Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Menacing Monkey of all that is malicious Chapter 4 (AKA The Finale!)
Pre-Preface:
As this is the final zebra-man story that may ever be written, it needs a preface:
Preface:
This may be the final Zebra-Man story ever written. As a finale, the bar is set pretty high (except for those of you who watched the final episode of 24, in which case the bar could easily be jumped over by James the Killer Whale, even if he was on land). There may be epilogues or prologues later, but I do not know about that. So, consider this to be a very long and (hopefully adequately) ridiculous farewell.
Face:
Why do they call it a preface if they don't call the body of the story a face? Anyway, this is where the recap will happen, using the unbelielivably excited dancing panda (as a replacement to traditional bullet-points) in the "fresh out of the oven," brand-new, dancing panda recap method:
! That panda is unbelievably excited, and distracting, so try to stay focused. The last story began, as many of these stories do, with the characters trying to figure out what to do next. James the Killer Whale said he saw an island with monkeys, and Piginny, Mary the Goose, and Penguin Guy scouted ahead to find that, indeed, monkeys inhabited the island.
! Also, a skunk named Skunk Boy was found on the island, a former member of DalmatiHonn's, James the Killer Whale's, and Trevor the Lemur's crime-fighting team.
! Zebra-Man decided that the team should build a wooden zebra, and Eads came up with the original and brilliant idea of hiding inside of it, then getting out of it inside the monkey castle to find the Menacing Monkey of all that is malicious.
! The plan worked.
! Just as the team was about to capture the Menacing Monkey, he laughed at them, insulted them, and threatened them, then vanished... ... ... ... (the dots symbolize suspense...) ...
Chapter 4
"Well, that was not what I had in mind" said Penguin guy. "I had visualized an epic battle, ending with us winning against all odds, and illustrating the power of good over evil. But instead he just disappeared."
"So now what do we do?" said Skunk Boy. "I know I am new to the team, but it seems like we should come up with some sort of clever solution to track down where the monkey might be, and who is helping him."
"Yeah, right" Piginny scoffed. "When have we ever devised a clever plan to track down our next destination? Sooner or later a new character or a magical sign will appear that will tell us what to do. That is how we got almost every single character on our team! All we have to do is sit around long enough and something will happen."
"There is one other way," began Eads the Panda. "there is an ancient Panda-legend among pandas that there is one ancient panda, who lives atop Panda Mountain at the center of Panda Forest, and his knowledge is the greatest among all pandas. Maybe he could help us."
"Isn't this the same as a new character showing up?" whined Piginny.
"Did you hear something?" said James the Killer Whale.
"No I don't think so" said Zebra-Man.
Piginny's whining fell on fake-deaf ears, so all the characters got on James the Killer Whale's back and went to China, which is where Panda Forest and Panda Mountain are located.
To make a short story shorter, the team was able to easily traverse through Panda Forest with the guidance of Eads the panda, who knew the land well. (A brief warning: if you are not accompanied by a panda you should NOT traverse through Panda Forest, you will not make it. Seriously. I tried. And failed. Because I didn't have a panda with me. True story. And by true I mean I just made that up.) Then the long ascent up Panda Mountain began. It actually only took 10 minutes, but the whining from Piginny made it seem much longer. The thin air on panda Mountain made it impossible for the flying animals to fly, which was good because otherwise they could just fly up to the ancient panda, which isn't nearly as epic as hiking 10 minutes up to the top.
"Ancient Panda, are you in here?" said Eads the Panda as he opened the door to the bamboo shack at the top of Panda mountain.
There was a rustling sound in the back of the shack, and a huge panda with a long beard came into view.
"Great" said Zebra-Man, "Listen, we need to know where to find an evil monkey and another, even eviler animal of some sort.
But the Ancient Panda made no sound.
"Awesome" said Piginny "We fly all the way up this HUGE mountain, which takes forever, and my feet hurt, and the stupid panda doesn't even talk to us. Meanwhile a stupid monkey is running around somewhere and we have no idea how to get there! Maybe we should consult the talking rock that never makes any sense! At least he says something!"
"Yeah, that might work" said Zebra-Man, and he pulled DK the rock out of his fannypack and set him on the ground.
"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song." said DK the rock.
"A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom." said the Ancient Panda.
"Oh snap" said Smitty the Kitty (the Lemur). "I did not actually think that would work."
DK the rock and the Ancient Panda continued to speak to each other in ancient proverbs for hours, until finally DK the rock turned (use your imagination on how it moves) and said "So basically he says we need to walk down this mountain and out of the forest heading north, then turn left at the rock that looks like a squirrel, and then left again at the tree with four apples hanging from its lowest branch, and we will be there."
"Boo Ya" said Zebra-Man, and the team thanked the ancient panda and began following his directions to reach the monkeys castle.
They reached the spot where the monkey and his "powerful ally" had built their castle, somewhere in Northern China, and set up camp. It had been a long day, so they decided to leave the whole conquering evil thing until the next morning.
The next morning they began to make their plans. "How about we build a giant wooden zebra..." said Zebra-Man, "then hid inside of it and jumped out once inside his castle... oh wait, we already did that once."
"Coming up with original ideas keep getting harder" said Eads the Panda.
"We could always resort to unoriginal ones" said Mary the Goose. "Trevor the Lemur, Skunk Boy and Cali, go look for another character to add to the team.
"You won't have to," said Piginny. "Look over there."
And so they looked, and saw a snake coiled on the ground. Zebra-man jumped about three feet in the air, then composed himself and said "Umm, hi snake. Do you know a way into the castle/ do you want to join our team?"
"Yessss and yessss," said the snake, "My name is Skaylee and I would be more than happy to show you a sssecret path in to the cassstle."
So the team followed Skaylee to a small hole dug into the ground. "The panda will have to ssstay" said Skaylee.
"Yeah, let's make fun of the panda some more" said Eads, "He is so fat he can't fit. Ha ha. Fat panda can't fit into the little hole. Whatever. I will be at the camp eating if you need me."
And so Eads went back to guard the camp.
"In we go" said Zebra-man, and the team, minus Eads, descended into the tunnel behind Skaylee.
After what felt like days of crawling through endless dark tunnels, the team finally heard Skaylee say "We are here," and each crawled out of the hole, blinking in the bright light that surrounded them. They finally regained their vision and found themselves in a tiny storage room, with light pouring in from a window, with Skaylee nowhere to be seen.
"Where did she go?" asked Penguin guy.
"Maybe she knew how dangerous this is and decided that she had helped enough" said Piginny.
"Well, as they say, no point crying over lost snakes" said Zebra-man.
("Who says that?" asked Penguin-Guy.)
"She got us this far, I say we keep going" said Smitty the Kitty.
So the team slowly peered out of the door of the storage room, and seeing the hallway empty, stepped out. They followed the long hallway, turning randomly at each junction, until they finally reached a large room with a domed ceiling.
"Where is everyone?" said Skunk Boy, "It seems way too empty for the stronghold of the source of all evil, something even more evil than the menacing monkey and scorpion king."
As he said this a group of no less than 300 intimidating-looking monkeys rounded the corner from the other side of the domed room. The monkeys saw them and headed towards them, menacingly.
"Let's head to the hallway' said Zebra-man, "to the place where their numbers will give them no advantage!"
And so in the hallway an epic battle took place. Cali, Trevor the Lemur, and DalmatiHonn used their fierce teeth to dominate some of the monkeys. Smitty the Kitty's death galres stopped many of the monkeys in their tracks. Penguin-Guy turned no less than 15 monkeys into "Monkey-sicles" (Zebra-man invented the term, and he is not good at clever or witty phrases). Skunk Boy did what skunks do best in fights against monkeys, using his claws to scratch their feet as they walked by. Mary the Goose used her beak to clamp some monkey fingers, and DK the rock had engaged 3 monkeys in a deep philosophical conversation before they met Zebra-Man's hind hooves in their faces.
After the 200 intimidating monkeys had been taken care of, the team sat catching their breath
"We can't keep taking on wave after wave of monkeys" said Penguin Guy. "We need to find their leader and take him out before he sends another group."
No one disagreed with this, so they went carefully back to the domed room and went into the hallway on the other side. After following it for some time they reached another large throne room, and saw in the throne at the end of the room the Menacing Monkey King, asleep.
"Is he really asleep?" asked Mary the Goose "You think he would learn not to do that"
"He still thinks we don't know where he is" said Smitty the Kitty.
"Well, lets go wake him up and teach him not to mess with the Black and White if you can't put up a fight" said Zebra-man.
"You know, you are getting a little better at the catchy sayings" said Penguin Guy.
"Thanks" said Zebra-Man.
They went up to the Monkey king and gave hima not so light rap on the forehead. His eyes shot open and he grinned his horrible old monkey smile.
"Well," he said "Even without the fat panda you made it past my monkey army. You must have fought them in a place where their numbers had no advantage. Impressive. But I would have thought you smarter than to ever challenge me again, espcially after I showed you what I am capable of. And you haven't even met some of my friends. Allow me to introduce to you Piginny, The True Queen of Evil, Maliciousness, Trickery, and Downright Meanness."
The animals heard a noise and turned behind them to see Piginny, Skaylee, and Zony the zony (http://www.visitcumbria.com/pen/ostrich-zony1.jpg) standing in front of at least 500 monkeys. At seeing Piginny, Cali growled and jumped forward, jaws open wide. Piginny merely flexed her wing outward, sending Cali sprawling to the ground with a whimper. After staring at Cali with contempt, she looked at Zebra-Man and the team. "Don't look so surprised," said Piginny. "Surely you must have seen this coming. Did you not notice my constant desire to prevent you from continuing on your journey? The whining, the sarcasm, the doubt, all of it was meant to turn you away from reaching my palace. When I realized that you were going to somehow be lucky enough to reach it, I decided that it would be better to draw you here and finish you all off at once. And it will be awfully diffcult for you to beat me without your giant panda friend, won't it? I knew you would be stupid enough to follow any new character into a secret passageway, anything magical and unbelievable enough to actually work. So I had Skaylle lead us through a conveniently narrow passageway into an abandoned room. Stupid enough for you to believe it. You even met me as I was working for an evil pigeon! With you out of the way there will be nothing left to stop me from taking over the rest of the world. I have to concede that you caused me considerable trouble taking out the Scorpion and Lemur kings, but they are replaceable. Oh, and I have almost been so rude as to forget to make some introductions. You may be wondering who this is, Zebra-man. Allow me to introduce Zony the zony, my second in command. If you try to resist my monkey army I am sure he will be able to help persuade you otherwise. I am now going to present you with the choice of simply surrendering now and saving all of us a lot of trouble, or doing the whole "we're good guys" thing and embarassing yourself. So...?"
Zebra-man turned and looked at those standing behind him; Penguin-Guy, Mary the Goose, DalmatiHonn, DK the rock, Smitty the Kitty, Trevor the Lemur, and Skunk Boy, and at the spot where Cali lay. All of them had helped the team in their quest for good, and had become not only his team members but his friends. He could not let them down now, they would not go down without a fight.
"I think Cali had the right idea" said Zebra-Man, and his team nodded in agreement. Turning to face the army of monkeys, they leaped/flew/scurried into the most epic battle of all time.
Zebra-Man charged at Zony with his head lowered, and caught him by surprise with a rib-cracking headbutt. Zony stood back up, and reared up on his hind legs, catching Zebra-man in the face with his front hooves multiple times. Zebra-Man fell backward, but was quickly up on his feet again, and trying to gain traction on the floor, lunged forward once more. Zony did the same, and as their heads collided both saw stars. But Zebra-Man and Zony both continued to dig forward, shoving their heads into one another. Zebra-man glanced to his side and saw Cali lying on the floor, Penguin-Guy fruitlessly trying to shoot Piginny out of the sky with his ice powers, while she merely dodged them and taunted Penguin-Guy. He saw Trevor the Lemur barely dodge one of Skaylee's fangs, while Smitty the Kitty was valiantly fighting off 4 monkeys. Digging deep, he gave one last ditch lunge forward, and caught Zony off balance. Zony rolled backwards, lying face up. Zebra-man wasted no time in using his hooves to finish the fight.
Zebra-man stood up and began limping towards the malicious Monkey, who was watching the fight with a smile on his face.
"Been enjoying it, have you?" said Zebra-man to the monkey. The monkey turned, and the last thing he saw was the light glinting off of Zebra-man's front hoof. (One thing zebra's are good at is using their front hooves as clubs. Zebra-Man, exhausted from the fight with Zony and the effort of attacking the Malicious Monkey was only able to take care of 5 more monkeys before collapsing on the floor, next to Cali. Penguin-Guy saw this and summoned all of his power to form the largest ice ball ever made by a magical penguin. He flew up next to Piginny, who was no longer taunting him, and with a yell threw the ice ball. It hit her from point-blank range, and both penguin-Guy, from total exhaustion, and Piginny, from the giant ice ball, fell from the top of the large room to the floor. The rest of the team was being overrun by the swarms of evil monkeys still entering the room, and it seemed that all hope was lost when a large hole appeared in the wall. Eads the Panda stood in the newly made opening, and with a panda-roar made his way into the castle. Swatting monkeys left and right he reached Trevor the Lemur, DalmatiHonn, and Skunk Boy, who were caught in the grips of especially large monkeys. Easily taking care of the monkeys he grabbed trevor the Lemur, DalmatiHonn, and Skunk Boy and said,
"A fight without me? You should know better than that. Anyway, we have to get out of here soon. James and I knew something was amiss, and he has a plan, but we don't want to be here to see it. Where are the others?"
They looked around the room and saw Zebra-man, Penguin Guy, Cali, and Piginny on the ground. Mary the Goose and Smitty the Kitty were in the middle of a very large group of monkeys.
Eads yelled to them "Mary the Goose, Smitty the Kitty! We have to get out of here!" But they didn't hear him, and even if they had they couldn't have gotten out of the crowd in time. Eads the Panda grabbed Skunk boy, Trevor the Lemur, and DalmatiHonn and ran outside. Cali had come around after the hit from Piginny and followed them out. As they left they saw the shadow of James the Killer Whale, who had generated a huge amount of speed and had launched himself out of the ocean, headed towards the castle. He missed the castle by only a few yards, but the aftershock of the hit (not because he was fat, but because of all of his momentum) shook the walls of the castle, and the domed room caved in on itself, crushing or trapping everyone inside.
Eads the Panda went in with DalmatiHonn, Skunk Boy, Cali, and Trevor the Lemur after the dust had settled. Tossing great boulders aside, he found Zebra-Man, Penguin-Guy, Smitty the Kitty, and Mary the Goose, and lay them outside of the castle next to James the Killer Whale. (Dk the rock was harder to find, since there were a lot of rocks, but he was still next to James the Killer Whale) Then he walked in silence with what was left of the team back to Panda Forest, where he had decided he would remain.
"Someone needs to keep that old ancient panda company" he said. "Listen. DalmatiHonn, Trevor the lemur, Skunk Boy, and Cali, for now evil has been defeated. The Monkey King was a very powerful enemy, and with Piginny on his side he had become all but unstoppable. Though he is gone now, there is no guarantee things will stay that way. There are greater forces at work here than our own, and others may be swayed to follow in his footsteps. it will be up to you to stop them if they do. Good has conquered evil once, but it may need to happen again. You know where to find me, just a ten minute hike up panda mountain. You will always be a friend of the pandas, and will not need to be accompanied to reach me. Good luck to all of you."
And with those words he disappeared into the forest. DalmatiHonn, Trevor the Lemur, Skunk Boy, and Cali looked at one another and set off together towards the sun set, awaiting whatever fate or luck brought their way.
THE END
(Boo Ya)
As this is the final zebra-man story that may ever be written, it needs a preface:
Preface:
This may be the final Zebra-Man story ever written. As a finale, the bar is set pretty high (except for those of you who watched the final episode of 24, in which case the bar could easily be jumped over by James the Killer Whale, even if he was on land). There may be epilogues or prologues later, but I do not know about that. So, consider this to be a very long and (hopefully adequately) ridiculous farewell.
Face:
Why do they call it a preface if they don't call the body of the story a face? Anyway, this is where the recap will happen, using the unbelielivably excited dancing panda (as a replacement to traditional bullet-points) in the "fresh out of the oven," brand-new, dancing panda recap method:
! That panda is unbelievably excited, and distracting, so try to stay focused. The last story began, as many of these stories do, with the characters trying to figure out what to do next. James the Killer Whale said he saw an island with monkeys, and Piginny, Mary the Goose, and Penguin Guy scouted ahead to find that, indeed, monkeys inhabited the island.
! Also, a skunk named Skunk Boy was found on the island, a former member of DalmatiHonn's, James the Killer Whale's, and Trevor the Lemur's crime-fighting team.
! Zebra-Man decided that the team should build a wooden zebra, and Eads came up with the original and brilliant idea of hiding inside of it, then getting out of it inside the monkey castle to find the Menacing Monkey of all that is malicious.
! The plan worked.
! Just as the team was about to capture the Menacing Monkey, he laughed at them, insulted them, and threatened them, then vanished... ... ... ... (the dots symbolize suspense...) ...
Chapter 4
"Well, that was not what I had in mind" said Penguin guy. "I had visualized an epic battle, ending with us winning against all odds, and illustrating the power of good over evil. But instead he just disappeared."
"So now what do we do?" said Skunk Boy. "I know I am new to the team, but it seems like we should come up with some sort of clever solution to track down where the monkey might be, and who is helping him."
"Yeah, right" Piginny scoffed. "When have we ever devised a clever plan to track down our next destination? Sooner or later a new character or a magical sign will appear that will tell us what to do. That is how we got almost every single character on our team! All we have to do is sit around long enough and something will happen."
"There is one other way," began Eads the Panda. "there is an ancient Panda-legend among pandas that there is one ancient panda, who lives atop Panda Mountain at the center of Panda Forest, and his knowledge is the greatest among all pandas. Maybe he could help us."
"Isn't this the same as a new character showing up?" whined Piginny.
"Did you hear something?" said James the Killer Whale.
"No I don't think so" said Zebra-Man.
Piginny's whining fell on fake-deaf ears, so all the characters got on James the Killer Whale's back and went to China, which is where Panda Forest and Panda Mountain are located.
To make a short story shorter, the team was able to easily traverse through Panda Forest with the guidance of Eads the panda, who knew the land well. (A brief warning: if you are not accompanied by a panda you should NOT traverse through Panda Forest, you will not make it. Seriously. I tried. And failed. Because I didn't have a panda with me. True story. And by true I mean I just made that up.) Then the long ascent up Panda Mountain began. It actually only took 10 minutes, but the whining from Piginny made it seem much longer. The thin air on panda Mountain made it impossible for the flying animals to fly, which was good because otherwise they could just fly up to the ancient panda, which isn't nearly as epic as hiking 10 minutes up to the top.
"Ancient Panda, are you in here?" said Eads the Panda as he opened the door to the bamboo shack at the top of Panda mountain.
There was a rustling sound in the back of the shack, and a huge panda with a long beard came into view.
"Great" said Zebra-Man, "Listen, we need to know where to find an evil monkey and another, even eviler animal of some sort.
But the Ancient Panda made no sound.
"Awesome" said Piginny "We fly all the way up this HUGE mountain, which takes forever, and my feet hurt, and the stupid panda doesn't even talk to us. Meanwhile a stupid monkey is running around somewhere and we have no idea how to get there! Maybe we should consult the talking rock that never makes any sense! At least he says something!"
"Yeah, that might work" said Zebra-Man, and he pulled DK the rock out of his fannypack and set him on the ground.
"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song." said DK the rock.
"A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom." said the Ancient Panda.
"Oh snap" said Smitty the Kitty (the Lemur). "I did not actually think that would work."
DK the rock and the Ancient Panda continued to speak to each other in ancient proverbs for hours, until finally DK the rock turned (use your imagination on how it moves) and said "So basically he says we need to walk down this mountain and out of the forest heading north, then turn left at the rock that looks like a squirrel, and then left again at the tree with four apples hanging from its lowest branch, and we will be there."
"Boo Ya" said Zebra-Man, and the team thanked the ancient panda and began following his directions to reach the monkeys castle.
They reached the spot where the monkey and his "powerful ally" had built their castle, somewhere in Northern China, and set up camp. It had been a long day, so they decided to leave the whole conquering evil thing until the next morning.
The next morning they began to make their plans. "How about we build a giant wooden zebra..." said Zebra-Man, "then hid inside of it and jumped out once inside his castle... oh wait, we already did that once."
"Coming up with original ideas keep getting harder" said Eads the Panda.
"We could always resort to unoriginal ones" said Mary the Goose. "Trevor the Lemur, Skunk Boy and Cali, go look for another character to add to the team.
"You won't have to," said Piginny. "Look over there."
And so they looked, and saw a snake coiled on the ground. Zebra-man jumped about three feet in the air, then composed himself and said "Umm, hi snake. Do you know a way into the castle/ do you want to join our team?"
"Yessss and yessss," said the snake, "My name is Skaylee and I would be more than happy to show you a sssecret path in to the cassstle."
So the team followed Skaylee to a small hole dug into the ground. "The panda will have to ssstay" said Skaylee.
"Yeah, let's make fun of the panda some more" said Eads, "He is so fat he can't fit. Ha ha. Fat panda can't fit into the little hole. Whatever. I will be at the camp eating if you need me."
And so Eads went back to guard the camp.
"In we go" said Zebra-man, and the team, minus Eads, descended into the tunnel behind Skaylee.
After what felt like days of crawling through endless dark tunnels, the team finally heard Skaylee say "We are here," and each crawled out of the hole, blinking in the bright light that surrounded them. They finally regained their vision and found themselves in a tiny storage room, with light pouring in from a window, with Skaylee nowhere to be seen.
"Where did she go?" asked Penguin guy.
"Maybe she knew how dangerous this is and decided that she had helped enough" said Piginny.
"Well, as they say, no point crying over lost snakes" said Zebra-man.
("Who says that?" asked Penguin-Guy.)
"She got us this far, I say we keep going" said Smitty the Kitty.
So the team slowly peered out of the door of the storage room, and seeing the hallway empty, stepped out. They followed the long hallway, turning randomly at each junction, until they finally reached a large room with a domed ceiling.
"Where is everyone?" said Skunk Boy, "It seems way too empty for the stronghold of the source of all evil, something even more evil than the menacing monkey and scorpion king."
As he said this a group of no less than 300 intimidating-looking monkeys rounded the corner from the other side of the domed room. The monkeys saw them and headed towards them, menacingly.
"Let's head to the hallway' said Zebra-man, "to the place where their numbers will give them no advantage!"
And so in the hallway an epic battle took place. Cali, Trevor the Lemur, and DalmatiHonn used their fierce teeth to dominate some of the monkeys. Smitty the Kitty's death galres stopped many of the monkeys in their tracks. Penguin-Guy turned no less than 15 monkeys into "Monkey-sicles" (Zebra-man invented the term, and he is not good at clever or witty phrases). Skunk Boy did what skunks do best in fights against monkeys, using his claws to scratch their feet as they walked by. Mary the Goose used her beak to clamp some monkey fingers, and DK the rock had engaged 3 monkeys in a deep philosophical conversation before they met Zebra-Man's hind hooves in their faces.
After the 200 intimidating monkeys had been taken care of, the team sat catching their breath
"We can't keep taking on wave after wave of monkeys" said Penguin Guy. "We need to find their leader and take him out before he sends another group."
No one disagreed with this, so they went carefully back to the domed room and went into the hallway on the other side. After following it for some time they reached another large throne room, and saw in the throne at the end of the room the Menacing Monkey King, asleep.
"Is he really asleep?" asked Mary the Goose "You think he would learn not to do that"
"He still thinks we don't know where he is" said Smitty the Kitty.
"Well, lets go wake him up and teach him not to mess with the Black and White if you can't put up a fight" said Zebra-man.
"You know, you are getting a little better at the catchy sayings" said Penguin Guy.
"Thanks" said Zebra-Man.
They went up to the Monkey king and gave hima not so light rap on the forehead. His eyes shot open and he grinned his horrible old monkey smile.
"Well," he said "Even without the fat panda you made it past my monkey army. You must have fought them in a place where their numbers had no advantage. Impressive. But I would have thought you smarter than to ever challenge me again, espcially after I showed you what I am capable of. And you haven't even met some of my friends. Allow me to introduce to you Piginny, The True Queen of Evil, Maliciousness, Trickery, and Downright Meanness."
The animals heard a noise and turned behind them to see Piginny, Skaylee, and Zony the zony (http://www.visitcumbria.com/pen/ostrich-zony1.jpg) standing in front of at least 500 monkeys. At seeing Piginny, Cali growled and jumped forward, jaws open wide. Piginny merely flexed her wing outward, sending Cali sprawling to the ground with a whimper. After staring at Cali with contempt, she looked at Zebra-Man and the team. "Don't look so surprised," said Piginny. "Surely you must have seen this coming. Did you not notice my constant desire to prevent you from continuing on your journey? The whining, the sarcasm, the doubt, all of it was meant to turn you away from reaching my palace. When I realized that you were going to somehow be lucky enough to reach it, I decided that it would be better to draw you here and finish you all off at once. And it will be awfully diffcult for you to beat me without your giant panda friend, won't it? I knew you would be stupid enough to follow any new character into a secret passageway, anything magical and unbelievable enough to actually work. So I had Skaylle lead us through a conveniently narrow passageway into an abandoned room. Stupid enough for you to believe it. You even met me as I was working for an evil pigeon! With you out of the way there will be nothing left to stop me from taking over the rest of the world. I have to concede that you caused me considerable trouble taking out the Scorpion and Lemur kings, but they are replaceable. Oh, and I have almost been so rude as to forget to make some introductions. You may be wondering who this is, Zebra-man. Allow me to introduce Zony the zony, my second in command. If you try to resist my monkey army I am sure he will be able to help persuade you otherwise. I am now going to present you with the choice of simply surrendering now and saving all of us a lot of trouble, or doing the whole "we're good guys" thing and embarassing yourself. So...?"
Zebra-man turned and looked at those standing behind him; Penguin-Guy, Mary the Goose, DalmatiHonn, DK the rock, Smitty the Kitty, Trevor the Lemur, and Skunk Boy, and at the spot where Cali lay. All of them had helped the team in their quest for good, and had become not only his team members but his friends. He could not let them down now, they would not go down without a fight.
"I think Cali had the right idea" said Zebra-Man, and his team nodded in agreement. Turning to face the army of monkeys, they leaped/flew/scurried into the most epic battle of all time.
Zebra-Man charged at Zony with his head lowered, and caught him by surprise with a rib-cracking headbutt. Zony stood back up, and reared up on his hind legs, catching Zebra-man in the face with his front hooves multiple times. Zebra-Man fell backward, but was quickly up on his feet again, and trying to gain traction on the floor, lunged forward once more. Zony did the same, and as their heads collided both saw stars. But Zebra-Man and Zony both continued to dig forward, shoving their heads into one another. Zebra-man glanced to his side and saw Cali lying on the floor, Penguin-Guy fruitlessly trying to shoot Piginny out of the sky with his ice powers, while she merely dodged them and taunted Penguin-Guy. He saw Trevor the Lemur barely dodge one of Skaylee's fangs, while Smitty the Kitty was valiantly fighting off 4 monkeys. Digging deep, he gave one last ditch lunge forward, and caught Zony off balance. Zony rolled backwards, lying face up. Zebra-man wasted no time in using his hooves to finish the fight.
Zebra-man stood up and began limping towards the malicious Monkey, who was watching the fight with a smile on his face.
"Been enjoying it, have you?" said Zebra-man to the monkey. The monkey turned, and the last thing he saw was the light glinting off of Zebra-man's front hoof. (One thing zebra's are good at is using their front hooves as clubs. Zebra-Man, exhausted from the fight with Zony and the effort of attacking the Malicious Monkey was only able to take care of 5 more monkeys before collapsing on the floor, next to Cali. Penguin-Guy saw this and summoned all of his power to form the largest ice ball ever made by a magical penguin. He flew up next to Piginny, who was no longer taunting him, and with a yell threw the ice ball. It hit her from point-blank range, and both penguin-Guy, from total exhaustion, and Piginny, from the giant ice ball, fell from the top of the large room to the floor. The rest of the team was being overrun by the swarms of evil monkeys still entering the room, and it seemed that all hope was lost when a large hole appeared in the wall. Eads the Panda stood in the newly made opening, and with a panda-roar made his way into the castle. Swatting monkeys left and right he reached Trevor the Lemur, DalmatiHonn, and Skunk Boy, who were caught in the grips of especially large monkeys. Easily taking care of the monkeys he grabbed trevor the Lemur, DalmatiHonn, and Skunk Boy and said,
"A fight without me? You should know better than that. Anyway, we have to get out of here soon. James and I knew something was amiss, and he has a plan, but we don't want to be here to see it. Where are the others?"
They looked around the room and saw Zebra-man, Penguin Guy, Cali, and Piginny on the ground. Mary the Goose and Smitty the Kitty were in the middle of a very large group of monkeys.
Eads yelled to them "Mary the Goose, Smitty the Kitty! We have to get out of here!" But they didn't hear him, and even if they had they couldn't have gotten out of the crowd in time. Eads the Panda grabbed Skunk boy, Trevor the Lemur, and DalmatiHonn and ran outside. Cali had come around after the hit from Piginny and followed them out. As they left they saw the shadow of James the Killer Whale, who had generated a huge amount of speed and had launched himself out of the ocean, headed towards the castle. He missed the castle by only a few yards, but the aftershock of the hit (not because he was fat, but because of all of his momentum) shook the walls of the castle, and the domed room caved in on itself, crushing or trapping everyone inside.
Eads the Panda went in with DalmatiHonn, Skunk Boy, Cali, and Trevor the Lemur after the dust had settled. Tossing great boulders aside, he found Zebra-Man, Penguin-Guy, Smitty the Kitty, and Mary the Goose, and lay them outside of the castle next to James the Killer Whale. (Dk the rock was harder to find, since there were a lot of rocks, but he was still next to James the Killer Whale) Then he walked in silence with what was left of the team back to Panda Forest, where he had decided he would remain.
"Someone needs to keep that old ancient panda company" he said. "Listen. DalmatiHonn, Trevor the lemur, Skunk Boy, and Cali, for now evil has been defeated. The Monkey King was a very powerful enemy, and with Piginny on his side he had become all but unstoppable. Though he is gone now, there is no guarantee things will stay that way. There are greater forces at work here than our own, and others may be swayed to follow in his footsteps. it will be up to you to stop them if they do. Good has conquered evil once, but it may need to happen again. You know where to find me, just a ten minute hike up panda mountain. You will always be a friend of the pandas, and will not need to be accompanied to reach me. Good luck to all of you."
And with those words he disappeared into the forest. DalmatiHonn, Trevor the Lemur, Skunk Boy, and Cali looked at one another and set off together towards the sun set, awaiting whatever fate or luck brought their way.
THE END
(Boo Ya)
