Finches

Chapter 17 - Killing Two Monkeys With One Throw

If the deranged, monkey-obsessed man attacking him was bad, the actual Battle Monkeys themselves attacking him was much worse.

All 20 of them approached at once, then some broke off and ran toward Shelly while the others advanced on Colt. As Colt managed to get back on his feet for what felt like the millionth time, he noticed that most of the monkeys had come after him. Only approximately five of the twenty monkeys ran at Shelly, while the other 15 were slowly starting to wrap around him. He thought this was extremely unfair, and wondered if the monkeys understood English so that he could ask a couple of them to go make sure Shelly was having an equally bad time.

But then he realized that they were Battle Monkeys, so this must be their strategy. Send more personnel after the person actually wielding a weapon. Seemed smart enough, but Colt still didn't like it. Not one bit.

He heard some shrieks from Shelly as the monkeys approached. She didn't have a weapon, but Colt could see her doing a halfway decent job at fending them off by swiping at them furiously with her arms. This didn't keep the monkeys away for long, however. They were starting to close in on her as Colt was forced to take his eyes off her. He did have 15 monkeys of his own to worry about, after all.

As the monkeys drew closer to him, Colt picked the nearest one and swung his sword. The Battle Monkey blocked the blow and countered effectively. It managed to make contact with Colt, but only barely. The monkey's sword cut through Colt's pants and a thin, shallow cut formed on his leg.

"Ow," Colt muttered, but it was more out of offense than pain. How could something so small and cute want to cause him harm? It didn't seem right.

Colt backed away from the monkeys, but they began to circle around him. He noticed that they weren't very vicious. They took their time, as if luring him into the perfect position. Somehow this made him even more nervous.

"We can talk this out, right monkeys?" Colt looked around at them hopefully. "I mean, I know we can't actually talk to each other. But come on, you don't want to hurt me!"

They didn't look like they believed him. They continued to rotate around him curiously. Colt stepped backwards some more and felt something against his lower back. He realized there was now also a monkey directly behind him, pressing his sword to him and making sure he didn't leave the circle of death.

"Fine," said Colt. "Then I'll hurt you."

Colt charged the monkey directly in front of him. The monkey jumped out of the way of the attack, then used its tail to wrap around his cutlass. Colt remembered what the fisherman had taught him and continued to grip his weapon tightly so he didn't get disarmed. But then the monkey flicked its tail and the cutlass, along with Colt himself, flipped into the air and back onto the ground.

Colt turned himself onto his back and started coughing. Then he noticed the monkeys starting to come even closer to him by closing their circle, so he jumped to his feet. They stopped tightening the circle, awaiting his next move. He realized they liked to defend, not attack. Until their opponent could do no more attacking.

Colt turned himself around in circles, looking at all of the monkeys before him. These Battle Monkeys were true strategists, that was for sure. And Colt was nowhere near skilled enough to beat them in a sword fight. He couldn't even beat one of them. That meant he'd need to out-strategize them.

Okay, think, he told himself. How to beat a big group of attack monkeys? The fisherman hadn't been able to get to the specifics, so he didn't really know how to tackle something like this. He supposed he'd just start with one thing at a time. He needed to find a place to start.

He looked around some more, thinking frantically.

A weak-link, he thought. He needed to find a weak-link among them. Like... ah, perfect.