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dreamtigress · 4 months

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Creation Crater

I have time to write. I have motivation to write. I have plotted out what I want to write. I have STARTED the NEXT CHAPTER. I get four sentences in before I realize I need to name another city because reasons. I then spend several HOURS looking up canon references for locations, documenting every city/town/village/location I have invented for my own canon because they don't exist in the OG canon. (We don't have any cities even LABELED on the map for the Wandering Isle?!) Inventing like 5 news places for future purposes. Laying out an entire timeline of Inej's "Lion Hunts" based in part on said invented locations. AND THEN ALSO, updating the map of the Grishaverse that I have putting overlays on to show all of my invented cities/towns/villages.

Um. I took a break for lunch, and now maybe I can start writing again? WTF, brain.

Sharing because this was ALMOST like a research rabbit hole, but instead was a creation crater that while, including WRITING, wasn't actually, yanno, WRITING. A creation crater is a pothole on the road to your goal, a procraftination, if you will.

Go me! ::laughs in highly detail map overlays that I even sourced the correct FONT for because I am THAT FREAK.:::

#soc fanfic #a03 writer #soc fandom #maps #mapmaker mapmaker make me a map #invent some shit #where are all the cities and towns?#six of crows #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #inej ghafa #BAMF Inej Ghafa #pekka rollins #Lion Hunts #creation crater #research rabbithole #procraftination

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nature-godsgardenofeden · 1 year

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new Mars map of craters and volcanoes - https://earthsky.org/space/new-mars-map-nasa-global-ctx-mosaic/?

#mars #craters #volcanes #astronomy #earthsky.org #space #universe #planets #godscreation #god's creation

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headspace-hotel · 10 months

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I keep wanting to make a post about Young-Earth Creationism but it is incredibly hard to summarize because it turns out that taking the Bible as a 100% literal description of scientific fact breaks things you wouldn't even think of.

It's the ideology that gets worse the longer you look. On the surface it's "lol evolution isn't real because god created everything" but when you investigate how this world of theirs actually works you get hit with "there is no consistent speed of light," "tigers and housecats are the same species and could interbreed," Noah's flood creating craters on the moon, wasps are literally, MORALLY evil, ongoing denial that any dinosaurs had feathers???, insistence that every carnivore can be vegan, plants not being alive, the whole incest thing,

#creationism #christianity cw

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getvalentined · 3 months

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Thinking about Sephiroth's motivations in Rebirth and getting super emotional because fuck, man, I get it. I get it. It doesn't excuse anything, but I get it in a way I can't even describe.

The Gi establish that those who aren't native to Gaia can't join the Lifestream basically at all, they're held separate entirely; the Gi have never been in it directly, their ghosts wander in a little liminal space they crafted for themselves. This is because they're entirely foreign—the Gi appear to be interdimensional travelers that were somehow marooned on Gaia at some point in ancient history, where they died and were left as ghosts, lingering forever unable to move on.

Sephiroth is slightly different in that he was born on Gaia and he does have human parents as well as Jenova, so he can force his way into the Lifestream as we saw in Lifestream Black and Advent Children, but he can't disseminate into it. He's still conscious and cognizant in some capacity even as the Lifestream fights to strip away the parts of him that belong on the planet, the parts of him that were human. This is, presumably, why his memory is all fucked up postcanon, whether we're talking novels or spinoffs; the Lifestream has been trying to take him but it can't, because there's too much Jenova in him, so the parts of him that have survived are just the parts that are the son of Jenova. He hasn't been fully worn down by the time the Crisis rolls around, likely because his body is still partially intact in the Northern Crater. (Again, see Lifestream Black, as well as the OG.)

And here's where everything starts to hurt.

He's alone. No matter what Sephiroth does, he's entirely, completely alone. There is nothing in the world like him, the planet won't accept him—it's not death, it's a homecoming, and Sephiroth has nowhere to go home to.

And he's done this before, this is a repeating timeline, he's been through this before over and over and over. And he's always alone in the end. He's always there at the edge of creation, the end of all things, the kindling of a new universe, and he's still there. All alone.

So this time he's calling for the ultimate Reunion. He's not just calling his Clones home, he's pulling all of time and space together into a single planet, bolstered with the lingering Lifestream of hundreds, thousands of others, timelines where things fell apart and Gaia sat on the precipice of death before Sephiroth found her and tore the Lifestream loose to feed the timeline he's chosen as the most likely to survive.

Three friends go into battle. One is captured (Genesis, in Deepground), one flies away (Angeal, who chose his own death), and the one who remains becomes a hero.

Heroes save the world.

But it doesn't matter, does it? Because he's going to be alone. Zack asks how he could turn his back on everything, and he says "Easily." Aerith asks how he could possibly want an eternity alone—because she doesn't understand, that's what Sephiroth has waiting for him anyway. That's all he's ever had waiting for him.

Sephiroth is going to save a world that will never accept him, because that's what heroes do, and then he's going to be alone forever. But this time, for the first time in every timeline he's experienced, he's going to do it on his own terms. He knows what he is, he knows how this ends, he has no questions of that. But for once in his existence—and it's a long existence, unending, eternal in a way that neither human nor Cetra could never even comprehend—he's going to control exactly how that happens.

Sephiroth knows he can't control whether or not he ends up alone, but he can choose how it happens. He can do things right this time. Maybe if he saves the world it will be different. Maybe the planet will accept him. Maybe he won't be alone.

And if he is (and he knows he will be), at least it was on his own terms.

At least, for once in the whole of creation, Sephiroth had a single flicker of control over his own existence. For once in the entirety of existence, Sephiroth made a decision for himself.

He'll have to live with that decision, alone, for eternity—but it was his.

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yandere-daydreams · 7 months

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Title: Domesticated.

Commissioned by the very lovely, very inspired @elsecrytt.

Pairing: Yandere!Satan x Reader (Obey Me).

Word Count: 7.0k.

TW: Dub/Con & Non/Con, AFAB!Reader, Reader Is Straight Up A Bad Person In This One, Toxic Relationships, Semi-Public Sex, Bondage, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Coercion, Prolonged Grooming, Mentions of Blood and Violence, Slight Stalking, and Obsessive Behavior. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

You were the first one to find Satan.

It wasn’t difficult. You’d been around long enough at that point to know that the birth of a demon was a strange, spontaneous thing; loud and wild, often accompanied by pillars of flame and always violent enough to leave the earth scarred in its wake. While his brothers fell from paradise like stars displaced from their heavens, you followed the cloud of smoke rising from the wasteland that made up the Devildom’s outskirts, tracked the scent of cedar and ivy and sulfur until you found him, seething in a crater of his own creation, freshly charred feathers still littered around him as he lashed out blindly, his aggression without a target but no less volatile for its aimlessness. He was bare save for the ash smeared across his pale skin, and you could make out a lashing tail behind him, a pair of curling horns sprouting from his waist-length hair, a pair of cat-like pawed feet he’d grow out of in a few weeks – all the same shade of black as the obsidian that surrounded him and tipped with a green you could only compare to the color of toxic waste, to the kind of emerald shine an insect might wear to let you know it was venomous. Every part of him practically glowed with rage. If you’d been aware of which throne he would take after he and his brothers found their footing in their new realm in that moment, you would’ve thought it was fitting.

In short, he was beautiful. Awe-inspiringly, breath-takingly beautiful.

And you were never the kind of person who could resist beautiful things.

Carefully, with dampened footsteps and a preference for the shadows, you edged closer to him, never letting Satan leave your peripheral. You were still a hundred or so feet away when he snapped toward you, pointed teeth already bared and curved talons poised to attack. You couldn’t be sure how lucid he was, but whatever happened to be running through that empty mind of his, it wasn’t enough to stop him from snarling at you, from hunching his back and digging his claws into the ground and charging, intent on tearing anything he saw apart before his anger could cool. Elation overwhelmed you. You felt the corners of your lips curl upward as he lunged, your heart practically beating through your chest as his lithe body streaked through the flame-tinged moonlight, as you took in the rabid creature that would be your end. There were sixty feet between you, then forty, and then—

And then, something dark and terrible descended from the clouded sky, tackling Satan and pinning him to the ground. Lucifer, you discovered, once the dust cleared and you could make out his face, his wings (lesser by two and painted the color of impurity, you noted with a not inconsiderable sense of satisfaction). You didn’t wait for him to notice you. Slipping back into the shadows of the wasteland, you stole one more glance toward Satan only to find his attention still fixed on you, unwavering despite his new guardian. Your eyes met his, and without hesitation, you spared him a smile. Of course, he didn’t return the gesture, but you didn’t mind.

You slipped into the night, already dreaming of the day you’d see him again.

By the second time you got so close to Satan, he’d already gained a reputation of his own.

You couldn’t say you weren’t proud. His anger cooled in the months after his conception, and he found a place among his brothers who, in turn, established themselves in the Devildom’s admittedly lax hierarchy of power and pleasure and all the many things that thrived when given reprieve from the harsh light of the sun. You kept your distance. As greedy as you were, you knew better than to get involved with people who knew better than to get involved with you.

Instead, you watched from the crowd as Satan grew into his rank, as the more untamed parts of his demonic nature fell away and he came to resemble something… cleaner, something less animalistic. You didn’t care for the change, but still, you kept track of him. What could you say? Even polished, he was still a gem worth keeping an eye on.

Your dutifulness was rewarded, too. Or, that was what you told yourself, at least, as you picked the lock on the door of the lecture hall where he’d thrown his latest fit, where it’d taken Mammon and Beelzebub’s joint strength to restrain him. You let your fingertips graze past overturned tables and side-stepped the shattered remains of shattered chalkboards and wooden chairs, taking in the proof of his untamed rage as you approached him. He’d been restrained, left to fester in his wrath until he was calm enough to deal with properly. Silver chains adorned with hundreds upon thousands of archaic runes kept him bound to a marble pillar near the center of the classroom, his arms trapped against his side and his more demonic features still on full display, much to your delight.

Despite having been on his own for a few hours, now, his rage had yet to die down. His fangs were still bared, his claws still biting into his own palms, his thorned tail still lashing back and forth behind his back like that of some starving wildcat, agitated that its quarry had been taken away. He only had a fraction of the wild radiance you’d been so captivated by during your first encounter, but still, you found yourself grinning. Even diluted, he was still beautiful.

This time, you didn’t have to mind your distance. You came to a stop less than a full arm’s length in front of him, ducking slightly when the point of his tail made a jab at your throat. “It’s alright, princess,” you started, keeping your voice low, your tone light. Like you were trying to soothe a wild animal – which, to be fair, wasn’t exactly not what you were doing. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to see that pretty face again.”

He really was so unlike he had been, the first time you’d met. There was a flicker of recognition in those burning eyes, a slight change to his posture. He pressed his back against the pillar, squaring his shoulders as his rabid snarl dulled into a thin scowl. His tail continued to thrash and writhe, but he didn’t try to go for your throat again. “I don’t need your help.”

“I wasn’t going to make an offer.” His eyes narrowed, and you held his piercing gaze for a second, then another, before allowing your attention to drift lower. Surprisingly, his uniform hadn’t been damaged during his rampage, only displaced; his shirt missing a few buttons where he’d torn at the collar, the jacket he always let hang open pushed so far back, it now threatened to fall from his shoulders altogether. What you were looking for lied lower, though – in the unnatural creases and unusual tautness of his pants. It was a common (albeit, no less embarrassing) side-effect of supernatural creatures giving into their true nature, especially for younger demons who never learned how to control their more primal instincts. He probably knew that, but you doubted he knew how to take care of it, just yet. Especially with his older brothers still learning how to handle their own sinful impulses. “I mean, I would be willing to give you a hand, if you need one,” you went on, nodding to his painfully hard cock. “But, if you’d rather seethe and growl in an empty classroom until one of your brothers comes back for you…”

You held up your hands, moving to turn on your heel and leave him alone with his anger, but Satan’s eyes widened, straining against his bondage as he lurched forward, practically drooling at the first hint of fresh blood. “You… you can do something about that?”

The muted excitement in his voice gave away his eagerness, his desperation. You let out a breath of a laugh, taking half a step closer, testing the boundaries before trying to catch such an active spark in your hands. When he didn’t immediately lunge at you, you brought a hand up, cupping his cheek and running your thumb over his jaw. “Of course,” you said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. As if he was the foolish one for being stupid enough to doubt you. “But only if you ask me to. I’m not going out of my way to help someone who’s going to tear my throat out as soon as I’m done.”

And, even then, you could’ve been persuaded to lay back and let him have his way with you if he begged prettily enough. Luckily, he was already distracted, already leaning into your touch and staring up at you with a new kind of reverence. He couldn’t have known he was doing it – his pride wouldn’t have allowed him to. As far as you could tell, this was all instinct. “Do it.”

You sighed, shaking your head. “You’ll have to do better than that, princess.”

He was quiet for a moment, then another. “Please,” he spat, finally, as if the word burnt his tongue. “Please, help me get rid of it.”

“No one’s going to want to do anything with you if you use that tone.” And yet, you stepped forward, resting one hand on his shoulder while the other dropped to the tent in his pants, to his cock. You ground your palm against his shaft through the thick material, and Satan grit his teeth. He didn’t know much, but he knew enough not to debase himself so willingly in front of you. “You’re lucky I’m such a bleeding heart. Otherwise, I would’ve left you here to suffer minutes ago.”

You watched him try to fight it, clenching his eyes shut as he braced himself, putting more effort into limiting his reactions now than he’d ever spared for his temper tantrums. With deft hands and saliva already pooling below your tongue, you shifted his pants down just far enough to free his cock – hard enough to press into his stomach. Like everything else about him, it was beautiful – pale but not ghastly, visibly veined but not overly defined, the head tinted a deep shade of pink you didn’t know you’d held such a fondness for, before you saw it on him. It was already leaking, too – pearls of precum dripping down his length and smearing against your skin as you wrapped your fist around the shaft and pumped lazily, playing indifferent to the way he bucked and writhed underneath you. “This,” you started, slowly, “is called a handjob. You can do it yourself, too, but it’s not as good. You’ll probably just end up making it worse.”

You swiped your thumb over his leaking tip, and he gasped, pressing himself flush against the marble pillar. You heard his restraints rattle and tightened your grip just enough to distract him, to give him something better to think about than getting away. “Pay attention, ‘cause you’re going to have to return the favor. That’s how this kind of thing works – I help you, then you help me.”

He nodded, sucking in a shaky breath. He wasn’t the brightest thing you’d ever come across, but he still might’ve proven himself to be a dutiful-enough student. “A h-handjob.”

“Good boy.” You teased the head of his cock by way of reward, then ground the heel of your palm into his base as a punishment for making you wait. When you were sure the lesson had sunk in, you took to jerking him off in earnest, taking on a pace just on the brink of satisfying and drinking in the little, stuttering moans that dripped past his lips in response. When his legs started to buckle, you worked a knee between his thighs and slotted your chest against his, staring up at him with as much adoration as someone like you could lend to something like him. You felt his cock twitch in your hand, heard his breathing turn raspy and shallow, and without warning, you pulled away, removing yourself from him completely.

He let out a desperate whine, the embodiment of pitiful. With an airy chuckle, you lowered yourself onto your knees, letting your hands fall to his waist. “This one’s a blowjob,” you muttered, just barely loud enough to be audible. He might’ve been a mediocre student, but you were an excellent teacher – always striving to fill curious minds with as much applicable knowledge as you could. “Some people call it oral sex, too. You’ll like it even more.”

His voice was so weak, so prone to cracking and breaking that in another world, it could’ve been cute. “…sex?”

“We’ll get to that later.” You pressed a fleeting kiss into his hip. “Just pay attention to me, for now.”

He really was lucky to have you. Anyone else might not have been able to handle how roughly he thrust into your mouth as soon as you’d taken the leaking head onto your tongue, might not have been willing to put up with his insatiable desire to bury himself in your throat – unaware or uncaring of your desire to breathe. You were patient, though, and strict, eager to swallow him down as deeply as you were able to before pulling back, pinning his hips down, and running the flat of your tongue up the sensitive underside of his cock. Whatever well of self-control he’d been using to bite back his pathetic little noises had clearly run dry. He moaned unabashedly, throwing his head forward and shuddering. His tail lashed out, his body determined to protect itself where his mind was unable to, but you didn’t pull away as it curled around your arm, didn’t waver as its curved thorns shredded your sleeve and sunk into your skin. Rather, you groaned around him, savoring the pure heat dripping down your arm, the way his agony seemed to drive itself under your flesh and make a home there. It was an overdue paradise, one that paled in comparison to what you could’ve had if Lucifer hadn’t interrupted you on that first night. You tried to treasure it all the same.

You fell into a steady rhythm quickly, no longer in the mood to tease him. You kept your eyes open as you bobbed your head, fixed to his flushed cheeks, his pained expression, the way he couldn’t seem to decide whether he wanted to shrink into himself or struggle against his restraints. “Stop, I—” He cut himself off with another moan, a quick jerk of his head to the side. As if there was anything he could do to hide from you, in a state like this. “There’s something wrong with—”

“You’re going to cum,” you corrected, pulling off of him just far enough to speak. With your lips still pressed against the head of his cock, you added, “That means you want me to keep going.”

If he had any mind to protest, he wasn’t able to put his complaints into words. Instead, all he managed to spit out was a fractured sob as you felt him throb against your tongue, as he came undone in your mouth. You milked him for all you had, pumping a fist over his shaft as he clumsily fucked your throat, his inexperience shining through once his inhibitions had been thoroughly pushed to the wayside. When you were sure you’d gotten everything out of him that you could, when your senses had been overwhelmed by the heady taste of him and the proof of your labor sat heavy in the pit of your stomach, you drew back, pushing yourself to your feet and taking in what you’d done to him. He was a mess, his face red and damp with sweat, emerald scales visible just underneath the collar of his shirt. With a slight smile, you fished something out of your pocket – a small, silver cage that you’d liberated from a succubus’ locker about an hour prior, when you heard Satan had lost his temper yet again. It fit the base of his cock as if it’d been made for him – pressing flush against his skin as it snapped into place with a satisfying click. When you were done, you pushed a kiss into the corner of his lips before stepping back.

“When that starts to get uncomfortable,” you started, grinning. “Come and find me.”

You didn’t give him a chance to protest before slipping away, leaving him panting and half-dressed for someone more tender-hearted to take care of.

He made it three weeks before seeking you out. An impressive lapse, considering he’d been hard again by the time you left that classroom.

This time, you made an effort to keep your distance. No more trailing behind him as he walked with his brothers or standing on the outskirts of the crowd as he picked a fight with yet another low-ranking demon – no, what he needed from you now was separation, the time it would take for him to think to look for you in his peripheral and then, later on, to convince himself the pleasure you could give him was worth the blow it’d deal to his ego. You’d started to lose hope by the time bridged the gap at one of Lord Diavolo’s frequent balls, thrown to celebrate Satan and his brothers ascending to the rank of Avatar. No one could seem to remember there ever being a rank by that name before their arrival, but legislation was for the Celestial Realm. Citizens of the Devildom were always more than happy to sample their prince’s generosity, regardless of the occasion.

You’d just finished slipping a stunning silver ring off of a witch’s finger and onto your own when he found you, red-faced and visibly out of breath, as if he’d just run from one side of the castle to the other. You grinned, moving to speak, but he clearly didn’t have an interest in whatever you might’ve said; taking hold of your arm and dragging you out of the main ballroom by way of greeting. You made no effort to resist. Struggling was for people who wanted to run, people who’d lost control and needed to be somewhere else. You, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine being anywhere but here.

You let haul you down a dimly lit hallway and through a simple wooden door – almost meager, by the prince’s standards. It was a storage closet, as far as you could tell, the shelves stocked with miscellaneous supplies and the light limited to what little could flood through the gaps between the doorframe after Satan slammed it behind him. You didn’t mind it, but you would’ve preferred something a little brighter. You would’ve preferred to have him on a podium, underneath a spotlight, where you could see every last inch of his perfect body. You would’ve preferred to have him on a stage, posed to your preference for the approval of an eager audience. You’d always been charitable, like that.

But, you couldn’t linger on how you would’ve liked him when you already had him right in front of you. As soon as he’d ensured you were alone, he was scrambling to find your hand in the darkness, to press your palm into the outline of his throbbing cock and whine – a sound it’d taken him minutes to make, the first time you were alone together. “I can’t take it off, and—and it hurts.” His speech was frantic, disjointed, prone to slipping and tripping over itself between coherent words. You couldn’t imagine how he’d spent the past few weeks. Even his brothers would’ve noticed something was wrong, if he was always this worked up. “The cage burns when I touch it, and it won’t stop leaking—”

“Ah, ah, that’s enough.” The saint that you were, you chose to put him out of his misery sooner rather than later. “Why don’t you show me the problem?”

At that, he froze up, his neediness momentarily overwhelmed by pure, unadulterated shame. His fangs caught on his bottom lip as he looked away from you and towards himself, his hands shaking ever-so-slightly as he brought them to the button of his adorably uncharacteristic dress pants. His brothers must’ve picked out his clothes – partially, at least. You didn’t know whether to be amused or endeared by the fact that he wasn’t quite ready to make decisions for himself, just yet.

Under your instruction, he stripped quickly, the pieces of his suit falling away until he was left exposed in front of you, dressed only in your last gift to him. Speaking of – his cage was… stranger than you’d remembered it bring, the silver bars pulsing with a dull violet glow. A lasting enchantment, you figured. You should’ve expected as much from something you’d snagged from a succubus, those freaks.

You ran a finger over the curved spine, taking a long moment to appreciate the craftsmanship before you turned your attention back to the source of Satan’s suffering: his cock, already hard and, like he’d said, already leaking. You probably should’ve been more selective when it came to how you restrained him. The flesh of his shaft strained painfully against the bars of his cage, the tip already drooling enough pre-cum to smear on your palm and pool on the floor in between his legs. The poor thing looked nearly suffocated – pale and ever so slightly discolored, sensitive enough to twitch and send a rough shudder up the length of Satan’s spine as you ran your thumb over what little of the underside remained exposed. He only had himself to blame, really. If he’d only swallowed his pride and come to you earlier, he wouldn’t need your help so badly now.

He wouldn’t need to prove that he deserved your help, after ignoring you for so many weeks.

“Poor baby,” you half-cooed, taking his face in your hands and pressing a lingering kiss into his forehead. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to take something so difficult so soon. I’m sorry for making you suffer, like this.”

Immediately, you felt him stiffen. You could only hope it was a habit he’d never grow out of. You couldn’t imagine a version of Satan who was driven by anything other than the ongoing, everlasting need to prove himself and, when that failed, tear down everything that could claim he hadn’t. “I’m fine,” he said, as if he hadn’t been on the verge of tears only a second ago. “I could take this and more, if I needed to. It’s just— you said I would need to find you, eventually, and I wanted to get it over with before—”

“That’s enough.” You were sure he would’ve gone on for the next century if you let him, but you weren’t really interested in what he had to say. Not while he was so put-together, at least. “Do you want my help or not?”

He might’ve been a bad liar, but to his credit, he wasn’t delusional. Shakily, he nodded, keeping his lips pursed and his eyes pleading.

“Is that all you’re going to give me to work with?”

“…please.” He was more hesitant than he’d been the first time, but not quite so acidic, not quite so aggressive. He was begging, now, and you could never seem to turn away those in-need. “I’ll do anything.”

You sighed, the gesture airy and drawn-out. Eventually, when it seemed like his already-tenuous patience was starting to thin, you let your touch fall away from him altogether. “Why don’t you get on your knees?”

His expression fell – not so much disappointed as he was confused. “How will that—”

“I have other things to do tonight.” An expectant smile, a nod towards the floor. “I can’t help me if you don’t help me too, Satan.”

The weight of his given name seemed to do the trick. Slowly, his movements stilted and reluctant, he lowered himself onto his knees, his eyes quickly falling away from yours and find a home in his lap. You were glad you’d chosen to wear what you had – making quick work of the sashing binding your robes together and discarding your panties while Satan watched out of the corner of his eye, too embarrassed to stare but too curious not to look. You were tempted to take him by the hair, to find something to wrap around his neck and pull it tighter and tighter until he was exactly where you wanted him to be, but you couldn’t let yourself be so selfish. You couldn’t let yourself forget to take care of him – even if you could justify putting it off until he’d taken care of you.

With little warning, you brought up a foot and ground the toe of your heeled shoe into the shaft of his caged cock. He hissed, throwing his head forward and shrinking into himself, shrinking against you; his chest pressing into your thigh as he bucked mindlessly against your foot, the lewd act coming to him more naturally than you ever could’ve dreamed. Now, you raked your fingers through his hair, jerking him upward and guiding his mouth to your cunt. His eyes widened, a surprised grunt slipping out of some vulnerable pocket of his chest, but you held him in place. “Remember what I showed you last time?”

He hesitated, but not for very long. There was a slight lapse, a pause as he tried to bridge the gap between your anatomy and his, but after a moment of scraping your dull nails over his scalp, of grinning down at him with as much love and patience as you could muster, he let his eyes fall shut and opened his mouth, his tongue darting part his lips and lapping tentatively over your slit. His next swipe was a touch more confident, and the same went for the one after that, and the one after that. A slight groan bubbled up from the base of his throat, his hands coming to rest on your thighs – his curved talons biting shallowly into your skin. You embraced the spark of pain without complaint. As if you had the heart to interrupt such a valuable learning moment.

It was slow work – as sloppy as it was messy, his enthusiasm barely managing to overshadow his inexperience. You couldn’t tell how much of it was on purpose, if he meant to grind the bridge of his nose against your clit, if there was any rhyme or rhythm to how he drew his tongue over your entrance, but it was savage enough, animalistic enough to draw a shallow moan from your lips, to earn the flattened edge of your heel ground against his cock. It took ages for his tongue to slip into you, the tapered point curling and probing against the walls of your cunt. He was lucky to have been born such a rabid creature, to have been gifted such a pretty face. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be worth a minute of your time.

It was a good effort, but it wasn’t enough. With a sharp jerk to his hair, you pulled him away from you and threw him to the ground, his pointed talons leaving a row of raised skin in their wake. With a startled expression and a fog over his eyes, he blinked up at you, barely bothering to try and push himself up before you brought your heel down on his chest and pushed him flush against the floor. “Stay down.” You flashed him a smile, trying to pretend you meant for it to be comforting. “Don’t you trust me?”

He didn’t answer. You didn’t wait for him to, shedding your robes completely and straddling his waist. His prep work had been… minimalistic, to put it kindly, but you’d never been one to back down from a challenge. You met his eyes, holding his half-lidded gaze as you wrapped your hand around his cock and pulled his cage away as easily as if it’d never been there at all.

You took slow, agonizing seconds to line him up with your entrance, rolling your hips to spread his precum over your slit. He let out a slight whimper, then managed to find his voice. “What… what are doing?”

“I think I’ve already told you about this one,” you said, your smile now genuine. “We’re going to make love, princess.”

In your own defense, you gave him a chance to protest, to complain, to throw you off of him and rejoin his brothers in the prince’s ballroom. You waited a second, then another, and when he failed to do anything more than stare up at you with that pleading expression, you lowered yourself onto him, only stopping when you were sure he’d bottomed out.

You were able to bite back your voice, but Satan wasn’t so skilled when it came to hiding his reactions. His body went stiff underneath yours, his eyes falling shut as a sinful moan trickled past his lips. You heard his breath hitch, felt his cock twitch, and then he was coming undone inside of you, likely marking the first time he’d cum inside of anyone, because of anything but your mouth. You couldn’t help but laugh, drinking in his fractured whines as you started moving, rolling your hips and grinding against him, riding him properly – not that he’d know the difference. “S-stop,” he managed, though little pained noises and blissful gasps. “It— It hurts—”

Overstimulation, clearly. It was amazing, how sensitive a demon so ferocious could be. “You’ll like it once you calm down. Just try to tough it out for me, alright?” With one hand on his chest, you let the other slip between your legs and to your clit, sorely neglected by his earlier guesswork. “I’ve made you cum… how many times now? Twice? I think I get to take a little something for myself.”

If he was capable of responding, he didn’t seem to think it was worth the effort. Instead, he only collapsed underneath you, his talons scraping against the stone floor and his point fangs biting at his own lips while you used his cock as your own, personal toy; as something to be played with but otherwise left on the outskirts of your consideration. While he might’ve been willing to fuck anything you put in front of him, you held yourself to higher standards, seeking out whatever made heat pool in your core and that aching knot in the pit of your stomach draw itself that much tighter with a refined sense of determination. You’d known how pretty he was, but there was a different kind of beauty to the way he looked writhing below you, to the pitiful sounds he made every time you clenched around him or moved in a way that threatened to milk his cock – still hard, despite his whining, still needy – dry. It was clumsy, little more than reflex winning over dower rationality, but he tried to move his hips in time with yours, to seek out the heat of your cunt whenever you threatened to pull away and abandon him completely. Not that you were going to. As pathetic as his sensitivity was, you weren’t much better – the anticipation you’d built up in his absence more than enough to make up for his inexperience. Your climax rolled over you in thick, lethargic waves, dimming the edges of your vision and pulling a raspy, vaguely humored gasp from somewhere deep in your chest. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. You’d make him keep going until he gave you something better, next time.

Tonight, though, you had better things to do than babysit. With a shallow inhale and a moment taken to compose yourself, you pulled away from him and pushed yourself to your feet. Satan let out a displeased growl, loud enough and deep enough to rattle off the walls of the storage closet, but you shut him up quickly, pressing the sole of your boot into his shaft and rocking with just enough force to leave him spilling ropes of thick, ivory cum on his stomach, the evidence of his depravity left splattered against the pale skin of his midriff and the dark leather of your shoes. He moved to grab your ankle, to keep you that much closer to him for that much longer, but you pulled back, straightening yourself and shrugging your robes back on while Satan watched you, his eyes glassy and his fangs bared. “Maybe, next time, you’ll be able to take the lead,” you wondered aloud, then laughed. “Wouldn’t count on it, though. I think you’re cuter when you don’t have to think for yourself.”

You could still feel his eyes burning into you as you slipped back into the castle.

He started asking you to meet him in the House of Lamentation, after that. You told him you didn’t have a problem with empty classrooms and storage closets, but he insisted. You weren’t surprised. Just as he was learning that he would have to be well-behaved for you, you were starting to realize that you’d have to be gentler than anticipated with him.

That’s what you were doing now – being gentle. The collar wrapped around his neck was loose and lightweight, the leash that connected his throat to your hand allowed to fall lax for the moment, at least until the next time he did something that you would need to. You’d even let him take charge, laying back while he buried his face between your thighs, a skill he was eager to hone after you admitted his natural talent left more than a little to be desired. He was making progress, too. He’d learned to bite back his pride while he lapped over your cunt and pushed aimless patterns into your clit, spurred on by every twitch and moan he could draw out of you. There was a pillow between his legs, something soft and pliable he could grind against while he took care of you, but the thin golden ring sitting at the base of his cock made sure he wouldn’t have his fun before you had yours. This one wasn’t enchanted (you’d been tempted, but magic could be fickle and you didn’t want to bring an arcane locksmith into your time with him), but it worked well enough, and he’d never really gotten the hang of taking care of himself. To be fair, that was something he didn’t have to learn. He had you to dote on him, and you weren’t going anywhere. Not for a few hours, at least.

His hand curled around your hips, spreading you open further as the tapered end of his tongue lavished your clit, his drool mixing with your slick and staining the inside of your thighs. You let your eyes fall shut, using your legs to pull him closer as you bucked into his mouth and used his tongue to nurse yourself through your climax, only letting him go when the first pangs of overstimulation began to set in. Even without your encouragement, he didn’t go far. You felt the mattress shift, sensed his body on top of yours, and then, his mouth was crashing into your own, his kiss all teeth and tongue and violent lust. Within seconds, you could taste your blood on his lips, make out the little, airy noises only partially muffled by your connection. You could—

Your fist was crashing into his cheek before you had time to think, to stop yourself. Your knuckles caught his jaw with enough force to pry him off of you and leave him on the floor, still sitting up but visibly folded into himself. You cursed under your breath, your eyes only flitting to the door once before you lowered yourself to the ground beside him. There was a half-hearted snarl, but it died in his throat as soon as you were close enough to cup his cheek. You let out a softened coo as you pulled him close, pressing a fleeting kiss into his forehead. “Ah, I know, I know.” Another kiss, this one to the bruise forming along his jaw. Your remorse, although left mostly unspoken, was genuine. Anyone would’ve mourned leaving a mark on such a beautiful face. “Are you hurt?”

“As if something like that would affect an Avatar.”

As sharp-tongued as he was defensive. You were thankful for his ego-serving tendencies in this moment more than most. With an airy laugh, you strung your arms over his shoulders and let him bury his face in the dip of your shoulder. “Just don’t surprise me like that again, alright?” And then, after he managed to nod, “I know you’re strong enough to take it, but it’d break my heart to see you get hurt. Because of something so trivial, especially.”

When he didn’t pull away, didn’t respond at all, you sighed. “Do you have anything to say to me?”

It was little more than a mumble, spoke just under his breath. “Thank you,” he paused, melted that much further into you, “for taking care of me.”

“Good boy.”

You left a few minutes later, dressed in one of his shirts and little else. For your own peace of mind, you decided not to think about how long it’d been since you’d seen him bury his teeth in anything aside from you.

Honestly, it’d been weeks since you’d seen his fangs at all.

You’d had this problem before. Ever the romantic, your idle mind tended to linger on what couldn’t be reclaimed, to drive you towards the pursuit of wild beauty despite knowing that truly untamed things couldn’t be found twice, let alone a few times a week, whenever the careful surveillance of his brothers lapsed and Satan could seek you out like some mangy, prowling predator, spurred on by the promise of relief. Really, you would’ve given up on him after that first encounter, after he failed to sink his claws into your neck, or—

A ragged grunt drew you out of your thoughts and back into the present moment, back to Satan where he hovered above you. You were in some shadowed tunnel of the catacombs underneath the House of Lamentation, tonight, and you’d been kind enough to let him take charge, to keep your thighs wrapped around his waist as he fucked into you like a trained mutt, rather than the wild animal you were looking for. The stone of the altar he’d laid you over was cool against your skin, his horns pleasantly calloused where your hands were wrapped around them, and yet, your mind still wandered, the feeling of his cock beating against the walls of your cunt numbed by your lack of interest. Satan was less unaffected, his eyes clenching shut as he buckled against you, burying his face in your chest as he pushed open-mouthed kisses into whatever he could reach. It was sickening, the thought that he might’ve wanted you to return such tender affection. It was sickening, the thought that he could be capable of being so banal.

His hips crashed into yours, and you felt his lips turn upward, his cock twitch inside of you. “I think—” A pitchy whine, a half-swallowed whimper. “I think I’m in love with you.”

God. You might’ve been starting to hate him.

You let your hands fall to his shoulders. “Down, boy.”

He shook his head, too lost in his own bliss to listen to you. You scowled, shoving lightly at his chest, attempting more to get his attention than to force him off of you. “Down. Unless you want me to assume you’ve forgotten how to be obedient.”

“I—I love you,” he repeated, and then again, “I love you.” One of your legs was forced over his shoulder, his chest pressed almost flush to yours – bending you in half in a way that would’ve been painful, if you’d been anyone else. You let out a throaty growl, marking the first time you’d stopped to his level, but Satan didn’t hesitate, didn’t relent, only bowing his head and letting his rhythm deteriorate into something less calculated, less taught. You would’ve been pleased, if you hadn’t been so angry with him. “We— We’re going to be together, and you’re going to be mine, and I’m going to be—”

You could see tears running down his cheeks, hear his voice shake from something entirely separate from pleasure or desperation. You cursed under your breath, dragging your nails down the length of his spine and clawing at his back with enough force to break the skin, but he didn’t seem to notice, didn’t seem to mind, to care, to notice.“I’ll be yours.” He sounded so pathetically determined, as he thought it would come true if he only spoke loudly enough, if he only fucked you desperately enough. He probably did. You’d never taught him any better, and you weren’t sure he had anyone else who would even know to try. “I’ll only be yours.”

You were struggling, now, thrashing underneath him, but he was still an Avatar, still ranks above any station you would ever be able to reach. He held you in a bone-crushing, heart-wrenching embrace; close enough for you to feel his heart beating through his chest, to pick up on the half-muffled sobs catching in his throat. He only pulled away to bring one of his hands up to your jaw, to hold you in place while he pressed his lips against yours in a kiss so soft and so gentle, you would’ve been tempted to call it loving had it not been so vile.

By the time he drew back, he was smiling, and you couldn’t seem to remember why you’d ever thought he could be anything but hideous.

“And you’ll never have to leave again.”

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere oneshot #yandere obey me #obey me #obey me imagines #yandere satan #satan x reader #satan x you #om satan x reader #om satan x you #yanderecore #yancore

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inkyajax · 1 year

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✩°｡⋆ 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞! ⋆｡°✩

anonymous wrote: how would the boys react with a reader that likes to nibble them?

characters: ajax/tartaglia, kamisato ayato, thoma, alhaitham

notes: aaah this was really fun anon thank you for your question! happy valentine’s day everyone!!

warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, biting, bruising, blood, minimal prep, daddy kink, sadism, dom/sub power/relationship dynamics, a mention of dacryphilia in ajax’s, reader is female

words: 1.5k

✧˖°. 𝐚𝐣𝐚𝐱 | 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐚 .°˖✧

ajax has a huge biting kink and absolutely will bite you back at least twice as hard. he likes to make it a game of sorts; who can bite the hardest? who can stand it the longest? who will give in/give up first? who will finally cry out in pain? who can conjure pretty little crystalline drops of hedonistic agony in the other’s eyes, adorning thick eyelashes and soft cheeks? who can break skin and draw blood first? who can leave the biggest, deepest, harshest bruised bite? and when it’s finally over, when he inevitably comes out on top, emerges as the winner, he likes to compare battle wounds, making little comments in that soft, sweet, awe-stricken voice before taking polaroids of the prettiest marks—immortalizing them for safekeeping, kept between the pages of an old, worn journal—and dating them with little notes in that signature spiky slanted handwriting, thoughts scrawled in black sharpie across the bottom border.

it’s routine, ritual, at this point, for him to take his time appreciating each and every wound he’s carved into your flesh, tracing the indents of his teeth, all thirty-two of them, with his index finger in the most loving, gentlest caresses. lips journey across the map of his creations with docile little kisses—ghosts of adoration that skim and stroke your marred skin, flesh still oozing crimson and flowering a scattered collection of oceanic bruises, all violet and charcoal and deep azure—before he dips into them with his tongue, laving over them and filling the tiny craters with viscous saliva, sticky and thick.

but despite his inherent sadism, he is an absolute king at aftercare, tending to both your wounds and his own with the utmost devotion as murmured praises pour in endless streams from his lips. the sentiments wash over your body in seamless conjunction with his hands, purifying you in every sense, his words like a soothing salve as his fingers work diligently, cleaning and bandaging, patching up and healing your wounds.

✧˖°. 𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐭𝐨 .°˖✧

he laughs, low and smooth and drenched with condescension, as if your sharp teeth sinking into his flesh are nothing more than the tickle of a feather, as if it’s so cute that you think you can hurt him, that you think you can have any affect on him at all. you should know better, really; ayato is masterful at controlling his emotions and reactions, and the chances of conjuring a genuine response that isn’t carefully curated and constructed is slim. you know better than to break the skin, though, know better than to ever leave a mark darker than something that won’t fade within fifteen minutes, that if you do it’s an instant spanking for you—or worse, depending on the severity of the wound.

it’s cute, he tells you, that you want to mark up Daddy so much, claiming your territory and stamping him as yours. but he promises you can do that in other ways that don’t induce public speculation on what he does in his personal life, he’s sure.

you agree, for the most part, hating the impermanence of bruises and bite marks irregardless and preferring something that is much more concrete, something that makes a statement, bold and firm and uneraseable. but this doesn’t stop the edges of your teeth scraping along his skin—his jaw and his neck and the exposed notches of his collarbone—because it was never really about that, was it?

no, of course not. because you only get this way, suddenly voracious and starved for his flesh, suddenly compulsive and desperate to gnaw on his bones, when he’s busy, when you’re sat on his lap and snuggling into his chest after begging and crying and swearing you’ll be good, when he’s entirely disregarding your presence in favour of the thick manila folders on his desk and the weathered documents between his fingers.

you both know he could ignore it if he wanted to, could resist giving into your pathetic little demands for attention with the utmost ease, unbothered and unfazed by the little pricks of pain your nips and nibbles conjure, but that isn’t very fun.

a hum of mock contemplation vibrates against his ribs, his voice deep and decadent, dark and dangerous as he murmurs out a warning. “do you think it’s wise to bite Daddy while he’s trying to do work, baby? you promised you’d behave if he let you stay with him, but you’re not behaving in the slightest, are you?”

no, you’re not, and he’s going to fucking do something about it. because that’s what good Daddy’s are supposed to do, isn’t it?

✧˖°. 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚 .°˖✧

moans, loudly. he tries to resist how fucking good it feels, the way it makes his stomach swoop and flutter, the way it makes his cock twitch almost violently, and in a sweet, shaky voice he attempts to coax you out of it, each gentle request met with a sinful little giggle, bubbly and warm as sunshine as it seeps into his skin. each cute little bite is sealed with your tongue, wide and flat against his skin as it drags across the rapidly developing mark, painting each in a stroke of glistening saliva. chills skitter across his flesh with every precious laugh you huff out, your amusement cool against his wet neck.

thoma lets you have your fun for longer than any of the other men would, because he has such a difficult time firmly saying no to you and asserting his authority; because he only ever wants to give you the very best, make you the very happiest, almost desperate in the way he shreds himself into curls of tinder and sets himself alight in his haste to give into your every wish and whim.

that doesn’t mean he’s invincible, though. sure, he’ll allow such behaviour to continue for as long as he can possibly stand it, except you keep pushing and pushing—ruthlessly, ceaselessly, keen to see just how far you can prod before those flames of desire licking at his tummy and up his throat finally erupt into an untameable blaze—and eventually, Daddy has to do something about it.

because he’s only human, after all; there’s only so much teasing a man can take—only so many little nips of your canines, only so many kittenish laps over minuscule injuries, only so many bounces of your cotton-clad pussy on his clothed cock in time with each of your giggles—before he’s finally rucking up your skirt, hem bunching around your waist, eager fingers tugging your panties to the side and shoving his cock into your ill-prepared but slick cunt. a heavy sigh of bliss wafts across your face as he bottoms out, bones melting beneath the heat of his scorching lust, body relaxed, relieved, as the fire is fed.

✧˖°. 𝐚𝐥𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐦 .°˖✧

he’ll let you have your fun for a little bit, gnawing away on his neck and shoulder and collarbone, head tilting slightly to allow you more room to work as incisors nibble along his jaw—gentle little nips that are nothing more than teasing, lacquered in shimmering spit only a moment later. however, as time goes on, the force and strength and pressure of your bites increases, becomes harder, heavier, hellacious—he knows this, of course, expects it every time, because he knows you inside out, back to front, his favourite storybook to study, a living, breathing, constantly evolving tale edited by him, and there’s only so far he’ll allow you to go before he decides it’s time to put you back in your rightful place, restore you back to your rightful state.

you know when he’s getting close to snapping, too; can feel it in the way smooth, sculpted muscle begins to tense and coil beneath you, can tell by the way his cock begins to swell, slow and steady, hard and hot and heavy as it presses into your core, rough denim gyrating in micro-circles against soft, lace trimmed cotton. but it’s when his breath stutters, fragmented to sharp little shards that catch in his throat after a particularly vicious bite, that you know he’s finally cracked.

then he’s flipping you over, body trapped between his and the couch, so quick it knocks the breath from your chest, so quick your mind can’t even comprehend it before you’re ensnared beneath him, sharp hipbones snuggling between plush thighs as a growl ripples his ribs. sharp ivory slices into your flesh, strong jaw flexing as the hinges clamp shut, locked in place until his teeth thoroughly etch his name across your body in deep, dark indents that’ll take over a day to puff up, blooming a tiny grotesque garden of molds of each tooth; rigid little graves and groves in shades of violet and navy. his cock throbs against you the entire time, rutting into your core in barely controlled movements, resistance and restraint stretched into thin taut vines. but it isn’t until you’re whining out his name, high and pitchy and broken, stuffed full of spit and straining with sobs, that he finally unlatches his mouth from your neck and gives you what you really want, thick cock tearing you open as he buries himself in your cute little hole and fills you to the hilt, head pressed firm and tight against your cervix.

#tartaglia x reader #tartaglia smut #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham smut #kamisato ayato smut #kamisato ayato x reader #thoma x reader #thoma smut #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #eeee enjoy friends

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i-was-today-years-old-when · 11 months

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i learned what are the most mysterious places in the world

Marree Man – The fact that there is not a single witness to the creation of the Marree Man speaks to the absolute isolation of central South Australia. Somehow in 1998, one person or a group of people were able to create a 2.6-mile long line drawing of an aboriginal hunter, without being seen. In the midst of barren, arid land in South Australia, the Marree Man is the largest geoglyph and work of art in the world. Cut into the harsh landscape with lines over 115 feet wide and one foot deep, the towering Marree Man is easily visible from space. Thirteen years after the Marree Man was discovered during a flyover, little is known about its origin. Although we may never know the true origin of the Marree Man, it is certainly one of most intriguing modern day mysteries.

Chocolate Hills – Bohol Island in the Philippines during the dry season, you might notice what looks like thousands of chocolate kisses protruding from the terrain. These mysterious conical mounds are known as the Chocolate Hills. There are approximately 1,268 individual hills, their heights ranging from 100 to 160 feet, though the highest is almost 400 feet high. The hills, which are almost all symmetrical, consist of grass-covered limestone and turn brown during the dry season. Despite the abundance of hills, it is unclear how they were formed. There are multiple geological explanations ranging from oceanic volcano activity to limestone weathering. Numerous legends and tales also exist to explain the Chocolate Hills.

Giants Nest – In 1949 a geologist named Vadim Kolpakov discovered a large mound of limestone in the north of the Irkutsk region in southeastern Siberia. The cone is curiously shaped with a crater at the top and a small mound in the center. The mound is about 40 meters high and 100 meters across at the base. The smaller mound at the top is about 12 meters high. The crater was named Patomskiy, after a nearby river, but local residents call it “the Fiery Eagle’s Nest”. Since the discovery of the crater, there have been many theories as to what could have created it. For a long time it was believed to be a meteorite impact structure. Some linked it to the Tunguska meteorite, whose remains have never been discovered. But the crater does not resemble any other known meteorite site. Even now, the origin of the crater is not discovered.

Richat Structure – In the midst of vast, vacant Sahara desert, just outside of Ouadane, Mauritania, lies a 30-mile wide geological oddity known the Richat Structure, sometimes called the “Eye of Africa.” From space, this natural curiosity forms a distinct and unmistakable bull’s-eye that once served as a geographical landmark for early astronauts as they passed over the Sahara. Once thought to be an impact crater due to its circularity, the unusual formation is now widely believed to have been caused by the erosion of a geological dome formed by pressure from a bulb of molten magma below.

Plain of Jars – The Plain of Jars is a collection of large stone jars interspersed throughout the Xieng Khouang plain in the Lao Highlands. The stone structures are mostly made of sedimentary rock and, ranging from 3 to 10 feet in height, each can weigh up to 14 tons. To date, the origin of the jars is unknown, though archaeologists believe that they were originally used between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago. Many researchers have theorized that the jars may have once served as funerals urns or food storage. As local Laotian legend would have it, the jars were created by Khun Cheung, an ancient king of giants who lived in the highlands. It is said that Cheung, after fighting a long and victorious battle, created the jars in order to brew huge amounts of celebratory lao lao rice wine.

Giant’s Grave of Coddu Vecchiu – Giant’s or Tomba Dei giganti, are megalithic gallery graves that were used as public tombs during the Bronze Age. The massive gravestones were built by the Nuragic civilization, which existed in Sardinia from the 2nd millennium BCE. to the 2nd century CE. Despite the imaginative name, the sites were not the burial site of any giant; they were giant community burial chambers. Though we know the tombs had a funerary purpose, more questions remain. Little is known about the rituals or traditional beliefs that motivated their construction. Were they mass graves? Were they built to facilitate the journey into the afterlife? Since their existence has yet to be justified by scientific research, they have been credited to the supernatural, which has only increased their mystery. Legend also claims that yes, indeed, these were the tombs of powerful giants.

Zone of Silence – Pilot Francisco Sarabia was flying over a patch of desert land in Mexico when his instruments started to act increasingly odd. The man had to make an emergency landing in the middle of nowhere. Little did he know that this "nowhere" would be later dubbed "The Zone of Silence.” Weird radio silence isn't the only oddity of the creepy Zone. Like, what’s that weird trio that locals keep meeting in the Zone? They’re two men and a woman. Every time people see them, they’re wearing bizarre clothing that isn't suitable for a journey in the desert whatsoever. On top of all that, the Zone of Silence is known as a 50 km patch of deserted land where meteorites come crashing down on an eerily regular basis. On July 11, 1970, the US launched an ATHENA rocket from the Air Force base in Green River, Utah. The rocket was supposed to land somewhere in the area of White Sands in New Mexico. Instead, it went off course and, as if being pulled by some external force, crashed right in the heart of the Zone of Silence.

Michigan Triangle – Stretching from Ludington to Benton Harbor, Michigan and to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the Lake Michigan Triangle has inspired numerous accounts of activity that are difficult to explain by rational thought. The mystery began in 1891, when a schooner named the Thomas Hume set off across the Lake to pick up lumber. Almost overnight in a torrent of wind, the Thomas Hume disappeared along with its crew of seven sailors. The wooden boat was never found. After the turn of the century, strange events happened at steady intervals. Of the more mysterious is the case of the Rosa Belle. In 1921 eleven people inside the ship, who were all members of the Benton Harbor House of David, disappeared and their ship was found overturned and floating in Lake Michigan. While it appeared that the ship had been damaged in a collision, no other ship had reported an accident and no other remains had been found.

Alaska Triangle – The Alaska Triangle is a place in the untouched wilderness where mystery lingers and people go missing at a very high rate. The area began attracting public attention in October 1972, when a small, private plane carrying U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, Alaska Congressman Nick Begich seemingly vanished into thin air. For more than a month, 50 civilian planes and 40 military aircraft plus dozens of boats, covered a search area of 32,000 square miles, but no trace of the plane, the men, wreckage or debris were ever found. Afterward, more planes went down, hikers went missing, and Alaskan residents and tourists seemed to vanish into thin air. In fact, since 1988, more than 16,000 people have disappeared in the Alaska Triangle, with a missing person rate at more than twice the national average. These disappearances are blamed on everything from severe weather to aliens, to swirling energy vortexes, to an evil shape-shifting demon of Tlingit Indian lore called Kushtaka, with no scientific explanation to the disappearances till today.

The Initiation Well – The Initiation well is 88 feet deep well located on the land of Quinta da Regaleira. Actually, it was used for ceremonial purposes. There is another small well near this well. Both these wells are connected by tunnels. The larger well contains a 27-meter spiral staircase with several small landings and the smaller well contains straight stairs that connect a series of ring-shaped floors to one another. The smaller well is also called the 'Unfinished Well'. The depth of this larger well is equal to the four-storey building, which becomes narrower on going closer to the ground. It is believed that there is some kind of light comes out from the well inside the ground and comes outwards. Surprisingly, there is no system of light inside this well, then where from this light comes, it is the secret. Anyone who comes to visit here, always raises the question of where the light comes from inside the well? Till today this secret is unsolved.

(Image Source : Google)

Thanks for Reading.

#today i learned #facts #truth #history #earth

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the-gnomish-bastard · 5 months

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Cool titles to give your big ass monsters in DnD

Dragons:

Serpent of the Fell Flame

The Blazing Sky

Thunder Scourge

Eternal Blizzard

Blizzard Lizard

The Swamp’s Vengeance

The Winged Shadow

Giants:

Dragon’s Bane

The Cloud King

The Storm’s Wrath

Frostborn Titan

The Lumbering Glutton

The Infernal Colossus

Crater Maker

The Mountain’s Child

Krakens or other sea creatures:

Devourer in the Deep

The Hungering Maw

The Depth’s Fear

Ship Taker

Lord of the Waves

Wrath of the Sea

Aberrations and other cosmic horrors:

Secret Stealer

Star Devourer

The Forgotten Terror

The Dreaming Nightmare

Mind Feaster

The Endless

The Inevitable

Wrath of the Stars

Bane of Creation

#wizardposting #wizard #artificer #wizard posting #gnome #gnome post #wizard tumblr #dnd #dnd5e #dnd campaign #dnd ideas #wizardcore #wizard shit #wizards #wizardblr

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kuamiru · 1 year

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The Golden Child Prologue

SAGAU & Impostor AU where the reader is the child of the actual creator.

Warnings: death, public execution, torture. The creator is gender neutral but is the one who conceived the reader (referred as 'mysterious person' or 'traveler' in some parts).

For the inhabitants of Teyvat it all started when the universe was created. The skies took shape, the starts shone with life, the world slowly but surely began to take form from the universal dust.

Then, a mysterious figure descended from the sky. Clad in a holy white aura, they presented themselves as their creator, and every animal, human, god, and creature could feel the love their gaze held for them. For a couple of years, that divinity helped humanity take their first steps. Gods borrowed their power, Celestia was created, and the humans started to settle down in diverse nations around the world. And when they were no longer needed, they decided to let their creation flourish by themselves.

A promise to Celestia was made— that they would one day return in a mortal body as their job as the almighty creator was done. A mortal to experience in their own flesh the joy this world brought to everyone. To stand alongside their creation that they loved so much. And, of course, the creation that loved them with the same intensity.

And then, they vanished like stardust.

Just for a while.

A shooting star descended one night from the sky. It drew a long white line as if it was dividing the heavens in two.

Every archon felt a strange pull that time. A feeling they couldn't exactly describe, but it was making their heart feel heavy with anticipation. For what exactly they didn't know yet.

The star fell in the middle of Mondstadt, just outside the city. And from the crater, a single person emerged. They looked confused as they inspected this new land, obviously foreign to them. It was as if the world was welcoming them; flowers blossoming under their feet and the wind gently caressing their hair and cheeks. Even the moon seemed to shine brighter that night.

However, they barely had any time to explore as the Knights of Favonius arrived at the place, giving the order to capture the strange person who dared to steal the face of their beloved Creator. Avoiding arrows and the edge of the swords, the mysterious person barely managed to flee the land of Mondstadt before they found they weren't exactly welcomed in the other nations.

The Tenryou commission in Inazuma; the Millelith in Liyue; even the Eremites and mercenaries in Sumeru. It seemed like every person in this strange world was set on getting their head just because they resembled some god they worshipped. Every statue of that mysterious god they encountered only fueled their despair, as every time they looked over their shoulder, they could only see their face staring right back at them.

It took them only two days to notice that only the humans were attacking them. For some reason, the monsters, animals, and even the nature itself seemed to stand by their side. Strange creatures wearing masks and weapons helped them escape; monsters like giant flowers provided some shelter and warmth during the cold nights; and every time they thought that they were cornered, a strange path just opened in front of them and closing before any of their pursuers could also pass through.

But life on the run is not a true life. Surviving is not living.

So one day, when they were completely exhausted, just contemplating the sea before them thinking that maybe the best would be to just surrender... a strange man appeared.

He was a merchant, that much was obvious. He was dressed in typical Liyue fashion, but much to their surprise, he didn't instantly regard him with disdain like the other people from his nation. Instead he approached curiously, eager to know why such a strange person was just standing there, staring at the sea.

If the merchant did notice the resemblance the mysterious person shared with their god, he sure didn't say anything about it.

Instead the man offered his name and asked if they had a place to spend the upcoming night. At the negative response he then insisted on coming with him to his place. Some company would even make a lonely merchant like him feel good.

The night, however, ended up becoming a few days. Then a week; a month; and finally a year.

The little merchant's house was the only place that outerworldly traveler could feel at ease, safe. They knew for a fact that every person on Teyvat was still looking for them, so they preferred to stay inside the house. The times the merchant had to leave to work were lonely, sure, but the thought of finally having someone they could trust and a place to live filled their heart with a little joy. So they would spend their time being some sort of househusband or housewife, taking care of their home while the merchant was away.

And of course, love came far too soon.

Feeling afraid of giving themselves to the merchant, the mysterious person asked if he knew that they were the one every human and god was looking for, the one that for some reason was labeled as an 'impostor' and with a bounty on their head.

"There are a lot of people in this world who have gone blind with faith. Should you be the Creator of this world or not, it would not change how I feel for you. I do not think that what they do is the right thing; resembling a deity is not a sin. If you would have me, I promise to protect you until the day I die."

Those words were enough to dissipate any doubts. They would have loved to marry the merchant, but with them being a fugitive it would be impossible to have any official register the marriage.

But that didn't stop their relationship from getting deeper. Just a little before their one year anniversary from their meeting arrived, the traveler found themself being pregnant.

The merchant still had to travel very often thanks to his work, but at those times the traveler would get out of the house for a while and take long walks near the shores, where they knew no one lived and certainly no person would pass by.

They weren't exactly right, as one time one soldier caught sight of them. The Millelith had finally found the impostor and they were in Liyue! He silently returned to the city.

The traveler returned home not knowing what would transpire next.

A month after that, their little child was born. The merchant cried a lot that day, overjoyed to have fathered such a cute baby that looked exactly like his partner.

For five years they lived in peace as a little and happy family.

For some time they could feel like something bad was about to happen. They could remember feeling the same way those times they lived running for their life, so it obviously didn't mean anything good.

Trusting their instinct helped them survive until now, so they decided to rely on it once more and flee from their house during the night. The merchant and their child were in a deep slumber, none the wiser to what was happening to them.

Far away from the house, a group of soldiers finally caught up to them. This time they were able to apprehend them and bring them as prisoner back to the city of Liyue.

Apparently, trusting their instincts was the right thing to do. They knew they wouldn't be able to run forever, they were just glad that the Millelith caught them alone and didn't know of the existence of their boyfriend and child. They didn't have to guess what the Millelith would do 'traitors' like them.

News of a public execution arrived as early as the next morning. The merchant couldn't believe it. His whole world was crumbling in front of him...

Taking his child in his arms, he rushed to get to the city on time, horrified to find his partner kneeling in front of a huge crowd. He instantly took his hat and put it over his child's head, the oversized fedora covering their eyes. He didn't want his child to see their parent sitting in a pool of their own blood, with bruises and cuts covering their entire body and even some bones poking out.

He couldn't even hear the speech Lady Ningguang was giving, too focused on trying not to cry while every other person was celebrating. He would never forget the last smile his partner gave him and their child before perishing by the almighty Shogun's polearm.

The inhabitants of Liyue were horrified to find that, once the heart of who they believed was an 'impostor' stopped beating, the once red blood acquired a golden color. It soon started to shine, enveloping the entire body before vanishing like stardust in a mix of blue and golden light.

"No... No, no, no, no!! It can't be! Your Grace, your Excellency... it was- was that really you...?"

The archons could only stare horrified at their bloody hands.

The merchant couldn't even listen to their cries and pleads, too deep in his own mourning to even care. He just hugged his child even tighter, as if grasping the only thing that connected him to this world.

He failed to notice a lone soldier approaching the Qixing, speaking to Ningguang in a hurry.

"Yes... that's right... Their Grace must have planned this as a way to prove ourselves! We must find that child... the child born from our Divine Creator! We must atone for what we have done."

The merchant only came back to his senses when the world 'child' was said. So someone saw them when they were pregnant... this was no good. He had to protect his child, the child of his beloved, or they would be taken from him... Could they believe the Creator would just revive if they just took care of their child? Well, he wasn't going to let them even try.

He managed to escape from the city just as the Millelith was called once again, undoubtedly being ordered to search for every child between the ages of 4 and 6.

He thought he got away unnoticed... failing to notice a pair of golden eyes following his figure.

#genshin impact #genshin impact au #sagau #impostor au #sagau impostor au #genshin impact sagau #genshin impact x reader #reader #cult au #genshin cult au #genshin self aware #platonic yandere #yandere #genshin x reader #platonic yandere x reader #yandere x reader

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txttletale · 1 year

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longstanding problem in socialist movements is the cult of the loser. failed revolutions and tendencies can all be treated as utopic ideals--because trotsky/luxemburg/makhno/the gang of four/etc never came to power, one is free to imagine that they would have elegantly resolved all the contradictions of their time and place with ease. once you make such a utopia of your own creation your point of comparison, your ability to make real critiques of socialist projects grounded in their material circumstances craters!

#tattletxt

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rassicas · 1 year

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Return of the Mammalians Log.exe, retranslated

There’s a handful of differences between the ENG and JP version of the secret final Alterna Log, Log.exe. Much of it is fine, but there’s a few things in the localization that I think are...not great. I’ll talk about it at the end I reused some of the wording in the localization that I thought was close enough to the JP, and some of it I rewrote. ok translation under the cut

Return of the Mammalians There were those of humankind who gave up on the desolate Earth. They placed many surviving animals in a cold sleep, put them on a spaceship- the Ark Polaris- and set it off into space. The mission: to search for a new planet to replace the Earth.

The Polaris had a smooth voyage...until it reached the edge of the solar system. It was at that point that debris struck the vessel, damaging its navigation system. The crew was able to turn the ship around and and head back toward Earth, but the effort was in vain-there was not enough fuel to attempt a landing. The Ark Polaris drifted in Earth’s orbit for over 10,000 years.

Eons passed. The once-stable orbit of the Polaris decayed over time until the ship found itself in the inescapable pull of the Earth's gravity. All the humans and animals aboard perished, save one. Bear #03, an experimental subject who had retained consciousness within his cold hibernation, miraculously survived. For 12,000 years he had been thinking, dreaming of the planet he would emigrate to. From this, he gained a very high level of intelligence.

Upon waking, Bear #03 discovers that he had not landed on a new planet at all. He was back on Earth. An Earth dominated by marine life, with not a single mammal in sight.

In the course of his search for a single fellow mammal, Bear #03 used navigational equipment from the wreckage of the Ark Polaris to discover Alterna, located deep within the Crater. Its inhabitants had gone extinct, but upon examining the facilities, he discovered that the thoughts of humanity were burned into the liquid crystals covering the inner walls of Alterna. Thus, Bear #03 repaired Alterna's facilities and began researching the crystals...

This research bore fruit when Bear #03 compounded some of the liquid crystals with his own fur. The experiment created an entirely new substance capable of transforming any living creature into a mammal. As the only surviving mammal, He decided it was his job to restore mammals to the Earth. He aimed to mammalianize all life by using Alterna’s rocket to spread Fuzzy Ooze from the sky.

Bear #03 set out to gather Golden Eggs, indispensable in both the creation of the Fuzzy Ooze and for launching the rocket. For this, he took on the name of Mr. Grizz and founded Grizzco Industries.

Thanks to the assistance of unsuspecting Inklings and Octolings, Bear #03 secured a massive quantity of Golden Eggs. He was ready to take the final steps to set his plan in motion...

My comments:

-The “plotting and dreaming” line bugged the hell out of me, because “plotting” has some connotation of an “evil long term plan”, and Grizz had no motivation to carry out his mammal restoration plan until AFTER he woke up. The JP version is more clear about what he was dreaming about, and it doesn’t sound as evil. -the paragraphs about Grizz discovering Alterna and Fuzzy Ooze are interesting in how they’re a bit different from the ENG version. Not a fan of the “mammalian paradise!” line I thought it sounded kind of like a idiotic cartoon supervillain there. I mean he kind of is and his plan fucking sucks, but the original line makes his motivations sound a bit more reasonable-taken-to-an-insane-extreme rather than just cartoonishly insane. JP Grizz sounds more level-headed and deep in thought. -I invite you to compare the second to last paragraph, as the changes in this part are what inspired me to retranslate this. The localization left out the crucial information that the eggs are rocket fuel, and instead added in some fluff about ORCA being not-so-omniscient that wasn’t present in the original.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #mr grizz #return of the mammalians #mr. grizz #splatoon translations #rotm

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blasteffect · 7 months

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Moon Enhanced !

Our Moon doesn't really look like this. Earth's Moon, Luna, doesn't naturally show this rich texture, and its colors are more subtle. But this digital creation is based on reality.

The featured image is a composite of multiple images and enhanced to bring up real surface features. The enhancements, for example, show more clearly craters that illustrate the tremendous bombardment our Moon has been through during its 4.6-billion-year history. The dark areas, called maria, have fewer craters and were once seas of molten lava.

Additionally, the image colors, although based on the moon's real composition, are changed and exaggerated. Here, a blue hue indicates a region that is iron rich, while orange indicates a slight excess of aluminum.

Although the Moon has shown the same side to the Earth for billions of years, modern technology is allowing humanity to learn much more about it -- and how it affects the Earth.

Image Credit & Copyright: Darya Kawa Mirza,

Words: Nasa

#art #cosmos #cosmic #universe #blast #space #photography #moon #luna #texture #maria #darya kawa mirza #nasa #astronomia

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lunar-wandering · 10 months

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"what the fuck is the mech doing here"

Summary:

"Uh, congrats on the kid, I guess?"

"Monkey King, I'm too young to be a father."

Or, in which Monkey Mech is sentient.

Word Count: 15k

Read on Ao3

Three days.

That's how long it had been since Monkey Mech had woken up.

It had been a rather boring three days, if he had been honest.

(He?? They?? She?? No, 'he' sounded right).

Nothing had truly happened, outside of that one event at the very beginning, when his creator had controlled him to destroy the Demon Bull King (he's fairly sure that that's what that guy had been called, but he could be wrong for all he knew). Or, well, not destroying him, he supposed, more so defeating him. He didn't think the Demon Bull King had actually died. No, he was pretty sure the Demon Bull Family had all escaped without any deaths.

The lack of any deaths, civilian or otherwise, was an honest miracle, Monkey Mech was pretty sure. After all, he'd had a while to think about it, having remained standing in front of the large, smoking, empty crater that he and his creator's final attack had left on the ground. He hadn't had much else to look at.

A few people had stopped by, a couple of times. Some had been observing the crater- Monkey Mech figured they were some kind of official people, from the way they were dressed. He wasn't... entirely sure how he knew that their outfits made them official people. He didn’t know where that information was coming from, but he was fairly sure that it was right. Probably.

...He should ask someone about that sooner or later. Of course, that’d only be once he got the chance, to talk to someone.

There'd been some other people who had shown up. Most had been seemingly curious civilians who had taken the opportunity to try and get a selfie with him. Not that it was really hard, as he was standing perfectly still, but he had still had to witness some people take hours trying to find the perfect shot to get as much of him in the frame as possible. Monkey Mech didn't really think that was necessary.

After all, why take a picture with him, when they should really be taking a picture of his creator?

Speaking of his creator, he had not actually seen him since the day of his creation. Him, Pigsy, Tang, Sandy, and Mei, (how did he know those names? He'd never truly met them. Was this leftover information from his creator?), had all left the scene shortly after the Demon Bull King's defeat, leaving Monkey Mech by himself.

All alone.

Standing still.

Which he had remained doing for the past three days.

...Okay, so maybe he was just the tiniest bit spiteful about that. Like, come on. He was starting to get restless!! He couldn't just stay like this forever! He wasn't some sort of inanimate statue, he needed to move!!

Of course, he supposed that he could just move at any time. Whenever he wanted to. But there was a reason why he hadn't.

Just one reason. (Definitely only the one. There wasn’t… anything else. Definitely).

And it was really quite simple.

The humans around him, including his own creator, did not believe him to be sentient.

He was quite certain about this. Considering the way people had been treating him when they walked up for selfies, and the way he had caught some of those official people muttering something along the lines of “what should we do with the tin can?” it was fairly obvious that the people thought he could not think for himself.

And it seemed like his creator likely subscribed to that theory as well, considering he hadn't shown up to check on him yet.

...Not that he could truly blame him for it. Monkey Mech supposed he hadn't given his creator any proof as to otherwise during their brief amount of time together. So it made sense that he simply would not know.

And, well. Monkey Mech... didn't want to frighten anyone. Or, at the very least, didn't want to go against their expectations. He didn't really know how the humans would react if they discovered the giant robot was, y'know, capable of thought and had free-will. It was probably better for everyone's sakes to pretend that that wasn't the case.

...And also he didn't want to have to explain the standing around for three days thing. In truth, complete and honest truth, initially he had frozen up because he didn't know what to do, how to interact with his creator and his friends, and then they had left before he could figure it out, and then other people came around, and, well.

Monkey Mech had an inkling that, for some reason, he'd probably get teased if it was revealed that he had stood around completely still for three days because he was shy.

(Despite not even knowing her, something about Mei gave off that kind of vibe to him).

(Once again, possibly leftover remnants from his creator? Monkey Mech wasn't sure).

Still though, it had taken everything in him not to turn around when he heard his creator's voice again.

“Okay team!” MK yelled, arriving at the edge of the crater, dropping a table he had been carrying onto the ground in front of him and spreading out a blue sheet of paper on top of it. “It's go time!”

The others congregated around him, and Monkey Mech felt curiosity overtake him. Exactly what was his creator doing back here, now?

Patiently, he waited until the whole group was seemingly occupied looking over MK's shoulder, at what he was drawing on the paper, and then, making sure there were no civilians or anyone else around that could possibly see, Monkey Mech slowly and carefully bent over to try and get a better look.

(...He supposed it didn't really matter if a civilian happened to see. After all, since his creator was here, they'd likely assume that MK was the one moving him around. There wasn't much danger in that.

No, it was MK and his friends that he had to be careful of).

He was glad they had chosen to stand in a place that was already covered by his shadow, as it meant none of them noticed his shadow shifting to cover them more.

It... seemed like MK was designing some kind of blueprint?

Pigsy mumbled something, to which MK laughed- but what they were saying was so quiet that, at his height, Monkey Mech couldn't hear them.

He leaned down a little closer.

Mei seemed to bristle, and Monkey Mech took the warning for what it was and quickly returned to his prior position before she could turn around.

Her piercing stare settled upon him, almost kind of frightening, and it was only through three days worth of practice that Monkey Mech didn't instinctively fidget.

After a few seconds of analysis, she slowly turned back around, looping an arm over MK's shoulder as she pointed at something on the blueprint.

If it was possible for Monkey Mech to breathe a sigh of relief, he would have.

After a few minutes, just for safety, he started to lean down again- moving a lot slower this time than before. He wasn't entirely sure as to what had notified Mei that he had moved, so he wanted to be extra careful.

Thankfully, it seemed that he went unnoticed this time, as he was able to lean much further down than before- able to get a better look at what his creator was designing.

It looked like... buildings?

Monkey Mech glanced up at the crater in front of him, and then back down at the blueprints.

Huh.

By his calculations, the buildings in the blueprints would fit inside of the crater perfectly.

...Why was his creator designing the official replacement buildings for this area? Shouldn't that be the job of some government designer, or something?

...Now that he thought about it, were government designers even a thing? He was sure that there were some people who had designing as a job, but he couldn't recall if there was a government position for it or not.

Well, there probably was. Maybe. There were government positions for restaurants after all! Why else would Pigsy have so much authority?

...Something about that didn't feel quite right, but as it was, Monkey Mech didn't have enough facts to be able to dispute it, so, he supposed he should just be better safe than sorry and consider it true.

That still didn't answer why MK was designing these buildings though.

Oh, Monkey Mech really wished he could just ask him. But they all looked so focused on what they were doing, he didn't want to disturb them, and he especially didn't want to make them angry.

(He didn't truly want to admit it, but Mei's stare had been outright terrifying. Despite being a giant robot, he had actually felt threatened. He was certain that he absolutely did not want to get on her bad side).

So, he really had no choice other than to sit there quietly observing.

He was just starting to become entranced in the way MK drew the swooping lines for his designs when Mei abruptly turned around again.

This time, Monkey Mech was not as fast as he should've been.

He returned to his prior position standing up, yes, but it was obvious that Mei had caught the movement this time around, if the way her jaw dropped was any indication.

The both of them stood perfectly still for a moment, Mei's jaw slowly closing as she seemingly processed what she had seen. Monkey Mech stared back down at her.

And then she was opening her mouth again, in the process of turning around to, most likely, inform the others, and Monkey Mech panicked.

Bending down slightly again, he waved his hands silently, pausing for a moment before making a shushing motion. Mei froze again, but-

Tang had seemed to notice Mei's actions, and turned around to see what she was looking at.

The next few minutes, despite Monkey Mech's panicked shushing movements, were a clean and simple chain reaction.

Tang, in his shock, took a step back, bumping into Sandy, who automatically turned to stabilize him, thus seeing Monkey Mech in motion. While the river demon did not react with shock, per say, he did seem surprised, and immediately nudged Pigsy, lightly, on the shoulder, prompting the pig demon to turn around as well.

Monkey Mech found himself being stared at by all four members of his creator's friends and family.

He could feel his joints start to lock up- causing his motions to slow down. If he was human, he was certain that he'd likely be sweating from anxiety right now.

None of them had said a single word.

MK still hadn't noticed. He was completely in his own little world, happily drawing on the blueprints, seemingly having no clue what was going on.

That, unfortunately for Monkey Mech, didn't last long.

Mei put a hand on MK's shoulder.

“Hm? What's up-” MK cut himself off with a strangled noise as Mei abruptly spun him around, outright picking him up off the ground in order to do so. He didn't let go of his pencil, still holding it in one hand like he was about to continue drawing. “What was that fo-”

Monkey Mech froze completely as his creator's eyes locked onto him, but it was far too late.

“Oh.” MK said, completely deadpan.

And then he opened his mouth and screamed.

Within instants, everyone was screaming. Monkey Mech, surprised by the sudden action, screamed too, and that just seemed to make the other's scream louder-

On a logical level, Monkey Mech knew exactly why they were screaming.

But, for a brief second, pure instinct took over, the want to protect that was literally written into his very being activating.

Not even thinking about it, he scooped the group up into his hands and ran.

It wasn't until he was sitting behind an abandoned building, glancing over the top of it (rather easily, as he was much taller than said building) for any sign of danger, that he realized what he had just done.

He turned his head back to look down at the group in his hands just in time for MK to summon the staff, seemingly moving to attack him-

Only to very clearly overbalance, as the staff grew larger and connected with Monkey Mech's head with even less force than if he had been lightly flicked on the forehead.

The staff automatically shrank back to more comfortably sit within MK's hands as everyone went completely still.

Monkey Mech blinked.

“...Was that really necessary?” He asked, and everyone quite promptly started freaking out once more.

“Holy shit, you can talk?!” The staff vanished into golden light as MK's hands moved to grasp at his hair in clear distress. “The mech can talk?!”

“Yes, I can talk.” Monkey Mech had to admit, he sounded a lot calmer than he actually was. Well, he supposed that would probably work in his favour.

“Why didn't you say anything before?” Mei asked- seemingly taking over the questioning as MK suddenly looked like he was having a crisis of world-ending proportions.

“You didn't ask me anything?” In truth, it was, well, as previously stated, because Monkey Mech hadn't known what to say, and was quite frankly too nervous to attempt it.

But he wasn't just going to tell them that.

“Why.” MK whispered, and it was only because he was holding them all so close to his face that Monkey Mech was able to hear him.

“Why what?”

“Why did you just stand there???” MK clarified, and Monkey Mech was so glad that he had not actually been built with the ability to form facial expressions, cause he was certain that if he had, the one he would be making now would've been very revealing.

“...The view was nice?” Oh, he should not have said anything. His voice had been steady beforehand, but now there was a certain tone to it that made even him able to tell that it sounded nervous.

There was a collective deadpan look, all of them clearly knowing that what he just said was very much not the truth, but there seemed to be a collective decision to not mention it yet (hopefully it would never be mentioned again, ever-), as MK suddenly removed his hands from his hair, a look of determination in his face.

“I need to go get Monkey King.” There was a bright golden flash, and then suddenly he was gone. Monkey Mech could just barely make out the visual of him struggling to pole vault with the staff in the distance, occasionally being thrown way up into the air.

...His creator should really have someone help him learn how to control that better before he goes off trying to vault across the ocean on his own, he was probably likely to fall in the water with the way he was doing it.

But, Monkey Mech realized, that was not the priority right now.

He glanced back down at his hands, where the remaining four stood staring up at him.

“Uhhh.” He didn't like how quiet they were being. What did people do when they were in this kind of situation? “...Hi? I'm... Monkey Mech?”

MK arrived at Flower Fruit Mountain with a bang- as he crashed into the beach.

Groaning, he pulled himself up out of the small impact crater he had left behind, shaking sand out of his hair and wringing ocean water out of his jacket.

(He hadn't exactly... perfected the art of vaulting across the ocean, yet. He had, unfortunately, lost his grip, and ended up taking a little dip on the way there).

Straightening himself out, he rushed up the stairs to the waterfall cave as quickly as he could.

“Monkey King!!” He yelled, as soon as he was past the waterfall entrance, “Are you in here?”

There was a loud crash, like something falling over, and MK winced.

“Just a second, kid!” There was a bright flash, and, as soon as MK had blinked, there Wukong was, standing in front of him. “What's up? Surely there can't be another world ending crisis already- besides, you could definitely handle it on your own!”

“That's not the issue.” MK sighed, opening his mouth-

“Oh, is this about me training you then? I thought I left a letter in your apartment telling you when we could start that-”

“Yes, yes! I read that- starting this weekend. Yes. I'm very excited for it actually! But this isn't about that.” MK said. Wukong opened his mouth as though he was about to speak again, and MK quickly reached out, slamming a hand over top of Wukong's mouth, preventing him from saying a word. “Could you just let me finish what I have to say?”

Wukong gave a nod, and MK slowly pulled his hand back.

“...What was I gonna-” With all of Wukong's distractions, MK had almost forgotten- “Oh, right- Monkey Mech is sentient!!!”

“Yeah, he is.” Wukong summoned his cloud, back flipping into it, laying down casually, like this fact wasn't a surprise to him. He even went as far as to pull out a bag of peach chips and start eating them before he noticed the incredulous look that MK was giving him. “...Did. Did you not know?”

“You knew?!?!” If anything, MK seemed more distressed than he had been before at this discovery.

“Uh, yeah? I could sense the life energy in him from the beginning, when you made him.” Wukong's tail swung back and forth with a nervousness that MK did not pick up on. “I thought you knew.”

“Well I didn't!! I only found out today!”

“...Uh, congrats on the kid, I guess?” The joke did not land, if the way MK collapsed down onto his knees was any indication. “Woah, hey-”

“Monkey King, I'm too young to be a father.” MK muttered, seemingly in despair. Wukong reluctantly got off of his cloud to hesitantly pat him on the shoulder.

“...You can be his brother, then?” Wukong tried, and, shockingly enough, this attempt seemed to almost kind of work.

“I've always kind of wanted a younger sibling…” MK trailed off, looking back up at Wukong. “But, Monkey King, this is a giant robot we're talking about. Like, giant!”

“So?”

“He can't even fit in the Noodle Shop!!”

“That's your biggest concern?!?!”

Monkey Mech being alive, surprisingly, was a concept that took very little adjustment to. People seemed to accept things as the new normal far too quickly in this city, in Monkey Mech's opinion. He thought there'd be more of an uproar than this.

Of course, that didn't mean that there hadn't been challenges. In just the one week since his sentience had been discovered, there had already been a group that had tried to run him out of the city.

'No Giant Robots Allowed!' Had seemed to be their catchphrase.

After one meeting with them, however, their leader had mumbled; “Well, I guess he seems rather polite”, and the issue had been dropped.

Of course, there still was the general concern about the overall destruction he might cause, even if it was accidental, which, Monkey Mech found that concern entirely fair. So, he did his utmost best to stay in one section of the city, mainly around the parts that had already been destroyed by the battle against the Demon Bull King, and, when venturing out, made sure to stick to the same paths- usually stepping into the footprints he had previously left behind, so as to not create more damage.

Really, the only reason he had for venturing out anyways was to go and visit his crea- (“MK, call me MK. Hearing myself be called your 'creator' just feels... wrong, for some reason.”)- no, MK, at the Noodle Shop. And, even then, most of the time the others just came around to visit him, instead, so he didn't really need to go anywhere.

(There had been, some kind of... vibe when he had first shown up outside the Noodle Shop. Pigsy had offered him some noodles, and Monkey Mech had allowed the tiny bowl to balance on his pinky finger for a good five minutes before something seemed to click in the other's mind.

”Can you even eat?“ Pigsy had asked.

”No, but I like to feel included!“ Monkey Mech had been genuinely happy at the time, but the energy coming from the others…

It had felt a little sad.

Monkey Mech didn't like it.

So he much preferred it when the others would come and visit him, instead).

He had never gone further than the Noodle Shop.

Which was why he hesitated when a commotion started up over at what he was pretty sure was the Weather Station.

He stood, in the middle of a street, ignoring the sound of traffic carefully moving around his feet as he stared down the road. He'd never gone down this way.

But... something was definitely happening down there. He couldn't just ignore it. What if MK was in trouble? They might need his help.

(Or, well, maybe not. He was pretty sure that they could handle themselves, most likely. But that didn't stop him from being worried).

A louder bang came from the Weather Station, and Monkey Mech made his choice.

Carefully, he started walking down the street to the Weather Station.

He kept his eyes on the road below him, paying close attention to make sure that he didn't accidentally step on top of a person- or their car.

(Someone who's car he'd stepped on had been a very vocal part of the 'No Giant Robots Allowed!' group. Monkey Mech would rather avoid going through that whole experience again if he could, thank you very much).

It wasn't until he was directly in front of the Weather Station that he realized that this building was actually slightly taller than him. Carefully, not wanting to knock himself off balance (falling down when he was surrounded by so many buildings was most definitely a worst case scenario), Monkey Mech stood up on his tippy toes in order to look inside.

MK wasn't there, but Mei, Tang, Pigsy, and Sandy were. They were all tied up, and seemed to be varying levels of mad about it. The Demon Bull King's son, Red Son, happened to also be there, sitting in the chair at the Weather Station's computer. All of them had their backs turned to him.

Well. This was a less than ideal situation.

Monkey Mech reached out, to attempt to gently tap on the glass to get the attention of one of his friends- and quietly ask them how he could help out.

Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way, as his 'gentle tap' completely shattered the window, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“...Oops.” He quickly withdrew his hand. “I... didn't mean to do that.”

“What…” Red Son muttered, and then continued, much louder than before; “What the fuck is the mech doing here?”

“Hey!!” Mei yelled, looking outright feral, “Watch your fucking language around the mech!”

“...You guys say the f-word all the time though?” Monkey Mech's head tilted to the side in confusion. Red Son looked absolutely flabbergasted at the situation, and Tang turned to the side, seemingly to hide laughter.

“Holy shit, he censored it.” Mei said.

“Say 'fuck' Monkey Mech.” MK chimed in.

“Do it Monkey Mech, say fu-” Mei started to continue, but was interrupted.

“I don't have the time for this nonsense-” Red Son said, his head in his hands, before he paused, and slowly raised his head, blinking, as his eyes locked onto MK. “What the fuck- when did you get back here?!?”

“Oh, around the same time Monkey Mech absolutely destroyed the window.”

“I said I didn't mean to!!”

It had been a few days since what Mei had promptly dubbed the “MK Clone Revolution” incident- which was a rather uncreative name, but Tang's idea of “Duplicatnation” had been outvoted. In all honesty, MK had felt a little bad to have to get rid of all the clones, especially the more sentient ones, like Painter, Delivery, and Porty... they had almost given off a vibe rather similar to Monkey Mech, if he was being honest.

Even so, that hadn't stopped him from making a clone or two to help him out with a few things.

He just made sure that he didn't leave them around for too long! He even had Mei develop a little check in system to make sure that he hadn't left any clones unaccounted for.

“Clone Check!” Mei yelled, appearing out of nowhere behind him, and it was only due to the fact that MK had grown used to this behavior over the years that he didn't startle. “How many clones did you make today?”

“Mmm, three?” MK was fairly sure that sounded about right. It had been a pretty busy day- between his third training session with the Monkey King that morning and the intense rush hour that afternoon, he'd needed a bit of an extra hand (or, well, hands) with things.

“Okay, and, did you dismiss all of them?” Mei asked.

And MK... paused.

He... couldn't remember.

Had he dismissed the clones he made today?

Apparently his silence was answer enough, as Mei narrowed her eyes dangerously.

“MK...”

“I don't remember.” MK admitted, “But, y'know, I probably did, right?”

He winced as Mei gave him a Look.

“Alright, alright.” He said, before letting out a sigh. “I... probably didn't dismiss them.”

Mei sighed too.

“Guess we're going on a clone hunt.”

It was quickly discovered that there were far too many places within the city for a hair clone to hide. Over two hours had passed, and between him and Mei, neither of them had found a single clone. It was getting rather frustrating honestly- this was eating into MK's free time. Well, he supposed that was a valuable lesson to himself; don't leave a hair-clone active unless you want to waste hours in the city searching for it.

Eventually, their search led them to the outskirts of the construction area- where people were working to repair the damage MK, Monkey Mech, and Demon Bull King had inadvertently caused. (MK was just glad that his only punishment was to design the new buildings, not pay for them. The Demon Bull Family was the one charged with the financial aspect of it, thankfully). Monkey Mech usually hung around in this area- he said it was to stay away from buildings he could actually damage, and to help with the construction efforts, but MK was pretty sure it was actually because there were less people over here. He had a niggling suspicion that the giant robot was, for some reason, shy.

(This suspicion was only strengthened by how Monkey Mech still continued to avoid answering the question of why he had chosen to stand around perfectly still for three days. The longer they went without a proper answer, the more MK was certain that the mech was almost embarrassed about it, which, on some level, was kind of hilarious if you thought about it).

Sure enough, in their search, they eventually stumbled across Monkey Mech, who was sitting on the ground, seemingly doing nothing.

(...Weird. For some reason, MK could swear that the background soundtrack was oddly louder in this area...)

“Hey! Mecha-dude!” Mei called, catching the robot's attention. “Have you seen any rogue MK-clones running around?”

“First of all, it's Monkey Mech. Secondly... no. I haven't seen any MK other than the one beside you.” Monkey Mech said.

“Huh. Guess... they're not in this area.” Mei let out a groan, leaning on MK's shoulder to take weight off of her own feet. MK allowed her to do so without protest. “Ughhh, where could they be? We've been searching all over for them…”

“I don't know, Mei.” Was it MK's imagination, or was the soundtrack getting louder? “Maybe they... happened to 'poof' on their own? Hair-clones can't actually stand up to much stress, physically.”

No, yeah, the soundtrack was definitely getting louder.What was up with that?

“I think the hair-clones would know fully well what they can and cannot do without 'poofing', MK.”

“Ehh, I'm not so sure-”

Man, that was really loud. What was up with the-

Wait.

That wasn't the soundtrack.

MK turned on his heel to face Monkey Mech, not missing how the giant robot seemed to nervously startle at his action.

“And what is in your cockpit young man?!?!” MK shouted to be heard over the music, pointing at Monkey Mech in accusation. The music stuttered for a moment and then died out, Monkey Mech slouching slightly as the entrance to his chest opened-

Revealing Delivery, Painter, and Porty to be standing inside- slightly tangled with one another, as though they had been arguing.

They quickly straightened up when they saw that MK and Mei were staring at them though.

“Oh, uh. Hi, OG.” Porty avoided eye-contact, the other two clones following his lead and mimicking his actions. “How's it goin'?”

“Where have you three been?” MK asked, a note of exasperation leaking into his voice. “We've been searching for you three for hours.”

“Well, we've just... been here. Chillin' with big bro mech.” Porty said, lightly knocking his knuckles against the side of Monkey Mech. MK looked up at Monkey Mech expectantly.

Monkey Mech sighed.

“They're kinda like... well, they feel a bit like younger siblings to me.” He said, reaching a hand up for the three clones to jump onto, carefully and gently moving them back down to the ground. “They ended up wandering over here and wanted to hang out before you 'poofed' them away.”

“Well, you could've told us about it.” Mei huffed, “We went on a three hour long goose chase looking for them.”

Monkey Mech and the clones all hung their heads as though they'd been admonished, and MK let out a world weary sigh.

“Just... tell us about it next time, okay?” He said, pretending not to notice how both the clones and Monkey Mech brightened at the mention of a 'next time'. “I don't want to have to go searching all across the city again.”

The three clones saluted him, and Monkey Mech quickly copied their action.

...MK hoped he wouldn't regret this.

Monkey Mech didn't need to sleep. This, however, did not stop him from daydreaming.

Which, of course, is why he startled when his inner comms device suddenly rang.

“Hello, hello?” Mei's voice came through, “Testing, testing… Monkey Mech?”

“...Hi?” Monkey Mech said, slowly. He... didn't know his comms could do that, actually. Considering Mei had contacted him with them, he probably shouldn't tell her that, though.

“Oh good, it worked!” Mei said, “Anyways though, we've got a tiny bit of a situation.”

Well. That was never good.

“What's up?”

“Y'see, Tang and Pigsy have been kinda kidnapped.”

“...Kinda kidnapped?”

“Yeah, by some kind of spider-demon, apparently.”

A full body shiver suddenly made it's way through Monkey Mech's non-existent spine. He wasn't even sure he knew what a spider was, but just hearing the word was enough to convince him that he did not like it in the slightest.

Mei seemed to be completely unaware of this, thankfully, as she continued.

“She's down in the sewers, so we're starting a little rescue mission, but, well, MK is kinda scared of spiders, so we were wondering if you could lend an extra hand, somehow.” She said, and Monkey Mech could just barely make out the sound of MK saying something about spiders in the background- something about being tiny with lots of legs?

Yeah.

Monkey Mech did not like the sound of that. He wanted to help, that was what he was for, but…

...Mei had said that the spider-demon was 'down in the sewers'. Well, in that case…

“There isn't an entrance to the sewers that I can fit through.” Monkey Mech said, “And I don't exactly wanna destroy a city street just to get down there...you should probably save me as an absolute last resort.”

“Oh. Yeah, you're right. Y'know, sometimes, I forget just how big you are.” Mei said, and Monkey Mech did his best not to wince. “Sorry for bothering you! We'll contact you again if we need you to do some... demolition.”

Monkey Mech did not like the way she said that, but didn't get the chance to respond, as she hung up almost immediately afterwards. After a few seconds, he let out a sigh (he couldn't actually exhale air as a sigh, but something about making the sound of one did help to release some tension, somehow, so he kept doing it), feeling like he had just dodged a bullet-

“What are you up to, buddy?”

Monkey Mech jumped, cringing as the buildings around him briefly shook from the motion. Paying attention to his surroundings, out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out the Monkey King standing on his shoulder.

“N-not much.” Monkey Mech hadn't actually interacted with Wukong, outside of that one time the monkey had stood on top of him before turning into a bird and flying off. He had sensed the Monkey King's magic then, but other than that, he'd never had any contact with him, so... “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I'm just checking a few things out.” Wukong said, sitting down, swinging his legs back and forth. “Where's the kid and his friends?”

“...Tang and Pigsy got kidnapped by some kind of... spider-demon. In the sewers. So MK, Mei, and Sandy are gonna go save 'em.” Monkey Mech explained, Wukong nodding along with every word.

“Ahh, Spider Queen, huh? So she's hiding out in the sewers? Good to know.” Wukong said, “Well, since everyone else is gone…”

Before Monkey Mech could properly react, one of Wukong's feet swung back with much more force than before, whacking him, and causing the door on his chest to swing open on instinct. Within seconds, Wukong had swung down and flipped his way into the cockpit, the door automatically closing behind him.

“Wha- hold on! What are you doing?!” It took all of Monkey Mech's strength not to move as Wukong started pressing buttons and moving the controls. “Hey!”

“I've always wanted to try driving a mech.” Wukong said, pulling one control stick back. Monkey Mech couldn't stop himself from lifting one arm in response. “Ooh so that's how that one works-”

“Okay, just, wait a second!” Monkey Mech forcibly brought his arms down, shaking with the effort not to move as Wukong kept messing around. “Just- can we at least move somewhere where there aren't so many buildings first?”

“Huh, why?” Wukong asked, sounding genuinely confused, before realization seemed to finally hit him. “Ohhh, property damage. And mortals. Right. Okay, yeah sure. I know someplace where we can go.”

And that, was how Monkey Mech ended up following Sun Wukong's instructions to a nice, large, abandoned clearing a good 20 minutes outside the outskirts of town.

“Right, we shouldn't bother anybody out here.” Wukong said, “Now come on, I wanna test this whole thing out!”

Monkey Mech glanced around for a second, double checking to make sure that no-one else was around, before he let out another audible sigh, just to let the Monkey King know exactly what he thought about all this, and then let Sun Wukong take control.

(Later, after calculating the exact number of trees they had accidentally uprooted, as well as the damage done to the ground, both Wukong and Monkey Mech agreed that Wukong should not be allowed to take the controls unless it was in the case of an absolute emergency).

Monkey Mech didn't normally get summoned for any kind of problem. He was rather big, after all, and his fighting style caused a lot of destruction. It was, usually, a better option for him not to get involved.

He knew this. He knew MK and the others knew this.

Which was why he rushed to MK's location at top speed the instant he felt the calling magic from the staff activate.

He had sensed that something was wrong all day. Or, for the past week, really. There'd been something off with MK, definitely, for sure. Some kind of magic that hadn't been there before. MK had vaguely mentioned having a bonus teacher “giving him a few extra pointers” when he had asked, so Monkey Mech had mostly shrugged it off.

However, he had also noticed... something strange about the overall magic in the city.

Over the past two days, the magic levels in the city had spiked. By, a lot. And the temperature levels seemed to be dropping too, for some reason.

Monkey Mech could only assume that the Demon Bull Family were up to something again. Something of this scale seemed like their forte. However, with his size, he couldn't exactly pull off any kind of investigation, so he had to leave it be.

As he jumped down into a giant hole in the ground and caught MK and Mei within his cockpit, though, he kinda wished he hadn't.

He didn't pay much attention to what MK and Mei were saying, instead observing his surroundings, as well as making sure that they didn't fall any further down the hole. Man, there sure were a lot of Demon Bull...Clones? Bots? Now that he thought about it, Monkey Mech wasn't sure what they were called.

Next thing he knew though, MK was falling back down the hole again, and Mei was maneuvering him back up to the top.

“Woah, hey, wait-” Monkey Mech said, even as he let Mei move his arm to deflect an attack away from himself. “What's going on?”

“Don't worry big guy, just let me handle this.” Was the only response he got, as Mei promptly threw herself entirely into fighting the enemy. Very quickly deciding there was no point in trying to get any kind of answer from her- she did have a tendency to be rather impulsive, sometimes even more so than MK and Wukong after all, Monkey Mech allowed her to do as she wished. The only time she paused, was when she happened to mess up a step, causing Monkey Mech to fall over backwards.

“Agh- sorry!” She said, even as she quickly readjusted while Monkey Mech stood back up.

“It's fine- you're doing better than Monkey King did, anyways.” Monkey Mech lifted a leg, lightly shaking off the Bull Clones(??) that had gathered there, sending them sprawling across the ground.

“Monkey King? When did he- ah, you know what, you'll have to tell me about that later, okay?!” Mei's tone left no room for argument, and Monkey Mech knew he would be forced to tell the whole story to her one way or another- despite the fact that he had told Sun Wukong that he “would keep the whole thing a secret”.

Well... it is in the nature of secrets to not stay secret forever, he supposed.

There was a large crash that was, most definitely, not fireworks.

Monkey Mech stood up almost immediately. From the outskirts of the city, he couldn't exactly see what was going on in the city center, and that... well, that worried him. He had picked this spot because it was far enough out that he wouldn't be in the way of any of the celebrations, but would still be able to hear everything, as well as see the fireworks, but now he worried that maybe this was to his disadvantage.

For a few moments, he wondered if maybe he had just heard wrong, if perhaps a stall had gotten knocked over or something, and the sound had just echoed louder than it should have. Maybe someone's generator blew a fuse?

The screaming proved that theory wrong.

He quickly started towards the center of the city- not daring to run, not quite yet (besides, he could cross the general area much faster than most cars could just by walking), when he caught a glimpse of Wukong and MK out of the corner of his eye.

He turned a bit, to put them in his sights better, just in time to watch MK completely freak out.

MK looked terrified.

Confusion ran through him. What could possibly freak MK out so much that he would-

Monkey Mech glanced back in front of him, and immediately came to a direct halt, a kind of fear he didn't even know he was capable of sweeping through him.

The shape of this-this mech. The way it was moving- the- it's legs-

Based on the way MK had reacted, there was no doubt in Monkey Mech's mind that this- this was a spider.

He felt almost sick at the sight of it, terror almost locking him in place. The spider-mech moved forwards, knocking into a building, sending debris falling to the ground.

He could've sworn one of it's various 'eyes' swirled around to look at him.

For once, Monkey Mech was glad for the general confusion and chaos of the panicking citizens.

Cause it meant that nobody noticed when he turned around and ran away.

“Hey, uh, has anyone seen Monkey Mech?” MK asked. The colours in the sky from the explosion were steadily beginning to fade, and MK had realized- “I don't think I've seen him in a while... He would've definitely heard the commotion, right? He usually always comes when there's some kind of trouble.”

“...Now that you mention it, no, I don't think I did see him.” Pigsy said. “You'd think a giant robot would be, y'know, easier to spot.”

“I can see where he normally hangs around from up here.” Mei curved her hands in front of her eyes like binoculars as she focused in on the direction of the construction-zone as well as the outskirts. “I don't see him at all…”

“...Strange.” MK muttered, standing up from the ledge of the building. “Maybe we should go look for him. It'd be bad if he'd gotten hit by some weird kinda robotic spider-virus or something.”

“I... don't think that's possible-” Tang started, but MK ignored him, instead heading for the stairwell. He was far too tired from the day's events to try pole vaulting around the city.

Soon enough, everyone had piled into Pigsy's van, and were driving to the outskirts of the city.

About halfway there, Mei pointed something out.

“Are those... Monkey Mech's footprints?” She asked, and Pigsy brought the van to a stop as they all turned to look. Sure enough, there were giant footprints in the ground- ones that abruptly turned around and went back in the direction that they had come from. Mei tilted her head to the side. “I don't... think this is one roads he normally goes down... Plus, he usually makes sure to step in the prints he already left, so as to not leave much damage behind…”

The sense that something must be wrong settled over them like a suffocating blanket.

Pigsy turned the van around and took off, following the footprints.

It turned out, Monkey Mech could cross quite a distance when he wanted to. It was a full hour and half before they found him- they'd even needed to go off road, following the trail of crushed trees and flattened bushes until they reached a fairly large, fairly destroyed, clearing.

(MK had worried, for a brief moment, before he realized that none of the damage seemed truly recent. Good. At least 'giant robot gone rogue' wasn't on the menu for today. With everything that had happened already, MK wasn't sure he would've been able to handle that).

Monkey Mech was sitting in the center, his legs pulled up to his chest, his tail held within his hands.

Overall, he looked a bit like an upset child.

MK was out of the van before it had even come to a complete halt.

“Monkey Mech!!” He yelled, wincing as Monkey Mech seemed to actually startle- the resulting small jump the giant robot did enough for the ground to shake, sending MK temporarily off balance. Seems like Monkey Mech hadn't heard the van.

...That was weird. Normally he was more aware of his surroundings.

“...Monkey Mech?” MK said again, gentler this time. “Is... everything okay?”

“Uh-” Monkey Mech's voice crackled a little bit, slightly staticky as he let go of his tail- but it only swished once before he seemed to think better of it and grabbed hold of it again. “I- yeah. Everything's fine. How'd uh- how'd the fight against Spider Queen go?”

“It's over now, but-” MK started, but was cut off by Pigsy.

“If you knew the city was being attacked by Spider Queen, then why didn't you come to help?” He asked, and Monkey Mech visibly shrunk back, seemingly trying to make himself smaller- a completely impossible task. Pigsy let out a sigh. “We're not mad at ya. We just want to know.”

Monkey Mech let out an electronic noise that, if MK didn't know better, would've almost sounded like a whine.

...The giant robot's next sentence was so filled with static that it was impossible to tell what he had just said.

“...You wanna try running that by us again, big guy?” Mei joked, and MK harshly nudged her in the side.

Monkey Mech made another static-filled noise.

And then, after a minute of heavy silence, there was a staticky sounding sigh.

“I'm…” Monkey Mech's voice was still filled with static, but at the very least was now understandable. He sounded...almost nervous. “I'm... afraid of spiders.”

“Oh.” MK said, ignoring the various looks and noises of disbelief from the others as he stepped forwards, using the staff to help himself up to stand on top of one of Monkey Mech's hands to be closer to eye-level with him. “Uh. You uh, probably got that from me. Sorry. But, hey!! Spider Queen and the others are gone now, so there's nothing to worry about!!”

That statement, for some reason, seemed to do very little to assure Monkey Mech, as he let out another static filled noise. MK sat down and tried to give off the best comforting vibes he could, watching out of the corner of his eye as the others started pulling out blankets and some snacks. Seemed like they were all aware that they were probably going to be here for a long while.

It was an hour before Monkey Mech spoke again.

“...I'm sorry.” He mumbled. MK, who had been leaning to the side, starting to fall asleep, jumped, before straightening up. Once Monkey Mech knew MK was paying attention to him, he repeated himself; “I'm sorry for running away.”

“Oh, hey- it's okay buddy.” MK said, gently patting Monkey Mech's hand. “Like Pigsy said, none of us are upset with you. Heck, if I was you, I probably would've done the same thing if that was my first encounter with a spider. Nobody blames you.”

“But what if you had needed me?” Monkey Mech asked- “What if you had called for me, and I didn't come?”

“I'm sure I'd find another way out.” MK swung his legs back and forth, creating a steady rhythm. “I have my friends with me after all. And, even if that had happened, I still wouldn't have been upset with you. Concerned, maybe, but not upset.”

This didn't seem to reassure Monkey Mech as much as MK had hoped- but the distressed energy he had been picking up from the robot started to slowly recede, so at the very least it was somewhat working.

Monkey Mech didn't speak again- MK wasn't entirely sure if he even believed what MK was telling him, but he wasn't outright arguing with it, so MK figured that there wasn't much else that he could do except wait.

...In the end, he must have ended up falling asleep, because when he next opened his eyes, he was laying on the ground, on the blanket with the others. Sitting up, he could see that Monkey Mech had moved slightly- unfurling from his previous curled up position into one that looked much more relaxed than before.

The sun was rising.

MK stared at him for a few moments more before laying back down, rolling over to curl in closer to Pigsy and Mei, and fell back asleep.

Everyone in town was asleep. All because of some stupid app.

Obviously, MK had to go to the Cloud to fix this.

...But before that…

Well, he wanted to check in on Monkey Mech first. Everyone had simply fallen asleep after all, there wouldn't have been any screaming, Monkey Mech probably wouldn't even know that there was a crisis at hand. So, deciding to put his plans to, y'know, save everyone, on hold for a brief second, MK vaulted to the outskirts of the city.

It was rather easy to find Monkey Mech this time around- he was standing beside a nearly finished building, his tail slowly swinging from side to side a little bit- MK wondered if Monkey Mech had to physically hold back from letting his tail swish more.

Well, at least he didn't seem to be asleep. (Could Monkey Mech even sleep? Now that MK thought about it, he didn't think he had ever seen, or heard of, Monkey Mech sleeping. Huh. Maybe he should ask him about that. If he was capable of sleep, the fact that he hadn't was... kinda concerning).

Anyways, right now, Monkey Mech not being asleep was a good thing.

MK landed on the rooftop of the building beside him, waving to get his attention.

“Yo!! Monkey Mech!!” MK called, and Monkey Mech, thankfully, didn't startle, instead just turning to face him. “You doing okay?”

Monkey Mech gave him a thumbs up.

“...Alright, good.” Something about this seemed...a bit off, but MK wasn't entirely sure what specifically was wrong, yet. “Um. Are you aware of what's going on in the city?”

Another thumbs up.

“Oh, so you know that everyone's fallen asleep because of that video game?”

Yet again, a thumbs up.

...Oh. That's what was wrong.

“...Why aren't you talking?” MK asked, and the slight swaying of Monkey Mech's tail immediately froze. “Is something wrong-”

“I'm fi--ine.” Monkey Mech's voice seemed to almost glitch mid-way through the word, going staticky and skipping a little- like a broken CD player. “Nothin--ng's wro--ong.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Suuuure.” MK said, leaning against his staff with the most deadpan pose he could muster. “Really believable, Monkey Mech. Now, tell me. What's up with your voice?”

“My voi--ice? Nothing's u--up with my vo--oice.”

MK didn't bother responding to that, instead fixing Monkey Mech with the best 'Disappointed Pigsy' look he could muster. (He'd never quite been able to nail the expression, but there had been people who had told him it was rather effective anyways, so...).

Sure enough, it only took a minute or so before Monkey Mech caved.

“...I'm no--ot as unaff--fected by the vi--rus as I see-em.” He finally said, sounding slightly defeated. “Bu--ut I can't sle-eep, so...”

“So it's just... making you glitch out?” MK asked, and got a thumbs up in return. “Hm. Well. That's. Less than ideal.”

“You're tel--lling me...” Monkey Mech mumbled, crossing his arms. MK let out a sigh.

“Okay. Okay.” He said. “Alright. I gotta get to the Cloud. The only real issue seems to be your voice so... keep an eye out to make sure nothing else happens?”

Monkey Mech saluted him, and MK saluted back, and then spun his staff and slammed it into the ground.

“You named me after what.” Monkey Mech deadpanned, looking down at where MK and Mei were standing in front of an arcade game with a very familiar name. MK laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, well... it's what you're designed after, after all.” He said, “I didn't know you were going to be, like, sentient. Alive. I would've picked a more serious name for you then instead of just. Y'know, what you are. You're... fine with this name though, right? We can always change it if you want to.”

This...gave Monkey Mech pause.

Did he want a different name?

...Maybe if MK had asked him that at the start, he would have, but, now, quite frankly…

“Nah, I think I'm too used to this one.” He said, “I'm fine with it. I just, can't believe I never noticed that I shared a name with the video game you're always playing before, though.”

“I mean, you are rather big.” Mei said, “It makes sense you wouldn't be able to see the letters on the screen down here.”

That... was true. While he could read, oftentimes, Monkey Mech wasn't sure what most signs or written letters said- simply because they were too small for him to actually see.

However…

“Can I watch you two play?” He asked, carefully kneeling down. “This arcade screen...seems big enough. I'll probably be able to see it.”

“Oh, sure!” MK said, before muttering to himself, “I wonder if we could somehow make a controller and screen large enough so that you could play it too...”

...Yeah. Monkey Mech wondered that too.

Honestly, there were a lot of things that he frequently missed out on, just due to being too big. Going to movies, hanging out in the Noodle Shop, playing video games... yeah. There wasn't exactly much that he could do.

Sometimes he wished he was smaller.

As it was, he would have to settle for this, doing his best to focus in on the tiny screen in order to take in every single detail of the video game his creation had apparently been inspired by.

Mei woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a large boom, immediately followed by shaking.

She got out of bed as fast as possible, grabbing her jacket but not bothering to change out of her pajamas as she raced to the door- a large crash and shaking in the middle of the night could only mean one thing.

There was some serious mystic monkey business going on.

Swinging a leg over her motorbike, she turned on the engine, switching her phone on and checking the most recent social media to find out where the attack was taking place.

Only to find… nothing?

Sure, there were some posts, mainly from her general area, about a large crash and shaking, some even asking if there had been an earthquake, but nobody was mentioning an actual incident.

...Huh. Maybe it really had just been a normal explosion, or earthquake-

That idea was promptly dismissed as there was another large boom, and the ground shook again. This time, Mei was awake enough to be able to somewhat pinpoint what direction the sound had originated from.

Pocketing her phone and revving her bike, Mei pulled out of the driveway and drove out of the city.

Over the next hour and a half, she thought she'd picked the wrong direction a few times- or that maybe whatever was going on was now over and dealt with. That thought was always overruled, as another large boom would ring out, followed by more shaking- sometimes closer together, and sometimes further apart.

It was when the booms started to get loud enough to the point she had to put headphones on that she noticed the giant footprints on the ground.

Hm. Well, that certainly painted a scenario, but she wasn't going to make any assumptions just yet.

But, as it turned out, her assumptions would've been right anyways, as she pulled into a very familiar clearing, turning off her bike and hopping off of it, staring up at Monkey Mech.

He hadn't seemed to have noticed her yet, too preoccupied with-

He moved suddenly, with enough force to make the ground shake- as well as knock Mei completely off balance, tumbling to the ground, her headphones slipping off her head. She remained on her back for a moment, briefly dazed, her ears ringing, only just managing to catch a glimpse of Monkey Mech starting up another movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Ah- wait!” She yelled out just in time, Monkey Mech freezing before his foot could make contact with the ground. “Monkey Mech!”

Slowly, Monkey Mech turned around, with a lot more carefulness and precision than he’d had in his previous motions. He carefully knelt down once he caught sight of her, the ground still shaking with his actions, but not nearly as bad.

“...Mei?” He asked, and she could just pick up the slightest bit of hesitance and nervousness in his voice. “What are you doing out here?”

“That's what I should be asking you!” Mei pushed herself off the ground, wiping dirt and grass stains off of her pajamas. “You woke me up, I'll have you know.”

“Woke you up- ah. The, uh, the noise?”

“And the shaking, yes. Nearly knocked my shelves off of the walls, the entire west side of the city thought there was an earthquake!” Mei said, stretching her arms above her head for a second, before letting them drop back down to her sides. “What are you doing all the way out here anyways?”

“Oh, uh, nothing much”” Monkey Mech said, and Mei raised an eyebrow. Monkey Mech looked away from her. “...I'm sorry. I thought I was far enough away that nobody in the city would be affected.”

“Maybe the other parts wouldn't, but the entire west side certainly was.”

Monkey Mech still wouldn't look at her. Mei slowly crossed her arms, analyzing him. Something was niggling on the back of her brain, but what-

The expression she made must have somehow given away the fact that she had figured it out, as Monkey Mech let out a groan, dropping his head into his hands, as Mei pointed a finger at him accusingly.

“You were copying the moves from the Monkey Mech video game, weren't you!!!” With the way she said it, it wasn't really a question, more so a triumphant realization. Monkey Mech made a noise filled with static, but didn't attempt to deny the accusation. Mei cackled, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Oh, MK's going to love this!”

“...Must he know about it?” Monkey Mech asked, his head still covered by his hands. Mei's loud laughter was the only response he got, indicating that, no matter what, MK was definitely going to find out about this- and there was no point in trying to delay the inevitable.

Monkey Mech found MK sitting on top of an abandoned building, cross-legged, his staff sitting on his lap. He didn't seem to be doing anything, simply staring off into the distance, in the direction of the ocean.

He only tilted his head to the side slightly in acknowledgement when Monkey Mech came to a stop beside the building. There was silence for a few moments- Monkey Mech couldn't help but think something about MK just felt off today, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

But, after a bit of pondering it, he decided to brush that issue to the side.

He had a more important question after all.

“Soooo.” He started, drawing MK's full attention to him. “I heard you managed to shrink your staff?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah- I can make myself go all tiny too, if I want.” For some reason, MK didn't sound as excited by that fact as he should have been, but Monkey Mech didn't think too much about it.

“Well, in that case…” Monkey Mech looked side to side, confirming that no-one else was around, before leaning closer towards MK. “Could you... make me smaller?”

“What?”

“Y'know, smaller! Like, person-size, preferably?” Monkey Mech couldn't keep the hope out of his voice. MK gave a sigh.

“I... I don't know.” He said, “Maybe I could, but... I don't want to try it. Risk it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I made you, right?” The staff vanished into golden light as MK slowly stood up, turning to be able to face Monkey Mech fully. “You're created from like, my energy, or whatever. I just, I don't know if trying to make you smaller would like... mess with that. I don't want to risk losing you.”

Oh. That... was reasonable, Monkey Mech supposed.

He didn't exactly want to be 'lost' either.

“Besides…” MK muttered, under his breath, too low for Monkey Mech to hear. “We're going to need as many heavy-hitters as we can get.”

Something was wrong.

MK and the others had headed out to the desert to train today. Monkey Mech had considered following them, but had been explicitly told by MK to stay in the city, and keep an eye out for trouble. He was under no circumstances allowed to slack off today, apparently.

Monkey Mech had picked up on the fact that it seemed like MK had been more anxious lately. And it was starting to look like he'd had good reason to be.

The magic levels in the city spiked again- to numbers that went even higher than the last battle against the Demon Bull Family. Monkey Mech's sensors pinged as the temperature steadily started to drop.

But, weirdly enough, it didn't seem like the source of the magic spike was in the city.

Monkey Mech was in the middle of trying to place where exactly the magic source was coming from, when a bright flash of blue light shone from the corner of his eye.

The desert.

MK.

Monkey Mech didn't even think twice before abandoning his post, turning and starting to run in the direction he now knew the hauntingly cold magic spike to be coming from.

A pang rang through his chest, causing him to almost stumble. It felt like something had grabbed hold of the energy contained within him and squeezed it.

Something was happening to MK.

Monkey Mech started to move faster.

Even so, with the pangs in his chest resonating throughout him, he knew he wasn't going to make it to the desert in time.

Which was why he gladly accepted the staff's call, allowing it's magic to encircle him, teleporting him directly to MK's location.

He had only just registered MK's presence in his chest, safe but drained, as well as the small figure in front of him-

There was a brighter, bluer flash.

Something grabbed hold of him, and cold ripped through Monkey Mech's sensors faster than he could process.

Alarm notifications flared in his vision as connection to his left arm was severed.

He could hear MK's voice, faintly, but he couldn't make out what he was saying over the ringing- and the whispers.

“M....K....” His voice was staticky, barely understandable, as he struggled to move, to get up, to protect.

Something cracked.

Darkness.

MK slipped out of Wukong's grip and slammed onto the deck of Sandy's air-ship, skidding slightly before coming to a complete stop. He groaned- it felt like every muscle, every bone in his body was aching.

Slowly, he started pushing himself up, glancing over at where his mentor was starting to do the same.

His breath caught.

“The- she-” He choked, coughing, Monkey King turning and looking at him with obvious concern. “Monkey Mech- we have to, we have to help-”

He pulled himself to his feet, only to freeze at the sight of Wukong's expression.

That... that was not the expression of someone who believed there was still someone to help.

That there was still someone to save.

MK stumbled backwards, collapsing into Pigsy's arms.

Monkey Mech was gone.

It was almost like... dreaming.

Except Monkey Mech was not supposed to be able to dream, and, instead of a dream, if he had to compare it to anything, he'd say it was more like a nightmare.

He hadn't been expecting to come to awareness again at all, really.

And especially not like this.

It was a bit of an overly polite way of describing it, honestly. He wasn't entirely sure if he could call what this was 'awareness'.

It was still dark. He could sense things moving around him, sure, and he thought that maybe he was moving too, but he wasn't in control of it.

It was cold.

He felt like he was rotting from the inside out.

MK stared up, gaping, at the armored monster Macaque had created.

Those... those were Monkey Mech's parts.

A ringing flooded MK's ears as a bone-chilling anger crashed over him.

The Lady Bone Demon was gone.

MK guided the mech over to a nearby cliff, moving the hand up in front of the entrance to the cockpit, letting the door open, the other's silently stepping out onto the hand, which MK lowered to the ground, allowing the others to hop off before he jumped out of the pilot seat himself. Landing on the ground, in a crouched position, kicking up a fair amount of dust, MK slowly stood up and turned around, facing the mech behind him.

Since summoning him onto the field, Monkey Mech hadn't said a single word.

Not a single thing.

With MK no longer in the pilot seat, the mech simply stood there. Still.

Not a single sign of movement.

“Is... is he…” Mei trailed off, not wanting to voice what they were all thinking.

Monkey Mech was back, in body yes, but in spirit?

MK wasn't sure.

There was a flash of golden light out of the corner of his eye, and MK turned his head just in time to see Wukong change out of his bird form to land on the ground, Macaque stepping out of the shadows behind him. Wukong wasted no time in tearing off the armor he'd been wearing, tossing it off to the side as though it had personally offended him.

He was in the middle of making quick work of tearing off his outer shirt when he noticed the looks on all the others' faces.

“...Why do you all look so sad?” He asked, before seemingly finally noticing how still Monkey Mech was being. “...Oh. Hm. Weird.”

“Monkey King... is Monkey Mech-”

“He's... there, yes. Just not... awake, I guess? His energy is definitely there, but it's not at the forefront.” Wukong said, tilting his head to the side, golden eyes flashing. “Maybe if you give him a lil smack on the side?”

“Monkey King.”

“What, it works for laundry machines!” Wukong tried to defend himself from Mei's glare, raising his hands innocently. Her glare only hardened to pure steel.

“Monkey Mech is not a laundry machine, Mr.King. We are not going to sma-”

She was cut off as a loud clang resonated through the air. As one, the group turned to see Nezha, who was slowly pulling the flat end of his spear away from Monkey Mech, analyzing him.

There was a brief pause-

And then suddenly Monkey Mech was reeling back, stumbling, almost like a delayed reaction. One hand went up to the spot where he'd been hit, protecting it from a second attack.

“Ow.” Monkey Mech's voice hissed, filled with static, “What was that for- Oh. Hi guys. ...Did we win?”

“Holy shit.” Wukong muttered, the only words spoken as the others simply stared up at Monkey Mech in frozen shock. “I did not think that would work.”

It was a few hours after Nezha and Macaque had both left, Macaque saying he was going off to do some scheming, and Nezha simply saying that he need to return to the Celestial Realm, when Wukong brought it up.

“Y'know,” Wukong started, pausing mid-way through his fourth bowl of noodles that night, “I've been wondering this for a bit but. Why doesn't Monkey Mech just join us down here?”

“...What do you mean?” MK asked, from his position of sitting on Monkey Mech's shoulder. “He's right here.”

“Well, yeah, but like, he could be down here, is what I mean.”

“...I'm afraid I don't follow.” Tang said, “Once again, what do you mean by 'down here'?”

“Ugh, y'know!! Down here!! With us!! Eating!!”

“...I don't know if anyone told you, Monkey King, but I'm a robot.” Monkey Mech gently lifted a hand so that MK could jump onto it, carefully bringing him down so that he could be closer to the conversation taking place around the campfire. “I can't eat.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you're a robot.” Wukong waved a hand dismissively. “My point is, you don't have to be a robot right now.”

Silence.

“...Monkey King.” MK said, slowly, and Wukong finally seemed to realize that maybe, just maybe, he was privy to some information that the others weren't, if the way he suddenly started to shrink under their collective stares was any indication. “Are you telling me. That there's been a way to make Monkey Mech human this whole time?”

“Uh…” Wukong shrunk down more, looking nervous as the others didn't take their eyes off of him for even one second. “...Kinda.”

“What do you mean, kinda?” Pigsy asked, “Either there is, or there isn't. Hurry it up and spit it out.”

“Okay, okay, fine so like, he would not necessarily be human, I guess?” Wukong scratched at the side of his face, seemingly thinking about it more intently. “It'd be more like... a hologram? Except he'd be able to interact with solid matter. He could form a new body outside of the mech, and just, transfer his energy into it. Of course- me or MK would have to help him make it the first time, and it doesn't really need to be a human form... but it's possible.”

A much longer silence. Wukong's tail started to swing back and forth nervously.

“Did, did you guys not kn-” He started, but was interrupted by Monkey Mech's voice.

“I could've been going inside the Noodle Shop this whole time?!?!”

“That's what you're the most concerned about?!”

The rest of the night ended up being entirely and completely dedicated to designing Monkey Mech's mortal form. Wukong had said something about how Monkey Mech “needed to feel like himself in it” in order for it to work- so MK had rushed inside of the van to grab his sketchbook and pencils, and had quickly gotten to work, creating multiple designs with Monkey Mech's input.

Realistically, it should've been a relatively short process.

That is, if Monkey Mech would just pick one design.

“...No, it's not right.” Monkey Mech said, for what had to be the 23rd time that night, and MK let out a groan. The others had all mostly accidentally dozed off, leaving only MK and Monkey Mech awake. (Or, at least, MK assumed so. Wukong was curled up on top of his cloud, but for all MK knew, the Monkey King could very well just be pretending to sleep. MK kind of wanted to pull a little test, just to check, but considering Wukong had probably had little sleep these past few days in general, he didn't want to risk accidentally waking him up if he was, in fact, asleep). MK shoved the paper he'd been working on to the side, grabbing another one, and waiting for Monkey Mech's next drawing instruction.

“Um... I, uh…” Monkey Mech trailed off into silence. MK turned to look at him, but his face was just as blank and unreadable as always. His body language, however, read as… nervous. Unconfident. MK stared at him for a minute, then back down at the papers covered in various designs all around him, and then back up at Monkey Mech.

“...You do know that it doesn't need to be perfect, right?” He asked, receiving no response. “Nobody's perfect, after all. It just needs to be you.”

Monkey Mech slowly gave a nod. After a longer moment of silence, he quietly gave a new request, and MK turned back around to focus on drawing.

By the time morning came, the sun rising over the horizon, Monkey Mech had made his choice.

“Alright.” MK said, clapping his hands together as the others sat on the nearby logs they had set up for the campfire the night before. “Let's get this show on the road!”

“Uh, kid, did you even sleep at all?” Pigsy asked. MK ignored him.

“Monkey King!” He said instead, “You uh, got any advice on how to do this?”

“Eh, just concentrate your magic in one spot while focusing on the visual in your mind.” Wukong shrugged. He raised an eyebrow upon noticing the deadpan stares he got in response for his simple answer. “...What? The kid's pretty instinctive, it'll work out. Besides, if it's not working, I'll step in, don't worry.”

He then proceeded to yawn and roll over, seemingly going back to sleep, which was, y'know not reassuring in the slightest.

MK turned to look up at Monkey Mech, trying not to let his anxiousness show.

“You ready for this big guy?”

Monkey Mech gave a simple thumbs up. MK suspected that he wasn't speaking so that the nervousness in his own voice wouldn't show.

“Right. Okay.” MK took a deep breath, muttering to himself. “You got this. You can do this. Simple. Easy. Just picture it in your head…”

MK closed his eyes, holding his hands out in front of him, doing his best to hold the mental image of the design he and Monkey Mech had chosen within his mind.

Red fur... golden eyes... hair pulled back, with just a tiny bit of it remaining loose to frame his face... that stupid jacket that Monkey Mech seemed to enjoy for some reason that MK didn't have the heart to refuse adding to the design…

A few minutes passed with seemingly nothing, and Monkey Mech was about to speak up to tell MK to maybe take a break from this whole thing, that he could wait until later, when-

A spark.

A flash.

A bright ball of light appeared in between MK's outstretched hands, flickering, before slowly growing and morphing. The others watched in raptured silence- even Wukong sitting up (proving that he had not, in fact, gone back to sleep), as they watched the light slowly morph into a more humanoid form.

Another bright flash, one that had everyone covering their eyes-

And then there was a body, standing on the ground, frozen still, eyes closed, almost as though they were asleep.

“Yes!! I did it!!” MK cheered, before pausing. After a moment, he turned his head to the side to look at Wukong. “Uh... Monkey King, what do we do next?”

“What do you mean?” Wukong asked.

“He means, uh.” Monkey Mech said, leaning down to get a closer look at the body meant for him. “How do we get me into the body?”

“Oh. That…” Wukong said, trailing off. Mei, sensing mischief, pinched his arm. “Ow, hey!”

“You better not have been about to say something along the lines of 'smacking him like a laundry machine' again.” She hissed, and Wukong leaned away from her.

“Please, of course I wasn't!” From the expressions of everyone around him, nobody actually believed that statement. Wukong coughed awkwardly. “Ahem. Uh, anyways it... should come naturally, really. Just, you can feel the energy inside you, right?”

“Yes…” Monkey Mech said, slowly.

“Right. So, just, mentally imagine that, condense it into one spot, and then... just imagine it leaving you and going into the body I guess?”

“You guess?” Pigsy crossed his arms, “What do you mean you guess?”

“Well I've never done this before!”

“What do you mean you've never- how do you know this will even wor-”

“Oh. Hey. It worked.”

Everyone turned to see that the light in the giant robot's eyes had faded, and-

The smaller, monkey demon form on the ground was now moving.

Monkey Mech had barely taken a step before he was stumbling, not used to his new size. MK quickly moved forwards to catch him. Monkey Mech's hands clung onto MK's jacket, shaking for a moment, his tail swinging as he looked up to meet MK's eyes.

“...Hi, MK.” He smiled at him. MK smiled back.

“Hi, Monkey Mech.”

That seemed to be all the permission the other's needed to tackle the two of them, sending them both tumbling to the ground, trapped under the rest of the group.

“Agh- hey!” MK struggled, trying to squirm his way out. “Not fair!! I wasn't ready for this one!! Let me go!”

“No can do, kid.” Pigsy said, “Y'see, Tang's done the numbers, and we're pretty sure you have not slept in the past three days, at least.”

“And, well, Mr. Monkey Mech has never slept at all…” Sandy said, “So…”

“Yeah. We're not letting either of you up until you both fall asleep.” Mei finished.

MK huffed, pouting, but not directly protesting the treatment. Monkey Mech, for his part, looked shocked-

And then he burst out into loud laughter, some tears running down his face, startling everyone.

“Uh, guys?” Tang said, “I think we broke the mech.”

Monkey Mech swung his legs back and forth. Getting used to being able to transfer himself into such a small form was... definitely a weird adjustment. He was grateful for it, most definitely he was, he finally got the chance to play arcade games with MK, Mei, and Red Son, as well as go in a car, and into the mall, and the movie theatre, as well as the Noodle Shop-

(Monkey Mech looked at the area around him with wide eyes, half supported by MK and Mei as they led him in. He still wasn't quite used to walking around in such a small body yet.

“Y'know…” Monkey Mech said, “...The inside of the Noodle Shop is much smaller than I thought it'd be.”

“I don't know if I should be taking that as an insult or a compliment.” Pigsy sighed, walking past them. “It better have been a compliment.”

“Oh- uh, trust me, it was!”

“You don't sound very confident in that statement.”

“C'mon- it was definitely a compliment- MK back me up here!”

“Sorry dude, you're on your own.”).

So yeah, overall, it'd been great.

Didn't mean that sitting on his own shoulder didn't feel really weird though.

Monkey Mech swung his legs back and forth again as he thought, staring out at the half-constructed buildings around him. He'd been leaving his real robot body here for now, but he'd probably have to move it soon. Construction was shockingly fast within this city, sooner or later people would start to move back into this area... he'd probably have to move himself to the outskirts then.

Now that he thought about it, that clearing that Wukong had shown him would probably work just fine…

Lost in his own thoughts, he almost missed the shadow portal forming directly beside him.

The keyword being almost.

Monkey Mech did a double take, whipping his head around just as Macaque stepped out to stand beside him, giving him a little wave.

“Yo, Monkey Mech!” He said, “Uh, congrats on the new form. Heh. Um, I just came around cause uh. I wanted to... say sorry for, uh, stealing and using your corpse. From one resurrected guy to another, that was, uncool of me.”

...Was that meant to be a pun? Monkey Mech had some vague memories involving Macaque and feeling like pure ice was tearing through his non-existent skin.

Hm. Now that Monkey Mech thought about it, pretty much all of his memories associated with the time Macaque had been using his parts had felt... wrong.

Hm.

Macaque seemed to be growing nervous at Monkey Mech's lack of a response, the anxiety in his expression slowly growing more obvious as Monkey Mech slowly stood up.

“...So, yeah, that was all I wanted to say, so, I'll just be going now-” Macaque went still as Monkey Mech vanished in a flash of golden light, returning himself to his robotic body. Before Macaque could recover from the shock, Monkey Mech raised one hand, carefully grabbing Macaque by his scarf. Macaque immediately struggled, trying to kick and scratch at Monkey Mech's fingers to no avail. “Woah- hey-”

Macaque let out a strangled noise as Monkey Mech unceremoniously tossed him into his cockpit, shutting the door behind him.

“Hey!” Macaque shouted, and, having landed in the pilot seat upside down, quickly readjusted himself to be sitting up. “What are you-”

“During your time using me, you felt a little... off.” Monkey Mech crossed his arms over his chest, preventing Macaque from being able to kick the door open. “So, I'm running a diagnostic on you.”

“What? You can't just- you know what, I don't have the time for this.” Macaque huffed, a shadow portal forming under his feet, the monkey demon dropping down into it-

Only to be spat out back into the cockpit.

“...Huh?” Macaque didn't even waste a single second before trying again. “I- what? What is this, how are you doing this?”

“A robot never reveals his secrets!” Nevermind that Monkey Mech was horrible at keeping secrets, or that-

“You have no idea how you did it either, do you.”

“Not a clue!”

A small pop-up appeared in Monkey Mech's vision.

Macaque was suddenly and abruptly tossed out of the cockpit.

Macaque swore, loudly, and Monkey Mech saved rolling his eyes until after he'd reformed his monkey body, and leapt forwards to snag Macaque out of the air, landing on the rooftop on a nearby almost-finished building. He set Macaque down on the solid ground, dusting off the shadow monkey's shoulders, ignoring the angry and indignant muttering that seemed to be comparing him to a dangerously faulty Easy Bake Oven.

...Not that Monkey Mech even knew what that was.

“Diagnostic's done!” He said instead, clapping his hands while smiling innocently. “And- hm.”

“Hm?”

“Well, you're functioning.”

“Yeah, obviously, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't.” Macaque rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and turning away from him.

“I do think you should probably go to a doctor, though.” Monkey Mech added, watching with thinly veiled concern as Macaque let out an irritated sigh.

“Oh yeah?” He asked, “And why's that?”

“...Well, it's not exactly normal for people to not have heartbeats, is it?”

Macaque made a sound that was almost akin to a kicked puppy, and suddenly Monkey Mech almost wished he hadn't said anything, as the other vanished into a shadow portal within the blink of an eye. Monkey Mech stood there, for a while, waiting to see if the other would come back, to learn what else the diagnostic had picked up.

...He didn't come back.

Monkey Mech sighed, and shelved the concern over the shadow monkey's only slightly healed broken ribs and damaged six ears for a later date.

“Monkey Mech!” MK's voice called, and Monkey Mech risked glancing up from his precariously stacked stack of delivery boxes in his arms to see MK standing on the top of a nearby building. “Is it cool if I use some of your parts for a bit?”

Monkey Mech shifted slightly to account for the stack changing weight.

“Uh, who is it today?” He asked.

“Jin and Yin!”

“Oh, sure! It's fine!”

MK gave him a thumbs up, and then summoned the staff, leaping to another building. They had discovered, a while ago, that while Monkey Mech was in his monkey demon form, any damage taken to his robot self would not hurt him in any way- so long as it was put back together properly before he returned to it.

That knowledge would have certainly been helpful in escaping a few situations if they had known it much earlier.

Monkey Mech returned to his goal of delivering the take-out boxes in his arms, and sure enough, a few minutes later, he could faintly feel the tug of magic suggesting that some of his robotic parts were being pulled to MK. Another couple of minutes later, there was a large crash in the distance, and Monkey Mech struggled not to fumble the last delivery box in his arms- only barely managing to keep it from slipping out of his grasp and tumbling to the pavement as the ground shook.

Geez. He couldn't believe anyone had been able to handle living with him around for a year if this is what it had been like whenever he had taken a step slightly too hard.

Final box delivered- Monkey Mech turned around to walk back to the Noodle Shop.

Upon return, it seemed like he had just missed MK, the faint hint of his energy vanishing around a corner, leaving Mei and Pigsy behind.

“Hey guys!” Monkey Mech gave them both a wave, catching their attention. “I'm done with deliveries, Pigsy.”

Pigsy let out a worn sigh.

“Thanks, Monkey Mech.” He said, “At least one kid is actually doing their job around here…”

Monkey Mech sat cross-legged on the stone floor, Delivery, Painter, and Porty beside him.

All four of them were focused solely on the Azure Lion sitting across from them.

MK had summoned them to Flower Fruit Mountain- or, well, he'd summoned Monkey Mech, literally teleporting him there (he'd been in the middle of cat-napping on a roof, now that he could, in fact, nap). The other three had simply been poofed into existence already at the scene.

They'd been instructed to “keep an eye” on Azure Lion. He was, essentially, a complete stranger that they were choosing to tentatively trust, after all.

Besides, it wasn't like Monkey Mech could go into the scroll in giant robot form, not to mention that going in while in his monkey demon form, which he was only just getting used to, would be a bad idea, and MK obviously knew that he would worry if he didn't have some kind of task.

...The clones were probably just there so that he had some familiar people with him.

That being said, none of them had said a single word for the past four hours, which was rather impressive restraint on the part of the hair-clones.

A restlessness started to form in Monkey Mech's chest, but he ignored it, figuring it was just coming from being stuck sitting around doing nothing but stare at a complete stranger for so long.

Seriously, couldn't the guy come up with some kind of polite conversation to talk about? Heck, Monkey Mech would even take talking about the weather at this point! The weather!!

The restlessness kicked up a notch.

And then suddenly it was a pang, an all too familiar one.

Monkey Mech gasped, doubling over, clutching at his chest. The hair-clones had a similar reaction-

They poofed out of existence at the next pang.

“Something- something's happening to MK.” Monkey Mech struggled to get out, unable to get rid of the sensation of pain and panic. “I- you gotta let me in there, I have to help him-”

“Sorry, but.” Azure slowly stood up, a new, menacing aura surrounding him. “I'm afraid I can't allow that.”

And then he snapped, and Monkey Mech could feel the magic encircling him- the parts of his body fading away-

He jolted back into awareness in his robot form, exactly where he had left it, sitting on the outskirts of town. He remained completely frozen for a second, processing, before;

“Oh, I knew we couldn't trust that motherf-”

Monkey Mech watched silently as Wukong began the slow process of collecting all his robotic parts from the places Azure had carelessly thrown them to. Now more than ever, he was glad that he could transfer himself into another form so easily.

It still didn't make seeing his real form torn up into multiple pieces any less... disturbing.

He tried his best to ignore it, instead looking over to where MK was trying to lift some knocked over trees back into place. Wukong had said that Flower Fruit Mountain was fairly sturdy, and had a habit to bounce back from, well, a lot. (He hadn't elaborated upon what that meant, but Monkey Mech had the feeling that Flower Fruit Mountain had seen catastrophe before). So, MK had taken it upon himself to make as much of the process easier for the mountain's magic as he could.

...The both of them had also been quite promptly kicked out of the efforts to rebuild Wukong's house after Wukong had accidentally broken a board in half, and MK had started to get a little too into painting the walls.

Monkey Mech, really, had been sent out to keep an eye on the both of them, to make sure that they didn't end up getting into some kind of mystic-monkey trouble.

(Technically, didn't he also count as a mystic monkey now? Did that mean he could also get into mystic monkey trouble? ...Monkey Mech wasn't quite sure about the logistics of it, or how one defined 'mystic monkey trouble' in the first place. It was probably better to not think about it).

As it was, everything seemed fine…

Monkey Mech let out a sigh, slouching a little as he watched Wukong move to grab the next piece, and MK reach for the next tree.

He wished he could be on the beach right now…

Monkey Mech stared at the water far below him in trepidation.

“C'mon Monkey Mech!” MK called out, waving his arm from said water. “Join us!!”

Monkey Mech continued to stare down at the water.

He was standing on his own shoulder again. MK had practically tackled him full force earlier that morning, telling him about a much needed beach day, to take a break from the efforts to repair Flower Fruit Mountain, to just enjoy some sun, and had practically outright demanded that Monkey Mech bring his robot form with him, not just his monkey-self.

Monkey Mech had been, understandably, confused at the time.

He hadn't expected that MK would have used his robot body as a makeshift giant diving board plus water slide.

(Or, well, more so just slide, with the water only being at the end. They didn't have a hose long enough to be able to reach Monkey Mech's shoulder- so they couldn't run water down the arm that was currently extended slightly at an angle).

There was a green flash, and suddenly Mei was standing beside him, her head tilted to the side.

“What's wrong?” She asked, and Monkey Mech tried his best for an easy-going smile.

Considering how he had quickly discovered that faking expressions was a lot harder than he thought it would be, he was pretty sure he did not succeed.

“It's nothing!” He said, “I'm fine.”

“...Uh-huh, sure.” Mei was clearly unimpressed. “You've been standing up here for the past 15 minutes. Are you going to jump in or not?”

“Well, uh-” Monkey Mech stuttered for a second, before shrinking down into himself, avoiding eye contact as he said, quietly. “I don't know how to swim.”

“What do you mean you don't-”

“I was a giant robot, remember!! Of course I don't know how to swim.” Monkey Mech's tail swished back and forth with anxiety. “What if I just sink?”

“Hm... I guess that's a valid point.” Mei mumbled, before reaching out and grabbing hold of Monkey Mech's arm. “Let's get you down from here, then.”

Before Monkey Mech even had the chance to blink, Mei had scooped him up on one shoulder, and rushed him back down to the beach, her dragon speed ensuring that they barely even touched the water.

Monkey Mech stumbled slightly when she put him down on the sand, but very quickly regained his balance.

“Mei? Monkey Mech?” MK asked, walking out of the water to join them. “What's up?”

“Mecha-dude over here doesn't know how to swim.” Mei said, pointing her thumb at Monkey Mech as she did so. Monkey Mech let out an irritated huff, mumbling “it's Monkey Mech, you've known this for a while now-” under his breath, and being rather obviously ignored.

“Oh! Well, not to worry!!” MK wrapped his arm around Monkey Mech's shoulders. “I can teach you!”

“...Uh-huh.” Monkey Mech said, slowly. “I have so much confidence in being taught how to swim by the person wearing floaties.”

“We should've never let Red Son teach you what sarcasm was.” MK deadpanned, before swapping back to his easy-going smile effortlessly. “And I can swim!! I just sink easily, is all.”

That statement was not as reassuring as MK clearly thought it was, but Monkey Mech didn't even have the chance to voice that thought, as he was grabbed by both arms and dragged into the ocean.

“Hey, Monkey Mech?”

...Monkey Mech did not like the look on MK's face.

“...What is it?” He asked, hoping his nervousness didn't show- but it must've, as the teasing smirk on MK's face grew slightly wider.

“So... I realized I never actually got the chance to ask you this before, in between getting you adjusted to your new body and, like, everything that happened afterwards…”

Oh, Monkey Mech did not like where this was going, slowly starting to stand up, but was prevented from doing so as MK put his hands on his shoulders and shoved him back down into his seat.

“And, well, you can actually show expressions now, so y'know, I was wondering…” MK continued, “...Why?”

Well... Monkey Mech could pretend to play dumb for a few moments longer, couldn't he?

“Why what?” He asked, already knowing there was an absurdly flustered expression on his face, one that drew the attention of the others, as well as made the teasing smirk on MK's face somehow more menacing.

“Why did you stand around for three days?” MK asked, and Monkey Mech opened his mouth- “No lying this time, young man.”

Monkey Mech let his mouth close.

Slowly, he looked away, avoiding eye contact.

“C'monnnnn.” MK poked him in the arm repeatedly, “I'm not gonna leave you alone until you give me an answer.”

Yeah. Monkey Mech had picked up on it.

He let out a defeated sigh.

“Okay, fine, you got me.” He said, “It was because of p.”

“...P?”

“Peace out.” Monkey Mech quickly made a peace sign, and then let himself dissolve in a flash of light, returning to his robot body.

Even though he was now on the other side of town, he could still hear MK's scream of frustration.

#Monkie Kid #lego monkie kid #fanfic #my writing #Monkey Mech Mayhem AU

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