Monkey's wishing staff was certainly a valuable weapon to have. The samurais that had entered the inn through the window were feeling the sharp end of it as Monkey wielded it expertly, knocking the intruders left and right. Pigsy was not too shabby with his muckrake either and dispatched a bad guy heading towards the unarmed Lister, who was already engaged in a punch on. Sandy had a broom-like apparatus which was also being used for the fight against evil. The Cat was up on the table, nimbly prancing around and kicking advancing enemies with his Cuban heels.
"Sirs, it looks like we are outnumbered!" Kryten said. Being that he was programmed not to harm humans, his "battle mode" as he liked to think of it, consisted of giving what he considered to be helpful advice and strategic planning.
"You think??" Lister threw a right hook, smacked out a baddie and turned to meet the next challenger.
"Ha! Not for long!" Monkey plucked a hair from his chest, blew on it, and soon the room was invaded by an army of miniature Monkeys, all brandishing wishing staffs and looking ready to raise hell.
"I call them Mini-Mes!" explained Monkey, in between swings of the wishing staff.
The Boyz from the Dwarf looked on in amazement as the petite primates worked in sync with the other three to finish off the gang and then disappeared as quickly as they had come.
"Now that's what I call a rumble," said Lister, impressed. "Rimmer, you can come out now, you snivelling little scaredy-smeg!"
Rimmer emerged from under the table in what he thought was a dignified manner.
"For your information, Dread-Head, I was employing an ancient Oriental battle strategy," he sniffed.
"You sure did some beating, bud!" chuckled the Cat. "Beating a hasty retreat, that is! Man, you were under that table faster than pigs to a trough. No offence, dude," he added, to Pigsy, who didn't seem to mind.
"Sirs, if I may interrupt, hadn't we better check that Mr – er – Ms Tripitaka is okay?" asked Kryten.
"Of course!" Monkey leapt through the ruined window and the others followed. There was no sign of the priest or the horse in the courtyard.
"The stables," suggested Sandy and they hurried around the back of the inn and into the stables.
Tripitaka was cowered at the back of the building as a swarthy guy with a long ponytail delivered some spectacular mule kicks to the remaining two black-clad samurais, sending them flying into the wall, where they collapsed and conveniently lay still.
"Master! Are you alright?" Monkey trotted over to the frightened priest.
"Oh! Monkey!" sobbed Tripitaka. "You are right, I am a holy fool! Fool to think I could keep up this charade of hiding my true self from my disciples!"
"Now, now, master," said Monkey, clearly uncomfortable at this display of emotion. "We don't need to worry about that right now."
"Yeah, like, what are you going to ride on now, bud? The horse is gone!" observed the Cat. Pigsy, Sandy, Monkey and Tripitaka smiled.
"Forgive our rudeness," said Sandy. "We forgot to introduce you to Yu-Lung, our horse." The others were clearly confused.
"I am Yu-Lung," said the ponytailed guy, clearing up that issue. After what the Posse had encountered already today, this seemed hardly unusual.
"I don't think is a safe place to stay the night," Yu-Lung said after the introductions had taken place.
"But the next village is miles away, and night is already falling," Pigsy whined petulantly.
"Shut-up, Pig," snapped Monkey. "We must think."
"Don't tell Pigsy to shut up for saying what you are thinking, Monkey," said Sandy.
"Silence, water monster!" Monkey was fast becoming irritated.
Lister, Kryten, Rimmer and the Cat couldn't help but smirk at the group that liked to argue constantly between themselves, and fast remembered what Kryten had revealed about them being parallel selves.
"Kryters," asked Lister, "how exactly did you know about Tripitaka being a woman and this being a parallel universe?"
"Why, I had the psi-scan, of course," said Kryten. "I am merely a service mechanoid as you know, and am not equipped to scan at will."
"Ah, that clears that up," nodded the Cat. "I wondered how you managed without the benefit of nostril hairs. Or nostrils for that matter!"
The two groups eventually ceased the chatter and turned their thoughts to their accommodations for the night.
"What about Starbug?" asked Lister.
"We've already been through this, Lister," said Rimmer, exasperated.
"Rimmer, for smeg's sake, would you just listen? I don't mean for travel. I mean just to have a kip. We can work out what to do in the morning."
Rimmer bristled. "Listerrrrrr, it seems you are forgetting Space Corps Directive 2122 which clearly states – "
"That no member of the Space Corps is permitted to re-sell products from the food vending machines except at the weekly Buy-Swap-Sell meet?" Kryten asked. "That's nice of you to remind us of that sir, but I fail to see –"
"Smeg off, you smeggy metal smeghead," Rimmer hissed. "I meant the one about the use of Jupiter Mining Corporation transport vehicles as countryside B & B's!!"
It was Monkey, Tripitaka, Sandy and Pigsy's turn to smirk at the group that liked to argue constantly between themselves, and then recall the whole parallel selves theory.
"Rimmer, pull your head in," Lister said. "They'll stay with us for the night and that's it. Deal with it!"
Rimmer sulked. If only he was a hardlight hologram, he would give Lister a headache sutra with an iron bar instead of prayer.