MONKEY STRONG
Crystal Princess/PotC
Maz & Guy were hanging out at an old Arcade, where they found an old Donkey Kong knock off called "Monkey Strong".
"Hey, one of my Dad's friends used to love this game as a kid, or at least another copyright friendly imitation of the original title." Maz said as he pointed it out, finger wagging in the direction of the machine.
"Pfft", said guy, "That game's like a million years old and it's totally lame compared to the rest of the classics in here. Like this rare beauty - "
Guy pointed to a well preserved, brightly coloured machine labelled "LASER FLASH TURBO GAIDEN". It was hard to stare at it for too long without becoming disorientated. A constant string of PEW PEW noises could be heard ringing from it's speakers.
"Uh, Guy, I think that company went out of business because it gave kids seizures. That's probably why it's rare."
"Hah, well I bet I'll she-ieze up from boredom if I play this thing!"
"That's not cool dude."
"You're just going ape 'cause I dissed your crappy game."
"It's NOT crappy! This game has... legacy!" Maz proudly beamed.
"WHAT legacy, it's a dumb rip off an old game, and any sequels it probably didn't get would also be dumb rip offs."
"Give me a quarter, dude."
"What?"
"Give me a quarter. For your blasphemy, you must make an offering at the altar of the Monkey." Maz waved his hand in an arc while looking very serious indeed.
"That's not even a Monkey. It's clearly a Gorilla."
"Whatever man, just lend me a quarter, I spent all of mine winning three pairs of mirrorshades from the crane game." He held out his winnings; three pairs of cheap plastic novelty sunglasses wrapped in thin translucent plastic, each in a different colour; which met with a confused and possibly irked expression from Guy.
"Oh, fine."
Guy gave Maz the appropriate coinage. Maz blew on the quarter, and held up to the light. He then slid it into the coin slot, and got ready for some action.
"Here we go!"
Nothing happened. Guy gave the machine a kick.
"Guy!"
The screen finally registered the presence of a player, or at least gave a similar response to what you'd expect from doing so. The video glitched slightly; wavy static ran across the screen. Then, a somewhat familiar voice sounded out, which neither could quite place.
"Do you want to play a game?"
"Well, duh."
"Do you want to play Monkey Strong in regular mode... or would you like to RAISE THE STAKES?"
"Dude, raise the stakes, raise the stakes!"
"You have selected to RAISE THE STAKES."
"Excellent. My body is SO ready for this."
A face appeared on screen. It was Megamonkey!
"Thank you for activating MONKEY STRONG."
Suddenly, the whole Arcade began to shake. There was a flash, a bang; all the flurry and fury of an electrical storm occupied the building, shorting the mains power; but still this one machine remained on.
A portal opened near an adjacent wall; and their most resourceful foe - Megamonkey - jumped out. Guy and Maz sounded "Whoa" in unison.
"Excellent! Yes! I wondered where I'd put this device, thankfully; it looks like someone managed to reactivate the beacon. It was one of my greatest creations of the last 3 years; alas a certain someone didn't approve of it's genius, and discarded it to the annals of history."
"Hey, Guy. He said 'annals'".
The building had stopped shaking; but the Monkey Strong machine had not. Megamonkey had perched himself on the control console, arms folded. Eventually it blasted off like a rocket; leaving a trail of sparks behind it, crashing through the roof without the first sign of damage.
The boys let off another "Whoa!"
"This is bad, I better transform!" Guy then noticed that the sense of imminent danger had already turned him into Shezow.
"Oh."
"Wait, Megamonkey made that game 3 years go? Then how did my Dad's friend play it 20 years ago..."
"Dude, it's time travel. Don't think about it."
Maz raised a finger.
"Then why does it look like it's from the -"
"Stop."
Shezow crouched; then leapt out of the hole in the ceiling in one huge bound.
The Arcade machine had sprouted a pair of wings; stabilising it's flight.
"I had the greatest engineers of a country that doesn't even exist yet work with me on this robot!"
"Um, what country?"
"Neo-Japan!"
"So, Japan?"
"Shut up and marvel at it's power!"
There was a rumbling somewhere in the distance; there was a smoke signal coming up from Megadale Zoo. A clearing near where the monkeys and apes were kept opened up, much to the shock of the local residents.
A huge robot body jetted out, fist first. There was an explosion; and the cages were blasted open. The monkeys cheered, high fived, and swung their way to a nearby bar to celebrate.
The enormous bulking frame approached the arcade machine; Megamonkey kicked a button, jumped up, and by the time his feet returned to the machine; it had transformed into what looked like a ape's head. Shezow shielded himself from a shower of sparks that came in every direction as the body approached the head; and fused together; landing in a park next to the Arcade.
"Behold, the true form of MONKEY STRONG!"
"But... but... it looks more like a Gorilla."
"Shut up! It's Monkey Strong! The strongest simian in the galaxy!"
"Man, what's with all the heavy metal lately..."
Before Monkey Strong could do anything, however; another time portal opened. A huge gorilla in a fancy purple suit leapt out just above the head unit; grabbed Mega Monkey and tackled him to the ground.
"And what do you think YOU'RE doing, son."
"But Dad -"
"DAD!?" Guy and Maz exclaimed in Unison.
"I told you it was a dumb idea having this built. Animal-themed mechs are a stupid fad; there's no money to be made in them. I can't imagine the amount of time and resources you wasted."
"But if you take a look at the features -"
"No. There's no money in this. There's no money in skipping through time just to defeat some pinky pansy little lady who's giving give you hassle. You're a waste of resources, son. I'm going to have to cut you loose if this comes up.", this character's accent was somewhere between a London business man and a Texas Oil Baron.
"Um, excuse me, but what the shiskabob-" Guy caught his voice "What ON EARTH is going on here?"
The Gorilla shot what looked like an angry glare in Shezow's direction. He then took off his sunglasses, showing his eyes to in fact be somewhat calm; but somehow, incredibly intense.
"Name's GORILLIONAIRE. That's what they call me. Because I'm a Gorilla with a HELL of a lot of money. And I don't tolerate time wasters. 'cause time is money and money is power and power is what my HUGE FISTS are for." he said as he slammed the park's pavement, cracking it open.
Shezow and Maz yelped briefly.
"But wait – if you're a Gorilla and he's a monkey... is he... adopted? Or gene spliced, or body swapped with a ninja monkey or something..." Maz was lost in thought.
The decked Megamonkey was visibly anxious, and sweating.
"Son, it's time I taught you a lesson. Even though I've said this is a useless hunk of junk, having you know that, I'm going to kick everyone's ass and make a whole load of money. And you're gonna watch." Gorillionaire stretched his arms out while saying this; then beat on his chest.
"First on the Agenda... I need some... working capital."
Gorillionaire threw Megamonkey over his back swung up the body of the enormous robot like it was a tree; then squeezed himself and his son inside the cockpit. The 'bot fired up, turned it's hulking frame around and began to dash down the street. Eventually, it bent over and grasped a large building. The building was quickly evacuated; panicked workers and customers flew out of the doors.
"Gorillionaire is trying to steal the bank! The whole thing!"
The Monkey Strong mech had a firm grip on Megadale's foremost financial institution.
"Ho ho ho. I can do this because I have MONEY!"
"And now we have EVEN MORE money! Quite exquisite, wouldn't you say?"
"Shut up son."
"Yes Daddy."
Shezow placed his hand over his eyes to help block out the glare, as he stared at the impossibly large figure.
"This thing is way too big for me to fight, none of Mocktopus's crap was near this huge. I need find some way to get myself up there." Shezow noticed Maz had temporarily disappeared, and looked around.
Then;
"So this sounds like a job... for... the BARREL."
"Yes! That's just – wait what? How's a BARREL supposed to help me?"
There was indeed a wooden Barrel in front of Shezow; which popped out limbs and a head(Maz's obviously).
"'cause check this out. I painted an ARROW on this barrel. All you have to do is climb in, and it'll launch you into the she-ratosphere!"
"But... you're in the Barrel?"
Maz suddenly looked shocked.
"Crap! I didn't think of that."
Shezow sighed.
"Maybe I can knock it down or something. Let's try this! WIND WINKERS – MAXIMUM OUTPUT!"
Guy's face strained as his eyes generated a violent hurricane of air pressure at their target. The titanium frame did not budge. The glass windows of the bank, however, were immediately done in.
"Well, it was worth a shot, but it is absolutely she-normous!"
Meanwhile, the mech was being distracted by helicopters which it was attempting to punch out of the air. Unfortunately for Gorillionaire & Son, the mech had not been fine tuned in some time and it's arms were too slow. It managed to punch a couple out of the air; and kicked a small tank down the road.
"Hey, that thing doesn't seem to have any long range defenses. I definitely have to figure a way of getting airborne. There's no buildings tall enough to jump off right next to it, and if I went for a long jump it'd have too much time to swat me out of the air like a mosq-she-to!"
Meanwhile in the cockpit, Gorillionaire was getting frustrated.
"Man, this thing is even more of a hunk of junk than I thought it would be. My efficiency director would have a field day."
Gorillionaire grunted.
"Alright, runt, take the controls for now and cover me while I pilfer the bank myself."
"But why are you trying to rob a bank when we're already so rich?"
Gorillionaire looked offended.
"It's a matter of principle, son! We're from the future, past laws don't affect us. So that bank is just an asset that's yet to be siezed! And you know how much I like words like SIEZE, and PUMMEL, and DECIMINATE, yeah! Survival of the fittest baby!" Gorrilionaire said as he began to scamper down the robot, dodging machine gun fire from the remaining helicopters.
"Guy, he's coming down! Maybe that thing is broken or something!"
"Alright, I'm on it!" Shezow scrambled forward.
"Hey Gorillionaire! Stop hogging the entrance to the bank! I need to make a SHE-posit!"
"Wuh - "
"Of MY FIST! In YOUR FACE!"
Shezow put all his strength into one huge punch – to great effect – even the bulk of Gorillionaire couldn't resist Shezow's super strength. Gorillionaire was flung backwards into the bank.
Shezow dashed through the door way and leapt in the air.
"LASER LIPSTICK!"
Guy tried to bring the beam down on Gorillionaire; but despite being visibly battered he quickly rolled out of the way.
"Hah! Gotta be quick if you want to make the big bucks. You know what they say, the early chimp gets the banana."
"Nobody says that! You're the only one who says that!" Shezow shouted as he launched a flying kick towards Gorillionaire – but alas, it was blocked; Gorillionaire produced a briefcase form behind his black and deflected the blow.
"Now, despite my DRIVE for efficiency..." Gorillionare shook his fist in the air.
"When I get frustrated I often get accused of throwing money at a problem. Because I do! And you're a problem! Eat my dosh!"
Gorillionaire opened his briefcase and took a wad of cash. His fist seemed to almost glow as he grasped it; he hurled it next to Shezow; it exploded in a vicious BANG.
"How does that even work?"
Gorillionaire shrugged.
"Explosionary Inflation? I dunno, I have people for that."
Shezow dodged an additional wad of money by backflipping.
"Guess I missed my lecture on Monkeynomics, she-eesh."
Outside; Maz in his BARREL outfit was scoping out Monkey Strong, when he spotted something.
"Wait! That's Guy's Dad in that helicopter. Oh man, this could be trouble."
Officer Hamdon was part of an emergency police 'copter entourage. Military response in Megadale was not always the quickest; many of the local technologically inclined supervillains engaged in acts of humorous sabotage which only became apparent during a call out.
"I'd bet my badge that if it wasn't for She-cow none of these so called villains would feel the need to go so overboard in their escapades! How many men are we down?"
"Well, nobody's dead, persay, sir."
"I should hope nobody's dead yet, you'd think we'd have enough resources and technology to stop half the force being wiped out every time we go up against one of these loons! If only it wasn't for She-cow, we would convince them to put even more funding into a well armed police force!"
"I don't see Shezow anywhere currently, sir. I guess this is our chance to shine?"
Officer Hamdon felt a sudden streak of pride, followed by the horrible realisation that he was still just an ordinary police officer, going up against a mechanical titan that could flatten his home with it's little finger. As this thought was going through his head, he realised the pilot had flown them in too close; and the Monkey Strong unit was reaching out one of it's gargantuan metal arms at the helicopter.
"Abandon shiiiip!" said the pilot, engaging the ejection seat.
Officer Hamdon and the others were left to scarper towards the parachutes as the fingers of the giant robot began to encase the 'copter with a dreadful Clang.
Down below, Maz was getting flustered. "Oh no! I have to get to Guy!" he decided to run inside the bank, luckily keeping out of the line of fire.
"Hah! Just as well I have this costume. NOBODY shoots at a Barrel, unless it's got fish in it or something."
He stopped at the doorway and shouted in "Guy! Your Da- I mean Officer Hamdon is going to get crushed! You have to leave this guy and save him!"
"Hah! Fat chance, kiddo. I'll follow you wherever you go! I didn't get rich from running away from a fight! Except for that one time, when I had that derivative on me running away from a fight." he taunted the Duo, waving his briefcase in the air.
"Ahhhh! I've had just about enough of you, Mr. Big B-ooks!"
in a display of visible urgency, Shezow skipped towards Gorillionaire, dodged all his blows, and grabbed his Briefcase.
"I bet there's enough exploding cash in here to do some real damage to Mega Monkey's toy out there!"
"Um, guy, are you sure you want to blow it up when it's holding on to your Da- a police helicopter?"
Unfortunatey Guy had already made off at Mach-She. Gorillionaire, for all his strength, was not necessarily the speediest of chaps, and lumbered behind.
"Damn, should have seen that coming. Much like the stock market crash of 2132! Boy was that a floosy, who'd have thought the automatic forehead industry would have fallen through!"
"Hmm, I wonder." said Maz, who had just spotted a conveniently placed Keg of Ale that had rolled out of one of the walls, desrtoyed in the scuffle(it had been kept in a back room for the staff party, celebrating all the money they had).
"Take this!"
"What? Take what? Is it money? Because I like doing that."
Maz rolled the Barrel across the floor, towards Gorillionaire.
"Wait, you're rolling a Barrel at ME? I, I... don't know how to deal with this... I usually have people for this..." Gorillionaire sweat visibly before the Barrel rolled into one of his feet, knocking him over and leaving him in a mental loop of humiliation.
"Hah! I knew it! Apes don't really have Barrels in the wild, so they don't know how to deal with them at all! It's like punching a shark in the nose, with a dishwasher!"
Outside, Shezow was ready to pull the curtains on Megamonkey's ploy.
"Megamonkey! Put those Police Officers down!"
"Hmm, let me think about that for a moment Shezow. Hmm. Hmmmm."
Monkey Strong's frings suddenly released grip of the damaged helicopter, letting it go.
Guy slapped his forehead. "Man, what a cliché. I really to be more careful with how I put these things."
Shezow contracted into a hunched position; then leapt with a great ferocity towards the falling Helicopter. He managed to grab his Dad("Oomph! Why you-") and safely land on the other side; briefcase still in his other hand. About this time, Maz had made it out of the bank, and let out a sigh of relief when he saw the Briefcase still intact.
Shezow point down his Dad and closely examined the briefcase. He pressed a button on it, and a holographic display appeared. Shezow read the display intently, and proclaimed;
"Hold on a Sally Second! This briefcase is a materialiser he was using to generate money! That's why it was exploding; the matter hadn't stabalised yet! Gorillionaire is a high-tech low-life money launder-her!"
Maz had scooted over beside him while Monkey Strong had found itself distracted by Uma Thermal, who had arrived on the scene, blasting the mechanoid with fireballs. "That fiend!", he said punching his open palm. "So what are you going to do with it?"
"Hmm. I think it's time to convert these notes..." Guy smirked, "into quarters..."
"Uh, huh?"
"Eat nickel, loser!"
Guy had punched a bunch of buttons and sent the materialising briefcase into overdrive. Thousands of nickel coins flew out in the direction of Monkey Strong, lodging themselves in it's joints. Before long they began exploding; flames and puffs and smoke everywhere, sending screws and bolts and panels flying out left right and centre; bringing the robot to it's knees. Uma Thermal managed to blast much of the flying debris out of the way before it came into contact with anyone.
"Curses! Exploding coinage! I had not foreseen this weakness. Very well, Shezow, you win this one with your cheap tricks!" an escape capsule ejected from the head of the robot, smashed it's way through the bank, picked up Gorillionaire, and opened a small time portal.
"Come on Daddy, you've had enough fun for today."
"Unhand me you runt, I still have some chops to bust!"
"Sorry, but we're in the middle of a daring escape now."
"Damn you! Damn you all! This was NOT a profitable venture!" he said as he was forcibly dragged through the portal, still half-confounded by the barrel incident.
Meanwhile, Guy and Maz were out of costume eyeing the briefcase, which was self-repairing from the overload.
"Dude, just think what we could do with this! We could make ourselves, like, a cake, or even... fourty cakes! No! Fourty houses in the shape of cakes!"
"Wouldn't those houses would be kinda small- whoa"
Uma Thermal had grabbed the Briefcase off the two boys.
"Sorry, boys, but you have some hot merchandise here. Leave it to us super-people in the guild to handle." a secure armoured vehicle pulled up beside her, and she hopped inside, waving at them.
"Ah, sloshbuckets." said Maz as he wanted the futuristic technology carried well out of his reach.
"Well, I guess we both learned something today."
"Like what?" shrugged Maz.
"Videogames are one expensive hobby. I mean you really end up throwing money at them!"
Maz put his arm around guy. "Totes, bro, totes."