bro I haven't even read your new fanfic yet but YES that is EXACTLY how Forces went down, it was basically like this:
NO BC THAT'S LITERALLY THE IMAGE I HAD IN MY MIND WHEN I WAS WRITING AAFGKAHDGKS
"can we talk about the looks, doctor? i've been dying to talk about the looks they give each other every day every fight rivals dont do that, doctor, why do they look at each other like that UNLESS its all part of something bigger-"
Edited (and planned) with the help of my friend Bucky! Couldn’t do this without you!
A couple notes: So.. It's been a heck of a week for me. There maaaay be a bit of a longer delay between this and chapter 8 because…
My car kinda broke and there was a whole thing about getting it to a shop (and me home). And then I hurt my hand while cooking… it's been a time. Typing on a computer is a bit hard at the moment, probably will be for a couple days, so I am now doing all actual fic writing on my phone because while it's slow it's not nearly as slow as hunt and pecking. Hopefully this author's note is completely unnecessary!
And we have art shout outs again!
First, to silverorchideon for this wonderful rendition of Bunny Tang!
And next to the amazing SwagginMun! While this art was not drawn for this fic they did give me permission to share it here because… well, I just love it that much.
Please enjoy chapter 7! Check out the AO3 link.
It was odd, being in the noodle shop without MK around and knowing that he wasn’t going to be returning for a couple days.
He’d always left for short stints at a time outside of just his deliveries: training with Sun Wukong on Mount Huaguo for a day or so being the most recent examples. But knowing he wasn’t going to be coming through the front door to say hi or grab more deliveries for the day? It felt odd somehow. They’d gotten back into their old routine so much that to have it interrupted again at this point felt both disconcerting and familiar in a way that Tang had trouble putting into words.
Without MK being available for deliveries it had fallen on Pigsy to deliver everything himself. Given the difficulty of doing that AND cooking, Pigsy opted to make it so the shop was only open to dine in and take out for the next few days. While there were far more people coming by the shop to pick up their orders than usual, it seemed as if only the usual customers were coming by to dine in.
Such as...
“So I wasn’t seeing things the other day...” a familiar voice sounded from behind Tang, startling him from the book he had been taking notes on.
“Mr. Jiang!” Tang exclaimed. For a split second, he almost pulled his scarf up to hide his face.
Then he realized that it was far too late for that. There was no hiding the fur or his bunny ears, even from the farthest distance. “Good afternoon, it’s uh... It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry for the other day, I—”
“Were clearly stressed about something.” Mr. Jiang said understandingly with a wave of his hand. “And I can clearly see what it was now. I thought my old eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw you running by. Or that maybe you had been wearing some kind of costume. Clearly I had been wrong on both counts.”
The dock worker took a seat next to Tang, groaning as he stretched out his back.
“It’s... a lot to take in,” Tang said with a nod as he slid a bookmark into his book and set it down. He’d been having trouble staying in his work for the most part, no matter where he seemed to be. For... relatively clear reasons when he really thought about it. “It’s been rough... Uh...”
“Three days,” Pigsy filled in as he came his way over to the counter between his two regulars. “Four, if you count today.”
“It feels like more and less than that at the same time,” Tang said with a sigh as he felt his glasses slipping slowly down his new nose. He reached under his ear, re-clipping the hair clip that had come loose over the day. Tang set his glasses back to where they had been before he muttered to himself. “I need to find a better solution for these.”
Pigsy gave him a small, understanding smile, before turning to Mr. Jiang.
“The usual?”
“You know it!” the dock worker said with a hearty laugh. “And I’ll eat here before heading back to my boat.”
With a nod of acknowledgement, Pigsy headed back into the kitchen to get his order ready.
“So,” he said after a moment before turning more to Tang. “Not going to assume what’s going on, but you look quite a bit more... rabbity than even the last time I saw you. Did something happen or...?”
“I would say... or is an appropriate way to put it,” Tang answered with a bit of a chuckle. “It’s... It’s complicated, but long story short, I have a curse on me and even if we find a way to break it I might be stuck as a rabbit demon permanently.”
“And how are you feeling about that?”
“Honestly?” Tang said with a shrug. “Scared. Of all the changes, mostly. It’s a lot to get used to. But...”
“But?” Mr. Jiang gently pushed.
“I can get used to it,” Tang said with a nod. “It’ll just take time. Mostly it’s all the fur and the noise. I can’t shower the way I used to with these ears!”
For a moment, Mr. Jiang stared at him in stunned silence before he chuckled. He shook his head with a smile of his own.
“If that’s the biggest problem you have, then I think you’ll be just fine,” he said brightly. “If there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s knowing when people have things handled.”
The way he said that made Tang pause for a long moment before he picked up a cup of tea that Pigsy had been refilling for him periodically.
“That’s... That’s the thing,” Tang said quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he peeked at the kitchen to check that Pigsy was still inside. “I don’t.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Jiang asked in concern, smile immediately gone. “Wait. You didn’t tell me everything, did you?”
Tang shook his head lightly, just enough to avoid swinging his ears. He was getting very good at that now. “There’s... If it was just what I told you, I would just accept it and move on,” he said firmly. “I know I would, now that I am starting to get the hang of all this. It’s just new and different. But I don’t know if...” the scholar lowered his voice as much as he could. “Mr. Jiang, I’ve told you things before, I know you can keep a secret. I... I don’t want anyone else to know that it might not stop at me being a demon just yet...”
The older man looked at Tang with confusion for a moment, eyes widening when he finally processed what he meant.
“I see...” Mr. Jiang nodded solemnly. “And I am the only one you’ve told?”
“MK is going to find out soon,” Tang admitted. “He went with the Monkey King to figure out what all this is. Just in case. If it turns out that is happening, then... I-I don’t know.”
There was a heavy silence between them.
“Well, if it does come to that,” Mr. Jiang said softly, after pondering for a moment. “MK’s a smart kid. He saved us all from the Lady Bone Demon. I think you can trust him to figure something out. And you have the Monkey King! I know enough about the legends to know Sun Wukong is as stubborn as they come when he has his mind set on something. Even if you... If it’s THAT, he’d tear about the Celestial Realm itself to find something to help you.”
“How does everyone around me know exactly what to say to make me feel better?” Tang said with a laugh as he sipped from his cup.
“I’m just an old man with a lot of life experience!” Mr. Jiang said. “But I’ve been coming to this shop for so long that I like to think I know you at least a little bit. I know you enough to tease you about your Totally Not Boyfriend.”
Tang shouldn’t have.
He really shouldn’t have.
He’d been doing so well, he’d even not even denied it when Bai He asked.
Maybe it was because he was just so used to the knee jerk reaction that was half serious and half joking for years at this point.
He didn’t even get to voice his usual protest before his hands felt like they’d been jabbed with needles and his cup slipped from his grasp, loudly smashing on the floor. His whole body twitched, his stomach aching for a moment.
“What happened!?” Bai He shouted, rushing out of the storage room. She got a quick answer when she noticed the mess on the floor. Running behind the counter, the girl snatched up a towel to cover the broken shards and absorb the spilled tea. “Is anyone hurt?”
“I, uh...” Tang stammered as he looked at his hands. “I-I think I might have a problem.”
He held them up, flexing them slightly as he took in their new appearance.
They’d... Not exactly shrunk, but they’d changed shape slightly. Less like human hands with long fingers. They were still recognizably hands, yes, but his fingers were rounder, shorter, and more closely resembled paws than before. His claws were much more pronounced now, clearly seen through his fur.
“Well,” Mr. Jiang said with astonishment. “That, uh... that’s going to take some getting used to.”
Tang flexed his hands again, looking down at them in surprise as a shock of concern rushed through him. That cold feeling flopped in his stomach again.
How many changes were left now?
“Tang?” PIgsy’s voice rang out before he could get too lost in his thoughts.
“I...” He said softly after a moment. “I’m okay. I’m sorry about your cup.”
Pigsy scowled, grabbing Tang’s hands gently and pulling them forward before checking his new paw hands and nodding.
“I ain’t worried about the cup,” he said gruffly. “Just glad you’re not hurt.”
The ache in Tang’s stomach lifted faster than he thought possible as he felt grateful that his new fur hid the blush on his face.
Just as his phone dinged.
~
“And sent!” MK announced as he pocketed his phone. “One arrival text was sent successfully.”
“Good!” Sun Wukong said with a determined chuckle. “Now... Hmn...” He stood there for a moment at the entrance to Scorpion Demoness’s castle, head tilted in thought for a moment.
“Do you think she would be able to hear if we knocked? This place is huge.”
“She wouldn’t if she happened to be inside at the time,” a voice sounded from behind them. MK yelled in surprise, spinning around and pulling his staff out of his ear to defend himself at a moment’s notice. Before him was...
A woman. A very pretty woman, he would admit. Tall, long green hair put up in a hairstyle that reminded him slightly of horns. It was so voluminous that she’d tied it up multiple times in a long ponytail, almost resembling a scorpion’s stinger. And she wore purple.
A loooooot of purple.
“Lucky for you,” she continued after a moment, clearly unbothered by MK’s reaction. “She was gardening. I never expected to see you again so soon, Sun Wukong.”
The way she said his mentor’s name made MK think that something had gone down between them. There was familiarity there: not angry familiarity but maybe some exasperated fondness?
Like he’d done something she’d been upset about at the time but she was okay with now.
“Yeah, I didn’t expect to be stopping by so soon,” Sun Wukong answered with a shrug. “I did want to visit you though, I uh... I don’t exactly remember our encounter completely and I kind of wanted to apologize for... wrecking your castle? I think I did. I remember going through a wall.”
“You did,” the woman said with a small scowl before it tapered away into a smile. “Not that it was hard for me to fix, mind you. No harm done.”
“Great! I think!”
“And who is this?” The tall woman asked with a tilt of her head, leaning down slightly to get a better look at MK. “Something about him seems... familiar.”
“This is Tang’s kid!” Sun Wukong said enthusiastically as he pushed MK forward. “MK, Scorpion Demoness. SD, MK.”
“Hi?” MK said awkwardly, raising a hand to wave at her before she snatched it up and started shaking it vigorously.
“NOW I REMEMBER!” the scorpion said with a laugh. “When I had him as a ‘prisoner’ he showed me your photo! You’re quieter than I expected.”
“You held Mr. Tang prisoner?” MK asked with a raised eyebrow.
“He’s normally a lot louder than this,” Sun Wukong explained as he ruffled his student’s hair. “It’s just been a long day and a lot of flying to get here.”
“It was more of a ‘kidnapped to be my friend forever’ kind of thing, I can explain later,” Scorpion Demoness waved off before looking them both up and down. “You didn’t fly ALL the way from the city to here, did you?”
“We did!” MK answered as he stood up straighter, fixing his mussed up hair. “We’re in a hurry, we need to help Mr. Tang, actually, Jin and Yin—”
“What did they do this time?” Scorpion Demoness asked with a sigh.
“This time?” MK blinked.
“Look, I really like Jin and Yin!” Scorpion Demoness said with a wave of her hands. “Really! They’re great friends, always keep me company and have the best ideas for games and things to pass time! But they’re not... They don’t exactly...”
“Think things through?” Sun Wukong offered.
“YES!” Scorpion Demoness said with relieved laughter. “They can’t seem to plan past—”
“Step two,” Mk said with a nod.
“Damn, you both really are familiar with them.”
“They may have tried to defeat me by running my dad’s noodle shop out of business.”
“Why would they think th—okay, just. Tell me what the chuckle heads did.”
“Okay so Mr. Tang and Pigsy and I were in the city doing stuff and they suddenly jumped me all like ‘oh, we’re gonna prove we can beat the Monkie Kid’ and then we fought and I was winning but then they pulled out some kind of curse thing and hit Mr. Tang with it so it wouldn’t hit Pigsy and over the last three days or four days I don’t know how you measure time he’s been slowly turning into a rabbit demon and Monkey King wants to make sure he knows how the curse was made so he can maybe fix it but most make sure that Tang isn’t going to be hurt by it!”
There was a beat as the two demons stared at MK. The panting boy drew in a breath.
“Sooooo... are they here?” he asked, adding a hopeful smile.
Scorpion Demoness blinked before answering. “They were. But you just missed them. They headed into Lantern City to buy some things and won’t be back until morning.”
“Then we gotta—” Sun Wukong started.
“No, no!” Scorpion Demoness said quickly, waving her arm before Sun Wukong could gather up his cloud again. “Like I said, they’ll be back in the morning! And I know a lot about curses, they come with the territory of illusionary magic sometimes. Maybe I can help? If it’s for Tang, I would be more than happy to. Besides...” She scowled again, glaring in the direction of the Lantern City. “Those brothers need to learn when to leave people alone. I told them messing with someone as strong as the Monkie Kid was a bad idea.”
“But we still need to sleep somewhere,” Sun Wukong said with a frown. “Do we just camp, or...”
“Stay here for the night,” Scorpion Demoness offered with a smile. “You can catch them when they’re off-guard!”
“That would make everything a lot easier,” MK agreed.
Monkey King narrowed his eyes slightly at his student. “You just want to explore her castle.”
“OF COURSE I DO, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PLACE!?”
Scorpion Demoness chuckled a bit at the exclamation from MK, shaking her head as she waved her hand at them.
“Well, come inside then,” she said. “Daylight won’t last more than another hour or so and you must be starving. You can explain what my two chuckleheads have done over some dinner.”
It took no time at all for MK to rush inside behind her, Sun Wukong following shortly after, sending another text on his phone as quickly as he could manage.
~
“You good?” Mr. Jiang asked as he watched Tang flex his hands around his phone awkwardly for the fifth time since he picked it up. The dock worker was hesitating, caught between needing to leave for work and his concern for his friend.
“I... Yeah,” Tang said with a soft sigh and chuckle. “I used to joke around that my phone was too small but, uh... I doubt I’m going to have that complaint again.”
The humor was a little to dry for anyone in the shop to really appreciate. Even him, outside of a soft chuckle from Mr. Jiang. But even that chuckle sounded forced.
Tang was able to pick up his phone, though with a little difficulty. The screen lit up to reveal a “we’re here, not dead” from MK. Which was, surprisingly, not an unusual message from MK. A few minutes passed before another text showed up. “SD here, she’s treating us to dinner, bros not home”, it read.
So there was... some kind of update. Which was better than nothing. If he was being honest, Tang was more concerned about his hands than what MK and Monkey King were up to. While he was able to use his phone like normal, it has been much easier to get it to register inputs from the built-in pen than his hands. With his fingers shortened, it felt like he was holding the pen with his knuckles. Too short, too close to his palm, and just awkward.
But not impossible.
“You’re a pretty stubborn guy, you know that?” Mr. Jiang said with a smile. “Or maybe tenacious is a better word.”
“No, I think stubborn is right,” Tang admitted with a smile.
“That means you’re gonna be just fine,” the elder man said with a nod before announcing his departure. He waved to each of them, heading back to the docks.
Tang decided then and there that Mr. Jiang would probably appreciate some more visits to his boat in the future.
~
“So, it’s going to take at least an hour or so to make something up,” Scorpion Demoness said as she laid out the myriad of vegetables from her garden. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what’s happening in more detail. I could point you in the right direction of where to look.”
“Well,” MK said with a shrug. “I kinda said everything I know already. Mr. Tang was hit by a curse and he’s turning into a rabbit demon.”
“But what kind of curse?” Scorpion Demoness asked slowly. Her gaze narrowed, clearly honing in on something as she thought about what he had said again. She turned to Sun Wukong, raising a brow to wordlessly ask him for a more clear explanation.
“You know those old truth curses that turned humans into demons?” Sun Wukong started. “Well—”
“Oh,” Scorpion Demoness let out slowly before scowling. “OH. Oh, I know those curses alright.”
“You do?” MK asked excitedly.
“Yes,” she assured with a nod. “Because they got those from MY library.”
The silence between the three of them was thick enough that you could cut it with a knife.
“IT WAS YOURS!?” MK yelled out in surprise once the information was finally processed.
“No! Yes! Kinda?” Scorpion Demoness clarified quickly, voice squeaking in the surprise before she hastily cleared her throat. “The curses aren’t mine, but my specialty is illusion magic. While not the same, curses and illusions can be intertwined in ways that most people don’t connect sometimes. Some curses rely on illusions to work, and some illusions can be held up by curses. My library has just about as much research on all the old curses over the centuries as you can find.”
“And Jin and Yin were given unfiltered access to all of those curses?” Sun Wukong asked with a shudder.
“I didn’t think they would actually use them!” Scorpion Demoness defended. “There’s more stuff in my library than just curse documents, like how to upkeep the castle and a bunch of old books I have found after travelers lost them over the years. They’re my friends and I... trusted them to not, you know... be dumb when I told them not to try anything dangerous.”
The look of hurt on Scorpion Demoness’ face was as clear as day. It didn’t take an expert to tell she was genuinely upset the twins had done something like that without her knowledge.
“Look,” Sun Wukong said with an awkward smile as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes friends mess up. That comes with the territory.”
“I’m not used to being in that territory, you know that,” Scorpion Demoness said with a humorless chuckle. “I don’t know how... bad this is. Is it bad? It feels bad.”
“Oh yeah, it’s bad!” MK agreed with a nod. “The twins messed up big time. But Red Son broke into my apartment once and set it on fire a little back when we were enemies and we’re friends now! Kinda took him joining our team to be LBD and a loooooot of apologizing for taking advantage of his hospitality to steal one of the rings for the True Fire of Samadhi to get there, but we got there!”
“I... I feel your example is a little extreme—wait, are you friends with the bull prince?” Scorpion Demoness stumbled on her words, clearly at a loss for where the conversation was heading.
“I think what my successor is trying to say,” Sun Wukong said with a chuckle as he reached over and ruffled MK’s hair. “Is that he has experience in making the best out of a bad situation when it comes to friendships. He’s definitely better at that than I am!”
“...Well, I could definitely use the help in that department,” Scorpion Demoness admitted with a nod. “But that’s not important right now. What is important is that I might have everything you need before Jin and Yin even come back.”
She pushed her vegetables to the side, gesturing for the two of them to follow her.
“There’s a wing of the castle you can stay in for the night,” she explained as she led the way. “It’s connected to the library wing, while I make us something to eat you can start looking in there for anything that could help you with Tang’s curse.”
“Why don’t you let me cook?” MK offered. “My Dadsy owns a restaurant, I know my way around a kitchen! And it is your library after all.”
“Because I need some time to process all this and cooking helps me calm down and think,” Scorpion Demoness answered quickly. “I’ll make something fast, bring it in here for us to eat while we continue looking together. Sounds like a plan?”
They stopped in front of a large set of double doors for only a moment, the doors opening wide to reveal... well. A library.
A massive library.
“Holy shit,” MK breathed out in amazement even as Sun Wukong called him out on his profanity. “It’s huge.”
It was organized chaos. Though there were signs to label what each shelf was, the effect was kind of nullified by the piles of books, scrolls, loose pages, and pamphlets surrounding the shelf.
“Looks like my treasure room,” Sun Wukong said with a half chuckle.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Scorpion Demoness said as she turned away, coming back for a split second to scowl at them. “And keep everything to their assigned section when you put them back!”
They shouted their agreement down the hall as she rushed off, the two left in a slightly awkward silence.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” MK said bluntly once they were alone in their assigned wing. “You promised that you would keep less secrets, Monkey King...”
“I know!” Sun Wukong said quickly, defensiveness getting the better of him for a split second. “I know. I want to tell you, wanted to tell you, but Tang... he asked me not to say anything until we knew for sure.”
“Mr. Tang?” MK asked unbelievingly. He cocked a brow as he stared at his mentor. “The guy who can’t even keep his crush on Pigsy a secret?”
“You’d be surprised what people can hide when they really want to, MK...”
~
“I’m staaaaarving, Pigsy,” Tang mockingly whined as he laid dramatically over the counter. Next to him, Bai He giggled. “I’ve been looking forward to your noodles for the last two hours while I worked on my lesson plans, take pity on me.”
“It’s done when it’s done, freeloader,” Pigsy snapped back at him with no real venom in his voice. The scholar could clearly see the smile that was just barely starting to form on his face. “You know perfection takes time.”
It was at that moment Tang’s stomach chose to growl.
“My stomach disagrees, feed me Seymour.”
The snort from Pigsy told him that, as cheesy as it was, he appreciated the little reference.
He laid out the two bowls between his best volunteer and his number one freeloader, smiling at his handiwork. Two absolutely beautiful looking bowls of noodles and meat, that smelled just as good as they looked. Tang didn’t realize his sense of smell had increased so much, it was almost overwhelming.
“I’m so hungry I could eat this entire bowl in less than five minutes,” Tang said as he sipped the broth first. It tasted DIVINE. As expected from someone as amazing at cooking as Pigsy. There was something... different about it, though. Not bad, just different. Tang couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Please don’t, you’ll burn your mouth,” Pigsy said as he went to get his own bowl.
“Wanna bet I can eat this before he comes back?” He whispered to Bai He conspiratorially, chuckling as she made a face of disappointment in his direction.
“You’ll make yourself sick,” she protested before he took a bite of noodles in tandem with her own bite.
The noodles tasted even better than usual, somehow.
“Maybe,” he acknowledged for a moment before looking down at the bowl. His mouth salivated at the idea of scarfing it down as quickly as he could.
He attempted to pace himself, but the bowl was gone in five minutes. That must have been a new record.
Tang leaned back in his seat as Pigsy chastised him for eating too quickly. The scholar and chef fell into their usual banter as Bai He had pulled out her homework to work on once all the late dinner stragglers left.
It was nice. Normal. For a moment, everything was right with the world.
But after a while, something felt... off. His stomach, to be more precise.
The scholar groaned as he finally lost concentration over his lesson plans that he had been attempting to finish up. The ache in his stomach was making it hard to focus on anything else.
“Mr. Tang?” Bai He asked with concern deep in her voice. “You don’t look so good...”
“I don't...” Tang trailed off, laying his head down on the counter in front of him. The coolness of it felt good as it seeped into his fur. “I don’t feel good, either.”
“What’s wrong?” She asked softly, and from the corner of his vision he could see her waving Pigsy over hurriedly. “Is it the curse? Are you dying?”
“If I was dying I would be much louder.”
“Tang?” Pigsy asked softly from over the counter. “You okay?”
“I think I ate too fast,” Tang said. It was the only explanation he could come up with. The only one that made any sense to him. The pain in his stomach became stronger and he couldn’t hold back a soft whimper. It felt like someone had reached into his stomach and yanked something they shouldn’t have. “I... I-I think I need to lie down.”
He barely paid attention to Bai He and Pigsy as they muttered something beside him, his ears registering it but his mind not.
“Come on,” he heard Pigsy say before the chef helped him stand up. They were... climbing up steps? “Kid wouldn’t mind you using his room for a bit.”
They were going to MK’s apartment. That was... MK would be okay with that, right? He wouldn’t mind, not when he was feeling so bad, right?
Something was making thinking difficult. It made paying attention to his surroundings harder, which didn’t feel... right?
They were at MK’s door before he realized it. Two of the hands propping him up moved away and Tang leaned heavily to one side. When the door opened, Tang started to slip off Pigsy’s shoulder.
That was a bad thing.
It made Tang’s stomach lurch painfully, as if it was being pulled and squeezed at the same time. He hadn’t felt this kind of pain in ages, not since he had eaten something he didn’t realize he shouldn’t have as a child.
The room rushed around him and he barely registered that he had made it to the bathroom until he felt Pigsy holding his ears back for him in one hand and his forehead up with the other. Bai He was frantically saying “pick up, pick up, pick up” in the background. Who was she calling?
“Tang,” Pigsy said firmly. “You okay?”
“...No.” He answered honestly. “But I... feel better?”
“Bai He is calling Monkey King and MK,” Pigsy said as he helped Tang stand back up. He
grabbed a towel and gestured for Tang to wipe his face with it. “This... this ain’t normal for you, Tang. Even if you ate too fast.”
“...You’re right,” Tang agreed, turning on the sink and swishing his mouth out with water before following the other demon out like a guilty child. He allowed Pigsy to guide him to MK’s bed, awkwardly flopping down on it before immediately feeling guilty. “I feel like death.”
“No death talk,” Pigsy chastised instantly. “You’re not dying.”
“I’m not dying,” Tang repeated. “I just feel like I am.”
Pigsy sighed, rushing off for a moment before returning with a wet cloth in his hand. He laid it over Tang’s face, the warmth of the cloth seeping through his fur. It was nice. Very nice. Tang felt like he needed to do... something? Something like grinding his teeth but not in a bad way. Odd.
“MR. MONKEY KING, MR. TANG IS DYING!” Bai He suddenly yelled over the phone, startling the two men back into the present.
“No, no!” Pigsy said firmly, taking the phone from the young teen. “Tang is not dying, Bai He, I promise. But something is wrong.”
He directed the second part of his sentence to the phone, quickly ensuring Sun Wukong that Bai He was just worried.
~
“Hold on, explain to me exactly what happened,” Sun Wukong said as he waved at MK that he had the call handled. He listened intently as Pigsy explained everything, how Tang had quickly deteriorated after dinner and his odd behavior. “...Give the phone to Tang, I want to know how it felt from his end. To be safe.”
The explanation he got from the scholar was much the same. But the symptoms he described...
“Think, is there anything you did differently?” Sun Wukong asked. The fact that anything had happened was odd, there was... wait... “Tang, tell me what you did today. Everything. Walk me through it.”
The symptoms.
They almost reminded him of the few times he has accidentally eaten something like chocolate. He was a powerful demonic being, yes, but he was also still a monkey. And there were things he should never eat. He COULD eat them, yes, and it was much easier for him being as tough as he was and being five times immortal. But he really shouldn’t.
~
“I... got up,” Tang said. He sounded miserable. “Ate some fruit for breakfast. Water. Did my lesson plans. Went to Pigsy’s and—”
“Did you eat your usual order?”
“Yeah?”
“...Fuck.”
Well. That didn’t bode well. Sun Wukong actually cursing did not bode well at all.
“Uh... Monkey King?” Tang chanced after a moment. “How bad is it?”
“Well, to put it bluntly?” Sun Wukong started as he sighed. He went silent for a moment, saying something softly off to the side before turning back to the receiver. “Tang, I need to tell MK. Either your transformation is finishing up faster than I thought it would be and you just happened to have the luck of getting some very specific dietary restrictions some rabbit demons have... or we were right to be worried."
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gamechangershow
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