"So flipper's up, left foot back, and then punch with both flippers and then bring left foot forward and kick spin" Skipper slowly talked himself through the move.
"Nice moves, you could easily defeat that big bully of a lion up near the ridge" Minka said, she was sitting on the stairs watching him. This was the fifth night he had spent down here, on the third night he had let Minka see what he was doing, mainly because he had gotten lonely. She always stayed out of his way and sat on the stair way, when she wasn't needed at the club.
"Thanks" he said trying the move again, this time faster. He stopped after completing the move, "What lion?"
"Oh, Savage, at least that's what the human villagers call him, he's a man eater, tried multiply times to wreck the animal haunts too" Minka explained.
"Hm," Skipper glanced at the book then back at Minka who was still watching him.
"What's on your mind" she asked, noticing that he was spacing off.
"I think it's time to try out these moves in real combat" he smiled, and was about to ask where the lion lived when they heard screams from above in the club, both raced up the stairs and burst into the club.
"See that giant yellow thing with sharp teeth, that's Savage" Minka pointed to the biggest cat Skipper had ever seen. Big, but apparently not too smart, the lion fell for the old get yourself cornered and then move out of the way at the last minute move. Savage's head probable hurt by now.
"Help!" a small cheetah was about to be killed, Skipper didn't even realize what he was doing until he had done it. He leapt forward and rammed into the cheetah knocking it out of the way and leapt back to his feet, facing the beast.
"Leave them alone" he growled, their eyes locked and the lion laughed.
"Why should I? I'm the biggest thing here, there's nothing I fear"
"Well, that's about to change" Skipper sneered, he leapt onto the nearest table and bounced off soaring far above the lion's head, he rotated himself in mid-air so that his feet faced the ceiling and leapt off the ceiling and rotated so that his feet were facing the lion, and then a heart-beat later slammed into the lion with enough force that it knocked Savage off balance. This was one of the many moves he had learned from the book. Skipper leapt off, slightly stunned, but instead of falling backwards like he usually did, he remained on his feet.
"Wow" he heard the crowd say. He knew they were watching him, his every move. There was no way he wouldn't humiliate himself in front of them. The lion charged at him, and he reacted instinctively. He slid underneath the lion and did a hand stand, pressing his feet against the lion's belly and used every bit of strength to knock the lion onto his side. Skipper collapsed and struggled back to his feet as they lion roared. It was a deafening sound. Skipper felt his muscles screaming at him in protest as he leapt over the lion, avoiding a killing blow. The lion slammed into the wall at full speed. Skipper winced, that had to hurt, a lot. The lion collapsed and glared at Skipper, panting heavily.
"How come there are two of you?" he asked.
"Get out and don't come back!" Skipper spat, the lion to his surprise did as he was told and limped away. He-he listened to me! Skipper was stunned, he-that lion whose like ten times my size listened to me! His heart soared with happiness and new found confidence. Suddenly something slammed into him. He was about to punch it then he realized it was Minka and several other grateful animals hugging him.
"Thank you so much Sir!" the cheetah that he'd saved yelped.
"I-that was amazing Skipper" Minka said, she let go of him and smiled, "you're a hero".
"No Longtail" he'd accidently used the nick name again, "I'm just doing my job"
"Well, you're welcome here any time Skipper" the owner of the club, a stray dog walked over to him, eyes filled with relief.
"Thank you sir, but I think it's time to find someone that I came here to stop" Skipper told him.
"Can we help, we might be able to find them" Minka asked, tugging on his flipper.
"It's a lemur, goes by the name Deadshot" a few animals gasped with surprise, others merely nodded in understanding, almost all of the animals had heard about Deadshot.
"A worthy opponent for that murderer" the dog murmured. He glanced back up, "I'll see what I can do to help find out where he's been, it's the least I can do since you saved my club from being destroyed by that tyrant"
"Thank you" Skipper said.
"No Skipper, thank you. You saved my girlfriend from being killed" he glanced at the cheetah and Skipper knew he'd done a good thing.
"Hey let's get this party started!" Minka yelled to the band, who almost immediately started playing again.
"What are those" he asked her, pointing to an instrument that resembled a guitar but didn't make the same sound as one.
"Spanish guitar, I can teach you how to play it if you like" she said, "as a thank you for saving the club"
"Ok I guess one last night off won't hurt" Skipper followed her over to a quiet section of the bar and she left and came back with a guitar. She spent the next few hours teaching him how to play, after the second hour he got the hang of it. About fifteen or twenty minutes later the dog whose name Minka had told him was Sarge came back.
"Alright so I talked to some flamingos and they said that they'd heard word that Deadshot was heading to the coast to kill a family of dolphins. " Sarge told Skipper.
"Seems too easy" Skipper said.
"Most assassins are easy to find Skipper, it's stopping them that's hard, plus they found his latest victums, and the only survivor said that when he'd been tucked into his hiding spot he'd heard Deadshot mention something about dolphins" Sarge shrugged, "I used to be part of the police force here, the animal one, till it closed because everyone was so scared of Savage and other assassins"
"Might want to start that police force back up again" Skipper said as he left, "Thanks for your help Sarge".
"It's the least I could do Skipper, just don't let anyone know where you got this information from, I don't want to be Deadshot's next target" Sarge shuttered, obviously he was afraid of the lemur.