Extra: Teach me, Master Wukong!

The western courtyard of Fort Blackstone had, until very recently, been a rather nice courtyard.

Now, instead of a corporate fountain, stood a crater where the great sage was violently polishing spoons.

“That stupid emperor… he’s here to mock me again… I’ll kill him…” she kept mumbling.

Meanwhile, Larry stopped doing sandcastles and started cleaning everything with Carry.

The two skeletons kept moving rapidly. Larry was cleaning the floor while Carry kept removing dust from everywhere.

He kept cleaning until something caught his attention.

Scrik Scrik

Larry scratched his skull, looking at a small object on the floor.

An artificial eye, glowing by an intense purple.

Scrik Scrik

He scratched his skull again before grabbing that thing from the floor.

The skeleton janitor then analysed it with the same attention of someone analysing a text to make sure no AI was used.

“Oh! Larry! You found it!!” A voice said.

The skeleton moved his skull the source of the voice.

It was Vesta, the draconic war criminal, now the leader of the Chief Engineering Office.

”Ah God, I was going insane, I swear…” Vesta sighed, stepping closer to the skeleton.

Larry’s jaw clicked in confusion.

“Could you give it to me, please? Kashime asked me for a new magic eye but ‘magic’ turned this piece of glass into a living thing. I’m glad you found it. Can I have it back?” Vesta asked, holding out her hand.

Larry gave her a thumbs up 👍 and then gave the magic eye to her.

”Thank you, Larry!” She then ran away, to her laboratory.

Scrik Scrik.

Larry scratched his skull again and shrugged. After that, he went back to cleaning and gave a cheerful thumbs up to Carry.

Meanwhile, Wukong was still speaking alone with a mountain of silver spoons behind her, muttering stuff like “I’ll show him true despair…” and stopped as soon as she heard footsteps crossing the yard toward her.

The Great Sage knew when someone was walking up to her.

Those were footsteps of someone who hit things for a living.

Wukong’s golden ears twitched, but she didn’t turn around.

“What is it now?” she said flatly, “Can’t you see that the Great Sage Equal to Heaven is in currently meditating?”

“Master Wukong.” The voice was female, strong, and threaded with the eager politeness of a person delivering a rehearsed line.

Wukong turned her head.

Standing in front of the Monkey Queen was none other than Egel.

Her stance was balanced, weight distributed, ready to move in any direction, and she was looking at Wukong with an expression of pure, worshipful excitement.

This was, according to Wukong’s divine senses, a genuine martial artist.

‘Interesting.’

“Great Sage,” Egel said, and then, to Wukong’s mild surprise, dropped into a formal martial bow, fist pressed into open palm

“My name is Egel. I’ve been working here for some time now, but I was never able to properly introduce myself to you,” she said, not raising her head. “I want to learn your combat technique. I need a real sparring partner, and there is no one in all three realms who could teach me more than you. Please. Train me.”

There was a pause.

Wukong looked at her and analysed everything, from her feet to her scars, and then to the posture.

“Mmmhhh…” She thought for an instant, scratching the back of her head.

Then she yawned, enormously, showing off every one of her predatory canines, and flopped backward onto the gravel with her hands behind her head.

“No,” she said. “Boring. You’re a mortal. I’d break you in thirty seconds and then I’d feel bad about it for at least a minute, and feeling bad is boring too. Go away and return when you’ve become immortal.” Wukong then returned to her spoon polishing.

Egel’s face fell even though she had been warned about Wukong’s temper.

Kaitoyama was totally right about her, which meant the second part of his instructions was also worth trying.

Egel took a breath, and then spoke the same words that her beloved Kaitoyama had told her, even though she didn’t know what they meant.

“That’s… that’s a shame,” she said, turning as if to leave. “I guess I’ll have to train alone. I can’t waste an instant since there’s apparently a six-eared macaque running around the eastern woods. He’s probably plotting against—”

The change in the air was instant and total.

Wukong did not move. But every hair on her tail stood straight up, and the lazy golden light in her eyes sharpened to a razor’s edge.

The temperature of her boredom dropped away like a mask hitting the floor.

“…What,” she said, very quietly, “did you just say.” The ground started shaking.

“A… a six-eared macaque,” Egel repeated, and, remembering the rest of her instructions, she continued. “That thing had been going around saying it wants to challenge both you and me at the same time because it doesn’t think either of us is worth fighting one at a time.”

For approximately one full second, nothing happened.

Then Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the deity who had waged a one-monkey war against the entire Celestial Bureaucracy, exploded upward out of the crater with a shockwave that flattened Egel’s hair against her skull and sent gravel screaming outward in every direction like shrapnel.

“THE SIX-EARED MACAQUE?!” Her voice cracked across the sky, making birds flying away from three kingdoms over. “HE’S HERE?! HERE?! After three thousand years that spineless, face-stealing, identity-thieving FRAUD finally shows his cowardly copied face and he thinks he can challenge ME? Both of us?! AT ONCE?!” She was pacing now, with her staff materializing no in her grip, spinning it so fast it howled. “The AUDACITY. The DISRESPECT. Do you know what that imposter DID? He pretended to BE me! Fooled everyone! Even the Bodhisattva couldn’t tell us apart! I had to get the actual BUDDHA to sort it out! And now he’s back and he’s HERE to insult me?!”

Without realising it, Wukong unleashed a glimpse of her divine aura and sent a shockwave in a range of 20 miles.

Egel, despite trying her best to survive the fury of Wukong, felt a slow grin spreading across her own face.

“S-So,” Egel said, raising her voice over the howling staff. “Does that mean you’ll train me? If we’re going to fight him together, I need to be able to keep up. I don’t want to slow you down when he shows himself.”

Wukong stopped spinning the staff. She was already calling her Nimbus Cloud to go searching for that disgusting imitation.

Then, she really looked at Egel, even sensing her lack of fear.

And after that, something in her ancient heart clicked into place.

“…Huh,” Wukong said. A slow, sharp, delighted smile spread across her face. “You’re serious. You actually want to get stronger.” She tilted her head. “Is it only to fight that disgusting fake?”

Egel’s face went slightly red. “That’s, that’s not relevant.”

“It’s a LITTLE relevant.” Wukong cackled, and planted the Ruyi Jingu Bang into the earth with a crack that opened a hairline fissure across the courtyard. “But I respect it! Fine! FINE! If you’re going to be my tag-team partner against that six-eared fraud, then you can’t fight like a mortal anymore. You have to fight like someone who stands next to the Great Sage.” She cracked her knuckles, each one popping like a firework. “So. Lesson one. Show me your Chi.”

After hearing the Great Sage’s approval, Egel didn’t hesitate.

She dropped into her stance and activated her passive Chi, and the blue light of her fighting spirit flared visibly around her fists, the aura of a genuine combat prodigy.

Wukong squinted at it and circled her, prodded the aura with one clawed finger, and then sniffed it.

Egel didn’t ask any question.

“Okay. That’s not bad,” the deity admitted. “It’s honest Chi. Raw. You built this yourself, brick by brick, no shortcuts. I can smell your blood in it. That’s rare. Everyone else I met never worked that hard.” She grinned. “But your problem is you’re WASTING it. You push it out through your fists like you’re trying to shove a river through a straw. You want to hit hard? Stop pushing. Start FLOWING. Chi isn’t a hammer. It’s a tide. Watch.”

Wukong then turned, drew back one fist, and tapped, almost gently, the crumbling granite wall.

The entire wall, and a significant portion of the courtyard behind it, ceased to exist, simply converted into a fine horizontal mist that drifted away on the breeze.

Egel then stared at the place where a large piece of the fortress used to be.

“…Okay,” she breathed, her eyes shining with the pure, uncut joy of a martial artist witnessing a technique beyond her wildest ambition. “Okay. Teach me THAT, MASTER WUKONG!”

“You’ll be able to do a bad version of that in about four hours,” Wukong said, cracking her neck. “A good version in about forty four years. Now stop gawking and hit me with all you have. If you even scratch me, you’ll have my full approval as my first disciple.”

In that moment, Egel’s grin turned feral.

And then, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, channeled all her Chi inside her right hand and prepared for her greatest attack.

”Come on. I may have an eternity, but you don’t. I won’t wait forever.” Wukong said.

”Here I come…!” Egel opened her eyes, ready to strike…