If any of you have read my works before, especially my "What are Friends For?" Series in the Happy Feet archives, you'll know I go into super detail and exaggeration, this however is just a cute little story I thought I'd share. I also noticed how no one uses Hunter the leopard seal from Operation: Antarctica, so this is for her, she's my new favorite guest character, sorry Fred…

8, 523 Miles

By MyWayWriter

Chapter 1

Let's Get Moving!

Hunter and Private screamed their heads off as Kowalski's flinger shot them across town and forcing them to splash down in the East River, Private landed flat on his back, but him being a penguin he brushed it off as he entered the water and spun around to look for Hunter. She, on the other flipper, was not so lucky with her splash down, that's because she went in tail first giving her an awful sting, but tried not to show it seeing as how she was tied up by Rico. As the two surfaced, Hunter shook the water out of her eyes, and looked for Private, who came up in the blink of an eye, perky and delightful as ever.

"Are you sure about this?" Hunter asked her would-be-friend. But Private used the damp ropes weakness and pulled them right off with a smile on his face.

"Let's get you home!" He said jolly like, and this made Hunter light up and take him in her mouth shaking him about, almost like she was trying to hug him.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She said very happy and joyfully, but realized she might be hurting him, so she put him back in the water with a 'plunk!' "Oh, sorry…" Hunter tried to sound sincere.

"Oof, that's alright…we're all friends here." Private said trying to catch his breath back, she had really scared him.

"So we're friends now?" Hunter asked hopefully, worried that she didn't mess things up, she really liked him as a penguin. But Private sounded uncertain for the moment.

"Well maybe not quite yet…" But then he had an idea, "But you know just the thing for that…" Hunter caught onto the idea and both of them yelled it loud in unison.

"ROAD TRIP…!" They hollered all happy and ecstatic to get started.

"So what do we do now?" Hunter asked Private, they had a very long way to go.

"Well, I was doing some reading the other day and I think Antarctica is about 8,523 miles from New York…so I guess we should get started." Private said and starting bobbing up and down in the water like the buoyant little penguin he was. "Have any ideas to make the time pass by while we swim?" Private asked Hunter, his new acquaintance.

"Well…my daddy says that singing always make stuff go by faster." Hunter said and then Private showed her the direction of South and they were off on their way singing a dandy little tune to keep them busy.

Private and Hunter: 8,523 miles

Feels like half of a minute

Over before you begin it

Best friends we will be

At the bottom of the sea

For 8,523 miles

After the singing was done, Hunter turned to Private and gave him a massive smile. "That was really fun Private, I didn't know you could sing so well."

"Well you know Hunter, Skipper has us doing vocal drills incase we're ever trapped in a glass prison, you know so we can shatter the glass. I know it's strange but sometimes I just have to shut my beak and do what I'm told." It was a bad moment for Private, he was so soft on the inside.

"Aww, poor Private, I would hate if my daddy talked to me that way." Hunter sympathized for her companion.

Hunter suddenly had an idea to cheer Private up and dove under the water and started swimming around in circles, Private giggled and dove on down after her and the two friends began fooling around in a south-bound direction. This went on for a number of miles until they were tried, especially Private, so Hunter let Private ride on her back. After mile number 12, Private thought it'd be fun to keep track, Hunter stomach growled out of nowhere. Worried for her, Private swam off and quickly grabbed a fish and gave it to her, in which Hunter gobbled it right up. But in the process, she accidentally got his flippers in her mouth, it was a few nibbles and nothing bad, so the two laughed it off.

"Whew, that was close; I need those later on you know?" Private joked.

"Yeah, hey how far do you think we've gone so far?" Hunter was curious about the geography, but it was really just because she didn't wanna get caught again.

"I'm not sure let's go look." He responded and swam to the surface, but as he looked to the stars, he couldn't make out what they were. "I can't see them…" Hunter then raised an eye brow and dove under the surface, and emerged again with a small telescope. "Hunter…we'd you get that?"

"Remember that sunken boat we passed?" Private nodded, "I saw it on the deck, figured you could use it."

"Thanks, that's really nice of you…" Private tried lifting it up with one flipper but found it hard to keep his floating level even using only one flipper. She noticed, and offered to let him stand on her back.

"Um Private…? Do you need to stand on my back for a second or so…?" She offered nicely. Private grinned warmly and hopped up and stared right at the stars with no question.

"I'd say we've gone about 10 to 12 miles. So only 8,511 miles to go…" Both combusted into laughter and swam off into the distant ocean.

Back in the penguin HQ, Skipper and the others were all set and ready to depart from the base and out into the sea. Rico was just busy stuffing a few last minute things into himself and Kowalski was making a few tweaks to the submarines radar. Skipper walked by Rico and gave him 'the look' at what he was bringing.

"Rico…there's no need to bring laughing gas to Antarctica, our sub is more than capable of dealing out plenty of, blubber shredding damage to those killer carnivores, and what in the name of Hans are you bringing Dolly for? You really get that lonely soldier?" Rico saluted and shook head and escorted Dolly off the boat, Skipper then turned to Kowalski and said, "Are we ready for departure?"

"Just one thing…" Kowalski dabbled around ignoring Skipper, but Skipper what ready to blow.

"KOWALSKI…!" And he fell over from Skipper's yell. During this time, Rico reentered the submarine.

"Yes…all set and ready for action."

"Affirmative, then let's hustle out…" Skipper commanded, and after everyone put on their little sub hats, the ejected themselves from the base and were off in the East Harbor following after Private, and what Skipper called, The She Predator, and what they didn't know what that the unlikely pair of friends was already on mile 23, so only 8,500 more to go.

Strong first chapter don't you think? Alright well I'm out for now, and sorry for not updating in a while, I've been on vacation, and I still am. But this story, I couldn't resist. So I'm out for now, it's 11:35 PM, so I'm tried good night everyone, and one more time, let's hear it for Hunter! Review if you like Hunter!