"Agent One, are you inside their HQ?"
Blowhole asks as his eye scans the monitor, glimpsing through the penguins' cameras once more to spot where his agent is.
"Yeah, just got in."
"Good. Their silver should be in the same place as last time," Evilly, he turns away from the camera to cackle, not wanting Parker's headpiece to pick up that frequency.
"Oh, how arrogant those pen-gu-ins can be is hilarious."
On the screen, it shows Parker checking where the silver had been previously. "Try again, doc. Unless they just haven't got more, they've moved where they're putting it."
Arrogant himself for assuming too soon, Blowhole grumbles to glance around the HQ main room via cameras. "Oh. Try the fish. It's one of their safes… or tunnel ways. However, their HQ works."
Parker flips open the fish and puts his head to the side of the safe as he turns the knob. He then opens the door. "Housie." He offers a thumbs up to a camera.
With the agent finding his nemesis' silver once more, he smirks. "Excellent."
What a fun way to torment the pen-gu-ins.
The platypus stuffs a small bag full of silver and closes the safe, locking it back.
Just as he did so, the lab door slowly creaked open.
Blowhole is quick to notice, reporting in. "Crabcakes, someone is coming."
Parker quickly hides under a pillow of a vacant bunk. Opening all the way, the redhead quietly rolls out of the lab, carrying an asleep Kowalski in her arms over to where the others are sleeping.
Recognizing the foe, Blowhole's eye narrows. "Why is she here? That human shouldn't be here." He grumbles.
She bends down to the exact same bunk the platypus hid in, and gently places the penguin in. She sighs and pets him slightly with a warm smile.
Blowhole for a good moment watches the interaction… before rolling his eye. "How cute, they're having a sleepover."
Meanwhile, Parker lays as still as possible under the pillow. With Kowalski in his bunk, the redhead gets up, and heads back for the lab, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
Slowly, carefully, the platypus then crawls out from under the hiding spot. He rolls his eyes before climbing up the ladder, opening and closing the fish-shaped hatch behind himself.
"Well that was close—" Blowhole shakes his head, before calling into his agent.
"Excellent Work, Agent One. Consider what you've collected as your bonus."
"Okay, works for me."
"Good. Return to the lair soon." And the monitor turns off as Blowhole takes off his headpiece. Rolling away, he heads to the manufacturing part of his Rhode Island lair.
"Red One put my meeting calls on hold today. I'm finishing up the last touches of project Anglerfish."
Red One looks over and nods. "On it, doc." He scratches down a note. "Do I need to follow the annotations?"
"Not until my afternoon meetings, you can skim over the mornings." Blowhole rolls into his lair to prepare his revenge.
0000000
By the time Kowalski fell asleep, Bridget had decided to stay overnight. Not that it helps due to her tail and back finding discomfort in rock-solid beds in underground bunkers. But hey, she would rather deal with sore bodies than risk something happening if she skated in the middle of the night.
So when morning arrives in New York City, Bridget is curled up in a corner of the lab, sleepily using her knees and bag as resting places. Not the most comfortable, but she's slept worse.
The lab door opens, followed by a yawning Kowalski. He stops in his path as he sees her. "Bridget?" He blinks and then rubs his eyes and looks again.
Yes indeed, his daughter is still in his lab. Her eyes opened slightly at his voice since not resting well made her sleep lightly.
Kowalski slides over to her. "You're still here?"
"Mm," Tiredly nodding, the ginger yawns and stretches a bit.
Kowalski smiles and pats her. "While you're drowsy, would you like me to go ahead and fix your tail?"
Bridget groans again in a 'sure' manner, laying down and rolling to her stomach in a sluggish manner.
"Alright, moving it on the count of three. One... Two..." He tweeks her tail.
Her tail pops back into place, causing Bridget's eyes to pop open, giving out a small squawk-ish yelp. As numb as her body feels, that surely awoke her nerves. More aware, her frantic eyes darted around the lab confused.
"All set." He nods and backs up. "I know it probably is sore but it'll start feeling better soon."
"Ugh…t-thanks." She groans, sitting up to stretch a bit. The orange feathery tail, still with a mind of its own, wags in being fixed. Noticing the tail wagging, Bridget glares at it.
'You motherfucker'
"I'll get you something for breakfast." Kowalski stretches, waddling to the kitchen. He puts on both Skipper's coffee maker and the tea kettle. He then pokes around their kitchen for options, considering what she might eat.
He pulls out the ingredients and starts making blueberry waffles. As he does this, soon the others wake up from the bunks to start their day.
In the lab, Kowalski's phone buzzes on the counter.
Bridget pauses from glaring at the tail, glancing over and getting up to attain it. But instead of checking the message (because that's Kowalski's privacy), she rolls over to the lab door.
"Hey uh, Einstein, your phone buzzin." She calls out.
Kowalski glances over. "You can check it for me, I doubt it's anything classified."
With permission, she shrugs and does so. "… Uh, there's a Commodore Danger movie premiere happenin tonight?"
Skipper looks over. "Wait, what?"
Bridget squints at the phone, wishing for her glasses. "Yeah… 'Artic's Ice'? Says it's the 18th and final installment."
"Commodore Commodore!" Rico cheers in excitement.
"Oh, that's smashing. And there's no molting problem this time." Private chirps, sheepishly rubbing his neck at the last comment.
"Well, then I know what we're doing tonight." Skipper nods, waddling over to check their silver cache.
Oh you mean the silver that's not there anymore? Yeah, it's gone again.
"HOOVER DAM."
Kowalski looks over as he puts the waffles on plates. "What?"
"It's gone again! All of it." The others gasp at this.
The leader's cries made the caretaker's head twist in his direction, her eyes widening in shock that yes, the silver is gone. Again.
'Holy shit, who fuckin stealin from them? This is gettin ridiculous!'
"Kowalski, did you go out again?" He scowls at him.
"Not that I recall."
"He was with me the whole night. I put him ta bed." Bridget defends, adding to Kowalski's alibi of being innocent.
"Then who's taking our silver?"
No one could sadly give him an answer on that, as the HQ goes silent.
"I can see about setting up a camera inside again." Kowalski sighs. "But that is throwing a wrench in the Commodore Danger plans."
Skipper backhands him and then points at him. "No. We're going tonight. Get the decoys, we'll go silver hunting."
Bridget then loudly clears her throat at the flathead with a disappointed look. "Skipper. A word."
"Huh?" He blinks but follows her over.
She bends down to him to whisper. "We talked about this, why'ya slappin Kowalski for?" Her expression is stern.
Skipper just stares at her in confusion for a moment before thinking. "Oh... I guess that was kinda a slap."
"…Ya didn't know ya slapped him?" Her expression slowly changes to confusion as well.
"Didn't even think about it." He shrugs a little.
'Shit, this is muscle memory… well it takes 21 days ta make someone think they formed a habit. Let's getcha in a habit of not slappin'
Bridget frowns. "Well? Can ya apologize ta him?"
"... I guess I can?" He nods a little. Skipper waddles over and pats Kowalski's shoulder. "Sorry."
Kowalski blinks and looks at him, obviously confused. "... It's okay?" He eyes Skipper. "... Are you okay?"
"Yep. But I want less blabber about us missing the movie and more silver-finding options." He crosses his flippers.
"That I can do." He nods and takes a plate of waffles to Bridget. "I'll get addresses to the closest pawn shops and check Lost and Found."
Watching the two, Bridget rubs her forehead with a sigh.
'They got a long way of recoverin ta go'
Private looks up from his waffles. "Is Bridget coming too?"
She glances at the penguins, no longer gazing at her plated blueberry waffle blobs. "I promise I'll help, and I should be off from work today." She nods.
"It would make it easier to check out the stores. She could use my card rather than us trying to pay in fish behind their backs." Kowalski nods.
"I can pay too," The ginger grumbles.
"There's no reason that you should have to pay for our silver. My mistake, my wallet." Kowalski looks over at her. "But thank you for the offer."
Bridget frowns but nods. She then skates over to his lab. "I'll grab my bag."
"Not yet! Eat your waffles first!"
And she quickly turns back around. "Right. Food." She rolls back to sit and eat.
"Uh, thank you."
Kowalski nods, waddling by and patting her on his way to get his phone. "I'll be getting the addresses."
Skipper nods as he nibbles a waffle. "... Huh, not bad for once." He murmurs. He's lucky Bridget didn't hear him, as she takes a bite from her own plate… smiling.
'Wow, he's improved. Has he been practicin lately?'
She takes another bite greedily. Oh yeah, hunger exists. The rest also finish up with their breakfast as Kowalski makes address notes between his phone and notepad.
Once she finishes, she collects all their plates, places by where they wash the dishes, and finally grabs her bag. She also places her hood on, adjusting her black jacket.
Then the penguins bring out their decoys from the closet. Wind up, plushy penguin dolls.
"… I always did think ya fellas looked stiff a few times." Bridget watches, understanding the birds' secret operations.
"And yet, usually the decoys work pretty good," Skipper smirks.
"We also have a hologram option." Kowalski adds in. "But that's better for longer-term missions or vacations."
"Like fishing trips!" Private smiles.
"Yeah yeah yeah!" Rico nods too.
"Not today, boys, today we're fishing the stores for the elusive silver."
Bending down, she opens her bag to them, gesturing to hop in as a ride. Four penguins hop inside, ready to go.
With a nod, the five of them then head out of the HQ, embarking on a journey to fetch silver.
"Ya, fellas do fishin trips?" Bridget decides to start the road trip conversation first, as she exits through their garage sneakingly.
"Every so often." Skipper nods.
However, as she passes the otter habitat, Marlene pops up. "So now it's a daytime adventure?" She asks, eying the boys in the bag.
"FUCK—" Once again the otter has scared our clumsy redhead, making her tremble back. In turn, the penguins yelp from behind.
Luckily this time she was able to grasp the habitat handles. This benefits the penguins greatly because they're not squished pancakes by this.
Marlene grimaces. "You okay?"
Bridget fumbles back up, her top priority to be checking to see if the penguins are okay. But it was relieving when Skipper answered.
"We're fine." He sighs. "And yeah, we need silver so we're going out."
"Easier to purchase during the day." Kowalski nods.
Marlene looks thoughtful. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Taking in a deep breath to see the boys are alright, the caretaker faces the otter again. "Can ya stop poppin outta nowhere please?" She huffs.
"Maybe?" She considers it.
Rolling her eyes, Bridget stares at her again, making a judgment based on her quick studying. "…There's somethin else ya want than helpin us out."
"... I want to know what was meant by symptoms." She sighs. "It sounded pretty serious last night."
There's a pause.
'Shit… well she should know, right? Wouldn't be fair to her…'
She glances back at the penguins for their say.
Skipper finally sighs. "She's got a tail, we have were-human syndrome but silver keeps it manageable."
The otter blinks at this.
"… By wereman, Skipper means by the light of the moon, we turn more or less human. Ergo, we can't always stay at the zoo, and night patrols have become a challenge, especially since someone keeps stealing our silver." Kowalski sighs. "So we need to find more silver to wear to help reduce werehuman moments."
Marlene gasps. "Do you need help looking for silver? That's the gray shiny stuff, right?"
'Well there's a lot of metals that can be also called gray shiny stuff—'
"I mean uh," Bridget bites her lip, glancing at her bag before back at the otter. "…There's room in the bag."
"Yeah, wouldn't hurt to have more eyes on the mission." Skipper nods and scoots over.
Marlene nods and hops up fully on her ledge. Skating closer to her, she gestures to her to jump in with the penguins. And so the otter hops in.
Now there's five animals in the bag, all comfy and roomy.
"K, hold on," Bridget checks her watch for the time and skates on. "If things go well, we should be back by lunch."
She nods back, and the six of them leave the zoo.
However, from afar, three lemurs were watching them. "Maurice, what is this silver they were talking about?" Julien asks his aye-aye.
"Uh, isn't it the shiny metal used for jewelry?"
"What!? They're getting jewelry without me?!" Julien proclaims with an upset tone. "And after everything, I thought we were all close. They've replaced me with the zookeeper lady!"
"It's okay King Julien, I won't replace you with anyone!" Mort added in with a smile but then gets kicked away for comedic effect.
"Maurice! We can't just let them have all the fun and silver without me! We must join them ourselves." The lemur then jumps down, with the mouse lemur dizzily joining him by falling off the lemur's cliff.
"But your majesty—" Maurice starts, but sighs as he realizes it's too late to stop him, and then joins him down to follow the others.