Author's Note: An update by RandomFanFictionPressGirl14 and I! Review! You might just like it!

~Natty.

Not the Hippies!

~PoM and M~

As he slowly regained his consciousness, Alex's vision slowly started to return back to him. What...happened? The last thing he remembered was...well... he couldn't remember what he was doing last. It was dark though. Was it night or something and he was just dreaming? He felt a bit dizzy... Maybe that was because he hadn't eaten in a while. He hated fishing by himself. He could never catch anything anyway. He sighed as he tried to sit up. He may as well get up and gather the others food like he always did. Normally he'd sneak into a market nearby and get it there. Apparently he was the only one stealthy enough to actually do it.

The lion lifted his head now to go do the above only to hit his head on the ceiling. The ceiling of a crate. He was in a crate again. The cat quickly started to freak out.

What was happening? Where were the others? Where were they going? These and many more questions flew through the cat's mind.

"Not again! Nonononononono we can't be in crates again! I'm claustrophobic! …I can't breathe!" Alex hyperventilated for a fraction of a second. "Not the box! Anything but the box!" The lion yelled quickly, clutching his head and shaking.

The lion simply kept on thinking the same thing; This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't-

"Alex?"

Alex looked around. "Marty?"

Marty smiled in his own crate. "Yeah!"

The lion sighed in relief that his friend was alright. "Marty..." Then his smile disappeared as he angrily punched the wall the voice was coming from. "What did you do now?!"

"I swear!" The zebra raised his hooves in innocence, even if the cat couldn't see him. "It wasn't me this time!"

Alex scoffed. "Yeah right! This is just great…" He grumbled. "Looks like we just have bad luck WHEREVER we go!"

"Not everywhere, Al…"

"Yes! Yes, EVERYWHERE! Name a place we haven't had it!" The lion challenged.

The zebra had to think about it for a while but ultimately had nothing to say, mostly because Alex didn't really give him a chance to. Not that he thought of something anyway.

Alex sighed, rubbing his paw down his face. "Ugh…Marty…"

"What? Hey I told ya I didn't do nothing!" Marty defended.

"No, not THAT ugh Marty! I mean UGH, Marty! Do you even remember what happened?" Alex asked.

"Course I do!" The monochromatic animal was insulted. "What cha take me for? An idiot?"

"No, Marty. of course not…" The lion trailed as he felt and pushed around the walls of his box for weak points. It seemed to be sealed shut. He strained a bit. "It's just…" He groaned as he tried to push harder. "…How come I don't remember anything? All I can really think about is how furious I am at the penguins. I mean, I've been upset at them for over a year already but…this feels kind of different." Alex paused, waiting for a response. He got none and frowned harder. "You know I could use a little bit of compassion, Marty!"

Marty furrowed his brow, having not heard anything his best friend had said. He strained to hear over a loud noise, pressing his ear against the wall of his crate. "Did you say something, Alex?"

"I said I can't remember anything!" Alex repeated louder over the snoring. Wait, snoring? The cat turned to the other side of his crate. That sounded an awful lot like… "Melman?"

In a rectangle crate in front of the lion's square crate, a giraffe was snoring away in slumber. That is, until he was rudely awakened.

"MELMAN!" The cat shouted louder.

"Hm?" Melman slowly woke up. He yawned and stretched his long limbs, well as much as he could in such a confined space. He looked around a bit deliriously, not really seeing things for what it was, mumbling sleepily as he shut his eyes again. "What, Alex? I thought you always got the morning fruit…"

Alex rolled his eyes sarcastically. "I got it already."

"Oh that's good…" The hypochondriac giraffe yawned and turned over in his crate. "Wake me when it's time to eat it, would you…"

The lion face-pawed irritably. "Look Melman, I didn't get the stinking fruit okay? It's not like I could anyway! How can you be sleeping at a time like this?" Alex demanded the giraffe. "We're in crates again!"

"CRATES?!" Melman shot up instantly, hitting his head on the wooden ceiling. "Agh!" He rubbed his head with his hoof then remembered his freak out. "Nononono! We can't be in crates! Not again!" The giraffe started feeling around the walls, pushing and shoving against them. "Why are we in crates? This is NOT a scheduled check-up authorized by my doctor! Nonono! It's a mistake, has to be! There's no other explanation for this!" Melman said rapidly. "Unless there's that other possibility that-" the giraffe's eyes narrowed, demanding. "Marty! What did you do?"

"Thank-you!" Alex cried as the zebra face-hooved. "Someone else who thinks it was his fault!"

"I'm telling ya!" Marty cried. "It wasn't me!"

"You always do this, Marty!" Alex said.

In his crate Melman looked around as if he could see anything. "Where's Gloria?"

Then a voice replied above all of them. "Up here listening to these two bickering." Gloria said and then sighed. "Marty…"

"Ha!" Alex exclaimed in triumph.

"Your crate's next to Alex isn't it?" Gloria asked.

"Yeah…" Marty answered, a bit confused.

"Would you hit him for me please?" The hippo asked.

"WHAT?" Alex exclaimed.

"Gladly!" The zebra bumped into the cat's crate.

Alex was sent knocking into the wooden wall of his box, hitting the back of his head. Rubbing it, he pouted in the direction the hit came from, obviously talking to Marty. "What the heck was that for?"

"My mama told me to!" Marty replied.

"Alex, I been since told you to stop blaming everyone else for your problems!" Gloria scolded.

"But it's always other people who cause them!" The lion argued.

"Maybe, but it's not always me!" The zebra added.

Alex sighed and reluctantly apologized. "You're right, I'm sorry Marty…"

"Good." Gloria nodded and then put a hand on her hip. "Now what happened here?"

"I don't know!" The lion cried. "I don't remember!"

"Hm. What about you, Melman sweetie?" the hippo asked.

The giraffe shrugged inside his crate. "Sorry Gloria, but hey I don't feel nauseas."

"Well just so long as you're not nauseas, Melman." Alex said in sarcasm with an eye-roll.

Gloria sighed. "Marty? Did you see what happened?"

"Well actually-" Marty started but never got to finish as all the crates started to shake.

"What's happening!" Alex shouted, claws digging into the wood on either side so he wouldn't fall.

"We're movin'!" The zebra cried.

"Why are we doing that!?" Melman demanded, freaking out again.

Marty narrowed his eyes, struggling to stay upright in his crate too. "I don't know, ask Alex since he's so quick to blame things on somebody!"

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?!" The lion shouted back over the rumbling.

The hippo sighed, fed up with their screaming. She couldn't even think with all their hollering! "Would you boys just stop for one-" Gloria frowned as something started prying open her crate, letting in the light. "Anyone else seeing a light coming in?"

"I'm seein' it!" Marty exclaimed.

Alex shielded his eyes a bit with his paw. "I see it too…What the-"

"WE'RE DYING!" Melman screamed in alarm.

The lion rolled his eyes and started determinedly for the wall of his crate. It had loosened somehow. Maybe he could bust it down, he thought. Although he couldn't really think with all of the giraffe's crazed screaming and thrashing in its box. "Melman, we're not dying! We just need to-"

Before anyone could say or yell anything more, every box was pried open completely and the light from outside blinded all four Zooster's momentarily. When their eyes had adjusted and the four looked out of their boxes they were met with four much smaller animals opposite them, standing with all their glory. Well, in all their feathers that is. It was the penguins.

"YOU!" Alex shouted in anger before lunging straight for the leader.