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Mk's heart pounded so quickly that he could hear the drumbeat of it within his ears. Even his breathing felt too loud alongside the throbbing chill in his head.
Buddha, he'd felt her claws in his very head, trying to force herself in!
His arms were burning from forcing himself through the gap of rocks, scrapes and cuts making themselves known. She hadn't followed, had she? He'd heard her last words to him but no following feet.
"Run along. Destiny will find you soon enough."
And that creature by her side...
They came into being surrounded by darkness and cold pressure months before a boy would stand before a furnace, a lady, and a spider. They felt that perhaps there should be warmth, but there was only cold, and the chill was all encompassing.
Something beyond them called them upwards like a beacon, pulsing throughout their entire being. Acting more on instinct than want or need, they shifted around, more and more until finally they had carved space to move against the packed down pressure around and inside of them.
Following the beacon, they clawed their way towards it, slowly clawing again and again against the world until they broke through into something new. The rest of themself followed, clawing the rest of themselves from the earth.
Ice crept across their face to the sides and spread out into the air, and suddenly the world went from nothing to quiet and wind.
Hands just as cold as themself grabbed their jaw, holding their head still as something scraped against and then into them. They felt nothing as packed earth was scraped free from the left of their head.
The power keeping their loose parts surged upwards into the gap left behind by the earth as the hands let go, and suddenly the sense of sight bloomed through their being.
Oddly, they felt that it should have spread to their right as well, but only the left of the world revealed itself to them. They looked up into a face as cold as the hands that had scraped the earth from where their eye should lay.
Finally, the cold expression shifted, mouth tipping up into a harsh smile.
They opened and closed their own mouth and the dirt within fell to the ground. Even so, they had no lungs with which to give sound to the air.
"The Warrior: abandoned, betrayed, and forgotten by his King," the being said. "But no longer may you rest. Your new lady has a new purpose for you. Rise before me."
They rose to their feet before her.
"A Warrior who need never rest. You will be an important tool for bringing about destiny's will," the Lady said. "An important tool against Sun Wukong and his successor's meddling."
Sun Wukong. The name rang around what remained of their skull. The newly named Warrior felt that they should know that name.
The cold power of their Lady swallowed the curiosity away, leaving only the need to follow her will behind.
"Go forth," their lady said. "There are things I require you to collect before we can begin."
The Warrior obeyed.
Mk couldn't free himself from the ice that had spread up his staff.
"Do not lament your fate, child," LBD said. "You can rest knowing you've served your purpose. My Warrior, it is time to bring his story to a close."
Mk's heart skipped. He tugged with even more desperation, but the ice only continued to spread up his body.
Before him, the flickering shadows almost seemed to boil as the monster took shape and clawed its way free into the light.
Mk froze in terror, unable to move as the blue glow within its eye socket landed on him.
It looked so much worse in the light above ground. The darkness that stained the ancient looking finger bones of its hands proved itself to be caked on dirt. It tilted its head and Mk felt bile rise in his throat at how the caved in right side of the monkie skull caught the light. Ears of ice twitched and flickered manically as that awful blue light focused itself onto him. Bones clicking and rattling as it moved, the monster's jawbone fell down into a silent scream as it lunged towards him, clawed and skeletal hands aimed for his throat.
Mk screamed and closed his eyes tightly shut. The pain never came, the world exploding into gold before it had reached him, the power of it surging and blasting free the ice that trapped him.
Mk should have been angry to see Monkey King when he opened his eyes, but instead all he could manage was relief. Even the Lady Bone Demon's monster wouldn't stand a chance against the great sage!
The Monkey King had dived in between Mk and the beast, intercepting the blow with a concerning grunt. There was barely time to register how awful his mentor looked before Monkey King's eyes widened as he met eyes to blue light with the creature snapping its awful jaws at his face.
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven buckled.
Mk cried out as his mentor was slammed into him, the momentum smashing Mk back against the metal of his ruined mech. Mk scrambled, trying to claw himself free as Monkey King tried to keep those snapping jaws from biting into his face.
Dirty earth stained claws snagged again and again against Mk as the beast tried to claw against his mentor.
Mk needed to fight. He needed to help Monkey King. But all he managed to do was cry as he was suffocated against the metal beneath his mentor's weight as the monster tore away.
"You fulfilled his destiny, Sun Wukong," LBD said. "Now, he fulfills yours."
"Mihou, please!"
The monster fumbled.
It was enough.
Monkey King finally threw the beast off of him and Mk gasped in air as Monkey King turned and grabbed him by the jacket.
His mentor pulled him close and Mk clung back tightly and buried his face into Monkey King's tattered clothes. Even as they fled, even as he felt like a coward and wanted to beg they stay and fight, Mk could not bring himself to even look up.
The Warrior's skeletal feet met the metal deck of the ship with a heavy clang.
The human that had been saved by the monkie screamed and bolted from them.
The oddly familiar monkie, on the other hand, stood tall. Prepared to face the Warrior. Bronze eyes seemed to stare into the Warrior, the monkie's eyebrows deeply furrowed.
Their target's tail lashed. Once. Twice. Some deeper emotion drifted across Sun Wukong's face, tempered by determination and defiance in the face of the Lady's destiny.
Neither moved.
"Oh, Mihou," the monkie said. "What has that witch done to you, Plum?"
The names rang around what remained of their skull. They should know them, they felt. Just like at the broken mech of the broken boy, the name 'Mihou' clattered against their Lady's will.
The Warrior clawed at the ice that dripped down their eye socket like tears, the light that gave them sight casting their sight flickering as they jostled it.
Their Lady's will. That was what was important. The Lady's will was their purpose. And the Lady's will demanded Sun Wukong and his successor meet their end. Whether destiny or not, whether their hands or not, it did not matter to them. Only the Lady's will.
The Warrior's hand fell and they approached with careful steps. Tail bones kept connected only by perpetually melting ice gave a mockery of Sun Wukong's own lashing tail as they approached.
"You had a shadow staff once," Sun Wukong said. "Do you remember?"
The Warrior moved to circle.
Sun Wukong's eyes followed, gradually turning to follow their movement.
Together they circled, sizing each other up, neither moving to pounce.
"Beneath the peach trees, you once told me you'd love me forever," Sun Wukong said. "I brought you an immortal peach from Heaven's own orchard and told you I'd give you forever. Do you remember?"
Within their ice coated ribs, they felt a sharp pang of warmth for the first time.
They snapped their jaws and attacked.
Later, sinking deeper into the water amidst the wreckage caused by Sun Wukong's wayward strikes, the Monkie Kid crew taken by that creature in the water, they thought back to that warmth and grasped at their ribcage with a skeletal hand. It was gone now, leaving only the cold and the memory of the feeling.
They opened their mouth, jawbone drooping down. Somehow, despite having no tongue with which to taste, they thought that the water should be salty.
Mk had always thought meeting dragons would be cool.
After meeting Mei's great-great-great whatevers and getting thrown in a cell, he had not been very impressed.
Seeing them fearlessly going against LBD's monster, though, he figured maybe one day he could change his mind on that.
The Warrior was almost disappointed in how easily the group fell for the ploy. Separating the two from their target was even easier.
The human shook with fear as they approached, eyes clenching shut as they stopped before him.
"Monkey King told us about you," the human said. "K-kind of. He called you Mihou. He said- he said you were his friend. His best friend."
Mihou. Their jaw clicked as they tried to voice it, but only the sound of bone against bone was their reward.
"What she's done to you is horrible," the human said. "But I can't sit by and let her destroy the world. And if you were alive, I hope you wouldn't either. I don't know if there's anything of the real Mihou in there, but if there is... please. Please fight. If not for the world, then at least for Monkey King."
The Warrior stared down at him.
"He said you were the moon to his sun. The King's Warrior," the human said. "Do... do you remember? Are you in there?"
The caved in side of their skull ached. It shouldn't. They had no pain receptors, no nerve endings. Nothing but bone and a few sparse leathery remnants of what may have once been flesh.
The Lady's will. She wanted this human alive, now. Wanted the human to serve it, willingly or not.
Willingly or not...
A roar behind them, and then everything was green.
The construct they had crafted shattered, sending them and their catch tumbling into the sand.
Or only them, perhaps, as their quarry all stood, the dragon girl wielding her sword.
The Warrior got to their feet as the human gleefully reunited with his two friends before their focus turned back to The Warrior.
Their tattered scarf, the only thing they had brought into the world as they clawed their way into it, lashed like an angry tail in the wind of the desert. Their borrowed armor hung loose on their frame.
For a split moment, standing across from those three, they felt like a relic in a time it no longer belonged.
Something ached in their sole eye socket. But they had no tear ducts, no skin, and no tears shed.
Their Lady's will would probably be for them to attack. To take the human by force now.
They would grow weak in this desert anyways, the Warrior reasoned to it. They could pluck the human's dying body from the sand.
The Warrior sat, tail bones wrapping around in a futile attempt to drive the cold from their bones.
For some reason, when the three finally continued on into the sand, the human told him "thank you."
Mk thought he would see the mons- Mihou fighting by LBD's side. Or maybe that he would be in a crater of his own, like the Not Mayor.
Then again, he thought maybe Monkey King had a chance, too.
Now things were even worse than before.
"None of us are strong enough to go against Wukong. With both celestial monkies under her control, we are outmatched."
"So it's hopeless?" Mk asked. "We can't just roll over and let her win!"
Nezha huffed and clapped Mk on the shoulder, bringing the panic to a stop before it could properly start.
"I didn't say that. We aren't strong enough. But I know somebody who is. Someone who has gone toe to toe with Wukong before and put him on the run."
"Buddha?"
"What? No! Erlang Shen!"
The Warrior stood side by side with the King.
When the Lady had expanded her will further to the king, the cold within the Warrior's bones had lessened their sting. He had flashes of the sun on his face, ocean waves in his ears.
His bones creaked as he looked to the sun. But the other did not look back.
Within his chest he felt... dissatisfaction.
Mk could barely keep up with Erlang Shen's strong wingbeats. He wasn't entirely sure how he had managed. Then again, he wasn't sure how Nezha had managed to get the god on board, either.
Or finding out his dads, mostly Tang, had named him after a celestial dog. So not cool.
Erlang Shen landed, talons screeching across the metal before reforming into his humanoid form.
Beside him, Xiaotian Quan materialized in a burst of fire, the black and gold dog already alert before its paws had even hit the ground.
Mk was so begging to get to pet her when they won this. Because they would win this. They had to.
Mk managed a less cool but at least efficient landing beside them, already moving forward towards his staff as he took a breath and prepared himself.
"Here comes-"
A hand grabbed the back of his hoodie and yanked him back moments before Monkey King's possessed form slammed into the ground where Mk had almost been standing.
From the shadow of his staff, Mihou emerged in all his monstrous glory, moving forward to stand side by side with Monkey King.
Erlang Shen pulled him back to his feet and summoned his spear as Xiaotian (gods, would that ever stop being weird) bared her teeth.
"Mk the Monkie Kid and the self exiled has-been, Erlang Shen," LBD said. "Here to embrace oblivion?"
"Here to deliver it," Erlang Shen growled. "Go, boy. You know your role."
Mk nodded and charged, Xiaotian racing along by his side with a determined bark.
Monkey King and Mihou both finally moved, charging forward towards him.
For the first time towards his mentor, Mk felt fear.
And then Erlang Shen was there, catching Monkey King's blow and redirecting it as Mk fell back from the force of their clash. At the same time, Xiaotian snarled and barreled into Mihou.
Mk got back to his feet, not daring to look back as he kept going.
"No matter what you do, you cannot change the path of destiny."
Mk stopped before the pillar of ice and looked up into the Lady Bone Demon's cold stare.
"I don't know if all this happened because it was destined to," Mk said. "But I have to believe that I found the staff so that I could use it for good. To help people. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to take my staff and protect this world!"
He lunged the final distance, heart surging as finally he was reunited with the familar feel of the metal in his hands.
The ice did not give.
From behind him, he heard a yelp and Erlang Shen's panicked yell. Mk glanced back over his shoulder to see Erlang Shen diving down to catch his dog, leaving Monkey King uncountered even as Mihou was getting back to their feet, the blue energy connecting their bones flickering.
Monkey King's eyes turned to him, the same blue glow that glowed within Mihou's empty eye socket.
No. No, this couldn't be the end.
LBD spoke as Monkey King charged forward. She sounded delighted.
"Oh, sweet child," LBD said. "Face your demise with honor. Meet your destiny with grace. And do not worry, your corpse will not go to waste. There is more than enough room for one more warrior at my service."
Mk yanked harder, gritting his teeth as tears pooled and fell in his eyes.
He could hear his mentor moving towards him, hear the air cutting around him. Mk looked back, meeting the blue glow as Monkey King charged towards him.
The tears pooling in his eyes fell as he clenched them tightly shut.
The pain never came. He felt coldness on his face, the blue glow bright across his eyelids, the sound of something shattering.
Mk opened his eyes to meet the singular blue glow within Mihou's eye socket.
The Warrior stared back at him. The light seemed to soften, and a freezing skeletal hand came up to grasp at Mk's shoulder.
Mihou opened his mouth, jawbone opening and shutting, sharp teeth clacking together. Whatever he wanted or tried to say was given to silence.
The light went out, leaving only the empty eye socket of the celestial monkie's skull and the caved in right side. With a clatter and little fanfare, the monster Mk had been so terrified of dissipated into bone fragments and dust around Monkey King's fist.
Mk looked up into flickering blue and saw tears pooling in his mentor's eyes.
Steeling himself, he looked back to the Lady Bone Demon, her eyes wide as she stared at the shattered fragments of the Warrior.
"If you really believed destiny couldn't be changed, you wouldn't be using every ounce of power you have to keep him contained. You didn't even have the strength to keep Mihou fully contained. The Monkey King I know will never stop fighting you, just like Mihou didn't! And neither will I."
Monkey King moved. But instead of finishing Mk off, his hand moved past and grabbed onto the staff.
As Monkey King's eyes flickered from blue to gold, Mk finally truly felt that everything was going to be okay.
Mk's face ached from how big his smile was as he tried to hold the stick out of Xiaotian Quan's reach.
"Throw it to me, throw it to me!" Mei yelled.
It was not to be.
Xiaotian Quan yipped and jumped, landing against his chest and bringing them both to the ground.
Mk shrieked with laughter as Xiaotian licked at his face, her tail wagging up a storm.
Mei yanked the stick from his hands and ran. Yipping with excitement, Xiaotian finally ceased her attack and chased after her.
Mk was still giggling as he sat up, trying to wipe the dog spit from his clothes and face. As he did so, he noticed Monkey King leaving.
Pigsy hadn't even finished with the noodles!
"Where are you going?" Mk asked. "You're not going to stay to celebrate?"
"There's something I have to do, bud. Something I should have done a long time ago."
Mk looked away as a flash of blue light fading out burned across his eyelids. He took a deep breath and looked up to offer a small smile to Monkey King.
"I have my best friend back, Monkey King," Mk said. "It's time you went and got yours."
If Monkey King's eyes were a bit wet as he turned away to go, well, who was Mk to call it out?
Mk fiddled with his hands as he waited for Monkey King.
He startled when the door opened, but the soft smile on Monkey King's face had him already calming back down.
"You ready, kid?" Monkey King asked. "There's somebody in here ready to meet you."
Mk stood and went to follow Monkey King. Already figuring who he would see, he paused before the doorway.
Monkey King stepped out and set his hand upon Mk's shoulder.
"You ready, bud?"
"No," Mk said. "Not really."
Monkey King laughed and pulled gently.
This time, Mk followed, clinging to the back of Monkey King's shirt as he followed him through the doorway.
Hiding behind his mentor probably wasn't the most heroic thing, he knew.
Monkey King stopped walking and so did Mk. He could see the edges of the foot of the bed before them.
Monkey King gently pried Mk's fingers from his shirt and walked forward to stand by the side of the bed.
Mk stared down at the floor, the sound of his heart beating frantically in his ears.
"Hey, kiddo."
The voice was new. Soft. Smoother than he would have expected.
Finally, Mk looked up.
Monkey King was standing beside the monster in the bed, hand on his shoulder and giving Mk a reassuring smile.
The monster didn't look like much of a monster anymore. He looked like a monkie. Like Monkey King. Well, not entirely like Monkey King.
The caved in skull was gone, only a scar over an unseeing right eye to give any sign that something had happened. The other looked exhausted, but content, with no hint of blue to be seen.
His fur was a lot darker than Monkey King's golden. No bones to be seen, only dark tanned skin and smooth ebony fur to be seen, a dark red mask mark across his face.
And instead of ice that mimicked ears, two sets of three soft and tapered ears were flared out on either side of the monkie's head in soft pastel colors.
He didn't look like much of a monster at all, anymore.
"Mk, this is Liu Er Mihou," Monkey King said. "The ten kings told me a long time ago that he had finished his cycle, but they lied to me. This time, I didn't let them trick me again."
"Six-Eared Macaque," Mihou- Macaque said. "It's my, uh, full name. I don't really go by Mihou anymore."
Macaque offered him a soft smile.
Finally, Mk felt the last of his fear slip away.
"Sorry we couldn't meet on better terms," Macaque said.
Mk stepped closer to the bed and offered his own small smile.
"I'm, uh, I'm Qi Xiaotian. For short, anyways. But I usually just go as Mk. It's nice to meet you, Macaque. For real this time."
Macaque's smile grew a little bigger, tired eyes crinkling at the edges.
"It's good to finally meet you, too, kiddo."