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sketching-shark · 3 years

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Hmmmm seems like there’s a widespread sentiment that the Lady Bone Demon disaster at the end of Monkie Kid Season 2 is largely Sun Wukong’s fault due to him having left without telling anyone where he was going & then I thought “oh man he probably thinks the same.” And thus I was inspired for my first fanfic evar, made to carry that line of thought to its logical extreme. TW for violence, body horror, and a downer ending.

Blood From a Stone

He had said it was a journey to the west, but it was clear soon after that this would be a “journey of everyone glaring at Sun Wukong and constantly reminding him how they were only in this position due to his failure.” He guessed he deserved it to some extent, what with the whole leaving on “vacation” thing, but, well, it would be nice if they remembered he wasn’t the Lady Bone Demon herself.

It was obvious a week after the fruition of her plans that that wasn’t happening any time soon.

For the most part, as they were flying off on a quest for the first piece of the flame of Samadhi (”it was the only thing that was able to almost kill me. I’m positive it will be able to take her down”), all the others kept themselves at a distance. Which did make some sense. Even to his successor he was largely an unknown, and he had overheard Qi Xiaotian finally tell the rest (kid keeps too much to himself oh I wonder where he got that from) about all the horrible, horrible things that had happened in Sun Wukong’s absence and that the kid thought he had to deal with alone. About the spider clan, about the possessed little girl and the powerful, malicious spirit behind it all, about Macaque and his enslavement lantern and his story of the evil “hero” and the abandoned warrior. And most damningly for himself, how every time Qi Xiaotian tried to talk to him and tell him of his fears and concerns, Sun Wukong had brushed him off, too wrapped up in his own actions to think the kid needed assurance or guidance or just someone to listen. So now they all didn’t just hold him at a distance, but now only talked to him with chilly politeness at best and a cold hostility at worst. The once excitable scholar Tang now only approached him when necessary, the blue giant Sandy watched him carefully but didn’t say anything (it was like being stonewalled by Sha Wujing all over again), both Bai Longma’s descendant Xiaojiao and the pig yaoguai Pigsy had yelled at him more than twice now (okay, fine, he was a selfish unthinking jerk. He knew. He knew, all right?). With all the yelling, it did feel in some small way like he was back with his long-dead pilgrim group. But now there were no signs he would ever be forgiven or welcomed into the social circle, even as the guy who just hung in the back. Even Xiaotian was getting more and more angry in their daily sparring sessions (”will you deign to train me now, your majesty?”), and more than once the weakened monkey king had gotten bruises and lumps from his student’s wrathful strikes. Sun Wukong told himself it made sense, of course it made sense. This was...this was his fault, and they probably figured that he would run off and abandon them the second he saw something shiny. He understood. But he was a social creature despite his self-imposed exile, and it still hurt.

Sun Wukong was mulling this over the second week into their journey when he realized that he hadn’t been called down to the communal dinner Pigsy always insisted they have. He had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable at these times, and could tell there was camaraderie and laughter that Xiaotian’s group found among each other that left the room as soon as he entered. After that it was just an uncomfortable silence, or for the laughter and conversation to resume while everyone pretended he wasn’t there. But still, he was feeling hungry, and so leapt down from the beam he had designated as “his” spot before padding over to the kitchen. He found it dark and empty, with all pots and bowls and cutlery washed clean and put away.

“There’s no more left.” The pig yaoguai emerged from the storeroom in the back, wiping his hands on his apron and shooting Sun Wukong a glare that was clearly meant as a challenge. “If you wanted food, you should have come when called.” Sun Wukong stared back, and knew that he could he thoughtless, but he wasn’t deaf.

Okay. He had played this “game” before with Zhu Bajie on many occasions. So Sun Wukong knew the situation was this: there had been food and there had been a meal, but because they were mad at him they either didn’t make enough for him, or ate what would have been his share. And he could respond with accusations which would of course escalate (the pig was clearly looking for a fight) or...

or...

“All right. Are there any ingredients left?”

The pig yaoguai regarded him suspiciously. “You can cook?”

“When needed.”

A snort of contempt. “Sure. Seems you��re a whole fountain of skills, but only ‘when needed,’ huh?”

Sun Wukong didn’t raise to the bait.

Pigsy snorted again. “Yeah, there’s stuff in the back. Don’t burn down my kitchen.” With that his fellow yaoguai shoved his way past Sun Wukong, slamming the door behind him and leaving the monkey king all alone.

Sun Wukong felt himself trembling. When he had decided to take on Qi Xiaotian as a successor, he had been feeling hope for the future for the first time in centuries. He thought he had finally found someone who was actually worthy of possessing the strength and power that Sun Wukong had cultivated, someone who would do real good in the world, unburdened by the monkey king’s sordid past. He had been thoughtless. Of course all of his past mistakes and unfinished business would immediately come roaring back the second he showed his face, of course every damned yaoguai out there would go after Xiaotian immediately as the easier target. And his response? Always some version of “you’ll be fine” or “just believe in yourself” before he left, left and abandoned his own student to all sorts of harm. And just look where they were now. Even if (no, when, it had to be a “when”) they defeated the Lady Bone Demon, this was how it was going to be from here on out. And he had no one to blame but himself.

Sun Wukong furiously scrubbed at his suddenly stinging eyes, and jerked a knife from a nearby block before stomping into the storeroom to see what he could eat. He grabbed a mango from a shelf before starting the peeling process. As he worked the knife against the tough skin, his mind circled back and forth over all the failures that marked his life; the burning of Flower-Fruit Mountain and the agonizing deaths of thousands of his beloved monkeys, the deaths of his master and fellow pilgrims, his inability to calm the Demon Bull King, and now this most recent disaster with the Lady Bone Demon not only being freed but getting everything she wanted. He had failed and failed again as a king, a monk, and a mentor, and everyone had to suffer from his mistakes while he was nothing but useless, useless, useless--!

Sun Wukong let out a monkey’s shriek of pain as the knife suddenly slipped and gouged a deep cut across his palm. Hissing in pain, he dropped the half-peeled mango, whipping his head around in a frantic search for something to staunch the blood. He knew he was in for another yelling session if he got the storeroom dirty, and he was trying to stay out of the way and be helpful and not make a mess, but he always failed, and he just wanted it to stop hurting...

A faint curl of smoke suddenly rose out of his palm’s deep gash. Sun Wukong gasped and looked down, and then couldn’t look away. The wound itself seemed to pulse for a few of his heartbeats before it became warm, and then painfully hott6bt. And then, to the monkey king’s astonishment, the exposed blood and muscle turned the golden red of lava and slowly, oh so slowly, started fusing the two sides of the cut back together. The process took over an hour, and that entire time he watched in fascination as his flesh melded back together. When the cut was done mending, there wasn’t even a hint of a scar left. It’s like the wound had never happened at all.

He had lost almost all of his powers to the Lady Bone Demon. But this, the monkey king realized, was something inherent to his nature as an animate stone primate. This was something he could cultivate into true strength.

Sun Wukong smiled, and clutched the kitchen knife. Maybe he didn’t have to be so useless after all.

...

“Monkey.”

Sun Wukong raised his head and was greeted with the hate-filled glare of Qi Xiaotian.

“It’s time to continue training.”

Sun Wukong didn’t like the look in the kid’s eyes, never mind that this was the most he had said to him for two days. It was their fifth week into the journey, first piece of the flame of Samadhi secured, but only after a lot of danger from the Lady Bone Demon’s new minions. They had to assume she knew what they were going after, and while she didn’t have a map of the other two locations it was still a race against the clock as to who would get the other two pieces next. They were all worried and stressed. And the kid’s blows in training had continued to get even more furious, the wounds Sun Wukong sustained more serious (all good practice for cultivating his new power), but it was making him more and more hesitant to spar against Xiaotian. Still, it was true that in their weakened states they needed to figure out ways of fighting that accounted for the loss of strength. The more training the better, even if he usually came out of it sporting a black eye.

“All right, bud.”

“Don’t call me bud” Qi Xiaotian snapped, and spun on his heels to stalk away. Sun Wukong trailed after him into the makeshift sparring the monkie crew had made by shifting boxes around and stacking a number of wooden staffs against the wall. Qi Xiaotian grabbed a staff for himself before all but hurling one at Sun Wukong, and then took his stance. The monkey king felt his fur go erect from the hostility crackling through the air. But if the kid wanted to spar, then they would spar. He owed him that much, at least.

Xiaotian came at him fast, but his anger was making his technique sloppy. Sun Wukong tried to play the good mentor and told him as much while blocking his student’s strikes. Xiaotian snarled and tried again, but did make sure his form tightened into something more vicious, controlled, and unpredictable.They continued for awhile, Sun Wukong giving advice as needed, Xioatian growling in response, before a blow suddenly struck Sun Wukong in the stomach and bent him double.

“Gah! Ouch...okay kid, that was a good blow. Let’s start over and take it from th-”

A sudden crack to the side of his head forced a shriek of surprise and pain, and sent the monkey king tumbling to the ground.

“What are you-!!”

Another strike on his ribs.

“Augh! Sto-!!”

A crack to his jaw.

Sun Wukong, once the great sage equal to heaven, whimpered in fear and pain and scurried as quickly as he could away from his student, who was stomping towards him, murder in his eyes. For a few seconds, Sun Wukong thought frantically through the events of the past few days, wondering what he had done or said to make Xiaotian hate him this much. And then it hit him, all far too late, stupid monkey that he was.

It was everything. It was their whole relationship. It was putting this human in so much danger with so little help from the word go, all that time of being handed a role far too big to fill, and not given even half the preparation or support he should have received. It was the whole mess, and Sun Wukong was, as always, the idiot monkey behind it all.

When all was said and done, Xiaotian’s hatred and violence was completely justified, and Sun Wukong deserved all the pain he might dole out.

Xioatian loomed over him, an expression of wild rage twisting his formerly cheerful features into a frightening mask. He brought the staff up.

And Sun Wukong closed his eyes, and let the punishment commence.

...

He opened his eyes. Both were too fractured to do anything more than squint. Xioatian was still standing over him, suddenly not moving, but Sun Wukong couldn’t make out anything more than a fuzzy shape. He turned his head to the side, and felt the pieces of his broken jaw shift as he coughed up a thick puddle of dark blood. Neither of them said anything (not like he could with his shattered face, deserve it though he did). The only sound in the makeshift training room was the monkey king’s ragged breaths, and Xiaotian’s increasingly erratic ones. Poor kid sounded like he was close to hyperventilating, and Sun Wukong winced in sympathy, remembering the terrible swirl of conflicting emotions he himself had experienced the first time he had beaten a hated enemy to death. The blinding wrath, and then the fear and guilt of one’s own actions warring with a sense of righteousness.

He was hurt, and badly so. But it was only what was owed. The infliction of punishment and pain was Xiotian’s right, just like it had been Tang Sanzang’s before him, and the Buddha himself before that. Sun Wukong now knew that that this was what had to happen: the bad monkey does bad things, and then he suffers a punishment fitting the crime. He understood just how necessary this was, he should be used to it by now, and yet...he would be sobbing his eyes out if he could (his heart had been shattered and ground to fine dust and he could blame no one but himself his fault his fault it was always his fault). But something was different this time. The punishments had always hurt, had hurt this time too. But now, he suddenly realized with a shaky, full-body jolt, that physically, he no longer felt a thing. Not the horror show that was currently his face, not his broken ribs, not his bloodied torso. He was aware of the damage, and yet the pain that should accompany it had at some point through the beating simply stopped registering outside of a dim awareness, like one is aware that the stars exist: there, but not really important for your own life’s events.

It was...a relief. Refreshing, even. Sun Wukong shifted his broken body around a little more, clinically assessing what needed to be fixed. He decided to start with the spine.

Though he now could feel nothing, those weeks cultivating his new talent for self repair meant he could still focus his energy and compel his stone form to go slightly molten. His early training in medicine helped here with deciding how his flesh and nerves and bone should be fixed. In the span of around ten minutes, he was able to sit up and breathe normally and move his arms. He used the restored maneuverability to snap his nose into the correct spot and hold his jaw in the proper place as its pieces fused back together. Soon enough, just like with the first accidental cut and all the intentional ones that had followed, it was like the punishment had never happened. Eyesight restored, he looked up at Xiaotian. His already ashen heart sank a little lower at the sight. The kid was splattered with his blood, his former fury gone. He looked so lost and so, so scared. In a rush, Sun Wukong remembered the horror on Tang Sanzang face when the monk first realized his ability to inflict blinding pain on the monkey king with the golden fillet (that look didn’t last; it had been justified anger and justified contempt afterwards), and then again even further back then that the feeling of taking his first life, a demon who in retrospect was the embodiment of his first real failure. This mountain lord of chaos had, after all, killed monkey after monkey in Sun Wukong’s absence, had done these things while the monkey king was having a grand time learning the secrets of immortality. He had let his fear of death drive him away from his subjects, instead of staying with them and protecting them like a king should.

He really had been a selfish and rotten cretin his entire life, hadn’t he?

Sun Wukong had known this for centuries, but it was now clearer than clear he could never pretend otherwise again.

Sun Wukong stood up, and Qi Xiaotian stumbled backwards with a fearful gasp, hiding behind the blood-soaked wooden staff as much as he could. This new terror all because of him hurt, but it was all too understandable; the kid had once obsessed over the monkey king’s past. He knew how vengeful he once was, how destructive he could be.

“I’m not going to attack you.”

A staring silence.

“Really, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

More silence. Sun Wukong sighed. So this was how his half-baked attempt to train a successor would end. There was nothing he could do or say to make this better.

He should never have tried to take on a student. Just like everything else he did, it was doomed to end in failure and pain.

“You go wash up. I’ll clean everything here. It will be like it never happened.”

Xiaotian dropped the staff, his eyes welling with tears. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if trying to find something to say, before letting out a guttural sob and bolting from the room.

That would be the last time they would speak for weeks.

...

Their looks of suspicion were now mixed with something approaching actual concern. Sun Wukong didn’t understand why. It’s not like he felt anything any more, and his self-repair had now reached a point where he could be very useful to the rest of the group. Just the other day, in fact, he had taken a gutful of spears that had been aimed at Tang, and wasn’t it wonderful how he had been able to beat back their attackers and completely heal those wounds in but a half hour! He just wished that the others could see that. After they had secured the second piece of the Flame of Samadhi and ran back safely to the airship (and he was sorry that Sandy had to expend all that extra effort carrying him on board), they had run around him and stirred up no small amount of commotion (except for Xiaotian, who now always hung back, watching him with haunted eyes that he knew he would make worse if he tried to fix). But beyond the initial surprise, their responses weren’t something Sun Wukong could understand at all, especially since the time between being wounded and his body finishing the repairs was shortening every day. This was all to the good. But still...the two other yaoguai and one middle-aged human kept taking him aside and asking him in varying ways what the hell was wrong with him and why he kept scaring everyone like that. It didn’t seem to matter how often he pointed out that it was because of this wonderful ability that no one else had gotten seriously hurt, or how often explained that he would heal, or that it didn’t even hurt. They just looked more frustrated than ever. When Pigsy inadvertently stumbled across Sun Wukong in the midst of one of his private feeding sessions--the monkey king had stopped going where he obviously wasn’t wanted, and had decided he would no longer eat their food, exchanging it for a diet of stone and ore (he understood now why he had been given nothing but metal pellets to eat and molten copper to drink in his centuries under the mountain; it toughened up his body wonderfully)--the pig man had started with his usual yelling, but had then slapped the chewed-up chunk of metal scrap out of Sun Wukong’s hand, forcibly dragged him into the kitchen, and made him a bowl of noodles right there. He even refused to let Sun Wukong leave until he had consumed every strand, and then forced him to promise that from then on he would be there for the usual evening dinners, and that he would eat what he was given.

Sun Wukong was grateful to leave that scene, and especially grateful that the pig man didn’t seem to know that yaoguai rhesus macaques possessed a throat pouch in which they could store whatever food they might want for later or, in his case, didn’t want at all. The monkey king took extra care to make sure that no one was following him up to the airship’s balcony, that he was completely alone, and then emptied the noodles overboard in one heave. He had some fun watching passing birds start dive-bombing this sudden bounty (covered in monkey saliva though it was), and then pulled out a few bullets he had picked up on their last stop, popping them into his mouth one by one as if they were his favored peach chips.

Even with the promises he now must keep, he could make this work. He could keep getting stronger.

And that had worked for awhile, at least until Macaque made his move.

...

The last time Sun Wukong had seen Macaque, his double had been wreathed in a giant made of shadow and trying to kill both him and Xiaotian. Very little had changed from then, although now the giant before them, having arrived in a burst of blue mist and pinned them down with tendrils of living shadow as they attempted to navigate a narrow ravine, was clearly much more powerful than before, his features now defined not by a purple glow, but by a sickly, blue-white light.

He knew his brother hated him (and for good reason, just like everyone else), but he had at least assumed his love of freedom would keep him from joining forces with a demon known for her desire and ability to possess even her “allies” in every single way.

“HEL. OH. SUN. WU. KONG.”

The voice alone caused the entire crew to wince in pain, even though the malice was directed solely at the monkey king.

“YOR. NO. KING. IM. KING.” The giant crawled closer, that sickly light bathing them all in its terrible glow.

“KILL. KING. THEN. KING. ANLY. WUN. KING.”

Sun Wukong had a sudden creeping suspicion that his brother’s current state might not be as consensual as he had first assumed. The shadow monkey had always prided himself on his intelligence, and whatever was happening with him now seemed to be suppressing everything--even language--not related to destroying Sun Wukong. Well, he had been expecting something like this since he had first overheard Xiaotian’s story of Macaque’s attempt to attack and manipulate him once again, and so had been preparing himself. Thanks to his new wonderful ability to not feel anything Sun Wukong was able to easily ignore how his ribs creaked under the weight of his brother’s tendril of shadow, and by an extreme act of thrashing managed to free both himself and one of the magically enhanced incendiary grenades he now carried at all times. He felt nothing as he threw it into Macaque’s face, nothing but satisfaction at a job well done as the giant monkey reared back, shrieking in pain and dropping the rest of the crew as the tendrils lashed about furiously and uncontrolled. Sun Wukong turned but briefly to Sandy, giving himself only time to say “Get the others to safety. I’ll draw him off your tail” before he flung across the cliff side, his steel-strong fingers and toes easily carving foot and handholds. He had gambled that in this degraded state and with a new pain and further grudge to bear, Macaque wouldn’t even think about taking hostages and just chase after him. He glanced back to confirm his suspicions, and the sight of his brother’s snarling and melting but quickly reforming shadow face coming closer and closer proved him correct. Having reached a stony path within the cliff, he ran, dropping to all fours to quicken the pace, using every trick he could to escape the grasping claws and whipping tendrils of the thing of dumb rage his brother had become. And all the time he could feel Macaque gaining on him, his booming squeals of delight in a chase he was sure to win forcing Sun Wukong to faster and faster speeds. He HAD to get Macaque as far away from the others before he was caught and killed.

He was finally put to ground when Macaque’s gigantic hand swept through the air at a furious pace, but clipping Sun Wukong. It was enough to send the monkey king flying through the air, a huge gouge in his side, and then that same hand slammed into him so hard he it felt like every rib was snapped at once. He was pinned to an unyielding cliffside face before the colossal hand curled into a fist, and he was brought face to face with Macaque, who’s own features twisted into a frightening mix of malevolence and delight.

“CAHT. YU. KILL. YU. THEN. IM. KING.”

By the fruit and flowers of his first home, his brother had been left with a one-track mind. But that had been the case for centuries, wasn’t it? They had been twins, born from the same heaven and earth nourished stone. Macaque had started out as the stronger, more confident one of the pair, soon becoming the unofficial leader of their first monkey troop and long being the unofficial protector and only friend of his timid brother. But how quickly things could change. From but one act of dumb bravery, Sun Wukong became not just the leader but the very king after he alone had dared to jump through that waterfall, discovering in the process a cave in which all the monkeys could be more safe than they had ever been before. And then in the centuries that followed, he had pushed himself to greater and greater acts, gathering knowledge, power, family, friends, hells, an entire mountain rage full of yaoguai that hailed him as a great king. And for a long while Macaque had seemed proud of his brother and happy with this arrangement, but maybe, Sun Wukong thought bitterly, only because he was still the top priority in the monkey king’s life, the one person that Sun Wukong would drop everything to scamper after if Macaque so much as hinted that he should do so, just like when they had been children. Sun Wukong had shared everything he had learned and owned with his twin, and together they had toured the skies and the seas, doing whatever they pleased and going wherever they wanted. And it had seemed good, for awhile. The problems, and his failures, had really started when Sun Wukong had started to make other close friends, while Macaque seemed to want no one really important in his life but his twin. Sun Wukong still remembered their first fight about this, which had started with a snide remark about how Sun Wukong was apparently mooooning after the Demon Bull King, and soon exploded into a full on screaming match in which Macaque accused Sun Wukong of abandoning his own brother so that he could party with a pack of second-rate yaoguai. It had ended with Sun Wukong shame-faced and apologizing for hurting his brother, and promising to spend more time with Macaque, and he did, and the tension was finally over. But then almost the same argument happened again, and again, and again, until it seemed like the only way that Macaque would be happy was if Sun Wukong was practically glued to his side and didn’t so much as talk to any of his subjects without his brother approving. Sun Wukong loved his brother, but he felt lonely and miserable, and Macaque just couldn’t understand that he really wanted other close people in his life (“Why would you possibly want to waste your time with a bunch of other yaoguai? You have me! You’ll always have me!”). It had come to an irrevocable head when Macaque had finally left him alone for something the monkey king couldn’t even remember, and, sick of being screamed at every time he so much as talked to his close friends and sick of being called the Six-Ears’s shadow behind his back and feeling spiteful and confident in his decisions and abilities, Sun Wukong had ordered a huge banquet to be thrown for his six greatest friends--each one of them a powerful yaoguai king--and then and there proposed that they all become sworn brothers. The Peng King, Lion Ni King, Demon Bull King, Scale Flood king, Macaque Demon King, and Snub-Nosed Monkey King had greeted his proposal with cheers and swift agreements, and while they were toasting their new brotherhood, Sun Wukong had felt truly happy and fulfilled. And how sweet it had been when the Six Eared Macaque had suddenly burst in, looking windblown and disheveled and furious and so, so sad, and could do nothing without drawing the ire of six powerful yaoguai warlords as Sun Wukong offered him a generous pour of plum wine and exclaimed, his voice laden with cheerful malice, that he just knew his brother would be so happy to see their inner circle grow in such a wonderful way. And from then on, the monkey king made sure he was never alone with his twin, and spitefully relished in the fact that he had so many good friends, so many close friends, while Macaque had been left all alone, and had no one to blame for his loneliness but himself. But of course, he did, and he had blamed Sun Wukong, and never even once in the following centuries had the monkey king tried to make amends. And so the blame and hurt and endless sorrow of being abandoned by the most important person in his life had twisted an increasingly possessive love into an increasingly obsessive hate, which had grown and grown and grown without relief, and soon after he had been released from his mountain imprisonment Sun Wukong had been left speechless with horror when he had seen what his brother had become in his absence, wearing his form like a second skin and holding his monkey family’s souls captive in a sinister, flickering lantern while their enslaved shadows hung unmoving on the cave walls (”See, Sun Wukong!? I have lots of friends! I’m a much better king than you ever were! I didn’t abandon them! I’m keeping them close! I’m keeping them safe!”). And now this. He wished he had never become sworn brothers with the other yaoguai, love them though he had. If he hadn’t, then maybe they wouldn’t have died in his war against heaven. Maybe he could have helped his brother. Maybe they wouldn’t have ended up like this, with the Six Eared Macaque reduced to a giggling, dumb beast of a pawn, and himself about to die by his own brother’s claws.

“Fine. Get it over with.”

Macaque’s mouth split into a wide grin, a viscous blue fluid leaking out between his shadowy fangs. The terrible pressure of his colossal hand started to increase.

And then Sun Wukong was falling, and Macaque was bawling in pain, and as he hit the ground the monkey king realized someone had cut Macaque’s arm clean off. He barely had time to untangle himself from the gargantuan fingers before a monkey yaoguai, a little taller than himself, with fur the color of bright straw and wielding what was clearly an enchanted folding fan, stepped in front of him in a protective gesture before turning his way.

“Are you all right?”

Sun Wukong couldn’t believe his eyes. He hadn’t felt anything physically for weeks, but his vision went blurry with tears and then he was crying so hard he could barely breathe. But he could still see the other yaoguai’s beloved and terribly missed face suddenly go wide-eyed with surprised recognition.

“S-Sun Wukong?!”

It was one of his best and closest friends, one of his sworn brothers, the Macaque Demon King, the Fair Wind Great Sage herself.

...

The both of them were blown suddenly backwards as the Six-Eared Macaque’s remaining fist smashed into the ground, his echoing shrieks of pain replaced with bellows of rage at the loss of his prey and perhaps, Sun Wukong thought, the appearance of one who had “stolen” his brother away all those centuries back. MDK’s face hardened, and she grabbed Sun Wukong by the back of his tattered shirt before flying them both vertically up the cliff face as swiftly as her self-given title suggested. Sun Wukong felt rattled, but was forced to come to his senses when his former friend shook him roughly and asked with a healthy sprinkle of monkey yaoguai curse words he hadn’t heard in centuries what was going on and what had happened to his brother and damned it all Sun Wukong what kind of mess had he dragged everyone into this time? Forcibly shoving his raging swirl of emotions to the side, he gave her as quick a summary as he could, pausing to drop another incendiary grenade on top of Macaque as he attempted to climb the cliff one handed. MDK listened and watched it all with hard, calculating eyes.

“Well, we did quite a bit of damage, but it looks like your brother has been turned into a creature with a self-repair manual. We’ll need more force than what you’re capable of.”

Sun Wukong glanced down, and saw MDK had been right. Macaque’s face and arm had already repaired themselves, and the giant shadow creature was glaring at them and climbing swiftly upwards, clear murder on his mind.

“Okay” Sun Wukong started, “I’ll go back down there and-”

“Don’t bother,” MDK interrupted. “We’ve got some incoming fire power right...about...”

A sudden bright explosion knocked Macaque right off the cliff face and flung his gargantuan body into the surrounding woods.

“...now,” MDK finished, her voice rich in satisfaction. And then Sun Wukong got the second intensively bittersweet shock of this night as a giant golden monkey yaoguai landed next to MDK, shook herself, and started to complain on how while it was appreciated that she could test her new arm of war out, it was a real shame how the landscape was suffering.

“...S...Snub-nosed?” Sun Wukong’s voice was barely a whisper.

The golden monkey--and it was the Snub-nosed Monkey King--finally stopped her rant and gave him her full attention. “Sun Wukong?!” He couldn’t feel anything, but he had a sudden desperate wish that he could when he was suddenly being held in a tight embrace and spun around. “Hahahahahaaaa!! You unkillable horse-whisperer! You look terrible!!” Sun Wukong was feeling so many conflicting emotions that he couldn’t think up a witty retort if his life depended on it. Soon, all too soon, Snub-nosed set him down.

“So! What in the hells! Here I was with MDK, both of us having a pleasant night walk, and then we hear all this screeching and moaning and come over to discover what’s dying this time, and who should it be but two smelly beasts we haven’t seen in centuries!”

Sun Wukong wished he could just sit with them and tell them all about everything that had happened and be sworn brothers again without the weight of his centuries of sin, but between his rampaging brother and his concern for Xiaotian and his crew, they needed to take care of this problem now.

“Well, that’s obvious! Just give me a second to charge this thing up.”

Sun Wukong stared in shock. The Snub-Nosed Monkey king had always insisted on sporting a grand appearance, and he wondered how many years and how much of her personal wealth she had spent on the artistic, weaponized prosthetics that now gleamed and whirred where her right arm and left leg had once been. MDK unfurled her fan (Sun Wukong could smell the death magic pouring from it), and as a unit they leapt down. Macaque was already up and charging right for them (his own brother, an unthinking, suffering beast, taking blow after painful blow but only capable of charging forward), but Snub-Nosed was calm as she aimed the small cannon that was currently her right arm at his twin.

“Best go for the head, I think. This oughta splatter it in one go.”

“No!”

“You got a better idea, beautiful?”

Sun Wukong was tired of hurting and tired of death, he wanted to make sure they all got out of this alive, and so...

“Snub-nosed, MDK, listen. This shadow giant isn’t his real body. It will repair no matter how many times it’s hit. I can...I can...” by an extreme effort, he forced his eyes to once again work as they had, to see the truth from lies, and there was Macaque himself in the very center of the giant, his fangs pulled into a mask of pure fury. “If you take his arms, I’ll get him for sure.” The two other yaoguai exchanged a look, but agreed. “But let’s make this quick. I won’t have him tearing up my land much longer, and you’re literally crying blood.” They moved together as a troop, Snub-nosed taking the left, MDK taking the right, and himself charging at the center, his eyes locked on those of his twin. Macaque seemed to have forgotten about the other two, his whole focus on his hated brother, and he opened his mouth wide as if to swallow Sun Wukong whole. And then there was a loud boom, the shriek of wind, and Macaque’s enormous face screwed up in confusion. He was falling, and Sun Wukong leapt up, right into the center of the giant. His eyes were still blazing as he grabbed his twin’s true form by the neck, and hurled them both out of the shadow monster as ferociously as he could. He kept Macaque under him as they hit the ground hard, and though he heard something snap, though he wasn’t sure if it was something that belonged to him or his brother. Robbed of his shadow armor, Macaque looked weak, almost emaciated. But in that moment, Sun Wukong couldn’t care. Memories of all the hurt and the pain the this monkey had caused him throughout the years, all the times he targeted his loved ones, and then he went after Xiaotian, manipulating him, hurting him, trying to kill him....the monkey king saw red, forgot all about his desire to get them all out of this alive, and brought his steel-strong nails down.

...

Sun Wukong stood over Macaque, who was lying broken before him, breathing weakly in a wheezy gurgle. He had ripped his brother’s chest and torso to ribbons. The raw meat of muscle and the jelly of intestine even shown through the worst of the wounds. He was covered in Macaque’s blue tainted blood, and felt so sick that he had done this to his own brother but so, so grateful no one else had been hurt...

“Good job.”

The monkey king stumbled backwards, almost falling over until he was caught and held upright by MDK. She pushed him into a standing position, and moved to circle around Macaque, her fan out and teeth bared in a grin of aggression and fear. Snub-nosed followed close behind, giving commands into a phone. “Yeah, we’ll need at least three of the better medics. And the strongest restraints we have. Wha-. For humans or yaoguai?! Of course for a yaoguai!! Friend, I love you but I literally just finished explaining that they’re for a sneaky bastard who can turn into a giant!...Okay, true, fair enough. And yeah, the humanoid cuffs should work just fine. Thanks. Get here soon.” Snub-nosed ended the call with a sigh, and joined the other monkeys. They all stared at Macaque for a few seconds, unwilling to touch him either from fear of making his gaping wounds worse, or in fear of being attacked.

“So, Sun Wukong...WHAT IN THE SHREEE-AKKK IS HAPPENING?!?!?”

Sun Wukong closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and told himself again he couldn’t even pretend he could still be friends with the two beloved monkeys around him.

“Long story short? My foolishness let the Lady Bone Demon escape the prison I had put her in. And now she’s stolen my power and has been hunting me for weeks. She wants me dead and forgotten. Seems my brother was forced into a bid for that scheme. Not like their desires aren’t the same there...”

Snub-nosed interrupted him with a short squeal of anger. MDK’s eyes hardened, her face suddenly contorting into a teeth-bared expression of stress, fear, and aggression, all aimed at him.

“So here we go again, huh? Fruit and fungi, Sun Wukong, how many times will the rest of the world have to suffer from your bad judgement?!” MDK whipped her fan open and closed, as if contemplating sending a blast of deadly wind his way. “We suffer the full force of the heaven’s fire from a war you brought to our homes, you disappear for centuries and return as the attack dog of some sniveling human monk, only to vanish again after putting our brother in the ground for half a millennia, and now this?! I’ll have to agree with Snub-nosed. SHREE-AKK!!! EEEEE-AKKK!! EEEEE-AHHH!!!”

Sun Wukong started at the ground. It was all true, all of it, and he couldn’t even bring himself to try and defend his master. He kept his eyes down as both demon kings continued to scream at him, aware that this was as much about them venting their justified anger as it was about defending their territory. He pulled his own face into a grin of fear and submission, and, to the surprise of is former friends, crouched down to make himself seem even smaller.

I’m not going to challenge you. I’m not going to even try to get close to you. I am weak, and you are the ones with all the power.

The demon kings seemed a little mollified, and stopped their screaming, but began an intensive grooming session to calm each other down as he continued to crouch, his eyes averted. Suddenly, MDK’s hand lowered over his head, and while Sun Wukong couldn’t feel anything he realized she had started to groom him too. Sun Wukong wanted to cry at the gesture of potential forgiveness, but forced those feelings down. Grooming was as much about making alliances as it was about giving and receiving kind touches, and knowing the Lady Bone Demon was free the yaoguai kings would likely recruit every soldier they could get to protect their homes.

Snub-nosed piped up, still intent on grooming MDK’s neck. “One hand of my troop has collected the merry bunch you’ve been flying around with and are brining them over. Wanted me to let you know they’re all a little banged up but still functioning. Another is flying in medical help and some restraints for the shadow coward. We’ll figure out how you’ll pay me back when this is all over.”

Sun Wukong gave a barely perceptible nod. He’d sell himself into slavery if it meant Xiaotian and his loved ones would be safe. Snub-nosed sighed again, and abruptly ended the grooming session. “All right, stand up. Neither I nor MDK is going to bring your brother into our homes until we know he won’t be a threat and can’t be tracked by the skeleton shit, same goes for you and your lot. So we’ll camp here tonight, see what happens, and make plans for what to do starting tomorrow. And this is going to to be our plan, got it? Input and information are needed and appreciated, but you’re going to be in this fight as one of our soldiers, and not as a fellow king. You got it?”

Sun Wukong nodded again, and felt a sudden rush of gratitude. What had he ever been thinking, trying to come up with a way to stop the Demon Bone Lady on his own judgment? Every single one of the plans he had ever come up with across the course of his life had always, eventually, ended in disaster and agony and death. Maybe this endeavor would actually be a success, now that someone else was in the lead. He opened his mouth to give his assent, and the other monkeys screamed and leapt back, weapons drawn.

Sun Wukong looked down, and there was Macaque, gripping his leg, his entrails dragging behind him, the eye the monkey king had blinded so long ago weeping a dark blue fluid, the working eye blazing with a horrible cerulean light.

“You-”

“You really thought this was over, didn’t you? You really thought that would stop me?! It didn’t! It will never be over!! Not until you, or I, or both are dead!! Not until you, or I, or both are dead!! Not until, not until, not until-!! And then Sun Wukong’s own brother, reduced to another monstrous, suffering consequence of Sun Wukong’s failures and in the full thrall of the spirit sickness the Lady Bone Demon had infected him with, was left scrabbling and biting at his leg and howling between founts of his own blood for death and vengeance.

Yet another point of pain the monkey king could never make right.

He could, however, make it less wrong.

And thinking that, Sun Wukong had no hesitation in, after willing his powers of regeneration to their highest peak, driving his fingers into the socket of his left eye and scooping it right out of the socket. Bleeding profusely, he held his shrieking brother still and forced him to swallow the blazing ball of blood and jelly. He hugged his spirit-sickened twin close as he screamed and writhed as the rapidly dissolving eye blazed and burned the Lady Bone Demon’s poison into submission. Finally, after what seemed like hours but what was only seconds, Macaque shuddered and disgorged a horrible amount of a viscous blue liquid that seemed to glow and pulse like a heartbeat before it went dark and still. The shadow monkey slumped over, pain and exhaustion finally rendering him unconscious. Sun Wukong quickly moved to lay the other monkey down, his halved vision making it hard to tell where Macaque’s entrails were, and he needed to put those back, he had to fix this...and then there was Snub-nosed crouching next to him, carefully holding his brother’s guts in hands of both metal and flesh.

“Shit and sunsets, Sun Wukong. It’s never a dull moment with you, is it?”

...

In the end, the Snub-nosed Monkey King and Macaque Demon King had decided that all six sages of their original sworn brotherhood (they were alive? They were all alive? He was so happy he wanted to cry) should be be called into the spot they had dubbed “base camp” to decide what needed to be done. He was gratified to see the Demon Bull King and his family had somehow made their way safe and unpossessed back among the the other yaoguai, although besides his former dearest friend’s eyes widening when he heard the monkey king blame himself for the Lady Bone Demon’s freedom, he made no move to speak to him. Xi Qiaotian and his loved ones--allowed to move around the camp somewhat freely after the five other sages had circled and sniffed and grilled them before deeming them generally trustworthy (but not trustworthy enough to be party to their plans, especially the humans)--were also brought forward to give their testament before being dismissed as the six sages, their closest advisors, and their new soldier--himself--debated what to do.

Sun Wukong listened intently, not yet attempting to give advice but taking in everything that was being said, and observing in how his former close friends had changed. They had all been warlords right along with him, and while the centuries and new responsibilities had made them less prone to violence, the promise of a big battle with potential huge rewards (”this could very well be an opportunity to win ourselves great power in the territory she’s conquered. This could be the chance we’ve all wanted to come out of hiding!”) was something they all clearly found very tempting. But they had no reason now to like or trust him, and the risks were so many and so great. The spacious tent MDK had had set up as a meeting chamber filled with snarls and monkeyish shrieks as they debated. After hours of argumentation, Snub-nose’s wife--an elegant wolf yaoguai with pitch-black fur who had taken charge of the two pieces of the flame of Samadhi (”they will not touch it and will not hear of using it, Sun Wukong. The wounds are millennia old but the fear is still very fresh”)--steered the thought process in a new direction by proposing that instead of treating the Lady Bone Demon and her minions as an army to go against with their own, the kings focus should be on routes by which they might compel or coerce her into revealing the seal that had sapped the monkey king’s power by using Qi Xiaotian as a catalyst, and see what they could do to destroy it by magic to return the stolen strength to its original owner, who while unliked was on their side. Their armies could be on stand-by as needed, but with the major source of her strength thus eliminated the yaoguai kings should be able to overwhelm and imprison her once again. The tent was quiet as they all considered the possibility. It was, if they could pull it off, most definitely the path of fewest risks. But there was so much information they would have to gather, and every day the Lady Bone Demon was conquering more landscapes, expanding her slave army, growing in strength. Either way, they would have to make a decision soon and act quickly. How to gather the knowledge they needed while keeping her minions off her back?

For the first time, the monkey king spoke up. “I think...I think I can help there.”

Six sets of eyes glittered back at his one. “And how,” the Ni Lion King asked with fangs bared, “do you plan to contribute to this scheme, oh king without an army or a weapon? Will you take your fair share of the danger, or will you once again sit back and laugh as your allies fall?”

Sun Wukong smiled grimly. He had expected the Ni Lion King would never forgive him for having treated the capture of thousands of his feline soldiers during the first bout of heaven’s assault all those centuries ago as something to celebrate, since no monkeys had been taken (but another notch in the long list of all his many failures), but he could see a similar question was on the minds of every assembled sage: the peng king, missing both of his wings and having no good anchor for the prosthetics that might serve him in place of the ones that had been burned to ash; the scale flood king, his fanged jaws leaking a steady stream of water he had never been able to quell since his dragon’s pearl had been damaged in the war with heaven; ni lion king, who’s head was covered with a mane of implanted connector cables (having apparently gotten into the wonders of technology in a big way), while his original mane and the skin on his skull--as well as a good portion of his face--had been burned into a mess of scar tissue by the heavens’ fire; the snub-nosed monkey king, who now sported a metal arm and a metal leg to replace amputated limbs that had been lost in that conflict; and perhaps worst of all the macaque demon king, who had no outer wound, but who’s life was now marred by an eternal sorrow. Her daughter, he had horrified to learn, had been one of the many victims of the heavens’ fire, and she had been forced to take her child’s head to spare her the suffering of that eternal flame. It was a list of agony all due to the monkey king’s thoughtless decisions, and Sun Wukong, if he could still feel something, was sure that his eyes would still be stinging from the sleepless night of crying he had spent after being told what had happened to each.

So yes, not a single one of them hadn’t lost something important in the war he had started. And now he had to give what he could, he had to fight harder than he ever had before to keep them from suffering again from his failures.

In one fluid movement, Sun Wukong drew the kitchen knife he had kept close since this journey began and drove it into his chest. The assembled yaoguai leapt up with teeth bared, their initial growls and shrieks quickly turning into bellows of shock as the suddenly molten flesh around the wound seemed to eat the blade. His body done incorporating the metal, the deep cut closed seamlessly, and Sun Wukong let them all see that in spite of the blow he was intact. They all needed to see that even though he had been robbed of his initial divine-inspired power, his cultivation of inherent yaoguai strengths offered a path to being at least a significant thorn in the bone demon’s side. “It’s true I’ve lost just about everything,” he said after the noise died down, “and I’m but a cracked memory of what I once was. But the Lady Bone Demon is out there with my former power, and if she is not stopped soon she will topple you from your thrones and take you and your families as her slaves.” A sharp intake of breath all around. He knew it was a low blow, but honest for all that. He continued. “But I know that even with such grave threats, it’s hardly enough to forge a strong alliance or a strong plan, especially when the last time you all fought with me you all lost so much. So here’s what I have to offer: my regenerating body can take any number of mutilations and come out whole. My scorching insides prevent any possession. And my physical strength is still considerable. I can take any number of beatings, lead her and her minions on any sort of chase, all while you gather what you need and make what preparations you must. And because I feel nothing, even if she were to capture me there is no torture she could inflict to make me reveal your plans. I know...I know after everything that you have all suffered from my failures, I cannot by your ally. I believe, however, that I could serve well as your distraction.”

Sun Wukong looked around the assembled yaoguai. “But there is more I can offer. Last night I learned much of what you had lost when battling against heaven. I want to fix what I can. And so...” Sun Wukong swallowed, his mind screaming at him not to do this, but he knew what he had to give up, “...and so I want to give you all my tail.”

For a minute the six king’s eyes went wide, but then turned contemplative and, Sun Wukong thought, a little eager.

“If I follow your line of thinking correctly...” the peng king began, the talons on his feet making light scraping sounds as they gouged into the ground, as if grasping prey, “you want to divide the true flesh of your tail among us for our benefit. The tendons can be used as glue to repair a dragon’s pearl, the fur and skin as a graft to help heal burn scars, the meat consumed to help restore lost strength, and the vertebrae...” his voice was strained with desperate hope, “the vertebrae as a anchor for prosthetic wings.”

Sun Wukong smiled, and while he was scared, it was genuine. “Got it in one, feathers.” The peng king looked surprised at the use of the old nickname, but he did offer his own small smile in return.

The scale flood king coughed up a sudden fount of water before he spoke next.

“If the stone monkey is willing to do these things, then I will agree to this course of action. But let us hurry! The skeleton monster grows stronger with every passing second, and I want my pearl intact before we beat her down.” He seemed to be the voice of the room, and one king after another agreed to the proposed course. With every voice of assent, Sun Wukong felt his heart speed up, fearing what was to come but knowing it was needed. He focused on his breathing, drawing up the techniques of meditation he had learned so long ago.

This is good, this is necessary, this is needed...he repeated it like a mantra, even as Snub-nosed and MDK approached him slowly, almost apologetically, followed by a group of yaoguai that they assured him were the best surgeons in their troops.

He thanked them both, and told the assembled team that anesthesia would be unnecessary. Yet they all insisted on it, and he supposed it would be good to test out if he needed to bring a gas mask on his endeavor to play the distraction. He followed the medical team, who were now accompanied by the Lion Ni King, the Scale Flood King, and the Peng King along with all their attendants, out over into the makeshift medical tent. The collection of yaoguai passed by Qi Xiaotian and his loved ones who were all anxiously waiting outside the door and in front of a hand of implacable guards, and who immediately started a barrage of frantic questions when they saw the monkey king emerge on what was going on and where was he going and what had happened to his eye before a cluster of MDK’s attendants smoothly separated themselves from the group aimed at the medical tent and set to work assuring them that they were safe and would be safe and that all was well, but not, Sn Wukong noted, telling them what was going to happen. Sun Wukong didn’t allow himself the pause that might lead him to start second guessing himself, not even when he heard Xiaotian’s teary voice try to raise itself above the din and ask him to wait, not even when inside the medical tent he passed by a still unconscious Macaque who had been put, he had been told, into a medically induced coma, and who the monkey king would have assumed dead if not for the cluster of steadily beeping monitors that surrounded his twin. He lay down on his stomach on the bed he was ushered to, and found himself, after listening at length to the tall monkey yaoguai that Sun Wukong had been introduced to as the head surgeon and MDK’s one surviving child on how the surgery was to work even with the monkey king’s always-advancing healing, somewhat surprised that the anesthesia brought in was actually working, at least while it was continuously supplied. MDK was gently holding one of his hands, Snub-nosed the other, and he supposed it would have been comforting if he wasn’t convinced it was to make sure he didn’t try to run off. Then the head surgeon soothingly talked him into unconsciousness.

When he awoke, the fact that he felt nothing meant he only realized his tail was gone when he was informed that the removal had been a success. He was also told that the other three kings were almost done with their own surgeries, and that the Ni Lion King had provided for his job as a distraction a highly advanced video camera that had been guised as his missing eye, if he would be willing to have it grafted into his now empty socket. Next to it on the tray the head surgeon carefully held was a small inner earpiece, and together these technologies would, the monkey king was told, allow them to monitor his progress and give advice and instruction in his upcoming encounters with the Lady Bone Demon. Sun Wukong agreed to this too, and didn’t even have to be put under again as the head surgeon carefully placed the camera eye into his empty socket and delicately grafted it firmly in place. It wasn’t long before Sun Wukong was able to stand up again. He was more than glad he had given up what he had, but still found it very disorienting, to even try walking around without the balance and sight he had possessed his entire life. But Sun Wukong had always been a quick study, and after critically watching him first walk and then run, the head surgeon said he should be generally back to full mobility in around three days. This was all good news. And what was even better was when Sun Wukong heard a bird’s scream of joy and, running in stumbling steps outside the tent, watched the peng king fly with his own new wings for what had been the first time in centuries, even when he shifted into his gargantuan alternative form. Sun Wukong was next delighted to see the lion ni king step outside the medical tent touching his face in wonder, as if he himself couldn’t believe that there could ever have been fur and feeling on the once-seared portions of his face again. And finally the scale flood king slithered out and wrapped around Sun Wukong in his version of a hug, grumbling in a voice mostly free of water that while the monkey king was a stinky ape, he was grateful he always kept his word. It had been good, it had been right, it had been necessary, and while Sun Wukong knew he would never be able to completely make up for the damage his actions had caused, at least when it came to the six kings he had helped make it less terrible than before.

It was because of this that he was once again left in a state of confusion when he got back to Qi Xiaotian and his loved ones to let them see everything was okay, and they had started exclaiming in angry tones about what he had lost, even though, as he told them time and time again, he had given it up freely. It had, after all, been owed.

---

Preparations for confronting Lady Bone Demon were going much more smoothly and much more quickly than he would have accomplished alone or along with only Qi Xiaotian’s family, the six kings seeming invigorated by the pieces of his body now embedded in their own. At times it almost felt like the good (bad) old days, when they had spent their immortality going over battle plans and strategies on how to make their mountain caves safe from every harm, how to respond in this or that battle situation...

How to wipe out entire human armies and come back in triumph with the spoils of metal and treasure and meat.

But back to the now. Sun Wukong’s endless string of ill fortune worried him so much, as if it would taint this endeavor too. But shockingly enough, things started to go as they intended. Spies armed with the information Xiaotian’s crew provided and bearing coats of mail engraved with spells of invisibility and against possession were able to come back unpossessed and with reams of more useful details, information was gathered and traps were set smoothly to break the seal when everything would be in place, and best of all, as Sun Wukong saw it, he was providing a very useful distraction indeed, all while Xiaotian and his crew got to remain safe at base camp. As the six kings went about their secret endeavors, Sun Wukong made himself as much a thorn in the side of the Lady Bone Demon as he could all while the Lady Bone Demon turned her focus to him and him alone. It had been a very clever plan of MDK’s to have Qi Xiaotian, his family, and Macaque guised with a powerful simulacra of a death aura, completing the picture with shallow and empty graves in the spot they had all “died,” all so that Sun Wukong could stumble about in the Lady Bone Demon’s sight playing the sobbing and remorseful but still selfish fool who had, for all that he had completely lost to her, was running once again from the consequences of his choices and lashing out like a wild cornered beast. Still, her attention and malice were so great that Sun Wukong had to wonder if her influence on Macaque had gone both ways, so that she was now infected with some thread of the obsessive rage that had held his brother in its thrall for centuries. Individual assassins, small hordes, and then entire armies of enscorcelled beings, humans and yaoguai both, went after him and him alone. And this was all to the good. While he led these beings on a convoluted chase, the six kings and their allies were able to sneak around unmolested to gather what they needed. Even when the bone demon’s ghostly armies actually caught him, they could do less and less against him every time. His molten core stopped any attempt at possession from laying him low. Bone, stone, and steel alike shattered on his hide. He grew back arms, legs, even had to reattach his head on one occasion, until his body started to heal itself so rapidly and so automatically that wounds--which fewer and fewer weapons were able to inflict-- disappeared almost as quickly as they were made. His strength, already significant, became more monstrous still. And he could listen to the Lady Bone Demon mock him through her soldiers all she liked for being responsible for the deaths of those who had trusted him. He wept, he raged, and all the time listened to the Lion Ni King’s analytical voice as he was instructed to move from one place to another, keeping their enemy unaware of the trap being carefully laid all around her. Finally, after five days, he was told to stop at particular coordinates and act exhausted, something he hadn’t felt now for weeks.

Sun Wukong collapsed exactly where he had been instructed, and allowed crocodile tears to fall from his eyes as an army of enthralled soldiers, and then finally the Lady Bone Demon herself, perched smugly on top of her giant mech, advanced into view. The cold power of her telekinesis wrapped around his body and brought him face to face with this hated enemy, although it wasn’t enough to penetrate his core and make his mind susceptible to her manipulation. He could see that that didn’t stop her from believing she had now completely won.

“You know, stinking ape, I had believed destiny would assure your worthless successor would have destroyed himself with the flame you so desperately sought, but it is a nice bonus that it was your own brother’s malice, your old friend’s hatred, and your own stupidity that got him killed.”

Sun Wukong allowed himself a shuddering, pain-laden breath. The Lady Bone Demon smiled wider, gloating in her victory.

“To think, all it took to lay the Great Sage Equal to Heaven low was to just pump his twin full of the hate that was already there and point him in the right direction. You really couldn’t help but make enemies of everyone you have every loved, could you? And what a show! It truly was a delight to see your once-loved brother attack you with such ferocity, your former friends scream at you with such vehemence, and to see,” she continued with a fang-filled grin, “your beloved student beat you to a bloody pulp.”

Sun Wukong started, feeling a trickle of uncertainty, but he was determined to keep up appearances. They have as much to lose as I do, he reminded himself. They would not abandon me like this at such a critical juncture. Still, he let out a genuine sob. The Lady Bone Demon seemed to relish in it. “Oh yes, I was an influence in his mind riiiight up to his death. It was so easy to encourage that rage. He hated you so much, and rightfully so. And it seems the same was true of your former friends, wasn’t it? To think they would be the ones to land the final blow on that worthless little mortal! And then they threw you out into this cold, cold world all alone. They all hated you. Of course they would never work with you. And now you are going to die, despised by everyone you have ever loved. But don’t worry.” She levitated his stone-covered staff above his head, preparing it for a final blow. “You’ll all soon get a chance to try and reconcile in hell.”

The staff swung down.

Sun Wukong felt nothing but the cold shock at the realization he had been betrayed.

And then a sudden, vicious, and blade-filled storm of wind shrieked between them, sending the staff spinning far away and slicing the rocks off of it, freeing it from the bone yaoguai’s influence. The Lady Bone Demon had no time to give anything but a startled gasp before a colossal bird, the peng king himself, abruptly bore down on them from the clouds above. With talons sheathed in enchanted metal, he grasped the bone mech tightly, and with a mighty thrust of his wings lifted the entire lot of them far into the sky. Sun Wukong was abruptly dropped, but then found himself caught and borne aloft by MDK, who was well protected in heavily enchanted amor and riding a kite shaped like their gargantuan feathered comrade. “Protect the peng king!” he heard her cry over the howl of wind, and then she threw him up towards his enemy. And then, as he had been wanting to do for weeks, Sun Wukong punched the Lady Bone Demon right in the face.

...

They had flown for but a minute, but had gone so fast and so far above the clouds that Sun Wukong had no idea where they were headed. The entire time he and MDK had been keeping the Lady Bone Demon busy and off balance, the two monkeys leaping and flying around her, striking where they could and moving so fast that she wasn’t able to keep her sight on more than one of them at a time. Finally MDK let out squeal whose meaning only Sun Wukong could understand, and he threw himself off the mech and onto MDK’s kite as the peng king suddenly opened his talons. He flashed both his fangs and his middle fingers at the Lady Bone Demon’s shocked, outraged, bloody, and now uncertain face as she and her giant mech were dropped, and fell crashing to a desert floor, a meteor strike of sand erupting around them. But it swiftly clambered upright, all but completely undamaged. The Lady Bone Demon smoothed out her somewhat tattered hanfu and shot the two monkeys, who had flown down to her level, a hate-filled glare. Her eyes started to gleam with cold death magic, but then she gave a pain-filled gasp as the scale flood king and a dragon that Sun Wukong realized was the true form of Xiaojiao barreled into her from behind, knocking the mech down once again. Roaring, the scale flood king vomited forth a very river of water over the limbs of the bone mech, which froze as it hit. Xiaojiao, for her own part, blasted a concentrated beam of light onto the back of the mech, her serpentine neck moving back and forth, and Sun Wukong realized she was engraving something into the mechs very core. Abruptly the two dragons were knocked back by a telekinetic blast, the mech’s limbs groaning as they exerted themselves, and broke free of the ice. But the dragons had done their work well, and the seal that had stolen the monkey king’s powers was projected from the bone demon’s mech, fully exposed and locked in place.

“Woooowwww...this lady must have REALLY hated you to put so much effort into a binding seal, yeah?”

MDK and Sun Wukong turned. They were greeted by the sights of the Snub-nosed monkey king and Lion Ni King, both of them heavily armored, Snub-nosed bristling with projectile weaponry, Lion Ni, who was wearing his quadruped form, sparking with powerful magic.

“You two stand by as we get this seal sorted. You’ll be needed soon enough!” With that, Snub-nosed aimed what looked like a full-sized cannon at the seal. Lion Ni extended numerous cords of his mane forward and, embedding them into the cannon, the two worked in tandem to send a magic-laden sphere into the center of the seal. Sun Wukong held his breath, and then felt rather than heard the seal start to crack. the Lady Bone Demon screamed in rage, and shielding the seal with her mech’s arms directed it to charge right at them. Snub-nosed hopped on Lion Ni’s back, screaming “Incoming!” before she switched over to a grenade launcher and started to fire at the advancing mech, aiming right at the joints of its legs and causing it to stumble as the yaoguai swiftly scattered.

Sun Wukong realized how clever his former friends had been to host this battle here. Between attacking the mech’s joints and with the soft sand ensuring that the bone mech’s spiked legs would sink deeply into the land wherever they hit, it almost seemed to be becoming more trouble than it was worth to keep the mech upright and moving.

The Lady Bone Demon seemed to have reached the same conclusion, and kept the mech still as she unleashed barrages of bullets, lasers, and bombs from its interior, while she herself unleashed one telekinetic blast after another. Yet she was compelled to expose the seal once again when the demon bull king, fully restored to his former strength and taking on his true form of a gargantuan white bull, slammed into the back of the mech and forced its arms to go askew. Snub-nosed and Ni Lion took another shot that struck true, and the seal cracked further. The two dragons were back up, and from there it was a raging battle as the assembled yaoguai kings tried to get the seal completely exposed once again while the Lady Bone Demon attempted to keep it covered while trying to rain death on them all. MDK grabbed Sun Wukong, and together they flew but a short distance away until she deposited him in the midst of what he realized was a giant yaouguai army. He guessed that they were there to be part of “Plan B,” should the six kings fail. “Wait here until your strength is restored and seal is gone. Then hit her with everything you’ve got. We’ll do the same.” She leapt on her kite and swiftly flew off to lend her support to her sworn brothers.

Sun Wukong felt almost giddy at the thought that this was working, he was going to be part of a battle that could actually be won, and then spotted Red Boy, who was watching the ongoing brawl with concern, even though his admiration for his father was clearly shining through. Sun Wukong jogged up to him.

“Where’s Qi Xiaotian?”

Red Boy flicked his attention to him, and then back to the battle before them, hissing in delight as his father’s horns embedded themselves into one of the bone mech’s arms before he gave an almighty wrench of his neck and tore that limb from it socket.

“Never fear, primate. The noodle boy is safely tucked away back at base camp, along with the pig and the fish and even all three pieces of the flame. Don’t worry your monkey head about him or anything else. She couldn’t possibly get her hands on any more power now, and my father, the great Demon Bull King, will crush her under his hoo-!!”

Sun Wukong lifted his former best friend’s son up by his jacket, and shook him roughly.

“What do you mean all three pieces of the flame!?!?!”

Red Boy looked intimidated for a second, but his features soon settle back into a sneer.

“I mean we collected the last piece of the flame! It’s an important part of Plan F, it it had come to that! But this is working perfectly, so let me go this instant you flea-bitten prim-!!”

Sun Wukong wasn’t listening as Red Boy continued to yell at him. The earlier words of the Lady Bone roared in his head.

“ I was an influence in his mind...”

“that worthless little mortal...”

“I had believed destiny would assure your worthless successor would have destroyed himself with the flame you so desperately sought...”

“destroyed himself with the flame...”

He was going to try to use the flame of Samadhi, and be destroyed in the process.

Sun Wukong tightened his grip on Red Boy, despite the prince’s yells of protest.

“You have to take me to base camp.”

“What?! But the seal is almost shattered! You have to stay here and help my father win! Are you seriously planning to run away now?! You really do just abandon everyone right when things get tough you stinking ap-!

“DO YOU WANT YOUR FATHER TO DIE?!?! TAKE ME TO BASE CAMP NOW!!!”

Red Boy gave a gasp of fear, but the desperation in Sun Wukong’s eyes seemed to have convinced him that something was afoot. He scowled fiercely.

“Fine! But you’re the only one at fault if this goes wrong!” And with that he grabbed the monkey king’s arms, whisking them both away in a whirl of flame.

Sun Wukong just hoped it wasn’t too late.

...

As soon as they arrived, Sun Wukong had demanded Red Boy point out where the flame was kept before sprinting towards it, leaving the confused and frustrated prince in his wake. He burst into the tent, and found in a mass of confusion as yaoguai soldiers ran back and forth. He grabbed one as they passed.

“What is it?! What’s going on?!

The soldier, one of the lion types, looked scared.

“Monkey King! Someone has somehow stolen all three pieces of the flame of Samadhi! We just discovered the theft and are scouring the camp for the thief-”

Sun Wukong raced out of the tent, trying to get frantic mind into a state of calm. He had a good idea of who was behind it, and needed to find him before...

He refused to finish the thought.

The monkey king could feel the seal cracking, could feel tendrils of his power leaking through, and so this time had less trouble in calling up his far seeing eyes. Telling his racing heart to calm down, he started a methodical search.

There.

In a corner of the camp, hidden behind a row of water barrels, Xiaotian was slowly putting together the pieces of the flame’s source, whispering something over them that was making them fuse back together. he could almost imagine the Lady Bone Demon, looking frantic as his sworn brothers hammered away at her body, her focus torn almost unbearably between two points of control, but inwardly gloating that, with MDK’s full magical focus on her and the facade of Xiaotian’s death thus lifted, she now had her ace in the hole. The monkey king sprinted as fast as he could towards the kid he had put in so much harms’ way, skidding to a halt as Xiaotian, his eyes glazed over with a horrible blue film, whispered that he could finally be useful, and activated the flame.

There was no time left to think. Sun Wukong rushed forward and grabbed the rapidly awakening flame from his former student’s unresisting hands, and swallowed it down into his immortal stone flesh.

...

He was burning.

He was burning but his flesh was restoring itself as quickly as it could be destroyed, and there was Qi Xiaotian looking at him with absolute horror but was once again free from the Lady Bone Demon’s grasp, whole and undamaged, so it was okay. His organs were aflame and he was in so much pain, but he still let out a monkey’s shriek of delight when he felt that the plan he had put together with his former yaoguai friends had worked perfectly. Their combined intelligence, strength, and magical prowess had shattered the seal that had allowed that sneering witch to steal the monkey king’s power, and Sun Wukong was burning, but he was still careful to ensure all that cursed strength flowed back into him, with not a drop of it worming its way back to Xiaotian (you and your power hurt him so much you bad monkey don’t you dare hurt him again!).

From there, it had been a simple matter, even with the Flame of Samadhi raging in his body, to summon back his somersault cloud and fly as fast he could back to the ongoing battle. As he flew, he forced his burning body to shift and change, forced it to grow colossal in size and for two other heads to sprout from his neck. When he burst onto the battlefield, he was as tall as he had been when he had caused havoc in heaven, glaring around himself with five eyes instead of one, and with his true vision restored he got to witness first hand the look of terror on the Lady Bone Demon’s face as she realized that destiny was now spinning in a direction she had never believed possible.

Sun Wukong saw her for the monster she had always been, how even now she was using a little human girl as her physical host. By a massive effort, he forced his two arms to split into six--one pair composed of his stone skin, another of his magma muscle, and a third still to his very spirit, and leapt upon the bone mech, shoving his spirit’s hands through the Lady Bone Demon and separating her in one blow from her host. The little girl tumbled like a leaf through the air, only to be caught by Demon Bull King, who had at some pointed shifted back to his purple, bipedal form. Left with no choice--for every nearby living sentient being was well charmed against possession--the Lady Bone Demon, a spirit once again, sunk into her mech. Sun Wukong gripped her with his six arms, and laughed in her face, spraying magma, over what now felt like feeble blows as she hit him with everything her mech could give.

Even though he was undergoing the torture of burning alive, it had been in this form that he had challenged all of heaven. And between the two foes, robbed of his power the Lady Bone Demon didn’t slightly compare to the divine army whose equal he had been.

Sun Wukong watched her with five eyes from his three heads, watched her realize what was going to happen for all her talk about destiny in her favor as he grabbed her stolen steel frame, and summoned a ferocious and lightning filled somersault cloud to hurl them both into the sky, where she couldn’t get her bearings. And up there, where no one but the two of them could be hurt, he took taken a vicious pleasure in the outraged cries and then screams of pain as he tore the Lady Bone Demon to pieces, setting each one alight with the Flame of Samadhi that now coursed in every nerve. For all his preparation, all his work to ensure that he would feel nothing, the pain was horrible. But he could take it. He could take anything, because it was this that let him quickly annihilate the monster who had robbed so many of so much.

In the end, and in spite all she had done, she pleaded for her life. And that had made burning her completely out of existence all the more satisfying.

When she had been rendered into ash, Sun Wukong glanced down. So many, so many loved faces were staring up at him, wearing every expression from amazement to sheer horror. But they were safe, they were all safe. He was so happy he could have wept. And he wished so much he could join them and be a happy family with these loved ones, just like he once was all those centuries ago. And yet...

No. You started this, you monster, and you don’t dare to not see this through.

...

He was flying as fast as he could without causing any more damage, the memory of realizing that his havoc in heaven had meant deadly fire on Earth compelling him to fly higher and higher where the fire in his body couldn’t hurt anyone until he was looking down on the planet. From that vantage point Sun Wukong could decide on his next move, and made the appropriate adjustments before hurtling himself towards one fo the world’s oceans. But he slowed again as he entered the Earth’s atmosphere, feeling himself weakening and not wanting to cause a tsunami. He was flying so fast, and then he was falling, and then he crashed into sand that melted into glass as he hit it. Sun Wukong’s three mouths let out a bellow of frustration that quickly shifted into an agonized gurgle, and then he was vomiting the molten rock of what felt like every organ his chest cavity possessed. But the fire still burned tucked safe away in his immortal stone flesh, and his body continued to remorselessly repair itself even as more and more magma gushed from his mouths until he was laying in a pool of it. He wanted to rest. He wanted the hurt to stop. But it could not. He had to see this through.

Sun Wukong stood back up on shaking legs, and his misery was but compounded when his far seeing eyes revealed that for much as Xiaotian rightfully despised him, he was now flying in the airship they had started this journey with at top speed right for him, accompanied by Xiaojiao, Redy Boy, his father figures and Sandy, his tear-stained face set with determination and concern. Xioatian was as good as Sun Wukong was bad. He should have known that even after everything kid would try to save him, even if it meant--he vomited up another geyser of molten rock--he was putting himself in mortal danger.

Every nerve screaming at him, feeling like he was being split into pieces, Sun Wukong summoned that monstrous somersault cloud once again and continued on his last route. He continued to fly now over the ocean, going further and further from shore, over deeper and deeper water. And as he did so, he restored the telepathic bond between himself and the kind human he had once hoped to make his successor, fully aware now that there could never be any such thing, not if Xiaotian, not is his loved ones, were to ever find happiness.

“Qi Xiaotian, please stop!!”

Xiaotian started in shock, his eyes gushing fresh tears at the sight of his former mentor.

“Monkey King! We’re coming to help you! Hold on a little longer! Red things he might be able to draw the flame out of your body and and maybe, and maybe--”

“Xiaotian, no! It’s too dangerous, and it’s too late. I’m begging you, turn back.”

Xiaotian looked as if he had been slapped, and then just looked scared and desperate, because Xiaotian was good and wanted to save everyone, even someone he entirely loathed. “N...No! We’re going to save you! We...We have to save you! You’re going to be okay! You’re going to be my mentor again! And I’ll be the new monkey king while you enjoy your retirement! It’s okay! It’s what I want! I promise it’s what I want!”

Sun Wukong grimaced at the lie. At the very end, at least, they needed to be honest. “No, you don’t. Because you’ve seen what I truly am and what my life is. You know that being the monkey king means that for all your great power and no matter what you do, you will fail in catastrophic ways. Everyone you have ever loved will either die or grow to despise you. And it will be all your own fault.”

“ So turn back. You...you all still have good lives with nice thing in them, friends and family who love you so, so much. And I’m just getting what comes to all monsters.”

“This is exactly what I deserve.”

And then Xiaotian, too kind for his own good, caused himself no small amount of bad emotions as he tried bargaining, tried pleading, and finally screamed that if Sun Wukong went through with his plan to rid the world of the Flame of Samadhi and his own cursed life, he would never forgive him. That last part hurt. It hurt so much. The possibility of forgiveness was so precious, especially when it came from one you loved. And yet here, since honestly was important...

“Oh, Xiaotian...neither you nor anyone else was ever going to forgive me either way.”

He could tell he was correct. The expression on Xiaotian’s face could mean nothing else.

Sun Wukong quickly went on. He was up to his torso in the ocean now. His time left was so, so short. He had to spend it well.

“It’s okay Xiaotian. This is a good thing. This fight between me and the bone witch? It’s just monsters destroying each other. And I’ve made binding arrangements with all six of my former friends. They’ll make sure that you’re never hurt again. And I know you have no reason to believe me, but I promise that from here on out I won’t be a problem. I promise, I promise, words are worthless but I promise.”

“So please...forget I ever existed, and be happy.”

It was there the connection between them cut in a final flash of golden sparks. He no longer had the strength to maintain it. Sun Wukong was up to his neck in freezing water and sinking rapidly into the ocean’s depths. Already he could feel the force of the flame diminishing, even if only a little. He hoped his final numbness would come soon.

He knew he didn’t deserve to, but in his last seconds in sunshine Sun Wukong allowed himself one last use of his far-seeing eyes, one last look at those he loved. Qi Xiaotian, up in the airship with Xiaojiao and Red Boy and Sandy and his fathers, standing perfectly still but surrounded by those that he loved; the little ones of the Six Sage’s war camps, running around in what looked like a panic, but he could already tell his former friends were organizing relief efforts, finding a way to help the Lady Bone Demon’s victims, making everything better. And the six sages themselves, their eyes wide with shock but standing tall, undamaged, giving effective commands like the great leaders they were. They were all alive. They were all healthy. They were all safe. He would never be able to hurt them again. They were all finally safe.

As Sun Wukong sank down to where there would never be anything again but darkness and loneliness and agony until he finally became as unfeeling as the stone he had always been, he clung to the comfort that he had, at long last, done the right thing.

#blood #violence #body horror #monkie kid #lego monkie kid #lmk #lmk fic #lmk sun wukong #lmk monkey king

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skellebonez · 3 years

Note

Because you are a fantastic writer, and because I simply adore what you write, how about a continuation to the "Wukong is once again being an idiot and lying to everyone" prompt? And this is an open prompt! You can take this and go absolutely bonkers with it!

THE POWER YOU HAVE GIVEN ME SHALL NOT GO UNDERUTILIZED. This is a follow up to these two previous fills and I am just going off about what I think would be an interesting way to continue into season 3 at this point.

Warning: UH... Sun Wukong is not doing too great. Mild descriptions of his hidden injuries, Wukong is still immortal but what he hid would be very bad for people who are not.

"He's burning up," Pigsy said with a hiss as he pulled his hand away from Wukong's forehead. "Why is he burning up? What even happened to him!? He didn't look like this an hours ago, ain't he immortal-"

"Yeah, but not invincible," MK interrupted with a shake in his voice, watching as Sandy checked on his mentor's newly revealed injuries. "Not entirely anymore. He-he'll probably be fine! No, he will be fine, but he's-shit." He took in a shaky breath, trying to stand on legs that had long since fallen asleep in their awkward position holding his mentor's head off the hard floor. "I'll explain later, we need to see how bad he is now!"

He jumped, feeling a soft touch against his shoulder. Mei had knelt beside him at some point and it wasn't until she reached over to brush her thumb against his cheek that he realized he had started crying at some point.

The chef looked at him with an odd expression at MK's revelations, almost looking like he wanted to say something in anger before shaking his head and standing instead.

"You're right," he said as he turned to Sandy. He didn't need to ask the largest of the group anything, watching as he carefully scooped the Monkey King into his arms and headed off into what they had designated as "the med bay" with Tang following close by. "But you're gonna tell us exactly what that you mean by 'not entirely invincible' on the way, no more of this waitin to talk business! And we're going to walk there calmly."

MK couldn't find it in himself to argue.

"Well, shit," Pigsy sighed after MK rushed through the conversation he had shared with his mentor, pinching the bridge of his snout with a sigh. "That's... bad. That explains a whole lot about a lot of stuff, like how he managed to get himself caught on New Years, at least... You're sure he's still immortal?"

"Yeah," MK nodded, leaning into the grip Mei had on his shoulder as they walked. "Yeah, he made it a point to insist he still couldn't die."

"That's... good, right?" Mei offered with a chuckle, her usual exuberance seeming shaken up after seeing the state of the immortal monkey. "That means he'll get better!"

They paused at the entrance to the med bay, really more a spare bedroom they had stocked all the medical supplies Sandy apparently hoarded into, and MK gulped. He thought over Wukong's words, trying to find any piece he could to pick it apart. See exactly what, if anything, may have been just more half truths... he didn't want to believe he was still hiding things, not after that display of dropping the glamor. But MK himself had claimed he would explain everything to the others before... and lied still... and he was more like Sun Wukong than he first realized.

"I-I think so," he finally settled on an answer as they walked in, Sandy's back being the first sight they were greeted with. He could see the bottom half of Wukong's legs and feet, and Tang standing on the opposite side of the bed, as they were doing... something. "He said I was half invincible so... maybe he's still half himself? But he said they'd 'probably heal eventually' so..."

"Maybe he just meant they wouldn't scar!" Mei offered with a smile, moving to grip MK's hand. "Come on... we can't stop thinking about the good outcomes now..."

He turned, looking at his best friend. Her smile was off, uncertain, dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. None of them had slept well the last two nights. But her eyes, despite the uncertainty they shared with her smile, were as bright and hopeful as ever.

"Yeah..." MK said with a small smile.

"As much as we'd appreciate the help," Tang said suddenly, moving from behind the bed to stand before them. He had removed his scarf and robe, something that looked bizarre and wrong outside of seeing him in his sleep wear, and instead wore a simple tank top and his regular pants. He had gloves on... already spotted in red. "This room is a little cramped with all five of us and a bed."

"I'll go make us food," Pigsy said immediately, laying a hand on MK's back as he addressed Tang. "We don't gotta eat it when it's finished it's just... gonna be ready for when you're done, ok?"

MK couldn't help but smile a bit. Pigsy didn't just make food and let it sit, not normally. The only other time he could ever remember him doing that was after... DBK. After they volunteered to help clean up the city from the damage his possession caused. He'd made pots and pots of noodles and soup and plates of side dishes and buns and just kept them warm for when anyone came by to eat them. He stayed in his shop, waiting and handing out what he could.

He never once complained about the excess from the last batches, offering them for free to the first few customers the next day if they wanted it.

"Thanks, Pigsy," Tang said with a tired smile. "I think everyone is going to appreciate that."

"I'll finish the ship upkeep Sandy and I were doing," Mei offered, smiling at Sandy when he looked over his shoulder. "I've got a pretty good handle on the specifics by now."

"I trust you," Sandy said with a smile, the first thing he had said the entire time he'd joined them in the kitchen, and turned back to what he was doing.

There was an awkward silence as Tang started grabbing supplies from a cabinet to deposit on a nearby table and Pigsy and Mei turned to MK.

"I'm staying," he said firmly, but nothing could hide the shaking in his hands. "Just... I have to know how bad he is."

"OK," Pigsy said, and they made their way out before Mei turned back inside.

"When he wakes up? Give him one of these for me," she said before making a face and leaving in the opposite direction.

There was just enough of a chuckle that escaped him that MK thought he would be able to do that.

"Are you sure you want to see this?" Tang asked, far softer in tone than he had been before. "Sandy and I were already taking stock of his injuries and... MK, they're not good."

"Yeah, I'm sure," he insisted, taking in a calming breath. "I need to know exactly how angry I need to be at him."

His father figure didn't laugh, but there was amusement in his eyes as he returned back to where he was. "Alright, then you're going to need to help by handing me everything I ask for."

They settled into silence after that, and MK watched and Tang and Sandy worked to check on the unconscious immortal in the bed.

They had stripped off his robe, leaving him only in the pants he wore underneath it. He looked... he looked much worse without it on.

In addition to his eye (which seemed to have been the only hidden injury to have already healed as much as it may have) and the tear in his ear (which seemed to have at least been partly treated by himself already) his torso was littered with little cuts and scrapes. Sandy had rolled up the legs on his pants, one remaining upright and MK could see the slight swell of his knee from some kind of internal injury (probably muscular). His tail and arms were also similarly injured, one nasty gash in particular close to the end of the tail that had gotten almost as much treatment as his ear.

But on his side... there was sloppy bandaging slowly growing redder.

"Sandy, help me get this off him," Tang said, holding out his hand. "Scissors, please."

MK jolted, getting what Tang requested from the pile of stuff, watching as he carefully cut away the wrapping.

Tang winced as he finally lifted the dressing from Wukong's side, but did his model best to look as impassive as possible. There was a sizeable gash on it, large enough that Tang's entire hand barely covered it lengthwise, that had poorly treated with the lopsided gauze and bandages (probably stolen from this very room after he allowed them to treat his visible injuries). Blood had seeped through it, all fresh, and it was most likely reopened upon his fall. It looked... wrong. Not the way it should. The fur around it had been either ripped out or had fallen out and the skin was inflamed and angry.

"... no wonder he's burning up, this is becoming infected," he said evenly, detected, leaning over to look at the supplies he took from the medicine cabinet. "Sandy, I'm going to need your help moving him. MK?" He turned to the young man, face softening as he saw how pale his face had gotten at the revelations before him. "MK, I heard what you were telling Mei and Pigsy earlier. Mei's probably right, he'll be ok. OK?"

MK wanted to believe he had been, he'd been so honest after he told him to stop lying, but... but he still couldn't help but worry his mentor was still hiding more. And he felt so guilty thinking that. But he shook his head, dispelling the thoughts in his head.

"OK... what do you need?"

"Let's start with antiseptic. We need to clean this as quickly as possible."

It took longer than MK had hoped. And Sun Wukong had only barely stirred the entire time. Whether it was from the infectious fever or from exhaustion from using his remaining powers while sick he didn't know, but the most of a reaction they got him from was a sharp gasp and a twitch while cleaning the worst of his wounds.

Aside from that... nothing. He remained still, even as Sandy moved him without any effort and guided Tang through the medical stuff he wasn't sure how to handle.

MK knew Tang had some first aid training but this was much more than he expected him to pull off... he supposed he was learning a lot.

After a while Tang didn't need Sandy's help to move him anymore and the massive man shot MK an apologetic look before leaving. MK assumed he had left to wash up, and he did, but he eventually returned completely cleaned up with a hot cup of tea. It was the same flavor as the one he never got to finish during his conversation earlier.

He ruffled MK's hair after the young man gratefully took it, making Wukong more comfortable on Tang's instruction and pulling the covers over everything but one arm before saying something about needing to give Mei some tea as well, before leaving the three of them alone again. MK thought that, maybe, the sight of the Monkey King as he was was somehow making him... uncomfortable. No, not uncomfortable.

Sad.

He didn't say anything.

"He looked... almost fine when he saved me..." MK said after a long sip of his tea and a long silence of watching Tang handle everything else on his own, trying to squeeze his cup. Just like when he had tried before, it stayed firm. "He wasn't hurt then, not by LBD, so... he'd been keeping up those illusions since before he came. How long was he hurt?"

"There isn't really a way for us to know," Tang admitted, wrapping the fresh gauze around the king's arm as carefully as he could manage. It wouldn't have mattered if he wasn't careful, Wukong didn’t stir a bit. "It could have been hours... could have been days. With how quickly his eye healed vs his gash it's hard to tell. But my guess would be hours, given when you... when..." He trailed off, a shudder running through him. "He was actively giving you his powers, yeah? Maybe... he was giving you some of his healing abilities. Or maybe something else hurt his eye long before everything else. We just don't know."

"I think that was from Macaque," MK said with a wince, knowing he was going to have to explain more about who Macaque was eventually. "He said LBD has him under her control and he has the same injury on the opposite eye."

Tang froze for a half a second, the shine of the overhead lights on his glasses keeping Mk from seeing just what kind of expression he had. But he simply nodded, finishing up his work.

"We'll just... have to hope he'll be able to give us some better information when he wakes up," Tang said with a shrug as he removed his gloves. "This is all probably a mystery even to him... I'm going to wash up... will you be alright alone?"

"Yeah."

That was a lie, but he felt at least this one was warranted.

Because even if he wouldn't be fine he didn't want to leave.

It was nearly 11 hours before Sun Wukong opened his eyes again, though he didn't realize that at the time.

The morning sunlight was just barely shining through the window to the med bay, and he wondered for a moment why one of his eyes seemed to ache at the light and a tear rolled down his cheek from the strain at trying to see.

Then he remembered that he couldn't see out of it anymore. And the conversation with MK. And... passing out. In the kitchen.

This was definitely not the kitchen floor, which was bad. What he was laying on was soft and had something else laying on top of him. Which meant he had been moved to a bed.

Which meant he had been unconscious for more than a minute, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted.

He tried to move his left arm to cover his eye, but found something... holding it down. And with a little effort he moved his head, looking over to the side.

MK was slouched over on a chair, nearly face down on the blanket that covered him and holding his hand. In his other hand there was a comic book of some kind, horribly bent by his own face.

He had dark circles, much darker than he had the night before, under his eyes and there was a dried wetness on his cheeks that made Wukong's chest hurt at the sight.

He'd messed up... again. He shouldn't have held up the illusion, not for that long. He should have let it fall the moment they hit the drone and been honest instead of insisting that he go on his new Journey to the West on his own. Or at least let it fall the next day, when they questioned why he was so tired. So quiet. Why he was so still and wasn't running around the ship like they expected (the pulled muscle in his knee, which he very much noticed was tightly compressed by either a sleeve or a wrap, being the main culprit along side... that injury).

He sighed, doing his best to remove his hand from his student's carefully before gently resting it on his head and ruffling the hair there.

"...'m sorry, MK," He said tiredly. "No more secrets, I promise."

"You better mean that promise you asshole."

Wukong yelped and jumped, yelping again when it sent a jolt of pain down his side. "YOu're AwAKe!?"

MK sat up, almost smiling at the way his mentor sounded but holding it back. "Yeah... I kinda passed out after a while, but I woke up like... an hour ago? I've just been trying to get as much rest as I can, even if I'm not actually sleeping."

"That's... good," Wukong said with a nod, the way MK described the time frame feeling familiar. "So you saw... everything?"

"Everything."

"Well, shit."

"That's exactly what Pigsy said when I told him what happened," Mk said with a chuckle, reading over to grab a packet of some kind and a glass of water. "Tang gave me very specific instructions to make you take all of this. Or else."

"Or else... what?" Wukong chanced, raising an eyebrow.

"I dunno, I always took the medicine he gives me with that threat so I never got to find out," MK shrugged. "Pigsy says it's not worth finding out."

"I'll take his word for it," Wukong said with a sigh. It was probably best to take whatever it was regardless of threats, he could feel his fever still and he did not want to keep having to fight that off. So he took the medicine, a mixture of pills and some kind of powder MK mixed into his drink that made it taste oddly way too sweet and sour at the same time, and sighed as he closed his eyes again for a moment.

They sat in silence for only a minute before he spoke again.

"Your friends... did all this?" He gestured to himself, reaching up to feel the odd dressing on his ear.

"Tang and Sandy did," MK explained, and went on to tell him what happened. How they treated him. How Pigsy had food waiting for him now that he was awake. How MK stayed by his side just in case.

"Oh, and Mei wanted me to give you this," MK said before pausing, glowering at him in a way that looked odd on his student's face but probably would have looked horrifying on Mei.

"Oh... I made her that mad huh?"

"I think everyone is kinda angry at you to some degree," MK admitted before holding his mentor's hand again. "But... mostly we were worried. You're my mentor, and a part of our little group now. That's what we do. Worry about each other."

Sun Wukong felt another tear slip out of his injured eye, but not from strain.

It had been so long since anyone... worried about him.

He didn't know how much he missed knowing he was cared about like that.

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #gen fic #warning: blood and injury #sun wukong #monkey king #mk #qi xiaotian #tang #sandy #pigsy #mei #long xiaojiao #Tang knows way more than he lets on #dunno if it's because he's just super smart or what but he does #lmk spoilers

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