Chapter Text
When MK opens his eyes, he knows that everything is wrong. For one, he doesn’t feel dead. Okay, in all fairness, he hasn’t died before, so he wouldn’t exactly know what it felt like. But, this didn’t feel like he expected.
He jumped as a familiar loud buzzing started, he scrambled to shut his alarm off. Wait, his alarm?
MK took a moment to look around. It was his room. His room which he felt like he hadn’t been in in months. Between the journey to find the Samadhi Fire, then going through the scroll of memories to find everyone, and finally, going on a journey to find the five colored stones. MK decidedly lets himself crash back onto his bed.
He can smell the familiar scent of Pigsy’s noodles below. Come to think of it, he felt pretty silly for not realizing before that his sense of smell was much better than everyone else he knew prior to meeting Monkey King.
But, more importantly, where was he? He couldn’t possibly be back in his room for real. The last thing he remembered was jumping into the Pillar of Creation along with the stones. He winced at the memory of using the golden fillet against Monkey King. He felt really bad about that, but he knew there was nothing else he could do to stop Monkey King from, well, stopping him.
Now though, he was back in his room. The smell of Pigsy’s noodles and the sound of pots and pans being moved around, along with the pig demon's footsteps, told MK that Pigsy was indeed here as well. Or maybe it was a trick.
He did recall once being trapped in a weird universe where everything was ‘perfect’ by those demons, Yin and Jin. Could this be another incident like that? But if so, who would trap him?
Or maybe he did it. Maybe he saved everyone and everything had gone back to normal, but he didn’t die like he thought he would.
MK figured that would be the best outcome. So, despite feeling sore(which also made MK certain that the battle he went through before waking up had to have been real), MK got up.
He went through a morning routine that he hadn’t gone through in ages. Teeth brushed, hair brushed, clothes on, bandana tied around his head and hair gelled and styled.
Looking at himself in the mirror, he stared for a moment. He knows now that his appearance is just a glamour that he never realized he was using, hiding his real appearance to blend in with others. In hindsight, it wasn’t even necessary since he lived with a pig demon and hung out with a big blue guy. But, his younger self didn’t know that.
He lets the glamour drop, revealing his appearance as a monkey demon. His fur is the same color as his hair, a nice darkish brown. The hair at the sides of his face was longer, and a darker black tail swayed behind him.
He quickly puts the glamour back on when he hears a familiar squealing girl approaching the restaurant. Again, he really should have realized sooner than his senses were not on the level of a human. He never was the most observant.
He took in a breath, heading downstairs. As he made his way down the steps, he stopped short as he saw Pigsy, cooking away. The restaurant will open soon. MK waited for a moment. This was now the moment he could figure out if all of this was real or not. Pigsy turned around, spotting MK.
“MK, what took you so long to get up? We’re opening up soon so get to work!” He snapped, the same ol’ Pigsy that MK remembered.
MK broke out into a grin.
“Right on it!”
He grabbed the cleaning supplies, wiping down the place in record time. The place was sparkling by the time he went over to flip the ‘closed’ sign to instead say ‘open’.
Like magic, Mr. Tang and Mei arrived simultaneously at the door, shoving their way into the restaurant.
Mr. Tang immediately sat down to eat the bowl of noodles that Pigsy had already prepared for him.
Mei tackled MK into a hug. It wasn’t an ‘I missed you’ type of hug. Just one of Mei’s usual hugs. Not a single person mentioned recent events.
MK was pretty sure that this wasn’t the life he had left behind when he went into the Pillar of Creation. These versions of his friends, his family…they didn’t know anything about what happened. At least, that’s what it felt like.
“Mornin’ Mei. What’s on the to-do-list today?”
Mei took in a breath before speaking.
“Well there’s a party downtown in five, and another party in ten! The new arcade opens at exactly 10:00 P.M., so we gotta get there early of course! Then there’s also a cafe opening at 4:00, which I’ve been dying to try! Aaaaand, that’s it! For now!”
Pigsy huffed from behind the counter, crossing his arms. “MK, when exactly do you plan to get all of that done on top of your work?”
Mei pouted, trying her best with the puppy dog eyes that very rarely worked.
MK sighed. “Pigsy’s right.”
Pigsy and Mei’s jaws dropped, even Tang looked surprised for a moment.
“I am?!” “He is?!” The two shouted simultaneously.
MK shrugged. He has learned a lot on his journeys.
“It is my responsibility to work this job. I’d love to hang out, but it like conflicts with the whole work schedule thing. I can totally go to the arcade later though since my shift ends before then!”
The stunned silence in the room was starting to get awkward, so MK cleared his throat.
“Okay, you guys can stop staring at me now.”
It was Tang that finally said something.
“Did the latest seminar happen to be about responsibility?”
MK gaped, slightly offended, and also feeling called out for his love of attending random seminars.
“No! I just thought that maybe I should focus more on work! ‘Cause ya know, Pigsy has done a lot for me. Besides, work can totally be fun if I put my mind to it!”
MK knows that he has a hard time focusing, especially on tasks that he finds boring. He’s been trying recently to fix this by turning boring tasks into something more fun. Like making it into a challenge or by dancing while doing the task.
So far, it has worked most of the time.
On another note, MK is becoming more and more convinced that something isn’t right. But he was scared to bring up past events. What if it just brought down the mood. Or if no one knew what he was talking about, what would he do then?
Pigsy seemed to brighten, eyes glistening like he was going to cry tears of joy.
“I can’t believe you’ve finally learned responsibility!”
Okay, that was weird…though MK understood the reaction. Pigsy had been trying to teach MK how to be responsible for years. MK really felt bad for taking so long to learn the lessons Pigsy taught him. He doesn’t plan to take Pigsy’s kindness for granted any longer.
“Yeah, well…I’m trying. So, any orders in yet?”
Pigsy shook his head.
“No one’s called in for a delivery yet, so you’ve got a bit of time to hang around.”
Mei groaned.
“I can’t believe you’ve turned to the dark side MK!”
MK rolled his eyes.
“Come on Mei, we’ve still got plenty of time to hang out. Oh-“ MK had an idea. “Mr. Tang! Tell us another story about Monkey King.” MK and Mei went over to sit on either side of Tang.
Mr. Tang pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose dramatically. Then, he recounted the tale of how Monkey King sealed the Demon Bull under a mountain, using his staff that only he could move.
“Oh wow…I love that story! So, you know a lot about Monkey King. Have you ever met Monkey King? Like, for real?”
Mr. Tang sputtered.
“What?! No way! I mean, I’d love too, but to meet a legend like that? I’d have to be the luckiest Tang in the world for that to happen!”
MK nodded. That confirmed it, they really didn’t remember everything that MK remembered.
Now to figure out why.
The first idea was that it was another Calabash situation. But, no one was acting out of the ordinary. If anything, he was the one acting strangely.
Second idea, everyone’s memories were erased except for his. But that came with its own problems. For one, MK would have to see if the staff was still holding the Demon Bull King. If it was, then there’s no way it was a simple memory wipe.
Speaking of the staff, MK feels weird without it. He was used to being able to fidget with it, spinning it around like a pen when in its smaller form.
Third idea, MK was trapped in the Scroll of Memory. It seemed plausible. Though he really hoped that wasn’t the case as he had no idea how to get out of the Scroll of Memory on his own.
Finally, MK’s fourth idea, time travel. Honestly MK hoped this one wasn’t the case. Mainly because it would mean that he’d have to go through all the bad times all over again. Or if he was really in the past, what if he did something to make the time line even worse than it was?! It was a lot of pressure and MK did not like pressure.
That being said, while Mr. Tang started telling a different story about Monkey King, MK went over to check the calendar.
Now, he usually sucks at remembering dates. But the day that his life changed drastically was something he committed to memory. So, he knew upon looking at the calendar, that the day he freed the Demon Bull King was just a few days away.
Okay, that still doesn’t rule out the Scroll of Memory. This could still be a memory. Memory erasure could also still be possible. It’d be easy to just change the calendar.
Only one way to know for sure.
“So, Pigsy, didn’t you buy something off of Monkiebook Marketplace? ‘Cause like, I can go pick it up now before the delivery orders come in.”
Pigsy shrugged.
“Yeah sure, let me just message them and let them know you’re coming. Don’t take too long, kid.”
MK grinned, running out the door quickly.
“Okay byyyye!”
MK hopped into his delivery car, switching it to drive and stepping on the gas. He made his way to the mountain.
Now, he had a simple reason. He needed to confirm that the Monkey King’s staff was still holding the Demon Bull King. If it was, then he could probably rule out memory erasure. At least he can’t imagine anyone even being capable of retraping DBK with the staff, or even going through the trouble just to make everything seem normal.
-
MK did make sure to actually pick up the thing that Pigsy bought on his way to the mountain.
He remembers the way like the back of his hand. Though this time he purposely stops his car a distance away and treks the rest of the way on foot.
He wasn’t dumb enough to get caught this time. Plus, he didn’t want to mess up anything by taking the staff too early, even if he wanted to feel it in his grasp again.
So, he snuck around. Of course, as he got closer he came to a realization. It would be so much easier to sneak around if he was smaller.
So, he closed his eyes and concentrated, thinking little thoughts as Monkey King once again. He felt himself grow smaller and when he opened his eyes, the world looked bigger. Success!
Okay, it was also nice to confirm that his power still worked. It would really suck if it didn’t.
So, now Tiny MK made his way into the dark and scary underground area. But it was nothing he couldn’t handle. The only thing he couldn’t handle was spiders! Also the crippling fear of all his friends and family dying and/or leaving him.
MK snuck around the Bull Clones, deeper into the underground. Until he finally spotted it. The staff, in all its glory. The Ruyi Jingu Bang. Almost as cool of a name as the Jindouyun (Wukong’s cute little cloud that he rides on). But MK had trouble pronouncing those names so he just called them ‘Cool Golden Staff’ and ‘Cute Cloudie’.
MK scoped out the place. As expected, there were lots of Bull Clones, mostly working to try and pry the staff out of the rock.
Princess Iron Fan was overseeing the operations, and MK didn’t see Red Son anywhere. Well, actually MK was struggling to see much of anything from this distance. Everything was much blurrier to him now than it was that fateful day when he first took the staff from this mountain.
An unfortunate downside to MK’s power of Gold Vision was its strain on MK’s eyes, something that Monkey King had warned MK about, but that MK still ended up suffering from with how many times he had to use Gold Vision. Anyways, MK was basically nearsighted now. Everything at about an arms length away from him(maybe closer even) started to get blurry.
Still, he was both relieved and terrified to know that the staff was here.
On one hand, that means he could get the staff back. On the other hand, that means that the likelihood that he time travelled had just skyrocketed.
MK took a breath. He needed to remember his breathing exercises. In and out.
Keeping a cool head in stressful times was something both Wukong and Macaque taught MK the importance of.
MK did his best to channel the same calm, cool and collected energy that Macaque always somehow managed to have. MK may not have been the best at being calm, but he was pretty good at imitating other people.
“Ahem. Are you going to sneak around all day, Noddle Boy?”
Tiny MK squeaked, falling flat on his face when the familiar voice spoke behind him.
He quickly scrambled up though, whipping around to see the one and only Red Son!
“Red Son?!”
MK got into a defensive position, thinking that this was a version of Red Son when Red Son was still the enemy.
But, he realized something a moment later. Red Son called him ‘Noddle Boy’. That shouldn’t be possible since if this is the past, MK and Red Son hadn’t even met before.
“Wait-“
Red Son cut MK off, leaving no room for MK to start rambling off with theories to explain this situation.
“So, care to explain what exactly you got us into? I swear, I come to help you fight whatever enemy you were fighting this time around and instead I get sucked into that ‘Pillar of Creation’ along with you. By the way, that was not a pleasant experience.”
MK blinked slowly, taking a long moment to process what this all meant. He also couldn’t help the relief that he felt. Because this meant that he wasn’t alone here.
“I- well I actually don’t really know. I mean, I fully expected to die when I jumped into the pillar.”
Red Son fell silent, eyes widening before his expression morphed into a scowl.
“You what?! What the hell is wrong with you?! Why would you do that?!” Red Son made sure to keep his voice low despite his anger.
MK awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.
“Well, it’s kind of, sort of, what I was born to do?”
MK didn’t really believe that people were born with a specific purpose in mind. But, he wasn’t exactly a person. Plus he wasn’t wrong to say that he was born to sacrifice himself. That is exactly the intention that Nuwa had for him when she created him. The only thing was the fact that his birth and purpose came much quicker thanks to that Medusa- looking guy, who MK still didn’t understand the identity of.
Red Son’s eye twitched, clearly trying to hold back from exploding like he usually did as to not draw attention to himself and MK.
Red Son took a breath and then grabbed MK, holding the guy like he was an action figure.
“We’re not discussing this here.”
Red Son started walking towards the exit, knowing that he couldn’t keep quiet for much longer. Plus it was best to have long conversations in a place that wasn’t crawling with enemies.
MK huffed, but didn’t protest. He didn’t want to explain. Frankly he didn’t want to even think about what happened. But, he got Red Son wrapped up in this, so he owed the guy an explanation.
-To Be Continued-