Heroes of Disney #1: Rise of the Firebird

Ch. 23: The Monkey's Uncle

I lay on the mossy ground, staring at the monkey king, almost looking ferocious standing high up, his form silhouetted in the darkening clouds. (I swear everything gets dark and rainy when things go wrong. I didn't just add it into the story!)

The giant chimp looked down at me with a stupid grin on his face that looked hideous. He held up a banana he plucked from a nearby tree and started peeling it without a care in the world, taking a bite out of the top. His monkey minions chattered around him, jumping up and down like hooligans.

"So mancub, did you really think I was going to let you go?" he asked, peering down at me.

I stared up at him, unsure of how to answer. "Well....yes. You were so much nicer in the movie. Granted you kidnapped Mowgli, tried to kill Baloo...."

The ape threw his head back and laughed. "Don't judge a banana by its peel, is my philosophy." He reached down with his immensely long arms and plucked me up as easy and simple as if I were a wildflower. "Now that you've shown me how to make fire, I expect you'll be recreating a lot of man creations for me."

I raised my hands up. "But, I don't know how to make much. I even burn popcorn in the microwave. When all I had to do was press the button that said "popcorn." It's pathetic."

I was trying to make King Louie think he couldn't use me by highlighting my stupid mistakes in the past.

"There was this one time I wondered why my iPod wasn't playing any music, and it took me like 30 minutes before I realized I just didn't plug the headphones all thew way in!" I reasoned. "Oh! I can't operate a toy lightsaber. How pathetic is that? And there was this one time-"

"Enough!" King Louie screeched. "You're making my brain hurt." He pulled me close to his face. His breath smelled like a disgusting mixture of fleas and bananas.

I thought he was going to threaten me or something when he reached up and pulled some kind of insect out of my hair.

"Oh! Oh that is so gross!" I stared disgustingly at Louie as he popped the bug into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Then he dropped my on the ground. Again.

"Now, Mancub. I have an idea. I want you to make me one of those rectangular boxes that move around on circles." He said matter-of-factly.

It took me a minute. Then it clicked. "You want me to build a car!? What am I, an engineer?" I stood up and brushed my pants off. "I just told you I can't even operate a toy lightsaber! How the heck am I supposed to build a car? In the middle of the Hundred Acre Woods for pete's sake!"

King Louie leaned down in my face. "You better build me a car, or your friends are gonna' get it."

I glared up at him. Why should I be afraid? This guy is a monkey. I'm a human being. I can take him. But how?

Then I had a durr moment. I mentally slapped myself.

The ring! It was still on my finger, gleaming a bright shade of red, as always.

Without hesitation I quickly brought my ring up to King Louie's face and thought: Bananas. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I was pressured and the fruit was everywhere around me. Besides, King Louie liked bananas.

At my thought command, a thousand yellow fruits exploded out of my ring and kr'nocked King Louie right in the face, sending him flying backwards into a pile of chimps, who tried to scramble out of his way, with no luck.

"Hey!" One of King Louie's head chimps lunged at me, but he got a pineapple in the face.

Where I got the pineapple idea from, I had no clue.

"Yeah! And that's what you get for messing with Jamie Herinson!" I shouted triumphantly and pointed my ring into the air, striking a pose. I felt good about myself. I just took down a monkey. With bananas. I was awesome

But the heroic moment fled as I raced to the stone compartment where my friends were tied up. Or should I say, were. Tiana and Perry were standing up, trying to wake Hercules, while Dodger was just releasing Buck's last leg bond.

"What? How did you guys-"

"They forgot to muzzle me up." Dodger explained. "Or they're too dumb enough to think of it. I just used my teeth to free myself and the others."

I looked behind me at King Louie and his monkey clan. They were situating themselves, helping each other up and whatnot. Well, at least the chimps were. King Louie was standing up, eating yet another banana, waiting for his minions to get up.

I glared at the opposition I faced. Then I turned to my friends. "I got this."

I turned back around just as the group of monkeys started making their way over to us, sporting angry mugs.

I raised my ring, straight at them.

King Louie stopped advancing and stepped back, a scared look on his face.

I decided to go with something that has worked successfully so far. Fireworks. I thought.

I watched King Louie struggle to get out of the way of the advancing firew-.....what?

There were no fireworks.

I was confused. I looked at my ring. It wasn't shining as brightly as it was before. In fact it wasn't shining at all.

I tried again. Nothing. No fireworks, no bananas, no nothing.

This was not good.

"Jamie? What's wrong?" Tiana called from behind me.

"I don't....I don't know." I was shaking my ring furiously, trying to get SOMETHING to come out of the ring. Still nothing.

By now, King Louie had noticed the problem. He seemed to realize nothing was happening, and he smirked, and started making his way back over to where we were.

"Tiana, I hope Hercules is awake, because nothing's happening!" I backed up as King Louie and his paparazzi continued making their way over.

"Something wrong with your magic weapon, mancub? Too bad." King Louie smirked as he reached the cottage. I was completely backed up inside, next to Tiana, Perry, Buck, Dodger and an unconscious Hercules.

The king and his posse made came closer until they were literally three feet in front of us.

Two feet.

One foot.

"Oh what the heck." Buck said. "HAKUNA MATATA!" He sprang forth with all the strength his horse legs could muster and rammed into the monkey king with all his body weight.

"Buck!" I screamed as they rolled out of the cottage at full speed, ramming into a couple of monkeys on the way. The ones who were spared screeched their king's name and raced out of the door to where Buck and King Louie were headed.

Tiana, Perry, Dodger and I did the same.

We followed the monkeys over to where the patch of land the compound rested on sloped down into an opening. The compound was on top of a hill. Ignoring the screaming monkeys, I looked down the hill and saw a huge patch of thorny bushes. And a straight line in the middle of it, where the horse/monkey ball rolled into it. I could see Buck and Louie in the middle of it, both covered in thistles. Louie was unconscious, Buck looked like he was in pain.

"King Louie! King Louie! King Louie!" chirped the monkey fiends as the scrambled down the hill toward their fallen leader. When they got to him, carefully avoiding the patches of thorns sticking out everywhere, they all worked together to pick him up, and carry him away, in the opposite direction of the compound.

I turned to the rest of my team. "C'mon!" and I ran down the hill to the fallen horse, hoping beyond hope that Buck was ok.

If not I would never be able to live with myself.