Chapter Four: Seeing Double

It was another hour or two before Wade called back. In that time, the team questioned the library volunteer Max had spoken with earlier, as well as anyone else who had been in the building when Monkey Fist came through. Nobody had any information beyond what little Max had already learned – none of them even remembered which way the criminal had gone after leaving the library.

Still, they'd managed to confirm that the very rough travel plans he'd found earlier indeed belonged to their target. That at least would help narrow the search when Monkey Fist decided to head out, but the information they could glean wasn't specific enough for them to know just when that would be.

Max, too, had filled in the others on as much of his "source's" details as he felt were safe to divulge. "He's looking for someone who's supposed to be connected to Mystical Monkey Power," he explained. "From what I can tell, this person hasn't actually been born yet, so that means he'll be going after the mother. I'm not sure if his plan is to kidnap or adopt the kid as some kind of twisted heir or, uh, 'get rid' of a potential rival, but either way, it's definitely not good."

While he was talking, Rufus had poked his head out of Ron's pants pocket and started sniffing at something. Now, Max realized with a start that the little guy had confused beady eyes locked on him.

"Uh…" Max gave him a tentative wave. "Hi?"

Rufus just leaned further out of the pocket and started sniffing intently at his hand.

Ron frowned down at his pet. "Dude, come on, personal space." He glanced up at Max.

"You just come from a fondue place or something? Usually he doesn't get this excited unless it's about cheese."

Before Max could come up with a response, Rufus shook his head and said, "Uh-uh. Smells funny."

"Funny?" Kim piped in, folding her arms. "Funny how?"

Rufus seemed to consider it for a moment before chittering his response. Max couldn't quite help wincing a little at the comment, and he had to stop himself from responding outright and giving away that he understood the rodent-speak.

"Like you?" Ron repeated for the supposed benefit of the other humans in the group. "What's that supposed to mean? You haven't even touched the guy!"

Rufus just shrugged, clearly as baffled as his human.

Max, of course, knew exactly what was going on. But he couldn't explain it without giving away the game and it wasn't like the others would guess that he'd recently had a much older Rufus in his pocket, so he just shrugged as well when they all turned their questioning looks on him.

It was a relief, then, when Wade's call came in and derailed the conversation.

"There's a break-in in progress at the animal holding center of the Middleton prison," he reported. "Looks like your hunch was right."

Kim gave him a curt nod and started for the library's exit. "We're on our way."

Max surreptitiously took a deep breath as he followed her. This is it.

It wasn't hard to find where Monkey Fist had gotten to. The intermingled sounds of mad cackling and monkey shrieks kind of gave it away.

By the time Team Possible had gotten there, Monkey Fist and six of his simian minions were already outside. The facility's alarms were blaring, but the guards on the scene had clearly been outmatched. It wasn't hard to guess why – while most of them were by now out cold and scattered about the place, the last two were struggling futilely in the clutches of the stone gorillas that Monkey Fist had stolen back in his own time.

Kim's eyes narrowed as she surveyed the scene from around the hole in the perimeter wall that had no doubt also been the gorillas' handiwork. "I'm guessing those are the animated statues you told us about?"

Max winced and nodded. "Yup, and they hit hard. Trust me, I've got the bruise to prove it."

Ron nodded. "Right, stay away from the giant stone monkeys. Don't have to tell me twice."

"Gorillas are apes, Ron," Kim said reflexively.

"Same diff."

Kim just shook her head at the comment. She then stepped out from behind the wall, pulling Monkey Fist's attention away from whatever he was planning to do with the two hapless guards.

"Back already, Monkey Fist?" she called out, hands on her hips. "You know, if you miss prison that much, we'd be happy to get you back in."

Monkey Fist's gaze snapped to where she stood. "Oh, goody," he drawled, "the cheer squad is back. And here I was hoping for a nice private reunion."

His eyes widened when Ron and Max emerged to join her. "You!" he snarled at the latter. "What in blazes are you doing here?!"

Max smirked and folded his arms, projecting as much bravado as he could muster. "Miss me already, Monkey Boy? That's sweet." Please don't say anything about time travel, please don't say anything about time travel…

Fortunately for him, Monkey Fist was either thinking the same thing or just didn't feel like talking. Instead, he turned his snarl to the group as a whole.

"I am not in the mood for this right now. Monkey ninjas! What are you waiting for?"

Not much, apparently. In a whirlwind of simian chattering and shrieks, the monkey ninjas descended upon the team.

Kim didn't waste a moment, dodging around the wave of monkeys and shaking off the two that grabbed at her arms as she made a beeline for their master. The monkeys seemed content to leave her to him, and instead focused their efforts on the boys.

Max quickly found himself on the defensive. He hastily shielded his face with an arm as one of the monkeys went at him with a flying kick, only for it to change tactics and grab onto his raised forearm with both grasping feet. While he was trying to shake that assailant off, another monkey swung hard at his lower leg and nearly knocked him off his own feet.

"Okay, so this is what it's like fighting these stupid monkeys," he muttered to himself, stumbling around as he desperately blocked the punches and kicks of the now three monkeys assaulting him. He couldn't say he was a fan.

Some sort of exaggerated war cry drew his attention, and he looked over briefly to see Ron shouting and waving a stick at his own trio of assailants. Or at least, it would have been brief if the scene hadn't caught him completely off guard.

As it was, it took him a few moments to process the sight of his future father, someone who would go on to inspire him almost as much as his mother did with tales of great bravery and cleverness and with a masterful grasp of tai shing pek kwar, yelling like an idiot and just barely holding off his opponents with his improvised weapon.

"...What."

Max didn't get a chance to say or do anything more, though, as the monkey ninjas hounding him naturally took advantage of his distraction. It was only another moment before he was tackled to the ground, one monkey sitting on his head and another pinning his arms painfully behind his back. He scrambled to try and throw them off, but he could already feel the third begin to tie something around his legs.

Well okay then. At least his current vantage point gave him a chance to see how the rest of the battle was going, in particular between Kim and Monkey Fist. She was faring much better than her teammates, dodging and blocking all of her opponent's quick strikes and using her own offensive to gradually push him back from the holding cell and whatever other damage he had planned there.

Max grinned. This was more like it – while his mom lacked a little of the precision he was used to in his own time, she was still every bit the awe-inspiring hero he'd always looked up to.

Yeah, yeah, so he was a momma's boy – sue him.

The grin left his face, though, when he noticed who else was just now joining the fight. The two stone gorillas had apparently decided that Kim was a bigger threat than the remaining security guards, and one was coming up behind her while she was occupied with Monkey Fist.

"Mo-" he shook his head, "Uh, Kim, look out!" Max renewed the struggle against his captors as he shouted his warning.

Kim perked up and turned just in time to dodge the gorilla's swinging fist. She grit her teeth and backed away warily, on the defensive now that the thing was teaming up with its master.

Max took a moment to glance back at Ron, who was… suddenly brandishing his stick like a proper bo staff and knocking the last of his opponents away with solid precision.

"Okay, what?!"

Ron shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling awkwardly. "Mystical Monkey Powers. They come and go," he said by way of explanation. "Mostly when these guys are involved, weirdly enough."

Max was so done with this time period. "...Right. Hey, can you help me out here? I'm kinda stuck," he said, wiggling under the weight of his captors for emphasis.

"Sure thing, dude!" Ron sprang forward, sweeping at the two closest monkeys while Max ducked his head. Rufus, who had at some point in the battle scampered out of his human's pocket, circled around the third while it was distracted to gnaw at the ropes binding Max's legs.

The second stone gorilla was making its way to Kim now. Max rolled the moment his legs were free, throwing the now disoriented monkey ninjas off of him and springing to his feet in one fluid motion. "Come on, we gotta help!" he shouted, taking off toward Kim and her opponents.

The redoubled shrieking behind him, from both the monkeys and Ron, told him that he would probably be the only backup here. Not much time to worry about that, though.

Max launched himself into a front handspring that gave him just enough air to latch onto the closest gorilla's neck. Pulling his legs up, he managed to get a semi-stable perch on its shoulders and pulled hard at one of the stone ears to throw it off balance. It lurched to the side, giving off a gravelly-sounding howl of fury.

Max opened his mouth to gloat, but the words died on his lips when he realized just where he had positioned himself. Instead he was just able to mutter, "Not again," before the gorilla started thrashing about in an effort to throw him off.

"Hang on!" Kim called out to him. He couldn't see exactly what she was doing, as he was busy holding on for dear life, but she had her grappling hook out and seemed to have much more freedom to move now that one of the gorillas was otherwise occupied.

Mission accomplished, at least. Not that it was all that much comfort in the moment. "Why do – I keep – doing this?!" Max cried out to nobody as he swung back and forth from the gorilla's neck.

A crunch of metal against stone invaded his thoughts, and a sudden singular lurching motion accompanied it not long after. The gorilla was falling now, he realized, and he took swift advantage of the merciful absence of flailing to safely jump off its back.

When he landed, he saw the reason for the sudden change – Kim had shot her grappling hook into a wall and pulled it taut right in front of the stone gorilla, effectively tripping it. Now she pulled the hook free with a practiced motion, and she was already eyeing both gorillas as she pulled the thick cable back to herself.

"Monkey Fist slipped away in the confusion," she told him. "I've got an idea for these two – you go after him before he busts out the rest of his ninjas."

Max nodded. "Right." He turned and started for the hole the gorillas had made into the holding center.

"And call for backup from your team!" Kim called after him. "I don't think we'll be able to bring all these guys in on our own!"

Right, about that… Max just grit his teeth and kept running. Not much he could do about that now.

"Wait!" One of the still conscious guards, a commander of some sort by the looks of his uniform, stumbled toward him. The man was noticeably favoring one leg. "That's not what he's after."

Max slowed to a halt. "Okay, where is he going then?"

The guard frowned worriedly. "There's something you should know," he said. "When we got the alert that Monkey Fist was breaking in, we checked and… He's still in his cell. It's like there's two of him. I don't know why that is, but that's where your guy ran off to – to break the other one out."

Max's breath caught in his throat. He should have known this would happen… and that the prison guards would be able to confirm just what was wrong with this sitch. If Team Possible realized there were two Monkey Fists, it was going to raise a lot of questions he wasn't prepared to deal with.

"We know about the doppelganger," he half-lied. "Can your guys keep an eye on the holding cell while I go after this one?"

The guard nodded sharply and grabbed his radio to start barking instructions to however many of his colleagues were still available.

Meanwhile, Max took off in the direction the guard had pointed out, watching carefully for signs of his target. The cells for actual human criminals were in other buildings, with enough open space in between to make attempts to hide all the more difficult. For a jailbreaker who was actively being hunted, there weren't really a lot of options for laying low.

It wasn't long before he found him, just beginning to scale one shadowed corner of a cell block.

With a swift motion, Max pulled the Maxciever out of his pocket, aimed, and pressed one of the side buttons. A kind of sticky webbing shot out of the modified watch, spreading wide as it was exposed to air until it plastered itself against Monkey Fist and the section of wall surrounding him.

Max let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Glad this thing was still useful for something," he muttered to himself as he stowed the device away. He folded his arms and made his way to the wall his opponent was pinned against.

"It's over, Monkey Fist," he called out. "You had your fun running around in the past, but it stops here. Let's just make this easier on both of us by telling me where you've got the Tempus Simia, so we can use it to get back home."

Monkey Fist scoffed, the effect of which was mostly lost coming from a guy currently plastered to the thick stone wall of a prison building.

"You think you can make demands of me?" he sneered. "I did thorough research when I escaped that demon's curse, you know. I know exactly who you are, boy. In our own time, you've only just joined your precious mother's team. You have no real power, no experience. All your false bravado comes directly off of her, little different from common nepotism."

Max's eyes narrowed. "I'll try to keep that in mind, Lord Fiske."

Monkey Fist scoffed again. "Please, as if anyone else of the Fiske line has achieved half of what I have."

"What, a whole lot of jail time and two decades as a statue? You're the one who has time travel on your side and still can't even break yourself out of prison," Max shot back. He frowned thoughtfully.

"Why this year, anyway? Not that I'm complaining – or that it matters now either way – but wouldn't it have been easier to go after the baby than her adult birth mother?"

"Research, boy!" Monkey Fist snapped, pulling hard against his bonds. "Honestly, it's clear you have no future in archaeology if you don't even know what your own aunt was capable of as an infant. I have prepared for this." He sighed.

"Though I suppose one could consider the period when she was a newborn who had neither the coordination for such things nor the love of an adopted family that granted her unstoppable power. I did, if you must know, but it makes little difference. Left to her own devices, the Han's birth mother will turn to the Yamanouchi School to – oh, spare me the fake blank look, I am the reason your family works with that secretive little school of relics! Regardless, by the time the child is born, she will be under far more protection than that of a lone woman who barely understands her own bloodline. That is why we are in this time – and why we will remain here and now until I have finished what I started."

Max shook his head and closed the remaining distance between himself and the trapped villain, retrieving a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt as he did. "You still don't get it, do you?" he asked. "Okay, I'll admit you had a decent plan, but it's over. We're going home now."

For a moment, he thought he saw Monkey Fist's gaze shift to something behind him. The corner of the man's lip curled into a devilish little smirk, and he replied, "Oh, I wouldn't say so."

"Max, behind you!"

Before Max could even process the new voice, a monkey dropped onto his shoulders and started shrieking in his ear while another one threw a smoke bomb right at his feet. The sudden noise and billowing smoke took him completely off guard, and he could do nothing but double over and cough as a cacophony of monkey ninjas got to work on something just out of his muddled view.

In moments, the noise began to fade into the distance. It was immediately replaced by the pounding of footsteps, which in turn ground to a halt as a firm hand came to rest on his shoulder. He looked up through the now thinning smoke to see Kim checking him over, a concerned frown on her face.

"M'okay," he managed to mumble.

Kim sighed and nodded in relief, but her expression remained hard. "Max, what happened back there?!"

Max winced a little at her tone, and with a sinking sense of dread he turned back to look at the spot where his foe, his fellow time traveler, the whole reason he was stuck in the past, had been safely contained not three minutes ago.

The webbing was cut cleanly through, no doubt the work of Monkey Fist's loyal hench-critters.

And Monkey Fist himself was nowhere to be seen.