(So, we're back! I dunno if I'm still writing the Haunted Heist one or not, and thankfully, it wasn't a secular thing, so that wasn't something to worry about, but still unsure. But I figured I'd get into a bit of the thievery side of them and see what they teach Zeke while he was growing up with them before the turnaround. Enjoy!)
Wolf was hoping today would go well. He was finally gonna have to have Zeke learn stuff about the world. Since they can't register him into school without getting caught, they have to make do with the teaching they could give him. Wolf had already been trying to teach him how to pick pockets.
"Morning, Daddy." The five-year old had said, still tired. "Still not fully awake yet, buddy?" Wolf asked. Zeke barely opened his eyes and started falling asleep on the kitchen table.
"Ready to learn your ABCs?" Wolf asked, trying to hype him up. "Sleep now…ABCs…never…" Zeke then said. Wolf patted his son's head to wake him up a little bit. "I'll let you draw later on." Wolf said, Zeke trying to wake up a little bit. "Will you color pictures with me?" Zeke asked, "Yeah, sure! Come on, let's wake up and ace this first day of school!" Wolf encouraged, patting his son's back.
(ABCs With Piranha)
Piranha was in charge of teaching Zeke his Alphabet, and since he wanted to teach his sobrino Spanish, he was excited. "So, we're gonna start with the flash cards, okay?" Piranha said, pulling out a few custom made ABC flash cards.
"A is for…say it with me…" Piranha encouraged. "Uh…A-Alibi…" Zeke read the word on the card.
"Good good! Here, let's move on…B is for…" Piranha said. "Oh, dat's a bank." Zeke said, pointing at the picture of money.
"Nice job, chamaco!" Wolf looked a little unsure if this was the right way. "Piranha, didn't I buy a thing of flash cards?" Wolf asked.
"Yeah, and they were BORING! We may as well teach our niño ABCs the fun way." Piranha had explained. Wolf just chuckled, but he was still unsure. "Come on, let's try it this way." Wolf brought out the other set of flash cards.
"What? Hermano…" Piranha looked upset, "Zekey, we're at C, right? C is for…" Wolf showed him the card. "Oh, it's a car!" Zeke said, excitedly. "Yes! Nice job! D is for…" Wolf held up the d card, "Dis…Disguise…?" Zeke said, which confused his father.
Wolf looked at the card and he saw that it was a durian on the picture. "Y-You're right, kiddo, but how'd…" Wolf sighed and looked at Piranha who had a card held up. "Piranha." Wolf simply said, "What? No kid knows what a durian is, and it stinks! Ugh!" Piranha remembered, "Oh, like your farts aren't worse." Wolf said, smirking. "Don't focus on Tío's cards, Zekey, focus on mine, okay?" Wolf said.
"Okay." Zeke said, "All right, let's try and see if you know an E word without looking at the card…" Wolf said, looking at the card.
"E is for…" Zeke then tried to think of a word, "Uh…Ex-tour-shun?" Wolf was shocked, "How do you know a word like "extortion"?" He asked, before he realized and sighed. "Yes, kiddo. But E is also for…" Wolf turned the card around, "Oh, Earth!" Zeke pointed at the card. "Nice job, kiddo!" Wolf put his paw up for a high-five, to which Zeke replied happily. "After this, we'll move on to learning Spanish, okay, chamaco?" Piranha asked.
(Math With Webs)
"Okay, we're gonna do something called Math, okay, bud?" Webs explained, "Okay, Aunnie Webs…"Zeke said, smiling and watching her be on the computer. "I've got…let's see…" Webs looked at the best way to teach the toddler rabbit, "Here, I'm sure you're old enough for this." Webs printed out a few pages that looked Wolf looked and saw that they were multiplication pages. "Webs, these pages are a little excessive, don't you think?" Wolf asked. "What? Even if that's the case, as long as we walk him through it, he'll learn it in no time." Webs said, folding his arms, "I dunno, Webs. That might just confuse him to learn now." Webs rolled her eyes. "Dude, this is baby stuff. We may as well make things easier for him in the future by teaching it now." Webs suggested
"Webs, I didn't learn multiplication when I was 5." Wolf said, "Yeah well, ya didn't learn how to use your own phone, either." Webs said, smirking back at him. Wolf just looked annoyed, "Look, let's take it slow. Count up to 20 and simple addition problems only for right now." Wolf suggested, Webs rolled her eyes again, "O-Kay, fine." Webs then printed out some worksheets that were small addition problems. "All right, kiddo. Let's focus on counting."
Wolf pulled out some counting flash cards before having him get on the problems.
"Now, how many strawberries do you see?" Wolf asked, "Count it out with me, okay?" Wolf asked. "Okay, Daddy." Zeke said, "Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…" Wolf had smiled a bit, while he heard Zeke count each number and said each word. "There ya go! That's my boy!" He said, laughing a little.
(Art with Shark)
"All right, buddy, let's see how well you know your colors!" Shark said, "Let's not make a mess here, okay Shark?" Wolf asked, pulling out a set of paints for Zeke. "Relax, he's just learning what colors make what." Shark said, pulling out a brush.
"Careful, okay? Now, Zekey, I want you to pick a color. Pick any color." Shark started it out with red, yellow and blue. "Uh…blue!" Zeke said, "Good choice, my bluest bunny!" Wolf said, making a joke. "All right, I want you to pick between which colors that are left." Shark made a small puddle of blue paint elsewhere. "Uh…red!" Zeke said, "Red it is. Now, watch what happens when I mix the colors together." Shark grabbed the red paint and mixed it with the blue. Zeke's eyes lit up and saw the wonder of it turning purple, "Awesome, Uncle Lou!"
"Thanks, this is what happens when you mix the Primary Colors—red, yellow or blue together." Shark said, "Primary colors are always red, blue and yellow. And you can use them to create something called secondary colors." Shark began to show the other examples. Wolf smiled, his boy seemed into the lesson.
"All right, so what colors did I use and what color did I make, buddy?" Shark asked. "Uh…You used yellow and blue to make green!" Zeke said, "Can I try one? Please?" Zeke asked. "Sure, kiddo!" Shark said, giving the paintbrush to the boy. "Here, red and yellow make…" Zeke tried to mix the colors together to see what was made. "Orange, like the juice! Can I drink it?" Zeke asked, innocently. "Ah, no, no, no! Paint's not something we can drink, Zekey." Shark said.
"Wait, why?" Zeke asked, "We'll explain that in science when you're older, okay?" Wolf asked.
(Animals with Snake)
Snake didn't look like he wanted to be here, but he knew he wouldn't hear the end of it from Wolf if the brat didn't learn anything from him.
"All right, Zeke, let's get this over with." Snake said, pulling up flash cards of animals. "These are cows, what do they do?" Snake asked, unenthusiastically. "Uh…Moo!" Zeke said, "Okay, good. Let's try this one. What do owls say?" Snake asked, "Uh…hoot hoot?" Zeke asked. "Yeah, that's right." Snake looked through the cards and looked at Wolf. He smirked and decided to make this fun. "Okay, let's see, kid. What do wolves say?" Snake asked. "Uh…" Zeke thought about it first, "They say "I love you" and "don't play with da cash"," Zeke tried to think, Wolf just chuckled, "Nice job, Zekey. But wolves normally howl, like "Wooo…"" He whispered.
"That said, what do snakes normally say?" Wolf asked, "Oh, they shout "Shut up!" when it's too noisy and act like Mr. Grumpypants…right?" Zeke asked, innocently. Wolf just chuckled a little bit, "You set that one up, Wolf!" Snake said, "Oh, like you weren't trying to make him say something weird about me." Wolf scoffed waving his hand at his best friend. "You can't prove that! But since when do ya say "I love you"?" Snake asked, "What? I can't tell my kid that I love him?" Wolf asked. "Ya know what I mean, man. We're Bad Guys, you know? We're hyping this brat up to think we're nice or something." Snake asked. "And we STILL are Bad Guys, man. I mean, I said nice things about you and the others before and you didn't get mad then, y'know?" Wolf asked. Snake rolled his eyes, "Then let's test it out. Zeke, what do Sharks say?" Snake asked, Wolf had pointed at his son, "Buddy, you don't have to answer that." Zeke looked confused, "Sharks say…uh…Oh! Uncle Lou always says a lot of funny stuff when he plays pretend. Is that right?" Zeke said. Snake sighed,
"See, he's already gettin' the wrong impression of us." Wolf looked at his friend, "Well, maybe Zeke isn't simpleminded about us like most folk." Wolf tried to say, "Yeah, what about Spiders, what do they say?" Snake asked. Zeke's ears perked up, "Aunnie Webs says a lot of things, doh. She likes to make fun of Tío a lot, too." Zeke said.
"Snake, come on, you're overthinking this whole thing." Wolf said. Snake huffed in annoyance, "Zeke, snakes go "hisss", like a monster." Snake said. "Uncle, you're a snake, but you're not a monster, are you?" Snake was shocked to hear that question. Zeke seriously thought Snake wasn't some sort of monster?
(Shapes With Wolf)
Wolf decided to teach Zeke one last thing for the day, and it was teaching him shapes and giving good examples of shapes. "Okay, kiddo, we'll do a quick review." Wolf pulled out a shape from a small box. "What's this one?" Wolf asked,
"It's a trap!" Zeke said, "Trap-e-zoid, Zekey. Trapezoid." Wolf said, before pulling out another shape. "What about this one?" Wolf asked.
"Can I see?" Zeke asked, "Knock yourself out." Wolf was smiling brightly, "One, two…three, four…" Zeke kept counting until he stopped at eight. "It's an octopus…uh…and octagon." Zeke said, remembering the word. "You're doing great, kiddo! You counted them, too, that makes it even better!" Wolf said.
"Let's try another…" Wolf said. The other Bad Guys looked on and saw that this wasn't the Wolf they're used to. Shark wasn't surprised enough, "I've never seen him so happy…about this baby stuff…" Webs said. "Yeah, I mean, why teach our niño the boring way? He'd like it more if he did what no crime related things." Piranha said.
"Y'all worry too much, he's just trying to make sure Zekey gets and knows the small stuff before he needs to know the big stuff." Shark pointed out, "Besides, how many of us want the baby at a crime scene?" Shark asked. "I mean, I thought that's what Wolfie would want, right?" Tarantula suggested, "No, he said he didn't want Zeke to be a member, and I agree. He's too sweet for all that." Shark said. "He's not a baby anymore, Shark. He's five." Snake said.
Wolf could overhear everything the guys were talking about, "We'll finish up for today. Ya did good, kiddo." Wolf said, patting his son's head. "Can we draw now, Daddy?" The toddler-rabbit asked, "Might have a head start without me, okay? One sec."
Wolf sighed and got up, "Look, let's not start arguing in front of Zeke?" Wolf asked, holding his hands up and walking to pick up his son. "Me and the others gotta talk for a bit, okay?" Wolf asked, smiling at his boy. "Why don't you color in your room in the meantime?" Wolf asked.
"Daddy, you're not fighting, are you?" Zeke asked him. "No, no. We're just talking, okay?" Wolf said, putting Zeke on his bed. "Here, let me go get your crayons and let ya listen to music." Wolf said, "Okay." Wolf had gotten some headphones with his phone, alongside the crayons for Zeke to draw. He then went into the kitchen to make a soda, "Look, Wolf, I'm just hoping you're not goin' soft on us." Snake said, "I'm not going soft. If anything, I've seen YOU worry over the kid when we go out." Wolf said, "Yeah yeah, well maybe he shouldn't just be walking wherever he pleases." Snake said, recalling a bunch of times he nearly ran into the road when they were out. "And I appreciate you for keeping him safe, but I'm fine. I'm just…trying to be a good dad." Wolf said, Snake shrunk back when he said that. "I just think that the way we could teach him his education, it could be better if he was still a kid learning, not trying to teach him criminal stuff, y'know?" He asked, taking a drink of his soda.
"I mean…I guess so. Then…forget what I said before, I take it back." Snake took back what he said, "Wait, YOU took something back?" Webs asked, "Yeah, I take a lot of things back, like my push pops." Snake said, grabbing a push pop from the fridge. "First I've heard of that." Webs said, Wolf smiled at his friend, honestly glad he understands why.
"Then…be good for the kid. Long as you still steal with us, we're good." Snake said, slithering off to sit down. "I mean, I'm all for that decision, Wolfie, but don't take things too slow with him, arright?" Webs encouraged, "I know, okay. Remember, I'm still new to this parenting thing." Wolf said, "We all can figure it out, we're his family now, ya know?" Wolf said. "I mean, At the very least, I'll teach him how to fight when he gets older. Maybe he can fight ME, you know?" Piranha suggested. "He really seems to love art, we gotta figure out what to do next with that one." Shark said, already wondering what the next thing they'll do for art.
"He's drawing right now, actually." Wolf said, going back to his room. "Zekey, you can come back out now!" Wolf said, Zeke opened the door and held up a drawing. It was a drawing of him and the guys. "Like it, Daddy?" Zeke asked, Wolf was handed the picture to him and he looked at it. "Looks nice. I like it, kiddo." Wolf said, Zeke smiled and was happy. "Come on, I promised I'd draw with you." Wolf said, patting the boy's back.
Wolf was unsure of how he wanted to nurture his son, but there was something telling him that he didn't want him to grow up like he did, so he was trying to make sure Zeke didn't have his life so rough like how he and the guys were used to.
(Okay, we're done! I guess I inadvertently made Wolf the main character of this one shot, but it makes sense enough, you know? I figured that I'd show like Wolf and The Bad Guys trying to actively parent Zeke, and they're trying their best. I just hope this works. Anyways, stay strong and awesome!)
Proverbs 22:6 KJV:
Train up a child in the way he should go:
And when he is old , he will not depart from it.