Author's Note: Thank you guys so much for the reviews! I'm glad I found others who liked this concept as much as I did! I'm back with another update, and I hope you guys enjoy it! I'm trying to include Gia in as much of the slapstick humor as the other characters do. I don't want her to be portrayed as overly perfect or completely free of the pain the zoosters go through. That includes the old lady!
Maybe it was just Marty's wish, or it was Gia's mind giving her a final escape from the weird dreams, but she was suddenly basking in the bright lights of New York, the sun making her feel so warm and cuddly. She much preferred dreams like this, where she didn't feel uneasy or as though she was longing for something she could no longer remember. In this dream, she was in her enclosure, though now it was about the size of a football field, and her tree wasn't available for her act. Gia looked around, surprised to see stadium seats set outside of her area, filled to the brim with families, all sporting what seemed to be Gia merchandise, but that made no sense. Alex usually took up most of the products in the gift shop. The most the jaguar had was a mug decorated with her signature spots.
Gia looked behind her, surprised to see a wooden contraption that was sky high. There were two platforms sitting across from each other with a net towards the bottom. Confused, Gia walked around it; she could feel the peoples' eyes on her. She found a ladder and decided to climb, finding refuge on the platform way above. She was surprised to see Alex there, as well as Gloria, Marty, and Melman. The four of them said nothing. They just grinned nonchalantly, and nodded encouragingly at her.
"I am-a confused. What's going on?' Gia asked.
Again, they said nothing. Melman suddenly nudged her with his head towards the edge of the platform. She was surprised to see two bars there, hung down by rope. It was like...trapeze, so to speak, like what the humans would do on television. But why would she dream this?
She grabbed one of the bars, surprised how easily her paws slipped comfortably around it, like it came natural to her.
She turned to her friends. "You want me to...?"
They nodded encouragingly, Alex and Gloria giving her a thumbs up.
"How did the zoo keepers even build this overnight?" Gia asked aloud. She looked down at the people. They were practically on the edges of their seats, chanting her name encouragingly. Clearly, they wanted her to use it, too. But Gia was hesitant. She'd never been this high up when she would swing on her tree. She'd never done trapeze before. That made no sense.
Suddenly, Marty gave her a great push. She fell with a scream, clinging to the bar as tightly as she could.
It was absolutely exhilarating. She was sure she felt nothing like this before in her life. The way the wind rushed through her fur, how she felt like she truly defied gravity. Her scream turned into delightful laughter, spotting the other bar on the other side, waiting for her to let go and flip to grab it. The crowd below her cheered loudly for her, and her friends on the other side continued the chanting of her name.
Closing her eyes, she released the bar, leaping through the air on her way for the other one.
She was much closer to the opposite platform now, and she was surprised to see it was occupied. Squinting through the sunlight that suddenly got brighter. She was sure she could decipher a tiger across from her and...a seal? A sea lion? They were reaching for her. She had forgotten to grab the bar, and she was now plummeting fast towards the net.
"GIA!"
Were they calling her name now? Who were they? She was still falling, closing her eyes as she braced for impact.
"GIA, GIA, GIA! WAKE UP!"
Gia opened her eyes and screamed, falling from her branch and painfully hitting every other one on her short journey to the ground. Landing directly on her chin, her lower half hang uselessly just above her head, her tail clouding her already disoriented vision.
"Alex, you idiot! I told you to wake her up nicely!"
"This is an emergency!"
"I think Gia would need to be alive for her to even hear about the emergency, you idiot!"
Gia grunted as she was suddenly lifted in the air by her face. Gloria's surprising strength had her feet dangling in midair as the hippo inspected her face, trying to see if she was okay. For a moment, Gia saw three heads on Gloria's body, but after giving herself a little shake, she could see her friend squinting right back at her.
"What is going on?" Gia asked.
"Oh, good, you're good!" Gloria chirped, gently setting her back on her feet.
Rubbing her chin, Gia looked back up at her tree, seeing Alex hanging guiltily at the very top. Every branch, save for the one she slept on, was broken and barely hanging on. She had managed to hit every single one on her way down to the grass. Realizing what had happened, she glowered and unsheathed her claws.
"Alex," she growled warningly.
"Uh, b-before you get mad! I did it for a reason!" Alex protested, grinning nonchalantly at her. "Uh...maybe you should tell her while I try to get down?"
Gia whipped around to Gloria, still angry.
"Calm down, kitty," Gloria said, maneuvering her arms as a way to soothe the angry jaguar. "Well...come look." She took Gia's paw and led her towards the edge of her enclosure that led into Marty's. Instead of seeing the zebra, she saw Melman with his head stuck down a hole about the size of her fist. "Marty's gone."
"WHAT?"
"AGH!" Alex yelled, grunting in pain as he fell to the earth in one resounding painful heap. He got up just as quickly, brushing himself off. "He left in the middle of the night! None of us saw where!" He hopped over the gate, beginning to pace back and forth.
"This doesn't make any sense," Gloria whined, following the lion. "I mean...where would he go?"
Gia thought for a moment before leaping over the gate and standing between the two of them. "CONNECTICUT!"
"He wouldn't," Gloria hissed in horror.
"No! Oh, no! He can't!" Melman shouted, ripping his face from the hole and joining the group. "What...what are we gonna do? We gotta-I mean we gotta-we GOTTA-WE GOTTA CALL SOMEBODY!" At once, Alex whipped around and dashed towards the nearest payphone at the very edge of Marty's enclosure. He took up the phone and dialed quickly. Gia turned to Gloria, pulling on her arm.
"There was nothing? None of us saw-a anything?"
"Melman was the first to notice, and he got Alex. They woke me up, and I told Alex to get you. That's all that's happened," Gloria explained. "He knew we'd stop him. He knew...that's why he waited until we fell asleep! What was he thinking? When he gets back here, I'm gonna beat him into the ground for doin' this to us!"
"Hello? Get me Missing Animals! And hurry! We've got a lost zebra!" Alex shouted into the phone once someone picked up. "Probably on the way to Connecticut, and we're gonna need every man, woman, and child on the way, you hear me?" Alex paused, his gears turning before he realized, "Wait a minute! We can't call the people!" He hung up the phone and, for good measure, he ripped off the top completely and chucked it away. "They'll be really mad! It'll get Marty transferred for good! You don't bite the hand that feeds you!"
"Mmhm, I know that's right!" Gloria sassily quipped.
"We gotta go after him!" Alex declared.
"Go after him?" Melman repeated incredulously.
"He's not thinking straight! We've gotta stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life!" Alex said, before turning away. "He's probably out there lost...and cold...confused." He paused, dipping his face into his open paws. "Poor little guy."
Gia didn't want to imagine the pain and suffering Marty was probably facing right now. Shaking her head determinedly, she turned to Melman and Gloria.
"Alex is-a right! We must go after him!"
Alex turned around, surprised. But he smiled gratefully anyway.
"You're kidding me, right?" Melman scoffed.
"If one of us went-a missing, Marty would be the first to go out looking for us!" Gia said. She turned to Gloria. "You are with us, no?"
Gloria smirked. "Oh, you know I'm in! Let's do this!" She high-fived Alex and Gia.
Melman, on the other hand, looked quite the opposite of determined to find Marty. He was suddenly shaking and backing away right toward his enclosure.
"How the heck are a giraffe, a lion, a hippo, and a jaguar gonna find a zebra in the middle of New York City?"
"We already gave Marty-a the answer earlier!" Gia answered easily. "Grand Central Station! Melman, you are the only one of us who knows the quickest way. You must come! Marty is your friend!"
"B-B-But what if the zookeeper comes back, sees all of us are gone? I could give you guys an alibi, you know? Put in a good word so you don't get transferred." Melman smiled uneasily.
"Melman!" Gloria scolded. "If one of us is goin' to find Marty, we all are! I think it's about time we have ourselves a little family intervention! Now let's go! We're wastin' time!" Gloria snapped, pointing over the gate. Alex and Gia both got on all fours instinctively, leaping easily over the gates outside onto the pathways the humans would go to see all of the animals. Gloria carefully hopped over, but she beckoned towards Melman.
"Don't make me get back over there and drag you by your feet!" she threatened.
Sighing dramatically, Melman trudged over towards them, moving his feet over one at a time until he was also over the gate.
"Over here!" Alex called near the brick wall on the opposite end. That led outside of the zoo, which is where they wanted to be. It was too high, too steep, and much too hard for Alex nor Gia to climb over with their claws. Gaining an idea, Alex beckoned towards Melman. "Hey, hey! Lean down!"
"Why?" Melman asked, obliging. He grunted when Alex had suddenly wrapped his paws around his neck, mindful of his claws. "Oh, now I see why." His voice was comedically higher.
"Okay, now...slowly but surely, get me over the wall," Alex instructed. "Then get Gia and Gloria."
Melman did so, moving so Alex could be over the wall. Gia heard him struggling to let go.
"We don't got time for this, stand back," Gloria said, pushing the feline behind her.
"What are you doing?" Gia asked.
Gloria didn't answer. Instead, she dug her feet into the ground, focusing on the wall, before she charged at full force. Gia yelped and quickly shielded her eyes, scared of the impact. When she heard the bricks give way, she peeked, seeing a giant hole where the wall used to be. She grinned and cheered.
"That was amazing!" she exclaimed, following the hippo through the hole. Alex was on the ground beside her; he had clearly fallen from where he had just been holding on to.
"Thank you. Now...let's go! Melman, come on!" Gloria called.
"You know, actually, maybe one of us should wait here in case he comes back?" Melman suggested, still not passing through the barrier.
"Oh, no! Not now! This is an intervention, Melman! We all gotta go!" Gloria insisted.
"What's the fastest way to Grand Central?" Alex asked, who had jumped to his feet again.
"Ooh! You should take Lexington!" Melman suggested, still unmoving.
"MELMAN!" Gloria and Gia shouted in unison.
"Okay! Okay! We should take Lexington," Melman sighed, at last going through the hole in the wall and following his companions. By now, Gia could see he had stuffed all four of his hooves into tissue boxes, probably to avoid cross-contamination. She shook her head in exasperation.
"What about Park?" Alex asked, as they finally took off on foot.
"No! Park goes two ways! You can't time the lights!" Melman quickly denied.
Gia was on all fours, abandoning the zoo in favor of finding her friend. She hoped sincerely that he was alright, wherever he was.
The station was barren, disgusting, and stank of human sweat. Gia had a paw clamped over her nose to avoid smelling the putrid filth humans left behind. There had been a few humans waiting here, all waiting with weird homemade instruments, probably waiting to make money off of those that arrived, but they had jumped up and ran screaming upon seeing four zoo animals suddenly appear to gaze at the train schedule.
Gia had found the right train heading for Grand Central and quickly led the animals to the right stop, but it wouldn't be for another several minutes for it to arrive.
"This is absolutely atrocious! And we've been living beside chimps!" Gia growls, tapping her foot in annoyance. Melman had long disappeared into one of the separate rooms with a sign of a human on the outside. Gia assumed it was the recuperation room where they would relieve themselves in the weird porcelain machines that whooshed their...things away when they were finished.
The smell was worse in there, so Gia didn't bother following him.
"I knew we should've taken Park!" Alex groaned, peeking down the tunnel where the train would travel. "Are we sure this is the fastest way to Grand Central?"
"I don't know! That's what Melman said!" Gloria said.
"Maybe we should've just gone on foot! Hail a cab! Done something to avoid all of this!" Gia said, sounding a little more nasal from covering her nose.
"H-Hey! Hey, you guys!" Melman called, suddenly appearing out of the room all bright-eyed and bushy tailed like he hadn't been complaining for the last twenty minutes it took in getting here. Gia and Gloria had to steer him back on track four times because he tried to sneak back to the zoo when he wasn't looking. The worst part was crossing the street, which was always packed to the brim in traffic jams. Gia was positive she almost lost her life to three cabs, a motorcycle, and a hearse. "That room has some nifty little sinks you can wash up in, and look!" Melman suddenly opened his mouth, his long tongue unfurling so they could see a large blue object stuck to it. "Free mints!"
"This isn't a field trip, Melman!" Alex scolded, grabbing the giraffe's tongue and grabbing the blue mint. "This is an urgent mission to save Marty from throwing his life away! Now, where's the train?" He tossed the blue object carelessly away. Gia was starting to suspect it wasn't a mint after all, but she didn't have the heart to tell her paranoid friend that.
They suddenly heard a loud horn, indicating the oncoming vehicle. Eagerly, the four of them poked their heads out, staring down the dark tunnel and waiting to see it arrive. Unfortunately, for them, they were staring down the wrong way, and they only just ripped their heads away in time. Gia gripped the front of her fur, wondering how they were still alive.
"What did Marty say to you?" Gloria suddenly asked over the roar of the train, turning Alex toward her. "I asked you to talk to him!"
"I did! I did! I don't understand!" Alex yelled back. "He said, 'Let's go!' And I said, 'Are you crazy?' Then he says, 'I'm ten years old!' A-And he has black-and-white stripes, and so then we sang and..." Alex paused as the train stopped and the doors opened. Quickly, the four of them piled inside. It was a lot roomier since the humans all rushed out, screaming. Gia wondered if they all had the same stop. How curious.
She quickly sat herself between Gloria and Melman, crossing her legs and folding her paws as she stared down to Alex.
"I really thought he was okay when all was said and done! He even said he was kidding!" Alex said. On his other side, Gia could see another human, cowering behind a newspaper. He tried to freeze, possibly act like he wasn't there. Disregarding him, she turned to Alex.
"Nothing indicated he was-a going to leave? Seriously, nothing?"
"No, of course not! I wouldn't have left him if I thought he was going to jump ship!" Alex said.
"Alright, alright! Let's all just calm ourselves, okay? We're on our way to Grand Central, we'll get him there! We'll get back on the train heading back to where we need to be, and we'll get back to the zoo before anyone realizes we're gone!" Gloria assured. "Piece of cake!"
There was a pause of silence before Gia suddenly said, "Will he want to come back with us?"
"Why wouldn't he want to come back with us?" Melman asked. While he was sitting beside her, his head was on the other seat due to his long neck.
"Well...he clearly wanted this-a so bad that he was willing to-a leave to begin with, no? He might be angry with us for-a ruining his plan," Gia said, her shoulders drooping.
"Don't worry. Once he sees us, he's gonna feel all guilty, and he'll be begging us to take him home! I'll bet he's miserable!" Alex assured, leaning over to put a paw on Gia's knee. Gloria flicked his nose to get him to stop leaning over her.
For the remainder of the ride, they stayed silent, stewing in their own thoughts as they prepared themselves for what might happen when they do find Marty. Hopefully, Gia thought to herself.
The train ride itself took about twenty to twenty five minutes.
The only time silence was broken was when Alex had turned to the human beside him and gazed down at the headline on his newspaper.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Knicks lost again!"
"Eh, what're you gonna do?" Melman said sarcastically.
"Is now the time?" Gia asked. Before Alex could reply, there was suddenly an animatronic voice. Gia couldn't decipher the words, but Alex somehow could.
"Did that say 'Grand Central Station' or 'my aunt's constipation'?" he asked.
"This is it!" Gloria declared.
The train had come to a startling halt, making all of them slide down and bunch up together in one painful heap, but they jumped right back to their feet and raced for the doors. Impatiently, Alex pushed his open and took off, Gloria and Gia right behind him. Gia could hear Melman struggling to keep up.
They had found the entrance, Alex taking the lead as he tried to grab the peoples' attention. Gia and Gloria did not have time to reel him back in.
The people, catching witness of all of them, began to run away screaming in terror just like those at the train station had. Gia soon realized the floors were too slippery for her padded feet, and she was slipping and falling about, clinging to the railing on the stairs to the best of her ability to work her way up.
"Move aside!" Alex yelled over everyone shouting. Looking ahead, she could see him suddenly swing himself up onto a light hanging from the ceiling. "We have an emergency here! This is an emergency situation!"
"Alex, slow down!" Gia called. Gloria, seeing her struggle, grabbed Gia by the scruff and began hoisting her up the stairs as a way to aid her. They got to the top just in time to see Alex in an all out brawl with a tiny elderly woman adorned in homemade stitched garments with snow white hair. Gia was about to scold Alex for hurting someone that frail, only to see it was her doing all the work. She beat him relentlessly with her purse before grabbing a tiny spray bottle and hitting him straight in the eyes. Alex cried out, backing away, but she had already grabbed his arm and flipped him over onto his back.
"Lady! What is wrong with you?" Alex asked weakly, getting to his feet.
"Uh...should we help him?" Gloria asked.
"No, no, I think he's got this," Gia lied, still being held by her scruff.
"Get a grip on yourself, people!" Alex begged, trying to get as far from the old woman as he could.
"You're a bad kitty!" the old woman hissed.
"Wait, wait! Where's Melman?" Gloria asked, dumping Gia on the floor. "Shoot! Did he even get off? I'm gonna go find him! You go with Alex!"
"Wha-how? I can't..." Gia trailed off. Gloria had already disappeared. Sighing irritably, Gia struggled to get to her feet, slipping and sliding again and falling onto her stomach. Grumbling, she lifted her head up and looked around, at last able to really get a good look at this place. It was rather extravagant, made up of marble and perfectly waxed floors, all the while with decorative columns, and overhanging screens to show which trains were arriving, departing, or delayed.
She looked around, trying to see if she could find Alex or Marty. She spotted her lion comrade still moving around, a lot more gracefully than she was. Looking down, she gained the idea of sliding herself on her stomach instead like a penguin, moving a lot faster that way instead of walking. She was catching up to Alex until she felt someone grab her tail, making her yelp in pain.
"Two bad kitties? Unbelievable!" the woman snarled, suddenly swinging Gia around by her tail, the jaguar uselessly clawing at the floor to try to find some grip. She was becoming increasingly dizzy until the old lady aimed a kick straight for her behind, sending her directly into the air.
"I'VE GOT HIM! I'VE GOT HIM!" Alex had shouted down below. Gia could see he had tackled Marty. Her heart leapt.
"Look out!" she called out too late, landing on top of both of them so they were now in a painful pile of bruises and possible broken bones.
"I-I've got him," Alex repeated weakly, disoriented.
"He's got him!" Gloria shouted from the other side of the station, appearing with Melman.
"He's got him! He's got-AH!" Melman shouted as he slid directly across the floor like Gia had. The old woman seemed to be trying to take them all down one by one, smirking evilly as she swung her purse at Melman's rear, sending him sliding towards a barrier and slamming his face into a carefully constructed spherical clock.
"Woah! Ow! Wh-What are you guys doin' here?" Marty asked, pushing himself out of the pile. Gia was laying across Alex's back, unsure of what to do now that they had reached their goal.
She squeaked when Alex suddenly sat up and threw his arms tightly around Marty. By that time, Gloria had got to them, helping Gia get to her feet.
"I am so glad we found you!" Alex said.
"We were so worried about you!" Gloria added.
"We didn't know what to think! What to-a do!" Gia said, trying to ignore the pain of her recent fall. Today just didn't seem to be her day.
"Don't worry, I'm fine!" Marty assured, gently pushing Alex off of him. "I'm fine! Look at me, I'm fine!"
"You're fine? Oh! He's fine!" Alex suddenly chirped nonchalantly, grinning at Gloria and Gia. "Oh, great! Hey, you hear that? Marty's fine! That's good to know! 'Cause I was just wondering, uh..." Alex suddenly began throttling Marty by his throat. "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US, MARTY? I THOUGHT WE WERE YOUR FRIENDS!"
"Alex, too hard! Too hard!" Gia said, trying to pull the lion off of him.
"What's the big deal?" Marty asked, struggling to speak through the hold Alex had on him. "I was comin' back in the mornin'!"
"Don't you ever do this again! Do you hear me?" Alex commanded, still choking him. Gia pulled uselessly at him, unable to find a grip on these godforsaken floors. She was pretty much just moonwalking.
"Do you hear him?" Gloria echoed.
"Guys? We're running out of time!" Melman jumped in, dropping his head. Gia was shocked to see it was completely hidden inside the clock he had broken.
"Oh, Melman, you. broke their clock?" Gloria cried in exasperation, grabbing it as a way to try and get it off.
Gia was still trying to get Alex off of Marty as he continued to scold the zebra. She was so distracted she couldn't hear the sirens getting louder and closer, flashes of red and blue blinking on and off from the windows. She only stopped when the lights had went off, leaving them in only a flash of white, almost like a spotlight. Looking around, she could see they were surrounded. Police officers, firefighters, locals, the whole she-bang. All Gia could do was freeze where she was with her arms wrapped tightly around Alex's torso and her feet continuing to slide stupidly.
Even Alex had stopped choking Marty, looking around in disbelief.
"Oh...Oh, no," Gia mumbled.
She turned just in time to see the penguins, the same penguins Marty had talked about earlier, suddenly backing into the center of the circle. She couldn't help but bare her teeth in a snarl. This was all their fault. But she didn't have time to dwell on that, nor did she have time to sink her teeth into one of them.
"It's the Man!" Marty hissed, awkwardly breaking the silence. Still, all they could do was look around. All the officers that were front and center had up glass shields, as though they were dangerous. Thanks to their current displays, that wasn't too far off course. But Marty wasn't giving up. "Good evening, officers!"
"No, no, no!" Alex hissed, shaking him. "Bad idea! You don't talk now! Okay? You're not so good with the "putting words together and their coming out good" thing! You keep it "shh"!" Alex, at last, got to his feet, carefully unwrapping Gia's paws from his torso and having her slide slowly and humiliatingly to the ground.
"Hey, Gi," Marty greeted guiltily.
"Yes...hi, Marty," Gia replied quietly.
"Hey! How you doing?" Alex asked, confronting the crowd as he began approaching them. "You know what? Everything's cool! We just, uh...had a little situation here! Little internal situation!" At that moment, the animal control specialist was pushed front and center, but he was clearly not very happy about it, trying to push himself back out through the human barricade. Alex continued, undeterred, "Just, my friend went a little crazy! Happens to everybody! The city gets to us all! Went a little cuckoo in the head!"
"Hey!" Marty called, offended. "Don't be callin' me cuckoo in the head!"
Alex whipped around angrily. "Just shush! I will handle this!" Gia's eyes widened, seeing someone else had gotten through the barricade. She began backing away in fear, though she was getting nowhere.
"Uh, Alex?"
"Not now!" Alex hissed to her, too, making a zipping motion over his mouth before turning back around only to have the old lady from earlier kick him straight in the nether regions. Alex cried out in pain, quickly putting his paws there as a way to comfort himself.
"I got him!" the old lady cheered, only to be quickly carried off by a group of officers.
"W-Would you give a guy a break?" Alex cried, his voice almost as high as Gia and Gloria's. "Oh! W-We're just gonna take my little friend home and forget this ever happened! All right? No harm, no foul, right?" Alex continued to get closer to them, trying his best to convince them everything was cool. But it seemed that was enough to keep them afraid as they all whimpered and protested. The animal control specialist even yelped, clinging to the gun in his hands. "Oh, no! No, no, no! Hey, it's cool! It's me, Alex the lion! From the zoo!"
"Alex, I'm not sure that's-" Alex cut Gia off quickly, doing his signature pose, playfully growling, but that only seemed to scare them farther.
"This is gonna get worse before it-a gets better," Gia said, smacking her forehead.
Alex turned to them, confused. "What's the matter with them?"
Suddenly, there was a tiny pop and Alex flinched.
"Ow!" he cried out, looking behind him. Gia was surprised to see it was the specialist who had fired the shot. Thankfully, however, it wasn't a bullet. When Alex twirled on the spot, losing his footing, she could see it was a purple dart. Gloria quickly caught him before his head could hit the floor. Marty, Gia, and Melman quickly got to him, looking worriedly into his face as his pupils got bigger, hiding the familiar blue Gia was used to seeing. "Wow! Hoo! I feel really...weird! Hey!" He seemed to be looking at the four of them for the first time. He patted Gloria and Marty's snouts before grabbing Gia by the back of her head. "I love you guys! I love you...so...much." With that, he was out, unconscious.
"Every man for themselves!" Marty cried out, jumping to his feet to make a run for it. However, since the bigges threat was out of the way, the specialist didn't seem as hesitant to shoot again, catching Marty on his neck, sending him face first into the ground as he giggled stupidly. He mumbled incoherently for a moment, before slipping into sweet unconsciousness like Alex had.
Gia didn't have time to try to run for it, because she was the next victim. She hissed as the dart hit her in the bicep, making her slide onto her back, staring up at the ceiling with a goofy grin on her face.
"Why...why do I have this weird accent?" she asked before falling asleep.