Monkey Fist never cared much about dates on a calendar, even when he was a child. Each day was the same as every other day in terms of meaning. Humans attached the concept of worth to each day like it actually made them special. Anniversaries? Holidays? Birthdays? All worthless. The only thing calendar-related that held any significance were the various stages of the moon and placement of stars, the things that governed the spiritual frame of the universe.
Hence he woke up treating this day as any other. It was another day that held no significance. His parents, if they were alive, would have insisted he at least sit with them and have a spot of tea and perhaps open a token present of some sort. That was probably the only thankful thing that came of their demise. Finally being able to drop the pathetic façade of actually caring about things that didn't matter.
He did his stretches, pondering how to spend the day. There were a few leads he had picked up on an ancient power, one that opposed the Mystical Monkey Power. Monty had grown frustrated with The Pretender constantly getting in his way—even daring to keep him from learning the name of the ultimate monkey weapon. Finding this other power would certainly tip the scales in his favor.
On the other hand, he was starting to find that his monkey ninjas were lacking the discipline that they had back when he first trained them. Before he was able to command them just through the way he tensed the muscles on his body. Now they were taking on…unworthy characteristics. He'd even walked in on them watching some of that woman, Opera, making a terrible racket over some poor abused housewife.
He decided to continue pondering the choices, measuring the pros and cons, while he ate his breakfast. It wouldn't do much good for him to skip out on eating something while he wasn't consumed in scrolls. Thus he made his way to the sizeable kitchen that existed in his manor.
The sight that greeted him was one that would have continued to make him flinch even weeks later.
The kitchen was covered in various mismatched streamers. It looked like a spider that produced multicolored webbing had attempted to make a nest for itself. Attempt was the major word since most of them ended up jumbled together in various knots. Even as agile as he was Monkey Fist wasn't sure he could make it through the mess.
The countertops and the island that served more space seemed to have something explode all over them. Bits of what appeared to be dough and various wisps of white fluff were splattered everywhere. Including the ceiling. He was loathe to even wonder how old some of the ingredients were considering how neither he nor the monkeys ever cooked and there were small flour beetles crawling around.
And across from the doorway letters spelling out 'Haqqee Birhdey' that appeared to be stuck to the wall with a crusty brownish substance.
Ah yes. This was the gentle yet, as of late, unwelcome tap of destiny telling him what he should do.
"MONKEY NINJAS! ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF ME NOW!" Monkey Fist shouted much louder than he needed to.
In mere moments his entire troupe was lined in front of him. It didn't pertain to their skill, the Englishman mentally snorted. They had been hiding themselves in the kitchen, apparently waiting for him to walk in. It was nearly disgusting that they were unable to hear or sense his approach, seeing as he was taking no effort to hide himself.
"What," he snarled as he waved a hand across the kitchen, "is the meaning of this?"
Kiki, one of the more reckless members of the group, gave a few halting ooks.
"A party? You're throwing me a birthday party?" He should have known his parents would reach out beyond the grave to get something to throw him a party. "I'm assuming you tried baking, hence the mess."
Another one of his ninja minions, Jojo, answered this time.
"You ate the cake," he stated flatly. "You were throwing me a surprise party and you ate the cake before I even got here." Kiki began to give an apology which he waved off. "Don't. I'm fairly certain I've told you all more than a few times that I despise events like this. I suppose you got me presents as well," Monty added sarcastically. It wasn't even an eyeblink later that there were a handful of wrapped packages being held out in front of him. "…charming."
He turned to go to his study if just to try and get his mind off of this madness before he made his monkey ninjas clean up the mess when he found his path blocked by those very monkeys.
"What is it?" their master snapped.
Chippy scuffed his foot against the ground as he held out the present he had once more. The other two that had presents held them up as well.
"You have got to be kidding me." The lord sighed as he signaled for them to follow him into the dining room. Considering all the effort they had put into doing this he knew that they would passively aggressively ignore his commands like they had when he refused to give them any vacation time if he denied their attempts to acknowledge his day of birth. It was best to just simply go with it for now and make them work it off later in training sessions.
As he walked into the dusty, underused room Monty waved at them to take a seat. Naturally, he sat at the head of the table where he was met with the three oddly shaped packages. Nearly all the seats ended up occupied as his minions sat in great anticipation.
The first package he instantly recognized. "Couldn't you have gotten your own presents instead of giving me my own things?" he grunted as he tore the paper off of what he was sure was one of his books. Sure enough, the etched picture of a monkey posed mid-jump and words in a long dead language stating that it was the book of simian power greeted him.
"I thought it was a good present!" a male, Jumbo, chattered defensively.
"The concept of a present seems to have eluded you," Monkey Fist said dryly. The next present, a large lumpy package, he tore open without preamble. "And of course. Bananas." He was sure he had just bought this batch from the store yesterday.
Bored, he lacklusterly pushed the last item over before he slammed his head into the table. Mid-thump, he heard a faint tinkle come from the package. "Hm?" Strange. He didn't have anything that would make a noise like that save for his fine glassware and he had made sure his ninjas knew to never touch them.
He picked it up with care and began to unwrap it. They knew better than to touch his finer pieces. If they had there would be punishment training on top of the usual training.
Once he had unwrapped the item, he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. It filled him with complete revulsion…yet he had the strange feeling that it would be a good idea to wind it up. Curious.
"I realize I like most monkey-themed items, especially those of an antique nature," Monty said, "but this isn't exactly what I look for when I think 'monkey artifacts'." He poked one of the cymbals of the little monkey toy that he had unwrapped. The toy seemed to stir a faint memory, most likely from his childhood. Much too faint to even focus on. "What, pray tell, made you think that I would like this?"
Chippy spoke up this time.
"And you actually believed the old gypsy woman that sold you this?" he scoffed at Chippy, who looked more than a little disappointed. "I thought I had taught you better. Never believe the old gypsy types. There's a reason they bear the reputation of tricking people out of their money." To emphasize the point and satisfy the unreasonable desire to make it work, he wound the little circus monkey up enough to have it bang its cymbals together once. "Now does this seem like a cursed item to you?"
"No," the entire group ooked in reply.
"Good. Now that we have learned this lesson," the lord said as he stood up from the table, "you may go ahead and clean up the mess you made in the kitchen."
None of the group hesitated to rush to the kitchen. Monkey Fist, feeling exasperated from the experience, picked up the bunch of bananas that had been wrapped up and began heading to the kitchen with them. He snagged a couple of the yellow fruits from the bundle as he went, planning to snack on them later.
When he arrived in the kitchen, he was pleased to see his ninjas hard at work cleaning up their mess. He rehung the bananas from their hook in the kitchen and had turned to leave when he heard the faint chinging of the monkey toy's cymbals. Annoyed at one of the ninjas shirking their duties, Monty took a count of the monkeys present in the kitchen.
Odd. All were present and accounted for. The toy must just be a defect. It wasn't unheard of, especially the ones from disreputable sources. Taking one more look around and noting that the monkeys were making good progress—the only flour beetles that were left were the dead ones, most of the brownish substance on the walls was scrubbed away, and the island was at least close to spotless—he went to retire to his little dojo until they were ready for practice.
A/N:
Here's something I thought of and decided to try and write out for MF Appreciation Day. I doubt I'm managing to capture his voice or mannerisms, but I'm trying my best. Hope the MF fans like it. Not a one-chapter story.
Thanks to kgs-wy for taking a look at this before I started posting.
