Chapter 3

His head was pounding when he awoke, the sounds of screeching and banging causing him to ignore the pain and sit upright in shock. What he saw made his breath catch in his throat. The monkey team, fighting their chains as they screamed at each other with blood red eyes. Otto was terrifying to watch as he would pace and then throw himself at whomever seemed to be closest to him, nearly slicing through Nova's arm twice as she and Gibson were the ones next to him and she was pacing from side to side. He was right across from Sprx-77, who was in between Chiro and Antauri, and it gave Chiro a perfect view of the cunning in Otto's eyes. The cunning look that was placed on him as Otto gave an awful sneer and said quite lucidly;

"I could get out if I wanted to, really I could. I could get out, and then you would be dead." Chiro's heart stopped and it was a moment before he could breath again and ask;

"S-so w-what's stopping you?" Otto's answer was a chilling laugh as he once again changed his hands into saws and lunged at Nova. She snarled at him and began screaming, to which he answered and the screaming match began. He never did answer Chiro's question, and the boy wasn't sure whether that made him more afraid or not.

A loud slam made him jump, and he carefully positioned himself far enough away from the monkeys to see where it came from. Obviously it was further down the dungeon hall as he couldn't see anyone but could hear the heavy footsteps as they came closer, the sound getting louder with each step. The monkeys, save Otto, began screaming even more, and it disturbed Chiro to see the little green mechanic so calm. Shouldn't he be screaming or something? Why in the world was he so calm? The owner of the footsteps appeared in the torchlight revealing none other than Caesar himself. The overweight boar was grinning, a metallic contraption in his left hand.

"Good, good," he said, pleased as he watched the monkeys scream and attack their cell doors. However, the grin turned into a frown when he saw Otto watching him calmly and he snorted, approaching the cage. "Hmm... And what is the matter with you then?" His question was answered with a nasty sneer and the sound of saw blades whirling. Caesar leapt back with a grunted cry of shock as Otto attacked, laughing maniacally with sparks flying as steel met steel. Chiro shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself as Caesar took a breath, calming himself, before giving a deep guttural laugh.

"WONDERFUL!" His shout echoed through the dungeon, causing Nova to screech in terror and try to flee from the sound. Her chains however kept her from going too far and Otto chose that moment to try and attack her again. Her scream as Otto's blade met her arm made Chiro sick and he flung himself at his own bars.

"OTTO! LEAVE HER ALONE!" He reached out, grabbing the cell bars and...

He awoke to the sound of the monkeys screaming and looked to see Caesar staring through the bars at him with disdain.

"And you are supposed to be the hero," he scoffed, snorting before turning and pressing a button on the metal contraption in his hand. The screaming stopped and the monkeys dropped limply to the floor like marionettes with their strings cut. "Some hero. You can't even save your teammates from themselves can you?" Chiro grunted, his body screaming with pain.

"What have you done to them," he snarled, trying, and failing, to raise himself up. Caesar smirked, showing him what he now recognized to be some kind of controller.

"They're robots, and I've reprogrammed them. Although I really must thank you. Whatever you did to that silver monkey stopped him from blocking my signals. Sure they were docile, obedient, but the madness..." he grinned showing yellow and blackened teeth, causing Chiro to suck in his breath. "Well, thanks to you, I now have the perfect warriors I'd been looking for to go into my arena. If not for you 'hero', they'd still be sane and I would have nothing for all my hard work. So, thank you." His sneering grin widened and he laughed as he walked away, two cat shaped robots coming and opening the door to Gibson's cell and dragging the limp blue monkey away. Chiro could only stare, his face a mask of denial. He... did this? He looked at Antauri, the silver monkey lying still on his cell floor and the sickness that had overcome Chiro before became physical. When he was able, he managed to crawl to the very back of his cell, being the only one not chained, and sit up enough to bring his knees to his chest and wrap his arms around them. He sniffled.

"Monkey team... I'm so... sorry."

Chiro burst into tears.

TBC