Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

12. Baa-boon.

-Monkey Shine Shrine, Baboon-

“I guess to start off you need to know about the monkeys. They’ve always been here in The Valley for a long time and they’ve been mostly peaceful until we gave our loyalty to Dragon for various reasons.” I was finally ready to get this off my chest. It’s been a long time coming. “They were always lazy, somewhat dimwitted, but they were talented in many things… mostly being able to turn invisible through various means and they can really play a mean game of hide and seek. I, as you are already very well aware, am not a ninja monkey. I was an oddity when I was found by the monkeys, there were no other baboons around The Valley and I was soon found myself being raised by them. I learned to speak their language and learned much about their culture, which was very minimal and rather stagnant. I even learned to speak the basic language the other animals around here spoke too, of course I tried to hold myself to better standards. Life really was quite simple back then, up until that deadly drought happened that dried up the entire valley.”

“From what Panda says, the heavens either caused the drought or didn’t help the situation when the drought eventually occurred. He at least implied that the heavens likely knew it was coming.” The nervous looking Pom took a sip of tea and then nodded to me. “If you will Mr. Baboon, please excuse my interruption and continue.”

I ignored the goat eating a massive amount of snacks, how often do they feed that child and where was it all going? At least her companions were being easy on the snacks and tea. She was scaring the monkeys with how much of a bottomless pit her stomach seemed to be and a few of them were scared she might even eat them.

I shook my head and got my head and got my thoughts back in order.

“Panda might be right that the heavens somehow had something to do with the drought, whether directly or indirectly. Maybe they might have had nothing to do with it at all, they are too mysterious for anyone to understand really and all we can know for sure is that the drought was a tragic turning point in life around here. I’m sure you all have heard about what happened to Dragon in that fiasco, but let me refresh you on it with our side of the story.” I told them about how Dragon tried to fix the drought, got struck down by the heavens and a few other pertinent things like mysterious lotus that, when destroyed, made Dragon lost control of his powers and ultimately caused him to burn himself painfully. “Now that I’ve caught you up on the story, this is where I come in. I, the leader of the ninja monkey army, Baboon stumbled upon Dragon in the aftermath of the destruction where he rests in his cave inside of Lung Mountain. The drought was nearing its end, but the ninja monkeys and I still needed to quench our thirsts something fierce and the waters in the mountains are cold and magically refreshing. The other animals in The Valley had very little water to survive on, but they still managed to squeak by and survive with what they could ration from what Dragon managed to give them before being struck down. We didn’t ration nearly as much as they did and we naturally have larger numbers.”

“I think I can see where this is going, so you asked Dragon for the water he’s currently stuck in since you were hurting badly enough for it while the drought was still taking its sweet time to end and you traded your services to him to save the monkeys.” Smolder was a smart one. She’d be an excellent dragon when she grows up, just not one we’d ever follow.

Smolder wasn’t a mystical guardian dragon, so at least she didn’t have to worry about The Heavens striking her down like what happened to Dragon.

“Yes, but never let it be said that we can’t quit at any time, I’ve fired all the monkeys before and Dragon has fired me at least two or three times already. Our previous binding agreements were nulled and void a long time ago, but now it’s a matter of pride and...” How do I put this exactly? Why were we still at Dragon’s beck and call when he doesn’t have any magic to control us with? At this point I guess we liked the crazy things we do in the name of Dragon, it made us feel like we were really important. At least I liked my leadership role as his general. “Well we’re loyal to our cause at sticking with Dragon through it all at the very least. Even if Dragon can barely speak a word of monkey and has never really bothered to learn much in all this time because he has me as a loyal servant. Our relationship usually has him burning me with his breath every now and then, along with a few painful beatings here and there that build character, but planning the various wild schemes gives us a reason to live these days. We look forward to what we’ll end up doing next to win one over The Valley, so far we’ve only got a few minor victories at best.”

“So… your bullies?” Ocellus was a strange creature, there was just something so very off-putting about her that I just couldn’t put my paw on. She looked vaguely like a unicorn, only she wasn’t. If a unicorn were around to purify Dragon that would have been nice, it would maybe fix his grumpy and rather evil disposition. We weren’t evil, we were just doing a job at being minions for someone who was. Sure it didn’t make us sound any better, but there was the distinction. “It doesn’t seem to matter all too much in the grand scheme of things as the defenders in The Valley seem more than a match for you.”

“Quite right for the most part, but I wouldn’t call us bullies as much as we’ve been bullied as much as we bully them and I would like to state that we’ve come close to winning against them on numerous occasions. We’re more like… antagonistic friends.” Sighing, I took a sip of tea and continued my thought. “Recently Skunk’s shenanigans ruin our plans fairly often, but we’re always having some fun at least. Injuries permitting and all that.”

“I for one think it’s a horrible way to live, but I can almost understand and see why you continue to do what you do.” You were too nice for our little slice of the world Pom. I actually don’t want to bring you before Dragon, but you were nuts enough to actually want to meet him. “Dragon’s hurting personally, he’s hurting you and you in turn likely hurt the ninja monkeys who in turn hurt the dwellers of The Valley.”

“It’s true, I may bully and push the ninja monkeys around. It may also be true that Dragon hurts me as much as the dwellers in The Valley, but let me make this one thing clear though.” I held up a paw that quieted everyone and the monkeys that were lazing about sat up. “When a monkey is sick, I care for them. When a monkey needs help, I care for them. When my people need me, I will always be there for them as they are my family regardless of everything else going on! I have never failed the monkeys nearly as much as they have failed me, it’s why I’m still the leader around here and it’s not just because I’m the best banana pie maker in The Valley to the point that even the wonderful chef that is Duck is jealous. We always care for our own and we’re as strong a community as the dwellers.”

I turned my gaze to the one monkey that I sent disguised as a skunk. ‘Epi’ as Skunk had called her to start off with after hearing her say ‘eep ee’, she was better known as Kiki. Darling girl, I knew she was friends with Skunk and might even have a crush on the little guy.

Kiki wouldn’t get in the way if Skunk was going to be… shall we say ‘disposed of’. She would definitely weep for him and I would let her do so without a word against it. Even I would weep for Skunk if he ever manages to fall in a fight, he was sent by The Heavens to either help Dragon or defeat him once and for all.

I wanted Dragon to live, but I really couldn’t try to talk Skunk into helping him and he was a strong opponent that learns fighting techniques at a frightening pace on the first glance.

There was just too much bad blood between us at this point and we had too much fun testing ourselves against one another to really give it up. Skunk as much as the other dwellers were worthy opponents and I was always willing and able to give them a challenge on any front, land, water or air!

That’s why I agreed to this talk with a neutral party, Pom was a neutral party and might be able to get some of what Dragon used to be back. Maybe talk a slight amount of sense into Dragon with an outsider’s perspective on things, because our war has been dragging on for a long time and Skunk is inevitably going to be able to end this one way or another.

“Even Kiki who’s been sneaking out and spending time with Skunk. I don’t shun her or have her spying on the valley. She’s not betraying us and we’re not betraying her, but yes we know about it. Dragon certainly doesn’t need to know about that at all though, Kiki still fights the dwellers when on the job and what she does with her free time really doesn’t matter to me as long as she can continue to keep a lid on it and is happy. Kiki, as an order, I hope that you never tell me what you do on your off time and that you can plausibly deny anything if asked about it.” It seemed our guests at the table were a little surprised that I’ve never told Dragon about that. The other monkeys around the room were also surprised, mostly for the fact that I usually tell Dragon everything. I do what little I can to make Dragon happy, but telling him that one of mine could be considered a traitor… well she hasn’t done anything worthy of being called a traitor at all in my eyes. Plus looking the other way isn’t causing us any more problems than usual. I hope the monkeys appreciate what I do for them as a leader. “I can be a bit rough around the edges, I can be cruel, I can be punishing, but I absolutely take care of those under me when they absolutely need me the most! Monkeys aren’t great fighters, I’m well aware of this, I’m even quite sure that Dragon subconsciously knows of this as well and refuses to see the fact that we continually lose as a reason to give up on destroying The Valley and everything adjacent to it. Yet time and again Dragon still trusts us to try to do the things he tells us to and we always try to deliver to the best of our abilities! If he hurts anyone other than me, his loyal general, then he knows he soon very well won’t have an army to work with. I’m the target of his wrath if failure happens, I’m the one that makes the mistakes and deserves the punishments Dragon thinks I deserve. The monkeys all around us know what I have to put up with as I make them feel my frustration, but I’ve never gone too far on it.”

“So you be actually having a moral compass?” Shanty said through a mouthful of Banana.

Kiki had a shocked look in her eyes, I smiled to her and nodded. I saw Kiki tenseness ease slightly, she was still friends with Skunk even if she had to fight him from time to time. I wasn’t going to talk about it, because what was there to talk about?

“You’re nicer than the other animals in The Valley picture you as being.” Pom stated softly while gazing at me with her large eyes filled with worry.

“I never show my softer side on the battlefield, showing weakness isn’t exactly a good thing when you’re a general and in charge of taking care of this lot.” I motioned to all the ninja monkeys around the room, on the walls and in the rafters above. None of them spoke up and were silently staring at me. “I’m not going to lie, Dragon might hurt you and I won’t go against him if he does.”

“I still want to see Dragon, there are just some things I have to know.” Pom stated solemnly, Ocellus was looking at her with shock. Why was she shocked about hearing this?

“Why are you surprised?” I asked conversationally to the strange bug like yokai or kaiju like being. Yokai were more to spirits, so kaiju would be more correct as strange entity.

“Pom’s probably the bravest I’ve ever heard of her people.” One could practically feel the surprise rolling off of Ocellus. “She actually wants to meet someone who sounds like they would kill her without remorse.”

“We’re not evil, but we follow someone who definitely is and we’re not going to mince words on it.” I couldn’t hide it, Dragon seemed have a boundless anger and wrath. “Truly Dragon has had us a do a lot of nasty things to The Valley since we started working for him. Infiltrate The Valley, destroy a bunch of stuff and we even forced a drought by blocking up the river that gives life to the lower end of the valley. Dragon even once suggested poisoning the animals to a disguised Skunk that the monkeys thought would be a good spokesperson for them, they were right for the wrong reasons of course. Skunk was lucky to escape and prevent that from happening, I really didn’t like the idea of poisoning them and neither do the monkeys.”

The various monkeys around the room agreed with me out of their personal morals as much as the ones we shared. In any case if we had poisoned the animals, Turtle would have cured them or they would have made a last ditch effort in sealing off Dragon from the outside world for good. It wouldn’t be all too hard to drop the mountain on Dragon and I could conceive of several ways they could do that, but they weren’t the violent sort unless pushed to do it. They were letting us have our territory after all and were not trying to force us to live in poorer conditions, not that they had the numbers to do that for too long anyway.

“How did Skunk end up disguised and how long did it take you recognize the disguise?” Popping a small cookie in her mouth and blowing a small bit of flame on her tea cup to warm her tea, Smolder was eyeing me oddly.

“Funny thing about that.” I tapped my paws together as I recall Dragon launching Skunk when we could have taken him captive. “Imagine Skunk accidentally getting his tail stretched out, getting a coconut carved to resemble a ninja monkey’s face trapped on his head, having his tail partially shaved down to make it look as thin as a monkeys, to top it off cover both his chest and tail in ink.”

Shanty immediately burst out with laughter and fell to the floor with tears in her eyes. A few monkeys broke out into giggles too, I sighed and chuckled a bit myself. It was actually pretty funny that he managed to accidentally infiltrate us. Even Smolder and Ocellus were smiling and Pom snickered slightly with a hoof over her mouth.

“Also it’s fairly dark up at the Frozen Fortress outside of Dragon’s lair, so excuse us for missing the obvious that the mouth on the Skunk’s coconut mask wasn’t moving. Some ninja monkeys practice ventriloquism as a stealthy misdirection technique. The ones that do that never move their mouths.” That led to a mistake I should have caught when I noticed they weren’t blinking either. “That and I probably should have realized Skunk’s mask wasn’t blinking, speaking monkey when I introduced him to Dragon… or at all for that matter. Skunk was absolutely lucky to get out of that mostly unscathed, but it wasn’t with his dignity intact when we saw him a few days later and it was reported by our spies.”

“So you’re still loyal to Dragon even when he is bad as he has apparently gotten?” Pom, the expression on my face was all I was going to say on that. “I still want to see what became of him myself.”

“Are you sure about this, I could say that you escaped and the dwellers in The Valley are protecting you. I won’t even mention your other three friends if you don’t want me to.” They were not the ones fighting us after all, they came here of their own free will and were even nice to share tea with.

Come to think of it, we never actually touched the noncombatants. Ox was barely all there in the head, Bird was lazy and too small to really do any damage, The Bees were almost neutral as long as their tree was left completely alone and Pig was quit annoying every time he came up here and spoke random gibberish in monkey.

“I’m completely afraid of meeting him, I’m getting shivers throughout my body at the possibility of getting hurt or worse… but I’m absolutely certain that I want to.” Pom gazed into my eyes and I looked into hers, she was quite determined even if her body was quaking with fear at the thought of meeting Dragon.

“I’ll pencil you in a few days from now, we have a Ro-Sham-Bo Battle tournament that we’ll drag the valley dwellers into a few days from now.” We might even win it, but it’d still be fun to do even if we do lose. I wasn’t getting my hopes up for more success like Pom. “You can watch, but please don’t get involved.”

“Oh yeah, getting all those valley dwellers to play Battle Ro-Sham-Bo is going to be a lot of fun!” Everyone turned to the constant thorn in my side worse than Skunk or any other valley dweller in existence, the one who just spoke up had me groaning in agony at hearing him somehow getting inside and past all the guards posted... again.

“Pig… you’re not a monkey… please leave for everyone’s sakes and sanity...” I tried to keep myself calm, as once again we were host to what is colloquially known by everyone as The Valley Idiot. Ox was brainless, but he wasn’t as stupid as Pig consistently was.

“I’m not?” Pig looked as confused as he usually does. “I could have sworn… hold on let me ask the guys.”

He made several monkey noises in an attempt to talk to the other monkeys. Trying to ask them something, but it was almost horrendous gibberish. The fact that it made some kind of sense was horrific to me, as Pig might actually be getting better at speaking monkey somehow despite never actually trying to learn it.

“That was really badly garbled, but I really have to know now.” Pom, please don’t, we don’t need another Pig euphemism running throughout our community. They tend to catch on fire around here given how fast they spread and it’s hard to get the monkeys to stop once they start. “Did he just seriously ask if his grandma could toot a flute with the back winds of the cheeks that smell of fertilizer?”

Shanty again started laughing uproariously. The monkeys, once they realized that Pom had repeated everything Pig said verbatim, also started laughing along with our other guests. Even I couldn’t hold back the laughter once everyone got going, this was supposed to be a serious meeting and Pig just wanders in thinking he’s a ninja monkey… again.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll admit that that definitely brightened up the room considerably.” I then decided to be a bit more serious, I crossed my arms and stared at Pom sternly. “When you come back, I’ll show you to Dragon personally. I suggest you prepare yourself mentally for it in the meantime. Also would someone quickly get a mallet or at the very least force Pig back to The Valley before he breaks anything important, because need I remind you what happened the last time we left him alone near something sensitive!”

“Sorry for asking this, but why do you need a mallet?” Well now I had to answer Ocellus’s question just to sate her curiosity while dealing with a ‘wild’ Pig in our base.

This was going to be another big or rather 'Pig' incident, I could already tell.

-Two hours, an explanation and three Pig related noodle incidents later, Pom-

“Just get him back to The Valley.” Baboon groaned with his face in his paws. “Also, I thank you for helping us with him.”

“No problem.” I felt sorry for poor Baboon as he clearly lived a tough life, but he was to be commended for sticking to his choices even if not all of them were good ones.

We exited the shrine carrying Pig tied up to a thick tree branch, he was also thankfully gagged as his monkey language gibberish was like listening to some kind of horrible alien poetry.

“So… thoughts?” I asked of my companions.

“I’m surprised you’re actually going to go through with seeing Dragon.” Ocellus said blandly while not looking in my direction.

“I be thinking that was a cannon blast, it being both funny and explosively fun.” Shanty had a skip in her step as she trotted alongside of us as we carried Pig back towards The Valley. Baboon never wanted to take Pig prisoner again after last five incidents he didn’t want to talk about, we understood his reasoning after having helped him wrangle Pig into his current state. “They be nice people. Not the nicest or friendliest, but nice nonetheless despite working for what be sounding like pure evil.”

“Eh, they weren’t too bad even if Dragon sounds like something else entirely.” Smolder was pretty good at hogtying, said she picked it up from Applejack of Sweet Apple Acres.

Smolder’s mention of tying knots had Ocellus turning solid red and shyly scraping at the ground with a hoof nearby.

“We have to get there before Pig causes… oh never mind.” Rabbit stopped when he saw us carrying Pig. “Did he damage your campsite?”

“No.” Smolder stated lazily. "He did give us the run around though."

“Okay, false alarm Crane, Pig is contained!" Rabbit signaled something to a fairly large, airborne and quite beautiful female crane. "I repeat, Pig is thankfully contained!”

There was also Fox, looking at me affectionately the second I was within sight, along with Skunk and Panda. They didn't look at all too upset to see Pig tied up, even Pig himself didn't seem upset with his current predicament.

Pig managed to shift his face just enough to get the gag out of his mouth.

“Oh, hey guys, I was visiting my cousins!” Pig said jovially, all the animals sighed in both relief and clear utter annoyance.

Author's Note:

The fighting starts next arc in a completely different place, Pom is handling this with diplomacy as much as she can.

Comments

[AJ Aficionado]

The ancient war cry of the lambkin.

[Shadowshame]

I feel like Smoulder maybe should go with Pom to see Dragon for nothing else other than the fact that she is fire proof and her scales are basically armor so Dragon basically couldn't really do anything serious to her and so she could act as Pom's security measure

[Herald of Opera]

10478849
Considering his fire is already explicitly burning himself, I wouldn't be too sure of that.

[Shadowshame]

10480776
That's because he NEEDED his water magic so that he wouldn't be burnt by his fire magic in essence Dragon isn't fire proof but equestrian dragons like Smoulder regularly bathe in lava which is hotter than fire I don't think Dragon's fire magic would be enough to burn a creature that happily swims in melted rock that comes up from the earth's core