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Monkey King tore through another stack of scrolls, golden eyes flying over words and illustrations in his feverish search for information. The heat was on—he was rapidly running out of time to figure out more information about the White Bone Spirit and the plans she’d hinted at during their last—extremely unpleasant—encounter. Last time he’d heard from the kid, he’d been focused on breaking into a location suspected to contain a wealth of information about his opponent. As it happened, there’d been fairly little to go on there—it seemed someone had been especially meticulous in their efforts to wipe away any leads. So the trip had been sort of a bust, and MK hadn’t attempted to contact him telepathically about lessons since—something the Monkey King couldn’t quite help but feel a little disappointed at. He was busy- yes, but he hadn’t intended to drive the kid away. Looking back on their last conversation, he might’ve seemed a bit…callous, he supposed.
He heaved an aggravated sigh and rummaged around the pile of scrolls surrounding him with renewed vigor. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice! He knew the kid wasn’t exactly enthused at the abrupt switch to remote lessons, but it just couldn’t be helped. The visions the White Bone Spirit had threatened him with during their encounter haunted him even now. He suppressed a shudder, holding a parchment up to the lantern light to get a better view. Whatever happened- he could not let those events come to fruition.
Things were coming down to the wire though, he’d already been gone longer than he’d intended and had little to show for it. Despite his lack of useful information, he was getting desperate to return to the mortal realm. The longer he was away on his “vacation” the more worried he felt for everything he’d left behind—the city, his mountain, the monkeys, his successor-
“Aha!” He broke away from that train of thought, holding up a piece of illustrated parchment in triumph. It was painted with a likeness of the offending spirit, blue and skeletal with hollow eye sockets and flowing white hair. He scanned the rest of the paper, skimming it for anything remotely useful. Lady Bone Demon...blah blah blah...blah. Monkey King let out a growl and threw down the parchment. Nothing. Essentially...nothing. He let his head rest momentarily on a nearby shelf, scrolls clattering from his pile and rolling away as he shifted his weight. Just another useless, vague illustration. Why did every lead keep turning up empty?
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to stem the beginnings of no doubt a monster headache. The image of MK being swallowed up in a blaze of light flashed in his mind’s eye once again. Ugh. He needed to figure this out. And soon. Something told him he was rapidly running out of time.
He knocked his head back against the shelf in frustration, the dull sound of his skull hitting wood loud in the near deafening silence of the secluded library. Monkey King admittedly...wasn’t much of a study-nut. The library had definitely not been at the top of the list of places he’d thought to look for information, but with said list growing ever shorter, he’d had to make concessions. Too bad for him it didn’t seem to have been worth it. He’d been here for…he rubbed his head -a long while. Hours, most likely. And he had absolutely nothing to show for it.
He sighed, standing with a stretch and a groan. Welp, time to ditch and leave the mess for someone else to clean. He waded through the pile of scrolls and books he’d displaced—onto the next lead, he conceded. Whatever that happened to be.
Or...maybe he should call the kid first? He hadn’t heard from him in quite a while. Now that he’d gotten the hang of telepathic communication, Monkey King had sort of expected MK to seek him out for lessons, but maybe the kid simply didn’t want to intrude. Again, his thoughts drifted back to their most recent conversation. He’d been distracted at the time...but he could recall telling his student to try and figure things out on his own. Maybe he’d taken it to heart.
Well- he kicked at a nearby scroll, sending it rolling across the floor into another section of the library, it’d been long enough. He was still a teacher after all—couldn’t hurt to check in. And anyways, it was better than rummaging around here for another couple hours.
A quick blink was all it took before a golden vision of MK popped into view. He was holding a mop, and didn’t seem to notice Monkey King at first. Monkey King squinted at his student. The kid looked…tired. There was something about the way he held himself that the Monkey King felt unfamiliar with—like an extra weight had been added to his shoulders. He still looked….fine- happy enough, he supposed. But it was a mockery of the kid’s usual levels of enthusiasm and, being honest...sort of threw him for a loop. Sure, it wasn’t like he was doing anything particularly worth getting excited over—working a shift at Pigsy’s from the looks of it. But Wukong had been watching over MK for a long time, and even doing menial tasks like taking out the garbage or washing dishes, he almost never looked quite so….maybe not dejected per se, but definitely unenthused.
As if he could sense his teacher’s questioning gaze, MK glanced up, starting so bad he nearly dropped his mop. “Monkey King?” He blinked. “You’re here!” Immediately his expression went from somewhat neutral to awed and excited.
Monkey King flashed a grin. There—the kid seemed to have snapped out of whatever momentary funk he’d been in, he tried to shake the feeling something was still a little off. “Heya bud!” He greeted, “Been a while, huh? Thought I’d drop by and see how your training’s coming along.” He rested his hands on his hips in as casual a stance as possible—no need to make the kid think he was worried. He’d decided to keep the kid in the dark about the White Bone Spirit for a reason. And anyways, he definitely wasn't. Worried that is. Or well, not extremely worried. Everything was fine.
MK bounced a bit on the balls of his feet, “Ooh! Ooh! I did exactly what you told me to! I learned how to listen and also I’m not sure it was really in the curriculum but we went to your house and found your game and I was like super bad at it at first but after 32 hours I figured out how to counterattack and use my opponent’s own strength against them-”
Monkey King raised an eyebrow. Sooooo, it seemed like things had been at least somewhat successful in his absence. That was good, that was good. Though, where exactly MK had gotten the idea to play the Monkey King game at his house...he had no clue.
“-and I’m sooo sorry but I sortofmaybeblewaholeinthesideofyourhouse- oh!” He perked up, “and I figured out how to shrink myself! At first it was impossible but I was washing my hands and then I just- poof! I fell down the drain and- and...” MK broke off suddenly.
Monkey King had only half been paying attention to his student’s ramblings, but he snapped to attention the moment he felt the mood shift. And it was dramatic. One minute MK seemed excited, eager to catch Monkey King up on what he’d learned during his absence, the next- it was like somebody had opened a freezer. He felt the fur on the back of his neck prickle. The reason was lost on him. He mentally replayed the kid’s last couple sentences, scanning them for anything out of the ordinary, but- nope—learned how to change size...fell down a drain….well, maybe that could be considered upsetting, but for some reason he had a feeling it was bigger than that. He eyed the kid.
MK was suddenly looking everywhere but him. He bit his lip, shifting in place and pushing his mop around a little. “...uhhh, actually never mind.” He huffed out a nervous laugh, “That story’s...boring anyways. So uhm, your...vacation!” He focused back on Monkey King, previous expression smoothed over once again by one of enthusiastic curiosity, “How’s that been?”
Monkey King frowned, squinting at his student. MK was hiding something. And, if his previous experiences with MK and secrets were anything to go by, it likely wasn’t anything good. “Ah, fine fine.” He waved off the question, feeling uncharacteristically serious. He crossed his arms, “Did something happen?”
MK winced, nearly imperceptibly, but Monkey King still caught it. He was the Great Sage Equal to Heaven after all. And MK was his student—the kid was practically an open book at this point. MK swallowed, back to looking slightly uncomfortable, “Uh, no of- of course not! What makes you say that?”
Monkey King gave him an unimpressed stare. He heaved a sigh, striding closer to his student. He so did not have time for this. “Listen, kid,” He started, placing a hand on vision MK’s golden, slightly see-through shoulder, “I know I’ve been sort of...distant for a bit, but I’m still your mentor. If you ran into some trouble with one of my powers you’ve gotta let me know, okay?” He really wasn’t liking the look on MK’s face.
“I, uh, I mean…” The kid fidgeted with his hands, “I haven’t had any problems adjusting to your powers.”
Monkey King frowned, something else then? Well, one way to find out- given the kid was willing to cooperate that is. He suppressed another sigh, falling into a sit and gesturing for MK to do the same. The kid hesitated for a moment, before propping his mop somewhere out of view and looking for a spot on the floor—hopefully not too wet from his cleaning it. “What’s eating at ya, bud?” He asked as soon as the kid was settled.
MK stared at him for a long moment before looking away. He hugged an arm to his side, looking for all the world like he wished the floor would open up and swallow him. “Do you…” He faltered, “...Do you think I’m a bad successor?”
The question was so out of left field that for a second Monkey King thought he’d misheard. He blinked, “What?”
MK seemed to shrink in on himself, “I...well, I mean..you- don’t you...wish you’d picked somebody better? Don’t you, uh, regret it? Giving me your powers?”
“What?” Monkey King repeated, staring wide eyed at his student, “Kid, is that what this is about? You think I’m- what? Disappointed?” He struggled to wrap his head around the situation, thinking about what it must look like from the kids point of view. And, well...he had said he was just on vacation. From MK’s perspective...maybe it seemed like he was giving up on him. Or something.
MK was looking more and more miserable by the second, he drew his knees up to his chest, “It’s true, isn’t it!” It was less a question than a statement, and less accusatory than it was despairing—something that rubbed Monkey King the wrong way. He scrambled over himself to refute it.
“Wh- no! Of course not!” He managed, completely dismayed. Why on earth would he think that? “Why would you think that?”
MK refused to look at him, running his hands through his hair nervously. The atmosphere shifted from feeling tense to overwhelming and oppressive. “I…I…” His breath hitched, as if the air in his lungs had snagged on something. His eyes stared at something Monkey King couldn’t see- and though it was possible it was just outside his field of telepathic vision, they were glazed enough to suggest it was something..slightly less tangible than that. Even through the golden hue of the telepathic communication, Monkey King could see all the blood drain from the kid’s face. Suddenly his breathing was all over the place, hands curled in his hair in a death grip, no doubt tight enough to hurt.
“Whoa- whoa, kid, hey.” More than a little alarmed, Monkey King reached out- gently, as if he were coaxing an injured animal. Wrong move. MK, who up until that point had been staring glassy-eyed at some spot over Monkey King’s shoulder, flinched so hard at the movement he nearly fell over, catching himself on his hands and panting raggedly.
Monkey King recoiled, edging back a little to give the kid some space, “Kid, you’ve gotta calm down. Breathe, okay? What’s wrong?”
“S-sorry, I’m sorry. I muhh- I met someone. She said you knew about her. She tried to-” The kid cut himself off, he was wheezing so hard it was a wonder he could speak at all, “She- she-”
“Kid.” Despite his best efforts, worry made Monkey King’s voice sharper than intended, “You’re gonna end up passing out, remember what I told you about focus? Focus on breathing for a second. Nothing else.” He ordered. It would have been easier to help the kid if they’d been in the same place, but he didn’t exactly have the time to fly down from the celestial realm. He’d just have to make do. “In and out, slowly. Try to calm down. You’re fine, bud. You’re okay.”
MK had buried his face in his hands but seemed to be trying his best to follow his mentor’s orders. Monkey King was a master of many things- most things, but he felt uncharacteristically lost trying to comfort his clearly panicking student. Who was currently sitting on the floor of a noodle shop in a different realm altogether. He didn’t try to approach MK again, instead hovering nearby, offering quiet encouragement- variants of “It’s okay” and “You’re doing fine, kid” and more often than not just a reminder to actually breathe.
Bone-achingly slowly, the kid’s wheezing began to even out. Monkey King didn’t let himself relax at the development, every inch of him was practically buzzing with dread. Despite what he apparently thought- MK was a great successor, he was a strong kid. If something had managed to rattle him this much...
“Sorry- I’m sorry…” The kid choked out, he ran a hand through his hair, giving a laugh that sounded suspiciously close to a sob, “I thought she needed help. I thought she was just a little girl.”
Monkey King felt his stomach drop. MK looked up at him, his eyes wide and horrified, “She wasn’t,” He whispered, breathing still a little rough, “She definitely wasn’t.”
Monkey King stared, feeling chilled at the words. A horrible thought occurred to him, a shot of ice cold panic manifesting in the pit of his stomach. “MK.” He began, voice deadly serious, “Who was she? Do you know?” A little girl but not a little girl. A no doubt devious trick. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t be so bold. Not now, not already. He needed more time.
MK shuddered, biting his lip, “She, um, said her name was the, uh….Lady- Lady Bone Demon...I think.”
Monkey King fought the string of curses threatening to slip off his tongue.
He sucked in a breath, “Okay.” He said, trying to sound calmer than he felt, “Okay. Kid. I’m coming back right now. Go gather your friends and stick with them till I get there, got that?”
MK looked stricken, but he nodded, “Monkey King, who-?”
Monkey King interrupted him with a shake of his head, running a hand through his fur frustratedly, “I should have told you. I’ll explain everything as soon as I get back, I promise.” He rose, “Stay with your friends. Are you gonna be alright if I leave?” Despite his reputation, he could be thoughtful—he cared about the kid after all. And MK was clearly freaking out—Monkey King felt reluctant to cut the telepathic communication just yet. But...the longer he waited...
MK blinked up at him, “Wh- yeah, but I…” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but then his expression hardened, he nodded resolutely. “Yeah...Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Monkey King let his expression soften slightly. MK never failed to step up to the plate. “Alright!” He made to leave but paused, “Oh, and kid?”
MK’s focus snapped to Monkey King like a magnet.
“You’re a great successor, okay?”
He cut off the telepathic communication before the kid had a chance to respond, though he didn’t miss the odd look that flitted across MK’s face as he faded away.
Monkey King stared at the space the vision had been sitting moments ago, before whirling around, tail lashing as he stalked his way out of the library. His boots caught on scrolls and books and they skidded away with an alarmingly destructive force. No more “vacation,” no more secrets. No more hopping from location to location desperately trying to find information. Enough. It was time for this to end.
He was the Monkey King and MK was the Monkey Kid. They could take her. They’d defeat the Lady Bone Demon just as they had the Spider Queen.
He burst through the library doors, loud enough that several nearby beings jumped in fear at the disturbance. What could possibly go wrong?