What's this one about?

Pretty much one of the first things I ever wrote for this show back in 2015. It was a bit ambitious and I overestimated my abilities at the time. It was supposed to be an A to Z story, but obviously, as you can see, I only got to C.

"A to Z of Animals"

Abnormal Ants

It was always sunny in Hawaii. Always. It was unnaturally sunny. Go figure that the one day it wasn't sunny was the day that Danny would've loved it to be so. Tropical storms only made raids all that more dangerous. It was an unsettling feeling, trying to get your plan together and your weapons in order in the whipping wind and first smatterings of rain.

Steve pointed to him and then to himself before pointing to the front door. He then gestured to Kono and Chin, sweeping his hand around back. It was a simpler and quieter way of communicating with the wind. And their suspect wouldn't hear them, either. Like anyone could hear anything over the ruckus of slapping palm tree fronds or the choppy waves of the unsettled ocean under the back deck of the house anyways.

Danny braced himself and popped the door open with a backwards kick. Steve swept in and he followed, both of them quickly and efficiently checking off each room of the house before meeting in the middle with Kono and Chin. They lowered their weapons slowly.

"Looks like our guy was here earlier," Kono said. She held up a plate with a half-eaten bagel on it.

"See if you can find anything that suggests where he's disappeared to," Steve directed.

The group broke up to search the house. It was a very open floor plan so they could keep each other in eyesight fairly well. Clean, simple, and well organized. Everything was so well organized in the house that finding something out of place was obvious.

"Hey, look at this," Danny picked up a stack of mail that looked like it had been tossed aside quickly. A familiar note sat on top. As Steve walked over to see what he had found he held up the thick square of paper with a golden emblem on it. "That's the logo on our guy's hoodie, isn't it?"

"Someone must've tipped him off we were coming," Steve shook his head. "Seriously, who is this guy? Every time we come at him he up and disappears. He's way more than a small time thief."

"Boss, come look at these," Kono called.

Danny and Steve left the mail on the counter, following the youngest teammate's voice. They rounded a corner into a living room with minimalistic furniture and several pictures on the walls. A cool breeze snuck in through the big glass doors that were currently opened out onto the deck that hung twenty feet above the water. The flow of air had scattered several unframed photos that must've started out on the coffee table.

"Seems like he loves his animals," Kono was crouched down on the ground, gathering all of the skewed photos up. She handed a stack to Steve.

"Dogs, cats, snakes, fish, frogs," Steve sorted through the many, many animals presented on each photo.

Danny's eyebrows shot up and he tapped his finger on the next photo in the set. "Woah, that is not a normal pet. That little fluff ball is illegal and will grow up to be a man eater."

Steve flipped the photo around to show the other two. It looked like it had been taken somewhere in the jungle during midday. A man stood in the middle smiling with a chain in his hand. And at the end of the chain was a tiger cub.

"I think I know what our guy is," Steve handed the photos off to Chin before he approached the large glass aquarium against the left hand wall of the room.

Danny hesitantly followed him while the cousins started bagging and tagging. He scratched his neck as both he and his partner stared into the apparently empty tank. That was concerning.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like our guy gave the resident of the tank an escape route when he left," Danny gestured to the chunk of wood that had clearly been misplaced and leaned against the inside of the tank, forming a ladder to the rim and an easy way to go over it. He scratched at his back, feeling itchy at the thought of something wondering around the house alongside them. "What do you think was in here?"

"I don't know," Steve steadied himself on one leg, using his foot to rub the sudden tickle on his ankle. "Lots of plant debris and dead wood in the tank. Could be some kind of snake or a scorpion or even a tarantula."

"Do not mention tarantulas or scorpions, Steven," Danny shuddered at the thought of something that big on the loose.

They turned around at the sudden slap. Chin looked up at them before looking under his hand. There was a black smudge on his arm of what probably used to be some kind of bug before it picked the wrong man to crawl on. Of course, the single slap wasn't enough. Kono also took after her cousin and slapped the side of her neck.

"Ow," she muttered. In a flurry of movement she started to swat at her back, jumping up off her knees. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"

"Kono?" Steve walked towards her while throwing an arm over his head to scratch between his shoulders under his Kevlar.

Danny knew that this was going to go downhill as soon Steve was ripping off his vest to get at his back better. Kono had already shed her protective gear and he and Chin were in the middle of doing the same. It was only when he got a hand actually under his shirt did he realize what was behind the attack. Apparently his partner had figured it out, too.

"It's ants! They're all over the place," Steve said as he worked to knock the on-second-look-not-so-little black bugs off his arms. "Why are they in the house? Where did they-"

The four of them looked at the glass aquarium missing its lid. It was definitely big enough to hold an ant colony.

"We gotta get out of here!" Danny yelled.

If he had not been being attacked by ants as well he would've recorded his teammates' funky dances, but he didn't look much better. All four of them hopping around the room and peeling off shirts as the slight pinpricks turned into fiery itchy bites. They could see the black ants on the floor now. The insects were swarming in dizzying patterns across the hardwood.

Danny kept swiping at them on his back and chest, could feel them biting his arms and legs. They were everywhere. Literally everywhere. He was ready to take an acid bath if it would get the buggers off of him. Knock off one ant, five more replaced it. Like a hydra from Hell. A look around the room confirmed that even super SEAL Steve was starting to lose his patience and grow desperate.

"Over the balcony!" Steve bolted across the room.

Chin followed him without a second thought, both of them throwing themselves over the balcony. Danny and Kono shared a look before deciding that any plan, suicidal or not, was better than the current one. They ran onto the deck and gripped the railing, seeing their teammates down below. Despite his hatred of the ocean, another volley of vicious bites sent him over the edge with Kono not far behind.

Steve ran his hand through his hair, spiking it with saltwater as Danny resurfaced from his plunge. Ants floated around them on the dicey waves. Danny slicked his hair back and ran his hands down his chest and back, knocking off any unwanted clingy insects. Everyone else was doing the same. He reached over and rubbed a few pests off Kono's shoulder before looking over at Steve bobbing in the waves next to him.

"Ants may have officially taken the spot of spiders on my list of things I hate," Danny said.

"Usually black carpenter ants aren't that aggressive," Steve said, leaning over and flicking another ant off his head.

"So boss, you said you know what our guy is? It wouldn't happen to be Ant Man, would it?" Kono laughed slightly in an effort to mask the stinging itch they were all still feeling.

"He's a black market animal trader," Steve pointed back up to the house. "That's why he has all those pictures. Must be insurance or evidence of completed business."

"What do we do now?" Danny asked. His limbs were already growing tired of treading water in this bad weather.

"Now? We go back to the Palace and gather better info on our guy," Steve started to swim towards the not so distant shore.

"After we get these bites taken care of," Chin threw out from the back of the funny little paddling pack.

"Second," Danny and Kono both agreed at the same time.

From the lead Steve added, "You're damn right."

Steve couldn't believe how many little red dots he could still see on his arms. Granted, he had been told it would take at least a few hours for the bites to quit itching and being red. Sighing at that piece of information, he continued to rub the towel over his head.

"Hey, babe. You good?" Danny asked as he walked into his office already clothed in new slacks and a new shirt, hair immaculately slicked back. He was also scratching at his forearm where there were similar red dots.

"I'm good. Hey, Max said don't scratch, remember?" Steve tossed the towel over the back of his chair, content with the state of his hair as is.

"Why are ant bites this itchy? I have never had this bad of a problem with ant bites," Danny said, stuffing his hands into his pockets to keep them from attacking the red dots all over. He followed Steve as he walked out. "This is not okay. I have ant bites where no one should ever have ant bites."

"Okay, too much info," Steve held up a hand. He definitely didn't want to hear more. He had the same problem. It was very awkward. No more was said on the subject matter because his phone started ringing. The name that appeared on the screen gave him a reason to answer hastily. "Governor Denning. Yes Sir, I'll be over immediately."

Danny perked a brow at him. Steve shrugged and took off for the parking lot, leaving his teammates to see what they could gather now knowing that their guy wasn't just a thief. He was also curious as to what the Governor was going to say.

Even in the rain it didn't take him long to get to the Governor's office. Shoes giving little wet squeaks as he tromped upstairs, Steve made it to the top and greeted the secretary sitting in the corner. She waved him through into the office without making him wait.

"Commander McGarrett," Governor Denning nodded at him as he pushed through the heavy double doors. A woman in black slacks and a loose fitting top was standing next to him, busily gathering her scattered papers up off the table. "This is Juniper Schaaf. And she has an issue she would like to discuss with you."

"Miss Schaaf," Steve shook her hand as she extended it. "What do you need to discuss? I'm kind of in the middle of a case."

"This concerns your thief that you recently discovered was a black market animal trader," Denning clarified.

"Do you know who he is?" Steve asked.

Schaaf shook her head. "But we do know of him. And you are correct, he is an illegal animal trader. That's what I need to discuss with you. This man has been known to occasionally leave animals in his safe houses and warehouses. Dangerous animals."

"Probably worse than ants, right?" Steve shook his head.

"Way worse. Our concern is that a lot of these animals are rare and endangered. Thus they need to be kept alive at all costs," she said.

"I'm giving you a No Kill order, McGarrett," Denning said. It sounded a little backwards than the usual order, but it still stood. "You and your team are not to kill any animal you come in contact with unless absolutely necessary."

"And what do you deem 'absolutely necessary', Governor? Before it attacks one of my teammates or as it's mauling one of them?" Steve questioned.

Denning narrowed his eyes at him. "You and the rest of the Five-0 Task Force are intelligent and quick witted people. You can manage without dropping everything in your way."

"And please, Commander McGarrett, if you find any animals call me," she handed him a small slip of paper with her name and number on it. "I don't have many people on the island, but I can send them in to help contain animals and get them delivered to the proper care facilities."

Steve stuffed the number in his pocket and bid his farewell to her and Denning. He was barely down the stairs when his phone started ringing again. Glancing at the name he concluded that his partner must have a sixth sense for this kind of thing.

"Danny, you guys got anything yet?" Steve asked immediately. "Okay, you and Chin go check that out. Kono and I will go back to the house and see what else we can find. And Danny? Let the others know we've got a No Kill order."

Biting Boas

Chin and Danny swept into the house after finding the front door partially open. Both silently prayed there wasn't a tiger waiting around the corner. The car ride over had been full of discussing what to do about this No Kill situation. Not that either man really wanted to shoot any animal, but they had Steve's same question. When was it deemed necessary?

Even as they broke apart to clear the house Chin was still contemplating where this case was going. Admittedly, chasing a black market animal trader was more exciting than chasing a low level thief. Though it was debatable whether or not exciting was a good or a bad thing.

Seeing that the kitchen of the small house was clear, he tucked his gun back into its holster and started to rifle through the piles of mail on the counter. Mostly junk mail. A few bills with the name of the alias that they had identified as the man they were looking for. They still didn't have a real name for him. No, he proved far more careful than they had originally expected.

Chin tilted his head to the side at the glass bowl sitting on the counter. Two goldfish peered out at him, silently mouthing words. They lazily swam around the little skull decoration in the center and appeared fat and content. So either their suspect or a caretaker had been here recently.

A startled yelp ricocheted sharply in the cozy shack.

"Danny!" Chin yanked out his weapon again and ran back through the kitchen door to the other side of the house.

He ticked off the master bedroom and the bathroom before finally finding his teammate in what may have been an office room once, but had been transformed into a reptile room. The light overhead was a natural daylight bulb. Something good for the scaly beings that inhabited the numerous glass aquariums on the shelves around the room. It was humid inside the small space as well, really giving off the air of a rainforest. Immediately he picked out lizards, turtles, snakes, and other more amphibious creatures.

But what he zoomed in on was the large pure white snake oozing over the floor. His eyes tracked up from its tail to its muscled body that was being fended off and eventually landed on its narrow head. Ah. That's why Danny had screamed.

"If you're done staring at me like a kid watching a snake eat a mouse, could you give me a hand?" Danny glared up at him, but there was a pleading look that flickered over his pale blue eyes.

"Sorry, brah," Chin holstered his gun and kneeled down beside him. He analyzed the situation carefully, trying to figure out how best to deal with it. "Well, the easiest way I see of fixing this is to cut its head off."

Danny shook his head, flexing his shaking fingers. "I worked a drug trafficking case in Jersey once where one of the head honchos had an albino boa. These things are practically non-existent in the wild and fetch for a really high price."

"So our No Kill order applies here, then," Chin sighed. He maneuvered around and gently pressed his knee on top of the boa's writhing body, keeping it from constricting around Danny's arm. Small, clear backwards facing teeth had been driven into his left wrist, so pulling out was not an option. "How are you not freaking out?"

"Oh, trust me. I am very much freaking out on the inside," Danny assured him. "It just doesn't seem very conducive to start thrashing around with a snake clamped on my forearm. This had better not get infected, I remember our briefing in Jersey about not getting bit. So much bacteria, so much bacteria."

Chin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. "Calm down. I've got an idea." He brandished his knife and earned a warning look from Danny. "It's cool, I'm not going to kill it."

Carefully, Chin grabbed a hold of the snake's snout between his forefinger and thumb. With a steady hand he slid the blade across Danny's arm, the teeth coming loose without having to be ripped backwards. Getting the idea of what he was doing, Danny took a hold of its nose while Chin dislodged its lower jaw. Finally, after much prying the teeth came out.

"There's one crisis averted," Chin held the snake's head clamped shut while checking his teammate's injury with the other hand. "We need to get that checked out, brah. Get it disinfected."

"Yeah, sounds good to me," Danny held his bleeding arm to his chest and stood up. "We need to call Steve and let him know to get in touch with the animal lady so she can send her people out here to collect all this, and get a hold of Lukela to get crime scene techs out here to gather evidence."

On their way back out after Chin had placed the aggressive white snake back into its tank and secured the lid, he snagged a dish cloth that was strung through one of the cupboard handles. He handed it to Danny who tenderly wrapped it around the small bloody pricks.

Danny muttered as they arrived at the Camaro. "That stings worse than the ant bites."

Chin looked at him and then his arm, then at him again. Danny made a face and reluctantly handed over his keys. It just wasn't fair. He never got to drive his own car. The motor gods had decreed that he was forever to be a passenger.

"Don't worry, I don't drive like Steve," Chin assured him. They slipped into the car and Chin pulled out his phone. First he called Sergeant Duke Lukela and filled him in on the goings on so far, then he hit his speed dial and put it on speaker as he carefully guided the Camaro out of the driveway onto the sleepy road. "Hey Steve, our guy definitely was at the shack recently."

"That's an improvement from us. There's nothing at the first house, besides a few ants that the techs failed to suck up with their bug vacuums. What did you guys find?"

"Some mail addressed to one of our guy's aliases and a room full of reptiles that might be rare or endangered. You should get a hold of that Ms. Schaaf and see if she can get some of her people out here to collect them," Chin said, saving the other piece of news until last. "Besides that, there wasn't much. Crime scene techs are coming out to dust for prints and look for better evidence."

"Okay, good. Maybe we'll actually find something that'll lead us to this guy. Kono and I are going back to HQ, we'll meet you there."

"We'll be a little late," Chin said. A glance at the detective in the passenger seat told him that the bite still hadn't let up with its stinging.

"Why?"

That was a definite drop in tone and both of them could hear the tension in that single word. "Easy, boss. I'm just taking Danny to the hospital."

"What? Why? What happened?" That was Kono's voice.

"I got bit by a snake, that's what happened," Danny answered.

"It was just a boa, but the bite needs to be cleansed and bandaged so it doesn't get infected," Chin said calmly so no one freaked out. "And yes, boss, the snake is still alive and locked in its tank."

Silence for a few moments with quiet murmurs in the background and the roar of the Silverado's engine. "Okay. We'll meet you guys there and go over our evidence, see what we've got."

Cantankerous Crocodiles

It was nearing late afternoon and the storm still hadn't let up when Steve and Danny closed in on the decently sized house. It was larger than the first house, yet hopefully didn't house any reptiles like the shack had. At least that hadn't turned out as bad as it could have. It could've been a rattlesnake or a cobra loose. Steve made sure that his partner wasn't at risk of infection at the hospital before hauling him back to the Palace for them to reevaluate what they were doing.

The final consensus had been to re-interview the witnesses. Chin and Kono went to another house across the island on the North Shore while Steve and Danny had decided to go talk to the witness that lived along the ocean near Waikiki.

Danny slicked back his hair once they got into the shelter of the porch. Rain spots dotted his shoulders as well as Steve's and the surprisingly warm water dripped down the back of his neck. He caught his partner's eye staring at the white bandages on his forearm when he raised it up.

"I don't even know how you could think that this was anywhere near your fault," Danny said, though it wasn't quite guilt he was seeing. What was that? Admiration?

"Chin said you handled being bit extremely well," Steve shrugged as he rang the doorbell. "I saw men in India climb a tree when a water snake swam near them. I'm just impressed. Maybe you're not as city as you claim."

"I'll have you know that I have had more than my fair share of run-ins with animals in Jersey," Danny replied. "Mostly dogs, but there were snakes, too."

Steve shook his head with a small smile. He had to give his partner credit. He didn't know how well he would've handled a massive boa curling around his arm with its teeth sunk firmly in his wrist. A frown worked its way onto his face when he heard no noise from inside after the second ring. The car was in the driveway, and no way any sane person would be out in the surf with this weather.

"Mr. Garcia?" He wrapped his knuckles on the door, startled when it creaked open of its own accord.

He drew his gun as did his partner. Slowly they crept inside the nice house. Steve peeled off to the right while Danny went left, taking the living room and the kitchen this time. And this time, he was very alert to any snakes that might be hiding on a shelf ready to strike at him.

Steve checked the office and then the master bedroom. Cautiousness had been strictly ordered after their earlier ordeals with animals. Though Garcia wasn't a suspect, if their thief/animal trader got to him hoping to keep him silent he might've left a nasty surprise for whoever came looking. The man had a bad habit of cleaning up after himself and leaving calling cards.

Next was the master bathroom. What was inside gave Steve pause for consideration. The bathtub had been converted into a holding tank a third full of water with a branch of hefty driftwood providing a bit of land for the occupant. Luckily this one was not loose and it was young.

"This case just gets stranger and stranger," Steve pulled out his phone and snapped a shot of the baby crocodile basking on the wood. After he checked the spare bedroom and the linen closet, he shouted, "Clear!"

Once he was back in the living room he grew concerned that he hadn't heard his partner yet.

Just as he was about to call his name, Danny's voice drifted from behind the closed swinging kitchen door. "Steve, come see this."

Steve holstered his gun at the calm tone of his partner. Obviously he wasn't in distress or else he would've noticed. Danny said that he had a face and the detective certainly seemed to have learned all of them, but he had a tone and Steve had learned all of them as well. He started to push open the door.

"Careful, babe, don't make any sudden moves," and that was Danny's tone of utter seriousness and calm mixed together.

Steve cracked open the door and glanced around its edge. His partner was crouched up on top of the counter, gun at rest against his knee as he stared down at something on the floor. When he shifted his eyes to see what he nearly laughed, but went for a smirk instead.

"Okay, so the funny thing about this is that this is not the first time I've run into a croc," Danny said chattily from where he was perched. He looked across at his partner and pointed to the easily nine hundred pound adult crocodile laying on the floor with its head turned up at him, tracking his movement. "People used to get gators and crocs when they were tiny and bring 'em back home to Jersey, and then when they got too big to handle they'd just let them go in flood canals, park ponds, in the sewer, really anywhere there was water."

While his partner talked Steve ran through his options of how to get the reptilian beast to go back out the open patio doors to the pond in the back he could see. He also wondered that if this illegal pet was inside, maybe Garcia had become lunch for it.

"This one time we had this crime scene that we had to get to. A body had been dumped on one of the little islands in this big pond at this park," Danny continued, wary of the crocodile as it scooted across the tiles closer to the counter. "Since I was the rookie I had to stand watch on the bank of the island while the techs collected evidence and the body, because this big old croc had been stalking around in the water nearby. My nerves were so fried. I thought facing down suspects was bad, but they couldn't just disappear into the murk in the blink of an eye."

Steve nodded. He could see a back way into the dining room that connected to the kitchen that would allow him to slip passed the beast unnoticed and lure it outside. He explained as much to his partner before running around that way.

"Hey, don't underestimate this thing, Steve. They can move fast when they want to," Danny warned as his partner crept through the back way.

"I know, Danny, I've seen them chase tigers out of the water," Steve replied. He darted through the open patio door and glanced around for something to use.

The crocodile turned its head at the sharp clacking of the broomstick on the cement outside. It sat completely still, as if debating its options. Stay where it was and possibly snag a small, broad shouldered hunk of meat or haul tail to the door and take a shot at the tall, lean hunk of meat with the broom. A low hiss brushed through its interlocking teeth. But its mind made up when it saw movement.

Danny pushed himself back as far as he could, nearly falling in the sink, when the crocodile lifted itself up and snapped its jaws across the counter where his foot had been. It was no small relief that he knew their body weight on land inhibited their movement. If it had started off in the water it would be sitting on the counter with him from the momentum it could gain with one push of its paddle tail.

He was, however, concerned when he saw movement. "Steve! Six o'clock!"

Steve barely looked behind him before he was back through the door and on the table. Another crocodile had slid up on the grass without him even noticing. How could something that large sneak around? It was bigger than the one in the kitchen with a massive amount of body armor to lug around. Whatever its methods, it was sitting in the threshold of the door now, eyeing him hungrily.

"We can't shoot them, we can't run, and apparently they're immune to distractions," Danny listed off on his fingers. "Oh, and they're staring at us like we're prime ribs that they found on a deserted island."

Steve shook his head and pulled out his phone. He held it up to his ear, listening as it almost rang through before a breathless voice answered. "Chin? What's wrong?"

Danny scratched at an ant bite absently as he watched his partner's face go through several contortions ranging from concerned to angry to relieved. That told him what he mostly needed to know.

"Us?" Steve looked across at Danny sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, mirroring his position on the dining room table. "We're trapped by cantankerous crocodiles. Yeah, big ones. Alright, tell Kono to tell Schaaf about our situation. Later."

"Cantankerous crocodiles, huh?" Danny asked, smirking.

"What?" Steve raised a brow.

"Oh, I just didn't know that you had such a big vocabulary," Danny chuckled. He thoroughly enjoyed the annoyed look he received.

Steve sat silent for a while, trying to recall if he had ever learned how long a crocodile would sit and wait for something to move. If these two lovely scaly beasts were anything to go by, they would wait until someone slipped up and got close enough. "So, it disappeared into the pond without warning."

"What?" Danny asked, confused.

"Your story about your run in with the croc in New Jersey," Steve clarified.

Danny nodded his head and leaned back against the wall. "Big guy dove under the water and I lost visual. I had no clue what to do. So I just waited until he surfaced again, which he never did. Next thing I know I can hear one of the techs yelling.

"When I whipped around the croc was trying to drag the dead guy, our dead guy, into the water by the foot. Technically we weren't supposed to discharge our weapons at it as the reptile control guys were coming to get it that afternoon."

"Did it get off with the body?" Steve asked.

"No, because being the brilliant rookie that I was I decided that I should pepper spray it," Danny tried to hold a straight face but couldn't.

Steve snorted with laughter. "And how'd that work out for ya?"

"Well, Gustav there let go of the body," Danny weighed his hands about evenly. "And proceeded to come after me. I will tell you Steve, never before and never again will I climb a twiggy tree as fast as I did then."

"What about the other guys?"

"Big boy didn't bother with them. He slipped back into the water. I didn't think reptiles could make such strange sounds, but I guess most people grumble and yell when they've been pepper sprayed," Danny finished.

Both of them couldn't help it, they broke up into laughter. Steve could just imagine his partner balanced precariously at the top of a wilting tree.

Thanks for reading guys!