Chapter Text
MK spat out his own hair and wiped his face clean of them, lying down with his back to the ground and groaning at the headache he got.
“Aaaand that was the last of 'em, I think. No more doubles to go after! Class: dismissed, though I don't think that class was even still standing...” He heard Monkey King say. “How are you feeling, bud?”
“Like I just got through an existential crisis.”
“Yeah, I didn't even know what you did was possible. Look at you, doing things I haven't done!”
What MK had done was try to duplicate himself, not like he did with regular clones, but by actually splitting his conscience into two. Monkey King had offered to teach him, following the interest MK had shown after conversing with one such double of his.
After one last rundown by Monkey King, MK had followed all the steps: he had rolled some of his ripped off hair up into a ball, chewed on it, spat it out, held it in both hands and blew air on it, focusing on making a perfect copy of himself. Only, he might have gone too hard on the blowing thing, or did not chew as long as he should have, because the hairball had come apart the moment it had touched the ground.
The result had been explosive, a dozen doubles appearing in a flash. The moment they had come into existence, it was clear that these doubles were not viable: every single one of them had started screaming or wailing, all displaying a different emotion, from fear to anger to sadness to elation and so on.
And they had run away before either MK or Monkey King could have gotten over their confusion. The remainder of that training session had been spent tracking down the failed doubles all over the mountain so that MK would destroy them one by one. Since the process transferred the double's memories to MK's own mind, they had to wait between every destruction for MK to register the heightened emotion they each had been experiencing.
It had been painful, and MK was pretty sure that either one of the doubles had been experiencing two emotions at once, or that another double had randomly met its end the moment that MK had struck the one standing before him. Whatever the case, that one had been a toughie to handle.
The important thing was that it was finally over.
MK brought out his phone to check the time, and a smile replaced the pout on his face.
“Aw yeah! It's almost time!” He cheered, getting up in an instant.
“You're looking eager to ditch me,” Monkey King joked, “and what for?”
“I'm going to a sleepover with Mei and Red Son! It's gonna be awesome!”
“Ah, no wonder you're excited. There's nothing quite like staying up late with your best buds, having a good time, getting into some cheeky shenanigans... destroying property...”
As he spoke, Monkey King looked more and more nostalgic, prompting MK to ask, “Did you have a lot of sleepovers, Monkey King?”
“Oh, hundreds. DBK kept coming over for those.”
MK looked at him intently, hoping he would spill some more lore.
Monkey King raised a playful eyebrow. “Don't you have somewhere to get to? Story time could get long and make you late, you know.”
“Right! I'll just... grab my stuff and go! Yep!”
He rushed away from Monkey King before anything else could have been said, starting on a mini quest to find the items he was missing; sometime during the mad chase for the doubles, MK had lost a shoe and his jacket.
The shoe had been easy to find, but he could not figure out where his jacket could have landed.
“Jacket?” he called as he parted some bushes. “Jaaackeeet!”
He looked under rocks, on top of trees, and even dove his head into a stream, but there was no sign of it.
“Jacket, c'mon, where are you?” MK asked again, his head shoved into the hollow of a tree.
“You know it's not able to answer you, right?”
“I know, I'm just doing this to make the search less bor-” MK gasped as he looked at the one who had joined him, and what he was holding. “Macaque! And you found my jacket, thanks!”
“Don't mention it,” Macaque said, handing his find over to MK, who hurried to put it on. “So, you look more excited than usual, got some fun plans?”
“Yeah yeah yeah, some real fun plans!” MK answered as he put his jacket back on – the right way, this time. “I really needed a breather, after everything...”
“And after today's training session too, apparently. Heard you screaming from everywhere. I take it the advanced clone-making didn't go too well?”
“Yeah, it was-Hey, wait a minute! If you heard, why didn't you come help?!”
Macaque shrugged. “Seems like you're not very enthused about me being your mentor, so I've decided to stay away from now on.”
MK let out a long, exasperated groan. “You can still help!”
“Can I?” Macaque said, clearly attempting to mess with MK.
“Of course you-” MK started, but frowned when he noticed something on Macaque's clothes.
“... Is that my hair?”
Macaque stiffened, brushing away the strands of hair with his tail.
“What hair?”
“Nah nah nah nah nah, I saw that!” MK said, pointing at Macaque with a grin. “You did help, you destroyed at least one! Hah!”
“It just got in my way, that's all.”
“You won't be able to argue your way out of this, if I go deep in my noggin I'm sure I can find that double's memories and know it for sure!” MK said, loving this turn of the tables.
Before he could mess with him any more, Monkey King joined them.
“Ah, there you are, 'been searching for you since I left the kid, looks like I should have stuck around,” he said to Macaque, and with a hefty amount of teasing, added, “You having withdrawals?”
MK was confused. “Withdrawals?”
“We're trying to stop arguing all the time,” Monkey King explained. “Of course, it's been taking a toll on... somebody. I might have to make a new rule that he can't take it out on others.”
“That wasn't arguing,” Macaque said, “I was making polite conversation, enquiring about my student's needs and wellbeing.”
“Your student, huh?” Monkey King said, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, right, what a great mentor you've been so far-”
“Careful, that's starting to sound a lot like arguing.”
Monkey King huffed through his nose. “You're impossible. Why don't you stop talking so we can get going?”
“Going?” MK asked.
“I'm taking Macaque to the city, out of the goodness of my heart.”
Macaque rolled his eyes. “It's the least you could do, really.”
“Yeah, well, if you'd bothered to learn to ride on clouds we wouldn't be here.” He turned to MK, as if trying to speak to him privately, but was making no effort in lowering his voice. “This guy thought he was too cool for it, so now he's stranded here.”
“I could still turn into a bird and fly away anytime I wanted. And I'm working on getting that back.”
“What, so you can waste a lot of time and energy, something that could have been avoided if you knew Cloud Somersaulting? Face it, it's just better.”
“Yeah, if you enjoy collisions with migrating flocks.”
“That was just one ti-Okay, two. No, three. Four...?” Monkey King counted, mumbling, until he gave up. “Alright, a couple of times, but mostly when I was starting out. And you can't say you never had any accidents with your shadow portals.”
“A couple of times,” Macaque said, mimicking Monkey King's voice. “But no collisions with birds, that's for sure.”
“I'll take the birds rather than be stuck with my butt in one room and my head in the other.”
Macaque flushed, as he hissed in embarrassement. “It was my tail!”
“Not how I remember it.”
“Your old age is showing, then.”
Before this obvious argument could continue, little monkeys showed up, asking for their king’s attention. Monkey King wasted no time in following some of them, the rest lingering near MK and Macaque, making worried sounds.
“Where’s he going?” MK asked.
“A big branch fell. Two monkeys are trapped. It’s too heavy for the little guys to move it.”
“Oh no! We should go help!” MK said, but before he could go, his wrist was caught by Macaque’s tail, keeping him in place.
“Kid, relax. Wukong’s got it handled. The guy can pick up mountains, a branch is nothing.”
“...Right,” MK said, feeling a bit foolish, as Macaque’s tail let him go.
In the following silence, a realization struck him. “Wait- The Color Stones we destroyed- don’t the little guys have elemental powers now too? Why do they need Monkey King’s help?”
After all, it seemed like the entirety of living beings had been granted one of those powers. Except, of course, for the Harbinger of Chaos.
Macaque made a face. “They did get powers, yeah… Wukong sealed them away until they could get some training. There have been… incidents.”
From his expression, MK could not tell whether Macaque had found these incidents funny or annoying.
The topic of powers being sealed away brought upon them an awkward air, at least on MK’s end. He stared at Macaque, hesitant as to what he wanted to say next. He could have simply said goodbye and gone on his way to the sleepover, but he needed to know.
“So, um, you okay? Y'know, with the whole 'your shadow powers have kinda turned into chaos energy and now they’re gone' thing? You didn't look bothered by that before the ritual, but then you fainted so I didn't get to ask and-”
Macaque put his hand on MK's mouth. After a fond huff, he offered MK a furtive smile as he said, “I'm fine.”
“Really? So you're... okay, with all the changes?”
“Eh, I'll deal. Not much else I can do, honestly. The one time I tried to really fight back against changes in my life didn't exactly end well, soooo...”
Before MK could inquire more about this, Monkey King came back, riding his cloud.
“So?” MK asked.
Monkey King grinned. “Monkey King: 1, Branch: 0. No injured monkeys.”
MK smiled at that, while the monkeys cheered, and he swore he could see Macaque relax. Up until Monkey King spoke to him, at least.
“Macaque! Hop on, I don't got all day!”
“I think you can afford to wait a little.”
“Do you want me to drop you off or not?”
“Ugh, fine.” Macaque gave MK some sort of salute. “See you around. Have fun at the sleepover, or something.”
“Yeah, I'll have fun or something!” MK said, waving them off as Monkey King's cloud shot up to the sky, Macaque holding on tight to the driver. “See you guys!”
It was only when Monkey King and Macaque had been but a dot on the horizon that MK realized he had never actually told Macaque he was going to have a sleepover.
“Ah,” he said, sharing a glance with the little monkeys who had also waved the duo off. “'He really can hear everything, huh?”
One of the monkeys, who looked oddly familiar to MK, merely screamed in his face.
*
MK had arrived at Red Son's retreat earlier than what had been agreed to, after a very quick stop to his flat to gather all that he may have needed for his stay, and some more. But because of this, he was standing awkwardly on the outskirts of the woods that surrounded the heart of the domain, hesitant to take another step forward.
He had no idea if Red Son was even there yet, or if he was still hanging out with his parents. A voice inside that suspiciously sounded like Pigsy's told him to stay put and wait for a proper invitation before going farther in, but many other voices were telling him to go for it.
So he went for it.
But he had not taken a single step in, that a figure emerged from the woods and seized him from behind.
“Ah! Let me go!”
The hands that had grabbed him did not let go, and their coolness made MK pause. He craned his neck as far as he could to see who his captor was, and felt relief at the sight of the robot with an upside-down right horn.
“Oh, you're a bull clone! Maybe you know if Red Son's here, we're supposed to have a sleepover tonight but-”
He yelped, the bull clone had started running forward, its hands still firmly grasping him. Its mad dash and its incomprehensible mumbles came to an end when it stopped at the lateral entrance of Red Son's training temple, plopping MK down on the ground.
A lone figure came to stand before them, and the bull clone bowed on the spot.
“Well, well, if it isn't Noodle Boy,” Red Son said, looking MK up and down. “You're early.”
“Red Son!” MK cheered. “And yeah, I know, but I just couldn't wait to see you!”
A faint dusting of red showed on Red Son's cheeks, and he coughed into his fist. “In that case, you're lucky I'm always prepared. Everything is already in order for you and the Dragon Girl's arrival.”
“Aw, you were excited too?” MK said, clasping his hands over his chest.
“I'm mostly... curious about this activity you two insisted we partake in.”
MK grinned and put a hand on Red Son's shoulder. “Trust me, you're gonna love it!”
“I sure hope I won't hate it,” Red Son said, moving MK's hand off him. “Now that you're here, how about I show you around? I don't think I have ever given you a proper tour of the place.”
“Sure, 'sounds fun!”
“Alright,” Red Son said, and he nodded to the bull clone, who had brought MK’s belongings to the training temple. “You can go, Bob.”
He turned back to MK. “Follow me.”
They walked across the suspended bridge and past the chiseled mouth of a cave that MK took a 'sneaky peeky' in.
“The Fire-Wind cave,” Red Son answered MK's silent question. “It's where I store most of my stuff-do not go in.”
Red Son made sure of that fact by grabbing MK and pushing him forward on the path. They walked down the massive stairs until they reached what looked like a small village in the middle of a huge clearing, bull clones posted at every corner. Red Son made his way in, nodding at the robots, and spoke to MK.
“These are the camp's barracks. There usually is a decent number of fire wielders here at any given time, but I gave the trainees a day off so that we wouldn’t be bothered.”
MK looked around at the assembly of empty huts, and the sizable numbers of bull clones. “You using these guys again?”
“Of course. I salvaged some of them after the damage from the Lady Bone Demon, and figured I could repurpose them. They're still acting as guards, but they double as camp staff, monitoring the training exercises.”
“...Do you ever train anyone? In person?”
“Of course not, I'm much too busy for that. Dragon Girl is the one who greets and orients newbies, and I only intervene if she's unavailable, or if there are any notable incidents requiring my intervention.”
“Figured,” MK teased Red Son, who visibly struggled not to take the bait. MK took pity on him and changed the subject. “Isn't it difficult to train fire wielders in a place with so many trees?”
Red Son pursed his lips. “If you must know, there didn't use to be a clearing right here.”
“Oh.”
“Thankfully, the elemental power I've gained from the green Color Stone you lot destroyed has made me an expert at moving trees around, and away from the training grounds. But even if that hadn't been the case, we're inside the Withered Pine Ravine: the river coursing through it may not be as impressive as it once was, but there's still plenty of water around to douse the puny flames of neophytes.”
“I see...” MK said, looking around at the many cliffs all around. “Hey, what's this whole place called anyway? I never caught a name.”
“Mount Hao. And this,” he said, pointing at the training temple they had just left. “Is a temple dedicated to Guanyin.”
“Guanyin?...” MK mused aloud, trying to find where he had heard that name before. He snapped his fingers when he remembered. “Oh, right, the lady with the vase!”
“Th-The lady with the vase?” Red Son sputtered. “Are you really that ignorant that you do not know who she is?!”
“Uuuuh she's... a Celestial?”
Red Son scoffed. “And you pretend to be a Sun Wukong fanboy.”
“I am! And I'm trying to read the book you know! I just had to stop because I was getting a headache.”
Indeed, MK had made the decision to go the way of the scholar, as Tang had put it with some pride: no more skimming over parts, no more skipping ahead to cool fight scenes, he had forgoed the shortened editions and made a vow to himself to take every single word of the book into account, and commit them all to memory so that he could recite the entire text - forward, maybe even backward - forever.
And once he would reach that goal, no longer would the likes of Macaque be able to make him pass for a fake fan who did not know his Monkey King lore: MK had only been under some serious stress back when they had been looking for his mentor inside the Scroll of Memory, and had ironically experienced a few brain farts, it happens!
He complained as much to Red Son, who shrugged.
“You are an airhead, it only makes sense.”
“Hey!”
“So, how far along are you?” Red Son said with mild, yet genuine, interest.
Of course, MK's dedication to his cause had met with some setbacks.
“Um, like, page... five?”
“Are you serious? That's not even the first chapter!”
“The book is making me do math! That's unnatural! A book is for words, not numbers!” MK whined. “How am I supposed to go further than that?”
“Whatever,” Red Son said while rubbing his forehead. “All you need to know is that Guanyin is the goddess of mercy, the very same one who selected the Great Companions that accompanied the Great Monk Tang Sanzang in his journey to the west. She saved them from their fates, setting them on the path of redemption and enlightenment."
“Hey I knew that!” MK pouted. “But she also has a vase.”
“Yes, Noodle Boy, she famously has a vase.”
Satisfied, MK hopped on ahead to look around, but his gaze quickly landed back on the temple.
“Soooo, why do you hang out in here?” he asked Red Son.
“What do you mean?”
“If this place is Guanyin's, how can you do…” he said as he gestured to everything around them. “All this?”
“Because she lets me, duh.”
MK made a few, slow blinks as he processed that information. “She lets you? You know her?”
“Of course I do. I was her disciple for the better part of my life, you know? From my younger years to my... less younger years.”
“Really? How come?”
“W-Well, for the longest time I hadn't exactly known why, I just knew that my parents were not exactly... thrilled, by this arrangement,” Red Son said, rubbing the back of his head. “It recently has come to light that it had something to do with me being the original bearer of the Samadhi fire.”
“So, what, they wanted you to be all good or something?”
“I-Yes? Sort of? My powers had been removed, but the heavens feared I could still be a threat, so I was sent away to study under her. It was only when my father had been sealed away by Sun Wukong that I was allowed to go back home permanently, to ensure my mother would not be alone.”
MK felt for him: being away from his family in this way must not have been easy and, with how affected he looked, the subject was obviously still a sensitive one. But Red Son's melancholic demeanor soon made way for a much more prideful one, as he continued.
“Of course, when I learned what happened to my father, I chose to walk in his footsteps and restore my family's former glory at all costs!”
He had struck a pose as he talked, his fist raised high up in the air as his hair had changed into a fervid flame.
“Yeah, and that failed,” MK reminded him with a teasing lilt.
“It hasn't! We're still on that, mind you, we’ve simply made a strategic change of approach to fit modern sensitivities,” Red Son argued, and gestured to the barracks. “This very camp is proof of it. Between this and my father's upcoming street food empire, the Demon Bull Family's influence will be boundless! Victory is at our fingertips, thanks to soft power!”
With this inspired declaration, Red Son let out a series of joyful cackles as he walked to another part of camp, continuing the visit. Save for some obstacle courses that MK cleared for fun, there had not been much else for him to see, so they headed back to the temple in a flash, Red Son grabbing onto MK's sleeve as his flames surrounded them.
MK was only mildly disoriented by the quick change of scenery, used to teleportation as he had become. Red Son was even less bothered, if at all, clicking his tongue in annoyance as he frowned down at his phone.
“Look, as much as it pains me to admit, out of us both you are the expert in that particular field, so...” With a sigh, Red Son showed him his texting history with Mei. “I reminded her of the time of our meeting, and she replied with a puking puppy. Is that bad news?”
“What? No, dude, she's just super excited and is coming over in around ten minutes.” MK took a look at the time of the last message. “Five minutes now. Maybe even less.”
“You're kidding me! In what world does a barfing animal mean any of this?!”
“You just feel this stuff with your heart my guy, ain't no way around it.”
Red Son rubbed at his forehead. “This is so stupid...”
“Hey, you'll get around to it, I believe in you!” MK said, hugging him for good measure.
He could feel Red Son stiffen in his hold, his expression indecipherable until it morphed into a frown. “Unhand me.”
MK laughed, doing as had been requested. “Sheesh, how are you gonna enjoy the cuddling tonight?”
Red Son's face and hair made for a funny gradient of red. “C-Cuddling?!”
“Or maybe you're more of a snuggles guy?”
“What in the world are you talking about, you doofus?!”
“I'm kidding, I'm kidding!” MK said as he walked toward the roofed area of the temple. From the bottom of the stairs, he could see many beeping machines, wires spreading through every available nooks and crannies like as many wild vines. And in one of the corners, he could spot an enclosure, a rotund creature hopping around inside it.
MK gasped. “Is that who I think it is?”
Red Son was following close behind, idly checking something on one of the machines, and distractedly told him, “Yes, but be caref-”
But MK had already rushed on ahead to see the flame sprite for himself. The pictures Mei had shown him had not done it justice: it was a very cute lump of ashes.
“Hi there Burpy!” He said, tapping on the glass. “I'm MK, nice to meet you!”
True to its nickname, the flame sprite let out a burp, to MK's delight.
A moment later he was forcibly pulled away from the enclosure, Red Son putting him down with a fiery sputter.
“What did I just-Argh! And don't call it that!”
“What? It's a cute nickname! Suits it too.”
“This is a creature capable of catastrophic levels of destruction! None of the nicknames you peas-” Red Son coughed. “-preposterous simpletons could come up with would ever be befitting its potential, and certainly not Burpy.”
Red Son had made air quotes as he said the nickname. Not that MK saw that gesture, too busy poking at the glass once more.
“Yeah yeah yeah yeah, good point, we'll need to decide on an actual name.”
“That is not what I mea-”
MK gasped, interrupting Red Son, who immediately stood up straight and looked around, his hair turning into a roaring fire.
“What? What is going on? Danger? Did the creature escape?!”
“No, Red Son, it's so much worse than that...”
“What is it? Tell me at once!”
“I don't have a nickname for you!”
Red Son's hair sputtered out. “... You cannot be serious.”
“But I am!” MK said, pulling Red Son in by his clothes. “You've got a nickname for me and for Mei, Mei and I sorta have nicknames for each other, and Mei's kinda got a nickname for you with the Red Boy thing. But me? I got nothin'!”
“Those weren't friendly nicknames, they were supposed to be insulting, I used them to demean you,” Red Son said, taking MK's hands and shoving them off.
“Still nicknames,” MK said, unperturbed by Red Son's actions. “And you gotta have one, and tell me if you like it.”
Red Son sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “And that's important... Why?”
“We're all friends... We need to have a thing, and that has got to be it. But I've been letting you down...”
For a long while, Red Son looked at him with a pinched expression, until he slapped a hand on his face and dragged it down, his eyes closed as he grumbled something unintelligible.
“Okay, fine. But please try to find one quickly so we can move on to something less trivial.”
“Awesome!”
MK did try to find one as fast as possible, and gave it a few tries, but all of his suggestions were either rejected on the spot by Red Son, or by MK himself as he cringed the moment the words came out of his mouth.
He had been thinking long and hard about the next one, taking in Red Son's appearance, his voluminous and fiery hair, his delicate frown, his bored pout, his cute little glasses, the sleeveless black turtleneck he was wearing...
“How about... Hot Stuff?”
Red Son's name had never been more fitting than at this very moment, his flush spreading to his ears and exposed shoulders.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
Bob chose this moment to make its entrance, with someone new in its arms. Mei waved at MK and Red Son while the bull clone let go of her and made its way out.
“Hey Monkey Man! Hey Red Boy!”
“Hey Mei!” MK said, rushing in for a hug that was returned twice as fast.
Red Son greeted her as well, but with some apprehension. “Hey, Dragon Girl...”
With a wicked grin, Mei let go of MK to squeeze the air out of Red Son with a side-hug, the poor demon deflating like a balloon when she stopped.
“So,” she started, looking between the two boys. “What were you talking about?”
“Don't-” Red Son warned MK, only to be ignored.
“Trying out some nicknames for Red Son.”
Mei's face lit up. “Oooooooh, what d'you got?”
“Well I was thinking 'Hot Stuff'...”
“Hohoho, nice!” Mei said, looking mischievously at Red Son, who pretended she did not exist.
“But just now I've come up with 'Flaming Homie'.”
“That one's even worse! You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?”
“Nah, he's just got his naming skills from Pigsy.” Mei shrugged. “So, what d'you guys wanna do first?”
“Preferably not something to do with nicknames, or letting out a potential threat to reality.”
“A potential threat to reality that you made,” Mei said, poking Red Son in the face.
“Yes, well, let's not rub in that particular failure, shall we?” He raised a hand to shield himself from Mei's persistent poking and walked to a machine, one he had not yet checked. “Besides, I've got a new project to focus on at the moment.”
“You already gave up on creating a new Samadhi fire, or whatever you were doing?” MK asked, peeking over Red Son's shoulders at all the moving numbers and graphs on the screen.
“Of course not. There's just been something else coming along, something big, something that might even help me understand how the Samadhi fire could have come about. I hope.”
“And what's that?” Mei asked, having picked up some fruits out of thin air, tossing one to MK, who shoved it in his mouth.
“It's-Dragon Girl don't stand so close, you'll get juice on the controls!” Red Son said, before he took a deep breath, looking up at the numbers that were still showing up. “As I was saying, it has something to do with the source of world-ending power you guys have somehow gotten yourselves involved with. Again.”
“Totes not our fault,” Mei said between bites.
“Are you talking about the chaos energy?” MK asked, his stomach churning a little.
“Yes. When the cracks first reappeared I jumped at the opportunity to analyze them. Of course, I got a bit... distracted,” Red Son said, giving a furtive glance to the flame sprite. “But I still managed to gather some interesting data. It's a shame the only known source of chaos energy remaining in the world is currently out of reach in Lao Tzu's alchemy lab, I would have liked to study its properties myself.”
“Why, so you can make another adorable creature that goes out of control?” Mei asked, though there was not an ounce of malice in her tone.
“Very funny,” Red Son said, selecting something on the machine, a diagram showing up on the screen.
“What's this thingie?” MK said, pointing at it.
“What I was about to explain. It's... Consider it a recipe.”
“For what?”
“To make the Samadhi fire. In theory. For the moment, it only resulted in the flame sprite.”
“Can you make more?” Mei asked.
“I could, but I won't. Don't even try to wear me down about this.”
MK frowned, taking a better look at the diagram. Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth...
“So, what's that got to do with the Chaos?”
“Why, I'm glad you asked,” Red Son said, adjusting his glasses. “Let's see if your minuscule brains can handle what I'm about to tell you.”