So @ninja-knox-ur-sox-off is having a bit of an ordeal with a Tang-Snatching anon. So here's a crack chapter for Scattered Cicadas about it! Enjoy.
Read the full story starting here!
Scattered Cicadas - Bonus Chapter: The Tang Snatcher
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Tang struggled against the hold of his captor as he was carried across the rooftops. Getting kidnapped was never a fun occurrence, but this was a particularly grating experience as the grey demon spiriting him away refused to stop cackling.
Tang, who was tied up, gagged, and thrown over his kidnapper’s shoulders, could only hope the insane laughter would allow his family an easier time in tracking him down.
His captor suddenly jumped from the rooftops down into an alleyway, pausing his glee only for a moment as he opened a secret door in the back wall.
Tang was carried down a nondescript tunnel with torches lining the walls. It soon opened up into a large basement with a prison cell filled with about two dozen other men of various ages taking up the left half and what appeared to be a conspiracy theorists’ workspace on the right; complete with a cork board covered in photos and interconnected strings.
The laughing demon dumped Tang into the cell and made his way over to the desk, pulling out a red marker as he began to modify the board.
A few of the other captured men quickly made their way to the scholar and began freeing him from his bonds.
“So let me guess, your name is Tang?” The one pulling at the bindings on his feet seemed pretty calm for being imprisoned by a demon.
“Yes? How did you know that,” Tang asked once his gag had been removed.
“Oh give him a minute,” another man said as he helped Tang to his feet. “He’ll start gloating in just a second.”
“What?”
“At last!” The grey demon turned to face the group and Tang got his first good look at him.
He was almost completely featureless. Grey skin and clothes, no face, no horns or a tail or fur. The only thing that even slightly defined them was the pair of plain black sunglasses they wore.
“I, Hamburg! Have finally captured EVERY Tang in the city!”
Tang’s mouth hung open as he turned to the nearest person.
“Wait, are you all-?”
“Named Tang as well? Yup,” said the nonchalant Tang.
Oh this was going to get confusing.
“And now that I have them all,” the demon, Hamburg, continued, “I can figure out which of them is the reincarnation of the monk Tang Sanzang! I will devour them, steal their divinity, and become powerful enough to rule the world!” Hamburg let out another cackle which was impressive considering he had no mouth.
“What.” Tang just stared in bafflement.
“Yeah, that’s what we’ve been dealing with for a while now,” said a Tang with a lip piercing.
“But- But that doesn’t even make any sense!” Tang was used to over the top evil schemes but this?
This was plain insulting.
“Even if one of us was the reincarnation of Sanzang,” he absolutely was, but he wasn’t about to advertise that, “they’re basing that fact solely on our names. Which is absolutely idiotic! Reincarnations aren’t named after their past lives!
“Not to mention that his reincarnation wouldn’t be divine anymore, so what ‘power’ would he be getting?
“Sanzang wasn’t even that powerful to begin with! He was a monk! A pacifist! The only thing someone would gain from eating him was maybe immortality and even that is uncertain!
“And why go through the trouble of capturing all of us before beginning to test and see which of us might be the reincarnation? Now he just has a bunch of prisoners that he has to keep track of who, based on what I’ve seen so far, could undoubtedly outsmart him and escape!”
Tang whirled and glared at the now speechless demon.
“Did you do any research into this outside our names at all?!”
There was silence for a few moments before a Tang wearing a backwards baseball cap gave a low whistle.
“Damn. We’ve never been able to get him to shut up for this long.”
Before anything else could happen, there was an explosion from down the hall and soon MK, Mei, Pigsy, Sandy, and some kid Tang had never seen came running in.
“Give us our friend back!” MK charged at the demon, swinging his staff.
Tang ignored the extremely one-sided fight as he rushed up to the bars.
“How’d you guys find us?”
“I, uh, saw the grey dude take you into this alley earlier,” the new kid said. “When your friends here came by looking I led them down here. My name’s Knox by the way.”
Sandy casually ripped the door off the cell and began ushering the Tangs towards the exit. MK soon joined them after leaving Hamburg unconscious in the corner of the room.
“So what was that guy’s plan, anyway,” Mei asked as they headed up the tunnel.
Tang growled, catching them all off guard.
“It wasn’t a plan so much as a half-baked delusion of grandeur. I have never been so insulted as a scholar and researcher by the illogical ideas they were spewing.”
“Ooooookay,” Pigsy said. “Let’s get you back to the shop and you can have a bowl of noodles, on the house. That should cheer you up.”
“Thanks for the help,” MK waved to the kid who had led them to the alley as they headed down the street.
“No problem,” the kid, Knox he believed, waved back and disappeared into the crowd.
Tang’s mood lifted at the thought of free noodles. Hopefully he could forget all about this insane day with the help of his favorite dish.
One is currently bouncing around various timelines at the moment so you probably won't be able to keep him for long even if you do manage to track him down. You can read about it in my fic Scattered Cicadas.
The other is my Golden Dragon Tang. He's a dragon and has proper training with his weapon so he might be a bit difficult to snatch up without a fight.
