Welcome to chapter 20. Let's settle this cliffhanger!

CHAPTER 20 – Aftermath

(P staying with Diana) I woke up groggily again, hearing strange voices. I opened my eyes and I was hooked up to a bunch of instruments. I freaked out, but stopped as soon as I saw humans. I looked around for Sebastien and saw him next to me, trying to have the same blank expression as me. We didn't know where we were and weren't about to trust these unknown humans.

"Thank goodness they're awake. Where were they found again?" one human asked the other. There were only two humans. "These two came from the beach right outside of town. Someone called them in on their phone and our partners helped rescue them," the other said.

Rescue. That meant Sebastien and I had been seen by other humans as well and were most likely at a doctor's. "These two are strange. While they were unconscious, they appear to be perfectly healthy with only a few bruises. Usually when we try to help rehabilitate animals, they're more damaged than that," the first said.

Rehabilitate. Sebastien and I had only heard that word when the aquarium was trying to help animals that had been found injured and brought in to be cared for. "Yes, they have no internal injuries either. But we'll have to keep an eye on them. Let's get them into the habitat. What should we call them?" the other asked. They both thought for a moment. "Let's call the female Diana and the male Sebastien. Those names have a nice ring to them," the first said. They then picked us up and placed us into a habitat full of other Otters.

Sebastien and I quickly looked around for Emily, desperate to find our daughter. But we couldn't find her anywhere. We didn't know where we were, but the area for Otters was set up much like our own, with caves. We cried for hours, missing her. After we were done, we looked for a way out. This was our new base, until we could figure out how to get home.

We waited until all the humans were gone and then snuck through the vents to find a computer. We found one, so we dropped into the room. We launched the web browser and it opened with a website that confused us. It said Monterey Bay Aquarium. *

"Sebastien, where are we? The future or something?" I asked him. We moved the mouse on the screen up to the clock on the top right corner of the screen and clicked on it. It said that it was February 11th, 2010, meaning it was only 1 day later, which we accounted to our battle and being unconscious.

There was only one logical explanation. "Another world," we said aloud. It was crazy, but the weird purple stuff that Bob had used sent us to another world. "How is this even possible? We're not at home, we're at a different one," I said. "I don't know Diana. Whatever substance Bob used back at our battle with him sent us here," he said.

With that, an idea popped into my head. "Sebastien, this may sound crazy, but do you think this is the world that is controlling Marlene?" I asked him. That idea resonated with him. "There's only one way to find out," he said, before typing our eldest daughter's name into the search field, along with a few other terms. **

When we pressed "Enter" on the keyboard, to complete our search, a long list of search results came up. *** We clicked on the first one and would up on a website talking about a bunch of TV shows and movies with "Madagascar" on the name. We searched around for our daughter and as soon as we typed in "Marlene", we found her. We ignored the text, because as soon as we saw the picture, we knew it was our daughter.

We then clicked on a few links and watched a few videos of Marlene. Her voice, fur pattern, and behavior were all exactly her. Sebastien and I stopped after searching the web for about an hour. We found her "voice actor," which solidified the act that she was under control by people from this world, who we also found. ****

"Sebastien, this changes everything," I said to him. "I know Diana. Our Marlene is on TV in this world. We live in a world that's only been seen by a select few in certain areas. Those animals that escaped five years ago are part of this too. It all goes back to them for when our world lost control," he said.

"There has to be a way back. We need to get back to Emily," I said to him. We then searched for another hour, looking around for something that looked like the substance Bob has used, but found nothing. ***** We were stranded here. There was no going back for now, but we would return one day.

(P to the day of Book 2) "It's been a pretty good day so far," I said to Sebastien. "Yes, I agree Diana. Hey, what are the humans doing?" he said. They were all gathering around an iPad, with the news broadcasting something. The keepers were outside with their mics still on, so we could hear it.

"That's right guys. This is a live feed from the ground here in San Francisco," the cameraman was saying. "There's some weird creature in a floating bubble up in the sky. We have no clue how it came here, yet it came from a portal or something just a few moments ago," the newscaster continued. ******

"Portal? What do you mean portal?" they were asked. "How should I know? I do know that based off eyewitness testimony that is was circular shaped and pink," the reporter said. Those details stuck out to Sebastien and I the most. That was the shape and color of the thing that brought us here.

We both continued watching the newscast on their device, with the reporter noting that the animal that had appeared was a dolphin with one regular eye and one artificial one. That seemed familiar to Sebastien and I from the Internet somehow, but we couldn't put our paws on it. But then, the dolphin began to speak.

"Humans!" he said. "I have come here looking for 4 penguins and an Otter. They are not normal animals. First of all, they can talk, like you and me. The Penguins names are Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private. They are 4 military Penguins who are my arch-foes," the dolphin said.

"The otter's name is Marlene," he continued. "She's in love with the Penguin named Skipper. Give them up, and nothing will happen to you. Don't give them up and well we'll get to that later," he finished. He cackled with an evil laugh before flying off.

"Marlene," both Sebastien and I said, racking our brains. Had Marlene found a way here? Who were the four Penguins the dolphin was mentioning? Most importantly, if it was our daughter he was looking for, what would we want with her and who was she in love with?

"Go order a pizza and close the aquarium for today. Based off that evil-sounding laugh, we should make sure the aquarium lays low," the owner of the aquarium said. That sounded like a rather good idea, even though we were 2 hours away from San Francisco by car. But better safe than sorry.

Sebastien and I continued to intently watch and listen to the newscast, before the reporter was ordered to leave the area and find safe haven. After about 2 hours, the reporter left the safety of the building they were in and started heading to a building called Moscone Center to interview the four penguins and our daughter, who he had been looking for. But a human was with them too. They had to know something, as it looked like he and our daughter had just fought the dolphin.

They all filed into a conference rooms and had microphones placed in front of them and then answered questions in an interview. There was no doubting it now. This was in fact our daughter Marlene. She and the human, Matthew, as he said his name was, had defeated the dolphin, named Blowhole.

"Sebastien, our daughter is unknowingly following in our footsteps. She's become a soldier thanks to the Skipper penguin, who she's marrying. How do you think that's all happening?" I asked him. "I don't know Diana. But now we know she has the ability to come back and forth, as evidenced by their departure just now. That means we do too," he said. "Oh Sebastien, I would like nothing better than to see our daughters again," I said to him, kissing him.

(P to the day Book 3's change was reversed) "Well Sebastien, we tried and just couldn't get to our daughter. She's here for a split second and then she's gone," I said sadly to him, tearing up. We had almost made it to San Francisco to try and look for our daughter, but got there just after they left. Now we were taking the car we had jury-rigged back down to Monterey.

Sebastien and I pulled the car over so we could share an embrace and kiss. "We'll get to her eventually Diana. I have faith. And now we have two more reasons to. We're grandparents," he said to me.

"Yes, we are. To strange Penguin/Otter crossbreeds, Annabelle and Samuel. I would love nothing more than to pinch their cute little cheeks. Our Marlene makes great children. Annabelle looks so much like her and Samuel looks like her husband," I said to Sebastien. "I know honey. We will meet them one day," he said to me.

(P to Book 5 interview day) "Sebastien, come quick!" I said to him. We had both just woken up, but the phone we had stolen to keep track of our daughter ourselves was very active with news of her. He ran into the cave and I pulled up the app for the news. "And now, we're here with the 8 people you all know so well, with a special announcement," the host of the show said.

"Hello everyone," our daughter said. "We have come today to introduce a very special person to you all," Skipper said. "Hello!" Emily's voice suddenly said, before the camera panned over to her. "Emily!" Sebastien and I exclaimed, excited. "So everyone, this is our Aunt Emily, from Monterey in our world," our granddaughter said.

"I'm pleased to be introduced to you all. I hope you will all like me as much as everyone else," Emily said happily to the camera. "So how did you find her?" one of the other hosts asked everyone. "Well we found my little sister while we were on vacation at the aquarium earlier this year, before the switcheroo happened," Marlene said.

The girls had been reunited for five months now. They looked so happy, being with each other again. Sebastien and I began trying to get a message for them through the feed the show had set up and actually managed to.

"Now here is a message from some very curious fans. They want to know if you know where your parents are," the first host said. They all got a little sad. "We don't know where they are, sadly. They vanished five years ago and I haven't seen them since," Emily said, years of pain in her voice. Bob had been right, emotional pain was the deepest. Emily had gone through a level of pain that we might never be able to fix when we got the chance.

(P to Ottans: The Early Months 1st chapter) "Diana, come here and look at this," Sebastien called out to me from the cave. It had to be something relating to our youngest daughter. She had been pregnant for over four months now. "What is it honey?" I asked him. "We've got four grandchildren now," he said to me, showing me our youngest daughter's blog.

"Oh my gosh, she had beautiful children," I said, looking at the picture. Just like with Marlene, Emily had twins, a little girl and boy. She and her husband had a little girl named Julia and a little boy named Dylan. "It's so wild to me. Our grandchildren must be the strangest ever. For Marlene, a combination of Penguin and Otter. For Emily, a combination of Penguin, Otter, and human," I said to Sebastien.

"Since we've been separated from them, our daughters have had the most interesting lives. And look at what happened to Emily this morning before she gave birth," Sebastien said to me while I scrolled down the page. "Blowhole? Wow, he's really evil. He went after both our daughters and now our grandchildren too. But that reminds me. Now the prophecy of both of them learning to fight has been fulfilled. That means the timestream will be interrupted. We're going to see them again," I said to Sebastien.

"I know honey. We will be able to see our daughters again after all these years, even though we'll have to save the future. I don't know when that will happen or how much earlier than now, but we'll do our very best," he said to me. "That we will," I agreed, kissing my husband.

And that is where I shall end the chapter and the story. I hope you enjoyed it! Please make sure to read the epilogue on information on how this story came to be. Please also leave a review of this chapter and the overall story, as that means so much. I have a lot of notes, so make sure to read those before the epilogue.

* I was originally going to choose the San Francisco Zoo, but that contradicted with Book 4 somewhat.

** I was somewhat able to replicate this, but not completely. I even tried the Internet Archive (a website that tries to have a history of the Internet), but that didn't work. But if you Google, "Marlene The Otter," you will find her.

*** Google nowadays has a picture on the right side of the screen, but in 2010 did not.

**** For that list, make sure to check IMDB. It has anyone who was ever involved in movies, TV, video games, and more.

***** This is before Book 1, so McGuffium does not exist in our world yet.

****** For the dialogue for Blowhole's initial invasion, I grabbed it directly from Book 2. For the Book 5 interview, that's brand-new. So there's a little taste of what I would love to write, but can't due to the "no real people" rule.