It Happened One Heist

The Furnace

Sun Wukong's extended family lifted Monkey Fist and followed their king back inside their house.

How humiliating. Bound from head to foot, being carried off by monkeys less than half his size.

Wukong opened the doors to a back room, where there stood a gigantic iron furnace.

"Oh, dear Lord!" exclaimed Monkey Fist. "That's not—"

"The Brazier of Eight Trigrams," Wukong confirmed with a grin. "Yep!"

The monkeys tossed their captive inside and Wukong slammed the door shut.

"Note to self," Wukong murmured as he latched the door tight. "Return to Lao Tzu with an apology note."

His captors turned the heat up and Monkey Fist floated inside as though there was no gravity. The diamond snare loosened and unbound him.

Monkey Fist braced himself for the worst. He knew what this "treatment" was for. To separate the effects of the Jade Wine from his body. According to legend it was used in attempt to do the same to Wukong.

At the risk of burning his knuckles, he rapped from inside the giant metal furnace.

"And just how is this supposed to work on me if it didn't work on you?" he pointed out, hoping Wukong could hear him.

"I dunno," Wukong shrugged. He settled in beside the furnace, close enough to keep an eye on it but not so close as to become overheated himself. "Look, even if it kills you, it's best not to have an immortal megalomaniac running about."

"Oh, fantastic..." Monkey Fist sulked. Never mind being robbed of the Jade Wine's immortal properties, there was a good chance he was going to die from the heat alone.

***

Hours passed.

Wukong rapped on the furnace three times with his iron staff. "Hey, you still alive in there?"

They got no answer.

With that the monkeys turned down the fire and opened the furnace, pulling a limp, still-intact Monkey Fist out.

He was breathing, but he was physically exhausted and his skin was bright red.

"Well, you're alive," said Wukong. "Let's see if it did anything..."

After letting the furnace cool down, a couple monkeys hopped inside to check its contents. The diamond snare had been separated into its original form as a sparkling cobweb, and at the bottom of the furnace there were little concentrated green crystals. The monkeys screeched victoriously. The Jade Wine and all the properties therein were successfully removed from Monkey Fist's body.

"Wow," remarked Wukong. "I can't believe that actually worked this time."

One of the monkeys brought Monkey Fist a bowl of fresh water and he didn't hesitate as he drank it down. Getting out of there was such a relief, like he had just left an extensive steam in a sauna.

Furious, he snarled at Wukong and struggled to get up, but he dropped back to the ground as he passed out, still exhausted from the heat.

When Monkey Fist came to, he was chained up to the wall, Wukong sitting crosslegged in front of him and keeping a close eye on the prisoner.

"What are you doing here?" Monkey Fist growled.

Wukong smirked knowingly. "It'll take you a while to recover from that. I figured you could use the company. I mean, it didn't work on me, but then again, you only just drank the wine. You didn't also down a bunch of immortality pills and raid a mystical peach orchard. Also you're human," he pointed out as he poked at Monkey Fist's cheek playfully. "You're not born from rock like I am."

Monkey Fist growled again. He had no choice but to listen to this old man's ramblings. He settled back against the wall, figuring he should make the most of it.

"Tell me something, Sun Wukong," he questioned. "You were inside the Monkey King amulet this whole time before you hid yourself in the gourd. Just how did that come to pass?"

Wukong gave an embarrassed grin. "Word of advice, sonny. You come across five giant pillars at the edge of the universe? Don't write your name on it or mark it as your territory."

Monkey Fist grimaced. "That's disgusting."

"Hey! I'm a monkey! What did you expect?"

***

The following morning Monkey Fist recovered enough to be able to sit up to eat. The monkeys had brought him fruit, but only the leftovers they didn't finish. He was still technically their prisoner, after all.

Once again, Wukong came by to visit over breakfast.

"So, how's our little patient?" he greeted as he sat down next to Monkey Fist.

Their prisoner only glared at him as he ate, resentful of having his power forcefully stripped away but still too tired to retaliate in any way.

Wukong smiled and playfully leaned against Monkey Fist's side. "Someday you'll thank me for this, kid."

Monkey Fist only growled in response.

"And you'll thank that lady friend of yours, too."

"For what? Releasing you? Betraying me?"

"Well, yeah, kind of... But more so that she had a point. You do have a problem." Wukong sat back up and continued, "Look, I've been talking with my grandkids, and apparently that wasn't your first time in the furnace."

Monkey Fist looked at him curiously.

"They said some of your buddies came by with a statue of their old master and asked for a favor. See if they could 'restore' him."

Monkey Fist rubbed at his forehead. Once again, he couldn't remember what had happened since his stone imprisonment or how he returned to Castle Fiske, but he did remember such intense heat.

Wukong shrugged. "I can't keep bailing you out like this, kid." He reached into one of his pockets and held out the Wufu pendant. "And you really can't take friends like that for granted." He handed Monkey Fist the pendant. "The ones who care enough to want you to get your life together? Yeah. They're not gonna stick around if you keep screwing up."

Wukong scurried away to leave the prisoner in peace.

Monkey Fist brushed his thumb along the edges of the pendant. Even in his exhaustion he had a lot to think about.