"Operation: Sorona"

I texted my friend, Millie, for a little bit. We’ve both been busy, so it was nice for us to find some time to actually contact each other.

After a few minutes of texting back and forth about everything going on in our lives so far, she sent me a message that said, “So, 10 years since an obsession of yours started, huh? 😉.” At first, I wasn’t certain what she meant, but then I focused on the date on my phone: March 28, 2019.

I thought to myself, “Wow, Penguins of Madagascar premiered as a show 10 years ago?” I still had multiple memories swimming in my head; such as first seeing the show while at my uncle’s for spring break when I was 11, the POM MV Awards I did with a good friend of mine two years in a row, even the fact the fanguins was the first fandom I joined. I mentally returned to reality and responded, “yea. Can’t believe it ended incomplete 😔. Had a good run, though.” Right before I pressed the “send” button on my phone, I received another message from Millie as if she typed it no matter what response I’d sent.

“I heard Tom McGrath released an unfinished episode just for the adult advocates of the Fanguin community.”

“You’re joking,” I responded, partially since too many people joked with me before.

“Not even remotely. I’ll email you the link now,” she retorted.

A few minutes later, I heard a “bing” from my iPad, which indicated that I got a new email. I would’ve checked the email on my phone if not for the knowledge that it acted like a piece of crap when it came to showing longish videos online. I opened my inbox and, sure enough, my latest email came from Millie that consisted of a metacafe link, and a message that said, “I found this on an online news article, yet didn’t click the link because I wanted you to experience it first hand. As I’ve said, it seems McGrath wanted to release something that would satisfy the entertainment need of the adult Fanguin advocates. Let me know what you think— Millie.” I gave the link a slow stroke across with my finger without lifting it from the screen. As aware as I was that I had moved on from being a full time Fanguin, I couldn’t help but ponder over the possibilities of what this unfinished episode might be. Maybe it proved Skilene, maybe it showed what REALLY happened between Skipper and Hans in Denmark, maybe it showed the Penguins’ first encounter with Doctor Blowhole. Either way, curiosity and fascination got the better of me, and I pressed my finger on the link.

I was taken to the site metacafe and was introduced to a video that was uploaded by an account with no name. I passed it off as Tom McGrath trying to remain anonymous, in order to evade the swarms of super fans on the web and let the video play. Like any special episode of Penguins of Madagascar the intro consisted of a bomb rolling around until it exploded behind the title. Strangely, though, bits of debris shot from the explosion and around the title, but i just brushed it off as maybe McGrath experimenting with some connections between the show and reality and continued on with the video. The image switched to a darkened sky over the zoo and gray clouds above and white bold text saying “Operation: Sorona.”

The episode started out with Skipper, Private, and Rico playing some obscure card game, that either involved Rico cheating or Skipper making up the rules to win, if it was anything like previous episodes. It also, involved Kowalski looking through the periscope. Apparently, he seemed to be rather confused and curious, as he was focused on whatever he was looking at. The “camera” then showed a view through the periscope of the sky, with what seemed like a reddened sun.

“Strange,” he said, “a Lunar Eclipse only lasts for a few hours, but this one has been up since eight o'clock last night.”

I just figured at the time that he must’ve previously worked on some experiment that accidentally altered time and space again, since the laws of physics have always been in danger in cartoons, with Penguins of Madagascar being no exception.

Kowalski, then, tried to adjust the periscope so that he would look around the zoo, but seemed to be struggling and his erupted grunts proved it. As he took his face off his end of the periscope, he looked down to see that there was gum preventing him from adjusting the periscope to make him look in any direction apart from the sky. He went to his lab, possibly to get something to get the gum off of the periscope, which made Skipper raise his nonexistent eyebrow up.

“You’ve been looking through that thing all day, soldier. Did you even train, sleep, or eat sushi at all?” he shouted as Rico was busy grossing Private out with some burping.

Kowalski didn’t answer once he exited the lab with a cloth, yet he went back over to the periscope to remove the gum and continuing observing. I couldn’t help but chuckle and role my eyes at the thought that McGrath didn’t forget to add in Kowalski’s “intellect over basic needs” attitude. As he replanted his eyes on his end of the periscope, I noticed a scowl sprouting on his face that became less of confusion and more of concern. The periscope view showed the gates to the Central Park Zoo being locked, which wasn’t really bothersome. However, a glance around the zoo showed that there really wasn’t much activity or sound around the area. I first thought maybe they were sleeping, but took note that the animals would’ve been shown sleeping in their habitats, except for Leonard the koala.

“Guys, is it me or is it too quiet around the zoo?” Kowalski finally asked, which led to Private quickly putting down his cards and moving away from Rico in Kowalski’s direction.

Private looked around through the periscope, and he noticed the same eccentric sight of emptiness Kowalski stared at not too long ago.

“You’re right, Kowalski, I don’t even see Joey playing with his ball,” Private responded.

From the table, Rico looked over at Kowalski and Private, and then looked at the other end of the table, to look at Skipper before making random grunts of gibberish that he was infamously known for apart from the projectile storage vomiting.

“Well, if not Blowhole, Rico, somebody COULD be responsible for the lack of activity and the lingering lunar eclipse,” the egghead retorted.

After looking at the cards in his flippers, Skipper agreed, in what almost sounded like a poorly hidden reluctant tone (the kind that wasn’t as obvious as in “April Fools,” but still didn’t sound like he fully agreed), to investigate the zoo.

The screen transitioned to the Penguins wandering around the zoo as a group. They leapt into the otter habitat, and began to search around until they finally decided to go into the cave. The screen turned to show an otter-sized lump in Marlene’s blanket.

They slowly walked over toward the blanket and covered their beaks to remained quiet. However, Private screamed about halfway over, which caused the other three penguins to turn toward Private angrily, as he covered his beak and looked down in horror. It looked as if either of the Penguins were planning to say something, but the gazes followed the stare of the youngest, before their beaks could be opened wide enough. The screen showed that Private’s feet had been in a puddle of blood. Kowalski bent down and touched the tip of his flipper in it, and tasted it before he said, “It’s definitely blood, but, according to the temperature, seems to have been released by someone who attacked not too long ago.” I widened my eyes in shock, as Skipper rushed to find a damaged guitar with dripping blood stains, and Rico and Private lifted the blanket to find an unresponsive Marlene, with a massive gash on the side of her head and some splinters from the guitar on her face. I knew several things from noticing that: the worst injuries shown on the show apart from that were from when Kowalski dealt with some of his experiments, and the last time blood was supposedly shown, it was merely speculation.

“Did whoever did this attack anyone else?” Private asked, with his voice shaking. He placed his flipper on his stomach, which, I assumed, meant he was trying to keep himself from barfing. He also constantly moved his feet, every time he was leaning back, which probably meant he was trying to keep himself from passing out.

They all rushed out of the cave and leapt out of the otter habitat. At that point, they rushed around to check out the other habitats in the zoo. I couldn’t remember most of the images, since I was struggling and failing to exit out of the website for some reason, possibly as one of those “late response” things technology does, but I did remember images such as Leonard in his tree, but with the branch he’d normally sleep on shown in his mouth and out of his butt, not to mention the fur and branch were stained with blood. He was also shown with his eyes opened wider than his normal terrified expression, as if he saw something beyond his worst nightmares. Rico, being the weirdest of the group, gave the dry blood a quick lick, which resulted disgusted looks from the other three penguins, before they all fled the habitat.

Another part I remembered was when the Penguins went into the gorilla pin, only to find Bada and Bing with their eyes closed, and their extremely widened mouths filled with more bananas than they normally had in their pin. As the screen showed Kowalski observing the damage, it almost looked like their was a tint of purple on the gorillas’ faces.

“Egad! Someone tried to force them to swallow more bananas than they can handle,” he explained.

As disturbed as I was, I expected at least one of the Penguins to retort with a “biting off more than they can chew” related joke, but wasn’t surprised when no one did, as I also found it socially inappropriate in that scenario.

The second to last habitat I remembered seeing the damage of when I was watching the episode was when they ventured into the reptile exhibit and, as they passed multiple corpses that seemed like blurs when looking back, they eventually stopped in front of a glass case, with two chameleons hanging from a fake tree, with the tongue of one of them wrapped around both of their necks, and tied to the branch like a double noose with the other chameleon just hanging its tail out and they remained the color black. Kowalski pulled out his clipboard from behind him, and wrote down some notes before saying in a low voice, “They’re best described by the Latin word 'Morte’, every single one in here.” After paying attention to the hidden suggestion, Skipper nodded, and they all slid to the lemur habitat.

Once they went in the lemur habitat, the screen showed the Penguins slowly walking around to find Maurice lying facedown on the ground, with a smoothie cup shoved in his back (flesh and bone) and Mort with his tiny arms ripped out of the sockets and the hands gripped around his neck tightly and a terrified expression plastered on his face. Private rushed over to Mort, and managed to release Mort’s neck from the tight grip despite it being too late. The screen, then, showed Rico steadily pulling the cup out of Maurice’s back, which revealed a hole that showed a shattered bit of spine and rib cage, and whatever organs that looked like the designers of the show did a REALLY good job studying the anatomy of a lemur. I was slightly surprised about Rico puking a hairdryer at the sight, since he had seen a similar image of gore with no problem, but more surprised that I didn’t lose my own lunch since I’ve been known to have a weak stomach at times.

Skipper looked around the area and there was a shout coming from offscreen.

“Guys!” the voice I recognized to be Kowalski’s shouted, “You might need to look at this!”

Private and Rico leapt to Kowalski’s location, which happened to a deflated version of the Lemur Bouncy. There was a lump under it and, as Kowalski looked back at the two with a worried expression, followed by him slowly lifting the rubber, I found myself thinking, “Oh god! How the hell are they going to show Julien’s mutilation?!” Once the the rubber was finally lifted, the screen showed the Penguins’ jaws drop for a few seconds or so, before it showed the reason they were bewildered: it wasn’t Julien, but rather Skipper with a wooden pole through his behind out of his opened beak (the beak end of the pole looked like it was sticking through the rubber) and blood leaking out of it onto the grass.

I backed up a little and found myself saying, “How?!” while Kowalski touched the body and said, “Impossible!” There was a dark chuckle in Skipper’s voice that came from offscreen that made the three penguins turn around.

“How?” Private asked, in a fearful tone, before the screen turned to the form the three penguins were staring at.

As if to silently answer the question, 'Skipper’ reached both flippers to his own head, and slowly tore himself in half, until he was revealed to be a blood-stained Julien with a lopsided crown, a sinister grin similar to that of multiple villains of the show, and eyes that were so red that it was clear to any Fanguin, that he had some bad Lychee nuts lately.

“Surprised, penguins?” Julien asked, before giving off the hideously psychotic cackle that made it evident that he HAD been eating bad Lychee nuts.

“Julien!” Kowalski finally spoke up, “I knew bad Lychee nut enzymes increase aggression, but I didn’t think homicide would be a side effect!”

“Oh, that is not being the case, Smarty Penguin, the Lychee nuts are only being used to be giving me strength,” Julien began as he was slowly walking toward the three, “You see, the Sky Spirits sent us a sign of red darkness. They are being tired of a world full of beings who are not to be taking them seriously, so I am to be cleansing those people from the sight of the Sky Spirits.”

“What makes you think it’s what they want?” Private asked, as he tried to hide behind Kowalski.

“Because, little Private,” the Ringtail Lemur started up again, “I managed to reach them via a special booty shaking ritual with special music.”

The screen, then, showed what almost looked like a flashback montage. It consisted of the same Lunar Eclipsed sky, and the lemurs doing an unusual dance to some rock metal music, as the Penguins were angrily entered their HQ. The flashback, then, showed three of the Penguins went to their bunks, while Skipper neared a big button on the wall that had a picture on it that looked like a brick wall blocking out the path sound, which seemed to mean “sound proof from the outside.” Just as Skipper’s flipper was, what seemed like, a few millimeters from the button, there was an offscreen terror-filled shout that sounded almost like Maurice. Skipper’s eyes grew wide and he quickly pressed the button, before he climbed out of the HQ to find the two brutally tortured forms of Mort and Maurice by the throne. Just as Skipper was looking around, and even saw some Lychee nuts on the ground, something seemed to pounce on him, causing it and Skipper to land on the Lemur Bouncy, before bouncing off and both of them landing on the nearby grass. Skipper turned around to look at the form, that seemed to have red eyes that took the place of the big golden eyes everyone knew.

“What do you think you’re doing, Ringtail?” Skipper asked with what sounded like fear and anger.

“I am being exterminating the unfollowers of the Sky Spirits, bossy penguin,” Julien answered, with a smirk, as he picked up a large wooden stick.

“You’re not serious, Ringtail! You’re as delusional as you’ve always been!” Skipper retorted, but it almost felt like he was trying to reassure himself of that idea.

“Oh, am I?” Julien asked, before he swept Skipper off his feet with the wooden stick.

As Skipper was about to get up, Julien placed his polished foot hard on the feathered chest. He, then, grabbed a Lychee nut from the ground and brought his face close to the aggressively struggling, prevail-less penguin’s beak, as if he was using his crimson stare to pierce Skipper’s steel soul.

“The King had desires and he always has ways of getting what he is wanting,” Julien half whispered, before he took a bite out of the Lychee nut in his hand. He, then, while keeping his foot clung and pressed onto Skipper’s chest, swung the stick with an end pointed in Skipper’s direction, before redness covered the whole screen and all that was heard was Skipper’s scream of pain (similar to that of “Needle Point”), before an unfamiliar choking sound was heard followed by a slow transition from the red back to the three terror-filled penguins and Julien in the lemur habitat.

“So, you used this form of murder to keep him out of your way?” Kowalski questioned, as if he were talking to a madman.

“It was just being a second reason to rid the world of the insubordinate,” Julien mentioned calmly.

“B-but, this wasn’t like you at all, Julien, I-I think this still isn’t,” Private stuttered, as of slightly crying.

“Oh, this IS being all me, cutie penguin. It is being one thing to be giving the impression that I don’t pay attention, yet it is being another layer to be accomplishing what even Clemson wouldn’t be having the coconuts to consider.”

I decided against chuckling at the idea of another rare dirty joke being placed in a Penguins of Madagascar episode, due to all that was going on. Once I detached myself from that thought, the screen showed Julien running behind a tree and coming back in sight with a coconut shown in his hand as he reaproached the group with an iniquitous look on his face. The Penguins all slid in different directions, as quick as it seemed they could, but Julien was able to run and catch up to Private, unbeknownst to the young, focused penguin, still with coconut in hand.

“Oh, God, PLEASE let it just be a classic fruit toss,” I said to myself. I guess I should’ve just walked out the room at that point, but I was never the kind of person to leave when I’m not done seeing an episode I’d never seen before.

I saw Julien viciously toss the coconut, yet, when the collision between the coconut and Private’s head finally happened, it didn’t make the sound of the classic “bonk” like cartoon coconuts made. I heard what almost sounded like a combination of a “Smack” and a “crack,” which must’ve taken away the poor bird’s focus first, since he spiraled a little on the ground until he came to a stop and didn’t show the final result. Julien walked over the spot where Private stopped, and placed his hand down at the location. He, then, nodded to himself and brought his hand back up to reveal that it was covered in some red liquid.

At a far corner, Kowalski and Rico could be seen with expressions on their faces struck by fear and grief, as they looked in Julien’s direction. Kowalski pulled his clipboard and pencil from behind his back again, and began to scribble. As Rico looked almost annoyed, Kowalski stopped scribbling and turned to face the maverick.

“You’ve still got the guava-berry aerosol, right? If we could just spray it close enough for Julien to smell it, we might just get him to come to his senses before he does more damage,” the fangirl-attracting egghead explained.

I tightened my grip of my iPad, as I hoped that the plan would work. Rico nodded and barfed up the can of guava-berry spray and a chainsaw, and started his way toward Julien, who quickly turned around at the remaining two. As they slowly approached each other, I was almost certain that the hairs on the back of my neck were standing. Once Rico and Julien were face to face, Rico set the can down and powered up his chainsaw. As he raised it over the lemur’s head, he gave a maniacal smile that showed his lack of conscience and decency, and he grunted, “Bye bye” before he attempted to bring it down toward Julien’s head. To my surprise, and apparently Rico’s, Julien grabbed the chainsaw and tossed it to the side undamaged.

“I think I will be saving that for later,” was all the lemur said, before he pounced on the confused Rico. Julien picked up the can of guava-berry spray and flipped it upside down. The demolitions expert under him gave a bunch of panicking and angry fits of gibberish that could, strangely, almost pass up for swears in the right context. Julien held his beak open, and slammed can hard enough that shattering could be heard, as the can hit beyond the back of Rico’s mouth. Rico’s eyes were shown going to the back of his head, before they closed. Julien steadily climbed off of Rico, and lifted his back off the ground to reveal drips of a familiar red substance coming from above the back of the feathered neck, as well as bits of the can sticking out of it. Julien pulled those bits with a bunch of might for the broken can to land on the ground and a hole above the neck to come into full view.

The red-eyed lemur, then, approached the last remaining penguin, who dropped his clipboard and pencil slowly out of his flippers as he backed into a nearby wall. I almost dreaded the possibilities of what Julien might do to Kowalski.

“I don’t understand! Even a small sniff of the guava-berry within Rico’s remains should’ve made you come to your senses!” Kowalski spoke out loud what he was pondering over.

“As I had been telling you before,” he started before he walked over to Rico and reached a hand into his stomach to pull out a bowling ball before he carried it back to Kowalski, who seemed as paralyzed in his spot as a deer, “it is being all me.” Julien pressed his foot on Kowalski’s and started to slam the bowling ball into the part of the wall where Kowalski’s face was. I closed my eyes to evade the sight of the damage, but I still heard hints of squishes and cracks. When I opened my eyes, the screen showed Julien standing next to his throne and looking up at the red moon, with a sense of pride. After only the sound of the wind being heard, there was a deep voice that emerged and gave me chills.

“Well done, Julien,” the deep voice said, which almost looked like it came from the moon, “You have rid this zoo of those who have walked away, but the job is far from complete.”

“What is it you are wanting now?” Julien asked, as he looked at the sky.

“Bring your followers from Madagascar, those who have followed and respected us. They shall help rid the world of those who have walked away,” the voice said.

“Of course, sky spirits,” Julien stated before he picked up the chainsaw Andean out of the zoo, with it along with an insane fit of laughter.

The video was over, after a silent sequence of credits and all the tabs were exited off from my iPad, due to my earlier attempts of exiting out the video. I put my iPad down and stared blankly in front of me. I felt a lot of emotions inside me that I felt wouldn’t go away so easily: betrayed nostalgia, fear, anger, disturbed, chilled, sadness, sinister for actually watching the whole damn thing. There were a lot of questions running in my head, but I mainly focused on “why did Tom McGrath consider it an unfinished episode if it seemed complete?" It made sense after a few seconds, though: it wasn’t the episode that was unfinished, but Julien’s deed.

I felt startled when I heard my text ringtone on my phone go off. I pulled out my phone to see that it was Millie that texted me again.

“Hey, so did you see the episode? What was it like?” the message said.

I didn’t really know how to respond. It was slightly funny that I’m better at putting words together in a nonverbal manner yet, at that moment, I didn’t know what to type. All I could think of to type is, “How about we meet at Starbucks? You’d understand it better if we talked about it face to face.”

After about a minute, I got a message from her telling me that she’s willing to meet me there, and I got myself ready and out the door.

Since I was closer to Starbucks, I waited at a table with an empty chair across from me. I looked at my phone to see a forum on Fanpop talking about “Operation: Sorona,” and found a bunch of usernames that I recognized, that were just as traumatized as I was. Some old internet friends of mine from the fandom and some fanguins that I didn’t see online as much had a lot to talk about. Some of them seemed to try and lighten the mood, by joking around and saying that Julien just snapped. Some people in the forum posted descriptions of what they felt like the worst murder in the episode with posts like “double noose tongue, that’s gotta be rough” or “Leonard’s fate seems more painful than Skipper’s since the branch is thicker 😖” or even “I know brain injuries are something Kowalski can’t stand, but that took it too far.” I felt a slight bit of relief, that the forum title mentioned that it was for classic fanguins aged 18 or over, since no younger viewers of online Fanguin/ Penguins of Madagascar content would feel sane after seeing the posts. I continued scrolling down at a bunch of comments from other fanguins, that felt the same way as me, and stopped at one comment that got me thinking: “Why was it even called "Operation: Sorona" anyway?” I wasn’t even sure of the choice of the title, either. However, I DID remember that someone wrote a “Penguins of Madagascar” fanfiction with a bit of Malagasy in it, since Julien was from Madagascar. I switched the tab on my phone to google translate and typed up “Sorona” to be translated into English.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Millie walk in the door and toward me.

“Hey, Mo, what’s up?” she asked as she sat across from me.

“Oh, well, I’m surviving, so that’s a good thing,” I responded out of instinct to her and assurance to myself.

I placed my phone in front of her, before I walked up to the counter to get three grande frappacinos, with the hopes of keeping myself from sleeping. As I waited for my order, I looked over at Millie and saw her pick up my phone followed by a hand covering her mouth and her eyes widening, before she looked in my direction. I gave her a pained expression and a nod as I still waited. I had a feeling she at least half understood when she saw that the English translation for “Sorona” was “sacrifices."