even if there's talk of 5 coming out.
7860929 But there's got to be at least ONE fight in this story, right? Redemption's NEVER easy.
I'd like to see Dimitri's performance art, it sounds awesome. I love how he admits to diplomacy being an option with him originally.
7859617 Agreed with certain baddies should stay bad. Jean Bison's ability to harness the Northern Lights for a power source would actually make a great legitimate business and a good plot device to give the Cooper Gang an efficient source of power for the van and other devices,
AWWW There was no fight. that means I found this for nothing.
7861538 If he can learn how to harness the power of the Northern Lights in a sort of Solar Energy-way, that'd actually be beneficial and be considered as Green Energy.
Ok. REALLY need help with Dmitri's dialogue.
7865900 On being the 51st country?
Just saying but I it just me that thinks miss fox seems like a blond when reading about her but she's purple hair
Autocorrect and typos are art.
You have opened my eyes to wanting to see "Stroage Wars" instead of the dull, unoriginal "Storage Wars"!
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Surprised it's still not corrected! Then again, Tats has a LOT of horse words and non-horse words, so I suppose something had to fall through the cracks...