The Throne of Flame: Chapter Twenty Five
Meanwhile, back at the Madagascar safe-house, Classified, Corporal and Clover had been going over documents that might lead them to tracking down Julien's other assassin. So far they'd had no luck, but they were relentless in their studies. None of them had a track record that involved giving up easy on investigations.
Though Classified had wanted Eva to stay, being that she was the intelligence of the team and was most tech savvy, she was the only one who knew the way to Julien's tree out of them. Save for Clover, but Clover was valuable in her own way. Not only was she familiar with the land, but also the culture, the politics, and the king himself. He'd been in contact with her for years, being that she was always the one in charge of monitoring their Madagascar safe-house, but the communication between them was always short and to the point. He'd been glad to finally meet her in person.
Shortfuse had volunteered to go with Eva to keep lookout over the lemur king and Skipper, being that Classified privately surmised the two would be a little… Distracted. That left them slightly shorthanded, but luckily, none of them were slackers. They'd gone through dozens of files within the last two hours, keeping astute track of all information. So far, little more than what they already knew had been found - all they'd gotten was reinforcement of previous intel, which was a bit frustrating for all three of them.
"Any leads on this 'Parker' individual?" Clover questioned studiously, squinting at some photos that had been taken of Julien from Central Park. That must have been how he'd been found…
"Whoever he is, he's good at keeping himself off the grid." Classified grumbled, clearly not pleased about that. "I did consult the Anti-Sealand Marine Force, though, since they're where I received my anonymous tip. They couldn't find much but a very poor quality security footage tape. It would appear that he's a platypus."
Corporal snorted under his breath with a soft grin. Classified rolled his eyes - it was no secret that the polar bear of their team was a sucker for all that was small and seemingly cute. Apparently even platypi fit the description, despite being widely considered as strange and sometimes even dangerous, what with their spurs.
Clover sighed. "Maybe it's a false lead afterall. Even if Parker were the assassin, I'm more interested in who hired him to begin with. I want to exhaust every outcome, but we're short on time, and-"
A loud explosion knocked them out of their conversation. It had come from outside, and was most definitely the sound of weapon fire. The three exchanged alarmed glances, before immediately heading to the door. Just before they could open it, however, what must have been hundreds of lobsters burst through, swarming the vicinity and pushing them back.
"What the dickens?!" Classified exclaimed.
"The doc says we gotta take these guys out," one of the lobsters told the others.
"Are you sure these are the guys?" Another one sounded slightly despairing, being that Classified, Corporal and Clover were all clearly much stronger than the shellfish.
"He said they'd be in here. Go, go!" The lobster replied.
"Oh, I don't think so," Clover snapped.
And immediately, an all out fight broke out within the Madagascar safe-house between the North Wind, their Malagasy agent, and the lobsters. Though Corporal, Clover and Classified were far more keen to fighting than the crustaceans, they were outnumbered by quite a bit. Classified knew this sort of tactic - whoever had sent the army of lobsters was attempting to distract them from something. Something big.
Simultaneously, Julien's tree had erupted in fire. It was rapidly burning, the flames licking at every branch from the inside out.
Skipper's vision was white for a moment as flames torched the corners of wood, spreading instantly. He registered, after a moment or so, that they'd been slammed into the side of the tree from the explosion. The bed had essentially disintegrated from the blast. Immediately, he locked onto Julien, who was already struggling to get to his feet. He winced openly as he put pressure on his ankle, clearly not ready to do so yet. Within a second Skipper was at his side, helping him up.
This was not good. Skipper had been in awful, hopeless situations before - especially with Manfredi and Johnson, and then a few times with Rico - but rarely was someone whom he loved on the line. He attempted to bring a curve of logic to his racing thoughts, anything to taper him to a concrete plan, but all failed. He and Julien hid amongst the growing smoke for a moment or so. Skipper was trying, frantically, to gather together any sort of idea of what to do, but the situation seemed harsh enough that nothing would work.
Julien was injured. Both of them were weaponless, cornered, and lacked the ability of flight, which would have come in handy being that they were up as high as they were. They had what was essentially a cannon aimed at them and the wellbeing of an entire civilization was straining on the hope that the two of them would remain alive.
Their only advantage was that Shortfuse and Eva had chosen such an enormous gun - he supposed that it had to do with Shortfuse's flair for extreme weapons (something he was familiar with, being that he'd worked with Rico for as long as he had). Normally, this would be a bad thing, but the bright side of it meant that it took Eva and Shortfuse a little while to situate the weapon.
It had only been a moment or so, but when Skipper looked to King Julien, he noticed that the lemur had become entranced by the flame. A horrified look had come across his visage, as though reliving something terrible. He began to tremble horribly and suddenly, his paws flew up to cover his ears. Tears were beginning to appear.
Skipper knew of this sort of thing - he'd seen Rico get triggered by certain things in the past, and he himself had even experienced it before. Alarmed, he immediately Julien him from his memories. It wasn't ideal to try and pry someone from their experiences like that, but they couldn't afford flashbacks at a time like this.
It didn't work right away - Julien was almost entirely unresponsive to him, hyperventilating, but then the sound of Eva reloading Shortfuse's rocket launcher seemed to knock him out of his trance. Julien looked back at him blankly, unrecognizing for a moment or so, before seeming to recollect himself. He and Skipper both looked, terrified, to the barrel of the weapon that was now sliding to face them.
Shortfuse was aiming his gun. Skipper's thoughts were flying a mile a minute - they needed to get out of there, and they needed to get out now. His feelings about the necessity of time were mirrored by their attackers.
"We have to kill them now, before the boss gets here!" Shortfuse told Eva, and within moments, they were locking onto their target.
Skipper looked around desperately. He had no solution - the only option was to pick their poison. With grim recognition, he came to the conclusion that he'd rather fall to his death than he would get exploded. He looked to the king, who was evidently sharing his thoughts. They nodded to each other solemnly, and tightly gripped each other by wing and paw.
Shortfuse launched the deadly weapon, but just before it's firepower could hit Skipper and Julien, the two of them had jumped out of the tree and into the open night.
They were plummeting, falling down with great velocity. Skipper's life flashed before his eyes - the time that he had gone on his first mission and had saved Private's precious little egg, his adventures in Cuba, China, Denmark, Germany, North Korea, America, Russia, Canada, Antarctica, Madagascar, Kenya, France, Italy... The places he'd been, the things he'd seen. The people he'd killed, the things he'd stolen, ruined, saved, returned. The people he'd helped, the people he'd hurt. The one he'd fallen in love with.
Would this really be it? Him and Julien, falling to their deaths through the warm night air of Madagascar, escaping flames and missiles only through another demise? Skipper lamented at the thought. He had prided himself, in the past, of not fearing death when it would come to him. It was the only certainty of life, the fate that all mortals shared, and he always knew that he'd look death in the eye and take it by the reigns.
Still, the thought that this would be the end of all ends was a harsh wake-up call. Would he die before he ever got to find out if Private would settle down one day, away from all the danger? Before he got to find out if Rico would ever explode the Eiffel Tower, as he'd so dreamed about for all those years? Before he ever got to find out if Kowalski would learn how to read or finally win that scientific invention competition he entered every year? They were his team, he was their skipper. They were his family, he was their brother.
There were so many things in his life he'd yet to see or do. All the things he'd wanted to experience, the places he still wanted to go, the battles he still wanted to wrap up, the brothers he still needed to make amends with, the enemies he still needed to defeat, the things he wanted to feel with Julien.
Regret, he had registered after a second or so, was what he was experiencing. He hadn't lived his life to the fullest. Rest assured that if he ever made it past this, he would never take it for granted again.
There was no way that they could survive a sixty foot drop, not by a longshot - but, as luck would have it, they didn't have to.
"Deploy, now!" He heard Kowalski shout amidst the wind.
With that, about halfway down the trunk, a canopy was extended and they were caught in it's net. The ropes hurt, causing them to bounce slightly, but luckily it was nothing compared to the death that would have awaited otherwise. Skipper was so caught off guard that for a moment he was entirely stiff, still trying to register what had just happened. They were alive.
"Wow, it worked!" Private's jovial voice punctured the ringing in his ears. "That's amazing, Kowalski!"
"Never doubt the calculations of a genius." Kowalski reminded him, before he, Private, and Rico safely brought Julien and Skipper to the branch they were on.
Skipper was coughing, having swallowed the smoke that was now wafting down. Being helped up by his scientist, he looked at him with confusion. "Kowalski… Ex- explain?"
"We came to our senses, sir." Kowalski looked at him, apologetic. "And… We're sorry. We knew it was wrong, wanted to tell you it was wrong… But we- we didn't, and because of that, we didn't find out that it wasn't what you wanted until we screwed it all up."
Skipper's gaze turned to all three of them. Private, Rico, and Kowalski looked collectively apologetic, and he knew that he could no longer hold this against them, no matter how awful it was.
"Apology accepted." Skipper affirmed with a hoarse throat. "We're penguins, and we never swim alone."
Julien didn't look so sure, but then, he'd been the one that they were after. Before he even had a chance to form words, however, Eva was swooping down with Shortfuse and the cannon clenched in her talons. She swept by a close branch and the two North Wind agents landed upon it. Immediately they were situating their large cannon once more. Eva was pushing another missile into the rocket launcher, and within moments, it was aimed at the four penguins and the lemur king.
