Chapter Text
Earlier that evening, when MK woke up from his nap. He was lying on the desk in his room, in a very uncomfortable position. He had to fall asleep, when he was reading some Monkey King comics or watching one of the many marathons of The Monkey King: Animated Series. He couldn’t remember clearly.
He was too tired to move. His sleeping schedule was really messed up this week, mainly by various weird deliveries he had to do for Pigsy. Now that he had proven himself, the owner of the noodle shop decided that Monkey King’s powers can be used to help the business and the deliveries were getting more and more bizarre. Now he was just wondering what had woken him up. That must have been something big, because he was pretty certain that only an explosion could wake him up in this state.
Almost immediately he heard a loud crash, bang and something that resembled an explosion. He thought he was hearing things, so he looked out of the window. As he expected, there was nothing worth his attention in the nearest area, as that was all he could see through his half opened eyes. He looked up at the sky and narrowed his brows. There was something wrong with it. In the corners it was in a pretty bright orange colour, but the very middle was pitch black. How was that even possible, he wondered. It took him a little to get his brain to work normally, but when he did, he was terrified.
He was now completely awake and what he was seeing right in front of him, was an enormous cloud of thick black smoke, coming from the city centre. So he was right. Only an explosion could wake him up and that was exactly what had happened.
He stormed out of his room, Staff in hand. He didn’t even bother to put on his jacket and a minute later, he was speeding through the city in his delivery car only in a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt.
While passing countless blocks and houses he noticed a recurring pattern that couldn't mean anything good. Almost in every house, there was a light shining through the windows, but no sound. The same with all the stores, restaurants and arcades. He took out his phone to check the internet. That was where people always talked about things, when they happened, but today... nothing. He scrolled far back on one of the more popular forums and there wasn't a single post since yesterday, even cat videos from Mei didn't show. He put his phone back in his pocket. Something was very wrong.
He arrived in the city center not long after. It took longer than he thought it would, because of weird traffic, but due to his knowledge of the side alleys in the city, he got there fairly quickly. Now looking at the first better crossroads, the state of the city was a thousand times worse than he thought it would be.
He could see nothing but disaster. On the main road countless cars hit each other. There was a raging in all directions, uncontrollable fire, that consumed everything MK could look at. Cars, buildings, nature. And yet it was as if no one noticed. There weren’t any people trying to help. There weren’t any people asking for help or running away. There was just no one. No. There was someone, but not in a way he wanted someone to be there. MK had never seen such things before and was more than losing it.
He could see only a few people. They all were acting weird. He could even say that they were acting as weird as it could get, when faced with mortal danger. They were sleeping. Just lying on the sidewalks, not moving. At first MK thought that they were dead, but when he came up to one girl, that was the closest to him, he saw that her chest was moving. Why was that happening? How could they just sleep, when all this destruction was going on, he didn’t know. But he was certain that it was some kind of magic.
MK shook his head. He couldn’t think about what was going on now. The fire was still raging and the cars nearby looked as if they could explode at any second. He mustered up the courage and ran towards the nearest car. First he had to save people from the fire. He struggled to open the door on the driver’s side, because of the heat, but he finally managed to. There was only one man inside and MK pulled him out. It looked as if he had severe burns all over his body, which had to be extremely painful, but he didn’t even flinch in his sleeping state. That was very wrong, thought MK.
He pulled people out of the cars for the next 20 minutes, with the fire getting closer and closer to him. He got them to safety using his staff to speed up the process. Then he took care of people on the sidewalks. In a short time he cleared the space near the fire. To somehow stop the flames, he destroyed a few hydrants so they would shoot water, because of the lack of a better idea. Surprisingly the fire stopped spreading so much and MK was really relieved. He then sat for a while on a nearby building, scouring the city from above to see if there were any more major collisions. Luckily there weren’t any.
MK took a deep breath. He put his hands up into the air and just enjoyed the breeze touching his palms. It wasn’t the coldest, but compared to the heat of a wildfire, it was a blessing. Thanks to rescuing people he now had some major burns on his whole arms and upper body. His shirt was massacred by the flames, but he knew that he had no time to mind it. He had to get over the pain and think. Think to save his friends and other people in the city.
There were two, maybe three things he knew for certain. One, everyone was asleep. Two, they were no longer endangered by the fires. Three, his friends were safe on the outskirts of the city. That was good enough. Now what he didn't know. He didn’t know how the sleeping worked. Will they wake up? Does the sleep deepen by the minute and after some time he won’t be able to save everyone? Was he the only one awake and if so, then why was that? And the most important thing, how in the hell was he supposed to help the people if he didn’t know what really happened? That was the worst. He was pretty sure he saw people dying today, burning into piles of ashes and he had no idea how to stop it.
MK was really freaking out. He knew that he couldn’t get the reality of what was happening hit him, because then he would have a full on mental breakdown and wouldn’t be of any help. He had to put that all aside and think of someone, who would know what happened. Someone powerful, who has an unlimited knowledge of the supernatural. Someone like… Sun WuKong!!
Why didn’t he think of his teacher earlier? He punched his head to punish himself for the stupidity. Of course! That was such an easy answer. The one who lived thousands of years and fought every kind of demon or monster. He would definitely know what was going on.
MK now had hope. He was really hyped that there was someone that could help him. He decided to get to the Flower Fruit mountain as fast as he could. He thought of his options. His delivery car was probably charcoal by now, so that wasn’t an option. The only thing he could do was launch himself on the staff and hope for the best. Right now that was the only reasonable option. So, he looked around. He had to figure out which way was the Mountain, because he had only one chance. Standing on the rooftop he pointed his staff at it. He gripped it really hard and thought of the place. In his mind he begged the staff to cooperate and surprisingly, it did.
He was flying through the sky for a good minute. It was way more time than he expected it to take, so when he landed his legs forgot how to walk. Standing on the beach he was still gripping his staff, noticing that his shirt had fallen off from the speed. Great. He shook his head and tried to take a step. He felt dizzy, but he knew that he had to keep going. He took a few trembling steps before starting walking fairly normally. He had to get to Monkey King’s cave fast.
When he got to the entrance of the cave he felt relieved and excited. WuKong would definitely tell him what was going on and all of his problems would be solved. He reached out his hand to the waterfall. When he felt the water touch his skin, he relaxed. He knew this place. Nothing here was wrong. It was such a different feeling from the one he had in the city. There was a bright light and the waterfall split in two. MK went through it into the cave.
He quickly went through the main compartment. The entrance to the heart of the cave was as always not guarded. MK hesitated a little before going in. He stood with his back to the wall breathing heavily. If Monkey King wasn’t inside, all hope would be lost. But he had to be. He was an immortal being. Some weird magic couldn’t affect him. Okay, now or never.
one...
two...
three...
He looked into the cave. Immediately he felt as if some heavy rock was taken off of him. WuKong was there. He was lying on a cloud that was floating in the middle. His tail waggling a few centimeters from the ground, on his chest a pack of peach chips. Like that all of MK’s problems were solved. All his problems were solved. He could ask WuKong now about everything that was happening. In a few seconds he would get a solution and go back to the city to save his friends. He would…
And then he saw it. WuKong’s chest. It was slowly rising and falling, just like the one of the people on the street. He was asleep.
MK’s world crumbled. His only hope was laid in WuKong and that hope was just taken from him. He fell to the floor. The staff rolled on the ground making a loud sound in a quiet cave. The boy was looking at the cloud for a little while, before tears formed in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Suddenly it was as if the adrenaline that kept him going for the last hour, vanished. He finally felt the burns on his arms that were caused by opening the doors of flaming cars. He cried harder, now not only because of the hopelessness, but the pain. It was getting worse by the second.
He felt like he couldn’t do anything. His only hope was Monkey King and now, when he was asleep, there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t stop the weird spell on his own. He didn’t know a thing about magic. The lives of the people in the city were now lost. And it was all his fault. MK closed his eyes. In a second he knew that it was a mistake. The image of WuKong appeared in his mind. He was telling MK that he was not worthy of the power he got and MK knew that really well, maybe better than anyone. He knew that the real Monkey King wouldn’t tell him that straingth to his face, but he knew.
Why was that so hard? Being a hero. At first he thought it would all be glory and defeating strong opponents, but now it was all death and disappointment. His first fight with DBK was really destructive, but at that time he hadn’t thought of the consequences. He started understanding the responsibility only after Macaque’s and WuKong’s fight. He started to understand the dangers heroes had to put themselves through. The final moment of realization was when DBK went insane. That’s when the whole city was affected while he was away and he didn’t even know what was happening. Now he could understand how much pain comes with being a hero. And in times like this he was thinking that gods chose him wrong. He wasn’t cut out to be one.
"That’s pathetic. You are pathetic. Stand up and stop crying like a bitch" he thought. He had to at least try and not give up, because things didn’t go his way. There were still people counting on him. He couldn’t abandon them. It would be like saying that their lives are not worth saving and he couldn’t think like that. He had no right.
He wiped his face. The tears stung a little when they touched his burns, but he could feel the adrenaline rising again. He had to go back to the city, even if it meant going in circles for hours, in search for answers. He was prepared to spend this time. He really had no other choice. He rose from the ground holding his Staff in his hand.
He started going back to the city. His pace was a lot slower than before, but he was determined. He had to think of something before he got into the city. The most pressing questions right now were, “why did this happen?”, “why wasn’t he affected?” and “what could he do to stop it?”. The question that was the easiest to answer was “why wasn’t he affected?”. The main thing that contributed to the answer was WuKong. Why was MK awake, while the four times immortal Monkey King was asleep? The answer was pretty easy, when he thought about it a little more. Because of the Staff. Monkey King’s Staff was a magical weapon that reacted only to those with Monkey King’s powers and when MK had the Staff, it protected him from the more sneak attacks that aren’t necessarily physical. And the sleep plague was definitely some kind of spell.
That was a very logical conclusion that MK was surprised he was able to make. Mei and Tang were often the ones that came up with this type of theories. Now that they were… unavailable, he had to mostly think for himself. He tried not to shift his thoughts to them, but thinking was surprisingly easier, when he was asking himself, what his friends would do.
He arrived in the city half an hour later. He felt going into a city so quiet you could hear wings of a fly flapping. The weird thing was, that the city didn’t feel empty. Normally when quiet cities were described in comics or books they always felt “dead” and “deserted”, as if they were ghost cities. But not this one. You could feel that people were alive. When MK was passing people lying on the side walks, he thought that they belonged there, no matter how weird that thought was. They just looked cozy. There were no fires raging anymore. What was left from his rescue mission died down some time ago. All of the cars that earlier were blasting sirens were also quiet.
But he had no time to analyze what was different. He had to focus. He couldn’t let anything distract him from his task. He had to find some clues, to figure out what had happened. He had to think. Think, think, thi… what?