Maybe I was premature. That didn’t sound like a big monkey. That sounded huge.

Soon enough, it’s here and I can check. Yep. Ginormous. This one is twice the size of the big ones. Eight feet tall on all fours, probably twelve if it stands up, and looks like it’s sneaking up on weighing a ton. Shit. That thing doesn’t sneak. It probably walked up and punched a ton in the face. If it attacks the hut, my over/under is about six seconds to a flat hut.

Upon finding me from across the clearing, it charges. Seems to sprint about half my speed. In the worst case, I can dodge, I guess. We start to play tag in circles around the clearing. By tag, I mean I get inside his lunge-reach, wait for him to jump, and then clear out fast. As he lands, I dart in, smack his wrist with all three sticks, and back out. It honestly feels like I’m hitting a log. We do that for 30 seconds, with neither of us getting anywhere

The first problem I’m having with fighting this guy is reach. Escrima teaches that against an unarmed opponent, you have reach. And against an armed opponent, you can get their weapon out of the way, and get in close. But that’s not my situation. His arms are longer than I am. And getting inside doesn’t look like it’s going to help. He’s got five effective arms. And they’re not inflexible like a sword or staff

Not only does this Sasquatch monkey have a seven foot reach, but when I’m near the hut, I duck under a swing, and he claws a deep groove into the hut posts in passing. A second dodge around the post, and he smacks it with his paw. The foot-diameter post cracks audibly. It doesn’t fall over, but it seems structurally compromised.

My second problem is that he’s heavy and incredibly strong. I’m up against something the same size as a Kodiak bear. His mouth is bigger than my head, he could bite off my leg in one snap; that kind of big. But it’s a monkey and on top of everything else, it has a tail that’s grabby and fast. A swipe of it’s claw doesn’t have to scratch me. The impact is probably worse than my baseball bat. I can’t afford to take even a little bit of a hit.

Relying on my traditional strategy, I run away while I think. That’s at least better than his pulling the hut down on top of me. My reach problem and the strength disparity are pretty messy. Hell, his fingers are about as big around as my sticks, though at least the fingers aren't two feet long.

I haven’t been able to hurt his wrist. Screw it. I’ll break his fingers. Next exchange, he tries a lunge-swipe. I’m still faster, and I dodge back, and crack the shit out of a finger before jumping back again. That worked. Kinda. One minute of fighting, I’m getting tired, and the total damage to the monkey is a broken or sprained pinky finger.

My third problem with the big oaf is that he’s tough like wood. No, really. Fighting him is like fighting the stick-dummy or the posts to my hut. I do just about as much damage.

Monkey’s a little pissed that I hurt his finger. Two more exchanges, and two more fingers on the same hand. Trying my favorite strategy again, I run back, set up a sound wall for stun purposes, and get out another baseball bat. It works as well as it did with the mid-sized monkeys. He crashes through the invisible sound wall into a 100 decibel cacophany, and is surprised just enough to get cracked on the elbow with my baseball bat and everything I’ve got.

Baseball bat bounces off, like it hit a wood post. I drop the bat and sprint back. Monkey didn’t like that much, and even though he’s got some broken fingers, he’s not seriously impaired. Cardio training and speed boosts are the only reason I’m even still alive, and it doesn't look like I have a lot longer.

What the fuck. My baseball bat can’t break his elbow. Is he made of fucking stone under the fur? If I survive this, remind me never to fight monsters that weigh a ton and have toughness upgrades. How the hell am I going to survive? Screw winning. I just want to live.

Phuc and I tested my endurance. I’ve got another minute before I slow down, and Mr. Monkey eats me. I can’t break his bones. My speed is only about twice his, and I can’t mostly get close. Baseball bats don’t help. Soundwalls don't help. What have I got?

I blur all the way across the clearing to the dead monkey that’s holding my knife in its face. With two seconds before I have to leave, I succeed in extracting the knife, and run off. A second soundwall trap is set up quickly, and when Bigfoot comes through, he’s stunned just a short quarter second again. That gives me time to stab though. I dash in, and stab the inside of his elbow, before darting back out. The knife didn’t even fucking cut through his skin. Knife! Steel! I should just lay down and die.

What do I have left? Thirty seconds? It’s not an enrage timer on the boss. It’s a not-a-gym-rat timer on the drummer. New plan. Dodge into the forest, through thick trees where monkey can’t get to me.

I look five yards to the side, and dive through a stand of trees. Monkey comes after me. I get five seconds before Kong knocks down enough trees to charge through. But five seconds of rest is more than what I had. A minute of light exercise dodging around the clearing and making Kong chase me has me at least recovered enough to last another minute maybe. And I’m sure that the monkey will get tired before uprooting the whole forest. I hope I’m sure.

I see no good way to beat this monkey. It's like I'm a drone against a tank. Well fuck. I guess I've got one more shot.

First step: Staying inside the woods, and keeping the ogre angry by throwing baseballs, I take out the golf club I got with my sports equipment at the last trial. It's metal like I remember. I use the knife to quickly cut the rubber on top away from the steel shaft, which ends up being about as big around as my pinky finger. Fucking knife can cut rubber, but not monkeys. What the hell? I finish opening the golf club, and I even manage to not stab myself while zipping between the trees.

Step two: I find a spot on the lawn that’s clear of dead monkeys, and start building a sound bubble. A five foot diameter ball, five feet above the ground. It takes thirty seconds between taunting and running from Bigfoot to get it perfect. Clearing is about five yards deeper now, all the way around, as Kongzilla is clearing trees like an angry gardener removes weeds.

Step three: I do my newest sound trick: I make the soundwall bubble into a sound multiplier bubble. Instead of just reflecting sound, it reflects and increases volume. A couple shouts indicate the bubble works better than expected. It reflects sound and increases the volume by five percent.

Fourth step, I run around to where the bubble is between me and my doom, so I’m touching the bubble but not inside it. I reach in, and crack two escrima sticks together. I hear nothing because my sound bubble is just that good. Ugly notices, and charges. from where he's stuck in the trees, it takes seven seconds to extricate himself, and three to get to me. I take two steps away from the bubble, and turn my hearing all the way off.

I do my best Gandalf impression in black leather, slam my stripped golf club into the ground and yell “You shall not pass.”

Monkey enters the bubble, goes limp, flops, and plows into the ground at my feet, thoroughly stunned, face two feet from mine. I take the golf club, and slam it’s skinny end through the Balrog’s eyeball with both hands. A quarter second later, I’m using the croquet mallet to hammer it in deeper. In less than a second, only the club part is sticking out of the monkey’s giant head.

Turns out that if you amplify sound by five percent, and then you do it again, and again, it eventually gets super-loud. "Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe," said someone. Compounding sound seems pretty good too. I've heard it with feedback, from a mike too near a speaker, but this was stronger. The sound increased by five percent for each reflection, and sound crosses a five foot sound bubble 230 times in a second, 2300 times in the ten seconds it took him to reach me. One point oh five raised to the two-thousand-odd power makes sound that's a lot a lot louder. Jet engine 3 feet away; blood leaking out of your ears; balance destroyed along with your eardrum; those levels of super-loud. Max level of sound on earth is around 194 decibels. We got there with the sound-multiplier bubble. And apparently the monkey's eardrums weren't protected. Nor his eyeball.

But that took a lot of thaums. I'm completely out of juice. I jog 100 yards out into the forest, and let the sound bubble pop. Sounds like a gunshot or a bomb.

Exhausted, I stagger back into the hut with a cracked post before I collapse. Focusing on the important things, I drop my drum kit out of my pockets, and get it set up before laying down on my bed. I don’t even have the juice to drum now. I stuff forty thaums in my mouth, planning to get up and work in three minutes, but I black out anyway.