Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day had started normal, he delivered noodles. Hung out with mei, and trained with monkey king. It was all normal. So of course something had to happen in the city.

Damn it, why did everything good always come to an end.

He was taking a break with wukong. Said monkey lazing around on his cloud ehile eating a peach while he ate a mango while playing with the baby monkeys.

"alright but! Let's get back to work" Wukong said, quickly hopping off of his cloud.

Mk got up pumping his fists in the air. Excited to finally be able to spar like wukong had said they would do it he was willing to meditate as training.

A loud ping was heard from mk's phone, rummaging through his pocket he grabbed his phone seeing that mei had texted him.

Dragongirl🐉✨️: yin and Jin are attacking the city again! >:(

🐵Monkey man: what! But I'm training!

Dragongirl🐉✨️: well training can wait, get out here Monkey man! They've got some weird ass relics.

🐵Monkey man: OK, ok! I'm on my way, I'm bringing Monkey king to help

Dragongirl🐉✨️: do whatever floats your boat man! Just get over hear before i burn the silver and gold demons to a crisp!... or was it gold and silver?

🐵Monkey man: no idea, anyway I'll be right there!

Turning off his phone, he let out an exasperated sigh.

Seeing his mentors arm loop over his shoulder, he up at him, wukong had his usual laid back demeanor "Bad luck, huh kid? Here, why don't I come with and help so we can get this done and over with. Hmm?" Hearing this, he was thankful he wouldn'thave to already ask him, letting out an airy groan, he readied himself to make a quick villain of the week that was becoming more like a ritual every day.

That was before wukong grabbed him by the collar and took off flying on his cloud.

As they flew back to the city,they made to sure to keep a lookout for any other destruction the two demon brothers caused that they might have to fix up after beating them.

They winced when they saw one of the banks that had a giant mech shaped whole in one of the walls to one of the museums that held some of the most dangerous and quite frankly unpredictable relics wukong had come across

All the sudden a there was a loud thud along with a shake that even made the cloud vibrate with the Chaotic energy.

Looking over, they saw none other than the culprits who had a pile of relics they were using at random.

While they did that, they spotted mei and the others dodging the thrown objects.

once close to a safe spot, mk jumped off the cloud and into a Allay where mei had been hiding, causing a dent in the sidewalk.

before they could discuss a plan, mk unceremoniously ran into the streets in front of the mech, "All right yin and jin, it's time to meet your doooom!" He yelled, striking a pose while mei was cheering him on "Wooooo go get'em monkey man!"

while mei thought it was pretty stupid of her friend to put himself in the middle of everything, she was also impressed and hyped up to see mk making such a power move.

but her cheering came to a hault when monkey king popped up from behind, startling mei. She let out a yelp and flailed her arms around as she fell off her bike.

Getting up with a huff, she yelled "Hey! Aren't you supposed to be helping mk!?"

"Don't worry dragon pony girl~ all things will come together once mk does whatever he needs to do before i join. What! You thought i would let him have all the fun?" He said cheerfully

She narrowed her eyes at the egotistical monkey. "I got my eye on you" mei said in an accusatory tone of voice.

When she looked back to watch her friend, wukong let his facade slightly come undone, a speck of sweat appeared on his forehead, he was worried, the gold and silver demon weren't exactly being the most carefully and unfortunately had a pretty good throw and aim. Mk could get hit by one of those, who knows what could happen.

Monkey king or not, he was worried for this mortal boy he had grown to care alot for, and he wasn't to keen on having him get hurt or affected by these cursed objects.

He's been through enough as it is already.

---

Mk lunged for the attack, swinging his staff at the weak points of yin and jin's new mech (which he destroyed last time they fought!)

Everything was going according to plan, mk was distracting and teasing them while wukong was hiding from above, waiting for his part and trying not to mess anything up. like he's done many times before.

Lowering his head, he thought of all the times he tried to help, how he was trying to do the best he could but it wasn't enough. He was burned alive, trapped, had his head nearly crushed by the damned circlet.

He bared his teeth at the thought. He looked up when he heard a scream of panic from mk. It looks like they were gonna have to cut it short considering they were about to use an unknown relic on mk.

"What do you think this will do exactly?" The silver demon asked his golden counterpart.

"Eh, something about inner clock." He replied, uncaring of what could happen.

he stared at the object in hand, studying it and trying to make out what exactly it could be.

The relic was a small orb that glowed a soft  teal. As they tossed it at mk wukong instinctively ran towards the fight and pushed mk down, wrapping his body until the orb passed

He stood up full of pride and pointed a finger ag them with a boisterous laugh "hah! You missed!" Wukong said confidently.

"Monkey king! Watch out!" Mk? What was he doing with over there, he just had him in his ar- looking down he realized it was an allusion. Flickering in and out of existence.

All the sudden yin and Jin start laughing. "What what's so funny chuckle heads" turning to them annoyed when he saw the the gold demon (jin?) Throw the exact thing he thought he blocked "mk" from.

To stunned to move as the orb lunged straight into his chest and he blacked out with a soft gasp.

--

"Wukong!" Mk said panicked. "What happened?" sandy? When did he get here, does that mean the rest are here.

Turning around, yeah they are. How long though, did they just get here?

"Kid!" Pigsy said running up to him. "What happened!? Are you hurt? Where's that damn monkey!" "Pigsy" I don't care if he's immortal!" "pigsy" "I'm gonna kill him one way or ano-" "PIGSY!".

With a grunt pigsy looked up at mk. There was something in his arms. Small, cold, and hard. Tang comes up "is that?" "Yes" mk answered. "What happened? Where's Mr. Monkey king?" Sandy questioned coming up to them with mei and petting mo. "I don't know" pigsy's gaze softened. " ay, I'm sure hi'll me fine, mabey it's like incubating a bird egg. Just warm it up and wait for it to hatch?"

"Yeah but we don't know how long that would take" says tang a little more grim. "We can at least hope" says mk "I'm not losing my mentor again because of another mistake I made" tears sprumg to his eyes.

"Mk, you didn't so Anything. Jin and yin tricked him into thinking you were in danger, it wasn't your fault"

"Come on kid, let's get you back home, we will wait and see if anything changes with the egg alright" with a sniff mk said with a sad smile "alright"

That night he laid the egg in a nest of blanket under a light.  Hoping to see his mentor again.

The day had started out normally.

MK delivered noodles through the bustling streets, the smell of sizzling street food mingling with the crisp afternoon air.

Colorful lanterns swung gently above market stalls, where vendors shouted their wares and children darted between legs, laughter ringing through the narrow alleys. Towering skyscrapers blended with ancient temples, a chaotic harmony of old and new.

The city was alive, vibrant- a place where miracles and mischief seemed to dance hand in hand.

Later, MK found himself at Flower-Fruit Mountain, the legendary home of the Monkey King. The air there was fresher, scented with wild blossoms and ripe fruit hanging heavy from ancient trees.

Birds chirped melodies as sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, dappling the soft moss and winding paths. Small waterfalls tinkled nearby, and the whole place buzzed with the quiet magic of nature untouched.

Wukong was lazing around on his cloud, chomping down on a juicy peach, while MK sat nearby, mango in one hand, a baby monkey clinging to his arm. Another tiny monkey playfully batted at his ear like a toy.

It was peaceful

“Alright, bud!” Wukong suddenly called, hopping off his cloud with way too much energy for someone who’d just spent twenty minutes napping. “Let’s get back to work!”

MK perked up, jumping to his feet and pumping his fists into the air. Finally! sparring! Wukong had promised they’d do more than meditate this time, and MK had been waiting all week for it.

Ping.

A loud notification cut through the air.

MK groaned and fished out his phone from his pocket.

Dragongirl🐉✨️:
YO. Yin and Jin are wrecking the city again. 😤

🐵MonkeyMan:
WHAT?? I’m literally in the middle of training rnDragongirl

🐉✨️:
Yeah, well, training can wait, hero boy.
They’ve got some seriously cursed relics this time💀

🐵MonkeyMan:
ugh fine
Dragging Monkey King with me
We’ll be there ASAP

Dragongirl🐉✨️:
Good. Get your butt over here before I roast Gold and Silver to a crisp🔥
…Or is it silver and gold?🤔

🐵MonkeyMan:
No clue
But I’m on my way👊

The crisp wind rustled through the tall canopy overhead, carrying the scent of wildflowers and ripe fruit. Somewhere in the distance, a monkey chattered playfully.

MK let out an exasperated groan, shutting off his phone and stuffing it back in his pocket.

Wukong raised a brow, still lounging on his cloud. “Bad luck, huh, kid?”

“It’s Yin and Jin. again,” MK muttered. “And with more relics, cause of course, they’ve got more relics.”

Wukong popped the last bite of peach into his mouth. “Sounds like your average Tuesday.”

“At this point, I’m starting to think cursed relics are the Tuesday special,” MK huffed.

Wukong’s arm looped lazily over his shoulder, and MK looked up to see his mentor’s usual laid-back grin in place.

“Here- why don’t I come with and help? Let’s get this done and over with, hmm?”

MK was honestly just relieved he didn’t have to ask. He let out an airy sigh and rolled his shoulders.

Another day, another “villain of the week.” It was practically a ritual by now. Same old threats, same old battles, same old chaos.

MK was bracing himself for the usual grind when, without warning, Wukong’s hand shot out, grabbing him by the collar.

“Whoa-!” MK yelped as Wukong lifted him like a sack of takeout noodles. “You could’ve warned me first!”

Wukong just smiled, set MK down on the cloud, and took off, leaving a trail in his wake.

As they flew back to the city, they made sure to keep a lookout for any other destruction the two demon brothers caused that they might have to fix after beating them.

They winced when they saw one of the banks with a giant mech-shaped hole blasted through one of the museum walls, a place that held some of the most dangerous and, quite frankly, unpredictable relics Wukong had come across.

Suddenly, there was a loud thud along with a shake that even made the cloud vibrate with chaotic energy, leaving the air thick with magic

Looking over, they spotted the culprits, Yin and Jin, wielding a chaotic pile of relics, flinging them wildly in all directions.

Amid the chaos, they saw Mei and the others skillfully dodging the flying objects.

Once they reached a safer alley where Mei had been hiding, MK jumped off the cloud, landing with a loud thud that dented the sidewalk.

Before they could even talk strategy, MK dashed into the street in front of the giant mech.

“All right, Yin and Jin! Time to meet your doooom!” he yelled, striking a dramatic pose.

Though she thought it was reckless for MK to throw himself right into the fray, she couldn’t help but feel hyped seeing him take such a bold move.

Mei cheered from the sidelines, “Wooooo, go get ’em, Monkey Man!”

Mei called out one last time, “Try not to get yourself killed, Monkey Man!”

MK shot back a grin, “No promises!”

Wukong snorted, “Classic.”

Monkey King had suddenly popped up right next to her, startling her so badly she yelped and flailed her arms, tumbling right off her bike.

She scrambled back up with a huff. “Hey! Aren’t you supposed to be helping MK!?”

Wukong looked at her from the corner of his eyes before turning with a sly grin plastered on his face.“Don’t worry, Dragon Pony Girl~” Wukong said with a carefree grin. “Everything will fall into place once MK does whatever he needs to do before I step in. What? You don’t think I’d let him have all the fun?”

Mei narrowed her eyes at the egotistical monkey. “I’ve got my eye on you,” she said, pointing a finger at him in warning.

When she turned back to watch her friend, Wukong let his facade slip- just a little. A bead of sweat formed on his brow.

He was worried.

The gold and silver demons weren’t exactly being careful. Worse, they had surprisingly good aim. MK could get hit by one of those relics… and who knew what could happen then? Invincible monkey powers or not, he was still a mortal. One wrong move from the latter's team, and it could all be over.

For all his power, Wukong had grown to care a lot about this mortal boy. And he wasn’t too keen on letting him get hurt, especially not by cursed objects like those.

Mk had been through enough as it is already.

—

MK lunged forward, staff swinging hard at the weak points of Yin and Jin’s new mech (the same one he’d wrecked last time- so what was it doing here again?!)

Everything was going according to plan: MK kept them distracted, throwing taunts and wild strikes, while Wukong stayed hidden above, waiting for his moment, trying not to mess things up.

Like he had… so many times before.

He lowered his head, shadows falling across his face as memories surfaced.

All the times he’d tried to help, tried to make up for all of his mistakes, and still came up short.

Burned alive. Trapped.

His head crushed beneath that damned circlet.

He bared his teeth at the thought, eyes narrowing. He just wished he could start all over again at times. Suddenly, a scream of panic from MK snapped him back to the moment. Looks like they’d have to cut it short- the demons were about to use an unknown relic on MK.

“What do you think this will do, exactly?” the silver demon asked his golden counterpart.

“Eh, something about an inner clock,” came the careless reply.

MK stared at the small orb glowing a soft teal in the demon’s hand, trying to make out its purpose.

Without hesitation, Wukong lunged forward, yanking MK down just in time. His body wrapped protectively around him as the orb sailed past with a low hum, missing by inches.

Wukong stood up, chest puffed with pride, and pointed a finger at them with a boisterous laugh. “Hah! You missed!” he said confidently.

“Monkey King! Watch out!” MK shouted. Wait, what was he doing over there? Wukong’s grip was still firm around him, then Wukong looked down and realized it was an illusion, flickering in and out of existence.

Suddenly, Yin and Jin burst out laughing, almost cheering at having tricked the monkey king.

“What’s so funny,

chuckleheads?” Wukong asked, turning toward them with a scowl, only to see the gold demon, Jin, tossing the very same orb he thought he had blocked “Mk” from

Wukong froze, too stunned to move, as the orb hurtled straight into his chest. He let out a soft gasp before blacking out.

--

A sudden blast of light consumed wukong in it. When it disappeared, there was a high-pitched ringing.

It left a cloud of dust, mk staggard through, trying to find any trace of wukong and coughing as he waved away said dust. Looking down, he saw an egg made of stone with swirls

His hands shook uncontrollably as he reached for the egg.

"Wukong!" MK said, panic creeping into his voice. His chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.

Sandy stepped out. “What happened?”

MK blinked, “Sandy? When did you-" he cut himself off. Right! They'd been there the whole time.

“Kid!” Pigsy came running up, his voice sharp with worry. “What happened!? Are you hurt? Where’s that damn monkey?”

“Pigsy-”

“I don’t care if he’s immortal!” Pigsy growled, teeth clenched.

“I’m gonna kill him! One way or another, I-”

“PIGSY!” MK snapped, cutting him off.

With a grunt, Pigsy looked up at MK. There was something in his arms. small, cold, and hard.

Tang stepped forward, eyes wide. “Is that-?”

“Yes,” MK answered quietly.

“What happened to Mr. Monkey King?” Sandy questioned, approaching alongside Mei while petting Mo.

Mk swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” Mk said quietly.

Pigsy’s gaze softened as he looked toward his son.

“Ay, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it’s like incubating a bird egg- just keep it warm and wait for it to hatch?”

"Yeah, but we don't know how long that would take," says Tang, a little more grim.

“We can at least hope!” MK’s voice cracked as tears welled up, his hands trembling. “I’m not losing my mentor again... not because of another mistake I made!”

Tang stepped closer, his own voice soft but firm. “MK, you didn’t do anything wrong. Jin and Yin, they tricked him, made him think you were in danger. It wasn’t your fault.”

Pigsy placed a reassuring hand on MK’s shoulder. “Come on, kid, let’s get you back home. We’ll wait and see if anything changes with the egg, alright?”

MK swallowed hard, a shaky breath escaping before he gave a small, sad smile. “Alright...”

That night, MK carefully laid the egg in a nest of soft blankets beneath a gentle, warm light. He sat silently beside it, heart heavy, hoping against hope to see his mentor’s face again.

Chapter Text

Less than a year had gone by, and nothing had changed with the stone egg.

That didn’t mean MK was ready to give up hope. Not yet.

It was the day before Chinese New Year, and the city outside buzzed with life, decorations going up, food being prepped, lanterns strung between buildings, illuminating threads of red and gold.

Kids ran down the streets in dragon masks, the scent of dumplings and sweet buns clinging to the air like a promise.

But MK?

He was upstairs. Just sitting there. Staring at the egg with puffy, sleepless eyes.

Waiting for something.

Anything.

And then, it moved.

A tiny shake, hardly even there.

MK jolted upright, heart leaping into his throat. He rubbed his eyes, stared again.

…Nothing. No movement.

still. Just like always

He slumped back with a breathless sigh. Maybe he was seeing things again. He’d hoped so many times already. Hoped too hard, maybe.

Still, he stood up gently, casting one last glance at the egg nestled in its blanket nest by the bed. The little spot he’d made warm and soft, like it could somehow make a difference.

When Wukong had first turned back into stone, MK hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t slept.

For days, he just curled up beside the egg, holding it like something fragile might fall apart if he let go.Heading downstairs, he found all his friends already there.

Nezha’s presence was still somewhat new, but no longer surprising. The bigger surprise was Macaque being there, though, considering how often he’d been hanging around since Wukong became an egg, maybe it wasn’t that surprising after all.

The guy practically lived at the noodle shop now, only disappearing when he had shadow play stuff to plan or rehearse.

And while Macaque would never admit it, he cared about Wukong.

Of course he did. Wukong was his little brother, after all.

He’d never say it out loud, but you could tell. It was obvious in the way he stuck around.

The Demon Bull Family would swing by once in a while.

Red Son always made sure the egg stayed warm and protected, handling it like one of his delicate science projects.

DBK, on the other hand, spent most of his visits threatening the egg.

(Not that Wukong could hear him or anything, MK always thought.)

The most common threat was:

“You better not be in there napping, simian. Hatch already, or I’m breaking you out myself,” he’d seethe under his breath.

When that didn’t work - and it never did- DBK would huff off and go sit with his wife downstairs. PIF just hung out with Macaque, swapping stories, talking about the good and the bad, or trading the latest gossip like it was nothing.

MK trudged downstairs, the scent of noodles wafting through the shop. The warmth of the kitchen should’ve been comforting, but it only made his eyes sting.

“Ay, MK, do ya mind takin’ these orders?!” Pigsy’s voice bellowed from the kitchen. He emerged holding a bag in one hand and waving his mighty wooden spoon in the other. “They were supposed to be delivered half an hour ago!”

“Sorry, Dadsy! I’ll do that right away-! I was just checking on Wuko-AH!”

MK barely had time to duck before Pigsy chucked the spoon at his head with surprising speed.

“Watch it!” Pigsy barked, then groaned, rubbing the bridge of his snout. His tone softened. not gentle, exactly, but less sharp. “Kid, I know you’re worried about your mentor, really, I do. But you’ve got other things in life besides sittin’ around takin’ care of a piece of stone.”

MK froze mid-step. His eyes flared. “‘Just a piece of stone’?! Ay-!”

But Pigsy was already marching over, placing a firm hand on MK’s shoulder. He squeezed, grounding him.

“Look, what I meant is… You can’t spend your days mopin’ and lettin’ everything else fall to pieces. Wukong wouldn’t want that. You still got a life, and a job, and people who care about ya.”

MK’s chest ached a little. He hadn’t realized how badly he needed someone to say that out loud.MK blinked, surprised by the weight behind the words. The bite in Pigsy’s voice had dulled, underneath it was worry.

“…Yeah,” MK mumbled, eyes falling to the floor.

“Good,” Pigsy grunted. Then raised a brow. “Now get those orders out before I throw somethin’ heavier than a spoon.”

MK hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes still flicking toward the stairs where the egg was. His shoulders drooped a little, but he managed a tired smile.

“Hey,” Pigsy beckoned for Mk’s attention, “I’ve got a bowl of warm noodles here for you when you get those deliveries done. I don’t want you skipping meals again.”

MK muttered a quiet thanks under his breath, rubbing his arm as he grabbed the delivery bag and pushed through the door. The early afternoon sun was quiet, the air buzzing with energy. lanterns, firecrackers, music.

He took a breath to steady himself.

“Boo!”

“AH-!”

MK leapt half a foot off the ground, nearly flinging the noodle bag into traffic.

Mei was leaning casually against the tuk-tuk, arms crossed and grinning like she hadn’t just given him a minor heart attack.

“You should’ve seen your face!” she laughed, snorting as she shoved off the side of the vehicle. “Total jump-scare. Classic.”

MK groaned, holding his chest. “Mei!! Don’t do that! I almost died!”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “Please. You’re fine. And you’re welcome, by the way, I’m helping you get your groove back.”

“…By giving me a heart attack?” Mk deadpanned, albeit lighthearted and a bit playful.

“Exactly! Fear is nature’s espresso.” She elbowed him gently and gave him a little smile. “You okay, though? Like, really okay?”

MK hesitated. The weight in his chest hadn't gone away. But he smiled, small and tired.

“I’m getting there.”“Good,” she said, hopping into the passenger seat. “Now drive, delivery boy. We’ve got hungry customers to feed! LEGGO!”

“Okay, okay! Please don’t kill me!” MK laughed, some of his spirit coming back as he hit the gas and zipped down the street.

While delivering the noodles, Mk almost got distracted by the arcade... and a few other things- but Pigsy didn’t need to know that!

He could just say that they ran into Yin and Jin or something.

By the time he and mei got back, most of the Decorations were already up. Red and gold lanterns swayed gently from the ceiling, and the air smelled of pork and chives.

Mk smiled faintly and walked over to a banner lying on the ground to advertise Pigsy’s restaurant.

 Mei and Mk picked up each end and hung it up for all to see.

Walking in and being met with the bowl of noodles that Pigsy promised.

The rest of the afternoon slipped by in warmth and light fun. Playing games with Mei, fixing decorations, and chatting with Nezha, who showed up while Mk had been out doing deliveries.

“Aww!” Mei teased, nudging Nezha, “You came to check on the egg, didn’t you?” it wasn’t a question, but more of a statement.

Nezha blushed at having been called out.

“I-i Just came to talk to Mk about the jade emperor’s power status! Which, by the way, is going fine.” Nezha said quickly, a bit embarrassed.

“So…” Mk dragged out mischievously, “it’s not just because he’s your big brother?” he grinned knowingly.

Nezha puffed up indignantly. “I’ll have you know I’m older than him!”

Mk and Mei blinked. “Wait, really?”

“Yes! Have you not read the Journey to the West? I was already a general in the heavenly court when wukong was born!”

“... I might’ve skimmed everything that wasn’t Monkey King,” Mk admitted, laughing sheepishly.

Mei laughed as Nezha facepalmed, turning to Tang incredulously.

Tang groaned from across the room. “I told him about it!”"I told him about it!" Looking back at Mk, "I may or may not have only listened to all the cool things Monkey King did. But I still knew about you guys and what you did!" Mk said quickly.

An hour later, Neha and Macaque headed out.

"Bye! See you guys tomorrow!" Mk called as they teleported to their designated places.

He turned just in time to see Pigsy switching off the shop lights and disappearing into his room for the night.

Mk followed suit, heading upstairs and draping his blanket over himself. For the first time in a while, he felt warm and less anxious.

He sighed in content before shutting his eyes, and soon, he was welcomed into the warm embrace of sleep.

Unbeknownst to him, in the dark of the room, the stone egg shifted a bit.

A faint crack echoed faintly through the silence. A thin line split across the surface, golden light seeped through, low and pulsing like a heartbeat.

Another small crack bloomed beside the first.

Then another.

--- 

The next morning, when Mk woke up, he heard chirping.

Groggy and confused, he lifted up his head. His hair was messy and unkempt, sticking up in some places.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, blinking away the bleariness and looking around the room. Trying to make out where those distressed little peeps and cries were coming from… wait, crying?

Looking over the side of his bed, and froze.Where there used to be an egg, there was now a monkey cub about the size of a peach curled up in the center.

Bits and pieces of the shell were scattered around the cub that lay curled up in the blankets

Mk slowly slid out of his bed, inching closer. The cub had pale, almost snow white fur, with faint freckles dusting her nose. A peach colored, heart-shaped birthmark sat in the center of its face.

The poor thing was shaking as it whimpered, curled in on itself, it’s eyes screwed shut

The poor thing was shaking with tiny warbles and cries.

Mk knelt down, “Hey little guy…” his voice was warm, trying to coax the little monkey to calm down.

He reached his hand out, grazing the top of its head.

The cub’s ears perked, and its head jerked up.

wide, terrified ocean blue eyes locked onto Mk’s.

“Hello-” Mk started, but didn’t get to finish.

The cub immediately scrambled backward, into the corner, behind the nest of blankets, hugging its little arms around itself as its cries got louder and sharper.

“Woah- hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” Mk said quickly, grabbing the blanket it had been wrapped in as a rock and gently wrapping it around the cub. He scooped it up slowly, careful not to startle it any more than it was.

Up close, he could see it had a heart-shaped mark on its chest as well.

A smile tugged at the edges of Mk’s lips a bit. He began to make a series of silly faces to coax a laugh, or maybe even a smile.

…Yeah, that didn’t work.

If anything, the cub looked more devastated. Its lip wobbled. Its hands began to tremble. The tears welled up more than they had before.

“No, no, no-Ah! Don’t cry- Please don’t cry!” Mk pleaded, a bit louder than he intended.

Tears started to prick the corner of the cub's eyes, its bottom lip wobbling more aggressively now as it sniffed.

---

Downstairs, Pigsy was already in the kitchen making noodles. Tang sat at the counter, waiting for his daily four bowls. Mei had arrived early that day, she sat dangling upside down at the counter in boredom, all the while scrolling on her phone, waiting around for Mk so they could spend their Chinese New Year together at the arcade.

Tang’s shadow began to stretch unnaturally across the floor, slithering up the wall Tang’s back faced.

Before anyone could say anything, Macaque emerged silently from the shadows with a sly grin.

“Hello.”

Tang shrieked and tumbled off his stool, flailing his arms.

“Happy New Year’s, everyone,” the albino monkey said coolly, clearly pleased with himself.

Before the monk could complain, a high-pitched sound of a baby crying echoed from upstairs.

Everyone froze and shared a look. Then, without a word, they bolted up to Mk’s room.

Pigsy slammed the door open.

What they found was something they never expected to see.

Mk sat on the floor, cradling something small in his arms. The crying was louder now, but softer in tone, tiring itself out most likely.

Mei rushed over to see what was in her best friend’s arms and practically melted on the spot.

“D’awww, MK! Who’s this little one?!” she cooed, eyes sparkling.

Mk looked up at her, still half shocked at the morning’s events.

He looked between the group and the squirming bundle in his arms. “I… I think it’s monkey ki-” 

No, that wasn’t right.

It didn’t feel right to call him monkey king when he was so small

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Mei tilted her head, confused, but shrugged it off and continued fawning over the cub, pouting when she couldn’t seem to cheer the little monkey up.

Rushing over, macaque crouched down beside Mk and stared at the distressed cub.

"Wukong?" he muttered, eyes narrowing. “Really? Huh. Would’ve never guessed. Thought he’d pop out looking like… well, y’know- himself.”

Macaque said with a raised brow and the flattest voice imaginable. A bit snarky and trying to process what he was seeing

The cub then whimpered, causing macaque to take notice of how Mk was holding him and get frustrated.

“You’re not holding him right-! Give him here dumbass.”

Before Mk could protest, Macaque snatched the tiny monkey from his arms and settled him against his chest.

At the door, Pigsy bristled, “Hey! You can’t just grab him like that- He’s not a football.”

But the moment the cub hit Macaque's chest, he gave a hiccup of a cry and went slack.

Within seconds, wukong was asleep, cheek smushed peacefully against the albino monkey’s shoulder.

Macaque turned his head to the pig demon.

He raised his brow, smug as ever.

Pigsy opened his mouth before closing it. His eye twitched the slightest bit.

“... tch, great, fantastic, it worked,” he said with aggravation.

He was grateful for the crying to stop, but he couldn’t believe how easily the shadow monkey had gotten the cub to calm down enough to sleep. Especially after just grabbing him like that!

Mk looked over to his friend, her fingers went crazy, typing on her phone's keyboard.

“Hey, mei, uhm- who are you texting?” he asked, raising his brow suspiciously

Mei tapped send before chuckling mischievously, “Ooohhh, don’t worry, Mk~!” she said in a sing-song voice, winking at her best friend. “I just texted a friend.”

Suddenly, the apartment/shop began to shake and Sandy smashed through Mk’s door, mo perched on his shoulder, completely unbothered by the blue giant's antics.

“I’m here! And I’ve brought baby supplies!” Sandy cheered, setting down bags upon bags of baby supplies. Toys, baby bottles, clothes, blankets, diapers, the whole shabang

Sandy walked over to the tired-looking cub, resting on Macaques' chest, and crouched down a bit to meet him at face level.

“Hey there, little one!~ How are you doing this morning?” the water demon chirped.

The cub looked up at Sandy with curiously wide eyes.

The response he got was a few babbles and chirps that they obviously couldn’t understand. The little monkey lifted himself up a little, continuing to talk with the water demon, who continued to play along and say, “Oh yeah?” “That’s very interesting,” and “Really?”

He let the snow-white monkey grab onto his finger and would waddle it up and down, taking the cub with it and causing him to cackle like mad.

“Awwww!” Sandy cooed.

Macaque shifted the cub carefully, noting the clumps of dirt and clay sticking to the fluffy fur.

“Alright, I think that’s enough excitement,” he said, brushing a bit of dried clay from the cub’s ear. “Kid needs a bath.”

He held the cub up from under his armpits, the blanket hung loosely around the tiny body, covering him as he dangled with a grumpy, betrayed look.

The cub’s little brows furrowed, and he seemed to glare at Macaque for interrupting his snuggle time.

Macaque just snorted, a small, amused smile flickering across his face. “Don’t give me that look, peach fuzz. You’re filthy.”

Hearing this, Pigsy walked over and gently took the cub, settling him against his chest. "I'll handle it. You guys jus' hang out downstairs.”

---

Pigsy carried the cub with gentle care, cradling him in one arm as he pushed open the bathroom door with the other. The faucet squeaked as he turned it on, letting the warm water run while he tested the temperature with his hoof.

The cub wriggled a little against his chest, letting out faint coos and chirps. His tiny hands curled into Pigsy’s shirt, face still scrunched up with a lingering pout.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Pigsy grumbled fondly, adjusting his hold. “No kid likes bath time ‘til they realize how nice warm water feels on dirty skin.”

He set the cub down on a soft towel by him, careful as ever, and started to unravel the blanket. The moment the last corner slipped off, the cub squeaked from the temperature change and scrambled to roll back up in the blanket.

“Oh-ho, shy now, are we?” Pigsy chuckled. “Don’t worry, kid. Ain’t nobody here but me.”

The cub didn’t look convinced. He curled in on himself, nose twitching and tail wrapped tightly around his tiny legs.

Pigsy added bubble bath soap just for the fun of it.

Gently, he ruffled the velvet fur on top of his head. “Come on. Let’s get this clay off ya.”

He picked up the tiny monkey again and lowered him into the shallow tub. The cub flinched at first, then paused.

Warmth soaked into his fur. His tiny arms slowly uncurled.

Pigsy held him steady with one hand as he reached for a gentle cloth. “There we go. See? Not so bad.”

The cub blinked, wide-eyed. Then, with a tiny shirp of contentment, he relaxed completely. His tiny fingers floated in the water, eyes half-lidded, and face relaxed.

Pigsy let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“There,” he muttered, washing gently behind one tiny ear. “Not so bad, huh, fuzzball?”

The cub’s eyes drooped in the warmth, but the moment Pigsy moved the cloth near his shoulder, a tiny hand shot out, smacking the water.

splash

“Ey-!” Pigsy flinched, blinking as warm water sprinkled across his apron.

The cub blinked, then did it again. Another splash, bigger this time, all the while staring up at him.

Pigsy began to think he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Alright, alright, enough of that, you little troublemaker,” Pigsy grumbled, a small, amused smile tugging at his mouth.

The cub let out an excited trill, tiny fingers wiggling through in the water as he kicked happily, sending a few more splashes over the edge of the tub.

The pig demon watched as they blew and played in the bubbles with the excitement you would expect from an infant.

“Alright, alright, I get it, bath time’s fun now, huh?” Pigsy snorted softly, “But don’t think this means you can go flooding my bathroom.”

Another sharp splash followed by another bubbly trill.

Pigsy shook his head, grabbing a towel and laying it on the tiled floor beside him. He unplugged the tub, letting the water drain, then carefully lifted the cub and set the little monkey on the towel.

The cub shivered once before immediately burrowing into the towel, peeking out with only his nose and bright eyes showing.

“You comfy now?” Pigsy asked, sitting up from drying up the splashes on the floor, his fisted hooves resting on his hip.

The cub chittered, snuggling deeper into the towel happily.

Once finished drying the cub's mess, he went to pick him up.

Pigsy tucked the towel around the tiny cub, patting his head gently.

As he adjusted the corners, he paused, really looking at her for a moment.

His tiny face was still, soft, blinking up at him with those bright blue eyes, nose scrunched in a way that somehow felt different.

Softer. Rounder.

Not quite the same as the sharp-edged smirk he’d seen on Wukong’s face countless times.

Pigsy’s brows lifted slightly, realization dawning in the smallest way.

“…Huh,” he muttered, so quietly the cub couldn’t even hear it. “Well, I’ll be.”

The cub yawned, completely unaware, and burrowed back into the towel.

Pigsy shook his head with a gentle huff, lifting the cub securely against his chest as he stepped out of the bathroom.

---

While they waited downstairs, MK and Mei were sitting cross-legged at one of the booths with a board game spread out between them. Dice and colorful tokens were scattered around.

“Okay, okay! This is it! I finally have a chance to win,” Mk said, clutching his cards like a lifeline, eyes bright with determination and smiling eagerly.

Mei leaned back, smirking as she examined her own cards. “You sound so sure of yourself.”

Mk’s mouth dropped open in offense. “Uhm! That’s cause I am! Look! If I can just roll a six, I can land on the power space and-”

Mk tossed the dice, eyes following them closely.

They clattered against the board and landed on a three.

“Noooooo!” Mk collapsed from the couch dramatically, causing his forehead to connect with the table with a hard thunk.

Mei leaned forward, grinning as she moved her piece past his.

“Sorry, dude, but it looks like the green flame wins once again!”

“You're so good at these,” Mk whined, peeking over the table. A noticeable shiner was forming where he’d collided with the table.

“Skill, baby. Maybe a tiny bit of luck,” Mei said, flashing a peace sign.

Nearby, Sandy sat on the couch with Mo sprawled across his lap, purring like an engine as Sandy gently rubbed behind his ear. Macaque and Tang were seated at the counter, chatting quietly.

Macaque threw occasional glances toward the stairs, Tang following his line of sight.

“What do you think is going on up there?” Tang asked.

Macaque tilted his head, snickering at the muffled splashes and Pigsy’s distant grumbling. “They’re fine. Pretty sure the fuzzball’s wearing Pigsy out, though,” he said, idly twirling a shadow around his finger.

Mei checked the time on her phone, “It has been a while… but to be fair, that rubble was really stuck in little Wukong’s fur.”

Just then, a voice cleared behind them, “Uh… guys?”

They turned, game pieces forgotten, to see Pigsy standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding the freshly washed cub snug in a fluffy towel.

And gosh, Wukong looked absolutely adorable after being cleaned.

Mk and Mei couldn’t help the squeal that escaped them, faces squished together as tears pricked at the corners of their eyes.

They scrambled forward instantly, nearly tripping over each other as they reached to scoop the baby into their arms before looking up at Pigsy.

looked up at them with quiet curiosity in the cub’s gaze, letting out a soft, curious squeak, completely unaware of the fuss.

“Yeah, Dadsy?” Mk managed to squeak out carefully.

Macaque just smirked faintly, pretending to examine his nails while failing to hide the amused glint in his eye.

Macaque just smirked faintly, pretending to examine his nails while failing to hide the amused glint in his eye.

scratching the back of his neck, he said “Uh… are you all sure Wukong’s really a male?”

Well, that was an odd question.

Mk blinked. “Yeah? Why?”

Macaque raised an eyebrow, slouching forward a bit as he rested his arm on the countertop “Yeah, I’ve seen what he looks like out of clothes, back when we’d hit the hot springs for a grooming session, y’know? Pretty sure he’s a guy.”

Pigsy let out a breath. “Well then… how do you explain what I saw while givin’ ‘him’ a bath?” He said, making air quotes.

Everyone froze.

“Wait… what?” Tang finally managed, one brow cocked upward.

Mei and Mk exchanged looked of bewilderment.

the two young adults blinked once.

twice.

“Wait…” she started, eyes darting from Pigsy to the tiny cub still bundled in Mk’s arms. “Are you saying…”

Mk’s mouth opened and closed, looking down at tiny monkey, who simply tilted it’s little head, blinking up with bright sapphire eyes, a gentle squeak escaping her as she pawed at his sleeve.

…

“Wukong’s a girl?!” Mei blurted out, voice cracking with the shock.

Chapter Text

How was this possible?

The monkey king great sage equal to heaven... was a girl?

"B-b-but wukong has always been known as a male. It was in the stories and everything. Don't you guys remember that time at the beach? He had pecks!" Tang said with confusion. How did he not know about this? He was supposed to know everything about the monkey king!

"Yeah? Well She is." Pigsy said annoyed by his partners reaction. "But... why wouldn't h- she tell us?" He said as he saw the cub crawl to him and reach up with big blue eye's that were filled with pure innocence. Picking her up and looking at her he said with a sad tone "does he not trust us?" He stared at little wukong as she put her tiny hands on each side of his face and chirps in curiosity.

"Of course she does" macaque teleported next to mk, putting a hand on his shoulder "the celestials were angry that a girl had defeated more than half of there army and changed what happened cause they didn't want to seem weak." Macaque said narrowing his eyes at the window.

"Wait wait wait. You knew?" Pigsy said with an accusatory tone, glaring at macaque with furrowed brows.

"Of course I new. I new she was a girl... though I didn't know why she started using her glamour to look and sound like a boy."

"May I see her? my little sister." With a soft smile mk gave wukong to macaque. 

Macaques eyes softened when he saw her in his hands, "...hey there.. shiHou" he said with a smile.

"Huh!?" What did he mean shiHou!

"You 3 I understand not knowing. but you two! Don't you study the journey to the west every single day? And you you have been trained by wukong. and you have read the journey to the west for how long?" Starying at them incredulously he breathed in deep and sighed.

"Bu-b-but every copy of journal to the west says his name was wukong!" "Yeah! Even the shows!"

While pigsy, macaque, mk, and tang talked, mei and sandy came from behind macaque and took the cub taking her upstairs since they noticed her getting fussy.

Sitting her down they laid on the ground and started cooing at her.

"Aaaawwwww, you are just the cutest thing ever!" Mei cood at the cub

Mo started walking over to the cub and nuzzling against the cub and purring, making the cub coo and giggle the bubbliest laugh they had ever heard.

... "awwww!" With that, mei picked up shiHouand said "can I take you home with me?"

---

Downstairs everyone was still buisy talking about the latest secret uncovered about wukong.

But out of all the noise there was one they couldn't hear was a curtain cub.

Looking at macaques arms he noticed that his mentor turned cub was now missing!

"Guuuys, where is wu- shihou"

(...)

Everyone went into panick. Running around to see where shiHou was.

"How did you lose her!" Pigsy yelled pointedly at macaque. Poison practically spewing from his lips.

"I don't know! I was to buisy talking to you guys!" Don't turn this onto us, she in your arms!"

"Aah! i can't believe we lost an overpowered immortal cu-!"

"Guy's! Stop talking and help me find my sister!

---

There was ruckus coming from downstairs.

"What do you think is going on down there?" Sandy said still coddling shiHou.

"Not sure..." mei thought hard. What could they be doing?

With a gasped mei shot up and sprinted to the door.

"What's wrong mei?" Sandy said turning to her with shiHou lached to his head.

"We didn't tell them we were taking... shiHou?- that's her name right?" Mei muttered the last sentence

"Oh no! I hope they won't be to mad about us taking her! She just looked like she was about to cry!"

Grabbing onto mei and mo- shiHou still clinging to his head like second nature he ran downstairs.

---

They were still looking around when they heard thumping.

All the sudden they saw sandy rushing to the middle of the restaurant floor with mei, mo and "Wukong! er shiHou! Man that's gonna be hard to get used to" he muttered "thank God you're okay.

ShiHou started to babble and chirps to mk while clinging onto his chest and rubbing her face into it.

"Did you guys have her this whole time!" The group shouted at mei and sandy who were both smiling sheepishly

"We just noticed that she was started fussy and we just wanted to make her feel better" sandy said before both him and mei bowed and said "were sooooo sorry!"

All of them started looking at eachother and back at the cub still chirping in glee. "As long as she's-" with a yelp mk ducked, cause right before he could finish what he was saying shihou had gotten the hiccups and Lazers shot out of her eyes

"Fine" mk gulped

With a whimper from shiHou they looked back at her to see her hiccup again.

This time transforming into a tiny kitten. Hiccuping once more she turned back to her original form.

Hiccuping again except not from her Hiccuping this time staring to cry.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay shhhhh" mk said putting her against his chest and cradling her head as she put her small arms and head in top of his shoulder.

"Here. Take off your shirt. It will work better against bare skin." Macaque said gently taking shiHou into his grasp.

Once mk got his jacket and shirt off he took his tiny mentor back and sat at one of the booths... "how long do you guys think it will be till she turns back to normal" mk asked looking down at the dozing cub.

"I'm not sure." Tang replied "it really only depends on the artifact" "well. Do you think that Jin and yin might have an answer to that. They obviously had to know what it could do considering they used on an immortal being such as shiHou" macaque said still angry about what they did. "And if they didn't know what it did. Then I'll just have a talk with them.. yeah. A talk"

... well that wasn't concerning at all.

ShiHou hiccuped again. This time bolts of golden lie electricity radiating off her body. Her faced scrunched up as if it physically pained her. Which mk wouldn't doubt. Those were painful, though these were her powers.. not her transforming from a human form and monkey form... though considering how much power she has in her tiny body, it probably hurt a lot.

"Than it's settled. By tomorrow morning when everyone wakes up we will go and talk to the gold and silver demon" he pointed at Macaque, tang and sandy "you guys will come with me" pointing at pigsy and mei "you guys will take care of tiny shiHou while we are gone."

"Awww, why can't I come to help beat them up to?"

"Because your good at entertaining people. Including small children. And dadsy is able to take care of kids. I mean, he did raise me. I'm sure a baby monkey won't be to much right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that would give me time to get to know the munchkin." He smiled and huffed softly at the sad and hiccuping cub

"Give her here. I'll help get rid of those hiccups in no time"

Chirping in confusion the baby looked around until she spotted pigsy. Big blue eye's practically staring into his sole. Though it wasn't creepy like it usually is when people do that instead it reminded pigsy of a kitten. He would never admit it. At least not right now. But she might be the cutest thing ever besides mk when he was little.

Grabbing a shot glass he washed it out put peach milk in it and put a straw so she coulddrink easier. Letting the cub drink from it. Half way gone she slowing started to lean forward and landed her head in the palm of his hand. Arms, legs, and tail dangling off his arm.

With a sigh from the group they started talking with eachother while pigsy held the new born infant.

Unknowing to them that they would have to raise an overpowered immortal demon monkey for the next 20 years to come.

Chapter Text

"Uuugh!" Mk groaned, after a pregnant pause mei spoke "you alright mk?" "Ugh, nooo! It's been three months since shiHou turned into a baby and she still hasn't shown any sighns of turning back to normal!"

Mk paused looking over to shiHou who was on a chair and trying to climb on the table but she was just to small to do so. Even though mk was sad about his mentor not being here being replaced by a sweet baby girl who he adored... he still missed his older brother, he was starting to miss the secrets he kept. A lot of them broke his heart.

When mk, sandy, tang, and Macaque when to interigate the gild and silver demons they didn't get the answer they were expecting. Instead they found that there was no cure, that it affects people differently. Some would be back to normal in a couple years and some for a bout a week. Some people will get there memories back at a certain age and slowly go back to normal and some would age as any normal person would without knowing what happened in there life before they were turned into a child. And some would age normally and get memories back in there teen years.

They also found out that shiHou did Not like being alone.

if no one was in her line of sight she would start balling her eye's out. The only person who could get her ti calm down right away was mk, dbk, and Macaque.

They came to the conclusion that it was because they were her siblings. Nezha has been able to calm her down sometimes.

Key word, "sometimes"

They also found out she could get into places that no ordinary baby couldn't and the only way they would be able to find her was when she would cry. Which leaded them to her.

One time they found her in the vents! Which was pretty interesting, cause how it someone so small able to even get up into the vents in the first place!?

But in those times mk could only think about what yin and jin said and was really hoping that his mentor would stay that way for only a couple weeks but she was still a baby.

"Hey, I'm sure everything will be fine. She's probably just slowly going back to normal. You'll see your mentor in no time" she said with a smile making mk smile as well.

"But until then. You wanna look at some baby pics!" Mk stared blankly at the kitchen then whipped his head towards her with a serious expression. Grabbing onto her shoulders he said "mei are you joking right now..? Of course I do!!" He said quickly and with that they started looking at the baby pictures and videos mei took of the cub.

Suddenly the room got really warm and a swirl of flames inveloped in the the middle of the restaurant.

Coming out of said flames was of course red son.

"Hello noodle boy and dragon girl!" Redson said in his usual flamboyant sassy tone of voice.

"Hey/hi red boy/red son!" Mei and mk said at the same time looking away from the photos.

"Have you missed us red boy!" Mei said getting in his face. With an annoyed huff redson pushed her off "of course not peasants! I'm just here to check on my aunt to see her growth is all."

Looking over to her, his eyes widened commidecly.

"Is- is she chewing on the table!?" Mk popped up being him "Wait, what! Shi Hou- no don't chew that!"

Scrambling to grab her, he picked her up only to see her pouting.

"You can't chew on that little sun!"

Putting her on his chest, they all the sudden heard shiHou gargle. Snapping there heads to her, they noticed her making grabby hands at the table, her eyes all warbley, and staring to hiccup.

Which a sigh mk started to look her over. mei and redson joining him in it.

By that time, shiHou started to cry. Fat globs of tears spilling from her open eyes as she started chewing on her fingers and grumbling as she chewed on them.

Grabing her tiny hand. Her cries started up again. Her face turning red from her hot tears.

"Little shiHou you can't- you can't chew on that, you don't even have teeth. Not that you should chew on the counter when you do!" Mk freted.

"On the contrary noodle boy. Do you see these dents?" He said over shiHou squeaky crying.

"Hold up red boy. Before you say anymore. Are you tro say that This came from this tiny thing?" She said pointing at the counter and then the baby.

"Well that 'tiny thing'" he quoted "is now teething without you all being prepared for it." 

"Well- we weren't but sandy did bring stuff for her, didn't he mk?" Mei said looking at mk "Yeah he did." Looking back at redson she said "well then, can't we just give her a pasefyer and then move on with our day?" "I suppose, but first maby you should stop shiHou before she chews her arm off"

Mk sputtered after hearing that and said "shiHou no!" And then more crying this time more muffled as she put her face into his chest while clutching onto his shirt while shaking.

---

Upstairs they were looking through the bags. One was filled with toys and one with diapers and bottles. They started looking through the pockets.

"Aha! I found it!" Mei said triumphantly.

Giving it to mk, he sat shiHou on the ground. Her eyes were still wet with tears, still shaking and whimpering in pain, with her mouth open- chewing on her finger.

This time mk just gently took her hand and replaced it with the binky. But instead of sucking it, she start chewing on it.

"Eh, it's progress" mei said

Mk noticed that her arm and hand, noticing that it was bleeding. Not a lot but also not just little specks. "Aw shiHou, come on, let's go get your arms bandaged up, yeah?"

While mk heald her while rubbing her back mei was making funny faces and tickling the cub who almost lost her binky at times.

Redson finding the first aid kit came over and set it down on the table. Opening it to find it packed with necessities.

While raping shiHou's arm in them, the binky fell out of her mouth.

Mei picking it up saw the very much noticeable tears it had gotten from little shiHou chewing on it. Barely even recognizable.

"Let me see that!" Redson said and started to open shiHou's little mouth to find two small but really sharp fangs. Almost poking himself when looking.

"Augh, here, I have an idea."

---

After a bit, redson rapped there fingers in bandages so they could have layers so they didn't get hurt while letting shiHou chew on there fingers which actually soothed her to sleep.

Putting her into the makeshift crib sandy made for her, they went back downstairs.

.

.

.

As they waited for pigsy and tang to get back. Mk had called macaque to help with shiHou woke up.

"Soo. What's up with the thick bandage raping on your guys fingers?" Macaque asked

"Well, if you must know-" "baby shiHou is teething and is chewing on everything and hurt herself!" Mk interrupted quickly, taking a deep breath at the end.

"That. Wasn't exactly how I was going to put it, but basically, yes"

With a sigh Macaque got up and started heading upstairs when all the sudden they heard the familiar sound of a certain monkey cub and rushed upstairs.

Getting into the room they saw shiHou. Arms covered in blood.

Just seeing her like that put Macaque into protective mode.

Rushing over and picking her up. "Holy fuck shoHou!" Macaque muttered while the cubs body racked with pained cries burying her face into the crook of his neck. But she seemed to be in to much pain to latch onto him

Looking at everyone looking like they personally insulted his mother Macaque yelled "well what are you doing just standing there!? Go get some more bandages!"

Right then and there mei and mk started Scrambling for the door. Redson being the only calm one out of the group turning on his heals and walking out of the room.

Facepalming, he looked back down at the sobbing cub, blood staining her fur.

Putting his free hand on her head he started to whisper sweet nothings into her ear.

Though she did start to calm down a little, her body was still shaking in pain with some small grumbles and whimpers of pain.

---

Running downstairs to grab the first aid kit the 2 young adults bumped into pigsy and immortal demon child stood at the entry way.

"Pigsy!" Mk said with relief. "What do you do if a demon cub starts teething but can't use pasefyers cause it would just go into pieces cause the cubs teeth are to sharp!?" Mk asked quickly.

"Wait, is the little pebble teething?" With a pregnant pause. Mei got impatient and told him.

---

Hearing the doorknob turn before the door creaked open macaque turned and was about to greet the three children when all the sudden pigsy came up and ripped the cub away from his arms.

With a startled squeeky chirp from the cub, pigsy started bandaging her wounds.

"There, tha' should do it" pigsy said standing up and rocking shiHou in his arms.

"We might- no we should take her to a doctor."

"I'll go make an appointment" Tang announced, pulling out his phone and walking out of the room.

---

Not to long later tang came in with a gracious smile.

"Well, we are able to go in now actually. They say that there hasn't been any accidents and no sicknesses today and they said to just bring her in and they would look her over and said they would clean the wounds."

Everyone sighed in releaf at hearing that. Getting up they called sandy and drove over to the doctors. Now they just had to wait

"The nurse will be able to bring you in shortly" "thank you so much" mk said as he walked over and started rubbing circles on the cubs back

"Now we just have to wait, hang in there shiHou"

.

.

.

The door opened and a nurse came out "shiHou" a womans voice called out the name.

Getting up they all followed her.

Getting into the room the nurse smiled warmly at them and Sat down. Introducing herself as sherry.

After they explained everything she said in a honey sweet tone "I'm so sorry to here that. Poor thing, let me just get your doctor and he'll help. He is the best in this facility."

Leaving they started to distract the cub from the pain. Mk and mei were talking about how they wished the could take the pain away.

Not to long later a doctor by the name of Doctor Liang jun.

"So I heard that this little one is dealing with some teething and has supposedly been chewing on herself if there's nothing else?"

Well I guess you could put it that way." Redson said with narrowed eyes. He didn't know why, but he wasn't getting a good feeling from this guy and he could tell that the others didn't either by the look on there face and the way sandy had all the sudden put his on on the cubs head, making said cub chirp at him.

Gulping audibly, the doctor started asking questions and cleaned the cubs arms. But he had done something while looking for the correct substances that really concerned them.

He kept questioning what he should use and he would roughly apply it to the cubs arms making wiggle in pain.

And out of pure protective rage macaque would bare his teeth and growl while bring his little sister closer to his chest and rubbed his thumb against her cheek.

But when they thought that what the doctor was doing worried them. What he said next made all of the gang but sandy and tang want to strangle him.

What did he say you ask... well

"You want us to restrain her!" Macaque and pigsy were fuming and yelling at him. Mk was obviously upset but he had to help redson pull mei back while sandy brewed up some fresh tea and gave some to tang while petting mo.

"Not necessarily restrain, i just said to swaddle her up in something soft like a blanket!" The doctors voice was all wobbly, scared of what they might do to him.

"It'll just be until she stops teething!" The doctor said while backing away.

"How are you the best doctor they have!" Pigsy sputtered incredulous. Scrunching up his face in disdain.

"Uuuhh, hold on, I'll be right back" right as the "doctor" said that, he left.

"Seriously!!" Mei said, green flames coming from her mouth.

"Maby he is going to look around to see if there is something else we can do?" Sandy, bless his heart, said, always the defender.

"He better be! There's no way we are restraining her!"

---

"It might be your only option, we can only do that so keep her from further harming herself."

The "doctor" brought in someone who looked like they had never heard of the word hygiene before to tell them that what he said was true and was the only way to to got about it.

"Are you fucking serious!" Mei yelled

"I'm sorry. It's all we can do to help you. Now, you best be on your way. You don't want your child to hurt herself even more now do you?" He said with wide eye's. Mk really wanted to punch him and he knew the others would to. Except for sandy, of course. He'd never hurt a fly.

Going back home, they swaddled the cub in a blanket. Which of course she did not like. 

Gor the past week she would be trying to wriggle her way out of the blanket to no avail. And oh how did the others just want to rip it right off and hug her for the rest of her time.

Most nights the cub would wake up because she was now chewing on her tongue so much it would bleed at first she cried from the pain. But then she got used to the pain and started waking up from choking on the blood.

"augh! I'm done!" This was the fourth time they had woken up because the cub was choking.

Mei and the demon bull family started to stay in the shop over night to help with the suffering baby.

Macaque had woken up because he could hear them from his house. Though what do you expect when you have six good ears.

"We are going back to the doctors! NOW!" The demon bull king yelled. Obviously furious by the actions of this so called doctor.

" Don't worry Mr. Bull king" sandy came out with some warm tea handing one to the purple bull.

" we should probably go tomorrow though. The doctors are closed t this time."

"Fine, but tomorrow morning we are going to go in there and give that doctor a piece of our mind"

---

the next morning everyone went in to see the doctor, bit when they got in there, they didn't see the same doctor they did last time.

"Uuuumm. Are you Liang jun by any chance?" Mk asked

The doctor turning back to them he smiled his face wrinkling as he did so.

"Why yes I am, and what might bring you here this fine morning?" he said in a gruff voice but sweet voice.

This time sandy asked, "well last time we were here someone with the same name as you was our doctor."

Liang jun hummed in thought. "Oooohhh, you mean my grandchild, yes he is quite mischievous. Are you the people who brought in the teething child?"

"Yeah' we are" pigsy said still mad about everything that happened.

"Oh dear. I'm so sorry. I had actually called his mother that day because he took you guys without me knowing. I was trying to find you guys everywhere and that's when I bumped into him and his friend. He was wearing  a copy of my name tag and stole a doctors coat."

Well. That did make more sense. Why would they hire someone who had no idea what he was doing.

"But now that you are here and I can finally give you guys the information you actually need.

They found out all they needed ibuprofen to help with the pain.

After 27 days the pain was gone completely.

Sandy was laying on the couch with shiHou splayed out on one side of his chest with sandy's hand on her back.

"I'm so glad all that is over!" Mk said flopping to the ground

"Same man" mei flopped right onto him making him grunt.

"I'm so glad shiHou isn't in pain anymore. Every time she cried, I felt like a piece of my heart breaking. Hey pigsy, was that what it's like to be a parent?"

With a gruff chuckle, pigsy turned, back facing the pot of noodles. "Sure is kid"

"I'm so sorry you had to deal with that!" Mk said dramatically making everybody laugh.

When shiHou woke up mk enveloped her in a hug and started tickling her. Making her laugh.

"Um-ummmk, um-kay, umkay" she said between giggle

Everyone gasped at that.

Mk "omg, omg, omg! I'm. Her first. Wooord!" He said as he hugged her and blew raspberries on her cheek

"Mk mk mk!" She said as if she had been waiting to say that name her entire life. Though to them it sounded like umkay.

Meanwhile Someone with wide pale blue eyes and a big creepy smile was on the roof walking away and leaving through a blue portal.

Chapter Text

The night starts in mk apartment above the noodle shop. Mk lying on his bed with a pale blond fluff ball curled between his arm and side.

Mk's fingers glided through shiHou's fur. She looked so peaceful with her cheek smooshed aging her small arm. 

It had been 2 more months and mk had found out that shiHou didn't grow really fast.

It was already almost summer and she hadn't even grown an inch. Mabey a couple centimeters but that still wasn't a lot.

He thought back to when she said his name for the first time and how it only got better from there. Her second word was macaques name then it was mei then pigsy and sandy in one day, then it was tang. Even though they mentioned how she wasn't the last person he was still salty about being the last out of the group.

It had actually gotten so bad that it became there inside joke.

They had let her try a peach since she got her fangs in early and her reaction might have been the funniest and cutest thing they had seen.

Her eyes widened with fascination and started bighting into it, but when she couldn't seem to get a bight without juice getting everywhere, she resorted to licking the juices from the peach slice. They could only describe it as a cat when they get catnip.

Of course mei got a recording of it ,saying that it was for blackmail.

All the sudden his alarm goes off waking shiHou up with a trill of surprise.

"Crap, is it already morning?" He said turning off the alarm and sitting up with shiHou in his arm.

"Sorry shiHou, I didn't mean to wake you up, just go back to sleep." He said while booping her nose and making her giggle tiredly.

Walking downstairs he waves to pigsy and tang who were doing there usual routine. Setting shiHou in the booth, he laid her down and put a blanket over her.

Once her eyes closed mk smiled and walked over to the table where pigsy and tang were.

"Wow mk, you look tired" "yeah, I stayed up last night with shiHou" hearing this, pigsy turned towards mk.

"Did she wake up last night?" "No, I just wanted ro cuddle her" with a sigh pigsy asked "Well it is your day off, you don't have to do deliveries, so why not just sleep. I'll just make mr. Freeloader clean the place."

With that being said, mk sat down in the booth next his little sister

After a while mei texted him

Dragon noodle girl🐉✨️:hey you wanna come to the arcade?

Noodle boy: yes! I'll meet you there in a bit I just gotta get shiHou to settle down, lol

Dragon noodle girl🐉✨️:send me pics!

Noodle boy: will do!

(Picture will be added soon)

Driving to the arcade him and mei played monkey mech after few hundred rounds mei obviously won while mk almost won others.

went out for cheese tea.

Saw a movie.

And ended the hangout with a walk back to the noodle shop having left mk's vehicle a while ago.

When they stepped into the noodle shop mk and mei heard a tiny and adorable voice

"Um-kay, mei"

Looking over, they saw shiHou trying to pull herself up with shaky legs. Pushing herself up with the pole holding up the table's.

With a gasp mk and mei started to squeal while erging her to come to them.

Slowly with outreached arms, shiHou walked to them.

Tang and pigsy cheering her on.

After falling over a couple times and picking herself up she got mk and mei.

Right as she was about to fall mk and mei grabbed her and picked her up.

Mk squeezing her in a tight hug and mei tickling her causing them all to laugh.

---

3 years later they found that shiHou's favorite game was hide and seek.

And right now was in one of those situations where she would hide randomly and the others would go on a wild goose chase.

"Where the heck could she have gone" mei said while laughing

"Come out. Come out. Wherever you aaarre~" macaque said coming out of his shadow while smiling evilly.

All the sudden they heard muffled giggling coming from the vents.

Hearing this, macaque smiled and dipped into the shadows again.

---

She had been hiding for a while now. Silently laughing to herself.

She had taken a bowl of peaches with her just in case it took a while.

The parking on her face changed. Now it now showed right under her lip, skipping her top lip. Her hair was now at her hips even though pigsy had just cut it shoulder length, less than two months ago still a pale blond. She also had blue markings under her eyes that made made her look like she was wearing make-up. She had also grown just a couple inches under 2 feet, making it easy for her to walk through the vents.

All the sudden she heard two people talking. The first one being mei who laughed at the end. Then her big brother who tried to act creepy.

"Come out. Come out. Wherever you aaarre~" she heard and a laugh slipped out from her mouth, Covering it so no one could hear her.

Unknowing to her someone did. That someone came out of the shadows from behind her.

Raising his hands in the air.

Sensing someone behind her she turned her head to look at the her predator.

(...)

"Got ya~"

With a scream shiHou tried to run, but her efforts were in vain when macaque grabbed her and lightly and playfully started nibbling her neck making her laugh.

"No, let me go" shiHou said between laughs.

"Not a chance squirt" macaque said while dropping through a portal his voice warbling because of it.

"Look who I found in the vents snacking on a bowl of peaches" macaque said while holding shiHou with one hand and the bowl of peaches in the other.

"Aha, we found you!" Mk said practically teleporting to her.

"Noooo! Macky did!" ShiHou said laughing.

"Augh! Macaque I can't believe you took all the credit!" Mei said in false offense.

"You guys hungry? I made noodles. And for the munchkin, peach dumplings" pigsy said with a smile.

Gasping shiHou said "Thank you piggy!" Now digging in and holding the only she was eating with both hands and sitting crisscross.

After everyone finished mk came to shiHou and asked "Hey shiHou, do you you want to come deliver noodles with me Tomorrow?"

"Really, I can help you tomorrow!" she said standing on the chair. Her tail wagging like crazy.

"Yep" mk chirped "now come on, let's get some sleep so we have enough energy for tomorrow" he said picking her up.

"Say goodnight shiHou."

"Good night!" She said waving.

With that they went to sleep waiting for tomorrow.

Chapter Text

The day started off with mk's alarm ringing in the room. With that mk sat up, stretching, he reached his arm out and turned off his alarm clock.

Looking over, he saw shiHou who slept through the alarm.

With a chuckle mk got up and started walking over to shiHou's bed. Crouching down, he gently said "ShiHooouu" shiHoi groaned and put her face into her pillow.

"it's time to get up" Opening her Bleary eyes, she looked at mk.

then she closed them again and went back to sleep.

This time mk gently shook her shoulder, "Don't you remember what today is? You were gonna help me deliver noodles."

Hearing this, shiHou's ears perked up. jumped out of bed she darted around and started getting ready.

Now ready, she was lying on her little bed and drawing while waiting for mk to be finished taking a shower.

---

After mk was done with his shower, got dressed and tied his signature bandana around his head, he came from behind shiHou and snatched her from the bed.

Laughing they went downstairs and sat at the counter with shiHou in his lap and waited for there breakfast to be ready.

"Careful, it's hot" Pigsy warned, placing one normal sized bowl for mk and one smaller bowl for shiHou.

After shiHou finished eating she turned around in mk's lap, leaned against the counter top and stared intently at mk until he finished.

A couple minutes later mk finally finished his food.

With that, mk set shiHou to the ground, waving goodbye to pigsy and tang she ran outside where the vehicle was as mk followed

Pulling herself onto the seat, mk followed suit and buckled her and himself in.

"Now be careful shiHou, I don't want you to get burned."

Hearing this shiHou rapped her arms and legs around the bags of noodles with a determined look in her eyes.

With that mk laughed and started the vehicle and drove through the streets.

---

As they went from one house to another. Mk would grab a bag and hand it to shiHou.

Going up to the door mk would ring the doorbell. Everyone thought it was adorable that shiHoi was helping mk.

Some would interact with shiHou, and gave tips being pleased to have an adorable and pleasant surprise at there door.

Two of the costumers who ordered were just so happened to be the bull family and macaque.

Going to macaques dojo first. Macaque opened the door and invited them in, ruffling shiHou's fluffy curls and taking the bag of noodles.

After having a nice little chat, they ended up playing shiHou's favorite game of "suprise hide and seek" wich is what they now called it.

Though this time they were more panicked considering there were an insane amount of weapons just lying around.

Thankfully shiHou was hiding under macaques bed.

---

Now waving bye, the last order was to the bull family. Now tracking there location, they found that they were at a park.

Now mk was talking to dbk and pif while watching as shiHou was being entertained by redson by playing a game of tag.

(...)

"I'm surprised shiHou's body hasn't fought against the affects of the relic." Dbk said, looking rather surprised.

"Yeah, but hey, at least she can finally have something close to a normal childhood. Am I right?" Mk said with a warm smile, watching as a little boy a little boy that looked a little bit older than shiHou nervously walk up to them and asked if he could play. Of course shiHou said yes considering the way the boys face lit up and they started running away from redson.

"Yes, I remember how shiHou would watch families and say that she wished that she had something like that growing up." Pif said this time.

With that, dbk lookedat her with shock "Why wasn't I told of this wish? When did she even tell you about this?" Dbk said, looking offended and yet, also looked curious about it.

With a triumphant smile, pif said "she told me this the first time I visited her mountain." She said looking at the two young kids and her son as they played.

"Though I am curious, the relic is supposed to turn you into a child when affected... but shiHou wasn't born a child. She may have been mentally one but. Physically she was fully grown. So this relic shouldn't have had been able to physically turn her into a baby of all things." Princess iron fan said. Which actually made mk worry.

He hadn't thought about it much at first, since at first he thought it was just a story but now that he new that he was actually real...

And if what pif said was true, that means that there was a baby monkey roaming around a mountain with no one to call family. Surrounded by things that wanted to hurt her. She survived by herself. And at such a young age to.

---

After a while of talking, mk grabbed shiHou and was getting ready to go, leaving the bull family to eat there food.

But before they went, mk of course had to get the number of the boys mother so they could play together again.

They were aperently new to the state, having moved from Italy.

The little boys name Orfeo. Which was actually fitting for him since they were actually water demons. Though where they came from they were called sea monsters.

With a hug goodbye from shiHou and Orfeo, Now they were going back to the noodle shop after that long day.

And Mk could already tell that shiHou and him would be great friends for years to come.

---

Two years later, shiHou was tossing and turning in her bed with shaky breathes.

She was having a nightmare, or more so a memory. And in the nightmare, she was being surrounded by people she didn't know. They were talking about training the bull king like some wild animal that needed to be tamed (her big brother?) And punishing his wife, pif. They were also talking about killing there son.

What are they talking about? Why was she part of this. This made her want to run to her family and hug them forever, but no matter how much she tried, she just couldn't move. She felt like she was going to cry.

Then all the sudden she was being ordered to do something about it or they would kill all of them. (What! But she didn't want to hurt her big brother or his family! Please don't make her do it!) Is what she wanted to say, but she just felt herself nod

Next thing she knew she was face to face with her brother her looked younger than she remembered him.

Wait.. was he yelling at her. But why, was he mad at her? She just wanted this to stop.

They fought and fought and she was finally able to hear something he was saying "I hate you, you are a nothing to me!" And then she felt her mouth move but she couldn't hear what she said. All she could hear was her big brother telling her how much he hated her (why would he say that?) "I have no brother!"

(Brother? What was he talking about?) suddenly her body once again moved as if she were possessed, she took what looked to be mk's staff and used it to burry him under a mountain.

"No!" She said with a gasp as she woke up.

She unknowingly woke mk up with her crying and was surprised when he sat by her side and hugged her.

he must have texted pigsy and tang cause the door had opened with a small squeak of the hinges.

They took slow steps to her bedside. Asking what was wrong as she seemed to be have a panic attack at this point.

Pigsy "Hey, what's wrong munchkin?" He asked but just got a choked cry in response.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mk asked and shiHou looked at him with these tear filled eyes that just broke his heart into tiny little pieces.

"I-i had a bad dream, there w-were people in weird costumes that were talking about training dbk. A-and said that they were going to p-punish pif, an-a-and said that that they would kill redson. And bull king sad he hated me and said that I wasn't his sister anymore!" shiHou finished in a sob.

With that mk took shiHou downstairs, and they all has hot coco with peach marshmallows in hers, while watching her favorite movie

In the end they finally got shiHou to go to sleep while watching it.

"Maby we should call dbk tomorrow" mk suggest.

Pigsy nodded with a grunt and said "I don't think that this was just some nightmare. I think it might have been a memory from when she sealed dbk under that mountain. That is what she did right tang?"

"Yes, it is. I just don't remember there being any talking, just wukong with his condition persona and war cries from dbk " Tang said, seemingly agreeing.

the others agreed. And with that they all went to sleep.

Chapter Text

The next day redson had gotten a text from mk saying that they should come talk to shiHou.

Of course when he told he parents, they excepted the invitation.

Teleporting to the noodle shop, shiHou came barreling over to them while spewing apologies and asking them not to be mad at her.

Redson looked up at mk with a raised brow at the familiar faces of the crew.

"We'll explain, could you just sit down for now?" Looking at eachother they went to sit on the booth, shiHou holding on tightly to dbk as if he would disappear if she let him go.

---

About twentu minutes later, Sandy came out with tea for everyone.

Setting it down, dbk took a sip of tea. "I have two questions. One, why did you call us here? And two, why is my little sister crying?"

Mk was about to answer when sandy intervened, "she had a "nightmare" last night about you to having a fight, and we'll... you had apparently said some really hurtful things..."

Hearing this, the bulls eyes lit up in recognition. Looking down at the little fluff ball that was shaking like a leaf.

"I see, did anything else happen in this "nightmare" of your?"

With a sniff, shiHoi pulled back and looked up at him with big glassy blue eye's. "I.. I saw these weird people that were talking about hurting you, pif, and redson." She said in a shaky voice, her bottom lip wobbling.

With a hum of acknowledgment, he raised her up and gave her a gentle hug as to not squish her in the process.

"You're not mad at me?" ShiHou said, her voice still shaky.

With a uncharacteristically warm smile dbk replied saying, "of course not little spark, I could never be mad at you" looking up he saw the gangs faces minus sandy. There expression itself said "you big liar."

which he didn't blame them for. He did have a massive hatred for the monkey, but got over it once he got to know him better than before. And this cub wasn't the monkey king, great sage equal to heaven. She was a sweet child with a heart made of gold. (Would none of this have happened if she actually had someone to look after her?)

"I'm sorry you had to see somethings like that little shiHou" pif said, now having shiHou in her arm's. (Wait. When did she take shiHou from him?)

"Ho-" Before dbk could finish, pif got up and took shiHou outside.

Looking back he saw the judgmental eyes of the group, even his son was confused.

"Would you peasants explain what is going on instead of mean mugging my father" Redson said, now getting irritated.

With a sigh, tang spoke first (because he has the most knowledge of the jttw stories) "last night, when shiHou woke up, she had explained the dream to us. She said that you said you didn't have a sister anymore."

This time it was mei "though considering this was when she was seen as male, you obviously didn't say sister."

Mk "I'm not even sure she knows why you called her "brother" Maby she thought she heard wrong and changed it?" Mk asked himself.

Looking outside dbk saw his little sister. She looked exhausted. Like she hadn't gotten sleep in a while. (Has she been getting these nightmares- or more so memories- for a while now, and if so, how long has it been happening?)

---

It was now a summer night, shiHou couldn't go to sleep. Her mind was being plagued with these horrible nightmares.

She had one a couple days a ago where she killed macaque with some sort of fancy stick.

But tonight was different. It was cold in her dream. She couldn't move, she couldn't talk. She just heard soft whispers. And all she saw was a black void filled with blue chains...

And she was in the middle of it all, stuck in them like a fly caught in a spiders web.

She could practically hear the whispers. Telling her to bring mei to her. It kept telling her to destroy everything that got in the way of its destiny.

She didn't know why this was happening, she just wanted it to stop. She was tired, and these sleepless night were killing her.

About a month ago she had a nightmare where mei was on fire and everyone was mad. Macaque had left and everything was burning hot. She also seemed to be the same height as all of the others. Why were her nightmares like this?

Getting up she walked over to mk's bedside and got up onto it while holding a stuffed lion.

"Mk?" A snore

With a sniffle she shook mk's shoulder and said again although a bit more wobbly "mk? I had another nightmare." Nothing.

With a shaky breath she moved to lay next to him. Pulling his arm over her for comfort.

With a snork, mk woke up. Looking down he saw shiHou, looking back at him.

Brown eyes meeting glowing blue eyes.

"Hey shiHou? What's wrong, another nightmare." ShiHou was about to respond, but a flash of lightning caught her by suprise and she nuzzled her face into his chest with what sounded like a panicked whine mixed with a scared shaky yell.

Nodding she pushed herself further unto him.

(...)

"You want me to make hot coco with peach marshmallows again. And then we can watch your favorite movie?" Mk asked, getting a feverish nod in response.

Getting up he walked downstairs into the restaurant with shiHou in his arms.

Setting her on the booth, he rapped her in a soft blanket. Something they found that helped when she was scared were soft blankets and pillows. It kind of looked like a nest.

Coming back with two cups of hot coco, he went and grabbed his laptop and set it on the table.

Turning on little foot.

At first he wondered why she liked it, but them he watched it the first time she had a nightmare and he found himself content in watching it.

What was there not to love. It had soothing and fun songs, the characters were fun and the whole movie was just great in general.

Turning off the lights, he started the movie.

(...)

Halfway through the movie, mk looked down and noticed shiHou still not asleep. She looked like she was deep in thought.

Pausing the movie, which seemed to wake her from her trance, now looking up at him.

"What's wrong shiHou? you usually fall asleep once the first song plays." Putting his fingers on her cheek, he gently adjusted her face to look up at him.

"ShiHou, please, you know I can't do anything to help you when you don't tell me."

For a pregnant pause mk notice the hesitation in her face. Opening her mouth and then closing.

"I..."

"Yes?" Mk urged, he wanted to know why this certain dream was having this effect on her.

With a inaudible gulp, shiHou said "I dreamt that I was being chained up with these blue chains in a dark room. I couldn't see you. Or the others." Mk's eyes widened. He could tell where this was going.

"A-and there was this person that was telling me to hurt you guys. She wanted me kill you all." With a wet gasp she continued "I didn't wanna hurt you. I didn't mean it.  I couldn't move" she was now crying, her voice was shifting from clear enough words to understand, to mumbled words that would pause every now then when she sobbed.

"I don't wanna hurt you guys!"

Of course she didn't, it's not like she had any control at that time. She was a puppet on strings. It wasn't her fault.

"I know. I know you don't want to hurt us. I know you won't. Not willingly." Rapping her tightly in the blanket he brought her up to eye level.

"Do you think i'm  a bad person?" ShiHou asked

"ShiHou, you are the most wonderful child ever. You have a heart of gold and a bright soul that no one can take away from you. And someone would have to be a heartless monster to want to hurt you badly enough to burn out that light. ShiHou, you are anything but bad." He said looking at her seriously before his eyes softened and he smiled.

"Know this, you are not a bad person. Those silly nightmares mean nothing. Okay..?" With a smile, shiHou replied, "okay" she said in a small, soft voice.

Going back to watching the movie, they gently drifted to sleep.

Chapter Text

It was Chinese new years, and mk and the crew were trying to figure out what to do for her birthday, while macaque took her out on sibling date.

"There doing the parade this year! Why don't we bring shiHou there? and it would be her first time!" Sandy said with his happy demeanor.

"Oooooh, yeah! That's a great idea sandy!" Mei replied with excitement in her voice.

Now they just had to get in. Ever since the spider queen attacked, they were more cautious about just letting anyone in and it even caused people.

"It's a good thing I save up" Pigsy said bringing out a bucket filled with money out of nowhere.

"Where in the world did you get that?! You spend so much yen just on vegetables!" Tangs says, his mouth hanging open I'm utter shock

Ignoring tang mk jumped and cheered, "yes! I'm so excited to see shiHou's reaction, I hope she likes it!" He said with a smile that went from ear to ear.

---

With macaque and shiHou they were walking around the streets looking while macaque was looking for things to do.

Then he spotted the Boba tea shop that mei and mk go everytime they hang out. "So, have you had Boba before? I'd be surprised if you haven't considering mk and mei's obsession..."

When she didn't answer he looked over to her.

His violate eyes met blue full of confusion.

"No? Huh, kinda thought they would bring you here all the time... do you want to try?"

With a hum of thought, she stared at the restaurant and then nodded her head.

Walking in they looked over there options and ordered, now roaming the streets, they saw a familiar dark haired girl.

"Oh, Bai he!" Macaque called to her at he walked over, holding shiHou's hand.

"Oh! Macaque, how have you been, I haven't seen you in a while!" She said with excitement.

"Yeah it has, I've been fine. And you've grown a lot. How old are you now?" He said raising an eyebrow.

"I'm twelve now!" She said while spinning around and doing a little pose.

Noticing someone, she looked down and saw the cub. " Oh? Who's this?" With a gasp she whipped her head towards macaque practically shaking with excitement "is this your kid! Awww she's so cute, how old is she?"

Oh, well this would be interesting. Turning around he made eye contact with shiHou, crouching down he said "Stay right here I'll be right back" with a nod from shiHou he was satisfied and turned to go to an alley way.

"So, that isn't my kid" he said, immediately regretting it cause Bai started to freak out.

"What! What do you mean she isn't your kid!?" She said a bit Lowder than he liked.

"To loud kid" he said rubbing his ears.

Recovering, he looked at her and said, "but no, she isn't my kid. In fact, she's no one's kid." That only seemed to confuse her more.

"It's wukong"

.

.

.

They stared at eachother, while macaque was wishing she would just say something.

"That's wukong?" She said pointing out there with an exasperated and suspicious look. "You mean the wukong who fought me while I was possessed?" Nevermind, he would much rather her not say anything about it.

"... yeeeesss" Bai he looked even more confused, if that was even possible.

"Wukong. Who is a man" she said, now raising her eyebrow.

"Yes, what's so hard to comprehend about that?" He said trying to make that come out as nicely as possible.

"It's not, but. How?"

"A relic happened." He said like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Oh" "yeah, we should also probably get back to her though." Turning on his heels he started walking off, Bai he following behind him.

But when they got out there, she wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Oh fuck" macaque and Bai he said at the same time.

---

She didn't know when how she got here, she was with macaque and then she was was... somewhere.

Looking around she started calling out for macaque.

The place was dark, it scared her. And the fact that she didn't know where she was made it so much worse.

After walking around for a while she heard a loud thump from behind her that resonatd throughoutthe cave.

Scrambling to hide between to large boulders, she started Looking around for whatever it was that made that big thump.

All the sudden a big spider leg stomped right in front of where she was hiding, which caused her to freak out and have a big power surge that revealed herself.

With a scared chirp she backed away so that whatever was there didn't find her.

"What the hell!" She heard a raspy woman's voice yell.

She listened as the things steps got closer.

Her breathing quick and her chest felt heavy. She wanted to run and hide but the fear overwhelmed her, and she just couldn't move.

Hearing it stop, she closed her eyes. Waiting it to attack her.

Next thing she new she was being held in gentle arms. Opening her eyes cautiously, she looked around.

There were spider people surrounding her. There weren't much, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was finding her family and go ho-

"Syntax, this can not be the what you're tracker was sensing.

Looking up she saw a spider demoness, like the others.

All the sudden she spoke in her raspy but oddly soothing voice, "Hello dear, where where are your parents?" She asked.

She hesitantly responded, ".. pigsy and tang"

She watched as the spider demonesses eyes widened and shaked her head.

The spider demoness suddenly turned to one of the spider demons, "huntsman, do you still have that water demons number?"

"Sandy, and yes I do." Would you be a dear and call him, I think they will want there cub back." Nodding he turned away and pulled out his phone.

"What's your name little one?" She said in a surgery sweet voice

"ShiHou" she said, feeling more relaxed.

Now smiling the spider demoness spoke. "Well why don't you rest till your family comes and gets you dear. I'm pretty sure they will take a while" Hearing this shiHou leaned against her against her, "okay" she said tiredly. Slowly closing her eyes and succumbing to sleep.

---

"What do you mean you lost her" pigsy was yelling at macaque.

After not being able to find shiHou, macaque resorted to calling mk.

"I mean, I lost her. I don't know Where she went!"

"You were supposed to look after her!" Mei said this time.

Things were starting to get chaotic with pigsy's yelling, Tangs panicking and mk and mei telling eachother where they could look and then Bai he asking where she liked to hide.

"Guy's!" Sandy yelled which silenced all of them. "Huntsman is calling me" his usual cheery and calm voice returned.

"HI Huntsman!" "Yeah, why?" "Great we'll be there soon!" Hanging up sandy turned to the others with a smile

"I know where she is Guy's!" Everyone brightened hearing this.

"Really! Where!" Mk asked feeling relieved.

---

The spider queen. The freaking spider queen had her.

When they got there they found spider queen having a tea party with the scorpion queen, which apparently pigsy and tang new her, which mk and mei made them explain.

Mk took shiHou, while macaquespoke the the scorpion and spider queen. "Thank you for finding her, now we'll just get out of your hai-" "why don't you all stay and watch the fireworks and parade with us..."

Well. That wasn't what they expected.

"Yes! That would be amazing, thank you!" Mk said jumping up and down.

---

As they were watching the parade go from a nearby roof spider queen came over and sat next to mk.

She wasn't standing on her mechanical spider legs anymore.

"Where did you find her?" She instantly asked.

"What?" Was she talking about shiHou? That was a stupid question. Of course she was, who else would she be talking about.

Looking at the boy she said with a hint of endearment "the cub, she she said her parents were pigsy and tang, but there's no way she could be there's unless she was adopted or she was found on the streets. And it's not like they would be able to create her anyway. It's physically impossible unless they had a surrogate, but again. Impossible due to how rare they are."

"Oh! Yeah, that's uh. That's actually wukong" he said, while smiling nervously. Hopeing that they didn't try to take this as the opportunity to get there revenge on her.

Looking at him with commidecly wide eye's she said. "Oh? Do tell me how that came to be"

Thank Buddha!

Chapter Text

This was it, shiHou's first day of school.

A couple months into the summer tang had found a grade school that was about 15 minutes away.

When they told shiHou about it, she seemed to have mixed feelings. She had ran over and hugged mk's leg saying that she didn't want them to leave her, but when she found out that Orfeo was going to the same school she actually seemed more excited.

Nudging her along, she looked back and started to tear up. Then she started to cry, Running back she said, "Don't make me go!" Though her voice was muffled from due to her face being against his leg, he still understood what she said.

Kneeling down he pulled out his sketch book. "Here, when you miss us you can just draw in this." "But this is your favorite thing" she said with a sniffled, "yeah but." ShiHou took the sketch book as he handed it to her, "you need it more. Plus, I have like hundreds of these!"

That got her to laugh, which made everyone else laugh along.

Hugging eachother the bell rung and her friend pulled her away from them. Now they were watching as they ran off. Seeing shiHou wave goodbye, they waved back and she ran into school.

---

Later that day shiHou came running upstairs shaking, and holding her tail while shaky whimpers and small grunts of pain were leaving her lips, her friend followed in with a worried expression.

He explained what happened, and there eyes widened from what they heard

Pigsy and tang both looked at mk with a serious look.

"I'll go check on her" mk said, now storming upstairs.

Opening the door he found her in bed still shaking and breathing heavily in pain. Hearing a whimper, he walked over and sat next to her.

She was still clutching her tail and even twitching, sweat forming on her forhead.

Putting a hand on her shoulder she looked up at him startles and tears clinging to the sides of her eye's.

"Hey, are you okay?" Looking down at her hands that were still clutching onto her tail which could not be comfortable in the slightest, he asked "let me see it." Guiding her hands away from her tail, it fell on the bed limpl, blood clinging onto her fur.

Orfeo said that some kid cut her tail during class but he didn't think it would be so deep. He could almost see the bone.

Taking it into his hands shiHou made a sound that spoke pain. Shaking even harder now, she started to cry. "No, please don't touch it. It hurts." Letting it go gently, he picked her up being mindful of her wouned tail.

Walking into the restaurant, "were taking her to a hospital" he announced

---

after to taking her to the hospital they had said that they couldn't really do anything beside stitch it up, which wouldn't work because it was such a deep cut, so they called nezha.

Nezha was looking over shiHou's tail while we was curled up trying her best not to cry. She was still twitching in pain.

"I can't really do anything about it but I do know someone who can hrak it straight away." With a sigh of relief pigsy asked "and who might that be?" He said with a gruff voice.

"bodhisattva guanyin, she has a healing spring on her island" he informed

---

When they got there, they found guanyin sitting on her lotus in all of her merciful glory.

"Bodhisattva guanyin" nezha said in an even tone 

Turning around, guanyins eyes widened a bit in suprise and then she smiled "Erzi, how have you been?" She said softly.

Stepping off of her lotus she walked over a gave him a hug. "Uuuhhh, I'm doing well.. mother" he said a bit hesitantly.

(...)

"Whaaaaaaat!" Mk said in astonishment

Pointing at both of them, he said, "wait! If you're his mom, and if you're her son, and if you and shiHou are siblings." With a gasp mk rushed over to them while smiling in excitement. "Is shiHou your daughter to!"

With that, guanyin smiled and said, "yes, and shiHou? I didn't think wukong would have told you all." She said seemingly confused.

Which meant that mk had to explain what happened... again 

"So. You see, shiHou got hit with a relic that first turned her into a stone egg. And now she is just growing up at a normally pace and that how we found out." Mk said quietly and a bit vague.

"We actually brouhaha her here today because of something that happened at her school." Pigsy said. "School?" Guanyin said looking over at pigsy. 

"Yeah, she's six now and so we thought it would be good to put her in school. You know?" Mk said with a smile.

"We actually brought her here today because of what happened at school." Nezha butted in. Going over to pigsy her was holding the shaking fluff ball.

When guanyin saw her she quickly walked over and took her. Which finally made her crack and she started to cry, breathing more heavy than before.

Looking up at the crew with an uncharacteristically serious look, she asked, "what exactly happened at said school?"

---

After telling her what happened. She immediately started finding to look for infection shiHou could have gotten from the death hold she had on her tail and the fact that these scissors were from an elementary school.

Finding none, she immediately took her too the healing spring.

Sitting down, and putting the child's tail in the water, she immediately started trying to get out of it. Whimpers and groans of pain left the cub as she looked at the crew with pleading eyes.

But in a matter of time the spring healed her as it was supposed to.

The cub looked up at the person holding her and immediately got flashes of her in scenarios she didn't remember. One in a dark cave, some where they were talking and every other times.

It was all so overwhelming, the images kept coming and going in a flash. It made her head hurt. She wanted mk, she didn't want to have these images in her head. Whether they were bad or good.

All the sudden she cried out, and started squirming, "mk!" She choked out.

She didn't care if she felt safe in this strangers arms she just wanted these images to stop so that she could think clearly.

"Mk, Mk!" She reached out to him with unsheded tears. They burned her eyes, she couldn't see.

All the sudden she was taken in to familiar strong arms. She rapped around what she could make out to be mk's arm. Finally the images faded and she calmed down. Her breathing gradually going back to normal.

---

After a while they got her to sleep.

Mk turned to see guanyin walking over with a vase full of water. Her face was one of a mother with a broken heart.

"How is she?" "She's doing fine. I think she was just overwhelmed is all" that didn't seem to convince her though.

All the sudden he felt a tug on his leg. Looking down he saw shiHou Looking up at him while rubbing her eye.

"Hey shiHou, how are feeling?" He said as he crouched down.

With a sniffle shiHou responded with a small "my head hurts..." Looking up at the lady she Looked back at mk and asked. "Who is that?"

"Oh! She's a friend of ours. I think you'll like her" he said, smiling softly.

ShiHou waved at the tall lady and walked back to the others, as mk and guanyin watched.

"So, how did shiHou become your daughter? Did you adopt her or something?" He asked now looking up at her.

"Well, after the shiHou killed macaque-" "Wait what!" He interrupted. "Sorry continue" "after she killed macaque, she was heartbroken. I found sitting in the middle of the battlefield holding on to him and crying. I had asked for the monk to let her rest for a while, and when she came to sit next to me, she cried her heart out, while I tried consoling her."

She had been clutching onto her robes like that of a child. And that what shiHou was to her. A child that needed care and protection.

After the journey she had asked her if she wanted to become her daughter. She was worried that she would said no, but to her suprise shiHou had lunged at her and cried happy tears saying yes over and over again.

After filling the contract to which Buddha witnessed, they performed the ritual that made shiHou her blood child.

Of course everyone in the celestial realm wasn't happy about it, but her decision was final and there was nothing that would have changed her mind.

They eventually got over it when shiHou had shown some of guanyins power and compassion. At first shiHou was freaked out about the extra arms, and guanyin was there to comfort her but then they found out about her extra heads and tails.

though they made sure no one in the celestial realm knew about it. The celestials started to get idea's, saying how they should have done this 500 years ago.

Now that got guanyin mad. You couldn't just force someone to go through with the blood adoption. She could just imagine how she would react if they did that. Freaking out and clawing at everybody.

---

After guanyin explained how it happened , he had a ton of questions, one of them being how shiHou had killed macaque. But he didn't know if he should be mad or not After being told that she was crying and morning for him for so long.

He'll just have to talk to macaque when he got the chance, until then, he had to take care of his little sister, and talk to the school about what happened.

It's a good thing he got a picture for evidence.

Chapter Text

It was one of the most important days of the year. The chef's festival, pigsy was trying different ways to make his noodles taste and look rich.

The sound of pans clanking was echoing throughout the restaurant, breathing heavily, pigsy yelled out "is everyone almost ready! We have a half an hour left!" Sure it sounded like he was rushing for no reason, but when you live in a different part of town from where you trying to get to, it didn't seem like that.

"Tang! Are you going to help or are you just gonna sit there and watch!?" He said with a armful of supplies while pointing his wooden spoon with his free hand.

Sighing, tang lifted his arms up and said in an overly dramatic tone, "Oh my sweet sweet pigsy, you know I would if I could, but my arms are so weak, how do you expect me to pick up anything in this state" he said, putting a hand over his eye's.

And if you listened hard enough, you could hear pigsy mutter something akin to "weak my ass, if my hands were free you would be six feet underground right now"

Meanwhile mk, mei, sandy, and Macaque were trying to get a certain stubborn cub into a cute little blue dress.

Everytime they tried, she would start flailing her arms and legs and puff out her cheeks in defiance.

The others were now laying in a pile while sandy was trying to coax shiHou into letting then put the dress on, "Come on shiHou, don't you want to look cute for pigsy's big day?" Shaking her head she crossed her arms and legs and slouched so that it would be harder for them to get it over her.

With that macaque jumped out of the pile and pointed at shiHou and narrowed his eyes, "alright you little sprite! Were getting that dress on if it's the last thing we do!" Crouching down, he got ready to pounce.

But instead of grabbing her like he was planning to, she got up and crawled put of the way on all fours, causing macaques face to slam in to the wall.

Macaque Groaned as he fell to the ground, hearing shiHou laugh at him from behind him. (That little shit!)

"Corner her!" Mei yelled going from behind her, shiHou was aboit to run from her when mk came from the other side, next thing she new, they were all surrounded her. Even more! (That traitor!)

Looking around she found her escape from right under Sandy's legs.

Running on all fours, she went to slide from under his legs but was caught by giant hands.

Growling she immediately started flailing around.

Macaque took the dress from mei and walked over. "Come on shiHou. there's no point in fighting it. Hold her steady sandy." Setting shiHoubon the ground, sandy held her legs while mei and mk held held her arms up.

Sitting next to them, macaque swiftly put the dress on.

Now ShiHou was pouting while the others were cheering triumphantly.

"Are you almost done!" They heard pigsy yell, looking at eachother with wide eye's, thy swiped shiHou off the ground and used macaques shadow portal to teleported downstairs.

---

Popping up out of the shadows (which it was a good thing that macaque was holding shiHou, cause everyone fell right away) they headed for Sandy's van.

"We'll wait for you guys in the van" macaque said, walking outside.

"What up with shiHou?" Tang asked when pigsy came over with a smile, "yeah, she looks like she's planning the ultimate revenge."

With a laugh mk replied saying "she probably is, she did Not want wear that dress" he said, sounding exasperated.

---

setting up inside the van, they set off towards there destination.

As luck would have it the judges were later than they were. So they had time to get pigsy in there and set up.

Taking there seats they set shiHou in her own seat and noticed that she was trying to get the dress off.

They started laughing at her squirming and she looked more resentful than before. Now opting to flop on the chair.

Looking up they saw pigsy and the other contestants.

Pigsy was making his famous Zhajiangmian noodles. Adding a couple of things to make the bowl of noodles more umami.

Now serving there food to the judges, it was time for them to judge.

They watched as pigsy waited anxiously for them to announce the winner.

Once they finished tasting every contestants food, they started quietly talking to eachother.

After a while of discussing, they sat of strait and smiled. "This was a difficult dissension with all of you wonderful contestants, but I think we can all agree that one of you have definitely won."

Looking at eachother, they nodded in agreement. "With careful consideration" the gang were crossing there fingers at this point, "we have decided he winner..! And the winner is!" Oh come on the suspension was killing them.

"Mr. Bore!" (What!) Pigsy looked down in disappointment.

Walking off of the stage, the others ran up to him. "I'm so sorry you didn't win pigsy" mk said in a worried tone, "yeah! They don't what there talking about!" Tang said, obviously more offended than pigsy himself.

Mr. Bore came from behind pigsy and put a hand on his shoulder "Hey, thanks for the help" Hearing this, pigsy looked up at him, Eye's narrowed, "what are you talkin' about?"

Looking down at him the bore smiled maliciously and pulled something from his pocket. "Ooooh right. I didn't give this back to you, did i?" Seeing the small vile, pigsy emmdietly recognized it at his own.

"Ay! Where the Hell did you get that!" He pointed at him accusingly, "from you of course" giving it to pigsy, he looked him up and down. "Have you had this the whole time?!"

"Maby I have maby I haven't." Walking away, the bore noticed shiHou, "awwww who's this little on- yowwwe!" He yelped as shiHou bit his finger. Her sharp fangs sinking into it.

Shaking his finger shiHou flew across from them and hit her head on the edge of one of the table's.

"ShiHou!" The dark haired duo ran over to her making sure she was okay.

"Keep that. thing in check" going to walk away, he felt a csharp pain in his leg. ShiHou was back up and attacking his leg, now digging her claws into his leg making it harder to kick her off.

She started to crawl all over him, while he was flailing his arms around.

It looked like a squirl was attacking him.

Finally he got her by the scruff of the neck causing her to chirp. "What is the meaning of all of this?" A stern voice said. Looking at them, it turned out to be one of the judges. She was looking at them incredulously.

Then the bore started to tumble over his words, "well i- it's not- they were-" "he stole one of pigsy's ingredients!" Mk interrupted his sputtering.

The judge whipped her head towards the bore as shiHou escaped his grasp and ran over to pigsy and hugged his neck, "Mr bore. I'm sorry to inform, but you are disqualified." Taking the medalfrom around his neck she went to pigsy "which means, pigsy is our winner of the year!"

The gang started to cheer for pigsy and hug him as the bore walked away in anger.

Pigsy looked down at shiHou who was clinging to his neck and smiling, "that's my girl" more cheering and they were heading outside to the van. That night they celibrated pigsy's victory.

Chapter Text

ShiHou was grunting as she tried to get something from under the couch on Sandy's dock. Mk and mei were watching as she struggled while pigsy was watching a cooking show and tang was eating, everything was normal.

(...)

Then as sandy was coming out with freshly baked cookies and tea, the couch raised off of the ground.

they heard shiHou trill from excitement when she finally got was she was trying to reach before climbing out from under the couch.

As she ran off with chirps of happiness the others were staring dumbfounded by what just happened.

"Is anybody gonna talk about what the FUCK just happened!" Mei said while clinging onto the back of the couch.

"T-this won't be a problem right?" Mk said looking at everyone with a nervous smile. No one answered.

With a sigh mk got up to fallow after shiHou.

---

The next day after training with macaque, mk had sat his staff on the couch next shiHou who was watching mei play on her phone in wonder.

"Hey mei! Do you wanna hang at the mall today?" Jump up from the couch excitedly, and said, "heck yeah! Let's go!" She said. Dragging mk out of the door.

Being alone shiHou looked over and notice mk didn't bring his staff with him.

Crawling off of the couch and grabbing the staff with her small hands as the end dragged behind her, she ran outside, "mk! Mk you forgot your staff!"

Checking his ear mk gasped and turned around, "crap! I did forget my.. staff" he slowed down when he saw shiHou carrying his staff.

Next thing he knew, his staff was being pointed at him, "Woah! Let's be careful were we point this" Grabbing the staff from the cubs hands he put it back in his ear.

Bring her back to the noodle shop where they saw pigsy ready to run outside, they said bye and left.

---

A couple months later everyone was sitting downstairs while shiHou was sleeping in her bed.

Mk sighed with worry lacing his tone "are you sure I can leave with you and sandy? ShiHou's powers have been out of control, and I just feel like if I leave everything could go to hell."

Mei rapped an arm around his neck and squished there faces together, "Oh mk, you worry to much! Trust me, nothing will go wrong!"

---

It all went wrong terribly wrong, when shiHou realized mk was gone she immediately broke down in tears, and they were now trying to hold down her kuiju form.

Of course the first person they called was macaque. But when that didn't help, tang freaked out and called guanyin but when she wasn't able to help she sent a quick message to shiHou first teacher.

When said teacher came in his expression was stoic and he walked over calmly and sat infront of shiHou's face.

Then from his pocket he pulled out something they could make out to be small tiles. Each one having the same symbol.

When he finished the cub returned to normal, most of her body was covered with the small tiles.

"Ugh! You Had to cal him of all people." Mei said, poison dripping off her lips.

Subodhi was there, standing before them. As macaque looked over shiHou he looked back at the patriarch Subodhi, his face was that of anger that was pointed directly to the old man.

"What is this!" He asked quickly, his voice stone cold. "What the hell did you put on her?guanyin called you here to help, not put- are these fucking seals!" no, he wasn't just angry, he was furious!

"Oh calm down monkey, yes they are seals to keep her from losing control. Be sure not to let her try peeling them off. They will lead to harm if it isn't taken off by the owner of such seals." He said it in such calmness that it was almost unreal.

"W-what kind of h-harm, may I ask, will it cause?" Tang asked nervously. Trying not to anger him.

"Well, I'm not telling you because it's not going to happen." He said in a stern voice.

Looking down at shiHou he couldn't help but think to the time she was trapped undo a mountain. The tiles just looked so much like stone and clay.

"Mk's gonna be sooooo, mad." Mei said looking at the door and back at them.

---

The first thing that happened when shiHou woke up was touch the tile, but when she did it left her nails melting.

As she sat on the counter, guanyin was dipping her hand into the healing water she got from her spring as shiHou made chirps of distress.

The crew stared at the patriarch Subodhi waiting for him to explain himself.

But nothing came. No apology, no nothing. And you couldn't imagine how badly macaque and mei wanted to kill the guy.

And the fact that he was showing no remorse or sympathy for the poor cub who had no clue what was going on was really getting to them. Especially macaque.

With a low growl from macaque, he jumped from his seat and walked over to subodhi and grabbed him by the caller of his robe. "how can you just sit there and carry on with your day as if you HADN'T JUST HURT A SIX YEAR OLD." macaque said criticizingly.

His face never changed from his calm facade. "It's for the best. We all know what she was like over the journey to the west and we know that pain was the only thing that could get through to her thick skull." This time mei Jumped up to defend shiHou, but before she could even say anything subodi interrupted. "You shall bring her to me five days a week and I will personally train her until she can become stable enough to handle her powers without the seal."

Looking over to shiHou, his eye's softened a bit seeing how shaken she was, then his stare became hard again, looking back at the group, "but until then, the seal stays on" he replied coldly and then sat as they waited.

Chapter Text

Of course mk was mad, who wouldn't after finding out that the subodhi put a bunch of death seals on her, then take her to train.

Mk was pacing around the restaurant in front of the group who were meant to take care of shiHou. "how could this happen! why would you let him take her!" Mk yelled, almost sounded hysterical. Tang emmdietly started to defending himself "n-now mk, what were we supposed to do against the master subodhi!" He sputtered out while waving his arms around.

Mk did have a point though. They Were supposed to take care of shiHou. Keep her safe. But instead she got talen by an immortal.

"M-maby we can still get her back!" Sandy said making the group of people perk up.

But them mk stopped smiling and put his head down. "What's wrong kid?" Pigsy said worriedly, putting a hoov on mk's shoulder.

He took a deep breath in and sighed, "how are qe going to sneak in there... it's not like he's just going to give her to us." Oh... right

"Well, yeah.. but at least we have redson! He can just teleport us there!" Mei said excitedly as she swiped her phone from her pocket.

---

Redson was having breakfast with his parents when his phone started buzzing. Looking at his mother, she nodded knowing what he was trying to ask by his facial expression. Getting up he walked out into the hallway and looked down at his phone. "Dragon girl?"

Tapping his phone, he put it neck to his ear and mei emmdietly started talking. Though it sounded more like rambling with how fast she was talking.

"Slow down Dragon girl" readjusting his glasses and began to talk again. "Now. What us it you wanted to tell me. And make it quick. Mother and father are waiting for me." He said with slight irritation .

"Weeellll"

---

After she explained, redson came emmdietly and so did his parents after hearing what happened.

Now getting ready to teleport everyone to the twmple of the tilted moon and three stars.

Once they were ready, redson teleported them all infront of the gates. "We will look out for anybody who is coming your way" redson gestured to him, and his parents. "The rest of you will split up to find where the old man is keeping my aunt"

With that machine and the crew sumk into his shadows and appeared behind a tree where they could see students training.

"Alright, what's the plan, monkey man?" Mei said enthusiastically as they crouched down in a circle.

Mk looked deep in thought. He couldn't ruin this. Especially when it came to his friends. His family, "we could split up the same way we did last time. But this time we have sandy and macaque... mabey sandy can distract anyone he thinks is following us. Aaand macaque could split up with me?" Nodding there heads they parted.

---

Mk and macaque started with the rooms, but woth no luck they tool a break to discuss what to do next.

"Do you think there may be more? Maby we can check subodhis rooms or something. What if they locked her away!?" Mk started pull at his hair, he just wanted to get this over with.

"Calm down kid, I'm sure she's fine. And I guarantee you that they didn't lock her up considering she's only six"

his voice was reassuring, mk couldn't help but believe him.

Going back to searching, they found subodhi's room where he was standing infront of shiHou.

Mk was aboit to run in when macaque grabbed him by the arm, "what are you doing? she's right there we can just run, get her and get out." Macaque didn't take his eye's off of shiHou and subodhi, making his face calm, "we can't rush in, we need to wait for the perfect time and then we can grab her." Mk looked at him with uncertainty. but looking inside, he backed down and they hid, waiting for the right time to strike.

After a while of waiting they saw subodhi walk out while holding shiHou's hand. And mk lunged at him and pinned him to the ground while macaque picked her up and looked her over. "Are you okay, did he hurt you?" He watched as shiHou shook her head.

"Do not act irrationally, she needs th-" Before subodhi could finish his sentence mk had interrupted him in a uncharacteristically harsh tone "she doesn't need anything from you, leave her be, we can teach her whatever she needs to know."

Slowly subodhi pushed mk off of him and stood up, "you could have just come up and grabbed her, she wasn't going to stay forever." Well. That's confusing, "what do you mean we could have just came to get her? If we could have done that then why didn'tyou say anything!" The shocked macaque said.

Getting a smack to the head, subodhi replied to his concerns, "it's like school, did you really think I would keep her forever?" Macaque and mk looked at eachother.

With a sigh subodhi continued, "we did wait for you guys to come get her but I figured you just forgot about her, so I took her in." He replied annoyingly calm about all of this.

"Well, I guess I'll just contact the others and let them know." He said exasperatedly while turning around.

After meeting up with eachother, subodhi explained how shiHou's training was coming along and how everytime she got better at controlling her powers he would remove and tile. "She seems to be doing well with you" mk said though it sounded more like a question than a statement.

"Yes, did you really think that i would fail her so miserably." Mk's face seemed to shrink at that.

After having food and watching shiHou train with him, which included the following of, meditation, combat, focus, and controlling of her emotions, and then they had to say goodbye.

And once they got home they were finally able to relax with mk feeling the most calm after getting shiHou back.

Now laying on the couch with shiHou in his arms, he was welcomed by the blissful clutches of sleep.

Chapter Text

Orfeo has been talking about wanting to have a sleepover with shiHou" Mei and Mk had been sent by pigsy to pick shiHou up from school and just so happened to see marina (who is Orfeo's mothere) there.

"Oh? Well, I don't see that would be an issue, I've had plenty of sleepovers with mk, " Mei chirped happily. "Well, he was also talking about bringing others, but I wanted to make sure you would be okay it."Oh, I'm sure that would be fine too. Do you know there parents."

Looking away, Marina started to bite her lip and look around. "I do. Buuuut." Of course there was a but.

Mk raised an eyebrow questioningly and asked, "But what?" Marina hummed seemingly trying to think of how to say. "How do I say this... there parents aren't big on demon culture and try to stay as far away from them as possible. Me and orfeo have been wearing a glamour so that Orfeo could stay friends with their kids."

Mk started to laugh nervously and grabbed Mei by the arm, pulling her aside, "ahahahaa, mei.. what are we going to do? We've tried using glamours, and she always ends up hurt or sick because of it. And you know she can barely keep it up."

Mei hummed in thought, trying to think of a solution to their newly found predicament. Then her face lit up, and she smiled, "mabey we could help her use her glamour. Give her a little boost in energy!"

Walking back over, they agreed just in time for shiHou and orfeo to come out.

When they told them about the plan for that night, orfeo immediately started squealing while jumping up and down while shiHou looked at them with a puzzled head tilt.

But once they explain what a sleepover was, her eyes started to sparkle with stars in her ocean like eyes, and she joined the jumping.

Later that day, they were trying to help her use her glamour without it breaking after 10 minutes or less, and she was already panting and looked tired. "I don't wanna do this anymore. Can't I just hide my tail under my shirt?" she said as tears bubbled up in the corner of her eyes.

"Well, the parents of the other kids are apparently scared of demons and think they are too dangerous. Why do you think that pigsy and sandy are wearing glamour? " Tang replied unhelpfully.

And just like that, shiHou's world came crashing down. She looked devastated, and the tears that began to pool in her ocean blue eyes didn't make it any less heartbreaking. "Why!? Why do they hate us? I haven't hurt anyone, have I?!" She then collapsed to the floor as she tried to rid her eyes of tears that fell non-stop.

"T-they don't hate you guys! They just don't understand. " he immediately started to reassure her that nothing was wrong with her.

With a hiccup, she stood up and wiped away her tears.

taking a deap breath in, she turned to the mirror and closed her eyes, opening them again she saw herself but she wasn't really herself, she looked human... normal.

She touched her face, and her fingers glided where her peach colored markings used to be... but that damn tail just wouldn't go away.

She looked at the others with a sorry expression. "It's okay, shiHou, you can just wrap it around your waist." He said with a soft smile, gracing his face.

With that, they hid her tail under some baggy clothes and went downstairs to wait for the others.

Not long after, they heard a nock at their door, and the parents of Orfeo's other friends came in, along with orfeo and his mother a couple minutes later.

as they talked the Littles were playing and helping eachother make a pillow fort to sleep in.

And as if perfectly timed, there parents left right as they finished and now here they were drawing while mk was watching mei play a game on her phone, pigsy worked and macaque, tang, and sandy talked.

Then one of the Orfeo's friends sighed heavily and said, "I'm sooooooo bord" the young adults looked up at that and saw shiHou who looked worried and was looking at them.

"Who wants to go to the arcade!?" Mei announced and that definitely caught the kids attention while shiHou slowly stood up.

While they were there everyone was having fun while shiHou wanted to sit and watch. Mk could almost see the bags under her eyes.

Walkingover he smiled warmly, "mind if I sit with you?" He asked and got a small nod from the golden cub. "How are you feeling?" He asked looking down at her "tired" she said plainly. "I can tell" he hummed in thought. He really wanted to help but he didn't know how. It really seemed that the illusion she was wearing was really taking a lot out of her. She was to young and small to be using glamours.

"Why don't we get some food? I'm sure the others are hungry." ShiHou nodded and that was all he needed to pick her up and gather the others.

After eating they went back to mk's apartment above pigsy's shop to watch a movie before bed.

Now there they were. All of them sleeping peacefully through the night. Well. Almost all of them. ShiHou was shaking in the corner of the fort they made while breathing heavily. Flashes in her mind showing darkness. A crushed pain. Her throat burned. She could move. Between every flash of the memory there would be a small surge of golden energy.

She saw someone in front of her while holding a sigil between him and where she was standing. 'Was she even standing?' And then a crushing pain in her skull and her eyes shot open as she sat up quickly.

Her glamour was flickering on and off. Looking around to see everything in a golden hue. Getting up she quietly ran to mk's room. Knock on the door and waiting for mk to open it.

---

Knocking? Why is someone knocking on the door?

He stretched a bit before looking at the time. 'Four in the morning!? Who the hell is up at four in the morning?' Standing up, he heard another knock on the door. This time quicker. Looking under the door frame he saw flashes of gold peaking from under it.

Hurriedly he opened the door, Fumbling a bit and saw shiHou. Her eyes we glowing a soft gold color. Hugging herself as a poor form of comfort, and he could tell the glamour was becoming to much because her monkey was glowing in and oit of existence.

As if she knew what was going on she said in a shaky voice "can I take off my glamour off now?" Nodding his head, he guided her in the room.

Sitting down on his bed, he put a blanket around them and cradled her against his chest. "Repeat after me. Breath in" he took a deep breath and shiHou copied. "Breath out" and then on sink they breathed out. After repeating this a couple more times, mk finally got ahiHou to calm down. And as she relaxed, her glamour slowly faded away.

Leaning back, he nestled the sleeping cub in the crook of his neck and followed suit.

Chapter Text

The city was buzzing with noise. Cars driving through the streets as time went on.

You could see mk driving back and forth with orders. Knocking on the doors of each customer. Running out to hang with mei and talk with mei. Just. Having fun.

Training with macaque, he had taken shiHou with him cause she wanted to see them train. After a while of watching, she got bored and got up from where she was and grabbed a stick from a barrel hiding in one of the corners.

Coming up to where macaque and mk. Who were now taking a break. Mk looked fown when he heard his now little sister. "Can I spar too?" Though her face screamed happy and excitement. Which made it hard to say no. He had to stay strong.

Grimacing at what he was about to say that would inevitably upset her, macaque thankfully answered for him. "Sorry pebble, you're too young to be sparring. You could get hurt." 

Looking dejected, shiHou went back to where she was sitting before and sat there crossing her arms and legs while pouting.

After training, mk brought shiHou home after getting shiHou a sorry treat. Getting her peach rings and peach marshmallows. And, suprise, suprise, she forgave him.

Now, they were playing a game of charades since it was family night. Sandy was trying to act out his card while the others tried to guess.

As they went on, shiHou started to doze off, her head bobbing up and down. Pigsy noticing then got up and scooped her in his arms. "All right, the munchkins tired. time ta hit the hay."

As if on cue, everyone yawned and when there separate way for the night.

---

Blood. There was Blood. Everywhere. looking at her hands, that was also covered in the unholy liquid. A pile of bodies under her feet.

She wanted to scream or crumble from the overwhelming grief. But just like all of her nightmares, she just couldn't control her own body, she couldn't do anything.

She tried to call for mk, someone. She just wished that these nightmares would end.

Each one of her nightmares were always hard to wake up from, but her mind was being extra stubborn that night.

Outside of her dream you can see mk with a tired pigsy and tang watching shiHou worriedly as she twitched.

Shaking her slightly, mk was trying to wake her up. They were about to call the ambulance when shiHou shot up from her bed with a gasp.

Once she set her eyes on mk, she brought her shaking arms up and made a grabbing motion for mk.

Now holding her, pigsy rubbed her back while tang read the journey to the west and mei came over with her stuffed dragon for shiHou to hold onto for comfort. They heard something that sounded like a door opening on a windy day.

Looking over they saw macaque coming out of his shadow. "Is everything okay, I heard you guys panicking. Is shiHou okay?" He said rushing over to them. "Yeah. Yeah, we're okay, shiHou was just having a nightmare." Mk answered as macaque ran his clawed fingers through her hair, calming her down enough he decided to sit and watch as tang read to her.

But then things sort of escalated when tang read a part of wukong's adventures and shiHou's eyes seemed to light up with sparkles in her eye's. "I want to be just like him when I'm older" shiHou softly said, which with anyone if would be cute to hear a child say that.

Which it was for them, but macaque had something to say about that. Walking over, he firmly grabbed shiHou by the shoulder and looked her dead in the eyes and said.

"No! You don't want to be like him. He is selfish, always dragged people into his mess. He only. Thinks. About himself!" shiHou started to tear up. Clutching on to the stuffed dragon

"I-i'm sorry. I-i just wanted to be b-brave like he is." Her voice was so heartbreakingly quite.

And the fact that she apologized for admiring someone isn't something anyone should have to say.

All the sudden mei was pushing macaque out of the room. Mk, feeling that things were going to get heated, gave shiHou to pigsy. "Keep reading to her. I'll be right back."

As the yelling started, mk got out and closed to the door and ran downstairs. Going downstairs he saw mei who was about to use the samadhi fire on him. "Let's see what burnt monkey fur smells like."

Before she could fallow through with her threat, mk came from behind her and redirected her.

"Hey! Mk, what are you doing!?" "What am i doing!? What are you doing??!" Mei slowly turned her head to him, looking at him like he just grew a second head. "What do you mean what am I doing!? Macaque just got mad at shiHou for saying she wanted to be like the monkey king! Sure he's not the best person to look up to, but who tells a child that they shouldn't looking up to someone. ESPECIALLY when they wanted to. Let's say, be brave like them!" She said pointedly.

Macaque started to get defensive and said "she needs to learn who is good and who isn't! What would happen if she kept that goal to be like her adult self!? HUH?! She could get into some serious trouble!"

Before mei could say anything further, mk butted In. "She never said she wanted to be exactly like him, she said she wanted to be brave like him! And I would see why! She wakes up most nights because of these memories! She hardly gets sleep because of them! She's a kid now-" Before mk could finish, macaque spoke "yes! A kid. A kid who used to be the all mighty great sage. the handsome monkey king! Were trying to make her better not having her aspiring to who we are trying to protect her from becoming!"

.

.

.

"What! You are such a hypocrite! How could you say that. We never said we were going to make her "bEttEr" we wanted to make her life better..! Wukong had been trying her hardest to do the right thing! Don't you remember all the things she went through!?-" "Don't you remember what happens under the mountain! She got angry with me for bringing her a peach. Becoming I wasn't strong enough to get her out." Did he just interrupted him. Again!

"You know! I would be angry to! Being fed molten copper and iron pallets! Being crushed under a mountain! I would be mad to if I was suffering and someone close to me could only think to give me my favorite fruit to make me feel better! A fruit isn't going to make the pain go away, Macaque! And right now, how is see it, is that you were a bad brother and wukong just wanted to save you and everyone else. How do you know that wukong wasn't trying to keep you from getting hurt."

Pausing for a bit mk was catching his breath and blinked at macaque. " he got mad at you once. One time. And you act like he is the worst person in the world! Throughout the memories, wukong tried to help you relax while you got annoyed with her! Don't you think that might hurt someone!?"

Now that shut him up, staring at eachother for a moment. Macaque scoffed l, "whatever" and with that he fell through his shadow.

Mk sighed as mei put a hand on his shoulder. "You did the right thing" Mei said. But was it really the right thing. It wasn't like macaque to get mad at shiHou, he couldn't help but feel there was more to it.

Walking upstairs, they found pigsy holding a sprawled out cub while tang laid there with his glasses off and the book on his chest.

Smiling mei and mk went over and laid down.

Letting another night carry them away.

---

In another part of the city, you can see macaque pacing around and muttering something under his breath.

All the sudden the air in his he was cold, looking behind him he saw the creepy smiling face of the mayor that was definitely not the real mayor.

"Hello. Champion."

Chapter Text

The day starts with tang on Sandy's boat, holding the hand of a now 10 year old cub with a backpack on her shoulders.

Knocking on the door they here the oddly gentle thumps of the blue giant.

They were greeted with a peppy sandy with tea in hand, "Hey guys! Your just in time, I just brewed up some tea!" Walking back inside, tang and shiHou went inside and made them comfortable on the soft couch.

"So, shiHou, are you excited to stay with uncle sandy?" Tang asked, looking over and waited patiently for an answer to which the cub responded with a shy nod.

Right then sandy set down a tray with tea cups filled to the brim with jasmine tea, shiHou halfway full so she didn't spill anything. At the age of 8 she got physically bullied by some boys and a couple girls who teamed up to beat her, the teacher's didn't notice, or at least they said they didn't notice, so the person who protected her was Orfeo. He took her to the nurse and they called called pigsy to come get her since he was the one who signed the papers as her legal guardian, but when he got there she was shaking the entire time.

ever since then she seemed to develop shaking problems. With no sign of it stopping anytime soon. So when sandy gave her some tea to calm her nerves they would fill it half way and either help (when her shaking was worse then most days) or she would do it herself.

Though shiHou has been slowly recovering, which they were all relieved about, and of course pigsy and mei wanted to sue the school for not taking care of the problem children, sandy got them to calm down and told them that they should wait to see if things got better. Of course they didn't do anything, but pigsy's threat had convinced the principal to suspend them.

Though they deserved more than a suspension it was enough for pigsy to back down.

Handing over the tea sandy looked over to shiHou with a soft smile, "do you think you can hold the cup on your?" ShiHou nodded gently taking the cup into her shaking hands.

"I have a whole day planned out for you! How do feel about sleeping with the cats first and then I can take you to a park? I got marinas permit to bring Orfeo with!" ShiHou perked up at the name, her tail began to wag, she nodded her head happily excepting the idea.

---

Tang left after a bit now waving bye, shiHou and sandy waved back. ShiHou was being held in Sandy's hand and they walked back in the boat house.

Sandy pulled out a little whistle and gently blew it and summoned all of his therapy cats.

"Alright my fluffy friends!" He sat her on the ground and stood back up, "Come give her some love's! Oh! And save some room for me! I'll be right back with some blankets!" He said before heading to the closet.

ShiHou looked around as cats began to swarm her and next thing she knew she was buried under a pile of cat's, face still peeking out.

It was warm and oddly comfortable, shiHou almost fell asleep.

"Aaaawwwwwwww, are you all comfy?" ShiHou nodded with a bright smile, "well. Get read! Cause I got the blanket!" Throwing it over them he slid under the mountain of cats, putting cucumbers on his eyes and some cucumbers on shiHou's. "I set a timer for an hour, after that we can go to the park, Yeah!?"

Getting even more comfortable and snuggled up, they waited for the timer to go off. ShiHou had gone to sleep during that time and was sprawled out under the little balls of fluff.

---

Soon enough the timer went off and sandy carefully scooped shiHou from the mound of cats.

With a laugh sandy said, "are you ready to go to the park or do you want to sleep a little more?" Being reminded of this opened her eyes and smiled at sandy.

"Let's go then! I'm sure orfeo and his mom is waiting for us!" Sandy chirped happily.

Setting the cub on his shoulder they began there walk to the near-by park. And like sandy had said, Orfeo and marina were there waited.

Walking over they were greeted with a smile in which they returned, setting the cub on the ground, shiHou shakily walked over as orfeo came running over and gave her a hug.

"HI shiHou! How are you feeling? I hope you're getting better!" He said still hugging her.

"I'm doing better!" She said with a smile, slowly pulling away only for her to be dragged off to the big toy with them both cheering.

"What do wanna play? Hide and seek, tag?" The little water demon said excitedly, "Oh! Yeah, let's play hide and seek!" ShiHou said jumping up and down, almost stumbling a few times before orfeo went off to count.

Looking around the albino whitish-blond cub saw a tree and carefully ran to her hiding spot.

Climbing up she settled on a branch that wasn't to far away from the ground but high enough to keep her hidden.

"Ready or not here I come!" Hearing her friend she covered her mouth to keep her giggles hidden as she watched her friend pass by multiple times.

After a while of searching orfeo sat at one of the trees and looked around, "where could you be, I looked everywhere" he said bringing his arms up when a lead fell infront of his face. Looking up he saw his friend who had a big cheeky smile spread across her face.

"I win!" ShiHou said Climbing down and bringing her hands up in victory.

"*sigh* yeah you did, my turn to hide!" Orfeo said as shiHou went over to count when she bumped into some, falling over with an "oof" Looking up she saw three pairs of eyes staring at her.

Getting up she dusted herself off and looked back up at them, "Sorry, I didn't see you the-" "what do you think your doing here?" He said bluntly, which of course shiHou was confused about, "huh?"

the group of boys looked at her like she offended them. "What are dumb!? Demons like you aren't aloud here!" Orfeo Hearing this walked up, "Hey, y-you can't tell u-us if we c-can be here or not" he said in a small voice.

The group of boys were noticeably taller then them which made them look threatening in there eye's.

The boy in the middle just rolled his eyes and pushed them to the ground, "my parents made this park so I can tell you if you can or can't be here" shiHou stood up and looked him dead in the eye. Her eyes flashing red for a second.

Sandy and marina looked over when they heard a cry of pain, seeing a little boy holding his most likely broken nose, one of his friends checking on him, and the other calling out for who they could assume would be the injured boys parents since they came running over to check on them. What was more shocking about the situation is that shiHou was standing there in front of them with some blood on her hand while orfeo stared at the boy.

Running over to check out what was going on sandy and marina checked on there kids when they heard a female voice, "are those heathens yours?"

Looking back at them they saw the mother staring at them in discust.

Sandy being the peacemaker he is said in an ever so gentle tone, "I wouldn't say heathens considering they are good kids, but yes! Did something happen?" Even though sandy said it in the sweetest way possible the mother only seemed to grow in anger.

"How can you ask that!? Can't you see that, that thing hit my son!" Orfeo stood up and hugged shiHou Looking scared but determined, "it's not our fault! He started it, he pushed us and said we weren't aloud here! ShiHou was just standing up for herself and me! Please don't be mad at her!" He said hugging his best friend tighter with every sentence.

The mother scoffed standing up, "I don't care What my son did, that thing hurt him and will not stand for it!" She said it in such arrogance sandy almost actually got mad but kept his composure.

Marina seeing this stood up and calmly said, "I'm sorry for what happened but it seems that they were just defending themselves. And I'm sure that they didn't have any illintent."

The mother looked like she was fuming in rage now, pushing the caretakers out of the way and walking up to shiHou and a still clinging orfeo. "Now listen here you little brats, if I ever see you here or near us again I will call the police. Or better yet, animal control. Because that's what you are, animal's, now leave before I call th-AAAA!" Before she could finish marina punched in the face with such force that she fell to the floor.

"Come on sweet hearts, let's leave before things get more heated then things actually are. If that's even possible." She said quickly picking up the cub and hatchling I'm her arms and running with sandy behind.

---

They went to a tea shop and got some ice-cream and and some tea to calm there nerves. Especially shiHou. Her shaking got worse due to her adrenalin and now sandy had her sitting on his arm as he helped her drink the tea and eat her soft served ice-cream.

The tea did help a lot with the unwanted shaking. "Do you think you can feed yourself or do you still need some help?" With a nod of her head, she took her tea and ice-cream and started eated while purring in content.

Soon they parted and went home.

Entering Sandy's home he sat down and settled shiHou next to him cats scurrying so they wouldn't be sat on.

A little pause and sandy felt a pat on his arm looking down at shiHou who was looking down as if she was going to be scolded.

"I didn't mean to hurt him" she said quietly.

Smiling softly sandy pated her on the head, "Let's not think about that right now. Hey why don't I turn on a movie and order some food before we go to sleep!" Looking up at the blue giant she smiled and nodded her head.

Now they were sitting cross legged on the couch eating and watching the movie.

Meanwhile in the window of the house boat you could see a glowing blue pair of eyes, "soon enough i will set you free my lady. In due time you will have your destiny. We just need to wait for the right time... the key to your freedom is not yet ready" everything fades to black only seeing a big creepy smile and blue orbs.

Chapter Text

"NO! You can't just leave! You just came back to us. To me! Why on earth would you want to go back to THEM!? To that sorry excuse for a monk!"

The dark figure pulled out a lantern.

"No, I'm not going to let you go back to them. I'm making my own choices now!"

There was a fain purple glow illuminating the lantern. As it got brighter, she noticed her shadow stretching toward it. The lantern got brighter and brighter, turning into a blinding light. A flash of light and she found herself looking at the dark figure as he left.

She tried Banging on the glass. Trying to break out of her prison.

With every push on the lantern, she would get closer to the edge of the table she was left on.

Push, shift. Push, shift. Finally she got to the edge of the table. Taking a couple steps back she ran at the glass wall and she went falling to the ground.

.

.

.

*SMASH*

________________

Her eye's shot open, jolting from her bed with heavy breathing and her forehead soakedin sweat and holding her blanket to her chest.

Looking around she let out a sigh of relief and flopped down on her bed.

Out of all the nightmares she would have, that one always played in her mind at night the most. She didn't know why she felt the need to cry and shout. She always felt angry, she felt betrayed... but she didn't know why.

"*sigh* damn it's hot, what's today's temperature?" Pulling out her phone to see that it wasn't even a hot day! It was 56 degrees!

Did she have a fever? She felt fine but just in case she took her temperature, it was normal, putting her hand to her forhead she immediately she pulled away.

That definitely wasn't a normal body temperature.

Hearing a knock on her door she sat up, "Come in" she said with an exhausted voice. Smiling once she saw mk's face.

"Happy birthday bed head!" Mk said as he walked up to her bedside. "Pfft* it's not that bad!" She said with a laugh. Mk turned his head towards her lazily, "hate to break it to you, but it looks like a bird came and made a nest in your hair." He said with a sly smile.

"You okay? You look tired" mk said with concern, "yeah, just..." She thought about it and decided to just not say anything that would worry them even more than they were.

"I'm fine, just tired." She said rubbing the back of her neck.

Mk raised an eyebrow at that, lookingher up and down.

"Okay, if you say so." He said dragging out each word.

"I do say so." She said with a smile that reached from ear too ear. 

"Weelllll, now that you're awake, come down stairs! Pigsy made your favorite~! peach pancakes!!" ShiHou perked up at that, bolting past mk and running down stairs, "last one there is a rotten peach!" Mk gawked at that and rushed downstairs.

Once they were both in there seats they both started to dig in. "Thank you pigsy! These are soooooo good!" She said with a mouth full.

"I'm glad you like it kid, now Finnish your breakfast. Orfeo is coming to get you soon to celebrate." Hearing this ShiHou started to shovel the food into her mouth. And bolted up the stairs.

Brushing her teeth and flossing before lifting her arm and sniffed, gagging when she smelled like egg, 'how could they stand being near me the morning' she thought before stripping her clothes off and stepping into the bath tub.

About 30 minutes later she came out of the bathroom smelling like peach rings. Her hair in a towel and a towel rapped around her body.

Sitting down carefully as to not have the towel fall off of her, she to dig through her drawers, picking out a long red skirt so that her tail could move around comfortably. A  baggy pail yellow shirt, with black sleeves, tucking the bottom of the shirt under her skirt that showed off her small figure. Blackish-brown boots that reached to her calf and to finish it off, she put her now strawberry blonde hair into a ponytail with a blue bow holding it in place like a hair tie. Her bangs framing her soft features. Her hair even put up cascading past her hips.

(Please someone draw this if you're interested, I have to work on like 9 or more other drawings🥲💀)

Walking downstairs she could practically feel eyes on her. "Oooooooo~!" Her ear flicked when she was inveloped in a hug. Grunting when mk squeezed her, "you look so pretty! Orfeo is gonna love you!"

"I'll love what?" As if timed timed perfectly, orfeo was standing in the doorway, with a smile.

He was wearing a blue jacket with white details that resembled the flow of water, white pants, dark teal and black tenashoes, with a satchel around his neck.

"Ah, nothing! Mk's just being weird!" She said quickly her words spewed all in one breath.

Laughing, he walked over and gentle yet firm hands grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along. Waving bye as she was pulled along.

---

Walking along the streets they were looking at the scenery.

"... so, what exactly are we doing today?" ShiHou asked with curiosity. "Well, my dear friend! as the bestest friend in the world, I have decided I would take you to your favorite places in the city." A proud smile formed on his face.

"First! You know that museum full of paintings?" Raising a brow, shiHou nodded her head, "and how you've said so much you wanted to paint for them and have it hung up on a wall?" "Orfeo" "yeeeesssss~" turning to look at him she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down to eye level. "Are you telling me I aloud to hang up one my own art in that museum." Her voice sounded so serious at this moment, thinking that he was pulling her leg till he made a cat like smirk. "Really!" Letting go of him to bring her hands up in excitement, causing him to fall face first to the ground.

"Sorry" she said sheepishly with a grimace.

---

After a little checkup and a lot of tissues later they were now walking towards the doors. ShiHou still feeling horrible for what she had done was apologizing vigorously.

"I've told you so many times that it's fine!" ShiHou wined at that, which earned a chuckle from the taller one, "it's not fine! Your doing all of this for me and how do I thank you!?" She said, her cheeks puffing up with a pout.

"Come on, you don't want to be sad for your big day, do you?" Just as he knocked on the doors, almost emmdietly someone came to own the door. It was a tall male in a black and gray striped suit, slicked back hair with white stripes on both sides and a big creepy smile, with wide empty eyes. "Hello children! I'm guessing you're here to hang you're own painting?" ShiHou felt a chill up her spine, it was cold, and not the comforting and excited feeling you get on a snow day.

It felt like she was walking on pins and needles, she felt the need to run and her heart was racing

She flinched when she felt someone grab her hand, almost giving herself whiplash when she looked over to see orfeo. His eyes were filled with concerned 'he shouldn't have to be concern for you' a voice in the back of her head whispered, 'you don't need to be cared for, just deal with it on your own, it's not like you deserve it' she couldn't help but believe the voice. "Hey" her best friends voice broke her from her thoughts. "Are you okay? You were kind of spacing off there." It took her a while to process the words, "uh-oh-yeah! I'm fine, let's just go and get this done and over with." She said with a smile and that seemed to be enough of an answer since he shrugged he shoulders and followed the strange man, pulling her along.

she followed, she knew the man was talking but could barely hear him over her racing heart. Beating like a ticking time bomb, ready to explain out of her chest.

She couldn't tell what she was feeling, anxiety? fear? Mabye both. 

Her thoughts came to a hault when she slammed into her friends back. Flinching back, she looked around and noticed they were at there destination.

The man wordlessly opened the door and gestured them to go through.

Her lungs felt tight, the snake of her anxiety coiling around them, making it hard to breath. Holding her canvas close to her chest, they walked past the door into a dimly lit room. It took a bit for her eyes to adjust to the change of light, looking up, she saw three faces staring back at her.

There faces were calm and ceriene. A small that didn't reach to there eye's, "Hello dear, I assume you're the one who wanted to show your piece?" Straightening up to look presentable, she said, "oh-yes! Yes, I do" a shaky smile formed on her face as she set down her painting.

Stepping back she watched as they stared intently at it, tracing the details. She had wanted to try some different, using digital colors of water paint and letting it make shape and then when it dried she took it and drew what she saw. It was a mouth filled with all sorts of animals and a flora of trees and plants filled with all sorts of fruit.

When she showed her caretakers painting there eyes widened. She couldn't tell if it was because it was good. Or some else, they seems shocked, but they praised her for her work.

She watched as they traced the lining, there mouth open in awe.

Looling at eachother, they spoke in a hished voice. The woman in the middle looked up at her with a smile and stood. "Well, I think we can all agree that your art is amazing, the detail is on point. We love all of the detail you put into it and we can tell you put your heart and soul into this piece. Which is why we would be honored to set this up for all to see."

She couldn't believe this was happening, an endorsement. And from her favorite artists at that, she felt like crying tears of joy. Covering her mouth, before she could think it through, ran and gave the woman a hug, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Backing away, she pulled her hair behind her eat, "Sorry, I don't what came over me-i" a kind laugh rang out in the room. "It's fine, it's fine, you don't have to worry. I wouldn't expect anything less"

Being escorts out of the room, the woman said, "expect to see your painting tomorrow. And, are you the one who called us yesterday?" She said looking up at orfeo, "yes, she's been talking about wishing to see her art hung up on your walls." She looked back down at the smaller one, "your lucky to have a friend like him" "thank you, um-" "you two can call me Sarah" Looking up at Sarah, a smile grew on her face, "Thank you Sarah!"

Giving her one last hug they left the museum.

---

Walking along the streets, orfeo could see shiHou looking around and jolting at every sound, "Hey, you've been reading off today. are you sure you're okay?" She looked up at him, she saw the concern in his experience. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just... that person we saw when we first got there left a bad taste In my mouth, he gave me the creeps."

His Eyebrows furrowed at that, he also got a bad feeling from him.

With a sigh they walked along the sides in silence, until the same man from earlier walked out from the alleyway. He saw shiHou jump with a gasp out of the corner of his eye.

"Hello children!" The man said in a cheerful voice, although it did look a bit forced, "I have something wonderful to show you! If you could just fallow me!" He grabbing shiHou by the arm and pulled her along, his grip firm so she wouldn't be able to escape (why was everyone grabbing her!?)

Looking back she saw her friend close behind, catches up and setting a comforting on her shoulder, he showed her his phone with a text saying 'if anything goes wrong I have pigsy's number ready to call' that thankfully got her to calm down a bit, know that there were people there for her.

As they walked they notice they were entering a bad part of the city. It was desolate and cold. Barely anyone roaming the streets and the most life they have seen were stray cats and dogs and some raccoon's digging through trash.

Though even they were decreased as they went through. Her shaking started to act up as they got closer. "We're so close! It's just a few streets down."

---

It was cold, there were scraps of metal along the sand, some big some small, and a lot bigger.

In the senter there was a crater. "Now, all you need to do it stand in the center of that crater~" all the sudden she was thrown down, her head hitting some of the metal scraps.

Through the ringing in her ears she heard her friend call out for. Tears sprung to the corner of her eye's when she felt what was most likely the Strange man grabbing her by the hair.

Turning her head as much as she can she saw a glowing blue light with some golden essents, gasping when he slammed it into her chest.

.

.

.

an animalistic scream ripped from her throat. Opening her eyes, everything was bathed in gold. Panicking, she stood up, looking down when she noticed the inferno made of her hair and fur.

Looking her hands over as she breath became shallow and quick while she looked over herself, catching her reflection in the crystal of ice. Tears of pure gold were flowing from her firey golden eyes.

Rapping her arms around herself in a poor form of comfort her breath seemed to catch in her throat causing her to stop breathing before she let out a scream out of pure panic.

To be continued

Chapter Text

He watched his best friend struggle to figure out what was going on, and she looked as if she would pass out at any moment.

Hearing her faintly mumble "no's" as if she didn't believe what was happening, and "how do I stop this?" It hurt to see his best friend like this, and he wanted more than anything to run over and hug her like his life depended on it.

But at the moment, he was being tied down from nowhere with blue tendrils.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the strange man who had dragged his best friend here walk over to her. Gathering all of the strange, he had to break free of the binds as the man got closer to the vulnerable demon monkey with each passing moment.

Finally breaking free he was able to push the man aside just in time to grab his friend and run, thought as he ran he felt like he was being burned alive so he stopped in the middle of an alleyway that was convenient next to a clothing store... but he couldn't leave his friend outside just so he could get a leather jacket to put over her. It was too dangerous, and if we're to use his jacket, it would most definitely turn to ash.

Having no other option, he hid her in a corner and said, "Stay here. I'll be back with something to cover you up. And if that man comes back, you need to run back to pigsy's." Hearing a sniff from the smaller one, she nodded. Giving him permission to head into the clothing store.

Thankfully it was a hot topic, so it was that big and he was able to grab a particularly large leather jacket pay for it (with a few glares and questions about the burn marks) and run back to where he left shiHou.

Taking a deep breath to steal himself in case of the worst, he slowly walked to the alleyway.

Sighing with relief, he went over and kneeled in front of shiHou, catching her attention when he abruptly rapped the jacket that surprisingly (but thankfully) went to her lower thigh.

Her eye's even though a bright gold looked dull and unfortunately, putting a hand on her shoulder and said to go to sleep for now, that she had a long day.

Hearing her let out an airy sigh and close her eyes, He picked her up, bridal style and briskly walked back to the noodle shop. Where he could hopefully get help.

With shiHou-

she had no clue what was going on. Or what to do about her current situation, all she was thinking about was how unbearable the heat was, wondering how she could extinguish the fire that surrounding her, and how she was supposed to get her vision back to normal.

She was brought out of her thoughts when she felt a bitter cold break through the heat before she was scooped up and taken away from the cold.

She wasn't focusing on her surroundings at the moment. Her mind wasn't in the right position to process everything.

all the sudden she felt something being rapped around her, looking up she saw her friend who had been the one who put what she could see was a leather jacket. She also noticed that she was sitting against a brick wall between two buildings...

...

God she was just so tired, all of this was draining her energy.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she looked back up to orfeo, she couldn't hear what he said but she could tell by the movement of his lips that he said sleep.

Sleep really did sound nice, but what if something bad happened? Sighing in defeat she closed her eyes and let her mind wonder into the dark abyss of slumber.

---

As he made is way back to the noodle shop he made sure to keep an eye out for anything strange.

Sudden chills, blue fog, crystal like ice. Anything, this person or thing was coming after his friend without any reason why.

He had texted mk to let the others know of what of what was going on, so when he gets shiHou home, they should be waiting in the dining area like mk had said.

He stopped when he saw mk's tuk tuk but wanted to make sure it wasn't someone else's, you could never be too careful. Tilting his head upward to see the pig head with a big chef's hat on top.

Walking further to look inside the shop he saw the crew waiting and talking, sandy was petting mo in his arms, tang was bighting his nails, mk and mei were talking frantically, while pigsy was looking outside the window every now and then.

Opening the door he was all the sudden bombarded with questions of worry, shiHou was taken out of his arms by pigsy and was set on the sofa, with her head put on Sandy's lap.

Mo had taken a curious sniff of the young monkey and though cautious, curled up on her chest and started purring.

"Ofeo, can you describethe person you guys met?"

It was mei who asked the question. Mk looked like he was about to have a mental breakdown, same with tang. So it made sense for her to ask the question.

Swallowing the lump in the back of his throat he nodded his head and then got settled on the couch.

After the chaos settled, he was able to speak, "the man... he was. Tall, a grayish-blue streak on the side of his head, he was tall, pale, he had a very big and creepy smile. It just looked so unnatural. He wide pale blue eyes, and he was wearing a striped suit." Looking up he noticed the faces of horror.

They were looking at eachother with worry, tang had fainted, sandy was smiling nervous but looked like he was going too break. Pigsy was taking care of tang with his mouth and eyes wide open with fear, and mei and mk just had these panicked expressions.

What the hell was going!? What were they hiding!?

"Okay, what is going on!? Is this something that I should be very worried about?!" He said as he abruptly stood up.

They couldn't keep this a secret if it was going to affect shiHou in a negative way. They had to know.

"Why don't we wait for shiHou to wake up so we can explain? Until then, why don't I serve some tea and put on some meditation music" Sandy said in his usual peppy voice.

Mei swapped places with sandy since she could handle the heat that radiated from the sleeping monkey.

.

.

.

Dbk, redson,and pif should be here any time now, I also used astral projection with nezha, he might bring guanyin and subodhi if he is able to contact them.

Wait, what!? What did he just say? "Did-did you just say, nezha, guanyin, And subodhi? the nezha, guanyin, and subodhi."

"Well yeah-uh-" "you know them!? Isn't nezha the protector of children!? Guanyin as in the bodhisattva guanyin? Goddess of mercy, and subodhi? The one who taught the monkey king?" He whisper yelled as too not wake up the sleeping monkey.

Seeing the sheepish look on his face, he was gobsmacked! They knew three other legends!? How did he not know about this?!

Before he could overthink it, Sandy came out from the kitchen, "Alright guys! Tea is ready!"

---

after waiting for a bit a large swirl of fire came out of nowhere from the center of the room, along with a bright white light beside it, it was so bright he had to cover his eyes.

"Alright little theif, what happened that was so urgent that you had to call my son so close to midnight" the gruff voice came from dbk, looking over he saw the tired faces of the demon bull family. The group next to them, he couldn't believe it, it was actually them. The 3 immortals caught site of him but ignored him in turn of putting there focus on the matter at hand.

"We came as fast as we can, is shiHou okay? What happened?" a male with two buns who orfeo assumed was nezha came rushing to check on shiHou.

once again the room was filled with questions and panic.

With mk standing up and abruptly interrupting everyone's talking, "let's just all calm down, we can explain everything, but I think it would be better to do it upstairs, yeah?" He tried to sound calm and collected but was obviously failing and was having a mental breakdown himself.

Looking over at orfeo with an apologetic expression. He said "ofeo, I know you've been through a lot today but do you think you could keep an eye out for anything and let us know when shiHou wakes up?-" he turned his head to look at shiHou intently and then nodded, standing up and taking her.

"Great, thank you! We'll be right back just make sure nothing else goes wrong! Bye"

He watched as they rushed upstairs for answers, looking back and forth from the door, windows, when shiHou caught his eyes.

He knew it was not an appropriate time to think this but... looking down at her, she looked otherworldly. She was a golden beauty, shining wherever she went.

with the flames creating a glow on her soft skin, she looked like she were made from heaven itself.

Shaking his head he went back to what he was doing earlier.

Waiting until shiHou woke up and find out who was coming after her. He was going to protect her, he wouldn't let anyone take his best friend.

Chapter Text

Waking up was... she couldn't put it into words, it was calm and ceriene. But. She just felt... off. In a way. She could feel another's presence over her. Of course, it's easy to do so when that person's arms are wrapped around her.

She opened her eyes to look up at who was holding her.

Only to come face to face with her best friend... she was in her best friends lap... and their faces were way too close for her liking.

There was a pause as they stared at each other when shiHou let out a short scream and shoved herself off of him. Hitting her head on the table as she fell. "OUCH! That smarts!" She cried out

There was a slight chuckle from the nuisance that was her friend at the moment. She narrowed her eyes at him, which looked more like a pout. Her cheeks puffed out as she cradled the back of her head. "Hey! Don't laugh at my pain!" Though it was pretty critical of her to say when she herself sounded like she was fighting a laugh herself.

A snirk, giggle to full-blown laughter. It felt nice. Just laughing with your friend over the smallest things.

Of course, it couldn't last since the others just so happened to hear them and came rushing downstairs to check on her. They were grabbing face, twisting and turning her body and crying over her... while she sat there,  staring at her friend with pleading eyes.

Her friend seeing this only smiled and watched in fondness as she struggled to back away from the crowd of worried family, Minus the demon bull family and the three celestials, however they did look worried they seemed to notice the discomfort. 'Thank god'

Finally master subodhi decided it was the right time to step in. Smacking them in the head and putting them at a comfortable distance. "Fools! You aren't gonna get answers by asking each of you to play 20 questions at the exact same time.

He stood over her with his arms folded behind his back. His face was was somber as he looked down at her. "...Well. how do you feel" he asked expectedly with a slightly raised eyebrow.

She opened her mouth to answer but stopped, furrowed her eyebrows. She really couldn't tell. She felt fine but she knew that there was something wrong. Something different. What the hell! This is her body! It should be easy for her to know if something were wrong. What was wrong with her?

She felt his hand pat her head, "it's clear that you don't know so until then. Nezha, could you check to make sure her core is alright. We all know how important our core is, consider it keeps us alive and thriving." Nezha nodded at the order. Making his way over. Unexpectedly grabbing shiHou by her shoulders and setting her into a sitting position on the sofa.

He carefully slid his hand through her chest. A contrast to what the man did too her, but it still freaked her out. She shuddered with a heavy gasp. Grabbing onto his arm, trying to pull it out. She wasn't necessarily in pain... it was just HELLA uncomfortable!

Opening her eyes 'when did she close them?' She noted that her fur had poofed out and was probably the reason his friend was face first on the floor trying his best not to laugh. How could she tell? His fucking shoulders were shaking while making some weird sounds that sounded like he was choking along with deep inhales and exhales. 'That jerk!'

She looked back at nezha when she felt his hand pull out from within her chest with a Humm. As soon as he walked away she quickly lifted her hand to her chest and moving it as if trying to do what her older brother had done. Head Slightly tilted with her mouth a dazed eyes wide open.

She slouched back into the couch with a sigh. Orfeo came over and sat next to her echoing her sigh and looking at her from the corner if his eye, "well you look like you're doing better. You're not on fire anymore, so that's a start. Am I right?"

...

Orfeo's smile wavered a bit at how quiet and unfocused she was. No. She was focused just on something else.

He stole himself as he was about to break shiHou out of her thoughts. Not knowing how she will react. Bring his hand up, he settled it on top of her shoulder.

"Shihou?-" "huh! Oh- um, yeah I'm fine. It was just so weird- having half of his arm right here!" She laughed almost hysterically as she pressed her hand to her chest.

He grimaced at those words knowing that no one would be fine after what happened, not even someone as optimistic as her.

Pushing her hood back, he took note of shiHou's changed appearance. He was shocked that he didn't realize earlier. Mabey it was the fact that she had a hood shading over her features but it didn't excuse the fact that he just now noticed the more sunny colored appearance.

Shaking his head, he opened his mouth. Getting ready to start a whole entire intarigation just to get the truth out.

That was until dbk and nezha squeezed theme between them. The third lotus prince sitting next to shiHou and DBK... Sitting right next to him. Glaring down at him with glowing green eyes. 'Ohgodohgodohgod! He's going to kill me isn't he!?'

Meanwhile nexha was telling her he didn't want orfeo to touch her in any way. "No holding hands, none of that! I'm not letting some boy touch you. I don't even want him to look at you!"

As he said that, his hands were on her shoulders and shaking her. Leaving her dizzy and her head limp.

When she got over the dizzy spell she noticed the look he was giving her. Feeling uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact entirely, "what's wrong? Why are you staring at me?"

Nezha's eyes widened at that, stumbling over his words as he searched his find for an answer. "I just, you look like you've been through a lot. Why don't you go take a relaxing bath, and we can talk later." He said as he lightly pushed her to the edge of the stairs.

She looked back at everything then at nezha as he gave her a comforting smile, returning the smile as she walked up.

When she got up there she closed and made sure to lock the door before ridding herself of the now burnt clothing 'man. I know I can sew it back up but these were one of my 😍 pairs' she thought with a pout as she felt like crying over it.

Running Lukewarm water as she stripped the rest of the clothing.

Once it was full enough, she carefully stepped in and let herself slide into the warm tub.

With a content sigh, she sunk to where the water met her chin.

It was the perfect temperature. Not to hot, not to cold. She could breath, shutting her eyes she let herself slip away into the back of her mind.

Who was that?

Why did nezha look at her like that?

Why was everyone freaking out over her?

She was fine.

She was still breathing.

The strange man just messed with her a bit... but she was fine now.

So what was the big deal?

It was nice that they cared. But how could she grow if they were constantly on her back?

It felt familiar. She just didn't know how.

Why?

Why!?

Why!?

They didn't need to worry!!

She was perfectly capable of keeping herself safe!

Did they not trust her

...

Was she not trust worthy.

That thought made her heart ache. What could she possibly have done to make them not trust her?

She brought out of her thoughts by knocking and the feeling of heat crawling under her skin.

"ShiHou? Are you okay in there? You've been taking a while and I just wanted to make sure you were okay." It was guanyin- Oh? How long had she been in there?

Thankfully she had brought her phone with into the bathroom. Checking the time. It was- holy crap! 11:27 pm!!! How did she get so sucked into her thoughts! She probably looked like a prune.

"ShiHou?" Another knock, "are you there?" It sounded more frantic. Not unlike her to act that way with the people she cared about. But she was usually more graceful about it. You would hardly be able to tell she was feeling anything else but serenity.

"ShiHou!?" Another call for her name.

Why was she just sitting there? Answer her!

Unplugging the drain she hurriedly got up and wrapping a towel around herself. Openingthe door right as guanyinwas about to knock again "Hi! Yes, I'm fine! Sorry for not answering the first 2 times. I guess I was just in my own wor-" she was cut off by a firm and comforting hug.

She watched as the good guanyin back away. Staring at her as well. But unlike the others, (besides mk and the others who were to busy checking to see if she was okay and the Demon bull familywho was speaking amongst themselves) she smiled softly at her. "Umm" "sorry, you just... look like someone I used to know. A son of mine."

They stayed staring at eachother for a bit before guanyin stepped back, "anyway. Now that I know you're okay, we'll be waited for you downstairs. I'll let the others know that you're fine."

The young white Furred(?) Monkey nodded as she went back in to grab her things and head into the next room so that she could get changed. Completely ignoring her reflection in the mirror.

Heading back to her room, she decided to get into something comfortable. A pair of black shorts with blue thread and an orange tank top. Something just so she wouldn't overheat.

Waking over to the door she finally took notice of her reflection. And with her impeccable eyesight she could see every detail. Her fur was a gradient of snowy white to a sunny ginger.

Freckles looked like someone had meticulously put a golden sparkle on it. Her eyes had golden flecks in an ocean of blue.

She looked the same but completely difficult at the same time.

She stared at herself, except instead of like how the others stared at her in recognition and fondness, it was more of a mix between horror and shock.

"How did this happen?" She asked herself outloud as she walked closer to the mirror. Dragged her finger across her face as if she were trying to figure out if she was hallucinating from the earlier heat or if this was actually real.

Remembering the others were waiting for her, she almost completely abandoned the thought and sped walked all the way downstairs.

Everyone's head turned to her at that moment expectantly.

She looked over to her friend who wad just as confused. Jolting when she heard an "ehem" from mk, who was patting a space between him and orfeo.

Sitting down, she looked at each of them. Waiting for whatever they were going to say.

"So, you guys met someone today huh?" Tang said, sitting next to an anxious pigsy who was get a massage by sandy who obviously felt how tense he was along with mo who was curled on top of his head.

She took an inaudible gulp, feeling like she was in trouble. "Yeah, do you know him?" They all seemed to tense with a mixture of expectations. Anger and fear were the most noticeable besides the grimace they all had.

This time nezha answered, "yes, we do. And until we can figure out how to get rid of him we don't want you leaving. Neither you or ofeo would be safe. We already informed Orfeo's mom."

This obviously sent alarm bells ringing in their heads. But it made shiHou feel this pent up anger she didn't even know she had or would ever feel.

Impulsively she stood up and looked them all dead in the eyes with a fire burning within her own. "Look, are you guys going to avoid the question or are we going to get answers!" Everyone looked shocked at that. The demon bull family, pigsy (although a bit shocked) and mei looking oddly proud at her reaction.

She slapped her hands against her mouth with wide eye's and sat down in shame and the wordscame tumbling out of her mouth, "I'm sorry- I don't what got into me!" She didn't know what was happened but she felt that man in the suite had something to do with it.

Right then, grandma pig came in with bowls of noodles. Handing one to each of them.

But she just couldn'tbring herself to eat at the moment. Not even if they were made by pigsy or grandma- Wait, when did she get here? Had she always been here?

Her grandma noticing this, came up and handed her the bowl of what she thought were noodles but were apparently peach dumplings. Which were one of her favorites. But she just couldn't, how could she after yelling at her family.

Her guilty continence outweighed any other feeling.

A hoof was brought under her chin and her head was lifted to make eye contact with her grandmother. "It's okay that you expressed your emotions dear. Healthy even. It's normal, especially for girls like you who are now going through puberty-" "okay grandma, I'm not ready for that just yet!" Her grandma laughed as she handed shiHou the bowl.

She let out a small sniff. Wiping away the unshed tear. Taking a bight and everything seemed calmer jist by eating it. Her face relaxed and head tilting as she moaned from the taste of them. "Thank you grandma, these are so good" she said ready to shove a dumpling in her mouth.

"You're welcome dear, *stands up* now when you are all done I want you all to explain to these poor children what is going on. No stalling. You got that!" Everyone nodded at that. Hurrying there eating.

Once they were all finished, they looked toward the two younger one's.

"Alright. Well, orfeo, had you ever read or heard anything from a years ago about ex celestial and her thrall?" Orfeo thought about it for a moment when he remembered his mom talking about how there was a fight and that everything's was covered in ice with some peoples stuck in them but was saved by the monkey kid and his crew.

"Oh yeah! I remembered my mom talking about an ice demoness who tried to take over the world. This was before we moved here so I'm surprised I still remember it. Then again, my mom never forgets to remind me of her just in case of situations like those." The others seemed guilty that he had to live with that fear, while shiHou was already catching onto what they were going to say.

And it looked like Mk was going to be the one explaining there current predicament. Though a bit shaken himself. "Well, you're mom has a good reason to be conscious of that. She wanted to restart the world in her image aka the "perfect world"" he said using air quotations.

He breathed in and out quickly before spewing out a jumble of words. "ThatwastheladybonedemonsthrallandwethinkhewantstouseshiHoutofreeher!!!"

ShiHou and orfeo flinched at how fast her said it. Looking at her and him back and forth.

"Wha-?" "What noodles for brains was trying to say was that the man you were with is the lady bone demon's thrall, and we are pretty sure he wants to use... shiHou to free her from diyu."

Chapter Text

Oh," there wasn't much to say about it, really. She was speechless. "I mean - wow! Um, that's- uh, a lot to take in" she took an audible gulp.

Her lack of expression was worrisome. the slightly golden monkey was usually expressive in both body language and voice.

So, seeing her like this was surprising.

Mk and mei looked at each other with a grimace. Both knowing what it's like to be used and treated as a weapon or power source.

They didn't say anything, cause what were they supposed to tell her, that everything would be okay? that she would be safe? They didn't want to give her such false hope.

They stared at her intently, waiting for her to say anything else. But every passing second, she just looked dead. No spark, no hope. Just a dullness in her eyes that would be hard to get back.

She was just a kid, so why did not-mayor want her to bring back the lady bone demon.

Was it because her powers were more chaotic as a child? That would be the most likely reason.

Mk was about ready to get up and comfort her but was stopped when dbk got up to scooch closer to shiHou and pick her up in her his arm with the other pressed against her head as she leaned against him... and she began to cry.

She just couldn't believe any of this was happening. why it was happening. She was just a kid, right?

Pigsy stood up and started collecting the empty bowls, "we should hit the hay, it's been a long night and we need rest" the pig demon said as went into the kitchen to wash the dIshes with his mom.

Right as he said that, they yawned as if just hearing the word "sleep" were enough to make them tired.

"Maby someone should stay near wu- I-i mean shiHou for the night." Tang laughed sheepishly as he almost revealed shiHou's identity. To which said monkie looked at him with a tired but skeptical expression.

Shaking her head hopped off her elder brothers arm, and while no one noticed, her eyes flashed a pale blue before turning back to their almost usual ocean blue color.

"I'll be fine, you guy's don't have to worry about me," she said in an almost robotic voice as she walked closer to the stairs.

Putting her hand on the railing, she was stopped by comforting hand, turning around to see the brunette she had been accompanied with all her life.

He stared at her with his eyebrows furrowed, "Are you sure you don't want someone with you tonight? It's okay if you do. it's nothing to be ashamed of"

ShiHou gave him a reassuring smile as she put her hand on his before walking upstairs.

---

She wasn't acting right. But how could they blame her after such a traumatic event, and on her birthday no less. Sure, her birthday wasn't always the best, and it was crazy in one way or another. But this was just- just, insane!

But it seemed like there was more to it than what they thought. It definitely affected her in more than one way.

She always felt safer when someone was with her, heck! She wanted to sleep with mk just the other night!

Did she feel ashamed? They thought they could have changed that by giving her all the love a child could have.

there was a hard crash, followed by the thumps of thinks falling

Their eyes widened in concern and fear. They looked at each other, till they heard another crash and they ran upstairs.

When they got to the golden/white monkey's room, mk, being the first in front, tried to open it, but to no avail. Even with the strength of the monkey king himself (?) He just couldn't open it!

With a grunt and a pull of the know, mk let go as he gasped, "it's locked!" "What do mean it's locked, it should be easy for you!" Nezha said. he was elbowed by guanyin with a small "ow! Hey!" Escaping his mouth.

"I mean, it's locked! I can't open it! Can somebody help me nock it down or something!?" Mei, pigsy, sandy, and dbk joined mk in opening the door. And with a few pushes against the door, the hinges broke off.

But to their horror, shiHou was gone, the room was a mess, and it was ice cold.

Mk's knees buckled from under him, for he had again lost not only his mentor or his friend, but his little sister. The one person he kept telling himself he would protect no matter what!

And she was gone.

---

What is going on with her? First, she was surrounded by fire. Then everyone wouldn't give me space - a hand was shoved through her chest, TWICE NOW!!! and now it felt like she hardly had any control over her own limbs or voice. It was so cold. How could it go from raging hot to the unforgiving bight of frost

She shivered like crazy as consciousness was being pulled back into a hazy blue fog.

She grunted, pulling herself back up into a standing position. She could see breath now. She leaned against her desk, unknown to her the strength she possessed, she almost fell along with the it but grabbed her head, shaking it, and grunting as her eyes flickered to an icy-blue.

She backed up and bumped into the wall, a few things came crashing down.

She would have picked them up, but opted to sit on her bed as she clutched onto consciousness.

She breathed in and out shakily and flopped onto her side, still clutching onto the bed. Pain started to invelop her body in the form of icy cold chain's.

He mind was swimming in what felt like molasses. Her vision was inveloped by the same blue you would see in endless bodies of water covered in ice. Her face was emotionless. She stood as straight and tall as a rod.

An icy blue portal appeared in front of her. The same creep they had seen all day walked through it with a brother she hadn't seen in year's covered in ice from his arm to the side of his face.

"Macaque?" She tried to call out for her third oldest brother, but no sound came from her. She was a hallow shell. An empty husk, void of any emotion.

The "not-mayor" waved her over, she could hear the others on the other side of the door, but there was nothing she could do except obey, obey, obey!

Her body seemed to pay no mind to the others as she stepped through the portal that sent shivers down her spine. The others followed after her.

The not-mayor took the lead, she stood next to the looming figure of her missing brother, the others had said that he had just left.

Was this really where he had been this whole time though?

She just wanted to jump onto him for a hug like old times as her brother let her tell him all about her day whether it was a mouth full or not.

He would listen.

...

They came across a pillar made of ice them contained someone she also hadn't seen in year's.

Bai he.

Her eye's mentally widened. She felt like she was going to throw up. Bai he was there, fave slack, she looked like she was just sleeping.

She was then being guided to a gurney in between the ice piller and a pile of bones

"Lay down dear" the wide eyed man ordered, to which she complied.

She mentally gasped when machinery was being hooked up to her, and straps were holding her firmly to the gurney.

A force fealed appeared around them with sigil appearing all around it. She internally panicked. She had to get out of here! 

In the background, not-mayor (or wide eyed creep being a knew nickname she would call him) started to laugh maniacly. Talking about his "lady's" return, and that she would finally be free... with her being the vessel.

Chapter Text

"Things can't get any worse than they are now, kid. We just gotta get to shiHou before dark, tall, creepy face can do anything to her." As pigsy said as he kneeled down beside mk and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't say that, pigsy! Things can always get worse!!" Mk stood up and wiped his tear stained face. Looking around the room that looked like some wild animal went on some rampage. 

"Come on little man! Sure, things seem bad right now, but we can make things better!" Sandy chirped reassuringly. Fresh tears sprang to mk's eyes as he went in for a hug. "I miss my mentor!" The kid wailed, mei pulled mk towards her for a hug, " aw, dude! I know this is a lot, and I know that this happens. Well. a lot..."

Mei took a step closer to mk and pulled him into a hug, "we can do this mk, just like we always have" pulling, she looked over everyone with a small smile, "sure things won't be easy. They never are. Mk! You can do this, we can do this!"

Hearing this, mk began to year up. Not just from his friends words, but from the crushing weight of worry for his once mentors safety. Someone who used to be seen as a selfish, lazy ass hole, to a friend, to family. It hurt just thinking that this had to happen to wukong for the others to stop loathing him in a way. (Minus sandy, of course)

Taking a deep breath, he turned to everyone with a determined face and stood up straighter, saying in a determined voice, "alright guys..." 'deep breaths mk, deep breaths' "Let's go save wukong" pulling out the legendary staff of the monkey king great sage equal to heaven, they grouped up to form a plan to save there mischievous monkey.

.

.

.

Downstairs waiting, Orfeo was pacing around. Anxious about what had just happened and what he heard the others say.

"Wukong?"

"As in the legends handsome monkey king, great sage equal to heaven, sun wukong."

Ever since he moved to megapolis, he had heard of the trickster demon monkey turned buddha. How he was born, How he became king, his travels for immortality, how he gained his 7 others, the rebellion, the journey, everything! He had grown to detest the simian. Everytime someone mentioned how heroic, tall, or handsome he was, he always had to mention the fact that he was described as short and ugly. Or how he acted before the journey with the monk tripitaka.

Only to find out he had been friends with the great sage equal to heaven, sure he was right about the monkey king (could he even call him that now?) Being short. But he wasn't the way he was described at all. Instead of the 4 feet tall, hideous monkey he had always heard about, she (?) Was a 5,2 monkey demon who could rival the beauty of the sun and moon. As bright and warm as the sun, but beautiful and charming like the moon.

"How did this happen, did she even know?"

"Had they ever told her..?"

Had I really fallen for a thousand year old monkey!?

...

"No, Nonono. Save those questions for the others. You can't just go jumping to conclusions" he scolded himself for thinking out of pocket. He didn't know the situation at hand.

He didn't care what or who she was. She was still shiHou. A sweet, spunky, and energetic young lady. No thousand plus year old monkey would act this way. And if she were, then why would she not know who the lady bone demon was. Didn't he fight the ivory lady during his journey to redemption? He was reported with the crew when she came back along with not-mayor. So they wouldn't need to tell her what happened. Her response said it all.

the monkey king wasn't known for being the best actor, and even they couldn't fake something like this. It's more dramatic in a way. Louder, and more exaggerated.

The way she reacted was like she was processing something hard to comprehend. The way she reacted isn't something you could just act out unless you were that good at it.

And besides! You and her have been friends since little kids!

Either way. He needed answers, and he was going to get them.

But if she did know, there would definitely be some changes. He'll ask ask one of them later when they aren't so busy trying to figure out a plan to rescue his friend.

'God's, please say this is just a big misunderstanding' he thought as he looked upstairs with a deadpanned expression.

---

Down below in a cold and dark shrine sat a pale, almost ill looking shiHou.

Her face showed no emotion. you could almost mistake her for a statue if you didn't see the slow rise and fall of her chest.

She had been moved to a different room and was now sitting on the stone floor between what was left of lady bone demon, and a crystal of ice that seemed to drain any strength she had left to try and break free from the prison that was her mind.

Her stoic ice blue eyes turned to the large doors to see not-mayor waltz his way in with his usual grin.

"Sorry you had to wait for so long, I was just taking some. precautions! We don't want anyone robbing you of your destiny! now, do we?" He strained, putting the tips of his fingers under her chin and tilted her head up. He seemed pleased by the emptiness in her entire being.

Meanwhile, Behind those empty eye's of her's, she was struggling to slip through her restraints.

It was just like in her dreams. Dark and cold, with hundreds if not thousands of blue chains keeping her from breaking free.

All the sudden the chains disappeared. Leaving her in the dark. She began to feel something press against her. Jagged and sharp against her back to her head before it settled for a bit.

Her heavy breathing and grunting were the only sounds she could hear. It just didn't sound like herself. How odd?

Before she could call for someone to let her out, a crack of light showed through the reddish sapphire crystals before spreading around it. The stone began to crumble around her as she tumbled to the ground.

Looking around, she felt the earge to bow down to all four directions. She did what her instinct told her but when she sat back up, a powerful golden beam of light shot through her eyes all the way to the heavens sending her rolling to the edge of the clip she was on before she closed her eyes.

She breathed quickly as she covered her eyes. When she opened them again, the beams were gone. Finally being able to, she looked around herself. She was at the senter of the mountain at its highest peak.

ShiHou was about to back away from the edge, but she must have pressed too hard, for when she did, she began her fall from the top. A few grunts a chirps here and there.

She finally stopped when she hit the ground with a thump that would have killed most people.

Getting up, she shook her head, getting rid of the dust in her fur, and began to look around the mountain. Albeit, she was limping as she crawled around, feeling too weak to stand on her own two feet.

Making her way through the flora and fauna, looking at the trees that had all types of fruit. All the animals that would hide behind bushes and other monkey demons looking down at her from the said trees.

Soon, she found herself next to a spring.

Crawling further to the edge but still being mindful of how far she would go, she peaked over the side. And in her place was a ginger monkey cub with soft golden eyes.

She scrambled back with her back, hitting a tree, letting out a monkey like scream.

'Where am i?! I want to go home with my family! Quick! Think of the last thing you remember! Stop! You're being over dramatic! Quick being so sensitive!' She thought to herself.

"Maby, there's someone that can help me." Now that thought gave her hope.

Looking around, she noticed the army of monkeys looking down at her. She gasped a bit before opening her mouth to ask for help, but stopped when a elder looking monkey demon came towards her with narrowed eyes.

The elder monkey had tan fur with Grey patches and green eyes. The female monkey looked at shiHou with curiosity.

She gathered up the courage to speak, but was shocked when no words came out, but instead a chirp.

Jumping surprise, she tried again, crawling closer with desperation.

Suddenly the female pressed her hands on her cheeks, shutting her up. The monkey's deep grean eyes stared into her newly gold one's. The older of the two began to look her over, gently turning her face to either side.

Her eye's softened, matching the smile that had spread across her face. She was pulled for a hug, yelping from the sudden action.

She curled into a ball while the tan furred monkey herself curled around her protectively. "It's okay dear, you'll be safe with me." Her voice was raspy from age and soothing to the ear. Lulling her to sleep.

Before she was dragged into a dreamless sleep, she heard the woman say, "no one will harm you as long as I'm here"

---

"Okay! We've gone through 3 ideas!- which isn't a lot if you think about- but anyways! Do we have any suggestions?" Mk said nervously, Sweat dripping down the side of his face?

"Well. We could get help from the celestial realm and work our way up from there" nezha suggest.

Everyones except for subodhi and guanyins head snapped towards him. "You couldn't have started with that!?!!" They all said grouped together and fuming with nezha looking away.

Shoving them away he looked back at them with his eyes slanted I'm anger, "I would have said something if you guys weren't talking over eachother to come up with a half brain idea!" The others paused at this, mk laughed sheepishly, "Sorry continue" he said quickly before backing away nervously.

Nezha continued with a sigh, completelydone with there bullshit "Anyway! I could possibly get erlang to to help us. I don't really know how willing they are to help a younger version of wukong- not to mention wukong in general. Buuut" "but?" Mk said expectantly. "They might help if we can give them a reasonable excuse to not just leave wukong for dead."

"*sigh* Well, can you teleport us all there at once? Oooor" Pigsy said, pointing out the obvious question with his brows raised, waiting for an answer.

"No! I can't just teleport us all to the celestial realm where I have lived for thousands of years with enough practice to teleport an army of people." The others stayed quiet, "well?" Mk bravely spoke.

...

"OF COURSE I CAN TELEPORT US THERE!!!!!!!!" The others jumped in shock with an indication yelp

Chapter Text

Once their plan was set, the crew, along with the others, boarded onto Sandy's ship. And with a ton of convincing from Orfeo to let him come with, they were finally ready for travel.

They all had noticed how tense and nervous the boy was. Every time they looked at him, her seemed to be mentally preparing himself for something.

---

how exactly is he supposed to ask? How should he go about it? 'Hey, i sort of eavesdropped on your conversation and I was just wondering, is shiHou, who I have known since we were little kids and might not be who I thought she was really THE monkey king?" How would they react? How would it affect their friendship? Would anything ever be the same again?

Behind him, his shadow began to stretch, and cold blue eyes peered over him.

A physical being stepped out with heavy steps, which startled the boy. He quickly turned his head to whoever it was only to be faced with the manic face of macaque.

He paled with fear, knowing that something really bad had happened between him and the others he had grown to call family.

The dark furred macaque demon smiled maliciously before he grabbed his face and began to pull him into his shadow.

"Macaque!?"

Said monkey stopped his attempt at kidnapping the boy to turn his once amber yellow eyes now a cold ominous blue towards them with the same wicked smile he greeted orfeo with before continuing on.

He sank into his cold shadows and said, "Don't worry, kid, you'll be able to see our dear friend soon~"

"It's nothing personal!"

With those words, they hurried to grab hold of the young water demon before he was taken to wherever they were keeping shiHou

.

.

.

They all stared in blank horror at the wall the shadow weaver had gone through.

after a pause, tang shrill voice echoed through the air while he began to cling onto-not pigsy!- but his dangly staff, "What a-a-are we going to do!?! we have to get him back!!! What are we going to tell his mother!!? This is bad!!!"

Pigsy came by and roughly smacked him on the neck cause him to fall into a fetal position, "Yeah! We ge' tha' tang!!! We also need to et shiHou back before they can even do anything to him!!!"

as they began to bicker like an old married couple, Mk was having his own inner turmoil backing away, those words -'it's nothing personal!'- they just kept repeating over and over in his head like a broken record.

Those were the same words he said to mk when he first betrayed him. When he decieved him in order to get to monkey king. When he tried to kill him.

He kept worrying for orfeo and wuko- shiHou! Wukong wasn't there at the moment, and he didn't know if he would ever come back. But it was fine, everything happened for a reason and because of the incident he was now closer to her than ever. He just wished it could have happened when they had a mentor successor relationship.

Throughout his thoughts, the crews panicked state was nothing but background noise. So when he turned back to them, imagine his shock when they were all tied in Nezha's ribbons just to shut them up.

What made it funny was that guanyin had put bows on them. The biggest one was being on pigsy (who looked absolutely done with everything) on the back of his head.

He couldn't help but snirk at how ridiculous they looked.

After a couple of snirks and giggles here and there, he was able to compose himself.

He cleared his throat before looking out of the ships window to see they had been in the celestial realm. He began to buzz with excitement, turning around, almost giving himself whiplash. He saw his friends being untied. "We're here!!! If we want to save them we have to go now!"

They stared

"Well, what are we waiting for!? Come on! Leggo!!!"

He shoved them all out of the ship and onto the celestial ground where spears of the celestial guards pointed at them.

"Well this was totally unexpected-" nezha raised his spear, a way of telling them, 'put down your damn weapons and think rashionally here you dumbasses' though that is something wukong would do- stop mk!

-

Realizing their mistake, the guards dropped their weapons and stood in a straight rod position before bowing to the goddess and gods before bowing and leaving in rush before they could get a scolding for acting in such a way towards two of the higher gods and student of erlang.

...except one. One who stood with his mouth agape and frozen in horror before rushing over a keeling infront of guanyin nezha and subodhi apologizing over and over again, "I'm so sorry! Please forgive me for this heinous act!" He pressed his head harder into the ground to show his sincerity.

Nezha looked down at the poor soldier with guilt. He didn't know that such a simple act would have caused them fear. He probably should have thought about that before doing anything.

He remembered a time one of the guards had mistaken him for demon- he was technically. He was born a demon- it was late at night when he had been attacked by the guard. The next day that guard had been relieved of his duties, after that, everyone had made sure to treat him with the utmost respect.

...

He tried to be sure that he didn't come out as threatening. All of those times when he was mortal and everyone would run from him because he was a demon came and welcomed themselves into his mind causing him to feel immense guilt.

"That's quite alright, now, would you go get erlang and li Jing for us? It would be appreciated if we could speak to them."

The young celestial warrior nodded vigorously before running off to find the general and Nezha's father.

---

Their hearts sank when they heard erlang laugh at wukongs predicameTheyli Jing snickered behind his hand.

They didn't want to mention the fact that who they thought was an adult monkey had turned into a child who really has no idea what or who she is. And to be honest, they didn't know if they wanted her to know about it just yet.

They watched on as erlang and li Jing began to bad mouth Their sweet little monkey. "I'm sorry, you want us to help save wukong?" They nodded, "wukong, The monkey king, self proclaimed great sage equal to heaven" erlang and li Jing were both a bit salty that wukong had been able to beat them so easily and so many times- single handedly at that! But they didn't think that they would have held on to the grudge for so long. Not even nezha knew that they held such hate towards her.

Suddenly, they were whacked on the head by shifu subodhi, and the two collapse to the ground while groaning in pain. Snapping their head over to him, mei and mk covered eachothers heads while staring at him warily. "Hold your tongue! Just because you hold a high status here doesn't mean you are worthy of my respect. Now stand up tall and quick acting like children, we have important matters to discuss"

---

Down below, in the same cold room shiHou had been in for a couple days now, a shadows formed on the wall with orfeo being thrown on the ground.

He shivered at the roughness of the payment as he pushed himself up, he grabbed at his stomach wincing at the pain, 'that's gonna leave a mark'

A foot was placed infront of him. He slow craned his neck up to look at the same man that got them into this situation.

His expression turned into a sneer, eyes widening in anger, he suddenly through himself at the sphyco, bringing them back towards the ground. "YOU SON OF B*** YOU F*** SPHYCO!!!" Macaque who was standing in his shadow was standing there slack Jaw with his eyes widened. He didn't think the kid had so much bark.

He watched as the kid slammed not-mayor to the ground. He physically cringed at the sound of not-mayors skull crashing onto the pavement.

And bight!

"WHERE IS SHE!!? WHERE IS SHIHOU!?! I SWEAR IF EVEN LAYED A FINGER ON HER HEAD I WILL MAKE SURE TO MAKE THE REBELLION AGAINST HEAVEN SEEM LIKE A CHILDS TANTRUM, I SWEAR TO ALL THE GODS ABOVE!!!!!!!" Even through all the screaming, cursing, and threat of basically making not-mayors life a living hell - though of course he physical isn't able to match the anger the great sage equal to heaven had, the threat mentally weighed down on him.

So even though he was going to let the boy see his little girl friend, the threat made him even more eager to do it.

Thankfully, once the boy saw the half golden, he was emmdietly deterred from his plan for revenge against the creep.

Rushing towards her, he was about to wrap his arms around her when he noticed the off temperature coming from her.

"She's as cold as ice" he whispered breathlessly.

This was worrying since she was usually gave off the warmth of a furnace. She was always warm!

His breathing began to pick up as tears began to pool in his eyes for the concern he felt for her. "What did you do to her?" He wheezed out.

Finally, he was able to bring her into a hug. No matter how freezingly cold she was tobthe point he was shaking from head to toe, his teeth clanking together from the cold nipping at his skin.

He let out a choked sob. Could you blame him? He thought he was going to lose her for good. The entire thought about her secretly being the monkey king was emmedietly replaced with the thought of her being alright.

And besides, just looking at her face reminded him that there was no way she could fake being the innocent curious girl he's known for almost his whole life.

He glared at the man who came in front of him and his unconscious friend, hugging her even more protectively than before.

With his arms securely wrapped around her, he began his pursuit in backing away from the danger that was macaque and the man. Though Macaques face looked more stoic making him look surprisingly less threatening.

The man in his iconic striped suit grabbed him by the chin so that they were at face level, his smile wide and creepy as ever, "Don't worry my dear boy! You're destiny will be fulfilled soon" and with that, roughly letting go, he left through a portal of his own, leaving him to care for his dear friend.

In the darkness of the room, he looked up to the sealing and looked around to see if there was some form of escape while hoping and praying that praying that the others would save them soon.

Chapter Text

It was getting worse. So. So much worse. It seemed like every time orfeo looked at her, the coolness of her body seemed to increase. He swore he saw frostbite slowly creeping along her fingertips.

Though it was a good thing he brought the lether jacket, it just didn't seem to help. nothing he did seemed to help! 

He was becoming desperate. At times, he would try to pass on the warms of his own body but would get a blast of what felt like shards of ice pass through his body. He had enough.

Standing up with a determination expression, he looked up at the sealing, took a deep breath, and yelled, "... HEY! TALL COLD AND CREEPY! I'M SURE THIS IS PROBABLY APART OF YOUR EVIL PLAN AND EVERYTHING! BUT PLEASE! HELP SHIHOU!" He said with a hint of desperation.

He waited a bit with no reply.

what would a villains lap dog want? "... YOU WOULDN'T WANT YOUR VESSAL FOR THAT LADY BONE WI-ah! DEMON! TO BE TOO WEAK WHEN SHE'S FREE RIGHT!?" 'Ooooh! That could have ended badly!' He thought to himself.

He waited. But nothing. No one came.

He let out a choked sob before looking back at his friend with tear filled eyes and gaping frown that creased the edge of his lips. Trudging his way over, feeling the heavy weight of someone's life in his hand - Not just an ordinary life, but his best friends life. He swears he would do anything for her if he had the choice.

He looked around in case not mayor had decided he was worth the time. But there was no one and nothing to show their arrival.

He pressed his face into shiHou's hair when he heard the tapping of feet. He looked up to see not-mayor, and macaque stepped out of a swirl of blue and white.

The threatening man stepped before him with his ever present smile and said. "My dear boy~ I wouldn't say she's a vessel. We're just putting all of her unchanneld energy to use." Orfeo didn't know if he should be relieved or not, sure his friend wouldn't controlled against her will, but he didn't know what using her energy would do to her, could she survive this?

"Though, that does remind me!" He snapped his fingers, and macaque stood more attentive, awaiting command like a trained dog.

"Find that Bai he girl, I'm sure my lady would be extatic to see her first hosts is still alive and well enough to hold her spirit!" With a nod, the six ears macaque was gone. Leaving through his shadows.

---

"Alright! Operation save wukong and Orfeo, aka Operation SWAO! is a go!" Mk said with his usual chipper voice.

They were finally able to find where not-mayor and macaque had taken shiHou and Orfeo. It would have been easy since mei had fortunately put a tracker on both of the kids, but their locations seemed to change everything 10-15 minutes. 7. There were 7 different locations from underground, all in megapolis.

"Alright! Let's save our water boy and monkey girl!" Mei said, popping up next to mk and pressed her face against the window.

Suddenly, she pulls a walky talky from her pocket. Making a sound to signify the person she was talking to, "*tchh* this is fire dragon to daddy pig! We have our eyes sighted on the victim. Over! *tchh"

There was a little pause, then a gruff sigh came over the radio, "I did' not' agree to tha name!-" "*tchh!* just tell me where you're at! Over! *tchh*" mk started to sweat, he swears he can hear pigsy's blood pressure rising. "We're in'the electrical room, tang's tryin ta figure out what ta pull so that we don' end-up drawing that' creeps attention here'"

Mei scoffed at the pig demons annoyance and put the walky talky in her back pocket.

The plan was that pigsy and tang would turn the power off so that nothing could power whatever it was that shiHou was hooked up to while the legendary erlang shen and li Jing would distract not-mayor and macaque by making themselves seem like the bigger threat. Sandy and his army of therapy cats would be on the lookout in case anyone came, mei and mk would take care of getting shiHou and orfeo out of there before anything disastrous happened.

Above them, the demon bull family and the three celestials were ready to defend and bring the children out of harms way.

Mk didn't care if shiHou was quite literally the younger version of wukong! He made a silent vow to give her the life the life she was never able to have! And if it were him in this situation, he could only hope she would do the same. Fuck the legends! She was now his little sister and he was going to treat her like a person God damn it!

Mk blinked a few times at the quick sound of metal against metal. Mei had went and hefted the vent from where they we looking into the dimly lit room.

"Wait! We still haven't gotten confirmation from the others to see if they were ready!" Mk screeched in a low whisper.

Mei skeptically raised her eyebrow at her best friend, "I did check with them..." mk blinked a few times, "O-oh! I didn't-" "are you okay dude? You've been off lately." Mk began to struggle for an answer, "i-i-it's just...-" "just what" Mei said, her voice tinged with worry, "I'M JUST WORRIED..!"

Mk leaned against the vents walls with a sigh. "I never thought in a million years that this would happen. I feel horrible for about what happened to wukong, The monkey's back on flower fruit mountain are missing there king, and wukong doesn't remember his life from before everything happened! I worry everyday that something bad is going to happen to her, it's one thing for wukong, The monkey king to be in this situation, it's another for shiHou to be in this position- and I can't even believe that before I thought that it was fine if wukong was hurt, it just felt like it was better for him to be in a bad situation than you guy's, I thought he could handle everything."

Mei went and put a comfortable hand on his shoulder,  "Mk! We're talking about the legendary monkey king, he could handle everything-" the brunette ripped her hand from his shoulder. "Augh! That's the thing! just because wukong is immortal doesn't mean she doesn't feel the aftermath of it all! She's still a person and deserves to be treated as such!.." "... mk-"

Mei was about to reassure and smooth out mk's worries when he interrupted to speak his thoughts and worries.

"I still remember that day we were attacked by lbd. She had saved me from her, risked what little power she had left just to save me! and than we all acted like she didn't arrive looking like she had been through hell and back! I just let you guys accuse her of leaving me to deal with that bone with for her vacation- I accused her of it. I didn't bother to ask about her side of the story, didn't even consider asking."

"Mk"

What kind of successor am I!? How could I just worry about myself and ignore the person who was in more need of assistance!?"

"Mk!"

I'm such a bad friend, and I don't deserve her or any of you-!"

"MK!"

At this point, the young adult was shaking with sobs. He looked taken aback by his best friends yell. Mei, seeing the state her friend was in closed the vent and wrapped her arms around laters neck.

"Mk, you cannot blame yourself for everything." She pulled away with a surgery sweet smile, "you were younger back then, and scared. she did lie to you about going on vacation. I mean. How were you suppose to know?"

"But-"

"nope! That was in the past! You shouldn't be worrying about that! And besides, you get to have a chance at getting to know shiHou, you aren't living with the legend, you aren't getting to know the monkey king. you're living a sweet young monkey lady. That was you mk. Well, you, pigsy, me, tang, sandy, and basically every redeemed villain. You should be proud that you were able to keep shiHou like this, able to keep her from the world that made her like that." Mk looked away before Mei grabbed his face to look her in the eyes, "mk! I may not know wukong as much as you did, but I sure as hell know he was proud and felt lucky to have someone like you in his life."

There was a pause between them. The only source of sound was mk's sniffles and whines, "I miss my mentor!"

Mei playfully coo'd at mk's pitiful self and started to dramatically comfort him, making mk laugh.

A couple of giggles and snirks here and there, then the sound of metal against metal was heard from beneath them.

They looked down to see the vent was becoming loose under Mei's weight. It loosened even more before they looked at eachother and said, "uh oh" before it completely gave way and fell from under Mei, causing a chain reaction of her falling with it and mk bring pulled along with a loud thunk of his head on the edge of the vent.

They came crashing onto the ground with a couple of groans.

???"Mk! Mei! Your here!"???

They quickly got up to see orfeo awake and well besides a slight possibility of hypothermia and holding on to the smaller golden monkey next to him.

Running over to hug the two unconscious and conscious demon children, "orfeo! Thank God you two are okay!" Mk freted, "how are you two not meat Popsicles right about now? It's freezing in here!" Mei said with her voice shaking from the coldness.

Mk went to pick up shiHou who he noticed was extremely cold to the touch. He looked down to notice the slight blue of her fingertips. 'Probably the effect of whatever that sphyco lap dog had done'

He got rid of the stuff that was hooking her to a pile of bones and ice, the most noticeable thing was the amount of energy that was in it and the energy shiHou lacked. Using his eyes of truth, his face became white with horror. The same energy shiHou has. "We have to get you guys out of here, we'll be able to get you to a safer place as soon as we do."

Suddenly a blue portal where both li Jing and Erlang were thrown out with pained grunts. Behind them not-mayor came out with a sinister aura surrounding him.

"Now. Where do you think you're going with my source of power?"

Chapter Text

Mk, the monkey kid and Mei, the descendant of Ao lie! What a pleasant surprise! Have you come to witness the resurrection of my lady to see the power she will bring to this imperfect world?" The not-mayor's voice was disturbingly cheerful, with an almost manic lilt to it.

Mei's eyes widened in terror as she scanned the room, a cold shiver running down her spine. Her instincts screamed that everything would go downhill. “Resurrection of... Lady Bone Demon?” she muttered, her voice trembling.

They did NOT want to deal with her again!

 Her gaze darted from the not-mayor to the ice block, where a faint glow of energy pulsed from within. The air itself hummed with overwhelming power.

Mk turned his head sharply to the block of ice as its glow faded, power transferring from it to the once-pile of bones now twitching into life. His heart sank. The pale, mangled form of Lady Bone Demon's limbs twisted and snapped back into place with sickening cracks.

The bones of her body began to take shape, and flesh stretched over the skeletal frame. The transformation was slow and deliberate. Her body was coming together, not fully there, as she still lay there, motionless, her soulless eyes not yet open.

The not-mayor, cackling madly, didn't notice MK's sudden shift in demeanor. He watched as the not-mayor's eyes were glued to his fully formed lady, completely absorbed in the spectacle of his triumph.

Mk seized the opportunity. Quietly, he formed a clone of himself and shiHou, using the distraction to grab hold of Orfeo. Without a word, he pressed the staff into the ground and anxiously whispered, "We need to get out of here."

The clone was perfect in form as Mk willed his staff to stretch upward, Mei grabbing the lifting themselves toward the vent Mei and Mk had fallen from earlier.

Mei followed and helped MK keep Orfeo and shiHou steady as they ascended.

---

Under the pressure, the clone burst into a puff of fur, leaving behind only a faint trace of hair as the unconscious auburn-furred monkey collapsed to the ground with a soft *poof*.

The Not-mayor's eye twitched as he whirled around, his gaze snapping to the two celestial warriors, still struggling to regain their composure. The edges of his lips curled, showing his disdain through the manic smile he always wore. His eyes narrowed at the pathetic display.

However, he could care less about them and even considered them a waste of his and his lady's time. He called macaque to shadow portal them home and watched as they were consumed and taken back to the celestial realm.

He didn’t need two overzealous gods ruining his lady’s plan to make the world perfect.

They looked up in time to see MK and Mei plummeting from the sky, shouting in surprise as they fell alongside a smaller water demon in the arms of Mei. His eyes were shut tight, clearly bracing himself for the impact ahead. Pigsy’s heart leaped into his throat as he watched them drop, unable to do anything but stare in disbelief.

Pigsy froze, holding his breath, until he saw Sandy standing tall, arms outstretched, having effortlessly caught everyone.

With a relieved sigh, Pigsy allowed himself a brief chuckle, but the moment's tension caught up with him. He fainted, collapsing into Tang’s arms. Tang anxiously looked between Pigsy and the others, waving his hand in front of Pigsy’s face.

Mk shook his head from the shock of what he and Mei had witnessed. Lady Bone demon was back?

Though Tang himself looked as though he wanted nothing more than to wrap them in bubble wrap and lock them in the safest room known to man, he had thankfully learned to keep his excitement in check over the years.

“Kid! What happened?!” Pigsy shouted, but his words were drowned out by the sharp crack of ice splitting the earth. Large shards erupted, shooting toward them at neck-breaking speed.

DBK wasted no time, quickly pulling ShiHou from MK’s arms and rushing her toward their private recovery room. MK stood frozen, momentarily stunned by the chaos of it all as he watched the three Celestials- along with Sandy, Pigsy, and Tang- follow behind. Redson and Mei quickly moved to his side, pulling him up from the ground.

Red Son narrowed his eyes at the two idiots he called friends.

“So, mind telling me why it took you two so long to get Orfeo and ShiHou?” he asked, his tone sharp and demanding.

Mk and Mei exchanged a nervous glance, both gulping.

“Well—”

Red Son cut them off, striding over to the table. He grabbed the remote and clicked on the news. “Oh, and before you answer that…” he muttered, watching the screen, waiting for their response.

The duo's eyes widened in horror as they watched the screen. The reporter showed an eruption of ice bursting from the ground. The reporter’s voice trembled, both from the cold and fear as they described it, calling it the "natural" disaster from two years ago a threat once more. A warning blared across the screen, urging people to seek shelter immediately.

Suddenly, a massive ice block shot up from the earth, sending the cameraman flying backward. The screen flickered with static, cutting off the broadcast.

Redson’s white-hot glare snapped to them as if they were the cause of this- which, in all honesty, they couldn’t blame him. They were usually at the center of everything. But they couldn’t help but shout “It’s not our fault!” in twin-like unison.

They began to scramble for an explanation, careful to not interrupt each other.

Redson tilted his head forward as he rubbed the bridge of his nose and he felt a migraine assault him. “Buddha give me strength,” he muttered.

The hot-headed bull prince marched over and slapped them both over the head. His hair flared up in a fiery explosion. "Get a grip, you knuckleheads! You didn’t do anything to stop whatever Lady Bone Demon’s puppet was up to?!”

Mk’s face shrunk while Mei shrunk back with a crooked smile.

Mei dragged out the word, “…No?”

Red Son’s eye twitched. He grunted and slowly sank to the ground in disappointment.

The door down the hall slammed open, and Red Son’s head slowly turned, his expression one of exasperation. Mei and MK, who had been huddling together to shield each other from Red Son’s fury, quickly ran over to the elders.

“So? How are they? Orfeo and shiHou. Are they okay?” MK fretted.

The demon bull family doctor, a light-navy blue snake demon with elegant white swirls marking his tail and fading up his arms, stepped forward. His long, silky black hair framed his face, and his piercing blue eyes- matching his overall color scheme- seemed to convey both focus and serenity. He wore the Demon Bull family’s signature colors, fitting for his role as the Demon Bull family’s doctor.

He browsed his notepad before meeting their gaze, his expression unreadable. “Orfeo is making a decent recovery. He has some frostbite that's temporarily affected the nerves in his fingertips and has a mild cold. I’ll prescribe a pain reliever to ease his discomfort. He should recover in about one to two weeks.” Sandy averted his gaze from everyone as sweat trickled down his forehead. Marina was going to kill him.

He turned the page in his notepad, his brow furrowing slightly. 

“As for ShiHou,” he continued, his voice softening, “Given her time spent under the influence of Lady Bone Demon’s henchman and the fact that she had to give up much of her energy and power to accommodate Lady Bone Demon’s body, she may remain in a comatose state for a while. We are uncertain when she’ll wake up. Given who she is, However, rapid recovery may come with some drawbacks, such as the sudden gain in power, which can be dangerous and harsh on her body. But we’re also concerned about the sheer toll the energy drain has taken on her.

All in all, this is merely a guess. Her current condition and the way her body will go about healing remain an enigma to us. We ask for your patience during this time as we wait for her to regain consciousness."

With that, he turned away, leaving the family in the living room. The silence weighed heavily on them as they processed what the snake demon had said.

MK’s eyes flicked up suddenly. Without another thought, he ran past the group, heading straight for the door.

“Wait!” he yelled, his voice urgent.

The snake demon turned, eyebrows raised in question, as MK stopped in front of him, catching his breath. “Um, you are…?”

“Lee-ping,” The snake demon answered quickly.

“Right. Cool name!” The snake demon gave him a brief smile at the boy’s clumsiness before his gaze hardened into a serious expression. “Uh, you don’t think I could possibly check on ShiHou, right?”

With that, Lee-ping guided him to ShiHou and Orfeo’s room. He opened the door for MK and closed it behind him when he entered.

Looking around, MK took notice of the clean and pristine room. “Maybe I should get some tips on cleaning from these guys,” he muttered.

“MK?”

The familiar voice made MK look over at Orfeo, whose bed was next to shiHou’s.

Mk smiled softly before speaking, “Hey, how are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine. A little numb, cold... I’m sure the doctor told you guys about the frostbite.” Orfeo’s eyes shifted to ShiHou, and his smile faded. “Will she be okay?”

MK’s expression softened with sympathy as his gaze drifted over to ShiHou, the sight of her lying so still sending a pang of sorrow through his chest. His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer, as if trying to absorb every detail, She looked so much like she had before everything happened- fiery red hair framing her face, the peach-colored mask resting lightly around her eyes, and the short fur that covered her cheeks.

Normally, that fur would crinkle when she flashed one of her infamous, cheeky grins. 

It felt as if time had stood still, and for a brief moment, MK let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, she would wake up right then and there, and they could return to the way things used to be.

But reality rushed back in the next heartbeat, and his heart tightened. The change was undeniable. He missed the mentor she had once been—the larger-than-life figure who had always been a force of nature, full of energy, unpredictability and drive.

There were days when he longed for her constant encouragement, her infectious enthusiasm, and the way she could push him forward even when things felt impossible. 

Those days, filled with her offbeat wisdom and impulsive sense of adventure, were the ones he missed most. 

The grief of that loss never seemed to fade.

But in time, their relationship had shifted. The mentor-student bond he once shared with wukong had evolved into something entirely new. After everything that had happened, MK found himself seeing a different side of her- a side that, despite her younger self, still carried that unmistakable spark of determination, resilience, and stubbornness that had always defined her.

She may not have been the same towering figure of authority anymore, but she still had an ounce of her former glory- still the person who had always pushed him to be better, even when it didn’t make sense.

Their bond had grown from one of admiration and worship to something more to something more real, built on shared experiences, struggles, and a level of understanding that had developed as they both navigated their complicated world.

There were still moments when MK wished he could have his mentor back, the legendary hero, great stage equal to heaven. The monkey king who had once helped guide him. But what he had now was something far more meaningful. It wasn’t just about the hero she had once been, it was about the sister he had gained in return. Someone real, someone who understood him in ways no one else could. He had lost his idol, but he had gained something even more precious. an unbreakable bond. A sister.

He took to sitting at the edge of her bed, flicking a rogue strand of hair out of her face. His eyes glistened briefly before he schooled his emotions, forcing a soft smile.

“Yeah, she’ll be okay.” ‘She has to be,’ he thought.

Orfeo looked at MK with uncertainty, to which MK responded with a shaky smile. The boy took his word for it, sighing as he laid down and allowed sleep to take him into their arms.

While MK wanted to stay, he knew his friends and family needed him in the living room to discuss how they were going to take care of the Lady Bone Demon problem. He sighed, stood, and gently hugged ShiHou before walking to the door. A few quiet sobs escaped him along the way, choking on the weight of everything he couldn’t say. He paused at the door for just a moment, the silence heavy around him, before stepping out into the halls and gently closing the doors behind him.

Chapter Text

  Mk walked out into the living room, his head down in thought. He felt lighter than before, oddly enough. It was strange how calm he felt, considering everything that was going on.

Meanwhile, the room buzzed with frantic chatter. Everyone was trying to come up with a new plan since the last one had failed.

Mk’s mind drifted back to his conversation with Lady Bone Demon. He had truly believed they’d won when she admitted she knew when she was bested. So why? Why was she back?

It didn’t make any sense.

“MK!”

He looked up, and Mei’s eyes scanned him quickly, a hint of concern in them. “Hey, how was it?” she spoke with concern.

Mk's heart tightened at the question, but he shook his head slightly, pushing aside the heavy weight of worry. "They’re... holding on. But right now, we need to focus on what’s coming next. Lady Bone Demon’s not done yet."

The urgency in his voice was unmistakable. Mei nodded, her expression hardening with determination. There was no time to waste.

They gathered around the living room table, brainstorming every possible route, nook, and cranny they could exploit to trick Lady Bone Demon. Last time, they had relied heavily on force, power, and physical strength- there was some strategy to their plan, but it hadn't been enough. This time, they had to make sure she was gone for good. They needed a solid plan.

Redson’s voice broke through the conversation. “What happened to those two Celestials, Erlang Shen and Li Jing? Did they ditch you guys?”

His tone was dripping with skepticism, clearly unimpressed, and honestly, could anyone blame him?

“Oh, yeah. No, they’re useless. They were taken out way too quickly,” Mei replied bluntly, her tone as straightforward as ever.

Mk visibly cringed at the thought of how easily the celestials had been taken out by Macaque and the not-mayor. He couldn’t understand it.

He didn’t get it, they were supposed to be strong, almost unbeatable. The only one who had ever bested them was Sun Wukong. But now, faced with Lady Bone Demon, the not-mayor, and an empowered Macaque, Mk felt a wave of doubt wash over him. How were they supposed to defeat this?

Sure, they had done it before, you could probably scoff and roll your eyes, but this was different. Lady Bone Demon was built up on ShiHou's energy, making her far more dangerous than before.

And then there was the not-mayor. His agility and strength had noticeably increased, the result of some serious training, then with his control over Macaque, it was clear he had picked up more than just a few tricks from the villainous figure, making their odds even worse.

Mk dropped his head onto the table in defeat, unknowingly drawing everyone’s attention to him.

Sandy walked over, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Hey, monkey man, everything alright?”

Mk raised his head, his expression weary. “It’s just… what if we can’t defeat Lady Bone Demon? What if there’s nothing we can do? It’s just a constant fight!”

“Then we don’t fight!” Mei said enthusiastically. “You told me about your interaction with her after we thought she’d been defeated-”

Pigsy interrupted, his voice rising in alarm. “Wait, you talked to Lady Bone Demon!? Why wasn’t I informed of this??”

His concern was palpable, as most parents would feel.

“That doesn’t matter right now, Piggy!” Mei cut in. “This means she can be reasoned with! And with your go-lucky charm, Mk, you can convince her this isn’t the right choice!”

Mk thought it over. It was true, Lady Bone Demon did have some redeemable qualities. But would she even listen to him?

Would she really be open to something other than her own goals?

Nezha nodded, his gaze moving around the group. “She seems pretty dead set on her goals, but maybe, yes, it could work.”

Mei whooped and grabbed Mk’s arm, pulling him toward the door with a loud “Leggo!”

But their excitement was short-lived when Subodhi threw his signature makeshift weapon at Mei’s head, stopping her in her tracks.

Mk froze, staring at Mei as she suddenly collapsed, her body going completely limp. She hit the floor with a dramatic thud, her arms and legs splayed out in a haphazard sprawl.

Her face frozen in a mix of surprise and sheer nonsense, her mouth hanging open and her tongue sticking out just slightly, as if someone had pulled the plug on her all at once. It was the most ridiculous, over-the-top dead pose imaginable.

Mk backed away with a nervous laugh, dragging Mei back to the table, and they both settled down, the tension broken by a sheepish smile.

Guanyin chuckled softly at how nonsensical they had been just a moment ago, her eyes twinkling with quiet amusement. It was a strange thing, she hadn’t seen such chaos and humor amid everything going on since the journey to the west.

Wukong, always with his wild ideas and reckless energy, had rarely taken things seriously unless it was absolutely necessary. It had often been Guanyin’s role to steer him back onto the right path when the reincarnation of the golden cicada wouldn’t, even when Wukong’s ego fought against it.

She never showed it, but she always found it amusing when wukong would come to her.

Back then, Wukong’s visits to her rarely involved anything simple. She would storm in, all fire and fury, ranting about some rogue demon she had to face or asking for assistance in dealing with it. Some days, it would be a rant on how she'd been unfairly punished for her impulsiveness.

But then there was the fight with the Demon Bull King.

 She hadn't seen Wukong since.

Their usual talks, filled with his lively spirit and often light-hearted rants, had disappeared, leaving the mountain silent once more. The creatures and people living on the mountain seemed content, but Guanyin… she truly missed it. Her smile faded as the memory of those quiet days washed over her. Peaceful, yes, but without that spark- without Wukong's energy- it felt empty.

She sighed, shaking her head slightly as she turned her attention back to the room, her expression softening.

"Focus, Guanyin," the merciful goddess thought, her smile returning with a hint of quiet amusement as she observed the scene before her.

She looked up to the group, her thoughts shifting back to the task at hand. The fight wasn’t over. The real battle, the one against Lady Bone Demon, was still ahead. But for now, she allowed herself a fleeting moment to savor the chaotic warmth of this strange family she had found herself among. Their energy, their bond, even with all their faults, was a light in the darkness. A spark, in a world that was often too quiet, too empty.

Guanyin looked at the group again, her eyes twinkling with a quiet amusement as the weight of what needed to be done slowly settled over her. She chuckled softly, shaking her head slightly. "Alright," she said, a small smile tugging at her lips. "We need to focus on what comes next. Lady Bone Demon may have returned, but we will not let her win."

Her voice, though light, carried the same quiet confidence and determination she had often seen in Wukong, back in the days when they faced their battles with a mix of seriousness and unpredictability. With a final glance at MK and Mei, she gave a small nod, her expression softening. "But for now... let’s at least try to come up with a plan that doesn't involve any more dramatic collapses."

The brief humor in her voice lifted the mood in the room, and the group seemed to gather their bearings once more. Guanyin let out a soft sigh, knowing that the battle ahead would not be easy, but she felt the flicker of hope she always carried, even on the hardest of days.

"Let’s get to work, shall we?"

— (ShiHous Pov)

It was dark, an orange figure floated aimlessly in the center. She felt numb to everything around her. The last thing she remembered was fighting someone with her face. Landing a final blow on her opponent, a rush of burning hot rage surged through her before she blacked out and woke up to nothingness. She didn’t question it, however. She almost felt a sense of relief, as if a piece of her was being completed; she felt she was returning to a home

long forgotten, a place she hadn’t thought about for over eight hundred centuries.

Memories of people she had almost thought were part of her imagination flickered through her mind.

It wasn’t sleep, it wasn’t a dream.

It was the numbing sense that her life was slipping away.

That couldn’t be right.

She was seven times immortal, goddamn it!

Her chest felt heavy. She wanted to cry, but no sound passed her lips.

Darkness pressed in from every side, endless and cold.

There was nothing- no voices, no movement- only the quiet, endless void.

Fear settled deep inside her, raw and unspoken.

It twisted in her chest, tightening with each shallow breath.

She wanted to scream, call out for help! But all she could feel was the frantic rush of air filling her lungs all too quickly. Her breaths came in sharp, uneven gasps as if she were drowning in phantom waves.

The panic of losing her life clawed at her mind.

A cold emptiness crept in, seeping into every corner of her being. It wasn’t just quiet—it was a void trying to swallow her whole, dragging her away from the life she still desperately clung to. Her mind screamed against the darkness, but the weight was relentless, heavy as a sinking stone.

She could almost feel the edges of her life being stripped away, piece by piece, like shadows stealing light. Panic welled up deep inside, but no breath escaped. No cries. Only the raw, silent fight inside her chest, a stubborn spark refusing to be snuffed out.

She wasn’t ready-not yet. Not with so much left undone, so many faces she still had to see again. The void might claim her body, but it would never claim her will.

— (back with the group)

“Alright!” Mei crossed her arms with a huff, plopping herself on the couch. “Negotiating went nowhere. guess it’s back to the drawing board.”

“She’s stronger now,” Nezha said, rubbing his chin in thought. “We didn’t go all out before, but even then it was obvious.”

“It’s not just her anymore,” MK added, his voice low but determined. “She’s using ShiHou’s energy now.”

Red Son placed both hands on the table, his eyes narrowing. “She’s channeling power from ShiHou…” he muttered.

He paused, fingers drumming against the wood as he tilted his head. “We can’t just cut the connection. The energy isn’t just fueling her — it’s part of her now. Like the blood in her veins.”

He looked up, meeting their eyes.

“But maybe… we can disrupt how that energy functions, how it stays bound to her. We could weaken her. Maybe even force it to reject her.”

“Like… flushing it out?” Mei offered with a grin.

“Crude,” Red Son replied, “but yes. We force her body to stop accepting what isn’t hers.”

Suddenly, the lights began to flicker.

Buzz.

A beat of tension. A pause, like the room itself was holding its breath.

Then-

Bzzzzt—snap.

The power cut out with a final hum, the kind that crawled up your spine and left your ears ringing in the silence that followed.

Silence fell over the group as the room was enveloped in darkness, accompanied by a low hum.

“…Okay,” Mei muttered from the couch, sinking into it with a groan. “That’s not ominous at all.”

There was a shuffle of fabric and the soft thud of hesitant footsteps. Mo nervously chittered in Sandy’s arms as the giant stroked the cat’s fur.

“Um… guys?” Sandy’s voice was low and uneasy. “You might want to look out the window.”

A beat. The group turned every which way to look out the window. The group looked over and then froze.

Shards of ice were crawling on the glass, slowly engulfing the window in a web of frost.

The group exchanged a quick glance in the darkness before MK, Mei, Red Son, and Nezha- along with the adults- bolted out the door toward the battlefield. Behind them, DBK, Guanyin, and Subodhi turned and rushed to the care room where ShiHou and Orfeo were kept.

DBK slammed the door open, his eyes flaring as he saw the face of the possessed Macaque standing beside the ginger monkey’s bed. Shadowed eyes glowed faintly in the dark. He stood still, like a specter, staring past Orfeo with cold intent.

However, Orfeo didn’t budge.

He placed himself firmly between Macaque and ShiHou’s unconscious form. His body was tense as he held one arm out to the side, an attempt to hide her from Macaque’s cold gaze, shielding her with everything he had.

Macaque's shadowy eyes had a cold glint to them as they swept over the two gods and king.

His presence was that of a silent storm.

Quiet, yet heavy with malice. Every breath he took seemed to suck any ounce of warmth from the room. A slow, wicked grin curled at the corners of his mouth. There was a predator’s cold calculation behind that grin- like he was savoring every moment before the hunt.

—

Mk lunged himself into the air, barely dodging shards of ice that the lady bone demon hurled his way. He stumbled mid-jump, arms flailing as he fought to keep his balance.

Each shard gleamed like frozen daggers, sharp and unforgiving.

His landing was rough, barely steady on his feet.

MK skidded to a stop, nearly slipping on a patch of frosted ground. His breath fogged in front of him as he tried to take in everything.

Mei darted past him like a blur, her sword slicing clean through an ice construct.

She threw him a glance.

“Heads up, monkey man!” she shouted, already charging forward again, aiming to close the gap between her and the Lady Bone Demon.

MK jumped to the side, yelping as shards of ice rained down, slamming into the spot he’d just stood.

Red Son hurled a massive fireball, roaring with frustration as it crashed into a wall of enchanted ice. steam exploded in every direction, turning the air into a hot fog.

Nezha moved like a storm, spear spinning in his grip. He intercepted a barrage of frozen spikes, knocking them away before they could impale Tang and Pigsy.

 He glanced back at them, eyes sharp with unspoken warning, then surged forward toward the ice witch.

Sandy let out a guttural shout as he swung his staff in a wide arc, the ground shaking beneath his feet. It connected hard, sending Lady Bone Demon skidding back through the frosty air.

But she didn’t fall.

She righted herself mid-slide, her long hair whipping around her like smoke, and looked down on them from her perch in mid-air, her red eyes glowing, sharp with fury and cold calculation.

The ground had begun to shake. The lady bone demon wore a sharp smile.

Lady Bone Demon wore a sharp smile.

MK narrowed his eyes. There was something… off.

Thin cracks had started forming along her skin — faint at first, but growing, spidering out across

her arms and face like fractures in porcelain.

It reminiscent to Azure.

When Azure had taken the Jade Emperor’s power, his body had eventually started to fall apart under the weight of it.

He hadn’t been able to contain something that wasn’t his.

And now… it was happening again.

ShiHou’s energy. it didn’t belong to LBD.

And her body was starting to reject it.

MK looked over to Red Son before turning and tilting his head up at LBD, heart pounding

This felt deeper- like something inside her was rejecting itself!

…

shiHou’s energy.

Mk whipped his head to look at Redson. His heart was racing with excitement. It looked like lbd’s body was one step ahead with redson’s plan- and they didn’t even have to do anything!

Using his staff, he projected himself in between Redson and Mei, deciding to grab both of them and hide behind a rock.

“Noodle boy! What are you doing-?! were in the middle of a fight!” Red Son screeched in a hushed voice, his face flushing red in aggravation.

“Redson!” MK whispered, nearly vibrating with anticipation as he clutched the fire demon’s shoulders.

Red Son gave him a strange look, squirming slightly as he tried to create space between them.

“What!? What could possibly be so deeply important to you?!” he barked becoming increasingly impatient with mk’s antics

He put his attention on both his friends and pulled them closer. “You guys remember that plan Red Son told us about before Lady Bone Demon showed up?”

Red Son shot a glance at Mei, his brows knitting together and his eye twitching. Mei gave a slight shrug, and they both looked back at MK, one amused and eager, the other trying not to shake the answer out of him.

“Well! I don’t think we have to wait much longer!” He spun to look at Lady Bone Demon, pointing right at the cracks spidering over her ice-cold skin as she battled the Lotus Prince.

“She’s doing it for us!” his was was proud and with a touch of relief. Maybe this nightmare would finally be over. But then, another part of him twisted with sympathy. He couldn’t imagine your own magic turning against you, tearing you apart until there was nothing left.

Red Son and Mei peered over the rock. Their eyes went wide.

How had they not noticed those cracks before?

The energy wasn’t spreading cleanly- it crawled in sudden bursts, jagged and unpredictable, lashing out across her skin like it was trying to escape.

It didn’t look quite right

Lady Bone Demon is all about order- cold, perfect, and calculated.

But this?

This was wild and wrong.

The kind of power that didn’t follow rules

It wasn’t her’s and it showed

It was sporadic, unstable, and practically tearing her apart at random. Like it didn’t care what it wrecked, just that it kept wrecking.

Redson slowly ducked down for safety, looking over to the others before pulling them down as they cried out. They were about to say something before Redson yelled, “GET DOWN!”

Red Son slowly ducked down, eyes wide as he glanced toward the others. He looked at the others, then grabbed them by their shoulders to drag them down beside him, just as they were about to protest-

“GET DOWN!” Red Son snapped, his voice tight and loud, completely done with whatever nonsense was happening now.

—

Nezha dodged and swerved, narrowly avoiding the bone demon's strikes. He fought tooth and nail to take her down, and if that didn’t work, he would focus on holding her back until the others rejoined the fight.

The Not-mayor lay discarded on the ground. dead. Like he should’ve been the first time they fought “his lady.”

He spotted the cracks and for a moment, he thought it was his doing.

“Finally, progress”

But then there was a shout from the young demon bull prince.

“GET DOWN!”

His voice was urgent

Nezha turned just in time to dive toward Pigsy, Sandy, and Tang and called upon his universe ring just in time for golden energy to erupt in broken, desperate flashes.

A blinding flash swallowed the field. His ears rang from the shock.

When it faded, Particles of the stolen magic rained from the sky like scattered stars.

Nezha lowered the protective ring, silent. He turned and quietly led the others back inside.

—

When the group stepped inside, they froze.

They spotted a black furred macaque lying sprawled out across the couch. Instinctively, everyone tensed. Weapons half raised, prepared for another fight.

That was until Subodhi raised a hand and calmly placed a wet rag across Macaques brow.

He explained what had happened, and somehow his words calmed the room more than anyone expected.

Mk stared at macaque, his heart strings pulling in multiple directions, still remembering that night the shadow monkey left.

He was still mad about the way he snapped at shiHou’s innocent wish.

At the time, he’d thought Macaque had just… abandoned them.

Abandoned her

Maybe he was wrong about that, but the wound was still fresh, and he was sure the others felt the same.

Macaque had actually convinced him that wukong was the one in the wrong.

The one who had abandoned the albino monkey, but after that night… mk began to reconsider. Sure, wukong left for his adventures- a lot. But he never truly abandoned Macaque the way Macaque claimed he did.

Sure, Mk didn’t know all that wukong had done in the past.

She wasn’t some angel

But…

After seeing how easily it was for macaque to leave.

It was hard to believe wukong had been the one walking away all those times.

—

Macaque had DBK, the two gods, and Orfeo pinned to the walls by his shadowy tendrils. His steps were slow and deliberate as he walked closer toward ShiHou with a hollow kind of purpose.

But then, he stopped.

The four restrained against the wall screwed there eyes shut when a flash of light cut through the window.

Macaque flinched, but brushed it off and continued to walk to shiHou’s bed when he comes to a halt

A sudden tremor ran through his body. His shoulders twitched. Then again, harder. The shadows flickered.

And before anyone could react, Macaque dropped to his knees, like his strings had been cut.

A sick, metallic screech rang out from deep within his chest, and something began to pull

He arched his back

Blue mist tore from his back like smoke and shot across the room, flying through the door and out a now-shattered window, frost still clinging to the broken edges, and the mist dissipated into the air.

He collapsed face-first to the ground.

The tendrils holding the others snapped and disappeared.

Dbk moved first, hurrying Macaques side and lifting him with surprising care, settling him onto the living room couch while Subbodhi disappeared into the kitchen, quickly returning with a wet rag.

Guanyin rushed to ShiHou’s bedside the moment the others left. Her robe swept the floor as she dropped to her knees beside her. Her eyes scanned over shiHou, searching for signs of harm the possessed macaque might’ve caused before they entered the room.

Her breathing seemed okay, nothing out of the ordinary if you ignored the frost bite and ghost pale skin.

She would have to keep an eye on that.

Beside the doorway, Orfeo stood frozen, visibly shaken, trembling and wide-eyed.

He blinked a few times, slowly regaining composure.

He looked up to see that Guanyin had turned to him with a quite concerned expression. She held out her hand for him, a small gesture for him to join.

—

A few weeks passed, and the shop felt empty.

It took a while, but the city was completely back to normal, as if nothing had happened.

The streets were busy again, full of chatter and traffic, neon signs flickering like they always had. Mei’s social feed was filled with people posting photos of street food and festivals, acting like the city hadn’t been frozen over just weeks before.

MK even found a kid wearing a knockoff Monkey King mask, running around pretending to fight ghosts with a plastic staff.

His heart ached at seeing it.

Once, he would have found it amusing. He might’ve even joined in, twirling his own staff to show off a few moves, laughing with the kid.

Now, it just hurt.

It was like the city had simply… moved on.

But for them, it hadn’t.

ShiHou was alive, but she hadn’t woken up the entire time. The frostbite had healed with proper care, and the frost that had stubbornly clung to her fur had melted, but her breathing had become alarmingly light and shallow, and her skin was deathly pale.

Her body temperature had yet to rise.

Subodhi and DBK started making daily check-ins, becoming increasingly more worried about the ginger monkey’s health. DBK would rumble softly from the doorway, sometimes sitting quietly beside her just to watch her chest rise and fall.

It was the only thing that let him know she was still there.

It got to a point where his wife had to personally guide him away every so often.

Macaque recovered fairly quickly. The crew took their time in forgiving him this time, and he promised to change for the better, promised he wouldn’t let his and Wukong’s past consume his entire life.

They would find the shadow monkey hovering in the hallway, arms crossed, shadows twitching around his feet in case he needed to make a quick escape to his theater (home), guilt flickering across his face every time he looked into the recovery room.

And orfeo, he asked his mom if he could visit often, she would make time out of her day to drive and stay at the bull family's home while her son would talk to his best friend.

Even if she couldn’t hear.

Guanyin visited often, checking ShiHou’s pulse with gentle fingers, her eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed with worry each time she felt how weak it had gotten.

From vibrations of energy to a dull thump.

Her heart would practically launch into her throat whenever a heartbeat was delayed.

Finally, one morning, Princess Iron Fan caught Guanyin standing near the kitchen, worry etched across her features.

“She’s not getting better, I presume,” she spoke the obvious.

Guanyin sighed, glancing in the direction of ShiHou’s room. “No,” she admitted softly. “She needs more than rest to recover from this.”

“I’ll go gather the others if that will bring you comfort,” Pif said, turning, readying herself to leave.

“Please do, that would be lovely, thank you.”

Pif nodded, folding her arms before walking off.

—

Chatter filled the room the group sat in, waiting to find out why they had been called back there in such a hurry.

Guanyin came out a bit later, Orfeo trailing close behind her, his expression was unreadable.

The others had taken this month to relax. The tension in their shoulders had eased, and the exhaustion was still there, but it had settled a bit. Guanyin cringed at the sight. She almost hated what she was about to say next.

She cleared her throat, drawing everyone's attention to her.

“I know you all must be relieved that the ivory lady, or as you know her, Lady Bone Demon, is dead, and that you are still recovering from the fight,” she began carefully.

Mei’s brow arched, eyeing the goddess suspiciously. “But?” she asked, drawing out the word.

“But I’m gonna have to ask you to travel to the celestial realm. I will send you there, and Nezha will join you. I know you’ve been before, but… security’s gotten stricter. There are guards everywhere since you guys stole from heaven the first time.”

The group collectively tensed. Beads of sweat formed on their forehead as they avoided eye contact.

Guanyin chuckled softly. They really weren't the sneakiest bunch. Nezha had spotted them back then as well and found the whole thing so ridiculous that he let it slide. He and Guanyin had made sure no one else saw them as they ran to their ship.

However, after the peach maidens discovered a peach was missing, and Lao Tzu found out his trigram furnace and immortal pills had been stolen, he practically demanded security be stationed everywhere.

Honestly, it was laughable.

Guanyin put her hands together and turned to the child behind her. She knelt down and placed a hand on his shoulder.

He looked up.

Guanyin smiled softly, “Would you like to join them in the Celestial Realm? If you don’t want to, that’s completely fine! But I will come along too, if that helps.”

He thought for a moment. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance! Something he might never get to experience again, and he was sure it wouldn’t be a hassle if the group had done it before.

He looked over to his mom, a silent ask for permission.

Marina paused in thought, then smiled and nodded.

“...Yes, I would like that,” he said politely.

His voice was quiet and soft, but there was a steadiness that made Guanyin’s lips curve into a soft smile.

He was a good kid.

Pigsy’s gruff voice cut in, thick with curiosity. “Why exactly do you need us to go up to the Celestial Realm anyway?”

Guanyin turned to the group and rose to her full height.

Should she tell them about shiHou's predicament?

That would worry them.

…but maybe it was best she did.

“It’s about shiHou,” she said at last.

The others looked at each other, fear tightening in their chests.

“I fear she may not have much time left. We need- is the immortal pills, an immortal peach, and immortal wine-”

A chorus of shocked “WHAT?!” erupted around the room, confusion and dread mixing in their voices.

“But- I thought she would be fine! She’s still wukong! This doesn’t make sense!” Mk rambled on anxiously. Mei and Sandy went to his side to help calm him down.

Redson turned to address the goddess, calm in the alarming situation.

“What do you need us to do? You were going to tell us, I’m sure.”

Guanyin recovered quickly, knowing they would react in such a way. “Yes, I was. I need you all to get the pills of immortality from Lao Tzu’s lab, the immortal peaches, and the immortal wine.”

Pigsy squealed furiously when she mentioned alcohol

“WINE!? She’s twelve! I’m not letting you give her wine!!!”

Guanyin blinked, then gave a small laugh. “It’s only a sip. Just enough for the effect! Not enough to get her drunk, I promise.”

“She’s still twelve! And it’s still wine!” Pigsy barked again, clearly not over it.

“Pigsy!-” Mk came up beside him with an anxious smile. “This is ShiHou’s life we are talking about, I’m sure Guanyin knows what she is doing,” he said reassuringly.

Pigsy huffed, but reluctantly agreed.
Macaque stepped forward, arms loosely crossed.

“Bodhisattva Guanyin,” he started, his voice low but clear. “Goddess of Mercy.”

The goddess looked down at him. “Yes six-eared macaque? Is there something you need?” She spoke sweetly.

However, the dark-furred monkey felt like he didn’t deserve her kindness.

Macaque shifted, glancing toward the hallway where ShiHou lay, then back to Guanyin.

There was a pause as he rubbed the back of his neck, searching for the words.

“I… want to come with you,” he said finally. “I’ve messed up a lot, and I know I can’t fix everything. But this-”

His eyes flicked toward the others, then down to the floor before meeting Guanyin’s again.

“This feels like a good place to start.”