A/N:Argh! So much thought went into this one chapter and unfortunately, it doesn't really show. :( Anywho, here goes the major's intro to NYC and the penguins! Let's see how she handles it all. *devilish smile*
This chapter was named for my friend (the one who co-created the story) because this is what she originally wanted to name it. But that just "didn't fly" as Skipper would say, so we came up w/ this. Hope you enjoy this next chapter! XD
*CHAPTER ONE : THE NEWCOMER*
Alice grumbled to herself as she made her way to the penguin habitat, wooden crate held in her arms.
"Ugh...As if we absolutely need another penguin. Can't we ever just get something cute?"
She set the crate down on the habitat's floe when she reached it, and squatted beside it to open the lock. All the while, she was still complaining.
"Like a koala? A koala would be so nice. But no, we had to get another freak of a penguin."
As soon as the cranky zookeeper pried the box open, a penguin slid out rather clumsily, as penguins naturally do. It looked up at her with curious sapphire eyes from where it lie on its back on the ground, and let out a squawk.
"What?" Alice inquired of it, though she knew it was an animal and therefore wouldn't answer her.
The penguin jumped to its feet and cocked its head at her. Though she never really payed any attention to these things, Alice could see that this was not a normal bird; it was an Isabelline, meaning its plumage was brown. And then there was this huge pink bow with black polka-dots on the left side of its head, and... spiked anklets on its feet?
"You're a strange one, aren't you, girly?"
Why anyone would dress up a penguin, Alice couldn't understand. Now, she could just take the accessories off, but being the person she was, and that person being lazy, thinking to herself that she had better things to be doing that didn't include spending even just a second with a very odd penguin, she was gone before anyone could blink twice.
* * *
Meanwhile, inside the HQ, Rico was on lookout duty. He watched every nook and cranny of the Central Park Zoo through the para-scope. Everything was business as usual. Nothing unexpected ever happened anymore...
Phil and Mason sat on their tree, playing a game of chess. Julien, Maurice, and Mort danced to the music blaring from their boom-box. Ted lay sprawled out on his rock, enjoying the snow. Burt happily crunched on a few peanuts... Rico finally made a home run back to the floe to find... another penguin? What?
He let out a grunt to signal the others.
"Look!"
Skipper was the first to the para-scope, and looked out through the lens. What he found on the outside wasn't anything he had expected. He jumped back at the discovery and barked his lieutenant,
"Kowalski: Analysis!"
The intellectual penguin nodded, and quickly scampered his way to the scope. He tightly shut one eye, and with the other, looked out the lens. There on the floe stood a young bird with a very strange outward appearance.
"It's another penguin, sir. Um, female, I believe. Isabelline."
"Isabelline, Kowalski? Uh, sprechen sie English?"
"She... has brown plumage instead of black. Young, perhaps six years old. Rather attractive, really..."
Skipper moved Kowalski aside and took another look at the female. After a quick peek, he stood back and held a flipper up to his beak.
"Hmm... I concur."
It was then that the youngest member of the team, Private, spoke up.
"Should we investigate, sir?" he piped in his soft British accent, almost bouncing in excitement; He loved to meet new people. Skipper nodded, and the team followed him up onto the floe.
* * *
"Ugh... "Ask Henry," he said." the major mumbled to herself irritably, tinkering with the big pink bow on the side of her head. She would have thrown it to the ground and stomped on it by now had it not been helpful to her "evaluation", as Gentoo had called it.
Evaluation my tail feathers! When you're incognito as some little preppy chick, that's not called an evaluation!
"Yeah, I asked Henry, Gentoo, and what does he do? He gives me some shallow sob-story and yells at me to go away! Oh yeah, 'cause that's such a big suprise! Next thing I know I'm sent out here with no other intention than to spy on my "cousin". Built-in camera in a bow? Who ever heard of that! Oh, no, they'll never suspect me with this big piece of crap on my head and with me saying, "Take me to your leader!"! Whooooo, I'm an alien spy, beware!"
"You there!" came a voice. The major spun around in suprise to find four male penguins staring at her. She stared back at them.
Let's see: One leader, team of three men... I believe these are my guys, she guessed.
"Me?"
"Yeah, you with the face!" the second shortest replied. He seemed to be their leader. The major soaked in his appearance: he had a flat head, broad chest... very deep sapphire eyes like her own. He was short, handsome, seemed old enough to at least pass for a captain, and maybe, just maybe, he could be... Is this...?
"State your business, punk." he spat at her when he found her staring. The major winced.
Okay, someone's not had his cup of coffee today...
"Look, buddy," she sighed, folding her flippers to her chest. She was a rank above him; He had no right to speak to her like that. So he didn't know, so what? Either which way, no one told her what to do or how to do it. If someone told her to jump, she'd say, "Yeah. Go jump off the tallest sky-scraper or I'll hang you there by your own nostrils."
"I don't have time for this childish game of yours. What do you want from me? Spit it out, guy."
The penguin stared at her blankly for a second, almost as if he was shocked, then shook his head quickly and retorted, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Hoover Dam. I forgot to come up with a name...! the major scolded herself inwardly. She decided to think one up as she answered the other half of the question.
"I'm from the Dallas Zoo, in Texas. I'll only be here until my habitat is fixed up. The elephants escaped and trampled everything. Not a pretty picture, let me tell ya. Everybody's always escaping, and ya know, usually it's the gorillas or tigers. But no, this time it had to be elephants that had been spooked by a tiny little mouse. Cowards..."
The four males glanced at each other, then back at her. They didn't know whether they should trust her or not. One of the four, however, had already made up his mind.
The shortest in the group pushed his way through to her and chirped,
"I'm the private!"
He then turned back to the others and pointed each one out, starting with the tallest.
"That's Kowalski, our lieutenant and strategist. He's also an amazing scientist, which is why we sometimes have no idea what on earth he's talking about."
Then he pointed to the one with a mohawk and a scar on the left side of his cheek, who waved at her in a friendly manner.
"And that's Rico, our staff sergeant and explosives and weapons expert. He doesn't speak much, but he's tons of fun."
He then pointed to the leader.
"And the cranky one here is our skipper. He's just a little too serious sometimes and he has this gigantic mishapen-"
Skipper shot a flipper over Private's beak to quiet him, then slapped him upside the head.
"Private, you just gave out confidential information! Not to mention you almost spilled the beans about- Ugh, that's not important! That's maintenance duty for a week."
"Aw, but Skipper, I just wanna make her feel comfortable..." Private pouted. His sky blue eyes looked up guiltily at his leader.
The major gazed sympathetically at the little penguin. Sheesh, he doesn't have to be so hard on the poor lil' guy.
Skipper took a step closer to her, flippers on his hips. "Yes. As Private so loudly stated, I'm Skipper. And you are...?"
The moment she had been dreading: her name. Her eyes shifted around nervously as she tried to think. Name. Gotta think up a name!
"Um... I'm, I'm... uh..."
"Well?"
"I'm...erm..."
"Look, do you have a name or not?" Skipper groaned, rolling his eyes. This female was wasting his valuable time, and he wasn't about to put up with this "tomfoolery", as he called it.
The major gulped. Out of all the things I didn't think through! Out of all the things!
"S-Skippae!" she subconsciously blurted. "I'm Skippae!"
Wait, what?! Her flippers shot out over her beak when she realized what she had answered. Oh, God, like he's gonna believe that! What am I thinking?!
"Skippae?" Skipper echoed skeptically. The unnerved major nodded quickly, chewing on her tongue.
For a moment, she thought he'd begin to interrogate her. The "Where did you pull that one out of, spy?"'s, and the "Who sent you here?"'s and the "How much do you know?"'s... The major was on the virge of a nervous breakdown!
But the questions never came.
"Alright, Skippae... You're a penguin, so I guess... we can... trust..." Skipper suddenly trailed off and found himself looking her up and down. Why have I...?
"Have I met you before?"
"Skippae" shook her head "no".
"Erm... Never met you before in my life, dude. Nope. Never. Not at all... Nope."
She then rocked back and forth on her heels innocently, a soft smile creeping over her beak. She cursed her family at that moment; they were terrible liars. And appearantly, being bad at lying was hereditary.
Kowalski leaned over to whisper in Skipper's ear, "I think she'd get along well with Marlene, eh?"
Skipper nodded with a chuckle. "No doubt about that, 'Walski. Both cute, both naive."
"Well, Miss Skippae, I suppose that if you're going to be staying with us, you'll be needing someplace to call home. At least, for a while, anyways. You know the penguin credo, don't you?"
"Um... Never deep bathe in hot oil and Bisquick?"
Skipper looked appalled. Why was it that whenever he asked that question, people would always come up with that answer first? It wasn't even close to being the credo!
Lil' polka-dotted pink-bowed punk. She has no idea!
"No! For the love of... It's "Never swim alone"! Alone! How many times do I have to explain this?"
He twirled around on one foot and began to march over to the fishbowl entrance. A glance back, he ordered to his team and the newcomer,
"Follow me."
* * *
"Wow, your own little headquarters. Impressive, really." Skippae commented as she stared in awe at the penguins' home.
There were weapons and playing cards lying about everywhere, there was a lab (which she guessed must be Kowalski's), four bunks carved into a wall, a bathroom, a comfy-looking red recliner... and there was a guitar.
Hmmm... I wonder which of these guys plays? Or maybe they just have it, just to have it, I guess...
"So, by the weapons and rankings, I'm guessing... you're an elite strike force?" she directed at Skipper.
He smiled, which she took as a yes, and laughed,
"We've been all around the world, and out of all the animals we've met, you're one of the only ones to have gotten that exactly right. Girly, you've got some brains."
"Kowalski, I think you've got yourself some competition here."
Kowalski looked up from working on a chemical mixture at his lab table, a clearly confused expression behind his goggles.
"Huh?"
Poof!The mixture sounded as it exploded. Soot caked itself all on the poor scientist, and he let out a groan. This must have been the umpteenth time today that had happened. And it was only ten. Pathetic.
Skippae snickered, a smug smirk plastering her face.
"You guys are a bit of a mess, aren't you?"
"You have no idea." Kowalski chuckled, removing his goggles and setting them down on the table. He waddled away towards the TV and shuffled through the channels until he found, of course, the Science Channel. He stretched back against a makeshift couch and slumped down into it in an oddly relaxed manner.
Skippae couldn't help but feel somewhat confused.
Strange, I thought these guys would be a little more paranoid of me if their leader was trained by Gentoo... She shook her head in amusement, and to shake off the thought, her flippers behind her back. Well, I've been wrong before.
"Skippae!" Private's voice called from the storage room. He and Rico came out with an old, beige dog bed, and set it down before her.
"We found you somewhere to sleep. We know it's not quite as comfortable as what our bunks are, but it's the best we could do for now... If you need a blanket or a pillow, don't be afraid to ask us."
Skippae simply beamed at the two approvingly and took the bed in her flippers. "Thanks you guys. I really do appreciate it."
"PRETTY!!!" Rico squawked at her when she smiled. As she always did, she cocked her head. No one had ever called her pretty before... Maybe it's because of this ridiculous bow?
"Um... Thanks, Rico. That's, uh... very kind of you."
She took the bed to a corner and set it down, then turned to Skipper. Though she hated hiding that she outranked him, she had to make him think she had nothing to do with the military, and that she had nothing to do with him. As far as he was concerned, she wasn't a major and she wasn't his cousin. She was from the Dallas Zoo and not the Pittsburgh. She was just penguin who was here because her habitat was destroyed by a couple of high-strung elephants, she was not a spy. She didn't know anything that he didn't know.
"All right, you're Captain Obvious-ly-the-boss-here. So what are your orders now?"
Skipper smiled at her somewhat deviously. Little did he know how ironic every word he was about to say was.
"Miss Skippae, what we do next is give you a bit of... an evaluation. See if we can really trust you. Test numbre uno..."
A/N: Please don't ask about the whole "PRETTY" thing between Rico and Skippae. THAT was Kathy's idea. Psychotic little ninja weasel; pairing me up with someone who already has a girlfriend goshdangit.... :P