Kidnapping Skipper

by

Mastermindhunter

'So you know the plan? I need Skipper for myself. He's the perfect bait. Our target will not pass for anyone else besides him. The target will only respond to Skipper being caught. "

"I understand sir."

"You must. You have to bring him back, not dead, but alive. He will be no use dead. If you fail to bring him back, I will see to it that you are quickly disposed of. Don't bother coming back without him, or you will pay the price."

"Trust me, you can be assured that I will not let you down professor. If you think that he can take me, ask his comrads I took out. If you don't recall the names Manfriedey and Johnson, I will show you some of my earlier work. Trust me, you have not hired a better bounty hunter. Not to mention that I can be the perfect hider. Like a shadow. But what about his comrads? What if they get caught up with the target in this situation? The target will no doubt ask for their help."

"Bah! I wouldn't worry about them. They're only three penguins. The ones I would be concerned about is the target's team. Still, the target is much more of a threat than any of the team members. If I can take the target, then I could definitley take anyone brought into this mess. You leave the interferances to me. Your goal is to capture Skipper, and bring him here."

"Consider it done. I will not disappoint you, sir."

"For your sake, I hope you are right."

The boys were all asleep. Everybody was enjoying a peaceful sleep. All but one, that is. Skipper was thrashing violently in his sleep. It was happening alot lately, especially in the mornings, when his dreams were the strongest. Not only was the occourence increasing, but it was a dream he had many times. He was on the frozen antarctic wasteland. He was cracking out of his egg, as happy as could be. Two girls were there. He saw the warm loving smile of his mother, and the amazed yet still curious gaze of a penguin, that was slightly older than himself. His father was laughing heartedly, with the pride of his new born son. They cleaned his feathers, and his mother fed him his fish, through her mouth.

"He's so handsome, honey. I don't know how we could deserve such beautiful children."

"I know. Aren't they so amazing, my love?"

"Indeed. What should we name him?"

"Oh I know, my love. It was a favorite of mine. We shall call him Skipper. Skipper. Skipper. Skipper? Skipper? Are you ready to get up?"

Skipper woke up when he felt Private's wing on his shoulder. The others were looking at him, as if he was having a fit. He assumed that was exactly what was happening. He shook it off, and brewed himself some coffee. Skipper was woken up at just the right time. Private woke him up before the scary part came."Skipper I'm starting to get concerned about your sleep patterns. These occourences don't seem to be very healthy. If you would just tell me what the dream is, I would try to analyze it in a psychological manner." Kowalski laid a wing on to the side of his shoulder. Skipper looked up from his coffee, and shook his head with a smile.

"Kowalski. Trust me. I'm fine. I'm sure it will blow over soon. Now read to me what we're doing today. I could use a good day of work. Makes me feel a sense of accomplishment for the day." He sipped his coffee, clearing his throat with a low cough. Kowalski flipped through his notepad, and looked at it with a close eye. His concentrated look quickly changed into a look of pure energy and happiness.

"Oh my gosh! Do you know what today is Skipper?" Skipper shook his head in confusion. "Why, today is the twenty first of March. Do you know what that means?!" Skipper looked at him, getting ready for the boys to start getting excited. "It means that the earth has hit the exact orbit position near the sun at just the right position to cause our favorite moment!"

"It's spring!" Private cheered. Skipper smiled as they jumped for joy. Spring was a rather exilerating time of the year. The boys always had so much fun in the springtime. It was the time they waited for each year. The zoo's gardens were full of dazzling flowers. The lillies of the valley, roses, snowdrops, bluebells, even in the reptile house, the steamyness was at just the right tempurature for the birds of paridice to be in perfect bloom. They jumped up to the clocktower to see the trees of central park in full blossom.

"Ah springtime at last. Plants in new bloom, Nests of all species, Bees pollinating the flowers, old ladys feeding the park animals, butterfies going about, robins returning." Just then a quick robin glided past them, and smiled. Private smiled as well.

"Hi Skipper." It chirped in a high pitched voice.

"Hello Robin." He nodded.

"Uhm Skipper I have a question." Private smiled impishly. Skipper stared at him lazily.

"Alright shoot."

"Well Spring is of course when penguins are ready to fall in love, and since there are no female penguins here in our zoo, I was wondering if I could take some time off, and visit the Bronx zoo. I hear they have many hens there. As a matter of fact they don't have any males there at all. Maybe . . . I could . . . you know . . . get a girlfriend?" Skipper slowly turned his head away from the blooming bundle of trees, and raised an eyebrow, as if insulted. Kowalski had taken a deep breath, as if knowing what laid in the Bronx zoo's penguin habitat.

"Absoulutely not." He said flatly. "Check out any other zoos. Just not that one." Private decided to let the question lay at that. "Kowalski I want options on what to do for spring time. Flowers are in bloom, and I want us to on full bloom as well." He crossed his wings, ready for an idea.

"Well, we could start with replanting the flower beds." Skipper sneered.

"Too girlish, continue."

" Spring cleaning?"

"Perfect! I want all non-useful tools out of our HQ. Let's move out."

They had jump off the clock tower, and headed back to the island for cleaning. The boys were all looking through some of their old junk. Rico had found a few weapons he had not come by since his first few years of being in the squad. A switch-blade knife, some old ninja stars, even a medieval axe. Kowalski was getting rid of chemicals that were far past their expiration date. If there was one thing he knew about them, he knew that they could cause an explosion if used past expiration. Private looked through his stash of butter scotch lollies, and found most of them to be close to their expiration date, but not so much as to throw out. He gave everyone a lolly as they cleaned out their HQ. It was piled with alot of of misgaurded knicknacks.

An old stack of photos caught Private's eye. He picked one up, and stared at it. It was a picture of a pair of penguins. A husband and wife by the looks of it. A mother penguin had an egg in her flipper. The male had his flipper across a little girl penguin. They were on the antarctic plane.

"Skipper, Who are these penguins in this picture? Is this yours?" Skipper took it, and stared at it for a while. He slowly smiled at the beautiful family, and tucked it away behind his pillow.

"It's a few old friends of mine. I might tell you about them someday." Private didn't worry about it, and resumed cleaning up. They had finally made a pile of the equipment that they were ready to toss out. Rico hacked out a plastic bag, and stuffed all the junk inside. He tossed it in the trash bin, and the HQ. got a quick sweep, since rumaging was causing alot of dust to escape hard to reach areas.

As soon as the entire HQ was clean, they went out to get some fresh air. Each one of them was relaxed, and at ease. Private was sunbathing. Kowalski had headphones on listening to some old CD's he came cross while cleaning. Skipper had gotten close to taking a nap. Rico was sipping some lemonade, through a straw. It was almost past closing, and they were already done doing their chores for the day. It seemed a little out of the ordinary.

"Anybody up for recon, tonight?" Skipper mumbled out.

"WHAT?" Kowalski shouted, lifting up the left headphone. Skipper repeated the question, and Kowalski made a discomforted face, shrugging a bit. Private didn't feel like it. Ever since the whole Skorka chaos, he thought it safe to be inside. Rico slurped the last of his drink, and shrugged a bit, raising his eyebrows.

Skipper understood. It had become spring, and even though it was nice outside, he thought it best to give the boys a break. "No problems boys. I'll take the night shift." He sighed.

"Why thank you Skipper." Private smiled at him.

"Alright, but you know the drill. If I'm not back by sunrise, I'm gone. You all check for clues, find a trail, you know, the whole encheladah." They all agreed. Skipper took a long deserved nap. He woke up at sunset. The boys were all relaxing, and taking in the sweet smelling spring air. The clock tower read eight o clock. He waddled over, and took his post. The sun was down, now, and he saw a female bird. It was a species that he had seen only a few times. It was an arctic tern. She was flying a little jaggedly. She crashed next to him, and grunted in pain. "Fish and chips darling. Are you all right?"

The arctic tern got up raggedly, and stammered to her feet, Skipper helping her up carefully."Yeah, I'm fine. I'm a little off course, but I'll be okay." She flexed her wing. It looked like it was broken. She held it close to her body. Skipper didn't understand. A little off course? She was in New York! Her type belonged in the arctic and antarctic regions. Then again, they were known for their long journeys of flight. They have flown as long as twelve thousand miles, if he remembered correctly. "I need help. There is a crazy arctic wolf tracking me down! He says that he's looking for a penguin named Skipper. Do you know of a Skipper?"His eyes got furious.

"Yes, he's me! What does he want with me?" She shrugged a little looking like she was in pain.

"I'm not sure, but I smeared his scent off of his fur. After that he bit down hard on my wing. Here, see if you can identify it." She held her seemingly broken wing up to his nose. He smelled it deeply, but it didn't smell like a scent of an animal. It smelled rather sweet, but then he fell limp, and passed out. She snickered, and lifted him up on to her back. "Chloroform. It's the oldest trick in the book. Yeah right. An arctic wolf couldn't do half the kidnappings I could do." She lifted him up to her back. "Now to get this dead weight to the professor." She flew off, showing her lack of a broken wing. She got high up, but turned back around. "Whoops almost forgot. Hope that they take this to the professors target. If not, then this would be a total waste off time." She dropped a rolled up piece of paper, tied with a red ribbon. She flew off with her new prisoner. "And the proffesor thought I wouldn't be able to get him out alive. HA!"