A.N. — I tried to hold off on posting this until I cleaned some other fanatics off of my to-do list...But, I just couldn't let the idea slip by and risk being forgotten, and then I just couldn't help but go ahead with it. So, without further adieu, here is a new fic XD

Prelude

"Keep you head down, Romeo!" A shout rings out barely audible over the roar of machine guns that rip through the air above the low, brick habitat wall. Romeo, better known as Liam, ducks his head farther down into the trench behind the wall. It had been about a year since World War Three had broken out, a year since Skippsy had switched sides. A girl with a pink bow tosses a small flipper-grenade over the wall. After a small explosion, the shooting pauses and she looks sharply at him. "What the flipping Buckingham was that, Liam?! Were you wanting to have your head shot off?!"

Liam looks at her with slightly confused, dark brown eyes. "My head was no where near the shooting, Gweny." He replies.

"No duh! You had it in La-La-Nova Land again! You nearly had it shot off! You need to pay more attention!" She shouts at him, trying to be heard over some artillery fire.

Liam now narrows his eyes at her with a frown. "My head was no where near the firing." He repeats. "I would have been perfectly fine without you shouting around like a deranged nutcase."

Gweny snorts and puts her flippers on her hips. "If Nova told you to get your head out of the clouds, you wouldn't be so argumentative. Learn to pay attention to your surroundings!"

"Stop sounding like Mom and Uncle Skipper, you're not like them, and you'll never be like them!" He growls before diving into the pool in the enclosure.

With a growl of frustration, Gweny steams into the HQ, but then lets the anger pass as she hears the soft crying of a chick. She slides over to a crib near the carefully carved stone bunks and gently lifts the chick from it. "Shh, it's alright, Elliot, Sissy is right here. You're safe..." She whispers softly to him as she rocks him. He still sobs though and rubs his face in her chest feathers with his dark blue eyes wide from fear.

"Mamamamaaaaaa!" He wails and his sister sighs. He wants his mother, but that is the one thing Gwendolyn cannot give him. Their parents had all vanished a couple of days ago. Generally it was presumed that Skippsy had captured them and they were being held hostage at Pharoh Fluffington's headquarters. But some, like Gweny, believe in another theory. A theory that maybe they are still out there. Hiding, waiting, hatching out a plot to get through to Skippsy. If only they could reach her, maybe they could undo the effects of the brainwashing she had received. Maybe she could come back and rejoin the resistance. Maybe.

Then there is an explosion from inside of the lab and pale blue smoke leaks out from around the thick metal door. Gweny, carrying Elliot, rushes over and throws open the door. "Nova, are you alright?!" She then watches as the girl pulls herself up.

"I'm fine." The girl manages to answer through her coughing fit. She then straightens her glasses and dusts herself off. "My attempted nuclear-fission powered communications device...Not so much..." She sighs and looks over the charred remains on the work bench. She just doesn't have any idea of where she went wrong, she knows that she checked over her equations and plans at least eleven times.

Gweny looks at her softly and pats her back. "I'm sure that we'll fine them soon, Nova. There are agents from all over searching for them."

Nova looks at her and then away as she shakes her head. "Honestly, I cannot see how you are still so naive, Gwendolyn. They might have been some of the best back in their younger years, but take Laim's mother for an example, she is the whole reason that we penguins were brought into this flipping tuna-forbidding war!"

"Nova, penguins were already part of this war before Skippsy was brainwashed. I'm sure that deep, deep down inside her she is still herself and that she wouldn't dare hurt the others."

"Sure..." Nova replies, obviously unconvinced.

"More than sure." Gweny says seriously. "This war never would have had a reason to start if King Clemson had not assassinated King Julien...Whoever the Buckingham he was..." She shrugs. "Then the Lemur Wars would never have broken out over the throne and the lemur dictatorship in Madagascar...Skipper then wouldn't have gotten so distracted and could have stopped Pharaoh Fluffington's advance to take over the world with the use of not only rabbits, but puffins as well...The crafty little evil bunny..."

"And then if that had been prevented, Generals Hans and Harriet would not have overtaken New York and held it under siege with the Danish and Swedish puffin armies...Which was how Skippsy was capture, correct?"

Gweny nods with a sigh. "Yeah...If only that assassination had been prevented, then we wouldn't be in any of this mess..." She sits down with little Elliot in her lap and lays her head exhaustedly on her flippers, looking at the chick. Thankfully, he has called down again and just softly coos and babbles. Gwendolyn, only thirteen, was trying to do the job of an adult. The stress of it blatantly evident on her young features. Her light blue eyes no longer holds the playful, adventurous sparkle that they had a year ago. They now always looked tired. Her feathers used to be carefully kept, now are nearly always a ruffled wreck. She closes her eyes for a moment in an attempt to rest and her argument with Liam flashes to mind. 'I really am not anything like Skippsy and Skipper...Their jobs are hard...I don't think that I truly am cut out for all of this...'

Suddenly, Nova's emerald green eyes light up as she gets an idea. "That's brilliant!" She exclaims.

"What's brilliant?" Gwney asks as she lifts her head and looks at her.

"If the assassination had never occurred, none of this would have ever happened! It's so painfully obvious I don't see how I never have thought of it until now!" She says.

Gweny raises a nonexistent and worried eyebrow at her. "I know, that is what I said...Are you feeling alright, Nova? You have slept recently, yes?"

Nova does not reply, but instead slides excitedly over to a chest, unlocks it, and throws it open. She waves away the dust with a small cough and lugs a heavy looking bundle from within it. "Dad made this doohickey years ago...Way back before we were ever thought about." She says as she unties the rope around it and unbundles the object. "I seem to recall him saying that it unraveled time and space a bit, but IT WORKED!" She smiles widely as she looks it over. "I believe he called it the Chronotron! A bit old fashioned, I know, but I should be able to tweak it with some more modern technology and get this puppy going in no time!"

"So...You think that we should...Go back in time and...Fix the past ourselves?!" She gasps. "Wouldn't there be a HUGE risk of us not existing after that?! What about Elliot?!" She exclaims and tightly hugs her baby brother. The chick squeaks a bit in surprise and looks at her.

Nova looks at them and slowly nods. She had been thinking of her boyfriend Liam. "Yes...That is a risk as we are but one of hundreds of thousands of other possible futures of the past...But, wouldn't that be an acceptable risk if it guaranteed a further better than this chaos now?"

Gweny mulls this over silently for a moment before finally nodding. "I suppose it would be, yes..." She slowly says and then looks at her. "But who would go to the past then?"

"Why the two of us, of course!" The young scientist replies as she looks over the old invention. "Hmmm...Looks like it might need some Macguffium 239 before it'll even think of working..." She murmurs to herself and rubs under her beak.

"But...I can't leave Elliot here alone with Liam and Martial!" Gweny interjects. "Those two might be the sons of the best leaders among us, but they are far from being able to step into their parents' shoes, if you get what I mean! For instance, Liam nearly got his obvious head blown off again today! You think I'm going to entrust poor Elliot to them?" She looks down at the chick and softly rubs his back.

Nova glances over at her and shrugs. "So take him with us then." She says. "Maybe we can get this done soon before Martial or Liam get themselves into too much trouble being here on their own." Gweny nods some in agreement as she watches her. "But, it won't be until tonight that I get this thing up and running, though..."

"Alright." The pink bowed girl nods and pets her brother. "I'll start getting things ready."