Chapter One:

It happened quite without warning. One moment he was running from something with some other animal, whether it was Maurice or Marlene he wasn't sure because of the way it changed between them so frequently, and the next everything was collapsing into white.

There was no sensation of falling or floating, just the absence of gravity and space as everything suddenly faded out of being. He was scared, nigh on terrified, but before he could do anything about it instead there was a feeling calm. The world felt somehow blurry around the edges and there was a bone deep warmth rolling though his chest, the sensation drawing forth a feeling of absolute safety.

Whoever was sitting across from him had the brightest eyes he thought he had ever seen. They were a stunning aqua blue The threads of muscle each stained a different hue only reminiscent of the ocean when the algae was in bloom. Almost at the same time as he started to try and discern the individual colours of the iris they relaxed, dilating warm and wide, the deep black of the pupil swelling outwards like an exhaled breath. Their eyelids were lowered over their eyes, eyelashes fanning over them disappearing in the darkness of the pupil. There was a soft liquid heat in their eyes, like molten glass, the warmth of it seeming to emanate into the space between them to try and draw him closer. He wanted to be closer. He wanted to feel more of the way his heart was flipping around in his chest and so leant closer, the animal across from him mirroring his action until

His eyes snapped open and it immediately became apparent just how bad that idea was as a sharp bolt of pain lanced through his head. He pitched his body forward, flippers going to his head as he bit down the shout welling up in his throat. His head was throbbing, pain pulsing violently though his skull from all directions. There was a horrible pressure building up behind his eyes and he was aware that he was trying to crush his skull between his flippers. His toes scraped against the concrete below him as he tried to curl up tighter against the vicious agony rippling through his skull. He was aware of the fact he was letting out broken groans of pain, and the more he curled up the more intense the pain got. He couldn't breathe and the pressure behind his eyes was so strong he was tempted to pull them out to try and relieve it. The pain just kept growing, slashing apart his brain with talons and shaving bone off the inside of his skull. He was starting to wobble, and was being assaulted by an awful high pitched scream that seemed to echo impossibly loudly inside his ear holes. It was then, as he started to flicker out of consciousness that he realised he was on the brink of passing out.

Just as he thought he would topple over the edge into the comforting oblivion the pain just stopped.

As quickly as it had started the pain had vanished, completely leaving him. He stopped squeezing down on his skull and let his eyes slowly open, trying not to move too quickly in fear it would resurface. Ideas and fears started to spark inside his head, everything from terminal cancer to attempted mind control.

"Kowalski?"

His team-mates were all crowded around his bunk, all of them eyeing him warily. Skipper was giving him one of his famous 'I'm not sure if I should hit you' stares, feathers still ruffled. "Are you ok Soldier? You sounded like Manfredi and Johnson did during the flying piranha incident"

"Did you have a nightmare? Sometimes I have nightmares." Private asked before shivering slightly, looking almost distant as he did. "Horrible nightmares about Badgers, with their sharp teeth and pointy claws and-"

As Rico Smacked the youngest recruit upside the head Kowalski found his voice. "Yes… I think I'm fine. I just suffered from some odd head pain is all."

Skipper sighed, rolling his eyes. "Well then Nancy, if that's all I'm going back to bed."

"But Skipper, we only have ten minutes until we're supposed to get up anyway. Besides I don't think I could go back to bed after that ruckus…" Private said, twiddling his flippers as he did.

He heard the sigh, and the sound of the team leader flipping off the ladder. "See what you did Kowalski? Ten minutes of Glorious Ringtail free shut-eye ruined because you had a headache."

"That's just it! This wasn't a normal headache!" Kowalski said, standing up to face his leader properly. "It was too intense to be a normal headache. It felt more like someone was trying to pull a piece of my cerebral cortex out!"

Skipper blinked at him, and he could almost see the wheels turning as he tried to figure out what a cerebral cortex was. He sighed and propped his head up on his flipper. "The part of the brain that controls memory, awareness, language, attention and –"

"So?"

The interruption caught him off guard and he tripped over the words he was saying. What was that supposed to mean?

"That's what a headache feels like." Skipper said. "Harden up man, even the Private can handle that."

Private shrugged as three sets of eyes turned to him inquisitively. "It doesn't hurt that much once you get used to it I suppose."

"There, see? Now sharpen up, I'll see you all topside in eight." And with that he was pushing aside the fishbowl entrance and disappearing from view.

Kowalski groaned and buried his face in his flippers. A normal headache? He was no expert but a headache should probably be more 'achy' and less 'terminal brain tumour with an aneurism on the side.' He grunted softly and pushed his feathers back across his head, resettling the messy ones back into their rightful places. "Maybe I am going soft?" He mumbled. "No, that's preposterous, there's no way that was normal."

The gripping urge to run tests was starting to flicker to life inside his chest, and he stole a sidelong glance at the tall silver barricade separating him from his lab. It wouldn't take long, he reasoned, to take a few scans and have a look at his vitals, just to investigate a little. Surely there was some reason for the bright teal eyes –

For the second time that morning he caught himself short, the sudden break in normal thought like the feeling of catching yourself moments before you topple down a stairwell and hanging over the final step and staring down the drop you almost took and hearing your heart beat like a drum in your ears. Eyes? He wasn't thinking about the eyes, well he hadn't been, but now that his brain had dug it up it was all he could see. They were floating there, right at the forefront of his mind, a remnant of a dream that seemed to be unwilling to leave.

It was odd, or perhaps not odd, but certainly peculiar. A feeling was clawing its way up his spine and the closest sensation he could name would be Deja-vu. The eyes were a dream, he knew that, but it almost seemed like he had seen it before. It wasn't quite like it though.

It was like he had lived it years before.

Deja-vu was a simple lapse, the brain not quite paying attention and getting itself mixed up and making two copies of an instantaneous memory. It didn't come from dreams. Then again it was a perfectly natural normal thing to see in day to day life, a pair of eyes. Perhaps it was a memory he had forgotten he had Deja-vu about?

Just as he was about to make some notes on the process of Deja-vu he was hit in the face. "Ow!"

Private giggled, hiding his beak behind his flipper, the one not currently occupied spreading mayonnaise on a fish sandwich. "A piece of bread hurt Kowalski? Perhaps you are going a bit soft."

He glared back, and managed to resist the urge to flinch as Rico threw another slice in his direction.

And he couldn't help it, but scientific curiosity managed to get the better of him again. When Private looked in his direction again he made a mental note, and catalogued it for future reference should he need it.

The young penguin's eyes were blue. A flat, mid blue with no variation of tone, and as far as he could remember they had always been that way.

"They're still working." Skipper took the binoculars away from his eyes and narrowed them. "What kind of average men do that much work on a Monday…"

"Perhaps they just really like their jobs!"

"Oh yes, because right after they knock off they fly home to rainbow pixie land on their fanciful moon horses!"

"I'm not falling for that one again." Private muttered.

Kowalski was aware of the conversation, but he wasn't really registering it, idle mind ticking over what the day could possibly entail as he watched Rico continue to flick cards into the air without really seeing anything. It was a warm morning, the sky painted a light shade of blue, the watercolour hues of the dawn still fading slowly into the white wisps of cloud. New York city was living up to its reputation as the city noise filtered through the walls of the central park zoo even at the early hour of the morning.

"Kowalski! Analysis…"

"At the rate they appear to be working they'll be finished by this afternoon, provided the zoo stays closed that is, foot traffic could lead to disturbances which will of course extend the time reconstructing the wall will take." He said, almost impressed by how Rico could swallow 52 playing cards in the exact amount of time it took Skipper to turn around and still manage to look like he was paying attention the whole time.

Skipper placed a flipper under his beak. "So the next question is whether or not the zoo overlords have decided to close the zoo or not."

"Well considering the absurdly large banners behind us covering the gate I don't think it's that much of a question…" He smirked, gesturing over his shoulder at the bright red signs covering the entrance.

"Oh… Well I guess that answers that."

"I just-"

"The show off jar is getting pretty full Kowalski. Is it really worth it?"

He frowned and Rico took the opportunity to shake the jar beside his ear and let the coins inside clink mockingly around. "No sir" He ground out, resisting the urge to hit the weapons expert behind him over the head with an abacus. It'd be easy, too easy, though he'd probably regret it when he hit him back.

He rubbed the back of his head at the thought, wincing slightly.

"Well then, if we aren't going to be missed, then I think it may be high time to try something a little different for training."

The smile on his beak promised nothing good and Private swallowed audibly beside him.

A few well-placed smoke bombs and one unconscious digger driver later they had created a big enough distraction to slip past the construction workers unnoticed, and while there was a general consensus that they probably could have done that without letting the digger crush the work that had been already completed it was counted as a success anyway. For whatever it was worth the builders were certainly doing a good job repairing the gaping hole in the wall caused by a stray rocket. None of them were willing to discuss that debacle at that point in time, but Skipper and Private still stuck to the conviction that I.O.U was a valid scrabble aword.

It was an acronym and their leader was too stubborn for his own good sometimes in Kowalski's opinion.

They finally ended up gathering under a large oak tree in central park, the branches blotting the early sky and filtering through a few spatters of soft light to dapple the grass.

"Right men, Today's training is a little game I like to call Tails, which will test your stealth and your hand to hand combat skills. Rico, four bandanas please."

As the weapons expert excused himself off to the side to search the content of his gut for the requested items Skipper continued to explain the rules. It seemed simple enough in theory, get the bandana from someone else's ankle while protecting your own, and the person with the most at the end is the winner. No weapons, No intent to seriously injure. Three minutes of questions, spanning everything from what 'intent' looks like to what they'll be having for lunch, later they were stood in a vague square, one foot each pushed into the centre and eyeing each other suspiciously as Skipper started the countdown.

"Three…" The weapons expert was anything but subtle, he was staring blatantly downwards at Kowalski's ankle and he couldn't help the twinge of annoyance.

"Two…" Private was rocking slightly, Skipper was stood completely still

"One!" He felt the weapons experts head snap sideways as he threw a wild punch that managed to connect with the side of his head, just in the nick of time to stop him from yanking the bandana from his ankle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Private go sprawling in his attempt to flip out of the way as Skipper managed to get a hold on his bandana when he was half way through the manoeuvre, throwing his balance off entirely. He wasn't going to stick around for what happened next though as he immediately turned and darted away, aiming for the break in the tree line to hopefully hide out in one of the many oak trees until the initial violence faded. Sure he was the only one who was openly violent immediately, but if the outraged yelling he could still hear counted for anything he wasn't the last by any means.

It didn't take him long to find an appropriate hiding place, with enough foliage to keep him hidden and enough debris on the ground to make crossing beneath him silently all but impossible. As he awkwardly shuffled out along the branch, reluctant to take the same fall skipper did when he broke his flipper he realised that his biggest threat was probably Private. The youngest penguin had nothing to lose at this point and wouldn't have to worry at all about his defence and pour all his energy into the attack tactics. It was almost odd to have that thought, the rounder penguin wasn't exactly the most threatening looking bird and his personality tended to be softer than butter in a furnace and just about as warm. But training was training and after the way his beak had crunched against the ground he was betting he wasn't going to be in the best of moods.

He sighed and settled down on his branch, kicking his legs out idly and wondering exactly how long it was going to take someone to come wandering past his hiding place. The Sky had brightened considerably and soft wisps of clouds had emerged where the orange tones had faded out as the day fully got started. Peering upwards though the foliage he could see the hair like markings of cirrus clouds, which with any luck would hold true and mean good weather. It had been pretty mild recently meaning lots of time spent out in the sun sprawled out on towels, and water based drills in the sun warmed pool their habitat was based in. It was also bringing more people into the zoo, which was great after the scare they had about it being closed down.

He frowned slightly, flippers twitching lightly against the branch. Something about that had always bothered him, which was odd because he should have been content that the zoo had been saved but yet he couldn't help the nagging itch working away at his brain telling him that something was inherently wrong with the whole situation. Sure lots of people came to the zoo that day, but lots of people flocking to a sandwich shop on its last day doesn't miraculously stop it from closing down. So why didn't the zoo close down? The most obvious answer would be that someone donated the funds needed to keep it open, but why would someone even want to do that? It wasn't like the Bronx zoo or any other Zoos in the area were equally as good, and the slightly shorter commute time couldn't have been that important to someone. So there was obviously some other reason, but he had no idea what that reason was and it bugged him.

It bugged him about as much as the eyes did. They were still there in the front of his mind and as much as he tried to shove it aside it was difficult when it had nowhere to fit inside his head. It was like his memories were all lined up neatly and there were no gaps to slide the image into despite the fact it was obviously supposed to fit in there somewhere. And it almost did, the dream itself coming before he woke up in horrific pain and after he went to sleep the night before. Yet it was like there was two copies of it somehow, the dream that fit and the image that didn't. So instead it sat awkwardly at the front of his mind and created its own little line of thought that went nowhere.

It was the snapping of twigs and the crunch of old seed pods that broke him from his reverie. The footsteps were slow going, but they were heading his way none the less. Shaking the branch as little as possible he climbed to his feet and stared pointedly at the branch in front of him, if it didn't manage to hold his weight this was going to be far more awkward than it needed to be. The footsteps were growing closer, a few more and they would be directly under him. He felt himself tensing a little as his flippers swung back, only to with the final rustle of debris shoot forward as he jumped. For a brief moment he was sure that he had under-shot it and would end up falling face first into the dirt below him, but his flippers managed to just hook onto the branch. He winced as the bark scraped his flippers, ripping some feathers out. He swung twice backwards and forwards before he let himself drop again.

The ground was closer now and there was a better swing to his movement that allowed him to transfer the force of the fall off onto his shoulders and back as he tucked into a roll when he touched the ground. The tactic was perfect in theory, His opponent was off guard and he was uninjured and ready to fight. And it would have been perfect in practice too.

Had he not just jumped a rouge squirrel.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" He griped, raw flippers flailing. "Did you see that roll?! Oh this is just my luck isn't it?"

The squirrel didn't respond in anyway, they just chittered noisily at him before scampering off into the trees.

He sighed. It was sad to say animals like that were common in the park, Very few seemed to actually want to engage in conversation and the rest tended to either react with violence or indifference.

He honestly didn't have much time to react when it happened, one minute he was upright and the next he was face down in the earth. He could feel the flippers around his ankle, fumbling at the knot holding his bandana on. It was his fault, he wasn't about to deny that, a little less yelling and a little more paying attention and this could have been avoided. But he was here and he wasn't going to go down easy by any means.

The kick was sharp and vicious and it connected with the soft "Ooof" as the air was knocked from his attackers lungs. The grip loosened just enough to allow him to twist inside it, flipping himself sharply onto his back and immediately snapping his foot into the first swipe of orange he saw.

They went stumbling, they being Rico, who had two bandanas around his ankle and was now trying to recover from the blow to the beak. It brought him time though, enough time to get to his feet and regain his balance.

Rico pulled his flippers from his beak. " Das Low." He growled out

"You jumped me." He reminded him sharply, flippers coming up to protect his face as the weapons expert shifted his weight, beak curling into something reminiscent of a feral dog's snarl.

He'd really gotten himself into it this time.

He had really gotten himself into it that time.

He was still clutching the bag of frozen peas to his eye and his ankle was twisted just short of a sprain but somehow he had managed to survive the whole two hour activity without breaking something.

Unsurprisingly the victor had been Skipper, who had somehow managed to end up with all four bandanas within an hour and thirty minutes and spent the last thirty minutes hiding from the remainder of the team and smiling smugly to himself. At the end of it all they were forced to shake hands and get over the whole ordeal, which they did the same way they did every time. It didn't matter how many times someone bit you or kicked you or even flat out threw you from a tree they were still your team mate and you had to get over it. It was only training after all.

And he kind of had the punch to the eye coming anyway in retrospect.

Eyes seemed to have been his problem all day. The teal ones had been stubbornly annoying him all day, reminding him in short periodic bursts that, yes, they were still lingering. And that, yes, he still had no idea who they belonged too.

That's what had almost landed him a sprained ankle as mid-way through a fight he had tried to see exactly what colour Skippers eyes were.

They were a flat shade of mid blue, the same as privates and the same as his own. And the whole thing was starting to bug him.

He was a scientist. Problems were his fuel. Discovering the answers and working out how and why things happen was just what being a scientist entailed, and he couldn't work this problem out.

So he had gone right back to the beginning of what the correct protocol was, and started documenting. He wasn't the best artist, but he was pretty good at recording detail though images, and being able to copy from things he could see came with that. So he had sat down with a pencil and focused, drawing sharp and soft lines over the paper until he was happy it matched up with the picture projected on the inside of his skull. As he finally set about attacking the paper with blues and greens he had to pause at the feeling of eyes burning a hole into his paper. Twisting away from his drawing he shifted it defensively closer to his chest and glanced up. Rico's eyes shifted from the paper he was now covering to his face, and the expression he had on was something Kowalski was almost certain he had never seen from the unhinged penguin before.

It was clear, and searching. The usual psychopathy contained in the way his eyes wouldn't ever quite meet yours was gone as he gazed at him like he was looking for something he had lost. It was unnerving at best. Just as he went to clear his throat he could see the weapons experts eyes shifting, not quite looking at him anymore as if they existed on completely different levels of existence and his tongue lolled out of the corner of his mouth and he chuckled.

Not a moment later he threw up a clip board and turned it to face him with a look of pride. On the paper was a detailed drawing of a fish done in what looked like charcoal. "Fish!" He chirped.

He sighed. "Very nice Rico."

The weapons expert beamed back and then gestured at his paper with a grunt. Obediently he relinquished his paper to Rico, deciding it would be better than having him stare over his shoulder as he tried to record what he had dreamt about. Moments later he also passed him the pencil with some reservations.

The weapons expert sat himself down on the edge of the cinder block he had his leg propped up on and quickly pressed the pencil and then his flipper to the paper. He couldn't quite wrap his head around Rico's penchant for art. It didn't seem to flow on any of the same wavelengths explosives and Weapons sat on and yet he was somehow gifted with almost every medium you gave him. It was one of those little idiosyncrasies he had given up trying to unravel and decided to just leave alone. No more than two minutes later he passed the paper back in a better state than he had received it, the eyes now seeming to pop from the page courtesy of the shadowing now apparent around and on them. It wasn't quite a match for what he was seeing in his head, but it was better than anything he would even begin to attempt and decided to just leave it be.

"Thank you." He said, nodding to the weapons expert as he simply shrugged and began to wander off.

His curiosity caught him by the neck, opening his mouth before he could even process the thought. "Wait!"

Rico turned, giving him a look of plain confusion.

"Never mind." He said after a moment, waving a flipper, "It doesn't matter actually."

Rico shrugged again and walked away without a complaint.

His eyes were the same, and all Kowalski got was a Flat mid blue.

He was really beginning to hate that colour.

Hope you enjoyed this one! If you have a spare minute to leave a review it would be more than appreciated, I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

It was quite fun playing with the 'status quo' as it were, but I won't lie, I'm hella excited to get to the juicy parts of this story and I hope you are as well!

See you next week for chapter 2~
Peace!