WE ARE BACK ON THE TITAN EVERYONE, THIS IS NOT A DRILL
And yes, the is the conclusion to Act One. If you’re confused as to what’s going on here, I’ll tell you what you need to know, the rest is intentionally obscure:
Yes, Papa Titan is narrating
MK, Macaque, Jack, and Hunter are right back to where this story started, location wise, where Eclipse Lake ended and this AU began.
The key Hunter dropped at the start has been repurposed and given to Macaque, as part of the terms of his deal. It cannot open the Portal Door at all, as it is no longer a key to the (non mystic) Human Realm, but a lock on something else
Macaque is the only being aware of what exactly happened after Hunter killed Nüwa (on the Titan at least) and the rest of that story will be revealed later, as even HUNTER doesn’t remember the battle, nor does he remember using the Golden Tiger Claws to break in to the Pillar Of Heaven. His memory draws a blank after he got home that night.
Mystic China is FINE, just as stable as it was before Nüwa died thanks to Papa Titans intervention (though a certain someone will be causing celestial level chaos when he wakes tomorrow and realizes his SON is gone while the rest of Team MK has their own collective meltdown)
The next part will take place almost exclusively in the Boiling Isles, with vengeance, treachery, high school, and war crimes abound!
Until I’m ready to start the next arc, expect funny intermission pieces, hints and art about Hunter and this new character (the Titan dubbed “Replacement) and a few one off comics about our main four “setting up shop” in Hunters home world
The spacious basement of the Shadow Theatre was dark, dingy, and dry.
Perfect, at least in Jack Spicer’s opinion, for a new evil lair.
It took a mere fifteen minutes for his three remaining boys to set up his lab and bedroom properly, so by nine thirty on his release day from Madame Changeling’s Reformatiorium, Jack was back in the swing of things. Heavy metal blared from his speakers, and the “Evil Boy Genius” had gotten to work re-building bodies for the salvaged JackBot personality chips that had escaped annihilation over the years. Of the dozens of unique personality chips he had initially created, only eight remained, and only three JackBots retained exterior functionality.
This was a tragic “mortality” rate-especially since all the work required personalize new chips, not even mentioning how long it took to patch those chips into the private hivemind network, took weeks of dedication to create. It was time Jack no longer had on his hands, so as the number of primary chips dwindled, so did Jacks willingness to use his JackBots for anything other than general mayhem or chores. This resulted in more ass kicking on both ends of the Wu conflict for the redhead, but he preferred that over the irrecoverable losses involved with yet another destroyed personality chip, so take those punches he did.
Considering how those beatings contributed to Jack finally ditching the whole conflict, at the cost of possibly never seeing the Human Realm or his mother again, you’d think he’d regret that reluctance. However, you’d be wrong, Jack regretted nothing. Sure, he’d gotten arrested almost a month later, and spent even more time terrorizing the general public whenever he managed to break out of the Reformitorium, but he considered that as “super fun” despite the bruises.
Well, that, and the new guy kicking his ass had a cute younger brother who became the first actual friend he made in his lifetime.
After, of course, he too kicked Jacks ass.
Yes it’s as sad as it sounds, but Jack no longer gave a fuck because, again, he has an actual friend now, and the past of lonely nights spent in the basement of the Spicer family manor crying were going to stay in the past, even if it killed him. Which, considering how batshit Hunter and everyone associated with him was, could be sooner than expected.
Especially since one of those individuals, whom Hunter called dad so casually you’d think they were actually blood related, was the fucking SIX-EARED MACAQUE from Journey to the West.
Apparently Wu Cheng'en wasn’t telling some tall tale, which both gave Jack hope there WAS a way back home without Wuya, and terrified him at the prospect of Sun Wukong possibly still being alive and just hanging out on Flower Fruit Mountain until something pissed him off. Jack was honestly too scared to ask for confirmation or denial of his existence at this point.
It was this musing about his situation that distracted Jack enough to completely miss the fact that he’d set his oil rag on fire via wayward welding spark. The table itself was fireproof, as all his inventions tended to be, but Jack himself decidedly was NOT, and the fire was dangerously close to setting his clothes alight as he idly reached for a screwdriver nearby.
Thankfully, before anything too bad could happen while the redhead was off in the zone, a dark shadow dropped from the ceiling and slammed a bucket down over the flames, smothering the fire and startling Jack out of his musings.
“Dad didn’t sign up for “Red Son Two-Electric Boogaloo” to move into the basement dude, practice better fire safety” Hunter chuckled as he slid off the table to stand on the floor, unique magenta eyes glimmering with mischief. “Though, I could make a KILLING on the black market with your charred corpse if you don’t”
“Ha! Good luck finding someone who could afford me” Jack shot back, setting down his welding torch to remove his trenchcoat anyway. “I’m a rare breed”
“I dunno, demons tend to have a pretty standard flesh price for humans once they’re dead” Hunter mused, making Jack blush as he quite obviously checked him out after he removed his jacket. “Though I could probably negotiate a higher price thanks to that self-defense training I’ve been giving you-demons tend to prefer leaner meats”
“I knew you had ulterior motives!” Jack cried in mock betrayal, fighting the urge to grin as Hunter burst out in a fit of giggles, dropping his suave facade. “Priming me for slaughter-shame on you!”
Hunter just laughed harder, slamming his fist against the prototype Evil Boy Genius Holo-Table (patent pending) in a futile attempt to get his hysterics under control. Jack himself could no longer contain his own smile, expression softening into something much more natural as Hunter struggled to pull himself together.
“Rat bastard-I should slap you!” The blonde witch cackled, pushing himself back up with a silly grin. “You shouldn’t be condoning me selling your charred corpse to a butcher!”
“Eh, I’d recommend stabbing me, skin like this doesn’t come around often~” Jack replied in an attempt to keep the joke going, but Hunter just seemed confused, putting an abrupt stop their banter. Awkwardly, Jack gestured to himself, trying to get the self-depreciating joke back up off the ground. “You know? Albinism?”
“The fuck is Albinism? Hunter questioned, brow furrowed and head tilted in an adorably confused expression. Jack blinked twice, incredulous.
“It’s a skin condition? Or more accurately a lack of skin pigmentation caused by genetic defect” Jack explained slowly, waiting for Hunter to catch on. When nothing seemed to register for an entire minute, Jack sighed in defeat. “You know, the defect I clearly have?”
“Oh!” Hunter exclaimed, looking a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know! I haven’t met too many humans. Is the condition debilitating?”
“Not… really?” Jack mused, having never truly considered what impact Albinism had on his health-only on how it isolated him from others. Or, more accurately, how it made his father loathe him and his peers bully him. “Other than having to dunk myself in a pool of sunscreen if I want to go outside in short sleeves, its a pretty harmless condition”
“Well it’s not really a defect at all then, is it?” Hunter asked, straightening his head with a raised eyebrow. “I wouldn’t care if I knew all that to begin with. It’s none of my business”
If that wasn’t a cupids arrow hitting dead on his greedy black heart, Jack didn’t want to know otherwise. The redhead jerked his head to the side to hide the hot blush spreading quickly across his cheeks as Hunter seemed to lose interest in continuing the conversation. The blonde moved to a different part of the lab to check out the new additions to the basement while Jack did his best to not self combust.
“Interesting decor” the blonde hummed after a couple beats of silence, gently pulling a dead A.I. chip from the “Graveyard” display. It was JB-X32, one of Jacks first irreparable losses-dispatched by Raimundo during that weird morality crisis he was having. Of course, morality never really stopped the Monks from breaking his bots beyond repair, but that particular instance was probably the most violent. “These don’t really look like grave markers…”
“That’s because they aren’t” Jack cut in, plucking the chip from Hunters grasp, gently rubbing his thumb over the cracked plastic. “These are… the corpses, in a sense. Not markers”
Hunters ear twitched as his eyes widened, leaning forward to inspect the dead chip with fascination. Jack could swear the blondes pupils visibly dilated, tilting his head slightly to the side in thought. Hunter was always fascinated by new things or information-a trait Jack adored from the moment he discovered it.
“You know how my boys have their own little quirks, right?” Jack began explaining, knowing Hunter had already given a green light with his interest. At the blondes little nod, Jack let the dam open. “Well, each of one them has a unique personality chip, or “brain”, that gives them those qualities. It’s the one part of them that can’t be replaced or fixed once they’ve received a certain amount of damage. So, these are the final remains of the bots who couldn’t be repaired-hence the graveyard”
“So, robot corpses, gotcha” Hunter mused, looking back at the display wall as Jack put JB-X32 back in their proper place. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen a lot of your inventions for myself until now. Can I have a presentation?”
Thus began the three hour long infodump Jack had been holding in since he first started inventing stuff. The two boys made a slow progression through every little thing in the lab, Jack happily infodumping away as Hunter listened intently, fascinated by everything he was shown. Macaque had popped in and out a couple of times to check in on them, but otherwise, time flew by without incident.
It was only when Jack pulled out his ol’ hoverpack that things went south.
“Damn, I forgot the last time I used this!” Jack chuckled, turning around to show his find to an attentive Hunter-oblivious to the sudden shift in ambiance at the sight of his old logo on the back. “I call this baby “Ol’ Reliable- she’s taken some shit, but still functions good as new no matter-“
The hoverpack was snatched out of his grasp faster than he could blink, and Jack watched in stunned horror as Hunter smashed the device against the ground, face expressionless and cold. He then proceeded to summon some kind of shadowy staff with barbed ends and smash it against the device until it was nothing but an unrecognizable pile of scrap.
“Hunter, what the fuck-!“ Jack tried to intervene, only to freeze as Hunters head snapped in his direction, expression blank, eyes empty and cold. Swallowing his reservations, Jack tried again. “…Hunter?”
The blonde didn’t move, empty magenta eyes staring straight through the other boy-as if he wasn’t there at all.
“What was that racket?!” Macaque shouted from the top of the stairs, the door suddenly slammed open to allow light to flood in from the upstairs into the room. Hunter didn’t even twitch, even at the sound of Macaque stomping downstairs from the lack of an answer. “I swear, if you’ve blown something up ALREADY-“
The celestial monkey stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, taking in the scene before him.
“I-I don’t know what happened, sir. I was just showing Hunter an invention and he just…” Jack tried to explain, gesturing vaguely to the scrap heap and the witch seemingly frozen in place. “…That”
“Well thank Buddah you didn’t touch him” The six eared primate sighed, his expression softening into concern. At Jacks confusion, the shadow-weaver motioned for him to step back. “This isn’t gonna be pretty, kid”
Jack obeyed the silent command, watching in morbid fascination as Macaque slowly approached the frozen teenager, reaching out to touch his shoulder.
In a flash, Hunter was in motion once more, both he and his father(?) devolving into a short, whirlwind scuffle that ended with Hunter pinned on the floor, eyes alight with fury as he struggled to escape the strong hold.
“See? Take this as a lesson-if Hunter freezes up like that again during your stay, DO NOT TOUCH, just call for me or MK” the primate instructed sternly, Jack nodding as he watched the blonde hiss against the floor, vengeance still burning strongly in his eyes. “He’ll be fine in a minute-show me what set him off”
Jack stiffly scooted around the pair, keeping his distance for as long as possible, before picking up the two largest pieces remaining of his destroyed hover-pack, being the clasp, fitting them together and silently showing them to the elder being as Hunter continued to hiss against the sanded down concrete. Macaque stared blankly at the remains, until that weird cardinal that hung around the theatre fluttered to his shoulder and chirped in one of his ears, after which his expression became… crestfallen.
“Oh… that’s an unfortunate coincidence” he breathed, as the little bird moved to land in front of the blond, chirping in concern as the teen continued to tremble, heaving quick, panicked breaths. “Your little logo there has a striking resemblance to a… traumatic symbol from Hunters past”
“Oh shit-I’m so sorry!” Jack flinched, tossing the parts aside as if they burned him. “I didn’t-“
“Don’t finish that apology-you couldn’t have known” Macaque interrupted, steadfast as Hunter continued his struggles. “I didn’t even know-and believe me, Hunter tells me his triggers”
“… how many times has this happened before?” Jack asked as Hunter started losing steam, his hissing growing quiet.
“Twice. He bit me the second time” Macaque huffed in dry amusement, wiggling a pinky on the hand with the bite mark, the one pinning Hunters arm to his back, a conspicuous gap on the top half of the scar. “He’s gone a little feral since we met-you wouldn’t believe how timid and quiet he was when I first took him in”
“Timid? You’re joking, right?” Jack asked, relaxing a bit as he realized the situation was under control. Macaque just grinned. “Sir, your son beat the shit out of me not even thirty seconds after we met-“
“And if I recall, that was because of all the trouble you were causing MK” Macaque chuckled as the redhead winced, averting his gaze in embarrassment. “Yeah, I know all about it. I’m the one who approved your supervised release the next day”
“Ah” Jack muttered, blushing a bit in embarrassment as Macaque chuckled again. “I forgot about the pull you have at the reformatiorium”
“Oh yeah, your homeroom teacher spilled a LOT of tea about you during our chats” the celestial primate cackled, mischief gleaming in those golden eyes. “Word is you became quite the model student after-“
“Dad, the ground is leaving an imprint on my face” Hunter grunted, blissfully interrupting the primate before he could embarrass Jack further. Macaque quickly got off the blonde, Hunter pushing himself up as the red bird chittered frantically in his face. “I’m fine Flapjack, chill”
“You good?” Macaque asked, eyes locked on the blonde as he stood back up, rolling his shoulder with a nod. “Do you-“
“I don’t want to talk about it, no” Hunter interrupted, sounding hollow as he looked back at the pile of scrap at Jack’s feet. “I’m sorry about your thing“
“It’s okay, Hunter. I didn’t know” Jack tried to assure, but the other boy didn’t seem receptive. “I can build a new one-I’ve been meaning to upgrade for a while anyway”
The witch just nodded quietly, refusing to look up and meet the redheads eyes.
Jack stayed quiet as the blonde then headed for the starts, followed by his father, who sent Jack an apologetic look before closing the door on him, leaving the young inventor alone in the dim basement.
Almost robotically, Jack cleaned up the mess of useless scrap on the floor, and returned to his worktable. He stared for a moment at the current repair project, before pushing it away, opting instead to bury his face in his arms, letting out a deep breath.
He couldn’t help fucking up no matter where he went, it seemed.
I bet you all didn’t suspect Macaque is a major benefactor for Madame Changelings Reformatorium, but he’s actually one of the founders, the school being a rather recent addition to the city (established a few months before Lady Bone Demon wrecked everything)
He’s the main reason why Jack hasn’t been thrown in Juvie yet-he both finds the little humans antics quite amusing, and he’d been hoping that Jack would be a good potential friend for his son, knowing his background of being someone from another realm, plus being someone of similar age to Hunter
This is also why Hunter was given immediate clearance to check out their most troublesome case for the day without prior notice-everyone on staff in the school knows Hunters face from Macaque (who carries a picture of Hunter in his wallet everywhere to show off his son <3), so attempting to deny any request from him would very likely end badly for whoever dared to do so
Until next time friends! We are coming upon the end of Ruby!
Hunter, whenever he has a particularly triggering nightmare, will stress bake/make desserts until he’s tired again, or passes back out. (as opposed to training until he passes out on the mat, which is no longer an option because Macaque locks the dojo now)
The things he makes are random and depend entirely on what’s available, ingredient-wise, as well as the quantity (ranges anywhere from ten to two hundred in those terms), and Macaque has found Hunter passed out on the kitchen tile with counters full of different desserts on several different occasions. While Hunter sleeps off his bad dream, Macaque will set aside a few treats for himself (Hunter doesn’t particularly like sweets, and has specifically requested to NOT have any of his late night confectioneries saved for himself) and send the rest off to Pigsy’s to be sold off as a kind of dessert special that actually makes a decent chunk of money
When Jack first experienced this phenomenon (he sleeps over sometimes), he legitimately thought he was still dreaming because he walked into the kitchen to find several counters full of different flavors of pudding with Macaque sorting through it all, and a cat sleeping in the middle of it all with the same coloration as Hunters hair (this is actually the exact incident that Jack learned about Hunters ability to shape-shift)
Needless to say, Macaque now sets aside dessert portions for Jack too whenever Hunter has a bad night.
Hello Hunter, Red Son, and Macaque! Just curious but if you found a way to the Demon Realm, what would each of you do if you came face-to-face (or rather face-to-mask) with Belos?
Scream and run
Scorch that fucker until not even ash remains
RED!?
Thank him for creating my son
Then rip his face off and beat him to death with his own spine for literally everything he did to Hunter after that moment
(Flapjack has been spending most of his time with Macaque nowadays)
At least until MK and Hunter are put back to normal lmao
Anyway Mei’s in trouble for suddenly vanishing without word and scaring her parents, so she was dragged back home by a very angry dragon mama
Red Son’s still at the theatre, tho. He’s been appointed de-facto older brother by Macaque aside Nezha (Wukongs appointment, also neither are being allowed to leave lol)
Red’s parents know he’s not gonna die without fanfare (I.e. taking out half the city in a raging inferno) so they’re unconcerned if he just suddenly vanished without warning
Either he’ll be back or half the city will be taken out.
There won’t be an update to Emerald this week, BUT school is coming to a close, so when finals are finally over updates will be picking up pretty regularly for a month! Look forward to that!
In the mean time, enjoy this pre-story content, taking place before MK ever met Hunter
Macaque had a bit of a time trying to take care of Hunter without being able to speak his language, but luckily for him, Hunter is a genius and was fluent in Manderin within the month
Skills for survival can be learned very quickly if the knowledge needed is something you are exposed to constantly
