Chapter Fourteen

The Final Jade Monkey Statue

"Now...what to do here?" Kim muttered to herself. She'd been brainstorming for almost a week now, and December had just begun. There was no title for her new book yet, given when she did Kathryn's Journey, the title made the difference for the entire story and hooked the readers' attention. The same thing applied here.

She had to first pick a name for the lead heroine, because if this would be different from Kathryn, she had to have a new name and new appearance. Kathryn had been down to earth and innocent, whilst this new one was sexy in appearance and fierce in attitude - which represented what she had gone through in her own life, but she would never give herself credit and call herself hot. Plus, Kathryn had been a soulful brunette with brown hair and eyes - but this new one she had yet to envision.

She already picked out a name: Iris. The flower of the name represented wisdom, faith, hope, cherished friendship as well as a promise to love. With that in mind, a pair of bright green eyes and red hair came to light - and this was more truly her than the first book ever turned out...

...in addition with the one she would possibly fall off her feet for, who was tall, dark and handsome like a certain nobleman.

Kim pulled the top of her laptop down, closing the monitor for the short time being. No sense in stressing. The reason she'd made her first leading lady the opposite appearance of herself was just to distance herself from fantasy in younger years, but this time she wanted to put as much of herself in as possible. She wanted inspiration close to the heart.

Just at that moment, the Kimmunicator was ringing. "Wade, what's the - oh!" she exclaimed when she saw not Wade, but - "Oh, Your Lordship!"

He raised an eyebrow, visibly stifling an amused chuckle. "Have I caught you at a wrong time?" he purred. "I was just completing the last of my search - but I couldn't have done it without you and your friend Mr. Lode."

"It was the least I could do," she said, grinning. "Could it be the exact location? Wade has his ways of going where no one has gone before."

"I confess, I never have allowed outside help to pick up where I couldn't go. I have almost never had this happen to me before. I can take care of everything myself."

"Well, help once in awhile doesn't hurt," she told him, giggling. "You asked for me the first time." She blinked. Had it really been three months since they met? Time seemed to go on forever...

"There is a part of me that regrets not thinking about you at first," Monty confessed sadly, "because I'm often too proud to let another have their way and smile that I give in." Kim quirked an eyebrow at that; sometimes you had to let your pride down and do what's needed of you.

She let her attention fall to the surface of her closed laptop where the rough outlines of her story were currently waiting. "I bet you thanked Dr. Reeves for that."

He snorted. "Indeed, but I'm only willing to go so far."

"Man, someone should get you out of the house more often."

"Excuse me, but what exactly is that supposed to mean, Miss Possible?" he exclaimed with mock-outrage, making her laugh.

"It means that you need more lessons in humility and thanks. You've been around only Bates too long to harden up around humans. I've known that the moment we met." She stopped herself there, wondering if bringing up his late mother would push a button in the wrong place. She'd died the day before his birthday ten years ago, which clearly affected him that much. "You're dedicated to your work only."

He sighed and lowered his eyes. "I pray there is not a special reason for pointing it out, Kimberly." He raised them again, freezing her on the spot. "Alas, I should change the topic to the word of choice," he said with a cracked grin. "We should take off for Cambodia as soon as possible. I am making way ahead of time and departing as early as tomorrow morning."

"Soon enough?" Kim sat up higher in her chair. The cheer-offs were on Friday, which was three days from now. If they would be done in time, then she could get back here with the squad.

"Yes, is there something wrong?" Monty's raised eyebrow indicated that he might have intruded on asking her if she could accompany him as planned. "I can always go into the temple alone if you have better plans..."

"No!" Kim said quickly, nervously. "No, but are you going straight there, and Ron and I will follow you there?"

His expression changed immediately to a wry smile. "Unless you want me to send an acquaintance to pick you up. I won't let the lady herself have the troubles herself," he said suggestively.

She stretched her back, feeling the bones pop. "See you in Cambodia then."

~o~

"So, I did the calculations that the first statue was found in Japan -"

"Correct. It was discovered long before I was born, by my parents nonetheless."

"So this deal about the jade monkeys is a life's pursuit?"

"In every sense, yes."

"And the second was uncovered in India, then the latest in South America."

"What clues have pointed to the final in Cambodia, hm?"

"Maybe it's best to say that my sources aren't incorrect."

"Not the answer I was looking for, but very well, I shall trust your word, young man."

Monty chuckled to himself as the conversation echoed in his mind, and now he was in the very place closer to home.

He and Bates were now in Cambodia, to which they now stood before the temple that appeared the same as the others on the outside - but who knew what primitive traps lay within its depths. The valet swallowed as he opened up the parasol and put it over their heads as they stood in the beating Cambodian sun. His own skin was already breaking out into sweat. "Monkeyosity at its finest," Bates muttered. "Let's hope the collection brought together was worth a lifetime."

"So do I...but I'm quite confident," the lord replied, swelling inside with excitement. Now, what word was used in the old warning? Insanity? If that was what it took to fulfill his birthright, so be it.

Was it just the sun, or had his train of thought changed on its own? If Kimberly found this out, would she...incarcerate him despite her feelings? He swallowed, trying hard to not dwell on the dreaded future - and then fate guided him down the path by allowing her voice to once more fill his senses.

"Gentlemen."

"Miss Possible, it is good to see you," Bates said, trying to remain the more optimist instead of Monty for a change, and he wasn't sure if he liked this. His attention was too focused on the sight of the monkey temple in front of them all and dwelling on what he could do once he had what he wanted...

A hand laid on his shoulder, causing him to jump. "Monty?" Kim looked at him with wide-eyed concern. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, ahem...not at all." He cleared his throat. "Just a lot on my mind. Have I ever thanked you and your friend for finding this for me?" he asked with a smile she returned.

"Maybe once."

Ron stuck his nose in between them. "Not to butt in on purpose, but the sooner you two get that monkey statue out -" He shuddered, trying not to chatter his teeth and causing two rolls of the eyes on both his part and Kimberly's. "- the better."

Smirking, Monty turned his attention away back to the gaping mouth of the monkey. "I couldn't agree more." He lowered his voice so neither of them heard but himself. "Destiny awaits."

~o~

"M-maybe a back way in this time is better," Ron called up to them just as she and Monty were heading into the jaws of the temple - or should she say, ironically, the jaws of death? "You both don't even know what is there, what about another water trap?"

Fiske gave the air a sniff of contempt. "No, you are right, Ronald, but this is a risk we are willing to take. To even think about taking the so-called easy way in would be a coward's error. Even if the traps are far more dangerous, we will stay on our toes, won't we, Miss Possible?" he asked her with a wink.

Kim gave their surroundings another glance, at the darkness ahead as well as the overbearing monkey faces on either side of the entrance. What could be different about this one? She remembered the one in Brazil too well, and the one before it had spikes and poison darts, but she didn't have her chance to ask him about the one before that - which Wade had slipped to her was LONG before Monty Fiske had been born. His parents had been the ones to find the one that started it all...

"Um, yeah, what's the worse that can happen here?"

And she spoke too soon, regrettably. For as soon as she and Monty took another step forward, the ground was no longer beneath their feet. Too late, she saw the eyes of the great statue light up vivid green at the same time she and her partner stepped on a trap door they never knew was there. Their names were screamed by both sidekick and valet.

"KIM!"

"LORD FISKE!"

She and Monty might as well be screaming together, the sound echoing in her own ears as they fell through the pit. What could be waiting for them down there? A water pit? Acid? Spikes? Or something else they never expected?

Guess it was the last one, after all. They both landed on all fours on solid ground, in a corridor lined with numerous monkey faces matching the face of the temple above the ground. Monty stood and dusted himself off, laughing - and that was when she noticed how he really DID sound like he was one of them, but before she could think further, they were greeted with a surprise.

The jaws were moving. Opening and closing, clamping in a pattern like Morse code. "Well, one fun fall to another!" Monty exclaimed. She had to laugh.

"Yeah, and at least the walls aren't -" She stopped when the opposite of what she was going to say happened. Kim stifled a groan. "- moving!" She exclaimed when he picked her up by the hips with both hands and tossed her over the mouth of the nearest wall icon and followed her.

"No time to chat, my dear! Move!"

Her muscles were used to this kind of strain, but the walls closing in on you and threatening to crush you to death, your remains never to be found, was something of a first time for her. He was beneath her and letting her lead; she could not block him and leave him or the both of them to die like this. She was out first, followed by him, and she was the one to pull him to safety once more. The closing walls banged shut, sending smoke into their faces. Kim coughed and waved it away. He did the same before looking up at her.

"Like I said: this is by far the deadliest," he said, ruffling his hair and blowing some debris out of his mouth. The sight was so funny she almost burst into a fit. He narrowed his eyes at her even though they twinkled. "Is there something amusing about this?" he asked when they started walking. A doorway was ahead of them, faint light coming in that flashlights were not necessary.

"Nothing at all, milord." She tried to mimic how Bates called his master, and this did earn a brief smirk from the man.

The stairs appeared to be harmless, but there was a chance any of them could give way beneath them, or maybe wherever they led to would be the trigger. If falling almost to death or getting crushed by walls weren't bad enough -

"God, where is that coming from?!" she cried, throwing both hands to her ears, him doing the same. The sound was vicious, monkey screeching coming from who knew where. It was the kind that could haunt your dreams with a vengeance, cause your eardrums to burst.

They were over within moments after they made it to the top of the stairs. Monty blew a sigh of relief. "They were telling us we are getting close."

"You speak monkey?" she teased, making him frown.

"I'm the world's leading simian expert, remember?" he reminded her. "I even worship Darwin's theory that we descended."

She had been so distracted in listening to him that she didn't pay attention to where they were going ahead - and soon found herself hanging on a ledge with her "bare" hands, several decades of feet from the floor...and it was filled with spikes. This temple wasn't as vast beneath the ground like the one before it, but Monty was right: it had more lethal surprises than the past. "Kimberly!" he shouted as he reached for her, but he stopped midway when he looked past her, and gasped, but it was not directed at the spiky pit waiting to penetrate the bodies of its next victims. Shockingly so, there were a few skeletons of those before them. Maybe very few to none who were common thieves tried to take the prize and didn't measure the consequences of their greed.

"Monty, what is it?" she asked, holding onto him whilst craning her neck far enough to look down again...and now she saw the shine below. The last jade monkey was in the center. "Oh, it's there!"

"Yes, but the spikes are a bothersome setback," he said irritably.

Spikes, which was the worst case scenario after the walls before - "Yeah, gee, and what are we missing? Snakes?" she said sarcastically, which she just was if only - "Oh, great."

From either side of her, deadly green slithers creeped out and bared their cobra fangs at her and Monty, and yes, she was pulling him into this because he continued to hold onto her. "Don't worry, I won't let you go," he swore to her, but he had no intentions to pull them both back up when they were close now. Their lives had been on the line from the moment they set foot here. She had an idea and pulled them both down and falling towards the shards of death. He roared and held onto her. "KIMBERLY!"

"HOLD ON!" she yelled back, pulling her hair from its ponytail and using the elastic band as the best tool to snatch a branch that had grown inside the tomb over the centuries - and they were safe once again. He had wrapped his arms around her waist, tightly, as she grasped onto her band that saved them. Now they could plant their feet to the floor without worry for the stakes that were as tall as they were.

He was the first to stand, but he continued to hold onto her which made her feel a little awkward. "Lord Fiske - I think you can put me down now."

"Of course."

They made their way over to the pedestal where the item was, the eyes no different than the last's. "The last jade monkey," Fiske breathed. The look on his face was pure joy like a child giddy over a new toy. He didn't bother to ask her to get the statue this time, not that she minded, but when he did, the room began to shake as the spikes as well as the pedestal slipped into the ancient earth. Kim half-expected the floors to crumble and take them down to their deaths this time, but it didn't happen.

Instead, the whole floor elevated upwards and tilted so they were both sliding together down south...and through another door that appeared and brought them through another tunnel. Kim wasn't sure if she was yelling again, because he sure wasn't, whilst keeping a good hold on the statue as if it were his child...

...and then the rolling was all over. Her body throbbed, sure to have bruises for awhile, and her hair was plastered with sweat. She lay flat on her stomach, grunting and grimacing as she pulled herself up before the man who knelt beside her, cradling their trophy which was the last of the collection. "Kim, Monty!" They looked up to see Ron and Bates over them, both clearly worried but relieved to see them with the monkey idol intact with them. Last time was the charm.

~o~

Night had fallen by the time they pitched camp. He was sitting before the statue in his tent while Bates was setting up the fire with the help of Kimberly and Ronald. He could not wait; he had to relish this moment, thrilled to his core that after all these years, the wait was going to be worth it. Completed before his prime was at its end, a few more years left...

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that your interest holds more than meets the eye. It's not just to simply study them and add to the collection, am I right?"

Somehow he'd counted she would show up. Looking up to see her peeking in through the zip-up entrance, pulling the "door" back, and smiling slightly, he managed one of his own. "Curiosity killed the cat, Kimberly," he replied, sitting back on his knees. However, today's events in which they had together braved a series of deathtraps far worse than those in Brazil made him realize that perhaps he could trust her a little more on this. She was a smart woman, and Bates and Anne once said that sooner or later, women would find out the truth.

She snorted and walked in, sitting down beside him. "Lord Fiske..." There was a warning edge, but he wasn't intimidated. "...we've survived a near-death experience, so the least you can do -"

"Alright, I'll tell you more about this. I owe you this much. You already know it was a life's pursuit for me. My parents were the ones who found the first jade monkey, not long before my mother found out she was pregnant - and with me none other," Monty explained, feeling a twinge. "They acquired it in Japan; they were both respected archaeologists as I believe you remember, but when they learned of the legend of the Mystical Monkey Power, my father was the one to suggest they search for the first statue as the first true original discovery in a long time for the museum. In truth, his father had the information because it had been in his family's possession for generations."

He lowered his attention to the deep eyes of the statue, feeling himself drown in them. "The legend goes that this icon along with the three others at the museum were to be brought together, and when they did, they gave the great power. In fact, thousands of years ago, the temple we braved as well as the last one and the two before were built by a group of ninja warriors who mastered the art of Monkey Kung Fu - also known as Tai Shing Pek Kwar." His smile tugged both corners of his mouth. "According to my mother, my father learned it when he was a young man along with a friend of his in far-off Japan...which was where the first temple was located, deep within the mountain the prestigious marital arts school was located. My mother wasn't exactly in favor of this, because she erred on the side of caution despite the thrill she shared with my father." Monty finally found himself making eye contact with her. Her entire face was schooled with awe and fascination. "But she knew what she had gotten herself into when she married a fellow archaeologist. She wasn't a master of Monkey Kung Fu as my father, but he protected her at every turn they made each time they ventured into an ancient tomb over the world - and this time was no exception.

"However, the both of them nearly died when this site was beyond what they encountered thus far, even though they were still in their young lives. Blades whirled out of the walls in their way, and they were not alone, either. When Thomas Fiske, my father, was a student at the ninja school, his only real friend was a native and lifelong of his until later on in life. They were close-knit, and his friend had married a fellow student. But everything changed when my parents ventured into the one place that shattered their lives. His old comrade tried to stop them both from taking the monkey statue from its resting place, but when my mother was forced to seize the opportunity and take the statue while the two old friends fought...and that was when the tomb began to rumble. It happened to be within a volcano, so lava was streaming in. It was then and there that my parents had to be free, and his old friend sacrificed his life so that my mother and father would be saved. It seemed he had dishonored himself by letting a mystical prize be taken when it never should have."

Monty had to pause there, his heart pounding and his lungs constricting as he poured what had lived in the depths of his family's history for so long. It was so sensitive a tale that he'd had a hard time believing it when he was a child. "Mother told me that even though Father made a great discovery that day, they would have perished, and when they returned to England, he suffered an out-of-the-blue withdrawal in that he never forgave himself for the betrayal and loss of his friend, whose widow was carrying their firstborn son - as I, too, had been conceived shortly before they found the first temple," he said softly, placing a hand on the top of the head and closed his eyes, unaware of the shock that had taken place across her face.

"What...happened to your father?" She hadn't uttered a word, which he was grateful for because he despised interruptions. This question he'd dreaded the most. After all, he never knew his father besides what Anne had told him.

"He thought that by studying the first statue and then seeking out the next, he would atone for what had happened, that his friendship had not been murdered for nothing, but my mother had equally been shaken up that she locked every ounce of the research they once shared after he was found at the study desk, having drunk himself to death. 'That statue,' she told me later, 'did this to our family.' So, as you see, Kim Possible..." He looked at her long and hard, holding her tear-stained face to his. "...I must finish what my parents started. The sacrifices made have to be worth something. My mother always told me I was destined for greatness, to be better than my father tried to do."

~o~

She and Ron lay beneath the stars because she really needed fresh air instead of being stifled in a tent. Not only that, the memory of the horrors of the story that Monty told her about his parents and the first jade monkey weighed on her mind and heart that sleeping before the fire was difficult.

To think that his life's pursuits had been based upon a family curse, his father and a childhood best friend turning against each other over a rare, old piece of rock was horrifying; to think that Ron and Monty's differences nearly did the same to their friendship! She tried not to cry as she turned her face into the heating flames that dried any stray tears peeking from the corners. His mother had gotten pregnant, but her husband drank himself to death in his grief and guilt as well as his obsessive search for the rest of the monkey statues, leaving her alone and withdrawn, locking away everything they had just to think about their only son. She lost everything she loved, sacrificed what she had left for the one gift she had left...and now her son was bearing that weight.

Her mind was whirring and clicking with ideas as to Monty's real motives for finishing the search for the last of the four monkeys, tying in with this story as well as the old myth...

As it turned out, Ron had a difficult time sleeping. But it was his words that got her attention. "KP...there's a ninja at camp."

Alert, she bolted up. A - ninja?! She spotted the figure right away, black and hooded, and in front of Monty and Bates' tent, but that was not the main attraction.

He had the monkey statue in his arms!

"Hold it!" she shouted, leaping to her feet and throwing the first kick at the man, who dodged it but had to set down the idol as to not risk it getting scratched in any way. Which gave her an advantage. "Ron, catch!" She snatched it in both hands and tossed it in the air to her friend who was still in his sleeping bag, cowering in fright as he watched her take care of herself.

Kim thought she could take on the ninja - but another voice caused them to freeze.

"What's all this, then?"

Unfortunately, her distraction at Monty's appearance from his tent caused the ninja to lash out at her and throw her into the unoccupied tent, the poles coming down and bringing the fabric, and she was tangled within moments. Great, now she left Monty and Ron unable to fend off this guy, whoever he was!

Kim heard the commotion, telling her that the ninja was being dueled, but it wasn't Ron. "You are making a grave mistake coming here!" Monty shouted to the ninja whom he was clearly fighting. For a moment, she wondered how he could handle the guy, before she remembered that he'd said he was a master of Monkey Kung Fu, and could hear it all...

But then she heard a grunt and a toss to the ground, but she wasn't sure who it was. Before she heard Ron's screams as well as a hiss to follow. By the time Kim got herself free from the fallen tent, Bates had finally come out of the tent with the lantern in hand. Ron was still wrapped up in his bag, and Monty was just getting up, glaring savagely at the fading mist of smoke. The ninja had used smoke pellets to distract them all and get away.

And he took the statue with him.

"Oh, rot!" Monty spat, clenching his fists before himself and still scowling ahead of them all. "If only he hadn't been better than all of us. Word of our discovery must have gotten out!"

Kim had to agree with him, but just as she slammed a fist into her palm, she found herself looking down at his hands...and her heart dropped just as it burst with shock. Ron saw, too, and he screamed so loud that it caused the birds and little critters in the trees to scatter. "That is sick and wrong!"

Monty turned his angry gaze on them both, before it changed immediately to baffle, and ultimately dismay, when he noticed what Ron was talking about. Even Rufus' shriek from his master's pocket didn't help. At some point, the ninja must have removed Monty's gloves without his knowledge, revealing the biggest surprise that struck Kim's core, and it was nothing she would EVER have expected. This had to be what he'd hinted that he couldn't trust her with before.

His fingers appeared to be human if not for the fact they were longer than average, but the backs of his palms were covered thickly with black hair. His hands were that of a monkey.

Duh duh DUH! THE BIG REVEAL. :O Let's see how Kim and Ron take this revelation, and how Monty reacts now that they know his secret.

I figured it was time to get to Kim brainstorming her next book and new leading lady; the appearance of her first, Kathryn, was based off of her voice actress, Christy Carlson Romano. :) In a way, the character is really her. In addition to the name of her new character, Iris, she pays a homage to my friend Vytina's OC Iris DeLaine, one of my favorites of hers (she also writes for Kim/Monty).

The slight redoing of the fourth and final temple had to take careful precision as Monty does go in with her like last time. After all, this IS a retelling of the original events.