As the pair made their way to the locked gate with the Treasure Keys in hand, they paused as they saw yet another objective marker. "Wonder what that is?" Sly mused curiously.
"Probably another Treasure Key," Coco suggested. "We should probably grab it before heading in deeper. Besides, there might be another safe with another page."
"Good thinking," Sly complimented, swiftly making his way up to the top of the tower where the objective was marked, entering into the tunnel.
As the pair followed the narrow hallway, they saw rats getting ripped apart by dart guns that locked onto them as they stepped on a booby-trapped rug, the darts as thick as arrows. With the rats paste, the guns withdrew into the globes that had concealed them.
"...that's not good," Sly murmured softly. "We need to get past things like that...but how?"
"You could probably throw me across," Coco suggested. "If I don't stand on the rug, it doesn't go off, right?"
"That could work for you," Sly confirmed. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of a rather thick empty barrel in front of the rug. "And I could use some armor..."
As Sly suspected, with the barrel around him, he was protected from the large darts, allowing him to walk across the rug unscathed. With Coco knocking out the guards with her drugged needles, they were able to continue through the area - which revealed itself to be a library - with relative ease. Sly made sure to bring the barrel with him as best he could, to make it past the later booby trapped sections as the path through the library on the floor and through the rafters, making sure to smash the globes with the dart guns inside them as he passed.
As Coco had predicted, there was a safe on the path to the Treasure Key. She was easily able to open it, discovering - as predicted - another page of the Thievius Raccoonus. This one covered a technique of Dev Cooperinda's, a mental discipline that enhanced one's sense of awareness in the air, making time seem to slow down and allowing the one wielding it to more easily evade incoming hazards while jumping.
Once they'd memorized the technique, Sly pocketed the page before leaving their calling card behind. With that done, the path to the Treasure Key was clear.
As they came out of the library, Sly and Coco spotted yet another objective marker, this time at the top of a high tower without an easy way to access it. "Better explore everything," Sly mused idly. "We aren't actually in a hurry until we see law enforcement, and we do want to recover every page."
"That wheel in the ground," Coco murmured, pointing. "It's directly under that platform up there. Think they're connected?"
"Only one way to find out," Sly replied readily, hopping onto the wheel embedded in the wooden platform and running on it, causing it to spin. This caused the platform to slowly descend. After giving it enough impetus, Sly hopped off the wheel and onto the platform, riding it up to where he could leap to the tower. "Nicely spotted," he praised Coco as they entered the tower.
The area beneath the Tower proved to be the primary furnace offering power to the entire base. As soon as they entered, Sly stopped, feeling Coco slump against his back. "Coco, are you alright?" he asked worriedly.
"F...fine," she gasped out, panting for breath. "Just...a little hot..."
"Maybe you should stay above for this one?" Sly suggested. "I can find clue bottles for this safe-"
"No!" Coco insisted firmly. "I...I can do this. I...I can't let the environment...break me. I can...be a Master Thief too..."
"Coco, you're six," Sly cautioned. "No one expects you to be able to handle anything and everything right off the bat."
"I..." Coco took a few deep breaths, steeling herself against Sly's back. "I want to do this. If I run from heat...I'll always run from heat...and I'll never be able to handle it. I don't...want to end up that way."
Sly frowned thoughtfully. He hated the idea of putting Coco in danger of overheating, but at the same time he could well understand her desire to face up to the things that held her back. He was the same way. He felt himself on the verge of relenting, then noticed something off to the side. "Coco, the safe's right there," he stated firmly. "You crack it, and then you get out of here, understand? You're too young for us to be risking you unnecessarily. Your Mom would never forgive me if you fell ill because I let you act recklessly."
"O-okay," Coco stammered out, walking over to the safe and quickly cracking it. Inside were two pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, much to both their surprise. The first page covered a Dive Collection technique developed by Chris Cooper. The second was a page penned by an unnamed Cooper, covering a technique called the Blood of Ice. It detailed a mental discipline that could allow one to control one's inner body temperature in a variety of environments. Apparently, it had been originally developed to prevent leaving evidence behind in snowy or icy areas, but later became useful for hiding from infrared sensors and night vision goggles. Seeing the second page, Coco couldn't help but chuckle. "Guess I get to stay down here after all," she offered teasingly.
"Rascal," Sly chided playfully. Once the two pages were memorized, Sly left the calling card behind. The second technique proved very effective once the pair put it into practice. "Odd that we'd just so happen to find the very page you'd need most of all in the safe that's the closest to the entrance to an area you couldn't explore without it, though. And odd that there's no name on the technique, either..."
"I'm sure it'll make sense eventually," Coco replied. "The pages seem stuck together...almost as though they were a single page before the heat of the room caused them to separate...and this technique was hidden on the inside of the pages..."
"As though it was deliberately left for you," Sly mumbled, thinking carefully. "...I wish I knew more about the legend of our legacy. Maybe there'd be answers there..."
"For now, let's get to the end," Coco suggested. "We shouldn't waste that much time. Just because Mommy hasn't shown up doesn't mean Raleigh's men won't find us."
"Right," Sly agreed, making a mental note to look into that when they were on the way to the next member of the Fiendish Five. Instead, the pair continued through the furnace area, encountering no obstacles that delayed them significantly from acquiring the hidden Treasure Key.
I love it when you add things like this, except when you make me wait for the big reveal.
Okay I can see two possible answers: 1 someone in the past had seers skills, 2 time shenanigans.
(On a side note I have no knowledge of this game or genre at all)
wow: it's ALMOST like someone besides Seft WANTED Coco to be in this world...or would that be somePONY?
Blood of Ice technique?
Well that's not suspicious.
I call time shenanigans, cause of Sly Four and the possibility of something happening in Sly 5. But anyways this is still one of my favorite stories of yours so keep up the good work
Calling it now. It's time travel.
7647822
The second one most likely given what happens in the fourth game.
Sounds like Sly heads into the past after all. Stable time loop confirmed.
7647887
This chapter was a real barrel of fun for Sly.
Coco came up with that brilliant idea to 'dart' across that rug section.
Confirmed, Coco just got 20% cooler.
7498278 Granted, he'll probably cut it down to a more manageable task, but doing what amounts to a rewrite of what is the longest Trek series and probably considered the seminal work of that franchise(in my own opinion anyway) is no easy feat.
7498607 I've seen you lurking around Tats' work and as of today I finally understand the connection between your username and your comments.
And I have a real... Bone to pick with you.
*insert CSI: Miami Yeeeeaaaah! here*
(Btw, gettin' tired of all that spaghetti?)
Looks like Bob Cooper is helping out Coco. Either him or Salim
Wow. If that's not a foreshadowing of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, I don't know what it is.
Freaking awesome chapter man, hehehe! How lucky for Coco, hahaha
7647882
I approve of this head-canon, hahahaha
So... from now on heat vision and infared are no longer a hassle for Cocco or Sly, right??? Because I swear sometimes that was the only way enemies could catch you in the playthroughs I watched.
7647852 Yeah... we know time travel hijinks happened in Sly 4 and the Cooper Clan as a whole was effected, so it could easily have been one of them passing the technique down.
7648122 Or possibly Sly himself after getting stuck in the past.
7647822 Can I just say time shenanigans can be fun, but are typically done horribly?
7648394 or maybe it was penned by Coco herself.... ever think of that?
And now we get to the plot twists. Looking forward to how this turns out.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
7648438 Oh! Didn't consider that possibility.
7648394 I was just about to say that as well. It makes sense.
7648122
7648394
7648438
7648632
It really is interesting isn't it? It really could explain why the page was unsigned. We will just have to wait and see.
7647801 Bad news then you got three games to go through before you get a answer.
7648309 Yeah most likely. Or maybe it's Coco in disguise but that's just a guess.
7649025
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/1d/34/c0/1d34c04e784db2873858c9b32c31c217.jpg
7647887 SHENANIGINS!!! EVERYBODY GO HOME AND GET YOUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!!!!
hmmmm...I sense temporal shenanigans!
And there is the fourth game entering the stage. Waiting to play its role.
7649116
7647822
7647862
Makes sense, that was the entire premise in the fourth game after all
Shenanigans shall intensify.
7647862 Do Wee Friggin' Doo!
7660540 argh wheres the next game wth happened to sly
Wow, three more pages. Even if it was just two in the original that's still faster than I was expecting (with no knowledge of the games). Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that the pages were going to be collected over the course of the entire story?
7888101 Each level in the game had a safe that contained one page while each of the major bosses also carried pages. Normally, you would have to scour the entire level to locate these small green clue bottles, and each safe required anywhere from 20 to 40 of them. Needless to say, Coco is saving the gang a ton of time.
8076445
And that's just the FIRST game, where they aren't that hard to find! Game 2 though...
Wasn't there a time travel game in the series somewhere.
7647852
Time shenanigans would make sense but let's try to avoid that easy answer.
8658543
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, the fourth one, for PS3 and PSVita. It's the most recent release, put out a few years ago, and it's second-best on my personal list. Sly 2 kinda overshadows it because of the range of tricks you get in that one, but Thieves has better graphics and is honestly flat-out awesome. We've yet to see a fifth game, though, so maybe when they make and release it it'll prove the true best Sly game. Only time will tell on that one.
As for this fic, I'm keeping my mouth shut. Speculations are all well and good, but one should never create them without first having information prevelant to the topic. Inevitably, you start twisting facts to suit theories rather than shaping the theories to suit the facts. "Data, data, data–I cannot make bricks without clay," to quote Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes. And I still haven't gotten confirmation of anything I've come to suspect one way or another.
8707722
I agree with Mr. Alucard Pony, this is Tats. Even that has been folded over itself and tied and if time shenanigans are involved they will have been twisted into a double layer corkscrew that has been folded over and retied 5.7 times. (why the decimal? do you really think Discord would use a whole number)
9296765
Wow, spot on