"Well, Dolly, pardon me for not having all the buttons memorized," I told Dolly as she backed away from the computer. The call to North Wind was successful, albeit some technical difficulties on my part. I'm a geneticist, not a computer scientist. I have people for that. Well, octopuses. Anyway, after Dolly ended the call for me, we set to work.

I had calmed down some since the incident with the penguins forgetting me and escaping. None of that prevented me from continuing my plans to exact my revenge.

I was certain North Wind was already getting the alerts about missing penguins in various parts of the world, such as Berlin, Guadalajara, Madrid, Paris, London . . . You get the idea. I've been kicked out of a lot of joints. Of course, I was only getting started. I'd be kidnapping way more penguins than that. I'd be kidnapping them from every zoo and aquarium all over the world. With my henchmen helping, it wouldn't take long.

For me personally, I was starting with Rio de Janeiro.

We went by helicopter, and one of my henchmen disguised himself as a soccer ball. Though, they called it a futebol here in Rio. We moved quickly, knowing the North Wind wouldn't be far behind us.

After the helicopter lowered us back down into the sub, we took the penguins to the cage room. This was the first time I'd seen our first prisoners since the kidnapping began. Still disguised as Dr. Octavius Brine, I walked between the cages containing a few dozen penguins with a grin. They all watched me with fear in their eyes, which only made my eyes more wild with excitement. The void inside me longingly called for justice as I hungrily scanned the room at their terrified faces.

I knelt down at one of the cages which contained some of the penguins from the Zoo Aquarium de Madrid.

"I recognize you," I cooed softly with a grin as I reached in and poked one of them. "I recognize all of you," I added as I took the time to study each face in the cage.

The penguins watched me fearfully and exchanged puzzled glances. I turned back and looked over the rest of them.

"I remember all of you!" I screamed, my tone suddenly sharpening. They all winced and shrunk back in their cages. It made me grin again. The power their fear gave me made me crave more. "I bet none of you ever hoped you'd see me again."

"Who are you?!" one of the penguins cried in fear.

"I am a phantom! A shadow of a former life! I . . . am . . . Dave!" I grinned and ripped off my Dr. Octavius Brine costume. They all gasped and huddled closer to each other at the hideous beast before them.

Silence followed and I frowned.

"Hello," I called in an annoyed tone. "It's me. Dave. For most of you, I was literally right across from you."

They all stared at me and exchanged glances, still fearful, but otherwise confused. I sighed. Did anyone remember me?

Ugh. Nevermind.

"Well," I started exasperatedly with a roll of my eyes, "I used to be zoomates with all of you at one point or another in the past decade. You all taunted me, stole the love of the humans away from me, but most of all, you all ruined my life!" I finished, my voice having risen into a scream, pounding my arms on the floor on the last few syllables. They all winced again.

"We're sorry!" one of the penguins from Madrid cried.

My face hardened and I approached the cage quickly and shoved my head through the bars.

"No you're not!" I growled in their faces. "None of you are sorry, none of you! Especially not you all, who deliberately taunted me to get a rise out of me so I'd be kicked out. You may not remember me, but I remember exactly who you are." I prodded the one who cried out with one of my arms and backed my head out of the cage. Two henchmen brought in two more cages full of penguins from more locations.

"Well," I started, calmer. "all you need to know is that all of you are getting exactly what you deserve. The amount of pain you have caused in me and animals like me will not go unpunished."

A few penguins started sobbing.

"What are you going to do to us?" one penguin asked in a shaky voice.

I grinned and leaned in closer to the cage where the penguin had asked, the ones containing penguins from Baton Rouge.

"You'll find out in due time," I said through my teeth. "Just be grateful I don't blow you up like you did to me."

The penguins in the cage exchanged confused glances. How they could forget launching a literal firework at me was beyond me. But no matter.

All that mattered was that they got what they deserved.

— § —

Shanghai was a particularly sore spot for me.

When I had been transferred to this zoo, the penguins were located in a giant tank in a room all to themselves. Right across was a room with other sea creatures. Above the octopus tank, a giant sign read "Creeps of the Deep." It was one thing that I was already demonized by the humans for things beyond my control, but it was another to be deliberately advertised for that.

Pretty ironic that I was living up to exactly what they wanted me to be. Remember, the humans chose this, not me. They and the penguins had brought all this on themselves. None of this was my fault. I was only dishing out justice, leveling the playing field. Justice for me and every other unloved animal like me.

The plan was going to be simple. I'd walk in pretending to be a penguin feeder. Then, after diving in to feed them, I would kidnap them and escape through the pipes. I knew the penguins and possibly North Wind would be there to attempt to foil me, however, thanks to a baby squid I had stationed a spy nearby. So I had a backup plan to go in through the pipes first and kidnap them from the bottom up, rather than the top down just in case. No one was going to stop me.

This, predictably, came in handy. It was pretty smart of the penguins to try that trick of blinding me with cameras and taking me down with that leopard seal. But I was smarter.

Returning to the sub with penguins in hand, I let my henchmen take them where they belonged with the hundreds of other penguins we'd conquered. The North Wind did attempt a futile chase in their jet, but it ended quite laughably.

"Chris, rock and roll!" I called excitedly to one of my head henchmen. "We have a test subject for our first live test of the ray, right? I want those penguins scared out of their feathers."

Chris nodded and held up a small jar with a cricket inside, particularly the one who wouldn't mind his business when I'd met Skipper and the gang for the first time again. I nodded approvingly.

"Perfect, let's get going," I said as I walked with him toward the cage room. "This is just getting good. Lionel, Richie, any word on where our elite unit is now after that hilarious splash down?" The two henchmen shook their heads disappointedly. I sighed. "We might need to hunt them down, then. Get a team on that."

The two hurried off to start a team to hunt down the penguins. I was getting increasingly frustrated with them. They were good. Really good. Better than I anticipated. They'd gone down hard in that jet, but I knew they would still find a way back from it.

Of course, I was better. But that didn't make it less frustrating.

The impudence. The audacity. The unmitigated gall. How dare they not remember me.

Well, if there was one thing that was for sure, they were never going to forget the name Dave the Octopus again.

I was going to make sure of that if it was the last thing I did.

— § —

Oh, how juicy this was getting.

"Call off the hunt, everyone," I said as I held Private in my arm. "Turns out the elite unit will be coming to us. Boop," I said as I booped Private's little beak. Private watched me fearfully. As he should.

"Oh, what a shame, little Private," I said as I started moving forward. "Your team just couldn't save you from being kidnapped by me, hm?"

Private didn't answer and just continued glaring at me, trying and failing to appear tough and fearless.

"That's all right, Private. You don't have to talk," I said as I put him in a cage all by himself. "All you have to do is sit there and be useful.

"Will Smith have my cages ready for our incoming visitors?" I asked over my nonexistent shoulder to a nearby henchman. He nodded and told me they were already on standby. "Excellent. Let me know when you pick something up on the sonar."

I started to move away from the cage room when I heard Private's voice again and stopped, my back still to him.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked. "I know you're hurt because of how much you've been rejected, but is this really going to make things better?"

My face hardened. Every moment I was reminded that he didn't remember me, my rage burned brighter. I turned hard and approached the cage, shoving my face through the bars so my face was inches from his.

"You have no idea what I've been through. You have no idea what you all have caused me to lose! You have no idea what it's like to be hated, feared, hunted, humiliated, alone!" I screamed. Then I grinned. "Well, not yet, anyway. And you now have the audacity to what? Appeal to my better nature? Well, I love to burst your bubble, but I don't have one. Not anymore."

Private had backed away as far as he could to the other end of the cage, holding his flippers to his beak. Good. He should be scared.

When he didn't respond, I removed my head from the cage and started to turn away, but stopped and turned back.

"You really don't remember me, do you?" I asked, my tone not as harsh.

Private studied me closely, but ultimately shook his head.

I scoffed and turned away, moving away from the cage room again.

"Then you've made my choice that much easier."

— § —

A ping resounded on the sonar machine several hours later. We were docked safely on a remote island, but nonetheless, North Wind and the other penguins had successfully tracked me down. As expected.

I moved quickly from the surveillance room to the cage room, where all the penguins from the zoos and aquariums around the world were still safely caged away. They always silenced and shrunk in fear when I entered the room.

Good.

It was nice having the upper hand for once.

Moving to the lone cage on the far side of the room, Private had fallen asleep. I reached through and poked his beak.

"Boop! Rise and shine!" I said happily. Private slowly rose awake and shook the slime from his beak. Two of my henchmen loaded his cage onto a cart and we started moving toward my ray.

"Where are you taking me?" Private asked, getting to his feet.

I followed behind as I answered. "Well, I was just hoping to congratulate you! Your brothers are coming here, right this very moment! Isn't that exciting!"

Private's expression hardened with determination. "I wouldn't be so happy if I were you! I know they have a plan you'll never see coming!"

I chuckled. "Aren't you so cute!" I taunted. "How do you – and more importantly, they – know that I don't have my own genius plan that none of you will see coming? Hm?"

Private frowned, but didn't respond, no doubt not believing his brothers could be beaten. Poor, sweet, naive Private.

Once we had arrived at my ray, we came to a stop. The henchmen left to go get everything in order while I opened the cage and pulled out Private.

"Let go of me!" he protested, squirming laughably in my arm. "What are you doing?!"

I ignored him, holding him down on the table and securing him with a strap. "Well, once I have your friends, I thought I'd give them a little demonstration of what my Medusa Serum will do. You'll make the perfect first live penguin test."

Private looked at the ray and swallowed, perhaps remembering what it had done to the cricket.

"You don't have to do this," he pleaded, giving me his best puppy-dog eyes. Those eyes used to work on me.

Not anymore.

I put the tip of one of my arms to my lip. "Yeah, I guess I don't," I replied in bad faith. "But I am anyway!" I added, leaning in close to his face, laughing tauntingly.

Private frowned and I wiped a happy tear from my eye. Everything was finally falling into place. I was finally on my way to claiming my happiness. The void inside me echoed my laughter in anticipation for what was coming.

"Aw, don't be sad! Things will work out!" I encouraged. "Well, for me anyway," I added.

"Dave," Private started, "I know what happened to you was horrible, but you can't take it out on innocent creatures!"

My expression hardened again. "Oh, but I can," I said through gritted teeth. "And there's nothing innocent about any of you! All I ever wanted was to be loved. And I was! Until you –" I prodded him with the tip of my arm – "took it all away."

Private met my eyes. He almost looked remorseful. Apologetic, even. But it didn't matter to me. He barely mattered to me anymore. It's not as if I ever mattered to him. If I had, he'd have remembered me.

"But, Dave," Private said slowly, "it's not too late to be loved."

I scowled at the suggestion. "Oh, it's way too late for that. No one could ever love me."

I turned away to leave, but Private's voice once again stopped me dead in my tracks.

"I would."

I stopped, staring at the far wall. I turned slowly and studied him. I had felt something inside of myself that I hadn't felt in many years.

Longing.

"Just let the penguins go, Dave," Private pleaded. "We'll start things over. What do you say?"

I studied him for a moment longer, and then the floor. I was surprised at myself for how much I was caught off guard. More than that, I was surprised at the sensations inside me, feeling almost as if I . . .

Almost as if I wanted to agree.

All in the matter of a few seconds, I remembered everything I'd gone through to raise and protect the penguins. I felt their warm downy feathers pressed up against me as we slept with each other when they were scared of the dark. I heard the fear in their voices when they'd first arrived in New York, their pleading for me to not leave them alone.

No one's ever had our back like we have.

We don't need anyone else.

The penguins' voices once again rang in my head from when I'd eavesdropped on their conversation in Kenya. I felt bile in my throat and rage welling up inside me. They probably never even cared about me even when I thought they did. I couldn't justify giving up everything I had worked so hard to build.

"No," I said sharply, my face hardening again, moving closer to him. "I've worked too hard to get this far. You took everything from me," I was in his face again as I gritted my teeth, "and now I'm taking everything from you."

I turned back and looked at my henchmen. "Jim, carry out the next phase of our plan. Our special guests will be arriving soon."

I left the room without another word. These penguins had already taken enough from me. They weren't going to take my revenge from me too.

It was all I had left.

— § —

"Full speed ahead, gentlemen! The monsters are due in Manhattan!"

I moved forward with two of my henchmen pushing the remaining trio of penguins behind me on the cart in their cage. I studied them as they held each other, trying to stifle their sobs so I couldn't hear. I let the henchmen cart them off to put them with the other penguins, then asked my henchmen to give me some time alone.

It wasn't long after my conversation with Private that North Wind and the penguins had shown up just as I'd predicted. It wasn't hard to capture them. I had quite enjoyed seeing the agony in their faces as I prepared to test my ray on Private.

What I hadn't planned on was killing him.

I played it off with the others. Clearly we'd just used too much power. We knew the ray worked, it did on the cricket afterall. We'd just have to lower the power for the others. I may be a monster, but I'm not a murderer.

I wasn't a murderer.

I studied the table with my plans on it. The pictures we'd collected of the penguins in our time tracking them still lay strewn about the table. I picked one up of Private doing a silly salute with his tongue sticking out.

I didn't mean to disintegrate him. That was never my intention. I just wanted to make him a monster. I wanted him to know what it felt like to be hated. Feared.

Forgotten.

Alone.

After it had occurred, the other three penguins completely stopped fighting. They seemed to have just . . . given up.

Not that I was complaining too much about that. They were infuriatingly good, as much as I hated to admit it. But it did suck some of the fun out of things. But I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. I just wanted them to feel the way I had felt. I didn't want to hurt them like that.

Besides, my henchmen had worked on the ray and the Medusa serum too. They should've known that was too much power for one penguin. They were as much to blame for this as I was.

The North Wind was another story. They'd been a thorn in my side for far longer than they were worth. I had something special in store for them. I had no time to quarrel with them. They had chosen to stick their noses where it didn't belong, after all.

I'm not sure how long I stared at the picture of Private. I held it close for a moment, then I crumpled it and threw it in the bin with Glenne's picture.

It was just another distraction keeping me from my goal. I had worked too hard to stop now. At the end of the day, I didn't have time for guilt. There was work to be done. Mistakes happen. As I'd said, that's why we test things. And I wasn't stopping for anything.

Not even this.

— § —

Note: Celebrity puns in this chapter were: Dolly Parton, Chris Rock, Lionel Richie, Jim Carrey

Quotes in this chapter were: "The impudence. The audacity. The unmitigated gall," spoken by the Grinch (portrayed by Jim Carrey) in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000); "You took everything from me, and now I'm taking everything from you," spoken by Robert Callaghan (portrayed by James Cromwell) in Big Hero 6 (2014).