Author note, This is part one of my Mayhem trial series. Pt 2 can be found Here Find all the Mayhem here DC Mayhem Library
Detective Chimp awoke hanging from a cold stone wall. His wrists bound in metal cuffs and hung over over his head with a thick chain. A few experimental tugs told him the chain and cuffs were designed for creatures much stronger then himself. Somewhere, someone is sobbing loudly. His head is pounding and vision is a little blurry, but he could just make out the blue figure similarly strung against the opposite wall.
"About time you woke up, Bobo." Blue Devil grinned. A cut on the side of his mouth reopened and began to bleed.
A week before...
The back storeroom is hot and dimly lit. A smokey haze drifts over the air heavy enough to choke those with uninitiated lungs. The folding table is littered with empty beer bottles and food crumbs. Cards are held close like newborn children and desperate mental calculations are made.
Detective Chimp barely glanced at his cards. According to his exceptional memory, and card counting skills, he could beat two of the other hands. And he knew from experience he could bluff the third.
"So you've been to Gorilla city? What's that like?" Tammy, the only female player asked. She had a crap hand and was stalling.
"Its a bit like London, except it rains less and you can't find a good spot of tea." Detective Chimp replied curtly. "Now you tell me, are you enjoying the smell of chimp sweat so well you're prolonging the experience?" He held his cards with his toes and lit his pipe.
"I was just making conversation--" She mumbled.
"Monkey man is right. Play or fold Tight-walk." Ed the new player grunted. No one knew if that was his name or not, but it was stitched on his shirt. Of course by that logic his name could have been sweaty pits. Or bad aftershave. He struck Detective Chimp as the type who used deodorant as a substitute for bathing.
The third player had the best hand but a bad poker face. More specifically his foot gave him away. It tapped when he had a bad hand. He shifted his right leg when he had a good hand, making his shades not only pointless but silly as well.
"I am not a monkey. I am a chimp." Detective Chimp had corrected Ed on this three times already. But if this evolutionary throwback thought he could get under his fur, he had another thing coming.
"You're both rude, disgusting animals." Tammy throws her cards down and stormed out.
"One can judge a man by the company he keeps." Detective Chimp commented dryly.
"Ha. You told her." Ed said, oblivious to the irony.
"Fortune cookie?" The third player asked. He had been designated "Skeetch" By Ed who had a nickname for everyone.
"Euripides actually." Detective Chimp replied.
"Sounds Japanese to me." Skeetch said.
"It is Japanese stupid. Fortune cookies is Chinese." Ed replied.
For a moment Detective Chimp had an attack of conscience, and wondered if its morally right to take these amoebas money.
"What'cha got skeetch?" Ed asked.
"Raise." Skeetche replied, and shifted his right leg slightly.
"Me too. All or nothing eh?." Detective Chimp pushed all his chips forward.
"Heh. Monkey see monkey do." Ed chuckled. Or choked. Either way its an unpleasant sound.
"Well yes, the monkeys proclivity for repeating actions is well known. Personally I feel they would get on better with a parliamentary system. Oh listen to me going on about politics. And I am not a monkey. You in or out Ed?." All pretense of chivalry is gone.
Ed obviously did not like being called out and scrowled with open resentment. Then his expression changed to a forced smile. He glanced at his cards for effect. "Well, I'm out. Good game. Same time next weak?" The forced smile again as he pushed back from the table and walked heavily out of the room.
"Just me and you then." Skeetch commented.
"You have a firm grasp on the situation." Detective Chimp replied.
His heightened sense of smell picks up the scent of fear and anger as Ed stormed back in, and crowbared Skeetch in the head with a sickening crunch. Skeetch falls out of his seat unconscious, or worse.
"Got something for you too, you f**ki'n Monkey!!" He pulls a pistol from his waist band. Detective Chimp doged to the left and pitched a bottle fast ball style at Eds face. The bottle and Eds nose bust at the same time with a spray of blood, and cheap beer. The ensuing scream is impressive in volume, if not more feminine then expected.
Detective Chimp leaped onto the table and tackled Ed to the ground with a crash, then he twisted Eds gun hand savagely with a snap, inciting another scream.
"You humans and your guns." He sneered as he clutched Ed tightly by the throat. "Going to shoot a chap over some cards eh? Perhaps we should cast aside the mask of civility and descend into barbarism?" He grinned, displaying wicked teeth. "What if I tear your face off and eat it? I have wondered in the past what human tastes like." He paused and turned Eds face first one way, then the other, as if inspecting it. He picked up the broken bottle and examined the jagged part. "It seems to agree with Grodd very well. Now then, what am I?"
"Chagg." Ed gagged.
"What's that?" Detective Chimp loosened his grip slightly.
"A Cak-Chimp." He choked out.
"Don't forget it." Detective Chimp Punched him twice. Once to knock him out, and again for practise.
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