Tigress was no acrobat. She never got trained or tested to see if she would be qualified for joining some side show or circus. And after a lifetime of torment in a roadside zoo that was secretly cross breeding animals illegally, the zookeepers thought it best to let the tiger live the rest of her life free from public entertainment aside from educational and safety purposes. Yet for as long as she could remember, she was athletic. It was more or less from natural resources rather than her staying in shape by herself, although she did make it a priority to workout when she could for the sake of good health. Yet it was all thanks to Mother Nature for her physique. She was also gifted with flexibility and impeccable strength. So it was no surprise to anyone when she effortlessly jumped over the high brick wall of the Central Park Zoo.

She did a full front flip in a high arch and landed on all fours on the other side of the wall. Her stomach clenched painfully, a thrilling sensation she was not quite familiar with, and it wasn't from the supposed leap of faith. It was excitement. She had never done this before. Never before had she snuck out of a facility that prevented animals—such as herself—to leave their pens, especially her own home. There was absolutely no need for it. She had everything she could ever need and want served to her on a silver platter, pampered and spoiled from the day she came in and for the rest of her life. She was sneaking out for the very first time. And although she could feel her excitement arousing, she refused to show it. This was not a joy ride or a fun trip she had heard multitudes of teenagers gossip about. This was a mission. A mission to retrieve Marty and return him back to the zoo before any of the officials found out where he had gone and punish him.

Alex and Melman followed after her. Alex wasn't quite as coordinated or serene as the female tiger was when getting over the wall. Instead of trying to get over himself, the lion had scaled the giraffe's towering neck as a ladder and was now having difficulty getting down. He finally let go after being suspended a full six feet above the ground, flailing and swingng like a disheveled spider on a string of webbing, and flopped onto his back with a thud.

"Graceful." Tigress scoffed, standing over him.

"Are you just going to stand there and gloat or are you going to help me up?" He pouted. She held out a paw and hefted him up to his feet, doing her best not to snicker at his remark.

Gloria wasn't as elegant with her exit, either. Unlike the two large cats, she didn't climb or leap over the brick barrier. Instead, she full on bulldozed through the wall, smashing a giant hole through the thick of brick and grout as if plowing past a fortress of plastic Legos.

Tigress feared that such a scene would give reason for the zookeepers to question what had happened, which would somehow relate to the animals actions, which would then cause them to wonder what had led them to do such a thing. She dared not to ponder on it for too long.

"Come on." The hippopotamus urged Melman. Said giraffe looked to be questioning what he was about to do, if not planning on backing out of the escapade. Tigress couldn't blame him. Melman, like Gloria and Marty, had spent his entire life in the zoo, not once ever seeing the world just outside of its borders. And now all of a sudden, they were abandoning it. Leaving behind all that they knew and into the city they called their home but never knew.

"One of us should wait in case he comes back." Melman squeaked, narrow head peeking from behind the rubble of crumbling bricks.

"Not now. This is an intervention." Gloria said, still undisturbed by the settling dust that armored her arms and shoulders. "We all got to go."

"What's the fastest way to Grand Central?" Alex asked over his shoulder as he inspected the city he had only known from behind zoo fences.

"You should take Lexington." Melman inclined.

"Melman!" Tigress and Gloria yelled in unison. All the pity in the world couldn't get to the best of Tigress, and apparently Gloria, too. Tigress knew when to take things seriously and to what extent. And when it came to emotions, specifically fear (be it her own or anyone else's), they needed to be put aside in such dire circumstances.

"OK. 'We.' We should take Lexington." Melman whimpered as he stepped over the pile of crushed bricks.

"Were the boxes really necessary?" Tigress asked him. She indicated to the tissue boxes covering his hooves that had been feverishly emptied given little time to prepare.

"They're for protection," He defended. Protecting him from what exactly Tigress didn't know, nor did she request the answer. She didn't have the patience to bring it up. So she dropped it.

And then they were off. Four concerned, devastated animals of diverse species galloping through Central Park on a quest to rescue their friend. Tigress only hoped that of all things, this wouldn't be the last time she would see her sanctuary. Who knew what could happen.

"We should've taken Park." Said Alex as he peered past the pillar. "Sure this is the fastest way to Grand Central Station?"

"I don't know! That's what Melman said." Gloria barked out, a little more frustrated than Tigress had thought. She was getting a little peeved herself. Time was of the essence and the subway was taking too long to arrive. They had traveled through their beloved city and decided that the quickest and most efficient form of transportation would be the subway. It wasn't like they could just go up to a taxi and ask them to take them to Grand Central. They were animals, and no human would ever in a million years welcome a pack of wild animals into their cab. Which was fine for two reasons. One, they wouldn't all fit inside such a cramped space; and two, traffic was particularly bad at night. It would've taken hours just to get across town.

Tigress had taken upon herself to stay undercover. Taking the less traveled routes, staying in the shadows, preventing as few people as possible from seeing them. It was bad enough that they had busted out of the zoo with evidence being the damaged brick wall, and showing themselves off for the world to see was the last thing they needed. The entire city would erupt in hysteria and having the authorities at their tails wasn't how Tigress had planned to end the night. So she kept her friends from prying eyes as best as she could.

"Hey. Hey, you guys." Melman called out as he emerged from the nearby men's bathrooms, boxed-hooves clomping softly against the cement floor. "That room has some nifty little sinks you can wash up in, and look!" He stuck out his long tongue and presented a half eaten round, blue object. "Free mints!" Oh God, she thought to herself as she cringed at the realization of what it actually was. "Melman, that's not a mint." She said, disgusted as she crossed her arms over her chest to assuage the sickening flops in her gut. Melman knitted his thin eyebrows over his bulging eyes, clearly confused. Thankfully, Alex had the nerve to do something about it before she could. She wasn't sure she could fully explain what he had just put into his mouth.

"This isn't a field trip." Alex snapped, yanking at the giraffe's tongue and snatching the circular bar from his mouth. He tossed it aside and it skidded across the grey cement before coming to a halt. Tigress had the feeling that no man would be wanting to use that anymore. "This is an urgent mission to save Marty from throwing his life away. Now, where's the train?" A whistle sounded off, signaling the arrival of their chauffeur.

"Here it comes." Melman piped in.

They all peeked their heads out in the direction of which their train would be arriving. But there was nothing there. There was no train before them. Tigress was befuddled for the smallest of seconds before realizing what this actually meant. She only had a millisecond to whirl around and witness the speeding train race right for their outstretched necks and for her to yank back the others before they could be decapitated. They all screamed with the oncoming train as they fell back.

"Thanks, Tigress." Melman stuttered, shaking slightly as the idea of nearly losing his head sank in.

"Anytime."

"What did Marty say to you?" Gloria scorned at Alex, much less shaken up than the lion or giraffe. "I asked you to talk to him"

"I did! I did! I don't understand.' He said, "Let's go." I said, 'Are you crazy?' He says, 'I'm ten years old.' And he has black-and-white stripes, and so then we sang and…"

"Tigress, did this actually happen?" Gloria interrupted.

The train squealed to a halt and a pair of doors slid open with a hiss. They started to board.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"You're not helping, Tigress." Alex yelped, becoming flustered.

"I'm not trying to help." She smirked despite the circumstances. It earned her a deadpan expression. They stepped onto the train and as they did so, dozens of people went to step off. Once they saw that there was a lion, a tiger, a hippo, and a giraffe just a stone's throw away, all hell broke loose. They ran in all directions, screaming and panicking. Tigress couldn't do anything about it. She could only hope that they got back to the zoo with Marty before anything bad could happen.

Tigress and the others started taking their seats. The doors closed and they were just about to take off when Melman, the last one to get on, started to go into a frenzy. It appeared that his hind leg was stuck in the middle of the doors. Tigress sighed, desperately trying to not get annoyed by the giraffe's clumsiness, and went over and pulled on his foot until it popped inside, hoof no longer covered by one of his beloved tissue boxes. She saw the quickest of glimpses of said box tumble to the platform, now lost and forgotten.

Oops.

She took a seat in between Alex and Melman as they raced through the underground railroad. Aside from the light jerking of the train,the grimy seats, rusting support poles along with the scent of the subway that was too musty for her liking, the train was relatively clean and safe. The rushing wind pounded and wailed as they sped through the tunnels, rattling the windows behind her head. She didn't mind.

"Aw!" Alex groaned dejectedly beside her. She looked over at the lion to see what the fuss was. A trembling man who must've missed his turn to get off when he could and was now trapped in a car full of wild animals. He quivered fearfully behind a large newspaper displaying the headline for the sport's section. "Knicks lost again."

"What a tragedy." Tigress huffed, leaning back into the scraped plastic of the bench, arms once again crossed over the cream-colored fur of her chest.

"Could you be any more impassive?" Alex asked, a hint of anger behind his tone as he shot her a scowl.

"Is that a rhetorical question or are you wondering just how much I do not care for a lost basketball game?" She remarked, the smallest of grins snaking up her muzzle.

"What are you going to do." Melman voiced in monotone, his head resting upside down on the complete other side of Gloria. Due to his long neck and being in such a small space (in terms of being in a larger-sized species), he barely fit as it was, even with his neck bent. Before Alex could take another whack at defending his reasoning for being upset for such an oh-so important occasion such as a sports event, a noise that could be easily mistaken for a strangling cat talking through a radio crackled over the intercom.

"Did that say "Grand Central Station" or 'my aunt's constipation'?" Alex asked aloud.

"Let's just hope it's not the latter." Said Tigress.

"This is it." Gloria said.

As soon as the doors opened up, they ran to the stairs that led to their designated location where Marty was most likely to be. Just as Tigress' paws landed on the first step, a deafening clatter rang out behind her. She was almost too afraid to look, but she did, and as predicted, wished she hadn't. There was Melman, floundering around as he trampled through the remains of what had to be a drum kit that belonged to a man in dark sunglasses. What had happened was obvious and Tigress had to restrain herself from groaning.

Melman was clearly not meant for the city.

She trudged her way to where he laid in a crumpled heap of limbs and drums. She lifted him back onto his feet and pulled him along to the stairs, which then turned into an escalator.

Finally they were getting somewhere. She prayed to whatever greater power up above in the heavens to give her favor and to make the rest of the night much less chaotic.

Her prayers must've been left unanswered because said chaos was unfolding not only a dozen feet in front of her. Alex. Alex the Lion, praised and adored King of New York, the crowning jewel of the Central Park Zoo, was swinging from a suspended light then jumping to the floor where crowds of citizens ran amuck to the nearest exits, screaming their heads off.

"Move aside. We have an emergency here. This is an emergency situation. Hey, hey. Just chill out. It's not that big of an emergency. Upstairs, downstairs." Alex outcried to the people.

How many times did she need to explain to him that humans could not understand him? She thought to herself dryly.

All of a sudden, an elderly woman who was peacefully walking by saw Alex frantically running about and with impossible speed and agility, swung her handbag right at his head. She struck him a few times before pulling out a bottle of what had to be pepper spray and shot a good dose of it into his eyes. He cried out in pain. "How do you like that?" The woman shrieked.

"Lady! What is wrong with you?" He yelled out. She hit him again, this time in the back of his skull. "Ow! Get a grip on yourselves, people." He ran away before she could continue to beat the living daylights out of him.

"You bad kitty." She squawked after him.

Finally reaching the top, she surveyed the area in search of their friend. It only took a few seconds to spot his black-white striped figure. She ran to him just as Alex tackled him to the ground.

"I got him! I've got him!"

"He's got him!" Gloria hollered. "He's got him!"

"He's got him! He's got…" Tigress heard Melman from behind her. She could've sworn she heard a distant crash nearby, as if something had been hit. She didn't care to look. They had Marty, and now they needed to leave before they caused anymore mayhem tonight.

"Whoa! What are you guys doing here?" Marty asked, flabbergasted.

Alex embraced him in a tight hug. "I am so glad we found you."

"We were so worried about you." Gloria said over him.

"Don't worry, I'm fine, I'm fine. Look at me. I'm fine." Marty said indicating to his unharmed self, as if he hadn't just snuck out of a zoo and ran off to go into the great unknown without any supervision or consultation whatsoever.

"You're fine? Oh, he's fine." Alex said rather calmly. Tigress blinked in surprise. She was expecting him to overreact in his own dramatic, flamboyant way that was really unnecessary. The fact that he was actually being at peace about it after the whole freak out session at finding Marty's absence and frantic getaway to Grand Central station, worried her. He was like a volcano; the longer it took to actually explode, the bigger the eruption was in the end. "Oh, great. You hear that? Marty's fine. That's good to know. Because I was wondering…" and without warning he snatched Marty by the neck in the blink of an eye. And that my friends, was the explosion Tigress feared would occur. "How could you do this to us? I thought we were your friends!"

"What's the big deal?" Marty gurgled. The iron grip on his neck must've made it a challenge to breathe, let alone talk. "I was coming back."

"Don't ever do this again. You hear me?" Alex said, tightening his grip, as if he wasn't already strangling the zebra.

"Do you hear him?" Gloria wagged a finger like a mother disciplining her child who had disobeyed her.

"We're running out of time." Melman suddenly interjected. Tigress had to inwardly swallow the groan threatening to bellow from her throat at the sight of him. It wasn't really his presence that nearly made her facepalm. It was the broken Grand Central Station clock encasing his head that made her want the world to split open and swallow her whole. How it came to be there and how she had not taken such notice of it was unbeknownst to her. All she did know was that Melman was most definitely not well coordinated, especially in the bustling city.

"Oh, Melman, you broke their clock?" Gloria said, speaking Tigress' thoughts aloud.

"...do this again! Don't you ever, ever do this again!" Alex continued to rant.

Tigress was now thinking it was probably better if they hadn't come along in this chase. Not that it was a task unworthy enough to take on, but the consequences and events taking place before her were certainly not the best. She should've gone alone. She was the fastest, quietest, and most discreet of the group. She would've been back at the zoo with Marty in tow in no less than an hour if she had convinced her friends to stay behind.

But right now she had other things to deal with. Such as the entirety of the police force storming into the station on a rampage. She knew exactly what they were there for and could only pray they could get out of it. It was up to her to do the job.

"Alex! We have to go. Now!" She commanded, yanking him to his feet. "Come on." She went over to Gloria where she was doing her best to pull the prized clock off of the giraffe's head. "We have to go." She urged.

But it was too late. Within seconds they were surrounded by blue clad men and women with bullet-proof shields held in front of them. Streams of search lights suddenly shined down on them and they froze on the spot, inspecting the large entourage of authoritative figures cornering them. There had to be well over a hundred of them and all were armed to the teeth. They were trapped.

"Cute and cuddly, boys. Cute and cuddly." A voice chimed below her.

Tigress chanced a glance to the source of the voice. It was revealed to be the penguins from the zoo, waddling and grinning as if they were nothing put purely innocent bystanders caught in the midst of this mess. But she knew full well that if it weren't for them, they wouldn't be here in the first place. She shot Skipper, the leader of the band of black and white birds, a glare that would've sent him running.

"It's the Man." Marty whispered, looking stunned. But instead of cowering, he regained his charm and spoke up. "Good evening, officers." He said aloud gleefully. Probably to appeal to their better nature.

"No. No. No." Alex hissed towards him harshly. "You don't talk now. OK? You're not good with the 'putting words together and their coming out good' thing. You keep it 'shh'." The lion stepped forward and clasped his paws together in a welcoming manner. "Hey! How ya doing? You know what? Everything's cool. We just had a little situation here. Little internal situation. My friend," he motioned to the zebra still splayed on the ground, "went a little crazy. Happens to everybody. The city gets to us all. Went a little cuckoo in the head."

"Don't be calling me cuckoo in the head." Marty remarked, seemingly only slightly offended for being marked as mentally unstable.

"Just shush!" Alex whirled around and angrily pressed a finger to his snout at his striped friend.

"Alex." Tigress intervened. "This is not the time or place to try and negotiate our way out of this." Said the female tiger as she placed a firm paw on his arm, forcefully ushering him away from the officers.

"I can handle this." He said back, pulling on his arm. She didn't let go.

"No. You can't." She nearly roared out. "We need to get out of here now if you want to get back to your precious zoo." She had had enough of this nonsense. She was completely fed up with all of these sorry excuses and shenanigans in their journey across New York City. She was taking them home right now even if it killed her.

"I got this, Tigress!" He said back just as heated, freeing his arm with a strong yank. "I'm not a kit anymore."

"Then why don't you stop acting like one." The words escaped her muzzle before she knew that they had. For a second, his gaze faltered. A pained expression etched into his golden facial features as if her statement had actually inflicted him with pain. But as soon as it came, it was gone. Replaced by a determined frown. He spun around to once again confront the humans only to find the leg of the elderly woman from before meet a very special place known only to the male gender. He doubled over at her strike and she was instantly carried off by two speeding policemen.

"Would you give a guy a break?" Alex squeaked out, clutching where the sun didn't shine. If Tigress wasn't so peeved at the large cat who whimpered in pain, she would've chuckled. But otherwise she remained standing tall and strong like a mighty redwood tree. After a few moments to recover from the blow, Alex composed himself.

"We'll take my little friend home and forget this ever happened. All right? No harm, no foul, right?" He waved his arms in emphasis. When he went forward a little, the crowd scuttled backwards in fear of the large lion. "Hey, it's cool. It's me, Alex the lion. From the zoo." He smiled politely and posed for them as if that could show just who they were dealing with. Tigress rolled her eyes at him as he chivalrously went into his signature performing position. It wasn't as if there weren't any other lions in Manhattan that could be mistaken for him. And they still couldn't understand a lick of what he was saying. Again, they were humans.

"What's the matter with them?" He turned around looking rather confused. Tigress was just about to explain to her oblivious friend why they weren't showering him with bouquets of flowers and cheers and kneeling down to kiss his feet he was used to when something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. A singular man in a green uniform stood out from the others, shaking like a leaf on a tree in front of his brothers in arms. He clumsily held a rifle in his hands and was aiming it straight at Alex's back.

She instantly charged, shoving Alex aside when the trigger was pulled and something fast and sharp imbedded itself into the meat of her shoulder. She looked at it to access the damage only to find a dart. A tranquilizer dart. The fuzzy, pink end was like a dandelion tickling her chin, its sleek, metal body shining under the bright light. She suddenly felt dizzy, the earth swaying too and fro beneath her paws. And sick. She felt insanely sick. She fell to her knees, trying to blink away black and blue splotches materializing in her vision.

Those weren't there before. She thought to herself.

She could distinctly hear someone calling her name when she was suddenly lying on her side. The cool tile of the floor was the only thing she felt physically while the rest of her body tingled with numbness. Her brain felt like it was drowning in a sea of mud and sog. The more she tried to swim to the surface, the deeper and thicker the brown slosh became and soon she would be consumed in this swamp of drowsiness.

And then there they were. All of her friends crowding around her. All of them; Gloria, Marty, Melman and his broken clock, and Alex; appearing before her like angels descending from the heavens. They started looking distorted, as if she were looking at them through a warbled screen of glass.

"Tigress…" a voice echoed, sounding small and afraid.

"What… what's happening?" She mumbled through heavy lips. Her eyelids were much heavier as they dropped farther over her eyes. The last thing she saw were the hands of the Grand Central Station clock tick for the last time, clicking into place over its white face.