~Location: Palace Gates - Egypt~
~Date/Time: 1300 B.C., Unknown~

Exiled...

Completely stripped of his rank, wealth, and power...

Pharaoh was no doubt displeased with assassins and thieves inside his palace. As acting head of security at the palace gates, whom else would Pharaoh confront other than his vizier, Ausar?

Despite learning that his faithful adviser had betrayed his trust, Pharaoh did not deal death to the owl. No... A much worse punishment was put into effect.

The wings that were prohibited to lift the owl higher than the Pharaoh's crown were bound in hot leather straps, now unable to open at all. Jewels and golden robes were removed, shaming the owl. One final instruction was given to the owl before the gates were shut on him.

Ausar had been instructed to march across the desert dunes until the sands ran out. When the owl did not understand, Pharaoh smirked and demanded that the owl walk to the edge of the desert sands or walk until the sand in his hourglass had fallen; whichever came first...

As Ausar began to follow this last order given to him, he saw the eyes of the rural city, no longer seeing him as a threat. Some even threw food at him in disgust; the three guards of the first patrol gave harsh glares as he walked past.

Even stripped of sandals, the hot sands started to burn the clawed feet of the owl as he walked. He screeched as his claw made contact with something hotter than the sand, examining the ground to find a hot metal shard under a few inches of sand. Among it were several other fragments of fabric and metal.

"This... This is where the shepherd fell from the sky..."

The shepherd... The shepherd was the trap-maker's accomplice. That cane that the shepherd had... The crest... The crest was similar to that of the trap-maker's own sickles. They were related...

Taking another step sent a sharp pain through his claw, the owl blacking out almost immediately.

###

~Location: Prehistoric Camp Grounds - Russia~
~Date/Time: Unknown (Prehistoric, of course!), Unknown~

The owl had not much time to ponder what had hurt him before he found himself disoriented, regaining awareness and discovering that he was not where he was before. The campsite he was in had been hit with a massive storm of chaos; people wearing loincloths slowly rose if they were able to. Others had to be dragged away from him.

Away? Anyone still breathing either fled from him on their feet or on their backs, pulled away from the owl if he was considered a threat. Fear... Such a welcoming feeling... Seeing himself in the middle of a round crater in the ground, he noticed that the leather strap that bound his wings had been broken. His wings had not been bound long enough to do harm to them. He was uninjured.

The same couldn't be said in regards to the unfortunate ones that woke up to the terror before them. Their mouths dropped and they yelled, shouting inarticulate sounds before running away with the rest of them.

Ausar found it odd that they were struck speechless with his presence. Had he not been just banished? What rank did he have amongst these that did not speak?

His wings draped open, the wind found to be soothing against his feathers. Oh, how he wanted to take flight again. He was actually urged to do so when the primitive natives returned with sharpened sticks.

The owl spread his wings in a threatening display and gave a horrid screech once more. His opponents mostly turned tail and ran; those brave or foolish enough to proceed learned what a costly mistake it was to do so.

When one decided to throw a spear, the bladed edge of the wood made contact. The owl fled and took flight, taking refuge on a high mountain that would be later called 'Krack-Karov Volcano'.

Where was he? The owl perched to ponder for a moment, thinking it over. His mind fell to thinking of how bewildered his guard looked as he babbled a nonsensical story of a shepherd falling from the sky. He might not have fallen from the sky, but didn't the natives below react in a similar manner?

Yes. They feared him because he was foreign to them. It was very similar the story of the shepherd. He did not belong. But where did he come from? Why did the foreign shepherd carry a crook similar to the sickles of the trap-maker?

Unanswered questions angered the owl. After calming himself down, two questions remained to be answered.

Could he get back to his old life?

Hmph... An old life of being servant to Pharaoh... Everything was planned so that he could take power. He had wealth, nobility, and a reputation that meant he was feared. It had been taken from him.

Did he want to go back?

Well... He has no home... But... He was feared here. Feared indeed. The natives might understand ritual sacrifices to their Gods.

A god? Was he a god here? Hmm... A powerful being that struck fear if he should ever be angered and dealt death if he should ever be confronted. To be honest, he wouldn't be referred as a god, but immortalized by ancient natives as a legend.

Thus his fate would be decided. Immortalized in the stories to be forever remembered, 'visiting' the natives to remind them in case they should ever forget.

That is, until he was reminded of a wound that the spear-thrower had left on him. His body would not last for him to be called a legend. Once he died, the legend would die too.

After a while, perching like this was becoming painful on one of his claws. A glance down revealed that his talons had embedded themselves in an odd object that he did not recognize. This must be what caused him pain before he woke up here.

Attempting to slide it off his claw resulted in another small burst of pain before it was removed successfully. This time, the owl had not blacked out. He was still here... consciously and physically.

Little did he know that he discovered electricity... The application for this would come later. For now, it was good fortune that the Egyptian owl found shelter near a volcano, the rising thermal heat coupled with the harsh cold winds of icy Russia to make a suitable home. Supplies can always be acquired from the locals. They wouldn't mind sharing.

Ancient Egyptians had learned to smelt copper from ore and extract iron from fallen meteorites. Even these primitive beasts would learn to extract metal eventually. Ausar, native to Egypt, thus had several years of experience ahead of these beasts. He had the molten slag of the volcano as his source of metal; rich, organic soil to grow food; and melted ice and snow for water.

With the retrieval of the metal came some problems. His raw, forged metal was vulnerable when once again exposed to the high heat of the volcano. With time, that was resolved as a sturdy, magma-resistant metal had been created.

As the owl forged in his secluded lair, he often stole from those at the base of the mountain, stealing food along with supplies to heal wounds from previous battles.

Being injured too often became a problem. With time, his sturdy metal was forged into armor. It prevented most wounds from occurring, but was often too heavy for him to lift in flight with his wings. It produced unwanted fatigue.

Another problem arose, and with time, it was solved. The owl altered his diet for more energy, but was simultaneously harming his body by not taking in proper food.

The owl had a spark of insight, using something that had been provided. Discovering thermal energy far sooner than the modern civilized ever did, he sated his need for food with a short burst of electrical energy produced from the heat of his volcano.

To limit his need for his new source of power, he made a choice and painfully replaced his beautiful wings with metallic ones that would be surely strong enough to lift his body.

Failing and falling armor lead to the choice of welding metal together, feathers and flesh torn away and replaced with a seamless metallic shell. With time, this was complete.

The urge to just feed off of power rather than food overcame the owl, prompting the decision to remove food from his diet and ultimately replace his stomach with one that could obtain energy from any material.

Lungs went next, the owl discovering the power of the wind and essentially turning his lungs into wind turbines for a portable source of power.

Lesser organs went after that. Biological needs were in his way of becoming a divine legend and were thus removed.

The owl hesitated on replacing his circulatory system, due to the fact that his brain was dependent on a steady supply of blood. What if he removed his brain? That would also be a problem. It was currently running his entire frame. Mechanical organs still depended on a brain to direct his thoughts.

It was unclear how someone could do all these things to their own body or remain sane after each procedure, but... the owl had done it.

The final procedure to become completely mechanical would take a lot of time now. The owl did have an idea... The small mechanical thing that he had taken with him to his new home... The one his talon had stabbed and triggered in the first place...

It had what he needed to make a mechanical brain. Time didn't matter anyone more as he worked, self-teaching himself how to construct a simple computer and further advancing them at any opportunity he had.

About this time, the mindless natives below had gotten smarter, growing in packs with a select few having specific jobs. They were still so primitive. When his work hit a snag in its design, the owl took flight, mechanical wings now lifting a heavier metal frame much easier than his mortal form could ever accomplish.

It was on this casual flight, that the owl saw something of interest, perching up high to look down at the pathetic beings below him. The being that caught his attention was in the process of gathering food, the figure muscular and adept at climbing ice walls. The figure did have a tool that it used, said tool held by the creature's tail as it climbed. The crest of the tool... looked familiar... Why was he angry from seeing this beast? And... He had stolen a large egg...

The behemoth had stolen supplies... without metal? He was a better thief? This could not be allowed.

"Cooper..." The owl had muttered the name in a cold voice that he now knew as his own before taking flight, having what he needed to complete his final project.

It was such a simple command to program into a computer chip. He sacrificed his memories as Ausar and replaced it with new memories in a rebirth in order to give his mechanical frame the eternal determination it needed. Out of pure jealousy and hatred, the mechanical owl would hunt and methodically eliminate any raccoon unfortunate enough to carry the familiar Cooper crest as their own.

With the final piece of his mechanic puzzle solved and the final piece of his mortality revoked, Ausar (under the later-given name of Clockwerk) was now immortal, even going as far as to replace each of his individual bones with pieces of metal that would operate in the same way as before right after his pesky nerves and blood vessels were viciously stripped for the addition of a mechanical heart and brain. How he even did this is unknown, but... he survived.

A final rite of passage to immortality was to sacrifice his mortal body to the flames of the volcano. Feather, flesh, and bone were no match for the molten material.

Ausar was dead. Clockwerk lived in his place.

With a triumphant vertical take-off, the owl once again screeched, reminding those below him that a beast ruled over their lives.

This beast then took off in a driven desire, pure anger fuelling the mechanic owl's rampage.

###

~Location: Varies~
~Date/Time: Approximately 10,000 B.C. to Present Day~

Alas, his anger could not be sated now; the behemoth Cooper defeating the owl like how 'Bob' had learned how to knock some maternally-driven pterodactyl with his cane away like a housefly before escaping with her eggs.

The owl admitted defeat and fled.

Clockwerk didn't see the signature crest of his enemy's ancestry again until he flew over Ancient Egypt, not even remembering his mortal self anymore. Slytunkhamen Cooper's son had taught his own son the same trick that his father had taught him. It was now that Clockwerk was aware that each Cooper was spreading their secrets to the next Cooper.

Blinded by rage, Clockwerk's only method was to confront and kill any Cooper he saw. It was not to be as each Cooper he faced had bested him. He could not win.

The owl was also drawn to an unavoidable dilemma. His perfect, lava-resistant metal was rusting. Internal mechanical organs, his metallic shell, and even his symbolic wings would fall prey to this natural phenomenon.

The solution to this problem would take time. Although the bird had such time, he did not have a place to work. For this, he needed cheap, bountiful metal.

The hunt took him to the thriving metalwork industry in the late 17th Century. Below him, blacksmith's and forgers worked hard to build with the metal they found. He dove down to find a shop in a small town on a coastline of the North Atlantic Sea.

There he met the owner of the shop while attempting to steal some scrap metal. The rust had taken the time to manifest in visible locations on the metallic body. With the metallic bird wrapped in cloth, the owner of the forgery fearlessly caught the thief.

The owner, a slate-grey wolf in his early adulthood and his prime, confronted him. The thief decided to barter with the wolf, who then asked for payment in exchange for the stolen metal. The thief could not pay in currency and in returned offered something better. The wolf refused the proposal and the thief screeched a vicious threat before vanishing without a trace.

Other shop owners were less bold and gave the metal willingly. In 20 years, Clockwerk made himself a home and then focused on something revolutionary. He may not have understood exactly what it accomplished, but he focused on making machines and computers progressively smaller so that they could remove the small amounts of rust before they built up.

After celebrating a success by bathing in the hot lava from which he was forged, the owl remembered a threat that was left unfinished.

The owl returned to the small village that the blacksmith lived in, announcing his arrival by crashing into the barn and retaining no injuries.

Clockwerk left his mark on a male wolf in his early adulthood and prime but made a mistake. Instead of his intended target, he successfully attacked his target's son in law; this made clear by the fact that the wolf that lay before him wore an unrecognized silver necklace in the shape of a crescent moon.

The attack wasn't a total waste of effort. Upon bestowing some of his own machinery on to the wolf, Clockwerk had forged another plan in his wicked mind. Using her husband as his slave, he would corrupt his mind with anger and rage until he lashed out against his own wife. Thus, the scourge against the blacksmith was salvaged and Clockwerk would settle for killing the blacksmith's daughter.

What the owl didn't take into account actually worked into his favor. The townspeople grew rapidly afraid of the wolf-servant and accused Clockwerk's target as the culprit. They took matters into their own hands and hanged the young wife before imprisoning the owl's servant. Clockwerk considered the event to be a successful revenge plot and left. The wicked owl came back to watch the wolf mourn, finding it at intriguing that his subject did not physically age. Eventually, the owl grew bored over the uneventful years and completely left to not return again.

More Coopers faced and more losses were obtained against the owl. Not one Cooper died by his claw.

Throughout all of his failures against the Cooper's, one thing remained. While Clockwerk would rather attack directly to win, the Coopers were more prepared for that and could easily counter. It became clear that the owl needed assistance.

He met first with a frog that was of a supposed wealthy background. Grown up to lose appreciation of everything served to him, he caught Clockwerk's eye when the criminal life was one more worth living. This cheap mechanic would make short work of improving Clockwerk's lair for him into more of a fortress.

Clockwerk's next contact was a crocodile with skill in knowledge in the dark arts. Her purpose was in vengeance, summoned spirits were her only friends as she grew up and she wanted those who rejected her to pay for such a mistake. The owl expressed his interest in communicating with the spirits of the fallen Coopers in order to know what bested them in life. No spirits manifested out of fear, the crocodile says, but she crudely remarked how none of fell to Clockwerk.

A third colleague was a bulldog with an overly-muscular upper body, dominantly in his arms that he walked on more than his own legs. This member was also a character bent on vengeance, tormenting the bullies that teased him as he grew up when he met them again stronger than before. The bulldog was unfortunately dull-witted; his contribution to the gang was his contacts among the crime world.

Clockwerk picked up a final member of his team, a panda with advanced skill over pyrotechnics. Again, this new member was motivated by revenge. The panda officially caught the owl's attention when an uneventful fireworks display sparked a chain of events that thousands of innocent lives fell victim to. This panda had turned his art into a weapon, the owl asking if the same could be done for his technology.

As a gang of five, the gang built a reputation and a name. Clockwerk still had his intention on wiping the Cooper lineage away and he might've found a chance.

According to the bulldog, there was a Cooper living his life aside from thieving. The crocodile confirmed that he was a Cooper, but no longer a thief. Clockwerk hunted Connor Cooper alone for some time, making a strike when he saw that the raccoon was retiring from his day job as a computer technician. Armed with only a box of belongings, they scattered as the raccoon fell easily. Among the belongings was a photograph of Connor's family, a wife and young son. The raccoon pleaded for Clockwerk to spare their lives and take his, but the owl refused. Connor then made an agreement that he could offer his son's life. As along as his son, Sly, could grow up into a young man, Clockwerk would have the honor of killing a Cooper in their prime instead of killing a small child. The owl agreed to the proposal; secretly devising a plan to make the deal run in his favor.

As expected, Connor Cooper started teaching Sly at a young age. Either by directly teaching him or by Sly sneaking into his father's study to read a certain book, Sly would learn to be a master thief. Connor's wife was distraught of the news that her son was learning to steal when his father promised that the criminal life was over. Connor then explained the deal he made to his wife, saying that if Sly can learn these things, he would be able to fight and win. She left him with Sly to be a single father, only to be caught to be used as bait to lure Connor away. Due to the hostile conditions (the heat of the volcano or torture of captivity- unsure as to which), Connor's wife unexpectedly died and her Missing Person's case went cold.

Again, something coincidental worked in the villain's favor. Connor became ashamed of what he had done to betray his own family and his ancestors, tearing away at photos of himself so that no Cooper after him would remember it. He took Sly and fled, Clockwerk needing the rest of his gang to track him down for a final assault. While the deal was to not fight Sly until he reached adulthood, Clockwerk proceeded with murdering Connor and instructing his team to destroy the place. With the loss of his parents and family manual, Clockwerk believed that the young raccoon would never learn what he needed to become a true Cooper.

The gang of five split the loot and left. Clockwerk had his celebratory lava bath as he rejoiced in his victory. Finally... His claws have killed a Cooper... His plan to destroy the legacy they left would succeed. All he had to do was hunt and kill Sly when he was grown.

He didn't take Sly's will-power into consideration. Over the years as he grew, Sly assembled his own gang, much like his father before him. Determined to regain his family's honor, Sly methodically attacked each of the five members in the gang of villains and won. Seeing his colleagues jailed, Clockwerk took action and used the raccoon's love interest as bait.

In the end, Sly won. Clockwerk refused to listen to proposed flaws in his plan before he challenged Sly one-on-one.

Once Sly thwacked the bird's head off to float into the lava, Clockwerk's world went dark.

It didn't stay dark. Clockwerk's conscious mind still lived. It finally saw light when another bird had reassembled the parts into a near-complete frame. Negating the brain and Clockwerk's memories in the construction, the flightless bird had devised a complicated scheme to achieve immortality. Another conscious being binding with his metal frame would bind their 'souls'. Instead of the bird, another figure- a treacherous female tiger- sacrificed her organic body and bonded with the frame.

Clockwerk was officially dead. Clock-La lived in his place.

It was a short existence. Clockwerk had no previous memories, but fed his hatred to the tiger within him.

She enjoyed her freedom and the gift of flight before she was actively confronted. Her plan had not been completed and Clock-La was not truly immortal.

She took massive damage, managing to cripple a member of the Cooper Gang before she was deactivated. Once the core component, the Hate Chip, was removed and destroyed, Clockwerk finally saw permanent death. The tiger presumably died; still attached to his frame.