"What the..."
Colt stared on in bewilderment at the sight ahead. There was no one word to aptly describe exactly what it is he was feeling, but it was something between fascination and utter confusion. He'd never seen anything even remotely similar to this and, by stealing a glance over at Shelly, he guessed that she hadn't either.
It was as if they had stumbled upon a monkey colony. There were monkeys everywhere, moving across the trees, laying on the makeshift hammocks, and playing around with each other all throughout the clearing. There was a constant, loud screeching sound that came as a result of several dozen monkeys all making noise at once. It was madness, just plain madness. And Colt was there, spectating and taking all of it in.
He felt Shelly grab hold of his arm and tug on it.
"We need to go," she said, in a serious tone that showed just how freaked out she was. "I mean it this time."
"Yeah," Colt muttered absent-mindedly.
He turned with her to leave and they took a step back toward where they'd come. But then they came to a sudden stop, as they noticed a figure standing before them. This time the figure was human, but barely so. It was a man with shaggy brown hair and a short yet ragingly unkept beard. He wore a tattered yellow shirt covered with a green coat that looked to be made out of leaves. He had brown pants that would've looked similar to Colt's if the bottom three inches of his had been tragically ripped off. The man also wore a leaf necklace (in case the jacket wasn't enough for you) and a hat that looked like it was made poorly from a combination of hay and grass. There was a spear strapped to the man's back that, from what Colt could see, seemed to have been made from bark and decorated with, you guessed it, more leaves. Leaves seemed to be in abundance in this particular area. The man held a banana in one hand and had a monkey sitting on his other arm. A second, much larger monkey, stood at his left side and stared Colt and Shelly down, daring them to make a move.
Colt and Shelly both stumbled backward at the sight of the man. The large monkey to the man's left sneered, looking satisfied.
"Who..." Colt lost his voice for a moment, then continued, "who are you?"
"I am the Monkey Chief!" the man puffed out his chest. When neither Colt nor Shelly responded, he tilted his head at them. "But the better question is 'who are you?'"
The alleged Monkey Chief gestured in front of him, to the clearing of monkeys. "It's been a long time since we've had... visitors. Where do you hail from!?"
"Well—" Colt started.
"Doesn't matter," Shelly interrupted him. "We didn't mean to come here and disturb you, Monkey... Chief. We'll just be on our way."
She made to leave but the Monkey Chief started to cackle. He threw his head back and made a loud, boisterous noise.
"Disturb me?" he grunted. "You could never! I've been getting so bored lately, you see. My monkeys do all my work for me, and no one ever travels through the forest of Goldtown anymore. Except for the Authority, periodically," his eyes shaded over at the mention of them. "And I try my best to stay away from that lot."
Colt fought the urge to verbally agree with him on that one. Instead, he decided he'd ask a question. "What exactly is it that all these monkeys do?"
Shelly didn't look happy at Colt carrying on the conversation, but the Monkey Chief was happy to answer.
"They run my entire business, of course!"
This time it was Shelly who was curious. "Your business? What's your business?"
The Monkey Chief snorted. "Same as everyone else's business, nowadays. Gold." He looked out into the distance upon saying the word. "Of course, most of the gold was long gone by the time I showed up. At least, in the town it was. But this forest was an untapped gold mine, until I got here of course. With the help of some of my friends," he stroked the monkey on his arm with one finger, "I was able to find lots of gold and claim this entire forest for myself. But now my monkeys do all the searching, and I just sit back and reap the rewards."
Shelly seemed even more unsettled now, but Colt's curiosity was still growing.
"How do you claim an entire forest?" he asked.
The Monkey Chief's eyes widened and his mouth curled up into a grin. "By killing everyone else that comes near it."
Colt gulped, starting to share in Shelly's uneasiness. "Oh. Well, like my friend here was saying, we should probably get going."
He and Shelly moved forward, but the Monkey Chief stepped up to block their path out. The big monkey beside him shifted its stance in anticipation.
"Don't go," he said, more of an order than a request. "So few people wander into this forest anymore, and it's been so long since my Battle Monkeys have been able to test their skills on actual humans."
As if on cue, twenty or so decently sized monkeys decended together from the trees. To Colt's horror, they were all holding small swords. In any other circumstance this would have looked cute, but Colt got the feeling the monkeys knew how to use them.
"You know what?" Colt said in a small voice. "I think the Battle Monkeys are doing fine, skill-wise. No need to trouble them with something like this."
The Monkey Chief just smiled. "Oh, they really don't mind. They like to have a good time."
Okay, now the monkey man was really starting to creep him out.
Colt eyes the monkeys with dread. "Yeah, I bet they do, but it wasn't them I was really worried about."
The Monkey Chief pulled his leaf jacket tighter around himself. "Well this was fun. But I'm afraid I have to scram. Nice meeting the two of you."
The man looked like he was about to leave, then he thought of something. "Oh, and I also wanted to thank you."
Colt brow furrowed in confusion, then he saw something. A monkey scampered out of the distance and up to the Chief. The Monkey Chief lowered his free arm and the monkey got on board. As Colt took a closer look, he realized it was the capuchin from earlier. The Monkey Chief began tracing his finger on the top of the creatures head, tracing the scar that Colt had seen earlier.
"You brought me back one of my underlings," said the man. "This one's been known to escape quite frequently." He then looked down at the monkey, who was trembling ever so slightly. "Don't you, chum?"
Then the Monkey Chief placed the monkey back on the ground and it scampered off.
Colt tried to control his breathing but his anger was rising steadily. "You don't hurt that monkey, do you?"
The Chief's head snapped up at Colt, and for the first time a look of annoyance flashed over the man's face. When he spoke, he did so slowly. "Don't you go questioning what I do with my underlings," he said.
Then he was back to his normal, creepy self. "Anyway, I'll leave you two to the mercy of the Battle Monkeys. Although, I don't remember ever teaching them anything about mercy."
The Chief turned away, cackling to himself maniacally. Colt's mind went into overdrive as the monkey's continued to advance toward him and Shelly.
"Wait!" he heard himself saying.
The Monkey Chief turned back, an eyebrow raised.
Colt took a breath. "I just thought that you were the one in charge here, not the monkeys."
The Monkey Chief turned toward Colt completely now, as if being challenged. "You've got it right. I'm the one in charge."
"Yeah, that's what I figured," Colt nodded. "I'm just wondering, then, why you're letting the monkeys have all the fun. Unless you're just a poor fighter..."
In a flash the Monkey Chief whipped out his bark spear and was inches away from Colt, with his weapon at his throat. "I'm the best fighter on this island."
Colt put his hands up and backed off slowly. His hand drifted down and grabbed a hold of the hilt of his cutlass.
"Then let's fight," he said. "You and me, one-on-one. Call your Battle Monkeys off and let yourself have some fun."
Shelly looked as if she thought that this was a terrible idea. Colt didn't entirely disagree with her, but it had been the only plan he could think of. At the very least, it was better than fighting a couple dozen monkeys with swords.
The Monkey Chief lowered the spear a little and tilted his head, staring at Colt. The Battle Monkeys continued to advance at a steady pace. Then, when the monkeys were rearing to attack, the Chief put a hand up in a subtle gesture. The monkeys drew back and lined up in a tight formation a few feet behind the odd-looking man, awaiting their next orders.
"Okay," said the Chief, smiling and nodding his head up and down. "One-on-one. You're on."
The Monkey Chief stepped back and raised his arms. The monkey by his side grabbed up at his leaf coat and pulled it off, leaving the Chief with only his ripped yellow shirt. Then he and the other, smaller monkey, who jumped off of the Chief's arm, retreated a little way's. The Monkey Chief then got into a stance, leveling his spear toward Colt. Colt drew his cutlass and readied himself, bending his knees a little. Shelly stepped away completely. Maybe she realized that, since she hated Colt so much anyway, it'd be a win-win situation for her.
After a few seconds of nothing happening, the Monkey Chief started to chuckle. "Going to make me wait here all day? Come on, boy! You started this fight, do something!"
Colt took a breath in. He'd never fought against anyone with a spear before. He'd only faced swords and knives. But it wasn't like he'd been in many actual fights to begin with so maybe it didn't even make a difference. How much different could a spear be from a sword anyway? And a spear made from bark at that. They were both sharp weapons, and that seemed to be what counted.
"Yaar!"
Colt shouted as he struck at the Monkey Chief. His sword didn't get anywhere close to the Chief, however, as the man had simply stuck out his spear and the sword had clunked against the middle of it. Colt recovered quickly and this time tried swinging the sword, but the Monkey Chief flashed his spear once again, this time hitting Colt's cutlass with the head of it and knocking the sword out of his hand.
Colt rushed backward and managed to pick his cutlass back up off the ground. He knew from the little experience he had that losing his sword in the middle of a fight did not end too well. The Chief didn't try to stop him from moving to pick it up. The man just stayed his distance, spear at the ready, which Colt thought was pretty foolish.
Colt attacked with his sword again, and again, and again. Each time he swung his cutlass, the Monkey Chief countered with nothing more than a twitch of his own weapon. He wasn't even putting in too much effort! So why was he winning? Colt was nearly out of breath at this point, which annoyed him since his opponent seemed to be doing absolutely fine.
"You're just going to stand there?" Colt challenged. "Not attack me?"
"You seem to be doing enough attacking for the both of us," replied the Monkey Chief.
Then all of the sudden the man made his first big movement of the fight. He stepped forward and swung his spear, and this time it made its way all the way over to Colt. The spear hit the side of his legs before he could do anything about it, which caused him to completely lose balance and crash to the floor.
The Monkey Chief cackled. "But if you want me to attack so badly, have it your way."
Colt staggered to his feet, still tightly gripping his sword, and ran toward the Chief in anger. To his surprise, he saw the Monkey Chief drop his spear. As Colt got close the man stepped out of the way of his attack, then simply stuck out a foot. Unfortunately that foot was strategically placed beneath Colt's path, and it caused him to trip and fall again.
The Monkey Chief took his time picking up his spear off the ground and walking over to where Colt lay. He pressed the tip of his spear up to Colt's neck. Colt breathed heavily and kept his eyes open and fixed on the man above him. He saw a certain look in the Chief's eyes, maybe bloodlust. Colt realized that the man wanted to kill him. It wasn't a requirement or an objective for him, it was his reward.
But then with a sigh, the Chief stepped back and withdrew the spear. "Unfortunately I won't be able to kill you."
"So sorry to hear that," Colt managed to rasp, his throat still sore from where the tip of the spear had rested.
"As am I," replied the Monkey Chief, and it looked like he meant it. "But I promised my monkeys they could have this one. And I'm never one to break a promise."
The Monkey Chief actually walked away this time, but not before Colt caught him making a gesture with one of his hands. Colt's heart sank as he recognized what the gesture meant. The Battle Monkeys were coming.