Pretentious Faces (Masquerade Au)

Remember Me? I Remember You...

Wukong sat down, settling on the cushion. He waved at MK, catching his attention, "I need to meditate to get my powers back. I'll be back when I can, okay?" The brunette nodded, giving his mentor two thumbs up as the king slipped away.

He glowed, fur glowing slightly. MK openly stared, analyzing newly grown patches amongst slightly darkened fur, as if damaged by intense heat. Maybe it was because of the furnace, maybe it was something else.

The young hero exhaled slowly, standing up to move away from the king, heading towards his other friends, "Hey, guys!" Mei waved as everyone gave a small greeting. Pigsy hummed, "Where's Monkey King?" MK grimaced, "Uh, he's meditating to get his powers back." Tang rubbed his cheek for a moment, "That sounds about right. We just need to make sure he doesn't wake up."

A shadow portal suddenly opened, and Macaque wearily stepped through, "The Thrall's planning on ambushing you. You'll need to head out in a different direction." Pigsy huffed, mumbling inaudibly, "Right. Where do you suggest we go?"

Macaque gestured for the map before pointing out different landmarks, "There's a forest to the right, see? The desert's narrower, giving up an opening. Then you need to round up past a good quarter of it before taking a pretty sharp left." He glanced up at Sandy, "Then go past this cliff and into the network of magma, got it?"

The friendly giant nodded firmly, eyes trained on the map. The shadow user turned, glancing over at the sage, "Meditation, huh?" MK made a noise of affirmation, "We just don't need to wake him up, right?" Macaque nodded before slipping into the shadows again.

"...Well that was a quick visit." Mei glanced back down at MK's drawings, seemingly uncaring of the fact the warrior had come by to warn them.

---

The forest was much more forgiving than the desert, and now that night had fallen they were setting up camp.

MK moved his mentor to sit with them outside and began to set up a campfire. It was funny, being on the run yet camping out together. Mei voiced his thoughts as she stuck a marshmallow onto a metal rod meant for making s'mores, "If it weren't for the whole 'World Is Gonna Freeze' this would be a fun trip."

Macaque joined them later into the night, conversing loosely when he suddenly snapped to look at the trees above them. Everyone tensed, and suddenly a limb shot out to grab something or someone. Shadows swatted it away, and Mei began the branches.

"Mei, no! You can make a branch fall on us!" Pigsy grabbed the girl by the arm frantically, but then the mysterious figure fell into the bushes, and ended up knocking back the meditating king.

MK yelled out, running for his mentor. Shadows assisted him, pulling them away from the retreating figure. "Monkey King! Are you okay?! He's not glowing!" The king was horribly still, dim and silent. Macaque paced nervously, "We'll have to wait for him to wake up. This isn't good..."

Mei gave him a look, "You don't say?"

---

Wukong groaned, flinching into a sitting position. A blanket slid off of him, and he subconsciously wondered where they'd gotten such soft material. He stood up, neatly placing the blanket on some sort of strange bed. The area was strange, and he glanced at the open doors.

Walking out, the king analyzed the forest around him and the strange...house(?). Baije was nearby, speaking quietly with Wujing and Sanzang. Strange, their clothes were wrong, and Wujing was back into his bigger form.

He shrugged it off and appeared before them, "Master, the sun is up high! We need to continue our journey, for we will be late otherwise." His master, who strangely enough was wearing glasses, fretted, "W-What?" Wukong tilted his head in confusion, "What? Master, the journey. The one sent by Buddha--"