To Lyger 0: It sounds like you're on the right track there! And this would indeed be the reason why Popo couldn't use the miraculous himself.
To Butterfly: Admittedly, I've really enjoyed watching you slowly lose your mind as this story has progressed!
To yellow 14: When you're going up against something like Popo, it gets intense!
King Monkey vaulted over a cluster of militants who had been frozen in place by one of Sent-Bee's synth-Venom grenades, his eyes trained on the creature standing in the very center of the camp. The creature – Popo – fixed his single eye on King Monkey, pumped his wings once, and shot up into the air, catching on an air current and gliding over King Monkey's head. King Monkey threw his staff at Popo like a dart, but the staff fell harmlessly short between King Monkey and the other heroes. Popo wheeled around and dropped to the ground, sinking his clawed feet into the chest of one of his own soldiers who was just starting to rouse. The man stared up into Popo's eye and let out a terrified shriek as Popo released him. Flailing his arms wildly, the soldier landed on Roqonsa Saada, knocking her to the ground. She shoved the man off of her and surged to her feet moments before Goota-Lolaa dove at her middle. Roqonsa Saada barely managed to get a hand on his arm before they overbalanced and fell to the ground, rolling over on top of each other, wrestling.
Popo dropped to the ground in front of King Monkey, who lunged to the side, grabbed his staff, and brought it around in a massive two-handed strike at the monster's head. Popo's head, however, shifted its shape as he transformed into a rhinoceros, lowered his head, and charged King Monkey, his deep bellow and pounding feet rocking the ground. King Monkey jumped with moments to spare, and Popo caught him between the legs with his horn, throwing him up into the air. King Monkey spun around in midair to land on Popo's back, but Popo transformed into an ostrich, and King Monkey landed just behind him. Popo leapt into the air, turned, and shapeshifted into an elephant. He grabbed King Monkey in his trunk and threw him. Before the elephant could release him, however, King Monkey grabbed the trunk, pulled himself closer, and punched the elephant in the face. With one hand on the elephant's tusks, he swung himself around to build momentum and forced Popo's head down to one side, pushing the elephant off-balance and driving him into the ground. Popo returned to his normal form – the batlike creature with clawed hands and feet – and shot into the air.
"We can't let that thing escape!" Maroodiga Cawlan shouted, pointing into the sky where Popo circled.
King Monkey gauged the distance through narrowed eyes. "Slingshot!" he called. Maroodiga Cawlan gave him a funny look but tossed one end of his hose to Roqonsa Saada, who kicked Goota-Lolaa away and set her feet. King Monkey spun around just before he ran headfirst into the hose, pulling it back. Goota-Lolaa pushed himself to his feet and charged them, only to be blindsided by Ngarayap, who wrapped him up with her grappling hook and pulled him aside. Maroodiga Cawlan and Roqonsa Saada raised their ends as high as they could, just as King Monkey reached the end of the hose's tension and jumped. The hose sprang back, launching him into the air. With a shout he spread his arms, slamming into Popo in a flying tackle far above the tree line. He grabbed the monster around the chest, pinning its wings so it couldn't flap them. Popo lost altitude and dropped like a rock, King Monkey's momentum propelling them away from the camp, deeper into the forest, as they rocketed past the tops of the trees. Popo's clawed hands clutched at King Monkey's arms, peeling them off and freeing his wings. He seized King Monkey's chest with his feet, caught himself meters from the ground, and flapped hard to regain the altitude he had lost. Higher and higher he flew, carrying King Monkey with him. The air began to thin. King Monkey steeled himself as the monster's claws dug into his shoulders – though without piercing his miraculous suit. The camp below them, lit up by the fires of burning tents, flickered with shadows dancing about.
Suddenly Popo swung King Monkey forward and released him into the air. An involuntary cry escaped King Monkey's lips as he windmilled his arms in a feeble attempt to take control of his descent. The hand still holding his staff spun, and he felt the tiniest trace of lift from his spinning staff. King Monkey forced his breathing to slow and grabbed the staff with both hands, spinning it above his head and slowing his descent. The ground was still close to a kilometer below him – too far to survive a fall. He could see the deeper darkness of the forest surrounding the camp, the tops of the conifers standing out in the moon's minimal illumination. A dark shadow passed behind King Monkey, and he gasped. Something solid crashed into his back.
Popo grabbed him around the chest, the razor-sharp claws on his hands digging into King Monkey's sides. The stench of sulfur in his nose nearly overwhelmed King Monkey. The monster leaned in close and whispered, "Now I will have my way with you, hero." He squeezed, and King Monkey gasped. "First you, then all of the others! And you will tell all your kind what happens to those who offend Popobawa!" Popobawa sunk his teeth into his neck. King Monkey yelped.
"Gah!" Popobawa grunted, unable to pierce the miraculous suit. "No matter; I will peel this from your corpse!" His face shifted in size and shape, lengthening into a shark-like protrusion lined with even more sharp teeth. The claws on his hands grew sharper. Popobawa placed one claw against King Monkey's cheek.
"Uproar!" shouted King Monkey. He had never used Uproar on something like this before; the last time he had used it on something that was neither a miraculous user nor an Akuma, the science experiment gone wrong had burst apart. A baseball bat appeared in the air next to King Monkey's hand, and he grabbed it before gravity could carry it out of his reach. With Popobawa's hands on his shoulders, King Monkey could do little except swing backward and hope for the best. All he could manage was a glancing blow on Popobawa's leg. Popobawa shuddered and gasped.
King Monkey turned to watch Popobawa's shark head melt away and recede back into his face, his long claws retracting into his hands. "What–what is happening to me!?" the creature demanded as he returned to his bat-like form. He closed his eye, furrowing his forehead in concentration. His eyes shot open in a rage. "I can't transform!"
King Monkey crowed jubilantly and swung his legs back before kicking forward. Popobawa's grip on his shoulders loosened, and he swung up and over Popobawa's head, landing on his back. Popobawa grunted and lost ten meters of altitude before he caught himself. "What's that?" King Monkey taunted, punching the monster in the back of his head. "You don't like losing control, either? Guess now you know what you've been doing to people!"
"You will pay for that, hero!" declared Popobawa, turning over onto his back. King Monkey dangled, his legs swinging freely. Popobawa shrugged his shoulders and squirmed, and King Monkey's grip loosened.
A grappling hook caught around Popobawa's ankle, and he howled in shock. The grappling hook line drew taut, and Popobawa was pulled down toward the ground. He strained to fly against the force pulling him down, but it was unmoving. A hose looped around Popobawa's other ankle. Slowly Popobawa dropped toward the ground until, while still fifteen meters above the top of the camp, Popobawa wheeled about and charged the center of the camp, King Monkey holding desperately onto his legs.
King Monkey finally became aware of Ngarayap holding her grappling hook and tugging on the line while Maroodiga Cawlan reeled in his hose several meters away. Nearby Goota-Lolaa and the Bulguu fought Roqonsa Saada. Sent-Bee kept up a steady stream of synth-Venom at Hunda-Beekaa, who used the pieces of his stick to summon a shield around himself before the shield flooded with black smoke and he vanished.
Three meters off the ground, King Monkey released Popobawa's ankle and dropped to the ground. Popobawa remained in the air a moment longer before Maroodiga Cawlan leapt and tackled him to the ground. Popobawa let out a laugh and threw Maroodiga Cawlan aside. "Do you think that your feeble strength can match my raw power!?" he demanded. He grabbed the grappling hook line and tugged, and Ngarayap was pulled forward. Popowaba grabbed her by the throat and opened his mouth. Sent-Bee hit him in the face with a glob of synth-Venom at pointblank range, and Popo shook it off. "I will annihilate you all!"
At that moment a whip lashed out and stuck Popobawa between the shoulder blades. The monster flinched. Ngarayap pulled her knees up to her chest and kicked out, catching Popobawa in the face and breaking his grip. She spun around in a back flip to land out of his reach. The whip cracked again. Again and again the whip cracked against Popobawa's back. Finally, Popobawa turned around. "Weak child," he muttered.
"You will not hurt my sister – or anyone else, for that matter," declared Cadaabta Ey, fire in his eyes. "I am done taking your orders! FEAR-Y!"
Popobawa crouched low to the ground, his body wracked with tremors. His single eye bugged out, the pupil constricting. His taloned feet clenched and unclenched the soft dirt. He took in a shuddering breath as Cadaabta Ey lashed him again and again with his whip. He turned and grabbed the whip as it cracked, eyes alight with malice. "Do you think your fear can destroy a creature bred of fear? You wield fear as a simple weapon; I feed off of it!"
Cadaabta Ey tugged on his whip but could not free it from Popobawa's grip. His eyes widened in fear. King Monkey could hear his miraculous beeping: Uproar would end soon. He lunged forward and caught Popobawa around the waist, slamming him into the ground. Popobawa lost his grip on the whip, and King Monkey rolled off of him just as the whip cracked again. Popobawa shrieked.
King Monkey stared down at Popobawa, and then looked around to see the tents on fire. There had to be a reason Popobawa refused to light his camp or allow more fires than necessary. "Hang on!" he shouted to the others, pointing at the fire. "Get fire close to him!"
Cadaabta Ey continued to whip the monster over and over, the lash biting into the soft, leathery wings and shredding them down to ribbons. A pile of brush and camp debris grew to one side as the other heroes threw everything they could find into the makeshift pyre. Synth-Bee had claimed Goota-Lolaa's dropped Shunjar rifle, and she shot the pile of detritus over and over until it caught fire, the flames billowing higher and higher, almost on a level with the tops of the trees surrounding the camp. Popobawa shrieked as the fire burned hotter and hotter. Cadaabta Ey drove him back, toward the fire. The flames licked at his feet and back as he tried desperately to shield his face with his arms. Between whip strikes, Popobawa spread his wings and took to the sky to escape. Cadaabta Ey's whip, however, latched on around his ankle, drawing tight. Cadaabta Ey swung him around, and Popobawa came crashing back down into the midst of the fire. An anguished shriek rose from the center of the pyre. A couple minutes later, Popobawa's body was nowhere to be seen as the fire burned down to embers.
On the far side of the square, on seeing his leader's death, Goota-Lolaa let out a bellow of rage. He turned to the Bulguu. "Monster, get us out of here!"
The Bulguu winced, a low gravely noise escaping from his throat. He started to nod, but froze. He turned on Goota-Lolaa, a feral look in his eyes. He suddenly grabbed Goota-Lolaa by the collar. "I am not a monster!" he roared into the man's face. His sharp teeth flashed in the darkness. Goota-Lolaa let out a pained shriek that was suddenly cut off. The Bulguu threw his mangled body across the camp.
AN: The time King Monkey refers to when he used Uproar on a living creature was in "The Life and Times of the Heroes of Europe," Chapter 9.