POM; Parent Hunt, Chapter eight

Chapter eight of POM; Parent Hunt.

Plot
Nigel suddenly got nervous, he did know about Private's parents, but Private never asked, and frankly Nigel wasn't ready to tell him, "uh I'm sorry Private but I'm afraid your gonna have to wait a little longer, why do you want to know?" Nigel stuttered, "he's been dreaming about them recently" Marlene explains, "oh, well sorry but I'm not yet ready to tell you" Nigel laments, though Private nods in understanding and turned away saying, "I uh, I need to be alone for a little while", and he left, the rest of the Animal Militia just watched in sadness, "poor kid" Blik said to himself, they all felt helpless for him, Short Fuse, Obi-wan and Sheen particularly, they new what it felt like to be orphans, Skipper gave a sad sigh as he, Kowalski and Rico began remembering more of their past.

Flashback

Private's down was beginning to transition from grey to black-&-white while his three caretakers were still teens, while the four were enjoying their time exploring the zoo, a new penguin that none of them knew had arrived, wearing what looked like military clothing, "hello, I'm Byron Kent" the penguin introduced, the foursome attempted to introduce themselves too but Byron stopped them saying he already knew them and had been watching them, "why were you spying on us then" Skipper asked, "I'm here with an offer for you, how would you like to become military and agent animals?" Byron proposed, the four were stunned but didn't object, instead accepted, "good, so where are your parents, they need to know too, or are you orphaned?" Byron asked, "I don't have any parents at all" Private stated sadly while Skipper, Kowalski and Rico stated their parents were still in Antarctica but got separated from them in attempting to rescue Private and weren't sure about their current whereabouts, Byron nodded in understanding, stating that he'll go look, plus stating the school for animal agents was also in Antarctica meaning they'd both be close, "so what about my offer?" Byron reminds, they all huddled and after a moment said "we're in".

So Byron took them aboard his ship and they arrived at the Penguin Academy, which the four marveled at, Byron then took them to meet the principal who happens to be Byron's mother Sarah Kent, Skipper, Kowalski and Rico were accepted in but Private was denied to join because he wasn't yet old enough, so Sarah had called in Nigel, one of Private's long lost relatives, to care for Private for the time being, though Private would have to live in Britain too and was against leaving Skipper, Kowalski and Rico, but they encouraged it, "it's just for a few years, you can come visit us and we'll visit you when we can" Skipper offered, "okay, I'll miss you" Private said tearfully, Skipper picked him up and rocked him one more time "shh don't cry" he whispered, "we'll miss you too, but we love you" Kowalski said back and afterwards Private went to Nigel and both boarded a helicopter and flew away, Skipper, Kowalski and Rico watched until it was out of sight.

Private had ended up going to Nigel's so he could train him personally, but sadly that never happened, as Nigel was a young and busy agent working for animal MI6 and moving up the ranks splendidly, though he didn't want his nephew to be in any danger, the further away the less likely it was to be compromised in Nigel's mind.

On one particular mission Nigel was called in front of The Commander himself for his first undercover mission! he was even issued special keys to get into his office, he would be infiltrating a raising underground agency, that was their plan at some point anyway, their more pressing interest at the moment though was recruitment or obtaining those who could make good soldiers in the future, "are you telling me that they may be kidnapping young ones to train themselves?!" asked Nigel very unsettled by this. "sir!" he then quickly added as he had spoken out of turn.

The Commander understood how Nigel was feeling, as he was feeling the same way himself, he like most of the agency knew about his young nephew living with him as he often spoke of the young ones super cute antics and had himself joked that the little one was going to be the penguin destined to weaponize cuteness! or at the very least have cute be his secret weapon, no one wanted anything to happen to the little one, over the course of this highly classified and time consuming missions Nigel had to keep a bit more distance from his cottage then he liked because he was more scared for his nephew then he was for himself should he be found out as he had successfully became a trusted 'member', the deeper in he got the riskier it got, as one would expect, there was always someone there with him though and Nigel talked to him as much as he could, usually from HQ, he just loved his helium sounding young accented voice, Nigel thought it would get easier when his assignment from the cult was to become spies on animal MI6, Nigel thought it was funny and made the joke of: "wow, spying on myself! that's going to be the hardest thing I'm ever going to have to do! I do hope that I don't find that I have any unsavory habits", in the coming days things started happening very fast, the cult was pressuring Nigel for information, it was a 'get as much as you can as fast as you can or face punishment' kind of deal, it was getting harder for Nigel to be able to contact his nephew, 'good thing I made arrangements to go and see him soon' Nigel had thought, and how right he was, for on the day of the visit Nigel had to save his nephew from a raid that occurred on the cottage before he got there, somehow his enemy had found out about Nigel's nephew and tried to take him, savagely injuring the agents watching over him, but even for a cute fluffy ball of feathers, the would be kidnappers saw that their little target had a lot of fighting potential in him as he injured the leader of the group's leg enough that he wouldn't be fighting for the next three days, one of his troops took that as a personal insult and choked the little guy into submission after slamming him to the floor, that's when Nigel arrived, using his own skill he beat the intruders tail feathers all over the place, pure rage of what he saw happening to his nephew helping him to do it, he then took up one of his fellow agents communicators and called in what happened, telling the medical team where to meet him as he had incoming wounded, they met up rather quickly as Nigel had a nitro charged ATV hidden nearby just in case something like this ever happened, though he had always kept it in working order he hoped that he would never have to use it, all the injured were taken to animal MI6 medical center and were treated, Nigel's nephew being the closest call out of all of them, but he would recover, "how did you meet up with the pick up so fast?" the doctor penguin asked when Nigel was allowed into the little penguins room, he was then told about the ATV, "a nitro charged ATV? Nigel how do you bloody do things like that?!" the doctor added, "I'm just that good!" Nigel grinned at him, then adding "so?"

"Oh he's going to be just fine, so don't worry" said the doctor, "oh good!" Nigel sagged with relief, "how though?" he added, "in part because of your nitro powered transport and in part because he inherited your families never say die spirit and hidden fighting skills, he's got that oddly big for his age, going to have to grow into muscles in his the legs and wings your family gets at this age to prove it, but you already knew that" the doctor answered, "no I didn't and not everyone gets-" Nigel began, "wait, don't you remember? a bit before your undercover mission got under way you brought the little guy in for a check up, you got called away for a moment, but someone else had come in, I told him what I found and as he picked the little guy up to go he said that he'd tell you as soon as he could" said the doctor looking a bit worried for Nigel, "those fiends" said Nigel in growling voice "oh, he told someone alright, but it wasn't me" he added, he then went to leave the room as he didn't want the young one to see him seething should he wake up, but the doctor stopped him, "you know that your going to have to relocate him now that they are after him" said the doctor, this statement snapped him out of his anger for the moment, he replied in a very subdued voice: "yeah I know, sooner then I was hoping, he's only seen my cover and I didn't get to train him, I bet he suspects though he's a sharp little one", it was then said little one woke up and Nigel sat with him for a while, once the little penguin was cleared to leave the medical center Nigel took him to the London Zoo, painfully noticing how very close he was to looking like his three previous caretakers, the arrangements had been made that morning, it mostly consisted of computer hacking by the HQ techies, "what is this place?" his nephew asked, "its called The London Zoo. A lot of animals live here, including penguins, your going to have to stay here for a while" said Nigel, "are you going to stay too?" Private asked, "sorry dear boy, but I'm afraid that I'm going to be busy for a while, but I'll visit as soon as I can, also you're going to be reunited with your 'brothers' soon so you won't miss me too much ok?" Nigel answered grinning down at him, "ok" the little guy was excited that he was going to get to see Skipper and the others again, with a parting hug Nigel quickly left as to not be seen there by the wrong people and to take care of his problem, he later found out that the cult had moved to Denmark although Nigel got a promotion.

Skipper, now a full fledged soldier, later took down the remaining portion of the cult in Denmark on a super secret solo mission, though he got framed by Hans the puffin which resulted in him becoming Public Enemy Number One there, ironically Hans was exiled from Denmark too, though Nigel never knew as he wasn't allowed to ever go after the cult after they escaped Europe, Private was later transferred to the San Antonio SeaWorld in Texas where he was now fully mature and got to do mini-golf, as well as earning the nickname "Mr. Tux" and the Amarillo kid as his rival, though when Private began to look like a jerk after spilling an opossum's ice cream for winning he quit that role, and was later reunited with his brothers after they had heard of Private's whereabouts, plus got to meet their two new teammates Manfredi and Johnson who took a liking to Private too and also got to see Rico's new regurgitation power (which the other four described that on one of their missions they were infiltrating an animal testing lab to free an animal-agent that got taken there but Rico got captured in the attempt and experimented on although despite being traumatized Rico was able to use his new experimentation to the team's advantage and their mission was a success), he was still small compared to them and could easily be cradled in their arms (which Skipper did the most), returning to the Penguin Academy later Private was offered to be trained by Skipper's team personally so he wouldn't feel alone at the school, they all acted like dads to him and did everything together until Manfredi and Johnson disappeared on one of their missions and were thought to have died, which was also the first time he met dr. Blowhole, Private was heartbroken but managed to pull through, they later returned to New York where the events with the four African guys Alex Marty Gloria and Melman to attempting to return to Antarctica once again to Madagascar meeting Julien Maurice and Mort to flying to Africa to flying to Europe to hiding in circus Zaragoza in an attempt to getaway from Captain Chantel DuBois to returning to New York again and defeating Dubois once and for all to choosing to remain with the circus until Private's tenth birthday in which they left to Fort Knox to wound up getting kidnapped by Dave the octopus and transported to Venice Italy to escaping and being rescued by the North Wind then get sent back to Madagascar only to escape in the Gobi desert then arrived to Shanghai where Private got kidnapped by Dave as a mermaid to his brothers and North Wind getting caught trying to save him to Private escaping by faking his own death to when all penguins around the world including Skipper Kowalski and Rico getting turned into monsters to when Private managed to cure them by switching his cuteness for Dave's medusa serum to parting ways with the North Wind to return to the circus and later decided to leave the circus again and be back at Central Park zoo again with the lemurs and chimps deciding to go there too and when Marlene arrived for the first time and so forth.

Flashback ends

Skipper sighed again as he and everyone decided to get to work on stopping the Lourinhã Empire and it's deadly modernitis.

Stay tuned for POM; Parent Hunt, Chapter nine