Agrippa.
Montgomery Fiske. Lord. Gentleman. Archaeologist. Monkey master. In short, a man of quite colorful and strange life. Yet, he always knew something more then that was out there, waiting for him to discover. However, he was not interested by new. No, the fads of today were beneath a gentleman, petty one-day passions of a child. He needed something more stable, something monumentally solid. Something he could devote his life to. And so, he turned to past. Unearthing the secrets of the ancient times - now that was a task he could live with.
Yet somewhere down that road, he discovered more then he wanted, a bargain with the devil that looked too good to pass up. So there he was, monkeying around ancient temples and forbidden cities, trying to glimpse another monkey artifact. Why monkeys? He honestly knew not. Why not bears? Or eagles? Or dolphins? He had his suspicions, however.
Sneezing from the dust, he barely managed to cover his mouth with the paw, doing his best to avoid disturbing the dig he was working on. Even after his descent into crime and, frankly, monkeyish shenanigans, he still occasionally returned to his original craft - that of an archaeologist. And right now, that was a very welcome change of pace. It`s been two weeks since he attempted to steal Jade Monkey from exposition in Tokyo, and his body was still healing up from the thrashing given to him by intrepid duo that thwarted nearly all his acquisition plans. He chuckled softly - while indeed, Ron Stoppable was his rival in the race for monkey powers, he held no particular ill will toward the young man. Anyone could`ve been in Ron`s place - hell, anyone could`ve been in his, Fiske`s, place, as well. Still, that mattered little in the face of rivalry that he had no hope or intention of defusing. Let the best man win.
And frankly, it would be somewhat unfair to pin all the blame on Possible team. After all, it was partly his fault for getting careless enough to be shot in the calf by aberrantly attentive guard, as he made his escape from precinct jail two days later. Oh well, unexpected injury gave him a good excuse to put mania on hold - and in the meanwhile, simply enjoy being an archaeologist. This particular dig, located in northern Italy, was never considered important enough to warrant more then cursory examination, which suited Montgomery just fine. All he wanted was to dig up some Roman pottery. At first, he laid down a dozen of examination shafts, but only one yielded results that interested him enough to expand there. Apparently, he managed to dig down into what used to be a house cellar. Plenty of pottery there, maybe even a chance to recover a sizable fragment.
As he paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, an irregularity caught his attention. Something... Unusual. Intrigued, he pressed in with his knife, trying to determine what kind of object he lucked upon. Was it ceramic shard? Or a piece of petrified wood? Maybe even a bone or... Screech. Whatever was there, it was metallic. Iron, probably. He felt a wave of disappointment wash over him. Probably some piece of metal scrap one of the careless locals tossed out. Still, he needed to get it out to continue digging - just to get rid of it`s grating presence, if nothing else.
...Well... Well, well, well. How bloody serendipitous. A couple minutes later, lord Fiske experienced a rapid mood swing in opposite direction. He stumbled on something ancient. Small chest was clearly of Roman design. Tentatively, Montgomery brushed the dust from the golden eagle embossed on the top of chest. Aquila, the symbol of Roman military. Judging by the looks and workmanship of the chest, he dated the unearthed relic to be from around 100 BC, give or take, the very end of Roman Republic and beginning of Roman Empire. However, he noted with detached elation, this find was... outstanding. For the chest was made of iron - metal almost unheard of in that period. Of course, it could be an elaborate sham, but that could be easily verified - he had some of the modern tools back in his tent outside of the dig and could do a rough radiometric dating that would easily confirm if this object really dates back to ancient times.
Even with his unnatural monkey strength, chest seemed to be quite heavy, but that did not deter the archaeologist, as he gingerly hauled his prise out and settled it on the folding table with flourish. Having brushed off the remains of dust and dirt from the chest, he picked up portable dating analyser, and pressed it against the insignia, pulling the trigger. Device beeped. Well, what do you know... that chest was indeed made back in Roman times. Rubbing his chin, Montgomery considered the chest carefully. Iron of that period was worth more then gold - for the only source of it was meteorites. Yet the chest was doubtlessly made from iron. It must`ve been meant to contain something really important and/or dangerous. The cost of that chest alone would`ve been comparable to a total cost of whole Roman province back then. What are the odds it was meant to contain some magic artifact? Pretty hefty, he had to admit, iron had always been a metal of choice to use against the supernatural until it became ubiquitous.
Of course, chest was locked. But that was not a problem for lord Fiske - simple antique lock gave in easily as he skillfully picked it. Too easy, actually. It should`ve been much more problematic to open, given the amount of time since it was opened the last time. Archaeologist was actually ready to use diamond saw to open the chest - though he was immensely glad it was not necessary. Inside... Whoa. He gingerly fingered the edge of the lid. No wonder the chest felt so hefty - it`s panels were at least an inch-thick from every side. As to what`s inside... Inside contained a single scroll, rolled up and enclosed in leather holster.
Very gingerly and carefully, lord Fiske unbuckled the clasp on the holster and started unrolling the scroll. He was right - this was most definitely arcane text, as the vellum it was written on all but ignored the ravages of time, just like the chest it was contained in. As he tried to focus his attention on the words written, his vision dimmed. Shaking his head, Montgomery dropped the scroll and jumped away from the table. Fortunately, his vision came back after a few moments of darkness, for which he was eternally grateful. Whatever was written on the scroll, it was definitely not meant to be read casually. ...Wait, the scroll! Chest was empty.
"Damn it, what had I unleashed this time?" - he muttered, looking around the table, hoping that scroll was simply knocked off. No such luck. That did not bring any mirth to archaeologist. He already got caught like this once, and monkey business was still hijacking his life something terrible. What had he signed up for, now? "Salutem tibi studiosum." - well, that solves it. Montgomery turned around to face whatever was that he unleashed. Or whoever. He hoped his limited latin would be sufficient.
- Salutem.
- Scientiam quid quaeris, studiosum?
- Cupio scire aetatum.
- Vos possit quaeritur vestri quaestionibus.
- Quod nomen est tibi?
- Laudabiliter blande loqueris. Agrippa nomine sum.
- Quid es, Agrippa?
- Liber.
Archaeologist rubbed his chin apprehensively. Apparently, that scroll was a sentient being. Sentient being named Agrippa, who, primo, offered to answer his questions and secundo, identified itself as a book. He could tell that it looked vaguely feminine, as much as an assortment of smoke wisps could be feminine. Well, that was already better then his average encounter with ancient magical artifacts. Maybe this one could tell him something new about his all-consuming monkey mania.
- Dic mihi de mystica virtus simia.
- Mystica? Simia? Certe tu ioco.
- Non a iocus.
- Nescio mysticae simias. Qui gustum bene autem.
Montgomery cringed. Apparently, this particular book was written either before mystical monkey powers were invented, or simply too far away from orient where MMP was developed. Book, however, opined that monkeys are delicious, and given the fact that Romans indeed considered monkey brains an exotic delicacy, lord Fiske opted to direct conversation toward something else.
- Si vos es liber, quod scriptum est in vobis?
- Regum liber ego sum. Respondeo quaestionibus nullus vult petere.
- Ego velit quaerum?
- Nequaquam. Quaeram te, id.
- Quo narras mihi circa me?
- Es simia in caput tuum. Rex malus simia. Donec coniungunt maculae.
- Numquid simia interficere me?
- Nequaquam.
He rubbed his chin again. Book of kings, answering the questions noone wants answered... This sure sounded ominous. And Agrippa`s opinion on Montgomery Fiske himself was that he has monkey in his head... and that monkey is a lousy king. At least book didn`t insist that this whole monkey business would kill him. Already good. But then again, magic artifacts, especially sentient ones, tended to have sick sense of humor, and reassurance that he won`t die because of monkeys meant exactly that. He could still get blinded, paralysed, quadriplegic, comatose or a whole slew of other conditions that might make him wish he were dead.
- Si ego quaeris, dicis mihi quam impetro magis vox?
- Certum.
- Ibo ab insanis illa notitia?
- Tu est doctum magna.
- Potest vobis facio alieni?
- Saeva viro. Immo potes.
Perhaps, lord Fiske might have wanted to ask more questions, but.. what worked, worked. He gingerly picked up the scroll and locked the clasp shut, placing it just as gingerly into the chest, then. It was, no doubt, a powerful artifact. A book that would be capable to tell him about things not known to men. However, if there was something Montgomery had learned in his encounters with magic, it was a firm fact of life that some things were not meant to know. And he had a hunch that this particular book was made specifically to tell the things men are not supposed to know. Best have someone else take that chance, he already had his hands full of monkeys. In fact... In fact he knew the perfect person to shove off this particular artifact to. He grinned. Lord Fiske loved it when a plan came together.
"But KP!... This latin is... boring." - Ron knew that complaints wouldn`t avail him anything, but he had to at least mention his displeasure over the phone. After all, it was true - he had no idea why were he studying latin in the first place. He simply couldn`t think of any reason why would he ever need to know latin. But right now, Ron was between a hammer and anvil, figuratively. More literally, he`s been recently cornered by mr. Barkin, who saddled him up with additional textbook on latin, which "might help you to finally learn something". Which, belatedly, was the reason why he was unable to join Kim for a trip to Club Banana. Given that Ron was seriously unsure which is the lesser evil... it spoke volumes of his desire to study latin. Kim was unyielding, however, and squaring his shoulders, Ron opened the fancy book.
- Whoa... What happened!... Darn it, I think I just fainted.
- Yo man, how`s it shaking?
- WHO`S there!
- I`m your latin book, dawg. Agrippa`s the name. Now let`s get on with dem lessons, ne? I`m gonna show you a rad game or two, cosmic cat.
- ...BWUUUH...
Author Notes: I`ve always been dubious of the singlemindedness of lord Fiske. A person of his upbringing would be less then enthused about the idea to be a monkey. However, if monkey powers didn`t really care about his personal feelings on the matter?
Maybe, that could be a start of an epic story of hapless noble struggling against the ancient mystic powers that hijack his mind and body for reasons unfathomable. Maybe. But that little story was certainly not it. It was just a little what if, a glimpse in a life of Montgomery Fiske, the tormented archaeologist, and how does he maintains whatever flimsy grasp on sanity that`s still available to him.