"Hello," I said into the phone with Mad 24 News. "Yes, this is Dr. Octavius Brine. I have some wonderful news. All the penguins that have gone missing are with me. I've found them all."

Oh my goodness! That's amazing! Where will you be bringing them?

"Meet me at the coast of Battery Park. I'll be returning them there. And make sure that everyone knows. I think everyone will be dying to see the beloved penguins again."

Yes, absolutely! Thank you so much for the heads up! This story will be huge!

I grinned.

"Yes. Yes, it will be."

After hanging up the phone, I found myself in the doorway to the holding room. We were only a couple of hours from Battery Park. Henchmen were slowly moving penguins from their cages in the holding room to the Mutation Station, where the ray would be used on them just before releasing them into New York City. The original trio was loaded onto a cart and I watched them as they were wheeled toward the door where I was standing.

Skipper sat against the bars of the cage with Kowalski, and they were leaning against each other. Rico was laying on his side cuddling a flip flop that he had no doubt coughed up. That was an ability not even science could figure out.

I caught Skipper's eye as they passed me and I stiffened, realizing I was almost starting to feel bad for them.

"What?" Skipper said dejectedly. "Where are you taking us now? What more can you take from us?"

The henchmen stopped when they heard him speak and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond. I kept my expression neutral and leaned forward, close enough for them to feel my breath through the bars.

"You still don't get it, do you?" I asked softly. "I lost everything because of you. I'm not resting until you're just like me."

"I could never be like you," Skipper responded, shaking his head. "Because we have something you'll never have."

I chuckled softly. "And what would that be?"

Skipper narrowed his eyes. "Family."

The words cut me like knives. We used to be family. They were such a massive part of my life, despite how short my time was with them. Yet they didn't even remember my name, let alone who I am. I felt the void inside me again, feeling emptier than ever. I had changed so much since the day I met him.

"We'll see about that when the humans are through with you," I responded, shaking my head and lowering my brow.

The henchmen then took them away, and I watched as they disappeared down the hallway with the line of other penguins following them. Each penguin I had encountered had taken a piece of who I used to be with them.

I realized that, perhaps, my sanity had left with them too.

But hey, you'd go insane in my shoes too . . . wouldn't you?

— § —

It worked! My beautiful monster-making ray worked! You should've seen the look on those humans' faces when my submarine opened to reveal hundreds of hideous creatures. The mutated penguins were obviously hurt that the humans had no interest in giving them hugs as they ran away in fear. This was the most glorious day of my life.

I watched with glee as the exterminators set to work collecting all the mutant penguins. A crowd of humans and news crews had met me at Battery Park as planned, and I unleashed my horrid mutants on the streets of New York City. Humans fled in terror.

This was everything I'd ever wanted.

I skipped gleefully through the park, grabbing mutant penguins and tossing them to the numerous exterminators moving about as the mutant penguins wreaked havoc on everyone around them.

Everyone who'd ever doubted me was wrong. This was definitely making me happy. This was the greatest day of my life.

I hopped onto a hot dog stand in absolute jubilation. "I'm happy!" I screamed into my microphone, unable to contain my joy. "And yet," I said, slumping forward, lowering my brow in thought. "Now that I have my revenge, I feel . . . empty," I told no one in particular. It was strange. I was sure by this point the void inside me would feel fulfilled again. "As if . . . what I needed all along was . . . more revenge!"

Of course that made sense! If this revenge gave me joy, more revenge would just give me more joy! "In fact, Robin, write this down." One of my henchmen held a clipboard at the ready. "Tomorrow we go after kittens! Then puppies! Pandas!"

I gasped as a sight caught my eye. The penguins had stolen my ray and had replaced the serum with something. What, I couldn't tell from my position, but whatever it was, it was clear it was no doubt going to ruin my plans. I ripped off my disguise and ordered a bunch of my henchmen to help me stop them. They were not going to ruin this for me.

Not after everything I'd been through. Everything I'd lost. Everything I'd sacrificed.

I thought they were going to win, but the batteries in the remote died, which bought my henchmen and me time to go after them and I became confident I was going to stop them in time. That was until a certain other quadrant came to complicate things.

Out of nowhere, an ice cream truck barged straight through several of my henchmen and into my submarine. To my horror, the entire thing exploded and North Wind leapt from the truck just as the flames ignited and destroyed the entire sub. Rage built up inside me again as one of my henchmen trapped them in an exterminator's truck.

This ends now.

I had launched myself using a merry go round onto the ray and successfully stopped the penguins from engaging it which was rigged to reverse everything I had done. I almost didn't stop them in time, but managed to make Skipper lose his grip on the remote after he replaced the batteries and I tossed him and Rico toward the nearest exterminator truck.

Looking down, I could see it was Private that was inside my ray, replacing the serum. The part of me that was relieved he wasn't dead was overtaken by the part of me that felt rage at how close he came to ruining everything . . . again! How dare he try to ruin my happiness . . . again! Laughing maniacally, I beat on the glass until it shattered. This had begun with Private, and it was going to end with Private.

To my surprise, Private had somehow become semi-mutated and used an arm protruding from his butt to punch me in the face so hard, I flew back out of the ray and onto the pile of snowglobes they'd stolen from me and taped to the barrel of my ray.

I almost turned around to go back when I saw a Dibble flying through the air toward the button on the remote.

My face dropped.

My henchmen tried to move forward to stop it, but they were too late.

I felt as if my life were moving in slow motion as the Dibble inched closer and closer to its target.

Everything I'd done, everything I'd been through, everything I'd lost.

It was for nothing.

The Dibble met its target and I watched in horror as a flash of light surged underneath me through the snowglobes, and my life flashed before my eyes.

— § —

I was suddenly in my old New York habitat in the Central Park Zoo. But my habitat was the only one here. All the other ones were gone, as if my habitat only existed in a white void with the distant perimeter walls of the Central Park Zoo much farther away than they should've been.

All around me were everyone I'd ever known. Alex, Gloria, Marty, all the penguins I'd ever shared a zoo or aquarium with, every zookeeper and driver that had brought me to and from zoos and aquariums, all my employees both human and octopus, Annalyse Geating and the rest of the International Society of Smart People, Brody, Gladys, Rod, Lorrie, Georgie, Sarina, Glenne, and more. Everyone who had ever touched my life in some way were around me.

They all just . . . stared at me. Surrounded me.

One by one, they all raised their arm or other appendage to point at me.

"Monster."

They spoke in unison.

"Monster."

They started chanting it as they circled around my habitat.

"Monster."

By now they were all pointing at me, never taking their eyes off of me as they spoke.

"Monster."

I shook my head and covered my ears. "Stop!" I cried.

"Monster!"

It grew louder.

"Monster!"

No matter how hard I covered my ears, their chanting became louder and louder until I couldn't hear myself think.

"Monster!"

"Stop!" I screamed louder, shaking my head.

The chanting became faster as they rhythmically moved around my habitat, chanting with every step.

"Monster! Monster! Monster!"

"Stop!" I screamed again.

I couldn't take it anymore and dove into the water, my world turning black again.

— § —

I'm not certain how long I blacked out, but when I came to, I realized that I was lying in the streets of New York City. But with only one difference.

The buildings were underneath me.

I grinned as I realized I had grown larger than skyscrapers.

I may not have had my revenge exactly the way I wanted it, but I was going to get it one way or another.

I stretched my arms over the buildings and grasped at their tops, laughing hysterically at my newfound power and strength. I saw the penguins and North Wind below me watching in horror and I surged forward.

Tink.

My head had hit a force field of glass and I looked around, stunned. That's right, I hadn't grown, I'd shrunk.

And I was inside one of my snowglobes.

Gotta love irony.

— § —

Well, there you have it. That's the story of how I ended up in a snowglobe. Skipper had tossed me to a girl who I thought might end up thinking I was cool, but then shook my snowglobe so hard it gave me a migraine that lasted hours. I'm not sure what I've done to deserve that. Eventually the little girl gave up her shaking but had carelessly left me in an airport bathroom. Then some broad found me and shoved me in her handbag.

I know this woman saw me in here. Stupid humans.

But there ends my story. For now. If you've made it this far, I'm sure you understand why it came to this point.

Because if there's anything I learned in life, it's that some creatures are unworthy of love. Those penguins and everything cute in the world stole the love from every other unloveable creature.

It wasn't fair, and I just wanted to level the playing field.

How bad could I possibly be?

Truly, in the long run, I was doing the world a favor.

I could only hope that my henchmen knew about my predicament and would come to rescue me from this careless human and her stuffy bag soon. Oh, you thought this was over? Oh, no, no. Far from it.

We had some new revenge to plan. Those penguins were going to get what was coming to them one way or another.

And I planned on delivering.

— § —

Note: Celebrity puns in this chapter were: Robin Wright (movie's pun).

Quotes used in this chapter were: "How bad could I possibly be?" spoken by the Once-ler (portrayed by Ed Helms) in The Lorax (2012).

The chapter's title is an allusion to the Avengers: Endgame.

Please read: This officially concludes A Lesson in Life! If you want to know what happens next, I invite you to read "Normal" by 100-YardStare. Big thanks and shoutout to her for allowing me to write my story in a way that led straight into hers, as well as beta reading this fic.