Sly Cooper and the Gang In: A Long Lost Love

CHAPTER 15

Actually, Sly was fairly sure his whole world went dark.

The personnel portal died.

And with it, his hope of finding the policewoman he loved.

His cane–his father's cane, and his father's before him–lay at the foot of the personnel gate where it had flown during the first Clockwerk's attack.

The younger Clockwerk circled overhead.

Sly knew he should be grateful the portals had been shut down. Should be grateful no more of the fiendish beast could come through and exact revenge on him and his friends, on his city. But the loss slammed into him like a freight train to the chest.

Gone.

She was really gone.

And though Bentley was in his ear shouting directions, though Murray was kicking open the crunched door of the Cooper Van to his right, Sly had never felt more alone in the world.

Murray finally shoved free of the wrecked vehicle, his knee bloody and nose busted. When he saw the power outage, the personnel gate standing lightless and dormant, silver tears beaded on his purple cheeks. He turned to Sly, and the anguish on his friend's face was just another knife buried in the Master Thief's heart. "You saved this city, Sly," he said, his over-loud voice tremulous. "Wherever she is, she knows."

Bentley radioed into his ear. "And there won't be anything left of any of it if you don't take that second bird down."

Great men must make impossible choices.

Sly resolved to take Sylas a cup of coffee in the morning, assuming he lived to see the sunrise.

"This version of Clockwerk is not remotely controlled. He's the exact same thing you fought when we took on the Fiendish Five." Sly could practically hear Bentley shove his glasses up his nose and pull up the old schematics. "Damage is the name of the game."

Carmelita might've been gone, but everything she fought for wasn't.

There was still good in the world, there were still his friends to think of.

All his ancestors seemed to hold their breath as the dark shadow of the owl tucked in its wings from above them and dove.

If there was one thing Sly Cooper was not, it was a weak link.

His enemy had taken everything from him–his family, his history, his home. He would not take his city. He would not take his friends.

There was a reason he was the Master Thief, and Clockwerk was not.

Sly ran for the golden crook of his cane, his feet light on the roof, the concrete surface stinging the soles of his feet as he raced and dropped to a slide, snapping up the steel and vaulting onto the glass dome as the owl came screeching at him, savage beak wide.

Sly crouched, prepared to launch himself at the monster fueled by hate and jealousy and greed, cane poised to tear out the nearest cruel yellow eye.

No matter how hard he tried, Clockwerk would not take his heart.