Disclaimer
Penguins of Madagascar belong to Tom McGrath, Eric Darnell and its other respective owners. I gain absolutely no profit from writing this. Enjoy the story.
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Prologue
Just another Day at Work
New York – 2045 hours
They were running. They didn't even know what they were running from. They could try, but that would mean risking getting their brains blown out by the seemingly never-ending barrage of bullets. The backside of their van was already mangled enough as it is; there's no need to add pinkish stains to the list of damages. Besides, what would the others say if they saw that CPZ's most elite team has a pinkish vehicle? The horror.
Private nearly screamed when he saw the van heading straight towards a signpost. He clenched his eyelids shut, trying to erase the image of a yellow rhombus with black block letters from his mind. If he was going to die in a car crash, the last thing he wanted to see is a 'slow down' sign. 'Fate is cruel,' he thought.
Thankfully the impact never came as Skipper forcefully wrenched the wheel out of his aggravated lieutenant's gloved hands. The genius was driving fueled by blind adrenaline, and by referring to the knowledge he gained from watching a lot of crime dramas on HBO, people who drive like that rarely end up with more than two unscathed limbs. Therefore as a good leader, he felt compelled to prevent their certain death. That and he didn't want to join Manfredi and Johnson just yet. There were promises he still had to keep, both to the dead and the living.
"Keep it together, soldier!" The black-haired man barked, throwing the wheel to the right before straightening the vehicle's course again. "Kowalski, options! Good options, mind you; I won't take shitty suggestions."
The scientist drew in deep breaths – in, out, in, out. He fixed his tie, trying to calm down. It was working, but he knew that his current state of mind won't last long if he wasn't on the wheel. 'I just have to deal with it,' he thought glumly, whipping his iconic clipboard out. He noticed that it was a little chipped at the edges, probably due to the fact that he had carelessly dropped it when they hurriedly scrambled into the black van to avoid getting shot at. "If my approximation is right we are currently only a few kilometers away from the patisserie. If we hurry and take a shortcut through the dead end we could take refuge there and—"
"And risk destroying the wall, or this van. Or us. That dead end is there for a reason, Kowalski! I thought we agreed not to involve civilians in this anymore – we've just had this discussion yesterday!"
Kowalski growled in exasperation. "Skipper, please, the HQ is at the other side of the town. The car has already taken damage; a wall is no more dangerous than bullets. My calculation says we'll be just fine, save a few bruises and scratches and the like." He sighed. "And it's Roger. We dump the van, camp out under the cashier, maybe nab a few snacks, then we leave some cash in the morning, as usual. He wouldn't mind, he said so himself."
"I mind, even if Roger doesn't. And as leader, I say we head back to HQ to finish the job!"
"You may be leader, but I'm head of strategy and as head of strategy, I say the best strategy is to go to Roger."
The other member of the team, who had mostly been silent throughout the chase, decided to risk it and stuck his head out of the back window for a quick peek of the vehicles behind them. The wind swooshed past his hair, messing up his raven spikes. "'Ey're gai'ng, 'ippah!"
"Yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious, Rico! We can totally not hear the sirens from here!" Sirens, right. Of course it was the police; no criminal would be stupid enough to chase them while blaring annoying horns.
Rico pouted. It wasn't the best time to pout, but he never had good timing in the first place. He had risked getting his head blasted off his shoulders only for his effort to be repaid with sarcasm. He then decided that he'd just stay put. That'll show them how angry he is.
"You may be head of strategy, but I'm leader and as leader I— give me back my wheel!"
"Your wheel, Skipper? You took it from me and therefore it is rightfully my wheel."
"Don't look at me! Don't look at me when we argue, look at the road!"
Private's shrill shriek filled the van as it swerved left and right while Skipper and Kowalski wrestled each other for control over the wheel. 'Please don't crash please don't crash please don't crash!' The sixteen-year-old has yet to open his eyes since he saw the 'slow down' sign in fear of seeing another one if he opens them. Oh, how he hated signposts! He considered requesting a mission to obliterate the city from the metal monstrosities.
Momentarily distracted by the young boy's scream, Skipper lost the wheel to Kowalski's stubborn grip. He turned, glaring at the youngest member of the team. "Yes, go ahead and yell at me while the mad genius has his fun with the wheels! I'm always the one to blame when things go wrong, huh? Tell me what to do then, go on!"
Private's eyes brimmed with tears as his panicking brain processed that Skipper had just yelled at him. He looked up at the leader with wide, glassy eyes, biting his lower lip to keep it from trembling. "Sorry Skippah..."
The leader immediately regretted his words when he saw the boy's terrified form. Shaking his head, he directed his gaze towards the empty street in front of them instead. Making up with Private will have to wait until they're all back in HQ, safe and sound. 'Right now,' He glared at the man beside him, burning rubber while giggling madly like a stalker with a crush. 'I've got a crazy driver to take care of.'
With a valiant battle cry, Skipper jumped at his lieutenant. It was evident that he was putting his best efforts into making the man drop his control over the wheel, and for the good of the team at that. However to the passengers at the middle row it only seemed like the two people in the front row were trying to get them all killed. Private was bawling in pure terror as the van crashed repeatedly into trash cans (not signposts, thankfully, the boy tearfully thanked the Father). Rico was still pouting, despite screaming gleefully in the back of his mind. It's been eons since the last time he rode a roller coaster, and this was definitely better than anything he went on before!
"For the last time, Kowalski, we are not going to Roger's café, and that's an order!"
"It's patisserie. And we're going there whether you like it or not."
"Is that insubordination I hear? Don't make me pull rank on you, soldier!"
Kowalski laughed as he used his foot to rotate the wheel, making the van take an impossibly sharp turn. "You pull rank on me? Skipper, we weren't even from the same part of the force! And I was one rank higher than you; it doesn't matter that you were with the marines and I'm in the army. The only reason I'm your lieutenant right now is because we're not in service anymore. So technically, you can't pull rank on me at all."
All of a sudden, the van lurched upwards, then upside down, then back to its original position. Private screamed his lungs out during the whole process. Judging from the blaring alarms and the fact that someone had just yelled "my car", it would seem that they had (finally) hit a car. It was a wonder it's the first car they hit that night.
Skipper let out a feral growl. "That's it! No more driving, you insane danger addict!"
Grabbing his SIC's collar, he threw the man to the middle row with all his might. The tuxedo-clad man didn't bother to see whether Kowalski landed on Rico or Private or the floor; what mattered to him right now is to get the van down the road and straight to the HQ. When Skipper looked out the heavily cracked windshield, however, he discovered that somehow the bespectacled man had managed to drive them all the way to the corner of the road where Roger's store was. He glared one last time at his lieutenant before scrambling out of the vehicle.
Kowalski chuckled from his place on Rico's lap. "I thought Rico is the danger addict here?"
The weapons expert merely rolled his eyes at the remark. All he knew was the incredibly fun ride was over and they all had to get out of there before the NYPD finally tracked down the van's location. Seeing that the scientist was still disoriented, the half Latin man made it his own job to carry him and the unconscious Private out. Speaking of Private, the poor child was probably traumatized for life.
While Rico lugged Kowalski and Private out, Skipper had unlocked the back door of Roger's store. He silently thanked whatever it was Julien worshiped if they were indeed real, for the lack of blood that night; blood would've made it harder for them to move around and easier for the police to track them down. He held the door open for Rico to pass through before he followed suit and locked the door from inside. Twice, for good measure.
The slightly tanned man motioned for Rico to take the rest of his team to wherever they wanted to camp out the night. Before he joined them there's something he needed to check, lest Mason chews him out when they get back.
Skipper tentatively checked his body for any possible inner injury. He was not a medic, but at least he could tell if he had a broken bone. He sighed in relief when he found that he was mostly unscathed, safe a few scratches and bruises and the like. 'Just like Kowalski said.' he mused. Speaking of Kowalski, he had decided then and there that he would have Private teach the man some driving etiquette. 'He's been hanging around Rico too much,' Skipper thought, shaking his head. 'Madmen.'
He reached into one of the pockets on the underside of his open jacket for the item their team was sent to retrieve – the reason they were all here, feeling like a pinch of salt in a cup of day-old coffee getting turned over for the rest of the day. That makes the coffee two days old. But the point is they all felt like crap. Adrenaline factor aside, chases are always tiring no matter who's driving, or backseat driving, or passenger seat driving. Now his mind was getting off track on its own and he was starting to think that the space squids have installed a mind control device somewhere in the would have to make it their next mission to dismantle every alien technology they could find and have Kowalski analyze them for future references.
Playing with the sleek red USB drive in his gloved hand, Skipper headed off towards the room at the back where he knew Roger kept a computer. According to what their handler, Burt, had said, the device contained alleged information of three CPZ teams: the Penguins, the Lemurs and the Simians. Who the USB drive belonged to, they didn't know. All they wanted is to get rid of the information. Skipper powered the CPU on and plugged the drive in. While he waited, he kept wondering; how on earth did the owner of this alleged information get any intel on them anyway? The Lemurs he could understand, and his own team could be careless in their own right, but the Simians? Mason and Phil weren't field agents, and neither were Bada and Bing unless they were really necessary to a mission. They never really went out of the HQ, so unless the culprit was an inside agent, information leak is almost impossible. And the last inside man they rooted out… let's just say that the unfortunate guy would forever smell like formaldehyde in one of Kowalski's jars.
Once the computer was ready, Skipper immediately accessed the drive. There was only one file in it, in the form of a video. The man was a little taken aback. He had expected a word file – everyone expected a word file; even Mason and Kowalski, who usually thought of everything. Unsure but curious, he double clicked the file and let it play. He bit his lower lip as the video player popped out. As if word files weren't bad enough, video files are even worse. You could learn much more about a person if you see him in action instead of read about him. The owner of this information, whoever he was, must be a very resourceful person if he could get a recording of them.
The video started playing, and much to Skipper's surprise, only showed the static view of the front porch of a bar somewhere in New York, with occasional horns blaring and lights glowing here and there. 'Wait a sec… isn't that Dave's Tavern? What the deuce does Dave's Tavern have anything to do with— oh. OH.'
Skipper felt his cheeks starting to redden as he watched three people he was very familiar with stumble out of the club, drunk and piling on each other like it's their business. Soon after that, Maurice and Mason stormed out of the building, seemingly normal but the slight irregularity in their steps told him that they had a decent amount of alcohol in their bloodstream. They were yelling at Rico, Julien and Phil, the formerly mentioned drunken trio, presumably about their extreme alcoholism and how dangerous it could be. See, that's another sign that the two prim-and-proper-gentlemen weren't so innocent either. They never yell unless they were tampered with. Skipper himself remembered perfectly where the rest of his team was during the same night. Nearly all CPZ agents were at the club that night, celebrating Julianuary after a series of desperate pleas from Julien. Bada and Bing were fighting in the club, causing a lot of collateral damage. His own team aside from Rico was busy being drunk on stage, belting out a song he couldn't recall. And Mort was out ruling the dance floor like a pro. He chuckled, remembering the angry call they got from Eric later, telling them to hightail it out of there before the cops found out they brought not one but two minors to a club.
He theorized that a police officer who had been nonchalantly checking the feeds from street cameras must have recognized one of their faces (probably Rico, he was the one who had most contact with their enemy) and showed the video to the authorities, alerting their NYPD mole, who passed the information down to Tom and Eric, who then told Burt, who told his team to take care of the problem. The info on the owner of the USB drive probably got lost somewhere in the middle of the chain. He was betting on Burt.
'Well this isn't intel at all,' Skipper snorted inwardly. 'This is blackmail!' Which is actually far worse. Good thing whoever owned this wasn't a dangerous person. 'Oh well, if they're desperate enough to consider anything they could get their hands on as 'intel', I suppose we have yet to be compromised.' The man decided that the rest of the video weren't worth his time and powered the computer off. Skipper headed off towards where he knew his men were camping the night out, intent on joining them.
On his way, the man noted that the fridge was untouched. No snacks tonight then.
...
A/N: My first Penguins fanfic. I've been in love with them for some time, and then I got this idea. Now before you lot pelt me with stones of accusation about our beloved flightless birds being OOC, I'd like to say that everything is intentional. I won't say why, but you're free to shout out your guess.
if you don't give a shit about warnings, skip this
I planned this to be a pretty long fic, so if any of you guys decide to follow through, I have a few warnings about this fic that I want to give you.
First, there will be a lot of mood whiplash, so don't be surprised if it started out light, then got depressing as hell, then switched back to being relatively light before going all serious again. Also, various degrees of insane troll logic and beating around the bush will appear throughout the story. Please be patient with me.
Second, all characters will be relatively OOC. As I have stated, there is a reason to this, and I won't say why. Read to find out.
Third, there are little to no OCs in this fic. If they appear, they will only do so because they are necessary to the plot. There will be several characters who seem to be OCs, but are just modified in-universe characters. You will find a good lot of these later. If I think an OC has overstayed his/her welcome, I'll kill him/her off. No exceptions, even if it's someone the readers have turn attached to.
Fourth, the length of each chapter will depend on my mood. Updates will not be regular, but I assure you I won't abandon this fic. Ever. Not after all the hard work I put into it.
Fifth, there will be a fair amount of Call Back, Call Forward and Foreshadowing. Didn't get it? You need to browse more TV Tropes. Speaking of tropes, I will employ a ton of them, so don't complain if this fic gets Trope Overdosed.
Sixth, if you're here for romance, I suggest you press the back button. You will find a minuscule amount of that in here. If I do mention love in the fic, it's probably not eros. Exceptions can be made if the pairing is canon, such as the case with Rico and Miss Perky. But if you decide to interpret it personally, that's fine with me.
I'm proud to announce that this is probably the longest A/N you've ever read. Yay me.