Chapter 14
"Skipper?" Kowalski asked
Skipper sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "What is it?"
"Well sir, its 1200 hours-"
"Thanks, I would have slept all day away, I've been tired." Skipper said abruptly, moving to get his cup of coffee, he wasn't awake until he had his cup of coffee. He was met with Private offering him his mug of coffee. "Thanks Private" he said, ruffling the feathers on the top of the younger's head. Private smiled and patted the seat next to him.
"Can't we've already slept in later than we should have" Skipper downed his coffee and lead his team outside.
Maurice walked up to the four calmly. "Um, Mort's gone. He's not in the habitat, and I don't think it would go well if Alice found out."
Skipper rolled his eyes. Sad eyes missing? Meh, but Maurice has a good point, we cant let Alice find out. "Fine" he sighed. "Where did you see him last?"
Maurice thought for a moment. "Well, I think King Julian asked for some mangos."
"Kowalski, options?" Skipper asked, turning to his second in command.
"Well, he could be in the storage house, that's where they keep the fruit."
"Okay men, to the storage building, move!" They belly slid to the storage building, Skipper leading. It sure is good to be back on a mission, even if it is only sad eyes.
They reached the storage building, Private moving to stand next to Skipper. He smiled at the younger before turning again to Kowalski. "Is it locked?"
Kowalski pushed the door open. "Negative Skipper"
All four peered in and saw Mort sitting in the middle of the room surrounded by fruit.
"Mango" he announced, picking up a mango and placing it in a pile of the above mentioned fruit. "Mango. Mango. No! Not mango!" he hugged a banana to his chest. "But I love you banana" he said in his adorable voice.
"Um...?" Skipper asked.
Mort looked up, an innocent smile on his face. "I got mango's, yummy mango's."
Skipper rolled his eyes and picked up the little mouse lemur.
"Mango's!" Mort cried, stretching out his tiny hands to the pile of fruit.
The three remaining penguins gathered mango's in their flippers and deposited them in the lemur habitat.
"There" Skipper said, dropping Mort to the ground of the habitat. Mort immediately scrambled over to the king's feet. King Julian rolled his eye and kicked Mort off.
"Weeee! I'm flying." Mort said happily, flying into the air, until he hit a wall. "Flying hurts" he stated, falling to the ground.
"There, hope your happy Ringtail." Skipper said, slightly annoyed.
"Well, actually you could have kept him, I wasn't really looking forward to having him back." Julian replied.
Skipper ushered his team out of the lemur habitat quickly, feeling his Julian tolerance level diminish quickly.
"Skippah?" Private asked, poking the older. "Can we get snow cones, please?" he turned on the puppy dog eyes, knowing Skipper wouldn't be able to resist them.
Skipper looked at him amused. "If only I could say no to you, guess we're getting some snow cones now."
"Yayyy" Private cheered and the penguins changed direction, now heading for the park and yummy snow cones.
Private hummed happily all the way to the park. They reached the edge of the zoo and Private thought he saw Skipper hesitate for a split second. They continued on and Private wondered if he imagined it. They passed the tree where Skipper had first kissed him and Private smiled, blushing lightly at the memory.
At that moment, Skipper turned around, smiling at Private before saying "Come on Private, keep up, no lagging behind."
Private nodded and fell back into line, smiling again when they reached the snow cone cart.
Skipper knocked out the human while Kowalski kept an eye out for anybody moving their way. Private accepted the snow cone eagerly from his leader, his flipper brushing the others accidentally and causing them both to blush again.
Soon they were heading back to HQ, Skipper and Private walking behind the others. Skipper stopped in his tracks as he saw 'evil' Kowalski peer out from behind a tree. Skipper rubbed his eyes frantically. I must be hallucinating, its this stupid guilty conscience. He saw 'good' Kowalski walking ahead of them, oblivious to Skippers situation. He looked back at the tree and saw 'evil' Kowalski sneering at him once again. What? I mean, he's dead! I killed him! I watched him die, he can't be alive! He took a step back and bumped into Private.
"Skippah? Are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost or something."
Skipper took a shaky breath. "I'm fine."
"Oh Private" 'Evil' Kowalski called, causing the youngest to whip around. Private took a step back into Skipper and began shaking violently when he saw the owner of the voice.
"Get the hell away from us!" Skipper shouted angrily.
At this, 'good' Kowalski finally turned around, along with Rico, who involuntarily cringed at the sight of 'evil' Kowalski.
"Holy crap" Skipper muttered, seeing 'evil' Kowalski's eyes glowing a bright red.
"Thought you could kill me Skipper? Well not so lucky for you, you can't and your weak attempts at tying angered my quite a lot.
"But.. I killed you...I watched you die" Skipper whispered.
"You cant kill me Skipper, I can't be defeated, and I only wish I could say the same for you" He ran to the penguin leader, taking him down violently. Skipper gasped as the impact of the ground knocked the air out of him. "Evil' Kowalski smirked over him, leering at him, taunting him.
"Skippah!" Private cried and bravely threw himself at the 'evil' Kowalski. "Get off him! Don't you dare hurt him!"
'Evil' Kowalski laughed. "Aww, that's so cute trying to stand up for your pathetic excuse for a leader." He kicked Private off him, sending him flying to the ground a few feet away.
"Rico? Smoke bomb?" 'Good" Kowalski asked, finally coming to reality.
Rico promptly regurgitated a smoke bomb, throwing it at the 'evil' Kowalski. Both penguins hurriedly scampered over to their leader, pulling him out of harms way.
"Thanks" Skipper coughed, sitting up.
"I think we should get out of here" good' Kowalski suggested nervously.
"Where's Private?" Skipper demanded. He spotted him laying under a tree a few feet away and immediately ran over.
"Private? Are you okay?" He asked, scooping the younger up into his flippers.
"I'm fine Skippah, I'm more worried about you."
Skipper chucked. "You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine." He planted a kiss on top of Private's head. "Don't ever do that again, you could have gotten hurt." he scolded gently.
"I'm sorry Skippah, but he was hurting you and I just couldn't stand there and let him do that."
Skipper fell silent, knowing he would have done the same thing if the situation was reversed.
They reached the others before Private whispered "Are you angry with me?"
"No" Skipper sighed. "I cant be angry with you, I'd do the same thing in your situation." He stroked Private's good flipper gently. "I'm just upset that I put you in that situation, if you got hurt I'd never forgive myself."
"Now we can get out of here" 'good' Kowalski said as the other two penguins reached them.
"Yes, lets get the hell out of here" Skipper agreed.
They quickly headed towards the zoo, but were stopped when four steel cages dropped down from the sky, trapping them.
Skipper watched horrified as Private fell from his flippers and tumbled onto the grass, a steel cage trapping him.
"Skippah!" Private cried in fear, trying to reach out to the older. Skipper grasped the younger's flipper but it slowly fell out of his grip.
"Private!" He threw himself against the bars of the cage in frustration.
Private looked up with fear in his eyes. "I'm okay Skippah" he lied.
Skipper tore his gaze away, knowing this couldn't be good, getting a sinking feeling in his stomach. He looked to the other member of his team, both Kowalski and Rico looked shocked. What the hell is this? How did I get my team, the people I care most about into this mess?
"Peng-u-ins" Said a familiar voice and Skipper knew things were going from bad to worse.
"Blowhole" he muttered, turning to face his arch nemesis.
"Well hello Skipper, I missed you too" the dolphin smirked.
Skipper glared at the dolphin with hatred, 'evil' Kowalski appearing beside him.
"Oh, there you are" Blowhole said, turning to his sidekick before putting his attention back at the penguins before him. "Now to deal with the peng-u-ins!" he cackled.
"Curse you Blowhole!" Skipper shouted, wrapping his flippers around the bars of his cage, and causing it to shake violently.
"Poor little Skipper and his team, no one to save you now!"
"Leave my team out of it, its me you want, you can have me if you let my team go" Skipper pleaded.
"Well, isn't that noble of you Skipper, but why would I do that? I have all four of you captured now!" The dolphin sneered happily.
Skipper hung his head. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for bringing the most important people to me into this mess, I'm so sorry.
Skipper heard Private's cries and looked over quickly, but he was knocked out cold before he could respond.