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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/?
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- 17-17/?
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- 22-22/?
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- 110-110/112
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new revisionist view … Kowalski says approximately five point eighty-eight more days … protectprotectprotect … new revisionist view … Kowalski says approximately five point eighty-eight more days … protectprotectprotect … new revisionist view … Kowalski says approximately five point eighty-eight mo-
Kowalski returned, skipping along the homeward path as his decent baritone bellowed the classic karaoke song Copacabana:
His name was Rico
He wore a diamond
He was escorted to his chair, he saw Lola dancing there
and before Kowalski could sputter, "Apologies, sir, about bringing up your Lola thing," and Skipper answered his usual, "Don't apologize, I don't understand my Lola thing either", the commander chose the distraction of his second's return to grab more needed alone time.
"I'm reconning our habitat border per security protocol," he said quickly. Kowalski deserved praise. "Good job on the karaoke, soldier. That thing work on cloudy days?"
"Thank you and yes, if its battery has enough power stored. I installed a super dee dooper one and Maurice made me a canteloupe smoothie in payment." Kowalski paused at the lip of the hatch. "You up for another prenatal class, Skipper?"
"No, no, Private's covering for us both. Carry on. Um, enjoy yourself."
"Aye!"
The day remained clear as if no problems worth mentioning existed anywhere on the planet, and maybe they didn't. "Revisionist view, revisionist view. How in the braaping hell am I going to - and in a few days, yet - hi dee hi, Marlene!"
Marlene waved from outside the penguin habitat fence. "Hi! Beautiful day!"
Private popped up from his team's HQ hatch like buttered popcorn popping from the zoo's popcorn cart machine. He erupted so fast that the food dish hatch cover rose eight feet into the air, turned topsy turvy and then landed on his head like one of Kowalski's colander helmets. The food dish oddly lent the youthful penguin an even more youthful appearance because it looked like a sailor's dixie cup cap that an exclusive private school for humans might dress its little tykes in. Skipper turned to him with a fond smile as he removed the silver-tone dish from Private's head. He spun it like a frisbee back onto the open hatch.
"What gives, Private? I thought you yammered with Kowalski in prenatal class subject Number Ninety-Four: What Are The First Signs Of Pipping? And what's that you're holding?"
Private ignored Marlene's friendly wave to concentrate ninety-four percent on his love. "Gotta take a break now and then, righto? K'walski and Rico have everythin' in hand down below. Both eggs secure, sir. And this is wot we brought back as souvenir from The Battle of Howe Caverns, a trophy, if you will."
"Hi hi, Private!" wafted over the fence but Private ignored that, too. He hefted the horsetail flyswatter called an iruke in Marlene's direction in a dismissing move, not quite a go away! shoo! but close.
"Babe, I don't get how come you're up here faffing about with the horsey thing that Frances Alberta used in Santeria - say, who's clip-clopping up the bricks for a visit? Why, it's Penny!"
Marlene smoothed her questioning brow to face the police horse making her way to the penguin habitat. "Penny, girlfriend, you're out and about without a rider, go you! We'll make you into a free range animal yet!" She beamed to take away any offense and also because it was nice not to need to go covert to speak with Penny since no humans were around.
Penny's mobile lips rose and fell in a small smile. "Yeah, heh, I wanted to see why my sister liked ambling solo. So far, so good. I guess it's all right. Maybe."
Marlene stroked Penny's fetlock. "Ah yes, she passed six months ago today. Um. I'm sorry, Penny."
Penny rippled her hide and spoke loud enough to reach the two penguins who looked to be navigating the post-prandial, pre-dusk atmosphere of Central Park Zoo on an even keel. "It's all right, it's all right. I miss her, though." Her sensitive ears swiveled towards the commandos' faux floe.
"Private, put that thing down and let's delight our guests with a penguin antic or five. Ready?"
"Yeah, okay. I suppose." Private made a great show of placing the iruke in the food dish.
"Don't blow us away with your enthusiasm - hey!" Skipper got out just before Private shoved him into the water. He rose and spouted squirts in a dot dot dash code to his subordinate. Private arced a swan dive to splash down like Apollo 14 six inches from his leader and swam rings around him. Skipper churned the water with an eggbeater kick as he rose taller and taller in the water until he could rise no more. He flopped atop Private, who acted like a Newfoundland dog rescuing a swimmer from drowning. Skipper went limp to allow Private to show off his technique.
"Hey, classic first responder maneuvers, birds! Go for it!" cheered Penny and Marlene joined in with "Aquatic animals for the win!"
Penny slipped Skipper and Private a high five as much as she could when the two penguins reached the outer perimeter of their pool and hauled out. Private slapped Penny's hoof and hesitated before slapping Marlene's paw. He finally hit hard, really hard, but Marlene gave way with the momentum gracefully.
"You've been working out, Private, go you!" Marlene gushed as Private rolled his eyes. He regarded Penny's long expressive muzzle.
"Life comes in, life goes out is wot I thought when I heard about your sister, Penny. I grieve with you."
Penny cleared her throat after swallowing hard. "Thanks. But life is for the living, you know, so when's the big day for you penguins and the zoo crew?" As Alpha Female in the group, she looked to Alpha Male for a response and Skipper complied.
"Kowalski said thirty days at the beginning of this whole thing but now he says it'll be around maybe one week more. He's not sure because of all the unprecedented shi-er, stuff well I could go on and on - "
Private made a mutinous sound as a slight breeze started that held winter's left over chill. "Don't, Skippa. Just don't." He sent a blank stare to Marlene before saying, "Penny, you're a mammal, and maybe you've not had cause to wonder about us birds gettin' babies."
Marlene butted in. "She and I are both mammals, Private. Go on. I'm interested."
Private's beak twitched. He addressed his guests. "K'walski likes to crunch data for himself and I'm gobsmacked how he adjusts his theories to fit ongoin' circumstances and facts rather than feelin's because I'm not so good at that."
Skipper did a double take. "Huh? What's that have to do with this?"
"I'm gettin' to it, sir." Private gestured broadly back to their island and nearly smacked Marlene in the face. "Er, sorry, I got excited."
"'S'all right, we got all the time in the world," Marlene encouraged.
Private appeared to need a moment to govern himself. Marlene and Skipper exchanged puzzled glances while Penny waited patiently. Finally, Private began. "Welllll, K'walski posits, that means thinks, y'know, that not only will our babies" - he shrugged in Skipper's direction - "need longer shell time, but they might, I say might, be different in other ways because of how and where they got started."
Penny snorted hard enough to ruffle Marlene's fur. "Stop right there. I don't need to know all, all that, I just asked when is the due date. Like, Filo says Alice's due date is June 21st, so when's yours, birds? All I want are the facts."
"May the fifth, as in Revenge of the Fifth in Star Wars terms." Skipper sounded solemn. "Revenge for what, I dunno."
"Pfft, Skippa, it's not revenge for anythin'! Wot, revenge for enjoyin' life? Is that wot you think? Come on now!"
Marlene backed off a step as Penny warmed to her policing role in life. "Odds are in your favor, gentlemen, that everything will work out fine. Mama Nature always has a plan, even for sad things like my sister's passing. Colleen had three babies, all grown now and working the carriage horse business just like she did. You birds will be the same, you'll see. Now, how about those Penguins, huh? Think Pittsburgh will win the Stanley Cup again, Skipper? How about you, Private?"
Marlene chimed in, "Yeah, you guys love hockey so what do you think'll happen this year? I volunteer for a snack run so you don't need to tear yourselves away from the playoffs or finals."
"Hee, never volunteer is the first rule I learned in training - " Penny paused, nostrils flaring. "Wait. Hold the phone. Do any of you smell - no, it can't be. I'm having a psychotic break - I'm stressed - Code 5150 - "
"Penny!" Marlene resumed patting Penny's fetlock until the horse danced her front feet away. The otter recognized in Skipper's tone the wary acknowledgement of trouble brewing.
"What's the skinny, Officer Equine?"
"Skippa, she looks like her sister did before squashin' Rico and me - "
Skipper somersaulted atop Penny's withers and made his way up her mane to her ears. "Whoa, lady. Keep calm and carry on, soldier. Tell us your troubles so we can help you."
"Yeah, Penny, we're your mates, hang about before you stampede - "
"We're here for you, girlfriend - "
But Penny listened only to her inner voices. She reared and snorted, whinnying until Skipper resorted to shouting, "Alice lives here now, she'll hear you! Simmer down! That's an order!"
Penny bolted for the zoo exit. She barreled through the brick arches and aced a steeplechase leap over the turnstiles. The last Marlene saw of her friend was a waving chestnut tail disappearing towards the Victorian Gardens.
IOIOIOIOIO
"Wot was that all about?"
Marlene couldn't smell anything odd although she almost sniffed herself into a headache. "Smell anything weird, Private?"
Private inhaled hard enough to whistle. "No, nothin' strange. Regular zoo smells for this time of day."
"Then I don't know what it was. Poor Penny."
"Poor Penny. Skippa'll handle her, you'll see."
"Right. He's outstanding at whatever he does. I admire that about him."
"Mmmmm."
Marlene took this moment to observe, "You two swim in deep waters, you know. A relationship with parenting added in must be hard to get used to." She waited for a little "Uh-huh" or "Righto" but he said nothing.
"Especially when the Labyrinthine Mollusk made no plans for your sort of penguin to produce two daddies."
Still nothing.
"Okay, I can take a hint. Signing off now, over and out." She plotzed with her back up against the metal railing. "We wait."
At last Private sat beside her. "Ten four."
Marlene figured now was the time to play dumb. "Ten four? What's that mean?"
"It means I hear and understand. I'm surprised you've not learned a bit more of our codes after becomin' part timey commando lite."
Okay, something to work with because she had pledged to Skipper to be his love's confidante. "I know Routine Thirty-Two: Confuse and Distract, and Routine Eighty-One: Hellyeahaction, and my favorite, Routine Fifty-Three: Rico Does Something Unexpected. I'll learn the rest as I go along."
"Mmmmm."
"Mmmmm."
IOIOIOIOIO
Penny's toned legs ate up the furlongs as she galloped. Her eyes blurred with tears and her mane picked up twigs just beginning to bud out as she crashed through shrubs and ducked overhanging branches. She could have brained herself deliberately against an oak tree and ended her pain.
She didn't.
"Colleen! Oh C-Colleen!"
"Colleen ain't here."
Three inch thick divots of greensward purled in front of her hooves as she stopped herself in the middle of a small clearing. "Wh-What? Who?"
"Just little old me along for the ride." Skipper brushed a twig from his head feathers. "What were you doing, thirty, thirty-five maybe? The speed limit's twenty in the park. It used to be twenty-five."
"How - "
"It wasn't easy to hold on, let me tell you. Good thing I've got claws that can grip icebergs, huh?" Skipper unloosened them from Penny's mane. "You're not going to gallop off again, are you?"
Penny's chest heaved. "N-No. No."
"Good. So what did you smell that the rest of us did not?"
Penny lowered her head nearly to the ground. "You'll think I'm nuts."
"Try me."
"I smelled Colleen."
"Okay."
"Okay? She's dead! My sister is dead!"
"I know. I saw her die."
Penny lost it for three minutes while Skipper braced himself with both flippers curled around her ears. When she stopped tossing her head in moaning grief, he murmured into the tufts of her ears, right near the base where she wouldn't be bothered by his breath tickling her. "I'm here, my friend. Godmother Death issues one death per customer. It's been that way forever."
"Why? Why?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you. Aw shit, Private is so much better at this - "
"Never mind. I've got to get it together because my shift starts in ten hours."
"You'll do it. I did when Manfredi and Johnson bought it after we bugged out from Guatemala. The team survived without them, and you'll survive without Colleen."
"She, she was a good - can't talk." Penny whiffed through her snuffly nose and headed for a springlet trickling by the roots of a shagbark tree. She lowered her head to the waters for many long swallows. "Thirsty."
"A good cry makes me thirsty, too."
Penny swished her tail listlessly. "Yeah. So what happened? I didn't know Manfredi and Johnson."
"Aw, lady, I wish you could have. Lots of them in me, I think, because they were part of my first non-Atlantis command and you don't forget your first command. They swam the seven seas and saw things, did things that they were just beginning to loosen up enough to talk about when they died. I miss them still and how we can't make new memories together."
Penny bobbed her head. "I know what you mean."
It wasn't often that Skipper told this tale and he sensed this was the right sitch for it. "It was a dark and stormy afternoon, we six stowed away on a freighter that weathered a gale so the young buck ship's captain jettisoned our hiding place in a crate oh long story. Anyhoo, the crate broke apart in the Pacific ocean, Manfredi and Johnson drowned, the rest of the team beached but the closest pair of buds I ever knew were gone. They were gone. I tossed them something to grab, they missed holding onto it or a wave took them under maybe and they were gone." Skipper gathered himself. "We four made it back to the good old Ewe Ess of Ay. It's kind of hazy how I led us survivors home, grieving for Manfredi and Johnson as we all were and Private just a 'tween and Rico gutted about his lover's murder - well. I carried on and so can you."
Plodding was the best description of Penny's gait as she followed her own tracks back towards the zoo. "I'll have to," she said.
IOIOIOIOIO
"So, Penny, you okay now, girl?" Marlene refrained from too many questions because she had a tendency to helicopter and knew it.
"Yes."
"Penny, wot can I do to help?"
"I - I - yes, there is, there is a thing you can, you c-can - " Penny's eyes glistened.
"Rest easy, equine. You've had a busy day. Private, go get that horsetail flyswatter doodad and fling it into the incinerator in the administration building pronto. That's an order."
"Skippa?"
"Toot sweet. I'll explain later."
"Aye, Skippa." Private obeyed, making a pitch perfect splashless entry into the pool. He sped to their island, gathered the iruke and disappeared en route to the administration building at the easternmost part of the zoo.
"Why would you order him to - oh. Oh!" Marlene's lips quivered. "Oh, Penny. Poor Colleen!"
Penny's voice still sounded throaty. "Skipper and I figured it out on the way back. It's what - who - I smelled. The park's carriage horse company or the knacker must have contracted with Santeria suppliers - "
Marlene slapped Penny's hoof until her paw grew numb. "Stop. I can't hear this, I'm not like you, it's, it's too much. Stop, please."
Skipper's flipper crept about Marlene's shoulders before she could break down. She leaned into his embrace. "It's okay, honeygirl. We understand. It's a big ugly world out there."
Marlene didn't know what to say when Penny's dull glance took them in. "So it's like that," the horse rumbled slowly.
Skipper's grip tightened and Marlene winced. "Like what?" he asked. "This? Oh, this is a penguin thing when a friend is upset and Marlene's upset at hearing the news. It's nothing."
Marlene's and Penny's eyes met. "I can see that, sure," said Penny. "Forget I said anything, Skipper. My police officer's instincts are off base. It's been a rough patch today, so I'm heading back to the stable. Goodbye, all."
"Goodbye."
IOIOIIOIOIO
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