Author's Notes: OMG, I love writing these monkeys! It's so cool to be able to give expanded personalities to characters that got so little screen time in the original movie. Sorry to say the Gangreen Gang and the girls don't make an appearance in this chapter. I meant to include them, but the flow of the chapter worked better with giving more focus to Mojo Jojo and his new recruits. With that being said, I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it :)
Chapter 7
Training
Mojo Jojo knew time was of the essence if they were going to prevent the Gangreen Gang from destroying Townsville, either through malice or sheer incompetence. However, he also knew that the primates he was working with were undisciplined and untrained in the field of combat, so he figured the best way to defeat their enemy was to prepare. With this in mind, he and the professor worked together to construct a holographic imaging room to whip the simians into shape.
"Within these walls you may each test out your inventions and strategies which you will then utilize against the girls," Mojo Jojo explained, "The power levels range from 1 to 12, so just choose whichever number from 1 to 12 you feel most comfortable with."
"Um, maybe don't go above level 9," The professor cautioned, "The dangers may be simulations, but they can hurt you. Just be careful."
"Careful is for the weak, puny human," Rocko Socko snorted, "Mojo, I am going first. My invention will crush those evil humans."
Mojo Jojo just rolled his eyes, but the professor bit his fingernails nervously. He really hoped that blasted gorilla was only talking about the Gangreen Gang and not humans in general.
Rocko Socko then put on a strange pair of large metallic gloves. Mojo Jojo assumed this was the invention Rocko spoke of, but it seemed very simplistic for going into battle with a force as deadly as the chemical X enhanced super girls. Oh well, if Rocko Socko wanted to mess up, that was his prerogative. Mojo set the danger level to 7 and watched to see how the alpha male would react.
A giant octopus monster appeared in the simulation of Townsville, and Mojo abruptly turned to the professor who was sitting with him in the control room.
"An octopus?" Mojo asked flatly.
"Hey, Monster Isle is only a few nautical miles from Townsville," The professor reasoned, "It could happen."
The holographic octopus then noticed Rocko Socko and began to swing its large tentacles toward him. Rocko was ready however, and lifted up his metal-clad hands slowly, weighed down by the apparatus. Several monkeys were watching from the control room, and all were wondering how Rocko would solve this problem.
Rocko Socko clapped his gloves together, and a huge shockwave slammed the octopus back into a brick wall! Rocko then used the opportunity to bodyslam into the creature, and then slammed his hands on the ground; causing an earthquake! The octopus couldn't get firm suction on the ground, and Rocko used the momentary distraction to grab a tentacle and swing the beast around until it got dizzy. Then he let go, and the monster was thrown against a building with such force that it turned into a pink gelatinous goo.
The training simulation ended, and Rocko Socko breathed in and out a few times to reorient himself. From the control room, the primates all cheered for Rocko and a few female gorillas swooned. Mojo's expression however remained stoic.
"Very good, Rocko," Mojo said over the intercom, "Your mental ability and physical prowess work well together. However, the girls will be much stronger than a mere kaiju monster. Pick your targets carefully."
"I know what I am doing!" Rocko snapped irritably.
"We are next! We are next!" The Go-Go Patrol urged.
Mojo Jojo motioned toward the training room, which Rocko was exiting, and about two dozen gibbons made their way into the vacant area. Mojo, not seeing any inventions, set the level to 4 just in case. These apes were smaller after all, and they didn't actually seem to have worked on a device to help them. He wondered what they were planning to do...
The Go-Go Patrol prepared themselves, their faces game ready and eager to prove themselves. The simulation was a simple empty room, like the ones most humans lived in, and everyone in the control room wondered what Mojo had programmed for the team of energetic gibbons.
The door creaked open, slowly, and the Go-Go's linked arms like a bunch of toy barrel monkeys. Inside the room, walking menacingly toward them, was a tiny toy robot that walked at a speed of about a millionth of a mile per hour.
"Well, that was disappointing," Rollo Pollo commented.
"Boo! I'm going to attack! Boo! I'm going to attack!" The robot said in a tinny monotone.
"Get him!" The Go-Go gibbons screamed, taking the situation very seriously.
One of the Go-Go's then jumped up in the air, the other gibbons hanging on via the simian chain link they had formed. The lead Go-Go then used the others as a whip to lasso the little robot toy, and the two that wrapped around it began to strangle it with their own bodies. The robot was quickly crushed to pieces, and the Go-Go Patrol stood triumphant, thinking they had accomplished a great feat.
"Does that seriously count as training?" Rocko Socko asked dryly.
"Well, they did use their heads," The professor weakly argued.
"And their bodies!" Cruncha Muncha added cheekily.
The gibbons walked into the control room, and in unison said "Chalk one up for the Go-Go Patrol!"
"Okay seriously, how do you do that?" Baboon Kaboom demanded to know, "Is it telepathy? Do you practice? Just, how?!"
"Professor, I regret this plan," Mojo admitted, annoyed by the other primates, "Can I take them back to the zoo now?"
"Oh, no! You convinced us to do this with you, and we're going to see it through!" Ojo Tango argued, "Let me in that room! I'll show you what a true alpha male looks like."
Mojo sighed as the Sumatran orangutan made his way to the control room. He set the level on easy because he didn't really believe the ape had a plan. Besides, he forgot to bring a weapon or invention with him, so it seemed unfair to crank up the danger level...as tempting as it was.
"True alpha?" Baboon Kaboom screeched, "Oh, so just because he don't have a tail he thinks he's better than me, huh? Well, I'll show that orange throw rug who's boss!"
Ojo Tango had already begun his simulation, a burglary at a children's party. A clown was holding everyone up with a pie gun, and Ojo Tango was constructing a catapult out of a picnic table and some dinnerware. Even Mojo Jojo couldn't help but be impressed with how well Ojo worked on the fly.
Ojo Tango finished his contraption just as the clown noticed him, and the orangutan climbed into the seat so he could use his body to push the device closer. He would have to aim carefully if he was going to defeat the clown monster without harming the tiny humans. He was almost ready to fire his first volley of china saucers when...
"Hey, hairball!" An irate voice called from to the side of his machine, "Yeah, I'm talking to you, Borneo butt!"
"I am Sumatran!" Ojo snapped at Baboon Kaboom, who had broken into his simulation, "Get out of here! This is my fight!"
"Yeah, your fight," Kaboom scoffed dismissively, "You didn't even bring a real robot. Now this..."
A large simian mecha appeared out of the ground, fashioned in Kaboom's own likeness.
"...is a robot!" Kaboom declared.
"It is not your turn!" Ojo complained, "Get out of here, now!"
The clown, upon seeing Kaboom's shiny new mecha, proceeded to fire his pie gun right at the windshield (the eyes); blinding Kaboom.
"Hah! Your robot is a dud!" Ojo proclaimed with childish glee.
"Oh, no it ain't," Kaboom retorted as he turned the robot around, "Because unlike you human wannabes, I remember what it's like to live in the jungle! Say hello to my butt bombs!"
"Oh, now that's real classy," Mojo remarked sarcastically from the control room.
Sure enough, a tube projected out of the rear end of the baboon-shaped mecha, and out of that tube several lit round bombs popped out. The clown monster, despite only being a hologram, was smart enough to know that this situation just got dangerous, and ran away accordingly.
"You fool!" Ojo shouted up at Kaboom, "You're going to blow us all up!"
"What?" Kaboom shouted, unable to hear over the sounds of the bombs being shot at the clown.
"Get out of there!" Ojo screamed.
Realizing that the bombs might destroy the lab (and possibly even the house), Ojo raced up the robot and grabbed Baboon Kaboom. He then ran out of the room while carrying his self-appointed rival. Everyone else saw where this was going, and many ran away from the simulation room, but the little capuchins that made up the Doo Doo Da Doot Clan strapped on jet packs and flew into the danger zone.
"Come back, you fools!" Mojo yelled after them, "You're going to get yourselves killed!"
The little mutated monkeys paid Mojo Jojo no mind however. They had a mission: to save their temporary home. They located the bombs (and the clown cowering in a corner) and knew what they had to do. One by one the little monkeys located the bombs and spat on their fuses until they were no longer lit.
"Eww!" Mojo cringed in disgust.
"Wow, they are so cool!" The Go-Go Patrol exclaimed.
The Doo Doots took their time despite how nerve racking the situation was. They knew if they missed even one bomb it would spell disaster. After about ten minutes with no explosion they were confident that they had found every bomb, and flew out of the room after a job well done.
"That was outstanding!" The professor cheered, "Good job, guys."
"And as for you, Kaboom!" Mojo Jojo added angrily, "Take more care in the working of your robotic inventions in the future! You could have maimed, injured, or even severely disfigured any one of us! What do you have to say for yourself?"
"At least my robot works!" Kaboom replied shamelessly, "Ojo was pushing his around like a baby stroller! We're going up against freaks! We gotta give it everything we got!"
"Um, your robot wa defeated by saliva," Ojo Tango pointed out, "Obviously my picnic table catapult was the superior invention."
"I got a set of fangs that says otherwise, you beta male!" Kaboom shrieked.
"Um, uh, I, uh, have an invention," Blah-Blah Blah-Blah stammered.
"Whatever it is, it beats listening to these two argue," Mojo sighed, "So, what is it?"
"Well, I, um..." Blah-Blah squirmed and avoided eye contact.
"Spit it out!" Mojo screamed.
The Doo Doo Da Doot Clan heard this and promptly spat on the floor.
"Ugh! Professor, help me!" Mojo whined.
"Don't be shy, Blah-Blah Blah-Blah," The professor gently prodded as he bent down to the nervous chimp's level, "I'm sure you have a great invention. Why don't you share it with the rest of us?"
"Well, I call it the hurri-carrot," Blah-Blah replied with a timid smile, "I take a bunch of carrots, put them in designated slots in my device, and the clone-o-matic matrix makes even more carrots after the first have been dislodged; allowing for hundreds and even thousands of carrots to be shot at my opponents. What, uh, what do you think?"
"A food thrower?" Kaboom asked skeptically, "I can throw food myself, and I don't need no machine to help me do it!"
"The, the, the point is volume, not, um..." Blab-Blah tried to defend himself, but his mind was drawing a blank, "...Uh...Mopey, you helped me design this. Explain it for them."
"Who?" Mojo asked.
"Over here," A drab voice replied as a paw was raised in the air, like a child asking permission to be dismissed, "My name is Mopey Popo, and I can't wait to work with all of you to save the world. My joy is overwhelming." His joy sounded decidedly underwhelming.
"They keep getting worse..." Mojo muttered to himself.
"This seems like a plan with a lot of appeal, so get into that room and tell us your spiel~!" Hacha Chacha sang.
Mojo rubbed his head as Blah-Blah and Mopey went into the room with the hurri-carrot. If these simians didn't get their act together, then Townsville would be doomed. Just to be on the safe side, Mojo set the danger level to 5, which was reasonably safe while also presenting a challenge.
Blah-Blah Blah-Blah and Mopey Popo waited for the world to shift around them, and when it did they found themselves in a wooded area surrounded by pine trees and a dilapidated log cabin.
"Hey!" An unknown voice screeched, "Get offa my propity!"
Both chimps turned to find themselves confronted by a pink monster in overalls holding a musket style shotgun. Blah-Blah screamed and Mopey's eyes went wide, and then the pair ran away from the hillbilly monster; both forgetting that this wasn't real.
"Hey! Get back here!" The monster demanded, and then gave chase.
The duo ran further into the trees, the creature on their tail. That was when Blah-Blah realized something...
"Oh no! The hurri-carrot!" Blah-Blah exclaimed in horror, "I-I-I forgot it! I left it...back there!"
"Uh oh," Mopey replied dully, "Do we need it?"
"The whole point is to test it!" Blah-Blah panicked, "We have to go back!"
This declaration was met with a round of bullet fire from the monster's gun. Apparently despite its looks, that wasn't a musket shooter.
"Distract him for me," Blah-Blah ordered.
"Huh?" Mopey stopped running and asked, not having heard what Blah-Blah said.
Stopping was definitely the wrong decision, as the pink yokel had finally caught up with them. Blah-Blah ran for the hurri-carrot, and Mopey just stood there watching the creature run closer to him.
"They're toast!" Cruncha Muncha screamed in terror from the control room.
"Run you idiot, run!" Pappy Wappy shouted at the screen.
The pink monster stopped in front of Mopey Popo, and while he was scared Mopey just couldn't find the strength to run away. Sometimes he felt he had more in common with the sloths than the chimps at the zoo, and this scenario was only proving his previous theories.
"Now I'll learn you to trespass on my propity!" The monster snarled.
"You said that wrong," Mopey pointed out, "That phrase is, 'I'll teach you to-"
The monster fired at the unfortunate ape's helmet, but fortunately he was wearing one that was a size too large, so the bullet missed his brain entirely. Still, a hole in his helmet wasn't going to be good for his grade.
"You know what? You made me mad," Mopey stated calmly to the monster.
He then punched the monster square in the jaw, and sent him flying into a tree! The monster, not learning his lesson, ran for Mopey Popo, who then grabbed him by the scruff and threw him to and fro on the ground. It was an impressive display of strength, but when Mopey let the monster go, it was still conscious and had only gotten madder.
"Oops. My bad," Mopey gulped.
Just as the pink monster was about to tear Mopey a new one, Blah-Blah showed up wheeling in the hurri-carrot. The simians in the control room cheered. It was just like watching a movie for them, even if they didn't quite understand that concept yet.
"N-Now, prepare yourself to taste...carrots," Blah-Blah said in as cool a voice as he could manage.
Blah-Blah then fired the hurri-carrot, and dozens of pointy orange vegetables of doom fired toward the creature. The monster however, rather than be thwarted, was merely annoyed. He took his boomstick and fired a few rounds into the hurri-carrot; destroying it.
"Uh oh. Mopey, run!" Blah-Blah screamed.
Blah-Blah and Mopey ran away from the monster, but a moment later they realized they weren't being chased by anything and the forest had been replaced with a plain white room.
"Oh, right," Blah-Blah winced sheepishly, "It was just a simulation."
"Which you failed miserably," Mojo said over the intercom, "First, you lose your invention. Then you separated yourselves from each other, thus ensuring the destruction of at least one of you. Then, even after finally retrieving your invention, you discover that you did not properly gauge the strength of your opponent, thus rendering your entire plan useless! Do you understand that if this was an actual combat scenario you both would have perished!?"
"B-But, my invention is good!" Blah-Blah defended himself, "I just have to increase the velocity of the-"
"No! No hurri-carrot!" Mojo barked, "You will make something else! Something effective. Now get out of there. It is Bonzo Bango's turn."
Blah-Blah and Mopey left the room with their heads hung in shame. Blah-Blah wanted so much to be an inventor. He had to make his next invention successful, or his dreams would be crushed. As for Mopey Popo, his dream was far simpler than that. He just wanted to be a part of a group that wanted him around.
Blah-Blah and Mopey didn't hang around with the other primates to watch their training, but instead retreated into the kitchen to see if they could get some inspiration. Blah-Blah loved food, though he never got enough in the zoo thanks to the rest of his troupe. To him food was the most inspiring thing in the universe, and he hoped that once again it would give him an idea.
"Hey Blah-Blah?" Mopey spoke up, "Maybe we should just give up and work with Lola Mocha."
"N-No! We've been living under her th-thumb for too long now! We can do this!" Blah-Blah insisted.
"Should we have told Mojo that we're-?"
"No!" Blah-Blah cut him off, "If anybody asks, we're chimps. We're aggressive, we make decisions for ourselves, and we know what we're doing!"
"But we don't," Mopey pointed out.
Blah-Blah banged his head against the kitchen table in exasperation. Deep down, he too knew this was an exercise in futility, but old habits die hard. The zoo's populations were kept separated, so only Mopey Popo, Lola Mocha, and the rest of their troupe knew their secret. If Mojo was their new alpha, then the best way to gain a high position in the troupe was to appear strong and capable. That could only happen if they were chimps. If Mojo learned their secret, that they were bonobos, their chance for a better life would be ruined.