"Wider." Qiang Shen's voice echoed. You slid your feet further apart while your hands were faced in front of you. "Wider."
"You aren't even looking–"
"Wider." He insisted. You groaned and spread your feet further, "Better. Now, bend your knees more." You obeyed his command. "Relax your body. You're too tense."
"Why should that matter? I don't think it'll matter if I'm tense or not in battle" You grumbled.
"Wrong!" He whacked you in the head with his cane, causing you to let out a yelp in pain. "When you're in battle, you want to move like water. Fighting is like dancing, you must follow the flow of the wind and air. Being tense causes rigid and predictable motion."
You relax your body, and the tension in your body slowly dissolves from you. You inhaled slowly, letting the fresh air fill your lungs, and exhaled the old oxygen. "Is this better?" You asked temperately.
"Yes, much better. Finally, think about what you're fighting about, why your fighting, and most importantly... what you're fighting for." He instructed, "What are you fighting for?"
"Isn't there a million answers to that question?" You groaned.
"Answer the question, M/n." Qiang Shen demanded.
"Family? Friends? Freedom?" You guessed, "You know, the 3 big F's."
"What else?"
"What do you mean 'What else"?" You hissed.
"What else? What else are you fighting for?"
"I don't know!"
"For yourself! You are fighting for yourself and for everyone else." He tapped his cane to your chest. "You're fighting for yourself."
🪼⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Unlike the normally bustling streets of Megapolis, the streets were empty with the occasional person sleeping on the sidewalk. The city was oddly quiet, too quiet. You wandered down the empty streets until you spotted a family's bright red bandana.
You quickly ran towards MK and just as you were about to greet him, you heard him talk to...himself? "Chin up kid. You'll always have your Pigsy and I'm not going anywhere, son." he mocked Pigsy's voice, "Thanks dad-sy." He cracked and he began to start violently sobbing.
"Uhm, Mortal?" You called out to him. MK whipped his head around to reveal the dark bags that hung from his eyes, his hair was a disheveled, tangled, mess. He wore a long, worn-out, bathrobe and tan bear slippers.
"M/n!" He exclaimed and quickly rushed over towards you and embraced you into a tight hug, "Oh you won't believe how much I missed you!" He nuzzled his face to your cheek.
"Great seeing you too?" You cringed at the sudden contact. You were still trying to get used to the sense of someone else kindly touching you.
"You won't believe what's going on, everyone in the city has passed out! The whole city is asleep and won't wake up! Pigsy and the others won't wake up and have been asleep forever!" He panicked garrulous.
"And you decided to wrap Pigsy in brightly colored stringed light emitting diode lights, put him in a cart with a bunch of other junk, and push him around the city?" You pointed out nonchalantly.
"Uhm... let's not mention that!" He chuckled nervously. Suddenly, his phone started to ring from his pocket. "Ugh, who's calling me?" He groaned until he realized that it could mean that there was someone who was still awake. He scrambled to grab his phone from his pocket.
"Who is it?" You asked eagerly and peered over his shoulder to see who it was.
"Awe, it's just some game." He grumbled in defeat.
"Sleep bug, download it now from the app store!" The robotic voice boomed as the pixelated bug danced on the screen as more pop-ups of the game invaded MK's cracked screen.
"Sleep bug..." He murmured. MK gasped in realization and snapped his head around towards the unconscious Pigsy. "What if this somehow is connected!" He exclaimed.
"That makes a lot of sense." You muttered, "That's the smartest thing you've ever said." You chuckled.
MK squeezed his eyes shut, "Think MK, everyone asleep, they were all playing the game, the game is called Sleep Bug." He gasped at the realization, "The game put everyone to sleep! We have to delete that game!"
"And how are we going to do that?" You asked.
"Games are stored at the... uhhh.... The Cloud!" He exclaimed.
"Wait, wait, what even is the cloud?"
"The Cloud, an unrivaled collection of all knowledge!" He explained joyfully, "Monkey Kid and his powerful brain have done it again!" A mysterious wind blew from behind him, causing his bath robes and bandana to flow along the wind epically.
MK grabbed his staff from the cart unconscious Pigsy was in, he ripped off his bathrobe to reveal him in his normal clothes. His staff began to start glowing golden color and smashed it into the ground, causing everything in the cart to levitate in the air. The random, junky items began to start glowing a similar golden color and assembled itself into a bike.
The now, junky bike, flopped over on the ground. You looked over at MK with an unsatisfied look, "Uhm..." You murmured.
"Uhh..." MK poked at the pile of stuff with his staff, causing it to shine into a bright gold color. You squeezed your eyes shut to block out the bright light from your eyes and groaned. Once you opened your eyes, in front of the both of you was a high-quality flying hovercraft bike. You both hopped onto the bike enthusiastically, "Aww yeah! Wish me luck, Dad-sy! Here comes Monkey Kid!" MK zipped off on the hover bike, causing the cart Pigsy was in to roll down the street.
🪼⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Small tracks of sand particles blew behind you both as you flew through the empty desert outside of Megapolis. There was a long silence between you and MK, the only sound that could be heard was the engines of the hoverbike and Sandy flying up behind you both.
"So..." MK started, "How come you weren't affected by this whole Sleep Bug thing?" MK asked curiously.
"Well this whole Sleep Bug thing seems to be transmitted through the illuminated cellar devices you Mortals are so addicted to. Since I don't own an illuminating cellar device, I'm not infected by it." You answered.
"That makes sense." MK shrugged, "Where were you when the whole thing broke out?"
"Sleeping."
"Huh, how ironic." From a distance, you could see a brightly lit up wall in front of you both, "That must be the cloud!" MK announced excitedly.
MK sped up the bike, causing it to start to falter. In a desperation to stop the bike, MK crashed it into the ground as he clung onto the sleeve of your robe. You both were flung off the bike and tumbled across the sandy terrain, somehow you both rolled up the stairs and were met with two humonus doors.
You groaned in pain and stood up, "Well this must be the entrance..." You murmured. The hover bike slowly rolled up the stairs and bumped into the both of you before flopping onto the ground.
You inspected the doors and saw two tall men engraved onto the doors. One was cyan while the other one was a maroon color, both of them were holding a spear in one hand and a cellar device in the other.
"No guards, hm." MK murmured, he leaned up against the doors, "Something is definitely up." You watched as MK's hand started to go through the doors and turn into a pixelated glitch.
"Mortal, watch out!" You cried out. MK turned around and saw his hand going through the wall. He yelped in shock and quickly grabbed your collar to try and pull himself out, which caused you to fall through the wall with him.
You both tumbled over onto the ground, "This is the worst day of my life." He complained as he stood himself up. Stood up and gasped at the sight in front of you.
In front of you were millions of humongous book shelves that looked to be as big as a tower. Red banners with a yellow trim dangled off each book shelf, similarly colored banners were strung across the shelves and dangled down from each section. Besides, you were two large staircases, crates of supplies, along with a lot of unknown stuff. The ceiling looked like it was endless, just forever going. Black and yellow pillars were scattered across the place with a motherboard pattern, traces of yellow and blue illuminated from the pillars.
Both you and MK started to walk down the endless sections of the books shelves as you tried to find where the bug even was located. "How are we going to find the game?" MK murmured to himself as he scratched behind his head cluelessly.
A robotic purr gurgled next to the both of you, you both simultaneously whipped your heads around to the noise to see a pixelated green bug you guys were looking for. The bug started the glitch and ran off while giggling.
"Ha! Red means bad!" He yelled victoriously, "Eh, well sometimes it means good, Dagh, that's probably it! Le-go!"
You both started desperately chasing after the bug, from hopping over the bookshelves multiple times (thanks to your inhuman jumping skills), darting down various caverns of the book shelves, running up and down the stairs, etc. Until you both finally backed the green bug into a corner.
"That was... a nightmare." You murmured.
"Ah-ha! Found you BUG!" MK chuckled triumphantly, "Thanks for making it easy for us."
"MK that wasn't easy and you know that." You grumbled.
MK ignored your comment and turned his attention back to the bug, he summoned his staff through his ear and spun it around in his hand, "Time to bring my friends back–"
"Well well well," A voice spoke up from behind you both. MK flung his staff up in the air and yelped, "The one and only Monkie kid and his little pet The Baihu Zhanshi, you both should be asleep."
You turned around and were met with one of Spider Queen's henchmen. He had an unnatural purple color and short green hair slicked back. He had a pencil-thin mustache and beaming green eyes. He wore a black lab coat with a green trim and a purple shirt with a green trim. Behind him, he had 4 robotic legs that were supposed to resemble spider legs.
"Why do you all keep referring to me as a pet!" You complained furiously.
MK gasped, "Another person!" His staff dropped right onto the middle of his head, causing his hair to part into halves, "Wait, one of Spider Queen's goons! Wait, why should we be asleep?" You slammed your palm onto your forehead and let out a small sigh of disappointment while shaking your head.
"Uhhh, because of my sleep bug game that sent the city to sleep?" The Spider man answered.
"That was on purpose!?" MK exclaimed.
"Of course! Now, did I need to put the whole city to sleep just to incapacitate the two guardians here? Perhaps not, but for a penny in for a pound, you both don't have the mental dexterity to debug my game. You both are just a motherboard with a decent GPU and No Central Processing unit." He poked at MK's forehead.
"Uhhh, G.P. Whaaaa?" MK mumbled.
"I'll be truthful here, I have no clue what you were spouting on about..."You muttered.
The spider man groaned in frustration, "A Graphics Processing unit, it means you look good and are well animated but you have no brains." He chuckled.
"Huh!? I don't know what you're talking about," (OMG IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE!!?!??!??!@?!?!?1/1/1// if you watch the scene you'd see what I'm talking about) "but are we going to fight or what!?"
"Hmmm, no. I'm a big fan of outsourcing." He whipped out his sharp, shiny robotic legs from behind him. Somehow, he triggered the whole place to blow up in a blinding red light. You groaned at the intense light and squeezed your eyes shut. "While I'd love to hang around and chat, I have other things to attend to. You guys are about to be eviscerated by the ancient guardians of knowledge so I guess we both are pretty busy, okay byeee!" He cackled sinisterly.
He used his robotic spider legs to launch him in the air I disappeared into the endless void that was the ceiling. "Hey, get back here!" MK called out.
"Mortal... I think we have other problems than dealing with him..." You murmured. MK turned around and gasped in fear. Behind both of you was no other than the guardians of knowledge, you recognized both of them from the inscriptions you saw on the door from early. You hadn't realized how big they truly were until now, their hands were the size of your head!
"Only those marked in the great ledger of knowledge and time shall be deemed worthy to enter this temple of wisdom," They both said in unison, their voice sounding artificial and natural. "and live." The two guardians raised their spears and swung them down at both of you.
Luckily you picked MK up into your arms and dodged the attack. He shrieked in fear while you darted down the endless book shelves. The two guards swiftly follow behind you as you both try to escape from the terrifying huge giants.
The giants swung their spears at you while you efficiently dodged their attack with ease as you skid down the aisles. MK, who was trying to help, tried using his staff to help you dodged the guardians easier which only caused you both to be flung across and slam into a massive bookshelf.
His staff lodged itself into the bookshelf which caused you both to fall through a random portal that was going through the bookshelf, why was there even a portal there in the first place!? You both slipped through the portal and were transported to a different side of The Cloud. The staff sprung through the portal and started to elongate.
MK and you clung onto the staff as it threw you through multiple portals while MK shrieked in terror. You both slammed into the red giant before darting down a whole aisle of book shelves and slamming into the cyan guard.
You were both flung off course and landed right where you started, at the entrance and exit. MK's staff whacked him in the head which caused him to jump up and grab a hold of his staff. You groaned in pain and stumbled your way up, you swayed from side to side as you tried to get rid of the dizzy feeling.
"You both are not on the ledger, you are not worthy!" The guardians bellowed and swung up their spears.
MK yelped, "Come'on MK, you can do this! Self- confidence, that's Monkey King 101!" MK mumbled to himself while the two guards peered over at each other. "Wait! I am worthy, we're definitely worthy! I'm Monkey Kid, basically the new Monkey King."
"MK, what are you doing!?" You hissed.
"Just go on with it!"
"Fine..." You muttered, "And I am The Baihu Zhanshi." You bowed respectfully.
"Might have heard of us, you know, the next chapter. We're totally worthy!" He exclaimed.
"Irrelevant, you are not on the ledger." The red guard spoke up.
"You are not worthy!" They both were about to slam their spears down at you both.
MK shrieked and blocked himself with the staff, "Can we add our names onto the ledger!?" MK shrieked. The guardians paused mid-attack, "like, can we sign up, is that a thing?"
The guardians withdraw their weapons, "Of course!" The red giant happily answered.
"Knowledge is for everyone." The cyan giant added-on.
"Come on, let's get you both sorted out." The red giant grabbed you both by the head and took you to the computers.
They dropped MK onto the chair and plopped you next to him. "And if you just enter in your full name here." The red guardian pointed at the screen.
"Oh, yep, okay!" MK began typing out his full name. Out of curiosity, you peered over MK's shoulder and watched him write out his full name.
"Hm, that's a real mouth full." The cyan one hummed.
"Yeah, no wonder why I go by MK, right?"
"I always thought your name was MK, but Mortal suits you better." You murmured.
"And print! You'll love being a member here at The Cloud, there is never a dull moment." The printer slowly printed out MK's ID before plopping it onto MK's hands.
"Enjoy your time at The Cloud. Remember, we've got lots of books it's not–"
"Oh, the game!" MK sprang off and rushed over towards the pixelated green bug.
"Games..." The cyan one grumbled.
"Oh, don't be an elitist, you were playing that one today." The red one is mentioned.
"So were you."
"I know, I'm so bad, we should read more."
"Ahem, I've got to go, uhm, get him before he does something stupidly reckless. I'll sign up later, bye!" You sprinted off to find MK, leaving two guardians alone.
You quickly caught up to MK, who was trying to beat up the bug with a book. Somehow, that seemed to work and caused the bug to disappear. "Aww yeah! And they said being a nerd didn't have its advantages. Who's the GPU now!?" MK shouted at the book.
"Ahem." You cleared your throat, "We should head back..." You murmured.
🪼⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
"Even though I only had M/n and was completely abandoned by everything except him, I was able to use my brain and saved the whole city! I did great and there were no negative consequences at all!" MK bragged while Tang fanned Pigsy who was warped in a cast from head to toe. Mei supportively clutched onto Pigsy's hand and grumpily frowned at MK.
You sat beside him and looked down in shame, "I'm sorry..." You muttered, "Would you like me to get you anything?"
"No..." Pigsy groaned.
🪼⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
GIVE MY MAN PIGSY JUSTICE!!!! I happy that I was finally able to write an episode with just MK and M/n, I'm theirs a similar episode I could write for Mei though I doubt it...
Anyway, I'm skipping the episode dumpling destruction (Because that's just Tang and MK) and going onto Ping Pong Panic next! I'm pretty sure Ping Pong Panic will be a short chapter (somewhere around 2000-3000 words I guessing).
Bye Bye!
Word count: 3010