A/N: More action in this chapter, and I don't apologize for the hasty killing of Blowhole. I don't know what I'm going to do with Hawkins, it'll be determined later, though. Marlene and Ultima are two different people. Remember that, 'cuz it's going to get ca-ray-zee! Funny chapter, full of awesome. Not the longest, not the shortest.
Chapter 6: Experimentum Crucis (A Crucial Experiment)
Navi watched at the last of the animals hurried out of the zoo. "This... is... AWFUL! What are we supposed to do now? We can't get out of this cage, we're gonna be squashed like bugs, and Marlene's half in love with that... icky... slimy... son of a--" She held her tongue, but everyone was thinking the same thing. They were trapped.
Even Rico had tried to blow up the door, but it didn't budge. "Technically, she's not even Marlene anymore, Navi." She looked at Kowalski with very sad eyes, and the other penguins looked back at him, too. "I didn't see any sign of our friend Marlene in her eyes... that was the HumEx Ultima, through and through." Skipper groaned and kicked the door to the cell, which only vibrated and caused excruciating pain in his foot. While he was hopping around whimpering, Kowalski decided to bring up something that had been bugging him since Hawkins had first mentioned it in passing, it seemed. "Skipper?" His leader looked at him from the floor, since he was massaging his aching foot. "What did the hawk mean when he said 'twelve second time out'?"
All at once, Skipper felt his face fall and every eye in the cage turn on him. He gasped and stuttered for a while, trying to convince Kowalski he had heard wrong. Finally, when the taller penguin wouldn't back off about it, he sighed, and told them the missing part of the story, and the kiss between him and Marlene.
There was no mouth that was closed by the end of his story. Navi, Rico and Private looked disgusted, and Kowalski just looked plain shocked. Private was the first to say anything.
"Ew! Skipper... Pardon my saying so, but... that's just wrong!" Navi and Rico both agreed, berating him as much as they could without resorting to violence.
Yet.
Navi couldn't believe her ears. To hear him even ADMIT to doing that... not to mention he didn't say anything about it before... "Skipper, I have to agree with Private. Honestly, how could you!? That's gotta be one of the worst things I've ever heard you say you did! ICK!" Skipper put his head in his flipper, and sighed.
This is exactly why he didn't say anything. He didn't want all this mess. In the back of his mind, he could hear his common sense laughing at him, singing "I told you so, I told you so, I told you so!" over and over again. It wasn't until he opened his eyes that he noticed the fish bowl wiggling... and finally sliding out of the way to reveal three lemurs, all looking exhausted. The king jumped out.
"Mort, next time, you must push with legs, like I did. Now, where are those lazy bird penguins... their TV is broked!" He looked over to the cage and almost couldn't control his laughter. Then he totally lost it and laughed uproariously. "Silly penguins and bear, why are you in a cage? Is it a new game you are playing?"
Skipper growled and almost told the ring-tail to beat the road, when he realized this place was going to be crushed unless they actually got out of the cage and did something to stop Hawkins and Ultima. He promised another week of television to the lemurs, as well as unlimited snack access if they could get them out of the cage, to which Julian quickly obliged. Meaning he offered Mort and Maurice to pick the lock for him. With two lemurs working on it from the outside, they were bound to get out in no time! Skipper was feeling more upbeat now... that is, until Navi spoke up again. "Twelve seconds!? I just realized... He kissed her for TWELVE STINKIN' SECONDS!"
The penguins (except for Skipper, who was rubbing at his temples) all made various noises, and now that the lemurs were there, they wanted to know what happened, and who was kissing whom. "Skipper kissed Marlene when she was all... psycho and not normal. And for TWELVE SECONDS!" The door finally sprung open, and the lead penguin rushed out, very tired of being accused of doing something he was only partially guilty of.
Julian stood in front of him and stared accusingly at him. "But was it not you who said things should be taken slow with Marlene while she recovers from this sickness? Or were you taking advantage of the poor confused otter?"
And now ring-tail was on his case!? He didn't even do anything... kinda. "But... but she kissed me! SHE kissed ME! And what was I supposed to do, just... say no? She was reading and it was... beautiful and articulate. I can't be held accountable for my actions after that."
Kowalski seemed to come out of some deep thought he was in to ask his own questions. "Did she really say that 'do I please you' line?" Navi came close to gagging, and Private just looked around, confused. He wasn't really sure what that meant exactly. But Rico knew, and he just kept shooting murderous looks at his leader, one flipper beating into the other in a steady rhythm. Skipper flinched with each pound Rico made, then nodded. "Wow. You're in this pretty deep, aren't you? Uh... sir." Kowalski hid his face behind his clipboard, so that no one could see his snickering at Skipper's expense.
It was then that Maurice decided to share what he thought of the situation. "Well, isn't that... special." He seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the word 'special', which slightly irked the lead penguin, but he didn't say anything, since he was just likely to be berated again.
"Listen, we can get on my case for kissing Marlene later." He said, causing Navi to grin mischievously. He knew exactly what that smirk was for: he admitted to kissing her. But that was a problem for another day. "Right now, we have to stop Ultima from destroying the zoo, and get everything back to normal before the HumEx take over the entire world!" Skipper yelled. All faces were back to being focused, except for the lemurs, who looked very confused. There was no time to fill them in now, but when they got back, Skipper swore he would let them in on whatever was going on. "Right now, we're going to need... an antidote."
The city was gray, and wrought with the smell of smoke, and panic. Of course the humans were panicked. The HumEx were going after them, after all, and their primary mission was to destroy. Hawkins watched the slaughter with mirth in his eyes. He was in love with the chaos he had created. That's right, he created. Not Blowhole, although he did provide a good deal of the funding. No, he created it, that mammal was just a figurehead, to be overthrown by his creation. He looked over at Ultima, who's eyes were on the city and completely emotionless. The girl was amazing... powerful, smart, obedient, and all his. What more could he want in a female? Even though...
A small frown crossed his face as he continued to study her. There was a moment when they were leaving the zoo when she looked back at it, and for almost a second, he thought he saw her cry. Of course, that was ridiculous. She didn't have feelings now... did she?
"HAWKINS!" He heard his name being yelled from dozens of stories down, but he didn't need to see to know who was calling him. It was that annoying penguin he locked up. Well, he supposed, it was only a matter of time before he got out of his prison. Whatever. In a few seconds, he'd be dead. He looked over to Ultima, who was now sporting a pair of knives in each hand and looking deadly. She flipped off of the roof top, and he took off, leaving her to her own devices.
She landed softly on the ground in front of Skipper, on one knee, head down. For a while, no one said anything... Then she struck. Propelling herself from the ground, she dove toward Skipper, knives in her hands and bared like claws. She growled and tried to bury the knives into his chest, but he pulled out a steel rod, and knocked her to the side. He had a wild moment where he thought that would be enough to make her go back to normal... Though, when she roared and charged him again, it confirmed that that wouldn't be near enough. They kept fighting, and the plan advanced to stage two: Get the flying menace. Rico and Navi were all over that job, as they saw him leave his roost and were aiming to shoot him out of the sky at Skipper's signal.
The lead penguin jumped over Ultima with ease, and threw her backwards again with a cry: "BWAH!" That, of course, was the signal. With Rico loaded full of Werther's Originals, Navi pulled back on his flipper and let fly the deadly little candies. She wasn't aiming to kill, though she could, if she wanted... simply to maim or injure. The bird was quick... but not quick enough, and one of the sugary sweets hit him in the joint of his left wing. It cramped up, and he struggled to at least keep from falling at a deadly speed. He hit the ground harder than he would have liked, and examined his wing before glaring up at the bear and penguin. "You couldn't just leave well enough alone. Or better... just die." He flicked his arm out, hard, jolting it back into place with just a gasp. "Unfortunately... I can't be stopped." Hawkins ducked just as Private went to hit him over the head with a lead pipe, then swung out his leg in a roundhouse kick the young penguin was just fast enough to avoid.
Ultima and Skipper, and Hawkins and Private were all still fighting by the time Rico and Navi got down the stairs. She looked at her cohort. "You should take the hawk. I'll work with Skipper and Ma—Ultima." She stuttered, still very unconvinced that Marlene had turned into such a horrible nightmare. They took off into two different directions, not really coming up with a plan, just hoping some good would happen. As he reached his new fight, Rico did the only thing he could think of against the flapping, flying menace. He tackled the hawk just as he was about to punch Private in the face, trying his hardest to keep him pinned down while the younger bird tried to find something to tie him up with. Navi, on the other hand, was holding tight to Ultima in... are you ready for this? A giant bear hug, the biggest she could give, all the while, the otter was making near glass-shattering shrieks and squeals, trying to get out and destroy the penguin before her and the polar bear behind.
Several bones creaked as Skipper pushed himself up, and wiped the blood from his beak. Ultima had definitely thrown him for a loop, she was stronger than he had initially given her credit for, and much faster, too. When he stood up and felt air displacement from an energy attack, he looked around, and saw the otter struggling with Navi, yelling juicy swears, her hair all on end, legs kicking and flailing about as if she were drowning. He slowly approached the pair and stared Ultima down, until she spit in his face. Disgusted (obviously), the penguin retreated for a second just to wipe it off, and stepped back to her again, and tried to calm her down by reminding her of who she really was. "Go to hell!" She yelled, trying to arch her back and get loose. It didn't work, but still she tried. "You both will PAY... you won't get away with this, and I swear I will have my revenge!" Ultima let out a blast of energy, almost dislodging Navi's arms from around her frame. Another blast lifted every animal in the area off the ground to some extent and pushed them away from her. Hawkins used this opportunity to get loose from Rico, and was then confronted with both the psychopath and the softie. Unbeknownst to him, both were trained and very deadly fighters.
And where was Kowalski, you ask? Back at the lab, the only penguin that could actually put a stopper on the madness was working his flippers to the bone trying to find the antidote. When he reached the headquarters, the little speck of red had flowered into a full blown 1/3 of the vial. According to his tests, this would happen inside of the real Marlene over the span of two weeks. Of course, she would have to be in suspended animation, pretty much, for the affects to even BEGIN to take effect. And he knew they didn't have that kind of time, or energy, or even resources. He had to find something that would either speed up the chemical reaction, or speed up her metabolism.
At first, he thought trying a few Red Bulls would do the trick.
Of course, when the antidote reacted badly with the HumEx cells in her system, and caused them to move at super speed, then completely burn themselves out and leave nothing behind... Just about anybody could conclude that antidote wouldn't go anywhere.
Kowalski rubbed at his eyes. He was so tired. Being up the entire night before, not to mention heavy training the DAY before, and cleaning THAT day, and, oh yeah, the whole... cage ordeal just a few hours ago... Given the circumstances, yeah, he was pretty darn tired. And it was the worst kind of tired. It was the kind where no matter what you feel like doing, no matter what you do, how many times you stand up, sit down, turn around, dance about... you can't get un-tired. It was the FINAL kind of tired. The... the end tired. If he didn't get to sleep soon, he was very very VERY through. He'd end up falling asleep on the antidote, passing out on his way to give it to the others...
Shaking his head, he got back to work, muttering to himself, "Need to find the cure... need to find the cure..." Even though he wasn't sure that he could. He worked, faster, longer, harder than he ever had before, and just as he was on the rim of breaking down and blacking out... Something miraculous happened.
He found the cure.
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A/N: Don't you dare forget to review. I have ONE chapter left, and I can hold out longer than you can! Review! Or you'll never find out what happens! MUAHAHAHA! I know, I'm being very evil, and you know what? I like it. Okay!? I LIKE IT!
