A/N: And we are finally back with another chapter!

Skipper: About time…

Me: Wait, what are you doing here?

Skipper: Same as the rest…

Me: (Turns around and notices everyone there) O…k…

Private: Can I say it?

Me: Um…Sure?

Private: This chapter is a bit sad for some, and possibly a bit…(Shivers)…violent…

Me: Not that much ya know. It's just one…uh scratch that, I'm not saying…

Everyone: ENJOY!

Chapter 7:
X-pect The Un-X-pected

The inside of the van was extremely dark, and the barred windows didn't even light it up enough for us to clearly see each other. All we could see very clearly was our eyes. "Then what do we address you as?" I heard Private ask. If my guess is right, Private was on my right and Skipper was on my left. The rest were behind me and the girl was in front of us. Oh, and Marlene changed back when we came in.

"Uh...I'm not sure...um...Maybe just call me Red..." she answered. "Red? Why Red?" I heard Ash and Gem ask her in unison. "Really? We're going back to the unison thing?" Ernie facepawed, frustrated. I could barely see her pointing at her arm. "Cause, one, I have red fur, and two, it's my favourite colour..." she replied.

"Uh, Rico, do you have a lamp or something?" Skipper asked. Rico just said, "Nuh uh..." I regurgitated a large glowstick. "All I have is a glowstick, but it should be better than nothing..." I cracked it and shook the liquid crystals in it to activate its green glow. Now I could see everyone a bit more clearly. "Cool..." Red commented.

I could now see how she looked like. She did have reddish fur, I think, and it appeared that she had purplish eyes, unless the green glow of the glowstick was messing it up. Her species though, was still a mystery; I couldn't identify what she was with the limited lighting the glowstick had.

The van seemed to stop, as we almost fell forwards towards the front of the van. Where it stopped, nobody knows. Then, the metal window that drivers use to talk to the passengers behind slid open. A low, familiar sounding man's voice asked, "Is everyone alright back there?" It was all too familiar. "Is that?" asked Kowalski. Red simply answered him with, "Yeah, we're alright Malcom..."

We then heard the driver's door open, which was followed by heavy footsteps. "Oh, I think it is who you think it is..." I said to Kowalski. The back door slid open once more, lighting the darkened van and revealing both her and the mysterious man. We gasped as we looked upon our rescuers. We were, from my guess, an alleyway or something.

"OFFICER X!" we all yelled. The mysterious man was none other than Officer X himself. But, he seemed to be wearing some kind of camo uniform, but it wasn't an army uniform. It consisted of a dirty-green shirt sleeved T-shirt, camo pants and big, black boots. He also had his signature sunglasses on. We all backed up a few steps.

"Miss me penguins?" he asked tauntingly. "What are you doing here!?" Skipper asked, taking a fighting stance. The rest of us followed, well, aside from Doris and Hazel, who had no room to even sit up straight. "Me? Saving your sorry tail feathers, that's what..." he answered in a rather arrogant manner. Red looked at us weirdly.

"You know him?" she asked. We just nodded. "Yes, we know him..." I answered for them. Apparently, Officer X could understand us, which simplified some things, but asking why he understood us seemed a waste of time. Nick and Marlene looked at him, confused. "You're not here for...you know...revenge?" they asked, echoing each other.

"Oh course I still want revenge on you for ruining my reputation, but that was a long time ago, before that crazy dolphin took over New York, and possibly the rest of the world. No offense ladies..." he replied, directing the last line to Doris and Hazel. "None taken..." they simply replied.

"Besides, taking revenge on you now is useless, the fact that I can't get my job back even if I did..." he added. Some of us, aside from Skipper and his team, lowered our fighting stances. "So what? You need our help?" I asked. "Yes, I need your help to end that crazy dolphin's plan once and for all..." he said.

"But don't get too comfortable, cause if we managed to pull this off and New York returns to its former glory, I'm still gonna get my revenge..." he added. We all looked at each other, hoping to find answers on each others faces.

We especially looked at Skipper. "Well...I guess that's reasonable..." Skipper said. "You have yourself a deal..." he added, shaking his hand. "Oh, one more thing. Your name's Malcom?" I asked. "Not really. But it's a name she gave me, and I'm sticking to it..." he replied, pointing at Red.

We looked at her and she blushed shyly. "Uh...yeah. X just sounded a bit, boring, and he looked like a Malcom so...I gave him Malcom X and he seemed to agree..." she replied. Now, with all the light present, I can finally conclude that she was a...you know, let's save it till somewhere else.

Campfire POV:
"What! Why later!" everyone griped. "Hey, cease the screaming! I don't want to reply this thing and have its speakers explode!" I yelled. They continued protesting, but a little quieter. "Why can't you tell us now?" asked Logan, Brandon, Carl...practically all the young ones. "Simple. I'm saving it for later cause we will go get her, but not now. Now, we should just finish the story, alright?" I assured.

Flashback POV (Normal POV):
We all took a good look at X. "Well, you do look a bit like a Malcom..." Private commented. "Thanks. It's...uh...Private right?" Malcom asked. "Oh, that's right, we haven't introduced ourselves yet. Why do we always forget...Anyway, the name's Josh Everett..." I said. "And my sister here is Nick Everett, our best friends Ernie Jenkins, Ashley Carter and Gemma Jones..." I added, pointing to the respective person.

"Just call me Skipper, he's Private, Rico, Kowalski, Doris, Hazel and of course, Marlene..." Skipper introduced, pointing to the respective person as well. "Nice to meet you all..." Red said, shaking our flippers and paws. "Well, very nice to meet you then..." Private greeted. She seemed to look strangely at Marlene when she shook her paw, but she just kept quiet.

"Ok, now that greetings are out of the way, what can we do to stop my supposed mind-controlled brother?" asked Doris. "Uh...Hazel, do you think you can trace the control station of the Mind Hacker?" I asked. "I can try, but I'll need some parts to do so..." she replied. Kowalski then helped Doris up onto her segway and out if the van. She did the same for Hazel.

"What kind of parts?" Malcom asked. "Um...just a CPU motherboard, an old radio antenna, the transceiver of a wired phone, some tools and...electronic parts like wires, solder and a soldering iron...oh...plus we need a portable GPS to track the position with..." she requested. "Great, I got some tools in the van and some spare electronic parts..." Malcom answered.

"I have a radio right here..." I said as I regurgitated a small, old school radio. Rico regurgitated a soldering iron and a spindle of solder. "And Rico's got the soldering materials..." Kowalski said. "Perfect. That just leaves us with the CPU motherboard, the transceiver and the portable GPS..." Hazel said as she took the materials we already had.

"Ok, I don't want to lose anymore men, so we'll go in three teams of two. Kowalski, you're with me. We're going to get the transceiver..." Kowalski nodded to Skipper's order. "Josh and Ernie, you two will get the CPU motherboard. Marlene and Nick, the GPS. Everyone clear?" We all saluted. "The rest of you, just...stay clear of those things..." Skipper added.

"Then we'll need these..." Malcom went in his van and took out four walkie-talkies. He gave one to each team, and one for home base, which was him, Red, Ash, Gem, Private, Rico, Doris and Hazel. "Just keep it on Channel 1..." he added. With that, we headed off to find the parts needed.

Flashback POV (Skipper's Team POV):
Skipper and Kowalski headed into one of the abandoned apartments in search of a telephone transceiver. They had to climb up the steps, which wasn't a problem, but they decided to start from the very top, just in case they needed to get away quickly, cause going down wasn't such a problem.

The two panted as they reached the twelfth floor of the apartment. "Next time...I say...we start from the top...Kowalski...please talk me out of it..." Skipper managed between breaths. When they regained some breath back, they searched the furthest unit on their left. "Kowalski, please tell me you still remember how to pick a lock..." Skipper asked.

"Uh, one moment sir..." Kowalski looked around the ruined apartment floor and managed to find one paper clip. He bent it in the right shape and opened the door with it. "Good job Kowalski. Now to get that transceiver..." Skipper complimented as they entered the abandoned unit.

Flashback POV (My Team's POV):
Ernie and I searched the streets to try and find an electronics store nearby. After about a minute, we spotted a burnt down electronics store with the windows all smashed. I signalled Ernie the direction of the store and we headed inside via the broken windows.

"Whoa. This place looks a thousand years old..." Ernie commented as we set foot in the ash covered floor. He was right, the ash and soot covered every inch of the store, giving the illusion that the store was a thousand years old. There were scorch marks on the walls and it seemed to have started from the office of the place.

"Well, we'll be lucky if we can even find a working CPU motherboard..." I said. We then opened up some of the burnt CPUs to see if any of their motherboards still survived. We had opened up practically all the better conditioned CPUs but found all of their motherboards destroyed. "Dang. Hey, maybe their storage has some extra parts..." Ernie suggested.

Flashback POV (Nick's Team POV):
Nick and Marlene thought it would be best to find a portable GPS in one of the nearby hardware stores. They didn't have many choices, as most were either looted already or burnt down. They managed to find one not too far from the others that was still in good condition.

They hopped up to the window and peeped inside. There was still plenty of items in there and it didn't seem to have been looted too heavily. They hopped back down and helped each other to open the door, which was already unlocked from previous lock-pickings. The place looked fine, apart from it looking like it got hit by a tornado or something.

Flashback POV (Base Camp POV):
Gem and Ash had just about nothing to do as Malcom was on recon at one end of the alleyway while Doris was at the other end. Hazel was busy preparing the parts she had to help track the signal of the Mind Hacker. Red watched as the two related some things that they had done with the two boys they were talking to.

"So, let me get this straight. In your, parallel universe of this place, we're married?" asked Private. Ash nodded. "Yes, Gem and Rico are married as well, same for Doris and Kowalski as well as Skipper and Marlene..." she replied. Private was a bit more curious with this info. "And do we have...uh...you know...kids?" Once again, she nodded sheepishly.

"Yes again. We have a son named Logan Goodwin, a badger like me, and a daughter named Amelia Carter, a penguin like you. Logan has my eyes and Amy has yours..." she answered. "And me?" asked Rico, in his usual grunted tone of course. "Yep. We have two sons, Rico. One by the name of Carlos Dela Santos and the other by Brandon Jones..." Gem replied.

"And, Carl has my eyes while Brandon has yours..." she added. Red then bugged into the conversation. "Uh, speaking of family, what's...uh...Marlene's full name?" she asked. "Summers. Why?" She sat stunned for a second then snapped back to reality. "No reason. Just...curious..." She looked away, appearing to look in the direction Nick's team had gone to.

Flashback POV (Skipper's Team POV):
When we got inside, the place was trashed. Almost everything was on the floor, either smashed up or just lying there. They carefully went over the sea of glass from a fallen over lamp light. They reached the living room and they started looking around for a telephone.

"Found it!" Kowalski said as he picked up a red coloured telephone set. He took out the screwdriver he borrowed from Malcom and he unscrewed its screws. He opened it up to find an assortment of electronic bits and pieces, one of them being the transceiver we needed. Using the screwdriver, he carefully pryed it out, making sure it doesn't break in half.

"Got it..." he said as it popped out. "Great, now let's head back..." Skipper said. They went back out the door, avoiding the glass from before, and waddled down to the stairs. "Now, I seem to regret going all the way up here..." They both sighed and worked their way down all 24 flights of stairs and back to base camp.

Flashback POV (My Team's POV):
We entered the store's office to find the room completely scorched like the skin of an overbaked pie. "Whoa...I guess the fire started here. There's the storage room..." I said. We head through a badly burnt up door into the storage room. It looked promising, as the place seemed untouched.

"Ok, this shouldn't be too hard anymore..." We went over to one of the CPUs nearest to us and opened it up. We gloated when we found the motherboard we were looking for. "Ok, let's take this and head back to the others. They're probably done already..." We unscrewed the motherboard from the casing and we proceeded in making our way back to the rest.

Flashback POV (Nick's Team POV):
The two searched the place high and low to try and locate a working portable GPS. "Hey! I think I found one!" Marlene exclaimed. Nick popped out a box she was searching in to see Marlene holding out a portable GPS in a sealed plastic container.

Marlene jumped down from the shelves she found it on and gave it to Nick. "Oh, great. Batteries not included..." Nick said. "I think I saw some by the front counter..." With that piece of information, they made their way there and found the right batteries for it, plus, they found scissors to open the container with. "Alright, I guess that will do. Let's go back now..." Nick said.

Flashback POV (Normal POV):
Ernie and I arrived with the motherboard in flipper, well, my flipper, to see Hazel already installing the transceiver that Skipper's team got. I gave it to her and she attached it to the mess of wires, the Mind Hacker and other oddities via soldering. Nick's team arrived a few minutes after us, in their possession the portable GPS.

"Here's the GPS, with working batteries in case you needed it..." Nick said. "Perfect. Ok, so, let me just attach it here and..." As soon as Hazel attached a wire into one of the GPS' jacks, it turned on, its marker over a specific location. "Yes! It worked! Now, let's see where the signal comes from. What? It says it is at Coney Island..."

We checked it and sure enough, the marker was placed over the Coney Island Aquarium, right over Seaville Aqua-Fun Park. "So, he's in Blowhole's lair. If we had thought of checking there before, we could have nabbed him already..." I groused. "Well, now we know, so we just need to..." Before Skipper could finish, I interrupted.

"Get in? We've got that covered. I know one of his secret escape routes..." I said. "Really?" asked Skipper. "Yeah, the better dimension him showed us all his entrances. I can even say we know the entire place like we built it..." Then, Doris bugged in. "Um...guys? I think we better go now..." She said in a worried voice.

"What's wrong?" asked her sister. Just as she said that, we could feel the ground shake in sync with booming footsteps. "That..." Doris replied, rushing back to where we stood. Then, as the quaking and booming intensified, a gargantuan robot bug appeared from where she once was. It had the words 'Robo-Destroyer' on it sides. "Oh fishy herring..." I said.

"EVERYONE QUICK! GET IN THE VAN!" yelled Malcom. The destroyer roared and we all quickly jumped into the van and we zoomed away. Doris and Hazel followed behind on their segways. "What is that thing!" Red yelled. "If I read it right, it's a Robo-Destroyer Bug..." I answered. I got out the Ion Ray again and shot a big hole in the back of the van.

"Doris! Hazel! We'll meet you at the Coney Island Aquarium!" They nodded and dispersed. The bug didn't seem to care about them, as it continued following us. I tried shooting it with the Ion Ray, but each time it hit it would ricochets off it. "Dang! It's immune to the Ion Ray!" I told the rest.

"Rico, destruction options!" Skipper ordered. Rico then regurgitated some frag grenades, a bazzoka they liked to use before and some dynamite. Skipper grabbed the bazzoka and shot the monstrosity. No effect. Ernie grabbed some frag grenades and tried those, but still had no effect. "Wait, give one of those sticks of dynamite..." I requested.

I took one of them and I regurgitated a bow and arrow set, with a roll of duct tape. I took the dynamite and stuck it to the end of an arrow using duct tape. They lit the fuse and I aimed it at the robot. "Here goes nothing..." I let the arrow go and it stuck itself in one of the robot's legs. It blew up, stumbling the beast. "Yeah! Take that!"

When it recovered, it gave out another deafening roar and out of its massive jaws it shot a grappling hook. "HIT THE DECK!" Skipper warned upon seeing the grappling hook. It shot right through the back door, opening up and holding the van in place. "Aah! Faster Malcom, faster!" Red screamed. "I'm trying!" he answered.

The van was now stuck in a giant game of tug of war between us and the bug. It gave a huge tug and the van was sent flying towards a building, where it got wrecked. The van now on its side, we climbed out, all of us covered in injuries from the broken glass and whatnot. "There's Coney Island!" said Nick, pointing in the distance.

"Make a run for it!" yelled Marlene. Malcom grabbed us in his giant arms and ran. The robot bug had no problem catching up, as it blocked the front entrance. He put us all down. "Go! I'll hold him off!" he said, pulling out his most used weapon, his electricity stick from the first time the penguins met him.

We all ran towards the entrance while Malcom tried distracting it. "Hey, bug face! Over here!" The bug sharply turned its attention to him, then back to us. It lifted one of its massive legs over us, right over to where Rico was headed. "RICO! WATCH OUT!" Before we knew it, Gem took a dive for Rico and she pushed him away in time, only to be caught under it instead.

"GEM!" we all yelled. Malcom ran forward and jumped onto the bug's leg, and he climbed all the way to its back. He put the power on the electricity stick to a dangerous level and stuck it into the robot's back. Sparks fell everywhere as the robot got short-circuited all over. After a minute or so, the giant beast fell over and its glowing red eyes died down.

"Gem!" We all ran to the half crushed penguin, only to find her in a bloody mess. "Don't look Private..." Private then buried his head into Ash's chest, afraid to look himself. Rico ran up to her, and surprisingly she was still alive. "R-Rico...Yo-Your o...k...(Wheeze, Cough)..." she tried in a frail voice, but barely could.

"Your...Your gonna be alright. Just...hang on. We'll get help..." Skipper tried. He was about to look for help when she grabbed his flipper with her own bloodstained flipper. "No...Ski...Skipper. It's...ok...as long...as Rico's...safe...I don't need...any help..." she said, trying to fake a smile. "Can...Rico and I...talk...in private?" she asked. He understood and gave in to her request.

"Let's give them some privacy boys, and ladies..." ordered Skipper. We all left Rico with a dying Gem so she can say some last words. Rico knelt down, impossibly, so they can both see eye to eye. "Rico...I know...this is hard...to understand...right now...but all...I have to say...before I go...is that I...will love you...forever..." she said. "Forever?" Rico repeated. "For...ever..."

With that last word, she breathed out her last breath and closed her eyes, a small half smile forming as it happened. "Gem...Gem..." Then, he just broke down and cried like he never had cried before. We all gathered round them, saddened by the lost. "We'll miss you Gem. You have been a great friend...and sister..." Ash said, which made us all either tear or burst into tears.

A/N: And the chapter's over!

Private: Like I said…violent…

Me: And like I said…it's very mild. Your lucky I didn't go into detail…

Gem: Trust me, it ain't pretty…

Skipper: Wait, weren't you just killed…

Gem: (Glares)

Kowalski: Actually, the ones who are here are from the campfire, not the alternate dimension…

Skipper: Put a coin in the show-off jar Kowalski…

Kowalski: (Grumbles and puts coin in show-off jar)

Private: Can I say this one too?

Me: Why do you want to say my lines so bad?

Private: (Shrugs)

Me: Well, we can all say it. On the count of three…1…2…3!

Everyone: Till the next chapter, PLEASE REVIEW!