Chapter 3: Return

Mandarin awoke to the unfamiliar sounds of the forest, as dawn rose over the trees. The black male was already awake, sitting in the tree across the path from the one Mandarin and the others had slept in, watching the sunrise. The other two brown males were still asleep, one hanging upside-down by his tail, the other curled up into a ball. Suddenly, the forests' quiet was disrupted as a cacophony of screeching and howling fell upon the ears of any living thing nearby, as the golden female raced around the base of the tree the black one was sitting in, and then across the path again. The two brown males were startled from their sleep, one falling from the tree while the other looked about wildly, trying to locate the disturbance.

A strange new male, reddish in color, was chasing after the female, and Mandarin didn't like him. He had disturbed the female of his troop. The orange monkey screeched and snarled at the newcomer, but try as he might, the newcomer stood his ground. The two brown males looked at the red with mild interest, and slowly made their way toward him. Mandarin looked to the black monkey for help, but he seemed thoughtful, not aggressively against the new addition as Mandarin was.

Eventually, Mandarin gave up on repelling the newcomer, and he called harshly to the others, ordering them to follow him. They all fell into line behind him, and silently established a pecking order: the black male, followed by the gold female and then the brown males. The red male trailed behind them, not part of the main group, but not leaving the group entirely either.

Mandarin trekked his way back to the Alchemist's lab, up the trees and over the paths he ha traveled yesterday, following his own scent.

"Mandarin!" The orange monkey turned in the direction of the sound." Where have you been?"

There was his master, the Alchemist. The man ran toward him, and as he did so, the others who had come back with him, fell back, terrified by the sight of the human. Mandarin stopped, and turned back toward them, encouraging them forward.

"Well, well, it seems you've made a few friends during your foray into the jungle, have you, my little monkey? Come now little ones, I won't harm you." he coaxed and they gathered around him. The black one came very close, and looked up at him with deep, intelligent black eyes. For a moment, a green light sparkled within the inky darkness of those eyes. The Alchemist saw this. "Ah, you are a special one, like my Mandarin, aren't you?" He gathered them all up, and brought them inside, to name them, to teach them, and to love them as his own. One day he would have to make them into heroes, to save them from the one thing he could not protect them from, himself, but for now he was their protector.