Chapter Nine

Excavation of Indiscretions

It was about time he answered her about his obsessive quest.

"Wasn't it obvious, Kimberly?" he sneered, his eyes narrowing to snake slits. "I'd have thought I made it clear to you that night: the life I lived was not enough, and my father certainly was the starting point. He never told me he was proud of me, and I wanted something of myself. I would not have found it if not for Bates, and that was everything involving simianism."

He just thought that because his life was hard enough, he could dabble in something he didn't understand? Men like Monty Fiske should have known better than to get their hands on forces beyond comprehension. "Remember I said once that I was as young as you were when you were still the cheerleader who saved the world?" he went on, ever burning righteously. "I was young, and eager. I wanted a name and a strength for myself, Kim."

This wasn't even remotely close to what she wanted to hear, given it was almost the same as he told her that night he had her trapped and vulnerable. "You've told me all of this before," she said through her teeth, her sympathy dwindling. "Why don't you just admit it already? You were hurt and abused, and you wanted to be better than your father ever was. I'm not the least bit surprised that you wanted to be an archaeologist because you either wanted to make him proud or just return with revenge instead of physical force." Yes, that had to be it. Young Montgomery Fiske longed for the attention of the man who created him, but in time became bitter and closed himself off from the man and from everything and everyone else, wrapping himself up in a cocoon of said emotions that even psychiatry could not repair. Emotions were beyond mentality; together, they were powerful sicknesses to spread.

He did not respond to that, but she saw it in his eyes. Only he knew the answer that he just had to let her figure it out for herself. She decided to go on. "When Ron got the Mystical Monkey Power, he didn't know what to do with it other than to fight you because the power was never meant to be anyone's. I told you before the warriors from ages ago separated the four statues to make sure NO ONE else acquired the abilities."

"I would stop this if you know what is good for you," he snarled, but she held her ground, even several feet from him.

"I sometimes think it's also worse to think that a sixteen-year-old boy could dream of such power compared to one having it thrust upon him and not knowing what to do, until it grew inside him and became god-like. It scared him."

"Well, he should have embraced it," Monty countered, his voice telling her he was trying to hold his temper that it made hers burst.

"For what purpose? To dominate, rule? To exert his will on anyone who disagreed with him?"

Monty stood then, fists clenched at his side as he towered over her. Kim lifted her chin at him in return. "Ronald had the power, would have used it as I tried to make this world a paradise!"

Paradise for monkeys and apes, her mind spoke. And that was not a pretty picture, because if that did happen, chaos and tyranny over all humanity would have consumed. "Who's paradise?" she asked. "What Ron understood as well as I was that the paradise he considered would have been called perdition by someone else - something you never did understand, for a man like you who got the taste of hell, forever punishment worse than death." Everything he did was so vile that he got exactly that. His face was turning so red she thought any blood vessels would explode.

"Your husband understood NOTHING!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Just as you still don't understand this! I sometimes do not understand why you married that buffoon!" He lowered his voice then, taking several long, deep breaths to calm himself before speaking again. "What is the purpose of life if not to gain power?"

She never wanted to be better than anyone else, so she did not know what it was like to be in his shoes, but she answered anyway because she knew better. "Do you have the wisdom to use the power? Because that's all power does: it corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He knew it couldn't be trusted, not on a day-to-day basis, so he turned his back on it...until one day he used it to give his life to save mine, our daughter's and the people of Middleton." She looked him hard in the eyes, melting inside because of everything she gazed upon in there.

"I'm going to ask you one more time, Monty Fiske - you still think you are wise enough to become the Ultimate Monkey Master? And if you do defeat the Yono, what are you going to do with that power once you've slain the monster you gave your soul to in order to achieve it?"

Monty turned his eyes from her. "Don't you dare turn away from me, Lord Fiske!" she said angrily, reaching for him, but he pulled back, snarling viciously.

"Don't you DARE touch me."

"Then answer my question!"

"I don't have to, if we can't come to any understanding over this, Kimberly. All I know is that I got myself into this mess, and I am getting out however - but I also cannot do this alone, as you already know." His swing from raging to soft whipped at her that she wanted so much to hit him in the face. Hard life, dead mother and distant father aside, she despised his lust for ultimate power. He was too thick-headed to even listen to her. What was she thinking that she could crack that skull of his open?

On second thought, one single conversation did not change anything overnight. Think of it as planting the seed and giving it time to grow.

~o~

No one except Bates ever knew the pain he felt as a young boy, progressing into young adulthood. He learned to live with that hole in his heart, yet he despised it at the same time and wanted to do something with it - and he couldn't have done it without Bates that fateful day when he was a ripe nine years of age. Even with that love of monkeys, there had to be more as simply watching them live behind a cage was only limited.

Monty turned his back to her, wanting to hear no more as those words were no different than the past. It made the long-lived hate return with the revenge of a long-sleeping volcano; if Mount Fuji or Kilimanjaro in deep Africa had done so, he would use their names in this situation. He was grateful she did not pry any further as she already knew enough, said enough, and if his temper blew again, she would be sorry because she brought it on herself.

Lighting the fire didn't make it any better, and as he found himself staring into the flames, he found himself yet again dwelling on the past. In school, he began to study about monkeys with more fascination than he remembered in much younger days, to which his father disapproved of greatly. Eventually, when he was just turning sixteen, that was when he one day happened across a very interesting find involving Monkey Kung Fu - or Tai Shing Pek Kwar. It was the intricacy of the skills that the warriors carried, the magic behind it that drew him in until Edward Fiske also one day found out and barred him because it was nonsense, lectured him that a true digger of the past would believe in rationale and not fairytale hocus pocus.

From then on, young Monty was fixated and began to believe that he could see more to this, difficult as it would become. But it was then and there that he no longer felt as vulnerable as he had been once as a boy. If he had this kind of power, then he would no longer see weakness as a problem to him.

Kimberly avoided looking at him, too, but there apparently wasn't much to do for the night, but they would also be hungry soon, so starvation was out of the question. He thought about being the one before she stood. "I'm going to find what we need tonight to eat."

"I should go with you," he told her, placing hostility aside, but she refused.

"I'm armed, so I won't need your help."

Monty snorted. "Suit yourself." He would stick to just stoking the fire to keep it going then, perhaps meditate to calm his senses. It would do well to ease his mind for awhile. She picked up her flashlight and utility belt, starting off into the darkness that was the forest to find possible fruits, or maybe an animal to suffice. Monty had no trouble fasting on raw meat over the fire pit.

He opened his eyes when he found himself as he'd placed himself; he sat cross-legged before the fire, the heat warming his flesh and brightening his vision. Standing, he stretched his muscles and sat down - in time to hear rustling behind him. Acting on instinct, he jumped to his feet and assumed battle stance, one hand over his head and the other in front of him, crouching...

...only to find the figure to come out of the trees was none other than Kim, carrying a wrapped sheet filled with whatever she'd found. She burst out laughing when she saw him ready to fight, and now he felt like laughing because he'd assumed it was anyone else. "Cheerleading from high school definitely saved my life yet again," she announced, dropping her findings in between them both. "Let's hope you don't mind eating this as I didn't see any other animals in the vicinity."

"Japanese mamushi - or pit viper," he noted wryly. Of course, he should have guessed these things would be around here someplace. Each year, two to three thousand unfortunate victims suffered from snakebite of these beasts. Those inflicted required intensive treatment; at least ten patients died annually. China and Korea even had these little monsters. "Believe me, Kimberly," he said, chuckling, "I have eaten worse, but rest assured, this can be an interesting dish if you had herbs for its meat."

"Good thing I found some along the way." She'd taken off the head, the body remaining and limp in death. He wondered how many more she'd killed to save herself from being bitten and infected with their ablomin toxin. "I had to ask myself why it had to be a snake of all things," she said, jabbing an iron pole through the pink meat in the beginning where the head used to be. "I wondered why it had to be a snake, because it takes me back to the time of the Jade Monkey Temple in Cambodia - where I encountered snakes on the way." She burst out laughing again as she recalled the first time they met when he called for her aid...and it was a fond memory indeed, because not only did it begin a real closer step towards his destiny, it also brought him to her.

"I think maybe this is déjà vu," she finished at the same time she completed arranging the dead reptile over the fire for it to sear in and out.

Monty watched as she turned the thing over and around, impressed. Nearly half an hour later, their meal was done and he did the honors of giving the exposed meat the extra touch of the herbs she'd found, which made it marvelous. Sadly, no lemon or anything else to give it true taste, but it had to do. "Mmm," Kim hummed. The sound made him repeat and thrum inside. "Not the worst, but Ron could have done this much better because he was the chef."

There they went again in mentioning the buffoon, and that intense sadness returned in her eyes. No matter how often she mentioned Ronald, it was always obvious to Monty Fiske that she could never get over her former sidekick, husband and the father of her child. By this time he finished his part of his snake and swallowed so he could ask her what had been residing deep down and had to come to the light.

"You told your husband about us, didn't you?"

That night between them - that one night that he had set up to get her as vulnerable as she could be - was the only time he let loose the need to mate with a female, enjoyed what it was like to be alive in the flesh, and none other with his worthy adversary. He'd wanted to harm her flesh to get the amulet from her body for himself - the body that he found he savored with his, until she ran away from him before the morning came, abandoning him and leaving him without the queen that he had decided he wanted beside him. He'd wondered what he had been thinking not long after, but from the deep recesses of his being, something inside him festered...

He kept his eyes locked on her face, taking in how her emerald orbs lowered to her half-finished meat as if it was bringing her back to the past. Her answer was barely audible but still crystal clear. "I did."

"I imagine he did not take it well," he said, smiling then. They sat across from each other before the fire, the temperature adding to the rising atmosphere as they were finally on the track to discussing what should have been kept between the two of them - only he should have known she'd tell the pretender who became the one she loved.

She refused to look at him, instead turning her attention to look at the golden amber flames flickering towards the midnight heavens. "He didn't - but he did come around eventually. What happened between you and I was a mistake."

~o~

Old wounds were reopened when she had Ron's help in healing them as well as those he had when she confessed to him about her onetime affair - and with none other than the man before her whom she had the tryst with. Kim felt her face melt away at the heat waves inflicted by the fire before her and the man whose smooth British accent soon hardened when she told him that what they both did that night was an error.

Just as Ron did not take it well, neither did Monty.

"Mistake," he repeated, disbelieved and enraged, eyes blazing literally with flames. "Mistake - is that what it was?" His tone was rising with each word, and his fingers closed again into fists. "A one-night stand, as you Americans call it? What next?" he challenged, leaning over so his face was several inches from hers. "You say that I took advantage of you?!"

She closed her eyes, her meal forgotten now. Neither had an appetite anymore as things were going to get heated again. They were spending more time fighting than working together tonight, but by morning it would be different. She knew it well, but now the long-buried subject was out in the open, with no sense ignoring him when he accused her of implying he took advantage of her because she was a young woman then, knowing her vulnerabilities well. "I was only sixteen years old," Kim answered, still soft, but soon she would raise it to his level. She wasn't lying to him, but she also wasn't completely honest either. "It was wrong. And no, you did not force me completely; I consented to it all because I could not avoid what you made me feel..." Her heart clenched that she brought her hand up to that spot which he noticed.

"But it was still wrong, Monty."

Yes, it was wrong then. Sixteen and underage, but age was only a number to her - at the time, but now that he was in front of her again, he needed to know how wrong it was back then. He'd asked her to be his Monkey Queen shortly after she nearly became a full monkey, even after everything threatening not only the lives of those around them including her own, and after she escaped his hold, they resumed their adversarial stage because a single night of fire didn't call a truce.

"You may think it was, but you made it clear that you had been willing, yet WHY do you think to tell me this now? If it was a mistake, then do enlighten me why you agreed to it," he said in a low, dangerous voice that made her lean backwards, never once breaking eye contact.

"Because I was young and couldn't help it," Kim replied. "You were everything a teenaged girl could dream about: foreign, powerful, mysterious, handsome, dangerous and determined to take what you wanted. I was aroused that what you wanted was me, but in the years since, I came to wonder...why didn't you find a grown woman to be your Monkey Queen? Why didn't you find a grown woman to seduce? Under all the arrogance and entitlement, were you so scared of rejection that you had to find a teenager, lure her three thousand miles from her home, surround her with your minions so she couldn't escape, and then unleash your charm?"

He looked like he couldn't speak, and he didn't. His eyes were shooting daggers, jabbing and unable to believe the audacity in which she spoke to him, but damned if this time also didn't get through to him tonight. His hands clenched tighter than before, threatening to draw blood that would slip through his fingers before her very eyes. The unspoken words deeper in the pupils spoke to her soul, asking her how dare she call that one night they had wrong, and the bitterness in his voice slipped through his lips.

"Well, you are completely wrong about me choosing a young woman who might not refuse me. I am too proud of myself to admit I did fear rejection, as you put it," he said silkily, "but I daresay that you were the only woman in my sights whom I considered to be the most powerful creature I had seen in years. I had no known reluctant or willing acquaintances even before then - especially those who were interested only in my family's fortune, which is by far distasteful." His face twisted briefly before smoothing to normal. "Our history did not matter to me at that present time. I should also confess that I have never felt such driven fire between us until we linked, Kimberly." Damn it, he was doing it again, and she felt it in and tried to shove it down to the pit of her stomach. "I never felt such longing in my life until I met you. Surely you can't deny that possibility for yourself as well?" The anger subsided then, replaced with wounded pride that snatched her off her feet yet again.

He'd told her back then, explicitly and cryptically at the same time, that he desired her for as long as he could remember, and that was all it was: desire. Pure, raw, animalistic lust. It wasn't anywhere near what she had with Ron, because he was the one she'd known all her life, been there all this time even when she didn't realize how much she loved him as he loved her. Monty Fiske before her, the man who called himself Monkey Fist, had felt this way while they were rivals for that time, only to profess...

"You have no idea of what I could have given you, Kimberly, if you had accepted," he went on, refusing to let her have the last say - but oh, she had plenty more to say, but she would let him have the finality for the moment. "You, as a queen in all that stood out, and yet you chose to deny me and instead left without so much as an adieu." His eyes became dark charcoal then that her inner fire erupted and made her drop her snake meat, standing up and looking down at him with her teeth bared.

He really enjoyed this, didn't he? Well, if he wanted a fight, then he got one! Only no fists were involved. "You really want to know how GOOD you were, Monty?" Kim shouted, risking attention of the Xian guardians hiding somewhere in the trees around them. "I'll admit that you rocked my world, you left me trembling with passion and desire in a way I didn't even dream possible. Yes, for years through high school, every time I started crushing on a boy, I had to wonder if he could ever compare to you. And now, I'm about to make you feel as smug as you've been since you came out of the ground...that young man who became my husband didn't excite me, didn't arouse me, didn't please me anywhere near as well as you did! Now, widen up that smirk a little, enjoy it while you can because it's about to be as good as it gets for you! I actually wondered if I was always going to be disappointed; I wondered if I would never be as satisfied as when you had your way with me. There you go, smile at how much better you were as a grown man than a boy of eighteen was. Now comes the big fall: Ron LOVED me and because of that, he asked me what worked for me, what I found awkward and what I enjoyed. No, he wasn't as good as you...the first time, or the second, or even the third...but by the time we could see graduation looming ahead of us, he was rocking my world like you couldn't. You aroused me enough for your own ends while Ron aroused me for the sake of giving me pleasure. And you know what that did? I don't care if you want to know or not, because you're about to hear it! Because he loved me and aroused me, I loved and aroused him. I gave him pleasure that you never had from me because I loved him right back. You took your pleasure from me, I gave pleasure to Ron and because of that, he got a hell of a lot more than you will ever know."

His lips were pulling back into a feral snarl, the sound itself escaping through his teeth as she unleashed her wrath on him regarding the time he took her innocence away that should have been Ron's, even though the both of them were both willing to go that far. He stood up then, standing over her and engaging her in combat, though with the eyes only, and he was ready to make the next move, return the jab she gave him...but his words were beyond what she expected to hear from him.

"If that's the way you feel, Kim Stoppable, then perhaps I should unleash every foul curse I can conjure up - but I'm too refined for such vulgarity. But I happened to have enjoyed that one night with you more than you think. It was more than you could ever have imagined for yourself - for the both of us. I cherished your company more than anyone has ever done for me."

Obsession really IS a crazy thing in any situation, drives you to do things you never thought you would.

On a slightly off-topic note, maybe: I HATE snakes of all kind, but Blue Kitsune did give me a good idea of what Japanese snake to use, as well as the source. (shudders)

Whoo, Kim really jabbed back at Monty over the events of "The Deadly Embrace of Desire" and "The Garden of Serenity", and anything in between. :) But there is more to come between these two, especially any events from the episodes following "The Full Monkey" which TDEOD takes place after. Stay tuned for the next chapter. :D