Sly Cooper: Family of Thieves

by Blackdrag-rose

Honor: Recovery and Purification

As Murray headed toward the cave that would allow him to meet his Guru once more, and figure out what he wanted to say before he was freed from the area, Gilda, Derpy, and Diz made their way through the camp and sneaked around the guards that were in the area. With the helicopter still a threat, as it could easily see them if they were flying around the place, the three of them had agreed to simply work like ordinary thieves again until such a thing was no longer necessary, not that they had any idea how long it would be before they could fly again. At the same time they helped themselves to the loot that was in the pockets of the guards that they walked by, picking a few pieces of treasure in the process, which would go to their overall haul and potentially be sold when they needed to cover their expenses, something that Bentley knew more about than they did. Fortunately the guards in the area didn't seem to notice that they were in the area, or the fact that they had their treasures taken from their pockets, allowing them to make their way to where the massive truck was located, making the three of them wonder why the miners needed a truck of this size.

After a few minutes the three of them finally reached the truck and stood on it for a moment, observing the top of the truck as they continued to wonder why such a machine was needed by the miners, before they decided that now wasn't the time for them to be doing this.

"Okay, let's motor out to Ayers Rock and scare away those mining dingoes." Gilda said, as they already knew what Bentley had told them, based on what Sly had learned from the Guru, and she found that the others were nodding their agreement to her words, "The Guru wants it 'purified'."

"This is going to be awesome!" Diz replied, as he liked the size of the machine that they were standing on, while at the same time he knew that Murray would have liked to be on this mission, but since the Mask of Dark Earth was at large they had to work fast and do multiple things at the same time, "This is, quite possibly, the biggest truck that one of us is ever going to drive... and I'm pretty sure this could crush houses with ease."

Diz climbed into the control part of the truck and got it moving towards the position that Bentley had sent to them, showing them the way to Ayers Rock in the process, while at the same time letting Gilda and Derpy take to the skies as they got far enough away from where the helicopter was located. It seemed like Diz was more than happy to show off the driving skills that he had picked up from Murray, since they had gone on a lot of jobs together before their friend separated from the gang a year ago, and his sisters were more than happy to let him have his fun as they headed to Ayers Rock, so they could see what they were working with. It didn't take them long to reach the area in question, while at the same time allowing Diz to drive the big truck over a rock like ramp that had been carved into the area, before Diz pulled up beside the drill that was in the middle of Ayers Rock, something that they were going to have to destroy in some manner once the miners had been dealt with. Gilda and Derpy landed on the top of the truck as they surveyed what was in front of them, as there happened to be four guards standing around the controls that were in front of them, but at the same time that was nothing compared to what they could do... with or without their magic.

"I have an idea of how we might drive the miners out of Ayers Rock." Bentley informed them, as he was currently speaking to them, Murray, and both Sly and Carmelita, as it would be some time before he was required to talk with the Guru, which was after they finished their mission, "But for my plan to work we'll need to force the drill on this rig deeper into the ground."

"Okay Bentley, you've got our interest." Gilda replied, though at the same time she looked at the guards that, for some strange reason, hadn't noticed that they weren't alone at the moment, as they were staring off into space and seemed unaware of the big truck's arrival, "Though it looks like Derpy and I may have to take care of a few guards if we're going to get at those drill controls."

"Defeat the guards and start the drill, then Diz can begin phase two of my plan." Bentley told them, though at the same time they still had no idea what phase two was supposed to be, as that wasn't something that he had shared with them when they were back at the safe house.

Gilda and Derpy immediately got to work the moment Bentley informed them of what they needed to do, though the reality of the situation was that it was rather easy for them to defeat the four guards that were standing in their way and activate the drill controls, which started the drill up once more.

"Nice work you two." Bentley said, revealing that he was pleased that things were going well so far, before he started addressing all three of them, so they all knew the plan that they were following, "The sonic vibrations caused by that drill should drive the giant scorpions in the area to the surface. If we can capture a bunch of red soldier scorpions, releasing them into Ayers Rock is sure to push out the miners."

"Okay, that doesn't sound too hard." Diz replied, to which he looked out of the window of the truck and found both red and blue scorpions rising to the surface, though that was before a question came to his mind, "One question though... how do we capture scorpions with a truck?"

"The vehicle is equipped with a super-charged e-brake which, if pulled when moving, will cause a forward flip." Bentley explained, revealing that he had done some research on the truck in question and had prepared a statement for them when this question came up, showing that he had thought ahead of them once more, "Time it correctly and you'll trap a scorpion in the mining nests built into the bed of the truck. Oh, and the truck's tires will heat up quickly in this blazing hot sand, so you'll have to cool them down by driving into the water or running over scorpions. Watch your heat meter to make sure they don't melt. And remember, we're only interested in the red soldier scorpions. The blue worker scorpions won't help us scare the miners off."

Diz stared at the controls for a minute, making sure he remembered everything that he had been told, before nodding his head as he got the big truck moving, allowing Gilda and Derpy to remain on the drill platform as they watched him go to town on chasing down the scorpions they needed. It wasn't long before Diz caught the first of the twenty scorpions that Bentley said that they needed for this mission to be a success, and they could tell that he was having fun in the truck since he flipped it over, caught a scorpion, and then flipped it in a manner that made it do a complete three hundred and sixty degree flip. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to last, as the moment Diz caught the eighth scorpion Bentley revealed that his sensors were showing a drop off in underground movement, meaning that they were going to have to drill deeper to keep the scorpions coming out, which fell onto either Gilda or Derpy to do since the controls were at the top of the drill and they could easily reach it with their wings. Derpy, deciding to be the one to accomplish this mission, opened her wings for a few seconds and flew up to where the other controls were located, though it took her just a moment to flip them and increase the drill's depth.

For a moment it seemed like Bentley's idea was working, until the deeper hole they had dug accidentally drained the water around the tower, meaning that Diz was going to have to rely on squishing scorpions to keep the truck's tires cool from here on out.

Diz, in reality, wasn't too bothered by the sudden change and continued driving the truck around the area that they happened to be in, squishing many of the blue scorpions as he could while he focused on capturing seventeen more red soldier scorpions so the mission would be complete. At the same time both Gilda and Derpy observed his actions and pointed out the locations of some of the other scorpions that he might want to go after, assisting him in finding his targets and letting him flip over to capture them, adding them to the growing stockpile that he was currently collecting. When at last he had the twenty red soldier scorpions that Bentley required for the mission Diz put the truck in reverse and headed right up to the mine's entrance, where he dumped the scorpions out and let them to their thing, all while he and the others started to make their way out of the area, but not before watching the miners run around as the red scorpions started mowing them down. One of the actual guards, that was supposed to watch out for things like this, called for his mates to run for their lives and many of the miners actually ran the moment he said that, only for the others to pause in the tracks when one of the scorpions slew the guard in question, allowing some of the other scorpions to repeat the process on some of the miners.

Gilda, Derpy, and Diz remained there for a moment, making sure that the scorpions were clearing Ayers Rock of miners, though when their task was complete they returned to the big truck and headed back to the camp that the others were currently working on, knowing that the Guru would be pleased by their actions.

---

Sly and Carmelita moved out of the safe house a few minutes after Gilda, Derpy, Diz, and Murray did, as there happened to be a few things that Bentley needed to check before he gave them their mission location, but once that was in hand the two of them headed out and made their way to a rock formation that rested near a cave entrance. They noticed that some of the miners were being more careful all of a sudden, meaning that the fact that the big truck had been taken, by people that didn't work with the rest of them, had spooked them a little, even though they both knew that it would be returned once the others completed their mission. Despite the increase in security, even if it was by a tiny amount, the two of them were able to reach their destination with ease and soon found themselves looking around as they raised their binocucoms, as they were interested in hearing what Bentley had to tell them.

"After capturing the Guru, the dingoes confiscated his magic walking staff and moonstone." Bentley reminded them, as he just wanted to take a moment to remind them what they were going in this area, though he had the feeling that they actually didn't need the reminder in the first place, "Without these objects, the Guru is powerless."

"Given that we're dealing with miners, I'd bet they stashed the goods in one of the caves around here." Carmelita said, as that was the logical choice to make, but since there happened to be a magical mask involved in this situation it might be possible that the location of the Guru's gear was somewhere else, "These caves would be a secure location with plenty of guys on duty to provide protection."

"I agree, and the most likely candidate is this mine shaft." Bentley replied, to which both Sly and Carmelita found themselves looking at the very mine entrance that they had been sent near when he told them where the starting area for the mission was located, "It appears to have the higher number of workers coming in and out."

"That sounds like a good place to start." Sly stated, because larger numbers did tend to mean that there was usually something interesting at the end of the line, something that had been written into the family tome and experienced a few times when he and the others were still learning the ropes, "We're on it."

The moment Sly said that both he and Carmelita dropped down from where they were standing, patiently waited for the dingoes in front of them to move out of the way, while stealing the treasure in their pockets, before climbing up to where the cave entrance was located and slipped inside. When they walked through the door, and actually entered the cave itself, the two of them found that their path had a number of spinning drills, vertical, horizontal, and spinner types in front of them, and, as it turned out, all they had to do to get through the first trio of drills was wait for a few seconds, jump onto the support structure for them, and then ride them to the next drill. Once they were through those obstacles they found a single guard blocking their path, who was easy to take out, before they used the wall hooks to get up to a point below a walkway, where they accessed the still points of the drills that passed by them to get up above where they happened to be standing. Of course they decided to ignore the pair of guards that the drills allowed them to pass by, as it wasn't worth the effort to knock out guards that couldn't see them, and that allowed them to reach a walkway that brought them to the end of the cave, where they spotted a safe that was guarded by a section of floor lasers... which was nothing compared to them and the training they had gone through to reach this point in their careers as thieves.

When they reached the safe Sly knelt beside it for a moment and started turning the handle as he felt for the tumblers that were inside the container, making sure to turn it when he reached one of them, before he smiled as he pulled the lever and opened the safe, revealing the purple colored Moonstone that was so important.

"Time to take you back to your rightful owner." Sly commented, though as Carmelita nodded her head they both noticed that there was something that was attached to the side of the magical stone, something that would complicate things a little, "These miners are smarter than they look. They've booby-trapped the Moonstone!"

"That looks like a light-sensitive detonator." Carmelita added, recognizing the technology from a few of the cases she had worked on, as she had spent a few moments studying the type of technology and knew something about it, before she looked at Sly, "If we can get it outside and into the sunlight, it should power down."

Sly nodded his understanding, as he knew that either Carmelita knew something about it or Bentley would have chimed in if she was wrong, but since Bentley didn't do that he turned around and they headed back through the path they had used to reach that point. After bypassing the lasers they turned to the right and continued down a slightly different path than the one they used to reach the safe, where they ignored the confused miners that ran towards them, and were distracted by the smoke bomb that Carmelita deployed in the process, before they used some points to drop down to where the first trio of drills was located. From there it was a simple matter to descend back to where the drills were located, which had stalled for some strange reason, and then jumped over to where the entrance rested, allowing them to head outside and deactivate the detonator that was on the Moonstone, which Carmelita removed once they stepped out of the cave.

Once that was done, and they were sure that the first of the two treasures was secure, Sly opened a link to Bentley to see if he knew where the other half of the Guru's gear was located, while at the same time Carmelita looked around for any guards while they did that.

"The Guru's walking staff must be hidden in their other cave complex." Bentley informed them, knowing exactly what Sly was going to ask before he said a single word and had prepared himself accordingly, while at the same time knowing that Gilda, Derpy, and Diz were on their way back, "I've marked the entrance in your binocucom."

What they discovered was that the entrance to the second cave was close to where the Guru was being held, so much so that both of them spotted the jump pad that Murray must have knocked out of the way, thus giving Bentley a chance to get up there when he was ready, though when they headed inside they found that the Moonstone glowed a little. The cave itself was darker than the first one, which was a little odd, but at the same time it appeared that the treasure they had already recovered seemed to be of use to them in this moment, so Sly, with the stone attached to his belt by a special harness that Bentley had quickly made, lead the way as Carmelita followed after him. What they had to do was ride a rail up to a destroyed walkway and then use the series of hooks to ride their way to another walkway, where they discovered the safe containing the Walking Staff, where Carmelita took a turn and repeated the process that Sly had gone through with the first safe. Not even a few seconds later she pulled open the safe door and pulled out the Walking Staff, which was just as tall, if not a little taller, than the Guru was, something that they stared at for a few seconds before they decided to get underway and get out of here.

"I wonder what's so special about this staff..." Sly commented, but, at the same time, he remembered what his siblings had done to their canes and knew that sometimes looks could be deceiving, before Carmelita pointed at a very familiar device, while they also heard some noises coming from the path they had to take, "Another booby-trap, for a stick? These guys are paranoid! And from the sound of it, they've called in reinforcements. Nothing like a horde of angry dingoes to make things a bit more interesting."

This time around smoke bombs wouldn't be able to cut it, so the two of them dodged the incoming attacks from the kangaroo miners, made sure to avoid the whips of the dingo guards, and paid close attention to the path that they had to follow, as it was long and designed to slow people down if they were stealing the treasure from the safe. The miners were quick to attack them to the best of their ability, missing them as they dodged their attacks, though all of the enemies that came out to attack them ended up failing in their mission to stop them as Sly and Carmelita reached the end of the path they had been following and slipped outside, deactivating another detonator and securing the Walking Staff. The moment the two treasures were secure they returned to the safe house and waited for Gilda, Derpy, and Diz to return, though when they did Bentley collected the Moonstone and the Walking Staff before heading out to tell the Guru that it was time for him to make his escape. After a couple of minutes they heard Bentley talking to the Guru as he returned both of his treasures to him, and then they heard the sounds of the Guru making his escape by taking direct control over a guard and smashing down the gate that had been in front of his holding area.

From there the rest of the gang listened as Bentley suggested a couple of things to the Guru, who used some guards to smash through some drills near the first area that Sly and Carmelita checked when they were looking for him, and then he rammed three more guards into a generator for the machine that was cutting into Wave Rock, before making his way over to the safe house.

Gilda, Derpy, and Diz were pleased to meet the Guru, who spoke to them in the same manner that he did when Sly and Carmelita came to the stockade the miners had created, and it was clear to them that he was studying the powers they all possessed and made several temporary enchantments that would protect them from the 'Rage of the Earth'. Upon finding that Diz controlled a 'Primal Force', referring to the Chaos energies he used, the Guru decided to double the load of enchantments, to ease Diz's pain while he sought out a way to stop him from being so exposed to the power that was all around them. To do all that he actually needed a very special ingredient that, when used with the Dreamtime powers that he had mastered, wouldn't poison whoever was near it and would keep Diz from looking like he was fighting a losing battle with something, when applied with the correct enchantments anyway. Bentley was surprised to find that it was the same radioactive oil that he had been keeping an eye on, as the miners had found it and were currently mining what had to be the same store that he pulled the ingredient from, and immediately stated that Sly and Murray would be the best ones suited for taking care of that... though he wasn't expecting Clockwerk to sign himself up for it as well.

Other than that the rest of Bentley's plan involved attacking the miners, both with nature and at the place where they hung out, though they all agreed that they might as well help the Guru with his enchantments before they did anything else, to which Sly, Murray, and Clockwerk headed out immediately... and, thanks to the ancient owl, they were able to find the mission area in no time.

When they arrived at their destination, after passing through a tunnel system that the miners had built to reach the miners were trying to collect, Murray put a hardhat on and immediately started pumping his arms on one of the machines that was near him, as that would cause the oil to flow. Sly and Clockwerk, despite their differences, worked together to dispose of the miners that happened to be guarding the area and made sure that Murray was kept safe, which was easy to do since one of them could keep an eye on the left side of the oilfield and the other could do the same on the right side. As such they made it impossible for the miners to get close to Murray, who pumped away at the machine that he was working on, and eventually he was able to get the three wells that were tied to this machine puking up what the Guru wanted, only Bentley wanted to ensure that they stopped coming back here. Once those three were up Sly picked up Murray with the claw machine that he was using and moved them over to the second area, where Clockwerk followed after them and sat down once they were in position once more, allowing them to start defending the area while Murray worked on pumping the machine.

It wasn't long before Murray had the second pair of wells up an running as well, allowing them to move to a third area where they launched rocks at the wells and set them on fire, which, as Bentley explained, would draw what they needed to the surface, though as that happened Clockwerk flew into the area, grabbed as much of the ingredient that the Guru requested, and then locked it inside his body for now, just as he, Sly, and Murray headed back to the safe house.

When the three of them returned to the safe house Clockwerk opened the compartment that he stored the ingredient in and handed it to the Guru, who immediately got to work using the Dreamtime to purify the oil and wove the enchantments into the liquid. Once he had reached the point where the oil was ready, and the threat of the poison was eliminated, he took a moment to inscribe some markings on Diz, then on Gilda, and then on Derpy, before returning to Diz to put the second layer on so he could resist the powers that were around them. By the time he was done with what he needed to do, and was sure that the enchantments would hold until they either purified or destroyed the Mask of Dark Earth, he moved to the side and let the three of them exercise their powers once more, where the wind wrappedaround Gilda for a moment, the sky crackled as Derpy thought about it, and Diz, for some reason, turned a cloud pink and had it spill a few drops of what looked like chocolate milk.

Sly honestly didn't care what Diz did, as he had long sense tried to stop explaining his chaotic powers, because right now this meant that his sisters and his brother were ready to use their powers for the greater good of the Outback, and the miners would never see them coming.

Comments

[Midnight Moon]

and Diz, for some reason, turned a cloud pink and had it spill a few drops of what looked like chocolate milk.

Yup, he's definitely related to Discord in some way.