1 Series verse! No suggestive content, no slash, yes violence.
2 Spoilers for Madagascar movies, not PoM movies. Set after Dr. Blowhole's Revenge & The Red Squirrel. And before Huffin and Puffin. (That means no zoo animal sans lemurs and penguins have met Blowhole yet and none sans Skipper knows/met Hans)
3 Not at all related to LAST BREATH. This is a one-shot of its own. I got this idea long ago, finished this one shot 2 weeks ago. It's supposed to be more Marlene centered, but I don't think I achieved that goal.
4 Disclaimer: I do not own Penguins Of Madagascar. Non profitable writing.

Pep Talk

Marlene dubbed the penguins' missions & training as immature games.
She, like the other zoo animals, never took the threat of animal villains seriously.
Perhaps perhaps this one event could change her mind.

"Marlene could I talk to you for a while?" Skipper called out as he reached the otter's habitat.

Marlene groaned in annoyance. She had just been woken up by the lemurs' rackus and found out it was only 6am on that warm Friday morning. She wanted to cool down before she got angry at the lemurs so she went for an earlier morning swim. She had barely started when Skipper interrupted.

"What can I help you with Skipper?" She called out, feigning cheerfulness while she jumped out of the water.

"It's something important and I do not want anyone listening in on us." He replied in his usual mysterious tone.

Marlene sighed, it was probably about one of their imaginary commando business again.

"Let's go into my cave then." Marlene walked with him inside.

"What do you want to tell me now?"

"Listen carefully. My boys and I are going out for a very top secret mission, so top secret even you can't know where we are going." He started in a slightly cocky tone.

"Mmhmmm..." Marlene nodded for him to continue, but inside she was thinking 'yeah I got that, you say that every time'.

"We do not know how long we will take, we are going somewhere very far from here. So in case we do not come back-"

"Whoa whoa whoa are you leaving the zoo? You're going on another of your crazy world-touring escapades again?"

"Again?"

"Like when you went to Madagascar and Europe and gambled with the humans."

Skipper crossed his flippers. "And how do you know about that?"

"I...um... Julien."

"Of course he'd tell you." Skipper grumbled. He hoped Julien didn't tell her everything about their younger (and stupider) days when they fooled around doing ridiculous things.

"Marlene I am serious here, this is important. We are not going on a fantasy trip this time." Skipper assumed his paranoid commando tone again.

"So, you call this a mission?" Marlene asked.

"Yes, a very dangerous one. Many lives are at stake Marlene, and we have to attend to this call immediately." Skipper paused. He had a far away look in his eyes.

"And… this is important to me because?"

Skipper sighed. No wonder Manfredi and Johnson always taught him not to trust mammals. They never understood anything completely. But this zoo had a mammal-majority, and Marlene seemed to be the most sensible one for this job.

"We may not come back, if we are too sick to do so, or worse." Skipper looked at her with an unwavering gaze, one that spoke volumes.

'Surely he does not mean death…' Marlene thought to herself, "Please, you are Skipper, what can weaken you so much that you can't come back to the zoo?" She laughed.

'Such innocence… she thinks our missions are restricted to Manhattan. She has no idea…' Skipper thought but didn't say it aloud.

"Okay let me put it to you this way, we will be gone for a mission lasting more that a few hours this time, and the zoo might get messy in our absence."

Marlene nodded, unsure of where that was leading to.

"While we are gone, you need to make sure that the rest of our zoo mates do not get into trouble. Make sure you stop them from doing something reckless," Skipper turned around toward the cave entrance and pointed, "especially your royal highness over there."

"How about Alice? Won't she suspect something is up when you four go on your mysterious adventures?"

"We took care of that issue." Skipper began walking out, Marlene following him in silence.

"Oh, when are you leaving?"

"If all goes well, we'll be gone in the morning." Skipper turned to face her and shot her an apologetic look. "All the best with your new mission cadet. Take care of the zoo when we're gone." Skipper saluted, half serious half smiling.

Marlene just nodded wordlessly, confused by whatever he just said and watched him flip over the fence gracefully and disappear off to his own habitat.

"Huh… weird…"

The penguins had finished their day's work of entertaining the zoo guests. All of them were nervous throughout the whole day, regarding their upcoming tippy-top secret mission.

The zoo clock finally ticked 6.00 pm and Alice the grumpy zookeeper wasted no time in shooing the visitors out of the zoo.

The penguins had already disappeared into their underground base, beneath their fake ice floe habitat.

Wiping a stray tear, Kowalski took down the last photograph hanging in his now barren lab. He took a moment to look at it, it was of his crazy zoomates during Kidsmas celebration 6 months ago.

Kowalski neatly put it into one of the boxes lying near his lab's door, labelled 'Me moires' with appropriate drawings.

Beside that box, other boxes of different sizes labelled 'Inventions', 'Flammable chemicals', 'non-reactive chemicals' and 'paper works' had already been neatly packed with items that were present in the lab.

Once he made sure his lab was empty, the lieutenant taped all his boxes up and brought it to the underground base's main room.

Almost a fortnight ago.

"Kowalski we have to pack everything up before we leave for this mission."

"Why Skipper? I thought we were only leaving for a mission."

"This mission involves many humans and animals. Psychotic. We don't know how long it takes and we certainly do not want anyone snooping around our base while we leave it unintended."

"So we are technically 'leaving' our home?"

Skipper wordlessly nodded.

I looked around my laboratory, my personal haven, one-of-a-kind shelter for me.

"I know this is hard for you Kowalski, it's hard for all of us. But you have to be brave, just for the rest of our team please."

My eyes became glassy. I nodded. "Yes Skipper." I saluted and got down to work.

Kowalski's eyes watered once more, thinking of their very dangerous upcoming mission. He heard about that place before, it was dangerous they could get hurt easily - if they were nervous and inconfident.

As soon as he heard footsteps he quickly wiped his eyes, not wanting his teammates to see him in that emotional state.

Private put away the his lunacorn toy into another box belonging to him.. This place held many memories for him. He did not want to leave this habitat but he had to, temporarily, He spent almost his entire life here.

"Hmph I wish I never volunteered for this spy agency. Then we won't be going through this right now."

"But you would have never met us, your team." Skipper pointed out as he made his way down the ladder along with Rico.

"And would have never met interesting people like Doris... and Hunter," Kowalski continued, blush almost forming on his cheeks, "and never would have gone to Europe and Madagascar..."

The four gathered and sat down the steps near the bunks, each listening to what the others said.

"We are sworn to protect the civvies. We can't just give up now. Private look at you, you have come a long way in this battle." Skipper started in his commanding tone.

"I have?"

"We have worked hard, trained hard, prepared for this gradually over the years." He replied.

The Others nodded.

"The other animals need us. We don't need to help around here, clearly these zoo animals can manage themselves. We have to rescue the animals from their attackers, regardless of whether they are human or other vicious animals. We have to fulfill our duty, no matter what it takes."

Skipper continued in a softer, more empathizing tone, "I know it must be difficult leaving our home, surrendering our belongings to someone else for safekeeping, leaving our safe environment for one unsafe and risky - I have been there a couple of times too. We still have each other to rely on, don't you ever forget that okay boys? Whatever selfless deeds we do, all will be repaid in some way, no doubt about that. Comprende?"

"Yes Skipper," they said in a more confident tone.

"i want you to clear your heads, maybe take a short walk within the zoo, with a teammate at all times, or maybe just relax in your bunks. I want you to be wrll-prepared and no distractions for your long mission.. We leave at midnight sharp so get here by 2320 hours Understand?"

"Yes sir." They saluted and went off to do whatever they wanted.

That was the last time any animal saw the penguins in the zoo. Alice had not suspected their absence to be something fishy as the penguins had already faked paperwork to protect their cover.

Marlene was told they will be gone for a long time, though she didn't expect it to be this long.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and she had no news till the seventh month.

It wasn't as if she needed the four penguins, maybe it was just a little too quiet for her liking. However without them around, Julien threw more dance m0re parties in the morning so that more animals could (be forced to) join the lemurs. She told herself that she will adjust to their absence soon.

Marlene was walking around the zoo after the zoo closed one night when she heard some sounds, not of the boom box, coming from the lemur habitat.

On Julien's chair thing, there was a large watch-like thing. To Marlene, it was almost as big as the human's wristwatches. It was laid horizontally on the chair.

The lemurs were staring at the part of the "watch" where the clock should be. Marlene entered the habitat and took a closer look, noticing that it was actually a black screen.

"Maybe it is a digital watch." Marlene voiced aloud.

"Then why does it not have a clock?" Julien asked.

"Ooh I wonder what this shiny green button do…" Mort wondered in awe as he inched forward and pressed one of the three different coloured buttons on the side of the watch.

As his finger reached out to hit the button, the others looked at him cautiously to see if anything bad will happen to him.

The mouse lemur hit it and the screen came alive, with a stern old penguin appearing on it.

"Ahh! Maurice! There is a penguin trapped in this thingy!" Julien shrieked as they all jumped back.

"King Julien, that is a screen, not a cage… it's like the penguins' TV!" Maurice interjected before the self-proclaimed lemur king

"Ohh…" Julien pondered over this new revelation as Marlene stepped forward to take a closer look.

"Who is this guy?" She asked herself, obviously none of them knew yet. She saw that the yellow button had a right arrow sign on it.

As soon as she clicked on it, the video started playing on the 'screen'.

"Is this thing on?" The old penguin looked toward to the camera and cleared his throat, taking on a very serious expression the four zoo animals found too familiar.

"More commando penguins?!" Maurice exclaimed in disbelief.

"Shhh… your king wants to hear what his subject has to say to him!" Julien watched the screen excitedly as the penguin started talking.

"Yaayyy new subject!" the young lemur cheered for no reason.

"Mort. Shuddup." The king replied with his usual manners.

"This is Special Agent Buck Rockgut. Animals of the Central Park Zoo, we have devastating news about your former zoomates."

"We weren't-" Julien was shushed by Marlene placing a paw on his mouth and clamping it shut.

"What happened to them?" Maurice queried, unaware that the penguin couldn't hear him.

"The penguins formerly living in your zoo will not be returning." Buck looked around paranoid.

Their eyes widened at this message.

"Skipper is dead. Kowalski, Private and Rico are fugitives on the run."

Julien spluttered, "The bossy penguin cannot be dead!"

Marlene gasped, "He has to be lying!"

The special agent continued. in a barely emotional tone "Sorry for your loss."

"This can't be happening…" Marlene whispered. Their eyes turned glassy, including Mort's, after Maurice explained to the penguin's words to him.

"To repeat this pre-recorded message, press the… yellow button. To end, press the red button. Special Agent Buck Rockgut over and out."

"It seemed all fake… there was no real commando missions…" The lemurs turned to their resident otter who couldn't finish what she was trying to say.

"I didn't believe him, even during the last time he talked about this 'dangerous mission'..." Marlene's knees buckled as she collapsed and started sobbing uncontrollably.

Even though the lemurs were not that close to the penguins, they were sniffling too.

After spending so much time with them, it felt like they had known the penguins for more than half their lifetime.

And Julien who had just recently been kidnapped and rescued from the evil clutches of a revenge-bent dolphin, was beginning to understand the extent of the penguins' missions.

None of the lemurs were able to comfort the broken female in their midst.

"They're gone, and they are never coming back…" Marlene cried.

I sincerely hope no one is confused, hope you guys enjoyed! PM or review for feedback or clarification :)

-thewriterstory
17 Dec 2014