The leader ran into a back room, entering a ramshackle office. He opened his closet and grabbed a tube of painkillers off of a pile, trying his best to open the tube with only one good hand before resorting to using his teeth. He popped a few in his mouth and downed it with a beer he had left on his desk to wash it down. It had gone warm. Slapping himself across the face, he jumped up and down and pumped himself up before storming back into the main hall of the warehouse to finish off this Holly business.
Sliding through the door, his excited expression shifted to one of surprise and anxiety. He saw Holly surrounded by a crowd of unconscious monkeys. She held a larger monkey in front of her, using him as a shield to absorb the air bullets another monkey on the floor above was throwing. As the monkey above grew tired and impatient with his lack of progress, she kicked her meat shield up to the floor above and watched the two collide. Holly didn’t even bother going for the pauldron, she continued to attack the nearby monkeys. Chasing them down. Taking them out like a beast. Punches, headbutts, grabbing one monkey and throwing him into a crowd of others like a bowling ball. She was having a little too much fun with this. The leader gripped the guardrail tight as he helplessly watched Holly singlehandedly dismantle his gang. Her strength, her supernatural resilience. He bit his thumb. The power of her circlet matched exactly what he was told.
The leader ran for the pauldron. He bolted up the stairs, and by the time Holly caught sight of him, he incorporated his hands into the stair-climbing too. Holly didn’t bother with the stairs, she kicked off with her mighty legs and jumped from one floor to the next until she stood opposite the leader on the third floor, with the pauldron resting on the floor between them.
“Where’d you get the pauldron?” Holly quickly asked, taking a step forward. “Something as powerful as that, you can’t just pick it up from a pawn shop.”
The leader took a step back on instinct but paused at the sight of a monkey feigning unconsciousness and sneaking up behind Holly. Seeing the opportunity, he took a step forward to match Holly. “We don’t know his name,” the leader insisted, desperate to buy his man some time. “He just showed up and told us to take you out. Paid us big money too.”
The monkey behind Holly slid through her legs. He reached for the pauldron but Holly was quick to react. She grabbed him by the tail to stop him, just as the leader dove for the Pauldron himself. “Shit!” She called, pulling the monkey’s tail back and jumping at the leader to stop him.
The leader slapped the pauldron back on his shoulder. He laughed as his arm turned gold once again and his fingers bent and snapped painfully back into place. Holly charged him, rearing her fist back for a punch of her own. He placed his thumb over his middle finger. He flicked a smaller air bullet at Holly’s throat. She threw up her arms to block but the air bullet slipped through her fingers. The air bullet collided with her neck, hard. She crashed onto the floor and clutched her throat. Gagging and coughing for air, her windpipe refusing to cooperate.
He loomed over Holly and reared his fist back. “We got the pauldron from some guy with a metal face.” The leader said,. He punched an air bullet into her head. The impact drove her skull into the concrete floor and left an imprint. “Said he was a member of the Kanyon Korps." He punched at the back of Holly's head again. Her head bounced off the ground and he smiled. "Those guys who helped rebuild that city you destroyed years ago. You remember right?” Holly didn’t move. “That vicious transformation of yours. It made our lives real difficult for a long time, and when they paid us to take you out we jumped at the chance. That headband is coming with us.”
Miraculously, Holly was still awake, and coherent enough to turn her head and look up at the leader with her swelling eyes. “I was a prisoner,” she said. “It wasn't my choice.” She struggled to get her words out. She struggled to even draw a breath. She got another air bullet for her troubles.
“What you were was a monster, and nothing more!” The leader said, punching more and more air bullets into Holly's body, rattling her entire being over and over again. There was no response this time. He raised her head by her hair and could see the light fade from her eyes. “Always were, always will be.” The leader gestured to his remaining companion to follow him as he threw Holly's head to the ground, giving his companion the chance to give Holly a kick for all the trouble she caused. Only two took him up on his offer. “You see what you did to my friends here? You beat them up, you lay them out. Because you have the power you think you can do whatever you want? You give monkeys like us a bad name.” Reaching down at her head with his golden hand, the leader grabbed the circlet around her head and yanked repeatedly. “You don’t deserve this power. It should go to someone who’ll use it for the right reasons. Someone the people won’t fear. A real leader!” Holly’s head was jerked back and forth as she faded out of consciousness, the pain in her throat and head growing duller and duller as her eyes slowly shut. “I’ll make a great leader with this. I’ll run the entire town. Maybe even the president. I’ll bring this entire country into a reign of prosperity. We’ll never be afraid of anybody with this power!”
To Holly, the leader’s voice sounded like it was underwater. She felt like she was drowning under a powerful current, jerking her body all around as she helplessly thrashed around. Before her eyes would fully close, a familiar voice called out to her in the darkness and Holly focused on it. She blocked out the world, and the pain, and left herself alone with the voice calling out to her. It was a warm voice, but stern in its word choice and demands. The last words a dear friend said to her many months ago that she would never dare to forget.
“Become the person I know you can be. I’m counting on you, Holly.”
The words bounced around her head, repeating louder and louder until it hurt her head to listen to them. Holly’s eyes snapped open again. They glowed a bright red color. The leader released her circlet and stepped back along with his remaining allies. Holly’s hair slowly raised into a spiked haircut. Her teeth grew into pronounced fangs. As Holly snarled, she pushed herself to her hands and knees and roared at the leader as he stood paralyzed with fear. He punched an air bullet into her back, but it did not deter her in the slightest. The leader and his companion backed away. looking down at his golden hand, he cursed at its sudden impotence. He could only watch as she began to grow before his very eyes. Her muscular arms expanded; her head enlarged, as did her body and legs. Within a second, she was already double her size in all proportions, and there didn’t seem to be any sign of her stopping anytime soon. As she knelt up off her hands, she looked the leader eye to eye with an intense stare, her glowing red eyes boring into him.
While she was staring right at the leader, the final monkey took another backward step toward the emergency exit. The moment her glowing red eyes landed on him, all of the loyalty faded from his body, and he ran out the door. “Oh! You coward! Get back here, we’re not done!” The leader said. He turned around to look at Holly, who had grown even further during the second he looked away. Even in her kneeling position, her shoulders reached the floor above and her weight was cracking the ground she and the leader were standing on.
The leader clenched his fist and punched another air bullet at Holly, but the air dissipated around her enormous shoulders and she was unaffected. He turned and ran for the door, but Holly reached an arm out to grab him. Her wingspan was now large enough to engulf him without even needing to fully extend her arm, and long before he got to the door. With no other option, and with Holly’s fingers closing around him, he punched at the ground and jumped, creating a gust of air that jettisoned him upwards and away from Holly, all the while destroying the cracked floor and sending Holly falling to the floor below.
But even in her advanced size, her speed and reflexes were not hindered. Holly hit the ground, and immediately jumped again, reaching her massive arm out to grab the leader as he helplessly sailed through the air. He punched an air bullet into Holly’s hand. It deflected the hand’s trajectory just enough to miss him. In a last-ditch effort, he took aim at Holly’s glowing red eye and laughed as he launched one last air bullet.
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As if she knew it was coming, Holly took a deep breath and blew a gust of air up at the leader. The air bullet was blown away, and the leader was caught in a foul-smelling updraft that pushed him all the way to the ceiling. Any attempts at creating air bullets failed to counter Holly’s gust attack, and as the leader’s back hit the ceiling with his arms and legs splayed out, the reality of the situation hit him. Holly flew closer and closer to him, reaching out to grab him with her hand now several times larger than his entire body. He screamed, but it only lasted a moment as Holly’s open palm flattened him against the ceiling and trapped him inside her fist.
As her upward momentum dropped, Holly turned and placed both feet on the warehouse ceiling, looking down at the floor and gripping her fist tight, crushing the leader's body. She kicked off the ceiling. Thrusting her hand to the ground, palm-side out. The leader could only watch as the floor approached him. Faster and faster. He shut his eyes to brace for the impact.
Said impact destroyed much of the warehouse floor, sending shockwaves all over and making every monkey’s body jump from the ground and ragdoll across the air before falling back to the ground like raindrops. There was now an enormous handprint in the middle of the warehouse floor, with the leader’s mangled body underneath. Holly roared and pounded her chest as she still continued to grow. Her head now touched the ceiling, and she raised her fists to break through and give her more room.
As she continued to smash the ceiling, the box’s top flap opened once again, and the old monkey emerged, holding a golden bell in one hand, and her cane in the other. She gently tapped the bell with her cane once and raised it over her head as the ringing filled the room and drowned out the sound of Holly’s roaring and the roof rubble smashing against the ground. Upon hearing the sound of the bell, her hands fell to her side and she closed her eyes. The ringing sound was soft and relaxing. The anger and frustration the battle had built up within her were fading, as Holly focused on the ringing of the bell.
Her body swayed as the bell’s ringing grew louder, yet calmer with time. As she swayed, her body shrank. Her head passed the third floor of the warehouse, then the second floor, before finally, she returned to her normal size. Still swaying under the sound of the bell, she opened her eyes. The bodies surrounding her made Holly jump at first, but the memories of what happened quickly came back to her. Collapsed floors, cracked ceilings, countless unconscious bodies. Absolute carnage. Yup, this was her doing.
The old monkey reared back and smacked her over the head with her cane again. “That’s for transforming when I told you not to,” she said. Holly could feel the frustration coming back but didn’t say or do anything about it. Looking down at the leader’s unconscious body inside of the handprint, she recoiled at the sight of his broken body but shrugged it off quickly. Reaching for his glowing arm, she undid the strap on the pauldron. The golden light instantly faded away as his arm regained its normal complexion, as it remained unbroken amongst the rest of his body. She had half a mind to stomp on it to make it match, but she decided that enough was probably enough. Instead, she threw the pauldron to Cass, who caught it and smiled. “But good on you for securing the artifact. You’re already doing much better than the last guy who had that circlet.”
“Yeah,” Holly said, putting her hands to her knees and spitting out another wad of blood. “Thanks. That one guy got away though. Think we should get outta here before someone comes around to investigate the noise.”
Cass cackled as she watched the bruises on Holly’s face slowly shrink away. “Smartest thing you’ve said all day,” Cass said. The redness faded out of Holly’s eyes and before she knew it, she was as healthy as the moment they entered the warehouse. “That circlet is doing you wonders, huh? Guess you won’t need any help carrying me out of town now, am I right?” She smirked and sunk back into the box, a sizzling sound getting louder as the flap closed. “I’ll save you some breakfast as a reward. Hope you like spicy eggs.”
Holly sighed as she collected her hood and grabbed hold of the box’s straps. She rubbed her face, partially impressed by the circlet’s healing power but still unable to shake her thoughts off. “Wonders, huh?” Images flashed through her mind of her own hometown, ravaged and destroyed the same day she discovered the circlet. The screams, the pain in peoples’ eyes. The rage and hatred in their voices aimed at her for something that was out of her control, yet still her fault. The sights and sounds that stuck with her every day of her life, after all of these years. “Yeah, real wonderful.”
Strapping the oversized box on her back, the two left the warehouse and took a route different from the one they arrived. Holly picked up the pace as the old monkey opened a compartment next to Holly’s head and stuck her own head out of the box. “If what they said is true,” she started, her mouth full of spicy eggs, “then Kanyon is back in the game after all these years. It’s gonna make your job of collecting the Monkey King’s armor pieces a whole lot harder.”
“I’m not scared,” Holly said. “Especially if a bunch of dorks like that are the best Kanyon can afford. Whoever they are, they should be scared of me.”
“That’s the spirit, kid!” the old monkey said, ruffling Holly’s hair. Holly smiled; it was nice to be praised once in a while. “Let’s find a place to hide. We’ll see if you can zero in on another armor piece location. The sooner we find another one, the sooner we get our hands on it, the sooner we can get them back to the temple, and I can get my old job back. If we work together, we can’t lose!”
Holly didn’t say anything. She didn’t dare let the old monkey know of her motives. If returning the artifacts meant losing the circlet, then at some point, a decision would have to be made. Her allegiances would be tested, and her moral compass would be taken for a ride. But that was a long time from now, and she’d have time to think about it until then. For now, she knew what her job was, and through hell or high water, she planned on seeing it accomplished. Like a good soldier would.
The monkey that had escaped from the second floor’s emergency door bounded down the fire exit. He hopped the fence to the parking lot and jumped into one of the vans. Within seconds, he was on the road, barrelling away from the warehouse and the monster he had witnessed. He wasn’t sure of their condition, but he could only assume everyone was now gone. It was impossible to imagine a fearsome monster like that letting people go because they asked nicely.
White-knuckling the steering wheel, he looked up at his rear-view mirror. The sweat was making his silver fur dye run, revealing the dark-brown color underneath. If he could get to his apartment in time, he might be able to catch a shower and deny ever being a part of the gang in the first place. It would save him a headache, and it would keep him from spilling any gang-related secrets to the police. “This is a good thing. I am doing a good thing,” he said. “The leader. He would be proud of me. Your secrets die with me, boss.”
“I can assure you they will.” The monkey’s eyes went wide as a disembodied voice spoke. Adjusting his rear-view mirror, he looked in the backseat to where the voice came from but saw nothing. He looked around for another person in the van with him. His breath got short as his eyes landed on the dashboard’s radio, the numbers indicating the current station now displaying a long string of text, and the voice emanating from the van’s speakers. The volume adjusted itself on its own and he could feel his steering wheel fighting him on every movement he made. “Your gang let me down,” the voice said. The steering wheel suddenly fell from its socket into the monkey’s lap but the van continued to drive down the street like normal. “When people let me down, especially people I’ve invested in, it makes me look bad in the eyes of people who invest in me.” The car took a turn into an alley and turned on its hazard lights, all while the monkey inside sat frozen with the wheel in his lap. “Thankfully, I’m fairly good at recouping my losses. I won’t have to make any uncomfortable speeches about the cost of progress. You understand surely.”
The monkey slowly nodded his head. He tried to open the door, but the doors were locked. He tried to unlock them but to no avail. “Going somewhere? I wouldn’t think so, we have much to discuss.” From inside the steering wheel’s socket, the monkey could see a faint, glowing red light. He got closer to see what it was. It was at that moment that a long, steel spike shot out from the hole and bore directly into his head. The monkey did not move. He did not scream. Not that he could anyway.
“Now then, tell me everything that happened in the warehouse,” the voice on the radio said to him.
“Holly,” the monkey slowly said as he sat back upright, the spike extending with him as he backed away. Metallic tentacles emerged from the air-conditioning unit and they wrapped themselves around his arms. The van backed out of the alley and made a K-turn to get back on the road and towards the warehouse. “She transformed. Took out the boss.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll fix them up,” the radio said, as one of the tentacles entered the monkey’s mouth. “I’ll fix all of you up. And you can all live to fight another day. You owe me that much, don’t you?”
“Yes, Kanyon. We do owe you.” The spike drove further and further into the monkey’s head as the van drove through the warehouse’s destroyed front doors. Tears ran down his eyes. “Anything for you, Kanyon.”