The Moon's Successor

Everything Goes Downhill

Tee hee, let's go see what the shadows are gonna do with this.

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─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽LBD's Mech☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄Linwan⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The Lady Bone Demon practically cackled as Wukong became fully possessed by her and the three stared at the now corrupted king worriedly, and though Linwan couldn't see him, she felt his glare. Icy... just like the demon in control. "Admittedly, this is an unforeseen adjustment, but a fortunate moment of spontaneity nonetheless. Fate has delivered me the perfect champion." "But he was winning. He was beating you." MK spoke up as Linwan found herself holding onto his sleeve and hiding slightly behind him, trying to ease herself. Both young adults stepped away from each other as they winced and grunted at her laughs, which seemed to shove whispers and magic through them. "Oh, sweet children. Perhaps now you finally understand how pointless your efforts to stop me truly are." She held her hands in front of her and blasted magic at them, making them all hold their ground. Ne Zha got his spear ready with gritted teeth and Linwan got her cudgel out. "The Samadhi Fire will be mine, and I will use its power to reforge this world." Linwan's eyes widened when she heard what LBD whispered to Wukong. "Go." The prince let out a gasp when Wukong vanished and looked at them both. "Get back!" Wukong came in mere seconds after, slamming his fist into the prince and causing a small crater as he cried out in pain. MK and Linwan were launched away and while MK tripped over the Mayor, who started to laugh at their misfortune, Linwan pushed herself away to create distance. She froze upon hearing the quiet flaps of wings and quickly looked at the eagle that looked like her mentor before she glared at Wukong. She hummed softly in acknowledgement of the bird and got a small whistle in return as MK got up. Before either were ready though, Wukong launched himself at MK. "Wait-" The boy began but got dragged into a shadow portal and Linwan sighed in relief. That relief was short lived when Wukong landed and looked back at her. "Oh u-uh." She took a step back and gulped before readying herself, holding her weapon tightly. "Foolish child. Did you really think you could betray me?" "Gotta admit. to betray you I'd have to be on your side first. Can't say this fight is fair when you have King with you though..." She slid under Wukong when he attempted the same punch as he had done towards MK, barely managing to dodge it. Unfortunately when she also used that slide to dive into her shadows, he ripped her right out of them by her hood, making her yelp in surprise. He held her up like a kitten as she kicked her legs around then grabbed her cudgel and snapped it when she swung it at him. "Get off of me, King!" She squirmed around and wiggled her body until her jacket began to get loose, not noticing the small dim of the blue glow in his eyes. "Remove her." "Shit shit shit! DAD!" She shut her eyes tightly in her panic and a shadow portal opened up for her right as she slipped out of her jacket, leaving Wukong to hold onto it.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽???☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄Macaque⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The young warrior landed directly into her mentor's arms and he instantly held her close as he shut the portal quickly. "I got you, Little Shade. I got you." He slowly sat down and pulled her into his lap before he gently rubbed soothing circles into the back of her shirt. Her entire body was trembling as she tried to relax and she ended up leaning heavily into him, focusing on easing the fast paced breathing she was doing. After a bit, she seemed to finally relax, and he took the time to check her for injuries. A few scrapes and bruises from how she was forced to dodge attacks, nothing too major. Well, aside from... His eyes wandered to the large wound that was across her face and he found himself tracing it from her mouth, to the jagged angle that was caused by her jerking away, to her eyebrow. "Can you still see out of it?" Linwan looked at Macaque tiredly, the adrenaline having drained out of her a bit ago. "Hm?" "Your eye. Can you still see out of it?" He watched her hesitate and sighed as he gently cupped her face with his hand, moving it around to see her left eye better. "... Sort of." "Sort of?" "It's blurry, but I can make things out." "Explain it further?" She paused as she thought it over, then closed her right eye. "Well, I can see you but... I can't see what face you're making. At least not well." He hummed and went back to looking her over, taking in how exhausted she looked now that she had a moment to just... Stop. "Why don't you-?" "We need to talk about it. All of it." "Talk about what?" "Don't play dumb, Mac. Chasing my friends and fighting me of all people. Just. Why, you know? What led to all of that. I know we don't typically talk deeply about big things like that, but I feel we're close enough that we probably should... Right?" She looked at him as he thought it over. It took him a bit of consideration, but he ended up nodding and the two explained their sides to one another.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽???☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄Linwan⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

"That's why you seemed so surprised." Linwan sounded a bit annoyed with the lie that was made about her as she messed with the completely ruined hair tie Macaque had given her. She was upset it was destroyed, but maybe it was time to let it go anyway. "Yeah..." "Also explains why you focused on getting free. I... Probably would've acted that way too if I didn't have close ties with any of them. That's not to say what you did was cool with me. You still hurt them all and I'm very upset with that." She rubbed her right eye. "But understanding it is a start." A small yawn came from the girl. "We can work on the rest together." "Yeah? You're not going to just walk away now that I've done this?" "Nah... I won't do that. I believe you can get along with them if we just try our best." He gently brought her head to his shoulder and moved so his cape was covering her. "... Just rest up, kid. You clearly haven't slept in a bit and you pushed yourself pretty hard to catch up to everyone. Didn't even stop there and kept going." "It had to be done." "Running yourself that bad isn't ever needed." "But-" "If you were forced to fight anyone and they decided not to hold back, what would happen? Look what almost happened with Wukong because you didn't think about unzipping that damn jacket." She went to answer but paused as she thought about it, then looked down. "... I know... On the bright side, this tested my skills and the endurance needed to use them. Right? I mean, I did a bunch to get to this point and most of that was with my shadows." He blinked at her then snickered after a moment. "Yeah, that's true. Now... Get some sleep, I'll handle the rest." "Don't go beating her without me." She tiredly mumbled out her joke as she snuggled herself further into his cape. "I won't. Promise." He watched her drift off then thought about their next move.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽Hidden Library☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄Macaque⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

After Macaque was sure of his plan, he carefully lifted Linwan and she immediately clung onto him in her sleep, even if her grip was weak enough that her arms almost instantly dropped into her lap. He took a minute to resituate his cape since she had almost choked him with it though... then he opened a shadow portal for them to fall through. He listened out as they moved and only stopped when he heard MK speaking. "Yeah. That's why we're going to formulate a plan. I'm open to suggestions. What do we got?" The scholar nervously responded with a "Uh, die with dignity?" That got an agitated response from the pig. "What kind of plan is that?!" "I don't know. It's just- aren't we back where we were when Mei and Monkey King flew off into the sky? Actually, isn't it worse because we're missing Lin again?" "What?" The young hero sounded surprised then waved his arms around like crazy. "No. It's nothing like that. Cause now we've got a Redson. We didn't have a Redson before." "Oh yeah, he's a real game changer." Huffed out Pigsy, which made Redson yell out a "Hey!" that got ignored as the pig continued. "We're just doing the same thing over and over again. I'm losing my mind over here!" As Pigsy complained, Macaque gently moved Linwan within the shadows then he formed behind Redson. The shadow crawled up the wall until it became the monkey's shape and his glowing purple facial features appeared in a shine that showed off his Cheshire grin. "I hope I'm not interrupting." He popped his top half out of the shadow with a smirk at how he freaked Redson out, causing the fire demon to rush over to the others and get into a fighting stance. "But if you're making a plan to defeat the Lady Bone Demon, I know a guy who might be able to help." As he spoke, he put a hand to the wall and extended his shadow until a disheveled man fell through Macaque's shadow portal, flopping right onto his face. The Mayor slowly sat up and chuckled which made everyone gasp.

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Exactly 1,610 words this time. I'm sort of liking breaking these down. I feel like it makes it more digestible too? Like the cuts they do in shows between moments!

Tidbit 1: Linwan may develop a habit of holding onto Macaque's cape if he continues to offer it to her in moments of comfort being needed. He'd have to just get used to it if she does, because man is that cape nice. Sure it's worn and tattered, but it still finds a way to be soft on the inner part of it, just like the monkey who wears it.
Tidbit 2: Macaque will admit he was... brash when it came to handling the Samadhi Fire issue and being stuck with LBD. He's relieved that his Little Shade is willing to work with him still though.