Of course, Daddy's not the only one who trained me over the course of the next two years. As Daddy said, agility is a big part of being a Master Thief, and that required getting me physically tougher, as well as training my mind. Uncle Murray and Uncle Bentley worked with me in those areas...
Murray smiled down at Coco as she stared up at him. "Alright, Coco, I'm in charge of building up your physical fitness. That means toning all your muscles to their peak without bulking up at all, so you can jump and flip around the way Sly does." He let out a chuckle as he patted his ample belly. "After all, you're not ever gonna be big enough to punch your way through stuff like I can. Heck, you can fit in the palm of my hand just now."
"Up, Uncle Murray?" Coco asked hopefully, lifting her forelegs towards him.
Murray chuckled, but shook his head. "No, Coco. This is about getting you able to pick things up. Though that tactic right there might be good at getting close enough to pick pockets." Seeing Coco's ears go flat and her lip quiver without lowering her legs, he sighed. "Oh, come here, you!" Bending over, he scooped her up and held her close, enjoying her trying to hug him as best she could, even if she could only reach as far as his breast pockets. Bending over, he set her down. "Now then, as for fitness-" He froze, staring.
Coco grinned up at him eagerly. She clutched no less than seven wrapped snack cakes in her forelegs and was wearing a restaurant menu folded up as a hat, and a bib as a cape. While this was absolutely adorable, all of those things had been in Murray's breast pockets before picking her up.
Murray scratched at his head. He hadn't even noticed her reaching into his pockets. Patting his chest, he found no sign they'd been tampered with. Opening them up, however, he found they were indeed empty when they shouldn't have been. "Yo Sly!" he bellowed out. "I think you can skip non-tool-assisted pick pocketing! She's a natural!"
As Coco giggled happily at the praise, Sly called back, "That's a relief. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to translate dexterous finger manipulations to hooves. Still gonna test her, though."
"I know you will!" Murray called back. He then held out his hands. "Give 'em back now, Coco." Coco obediently returned the filched items. Once his pockets were stuffed, Murray set his jacket aside. "Alright, first thing I'm going to teach you is push ups. Not gonna do too many of them, though, that'd be too hard on you." Letting himself fall forward, he caught the ground with his palms and proceeded to fire off a good two dozen push ups, back ramrod straight and gut sucked in so it didn't touch the ground. "Now you try!" he instructed.
Grinning, Coco proceeded to bend all four knees repeatedly, mimicking Murray's motions as best she could.
Murray rubbed his chin. "Huh...this will take some thinking..."
Bentley rubbed his gloved hands together as he sat across from the filly. "Alright, Coco. I'm going to be covering some brain exercises with you. Critical thinking and logic are going to be very important when it comes to making a heist, and you need to be able to plot the best path to take when it comes to infiltrating a facility, whatever sort of facility it, uh, happens to be." He shook his head as he tried to regain his confidence. Something about the way she just stared up at him with that soft smile, those adoring eyes, the way her forehooves rested on the table as her tail wiggled back and forth in her chair...
Shivering, Bentley got control of himself. "Now, first things first is some basic logic puzzles. I'll be laying out a few clues regarding a few points of information. From those clues, I want you to fill in the blanks." He laid out a standard book of logic puzzles. "Work through a few of these until you feel confident in the concept, and then I'll make a few more for you."
Bentley sat back, confident that this would work quite well...until he noticed Coco not even reaching for the pencil. "Umm...Uncle Bentley?" she asked worriedly.
"Yeah?"
"What does this say?" She pointed to the text. "I...can't read it."
Bentley's palm promptly met his face. "No shoes, Sherlock," he grumbled to himself, managing to censor himself before teaching her a swear word. "She comes from another world! Just because the spoken language is compatible doesn't mean the written ones are!" Standing up, he went to a nearby shelf and pulled out some old books and notepads, setting them out in front of Coco. "Alright, I guess first up instead is teaching you to read and write...just as soon as I come up with a way for you to hold the pencil. I mean, you have hooves after all, no fingers..." His voice trailed off as he saw her holding the pencil in her mouth and manipulating it with teeth and tongue, drawing a rather good likeness of Sly from memory. "Huh. That's a...rather talented tongue..." he mumbled, stunned.
"Bentley!" Sly snapped, sticking his head in, having only heard those last words. "Just what are you teaching her?"
"Look at how she's holding that pencil!" Bentley proclaimed, pointing to Coco as she continued to draw.
Sly stared for a time. "Huh, you're right," he admitted, rubbing his chin. He then grinned slyly. "Wonder if she gets that from her mot-"
"SLY!"
I still don't get Daddy's sense of humor. What's really weird is that the first time I stayed with Mommy, she said the same thing about my tongue when I showed her how I could draw. For some reason, she turned bright red when I said I thought I got it from Daddy, and started stammering. She also took a cold shower the moment Daddy got me back out the door when he came to pick me up that day. I decided not to tell Daddy about it, but Uncle Murray found it hilarious.
Aw geez, barely in the family and already becoming a troll. This ought to be good when she figures out what some of the innuendos are, if she isn't embarrassed half to death first.
Also, nice cover art. Definitely want to see her having fun with the stealth techniques she learns.
Can I say that that cover pic is awesome?! Cuz it is!
... Coco is adorable, and secretly evil at the same time.
Coco is a natural at picking up just that one more thing when it comes to stealing.
Guess Sly goes for the old tongue in cheek jokes.
At least Carmelita is being showered with affection too.
I think Celestia and Discord have a new competitor in their trolling. Plus I bet she will out do Pinkie and Rainbow Dash in any pranking!
Cover art! Yay! Now, off to read the chapter.
nice job so far; also:
there are no words that would accurately describe how hard I laughed at this...so maybe this video clip will do (skip to 0:03 to get to the relevant part):
HA!
One thing I can count on with these stories, consistent updates. For some stories I have to wait so long that I forget I even had it my library.
!!!!! S...Sly Cooper.....
You have done it again my friend! Another story that I will love!
7584831
About the same age as Sly. His reaction is more paternal/"that's so cute" than anything.
7584716 I love this version of Coco
This is already awesome!! Though.. Coco is going to be super heartbroken when Bentley gets his legs crushed By Clock-La
nice new cover art
7584913 DON'T SPOIL IT!!!
7584849
I did it!
Why no Anthro tag? For consistency, I get that...but this seems it could be one of the few times you ould get away with it, considering the universe in question.
7584946
...for the same reason I didn't tag the Marvel crossovers 'Human'.
HAHAHA! Nice!
7584944 aww. You weren't referring to fatal levels of Diabetes from Coco?
7584849
...there is a clip where he is finding something acting dog-like creepy? Because at first reading, I thought he was being creeped out by her "Puppy dog eyes" and "Tail wagging".
...yeah, definitely coming across more like an unspoken childhood trauma.
7584941 That's why I put spoilers on it pal. So if people don't care they can see it.
Why is Murray so articulate and competent throughout this story?
7585142
He's very articulate in the games, and competent in his areas of expertise. He just happens to be getting his time to shine here.
7585145
But he's also cowardly and kind of dumb--especially before he goes off to study with the Guru, and this is set before the first game. At this point he doesn't understand his own strengths, and has no fighting skill. All he's good with are cars and pizza.
7585161
No. That's just all he shows in the first game. But the skills of the second game don't come out of nowhere.
Love the cover art, real cute.
7584787
And that is why I have the site giving me email notifications about updates. (And why I took to reading on my phone.)
I love the cover art it's really cute, but what about Coco's beret? I thought she had one?
Pffthahahahaha that last part Apparently Carmelita is getting bad thoughts because of Coco about Sly's....abilities, keep up the good work my friend, hope to see more in the future.
The part with the tongue was priceless! Awesome writing!
7585145 Once again you have managed to do justice to my childhood, you sir have the juice!
7584093 Which is why I said Bethesda, they make both games.
Another enjoyable chapter. Great job.
7585447 The references I used didn't have a beret on her.
7586253 Ah, alright then. Just wondering but the art is amazing
7585486
Well, he can blend in anywhere when disguised, so he must be a cunning linguist.
7586652 True, but to be that kind of one to make her take a cold shower no less? Just perfect
hmmm, that last part makes me wonder.... did Bentley yell 'Sly', or did Miss Fox, sensing his words from somewhere across the country, yell at him?
7586659 Thanks for that!
Gonna look it up when I get the chance.
Adorably awesome!!!!
Coco is awesome, she's going to fit right in with the Cooper Gang. I can also see her 'suddenly finding' evidence that Carmelita needs to put a sleazeball away that was 'lost' or 'never found'.
Will Carmelita get to give Coco any training herslef??? I wouldn't mind seeing her telling some big tough jerk at her workplace "My daughter can shoot better than you!" and when he laughs let Coco loose with her own electo gun at the target range.
Goddang it Tat, you're killing me! This story is awesome!
And Coco is a natural thief, I adore it!
Also, the cover art, gloriously cute~
7586637 *Shrugs* I dunno, I just went with what I could tell from the official artwork.
7586652 Will the cover and coco's outfit evolve in time like her fathers?
7588233
Outfit, possibly. Cover, no.
HNNNGH!!! Too cute! *Goes into Cardiac Arrest.*
7594574
1. New story suggestions go on my user page, not on existing stories.
2. Zootopia gives me nothing to work with for a story like this, even if I had seen it yet.
Okay, that last part was hilarious.
7594624 I'm not going to talk about story ideas but I agree. This is the closest thing to Zootopia we're going to get since Sly Cooper has an actual universe set.
...Zootopia references might actually fit. Meh.
...Is it me or have your stories gained more and more of a lewd subtext? Not that I'm complaining, of course, just curios.