Operation: Wedding Crasher

"Tsao: Hear me, Sly Cooper? My lineage surpasses yours in every way! Sly: It's not about the family name, pal... it's what you do with it!"

- Tsao and Sly before the latter battles Tsao's family dragon

"Operation: Wedding Crasher" was a job and heist for Sly Cooper, Penelope, Murray, and Bentley in "A Cold Alliance" of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

Background
After immense preparation, it was time for the Cooper Gang to free Jing King, rob General Tsao blind and send him up the river.

Synopsis
Sly made his way up to General Tsao's treasure temple. Before heading in through the vent, the gang did a roll call to make sure everyone was ready and in position. Sly headed inside to let Penelope and Murray in through the front door before leaving for his rendezvous with the Guru and Panda King.

Penelope used her RC car to sneak past the temple's security nodes to get to the computer controlling the security system. Once the car got to the computer, Penelope destroyed it with the car's turret. However, once she did, the lasers blocking their entrance to the main room did not go away. Murray and Penelope figured out that there was a hidden backup computer somewhere that was preparing to reboot the security system, which would jeopardize the heist. Murray explained to Penelope how he had been in these situations before and learned that whenever things went wrong, the gang always fell back on the golden rule: destruction. Penelope agreed, saying she could use her RC car to blast the security nodes before the computer booted up. Once she did this, the lasers at the entrance disappeared, allowing her and Murray to roam the temple. Murray complimented her on her destructive skills. The two headed up to the temple's dragon statue, which was where the hatch door to Tsao's treasure was. They opened the door, and Penelope headed inside to inspect the treasure room. She said there was plenty of loot, but the temple's foundation was weak and unstable.

After leaving Penelope and Murray at the treasure temple, Sly made his way to the entrance to General Tsao's palace, where the Guru and the Panda King were waiting underneath. Before heading inside, Sly placed a calling card at the entrance. After Sly contacted the Panda King and the Guru to let them know he was in position, the Panda King explained that the vases around Sly were used in an ancient Chinese security technique to detect underground thieves. The Panda King would be using his fireworks to blast their way into Jing King's bridal chamber; the vibrations the fireworks create would shake the building and make the vases unstable. Sly had to prevent any of them from falling and tripping an alarm. Once the Panda King and Guru reached the bridal chamber, thereby rescuing Jing King, Sly entered the palace's living room and informed Bentley that it was his turn now.

Bentley used his Grapple-Cam to lure Carmelita, who was patrolling the streets, to the front of the palace, where Sly left his calling card. Sly told Bentley to keep his position on the stilt platform just below the temple, as that was where he would need to be to catch the treasure when Murray and Penelope dropped it to him. Once Bentley successfully lured Carmelita to the entrance, she noticed the calling card and went inside the palace to investigate. She spotted Sly dressing up in a General Tsao disguise and conversing with Bentley via radio about their secret plan, "Alpha," before he left out the door beside him. After overhearing that and thinking Sly was going to steal Tsao's bride during the wedding ceremony with the entire Cooper Gang in attendance, Carmelita decided to take the place of the bride and arrest the gang during the wedding. She went into Jing King's now-vacant bridal room and disguised herself as the bride. Afterwards, General Tsao came in the living room to investigate the vibrations that were disturbing his meditation. Not knowing his unwilling bride was already freed and replaced, he told her that he would not let anything get in the way of their marriage. He then left for his treasure temple.

By the time Tsao left, the Panda King and the Guru were waiting in the Cooper Van with Jing King, and Murray and Penelope had just finished opening the treasure room in the temple. Sly exited the palace through the roof and informed the Panda King via radio that Carmelita took the bait. Sly then informed Murray that Tsao was on his way to his and Penelope's position and asked for the progress on the treasure theft. Murray told Sly they were doing awesome and, unable to contain his excitement and wary of the fact Tsao was coming, Thunder Flopped down into the treasure room. The flop destroyed the temple's unstable foundation and caused Murray and Penelope to fall through the ground with the treasure. As the rest of the temple fell into the water, Tsao ran towards the temple to find out what happened, and Bentley managed to jump out of the way of the temple and onto another rooftop. Realizing what happened, Tsao cursed the gang for destroying his family's treasure temple. Murray fired back at Tsao and threatened to break his face for messing with the Cooper Gang. When Tsao responded by saying that Murray couldn't hurt him, Murray begged to differ and launched the treasure chest down to Bentley.

Outraged, Tsao summoned the temple's Stone Dragon to attack the Cooper Gang. It shot a humongous fireball near Murray, causing him to jump off the cliff where the temple once stood and break his fall on some wedding fireworks, before it grabbed Penelope. As Tsao proclaimed his superiority to the Cooper family, Sly retorted by saying that it was not about the family name, but what you did with it. As Tsao walked away sure of victory, Sly prepared to find a way to free Penelope. After Murray realized what the fireworks he landed in could do, he had Sly use the fireworks to fly up to the dragon and attack it until it released Penelope. Once the dragon was defeated, Sly paraglided Penelope down safely to the van. An onlooking Tsao boasted to the gang that while they stole his treasure and defeated his family dragon, he still had Jing King and that the wedding would go on as planned. Sly and Penelope got inside the van and the gang made their escape.

Aftermath
General Tsao's wedding ceremony started at the planned time. However, when it came time to unveil the bride, Carmelita revealed herself as the bride and shocked Tsao with her pistol. When she handcuffed Tsao, she realized that it was not Sly in disguise. While she was angry that she had been duped, she still arrested Tsao, as his summoning of the undead was illegal in China.

Meanwhile, the Panda King officially joined the Cooper Gang. As he promised to aid the gang in the Cooper Vault heist, he requested for Jing King to be dropped off at her aunt's house for her safety. The gang then took a break in Shanghai.

Trivia

 * The lines Penelope, Murray, and The Guru use during the roll call at the beginning of the mission are the same ones they used, or would eventually use, during the roll call at the beginning of "The Cooper Vault."
 * Though letting the vases break fails this mission, the vases can be easily destroyed by Bentley in an earlier mission, "Laptop Retrieval."