Sly Cooper was very young indeed when his father first sat him on his knee and told him of his heritage.

(That conversation stuck with him ever clearly for the rest of his life and was much treasured, for an owl's claws ripped that life to pieces soon after. He didn't have many memories left of that early age, could only recall a blur of vague happiness.)

A shiver of excitement had ran down his spine then, for what little boy did not like to hear he was special, born for greatness? He was to be the next link in an unbroken lineage that had persisted for millennia, an heir to a clan of extraordinary thieves.

It was a measure of worth and ability, his father had said, to aim for those who thought themselves above and untouchable by law, who assumed they could abuse others without consequences.

The Coopers had honour.

And there was no challenge nor fun in stealing from ordinary people.

That night, he had first shouldered the weight of his family history and the expectations of his ancestors. Yet, it felt not like a burden. His father had puffed his pipe and smiled proudly.

(Later, much later in his life, Sly would come to learn that his father had left more than just Clockwerk out of his tales. Later yet, he would find that this was for a good reason, for not everyone was blessed with companions as good and trustworthy as Bentley and Murray.)

There might have been a tiny sliver of sadness, uninvited and fleeting, for his dreams of being a police officer, a trapeze artist or a spy were now forever beyond his reach. His fate had been set before he was even born, a contract signed by his blood.

And yet, those thoughts had been weeded out with very little pain, having not had time to grow deep roots in his heart. If he ever remembered his regret later in life, he thought it silly, for was he not an exceptional climber, were his fingers not agile and fast, was he not able to squeeze through impossibly small openings, to walk unseen by being and beast?

Sly liked the glimmer of gold and jewels too much, appreciated the beauty of priceless stolen artefacts too deeply, loved the thrill of stealing far more than honest labour and sweat. Thousands of years of thieving were in his blood and would not be denied.

It was his fair fortune that the family business suited him well.

(Later, many years later, after he had accomplished what his ancestors had strived for countless centuries, he would realise what his father had done: why he had been told of his heritage that young, so young he did not yet doubt the word and will of his parents. There was no bitterness in the thought.)

Not long after and as soon as Sly could read, his father put a precious family heirloom in his hands: an ancient leather-bound book with heavy gilded letters adorning the cover.

Thievius Raccoonus was in no way a book to be ignored. The tome had a certain heavy presence to it, as if it literally carried the weight of his clan's history. Sly felt it tingle against his fingers and imagined that it was the spirits of his ancestors, reaching to greet him across time and space.

Some of the pages he merely glanced at, as it was still much too soon for him to learn the more advanced moves. Certain other pages his father declined to show him (and those were probably about Clockwerk, those must have been about Clockwerk, was a stray thought that hit him on their way back to Paris from Krack-Karov Volcano).

For some time yet, life was good.

.

.

It was not to last.

Later, he would think it a cruel coincidence that it all happened on the very night he was to fully inherit the book. Huddling in that tiny closet, he could only wait, powerless, as his world crashed around him. There were five intruders, all different sizes and shapes. He could not see much in the low light, but it was easy to tell the attackers had the upper hand.

Sly retreated to the far end of the closet, not wanting to see, but he could not help hearing even when he pressed his palms against his ears. He eventually lost track of the screams and the crashes, just desperately waiting for it all to end.

Then, there was silence.

It took Sly several seconds to realise it was over. For a fleeting moment hope blossomed bright inside him. Then, several decidedly foreign voices and heavy steps echoed through the room. Familiar dread filled him again, now mixed with despair. The outcome of the fight was obvious enough.

Loud bangs and crashes echoed through the room now; the intruders seemed to be looking for something. Sly forced himself to move back to the door and look. His eyes widened in an entirely new horror.

No.

There lay forced open the most secure, sturdy vault of his home, which held only one item, as precious as it was irreplaceable. One brute wrenched the book's covers open and tore the pages off with no particular regard, separating the it into five pieces. It was almost like physical pain to watch and keep silent.

They had already taken his parents. Now, they stole his legacy.

There was nothing to do but watch, hoping against all hope they wouldn't find him too. He was helplessly, desperately aware he was at the mercy of fate... and luck.

.

.

Apparently fate had decided to cut Sly some slack, or he'd somehow gained Lady Luck's capricious favour.

He kept still inside his closet long after the intruders had left, mind blank and reeling with shock. What had happened was too sudden, too violent and extreme. It might have taken minutes or hours to put his thoughts into some sort of order.

Eventually, he did. His every limb seemed to tremble and it was a laborious affair to even rise to his feet and leave the closet. The world lurched and spun in circles around him as he made his way to the discarded remains of Thievius Raccoonus.

He didn't know how long he stared at the empty covers that were left of his family heirloom, stranded on the floor, violated and ruined.

In the end, he picked them up and went looking for his father. By then, his trembling at least had abated and the world deigned to keep still. He felt hardly better for it.

His home had been a maze of carpeted corridors and lovely, big rooms, filled with beautiful furniture and many priceless artefacts. Most everything was now broken or stolen; glass, porcelain and wood cracked and splintered beneath his feet. The noise was deafening in a house that was otherwise silent as a tomb.

He found his father on the floor of the living room, his form still and broken. The man had always held an impression of contained speed, alike a coiled spring, ever ready to leap into action at a moment's notice. None of that energy was left now. His stillness had something very final about it.

Sly curled up against his chest and sobbed bitterly. The warmth of his father's blood was already waning.

.

.

Sly could never quite remember much of the following days. He had been taken to a police station for questioning (and wasn't it a peculiar thing to be in the police car unrestrained; he wasn't supposed to be the victim).

The room was messy and in need of repair; the file cabinets on the far end were all but falling apart. There was a single fluorescent lamp hanging from the ceiling, its light bright and pallid. Every now and then it flickered with an ominous zap.

Sly was curled up on a plastic chair, next to a desk covered by papers and office equipment. There was a thick woollen blanket on his shoulders and someone had handed him a mug of hot chocolate, which had been abandoned to cool untouched. Adults were talking nearby, their voices blurred together into meaningless background noise.

Sly gripped tighter at the cane, the only thing that seemed to ground him to reality. Heartbeat erratic and unbearably loud in his ears, Sly stared at his feet, yet did not see them but the ghastly image of his father, laying still on the floor, crimson blood slowly soaking in the carpet.

(Expensive one, his father had stolen it for his mother, it was of excellent Arabian craft, his mother had loved it, now ruined and bloody like his fa-)

Sly blinked back furious, scorching tears that threatened to fall, trying not to sniffle and pulled closer to the cane clutched in his arms. He had that heirloom left, at least. He would yet have his revenge, too.

They had made one mistake, Sly was still alive. It would cost them.

Sly clung to that thought. He would not be a helpless eight year old child forever. He was a Cooper and he would one day take back what was his.

(Gripped as he was by his grief, Sly could never have anticipated he was about to meet the two most important people in his life.)

.

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Author's notes: Oops, my finger slipped. I seem to do this thing where I write stories with premises that are at least a little derided. Self insert, time travel and now (more or less) canon novelisation.

That said, this will be at least somewhat AU. There are many things that simply don't work well in a written story, mostly things that have to do with game mechanics. There's also the fact that I don't want to bore people with rehashing things exactly as they are. More of a case of 'took a different route to the same goal' than going somewhere else entirely, however.

I do wonder what people will think of this. I'm not necessarily expecting a lot of attention, though, considering how small the fandom is.