Oops! We Got Penguin! #2:
The Capture
Athena was at home sitting at her desk working on a story idea for a school contest. The story was of course about commando penguins, which was based on the new friends she had made not to long ago. She of course changed their names and their location, but besides that it was pretty much dead on. She crumpled up the page she just finished after giving it a re-read and threw it over her shoulder, deciding that it wasn't quite right. She was very picky about her writing. As Athena leaned back in her chair to try and come up with another idea, Skipper suddenly popped into her head.
"Oh, he wouldn't like this to much!" she said as the thought of The Penguin Leaders paranoia potential came to mind. "Eh, what he doesn't know won't hurt him or me. If he finds out I'll just say that I'm making fun of Officer X with this class project." She laughed to herself, because that actually was the reason. She jumped as she heard a static type sound suddenly come from a draw in her desk. She opened the draw in question and moved the false bottom she added out of the way. In there was one of Team Penguins new super wide range walkie talkies that Kowalski wanted her to help test. Good thing for the lot of them that they worked as she had been on an 'unofficial lock-down' (as she thought Skipper might put it) since she got home after being penguin-ized two weeks ago. Athena adjusted the frequency and waited for it to go off again, which it did.
"Penguin Private calling Penguin Athena!" was what came over the walkie.
Athena shook her head in an amused kind of way at her improvised radio handle. "Penguin Athena hear." she replied "Its after well Ten, shouldn't you be sleeping at HQ?"
"Uh, I tell you about that later." said Private sounding a bit awkward. "Could you do me a favor and open your window?" Athenas room was on the second floor of the house.
"Urm, alright." replied Athena slightly confused as she walked over and did just that. She then heard the distinct sound of her favorite penguin tool and saw a grappling hook land on the windowsill next to her. Private then zipped up the line to land next to it. "Are you on a mission or something?" Athena asked expecting him to toss the grappling gun down to the others.
"Nope, its just me." he answered stowing the tool in his feathers. Then he jumped off of the windowsill and onto her bedpost. He just kind of perched there waiting for her to ask what he was doing walking the streets of New York solo. Athena shut her window before asking. To which he replied: "Its a bit of a story and you look tired, so-" Private then pointed to her desk chair.
"Yeah, I didn't realize how late it was until you called." Athena said as she pulled the chair over and sat on it backwards.
"OK so here is what happened, for the past few nights Julian has been having loud parties over in his habitat. So none of us has been sleeping very well. Skipper in particular." Private began "Hes got a bit of sleep deprivation I'm afraid."
"That's not good." said Athena
"That's for sure. The last time it happened Skippers thinking was so off that he actually thought that I was a traitor." said Private
Athena laughed: "I may have not known you guys that long, but even I know that's a stretch."
Private nodded grinning: "I know right? But in his defense I was sneaking out to watch plays in the park and quoting them a bit randomly. -(Athena laughed)- Yeah, overload time. Anyway, Skipper got really angry and said that he was going to 'stop Ring tail one way or another'. Then he said 'Rico bat!' It was so fast that Rico hacked it up without really thinking. Skipper caught it and ran out of HQ laughing like he lost his mind. That's when the three of us exchanged unsure looks and followed him."
"I'm almost scared to ask what happened next." said Athena tilting her head.
"Well first he took the bat to Julians boom box. That I kind of thought was a bit funny, but its more then likely my own sleepiness." Private then yawned. Athena grinned. "In any case Julian got really angry and started to yell at Skipper."
"Well, who wouldn't." Athena shrugged
"It was a bad idea, Skipper turned on him with the bat next. He didn't get to hit him though. I jumped on him and wrestled the bat away. Skipper got really angry and well now I'm here." Private ended with a shrug.
"Wait, so Skipper just threw you out?" asked Athena
Private nodded: "Sort of."
"But what are you going to do now?" asked Athena shocked.
Private tried his hardest not to laugh at the look on her face: "Calm down, its not like I took him seriously about it. I mean think about what I said before." He then gave her a moment to do just that. "I just figured that I would give him a day or two to get rested back up and back to normal-"
"Or your version there of." said Athena raising an eyebrow.
"You sound and look like Marlene!" Private laughed
"That's what I was going for." Athena grinned "So why come to my house?"
Private got an awkward grin on his face: "You grew on me I guess."
"Good answer, Little Private." said Athena giggling.
"Little Private?"
"Well, I can't call you Young Private, that's Skippers thing." She answered
"Our arch enemy called me that once, but I'll tell you that story tomorrow."
"That one had some nerve!" said Athena getting surprisingly annoyed. She shook it off then got up, put her chair away and walked into her closet and shut the door. "So did you have any trouble finding the place?"
"No, started re-thinking my choice of coming here around the half way point though." Private answered "Did you know that Animal Control is out in force tonight?"
"Yeah, that's why I thought that you were out on a mission. There was some kind of breach there. A lot of the animals were set free. It was on the news. You didn't hear about it?"
"No, we had to get in some zoo face time today. So what are you doing in there?" Private tilted his head. Athena then came back out wearing a one piece black and white footy thing that was stylized after her favorite flightless birds. "Now your looking like a penguin again."
"I was board so I recycled some of my old cloths into this just for fun." said Athena "My parents made a little fun of me, so I said that they need to let me out more. So we all had a good laugh." Private grinned. "At least now I have a use for all the scraps. I'm going to use them to make a little nest-ER-I mean bunk for you." She did just that and put it under her desk, where her feet go, so it wouldn't be seen unless someone got down on the floor and looked. Since she kept her room neat most of the time she knew no one would.
"Oh, comfy!" said Private as he settled in. Then he looked over at Athena to say good night and saw that she had a look on her face that said she was thinking. "Something wrong?"
"I guess you could say my gut is -(with air quotes)- "acting up again" because I was just thinking about what I saw on the news before. Some of the Animal Control Officers were either really fidgety or more angry then they should have been." Athena then shrugged.
"Do you think its anything to worry about?" asked Private
"I hope not. Night Little Private!"
"Night Tall Athena!" They both laughed.
"Good come back." Athena then turned off the light and the two went to sleep.
Private spent the next day and a half with Athena. Anytime someone, that wasn't her, saw him he would pretend to be his own plushy. Good thing for him that Athena actually had one. It was a present from one of her friends at her last birthday party. Athenas friends showed up without warning and decided they wanted to go play Frisbee in the park.
"Lets just make sure that penguin hating freak isn't around this time." said Rory only half joking. Athena laughed anyway, partly to keep their attention as Private snuck into her backpack. They went and played Frisbee for a good amount of time, then Athena decided to 'treat' everyone to some popcorn after Private told her that would be a good excuse to head for the zoo. Privates idea worked perfectly. As soon as her friends were distracted by the lemurs doing flip tricks on their bouncy Athena made a B-line for the penguin habitat. The only penguin there who wasn't a freakishly good decoy was Kowalski.
"Where are the others?" Athena asked Private before Kowalski noticed her.
Private shrugged before jumping out of her backpack onto the fence, then into the habitat. Kowalski heard him land and spun around.
"Private!" he said in a high pitched voice. He then ran over and hugged him.
"Consider yourself glomped Little Private!" said Athena giggling at the cute sight. "And I didn't know Kowalskis voice could go that high." Kowalski grinned awkwardly and shrugged, then kicked one of the decoys down the hatch which Private covered back up. "So wheres the rest of the team?"
"Skipper felt really bad about what happened the other day once he was rested and back to normal. -(Athena fought hard not to make a comment)- Well, most likely before then, but Skipper is macho like that. He and Rico went out to look for Private. We didn't know that he was with you."
"Like outside the zoo looking for me?" asked Private looking as nervous as Athena felt.
"Of course."
"Oh this is bad!" said both Private and Athena, their eyes getting big.
Kowalski blinked a few times: "Whats bad?" The two then told him about the continued situation with Animal Control. Kowalskis eyes got huge and he quickly got into HQ to call the other two to tell them to return to base because Private was back. As soon as he turned on one of the new walkies he could hear that something was happening on the other end.
Kowalski was right of course, as Skipper and Rico were looking for Private the little pink car started to act up a bit. Needing to stretch their legs anyway they pulled over to give it a look. They were barely out of the car for two minutes when a cat ran by screaming that he was being chased. Two Animal Control Officers suddenly stopped right next to the two penguins. All four of them blinked at each other.
"The more animals the better!" said one of the officers
They both then swung the snare polls they carried at Skipper and Rico and a fight ensued. That's what Kowalski was now hearing as Ricos walkie went flying and landed just the right way. "Rico! Skipper! Report! Whats going on?"
Suddenly he heard Skippers voice: "Tranquilizer guns? Move man move!"
"Guys!" shouted Kowalski loud enough for the two topside to hear him.
Private looked over at Athena and said "Good thing its a quite day here."
Skipper and Rico went into belly slides when they saw the tranquilizer guns and went by the walkie just as Kowalski shouted "Guys!" It distracted Rico and he looked at it as he went by, him doing this slowed him down.
Good thing for him that Skipper was behind him as the two pursuing humans both fired the tranquilizer guns. Skipper smashed into Rico as they both got hit with darts. Rico ended up out of sight under a dumpster. Skipper wasn't so lucky. After a few more feet Skipper couldn't move and was picked up and carried off by the humans. Just before they were out of Ricos earshot one of them said "This particular critter ought to get us some extra points with the boss. To bad the other one got away."
Rico then dragged himself over to the walkie, since he was bigger then Skipper it didn't effect him as fast. He grunted a return message to the Lieutenant: "Mayday!"
Kowalski gasped: "We are on our way Rico!" He rushed into the lab and got the receiver for the tracker he put in the walkies so they could find Rico, plus some other things and put them in a bag. Private jumped down and saw him getting the rest of the decoys ready.
"Whats going on Kowalski?"
"Skippers been captured! We got to move!" said Kowalski, louder then he meant to.
Athena heard him. She then pulled out her phone and sent out some text messages. One of them to her friends saying that she went home because she suddenly felt very sick and that she would talk to them when she got better. Which was going to be when the mission was over. The other to her parents, telling them that she was going to Rorys house for the night and that she was going to leave on an out of state field trip from her house and be back in a few days. It was a trip they had agreed to weeks ago, well before she was penguin-ized and that Athena didn't have much interest in anyway. She just agreed to go to get a bit of a break from normal school activities. "No one will worry about me this time. Hey, I'm pretty good at cover stories." Then she dashed off to get into HQ from the tunnel that was behind Privates big fish. She pushed it open and asked what the situation was. Kowalski grinned at her before quickly filling her in.
After-wards: "Lets move out!" They loaded all the stuff Kowalski wanted to bring into Athenas backpack, then jumped in themselves so they could get out of the zoo through the front entrance. It took a moment longer then anyone wanted because Athena had to sneak past her friends, but she made up for it by running through the park for quite a long time. "Don't tell Skipper I said this but, we should have made friends with a human long ago. Getting out of the zoo was almost to easy!" Private grinned. Once they made it to the edge of the park Athena took off her backpack and unzipped it. The two penguins popped up. The tall one holding the tracker.
"Alright, Lieutenant which way?" Athena asked
Kowalski grinned: "You do know that no one really calls me that right?"
"Really? Well, I'm the first then."
Kowalski laughed then climbed up onto her shoulder and started to tell her where to go. After telling her that Skipper sometimes calls him that, but rarely. They found Rico walking slowly up the ally he had been laying in, still really groggy. He had his back to them. All three of them shouted "Rico!" before running over to to him. Athena picked him up and hugged him. Private hugged him to, but let go pretty quick when he suddenly burped. Kowalski patted him on the shoulder, with a relieved grin on his face.
"This should a least make you feel a little better." said Kowalski pulling a can of Red Bull out of the backpack. Rico snatched it and chugged it down quickly, much to every-ones amusement. "Alright, did you see in which direction the ones that took Skipper went?" He pointed in the direction he had been walking.
"Wait, they were Animal Control, so they would just head to their HQ. The problem is I don't know how to get there."
"We do though." said Private right away.
"Why am I not surprised."
"Lets move out!" said Kowalski making the tracker seek out the walkie Skipper still had on him.
Elsewhere: Skipper came to in a very secure cage that was in the back of a truck. "Man, am I having a bad day." He said rubbing the place on his back where the dart hit him, it was still a bit sore.
"Your awake!" said a voice Skipper knew.
He looked over: "Miss Kitka, they caught you?"
"Not easily, but yeah." She answered "How did they get you?"
"Sleeping darts!" said Skipper glaring at the floor of his cage.
"Oh, I thought they hit you or something." Skipper 'raised an eyebrow' at her. "I didn't say it was a smart thought, but that's what happened to me."
Skipper blinked: "Do you know whats going on?"
"A little." Kitka then told him what had happened with Animal Control, as in all the animals getting loose, plus the fact that she knew Officer X was up to something as he was there when Skipper was put into his cage still sleeping and very happy that one of 'those penguins' was finely caught.
"So where are we headed to now?" asked Skipper feeling oddly more nervous then he thought he should. "We are headed to Animal Control HQ right?"
"If we were we would have been there by now." said a cat, the same one that ran past Skipper and Rico before. "I'm glad your friend got away."
Skipper and Kitka looked at each other: "That is not a good sign!" They said at the same time. "So does anyone know where we are going?" Skipper said loudly. There was no answer.
"That's the response that I got not long before you woke up." said Kitka looking nervous. "Also, they have started to catch any animal, weather it escaped or not, weather legal or not. Myself being a case in point for the second one."
Skipper pulled his walkie out of his feathers, slightly surprised that it was still there: "Skipper to team, come in!"
Elsewhere: The Team Minus One, plus one human was almost to Animal Control central. Privates walkie suddenly went off making everyone jump as they were in stealth mode: "Skipper to team, come in!"
Kowalski grabbed said walkie right out of Privates feathers: "Team here, where are you?"
"I'm in a truck full of animals! We are not heading to Animal Control, repeat We are not heading to Animal Control!" Skipper shouted
"What? Then were are you going?" said Private before he could stop himself.
"Unknown, glad to hear that Young Private is with you. Did you find Rico?" said Skipper
"Yeah, hes fine. Private was with me by the way." said Athena "Before you say anything, I recruited myself. Anyway, we are in rout to Animal Control. We may be able find out something by doing a little computer hacking."
"You do that! I'll keep this thing working for as long as I can and try to get my own Intel. Make sure to watch out for Officer X. Miss Kitka told me he is behind this."
"Rodger that!" said everyone Skipper then signed off for the time being.
"Wait they captured Kitka? That's illegal!" said Kowalski
"Who Kitka?" asked Athena
"A lady falcon!" said Rico
"This is worse then I thought, and that is saying something." said Athena "Since the place is still open I can get us in fast."
"How?" asked Private
"Walk in and act like I want to adopt a pet of course." said Athena "After that we might need your skills to get to where the offices are."
"Sounds good, lets move out!" said Kowalski The three penguins then jumped back into her backpack, which she zipped most of the way and then carefully put on her back.
She jogged most of the way up to the building and was about to go in when Rico popped up by unzipping the backpack from the inside. He hacked up a ball cap and put it on her head. She gave him a weird look. "For the cameras." he said before ducking back into the backpack.
"Clever!" thought Athena She then entered the Animal Control building.
"Hello, how can I help you?" said the lady at the front desk.
"Hi, I'm looking to get a c- -(she receives a sharp kick in the back)- dog. Could you show me where they are?"
"Sure, but are you over twenty-one? Because you have to be to adopt. Its the new policy here."
"Wait its supposed to be eighteen not twenty-one." said Private (Athena elbows her backpack)
"I just enforce the rules, not make them." said the lady at the desk.
"Oh its fine. I was just surprised. The dog is not for me anyway. Its for a friend of mine. Her parents are going to get it as a surprise. I'm just here on a shall we say, re-con mission." She could feel the penguins in her backpack shaking as they were trying not to laugh. She grinned.
"Oh, in that case follow me." said the desk lady getting up. "I'll bring you right over."
"Thanks, by the way can I use your bathroom. I had like six sodas on the way here."
"Sorry, no public restrooms." said the lady
"Well, that's disappointing." said Athena She was hoping to get the penguins into an air shaft in the bathroom while she kept the staff busy. She was led to were the dogs were held and allowed to peek in at them. A lot of them jumped up all happy to see her. "Cute!" she couldn't help but think. Then she spotted the lonely camera of the dog holding section. She carefully walked in its direction and acted like she was looking around the corner that led to the offices.
"Uh Miss, that hall leads to the offices. Only staff members are allowed down there." said the desk lady
Athena casually stepped into the cameras blind spot as she spoke: "Oh, I was just checking to see if there were more dogs that way."
"Well, I've seen people do before." shrugged the lady She then turned her back on her heading to another dog. Athena took that as an opportunity to unplug the camera she was under. Then she ran over to the lady and chopped her in the neck penguin style.
"Skipper would be proud of that! You really do watch a lot of action movies!" said Kowalski popping out of the backpack and leaning on Athenas shoulder.
"Ow! I think that move is easier to do when you don't have fingers. I think I dislocated my pinky!" said Athena shaking her hand slightly. "That being said I feel like I'm in an action movie at the moment." She grinned and fixed her hand, then dragged the lady down the hall. She had to duck into the same broom closet she was putting the lady in when someone walked by gloating about all the money he and his friends were going to start making from 'all those animals'. Rico made a nervous whining type noise, obviously worried about Skipper.
"Relax Rico, we'll get him back and Kitka too." said Private patting him on the shoulder.
"That's for sure. Rico take out the cameras!" said Kowalski grabbing the ladies key card.
He then opened the door a little and checked the hallway. Then he hacked up a stick of air activated dynamite, one for each camera. "Done!" Rico grunted
"Good job! I'm on point, lets go." said Kowalski The three penguins then belly slid out the door. Athena had to jog to keep up. They opened the first office door they came to.
"You handle the hacking, I'll handle the keyboard, Lieutenant." Kowalski gave Athena a look. "Its because I can type. It will be faster. Or is that look for the rank thing?"
"I'm really not used to that." said Kowalski as they started walking towards the computer.
"Fine, I won't call you that in an official way anymore." said Athena
"Then when will you call him that?" asked Private
"As a term of endearment. So lets get down to business." said Athena turning on the computer. The three of them grinned.
Elsewhere: The truck Skipper and the others were in had started to slow down. Skipper stood up ready to pay close attention to any distinguishing details that he could use to tell the others his location. The doors to the back of the truck were opened. Officer X was standing there. Skipper glared at him thinking "I wish I had a camera right now."
"This is what you get for all the stuff that you did to me." he said grinning as he reached in and picked up the cage Skipper was in. His glare grew more harsh. When the crazy human turned towards the building they were headed to he jumped, realizing that the place looked like a clinic that should have been shut down. It had fallen into disrepair, at least that's what it looked from the outside. It was located in an equally rough looking neighborhood.
"A psychos playground." thought Skipper as he heard at least to more people carrying cages behind him. When they got inside it looked like a completely sanitary hospital. Skipper was so amazed that he wiped his eyes and gave himself a slap to confirm what he was seeing. "Oh this is bad!" thought Skipper as a man in a lab coat started to approach them.
"Ah, not only could you get me plenty of test subjects, but a nice variety there off. Wait, is that a penguin?" asked the lab coat guy
"Think about who your talking to." said the guy holding the cage that had Kitka in it. The other guy, who had a caged raccoon, laughed.
Officer X cleared his throat and said "Where are we going to put these?" He shook Skippers cage slightly. The so called scientist gestured for the humans to follow him. As they walked down the hallway Officer X asked another question: "So when are you going to start doing whatever it is that your going to do? Because I wouldn't mind watching when its this little guys turn." He shook Skippers cage again.
"Not for at least forty-eight hours. So they have time to recover from whatever methods were used to capture them." was his answer. He then opened the last door in the hallway. "Put the animals in here. Its the only room big enough for the rest of the animals. Try not to put the cages on top of each other. My partner is just neurotic that way. I don't know why." The guy shrugged then left the room.
Skipper and Kitka were put right next to each other at an angle so they could see into the others cage. "Have fun with your girlfriend." One of the other humans said laughing as the three left the room to get more animals.
"At least we have two days to either plan our escape or wait for your team to get us out of here." said Kitka
"Yeah, my boys would rescue me even if I told them not to." said Skipper with a grin taking out the walkie again. "So I figure why fight it?" Kitka grinned at him. "Skipper to team, come in!" There was nothing but static. "This is The Skipper to the team, come in!" Same thing: static. "We must be out of range. I hope the tracker is still working."
"Just in case we should probably start to work on that escape plan." said Kitka looking a bit worried. Skipper nodded.
Elsewhere: "Alright, now I'm getting annoyed! All we have been able to find on here is this map!" said Athena as she retrieved the map in question from the printer.
"The map should lead us to Skipper at least." said Private
"Well yeah, but we can't find out anything else about whats going on!" said Athena
"And we shouldn't try for to much longer because Skipper need us!" said Kowalski Rico nodded looking worried again.
"I know that's why I'm so annoyed! Plus the tracker malfunctioned!" said Athena
Suddenly the door creaked open and everyone hid behind a file cabinet. A tall blonde haired guy walked in and started looking around curiously: "I could have sworn that I heard voices coming from in here."
"Maybe you should penguin-ize me again so we can get out of here." Athena whispered to Kowalski.
"I can't, the device is in your backpack. Besides I want to see if we can some Intel out of this guy." Kowalski replied Athena gave him a surprised look. "Don't worry I'll hit you with it later though." He then grinned at her. She forced herself to laugh quietly. Kowalski then turned to Rico: "Knock him down without him seeing you, then use the -(with air quotes)- 'hot sauce' on him. Its in the backpack." Rico nodded and went into action.
"Hot sauce?" asked Athena
"Trust me." said Kowalski grinning.
Right when the guy went to pick up Athenas backpack saying "Whats this doing in here?" Rico got up behind him and tripped him using grappling gun. Then he jumped on the guys eyes so that he couldn't see. Kowalski then signaled them to move in. The three of them then jumped on him to hold him down. Rico then reached into the backpack from where he was and pulled out a bottle of hot sauce and poured some into the guy mouth.
Athena was surprised when their captive suddenly settled: "What-?"
"Its not really hot sauce it truth serum." explained Kowalski
"You keep truth serum in a hot sauce bottle?"
Kowalski nodded, grinning.
"Remind me never to cross you." Athena then looked closer at their captive. "I have to say, I think that hes to hot to be a bad guy!" The three penguins gave her an odd look. "What?" she asked with a shrug.
Elsewhere: Skipper paced his cage the whole time that the humans were bringing the others in, thinking up as many ways to get out of here as he could. He was annoyed to find that not much came to him. The fact that the raccoon that was brought in with him and Kitka turned out to be Archie wasn't a big help. He was curled up in the back of his cage making scared type sounds. Skipper wasn't really angry at him for doing that, but it was rather distracting.
"What would Kowalski do?" Skipper caught himself saying out loud. After trying to bash his way out of the cage, but his was the most secure in the lot. He grinned in an ironic sort of way. "Of course, he would pick the lock!" He looked over at Kitka. "Hey, could I barrow your foot?"
"What?" asked both Kitka and Archie.
Skipper laughed to himself as he realized how weird and Mort like the question was: "I want to use you talons to pick the lock."
"Oh, there's some out of the box thinking." said Kitka grinning. She then stretched her leg out so Skipper could try his escape method.
"Well at least its a better plan then bashing your way out." said Archie finally calming down a bit.
It took a lot longer then they thought it might, but they were almost giddy when they heard the magic click and the door to Skippers cage swung open. Skipper then jumped out saying: "Sh-ping-go!"
"Alright! Who knew that thinking like Kowalski would pay off for you!" said Kitka She and Archie both laughed at the little dig on Skipper. He just cleared his throat and tried to look dignified.
"Anyway, most of these other cages are just like the ones they use at the zoo, getting you two and many of the others out should be easy." said Skipper quickly freeing Archie and Kitka. "Operation: Prison Break is a go!"
"But what about getting home?" asked Archie looking scared again.
"We will worry about that later. Perhaps a strength in numbers type plan." replied Skipper "Trust me, being a test subject is bad news. It happen to me and my friends once when we got captured by our arch enemy. I wouldn't wish that on anyone." Kitka was very surprised as Skipper actually shuddered in front of her. "Lets get to work on these other cages!" Archie and Kitka nodded.
Elsewhere: Through a series of questions the rescue team found out from their captive about the scandal that was underway within Animal Control. Which was: Officer X was approached by some 'scientists' that needed some test subjects, in the form of animals. He and those who helped him would be paid a lot of money if they could get them some. The more caged critters they got the more money they would make. Unbeknownst to the head of Animal Control X still had some friends there, so he approached them to be his helpers. It was even his idea to bump up the age to get a pet to twenty-one so less animals would get adopted so they would have more to give to the 'scientists'. As to why all the animals escaped their captive found out about the scheme and wanted to slow it down long enough so that he could gather enough proof so all the people involved would be put away. He had gotten almost all the proof he needed, except that he was having trouble when it came to X himself, who was annoyingly careful.
"Of all the people who were in on this, we catch the one guy who is on the right side." said Private sounding annoyed by the irony.
"Ha! I knew he was to hot to be bad!" said Athena "I told you so!"
Kowalski gave her a look then turned back to their captive: "This map shows the way to get to the secret lab?" He held up the map they printed out before.
The blonde nodded. Then they had him clearly mark it out for them. They weren't to thrilled that they were only half way there.
"What are we going to do now?" Athena asked the room at large.
Kowalski was surprised to see her get flustered: "Calm down. We are going to think of something."
"Uh oh!" said Rico suddenly. Everyone looked at him. He was pointing at their blonde captive with a worried look on his face.
They looked at the guy, Kowalski then got really nervous: "Hes coming out of it!"
"Quick guys, back in my backpack!" said Athena holding it open. The three of them dove in. Then Athena put it back on after getting the map off of Kowalski.
"Uh, whoa! That was a heck of a thing, that's the last time I eat sushi out of the back of a van. I could have sworn that I was just talking to three penguins and a girl." said the formerly drugged captive. He then looked up at Athena and jumped. "Well, there's the girl, where are the penguins?"
"Uh, don't worry about them. Whats you name dude?" asked Athena
"Tony, yours?"
"Athena."
"So, what are you doing in here?"
"I heard about the scam and I know that you want to stop it, so do I." replied Athena She then held up the map. "Care to give me a ride?"
Elsewhere: "Well that was easier then I thought. Good thing that guys partner doesn't like cages stacked on top of each other." Skipper said as he opened what he thought was the last cage.
"Uh, Skipper you missed one." said Archie
"What?" asked Skipper Archie pointed over at one more cage that was over by the door it was much like the one he himself was in. "OK then." Skipper walked over to the front of the cage, half expecting to see Max the 'Moon Cat' to be in there. Officer X was still pretty angry about him getting away. "Hey, anyone in there?" Skipper jumped backwards about a foot and a half when a crazed toy poodle suddenly charged right into the bars of the cage hard enough to make it move forward slightly. "Mr. Chew, so we meet again." He glared at the small dog that once tried to eat Private as it started barking at him. He walked away from the cage, he immediately stopped barking. "That little psycho could come in handy later."
"May I ask how?" said Kitka
"Working on it." said Skipper thinking like Kowalski again. He wouldn't admit it but he was starting to get a bit of a headache. He didn't know why. Hopefully it wasn't because of what Kitka would tease him for if he were to mention it, the thing in question was thinking. "I got an idea!" He then had Kitka unlock Mr. Chews cage, but not open it. Then he moved it into just the right spot.
"Uh! I was just about to get paid!" shouted Officer X when he was right outside the door where the second shipment of animals were. There was a lot of noise coming from in there and he was told to go and see what was causing all the hoopla. He unlocked the door and half entered, surprised by what he was seeing. Which was Skipper standing on top of his wide open cage conducting all the other animals, who were still in their cages, into being as loud as possible. "You! I should have known!" shouted Officer X
Skipper spun around and made a funny face at him. Then he jumped from cage to cage as X tried to grab him. Once his rear end was pointed at Mr. Chews cage Skipper jumped from the cage he was on up onto the angry humans back where the small crazy dog could see him, but not get him as he suddenly rushed out of the cage and jumped. Mr. Chew was aiming to chomp Skipper, but he didn't have the height. Instead of getting the Penguin Leader he got Officer X right on the butt and held on tight. Skipper then jumped to the floor.
Officer X screamed and ran into the hallway: "Get it off! Get it off!"
Skipper turned to the others as they pushed their cage doors the rest of the way open: "Lets move out everyone!" The entire group of them then ran out of the room and started down the hall.
"What if the people are down there?" asked Archie
"They can't stop all of us and besides Skipper won't leave anyone behind." said Kitka "Him and the team will come back and get any who get re-captured. Plus that other shipment."
Skipper nodded as he went zinging down the hall via a belly slide: "Even Mr. Chew."
The group of jail breakers stopped in the big entry room. It was full of people. Most were arriving for their so called work. Though some were the people responsible for this, not Officer X. He was getting his butt medicated somewhere. Mr. Chew was there though, being held by a snare pole. The whole group stopped as the humans turned to look at them and there were a lot more humans then any of them would have thought. "Sweet baked pink puffs! Today is just not my day!"
"Pink puffs?" asked Kitka staring at him.
"They can't all be keepers." Skipper shrugged "ABOUT FACE!"
Just as the group was starting to turn around the human that was apparently neurotic turned to his partner in crime and said "See? I told you that we should have separated them by species! Break out the dart guns!"
"Skipper what do we do now?" asked Archie
"We split into two groups and hope that the team is on the way, because I have nothing and they have a lot of dart guns! Miss Kitka you lead the other group, I'll take this one."
"Got it." They split up as soon as the hallway allowed.
Outside: Tony pulled his car into the empty lot next door. It was getting dark and so was the car so they would by hard to spot with the head lights off. He like Athena was ready to dish out some justice! They were about to get out of the car when suddenly from her backpack they heard: "This is Skipper! Tell me your nearby!"
Athena quickly grabbed her backpack from the floor and reached in, Kowalski handed her the walkie from the inside: "Hey Skipper. Its Athena, things are starting to get dodgy in there?" They could hear that something was definitely going on in the background.
"Very!" Skipper replied
"Hold tight, we are coming to get you."
"Copy and hurry up!" Skipper then signed off.
"What was that?" asked Tony
"Talk about perfect timing! I was just about to tell you that I have an inside guy helping us!" said Athena thinking fast. "I just hope he remembered to bring his camera." She then went to put the walkie back in with the penguins and saw that one of the things Kowalski had packed was a digital camera. She quickly grinned at him. She had only said that to distract Tony. "Stay here and keep the motor running. I'll be back soon." Athena then got out of the car.
Tony gently grabbed her wrist and asked "Why do you get to go in, you said we on that walkie?"
"I'm smaller then you. So I can sneak around more easily and I got the good stuff! -(she held up her backpack)- Plus my inside friend can be a bit paranoid so." Athena shrugged "I meant 'we' in the way British people use it."
"Fine, just don't get caught. I wouldn't put anything past these people." Tony replied letting her go. She nodded at him then ran in the direction of the 'clinic'.
They found some scrubby little bushes on the side of the building, so they ducked into them and started looking for a point of entry. They found one in the form of an air vent.
"We are going through an air vent? How action movie is that?" said Athena suddenly oddly excited.
"Skipper says its cliché." said Private
"Nah, its a classic!" said Athena
"Now your starting to sound like Skipper." said Kowalski grinning. He then took The Penguin-izer out of the backpack and pointed it at her.
Rico looked from it to the backpack and back again before saying something that Athena couldn't understand.
"Uh, I didn't catch that Rico." She tilted her head at him.
"He asked: 'How is it that all the stuff we brought plus us fit in this backpack?'" translated Kowalski
"Because Momma knows her backpack." Athena answered She received some odd looks. She laughed: "Its stretchy, OK?" The three penguins nodded, then Kowalski penguin-ized her again so she could actually fit through the air vent. Rico loaded himself up and Private grabbed the camera. They then put The Penguin-izer back into the backpack and put that into the bush so that it was hidden. Then the team moved in, Private pulled out the grappling gun so that they could get into the vent. Once inside they belly slid until they reached the end. By the time they got there it had calmed down a good amount. The penguins didn't really like that very much.
Kowalski had the group split up to find the other animals, half of which had already been re-captured. The teams were Kowalski and Athena and Rico and Private. He ordered Private to take as many pictures as possible and that they were to help any animals who were still free to get out. If any of the humans tried to stop them they were to do what they had to. It was the same for the other two who were going to go and find Skipper, then hopefully Officer X so then he would get caught along with everyone who needed to.
Picture Team: Private and Rico wondered around taking as many pictures as they possibly could. They also helped as many of the freed animals as they could. Kitka and Archie among others. Whenever they were spotted by a human Private would take a picture then he would either be knocked out (sometimes with their own weapons) or lured by one of the other animals to where they had trapped others and for a nice group shot. Sometimes they used closets, but they mostly used the laboratory type rooms. Those were the crews favorites. They were highly annoyed that there was not one sign of Officer X. They did find their way to the basement and find the rest of the animals though, so they weren't complaining.
There were a lot of animals in there. They freed the few that were able bodied, but there weren't that many. Furthermore there were to many to carry out even if the crew was all together. Private maxed out the cameras memory in the basement, he made quite sure.
Rico then asked a question very fast, it came out all garbled like before. Something he tried not to do in front of Athena. Private caught it and answered partially translating at the same time so the other could figure out what he said: "I can't say whats wrong with them. Its possible that these guys have already been through a round of testing Rico." Rico got a sad look on his face. "Don't worry, once the others find Skipper we will get out of here, after leaving the camera in a easy to find spot. Then one of us will call the cops." Rico nodded feeling better.
Skippers Team: "If I had a dog, he would be called Bingo!" said Skipper as he was peeking around a corner. He had just spotted Officer X, who had just swiped his cash and was making his getaway. "Oh you are so going down X!" Skipper laughed Then he went to go into a belly slide when he was suddenly grabbed with a claw type thing at the end of a pole. "Ah! Bad day!" Skipper grumbled to himself as he tried to wiggle free. Its didn't work as the claw was really tight.
The 'scientist' carried Skipper to the nearest lab and detached the claw from the rest of the thing holding him and put him on an examination table, where he continued to wiggle and started to make some headway, until: "I have been waiting to try this stuff on something for quite sometime." The man in the lab coat then got himself a very large needle with a red liquid in it.
Skipper froze and went completely stiff. "Needles!" he said It came out in a harsh whisper. Skipper closed his eyes and braced himself.
Then suddenly: "Don't think so!" was shouted by two voices and he heard the sound of the 'scientist' hitting the floor. Skipper opened his eyes and saw Kowalski standing there next to Athena. Who for some reason had her eyes suddenly closed. "Yup I was right! That chop move is easier when you don't have fingers!" she then said.
Skipper sighed with relief. "Your timing could not have been better!" he said when Kowalski was right in front of him. Kowalski grinned at him, then pulled out his options clipboard and used it to help pry Skipper loose. It was as he was giving his wings a stretch he asked "Why dose Athena have her eyes closed?"
"She is as afraid of needled as you are." answered Kowalski causally as he put his clipboard away.
"Afraid of needled?" the two of them asked pointing at each other. "I thought that I was the only one!"
"Small world." Kowalski shrugged grinning.
"Speaking of, where are the others?" asked Skipper
"They are gathering evidence, helping the animals they can and probably trapping more then the odd human. I have to say that those two didn't look happy when we split up." explained Athena "Now all we need to do is find X and we will be all set!" She rubbed her wings together.
"Forget about catching him. Hes long gone by now." said Skipper sounding disappointed. "Again that man has vexed me!" Skipper then pulled out his walkie: "Skipper to Private come in."
"Private here, are you alright Skipper?"
"Yeah, I got Kowalski and Athena here. How goes your end?"
"It goes well. We freed all the animals we could and got a lot of digital pictures. Also the ones we did free helped trap or knock out every human we found."
"Very good boys, but what did you mean by-"
"Some of the others were not recovered from whatever happened to them. There were to many to move." Kitka broke in suddenly.
"But we don't leave anyone behind!" Skipper nearly shouted.
"Relax Skipper, when the cops show up and see that camera sitting on the front desk they will make sure that everyone that couldn't be moved will be taken care of." said Athena in a calming tone. "The tricky part is going to be how to get them here."
"We will think about that when we get back together. Team Picture when you get to the front desk stay there. We will come to you." said Skipper
"Rodger that." said Private The three penguins then went to aforementioned location. When they got there Private and Rico hugged Skipper as soon as they saw him.
"Aw!" said Athena "Wait how come they get to hug him?"
"Well, they were worried about him." said Kowalski grinning.
"Oh like we weren't?" Athena shot back 'raising an eyebrow'.
"Oh come on, bring it in!" said Kitka walking up behind them and pushing them over 'forcing' a penguin group hug.
"Aw!" said everyone
After-wards: "OK, so how are we got going to get the cops here?" asked Kitka
"By using a trick I saw in a movie the other day." said Athena with a Kowalski type tone. She then started looking around and found a purse one of the lady workers dropped trying to catch one of the animals earlier. She reached in and pulled out a thing of pepper spray. "Yeah, come to Momma!"
"What are you going to do with that?" asked Private
"This." Athena then sprayed herself in the face with it. "Ow! Spicy eyes!" Athena then pulled her phone out of her feathers.
"I know what shes up to!" said Kowalski taking the phone and turning it on then dialing the emergency number. "Everyone be quite." He then hit the green button to start the call and made sure she had it.
"What is your emergency?" said the lady on the other end.
"I think something bad happened at this old looking building!" Athena said into the phone. Thanks to the pepper spray she sounded like she was hysterical, which was what she was going for. "Some people ran in there carrying what looked to be weapons! Then there was a lot of noise yelling and things like that. Then the people ran back out! Some animals ran out too. None of them looked very good. They looked hurt or drugged!"
"Calm down honey." said the lady kindly. "Now just tell me were this place is and I will dispatch the police to that location."
"Alright!" She did just that then snapped her phone shut with a satisfied smile. "Mission Complete!" By then she had mostly recovered from the pepper spray.
"Indeed." said Skipper with an approving look. "Lets bug out!" The entire group left through the front entrance. Most of the animals scattered. The ones that could fly volunteered to take those they could back home. The penguins went back to the bush they hid Athenas backpack in.
Back At The Car: Tony was getting tired of waiting. He thought that Athena was taking to long. He finally got out of the car. "I don't care how paranoid Athenas friend is, she is taking way to long and this is dangerous biz." He then went into his trunk and got the disguise he created for himself. Which was a white laboratory coat look-a-like and a pair of fake glasses. Tony then made for the 'clinic' by way of the bushes.
The Bushes: Skipper arrived first, a bit ahead of The Team. "Finely, the day is looking up!" Suddenly a blonde in a lab coat stopped and stared at him. "AAA! They missed one!" he shouted reaching into the backpack next to him, looking to throw something at him to knock him out.
"Skipper wait! We need that guy!" shouted Athena
To late, Skipper had already pulled out The Penguin-izer. Said device activated accidentally, turning the blonde into a penguin. Everyone stood there and blinked at Skipper.
Athena turned to Kowalski: "Dude, you really need to put a safety on that thing." He just continued to stare at Skipper like the others.
"Aw man! Its that bad fish coming back on me again!" said Tony shaking off his fake glasses.
Skipper turned to the others with a weird look on his face: "Hes not a hipster is he?" The boys tried not to laugh.
"Uh, I don't think so." said Athena She shook herself out of the slight confusion she felt. "Skipper hes our getaway driver and we have to get out of here before the cops show up!" They all jumped slightly when they heard the sounds of approaching sirens.
"Uh Oops?" said Skipper putting gizmo back into the backpack.
"Skipper doesn't goof up very often does he?" asked Athena
"Uh uh." said Rico
"Skipper also doesn't have bad days very often." said Skipper looking annoyed.
"But how are we-" Athena began staring to get panicky as the cops started to get very close when Skipper suddenly clamped her beak shut.
"Rico your up!" said Skipper his face suddenly brightening. Rico rubbed his wings together.
As they made for the car Private suddenly grinned and asked "So is this the part of the mission where you tell us that you getting caught was just some kind of Big One Test Version Two?"
Skipper laughed and said "Now does that sound like something that I would pull?" The boys all looked like they wanted to say 'Yes' really bad, but they kept their beaks shut. Skipper got the message though. He shook his head in an amused way and said "Yeah, thanks boys!" The whole team, but Athena laughed.
"Do I want to know?" asked Athena
"No!" they replied
They all piled into the car and Rico drove them back to the zoo. The whole time Athena and Tony felt like they were on a roller coaster. They were only really scared when they felt and heard a loud scraping sound that was closely followed by someone yelling "My Car!" It was shortly after that when they got back to the zoo. They went down into HQ, all six of them.
"So what are we going to do about getting you home?" Skipper asked Athena.
"I don't have to go home for another three days. My parents think that I'm on an out of state field trip and my friends think that I'm home sick." answered Athena grinning.
"Very nice. So what are we going to do about that one." said Skipper pointing over at Tony. Who was sitting in a corner looking like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.
"Uh, I don't know."
"I could amnesia mist him!" said Kowalski popping up suddenly holding up what looked like a ketchup squeeze bottle. Which he squeezed a little to hard causing him to take some of the pink mist in the face. "Where was I?"
Athena stepped back from him a little: "I say again, remind me never to cross you." Skipper laughed. "Since he was helping us and before that was trying to take down X on his own I say you make him an honorary penguin." said Athena Skipper blinked at her in surprise: "He was? I didn't know that. But I don't know-"
"Aw, come on Skipper!" said Athena giving him the cutest look she could.
"Well-" began Skipper still looking unsure.
"If he starts to look if-y I will amnesia mist him myself."
Skipper looked at her very intensely for a moment. Almost like he was sizing her up. Then he said "Alright." Athena smiled at him. Then the two went over to Tony and calmed him down, then there were some introductions and some explanations.
The next morning saw The Team Plus Two watching the news to see what happened after they left the 'clinic'. It went exactly like they hoped it would! The camera was found and looked through, the animals found, taken care of and would be fine. The humans were all arrested and were no longer anything to be worried about.
"Boys and lady, that is one heck of a Mission Accomplished!" said Skipper standing in front of everyone. "Up high!"
The End
~Authors Note: Well there you have it my first ever sequel! I hope you enjoyed! I would like to take a second to thank my friend puppy-anime-luvr who gave me the basic idea for this! You rock! I had fun with this one, its not often or even ever that Skipper has to be rescued. By the way that thing that Skipper said about him and the team being test subjects was a reference to the story I co-wrote with puppy-anime-luvr its called Old Friends And Old Enemies. If you like check that one out. The testing thing is only one part of that story, the rest is pretty funny. Now bring on the reviews and not the flames! And of course the disclaimer that I put down here because I can: I don't own The Penguins Of Madagascar. Dream Works/Nickelodeon does.~
~Over & Out~ ~