First Fight Friday: Of Introductions And Abductions: Monkey Queen Book One by Robert Dahlen

Goats solve their differences head-on. They don’t give the silent treatment or yell, they butt heads, and then it’s over.

Cowboy Marvin has learned humans resolve issues differently especially those romantically involved. His curiosity sparked, he has invited authors to stop by on Fridays and share the first fight from one of their books.

Author  

Robert Dahlen


     is here for ...

First Fight Friday 

with a scene from

Of Introductions And Abductions
Monkey Queen Book One

Beth McGill, college student and geek girl, has just discovered that her favorite professor has been hiding a secret behind a magical disguise. Unfortunately, she runs across someone else who's 
doing the same - an ogre, who corners her in an alley. 
But help is on the way...

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That's when Beth noticed someone standing next to the ogre. She was slender and short, not much over five feet tall, in her late teens. She was Asian, Beth guessed Japanese, with brown eyes and ruffled, slightly messy black hair that came to just above her eyebrows in front and down to her collar in back. She was wearing a yellow karate-style jacket with red trim over a black t-shirt and leggings, and a red pillbox hat with a matching scarf that was just long enough to make Beth wonder how she kept from tripping over it. She held in one hand a wooden staff with gold tips; it was taller than she was. She had one fist in the air, mimicking the ogre. She was grinning.

"Now," the ogre said, pointing at himself, "you will come with me." The woman pointed at herself.

"If you do not," and the ogre clenched a fist; again, the woman did the same.

"You will be destroyed!" the ogre said.

"NOT!" the woman shouted.

The ogre finally realized there was someone next to him. He turned to face the woman, looming over her but visibly confused. She grinned back at him. "Monkey Queen!" he finally said, stepping back.

"Right the first time, Sunshine!" she said, her grin widening.

The ogre growled and grabbed a cracked two by four from the ground. "I will destroy you, Monkey Queen!" he bellowed.

"Oh, it's always the same, isn't it?" the woman said as the ogre charged. "I meet a new guy, and all he wants is to destroy me. Whatever happened to romance anyway?"

And with that, the Monkey Queen jumped in the air and kicked the ogre in the face.

He roared wordlessly and staggered back. She landed on her feet and said, "I know. It must be a shock. But can't you just picture it? Our first date?"

The ogre swung his makeshift club at her. She easily bent out of its way. "The two of us out on a moonlit night..." she said.

The ogre swung again. The Monkey Queen raised her staff with both hands and parried the blow. The board splintered, but the staff wasn't even scratched. "...The wind blowing through my hair and your ears..." she said.

The ogre growled and raised a fist the size of a bowling ball. "And you smile and eat the flowers you just bought for me," she said as she hit the ogre over the head with her staff.

As the ogre fell to his knees, holding his head and wincing in pain, the Monkey Queen said, "Well, maybe we should have dinner first. You okay over there?" she shouted to Beth.

"M-m-me?" Beth said, still trying to absorb what she had seen as she sat up.

"Well, I don't mean Sunshine there. Did you smell his breath?" The woman grimaced. "But you still haven't answered my—"

"Monkey Queen!"

She spun around and had just enough time to say "Uh-oh" before the ogre hit her.

She hit the ground hard, dropping her staff, and didn't move. The ogre roared in triumph. "The Monkey Queen was no match for me!" he said as he bent down to pick her up. "My mistress will be pleased."

As Beth watched, a small voice inside her head whispered, He's not paying attention to you. Run while you can. Get away. Another part of her said, Don't move! Stay still! Maybe he'll forget about you and leave you alone. But then she realized that both voices were being drowned out by the one that was shouting Screw this!, and that's when, to her surprise, she grabbed an empty soda bottle and threw it at the ogre. "Back off!" she yelled.

The bottle bounced off the ogre's head, and he turned to face her. Beth gasped, her heart racing, as he said with a sneer, "So you are brave after all. No matter." He took two steps towards Beth; she tried to back away as he said, "I was told to bring you in alive, but if you—"

"That's it!"

The Monkey Queen jumped to her feet and grabbed the surprised ogre by his shirt. "I try to be nice, and this is what I get?" she said as she lifted him over her head. "The date's off!"

She gave the ogre an airplane spin. "Oh well, it wouldn't have worked out anyway. After all, I am the Monkey Queen...and you're a dork." She threw the ogre head-first into the garbage cans. "That should do it," she said, picking up her staff. "Now, are you okay?"

Beth tried to put what she was thinking into words. "I—you—he—"

"I know," the Monkey Queen said with a nod. "Sunshine there was tougher than I thought. But you still haven't answered my—"

"Look out!" Beth shouted.

The Monkey Queen glanced over her shoulder. The ogre, sitting up amid the garbage cans, had pulled a dagger from his boot. "Die, Monkey Queen!" he said as he threw it at her.

"Do you mind?" she yelled as she swung her staff at the dagger. "We're trying to have a conversation here!" The staff struck the dagger and sent it flying back at the ogre, hilt first. Before he could react, the hilt hit him in the forehead. He toppled over, unconscious.

"Say goodnight, Sunshine! Now," the Monkey Queen said to Beth, "let's see if we can get this in a complete, coherent sentence: Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"That's a complete, coherent sentence?" The Monkey Queen grinned.

"Don't play semantics games with me," Beth said. "I'm an English major."

Copyright © Robert Dahlen
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Of Introductions And Abductions: Monkey Queen Book One by Robert Dahlen

"How would you like to help me save the world?"

That was not a phrase that Beth McGill, college student and geek girl, had ever expected to hear, even on a Friday. 

But when Michiko, the teenage hero called the Monkey Queen, rescues Beth from an ogre, her life gets turned upside down. 

And when a mutual friend is kidnapped, Michiko and Beth will have to deal with faeries, hobgoblins, a ravenous troll and a sarcastic guinea pig to find him...and the dark masterminds behind the abduction.

It'll be a weekend they'll never forget...

if they survive to see Monday morning.

Of Introductions And Abductions
Monkey Queen Book One

is available on 

Amazon ~ iBooks ~ Kobo ~ Nook 

Robert's Bio:

Fantasy novelist, all-around wisecracker and penguin aficionado, Robert Dahlen lives in California with lots of penguins (no surprise), a tablet stuffed with e-books and works in progress, and a very nice hat. He is hopefully working on more Monkey Queen stories as you read this. And FYI, his last name is pronounced "duh-LANE", as in "The rain in Spain falls mainly on Dahlen," which explains why Henry Higgins was finally committed.

And also to no one's surprise, he mentions that the great cover art is © 2014 Willow, and used by permission. If you like her art, and I hope you do, see more of it at http://willow-san.deviantart.com 

Follow Robert Dahlen online

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Thanks for sharing Robert!