Author's Note: although there are some appearances of the X-Men (Marvel), this is mainly a fanfic of "SRMTHFG!" (Disney/Jetix), and I own neither, though I do own more then a few fan-made characters, who you should know by now.

This chapter is dedicated to WingedWolf 101, my 100th reviewer and P.M. e-pal.

Chapter 23

It has been only one day on Dino Island, and Mandarin already found his monkey-sitting job too much to handle, as the Razzmatazz Trio kept refusing to listen to him while Chiro and Jinmay were scouting the terrain. Since his probation still forbids him to resort to violance, Mandarin quickly found himself in a stress-related illness because of the triplets' behavior and collapsed due to fever and exhaustion. Gibson, despite some lingering reluctance, confined his ex-leader to sick-bay, where Cassia started to prove herself a valuable nurse.

"When he wakes up," offered Antauri, "tell Mandarin I offered to monkey-sit the Razzmatazz Trio for him. Someone has to keep those triplets out of trouble, and I sense something oddly firmiliar about them, especially the one girl, Xavier."

"Good luck, Antauri," said Sparx, only half-teasing, "you'll need it to handle those twerps!"

"And catch them!" added Otto, rushing into the room, "They just ran off into the jungle! I think they're trying to find plants for their sleeping gas or something!"

Antauri nodded in understanding. He knows well that the trio tends to knock out their sitters with an herbal incense, giving those monkey-children several hours to spend their time however they want. Thankfully, the plants on this island are unfirmiliar to them, so it might take them a while to find the right substitutions, but even if they succeeded, it would be dangerous to let them run amok on this prehistoric landscape.

'My robotic body MIGHT immune me to their incense if they manage to recreate it,' the silver monkey thought, as ran off to find the monkey-children, 'but since some miracle restored my ability to breathe, it would be unwise to put such an idea to the test. I'll just have to be cautious around them.'

Convieniantly, they were not so hard to track... there was something about these triplets of the Power Primate, which was incredible since most monkeys native to Earth no longer believe in that. Following their aura, Antauri was able to find the Razzmatazz Trio, under what could most likely be a type of tree from the Jarassic Period, and as he spied on them from the near-by bushes, his eyes almost popped out of his head:

While the two boys of the trio, Soka and Melrose, were getting their greyish fur dirty in a round of mud-wrestling, Xavier, the one girl, was actually sitting quietly while meditating, yes MEDITATING on a large leaf laid on top of a small boulder! Antauri felt he was looking in a window back in time seeing her like this: her black fur coloration and quiet nature behind the wild facade all reminded him of himself back when he was an real, flesh-and-blood monkey.

"Ha!" said Melrose, "Finally pinned yah, Soka!"

"Hey, no fair, Melrose!" Soka complained, pushing his brother back in the mud, "I slipped! I demand a rematch, best two out of three!"

"Ugh! No way, I'm tired of mud wrestling! Let's play something else."

"Oh really? Like what?"

"Pattycake!"

"Pfft! That's baby-stuff, Mo! I want to play a game with a lot more action in it, like... oh, say... 'Human in the Middle'?"

"Well, okay Soka... only... don't we need a third player for that game, or at least an ACTUAL HUMAN?!"

"Don't worry, little brother, I am ahead of you by far."

Antauri watched in silance as Soka tiptoed behind Xavier's meditation rock... only to bite his sister's tail, causing her to scream in pain.

"YA-OUCH!" yelled Xavier, as her calm state is ruined, "Soka! How many times do I have to remind you, we have this rule AGAINST biting each other's tails?!"

"Well, Xavier," said Soka, taking his sister's leaf-matt, rolling it up, and tying it into a bundle with a blade of grass, "how many times must I tell YOU that seeing you in a meditative trance FREAKS ME OUT?! We are monkeys, sister; WILD ANIMALS! We are suposed to act wild! Now come on, we're playing Keep Away, and you better be the human-in-the-middle if you want THIS thing back!"

"My zen-leaf! Soka! I spent almost an hour painting those sacred markings! If you spoil all that work-!"

"You want it, Xavier?! Come and get it! Hey, Mo! Think fast!"

Soka tossed the leaf-bundle to Melrose, who caught it only to slip in the mud and fall backwards, bumping into the hind-leg of a sleeping stegosaurus.. and that creature woke up rather cranky and begun to attack the triplets! Thankfully, Antauri decided he seen enough, and came out of his hiding place to protect the little monkeys.

Of course, a dinosaur isn't an easy creature to subdue, even for the silver monkey... his Ghost-Claw Attacks did little more then block the spikes of the stegosaurus' tail before Soka, Xavier, or Melrose could get hurt, the Phase-and-Daze ability didn't work on the creature at all for some reason, and he didn't bother using the Monkey-Mind Scream as it might scare the triplets all the more then they already were. Just as things were getting extremely difficult, however...

"LIGHTNING KICK!"

...Chiro managed to show up just in time to protect Antauri.

"Chiro!" Antauri gasped, a bit more surprised by his student's great timing then he probably should be.

"Jinmay and I just happened to be in the naighborhood," said Chiro, "and we thought you cou could use a little help! Right, Jinmay?"

"Well, yeah," the robot-girl responded, "but... Chiro..."

"Come on, Jinmay!" Chiro interrupted, "Get your Heart-Beam ready! On my signal, you talk the creature from the left, I attack from the right, and Antauri uses a Monkey-Mind Scream from the front!"

"No Chiro!" yelled Jinmay, "This dinosaur isn't a monster! It's just upset, that's all! I can't tell by the voice if it's a boy or a girl, but it's saying that it was taking a nap and someone woke it up for no reason!"

Chiro looked embarrassed. He keeps forgetting that the Power Primate gave Jinmay the ability to talk to animals... no matter what the species or how ancient their language. As she was calming the creature down by approaching it gently, Chiro gave Antauri a hard look.

"You know, Antauri, it isn't like you to disturb the peace, especially not like this."

"I was not the cause of this, Chiro." the silver monkey stated, clearing his throat while pointing with his tail to the nearby prehistoric banyan tree, where the Razzmatazz Trio had climbed up for their own safety, terror and guilt on their faces.

"Oh! I get it!" sighed Chiro, before shouting up the tree, "Soka! Xavier! Melrose! You three better get down here! I think you owe someone here an apology!"

"The Razzmatazz Trio apologies to nobody!" Soka shouted back, "If we had to, however, Xavier better do it first, becuase she started it!"

"I STARTED IT?!" screamed Xavier, "You were the one who bit my tail, stole my meditation leaf, and tossed it to Melrose! If you had not done that, Melrose would not have slipped and bumped into the creature, let alone waking it up! You are to blame, Soka!"

"Well, dearest sister, if you spent less time meditating and more time playing with us like a normal monkey, I WOULD NOT HAVE NEEDED TO DO ALL THAT!"

"Actually, it was my clumbsiness at the end that caused all this!" said Melrose, "That makes me the most responsible for this mess! So, maybe, I'm the one that should...!"

"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" Soka and Xavier shout together.

"It's okay! I already apologized for you!" shouted Jinmay, "That dinosaur will leave us alone, for now! Let's get you three back to the Super Robot, before anything else happens!"

Back at the Super Robot, Mandarin just came to his senses, and the rest of the Monkey Team informed him that Antauri took over the monkey-sitting those naughty triplets. At first, the orange monkey was upset that he couldn't spend more time with the younger primates, even though their misbehavior is the cause of his fever, but then, a thought crossed his mind.

"Well, since the Chosen One and his robot-sweetheart are scouting the island," said Mandarin, "and Antauri offered to watch the triplets for me today, I assume that leaves me in charge as third-in-command, does it not?"

"Um..." said Sparx, with an embarrassed look on his face, "well..."

"Actually..." said Gibson, with a strikingly simular expression.

"Sorry Mandarin!" Otto blurted out, sporting his usual goofy smile, "That job's already taken!"

"Oh? By whom, pray tell?"

Sparx and Gibson both sweat-dropped and answered together: "Nova."

"What?!" said Mandarin, his nerve suddenly lossed, "B-but SHE'S A GIRL!"

Nova didn't take kindly to that, as she jumped up onto the examination table and activated one of her fists... just one... to make a point with an aggresive display as she said in a cruel tone he used to use on her: "You have a problem with that... Manny?!"

The female monkey-warrior didn't need to attack the one who questioned her authority, as the mere sound of Mandarin swallowing hard in fear was more then enough for her. She quickly, and just in time, too, as the first-and-second in command had just came back to the Super Robot with file reports, and Jinmay followed behind carrying the mischievious triplets. Cassia listened carefully to their story, as Chulan-Kumari Langur, Otto's Himalayan sweetheart, washed the mud off the triplets.

"Those three rascals woke up a cranky female stegosaurus, eh?" said Cassia, picking up the details and comparing it to the memories of her last visit to the Museum of Natural History, "Well, all I can say to that is that the lot of you, those three especially, are so lucky that beast is an HERBAVOR! If it were something along the lines of a raptor or a t-rex, the Razzmatazz Trio would have been eaten for breakfast seconds before the lot of you could save them!"

Gibson's face got hearing his love-interest talk like that. As much as seeing her scientific-side turns him on, the topic reminded him of his own setbacks... without his drills, which might not always be useful in this prehistoric environment, he might not survive. He has to improve his physical strength as quickly as possible, and there was only one way to do that.

"Ugh... Otto and I have to do a quick test-run on the combat simulation area," the blue monkey fibbed, grabbing his green team-mate by the arm, "the system's check is far past due, so... it could take a while."

"What are you talking about, Gibson?" Otto protested, easily pulling himself free, "I just gave that area of the Super Robot a system's check yesterday. Everything's working just fine."

"Well, no harm in double, or triple checking, is there?"

"Gibson?!"

"Oh! Alright, Otto! I confess: I'm fet up with being the weakest member of the team, even though it did give me access to a wonderful nurse... but now I owe her, and to repay such a favor I have to be strong enough to survive the most difficult conditions and my peak-physical form isn't enough!"

Cassia rolled her eyes hearing that. "Gibson," she said, "you don't owe me anything, it was the right thing to do."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! Time out!" Sparx said with a smirk, "My brainiac of a brother actually wants to hit the Gym?! SOMEONE PINCH ME! I GOTTA BE DREAMING!"

Taking her cue, Nova playfully pinched Sparx, hard in the lower-tail-area.

"OUCH! Hey! Nova, it was a figure-of-speach... great aim, though."

"Any time, Sparky!"

"Nova! I thought I told you before, I don't like that nickname."

"Yeah, I know you did."

The red and yellow monkeys shared a kiss... right in front of Mandarin, who expressed his disgust in ways that were anything but quiet! He considered himself lucky he was already in sick-bay, because all this mush was making him feel worse... and yet, there was something in the half-moment Sparx and Nova shared that Mandarin started to crave, though he doesn't know what it is.

"Ew!" Soka, Xavier, and Melrose protest together (as the three of them were still too young to understand Sparx and Nova's actions).

"Alright you two," said Chiro, trying not to laugh, "break it up! (Ahem!) Anyhow, I managed to to locate Castaway Cove, and we could be able to get there faster taking the Super Robot, but we might scare the natives if we shown up with it in mashinder mode... I'll tap in the co-ordinance so we could each get there in vehicle mode."

"An airshow and a parade, huh?" said Sparx, "I like your style, kid."

"Castaway Cove?" Mandarin asked, suddenly sounding weaker due to a fever relapse.

"That's the name of Dino Island's main village, remember?" said Chulan-Kumari, before telling the triplets in a sing-song manner Otto would use, "All clean!"

"(Sigh!) Mandarin, we've been through all this last night," said Cassia, "now listen this time: Castaway Cove is the home of those desended from the people who 'disappeared' into the Bermuda Triangle centuries before our time. We are just going there to get some fresh supplies and a map to the cave Chiro was born in, with the 50/50 chance of finding more of those journal pages, and then we'll be on our way back to California."

Mandarin looked embarrassed, and turned away from the group. 'How could I have forgotten such a simple plan?' he thought to himself, 'When I was the leader of the Monkey Team, I used to be able to keep track of everything! Now that I think about it, why was I even made the leader in the first place? Did I even bother to know that?! One thing is for sure, though, those triplets are my only chance to getting the team to trust me again, not that there's any point.'

The Hyperforce had encountered one mishap after another on the way to Castaway Cove, but none more-so then Antauri, for the triplets continued to give him a hard time despite the fact he practically helped save their lives! In fact, those three little monkeys would have been too much even for the silver monkey, if Cassia didn't have her idea... that she and Chulan-kumari would tag along, and take the two boys off Antauri's hands, leaving him alone with Xavier.

"The Razzzzmatazz Trio seem to be an unstoppable force so long as they're together," Cassia whispered aboard the Brainscrambler 2, "lets see how the three of them fair while they are apart."

"Oo! They won't like it," said Chulan-Kumari, "I know that muh, Cassia."

"Trust me, C.K., it is for their own good."

"Who's C.K.?"

"Oh, never mind."

Antauri couldn't help chuckling as he overheard the plan, and honestly he thought it's a good idea, but he also overheard the conversation of the triplets themselves:

"I cannot believe the grown ups are actually thinking of seperating us," whined Soka, "nobody seperates the Razzmatazz Trio! It's unspoken of!"

"Yeah!" added Melrose, tears in his eyes, "I'd rather die!"

"I do not know, my brothers," said Xavier, "I for one would not mind being on my own for a while, especially with the way things had been going on between us lately."

"Sister, had you forgotten our agreement," argued Soka, "that so long as we stay together we don't need anybody but each other?"

"Had you forgotten who is truly in charge of the Trio, Soka?" Xavier retaliated, "I know that PRETENDING to be the leader is one of few things that makes you happy, but if the mind is a puzzle-box like mother says it is, may it not be too bold to say that yours has not been cleaned properly."

Antauri turned his head towards the triplets for a brief moment hearing that. 'Could it truly be...?' he wondered.

It wasn't until arriving at Castaway Cove that some form of sanity was restored for the moment, even though, once again, the Super Robot insisited on staying in vehicle mode for now... it detected something in this island's capitol, and seems to insist the lot of them risk spending the night there to find that something... or someone.

Whoever or whatever it is, the Hyperforce saw it as a good idea to investigate this "vacation" area (aside from the dinosaurs, the place wasn't that bad), much to Mandarin's objection... he cannot deny he needs rest, especially in his condition, but he tends to make sure the rest of the team takes their jobs seriously with no meaningless distractions whatsoever! Thankfully, Chulan-Kumari had been practicing with her hypnotic powers, and intends to use Mandarin for one final test run... activating her Simian Snake-Eyes, she forced Mandarin to make eye-contact with her for the first five seconds knowing he'll be unable to look away after that.

"You are such a JACK-ASS, Mandarin!"

Upon hearing her say that, the orange monkey got on all four limbs, and he started kicking and braying just like a donkey! He did leave a few dents on the inside of the Torso Tank, however. Knowing Otto wouldn't like that, Chulan-Kumari ("C.K." for short) gave Mandarin another comment that doubles, to him, as a hypnotic command:

"You have the manners of a TOAD next to your team-mates!"

In the middle of a kick-and-bray, Mandarin backflipped and ended up on all fours again, but this time in a poise similiar to that of a frog, before he let out a cheek-bulging "Ribbit!" a couble of times. Then he hopped out of the Torso Tank to the edge of the jungle just outside of the town-like bamboo village, where he actually started catching beetles with his tongue and eating them (which freaked C.K. out, as she wasn't expecting the tongue)!

"You might as well make like a FLY and BUZZ-OFF!"

Mandarin twitched as he was forced back on his feet by those words, and his arms bent close to his body in a way that position that puts his hands close to his face without touching himself there. Once in that pose, the orange monkey started wiggling his wrists in a fast, almost wing-like manner while he ran around making buzzing sounds like a real monkey-sized fruitfly! He ran in spirals, figure-eights, loop-the-loops... it was a riot! In fact, it was so funny that the rest of the team, who came over to investigate the ruckus, could barely contain their giggles and already gave away the hiding places they were watching from, and burst into fits of laughter as Mandarin ran straight into a tree and knocked himself out!

Due to the impact, the trance was broken and Mandarin was back to normal... except, of course, for the return of his fever-like condition.

"W-what happened to me?" Mandarin stammered, "Chulan-Kumari, w-what have you done?"

"Oh dear!" bluffed C.K., as her eyes returned to normal, "Either I'm really bad at this, or your mind is in worse shape then I thought! I was only trying to help. Maybe, with a bit more practice, I can try again tonight... after all, an identity crisis is a hard thing to stomach. In the meantime, we better get you somewhere you will be safe. Can't have you getting hurt when you need your rest, can we?"

"Oh no!" said Mandarin, holding his usual stubborn front as he recalled what just happened, "I don't trust anyone, let alone you! Besides, I'm strong enough to go for MONTHS, even YEARS without sleep if I had to, and you CANNOT MAKE ME do otherwise!"

"MANDARIN!"

"WHAT?!"

"If you don't behave... I'll turn you into a girl-monkey!"

"(Gasp!) You would not DARE!"

"I will! So help me, I...!"

"ALRIGHT! Alright, just... just stay calm, and stay away!"

Mandarin ran behind his nearest team-mate, Otto, in a moment of panic, which was by far the silliest part of the entire session... even the triplets were rolling on the ground laughing.

Later that day, the entire group was all over Castaway Cove. Cassia and Gibon went to the local fitness center to improve their endurance, and honestly the little monkey they were watching, Melrose, was doing better then both of them.

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this great on my own!" said Melrose, "When I am with my brother and sister, I always thought I was the weakest monkey ever. I love my siblings, and I was glad we were always together so that they could protect me, but I keep having nightmares about what would happen to me if we're not triplets anymore."

"Oh, Melrose," said Cassia, stroking the little monkey's fur, "just because you and your siblings are not together doesn't mean you'd stop being triplets! No matter what happens, family is family. Take mine for example: my parents are divorced, and live in seperate trees, and I live several miles north from both those trees, but that doesn't mean we're no longer a family, right Gibson? Uh, Gibson?!"

The two of them looked up, and saw the blue monkey only half-way-up the shortest rock-climbing wall, and was stuck there on account of exhaustion and lack of self-confidence for a moment or so before he fell off the wall and landed right in Cassia's arms. Just as they were starting to blush, though, Melrose spoiled the moment: "I'm hungry!"

"Alright, boys, lets go get some lunch," sighed Cassia, "and then after our nutrition break, we'll pay a well earned visit to the local book-shop."

"Good idea," Gibson thought outloud as his feet touched the ground, "with any luck, I should carry some much heavier reading material by now... maybe we could give our little protege a few lessons if there's time to spare."

"And we'll play patty-cake when we're done," added Melrose, "right?"

"(Giggles!) Melrose, seeing that you doing so well," said Cassia, "I plan on teaching you some more grown-up clapping games... maybe Soka would want to try them out, who knows?"

"Really? Wow!"

Meanwhile, at a the town's medical center, the local nurses where tending to Mandarin's fever, and visiting hours were just about over, so C.K., Sparx, Nova, and Soka made up their minds to leave early.

"You... you aren't REALLY going to turn Mandarin female," said Soka, "where you ma'am?"

"Well, honestly, no," C.K. confessed, "it was a bluff... at least, at the time, but empty threats only work for so long. Sooner or later, if he doesn't behave, I will have to do it. Maybe, with any luck, he'll reconsider his own life before he does anything bad again."

The sound of Soka's growling stomach changed the subject.

"Say, squirt, you sound hungry," said Sparx, "put any thought into what you want to eat?"

"Anything but that plant-based stuff," confessed Soka, "mother tried to raise us vegetarian from the get-go, and I think I'm the only one who is sick of it... then again, I did try to eat raw meat straight out once, and it caused me to throw up!"

"You changed your diet too fast," said Nova (who recalls doing the same thing when she was a little monkey on Garaxia), "how about a cooked fish-burger with lettuce? They're selling those right off the docks."

Soka smelled them all the way from the entrance of the medical center... they did smell good to him, so he nodded yes. and the lot of them had fish-burgers... C.K. even grabbed an extra one for Otto, who fell behind to repair the Torso tank. Soka loved it.

"This is yummy!" said the little monkey, "I still miss having my brother and sister around, especially if it means driving them crazy, but with those two watching, I'd NEVER eat meat, especially close to my sister Xavier. Not only is she the biggest veggie-freak I know, she's also the REAL leader of the Razzmatazz Trio!"

"No way!" said Sparx, "And I thought YOU were the one calling the shots, Soka. After all, you're the eldest triplet, you're bossy and demanding, you got great instincts for your age... I even heard that you bit HER tail! That's an act of dominance where we were born!"

"Sparx, that was all part of an act to confuse the looky-lous... well, mostly. Xavier just likes to PRETEND that I'm in charge because she thinks bossing everyone around makes me happy... it makes me feel good when I do it, but that's hardly the same as being happy. I'm always afraid of losing her, even mentally! I mean, what if she goes in a meditative trance and NEVER wakes up again?! I'll have no idea what to do."

"So you bite her tail?!" Nova said, in a scolding tone.

"I don't know any other way to snap her out of it!"

At that moment, on a beach near Castaway Cove, Antauri and Xavier were sharing a private meditation session, just the two of them, but sensing hunger in himself and his young trainee, the silver monkey opened his eyes and floated closer to her side.

"Xavier," Antauri said, shaking her shoulder in a firm yet gentle way, "we're done now. It's time to eat."

At first, Xavier resisted, but the mention of a meal made her mind up for her, and so she opened her eyes gently and stretched.

"Lunchtime already?" she murmured, "That didn't feel like a few hours at all... more like a few minutes, maybe seconds."

"You were completely ingulfed in yourself, Xavier," said the silver monkey, floating up a nearby mango tree and coming down again with a couple of it's ripe fruits, giving the larger one to her, "here, it'll give your strength back. You'll need it for when you reunite with your brothers again."

"Thank you dad-" said Xavier, noticing her slip-of-the-tongue just as she was grabbing her mango, "er, I mean, Antauri. Sorry about that, it's just... you're the closest thing I ever gotten to having a real father in, well, an eternity! It's odd, really... I was so focused on making sure my brothers are always happy that I never stopped to think about what I want: and all I want is a father who'd understand me. Mother must've wanted that for me and my brothers too, that's why we only get male monkey-sitters, but none of them ever feel right, so I came up with a way to get rid of them without any blood on our hands."

"The incense?"

"Uh-huh. Mother doesn't like it when monkey-sitters sleep on the job. Ever since she lost her eye to a rare tree-fox, she thinks the entire universe is out to get us, so sets us up with monkey-sitters and overprotective as she is to make sure we are always safe. Yet, by some miracle, my brothers and I had somehow become more clever then other spider-monkeys, and had discovered methods to get our paranoid caregivers some much-needed rest while we play with each other and take care of ourselves. At first, those moments were the happiest, but lately, things have gone wrong with us, like the Razzmatazz Trio lost their dazzle... like we've come to hate each other."

Antauri shook his head.

"No, Xavier... you and your brothers don't hate each other, not really. You've just grown weary of one another and started a rivalry, that is all. All siblings, even multibirths such as triplets, need some time to themselves, so that when they do come back together, their strong bonds could be rekindled, more powerfully then before."

"I wish I considered that sooner, but I was afraid that if we go separate ways, we'll never see each other again... I still fear that."

"Worry not. You and your brothers will be together again soon. Purhaps as the team regroups over dinner, with the supplies and directions we need."

Xavier wanted to ask about that, but she shrugged it off with a smile before biting into her ripe, delicious fruit.

At that time, Chiro and Jinmay had ended up inside a local pub, which was filled with tough men from all over the world, but it was the man in the back of the main room that got their attention: his face was covered by a cowboy hat, but despite that, the two teens recongized the shadowy figure as none other then Logan "Wolverine" Howlett. If the flashback they seen about him was right, this man was given an offer to become Chiro's godfather long before he was born... an offer he accepted in a discret-yet-noted manner. Hoping that is true, Chiro approached this man, and Jinmay followed behind despite being distracted by her surroundings:

A Romanian with side-burns playing the piano, a dart-player dressed as a samarai nailing a bulls eye, a middle-aged African man and his younger brother clinking their mugs together before chugging their beverages down...

..."It's barely Budwieser," said the older brother, "but it will do."...

...the place was full distractions involving rough, tough men, and it was clearly not the place for the faint of heart, especially a girl. It took a lot of will-power for Jinmay to remind herself that she had strengthened in so many ways since she met Chiro, but that reminder somehow doesn't stop her from feeling so AKWARD in this place!

"Hurry up, Jinmay!" shouted Chiro, "I think I found someone who might help us!"

Jinmay rushed across the room to her boyfriend's side, and shared in his surprise, for the man he was looking at was none other then Logan "Wolverine" Howlett himself, but they caught him at a bad time, for a bunch of thugs just had the lone mutant in an ambush... some of them even used their guns on him just for the fun of it. Of course, due to his immortality-like recovering ablities, Logan merely pulled the bullets out and recovered so quickly that, aside from the holes and blood-stains on his shirt, it was as though the injuries never happened in the first place!

Seeing that, Chiro stared with his mouth wide open.

"WHOA!" said Jinmay, speaking for herself and her boyfriend, "He really DOES have a healing factor about him!"

"Yeah, I heal myself," said Logan, overhearing as he used his Wolverine-claws to slice the guns in half, "big-fat-hairy deal! These punks, however, will need a whole lot more then healing powers after I'm done with them."

Chiro quickly recovered from his shock and went into Hypermode... a part of him wanted to aid his godfather in this fight.

"Let's end this!" the boy hero shouted, jumping at the thug he assumes is the leader, "THUNDER PUNCH!"

That attack would have ended it, but the lead-thug was no fool, and he had stepped away from Chiro's fist, causing the boy-hero to fall upside-down with his back against the wall. That ordeal stunned him, of course, but it would take a whole lot more then that to stop Chiro, as he just got up and tried again!

"MONKEY FU!"

That attack took out all the flunkies, but the Thug-leader had dodged the blow once again! He clearly wasn't a mutant, but he's no ordinary roughian niether. All the while, Logan noticed something oddly firmiliar about Chiro's powers, but it wasn't until his nose had caught a wiff of the boy-hero's scent that it all came rushing back to him.

"No way..." said Logan, half-way into disbelief, "can it really be...?"

At this point, a firmiliar puff of smoke filled the room, as Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner appeared on one of the tables... the one LOGAN was going to eat off of BEFORE the ambush!

"Sorry I'm late, Logan," said Kurt, noticing what he teleported into, "the Professor had me booked up enlisting new students for the Institute. Did I... pop by at a bad time?"

"You have no idea, you squirrel," said Logan, "and how many times do I have to tell you not to bug me while visiting this island?!"

"Whoops! Sorry, I forgot but this is important: first of all, I just want you to know that your godchild, Chiro Carrington, had returned to Earth! He's on this island right now!"

"Just noticed him, and I intend to talk him later."

"Second of all, have you seen Kitty? Ever since I got to Dino Island, I've searched all over Castaway Cove and all the naighboring villages, and I still cannot find her! I'm getting worried... what if a T-Rex ate her by now?!"

"Settle down, would yeah! She went to the other side of the island with that surfer-boy, Alex Summers, to catch a few waves, they gave me personal notice of it!"

"Ah, man! Alex 'HAVOK' Summers?! You left the life of my favorite girl in the energy-blasting hands of a MANIAC?!"

"Hey! It was either that, or let her face the dinosaurs alone... heaven knows she doesn't want ME tagging along! Better hussle if you want to check on her!"

Kurt didn't have to be told twice, as he teleported out of there, leaving his smoke behind him.

"(Cough! Cough!) I hate it when he does that!" growled Logan, "Now, (cough!) where was I? Oh! Now I remember! Stand down, squirt! This fight is MINE!"

Logan didn't need to use his claws to finish this fight... despite being a hard target to hit, all that was needed to finish off the Thug-leader was a good-old left-and-right! Everyone in the pub cheered, as he signalled Chiro and Jinmay to the back room. Chiro got into his civilian mode, as he prepared to consult his godfather about everything he's been through.

Meanwhile, Otto had just finished repairing the Torso Tank 1 (Mandarin didn't dent it up too badly when he thought he was a donkey), but in his task he found the real reason the Super Robot is refusing to get back into Machinder Mode: the intake manifold in each engine of every vehicle had sprung a leak... no doubt from the impact of battling against that sea-monster earlier.

"You're lucky you let me know when you did, Super Robot," the green monkey said, stroking the wing of the Brain-Scrambler 2 (closest action he could give to a pat on the head), "in Vehicle Mode, this is just a minor malfuncion that easily fixed, but another battle in Machinder Mode and you'd have shut down forever! Don't worry, I've promised to take good care of you, no matter what it takes and I'm making that promise again."

Just then, however, it dawned on him how complicated this task really became: Normally, one or two handfuls of aluminum per manifold is all it takes to repair the engines, but WHERE THE DOODLES can one find ALUMINUM in a PREHISTORIC JUNGLE?!

'Now, don't you give up, Otto,' the green monkey told himself, 'you'll figure something out... Wait a minute! There's got to be something I could use in Castaway Cove. An old can or two in the engine of the Torso Tank could hold the entire Robot until we get back to California.'

"I'm going out for a bit, Super Robot," said Otto, "and I'll be right back with some supplies."

As if in response, the remote for one of the green monkey's tracking devices was launched out of the Foot Cruiser 5 and straight into his hands. Otto smile.

"Don't worry, Robot, I won't be gone too long. Don't go anywhere, okay?"

Little did Otto know that, not long after he left, all six vehicles of the Super Robot had been taken... and becuase of the heat, it took a bit longer then it should have to alert the green monkey through the activation of the tracking device!

At that point, Chiro and Jinmay told Logan everything over root-beer floats (seeing they're too young yet for the adult menu), and the older mutant smirked in response.

"So, Chiro, you and your monkey friends came here to fetch your folks' records," said Logan, seeing if he got everything straight, "and that orange creep Mandarin came crawling back to yah along the way?"

"Yeah that pretty much sums it up," said Chiro, "and did I mention the triplets he's supposed to be monkey-sitting... er, I mean babysitting for the week?"

"Didn't leave out a thing, kid." said Logan, "Okay, first, we the lot of you off this island as soon as possible and return those brats to their mother... can't do much with the likes of those three around. After that, I'll have my fellow mutants help you look for those journal pages; save you plenty of time for more important things, like putting ol' Bone Head in his place once and for all."

"Or at least prepare to do that," said Jinmay, "thank you, Mr. Howlett."

"Don't mention it, little lady," Logan shrugged, tipping his cowboy hat, "and call me Logan... or 'Wolverine', depending on the mood; you know what I mean?"

"So, do I have to kiss your ring or something?" asked Chiro.

Logan shook his head.

"Chiro, I ain't that kind of godfather... but enough of that. Look at you, it seems like only yesterday that you were a little bundle of mischief. playing space cadet with the helmet on Cerebro, and here you are now: fighting evil for real with the big boys!"

"Yeah, well, some battles turn out better then others. By the way, that reminds me: who were those jerks you were scrapping with anyway? It's not everyday I miss a target."

"Oh, just a bunch of mutant-hating Newbie Maroonies... washed on these shores last month at the very earliest. Having to put up with dinosaurs for that long strengthened their bodies enough to be a near-equal to us mutants, yet remain so narrow-minded that they still look at us like WE'RE the enemy! Bozos."

Before anything more of this could be discussed, Chiro received a message from Otto claiming that the Super Robot had been stolen while he was getting spare parts! In fact, the entire Hyperforce was getting that same message, and decided to regroup at the Medical Center and leave them in Mandarin's care again claiming they're safer with him then with dinosaurs... but the orange monkey had stolen too!

"It's Razor-Face Vague and her band of marrooned space-pirates," said one of the nurses (a red-head whose name-tag read "Jean Grey"), "they're still alive here! They just broke in through the window, throwning me off gaurd, and took him! She left this."

Jean Grey handed out a note sealed with wax (the symbol on it was a Jolly Roger shaped like the Skeleton King... the very symbol revealed in the last flashback), which Jinmay opened and read outloud:

"Monkey Team: If you wish to see your beloved leader alive and well again, you must agree to help us perminantly disassemble your Super Robot and use the scrap pieces to repair our own ship, the Defiance. Refuse, and we will distroy both of them anyway! Meet us four miles North of the cave with the Pinapple tree next to it, providing your final answer... and unconditional surrender... in at least three days and three nights. My regaurds to His Eternal Majesty the Skeleton King, Captain Molly Vague."

"SAY WHAT?!" everyone else in the Hyperforce gasped, hearing such a rediculous demand.

"Holy Shuggazoom!" sighed Chiro, "I don't know what's crazier: that my parents didn't really get rid of Captain Razor-Face, or the fact she seems to think Mandarin's still in charge!"

"Well, we did toss that band of miscreants into a black hole just a year before his betrayal," said Gibson, "and those who survive black holes get spat out anywhere in time and space... even alternate realities! No telling how much time she missed before encountering your (yawn!) parents on this very planet."

"Never mind all that!" said Sparx, "That orange creep is being held hostage by space-pirates, and weither we try to save him or not, they're still going to distroy the Super Robot to get their own space-boat floating again! Can't believe I'm saying this, but we NEED a PLAN... so think of something already, brain-strain!"

"I'm too weary right now to come up with much else, Sparx."

The entire group stared at Gibson in consern. Was he falling ill too? Cassia shook her head, "Maybe that ten-mile jog was a bad idea," she thought outloud, "we got to find a safe place for him to rest."

"Safe, and cool!" C.K. complained, waving a leaf-fan she got hold of, "My brain's boiling! How can anybody think straight in this heat?!"

Overhearing that, Logan offered to help. It was tricky carrying the lot of them on his motorcycle (especially since he doesn't use a sidecar) yet he managed to manuver the jungle environment enough to get them to the cave near the pirates' randezvous.

"This is as far as I go, kid," Logan said, "from here on in, you, your monkeys, and your girlfriend are on your own. After all, you're not a baby anymore, and you don't really need me to look after you."

With that said, Logan drove off... but not too far. He want's to see what the Hyperforce could do on their own, and figures he should be close by, just in case he's wrong about them.

The Hyperforce and their friends wasted no time getting into the cavern, and along with being grateful to be out of the sun, the sight of the place nearly caused their eyes to pop out of their heads, as this was no ordinary cave: there were markings carved in the wall that glown in the dark, along with rooms, pillars, and staircases! Clearly, this prehistoric island had to be created by the lost kingdom of Atlantis, for only an advanced civilization could have created all this.

Out of all the rooms, however, the one Jinmay's necklace lead them to topped them all: it was a bedroom that seemed to belong to three people... a man, a woman, and their child. The bed belonging to the parents was made of a pile of plants (that were soft enough to make a decent mattress upon a hard cave floor, yet strong enough to double as an insect repellent) which was covered with two layers of mammoth hide. It would have felt like a step back in time, if not for the makeshift nursary on the other side of the same room, for although the changing table and the playpen were made from scratch, their designs were modern enough to go with the cradle and the babybag, along with all the supplies that remained in the bag. Above the cradle was a hand-made mobile made out of two old wire coat hangers and several knicknacks: a black-and-white yin-yang medallion, a tiny red airplane, a small blue plastic beaker that once belonged to a chemistry set, a three-ring golden chain, an upside down wooden fluer-de-lis that's painted green, and a little orange baby rattle that is shaped and painted to resemble Hanuman's mace... in the center of all these trinkets was one that looks like the Hyperforce emblem!

"Oh! I get it!" said Chiro, "My parents made that to give me a connection too the team before we even met, but why would they do that? I don't remember much of my past, but I do know that mom and dad raised me like any other kid in the universe."

"All families are different, Chiro," said Antauri, smiling as the Razzmatazz Trio made themselves cozy together in what used to be the Chosen One's cradle (upon that moment, the silver monkey got a closer look at this seemingly-modern baby-bed and noticed it was really an old laundry basket stuffed with the same plants and animal skins as the adult's bed), "do you honestly think your parents could really be like any other?"

Before Chiro could answer, Otto found a bunch of enchanted journal pages in the baby bag, triggering yet another flashback:

After four months of being marooned on Dino Island, it was time for the baby to be born, which gave Zoey much cause for concern. After all, if she had kept her tail and her abillity to shape-shift into a monkey, the ordeal would not slow her down, but since she's stuck in human form, her labor pains would be increased... that is part of humanity's curse! Ace, however, had spent these months preparing for this moment. His back had long recovered, and warding off dinosaurs and other dangers had strengthed his body and helped him master his electrical aura powers... he can turn it on-and-off at will without his amber necklace now. With that in mind, he would have carried his wife to the medical center at Castaway Cove himself, but the moment the water broke, she wouldn't leave the cave, or let him touch her!

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Zoey screamed, pushing Ace away, "YOU DID THIS TO ME! GO AWAY! GET OUT, NOW!"

Ace just stood there and stared, until Hank "Beast" McCoy placed a hand on his shoulder and lead him to another part of the cave to wait until the whole mess was over.

"Don't worry, Ace," said Hank, "they all say that. She'll be back to her senses just as soon as as your parenthood is offical."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Hank?" asked Ace, as he was seated on the leopard-skin sofa in the makeshift living room.

"Oh, this isn't the first time I helped someone deliver a baby," Hank answered with an embarrassed smile, "although, with a face like mine, and an animal inside me, it just might be the last! I'll do whatever it takes to make this day count, trust me."

With that said, Hank left him to continue the job, but Ace was still a nervous wreck. Were all these months of preparation for nothing?! Logan offered a cigarette, but Ace wisely refused dispite his panicked state, and tried to focus on playing cards with Kurt and Kitty... until a roar of thunder bursted throughout the cave!

"ORORO!" Ace shouted on the top of his lungs, "IS NOW REALLY THE TIME FOR YOU TO LIVE UP TO YOUR CODENAME?!"

Ororo "Storm" Munroe shook her head. "This isn't my doing! A typhoon has broken out from the North-East coast!"

"Ugh! As if we don't have enough problems! You have the power to control the weather, Ororo, can't you just stop it!"

"I am a 'weather witch', not a MIRACLE WORKER! The last time I overdid it as a child, my attempts to irragate my home village almost turned the rest of this world into a large desert! True, I can control the weather, but keeping it from being itself could only lead to disaster!"

"Well, something has to be done! At this rate, the rain might flood the cavern, or a bolt of lightning could cause a landslide blocking the exits, or-!"

"I understand your concern for your wife and child, Mr. Carrington! (Sigh!) Look, I cannot completely stop the typhoon, but I can keep it from destroying us... but I will need your help to do so! I'll keep the wind and rain from flooding the island, and you use your electrical powers-"

"To reverse the polarity of the lightning and redirect it AWAY from the caverns! Of course! Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that myself?! I feel like an IDIOT!"

The rest of the X-Men shook their heads as Ace and Ororo went outside, literally braving the elements... they didn't know for sure if there was a real typhoon or not, but they do know that Ororo could have handled it herself either way. Obviously, asking for his help on the ordeal was her attempt to keep Ace's panicky mind off his wife's labor pains, and so far, that plan seems to be working, as he used one battle move after another to deflect the attacks of the heavens:

"FORCEFIELD SHEILD!... MEGA-LIGHTNING LASH!... JOLT SPEAR-BOLT!"

(Chiro gasped at the sight of that last techneck... it was strikingly similiar to his own move "Chiro Spear-o!", only with much greater impact!)

Meanwhile, in the family bedroom and nursary of the cavern, Zoey was having a battle of her own... against herself. Oh, she tried to stay calm and follow Hank McCoy's instructions to breath deeply while pushing, but the whole ordeal proved far more difficult then she expected... as Lady Wukong, she got hurt in many battles against many villians, but that pain was nothing compared to this!

'Could this be a sign,' a part of her wondered,'that I was NEVER meant to become a mother?!'

It's unknown to either the mother or the father just how much time has passed, but soon enough, the spirit of the Power Primate let it's presence become known in Zoey's final push, and at the same time the baby was born, the typhoon had passed so quickly that, aside from the ground being wet and the grass being greener, it's as though it never happened!

It was the sound of the baby crying that signalled Ace to come inside to see his wife, and the newest member of their little family, and he smiled at the sight... aside from her messy hair and the sweat on her brow, she too looked as though the storm inside of her never happened... in fact, she seemed to be glowing more radiant then ever, as she smiled, holding the newborn.

"Congratulations, Mr. Carrington," said Hank, patting the new father on the back (gently as his big hands possibly could, of course) "it's a boy."

"My... son." Ace gasped, as being stressed out while fighting against lightning took a lot out of him, but his energy returned at a quick yet gentle pace upon seeing his little boy for the first time. The expression on his face betrayed what he was thinking, causing Zoey to roll her eyes.

"Come on, Ace, don't be so bashful," she said, almost laughing, "come on in, meet you son... Chiro."

Ace hesitated, but was happy to comply to such a suggestion, as he walked in closer to hold his newborn son... although, a doubt still crossed his mind.

"Zoey, I'm well aware of your birth-tribe's culture, and if I read correctly, it is expected for the father of the child to offer the first welcome, but what am I supposed to say?"

"(Giggle!) Anything you want, silly, you're the father."

Ace took a deep breath as he prepared to hold the child, but before he could decide what he wanted to say, Hank placed baby Chiro into his arms just like that, resulting in a blush from the new dad. Clearly, Ace's supposed to improvise, but at this point, he didn't care.

"H-hi, Chiro... hello, my baby boy. Welcome to Earth, your first home. I'm your dad, and this... well, this is you're beautiful mom. You're so lucky, Chiro. We've been waiting for you, and we agreed long before you were born that we'll always be there for you no matter what happens... that is a promise. W-would you like to meet our friends? They were waiting for you too, after all."

Newborn Chiro didn't understand the words his father was saying, but he clearly understood the purpose of that speach and smiled at him. Getting a nod of approval from Zoey, Ace put baby-Chiro back into her arms before leaving the room to tell their friends to come in.

"You done well bringing our child to life, DOCTOR McCoy," Zoey said, "Chiro may not have a tail like I did, but that detail aside, he turned out to be a strong, healthy, wonderful boy."

"Oh, well, you did most of the work, Zoey" said Hank, clearly flattered, "I just helped the process along where I could; it's the least I could do for the substitute teacher of my science class... AND a good friend."

"Well, thank you all the same. The pain was so intense, I thought I wasn't going to make it, yet here I am, with a new life in my arms... and the Chosen One of Pandorian Prophecy to boot!"

"Now, now, Mrs. Carrington, let's take things one step at a time. He'll cross that bridge when he gets to it... at age thirdteen... but right now, he's just a baby; his destiny can wait. In the meantime, you have to let him grow at his own pace, and take care of him as only a real mother would."

"You're right... I can't risk making the same mistake with my own flesh and blood as I had with Mandarin, but if the souls of my birth-parents find out that I intend to break tradition, they'd be turning in their graves! You see, in the royal family of my past life, each generation raised the first born heir or heiress to be a 'purfect warrior' from the get-go... honestly, I always thought that custom was stupid, and I always wanted to break it, but what would my ansestors say about THAT?"

"Honestly, Zoey, I think they'd thank you for it, and Chiro might too, when he's old enough to understand, you'll see. Just in case I'm wrong, though, I recommend teaching him in more... SUBTLE ways then you did with the monkey team."

Zoey smiled hearing that, just as Ace shown up with the rest of the X-Men. Despite some hesitation from that fuzzy elf, Kurt Wagner was given the honor of being the first one in the group to hold the baby... when baby-Chiro didn't cry, Kurt did, claiming the moment to be a miracle. In fact, Chiro seemed well adjusted to the group of mutants, until Todd "the Toad" Tolanski hopped into the Cave uninvited... clearly the typhoon knocked a bunck of fruit into his face, as he looked just like a clown!

"Hey everybody!" said Tolanski, "How's it going?! Strange weather even for you, huh Ororo?! Whoa! Who's this?!"

It was at this point that Chiro started to cry, and Jean Grey passed the baby back to Ace.

"Tolanski, settle down!" Jean scolded, "You're scaring the Carrington's newborn son!"

"A bouncing baby boy, eh?" Tolanski said, catching a fly with his tongue, "Well, congrats. Anyhow, I didn't hop on by just to say hello. The Brotherhood and I had just finished repairing that plane we borrowed from yeah, but it's still out of juice, and that shipwreck of yours is about half way done. Would have finished a whole lot sooner, knowing Quicksilver, but we don't have all the right tools... three types of wrenches got lost at sea, including the socket-wrench, Avalanche broke our last hammer, and the Blob accidently ate the screwdriver for breakfast this morning! Ugh! What a pig!"

"Oh! For pete's sake!" moaned Rogue, "What are we going to do with you guys?! Come on, everyone, let's see what we can do... tools or no tools, it ain't like Pietro 'Quicksilver' Maximoff to back away from a challange. Knowing him, he must've played hooky from the job to pick fights with a dinosaur or something!"

Logan was the last of the X-Men to leave hearing that.

"Kid looks a lot like you, Ace," he said, "you should be proud just to have him. So, anyways, I put some thought into this godfather thing: I'll do it, but I won't be there for him as much as Professor X... my rival, Sabretooth, is back on the prowl. While this Jarassic Park wannabee of an island seems to give me a much needed break from the guy, I know he won't rest until he finds me, distroying everything in his path until we do battle again!"

"I understand, Logan," said Ace, "the sooner we get off of this island the better, but thanks all the same."

"At anyrate, better get yourselves cozy and keep that baby safe. If Rogue is right about Quicksilver, it would be another two months at the very least before we catch him and make him finish the job. Think you kids can handle it?"

Ace watched, as Zoey managed to calm their son down.

"Yeah, Logan, I believe we can."

The flashback ended, and the nursary became an empty, dusty remenant of the past again, right in front of the eyes of the Hyperforce. It wasn't often that the memory in the journal pages match the location they're found in, and that gave the whole group a lot to think about, yet they couldn't forget the situation that brought them here in the first place. The next morning, they had only two days before the date of the ransom, but Chiro had already thought of a plan... although, it would require help from the Razzmatazz Trio and Cassia (they didn't bother to ask C.K.'s help on this one, because the island's weather was still too hot for her to leave the cave without getting crabby).

The plan worked out well enough: upon locating the pirate-spaceship DEFIANCE (and gettiing there without leaving tracks, thanks to Kurt Wagner) Cassia kept watch over the triplets in case of danger, as those three little monkeys juggled and did magic tricks to distract the gaurds over the area Mandarin was held prisoner, but the last magic trick really took the cake: inspired by Kurt's powers, Soka, Xavier, and Melrose used a thick insence without effect while forming a ring-around-the-rosy routiene, they made it look like Antauri appeared out of thin air.

The guards, despite recalling Antauri as the black monkey, didn't recognize him in his silver form, and thought he was a sort of zen-statue made out of solid shining metal, especially since he stayed firm on the ground in his meditative pose. Lulled in a false sense of security and driven by greed, the guards bent over to grab hold of the silver monkey "statue", only for Antauri to "come to life" right before their eyes and strike them. With the gaurd knocked out cold, Nova started phase two of the plan by slamming on the door, forcing it to open.

"Is it just me," said Sparx, "or is this too easy?"

It wasn't until they were about a foot away from Mandarin's energy cell that Sparx's suspicions were confirmed, for not only was the orange monkey even worse-for-wear then he was when they first left him at the Castaway Cove Medical Center... obviously beaten and bruised by several means of torcher... he's also WEARING A DRESS! A pink, poofy, lace-lined dolly dress with matching ballerina slippers and a wig with flowing, curly golden locks topped with a pretty pink bow! Seeing that, the entire Monkey Team, even Antauri, started to burst in laughter, but Chiro and Jinmay just stared at him in shock!

"Mandarin?" Chiro and Jinmay say together, upon willing themselves to speak, "What happened to you?"

Upon hearing his name, the orange monkey got up from the floor, and upon realizing he wasn't alone, he screamed in a way that fitted his new outfit, and backed up into a corner. This only made the group laugh even harder.

"Oh, brother!" giggled Otto, "I really wish I had a camera right now!"

"I concur, Otto!" added Gibson, "Never in all my days had I even dreamed of seeing something so... so... HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"Alright, team! That's enough!" Chiro shouted with authority, "Look, even I have to admit this is (snicker!) very funny, but now isn't the time or place for it. Now, Mandarin, let me say it again: what in Bridge-Shuggazoom happened?!"

"Don't ask!" said Mandarin, trembling in fear, "And don't come any closer! It's a...!"

At this point the Razzmatazz Trio, happy to see their real babysitter again, rushed into the room and triggered a lazer-light tripwire causing five cages to fall from the ceiling... three of which locked the little rascals inside.

"...trap!"

"Well, it clearly isn't a very well-built one, Mandarin," said Gibson, "for while that sort of thing might have worked on all of us... oh, say... about a year before you betrayed us, the team had made so many improvements since then that only Sparx would have been caught in these cages if the triplets didn't trigger them first."

"I'll get them out!" said Otto, putting his drills to work, "You're next... Miss Mandy!"

Sparx, Nova, and Jinmay caught the giggles hearing that, and Chiro had to muster a lot of will-power to keep himself from following suit.

"Mandarin, I still want to know about the dress, but if you really don't want to talk about it, I for one understand."

Hearing that, Mandarin tried to keep his mouth shut, but the gentleness in Chiro's words touched a part of him he didn't know he had... a very heavy part deep in his chest... his heart. Unable to stand it's weight much longer, the orange monkey blurted out everything:

"It was Captain Vague's doing, alright?! She touchered me in attempts to learn how to defeat YOU! Know this, however, I kept my mouth shut for as long as I could, no matter how much pain they inflicted on me... since pain is the only real friend I have in this miserable universe, she was getting nowhere fast with me anyhow, until his first mate, who clearly overheard Chulan-Kumari's threat, suggested a change of tactics. He gave her this outfit that he stolen from a toy factory and insisted that she makes me wear it unless I tell her everything about the rest of the Monkey Team, weaknesses especially! Oh! The indignity!"

"So they made you wear that thing," said Chiro, "and you STILL refused to tell those pirates anything!? That had to be tough."

"Wearing this was just the tip of the iceberg," answered Mandarin, tugging one of the poofy sleeves in disgust, "Vague also made me serve her tea, polish her boots, and dance for her scandelous crew! I've never been this humiliated in all my life, and all the while, she kept 'promising' that it would all go away for good if I would just 'forsake my followers' and tell her what she needed to know, but I still refused! Grr! To betray the team once, shame on me... but to do it twice?! NEVER! WHY WAS I EVER PUT IN CHARGE IN THE FIRST PLACE ANYHOW?!"

The entire monkey team stopped laughing upon seeing Mandarin's emotional meltdown. Counting what happened in Mongolia, this is the second time they ever seen him like this... how long had their previous leader been trying to hide this side of himself? They cannot say.

Otto wasted no time breaking the lock on the orange monkey's cage, and Jinmay was the first one inside, giving the former tyrant a big hug for a moment or two before getting to work on his tail, which was tied in a sailor's knot around his waist like a sash to keep the dress on him. She just got started undoing that knot when the reality of what just happened hit everyone, especially Mandarin himself.

"You'd embrace the likes of me?" Mandarin asked, "After that time I actually ripped your head off?!"

"Well, yeah... NEVER do that again!" the robot girl scolded, "You know, Mandarin, if your old job was bothering you that much, you could have told us about it sooner."

"You know why I had not done that, Jinmay. The whole team knows by now! All my life, I refused to deligate the position that was given to me, all out of fear that they'll see me as useless weakling... OW! Yet, ever since I came to my senses near that dragon's nest, my brothers and sister had seen me that way anyhow, more then once. They might as well save that bag-of-bones the trouble and put me out of my misery themselves... right here; now."

"Oh! Hold still, you big baby!" nagged Nova, "Jinmay barely even touched your tail yet!"

The very second the knot in his tail was undone, Mandarin tossed aside the dress, the wig, and the ballerina slippers, and grabbed his cowl from a nail on a nearby wall. The Razzmatazz Trio got to work, and made a life-sized "Mandarin" doll out of a bunch of large leaves, some orange berries (for coloring), and the discarded doll clothing... they placed their creation face-down in a back-corner of the cage before running to the exit. Taking a wild guess as to what the triplets were thinking, Sparx and Gibson got to work making the cage bars look like they were never tampered with before the entire Hyperforce, Mandarin included, followed the young monkey triplets back to the cave.

Once there, Cassia sensed Mandarin's confusion over what just happened to him, and so she recited the Parable of the Good Semaritan to explain... the triplets mistook it for a normal bed-time story and fell asleep in the cradle, but everyone else remained awake. They heard explosions along the way back to the randezvous point, and recognized the sound as the vehicles of the Super Robot acting up, resisting disassembly. There was no question about it, the team had to get the Robot back tonight, no matter what Captain Razor-Face Vague and her crew threw at them!

"Easier said then done!" said Kurt Wagner, coming out of nowhere as usual, "Logan and I were eavesdroping outside the cave, by the way, and he wanted me to tell you he figured out what Vague was really up to. Chiro, you might not believe it, but one of your father's Hyper-Cubes has gone missing... the one your mother enchanted the day after you were born!"

"What?!" gasped Chiro, "Kurt, why didn't you tell me about this before?! What's in that box anyway?!"

"Your father's amber pendant for all I know, but odds are they hid a few of those journal pages in there as well, but that's not the point! The point is, Vague will go great lengths to open it, but your mother's spell renders it impossible to open unless the holder could answer eight riddles... she told me 'the flashbacks hold the answers', whatever that means."

"I get it! The lock can be opened if we answer the riddles based on Mom and Dad's memories! So, what's the bad news?"

"Vague learned some magic of her own... dark magic from the Skeleton King himself! Whenever she isn't trying to open that box, she has it gaurded by a blood thirsty T-Rex, completely under her control! Logan vollenteered to take care of that beast, but first we should get Kitty Pride and Alex Summers to create a distraction for at least half those pirates so you could get to the Super Robot! We intend to set everything in action first thing in the morning, if it's all the same to you, Chiro."

"Shadowcat and Havok, huh? Couldn't have picked a better distraction. Team! Change of plans, we attack at dawn. For now, better get some rest."

"No need to tell me twice, kid," yawned Sparx, "putting that gate back together made my head hurt, I got to lay down."

"Seems, my body and your brain both needed the exercise, Sparx." Gibson joked, as his eyelids became undeniably heavy and he started yawning himself, "Well, at any rate, I bid you goodnight."

Before long, the only one still awake was Mandarin, mostly on account he still had a fever, but also out of a hidden concern. Aside from Chiro and Jinmay, who were curled up together in the bed belonging to the Chosen One's parents, and the triplets in the cradle, the rest of them were each curled up into sleeping bags their mutant allies loaned to them, yet the orange monkey could not sleep. He had a feeling Kurt Wagner didn't call himself the "Nightcrawler" just because he used to work for a circus (if the tale he recently told about himself was slightly true)... odds are, that elf-like freak show was up to something. Sure enough, Mandarin was right, as Kurt teleported into their room of the cavern and took Otto's ball of aluminum foil... the orange monkey grabbed hold of Kurts tail before he teleported away with it, but didn't go unnoticed.

"Gah! Mandarin, you shouldn't be here," said Kurt, upon reaching their destination, "you're fever is too intense yet. You should be back at the cavern, where it's safe, getting some much needed rest!"

"How could I rest when I sense danger everywhere?!" Mandarin responded, recognizing the location as where Captain Vague hid the Super Robot, "I had a feeling you were up to something, but I never would have guessed that you are in league with these space-pirates the whole time! You rapscallion!"

"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa! Take a chill pill you little orange fuzz-ball," another male voice said, catching Mandarin's attention. The orange monkey looked around, and found the owner of the voice was a well-built human male of some Native American background (Cherokee, maybe?) tending to the engines of the Super Robot's six vehicle forms, "You'd be talking jive accusing my main man Kurt of such a thing. I've been stuck in this pocket-demention called the 'Middle-verse' since the 1970's before he bailed me out; I owe him big time for life to that end. Name's Forge, by the way, I 'spose you're the chump-of-a-chimp called Mandarin. Heard all about how you blew off your right to lead your team. Bummer for yeah!"

"Forge here is great with machines," Kurt explains, "best mechanic I know in person... well, as far as humans go, anyway. When I told him about the Super Robot he practically begged me to take him with aboard the X-Jet to see it. Due to the situation, we both figured we could repair it as a surprise for Otto... for the entire Hyperforce... and to make sure you bail out of here without too much mishap. Oh! That reminds me, I got the Aluminum you needed, Forge. Otto himself gathered it."

"Groovy! This Aluminum-foil ball has more then enough genuine aluminum to hold all six intake manifolds half-way around the world! That green monkey sure knows his metals. Hmm. Gotta do something about those crums, though."

Deciding to leave Forge to his work, Kurt grabbed Mandarin by the tail (his "eye-for-an-eye" one might say) before teleporting back to the cavern and insisting the orange monkey goes back to sleep. Despite his reluctance, the orange monkey complied to that suggestion upon feeling a wave of fatigue overwealm him... he was still sleeping, while the rest of the Hyperforce had their hands full with Captain Vague and her "pet" T-Rex! Thankfully, Chiro and Nova had a simular ordeal while the team was trapped in a haunted museum, so it's nothing they hadn't handled before... the rest of them, however, would have been dino-food if not for back-up from the X-Men, but even then, it seems they needed some help. It was at that moment that the Super Robot came back to life, revealing it has been repaired.

Before long, the whole mess was over, and Chiro got a hold of the stolen Hyper-Cube that belonged to his father, answering it's riddles along the way back to the cave... where Jean Grey was finishing her diagnostic on Mandarin.

"What 'cha got, Pheonix?" asked Logan.

"Well, Wolverine, the good news is it's not the common cold, as expected," said Jean, "the bad news is that it's something even worse! A classic case of adrenal fatigue if I ever saw one, no doubts about it! Thankfully, his aura seems to be forming a healing factor... not as fast as yours, of course, but just fast enough to turn his two-year recovery into a six month case."

"Not... fast... enough..." Mandarin muttered, half asleep, "it's March... my battle... against... my evil... clone... is in June. I must... recover... faster... so I could... train... constantly... up until... then. Must... prove... my... strength... somehow."

Logan shook his head. He knew exactly what Mandarin was going through, but doesn't have the words to set this monkey straight. Thankfully, nothing needed to be said, as Chiro finally managed to open the box by solving it's final riddle:

ALTHOUGH HE'S YET TO COMMIT HIS CRIME, WHAT WORDS INSULTED THE TRAITOR FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME?

"Banana-Eating Pitbull!" shouted Chiro, causing the hyper-cube box to pop right open, unleashing Ace Carrington's amber-stone pendant, which bursted light right into the center of the mobile over the crib, triggering the illusion of it's trinkets coming to life:

The orange rattle shook as it swung like a mace... the black-and-white yin-yang symbol split apart, spun around, and pulled itself together... the the red airplane flew in circles... the blue peaker glowed and puffed smoke... the gold chain waved about like a whip, sounding like a wind-chime... and the green upside-down fluer-de-lis became a blooming corky passionflower with vines and leaves for a second... all in time with a gentle song, which the entire Hyperforce, including Mandarin, heard Chiro's parents sing together in yet another flashback:

"When the mountain touches the valley, all the clouds are taught to fly, thus our souls must leave this land most peacefully" Zoey sung, cradling baby Chiro in her arms (as she sung, the Jewel of Hope flashed it's purple glow in time with her voice), "Though our minds be filled with questions, in our hearts we'll understand, when the river meets the sea."

At this point, Ace stood by Zoey's side joining in the song... his singing voice still wasn't as polished as hers, but it improved greatly since his High School days (and like the Jewel of Hope coresponded to Zoey, the Amber Pendant flashed a bright-orange glow in time with Ace's singing):

"Like a flower that has blossomed, in this dry and barren sand, we are born and born again most gracefully, plus the winds of time will take us, with a sure and steady hand, when the river meets the sea."

Then the two of them sang together (causing both necklaces to light up together, forming a long forsaken presence): "Patience my brothers, and patience my son, in that sweet and final hour, truth and justice will be done."

"Like a baby when it is sleeping in its loving mother's arms," sand Zoey, putting baby Chiro in the cradle, "What a newborn baby dreams is a mystery..."

"... but this life will find a purpose," added Ace as the song reached it's climax, "and in time we'll understand, when the river meets the sea."

The flashback was already fading away, but the voices in this duet were as strong as ever in the big finish (although, instead of streight from the couple in the flashback, the voices came from the necklaces themselves!):

"When the river meets the almighty sea."

In a flash, the Hyperforce was back in the presence, as the missing pages flew out of the mobile and back into their rightful journals, which lit up, forming a link to the Jewel of Hope and the Amber Pendant. Suddenly realizing what needs to be done, Cassia lightly touched the journals (which were each half-full at this point) acting as a bridge so the spirits trapped inside the books shall come out through the necklaces. Although they were transparent ghosts, Ace and Zoey were truely back from their seperate limbos... and back together.

"Ace?" murmured Zoey's ghost, as though she could barely recognize him.

"Zoey?" gasped Ace's ghost, reacting in a simular way, "Is that you?!"

The way they moved made it clear they couldn't directly touch anything or anyone else in their ghostly state, but at least they could hold each other for the first time in about ten years.

"Oh, Ace, what happened to us?" said Zoey, "I felt like I was alone forever!"

"Yeah, me too!" said Ace, "I don't know how long I was stuck in those shadows, but I do know that the Skeleton King distroyed me, though when, where, and why it happened was blocked out of my mind... or at least, what's left of it... up until recently. I realied it didn't happen to me alone when the memory of the day we met came back to me."

"It was our son... Chiro! Chiro and the Monkey Team brought that memory back to both of us, Ace, they restored all our memories by restoring pages to our journals!"

"Not all of them, Zoey. The last five years of my life are still a blur to me, and I can tell you're going through the same thing. I still don't recall how or where we died, but at least I know why: it happened to keep a promise we made to our little boy."

"Mom? Dad?" said Chiro, getting the attention of those ghosts, "It's me, Chiro. I know I'm not a baby anymore, but... still..."

The spirits of Chiro's parents gasped at the sight of their son, all grown up and still in the flesh, yet they were still able to recognize him and wanted to embrace him, only to find themselves passing right through him! Realizing this, Chiro burst into tears and left the cavern, much to the objections of everyone else. Rolling his eyes, Mandarin overlooked his own condition and chased after him, causing the monkey team to do the same to keep the orange monkey from hurting their leader. By the time they caught up, they saw Mandarin trying to comfort Chiro... and he was doing a TERRIBLE job at it.

"So your parents can no longer hold you!" the orange monkey scoffed, "Big deal! At least they had done so for you in the past when times were quiet. When I was small and in your mother's care, she only embraced me to protect me from the dangers I often got myself into. Come to think of it, that might explain why I found struggle and conquest so addicting. None the less, the team and I are there for you... well, mostly me... but in such care you will someday learn-"

"IT'S ALWAYS LEARN-LEARN-LEARN WITH YOU MANDARIN!" Chiro bursted out, "WHAT'S WORSE, IT'S ALSO ALWAYS ME-ME-ME! HAD IT EVER CROSSED YOUR MIND THAT THERE'S A REASON THE REST OF THE TEAM KICKED YOU OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE, MANDARIN?! HUH?! HAD IT?! YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO GET TO KNOW ME WHEN WE FIRST MET! YOU JUST TRIED TO REMODEL ME INTO A YOUNGER VERSION OF YOU, WHICH, BY THE WAY, WAS REALLY, REALLY STUPID!"

"Now, Chiro, let's not play that card..."

"YOU AREN'T EVEN TRYING TO GET TO KNOW ME NOW! JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED WHEN ALL YOU SHOULD DO IS JUST LISTEN! IT'S NOT THE FACT THEY CAN'T HOLD ME ANYMORE THAT GOT ME UPSET, MANDARIN! THOSE SEVEN YEARS I SPENT AT THE ORPHANAGE GOT ME USED TO THAT BY NOW! THE REAL REASON I'M UPSET IS BECAUSE FATE LET ME KNOW, NOW OF ALL TIMES, THAT MY PARENTS DIED KEEPING THEIR PROMISE! THE PROMISE THAT THEY WOULD ALWAYS PROTECT ME NO MATTER WHAT, AND AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I THOUGHT THEY BROKE SUCH A VOW AND ABANDONED ME; I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO MAKE OUT OF ANY OF THIS! (Pant! Pant! Pant!) Get the picture now?"

With an expression of emotional shock on his face, Mandarin nodded yes. Chiro face-palmed himself in response on the way back to the cavern.

"You know Mandarin," Chiro said, "it seems you only listen to others when they yell at you. If that sort of thing keeps up, then... well, you're in worse shape then I thought."

"Really?" the orange monkey gasped, "Well, to be honest, the only one who ever had the nerve to yell at me was Nova. Due to my fear of appearing weak, I was always... uneasy about her physical and emotional strength, so I figured freezing her half-way-to oblivion would make her more... submissive to my power. Thinking back, that was probably the only bad idea I ever had."

"Oh? From what I recall, Mandarin, your attempts to rule over Shuggazoom City, pledging your service to the Skeleton King, AND that time you tore Jinmay's head off her body were all ETREMELY BAD ideas!"

"Settle down, Chiro, ANYTHING sound bad when it is said with THAT attitude."

"Shut up! Those were just examples! I'll bet the entire team could make a list at least a mile long on how poorly your plans are thought through, and I'll even make sure they put that clone-army thing on the top!"

"Oh! Come on! All I was trying to do was build an army out of the most powerful human being in the entire universe! How was I supposed to know that the Skeleton King would use it against me to create that... imposter?!"

"Hmm. Is it just me, or did that almost sound like a compliment."

"Uh... Look! An idiot!"

"Nice try, Mandarin, but I'm not falling for that old trick! Wait until I tell the ghosts of my parents that you actually gave someone other then yourself a compliment!"

"Don't... you... dare!"

Just as Chiro rushed back to the caverns, however, Mandarin suddenly felt dizzy and began to collapse. Thankfully for him, the Hyperforce weren't the only monkeys that followed in secret. The Razzmatazz Trio rushed out of their hiding places and caught their orange-furred elder just before he fell, and then the one girl out of the three made her confession.

"Mandarin, you should know that my brothers and I were talking," said Xavier, "and the three of us came to an agreement. We want to go home to our mother now."

"A wise decision," sighed Mandarin, "at least you have a home to return to. I for one don't belong anywhere. Any chance your mother would... you know... take me into the family?"

"I don't think so!" said Melrose, "Mommy is just using babysitters as a fill-in. She thinks our dad, Tar the black, is still alive. Odds are, he could have died centuries ago."

"Either that, or he isn't born yet," added Soka, "don't tell anybody, Mandarin, but our mom came from outer space too, and she was pulled through a black hole on the way here, so we're born either before our dad was, or after he died... maybe this reality is one where he doesn't exist at all, except through us."

"Hmm. Tell me children," Mandarin pondered out loud, "is the title 'Tar', by chance, a nickname for a longer name, like 'Antauri'?"

"Well, maybe," said Melrose, "but what makes you so sure?"

"Wait a minute!" gasped Soka, "Antauri? That's the name of that silver monkey that helped us save you from those pirates! You're not suggesting that...?"

"I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!" laughed Xavier, jumping about in excitement, "Somehow I knew he was the father I never had! I knew it!"

"Xavier, calm down!" said Melrose, "This is probably some kind of joke!"

"Mo has a point, my sister," said Soka, "mom said that our dad had black fur, like you do... that monkey's silver."

"And our mother used to have both her eyes and stand tall," Xavier argued, "but lately she's been slouching and had lost one eye to some preditor! What is your point, Soka?!"

"My point, Xavier, is that we don't NEED a dad! Mom raised us just fine on her own for the past four and a half years and we turned out well enough!"

"Just because we lived without a father for so long doesn't mean we don't need one! Need I remind you that, when she was expecting us, mother only left Korralidaul without saying good-bye just to keep him from getting banished? After all, he wasn't a master of the Power Primate yet, and becoming a parent before his training was complete would have brought him nothing but bad luck! She raised us on her own to protect him."

"Ha! That's just a bed-time story you never got sick of, Xavier! We never had a father and we never will! So get those stupid fairy tales about the Power Primate out of your head and face the harsh reality of things as they are, like a grown up!"

"We are not grown ups yet, Soka, and we're not really Spider Monkeys! Our species is a different type all together! I'm telling mother about Antauri just as soon as we get home!"

"Not if I have a say about it, and I say the silver monkey IS NOT OUR FATHER!"

"And I say he IS SO OUR FATHER! I can feel it, and mother will prove it!"

"HE'S NOT OUR FATHER!"

"YES HE IS!"

"NO HE'S NOT!"

"YES HE IS!"

This arguement only went on for half a minute but it already felt like it was taking forever, until Melrose spoke his mind: "Um... Can't we just ask Antauri himself which one of you is right?"

"A good idea, Melrose," Xavier said with a smile, "at this point, only he'd know the truth for sure."

"No! It's a bad idea!" said Soka, "We wasted enough time for the Hyperforce, and tying the silver monkey to OUR PAST would only slow their quest down all the more! Besides, you are both forgetting one very important detail: I'M THE FIRST BORN MONKEY-CHILD OF THE FAMILY! To that end, I'M ALWAYS RIGHT, so whenever I say something, like Antauri isn't our father, we should all just drop the subject, close the case, and admit MY WORD IS LAW!"

"Soka! Knock that off, right now!" shouted Mandarin, "Can't you see?! If you keep forcing your way onto your siblings, they'll banish you... like my brothern did to me!"

"Pfft! Yeah right! They can't banish me even if they want to!" said Soka, "See, we are the Razzmatazz Trio! Our abillity to dazzle and confuse our enemies are strongest when we're together, so we have to stand by each other's side, like it or not. Then, when we are older, we'll be the greatest pirate crew on the planet, doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons! Sir Francis Drake will be proud of us!"

"What?!" gasped Xavier, "Elder brother, are you saying all this time we were borrowing without permition because you idolize a pirate that's no longer alive?! I thought we are going to become rebels in a war against evil, so nobody will tell us what to do ever again!"

"And I thought we are just going to join a traveling circus!" added Melrose, "After all, wowing the crowd with our tricks has always been barrels of fun, especially when we do it together."

The arguement that broke out after that was a doozy, and it was clear by the look on Mandarin's face that he wanted to interfere, but his condition rendered him to exausted to do so. It was at that point the Monkey Team decided they seen enough.

Acting fast, Antauri (grabbing Xavier), Sparx (grabbing Soka), and Otto (grabbing Melrose) pulled the squabbling triplets apart as Gibson did a quick med-check on their suffering monkey-sitter while Nova warmed herself up to give the younger primates a good scolding before they're given a four-minute time out... in three separate places! It was agreed among the team that after that, they're returning Xavier, Soka, and Melrose to their mother on San Sebastian Island before heading straight back to Angel Grove, California.

Meanwhile, Chiro had so much to tell the spirits of his parents that he had to skip ahead to the part Mandarin actually gave a compliment. None the less, he wanted to tell them everything they missed after their death, but they both insisted he'd save it for later.

"You had many adventures with the Monkey Team, my son," said Zoey, "and many more await you still. Half our journals are still missing, along with our memories in the pages, and inspite all the X-Men are doing right now to help, only those with the Power Primate could truly find them without too many problems."

"Ha! Bet you didn't notice they already left, hey Chiro?" added Ace, "Kurt and Kitty didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, and that surfer-boy Alex wanted to see if you could handle the Caribbean waves as well as he could, but Logan and Forge both insisted the lot of them wasted enough time in this pocket dimention. After all, the Brotherhood of Chaos is their problem, as the Skeleton King is ours... however, I'm sure our path will cross with theirs again someday."

"Yeah," sighed Chiro, "but it might take awhile, and I for one am going to miss them... not as much as I missed you, of course, but you know what I mean."

The ghost of Chiro's mother, Zoey, attempted to stroke her son's hair to comfort him, but her hand passed right through the strands... she keeps forgetting that she's practically made of air and light in this state. Ace, the ghost of the father, shook his head.

"My son, you done so well and grown so much this past decade," Ace said, "your mother and I hardly recognized you. What's more, unlike us, you are still alive. That means you and the Monkey Team still have a chance against the Skeleton King, ending his tyranny for good!"

"I just hope, after that, the soul of the man he was..." Zoey sighed, "...the good man, that is. May he finally rest in peace when this whole mess is over, even if we cannot."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, Zoey, right now that is the least of our problems! We've been dead a whole decade and, while I know my parents are in the Realm of Heaven waiting for me, I still don't have a clue what became of my Uncle Clayton!"

"Oh, Ace. Still hanging your hopes on the absent, even in death."

Chiro thought it over, and smiled as the two ghosts entered the stones on their necklaces to rest... he has a surprise planned for his ghostly parents when the lot of them return to Angel Grove, California.

Once everyone was buckled up inside the Super Robot, Gibson used the new energy signature in the Jewel of Hope and the Amber Pendant to pinpoint an exit from the Burmuda Triangle's pocket demention (despite objections from the locals, who wanted them to stay forever) so the return to San Sebastian Island only lead to a complication. During the absense of the triplets, their mother, Lotus, had been attacked by another tree-fox, resulting in the loss of her other eye. Thankfully, Antauri allowed Otto to examine him enough for the green monkey to know how to build a new pair of robotic eyes for the poor single mother, but the wild was no place to recooperate from such a surgary... they had to take her and her children with them to Angel Grove. The blind mother and her triplet young lived in the zoo for three days before they were given legal purmit to leave, and Lotus was finally privaleged to lift her bandages, seeing the world with new eyes... literally and spiritually.

"Mommy, did it work?" asked Melrose, "Can you see again?"

"I hope not," stated Soka, "those robotic eyes look creepy on our mom."

Lotus caught her own reflection on the piece of metal her eldest son was holding, and laughed at how right he was about her: the robotic eyes needed purminant occular orb covering to function properly, and this perticular pair were yellowish-green, much like the eyes of a certain black monkey she knew and loved... suddenly, Lotus realized who the silver monkey truly was, as he stopped by to pick them up.

"Boys, be gentle with your mother," scolded Antauri, "you know more then I do how much trouble she's been through."

Soka and Melrose moaned and complained, but Xavier only shook her head before finally asking, "Tell me, mother, is the silver monkey really our father or not?"

"His face and body has changed," said Lotus, smiling as she stood up straight for the first time in years (she was noticably taller then the Hyperforce monkeys), "but I recognise his soul anywhere. Yes, my children, this stranger is indeed Antauri, your father. Tar, I'm sorry I never told you, but when I got sucked in that black hole-"

Antauri layed a finger on Lotus' lips, gently shushing her, "I know. I over heard you... I mean, our children talking about it just moments before we left the Burmuda Triangle. For decades, I too had thought your existance was erased when you disappeared, my Lotus-flower, yet here we are, together again after all this time."

"I sense that you do not intend to stay, though."

"There is nothing I want more, but right now, there is a war taking place. I have to continue my role in it if our children are to remain safe from the Skeleton King, alas."

"I understand, but just focus on coming back from it alive. I can tell that all three of the triplets want to get to know their father... although, our sons would never admit it."

"Until later then. In the meantime, Otto had these translator collars made for all four of you. They will help the humans understand our primate language so you'd be better cared for."

Lotus took the package... with some difficulty at first, of course, as her hand-eye coordination still needs to readjust... right before Antauri kissed her on both her ears, as he did when the two of them were young, and started to leave. As he headed back to Darwin Manor, all the memories stress blocked out came flooding back to Lotus' mind, giving her a reason to shout:

"Hey! Tar! If I had realized sooner that orange monkey was grumpy-old Mandarin, I never would have hired him to monkey-sit in the first place!"

Antauri chuckled hearing that.

"Well, my Lotus, I'm almost glad he did... and for obvious reasons!"

Seeing a window of opportunity, Xavier sped up to Antauri to give him a great big hug. The silver monkey returned the embrace.

"Don't forget about me," the daughter whispered to her long-lost father, "okay daddy?"

"May fate forbid such a thing, Xavier," Antauri whispered back, "all I ask is that you take good care of your mother, and keep your brothers out of trouble while I'm gone."

"Always."

No further words needed to be said between them as they went their seperate ways... it was clear this family loved each other, even from a distance. Half way between the Angel Grove Zoo and Darwin Manor, Sparx and Nova met with Antauri.

"So," said Sparx, wearing his usual smirk, "how did it go?"

"Soka and Melrose took the news better then expected," said Antauri, as the three monkeys headed back to the manor together, "but Xavier shed tears of joy and embraced me on my way out. I'm sorry I had not informed you nor the team about Lotus sooner then I had."

"Hey, you thought she was gone for good," said Nova, "you were just trying to move on with your life. It could have happened to anyone! Besides, we would've figured out you were related to those little pests on our own soon enough... after all, that girl Xavi was just like you were when you were that age, fur and all."

Antauri chuckled hearing that, "Yes, she is."

After an akward pause, Sparx asked right out of the blue: "Say, Nova, when and if we ever get married... just in retrospect, of course... how'd you feel about having kids?"

"Couldn't have them even if I wanted to, Sparx!" Nova answered, "I can't believe I'm telling you now of all times, but the Alchemist had me fixed when we got our cybernetic parts!"

"SAY WHAT?!"

"Well, I do have the fire-element in my aura, and it does get triggered when I lose my temper. I guess he just didn't want me to hurt anyone when I really get into heat... no pun intended, of course."

"Oh. Bummer. Well... maybe we could adopt! Yeah, there's no harm in that, is there."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! One step at a time, Sparx, I'll need some time to think about that!"

The lover's quarrel between the red and yellow monkeys lasted all the way to Darwin Manor, where Chiro had hung the Jewel of Hope and the Amber Pendent upon hooks just over the mantle of the fireplace. He arranged it so each necklace hung on either side of the Crystal-Ball Orb, where the ghost of the Alchemist was contained... this way, the spirits of his parents could visit the good half their enemy tried and failed to overwealm.

"Any word from Captain Shuggazoom yet, Gibson?" the boy-hero asked, as the blue monkey used the interstellar network on the manor's laptop all while resting on the couch (it will be a while before the smartest monkey on the team tries his luck with the Gym again).

"Well, the good news is that I just recieved a response from him in the intergalactic chat-room," said Gibson, "the bad news is, he won't be coming for a visit... judging by the details of this message, he refuse to leave whatever's left of our home planet ungaurded until at least one of us returns there."

"It's all my fault Chiro," sighed Jinmay, "if I hadn't left my post, we wouldn't have so many problems in this war, and Captain Shuggazoom would be able to come here."

"No, Jinmay, that's my bad," said Chiro, "if I hadn't got my picture taken with the Metamorph Sisters, you wouldn't have had a reason to leave."

"Speaking of those two," stated Gibson, "we just got spacemail from them. Those two had just got ungrounded and their father finally purmitted them to lead the independant life they wanted, but ONLY on the condition that they live it on this planet in their human forms. They claim they'll be moving to a town not-too-far off from Mt. Rushmore. I'm downloading their coodinants as we speak!"

"Great!" said Otto, "I can hardly wait to see the look on their faces when they find out that credit-cards had been rendered useless here since the 27th century!"

At this point, Cassia and C.K. shown up with a package.

"It's from the Institute for Gifted Youngers," Cassia explained, "I can only assume that Logan Howlett kept his word as a godfather, huh Chiro?"

"Only one way to find out," sighed Chiro, "although, I got a bad feeling about this. I mean, the next few flashbacks are about my baby days for crying out loud!"

"Well, you did see some of our embarrassing baby pictures," said Sparx, "so the way I see it, you owe us, kid... big time!"

"And besides, Chiro," added Nova, in a sing-song tone, "we did agree we'd go through with this, no matter what."

"I'll bet Mandarin would feel much better if he saw these," said C.K. as she rushed upstairs to the attic to get him, "don't open that package until I get back!"

"Take your time, C.K." said Chiro, before shouting to the rest of the team, "Quick! Let's get this thing unwrapped before she brings Mandarin down here!"

The Monkey Team didn't need to told twice, but the post office wrapped the package so tightly that Otto's saws and Antauri's claws had a difficult time opening it! By the time they finally got to the enchanted journal pages inside, C.K. had slid down the staircase bannister with Mandarin in her arms, allowing him to see all that Chiro been through as a baby, from getting off Dino Island at the age of three weeks old, to the very eve of his first birthday.

(Author's Note: No, I'm not showing you the flashbacks of Chiro's baby days in this chapter or most of this online novel... he's still embarrassed after having his team-mates see all that! Once he's over it, however, I'll show you in a proper Monkey Team/X-Men Evolution crossover I'd like the title "Misadventures in Babysitting". Keep an eye open for it.)

By the time those flashbacks were over, the entire Monkey Team, even Antauri, had caught an extremely bad case of the giggles over what they seen... but none more so then Mandarin, who practically laughed himself silly! Chiro, however, had never been more embarrassed in his life, and his blushing proved it just before he screamed and ran up to his room. Mandarin aside, everyone stopped laughting after that.

"What's wrong with Chiro?" asked Jinmay, "I thought he was really cute as a baby."

"Purhaps it is best we leave him alone for a while, " Antauri advised, "after all, this is quite a lot for him to absorb, and-"

The silver monkey couldn't bring himself to say anymore, as Mandarin was beginning to sound like a wild hyena! The rest of the Monkey Team was beginning to worry their previous leader was losing his mind again, when Otto ran off saying he'll be right back with a bucket of water... the green monkey goofed up and dumped a BUCKET OF FISH on Mandarin's head instead.

"Otto! That was the compost bin for Madam Esimia's rose garden!" scolded Cassia, annoyance in her tone, "You better clean all this up, right now, before she finds out you wasted it!"

"Sorry," said Otto, "but at least it got Mandarin to stop laughing."

"Yeah," added C.K., "Chiro's baby days were funny, but they weren't THAT funny!"

Mandarin tried to apologize, for it's at this point he officially realized that he has a problem, when an all too firmiliar puff of smoke filled the room, and in that moment Kurt and Logan were standing between the sofa and the fireplace.

"There, see?" said Kurt, "I told you I knew a shortcut."

"Oh no!" moaned Mandarin, upon seeing the teleporting mutant, "Not HIM again!"

"You know, Kurt," said Logan, "we could have used the front door like everyone else!"

"Now where's the fun in that, Logan?" asked Kurt, turning his attention to the monkeys, "I came to see Chiro, is he home?"

"Yes, he just ran upstairs to his room," said Gibson, "door to the left marked with an orange tag, you cannot miss it... might as well enter with caution, though, as the sight of the first two years of his life humiliated him greatly."

"Oh bummer."

Kurt teleported himself upstairs, but Logan stayed in the living room, shaking his head before he started sniffing. Naturally, his eyes glared in Mandarin's direction.

"You might as well take a shower, Mandarin," Logan told the orange monkey, "before you meet me outside in the back yard. I came here to have a word with you... alone."

"And if I refuse?!" stated Mandarin, putting up his stubborn facade.

Logan shown his claws before stating his case: "I know you're on probation, chimp, thus forbidden to fight... don't you dare scorn my honor along with your own!"

Mandarin nodded, his eyes still wide with fear as Logan put his claws away on the way out the back door. Having nothing to object to, Mandarin cleaned himself up before meeting the powerful mutant on the back porch, unaware that the rest of the team was watching from a reasonable distance.

"You wanted to see me, Wolverine?" the orange monkey sighed.

Logan chuckled.

"That, Mandarin, is a title I reserve for my own mask. Right now, just call me Logan. So, anyway, walk with me, talk with me... there's something I got to tell you about."

It became difficult for the Monkey Team to eavesdrop as Logan and Mandarin got far into the backyard between the rose garden and the forest, though with their com-receptors and the magnification goggles it was far from impossible.

"Tell me, Mandarin," they heard Logan say, "do you have any idea what my claws are made out of?"

"Not really," Mandarin answered, "although I could tell from a glimpse that, if I still had my energy sword and sheild, you'd distroy them both in one swipe!"

"Adamantium. The only metal strong enough to rival both titanium and vibranium. You might find it hard to believe, but every bone in my body is made out of adamantium... I wasn't born that way, mind you. A man I once trusted, Colonel Stryker, had some scientists surgically add that metal to my bones due to my rapid healing abilities. Made me less likely to suffer metal poisoning, you know what I mean?"

"So, what you are telling me is that you are a cyborg as well... only... you're inside out?"

"Eh, that's one way to put it, but unlike you, I wasn't created for the greater good. Stryker was a monster, who used my mutation and that metal as a means to create the deadliest assassins on this planet... maybe the entire universe... so he can distroy the rest of mutant kind! That creep even put a microchip in my brain, designed to increase my anger and strip me of my humanity, to keep me under his control... just as that parasite I heard about had controlled you, Mandarin. You were lucky to have allies to get that leech out of you, just as I was when the Prof got that microchip out of me. My half-brother Victor, however, didn't have such restraints in Stryker's favor... if any at all."

"'Half-brother'? What kind of double term is that?! Either you are brothern with someone or you're not!"

"Victor and I were brothers in arms and in blood, we even got the same powers, but dispite being born of the same mother, we came into the world through different fathers, and their surnames to boot. He was part of the Creed family, and I'm a Howlett. Let me tell you, Mandarin, a healing factor can be good for wounds on the body, but the problem is it doesn't help much with the brain. Many of my memories are gone... blurry even... so I barely remember my own childhood, or what our parents were like, but I do recall growing up in Canada, and that Victor's life-long pastime was making my life miserable; and he's the elder brother!"

"Oh... I'm sure he never meant any harm, Logan. After all, just because I always found it more amusing to be cruel to the rest of the Hyperforce then it is to be kind, it does not mean that I do not care about them! To be honest, in an ideal life, nobody would hurt them... physically, mentally, or emotionally... EXCEPT for ME! In fact, making sure THAT actually happens was on the top of my list of things to do when and if I ever became the ruler of Shuggazoom City... second only to having those who live there shower us with tribute everyday, of course."

The Monkey Team could barely believe what they overheard... did Mandarin truely care so much this whole time?!

"You think Victor actually cared about me?" sneered Logan, "Ha! I wasted ages telling myself the same thing! I even thought my prayers were answers when Victor and I had joined the army together during World War 2... fighting the enemy side-by-side while mentored by Captain America himself!"

"WORLD WAR 2?!" gasped Cassia, hearing that through an eavesdropping device Otto built for her earlier, "CAPTAIN AMARICA?! Why, all that happened centuries ago! MONKEY DOODLE! HOW OLD IS THIS GUY ANYHOW?!"

Everyone else shushed her, as Logan had a lot more to say: "It soon became clear, however, just how different I was from my brother. While I joined that stupid war in hopes of protecting our homeland, Victor just wanted a fight to amuse himself. When he got what he wanted, he kept wanting more, and actually insisted that Stryker turns him into an assassin for that horrible Weapon X project, while I got mixed up with the wrong crowd, who TRICKED ME into it! I don't know how many years passed as I ran in the wilderness like an animal, but eventually, the Prof found me, and made me part of the X-Men. I've been fighting against evil by the title 'Wolverine' ever since... but my half-brother, Victor Creed, became a bloodthirsty war-monger with a lust for distruction; my arch-rival... Sabretooth."

"Why are you telling me all this?" asked Mandarin, "Why did you not tell this tale inside the Manor, for the entire Hyperforce to hear?"

"Because you remind me of him AND myself, Mandarin," Logan concluded, "and I don't want you to end up like HIM! His approach to battle is a waste of time... many over the years, I've clashed with Sabretooth, who believes it's our destiny to have one distroy the other. War is sport to him; tried tearing me to pieces from the inside out on several occasions! Of course, he's far from all powerful. My brother-turned-enemy had always been arrogant and unstable; his TEMPER is his WEAKNESS. Get the picture?"

"I... I'm starting too."

"Good. Now let's get back inside. I'm willing to bet my leather jacket that Kurt's attempts to cheer up Chiro are only making things worse."

Hearing that, the Monkey Team turned off their spying equiptment and rushed upstairs to Chiro's room, where Kurt was indeed struggling to calm the boy-hero down.

"Chiro, all I'm saying is that if you thought those memories are embarrassing," Kurt tried to explain, "you should see the year after that. After all, it is at age two that most kids are potty trained by their parents, yours included, and don't get me started on the fact that your second birthday was the day your grandmother, Madam Esimia, insisted you're big enough to have your own bedroom. That night was a doozy! Oh, and also-"

"Shut up, Kurt!" shouted Chiro, "Look, I know you are trying to help, and I do intend to continue this task, but... why did my parents have to put all that in their own journals?! Why didn't they put it in a babybook like eveyone else?!"

"Well, they did have one of those, but that was among the belongings they packed when your parents took you with them on the flight back to Planet Shuggazoom, they probably just copied the moments that highlighted their lives, that's all... it's probably still at that area you lived in before you ended up at the orphanage."

"Yeah.. well, I know we lived in a motel, but I don't remember which one, and with their journals incomplete, the ghosts of my mom and dad don't have a clue either. That's why we have to finish this ordeal as soon as possible before the Skeleton King rules the universe in endless darkness on January 3rd, 3845! If we don't all our efforts would be for nothing."

"That's about ten months away, Chiro! Besides, those journals are clearly over half full, and it isn't like you to grunge so much. What happened to that fun-loving little boy that I used to enjoy babysitting? The one who would do just about anything to dodge his chores to live life to the fullest?! Don't you dare tell me that you grew up, Chiro! That is practically the oldest excuse in the book!"

Chiro thought it over, and then smiled.

"You know, Kurt, you're right. I let this stupid war back on my home planet get the best of me, and dispite the reinforcements we got from other worlds, our constant battles has driven the whole team crazy! To be honest, I wasn't planning on having our vacation until summer, but seeing how far we came... there might not be too much harm in starting a little early."

"Ah-ha! There's the Chiro I've known and loved! C'mon!"

Kurt gave Chiro an playful noogy, only for the boy-hero to retaliate with a tickle attack just as Logan and Mandarin saw what's going on. Not being the type to go back on his word, Logan tossed his leather jacket on top of Mandarin's shoulders... it was too big too fit.

Before long, it was time for the X-Men mutants to be on their way back home, and the Hyperforce was planning to go sight-seeing cross-country, starting at Keystone, South Dakota, where the Metamorph sisters were living in their human disguises.

"But there are so many places on the planet you haven't seen yet," complained Cassia, "the entire continant of Australia, the city of Paris, France, the Great Wall of China... we're always traveling anyway! Why do we have to have our vacation here in the United States of America!"

"We can start visiting those farther places in June," said Chiro, "when we start looking for journal pages again. Right now, we should keep our travels a bit more simple, right team."

"Can't we just fill the journals as soon as possible?!" stated Mandarin, "I want to get it over with as soon as possible so I can focus on more important things... like finding a way out of probation so I can train hard enough to get my clone off our backs once and for all."

"Well, yeah," said Nova, trying not to laugh, "about that... Ha-ha-ha!"

"What's so funny, Nova?!" Mandarin screached, "Do you think I'll NEVER get out of probation! I'll be allowed to fight again, you'll see!"

"It's not that, Manny!" said Sparx, as he and Chiro were also trying not to laugh.

"During those three days you were resting," Gibson tried to explain, "Hanuman sent the rest of us a telepathic message all the way from India revolving around the escape clause to your punishment. Aparently... this is going to sound rediculous... but apparently, due to your hard-hearted nature, he insists that the only way to regain privaledge to your own sword and shield is to gain a sense of true compassion and understanding that connects you to a female of our species whom none of us ever seen before, and guides you to increasing her pleasure along with your own."

"You're not saying...!" gasped Mandarin, trembling at the thought of what's about to be said.

"If you really want your weapons back," said Otto, in a teasing manner, "you gotta FALL IN LOVE with someone first!"

"You cannot be SERIOUS!" Mandarin argued.

"We are serious, Mandarin," said Jinmay, "he told us that when you find a mate that you can love unconditionally, he'll return your sheild, and if she can love you back in the same way, you'll get your sword back too!"

Mandarin stumbled back, refusing to believe what he's hearing, and Antauri floated to his side, gently laying a hand on the orange monkey's shoulder.

"Mandarin, we both knew that this was bound to happen," said Antauri, in his most gentle tone, "the Veron Mystics had insisted on both of us getting mates for a good reason: deep feelings are an important part of channeling the Power Primate. Since you refused to experiance that for yourself-"

"Now is not the time for an I-told-you-so, Antauri!" Mandarin yelled, pushing the silver monkey away, "Do you not understand?! I'm a lost cause! I had never loved anyone other then myself in my entire life, and it's unlikely for me to do so now!"

"You have at least two months to try." said Cassia, "I've read enough novels on the topic to know that love isn't easy, but it'll be worth having if you'd open your heart to it."

"Hey, yeah!" added C.K., "Besides, Mandarin, you already lost your mind, your job, and whatever's left of your dignity... what else do have to lose?!"

"My cowl, my strength, my masculinity," Mandarin pondered out loud, "...my lunch!"

With that said, Mandarin rushed straight up to the attic, and the rest of the team heard him cry himself to sleep all the way from there. Chiro shook his head.

"You know, I almost feel sorry for him," the boy-hero confessed, "almost. My spiritual cousin has a point though: the real Mandarin will have have all the right reasons to fight when he confronts his clone Skelemandarin, or not be in battle at all. With that said, I propose we make a wager over when our orange monkey finds his compassion: before our vacation is over, or after. Losers do the winners chores for a week!"

At this moment, Thingy had knocked over the three artifacts on top of the fireplace mantle, but thankfully nothing was broken, so the ghosts of the Alchemist and the Carrington couple didn't cross over.

"Huh."said Ace, "Rather strong for a little fuzzball."

"Oh! Never mind that, Ace!" said Zoey, "Our son is placing bets over Mandarin's future! If I had been as good a mother when I was eight years old as I was for the five years before we died, this sort of thing would not be happening to our eldest monkey. Father, we have to do something to stop this!"

"No, we do not need to do anything," said Akihito, the Alchemist, "except stay close by, and watch. We might learn something from this ordeal that my darker half does not."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, that settles it. To those who are wondering, we won't encounter the X-Men or their enemies again for another two or three chapters, and the next chapter would be fully focused on the re-encounter the Hyperforce have with the Metamorph sisters. I'd like to read some suggestions you might make for the team's road trip as well as how Mandarin's attempts to gain a love life in hopes of having his weapons back... would it even be true love? Also, how would Chiro's parents play into the plot now that their ghosts have been freed with at least half their needed strength?!

Please Read and Review.