The Great Battlemonkey Escape

[addman]

Addman walked into the Battlemonkey pit for the first time in absolutely ages with the intention to steal one of the other member's monkeys and sell it to VW for experimentation. This lucrative business idea sounded great in his mind, and he was sure he could find some good stock in there.

He pushed the giant steel doors aside, expecting to hear the rambunctous rauckus that was common from a bunch of simians in captive conditions. Instead, he was greeted with pure silence. Looking around, it appeared as though the cages had been left unlocked, and their trainer (Net) was nowhere to be found. Trails of banna skins (Battlemonkeys don't eat normal bananas, not enough chilli sauce in them) littered the pit floor, along with a nice spread of feces and overturned water bowls. The monkeys had escaped.

"Looks like we're going to need a cleanup crew in here" moaned Addman to himself, just as he heard the patter of tiny feet. Turning around in surprise, he caught a glimpse of his own Battlemoney, Barnabus, entering a small grate.

-----------------------------------

The next day, posters have been found all over Blackstar and Psychotopia City which read:

WANTED

Willing crew to track down lost monkeys in a cavernous environment. Applicants must arrive at the Corrupted Cave at 5 PM sharp. No Guardians allowed.

-----------------------------------

5 PM rolled by, and Addman was sat on a rock outside the entrance to the Corrupted Cave. He glanced out between the lifeless, gnarled trees of the Black Forest to see if anyone would come along after seeing the flyers.

[Mr. Barret]

Willing crew to track down lost monkeys in a cavernous environment. Applicants must arrive at the Corrupted Cave at 5 PM sharp. No Guardians allowed.

Well, I don’t know what a Guardian is, but I’ve kind of wanted to see what the inside of the Corrupted Cave looks like, so I think we’ll take this offer. Zane was just getting used to the Dojo, and he’d heard some interesting and unique things about this Corrupted Cave. Maybe there’ll even be some kind of payment for services rendered, Zane thought, hopefully. The only issue is locating the Corrupted Cave.

Zane asked around a little bit, and by piecing together the bits of rumor and fears that he acquired, he ascertained that the Corrupted Cave was buried deep within the darkness that was the Black Forest. He never did get a straight story out of anyone, but from the way it sounded, it did not appear that the Black Forest was a place one went for a picnic. That’ll just make it that much more fun then, won’t it?.

It was just after five ‘o clock that Zane finally located this “Corrupted Cave,” which smelled, rather than looked, corrupted. “Well, something is certainly corrupted around here, but it seems to be some meat, rather than evil people.” It was at that point that Zane spotted the Add Monster. It wasn’t something that someone expected to find in the middle of a forest. Blue muppets just weren’t supposed to be in such places. But this is the Dojo, isn’t it? “Uh. . .” Zane began hesitantly, “Are you the one that posted the posters? Of course you are,” Zane continued, his confidence building. He had nothing to worry about here. This person, thing, muppet, wanted his help, so why should he be afraid of it?

“I’m sorry I’m late. I’m not familiar with these parts, and the blackness in this forest is a little thick. It doesn’t make for rapid traveling to the unexperienced. But enough of my excuses. . .” Zane let his voice trail off as he found a tree that looked relatively comfortable, and slouched down against it, letting his phat pants bunch up around his knees as he slid unceremoniously to the forest floor. As he collapsed himself into a comfortable heap, the reflective striping on his otherwise matte black pants caught a stray beam of light and glittered in the dimness.

“I do assume that you’ll be wanting more than just me to be wandering on by. Wake me up when necessary,” Zane said from behind closed eyes. Maybe he was being overconfident at this point, but he felt secure enough in his concept that this blue being was not be feared that he could be the casual person that he was.

[TheBlackSoul]

Sabor walked in the typical manner of a feline up to the entrance of the Corrupted Cave.

Earlier that day, the poison leopard had spotted a poster while wandering the streets of Psychotopia looking for an unfortunate hobo to snack on. It had said something about battlemonkeys and coming to the entrance of the Corrupted Cave at 5 PM. Sabor had no sense of time, but reading what little of the poster he actually could, he decided that this was a chance to eat a monkey. And should these "battlemonkeys" be a little too much for him to handle, it wouldn't be anything a poisonous cloud or a Shadow Die couldn't handle.

And that's what sent him to the entrance of the Corrupted Cave on this day. Waiting to get orders, he sat down, and started cleaning himself.

[Mitsukai]

((Ach... t'will be no fun without the Guardians there. I'll settle for just folllowing along. ))

[Netdroid9]

((No Guardians Allowed? Aww, think of the incredibly humorous side-plot we could've had... Then again, just because the poster said so doesn't mean we can't make an exception. Undercover Guardian attack plan, anyone?))

[addman]

((Well I thought some Guardians may take it upon themselves to turn up anyway. Just trying to stay in character and all ))

One person in particular began speaking to Addman, made some excuses about being slightly late, then began to drift off into a peaceful slumber. A confusing action, to be sure, and Addman wondered if he'd managed to invite a narcoleptic up to the Cave. The muppet pondered for a moment if he had any valuable items to steal while he was napping, but decided that if he wanted the guy's help, it would be better to keep on the right side of him. Instead, he raised an eyebrow and gave his most weirded out "Ooookay..." he'd given in a long time, then left him to slumber.

Seeing some kind of leopard arrive, plonk itself down on the ground, and begin cleaning himself, Addman began to think that this wasn't the best idea he'd ever had.

"So isn't anyone going to actually introduce themselves?" He asked in an exasperated tone of voice. He felt slightly out of touch with Blackstar these days as he didn't recognise any of them.

"Also" He continued, "We'll wait a little longer to see if anyone else turns up late. Then I'll brief you".

[Fort]

Out of the twisting shadows, Fort unceremoniously plonked onto the ground, brushing himself off with indignance - the demon got up and edged close to the muppet, to have some discrete words in Addman's ear.
Fort stared at the side of the monster's head for a bit, looking for something anthing that resembled a hole in the side of that furry skull, eventualy the Headmaster gave up and cupped his hand round a patch of blue fur and hoped for the best.
"Psst, Addman, I heard what happened here, and went looking for my old monkey, Bob. Well I found him-"
The demon paused - and turned to look at the crew the muppet had so-far assembled, he began to reason inside his head this was probably not the smartest idea Addman had ever had.
"He's armed with the latest in Monkey technology, including dental hygine, once you've got a crew assembled I'll need help to take him down!"
The demon coughed a bit and went of once more on his scouting for the lost monkeys.

[addman]

"WHAT THE HELL!?"

Addman leaped away and flailed his arms wildly as Fort stepped up to him, placed a cupped hand around his mouth, and moved his head slowly towards Addman's. The muppet was trying to make a good impression on these visitors, and the headmaster suddenly appears and begins making romantic advances toward him! He always knew something was wrong with Fort...

After listening to the headmaster from he deemed to be a safe distance, Addman nodded his head in understanding and turned to the new recruits.

"Fort has just informed me that these monkeys are heavily armed. To the teeth in fact. There's no time to loose, follow me to the Battlemoney Pit and we'll begin the search."

After scanning his buttocks into the Cave's security scanner (which was no mean feat since the scanner was around head height), the large iron doors began to part, revealling the gaping mouth of the Corrupted Cave. From the outside, the overwhelming darkness obscured their vision for anything further than a few feet inside. They could see the tip of a red carpet that lead off into the unknown. The muppet took several strides towards the darkness, then disappeared from view.

[Mr. Barret]

Zane actually had no intentions of falling asleep, and was watching Addman from behind the fringes of his eyelashes. He was quite amused by Addman’s reaction, and would have allowed his grin to reach his lips if he wasn’t trying to pretend to be asleep.

Zane was just resting and was watching Addman do the same, albeit with a higher stress level, when Sabor sauntered into the clearing. Well, THAT’S interesting, Zane thought. He was running under the assumption that this was actually not a leopard, as it appeared to be, but a more sentient being, such as himself. The way it didn’t react like a wild animal was Zane’s first big clue. It didn’t seem capable of speech though, or at least didn’t chose to exercise it. Zane kept his eyes closed this whole time and watched Addman get more and more frustrated.

[Fort]

A small whittling was heard behind the Trio, the squeaking of wheels much akin to the cheap trolleys in Supermarkets repeated over and over again. The sound was getting closer at its constant and indefinite pace.
Out of the murk, a shape large and blocky got closer and closer, was it a monster, or a lumbering death-machine of rust?
A glinting of white (perhaps teeth?) became more clear and much more defined.
Suddenly, the beast, the machine, turned out to be a weedy grunt - one of the EC's many basic footmen - pushing a large wooden piano on wheels into the darkness.
The grunt saluted rather lop-sided at the three, turning as smartly as a militant with a false leg could. The wrinkled soldier took a large tube off the large ungainly piano, and unfolded it into a large screen on a tripod.
The grunt then took a box of grubby matches out of a frayed shirt pocket, going to great lengths of lighting a candle within the projector. The projector in question was aged and wooden like the piano, held together with cheap glue and warped pieces of corkboard; it was balanced ever-so precariously on the piano itself - the stand being a mixture of dirty almanacs and rather unscrupulous top-shelf magazines.
Then, to everyone’s horror, the movie project coughed into life, the grunt sat down stiffly at the Piano - and began to play the horrible repeating jingles that only the monster of dying black and white theatre could make up.

In flickering and grainy glory, the movie began to countdown. Then the title sequence roared into action, as roaring as educational movies of the 50s could, anyway.

It said in large floral font:
[align=CENTER:c357a85f2c]The Battle Monkey and you![/align:c357a85f2c]

And slightly under that, in a smaller more typed font:
[align=CENTER:c357a85f2c]An Educational Movie on how to train, care, and avoid thrown faeces of a Battle Monkey! [/align:c357a85f2c]

Then at the very bottom of the screen, in a tiny blurred smudge:
[align=CENTER:c357a85f2c]Brought to you by the EC BattleMonkey and Cornelius association! [/align:c357a85f2c]


"Why Hello there Billy!" began the crackling and incredibly queer disembodied voice.
"Hi there Mister!" came the child in a long-drawn out, rehearsed and depressed manner, staring directly at the camera.
"Ready to learn about Battlemonkeys?!"
"Sure am!" He replied, truthfully Billy sounded like he was about to cry if he was to go through this script one more time.
The narrator made an odd unintelligible noise of cheerfullness.

The next scene cut into action, the child was puffy under his eyes and he looked like he was phased out on Anti-depressants.
"Well Billy!" the voice went, rolling “R”s where they were not necessary, "The Battlemonkey is a creature much to feared, but also to be gambled on! Brought in by elite tibetan monkey trainers - the Battle Monkey is the ultimate fighting machine, only enhanced in power by the Evil Council's glorious weaponry!"
A large image and text flashed across the screen, it was fast, too fast to read - but through subliminal advertising, everyone had a sudden urge to buy Evil Council.
"Gee Whiz Mister!" Billy said with a nervous twitch brough on by seeping madness, "they sound dangerous!"
Another queer noise erupted, "NONSENSE BILLY!" the narrator said with loathed over-enthusiasm, "they're quite tameable, and did you know the Romans used to feed Christians to the Battlemonkeys?"
Another cut-scene, this time it was actors dressed up as Romans in a coliseum, they were screaming as burning faeces was thrown at their faces, they began to flee - knocking over the wooden Coliseum set. The scene changed abruptly.
"Wow Mister!" the child said without a hint of pleasure, "I never knew that!"
"Course you didn't Billy!" The voice said.
The Narrator made a meaningful pause.
There was another flash of quick images and text across the screen. Suddenly everyone had a subconscious urge to trust the Evil Council.
"Now Billllly!" more impossibly rolled “R”s, came from the disembodied voice, "do you want to buy a Battlemonkey?"
"Sure do Mister."
"Well here you go Billy!"
A live and ferocious Monkey, armed to the teeth and carrying a large Ray Gun was thrown at the unsuspecting child, whose scream of fear was cut off by a new scene.
"Now the BattlllllleMonkeys love Bannas, not Bananas, Bannas, this is made with EC secret brand technology!" A banana crudely duct tapped to a piece of dynamite was portrayed on the screen.
The Narrator made another queer noise.
Another quick flash of speedy images and text invaded everyone’s subconscious.
Everyone suddenly wanted to invest in EC wares.

The scene was suddenly cut-back to Billy, only it wasn't Billy, it was a completely different child actor who had the same clothes and haircut. This Billy was slightly more chubby, and his eyes showed nothing but impossible fear, and the puddle round his feet showed that fear too.
"Now that's all cleared up,” the Narrator voiced enthusiasticly, “you can start pitting your Monkey against someone else's, Billy! Remember to keep it locked up at all times, lest it break into its Footlocker, steal all the weaponry and go on a big killing spree!"
"Thanks Mister...." The new Billy began to cry and tried to run away, but two men in black clothes stepped towards him menacingly - blocking the camera's view of the horrible events that happened next.
"I won't tell! Please, please! I won't tell anyone, I promise!" the child's faint cries were abruptly cut off.

In floral script that flowed across the screen -
[align=CENTER:c357a85f2c]THE END[/align:c357a85f2c]
- showed that the movie was over.

Another flash of illicit images and text brightened up and left the trio with one more urge of subliminal advertising.
Suddenly, subconsciously, everyone had wanted to stay in school.
Then everything went black as the movie reel ran out.

((I’m so sorry, if anyone has anthing against this slight Powerplay ignore my post ))

[addman]

((Absolute class!))

Addman blinked a couple of times. He didn't remember seeing any EC propaganda films when he joined, but for some reason, he found himself clutching some paperwork for some EC stock he'd mysteriously bought during the course of the movie. Also, he had a sudden urge to sign up for evening classes. Shaking that feeling off, he placed the paperwork in his mouth, and it disappeared into his gullet like a pebble entering a black hole. He then turned to the rest of the group.

"Welcome to the Corrupted Cave, Zane. Please keep all arms and legs away from the wall slime"

Once inside the cavern, despite it seeming dark from the outside, the interior was quite light. Flourescent lights ran across the walls of the entrance hall, revealing a lengthy hallway with some kind of reception desk at the end, carved with spikey edges all the way around it. A red carpet ran from the cave's mouth all the way to this desk, which Addman was already striding towards.

Taking a right turn just before the welcome desk, Addman pressed a button to call an elevator. As the button lit up, a large glob of green slime fell from the ceiling, and landed with a tiny squelch in front of the muppet. Looking upwards, he noticed the gigantic, pulsating mucus spreading across the top of the elevator shaft, and onto the ceiling of the entrance hall. This was what Addman meant earlier when he mentioned wall slime. What appeared to be human remains were stuck in a rather large patch of the slime, and judging from the post bag, it appeared to be some sort of mail man that had slowly been digested. The bag fell from the slime's grip and landed with a sudden thud on the floor between Addman and the others, scattering letters around like a miniature mushroom cloud.

A moment later, the elevator doors pinged open, and Addman motioned with an outstretched hand that they should all get in. Stepping in himself, he pressed the button for the floor with the Battlemonkey pit, and waited for the others to get in.

[Mr. Barret]

After watching that quite disturbing instructional video, Zane was actually much more informed about the nature of the Battle Monkey phenomenon. Why anyone in their right mind would have anything to do with such an evil scheme was beyond Zane, but he did suppose that with an organization by the name of the Evil Council, just about anything was possible.

As Zane continued pondering exactly what he was getting himself into, he followed along behind the blue furry one and only half heard his greeting and warning about the wall slime. His attention increased by about 1000 fold when he encountered one of the aforementioned slimes personally, just outside the elevator. I guess he wasn’t joking.

With this warning in place, Zane hurriedly scooted into the elevator behind Addman, and made sure that his energy stores were full and ready to rock in case of a wall slime, or anything else, attack.

“So I take it that we’re hunting down escaped Battle Monkeys. Might I ask what we might expect on this venture, and how much combat we will be facing?”

[TheBlackSoul]

Sabor, after seeing the rest of the group enter the cave, promptly got up and ran into the cave after them.

After Zane brought up the question about battlemonkeys and bringing up a (very disturbing) video, the poison leopard wondered if coming here was a good idea. Looking over his beautiful black coat with white spots, he shuddered what it would look like splattered with red.

Either way, he came all the way here, so he might as well give it a shot. He entered the elevator and stood next to Addman.

[addman]

Seconds after Sabor entered the elevator, it churned to life with a sudden jolt, and began it's descent into the bowels of the Corrupted Cave.

The front doors of the elevator were transparent, so the group could see the various floors as they passed. One floor they travelled past had a cafeteria on it, and various EC grunts could be seen running out of it holding their stomachs in agony. On the next floor, they saw a chap fall over into a bear trap, which snapped shut on his head. Addman simply shrugged it off, and offered no explanation except for "It's Cornelius!".

Suddenly, the lights began to flicker, and the elevator stopped with a sharp judder, almost throwing the Muppet into the floor. He steadied himself with an outstretched hand, and checked out the floor where they had stopped. It wasn't the one which he'd requested, but for some reason the power to the elevator had been cut off. He peered through the doors, and noticed that the other lights on that floor were flickering as though it were some scene out of Alien. As the lights went off for a moment, two hard splats could be heard against the elevator. When the lights came on again, it was apparent that a banana skin, and some feces had hit the doors just in front of them, although the perpetrators were no where to be seen.

"Looks like they're here" Addman said in a serious tone. With that, he whipped out what looked a heavy duty weapon from amongst his fur and motioned with his hand for the others to stand back. Aiming straight at the cracks between the elevator doors and walls, he pulled the trigger and let off a small volley of high-velocity plasma, which flared upon impact, and appeared to melt sections of the lift away. Once he'd weakened the joins, a swift kick, and the door flew off and skidded across the floor of a laboratory, hitting a desk and knocking several beakers off onto the floor.

"Keep your eyes peeled everyone. If you can incapacitate the battle monkeys rather than kill them, do it."

And with that, he stepped out and took in the dingy surroundings of the unused lab.

((It isn't too late for others to join. If you are interested, please post.))

[TheBlackSoul]

After a ride that was mildly amusing to him, Sabor stepped out of the elevator and looked around. His first instinct was to go back to cleaning himself (like all felines, he was vain), he didn't.

Rather, he exhaled a fetid, green cloud of venom into the air. If he was able to talk, he would've warned the rest of the party about breathing in the stuff.

However, that cloud was a warm-up. Sabor expected to be releasing much more poison as the hunt continued.