#Arpeggio's Blimp

[arpeggio-the-parrot]

ThiefTober Day 12 — “Altitude”

Another ThiefTober prompt I felt inspired to draw Arpeggio for! Just being on board the airship in the sky isn’t always enough to simulate flight; sometimes, he really needs to feel the wind on his wings.

I’m gonna tell y’all a secret; until now, I’ve avoided any serious attempts to draw the husbird’s blimp for the entire time I’ve loved him because I really don’t enjoy drawing stuff like this LMAO. Though, with my fanfic in the works and knowing damn well I’m going to have to draw his blimp at least a few times for that, I figured I’d use this ThiefTober prompt for practice! I literally had to get on Sly 2 briefly to take a picture of the blimp HQ off the screen for reference, but I still took artistic liberty; it’s not like everything about this thing as it’s depicted in the game would make sense mechanically anyway LOL … I tried tho!

[alphascorpiixx]

[Video description: Arpeggio's blimp level in Sly 2 with Sly standing on Clockla's back as she flies around the blimp. At the end Sly falls off and respawns on the blimp. End description]

[isakthedragon]

Super Sonic Thieves Finale

Finale - The Most Dangerous Amusement Park Ever

The Set-Up:

Sly, narrating: “Sonic lead us to where he thought Eggman was, which just so happened to be an elevator which opened up for us.”

Sonic: “Heh, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. A few years, and you’ve rebuilt your ‘Interstellar Amusement Park’. Well, let’s crash your party. Come one, everyone, get on.”

Sly, narrating: “Once everyone got on, the elevator started going up into the sky, slowly at first, but slowly getting faster too.”

Bentley gets forced back in the chair. “Geez. Don’t hold back on the G-forces, huh?”

Sonic: “Eggman likes to give us a head rush before he shows us his ‘next big thing’.”

Sly, narrating: “Soon, Eggman, or at least a recorded message, spoke to us.”

Eggman: “Well done, Sonic and friends, and who I can only assume are extra passengers known as Sly Cooper and related. You’ve beaten all of my minions, and even defeated Sly’s old foes. A standing ovation for all of you.” *Sounds of recorded clapping.* “Too bad your journey has come to the end here. As soon as this elevator stops, you will be greeted to my new ‘Interstellar Amusement Park’ which is sure to make you head spin. It’s not going to treat you folk nicely, but I suspect you’ll make it through all the same. I shall be waiting for you at the far end of the park, so I’ll see you then.”

Sonic: “Ah, always with the ego.”

Eggman: “Oh, and a special thanks for Penelope for leading you all here in the first place.”

Penelope: “Huh?”

Eggman: “Your friend is right! You are just a pawn. You lead them right to where I am, and you’re also right that all your Clockwerks were from Arpeggio. He’s flying around in his Clockwerk body right now, ready to make this last Zone that much harder to cross. So sorry if anyone does die… NOT!!”

*Bentley comforts Penelope.*

Penelope: *Sigh* “I hope I didn’t screw up.”

Bentley: “You didn’t. He’s just trying to scare you.”

Tails: “Yeah. We would have found him out sooner or later. You’re good.”

-----

Zone Layout: Welcome to Eggman’s NEW Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park (Trademarked! :D )! Eggman has spared no expense or villainy to build the toughest zone you can ever face, all hiding under a bright atmosphere. Eggman has taken from past Sly villains to make this place even more dangerous like a towering Volcano area, a blimp ride that looks a lot like Arpeggio’s, and a Cooper Vault style climbing area. It all sounds so menacing, but they all are hiding behind the bright lights of the Tropical Resort style base. It seems this place was meant to hold people, so it might be a smart idea to shut this whole place down.

Enemies:

Toucan Robots: Once, Arpeggio’s patrolmen, but now just robotic copies. They’re still wearing jetpacks that can flame you if you touch them, and can also send out flying lasers to burn even more. Carries/drops 27-29 coins and has a 25% chance of treasure to pickpocket.

Supreme Toucan Robots: Robotic copies of Arpeggio’s flashlight guards. Watch out for the cannon they have attached to their shoulders that will blast cannonballs at you.  Carries/drops 27-32 coins and has a 50% chance of treasure to pickpocket.

E-2000 (And E-2000): Slick looking badniks with a big laser gun. Attack them when they are attacking or they’ll just block your attacks with their shield arm. Drops 30 rings when smashed.

Falco: Those quick birds will attempt to bomb you as they fly by. It might be easier to dodge than attack them, though they are worth 30 rings if smashed.

Tropical Resort Pawns: These Egg Pawns would like to greet you… with whacking you with their large ‘Welcome’ sign poles. Drops 32 rings when smashed.

Slugs: Eggman’s remake of Clockwerk’s fire slugs. All they got going for them is their fire around them, so just throw or range attack them to defeat them. Drops 32 rings when smashed.

Clocktwerps: Smaller, though still kinda big (Like Egg Hammer big), Clockwerk birds that are starting to be mass produced by Eggman. Since it’s Eggman’s they aren’t impossible to defeat, but they will take a few hits. They either swing with their wings or talons to hurt you, or bite you with their beaks. Drops 34 rings when smashed.

Treasures:

From Guards:

Large Gold Ring: Worth 200 coins and 100 rings.

Large Diamond Ring (It’s made of actual diamonds): Worth 300 coins and 150 rings.

Large Adamantium Ring: Worth 400 coins and 200 rings.

From Pedestals:

Eggman’s Spare Goggles: Found among the computers to smash to enter the next area. Worth 5000 coins and 2500 rings.

Megadrive: Found where the gang’s old safehouse was on the blimp. Worth 7500 coins and 3750 rings.

Platinum Bubble: Found among the piles of treasures for Henrietta. Worth 10000 coins and 5000 rings.

The coins have Eggman’s face as a design on them.

-----

Eggmanland Zone Act 1: Cream, Knuckles, Blaze, Murray, Panda King, and Carmelita head off to the ‘Clockwerk’s Volcano’ attraction and shut it off before it can burn someone. First, Cream and Murray will have to fight up to the volcano itself, fighting off enemies and traps that get sprung. Then, Knuckles and Blaze work to smash computers to open a large door and through a security hallway. It ends with Panda King and Carmelita shooting Eggman’s version of a death ray pointed at Earth to pieces to finish the act.

*At the start.*

Eggman’s PA announcement: “Welcome to the ‘Clockwerk Volcano’ attraction. Witness the spectacular, if annoying, battle between a gigantic robot bird, and one small annoying raccoon. Hmmm… sounds awfully familiar.”

Murray: “Is that supposed to be what was Clockwerk’s volcano we we first met him?”

Carmelita: “It seems to be so. We better shut it all down.”

*Later, in the room with the sealed door.*

Knuckles: “They wanted us to search for computers in this area, but I don’t get why it’s just us?”

*Some lava slugs appear.*

Blaze: “Lava slugs robots. Only I can touch them, that’s why.”

*Later, at the death ray machine.*

Carmelita: “Ay… This isn’t good. It’s that death ray Clockwerk had.”

Panda King: “We know it can’t be, since Clockwerk had no part in making it.”

Sonic, over the binocucom: “I wouldn’t put it past Eggman that he’d build a fake death ray that WORKS. I think you should destroy it just in case.”

Carmelita: “Yes, we should!”

Panda King: “The experience shall test how far we’ve come… in destruction. Heh.”

*The death ray explodes once it takes enough damage.*

Carmelita: “Looks like your world is safe now, Sonic. At least from death rays.”

Panda King: “We’ll clean up whatever’s left here and join you later.”

Sonic, over the binocucom: “See you then, guys. And thanks.”

---

Eggmanland Zone Act 2: Amy, Tails, Charmy, Espio, Rouge and Bentley take a ride on the ‘Arpeggio’s Blimp’ attraction to prevent Arpeggio Clockwerk from using it as a charging station. Everyone uses their own skills to tear the place apart with bombs and hacking so it becomes essentially nothing but a broken ride.

*At the start.*

Eggman’s PA Announcement: “Welcome to the ‘Arpeggio’s Blimp’ attraction! You’ll be green with envy, or airsickness, when you see the heights one gang took to take down a bird and a magnificent airship.”

Bentley: “Whoa! It looks exactly like Arpeggio’s blimp!

Tails: “That’s Eggman for you. He builds the most gigantic scale models of weapons of mass destruction, then use them for that purpose.”

Rouge: “I wonder what he’s using it for.”

Charmy: ♪ “I hear the buzz of electricity in use!” ♫

*Arpeggio Clockwerk suddenly flies out of the attraction.*

Amy: “Wow! What was that!”

Bentley:”It appears to be Arpeggio… which means he’s using this place as a charging station.”

Charmy: ♪ “Does that mean we get to destroy it?” ♫

Bentley: “We have to, so Arpeggio has nothing to fall back on.”

Espio: “We better watch for any traps they have set for us.”

*Once the whole blimp is destroyed.*

Bentley: “Okay, guys! The blimp is destroyed, which means Arpeggio only has this time to make it count. You guys got this?”

Sly, over the binocucom: “Yeah, we got this. Just got to make it through our own test…”

---

Eggmanland Zone Act 3: Silver, Vector, Marine, Dimitri, Sonic, and Sly head off to the ‘Dr. M’s Takeover of the Cooper Vault’ attraction to make their way over to Eggman. Similar to the gauntlet that was the Cooper Vault, the 6 must make their way past the challenges the original vault had, with the bonus of having swimmers to swim past some if need be (Like Dimitri can’t hug the walls, so he’d have to skip the swinging hammer sections.). The fun ends though when they reach what was Conner Cooper’s skill, the laser slide. Only Sonic and Sly can make it past that and are left to face Eggman and Arpeggio Clockwerk alone as the others get everyone together to find a different way to them.

*At the start.*

Eggman’s PA announcement: “Welcome to ‘Dr. M’s Takeover of the Cooper Vault’ attraction! Think you can make it past these gauntlet of trials to the treasure hidden at the end? Probably not, but it’d be funny to see you try.”

Sonic: “Eggman hamming it up, as usual.”

Sly: “I don’t really like that he knew personal information of Kaine Island. Least it’s useless to go back there now.”

Dimitri: “Remind me what we are doing here again?”

Sly: “It’s a clear replica of Kaine Island and the vault, so they must be hiding something big at the back end.”

Silver: “Or someone. I feel at least one person over there.”

Vector: “Then what are we doing standing around? Let’s tackle this place!”

Marine: “Argh! To the end of this wondrous adventure! Hurry on, lads!”

*Near the end of the act, at the start of Conner Cooper’s section*

Sonic: “Whew, that was a workout. Looks like we’re at a dead end, though.”

Sly: “Not really. It’s my dad’s section. He perfected a move called the laser slide.” *Sly starts a machine that sends a laser to the last cave.* “The only problem is only I know it.”

Sonic: “I could probably do it too. I’ve rail slided a lot in my time.”

Silver: “Maybe I should stay behind with the others and find a different way to you guys?”

Sly: “You might have to. There’s lots of lasers this way, and Murray is way too big to go through this.”

Silver: “Okay, I’ll gather the others and we’ll find a different way. But you guys are probably going to be left alone.”

Sonic: “Heh, no need to worry, Silver. We got this.”

Sly: “I’ve faced these dangerous situations before too. And with Sonic, I’m sure we can handle anything coming.”

Silver: “Alright. Good luck then!”

---

Eggmanland Zone Act 4 (BOSS): Sonic and Sly are left all alone to deal with their greatest foe…

Sly: “Hmmm… it’s quite dark compared to the rest of the park here.”

Sonic: “It’s Eggman’s surprise. Okay Eggface! We’re here! Show yourself!”

Eggman: “If you insist…”

*The lights come on to show Eggman next to a portal, and next to that, a console connected to a strange laser.*

Sonic: “Spill it, Eggman! What are you doing so we can stop you!”

Eggman chuckles: “You can’t stop me… but I shall tell you anyway. This portal leads to Sly’s world, at a point in space where I moved billions of Class M empty planets at. This laser will fire inside, and heat up a single point in that space to extreme temperature. But, this is no ordinary laser as it’s going to fire the laser to a point to make a miniature black hole. Say… your friend Bentley is listening on that headset of yours, ask him what’s going to happen.”

Sly: “Uh… Bentley?”

Bentley, over the binocucom: “Holy crap! Sorry for swearing, but that math suggests that the black hole will grow to a point that will suck up our entire universe!”

Eggman: “Heh he, a correct answer from goody-two-shoes genius! And once I fire this laser, your world is doomed.”

Sonic: “We’ll stop you!”

Eggman: “Will you? This laser has been charging since you arrived here and is almost done.”

Sly: “We’ll fight you to stop it then!”

Eggman: “No… you won’t be fighting me… you’ll be fighting your worst nightmare. Arpeggio, come!”

*Arpeggio Clockwerk arrives and lands between the duo and Eggman.*

Arpeggio: “Hello, Sly… Long time no see…”

Sly: “So it looks like you finally got what you wanted, huh? To be transferred into Clockwerk.”

Arpeggio: “It’s not exactly Clockwerk, you made certain of that, Sly, but this does almost as well.”

Eggman: “He’s built of the toughest metals I could find, so your cane will be useless against him, Sly!”

Sly: “What?”

Sonic: “He’s trying to get into your head. Ignore them. Don’t forget about me, Eggman! I’ll find a way to break it for him!”

Eggman: “Then why don’t you try? Arpeggio, get the revenge you so deserve.”

Arpeggio: “With pleasure. I will kill you, Sly, both for ruining my plans back then, and destroying me in those other Clockwerk bodies too!”

Final Boss: Arpeggio Clockwerk

Arpeggio has made his Clockwerk as dangerous as can be, with eye lasers, guns on his shoulders, sharp wings to swing about and also to blow you backwards, sharp talons to claw at you with, all within a metal shell that can’t be damaged by Sly… at least, at this point. Arpeggio is just going to be flying around for some time, using his lasers and guns for a bit before landing and going for a more close-up attack. The player is going to have Sonic run behind Arpeggio and home attack the Clockwerk’s back, then to the wings. Sonic’s homing attacks are going to weaken the metal to a point that Sly’s cane can break off the rest. Arpeggio will progressively lose feathers until nothing remains, which angers the bird to just stay on the ground and attack endlessly. Keep having Sonic attack Arpeggio’s back to slowly weaken the metal on the torso to let Sly break it apart to pieces too. Soon, it’ll be just the head, with only the eye lasers to contend with. Either use homing attacks of Sly’s cane to break it to pieces too, leaving Arpeggio with nothing but to shut down.

*Once he loses his wings.*

Arpeggio: “AGH!!! A flightless bird again?! You’re going to pay for that, Cooper! I’ll crush you!”

*Once the torso is lost.*

Arpeggio: “You’ve taken away my body… I’m almost nothing… I’m going to burn you alive, Cooper.”

*Once defeated.*

Arpeggio: “What? Defeated? … At least… I got killed in honor, rather than by betrayal…”

*The head shuts off.*

-----

The Getaway:

*Everyone arrives once the battle is done.*

Marine: “Aw! We missed the big battle!”

Murray: “I hope you walloped him good for ‘The Murray’!”

Sly: “Always do, Murray.”

Sonic: “Now we deal with you, Eggman.”

Eggman: “You’re too late, fools!” *He fires the laser into the portal, and seconds later, he shuts down the portal once the laser is done.* “The damage is done. By the time you get back to your van, your world will be gone.”

Murray: “G-gone?”

Eggman: “Gone. Nothing but the inside of a black hole. I guess it’s good luck for you since you’re here and your villains are back in your dying world.”

Bentley: “That’s so… diabolical that there’s not even a term that can describe it!”

Eggman: “Good. That’s what I was aiming for.”

Sly wanted to say something, but was too distraught to speak.

Eggman chuckles: “What’s wrong, raccoon? No witty quip to acknowledge everything will be okay? No comforting words for your friends? No payback to offer to me? Heh he… or have you realized… that I have single-handedly done what Clockwerk wished he could do? That I have erased the Cooper lineage and everything they’ve done? That now… you are completely alone…?”

*Sly couldn’t say anything, and the hand he was pointing at Eggman was starting to shake. He soon dropped his cane, which caught the attention of the others.*

Sly collapsed to his hands, his heart pounding.He only uttered: “It’s… all gone?”

Eggman smirked, only him knowing the real truth. He ushers his lie like a complete braggart: “Yes… all gone. Nothing for you and your leftover friends. Heh he.”

Bentley: “S-Sly…” *Bentley tried to think of something to say to help his friend, but nothing could come out. Dimitri and Panda King could do nothing but close their eyes in sadness.*

Eggman: “Not the orphanage, not your ancestors, not your heists. To misquote Casablanca: ‘You don’t even have Paris.’.”

Murray went over to at least hold Sly in his hands. “At least… you got us, Sly.”

Eggman: “Do you? Really? There’s nothing connecting any of your ragtag group of ‘friends. Heh he, well, there is Penelope. Without her, none of this would have came to fruition.”

Penelope was taken aback. “W-what?”

Eggman: “Yes. Without you, you wouldn’t have pulled your friends onto this adventure, lead me to your villains, even gave me the idea of stealing the Cooper knowledge.” *He chuckles at the last item, which was a lie not brought on by Penelope.*

Bentley rolls over and puts a hand in Penelope’s. “N-no! You’re lying! How can you call yourself a genius when you manipulate people like this?!”

Eggman: “Then you don’t know me at all, you small-minded turtle. To be short, and as Sonic and his friends know, that’s just what I am.”

*Sonic and the others looked away, not being able to deny Eggman’s claim.*

Eggman: “In any effect, your loss is my gain. I am ever closer of achieving that dream of the Eggman Empire, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

Carmelita gives a small smile, thinking she can mess with Eggman. “It’s hard to do that in handcuffs, though. You know you’re under arrest, right?”

Eggman’s smile didn’t fade, which ruined Carmelita’s smile. “Oh? I am? It’s hard to arrest someone… who’s just a dead robot.”

Everyone: “What?”

‘Eggman’s’ eyes change to a timer counting down from 9. “We’ll meet again, fools. You won’t know where or when, but we’ll meet again… on a sunny day.”

*As the song ‘We’ll Meet Again’ plays, the Eggman explodes like a bomb went off in the chest area. All that’s left is a broken Eggman robot, which bellows in laughter until the battery dies.*

Sonic: “Fooled again… What is he doing...”

--

Sonic, narrating: “It was a solemn trek back down the elevator. We checked with the van, and it was true, Sly’s world didn’t exist anymore.”

Dimitri: “Our world… it is kaput.”

Panda King: “Its flame… has been snuffed out.”

Sonic: “I know it’s not much, but you guys can stay here as long as you want.”

Carmelita: “Thanks, Sonic.”

*A credits roll later.*

-----

????: “Heh he. Another world sent away, and now lots of people to enslave. The start of our Empire has begun.”

*****: “You sure showed that pincushion up again. We’re messing with him hard.”

????: “Yes. And the data we got from the Coopers will make the perfect copy… but we still have plenty more work ahead of us.”

*****: “My turn again, right?”

????: “Yep. And you’re off to that futuristic world, home of an annoying lombax. We need the minerals found in the world to make a tough metal for a blade.”

*****: “I shall not fail you.”

????: “The world is inching closer to our empire…. Soon, all of it will be ours…”

To Be Continued ~>

[alfafilly]

Inktober 2017: Cloud

Arpeggio could fly, you know. He just didn’t use his wings to do it.

[inspector-montoya-fox]

i’m currently away but i wanted to briefly discuss how some of the villains’ lairs/ interiors & exteriors contribute to their story and character. this is an aspect that has really evolved throughout the series: in Sly 1, the villains’ branding was absolutely horrific, each of them quite literally living inside replicas of themselves or decorating with stuff associated to their species. like Miss Clockwerk being quirky and building a huge tower of himself in the volcano as if it isn’t supposed to be a “secret” lair. or Muggshot taking over an entire city and filling it up with every possible symbol associated to dogs. bones? yeap. leashes? he’s got you covered. fire hydrants? fuck it. let’s just build a colossal fucking fire hydrant on the casino’s roof.

Sly 2′s villains retained some of this wackiness, like Rajan’s ancestral palace imitating an elephant, but there was much more to it. some were more straightforward like Arpeggio’s blimp flying higher than he ever could achieve with his wings, or Jean Bison’s rustic, log cabins being surrounded by sawing machinery showing how he is stuck in the past. Rajan’s ballroom matches the image he is so desperately trying to project: regal, successful, an international tycoon who loves to spend his money on his guests and his parties. after the Clockwerk wings are stolen and he migrates to the jungle however, his true self is revealed: brutal, unhinged, unpredictable. the jungle lair can also be described as such.

the most notable example however is the Contessa. in Jailbreak, the prison reflects her impenetrable mind and how clever a strategist she is. i think, apart from Neyla, she’s Sly 2′s most fierce villain and this is presented through the symbol of her prison, a thief’s worst nightmare. in comparison, after Interpol drops her and the odds are stacked against her, the re-education tower mirrors this by being an isolated and slender building. the Contessa’s on her own now and everyone else is catching up to her.

i’m probably gonna make a part 2 for this post because Sly 3 has lots to unpack in relation to this topic, but i really want to discuss the Black Baron’s castle. when i reblogged my analysis of gender in Flight of Fancy, i added this via the tags:

i mean i pretty much cover most of what i want to say here^ but to summarise even further: the episode’s major theme is masculinity being portrayed as a shallow mask for femininity because the latter is generally stigmatised and this is even reflected in Penelope’s lab being positioned behind the castle. the castle is synonymous with the Black Baron (strong, fortified, grand and superior), whereas the lab/hangar embodies Penelope and her facade (hidden, sneaky, blinded + overtaken by the Baron’s persona).

what i didn’t include in these tags however is that Sly is the one who scaled the castle but Bentley is the one who infiltrated the lab/hangar. the awkward switch from Sly to Bentley during the mission serves to foreshadow how Sly is the one who Penelope had a crush on but Bentley is the one who ultimately won her heart. Penelope’s crush on Sly is superficial, based on looks and nothing deeper (just like the Baron’s persona); but Bentley entering the metaphorical heart of the lair shows how he is the one Penelope is meant to be with and how only he can truly reach and understand her.

furthermore, the castle and its defenses come off as very cheap and plastic: there are hooks and poles for Sly to use everywhere and the catapult is just conveniently sitting at the top? it’s as if Penelope had a castle checklist and just wanted to make it look this way without it having the essence of one (like the Contessa’s estate for example). this reflects the Baron’s persona, whereas the lab which is highly guarded with advanced technology, is more true to the real Penelope.

so yea ! apologies if this reads out as rushed, i really wanna add to this post but these were the main points i wanted to get out first

[extraneousdominomask]

HEY WAIT A MINUTE

So a sentiment I've seen repeated over the years is "I wish we got Henriette in TiT - or a version of TiT that knows how to write a female character - but we already had a pirate level 😔 so it just wasn't to be 😔😔😔"

except

@designraccoon made a post once about a subtle but serious problem with TiT's level design. I recommend reading the post for yourself, but the gist is that while the trilogy roots its locations in its villains, TiT has the environment reflect the ancestors. Sucker Punch had you genuinely feel like a thief, trespassing on property belonging to your enemy. Sanzaru gives you places that rightfully "belong" to the local Cooper, with the villain as an alien presence that needs to be removed. That's a viable idea for a sci-fi story, perhaps, but it doesn't gel with the overall ethos of the games; thiefiness.

We've been looking at Henriette through the same incorrect lens!

A Henriette level doesn't have to look like Blood Bath Bay. Moreover, a Henriette level should not look like Blood Bath Bay! It should be modeled after whatever punk-ass loser Henriette is beating up!!

The villain brings in a huge floating fortress, a la Arpeggio's blimp armada, and Henriette slinks through its security with old-school pirate savvy and stabs him to death with her trusty cutlass!

[slycooperconfessions]

“I know that the Contessa’s levels were supposed to be the creepy scary places of Sly 2, but the level that I feel the worst while in is Arpeggio’s blimp. Maybe it’s the sense of everything gone wrong, but it’s such a dreadful stage to me.“

Confessed by: mattmanj42

(It’s the music that really sells it. ~Mod)

[cooperific-aus]

Sly2 AU where the Gang couldn't make it in time to the Northern Battery, so they have to quickly reclaim the Van before it drifts out to sea and race there with Carmelita tailing Arpeggio's blimp in her helicopter.

The four then have to figure out how to get through the hypnotized mobs of Paris to stop Neyla.

[yoshifawful64]

I like how the rising falling tones in the theme for Arpeggio’s blimp make it sound so precarious, reminding you of just how high up you are

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Exclusive excerpt of Rudy Rucker's new novel: Million Mile Road Trip

Rudy Rucker's 23rd novel is out today! It's called Million Mile Road Trip. Rudy is one of my all-time favorite authors and he has kindly given me permission to run an excerpt here.

“Stratocast”

An Excerpt from Million Mile Road Trip

by Rudy Rucker

rudy@rudyrucker.com

2,300 Words

April 22, 2019

==========

Villy’s brother Scud and the Szep alien Pinchley are in front seat of the highly modified car that they call the purple whale. Zoe and Villy are in back.

Villy’s two-thirds-size Flying Vee guitar is alive. Basically the instrument is a female alien. She stretches her neck so she can nuzzle Zoe’s black guitar, who is male. The instruments chime softly to each other. Villy thinks of them as a pair of race horses that he and Zoe are about to ride.

“Or magic broomsticks,” says Zoe inside Villy’s head. The guitars seem to be giving them telepathy.

Scud uses his powers to levitate the purple whale high into the air. Pinchley guns the engine—and nothing whatsoever happens. Oh, right, the gigundo tires are spinning in empty air.

“You’ll do that stratocast thing now?” says Scud. “Is that the word?”

Zoe stares into Villy’s eyes. She looks zonky and vamp. Like a goth rocker. They poise fingers on their frets. Each of them holds a triangle of seashell for a pick. Zoe nods her head once and: Zam deedle squee.

In her head, Zoe’s leading the way, sailing the sonic sea, and Villy’s close behind. The two of them do a virtual dance in music-space, orbiting each other like strands of DNA, growing a heaven-tree of sound. Sweet. Villy didn’t know Zoe could play guitar like this. But, um, the car’s still not moving. It’s just floating there.

Zoe breaks off, embarrassed, and begins tuning her guitar, or trying to, except that it doesn’t actually have tuning pegs. The car hangs in the air like a ripe fruit, very slowly drifting forward.

So now Villy and Zoe eat some of their curiously energizing caraway seeds, pretty much a whole teaspoon of them apiece, crunching the seeds with their back molars. Villy definitely feels a lift. He sees colored shapes from the corners of his eyes. Like virtual pastel caraways. When he turns his head, the quick bright crescents scoot out of sight. They’re hella shy.

“I see the colored things too,” says Zoe. “Smeel boomerangs. We’ll chase them with our notes. Stratocast a goblin march.”

“That’s not science,” says pedantic kid brother Scud.

“Shut your crack,” snaps Villy.

Zoe strikes a fresh chord. She goes for a bluesy beat, a cycling rhythm beneath jai-alai scribbles of smeely grace notes. Villy gets into it as well, gazing towards the horizon as he plays. In his peripheral vision the smeel crescents creep forward. They’re like frail, lace-winged insects edging the cones of his eyebeam headlights. He gooses them with pecks of his pick.

So, yaaar, Villy and Zoe are playing at a new level now, into the flow, elaborating riffs like logical syllogisms, and where the hell is Villy getting words like this.

The purple whale begins moving. Slow, then fast, borne upon the stratocast of sound. They rush across the Jell-O-salad expanse of the Harmony basin, swifter than a strafing jet. At the wheel, pilot Pinchley tweaks their path, trimming the flaps, sloping a route that crosses the basin’s far border much sooner than seems possible. Scud levitates for all he’s worth, barely making it above the ridge between Harmony and the next basin.

“Close shave,” goes Scud. “Those mountains came up fast.”

“Hundred thousand miles per,” gloats alien Pinchley, talking like a hillbilly the way he likes to do. “Make some noise, Zoe-Villy. This new basin is called Wristwatch, I do recall.”

Villy peers down, putting his guitar fingers into a reptile-brain ostinato mode. The Wristwatch basin is cogs and gears, a vast array of them, slowly turning, with levers and springy coils and, weirdly, big patches of honey here and there, clogging up the works. Ants in the soft honey, timekeeper ants. How can Villy be seeing such tiny details with them careening past so fast?

“Frog tongue eyebeam,” goes Zoe. She looks very cryp and glam, with glowons highlighting the outlines of her far-gone face. She’s playing Coptic seven-tone crescendos, accompanied by teep images of, like, jackal-headed gods marching into a pharaoh’s tomb, and semi-unwrapped mummy-girls shaking their booties beside the curly purling of the river Nile.

Villy harmonizes, making a sound like the argle-bargle of man-eating crocs. As he plays, he comes to understand what Zoe’s remark meant. That is, even though they’re topping a thousand miles a minute, it’s possible, what with their caraway-seed-enhanced mental powers, to shoot out an eyebeam quick as a frog’s bug-catching tongue, and to leave your eyebeam in place for a few secs, and thereby to vacuum up a mini video of what is/was happening there. Frog tongue eyebeam, yes.

Goofing on the Wristwatch basin, Villy notices independent little batches of cogs and worm-gears bustling around on their own, rooting at the planetary timepiece and prying off toothsome wheels to take unto themselves. For its part, the basin-wide master-clock is of course eating as many of the ticking freebooter assemblages as it can—sometimes trapping them in the ants’ honey-ponds.

Lots of time down there. And then the time’s up. They squeak over another ridge.

“Cuttle Scuttle Swamp,” intones Pinchley.

A flying cuttlefish thuds against the grill of the car, sending them into a wrenching 3D tumble. They’re in danger of blacking out from the centrifugal gees. Zoe bears down on her guitar and gets into feedback mode. The internal amp drives the strings that drive the amp that drives the strings—a jitter of skronks and wheenks. Dark energy on parade. Somehow the way-sick bleat sets their yawing vessel aright. Thank you, primordial chaos.

Scud in the front seat has become wary. Looking far ahead, he zaps the next incoming cuttlefish before it arrives. Not that the cuttlefish are attacking them, per se. They’re into some intramural scene of their own. A civil war?

Two populations of cuttlefish inhabit Cuttle Scuttle Swamp: red ones and green ones. The red ones fly, beating their skirt-fins, and the green ones disport themselves in the shallow, smeely waters. The air cuttles dive down at the water cuttles, and the water cuttles power themselves into the air like breaching manatees. When two cuttles collide, they tangle their tentacles and—are they biting each other?

“Making love,” says Zoe, and she segues her solo into a steamy, insinuating beat. “Gettin’ down. Like you and me, Villy.”

Villy crafts a squalid bass line to match Zoe’s mood. He’s never played this well. Basins flit past. For half an hour, he and Zoe are fully zoned into the stratocast. And then they happen to notice the landscape again.

“Gold Bug basin,” goes Pinchley. The dude has the whole sector mapped inside his head.

Shiny black beetles are excavating galleries and crafting lacy mounds. Beetles like the living cars of the Van Cott streets, but less citified. More tribal. Their antennae bear rows of sideways branches. The beetles fart explosive gas to help with their excavations. Ftoom. They’re digging for lumps of gold. A midnight-blue beetle displays a large nugget in triumphant mandibles. Villy’s focus twitches forward from the prize nugget to the next highlight—a crater filled with dome-backed beetles waving their fringed June-bug antennae and worshipping a golden beetle-god the size of a blimp. Glowons add to the graven idol’s luster.

The appreciative Villy and Zoe glide into a shimmering musical fantasia of lush flourishes. Scud torques the car up over the beetle basin’s onrushing ridge. Pinchley trims their onward course. The four travelers take a feral pleasure in their phantasmagoric speed. More basins and more.

“How do you know which direction to go?” Scud asks Pinchley.

“Thar she blows,” goes the Szep. “See the plume out yonder?”

Villy slits his eyes in order to do a mental zoom—and he’s able to see a downy upright feather on the far horizon, a thunderhead of clouds that must tower a thousand miles high.

“The cloud over Szep City,” says Pinchley. “That’s the one we call Sky Castle. You’ll go there later. But for now, here comes the li’l ole basin that we call Funky Broadway.”

Zoe chimes a downward arpeggio, and Villy stays in teepful sync. Funky Broadway is a world of living cities, blocky hives trundling across a fruited plain. The cities are inhabited by races of monkeys. Here and there pairs of cities batten onto each other. Their primate passengers clamber from one metropolis to the other. Ape-men brandish exquisite works of art in offer for trade—only to be taken prisoner by brutal lower orders who feed the unfortunate captives into meat-grinder gear-trains embedded in the lowest foundations of the towns.

Zoe plays the sounds of stabbing cries, and Villy styles moony evocations of wasted lives. A heart-searing duet. And that’s just a start. Zoe and Villy lose themselves in ever-richer stratocast harmonies, sailing across more basins and more.

“Paramecium Pond.”

It’s a five-thousand-mile puddle that is a luminous shade of yellow-green, vibrant with algae, shiny with microorgasmic tides. Paramecia, amoeba, volvoxes, rotifers—teeming, breeding, and consuming their fellows when they can.

“An octillion in all,” says science-boy Scud. There’s quite the teepy vibe inside the car by now, what with the living Harmon guitars, the saucer pearl, the kids’ mental acrobatics, and Pinchley’s off-kilter state.

As they fly above Paramecium Pond, Zoe and Villy spin a sludgy mat of notes—a recursive musical fugue. Right about now the microorganisms’ population count seems to be dropping at a logarithmic rate. The individual cells are eating each other and getting bigger—like rivals climbing up through the brackets of a tournament tree. A mere billion of them remain. A thousand. A hundred. And then—but one. A paramecium the size of a continent.

The slimy titan lolls in the planetary pond. A plutocrat in a bathtub. Suddenly the glowing waters slosh. Something’s wrong? A dark spot has appeared upon the tyrant’s ciliated pellicle hide. A raging infection, a rogue colony of his erstwhile lower companions. The master paramecium springs a leak and—pop—he’s back to square one. An octillion rivals in a planetary pool of goo.

Inspired by the scene, Zoe and Villy craft a bombastic rock anthem. More and more worlds strobe past.

Trumpeting the thousand names of the alien god Goob-goob, elephants carry smaller elephants to and fro, building elephantine mounds that stretch into the sky. Pinchley steers among the wobbly columns, and, where necessary, Scud zaps a grabby trunk.

Milk-spurting udders flop in high green grass. Towering flowers chide the udders in snobby British accents. Vines sprout floating cucumbers like miniature zeppelins. Tiny uniformed airmen gather on the taut hulls to dance hornpipe jigs.

Mermen and sirens loll beside a glassy black sea. Loch Ness monsters ply the inky waters, their heads like prows of Viking ships.

A sky full of barking dogs, with a suburban grid of doghouses below. Sinister rabbits slink from doghouse to doghouse eating puppies, quite heedless of the fruitful carrot patches in the doghouse yards.

Wee gnomes juggle bristly ogres in the air. Steaming cauldrons of porridge await. The ogres dwindle to raisins in the mush.

Flying jellyfish carry shrimp-people. The treacherous shrimps set the jellies to lashing each other with stinging strands. Beneath the fray, striped sea snails cheer and toss bouquets to the shrimp.

Hopeful pigs join snouts in pairs, disk to disk. They spin upwards like helicopters, shedding rashers of bacon that settle onto slippery, overcrowded streets.

Hippos in a basin of braided rivers that cascade from the cliffs along the basin’s edge. Flying bales of alfalfa appear. The hippos roar in joy, showing stubby peg-like teeth.

A herd of sinister eyeballs rolls across a plain, forever watching a commanding central figure who feeds upon attention.

All along they’ve been moving in parallel to Groon’s jet stream. If Villy squints his eyes, he can make out the steady flow of saucers within. The Szep City cloud called Sky Castle is no longer so impossibly far. Onward.

Zoe and Villy stratocast the purple whale across a watery basin rife with whirlpools that split and merge. Above the sea, tornadoes fill the misty air, as if mirroring the maelstroms below. Small, isolated thunderheads scud among the tornadoes, exchanging lightning bolts like phrases in a ceaseless conversation.

In the next basin, crystals sprout like hoarfrost ferns, then snap loose and tumble, transforming themselves like shards in a kaleidoscope. Arpeggios ring from the crystals, rising towards an elusive climax. Zoe’s and Villy’s rhythms push the swelling harmony over the edge. The crystals shatter into specks that spring into the sky.

And now comes a basin that’s entirely filled by a single, planet-sized human corpse. Pygmies and homunculi feast upon it, like fiddler crabs on a dead dolphin.

Gray light, a drizzle of steady rain. Fish walk on pairs of legs. Chickens in mortarboards declaim from ladders.

Crawling naked brains play cards and promenade in patterns. A supernal book of wisdom takes shape amid the brains. Living pairs of scissors dart forward and snip the book’s pages to confetti.

“One last basin before Szep City,” says Pinchley. “The Pit. It’s like a deep well with Groon at the bottom.” The dark Pit’s walls are vertical, like the vent of a volcano. The jet stream they’ve been tracking—it makes a turn here and dives into the Pit. A wailing drone sounds from the abyss.

Pinchley pumps his arms as if he’s dancing a jig. “Groon’s music,” he says. “He’s a giant bagpipe. Levitate your ass off, Scud. No way we want to be sucked to the bottom of the Pit or, worse than that, end up inside Groon’s sack.”

Naturally, life being the way it is, the purple whale ends up in a downward death spiral around a whirlwind that runs into the Pit. It’s like they’re moths around a flame, or kids around an ice cream stand, or hayseeds around a county fair burlesque show.

========

Get Million Mile Road Trip at www.rudyrucker.com/millionmileroadtrip

https://boingboing.net/2019/05/07/exclusive-excerpt-of-rudy-ruck.html

[professionalwritingnerd]

Cairo, Arpeggio’s Blimp, and Arabia?

Sly Cooper Ask Meme [x]

Cairo: How would you characterize the main trio’s relationship with each other?

I think Bentley from Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves said it best:

I don’t think it’s something they even realize until a certain point, perhaps around the Sly 2 era. Sly makes reference to how “they’re all the family I need”, so he may have come to this realization in-between games, and I think Murray’s always seen them as kind of adopted brothers of sorts. Bentley may have come to this realization during the Progue fiasco.

They met when they were smol children in an orphanage, and while it’s never made clear what exactly made them all gravitate towards each other originally in canon, it’s obvious that there was some kind of connection made that made them stick together like glue for 10 solid years.

So ye. I like to think of them as really weird adopted brothers. They’re not related and weren’t raised together, but lbr, if any of them have kids, the other two would be Uncles.

Arpeggio’s Blimp: What do you think of Clockwerk? Should he return again?

This might sound like a controversial statement, but I liked Clockwork AS Clockwork.

Clockwork in the first game was a pretty basic bad-guy, but I think he genuinely has potential as a villain. To a point where I think he should have been the big bad of Sly 2 instead of Neyla. Ignoring the fact that Neyla going bonkers and joining herself to Clockwork kinda came out of left field, it kind of ignored the character of Clockwork in favor of the symbol of Clockwork.

Which... Yes, I realize was kind of the point, but for all of Sly’s talk of “The threat of Clockwork being real”, that actual threat is never realized only because Neyla went nuts and joined herself to Clockwork for unknown reasons. 

It’s implied that Clockwork’s initial hate was still dormant within there and corrupted her, but I think you could have gone further with that while he was still in peices.

My point is: I like Clockwork to a point where I wish they did more with him. Which is something to be explored in future endeavors of mine.

Arabia: What’s your favourite minigame?

I just came off Sly 2 for the first time iin years and lemme just say that IT’S DEFINITELY NOT ANY VEHICLE LEVELS, THAT’S FOR SURE.

I think my favorite minigame would be any of the Simon Says minigames; like Mz. Ruby’s boss fight or the two dance tangos in Sly 2. Idk why, I think it’s just because of the atmosphere I feel during those minigames. 

Second fav would be the Hacking levels because they serve a decent challenge but aren’t IMPOSSIBLE like the tank and chopper levels.

Anyway, thanks so much for the questions! If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for hearing out my little ramblings. x3

[arpeggio-the-parrot]

Arpeggio was the first character to show up during the portion of the ballroom recon mission when you photograph the guests, and I swear that’s never happened to me in all the times I’ve played this game LOL and I SCREAMED.

Usually the same two characters that aren’t Arpeggio keep coming up and I take pics of them so Arpeggio will more easily come out and be witnessed but LOOK

This screenshot was literally the moment he first appeared and my first time seeing him in-game on my PS4! You can tell how hasty I took this screenshot bc of how off-center it is LOL but I felt so blessed!!

Here are some other pics I got; I probably took like 40+ screenshots of him but here are a couple highlights +the actual binocucom photo after I spent a half hour or so stalking him as I always do in this mission XD

Just wait til Blimp HQ Recon guys the screenshots are gonna go crazy

[rorykillmore]

and this fic is for @propheticnightwing ! who let me have free range of what i wanted to write for her. i had to think about it for awhile because we’ve had so many wonderful dynamics over the years, but... i think one of the most defining and special to us is sly and carmelita. so i wrote a christmas fic for them! i also decided to do something a little different and set it in the midst of sly 2 because i love that game and i feel like it’s a really interesting, relatively unexplored time in sly and carmelita’s relationship.

also weirdly, this is the one fic that i felt compelled to write in past tense instead of present tense? idk why, it just felt right

but anyway fate, thank you so much for another wonderful year of our friendship. i know that this one has been particularly rough for you for far too many reasons and while i wish and hope things get better, it always kind of awes me how even when you have so much going on you always manage to reach out to me and make me smile. i’m speaking 2019 into an existence as a year that will hold good things for you and also many more meaningful rps, fun hangouts, and rounds of Hollywood Talk for us!! thank you for being there for me all these years. i really mean that.

“Enjoying the ambiance? You know, there’s a great view of the northern lights that’s only about a ten minute climb from here.”

 “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for a view from a prison cell.”

There was nothing like being up north for the holidays! Or something. Sly figured he probably should’ve been feeling festive - and granted, he was cautiously optimistic about the gang having plenty to celebrate just now, with the Contessa arrested and Neyla evaded - it was just.

It was a little bit challenging to get into the holiday spirit when he was freezing his tail off and trudging through what felt like several feet of snow. And he was the one member of the gang who actually had fur.

“How you holdin’ up there, Murray?” he asked on cue, watching from his vantage point atop the sheer ice-and-rock formation he was settled on as the hippo worked to haul the satellite equipment they needed onto the back of one of Jean Bison’s biplanes.

“Righteous,” huffed Murray over the comms. 

“Not too cold down there?”

“I’m heated by the fire of my unrelenting determination, Sly!”

Sly couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Bentley’s voice crackled to life next over the line -- he was working from the van, so he’d lucked out this time around. One of the perks of being the team’s tech support, Sly supposed. “Just make sure no one gets the drop on him, Sly. Installing this equipment undetected is the very crux of this operation.” 

“I got it covered,” Sly assured him, adjusting the range on his Binocucom and scanning Murray’s surroundings just in case. Still nothing but empty, snowy wilderness. “You’re gonna let us know whether or not it actually works, right?”

“Affirmative. If everything goes according to plan, it should be fairly evident, fairly quickly. The next time Bison touches base with Arpeggio, I’ll be able to track their line of communication...”

“And we’ll be able to keep tabs on Arpeggio’s blimp,” Sly finished for him, unable to keep the eager edge out of his tone. “Nice.”

“And then maybe we can all go out for hot chocolate, or something,” Murray suggested. “I might have been exaggerating a little about the fires of determination part.”

Admittedly, it would have been a little more convenient for all of them if Jean Bison had chosen somewhere other than the rugged Canadian north for his base of operations, but maybe that would’ve defeated the whole point. It was fine, Sly assured himself. Everything had gone (almost shockingly) according to plan up until now. All they had to do was secure the rest of Bison’s Clockwerk parts, snag whichever ones Arpeggio had nestled away on his airship, and then the gang could finally take a well-earned vacation.

Just as he’d started to actually let himself feel relieved at the prospect, of course, something went wrong. Almost on schedule.

“Murray?” Sly murmured, suddenly snapping his attention and adjusting the Binocucom to hone in on the glimpse of movement he’d spotted in his peripheral vision. “Might wanna pick up the pace, pal. I don’t think you’re alone out here anymore.”

“What is it, some of Bison’s guards? I can probably take ‘em.”

“Nooot quite.”  Sly swallowed, taking in the (even from here) unmistakable features of the Interpol officer they all knew and loved.

Well. Former Interpol officer. And he guessed ‘loved’ might have been kind of debatable, depending on which member of the team you asked.

“Inspector Fox!” Bentley groaned, obviously having tapped into the Binocucom’s visual feed. “This is going to turn dire. Murray, how close are you to having all that stuff packed up?”

“Uhhhh....”  Obviously Murray was not quite as confident about facing off against Carmelita than he had been about taking on a half a dozen armed flashlight guards. “Gimme just -- another second --” 

Sly watched anxiously as he hauled the last piece of equipment on board and then scrambled for the pilot’s seat.  “She’s gonna hear the engine. I’m going in for a diversion.”

“Sly-- !” Bentley started to warn, but Sly was already on the move, making his way quickly down the rock wall with the help of his cane. He took the last few meters of his descent in a precarious leap, landing with a soft thump on the ground below and sinking a few feet further into the snow below him than he’d planned.

Predictably, the scuffle didn’t evade Carmelita’s attention. She rounded on him almost instantly, and Sly gave her what he hoped was a charming smile, trying to seem undaunted under the heat of her surprised, angry, (beautiful) amber eyes.

“Cooper!” she growled, her ears flattening.

“Inspector,” Sly greeted as pleasantly as he could, holding his hands up carefully in the air (although he wasn’t entirely convinced that would keep her from shooting him, at this point).  “Enjoying the ambiance? You know, there’s a great view of the northern lights that’s only about a ten minute climb from here.”

She leveled her shock pistol on him dangerously.  “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for a view from a prison cell.”

“And here I was enjoying us actually being on the same side, for awhile.” Sly tried to figure out whether there was a subtle way to free his feet from the powdery snow they were now caked in. In all honestly, he hadn’t actually expected Carmelita to give up chasing him just because she was currently on the outs with the law -- her standards weren’t that flexible, even if Interpol’s apparently were. But it was as good a stalling tactic as any.

“You know as well as I do that bringing in you and your gang is the obvious way to clear my name.” She kept her gaze locked on him, and Sly didn’t dare move quite yet.

“Only because Neyla set us up,” he pointed out instead. Maybe it had been the wrong thing to say -- something flashed in Carmelita’s eyes that was a little less guarded, a little more raw. “Wouldn’t it be more satisfying if you got your job back because you exposed her? We could take her down together. -- You’d get the credit, obviously.”

As focused as he was on making sure Murray had time to get out of there, the offer was sincere. Still, he was a little surprised when she actually seemed to hesitate. “I don’t see what you or your gang stand to gain from having me reinstated.”

“Maybe nothing,” Sly admitted freely.  “But does it matter? You’re a good cop. We both know it. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and Neyla doesn’t deserve to get away with it.”

He tried to radiate nothing but sincerity at her. He knew Bentley would gripe at him later - or pretend to - about how helping Carmelita time and time again only ensured that their jobs were that much more complicated, and their lives that much more dangerous. But in spite of it all -- Sly knew Bentley respected her too. And he knew he’d agree (begrudgingly) that clearing Carmelita’s name was the right thing to do.

So he watched her hopefully. Maybe he wasn’t imagine the way she wavered, or how her expression seemed to soften, if only a fraction.  For a second, Sly almost even thought she was going to lower the pistol.

But then her resolve turned to steel, and she was sizing him up again.

“If I want to clear my name, I have to prove I’m not willing to resort to the same tactics as she was. No matter what the cost.”  Carmelita took a slow step toward him.  “Working with a criminal just makes me look like a hypocrite.”

Sly wanted to say something else, even if the words hadn’t fully formed in his mind yet -- but then the unmistakable rumble of a plane engine broke the comparative silence of the wilderness around them. Murray had finally gotten the biplane up and running.

It startled Carmelita enough that she spun around, maybe having judged the noise to be closer than it was and deeming it a threat, and with a slight pang of remorse, Sly knew he had to take his chance.

He just hoped it wouldn’t make his earlier sentiments seem any less sincere.

Hauling himself up and out of the snow suddenly, he turned and made a run for it, making the snap decision that scaling the rock wall again was a more sure way to lose her than risking an open pursuit across the tundra. He’d made it up a few meters out of her reach by the time she’d turned and pinpointed exactly where he’d gone -- a moment he recognized for what it was when he heard a resounding, enraged, “Cooper!”

Now came the hard part. Sly sprung again, latching onto a higher crevice with his cane and using it to haul himself further up -- and that was when the first blast from the shock pistol collided with the wall, narrowly missing him.  Dodge and climb. He’d done it before. Was practically an expert at it, by now. The trick was to never stay in one place for more than a second -- so he sprung again, and then again, trying to make his ascent wildly unpredictable. Once or twice, the shock pistol blasts came so close that he felt the heat singe his fur -- but then he was up, all the way up, scrambling away from the cliff’s ledge.

He only risked pausing for a second to glance back at her. And he kind of wished he hadn’t -- the look on her face wasn’t as funny as it usually was whenever he managed to slip away from her. And even knowing that not all of her current anger and hurt was directed at him didn’t make Sly feel much better.

He slipped away before she got the chance to gauge what to do next.

“Everything okay, Murray?” Sly asked over the comms once he’d had a few heartbeats to compose himself.  

“Me and the supplies are airborne!” Murray affirmed immediately. “What about you? You get away from Inspector Fox okay?”

Sly hoped his slight pause wasn’t noticeable. “Five by five, pal. I’m headed back to the safehouse now.”

“That was pretty crazy, Sly.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Offering her Neyla was a smart move,” Bentley cut in reasonably, though Sly could tell from the slight edge to his voice that he was a little ruffled.  “Too bad she didn’t take you up on it.”

Sly contemplated staying silent -- but he knew if he let this weigh on him, it would probably sour things.  “I dunno, guys. I feel pretty bad for her. Her reputation’s in shambles all over some false charges, she narrowly avoided being brainwashed by a psychiatric maniac, she’s stranded out in the frigid middle of nowhere for the holidays -- and now every time we slip away from her just feels like another slap in the face.”

There was a moment of awkward silence on Bentley and Murray’s end.

“So... what are you suggesting, Sly? That you turn yourself in?” Bentley was clearly struggling not to sound dubious.

“No! Look, I know that’s not an option.” Even if he would’ve considered it under different circumstances - couldn’t hurt to turn himself in as long as he had a plan to break back out, right? - he knew the stakes were too high now to take a detour like that.  “I just... I dunno. I feel like we should do something nice for her.”

“‘Nice’?” Bentley still sounded doubtful.

“I think it’s a cool idea,” Murray put forward his vote of confidence. “I know Inspector Fox is, like... scary, and stuff, but I never wanted her to get hurt! But what can we do all the way out here?”

Sly didn’t answer right away.  In fact, it was a few moments before the answer came to him -- cheesy and, well, slightly crazy as it was.

“Can you guys do me a favor when you get back?” he asked suddenly.  “Just -- go into town and see what you can scrounge in the way of Christmas supplies, or anything like that. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“What are you planning, Sly?” Bentley asked slowly.

It would’ve taken too long to explain - and then convince them - so Sly only responded, “I won’t be long. Promise.”

But he changed his course as he spoke, wondering if he’d be able to gauge which direction Carmelita had gone in if he headed back to the cliff. Would she have tried to follow him, or given it up as a lost cause and gone back to... wherever she was staying?

He’d just have to hope it was the latter. He had some tracking to do.

It’d been a day and a half since Cooper had slipped away. Again. Not that she’d been counting. 

(She was trying to ignore the date in general, actually -- the inescapable fact that it was Christmas Eve was neither improving her mood or making her feel very festive.)

More often than not, Carmelita worked holidays anyway, if she was being honest with herself. It wasn’t like most criminals took the day off, and her family was far enough away to make visiting difficult unless she wanted to take a few days.

But there was something about this year that just felt sad.

Maybe it was the obvious fact that she’d lost her job, or had been framed by her partner for a conspiracy she’d had no part in. Or the reality that she’d missed her chance to catch the thief she’d practically spent her career hunting, yet again.

Hardest of all to admit was that it would have almost been nice to have his company, even if he technically would’ve been in her custody.

Scratch that. Hardest of all to admit was that she’d been tempted to take him up on his offer. That she was still sitting here, in the pitifully empty cabin she’d been stowing away in, questioning his sincerity.

Sincere or not, she knew she couldn’t have given him any other answer. Having her integrity damaged for her was bad enough, she couldn’t damage it herself. And yet.

Well, she was going in circles. Carmelita knew herself well enough to know that the only cure for that was finding some way to keep herself busy. So she rose to her feet, eyeing her coat and shock pistol where she’d hung them both by the door.

And then something thunked bluntly against one of the cabin windows. She tensed suddenly, her ears trained on the noise.

After another moment, it happened again, and this time she caught what had made the impact: snow.  Some idiot was throwing snowballs at her cabin! 

It was the stretch of long, bad days all stacked up rather than this one small thing, but Carmelita skipped the coat, snatched her shock pistol off the hook on the wall, and stormed out into the crisp winter evening.  “If this is one of you thugs’ idea of a joke --”

But it wasn’t Bison’s goons.

It was Cooper.

Tossing another snowball in one gloved hand, wearing a smirk so audacious that she had to stop and process his goddamn nerve.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he said to break the silence.  “Couldn’t let you spend it alone.”

Maybe if she’d stopped to think for a few minutes - maybe - she might have found the whole thing odd. It was reckless, even for Sly, to seek her out and provoke her with no warning or apparent cause.

But Carmelita didn’t have a few minutes.

What she’d had was a very bad past couple of days.

And it seemed he wasn’t going to let her stand around and dwell on it. He threw the snowball - it missed by a foot or so, Carmelita couldn’t say whether he’d actually intended for it to hit or not - and then he was tearing off into the night.

She found her voice again. A snarl. “You picked the wrong night to piss me off, raccoon.”

And then she was on his tail.

He’d planned this. She was sure of that now, although to what end she had yet to find out. Probably he and his gang had needed her distracted for some job they were pulling off, and she’d been stupid enough to take the bait.

That much had been clear when he’d led her on a wild goose chase for almost forty five minutes, with no apparent escape route in mind.  It wasn’t Cooper’s M.O. He had all sorts of places to duck into and hide around here, she was sure, but instead he’d kept her running for the better part of an hour.

By the time she’d figured out what was up, she feared it was probably too late to stop whatever Bentley and Murray had no doubt been up to all this time. But she also had to admit to herself, however furiously, that she couldn’t do any deeper investigation into the matter in this weather without her coat, so she’d eventually stormed back to her cabin, angry enough to spit hellfire.

She’d conjured a number of scenarios in her head by the time she arrived. The gang had pulled off a train robbery. Or they’d tracked down Jean Bison and robbed him directly. Or they’d gone for one of the local sawmills, for whatever asinine reason -- supplies?

The one possibility she’d discounted as absolutely too ridiculous, too idiotic even for them, was that their target had been her. And yet she was practically at her cabin door when Murray came bursting out of it, with Bentley scrambling frantically in his wake.

“Get a move on, Murray, Sly said we had five minutes -- five minutes ago --”

They saw her in that exact moment, and froze at the same time she did.

“Sly,” Bentley spoke slowly, presumably into his communications earpiece.  “We’ve, uh. We’ve got a problem.”

Carmelita stopped him there, raising her pistol again. “Not another word.”

“But Inspector --”

“This is low, even for you morons. Hands where I can see them.”

Bentley and Murray exchanged a very awkward glance, and then slowly lifted their hands into the air.

“Hey, look, we can explain --”  Murray started, but Carmelita cut him off with a look.

“Step into the cabin. And then you’re going to give back whatever you possibly decided was valuable enough to be worth all this trouble before I put you in handcuffs.”

Neither of them moved for a moment. She took a step forward, eyes narrowed.  “Now.”

Very slowly, Bentley turned - and then Murray after them - and they filed rather miserably into the cabin. As they should, Carmelita thought bitterly. She braced herself to take in whatever ransacking of the place they’d done (really, it wasn’t like she was keeping valuables out here, what had even been the point) before she followed them inside.

-- Was it brighter in here than when she’d left, or were her eyes still adjusting?

It took a moment to process that the extra light was coming from the sprawling, decorated Christmas tree in the corner. And the icicle lights strewn haphazardly around the frames of the cabin’s two windows. 

Purely out of shock, Carmelita lowed her weapon a fraction as she took in the rest of the scene in front of her.

It wasn’t just the tree, or the lights -- a small pile of presents had been bundled at the trunk of the former. A (kind of ugly, hand-knit) stocking had been hung from the fireplace, and on the table was a large plate of --

-- Holiday cookies?

“They’re store-bought,” Murray commented a little sadly, noticing where her gaze had gone.  “We couldn’t get all the ingredients we needed to make ‘em from scratch. But they’re really good! -- Not that I, uh. Tried one already.”

“I knitted the stocking, though,” Bentley provided helpfully.

Carmelita wasn’t sure what to say. She took it all in wordlessly for another moment.  “You broke into my cabin.  To decorate it for Christmas.”  She wasn’t sure if that made them even more stupid than she’d originally thought or not.  “ -- Why?”

Murray and Bentley exchanged another look before Bentley tried fumbling out an answer. “Because... ah... because...”

“It was Sly’s idea!” Murray blurted. Bentley elbowed him sharply.

For all her training and experience, Carmelita forgot momentarily that she was meant to be keeping her eyes - and her weapon - on the criminals. Her arms suddenly felt heavy enough that she had to lower them to her sides. Sly? 

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, managing to sound more suspicious than confused.

Bentley seemed resigned to the explanation, at that point, so Murray continued, “We were supposed to be out of here before you showed up, but uh... I guess Sly couldn’t keep you fooled as long as he thought.”

“He usually can’t,” Bentley put in dryly.

“But he felt bad about the other day, and the whole thing with the Contessa, and he said he thought you deserve something nice for Christmas.  ...We all did, I guess.”

Carmelita felt her cheeks warm underneath her fur. For a moment, all she could do was stare at the pair of them, not quite fully processing the reality of the situation. She knew she hadn’t exactly made the Cooper gang’s lives easy, now or... ever  - not that they deserved to have it easy, when they were thieving criminals - and yet they had gone out of their way to do all of this for her.

Sly had done all of this for her.

She couldn’t understand it.

“Why?” she asked again, because it felt like the only thing she could say.

This time a new voice answered. “Didn’t I tell you once that being on opposite sides of the law didn’t make us enemies?”

She whirled around, and her first, exasperated thought was Why do people keep waltzing into my cabin like they own the place? But even that was banished quickly from her mind when she saw Sly standing in front of her, once again.

This time, Carmelita wasn’t quite sure how to feel.

“Sorry for giving you such a hard time earlier.” Sly scratched behind his neck awkwardly, evidently a little fidgety in the wake of her silence. “We needed a way to get you out of the cabin for awhile, and... provoking you seemed like the easiest plan, I guess?”

Carmelita swallowed. “I can see why Bentley usually does the planning.”

Behind her, Bentley snorted briefly, and Sly even managed half a sheepish looking grin. Carmelita paused another moment. “If you think this means I won’t chase you anymore --”

“Didn’t even cross my mind,” Sly assured her lightly.  “Our lives wouldn’t be nearly as exciting without you. Just -- you deserve the night off. It’s Christmas Eve. Maybe for a little while, things don’t have to be so terrible.”

The shock pistol was starting to feel heavy and awkward in Carmelita’s hand. She laid her ears back against her head and considered him for awhile, almost overwhelmed by the sincerity in his warm brown eyes. She wasn’t oblivious, of course. Sly had flirted with her before, but she’d always assumed that was just... Sly. And there’d been the kiss they shared back in Russia, but Carmelita had told herself that was a ruse to ensure that he and his friends escaped -- mostly so she didn’t think about it so much afterwards.

Considering the possibility that what Sly felt for her was more serious than that had always been too dangerous. And considering the possibility that she returned those feelings had always felt too stupid. But who did something like this for someone they only considered a friendly rival at best?

At length, Bentley cleared his throat awkwardly to break the silence, and Murray added uncertainly, “We, uh... should we leave?”

Carmelita glanced back at them. And then she shifted her gaze forward to meet Sly’s again, hesitating. She could see the same question in his eyes.

“Tomorrow,” she said finally, “We all go back to doing our jobs.” Gingerly, but gaining confidence with every passing second, she took a step towards Sly. Then another. He tensed just slightly, and she paused.  “...But tonight, I think we could all use a break. Why don’t you boys stay.  ...For a little while, anyway.”

Sly’s ears lifted, and a smile started to spread across his face. Carmelita found herself returning it. Briefly - carefully - she lifted one gloved hand and touched the side of his face.  “Thank you,” she added more quietly.

Her hand dropped, but Sly’s smile didn’t.

“In that case,” Murray started jovially. “Who wants cookies?”

“There’s uh -- also a few presents for you,” Bentley provided, still sounding slightly apprehensive. “One from each of us.”

Carmelita half-turned towards the tree, unable to keep from eyeing it almost dubiously.  “Should I be afraid?”

“Only a little,” Sly assured easily.  “And -- hey, if you wanna pretend to be distracted for a few more minutes, we can put up some finishing touches. Maybe, say, mistletoe... ?”

Murray sounded like he might have choked on his cookie, and Bentley rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses.  Carmelita, for her part, made a show of rolling her eyes, but she couldn’t quite keep the smile off her face.

“Don’t push your luck, ringtail.”

[alfafilly]

Y’all don’t understand how cool and funny it is that @arpeggio-the-parrot and I became online friends because we both had a crush on this idiot birdman which then led us to meeting IRL and now we regularly plan yearly or multi-yearly visits (even tho COVID kinda put a dent in that BOOO).

And unless we meet at a convention we both do the glitches in Sly 2 that allow us to get up close to birdman’s funky little model in the game (in the blimp and in Rajan’s ballroom) as a way to celebrate the dumb avian that brought our friendship together! It’s cringe but it’s adorable dedicated cringe.

This sounds like some kinda joke but IT IS LEGIT and no one TRULY APPRECIATES IT!! The power of fandom be CRAY MY DUDES!

Also we are two different people. Some people think we are the same account or whatever but no AHAHA

[extraneousdominomask]

Y’know something I truly adore about SC? Everybody’s voice. Everybody’s.

Sly’s irreplaceable smooth tones. Bentley’s amazing nerd voice. Murray’s bombastic cheer. Carmelita’s multitudinous voices; individually great, together, a hilarious pseudo-tradition.

Penelope’s adorable “you betcha!” attitude. Panda King’s deep gravitas. Tennessee’s sheer energy. Galleth’s hamminess. Dimitri’s... everything.

Clockwerk’s robotic drawl. Arpeggio’s sophisticated register. Dr M’s mix of dry sarcasm and megalomania. Neyla’s charm and cunning and subtle malice, all wrapped up in a wonderfully all-over-the-place ““British”” accent.

RALEIGH!!!

And this goes down to the smallest role! Guards have great voicework, too! I remember the exact voice of the friggin’ offscreen mook who announces the arrival of Arpeggio’s blimp at the end of Jean Bison’s level, because he has a distinct, humorous delivery for his single line.

The voice acting in these games is a m a z i n g, even at its stupidest, especially at its stupidest. Honestly, other series should take note. I challenge you to name anybody, anybody, who has a bland or uninteresting voice across the quadrilogy. I’m sure as heck not coming up with anyone.

I love these games.

[slycooperconfessions]

“I see everyone saying that The Contessa/Mz Ruby levels were nightmare inducing for them as kids, but I always just found those levels cool. It was Arpeggio's blimp level-- Anatomy for Disaster-- that was The Nightmare Level™ for me!“

Confessed by: Anonymous