SCREE--OOOH--AHHHH

Holy Toledo, Batman, that doesn’t sound like a normal monkey.

Against two monkeys that are small, stupid, and slow, it’s not too much work to finish them off, even if they’re on opposite sides. Feint forward, get the one behind me to jump. Echolocation to see when he leaves the ground, then accelerate under his flying form, and crack to the side of the head. Still looking the other way, and Dumbo the now flying monkey jumps at me also. Two up, two down. Don't go up in a fight.

Escrima practice doesn’t feel like it’s doing too much. I mean, I’m kicking serious monkey-butt. But I think, and I may be counting wrong, that I’ve taken down a dozen monkeys so far. My count has three monkeys down because of the tail, two from echolocation, two because they’re 20 pound weaklings, and the other five because of super- speed. Feels like the stick fighting just isn’t what’s keeping me alive. Kinda disappointing, but even at 8 or 10 hours of practice a day, with head teacher Phuc, fifty hours of practice isn’t going to make me a superhero. I just thought I’d be doing a little bit better.

My internal monologue stops as some sort of Spider Monkey Kong ambles out of the jungle and my spidey-sense tingles. Echolocation, spidey-sense, whatever. I turn and look at him. I think it's a him. Can't really tell. It's probably four feet tall on all fours, and five or more if he stands up, and midnight colored. He'd be invisible in the dark. His arms are longer than mine, though, and I’d bet he outweighs me. The little ones were at or over twenty pounds and two feet tall. Double the size, eight times the volume, and he's sneaking up on two hundred. Clearly I spent too much time in sound engineering class.

Coal Black is a fair bit faster than the eight dwarves were. I can still outrun him, but I figure waiting ‘til he gets here is better use of energy. Here’s to hoping that he’s as dumb as the rest of them are. I prepare my now standard echolocation ambush, running the wrong way slowly, not looking behind with my eyes.

You think these monkeys are trainable? I mean, I could run around with two monkeys on my shoulders. That’s almost like the Black Queen’s ravens? But I don’t have a limp. And Cat was only five feet. Okay. Probably no shoulder monkeys. Unless they can drum.

Yep, the big monkey’s just as dumb as the little ones. As soon as he’s near enough, flying leap at my head. He may be longer, stronger, and meaner, but I’m still a lot faster than him. Drop, roll, and 3 sticks swinging hard at his side. He sees the move, and he’s not fast enough to avoid, but he twists a bit, puts muscle in the way of the swing, and when the 3 sticks clobber him, it twists him a bit, but I don’t hear any bones cracking. And I hear fucking everything.

I’m back on my feet, jogging away before it lands. Because my ghost-vision won't handle it, I peek over my shoulder as I skedaddle; looks like Donkey Kong has 3 bruises on the side of his arm. 2 near the bicep, and one on the forearm. Felt like hitting a tire. Tough motherfucker.

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“Alec?” I call.

“Aren’t you busy?” asks the ever-so helpful shit-eater.

“Mildly, but I was wondering. Do creatures also get upgrades like people do?”

“Certainly. This monkey seems to be at least bigger, faster, stronger, and tougher than normal.”

Confirms my suspicions, even if it doesn’t help me fight it. Ok. Think. It’s a lot stronger and tougher than me, probably has better endurance, but I’m still faster, hopefully smarter, and I have weapons. Looks like a game of run and snipe. I get some distance, grab some stuff out of my pocket and try target practice. 2 Cricket balls, a hockey puck, and a softball zip towards the monkey at high velocity. I may not be destined to be a sharpshooter. Three balls miss, but the hockey puck hits him in the chest. Seems to have no effect besides increasing its anger level.

“Is this the last monkey, my dear plant-friend?”

“Can’t say, Kevin.”

“You’re a useless film of pond scum,” I pant, staying ahead of Furious George.

Okay. Monkeyface is well and truly angry now. Maybe it's seeing enough red to be extra stupid. I might be able to actually fight a bit.

I slow down, and monkey jumps again. I duck down, swing the 3 sticks again, and miss with two as I dodge-roll. Damn monkey tried to grab my arm with his tail, and he’s stronger. As a trade, I smacked his hand with my tail stick. If there’s not a broken bone or two in there, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.

Rather than rolling away I bounce to my feet, and prepare to fight.

15 seconds of actual escrima happens, with feints, jabs, and such. It’s basically knives against sticks. Like that super-old Donny Yen flick. Except the damn monkey arms are long, he's got 4 claws, and I've got 3 sticks.

He’s slashing. Takes chunks out of my thigh, and forearm. Big claws. Maybe I should take that toughness thing seriously.

I’m smacking in return. On the third exchange, I’m pretty sure I break the wrist on the hand I’d already injured. And maybe the elbow too. Took a nasty cut on my ribs, but that's a fair damage trade.

I stutter step back and confirm that his arm is hanging mostly useless. If I wasn’t at triple speed, I would’ve been caught by the foot feint high, tail leg sweep trick he just tried. Instead he whiffs as I skitter back again. Swear all I do fighting is back up. Echolocation has kept me from tripping over at least 3 monkey corpses this fight.

But that gives me a thought. I jump back, and switch weapons. Baseball bat in right hand, escrima stick in the tail and left. I hurry, backing up carefully towards a dead monkey all by itself. When I get there, I trip backwards over it, with my tail positioned to catch me. Monkey takes the bait and jumps at me. We both know that if it gets me on the ground it wins.

But I’ve still got my three advantages. I’m much faster, I'm a bit smarter, and I can see behind me. As I fake-trip, the tail catches me. I slide to one knee, turn, drop my left baton, switch stance, and swing for the fences with the baseball bat in two hands.

The monkey is stronger and tougher by a fair bit, but I’ve seen a good baseball bat crush the body of a car. Everything but the chassis and the engine block. Even King Louie here isn't tougher than a car's steel frame. As is shown by the monkeybrains all over my face. And almost 200 pounds of monkey landing on me hurts, even without a head. Ow.