By the time Gustav and his team of zookeepers arrived, it was the crack of dawn.
“Morning, sir.” The giraffe let them in sleepily, yawning. She got several looks of shock as she sat lazily next to the gate.
The hawk man eyed the last little blonde zookeeper in her khakis with a slight smirk. He remembered her from before. They had... a bond. Carol, wasn’t it? Yes, Carol.
“You look great, Frankie.” She whispered, bouncing excitedly.
“Ah, was that my name?” The hawk lit up.
“It’s what I called you,” she said coyly, grinning.
The hawk nodded decisively and smiled back at the edges of his beak. “Come see me later. I’d love to get to know you!”
“Me toooo!” The blonde bounced, before being called back to the other group.
* * *
A bleary and run down group of animals staggered with hangovers and sore hip bones. Some collapsed somewhere else, sleeping it off. Others suffered the side effects of a rager for the first time. The fire had died away to soft pops and smoke.
Sister walked out of the main building with her group of delegates and met Gustav with a handshake.
“Uh... don’t believe we’ve met?” The game warden stared up at the Cobranole in obvious shock.
“You have.” Left smiled. “This side used to be Sandra.”
“This side used to be the cobra lady.” Right motioned.
“Now we’re Sister,” they said in unison.
The human below stared in awe. “Y-You...” He paused, backing away a little and seemed to contemplate this with concern and then acceptance. “Okay. Okay, sure. I’m not going to ask. Whatever, Sister. What do you want us to do?”
“I’m putting together a team to go rescue Todd from the police. It should be fairly easy to do now that, uh... we’re friends with the police.”
“Say that again.” Gustav stared up, adjusting his hat as they walked. Evidence of the night’s... events... were clear.
“Well, we had a bit of a celebration as you can see.” Sister motioned her right arm. “And uh, some fine police officers showed up and sort of... integrated with us.”
The brunette sergeant and her new deer lover were walking together hand in hoof hand with puppy love stares. The sergeant, still naked from the waist down and wearing her shirt open with tits exposed, hastily buttoned it up as she saw Gustav. Her deer stopped her patiently and they giggled.
Gustav snorted in amusement. “Okay, then! Well, good for diplomatic efforts, I guess.”
They continued walking as the other zookeepers began to tend to passed out mildly dehydrated animals and those poor creatures who were suffering a massive hangover.
“Like I said, I’ve got a special team going out for Todd, and once he’s back we’ll talk about the future. But for now, I’d just appreciate the hand getting things organized and working on safety.”
“What she said,” Left nodded toward her other self. “I’m just here to look pretty.”
“And I’m not?” Right spat playfully.
“We can definitely do that.” Gustav agreed. “When is your rescue team leaving?”
“They snuck off into the city during the night.” Right grinned. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“Wait, so there’s animal people in the city right now?”