Here is the second chapter that adds in more of the cast and some more of the storyline into it. The character picks should prove entertaining to anyone reading this fanfic so enjoy and thanks for taking the time to read this.
Upon hearing the bell Natsu grows excited, always happy whenever the zoo opens up for its visitors. "You hear that Lucy? The people are coming! Oh, I just love the people! It's time for people fun time! WHOO!" He dances around a bit and gives Lucy a good shake before leaping over the fence with his hands and lands on top of someone else floating face down in a pool of water in the nearby pen, still sleeping when he starts dancing on top of them and shouting at them.
"Come on Erza, wake up! The zoo's open and it's time for people fun time!"
The person Natsu is dancing on is a young woman named Erza who had long dark red hair and brown eyes, wearing a gray bodysuit with long sleeves and legs leaving her hands, feet, and head free. Adding onto that was a little bitty tail on the back end and some tiny ears on top of her head being that she was a hippopotamus or simply a 'hippo' as most people call them due to it being easier to say. She stirs and sticks head above water, yawning and still half asleep despite Natsu's attempt of waking her up.
"Huh... What day is it exactly?" she asks, rubbing her eyes.
"It's Friday Erza! Field Trip day so get up already!" Natsu leaps off of her and starts dancing around the edge of her pen that was solid.
Hearing that Erza seemed to get a bit more motivated as she raises a fist and smiles. "Field Trip day! Yes, let's get up and going... in ten more minutes..." she mutters as she sinks into her pool after falling back to sleep as she wasn't quite ready to get moving yet. Meanwhile, Natsu leaps and grabs onto a nearby lamp post and swings around it once before launching himself into another pen as he lands on the building within the pen.
"Come on, time to get up Gray! Gray, Gray, Gray, Gray! It's another great day in the Big Apple so get up before you miss it! Let's get going!" he shouts while dancing and beating on the building top to bring out the resident which works as there's a sound of a toilet flushing followed by a young man who was wearing a white cone around his head leaving the said building.
As mentioned the young man was named Gray would had black spiky hair and dark blue eyes. He was wearing yellow shorts with closely spaced random brown spots all over them, those same spreading all over his normal skin. With a long tail along with some long ears and horns he was seen as a giraffe by the general public. ((Gray here is going to be at his normal size despite being the giraffe. I've worked out how to make that work for the story.))
"Natsu, today's not the day for me. I'm going to call in a sick day." he answers to Natsu as he looks at the roof of his building.
"What?" Natsu replies with a questioning look. "Again? What is it this time Gray?"
"Well, I just found a brown spot on my shoulder here. Look, it's right here! Do you see it?" Gray was pointing to one of his natural spots on his shoulder by the looks of it. Natsu just rolls his eyes, knowing Gray to have a history of health issues and always being paranoid when he thinks his health is at risk whether it's really in danger or not.
"Gray, I'll say this once more." He leans in close to Gray's face and grabs the cone to balance himself. "It's all in your head."
The front gates of the zoo open to the public and it's not long before a lot of people start walking through them to view the animals, the kids running ahead being the most eager. In one cage nearby a trash can lives two males resembling monkeys with brown vests and pants and having long tails. One was a man dark blue hair, black eyed named Macao who was just waking up and reaching into the nearby trash can to retrieve a coffee, a newspaper and a bagel before going back in to rejoin his partner who was still sleeping on a branch.
"Hey Wakaba, wake up you dirty monkey!" He shouts, slapping his brown-haired partner with the newpaper, causing him to stir and knock off a bunch of cans that were lying on top of him, grumbling while chewing on his pipe. Macao hands him the coffee while he keeps the bagel and newspaper for himself as Wakaba gurgles the coffee he was given after waking up. ((You can imagine them being about the size of the chimps here.))
"Oh yeah, fresh is what I'm going to be. Completely fresh. Vegetable fresh. Ziploc fresh." Lucy was talking to herself while stretching in various ways, keeping in mind what Natsu told her to do just earlier. She was going to completely new today that was for sure. She takes a swig from a cup that was also themed around Natsu and washes it around her mouth before spitting it out. "Super fresh!"
"Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages," the announcement system starts up, signaling the beginning of the biggest event of the zoo. "The Central Park Zoo proudly presents..."
Meanwhile Natsu was getting worked up as he stayed hidden out of sight, readying himself for the very thing he enjoyed doing the most when people are visiting. "Let's show them the cat! Who's the cat? Who's the cat?" he chanted to himself, already hearing the people cheering for him before the show was even starting.
"The king of New York City..."
"NATSU THE LION!" Natsu says that at the same time as the speakers.
Lucy smiles. "It's showtime!" she gets ready to do her thing while Natsu gets on top of a high pedestal, stepping on a switch that makes a fan appear below him so that it looks like his mane was blowing. "RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!" he gives off his signature pose and roar as fireworks go off next to him, the large audience in front of him loving his entrance as always. He also proceeds to make various poses for those taking pictures of him.
"Alright everyone, gather around! Gather around!" Lucy calls out toward those near her that were given her some attention. "The shows about to start and this zebra is going to show you a good time!" she's already keeping their attention with some flips and handstands, especially from the kids watching. She they runs by her watering trough and gets a mouthful of water, swishing it around in her mouth a bit before squirting a shot of it into the air then moving into another position to catch it again much to the amazement of the crowd.
She then does two squirts of water at once followed by three and then four, doing rolls and flips to get into the positions that would catch the water and also amaze the audience. She finishes it all up by spraying out the water in her mouth at a group of adults who cringe from the spray but the children cheer after seeing that happen to their parents especially loud. Looks like she was fresh after all.!
While on his pedestal Natsu was waving his arms around so that he got different groups of the audience to do The Wave in the direction he was motioning it for which they were more then happy to follow. At Erza's tank the people watching her were amazed as she swim around gracefully, earning quite a few snapshots herself. As for Gray a lot of people were enjoying taking pictures of him in various medical positions such a walking with crutches, laying on an operating table and getting an MRI, needing the amount of medical attention he's receiving.
One visitor is focusing a video camera on a group of penguins standing on a platform in the middle of a large pool. All of them were wearing black and white tuxedos with orange shoes and black flippers on their hands since they're penguins after all. "Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave. That'll keep them plenty happy." says their leader who was an orange-haired, black-eyed man named Ichiya. He turns around to face the bowl of fish behind them. ((Imagine them having the same size as the penguins.))
"Give me a status report Hibiki. Good news and Bad news." he says to the bowl.
The bowl moves aside, revealing a tunnel as a brown-haired, black-eyed young man pops out of it. "Good news is we're only 500 feet from the main sewer line." he explains.
Ichiya nods with a smile. "That is good news. And the bad news?"
Hibiki pulls out a plastic spoon that was broken into two pieces. "The bad news is we've broken our last shovel..." he explains again.
Ichiya frowns as he scratches his head. "Hm, that is bad news." He then turns to another of his men. "Ren, I'm assigning you to litter partol! I need you to fetch us more shovels and be sure to pick up more popsicle sticks while you're out. We don't want to risk having another cave-in incident." Ren, a young man with black hair and black eyes along with tan skin nods before diving gracefully into the water
"What do I do Ichiya?" asked Eve, the blond-haired and dark green-eyed member of the group. Ichiya just pats him on the shoulder with a smile. "I just want you to keep looking cute and cuddly Eve. For today we will bust out of this place." The two continue to wave at the people as Ren swims up to a kid and leaps out of the water, grabbing his plastic spoon with his mouth while the kid was pointing with it, leaving them confused as the cameraman captures it on film.
Back at Lucy's pen, Lucy was being fresh again by stick her hand in her armpit and making that farting sound you get when you flap the other arm up and down. "How do you like that? Bet you'll never see that on Animal Planet huh?" she giggles while the parents start leading their children away who were trying to copy Lucy's 'fresh' act.
"Well that's all for today, thanks for stopping by." she waves as the visitors start to clear out for the day. "Hope that was 'fresh' enough for you all. I'll be here all week. As a matter of fact I'll be here my entire life. All 365 days a year plus Halloween, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and any other holidays." she picks up her drinking cup and sucks from it. "Please never ever forget to spay or neuter your pets if you haven't and be sure to tip your cabbie because he doesn't have a dime!"
She tosses aside the empty cup and relaxes for a moment before spotting a plastic spoon dig itself upward from the ground, catching her curiosity. She stares as it as the four penguins from the other exhibit pop up, looking around in every direction while shaking to remove the dirt from their journey underground. Soon enough Ichiya notices her and addresses her. "You there, quadruped. You Sprechen Sie English?" he asks, causing Lucy to raise a brow.
"Yes, I Sprechen." she responds, wondering where this was going.
"Good, what Continent is this if you know?" Ichiya asks again.
"Manhattan." Lucy answered, wondering how they could not know that.
"Hoover Dam! We're still in New York! Abort Mission! Dive, Dive, Dive!" Ichiya shouts while getting his men to go back under while Lucy runs up to them, already too curious to ignore them and wanting to know what was going on here.
"Hey, hold it! You in the tux, get back here!" she yells while peeking into the hold and backing up as the penguins return to the surface. "What in the heck are you guys doing?" she asks as they return attention to her.
"We're digging to Antarctica of course. It's that simple." Eve answers, earning him a slap from Ichiya which makes him cry out while Lucy just looks confused.
"Anthootica?" she asks, clearly never hearing of that place before.
Ichiya and his men look around quickly to make sure no one else is around while Eve is busy rubbing his sore cheek. "Do you think you can keep a secret my monochromatic friend?" he asks, referring to Lucy once more by a trait of hers. Lucy looks around, also making sure the coast was clear before nodding and leaning in close to Ichiya to hear the secret.
Ichiya leans in to whisper to her. "Have you ever seen any penguins running freely around New York City? Any at all? Lucy shakes her head no. "Of course not. The reason is because we don't belong here. This isn't our natural environment thus we're not meant to be here. There's some crazy conspiracy at work here and we're breaking out of it." he backs up as he smiles big. "We're going to head toward the wide, open spaces of Antarctica. Heading to the Wild!" He and his men start high-fiving each other randomly and wildly.
"The Wild? You can actually go there? That... sounds perfect." Lucy asks, sounding happy and excited by the thought. Certainly this was the thing she was looking for and when she looks back at the hole though the penguins were gone again. "Hey! Come back here, you have to tell me how to get to the wild! Tell me where it is!"
She backs up when Ichiya pops his head up again. "You didn't see anything here..." he waves his arms before slowly descending the hole, only to pop back up again quickly. "Is that right?"
Lucy promptly salutes him. "Yes sir. Oh! I mean, no sir I didn't see anything." she corrects herself.
Ichiya nods before grabbing her empty cup and using it to plug up the hole as he drops back down it. Lucy is left there without any answers and a bunch of questions that she couldn't answer or explain really. While thinking she turns her head toward Natsu who was still doing his performance.
"For his final appearance of the day, the king of New york City, NATSU THE LION!" the speakers announce once more as Natsu once again roars while making his signature pose. By the entrance the bell is rung again, signaling closing time for the zoo.
"Thank you for coming everyone! Thank you! Thank you!" Natsu bows as he catches a bouquet thrown at him. "Ah, thank you! You're a great audience and you yourselves deserve a hand as well." He grins as he claps along with the audience but is cut off when some pair of underpants lands on his face. He removes it, looking embarrassed as it reads 'I love NY' "Oh wow... That's too kind really... heh..."
As the zoo employees lead the visitors out of the zoo Natsu quickly stretches the underpants and launches them to get them away from him. Gray was busy in his pen cleaning his nose when the same underpants land on his head. "Gah! Underpants!" he freaks out upon seeing the offending garment.
"Thanks for coming and get home safely!" Natsu waves as all the people leave until tomorrow. The day was now coming to an end and night was going to begin soon.
That ends the second chapter. A lot of the main cast has been established here and I hope my chosen picks for the roles were entertaining for those reading this. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I shall make the next chapter soon.