Protector

Prologue

"Speech"

"Thoughts"

January 15th. Third Person.

Today was just a regular sunny day. Currently, the zoo was still open, so the animals couldn't relax quite yet. The penguins were on their island at the moment, doing their usual smile and wave routine. Private obviously being the cutest.

"Smile and wave boys. Smile and wave," Skipper said. The head penguin glanced at the clock above the entrance/exit of the zoo. It read 1655 hours. Perfect. "Almost there boys, just a couple more minutes..." A few minutes later, the bells were making noise, signalling the end of the day for the zoo visitors. The penguins waited for all the people to leave before they all relaxed, glad for the day to be over. "Alright boys, seems like we have nothing on this afternoon," Skipper started. "You're free to go. Be back for dinner though," Skipper informed the others before jumping down into their bunker. Private followed. Kowalski was about to follow the two, before he noticed that Rico didn't seem like he was gonna follow in.

"Rico? Are you coming to join us?" Kowalski asked. Rico thought about it for a bit. It had been a couple of days since they had free time like this. Rico then shook his head no. Kowalski raised a non-existent eyebrow at the manic penguin. "What will you do then?" Kowalski asked, genuinely curious. Rico gestured to the zoo around them. Kowalski understood. "Alright then Rico," Kowalski nodded. "Don't be blowing anything up!" The second-in-command joked. He then headed down into the bunker, presumably going to work on something in his lab. Rico chuckled slightly about the joke Kowalski made before he headed out of their enclosure. 

Carefully, Rico moved about through the zoo. He just wanted to take a relaxing stroll through the zoo, but obviously he had to be careful as he didn't want Alice to catch him outside of his enclosure. As he moved around the zoo, just looking around at what the other animals were doing, he thought about what he could spend his time doing. It was 1710 hours right now. He had until 2000 hours where he had to go back to HQ. Then he had a unusual, somewhat dangerous but good idea (Well in Rico's head it was a good idea). Rico snuck over to one of the manholes that led down into the sewer systems under the city. He looked around, made sure no one saw him, then entered the sewers.

Now in the sewers, Rico wonders why he even decided this was a good idea (and really, why was it an idea anyways?). Steeling himself and hoping to just pass time, Rico begins to wander about the sewers. He hopes he doesn't run into the sewer rats and over time, he gets used enough to the stench of the sewers. Rico makes a mental note to take a quick swim somewhere nice to try and wash out the stench. Rico obviously loses track of time; time can fly when you wander about aimlessly in a sewer. Suddenly, something caught Rico's eye. 

An old, battered leather messenger bag. Rico bent down and picked it up with his flippers. He checked the contents. Books. Quite a few of them. Internally the penguin groaned. They barely knew how to read! Granted, maybe a little, but that was about it. Sighing to himself, he regurgitates a flashlight and decides to scan the contents of one of the books. His interest is peaked however, when he makes out text, but that isn't what catches his attention. There are many diagrams showing parts of the text visually. This book seemed to be about fighting techniques and stealth techniques.

Rico quickly put that book aside and scanned the others, hoping the others was like the first. To Rico's delight, the books all had diagrams depicting what the words were trying to convey, visually. As well as the first book he looked at, there were several others, one book was about weapons and weapons techniques, another was about relaxation and stretching while the final one was interesting to Rico. He decided to take all the books. Each book was in a sealed bag, presumably to protect them from the elements. As he placed each book back in the bag, intending to take the bag with the books with him, he realised the others would question what he had.

Rico didn't know why, but he wanted to train in secret using these books. Mostly he guessed, it was to impress his teammates and give himself an advantage over enemies using the element of surprise. Rico quickly thought of a different plan. Being a living storage unit had it's perks. Rico decided to just swallow the bag of books and then regurgitate it later, when everyone was asleep to see if he could understand what the book was teaching him. Rico swallowed the bag with the books inside and then headed back up a manhole to the surface.

When he got back up, he realised he was just outside the zoo. It was getting quite dark. Rico saw the time on the clock on the entrance of the zoo. 1930 hours. Nice timing. But the time that had passed felt so quick to Rico. Rico quickly took a swim in a nearby pond to wash off the stench of the sewer. Then he snuck back into the zoo, towards their habitat. Just on time too. He removed the bowl covering the hole and jumped into the bunker.

As he came in, he realised they were all preparing for dinner now. Private had just turned off the TV to prepare the food quickly while Skipper was getting the table ready. Kowalski was probably in his lab, cleaning up things before he came to eat. Skipper noticed Rico's presence first. He finished what he was doing before he addressed Rico.

"Ah Rico, there you are soldier. Where did you come from?" Skipper asked curiously. Rico didn't know how to answer this question but luckily, Kowalski had just finished cleaning the lab up and heard Skipper's question to Rico. "Don't worry Skipper, Rico here told me earlier that he was just going to spend his time wandering the zoo," Kowalski told Skipper. Skipper acknowledged Kowalski's statement before looking back to Rico. The weapons expert nodded a yes to what Kowalski just said. Skipper smiled. Then he addressed all of them. "Alright boys, let's eat, then after we eat, we sleep," Skipper said. "I don't want any of you tired tomorrow morning! So you all better be getting some rest." Skipper ordered. The penguins then tucked into their food.