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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/?
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- 17-17/?
- 18-18/?
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- 20-20/?
- 21-21/?
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The leaves from the conifers in Central Park stayed as stubbornly on their branches as ever the evening before Kidsmas. Leaf litter from less hardy trees blanketed all Central Park as the year drew to a close as the penguin quartet found bliss day after day. It was true, Skipper mused as he and Private snuggled after an outdoor interlude in Hallett Nature Preserve, that commando life offered advantages over smiling-and-waving nine to five. It was rather like being a fireman because fires remained unpredictable and yes, lulls in action meant that the firehouse was not without drama that is part and parcel of life, just without its lifethreatening crises. The unexpected could crop up at any time, however.
"Skippa, life gets better and better." Private snugged his hip to the top of Skipper's head as he plotzed beside his tuckered out commander.
Skipper got his breath back. "Here now, don't get sappy on me. Thanks for the sitrep, though." It was time to praise. "And hey, you're getting better and better at what you did just now."
"Mmmm. Yummytummy." Private ran his tongue around the rim of his beak. There had been kisses above and below with Skipper finishing down Private's welcoming throat.
"Er, that's nice. Also nice are the soothing sounds of the children of the night" --- an owl hooted --- "and the fact that we two are not present in the HQ tonight when Rico blasts out a King-Sized bed as a Kidsmas gift for Kowalski."
"Where did K'walski get to, then?"
"He went to ask the squirrel monkeys for gift giving advice. Whatever he gives you tomorrow, Private, be diplomatic. It's good for your commando training."
Private plucked a broken feather from Skipper's head. "When am I not?"
"Questioning Rico's loyalty to the team two weeks ago after he came back to his senses was not. You can't blame him for kabooming his little heart out for forty-eight hours straight when Ringtail pressured him. Rico is delicate in some ways." Skipper squirmed. "Enough with the preening."
"We made our own kabooms for our gifts to each other this evenin', honey."
Skipper slapped Private's thigh at one hundred fiftieth his strength in reply.
"It's quiet," Skipper said after awhile.
"Too quiet?"
"Nah. Just right."
The season's chill notwithstanding in this winter that some would later call Nosnowmaggeddon, privacy gained by a brief break from HQ had been just the ticket for a pleasurable hour. In the underbrush skirting a shaggy barked tree, Skipper and Private counted three comes among two penguins, a nice ending for the lazy day. No guests to entertain, no Alice because at 6 p.m. she had bundled herself into a taxi after she bundled herself in an unflattering bulky coat and boots to go celebrate someplace, the penguins supposed. There remained the mystery of Marlene's warning, but thus far nothing critical erupted from the grouchy zookeeper. Her appearance had changed a trifle, that was all. Nobody knew why and honestly, Skipper pushed away speculation as he relaxed in his Happy Place.
A Christmas truce prevailed between the penguins and known enemies such as the rats. Skipper supposed the prolonged absence of Hans and Blowhole could mean that those losers, too, celebrated in their own way. It wasn't worth thinking about reasons for peace, sometimes.
"Hist! Do you hear that, Skippa?"
Skipper sat up. "Hist? What the what now?"
"Sorry, I've been thinkin' about Shakespeare In The Park and Midsummer Night's Dream romance and all. The play is in a forest like this one, you know."
"Never mind, what were you histing about?" Then he heard it.
ttrummmmplkshgrrrrr
"Hang about, wot --- "
Skipper clamped his love's beak shut as the impossible happened. The earth cracked open to rip a trench from the tree they relaxed behind to rend a copse of American holly trees thirty feet away. Kowalski would have insisted upon calling them bushes. The two birds sneaked closer, rolling covertly on top of the flaky bark through the prickly holly leaves to press themselves upright in an attack stack behind the narrow holly trunk, Skipper providing the base.
A metal snout studded with leaf-shaped excavators pointed skyward from the copse. A hssssss steamed its way upward like when Blowhole's gigantamundo sea bubble sub demolished the pier in Shanghai. What had followed then was the bottlenose's mindjacker treatment and a disoriented plunge into waters that came close to drowning Skipper. Private's presence on his shoulders reminded the commander that this was not a solo mission and the burden of leadership to protectprotectprotect descended.
Skipper gave the signal for Routine Four: Scout Ahead I'll Catch Up Later as he shrugged to shed the weight of his beloved burden and indicated the way back to the zoo. He bellyslid closer to surveille from under the outermost spray of prickly branches this unbelievable happening without looking to see if Private obeyed. He felt a familiar presence at his side and turned to glare at his disobedient soldier. Dammit, one of them needed to report with this intel! He drew back for a full-on slap, saw that Private didn't flinch, and stayed his flipper. An angry growl escaped his beak as he turned back to the whatever-it-was.
A zombie vaulted from the open hatch of a digger the size of a U-Haul truckbed for moving a human's one bedroom home or two bedroom apartment. Skipper's and Private's eyes bugged out when a hunched over human, or former human, wearing goggles and a heavy brown duster like Eastwood wore in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly stepped forward three paces to scout the terrain before returning to the hatch. Knurled was a la dee dah word Kowalski used once and Skipper thought that it fit this misshapen man. Bulbous nose, gnarled hands, crabwalk --- surely this invasion began the mutant zombie apocalypse.
Bring it on. Battle plans formed immediately: Rico as Ordnance, Kowalski as Intel, himself as Command and Private as ... Inspiration? Business as usual. Two feet sporting a kind of shoe that Skipper had never before seen edged inches from their hiding spot and the commander once again gestured Routine Thirty: Attack Stack. He waddled backwards towards the trunk with Private topping like the holiday tree angel he was.
Something else unbelievable happened: a woman using her cell phone as a flashlight alit from the hatch, handed down to solid ground in a gentlemanly way by the zombie.
It was Frances Alberta. Her voice sounded little different from their battle in Hoboken, but her appearance was anything but Bureaucrat-On-The-Fast-Track-To-Middle-Management. Her lavender hair was striped like Marty The Zebra's with golden streaks. She had a tat on the back of her hand. She looked funky.
"Hickory nuts Felicity wants for the feast tomorrow and hickory nuts she'll have. She's worth pleasing, don't you think?"
What the Monitor and Merrimac? Skipper's night vision was among the best of his species. He searched the base of the nearby trees. More hickory nuts not gobbled by Fred or his friends dotted the layers of fluffy bark that had formed a delightful bed.
The strong phone light bobbed over the ground, but the zombie indicated an area not within the illuminated cone. "Blmtz, Frawnces. There." The eldritch horror pointed at a cluster of nuts not four feet away from the penguins. Skipper and Private pressed tighter against the trunk. Private's claws clenched through Skipper's feathers down to the meat of each shoulder, but he withstood the trickle of blood stoically.
Shit, the zombie was right on about the nuts because he owned night vision like an animal's. What was Frances Alberta doing with him? Since when did zombies travel underground in mecha? Did Frances Alberta and Moley connive an evil scheme to cleanse the animals in the entire Five Boroughs? Skipper rattled off question after question in a mental checklist.
Frances prattled and Skipper had never figured her for a prattler; he concluded she was different in ways other than her voice. "So, Moley, I'm grateful to Godmother Felicity for not insisting I wear white and stay inside at night for an entire year as an initiate, I mean the year is up in two months but you know, my work works b-better if I can be Miss Cleo in her colorful outfits and headdress and sometimes" --- she bent to gather more nuts --- "well, I am an initiate almost ready to meet and greet the Warriors but still a beginner and she's kind to me, sort of like a mom, and she said, she said that I was confusing my own thoughts with Oyá's when I danced because orichas never communicate in words and and and it's a common initiate error --- "
"Frawnces. Zplp."
"Huh?"
The zombie put his hand on Frances' mouth. "Zplp."
After swiveling 360 degrees with a piercing glance, the zombie named Moley sniffed like Rico did in his astounding tracking ability. Skipper's heart froze underneath the scar on his chest. They'd be captured or killed, him and Private right when they were happiest. He tensed and Private's rigid body communicated the same battle-ready stance. The young penguin's claws dug deeper as Skipper used the pain to stoke his judo mojo.
The next five minutes ached unbearably. Skipper's pride in Private soared into the ionosphere as the young penguin held his position. When the zombie sighed and relaxed and Frances Alberta spoke again, Skipper paid extra attention to her words.
They dripped with sincerity. "You're looking out for me, my friend. Thank you. Nobody except lovers or family is supposed to touch me for a year, too, but you, my friend, are something different. Santeria doesn't have a name for it." Skipper heard humility and affection, too. As the two humans resumed nut gathering, he could tell they weren't intimate because there was not that special vibe that he'd discerned among couple after couple. But they were companions somehow, and he concluded the zombie named Moley was not a zombie after all. He missed Rico's keen sense of smell and Kowalski's analysis of it, because Moley did not smell one hundred percent human, either.
"So, um, I might be moving in with you soon, but I don't know yet. January 3rd is the last day of grace before my rent is officially overdue and that jerk Jeff will dump out my things onto the street on the 14th because he legally can. Asshole. How I'd love to command Oyá's army to run him out of town. Dickwad."
The whatever-he-was named Moley spoke in an agreeing tone. "Wnkr." He passed his handful of nuts to Frances as she opened her bag to his reach.
Frances took a break from using her phone as a flashlight as she checked its content. "My Genderblender Weapon of Mass Disruption made Instagram and Facebook and other sites. I'm banking on that upping the business finances, my friend. If not --- "
“Shzbsh, Frawnces.”
"Living with you wouldn't be the end of the world, I guess."
"Pzm."
"Don't pout, I didn't mean it like that --- "
"Did."
"Have it your own way then, O Ruler of the Mole Men. I did mean it. Try to see things from my point of view, it's like you're Pluto and I'm Proserpina --- "
"Not."
"Hear me out --- "
Now she was calling him a dog. Skipper blotted their squabble from his mind in this onslaught of intel. Mole Men invading the Greater New York City environs, possibly including Long Island? The creatures were not tiny as previous intel stated, although they were short within the human adult range of height. Kowalski could eyeball measure better than he could; in Skipper's estimate, Moley was four foot ten. What army strength did the two have, and why invade at all? This specimen appeared pussywhipped by Frances Alberta. Did he feel he had to prove something to her? It wouldn't be the first time in human or animal history.
And what about the intel that Frankie spilled the day after Thanksgiving? Skipper had been positive the obnoxious pigeon was playing him, but the Genderblender? A code name if ever he heard one.
" --- the trouble with you, Moley, is that --- " Gah, they were still at it. Skipper's battle mind dismissed Frances Alberta as an immediate threat because one kick to knock her phone away and she'd be blind; the unknown danger was Moley, whose vision in dark places loomed formidably in the gloom, and then there was his mecha containing mystery after mystery.
" --- Frawnces Frawnces Frawnces --- " Ugh. End it already, man, or make her walk home. The sting from Private's claws grew. Frances' copper bracelets clattered when she cobbled together the last of her hickory nut collection with quick, angry movements. Whatever differences she had had with her friend seemed to have reached a stopping point, or maybe they agreed to disagree.
Gobbledygook ensued as Skipper tried to make sense of her next words. "Oyá's army is made of the spirits of the dead, Moley, and she uses violent winds to blow away her enemies. I invoke her aid in my plan by shaking a framboyán seedpod."
Skipper relaxed. Spirits of the dead and seedpods to call up a big wind sounded nuttier than a plan from Blowhole's sicko psyche. They came all this way to gather nuts, and that was nutty, too. She was a nutter, to quote a Private-ism, so her comeuppance must have fractured her think melon like Skipper's broken flippers that time when his team believed him to be a zombie. Frankie was right to call her a nutso.
"Ungwa."
"All right, I've got enough hickory nuts to feed an army alive or dead so yes, let's go. No, wait, I want to foribale to thank Oyá. This soft shagbark hickory sluff is perfect to lie on."
"Shag?"
"It's just a word, Moley. That's the kind of tree this big one is, a shagbark hickory tree. Stop laughing. A foribale is a serious go."
Private trembled as a giggle slid out, making the commander grit his beak. The bleeding threatened to start up again. He smacked Private's foot, making another sting but stopping the giggles. Outbursts like this reminded Skipper that Private was on the youngish side to be his lover. Shagbark was just bark. Now if this tree grew needles --- he nipped that image in the bud.
Choked sounds came from above as Skipper peeked around the bole of the tree to see Frances Alberta lie on her left side with right arm crooked with Moley as a curious onlooker. She flipped like a Mickey Mouse pancake over to her left side to face the trunk of the holly tree. Skipper and Private froze in Routine Six: Play Statue.
"I'm done. I've called Oyá to attend the feast and make her army persuade more customers visit Funkytown. I've done all that I can."
"Frawnces go."
"Let's do that little thing. Bring my bag."
IOIOIOIOIO
"Sir, it's midnight, so Merry Christmas!"
"Aw, Kowalski, you shouldn't have."
"Do you like it?"
"I've never seen anything this pink and plastic! Thanks. Here's your gift."
"Incense to burn in the latrine. How thoughtful."
"Yeah, Private pitched in to brainstorm what would really show you that we two know and, and appreciate your qualities. It's sandalwood. Six cones."
"Mmmhmmm. Private, do you like your gift from Rico and me?"
"I'm over the moon, K'walski! Really! They match my showercap!"
"Clogskeepfeetysdry."
"Yes, they do, Rico, right as rainbows, and I'm ever so glad to see you nibblin' your salmon. Well. Night, all. Enjoy your new wider bunk, you two."
"Team, tomorrow's Kidsmas, so we need to rest up for entertaining the park's kidlets. Lights out."
"Sir, first come over to the porthole, allow me to show you what your gift does when it's nearer to water --- "
"Roger. Uh, I'm looking, Kowalski. The little witch is supposed to come out of her house when it's humid, right?"
"You got it in one but that's not what I want to discuss."
"Shoot, compadre."
"Rico and Private have turned in, so let's speak quietly."
"Is this another time travel dilemma with three Kowalskis, because I'm so not in the mood for a time travel mashup --- "
"Sir, the story you told about Frances Alberta and a tunneler mecha driven by a zombie, that wasn't really the truth, was it."
"You're saying that not in question form. Hell, yes, Kowalski, it was the truth."
"A tunneler with fan-shaped blades that hissed and hummed and steamed is classic steampunk fantasy. Right out of a comic book, if you get my drift."
"Aw, I don't understand what I heard yet and I know it sounds whackadoo --- "
"Sir, I spotted blood on your feathers when you and Private returned. Are you certain the story wasn't Routine Thirty-Two: Confuse and Distract for Rico and me after your, er, activities?"
"It washed off easy and hell, I didn't want to rub it in Private's face in front of you two that he attack stacked me and grabbed too hard. The sitch got intense. Damn, seeing Frances Alberta again shook me up, too."
"So you two aren't, um, experimenting with outré sexual --- "
"I'm going to forget you said that. Blood and sex have no place near each other. I never thought I'd have to make a damned routine out of common sense, shit, Kowalski, you and your imagination --- "
"Apologies, sir. It's a big ugly world out there."
"That's not allowed in our HQ."
"No."
"We stand in agreement, then. Lights out, computer."
"QUERY: FOR REALS THIS TIME?"
"Smarta--- "
"Don't teach it words you don't want to hear again, sir."
"Okayokay."
IOIOIOIOIO
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Undertow