Adult-FanFiction.org : Cartoons

Undertow	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 11341 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit from this fanfiction set in Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar franchise. I do not own its characters, basic premise or settings.

Chapter List
- 1-1/?
- 2-2/?
- 3-3/?
- 4-4/?
- 5-5/?
- 6-6/?
- 7-7/?
- 8-8/?
- 9-9/?
- 10-10/?
- 11-11/?
- 12-12/?
- 13-13/?
- 14-14/?
- 15-15/?
- 16-16/?
- 17-17/?
- 18-18/?
- 19-19/?
- 20-20/?
- 21-21/?
- 22-22/?
- 23-23/?
- 24-24/?
- 25-25/?
- 26-26/?
- 27-27/?
- 28-28/?
- 29-29/?
- 30-30/?
- 31-31/?
- 32-32/?
- 33-33/?
- 34-34/?
- 35-35/?
- 36-36/?
- 37-37/?
- 38-38/?
- 39-39/?
- 40-40/?
- 41-41/?
- 42-42/?
- 43-43/?
- 44-44/?
- 45-45/?
- 46-46/?
- 47-47/?
- 48-48/?
- 49-49/?
- 50-50/?
- 51-51/?
- 52-52/?
- 53-53/?
- 54-54/?
- 55-55/?
- 56-56/?
- 57-57/?
- 58-58/?
- 59-59/?
- 60-60/?
- 61-61/?
- 62-62/?
- 63-63/?
- 64-64/?
- 65-65/?
- 66-66/?
- 67-67/?
- 68-68/?
- 69-69/?
- 70-70/?
- 71-71/?
- 72-72/?
- 73-73/?
- 74-74/?
- 75-75/?
- 76-76/?
- 77-77/?
- 78-78/?
- 79-79/?
- 80-80/?
- 81-81/?
- 82-82/?
- 83-83/?
- 84-84/?
- 85-85/?
- 86-86/?
- 87-87/?
- 88-88/?
- 89-89/?
- 90-90/?
- 91-91/?
- 92-92/?
- 93-93/?
- 94-94/?
- 95-95/?
- 96-96/?
- 97-97/?
- 98-97/?
- 99-99/?
- 100-100/?
- 101-101/?
- 102-102/?
- 103-103/?
- 104-104/?
- 105-105/?
- 106-106/?
- 107-107/?
- 108-108/?
- 109-109/?
- 110-110/112
- 111-111/112
- 112-112/112
- 16
- 17
- 18
Penny whinneyed loud and long enough to make her rider wonder if Marty The Zebra were still in residence to answer.
"Hey, Penny."
"Hey, Marlene."
Marlene watched Penny's approach from her perch on her waterslide. She dipped a toe idly into the water, noticing its temperature that varied next to zero degrees, not even in summer. Since winter's iciest spells lay some weeks ahead, the running water would not freeze unless the pump broke down. That had only happened once in her time at this zoo and never in her California aquarium. What a pretty pass when I look forward to a break from monotony in the form of a breakdown, she thought, and then brightened for Penny's sake. "What's up?" they said together.
May as well be cheerful, Marlene supposed. "The sky! The stock market! My spirits! Nope, just kidding. Well, um, not too much. I'll tell you, Penny, I feel a leeeeetle better than last time we spoke." It felt good to talk to Penny; Shelly skewed too far from center to be confidante material of the female sort while Pinkie's brashness put off more animals than just Marlene. Penny with her comings and goings was safe to talk to, uninvolved in zoo gossip.
"That's something. Good for you to grab some gusto in life. Life isn't all duty. It can't be."
Stiff as starch, Penny always was. This is what civil service careers did to you. "Getting more exercise, are we?"
The chestnut horse butted her chest against the brick wall as her police woman rider sat at ease in the saddle to listen to horsey whickers and otter squeaks. "Yes, I'm in tiptop shape. My Doc okayed galloping last week."
"In every day, in every way, I get better and better," Marlene giggled. A guest threw a piece of popcorn at her and she snapped it up for appearance's sake. Penny's rider greeted Alice as the zookeeper approached and neither saw the infraction against zoo rules.
The non sequitur got a little more interest displayed. "Say what?"
"Some dumb thing Alice chanted last week. I just don't understand her. She's one for the books, not that I can read."
"Yes, indeed." Penny listened to her rider and Alice chinwag a solid minute. "Now they're talking due dates. Did Alice and my rider return their library books late? That's a Code 10-30." Penny swiveled her ears after shaking her head with a snort.
Her rider patted her neck. "We'll be off to the races sooner than soon, my girly girl. Steady on, now."
Marlene stretched side to side and then front to back, windmilling her paws. "Keeping in shape takes discipline in zoo life, too. If I didn't exercise, I might splat against the br-bricks on a somersault --- " She stopped at the reminder of animal mortality.
Penny picked up on the mood swing with exceptional police instincts. "Something's happened."
"Um, right. It's serious news for the Park, not so much for the zoo, I guess."
Penny shifted uneasily. "Just tell me, Marlene."
Now, see, this was the part of anything for a friend motto that hurt. Marlene tapped her paws together similarly to a certain penguin team's method of displaying agitation. She targeted her pond from up high. "I will, I will, I just want to get closer to you. Here I come." She closed her eyes as she dove forward onto the slide, allowing its current to drive her body even as her mind cringed from what she had to do. The double and a half twist before splashdown was so ingrained that she didn't notice doing it.
Marlene didn't know how Penny would take the news about the unfortunate horse. This was secondhand gossip from the penguins, or 'intel' as they chose to call it, and since Penny was police and all, Marlene thought she ought to know. Alice's additional presence at her habitat frayed her nerves.
Penny's rider chatted up Alice in some coded fashion about clothing that bored creatures who wore none. As the police woman slung a leg over Penny's back to dismount and drew closer to Alice to sotto voce socialize, Marlene surfaced and looked around her habitat. There, by the photinia shrub was a rock perfect to stand on and deliver the bad news: at Penny's shoulder level and not face to face level. Marlene felt face to face was too intimate for her and Penny's state of acquaintanceship-bordering-on-buddyship.
Penny's curried reddish coat looked spiffy, well that would be typical to present a spruce appearance for the public. Marlene scrambled atop the rock and began. "Three days ago, a horse visited the zoo and was so darn friendly that this is going to be hard to tell you, Penny. She must have been" --- Penny would require cold, hard facts --- "late middle age, short black mane but her fur was super dark brown, and most of her tail looked sliced off, ouchie. Alice over there spooked her somehow and she raced away, the penguins sailed aboard to control her, I guess, and then she galloped into the sunset, only it wasn't really sunset oh you know what I mean." Aw, yeah, this news was hard to tell, so Marlene softened her voice. "The penguins said it happened pretty peacefully out in the park. Kowalski thinks it was a heart attack."
Penny's large brown eyes showed her sorrow as she bowed her head. "That was my sister, Colleen. The news got around already among us horses." Chittering between the two female humans went on for three minutes to fill in the silence as the two female animals communed.
Marlene finally came up with something to say. "Gosh, I'm sorry, Penny. Anything I can do?" Marlene's mother had always asked this when confronting grief; it was the saying of it that mattered most.
"Yes," Penny said. Good glory, Mom rarely heard that answer and so Marlene paid extra strict attention to help however she could.
"I'm listening, girlfriend."
"Tell me, how did Colleen look to you?"
Marlene ventured, "I saw her for maybe five minutes on her walk, no it was more a stroll. She greeted everyone, even the spider monkeys who yelled rude-sounding things." She thought a moment. "Oh yeah, your sister laughed at what they said, like she'd heard it all before, and she's the only animal I know of who could have understood their talk oh I'm rambling. She hollered back something that I couldn't hear over the monkey screams but nothing seemed to bother her, she just moseyed along. The penguins gave her a nice little show that I could see from my habitat, and I'm sure she liked it until she got, um, upset."
Now the humans were discussing a shower, although the weather promised to clear up after a brief downpour just before dawn. Marlene and Penny shared a commiserating look at the denseness of police and zookeepers alike. "Thanks, Marlene. It means a lot to hear she enjoyed her outing." Then the starch washed from Penny as she cried out, "I told her she was pushing her luck getting loose all the time! I warned her! I know more about humans than she does! I'm younger than she is --- was --- but did she listen? No, she blew me off. She worked and worked like a slave for y-years--- "
Mom would have patted and hugged, so Marlene did the next best thing she could in front of humans. She wept along with Penny. Another saying of her mother's crept into her comforting.
"Th-The only way out is through."
Penny got it together eventually. "Y-You have a good heart, Marlene." She resisted the pull on her reins as her rider made to walk alongside Alice in the zookeeper's perimeter check of the zoo.
"Shazbot, I must leave --- "
The police woman showed patience approaching that of an animal's. "Hey, now, heeyyyyyy, noooowwww, easy easy, Penny." She cocked her head like Rico calculating the precise amount of TNT for a blast. "Hold on, Alice, my mount's skittish."
Alice grunted like when the Vesuvius Twins forced her to let them borrow Julien and Skipper. "All I know about horses you could put into a jigger pony, Filo. Now, if you rode a rhino --- "
"In my next life, for sure, bomboncita! Hold on, I know what works." Filomena removed one riding glove to give more sensitive skin-to-hide contact.
"She's stroking my nose, gah, that's my weak spot." Penny stopped dancing on her front feet. "Back to work, Marlene," she sighed and stepped out stolidly after her rider pressed her cheek to Penny's cheek with murmurings that Marlene couldn't hear.
Marlene swiped her face dry and followed the small group as best she could. "Wait, the penguins asked me to tell you to tell them or me if you notice anything off about Alice." She darted from the rock to scurry along the top of her brick habitat wall, keeping Penny's bulk between herself and the two humans.
Penny offered a worldweary opinion as she plodded. "All humans are off a little bit, even my primary rider --- "
"But this might be worse, like she can understand our talk" --- Marlene had never before heard a horse gasp --- "soletmeorSkipperknowokay? Ahhhhh!" They would see her! She dropped back into her habitat to press herself against the inside wall, chest heaving in bad nerves as a reply floated over the fence.
Marlene would ask Skipper later what Ten Four meant.
IOIOIOIOIO
A light drizzle misted the penguins' island that evening. "Roger."
"Ten Four means an alligator? How would that work?"
"Roger as in, I hear and understand, Marlene. Trucker and police lingo."
"So she will gather um, intel about Alice and shoot it back to you or me?"
Skipper clarified. "Not at all, because that would be Ten Ten Pee, reporting a suspicious person or prowler." He shrugged. "Ten Four means she heard you Five By Five."
"Stop, just stop it with the codes." Marlene poked his flipper as she considered his statement. "So Penny heard me and may decide not to surveille, I get it."
"Or she may decide to surveille. Whatever, Marlene, it means that it all comes down to us." Skipper squared his shoulders. "As usual."
Up through the open penguin HQ hatch drifted sneezes, coughs and sniffles along with Kowalski's "Here, swallow your medicine."
"K'walski, our date got bollocksed kaff snort so wot ought we do next?" A wet sounding blend of sneeze and cough followed.
Marlene choked out, "Date? Kowalski and Private are dating?" She took half a step towards the hatch.
"Marlene, the date referred to was a wrinkled fruit, good for the health, you know, because Private and Rico suffer from headcolds." Skipper waved an airy flipper. "Rico horked up a mini charge of C-4 when he sneezed and the whole box of little fruits carrying iron-heavy nutrition splattered over the lair, real mess no you don't want a peek down there, trust me." He brushed off his white front something that Marlene couldn't discern, yet the tiny specks of squashed dates doubtless disturbed his rigid sense of order. The mist would wash them off eventually, but Skipper would be proactive as usual. Her fondness for the bird came out with her next words.
"Trust you? Always."
Skipper looked disconcerted as he toed the fish bowl cover onto the hole. "Private and Rico's germs likely won't affect mammals, but why take a chance?"
Weeping with Penny ensured that Marlene's stirred up emotions remained on the surface and she hugged Skipper warmly. "You think of my good all the time, Skipper, and you took on this Alice thing with just my say-so to guide you, I appreciate it grande --- "
"Pshaw. Only doing my duty." Did the hug linger for any special reason? Marlene drew back to smile into Skipper's face, but he did not quite meet her eyes and let her loose with a final pat.
"I need to go. Tell Rico and Private to get better soon, all right?"
"Ten Four, Marlene."
She grinned before diving to the watery conduit that connected their habitats. "Wait, does that only mean you heard me and nothing else?"
"Go home, you nut." Skipper shoved her in an ungentlepenguinly fashion. She turned her fall into a graceful backwards dive like an arrow slicing the water with not a care in the world. Her problems were in capable flippers.
IOIOIOIOIOIO
- 16
- 17
- 18
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Undertow