The day had begun with nothing being out of the ordinary.
Skipper was teaching Private the basics of another of his fighting styles.
"Don't you think this is maybe a little bit... too violent, Skippah?" the smaller penguin asked innocently, looking intimidated by the fast punches and kicks that his leader was showing him.
"That's exactly what Manfredi and Johnson had told me..."
"Oh-?" Private looked hopeful.
"...right before a leopard seal lunged at them out of nowhere, dragging them deep down into the cold waters of Antarctica, never to be seen again," he finished recounting the xth version of his past in an ominous tone of voice.
Private shivered in fear. "On second thought, what was that last move you used, captain?"
Meanwhile, Kowalski boasted a brand new and upgraded flamethrower, painted in purples, yellows and reds, in front of Rico, who beheld the dangerous weapon with a hungry expression on his face, impatient to get his flippers on it. "Now, Rico, I haven't had the time to test out all the upgrades yet-"
This of course didn't stop the mohawked penguin from sneaking his flippers around the flamethrower.
But before he could steal it from the scientist's flippers, a piercing scream echoed through the air. The source? Outside. Kowalski and Private froze for a few seconds, while Skipper immediately leapt into action, readying himself for an attack. Rico had hacked up dynamite, expecting the worse, but when nothing happened, he swallowed it back up.
"Kowalski, analysis!" Skipper exclaimed, senses sharp as he searched for the source of the sound. "Rico, arm us."
Kowalski snapped out of his state, turning to face the direction of the cry. "I reckon the victim is around 100 meters away, roughly thirty degrees to the left, outside of the zoo walls - possibly a female, most likely avian," the lieutenant was quick to inform.
"A' weapons ready," Rico croaked out, having now hacked up a grapling hook, crowbar, some rope, and water gun instead.
Skipper gestured for the team to move out. "Locate the target men, restrain her if necessary and be on the look out. You never know who could be hiding in the shadows."
Having shaken off his shock, Private was already moving in the right direction, looking particularly concerned. Rico, Kowalski and Skipper followed fast after him, eventually landing by a roadside, where a trembling penguin stood, looking down at the road, where a dead body lay, too burnt and broken to be easily identified. The living penguin herself seemed to be singed from all sides, but thankfully didn't appear to be too seriously injured.
She turned around as she heard the help arrive, looking at the male penguins with wide eyes, afraid.
"Hello. It's okay. We're not going to hurt you, ma'am. We heard you scream and we wanted to help," Private assured her with a soft voice. Skipper was more or less counting on his cheerful, friendly and youthful voice to do the trick and put the victim at ease. It wasn't hard to imagine that the corpse had belonged to a penguin - he didn't need Kowalski to clarify that - so it made sense for her to be scared. If she was, Rico and Kowalski probably weren't going to do as good a job at comforting her.
Looking around, it was clear that there had been a house fire - part of one of the buildings near the roadside was blackened with soot, with the windows broken. There had likely been a housefire which the penguin might have tried to escape, along with what might have been a relative or a friend, but the relative clearly had been far more severely burned in the fire, and might well have died from smoke exhalation and serious burns.
"Skipper, we might need an oxygen mask for the survivor," Kowalsk looked over to the leader, while Rico tried - in vain - to hack something of the description up. "Any cold water then, for burns...?" Rico tried again, only to shake his head a while later.
"Kowalski, I don't think she's actually that badly wounded... her feathers look singed, but that's about it. She just needs to get away from here," Private remarked a little while later. He hadn't had any luck with getting the female to talk yet. She seemed too shaken for that.
"Anything on the fire, Kowalski?"
"'fraid it was lit by an animal of sorts," the tallest penguin explained. "Crudely done, but I can't seem to find many clues, so while it might have been lit impulsively, this still seems like the work of someone experienced. Then again, I'm not an expert on Pyromania. Anything you can see there, Rico?"
The penguins looked over to the second tallest penguin, who seemed surprisingly... serious. No manic smile, no excitement. It was a weird expression for Rico to have. The other penguin shrugged.
"I'm not liking this, men, I'm not liking this at all," Skipper muttered under his breath.
"We are going to let her live with us, though, right, Skippah? We can't just leave her out here!" Private looked to his leader pleadingly.
"What?" The other penguins blinked, surprised by the suggestion.
Their leader narrowed his eyes at Private. "Are you out of your mind, soldier? She could reveal our headquarters and threaten our way of life!"