Chapter Text
The clock tower was mere minutes from ringing twelve noon when the Penguins were returning from their early morning training. Anticipating the sweltering summer sun, the Penguins set out early that day. While they had managed to avoid the worst of the heat, the summer sun was already beating down mercilessly as they waddled back to their habitat. Naturally, the sunny weather had drawn in droves of guests to the zoo. This meant the Penguins had to be stealthy while returning to the habitat. Given their years of covert training, they were practically experts at evading human attention at this point.
Leading the Penguins towards the HQ, Skipper was content with his team’s productivity that morning. Just as he had planned, they finished all their training before the summer heat reached its peak that day. He smiled contently, “Boys, I’d say we’ve earned ourselves a good, hardy breakfast.”
Kowalski lifted a brow and paused contemplatively, “Actually, Skipper, given the current time I would say it’s closer to brunch.”
Skipper ignored the correction. Kowalski was right, but it didn’t matter. All he knew was that the morning’s exercise had left him hungry and ready for some chow. Not to mention, he was ready to retreat into the cool air of their habitat.
“Ugh,” Private lifted his flippers from his sides. He was also quite ready to get out of the heat and avoid it for the majority of the day. “It’s already so muggy and it’s not even noon.”
When the coast was clear, Skipper led the Penguins in leaping up onto the HQ deck. From the looks of it, Alice had delivered a heap of fish for them earlier that morning. Now that their daily operations were finished for the day, there appeared to be nothing standing between them and their scaly meal.
Upon landing on the deck, Skipper rubbed his flippers together. “Exactly, now that today’s training is over, we can kick back, relax, and – ”
He was quickly interrupted as the other penguins couldn’t pay attention to his words. Instead, a pungent odor hit them as soon as their webbed feet hit the pavement. The smell went far beyond the normal fishy smell of their typical diet. That day it was a sickly smell that could only be attributed to fish spoiled by the heat.
Private recoiled, matching the energy of Kowalski and Rico, who were covering their beaks. “Uck! What is that smell?”
It took Skipper a second longer to process what his boys had noticed. He was so wrapped up in his flair for timing that he overlooked the smell for a second. On top of that, he missed Kowalski and Rico’s visible distress. After hearing Private’s comment, he took a whiff of the air and was instantly besieged by the smell. “Salmon’s sake! He’s right!” Skipper turned to Kowalski. “Kowalski, identify the source of that stench!”
Kowalski built up the courage to waddle closer to the heap of fish. “I believe that would be our breakfast…” He sighed and lowered his head. Clearly, he too was disappointed and incredibly hungry. “And unfortunately, the typical smell of spoiled seafood.”
“Eh, whattaya gonna do?” Rico shrugged and slipped a fish into his beak. No smell was going to keep him from his breakfast, especially after a hardy workout. At least, that’s if he had anything to do with it.
Rico began chewing profusely as Private watched with deep concern, Kowalski with unsettlement, and Skipper with disgust. The wacky penguin didn’t seem to notice their judgement. More accurately, he didn’t seem to care. All he knew was that he was going to enjoy his breakfast… that is until the aftertaste flooded his beak. When that happened, he couldn’t spit the fish out fast enough.
A chewed-up fish sloppily plopped onto the pavement in front of the hungry penguins. Rico took to scraping off the fish remnants from his tongue. He rarely met a fish he didn’t like. Needless to say, this fish was spoiled for sure.
“Well, there goes our chow.” Skipper griped flatly.
As if to respond, Private’s stomach loudly grumbled in displeasure.
“Not necessarily, Skipper.” Kowalski smirked. He had been waiting for an opportunity like this. Granted he was also disappointed in their lack of fresh fish. However, he wasn’t nearly as disappointed as the other penguins. He had a trick up his flipper. “I might just have the perfect solution.”
Skipper raised his brow skeptically. “Explain.”
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At least the Penguins had escaped the heat now that they were in the HQ. However, they still were looking at a pile of spoiled fish. Kowalski had suggested the team transfer the fish inside the lair and place it on the table. Not wanting their table to soak up any of the spoiled fish juices, Private insisted they placed a barrier down. Luckily the Penguins had a “DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS” sign Rico may or may not have stolen. While Private prepared the table, Skipper and Rico did the majority of the lifting, transferring the fish in. Kowalski, without any further explanation, had run into his lab with giddiness.
“Private,” Skipper called from beside the table. Being that close to the spoiled fish on an empty stomach was nearly making him queasy. He certainly didn’t want this unwelcome odor to linger in their home. Open up that hatch! We’re gonna need all the air we can get.”
Just as Skipper ordered, Private hopped up the ladder and slid the fishbowl, leaving the hole in their roof ajar. He hoped the extra ventilation and fresh air would mute the stench.
Shortly after, Kowalski emerged from his lab. With the confidence of a scientist who never had a failed invention, he beamed while holding up a laser filled with green fluid. The Penguins couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu in that moment. Something about this felt very familiar. That mystery was solved within seconds, as Kowalski proclaimed. “Behold, the fresherizer!”
Mystery solved. The Penguins stared blankly. Clearly, this was not the reaction Kowalski anticipated.
“Hey… wait a minute.” Rico rubbed his chin and squinted his eyes.
“Um, Kowalski,” Private sheepishly tapped his flippers together. He didn’t want to embarrass his brother, so he tried to phrase this gently. “Haven’t you already tried that one?”
Skipper was a lot less soft. He placed his flippers on his hips. “Yeah, and it had some real nasty side effects.”
Skipper typically had stronger reactions to Kowalski’s inventions compared to his brothers. As the skipper it was his job to keep his men in order, protect them, and prevent them from being the cause of any big catastrophe. Kowalski’s inventions historically proved to be a risk to all three of those responsibilities. However, the fresherizer had impacted him more directly. The last time Kowalski tested out this devious device, it misfired and turned him into a hatchling. He winced at the memories of Ringtail babysitting him and trying to feed him mushed up melon.
“But it worked last time,” Kowalski whimpered, lowering his device. He brought the fresherizer in towards his chest and wrapped it in his flippers defensively.
“Yeah,” Skipper scoffed. “A little too well.”
Kowalski felt insulted and became defensive. He leaned forward with flippers on his hips. “Do we want the fish or not?”
The Penguins paused. Needless to say, this pause was uncomfortable for the scientist who spent a lot of time on his experiments. What was the point of his work if he was never gained clearance to use them? On the other hand, Private, Rico, and Skipper all exchanged glances. Neither Private nor Rico wanted to be the first to speak. Skipper could feel the awkwardness.
“All in favor of takeout?” Skipper asked his team, shifting the topic and focus of the conversation. He raised his flipper, demonstrating for his boys. “I’ve had a hankering for General Tso’s shrimp.”
As Rico happily raised his flipper, Private noticed Kowalski’s face drop in disappointment. Kowalski really wanted to help his brothers while proving his abilities to not… put them and possibly the world in jeopardy. Private empathized with Kowalski. He knew the tall penguin’s heart was in the right place. Besides, if anything did go haywire, Kowalski already had experience fixing it.
“Maybe we could give Kowalski’s fresherizer another chance.” Private suggested. “I’m sure he’s had plenty of time to work out any hiccups.”
Kowalski instantly perked up. It was good to have the littlest penguin on his side. Besides, he knew Private was more skilled at convincing Skipper. He found humor in Private’s wording and played along, chortling. “Rest assured my invention will be singultus free.”
Private stared up at him blankly. Singultus?
Kowalski sighed. Sometimes he forgot that his brothers didn’t speak the same scientific language that he did. He clarified. “Hiccups.”
There was a collective sound of comprehension from the Penguins. This was ultimately followed by a dramatic groan from Skipper. Clearly, democracy had come back to bite him. He didn’t want to override the team’s decision as they had come to a clear impasse. Private and Kowalski wanted to give this fresherizer another try. However, he still had a bad feeling in his gut about the machine.
“Fine, but if this goes haywire, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Skipper didn’t have much fight in him. He just wanted his breakfast… or lunch at this point. And stat!
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It didn’t take long for Kowalski to accept Skipper’s invitation to use the fresherizer. He, like his brothers, was famished. On top of that, he was eager to show off the latest updates on his invention. Like Private said, he had spent a lot of time upgrading the fresherizer. Now the fish would be all but still flapping by the time he was finished with them.
“All right,” Kowalski aimed his fresherizer, “get ready for fish in – ”
Skipper made a last minute to decision to take extra precautions. He didn’t want Kowalski to notice so he tried to come up with an excuse. “I’m just gonna take a couple steps this way.” He waddled in the opposite direction of the fresherizer, behind Kowalski and towards the coffee machine. Adding some reassurance, he winked at Kowalski. “But I have full faith in you.”
Kowalski rolled his eyes. Skipper wasn’t quite as subtle as he had intended. The scientist’s voice flattened. “In 3…, 2…,”
The Penguins were just seconds away from digging into fresh fish. Private and Rico stood around the table. They excitedly towered over the fish. Now the smell didn’t seem to bother them as much now that they could expect a fresh meal. Their eyes scanned the heap, preemptively deciding which fish they would dive in to grab.
“1!” Kowalski fires the machine.
The next series of events all seemed to happen at once. A green beam of light emitted from the laser at the same time Marlene dropped down the open hatch. She announced her presence happily, “hey guys!” without even realizing that she was interrupting an important moment. The sudden noise sent Kowalski stumbling backwards. In his jumpiness, the fresherizer flew out of his fumbling flippers. The light from the laser now sprayed out in a wall of neon green.
“Hit the deck!” Skipper shouted over the sound of the laser crashing and shattering upon the floor. This time he was sure to drop to his belly to avoid getting zapped by the invention.
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By the time the light dissipated, Skipper was on his feet. He was already calling for his boys. The silence that filled the room certainly wasn’t a good sign. His gut told him that something was very wrong. And with Kowalski’s track record with experiments, anything could have happened to his boys. He felt his stomach drop.
“Sound off men,” he called sternly. Now was not the time for them to be quiet. “… And Marlene.”
Thoroughly freaked out, Marlene wobbled to her feet. “Uh, what was that…?”
“Boys?” Skipper called out once more. This time more desperate and unsure. Marlene would be fine. But it was deeply concerning him that none of his boys had responded yet. He was about to order them to verbally respond. He waddled forward unsure about what depravity he was about to see.
But before he saw it, Marlene did. As she was standing right by the ladder, she was closer to where Private and Rico had been standing. “Uh…” she pointed downwards dumbfoundedly.
That’s when the cry of a penguin chick alerted Skipper. He knew instantly what had happened to his men, but he still needed to see for himself. He rushed over to the side of the table. Two more little voices joined in the crying. Kowalski, Rico, and Private were now helpless, hatchlings sitting on the ground wailing and looking up at him.
“Gandhi’s nunchucks!” Skipper cried.
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Skipper figured there was no point in keeping the spoiled fish in the HQ. If he had to deal with three crying hatchlings, he certainly didn’t want to have to deal with that suffocating smell as well. Marlene was there to help him bag up the fish and carry it to the trashcan outside of the habitat. Much to the chagrin of Alice and the zoo guests, the spoiled fish returned to the oppressive heat.
As Marlene and Skipper waddled back into the habitat, Skipper filled Marlene in on what she had missed. He started by explaining the team’s initial trial run with the fresherizer, which had temporarily turned him into a hatchling. At the time, he at least had his wits about him. But now it seems like Kowalski’s fresherizer was much stronger. His men really did seem like full fledged hatchlings physically and mentally.
“Wait, so you’re telling me Kowalski invented some type of ‘fresherizer’ machine that turns things younger?” Marlene clarified that she was hearing all this correctly. Her disbelief didn’t last long. She had to remember these were the Penguins she was talking about.
“Affirmative,” Skipper stated, happy she was catching up quickly.
“And it’s already misfired once, when it turned you into a hatchling?” She’s really surprised by Skipper’s lapse in judgment allowing Kowalski to use this fresherizer again. He was usually rather strict with his boys… well most times he was.
“Yep,” Skipper took a sip of coffee.
“And you let him try it again anyway?” She raised a brow and folded her arms across her chest.
“What?” Skipper shrugged defensively. “We were hungry.”
“Uh huh,” she was still questioning that decision. “So, what’s the game plan now?”
“Well, Kowalski’s usually the one who thinks up a plan for these sorts of scenarios. After all, it is his fault,” Skipper chuckled in the fleeting satisfaction that his gut was correct per usual. He pointed to the broken fresherizer which was still on the ground. “Guess, once I finish my coffee, I’ll take a look at that monstrosity and see how I can reverse it.”
“Y-you’re not concerned about this at all?” Marlene stammered.
Skipper waved her off and chuckled. “Not in the slightest. My men aren’t anything I can’t handle.” He leaned back on the table, with his back to the hatchlings, and took another sip of coffee.
That’s when Marlene noticed that the hatchlings had suspiciously gone quiet. Something told her that the silence could mean that something was seriously wrong. This gnawing anxiety caused her to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, the three little hatchlings were nowhere in sight.
“Okay,” trying not to alarm Skipper, continued slowly. “Any idea where they went?”
“Huh?” Skipper jutted forward, nearly spitting out his coffee.
As Marlene retraced her steps towards the ladder, Skipper felt a tapping on his right ankle. He looked down to find the hatchling Private looking up at him with big, expecting eyes. Skipper’s heart melted when he saw the little penguin looking up at him.
The hatchling raised his flippers up towards Skipper and hopped, “Pah, pah, pah.” He vocalized in a light whisper.
Skipper, however, was too focused on wrangling the rest of his team to notice Private’s bids for attention. “Splendid!” He turned to Marlene. “Boom! That’s one out of three already!”
That’s when Skipper caught sight of Rico climbing the ladder towards the open hatch. Marlene was standing right next to it, so Skipper wasn’t overly concerned. Plus, Rico would be doing daredevil stunts in his regular, adult form too. By the time Skipper was about to speak, Rico made it off the ladder and onto the second-to-top bunk. The unruly hatchling wobbled towards the edge of the bunk and jumped with carefree flippers in the air.
“On your left,” Skipper said casually.
Marlene spun around just in time. As it turns out, Rico was already belly flopping off the bunk as if jumping into a swimming pool. The frazzled otter had to dive in order to catch him. “Aghh!” She let out a distressed cry.
“Wee!!” Little Rico had seemingly no awareness of the danger he put himself in.
Marlene forced her body into action, diving to the left. Her paws captured Rico as he fell. When the two reached the floor at the same time, Marlene let out a sigh of relief. She was accustomed to the Penguins’ normal antics… well, mostly. They always seemed to keep her guessing. However, this time was different. The hatchlings were so small; they could get injured significantly if improperly supervised.
“Nice catch,” Skipper tipped his coffee mug in admiration.
In the meantime, Marlene was struggling to her feet with Rico wriggling around in her arms. She was determined to keep him contained now, especially after seeing what he would do otherwise. Skipper didn’t appear too concerned, so she felt as though a lot of the pressure was instantly falling upon her.
“Well, we better go looking for Kowalski.” Skipper was already turning towards the open lab door. His gut was telling him to look in that direction. If he knew Kowalski at all, that penguin would be up to something dangerous in his lab.
Unbeknownst to Skipper, Private let out a worried cry. As Skipper began waddling away, the little hatchling chased after him. His little legs simply could not carry him fast enough to keep up with the large, adult penguin. Though he chased after Skipper, with flippers outstretched, there was no chance that he would reach him until Skipper fully stopped.
“Kowalski?” Skipper called out, scanning the lab.
By the time Marlene staggered her way to the doorway, with Rico fighting her the whole way, Skipper had found Kowalski. The tall hatchling had climbed up onto a lab counter. His beak curled up into a curious smile and his eyes were aglow with the reflection of bright, colorful chemicals. He reached a little, stubby flipper out towards a row of beakers, bubbling with who-knows-what sort of solutions.
“Ah, there you are, soldier.” Skipper scooped Kowalski up and tucked him under his flipper. In response to being removed from his lab, the hatchling under Skipper’s flipper began kicking his legs and crying futilely.
Poor little Private finally caught up to Skipper. He wrapped his little flippers around Skipper’s leg and stepped on the larger penguin’s foot. Private held on tightly as Skipper walked back into the main lair of the HQ. Concurrently, Marlene watched, completely stunned by Skipper’s casualness in all of this chaos.
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A little later, Skipper and Marlene were hard at work in the lab. They first had to inspect the fresherizer before they were ready to fix it. By the looks of it, the invention had completely shattered when it hit the ground. Luckily, Kowalski had a pretty nice setup for them to take over. They worked under an overhead lamp with the sound of bubbling chemicals and humming from miscellaneous machinery. In all honesty, the lab was filled with incomplete inventions to which Kowalski had intended to return.
“All right, time to figure out how Kowalski put this fresherizer together in the first place.” Skipper said optimistically.
“Wait, so you don’t know how he put it together?” Marlene was under the impression that Skipper knew everything that was going on in the unit. She was surprised that he didn’t have access to the blueprints for Kowalski’s experiments. But the longer she thought about that, it was possible that Kowalski improvised his inventions or kept track of things all in his brain.
“Not a clue, but it shouldn’t be too difficult, right?” Skipper shrugged, revealing a crack in his shield of denial. “It can’t be. We’ve got to get my men back to normal. ASAP!”
Skipper tucked his head down into the work, attempting to avoid further conversation but Marlene still had a lot of questions. “Right… right,” she nodded, suddenly realizing that she had just signed herself up for quite the lengthy task. “And what happens if we don’t figure this out ASAP…? Just spit-balling. What would that look like?”
“Oh, uh,” Skipper paused. “Anarchy.”
“Anarchy?” Marlene repeated, feeling her confidence fade by the minute.
“Oh yeah,” Skipper huffed as if it was obvious. He pointed to himself. “You see, I’m a skipper, not a papa bird. Sure, being the commanding officer of my team is no sweat. But looking after three little hatchlings? That’s an absolute nightmare.”
Marlene felt as though Skipper was really underestimating his abilities. Sure, he was there commanding officer or whatever he called himself, but realistically, he did have a lot in common with a papa penguin. At the end of the day, he took on a lot of responsibilities that a father penguin would, especially when it came to looking after and teaching the team. She was hesitant to point this out, not sure how Skipper would react. “I mean, aren’t you already kinda like… a little fatherly? I mean, at least a little?”
Skipper was taken aback by this suggestion and somewhat offended. He led his men in important training regiments and covert operations. In his mind, that had nothing to do with being paternal. He squinted his eyes. “How so?”
“Well…” Marlene was sensing some defensiveness coming from Skipper, so she figured she had better find some examples before Skipper dismissed the idea completely. This wasn’t hard to do.
“There is the behavior chart.” She continued, pointing to the big red, yellow, and green chart posted to the wall. There were even three little penguin magnets to match Kowalski, Rico, and Private.
“What?” Skipper dismissed her, before turning back to the fresherizer. “My team needs structure. Just like any unit. Believe you me, if you were keeping Rico in line, you would need a behavior chart too.”
“Your chore calendar?” Marlene gestured to the little calendar sitting on the desk across the room. It had little drawings of each of them drawn distributed respectively across several days.
Skipper didn’t even dignify this example by looking up. “Like I said, structure. Normal team procedures.”
Marlene crossed her arms and smirked. Surely Skipper would have to admit he had a soft spot for Private. He really took the little guy under his wing and Private knew how to wrap Skipper around his flipper. “Indulging Private in his daily hugs?”
“What? It’s good for the boy’s morale. You have to find what motivates each soldier.” Skipper did care about his boys and didn’t want any of them to feel slighted or neglected. Private required extra attention and was a lot more touchy-feely than the rest of them.
“Okay,” Marlene laughed. She could tell she was getting under Skipper’s skin. She felt like she was so close to breaking him into realizing his capabilities. There were several more examples she could think of that a strict, military leader wouldn’t treat his team to. “But the movie nights, the game nights, the fun outings, fishing trips – ”
Skipper was getting annoyed, he put a flipper up to Marlene’s lips to stop her. “Ah, bup, bup! All to boost morale.”
“Fair point,” Marlene conceded. Skipper’s refusal to budge on this was going to make what she had to say next all the harder to hear. She felt like someone had to be the level-headed one here. Given the current shape of this fresherizer and without Kowalski’s brains, they were in rough shape. “What I’m trying to say is: we just might have to be prepared for these repairs to take longer than expected.”
Skipper snapped back up, folding his flippers across his chest. “Negatory. We’re more than capable of fixing this thing.” He picked up a random piece of fresherizer and let it fall from his flipper. Unfortunately, a slight shatter sound followed. He winced.
He continued, looking back down at the fresherizer. Ultimately, he could take solace in the knowledge that he wasn’t responsible for this mess. “Besides, we wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t busted through the hatch like that.”
This offended and irritated Marlene. “Wha- me? What about all the times you guys have busted into my habitat unannounced? Besides, how was I supposed to know that Kowalski was testing out some freaky experiment?”
Skipper looked at her, allowing the silence to acknowledge the obvious. Kowalski was always working on freaky experiments.
Marlene sighed and conceded once more. That penguin could really be stubborn and arrogant. Working with him was already grating on her nerves for the day. However, they weren’t going to get anywhere by arguing. “Okay, fine. It might partially be my fault.”
All of a sudden, a cacophony of cries and wailing erupted from the main room of the HQ. It seemed like the hatchlings were losing patience. The penguin and otter had no choice other than to put their conversation on hold and investigate.
Skipper cocked his head back dramatically and sighed. “Let’s roll.” He extended his flipper towards the open lab door, offering Marlene to head out first.
Marlene reached the main room first, finding Skipper’s solution to keep the hatchlings entertained and in one place. Though she was not surprised, she knew this plan wouldn’t work. It appeared he had rounded up the hatchlings with a lasso-like rope around them. The three were squirming, getting in each other’s way, and crying by the time Marlene and Skipper reached them.
She facepalmed. “Okay, this is not sustainable.”
Skipper stood beside her, with a flipper to his chin as he was deep in thought. “You’re right. That lasso is never going to hold them for long enough. Especially Rico.”
Marlene looked over at Skipper with shock that he completely missed the point. Her problem with his methods was not that it wouldn’t hold the hatchlings per say, but rather that’s not the way hatchlings should be handled. However, she could tell her concern went completely unnoticed. Skipper was clearly overthinking this whole hatchling situation. She just had to get him in the right mindset. And what better way to do that than to give him bonding time with the hatchlings?
“Why don’t you” Marlene approached Skipper with gentle enthusiasm, placing both paws on his shoulder, “look after them for a little bit while I work on the fresherizer?”
“Hatchling duty in shifts?” Skipper paused to consider her strategy. Marlene had a good point. Someone clearly needed to supervise his little soldiers.
“Yeah, hatchling duty!” Marlene repeated in an upbeat tone. That was one way to phrase co-parenting.
“I like it!” Skipper straightened up, regaining his confidence. It felt good to have a plan. Then he paused. “But shouldn’t you be the one taking the first shift? After all, you are the - …”
Skipper caught himself before he finished his sentence. He knew better than to suggest Marlene take care of the hatchlings because she was a girl. Hm, perhaps he had some biases to reexamine. Still, he was content with himself for not finishing that sentence.
Marlene placed a hand on her hip, waiting for Skipper to finish his thought. She knew what he was insinuating and her face drooped into a disgruntled glare. Taking separate shifts would be a good idea for now.
“Uh…” Skipper paused and recovered with a salute. “Right, never mind. I’ll take first shift.”
“Uh huh,” Marlene said skeptically before heading into the lab.
[TO BE CONTINUED]