In the sterile, quiet VIP room of Metro-General Hospital, Doctor Christine Palmer was doing a routine check on the comatose patient, Jack Hou. She shined a penlight into his unmoving eye, noting the lack of pupillary response on her chart. She was about to check his vitals again when it happened.
His eyes snapped open.
They were a brilliant, burning gold.
Dr. Palmer stumbled back, a sharp gasp escaping her lips. The four God Tree guards in the room, who had been standing like stone statues, exploded into motion. Two of them instantly moved to flank the bed, their hands on their weapons, their bodies a human shield. A third keyed his wrist-comm, his voice a low, urgent hiss. "All stations, Jack Hou is awake. I repeat, Jack Hou is awake."
The fourth guard pulled out a secure phone and dialed.
…
In a small apartment above a tailor shop in the Golden Peach, Aunty Vivi sat at her sewing machine, the rhythmic hum a familiar, lonely sound. She had been taking care of the clone for months, changing his clothes, cleaning his face, talking to him as if he could hear.
She heard a creak from the floorboards above. She paused her sewing. Another creak, this time on the stairs. She looked up just as the clone, dressed in the clean pajamas she had put him in, walked down into her shop.
"Jack…?" she whispered, her hands trembling as she stood. "You're back?"
Tears welled in her eyes as he gave her a small, weak, but very real smile.
…
In the back room of Mario's Pizzeria, Antonio was having the time of his life. He had found a box of party supplies for today's new years celebration and was currently in the process of dressing the unconscious Jack clone. He had managed to get a silly, cone-shaped party hat on his head and was trying to fit a plastic noisemaker into his mouth.
"Stay still, Mr. Jack," he giggled.
Then, the clone's hand moved. It gently took the noisemaker from Antonio's fingers.
Antonio's eyes went wide. He dropped the rest of the party supplies and ran into the kitchen, his voice a high-pitched, excited shriek. "PAPA! PAPA! HE'S MOVING!"
Mario, who was in the middle of pulling a perfectly cooked pizza from the oven, dropped the peel with a loud CLANG.
A wave of impossible news, of quiet miracles, swept through the Golden Peach. A clone in a laundromat sat up, startling a dozen customers. Another, in a local library, woke up with his face stuck to the pages of a history book. Phones began to ring. People ran out of their apartments, shouting the news to their neighbors. Their guardian, in his many forms, had returned.
…
The first sensation was the cold. Not the soul-crushing cold of the Cocytus, but the simple, sharp chill of wet rock against his skin. The second was the sound: the rhythmic crash of waves against a shore.
Jack's eyes snapped open. He was on all fours on a vast, dark surface that reflected the diamond-sharp stars of the night sky above. He was in his own body, back in the real world, lying on the wet, black stones of Cape Matapan.
Then, a voice that was not a sound, but a presence in his mind, echoed through his thoughts.
"So, you have survived the five rivers of the Underworld. How does it feel to have an added layer of immortality?"
Jack pushed himself to his feet, a slow, weary grin spreading across his face. "Kekekeke, feels not enough," he said, his voice a raw, defiant thing. "But immortality isn't fun if you have to search for it, Hades."
A figure materialized from the shadows of the cliff face, a spectral form visible only to Jack's newly awakened senses. He wore a dark, imposing helm, and in his hand, he held a gleaming, two-pronged bident. His eyes were twin pools of shifting embers.
"Aahhh," Jack said, a look of profound, unhinged understanding on his face. "I get it now."
"Get what?" Hades's mental voice was a low, menacing thing.
"You're the second most powerful out of your brothers," Jack stated, not as a challenge, but as a simple, logical fact.
Hades's spectral form tilted its head, the embers of his eyes glowing a little brighter. "Based on what?"
"You have a bident," Jack explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Poseidon has a trident. And Zeus has his thunderbolt, which can be classified as a one-pronged weapon. So, the weakest is Zeus, then you, and then the strongest is Poseidon."
Hades was silent for a long, quiet moment.
Then, a deep, booming laugh that was not a sound but a feeling of pure, divine amusement echoed in Jack's mind. "HAHAHAHAHA! You should say that in front of Zeus! I don't care about the ranking among my brothers." He then pointed his bident toward a small, hidden grotto where the seawater itself seemed to glow with a faint, silver light. "Go," he said, his amusement fading. "Take what is yours. And do not come back until your time has come."
"Kekekeke, I won't," Jack said cheerfully. "I'm immortal, remember?"
A final, grim thought from Hades brushed against his mind. "Being immortal does not mean you cannot be killed."
And with that, the spectral form dissolved into the shadows, and he was gone.
Jack walked toward the grotto. In the center of the glowing pool, resting on a flat stone, was a simple, unadorned gourd. He reached out and took it.
The moment his fingers touched the gourd, the world stopped. The sound of the waves, the salt spray in the air, the stars in the sky—all frozen.
"Wukong, where are you?" Jack called out to the silent cape. "It's me! You! Kekekeke."
He saw a still tide pool at his feet, its surface a perfect, dark mirror. He looked in. But it was not his own reflection that stared back at him. It was the proud, arrogant, and fully armored form of the Monkey King, his golden eyes burning with a fierce, independent light.
Then, the reflection moved. It placed its hands on the surface of the water, not as a reflection, but as if it were a pane of glass. It began to crawl through.
Jack leaped back a few paces, his heart hammering against his ribs. The Monkey King pulled himself out of the water, streaming ethereal droplets, and stood, a solid, real figure in the frozen night.
Jack looked back at the tide pool. His own reflection was gone.
The Monkey King, in his full, glorious armor, picked a piece of lint from his ear, his expression one of bored, arrogant amusement. "Ahhh," he said, his voice a perfect, chilling echo of Jack's own. "So you've collected the headband, huh?"
Jack instinctively touched the golden band on his forehead. "Yeah," he said, his voice a low, ready thing. "I don't know which order I'm supposed to absorb them in, so—"
He touched his earring, and the Ruyi Jingu Bang grew to its full length in his hand, a silent, definitive answer to the unspoken challenge.
The Monkey King laughed. "Kekekeke. Let's see how you fare against yourself."
He dashed forward. Even without a staff, his stance left no openings, his form a perfect, flowing river of martial prowess, every muscle coiled with a power that Jack knew intimately. It was the original, testing the copy.
Their first clash was not a sound of metal on flesh, but of reality grinding against itself. Jack swung his staff in a wide, powerful arc, an attack that could have leveled a mountain. Wukong didn't block it. He flowed with it, his open palm gently guiding the staff's momentum, unraveling the force of the blow as if it were a simple knot, and using Jack's own power to spin him off balance.
"Kekekeke!" Jack cackled, righting himself with a flip. "You don't know how much I've been itching to do this."
Wukong, now standing with his hands behind his back, a look of pure, unassailable arrogance on his face, raised an eyebrow. "Oh, do tell. Did you go through something life-changing that involves me?"
"Well, more like soul-changing," Jack retorted, his staff a blur as he launched a flurry of jabs, each one aimed at a different pressure point. "And re-remembering the 342 miserable, boring, and occasionally badass lives I've gone through."
Wukong weaved between the jabs, his movements a perfect, effortless dance. He didn't even seem to be trying. "So you somehow remember the trials that…" He paused, and then he spoke the name. A name that was not a sound, but a vibration that tore at the fabric of Jack's mind. A name that was a key and a lock and a prison all at once.
"{̷͉͒#̷̤̃%̸͎̂&̸̲͝#̴̙̈́}̸̤̉ gave me, huh?"
Jack's attack stopped. He dropped his staff and clutched his head, a scream of pure, psychic agony tearing from his throat. It felt like a migraine made of static and dying stars. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
"Naughty, naughty," Wukong tutted, still not attacking. "Some names aren't meant to be heard by the student body. You haven't graduated yet."
"I'm gonna graduate my foot up your ass!" Jack roared, the pain subsiding, replaced by a fresh wave of unhinged fury.
The fight became a hurricane of improvised chaos. Jack transformed his staff into a giant fly swatter. Wukong simply caught it between two fingers. Jack became a swarm of angry hornets. Wukong just stood there, and the hornets, sensing his overwhelming presence, refused to sting him.
"Is this really the best you can do?" Wukong asked, yawning. "The tyrant king had more creativity, and all he did was burn villages."
"At least he had a hobby!" Jack shot back, reforming. "What's yours? Professional navel-gazing? Polishing your own ego until you can see your own outdated sense of fashion in the reflection?"
"My fashion is timeless," Wukong stated flatly.
"So is smallpox, but you don't see people lining up for it!"
They clashed again, their battle a perfect, unhinged metronome. A blow, a taunt. A parry, an insult. Jack was fighting not just with his staff, but with the totality of his being, the chaos of his 342nd life. He was unpredictable, wild, a storm of motion. But Wukong was the eye of the storm. He was calm, perfect, the source of the power, and he met every chaotic attack with a simple, crushing truth of superior skill.
Finally, Jack stopped. He was panting, his body aching, his mind reeling. Wukong stood before him, not a single hair out of place.
The armored figure of the Monkey King faded, replaced by the simple, unadorned reflection from the water. "You cannot defeat me," it said, its voice now a quiet, simple thing. "Because I am not your enemy."
The gourd in Jack's hand began to glow.
The reflection in the water smiled. "I am the piece you were missing. The memory of what you are fighting for."
Jack looked at his own hands, then back at the reflection. He understood. This wasn't a battle to be won. It was a reunion.
He held the gourd to his lips and drank.
The world dissolved into a blinding, golden light. He was thrown back, a spectator once more, into the fragmented memories of The Monkey King.
He found himself standing in a familiar, echoing cavern, the roar of a massive waterfall a constant, thunderous presence. It was the Water Curtain Cave. Before him stood Sun Wukong, his expression a mask of grim resolve.
A figure stepped forward, a strange, impossible sight in the heart of Flower-Fruit Mountain. He was a general in Wukong's army, but he wore a full suit of bright, gleaming bronze Greek armor, forged by the hands of Hephaestus himself. His shield was a masterpiece of divine craftsmanship, his helmet a promise of war. It was Achilles.
He knelt before Wukong, his head bowed. "I will not let the world forget you," he said, his voice a low, powerful thing that resonated with an unshakeable loyalty.
Wukong let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Kekekeke. It is not a general's job to scribe my name for generations to come, old friend."
But Achilles's head shot up, his eyes burning with a fierce, unwavering fire. "I SWEAR ON THE RIVER STYX, I WILL NOT LET THEM SULLY YOUR NAME!"
A roar of agreement erupted from the army of monkeys and demons assembled behind him, their voices a single, unified chant.
Wukong's smile faded, replaced by a quiet, profound gratitude. "Thank you," he said, his voice a low murmur. "But I cannot swear your name will be remembered, either. For all the world will turn their back on us if we do not win this."
"THEN WE WILL DIE PROTECTING YOU!" Achilles roared, and his army echoed his cry.
"Brother," a familiar voice pleaded. It was Hanuman, his face a picture of pure, desperate sorrow. "Are you really going to do this?"
…
The scene rippled, the memory fragment shifting, pulling Jack deeper, further back in time. The roar of the waterfall faded, replaced by the quiet, scholarly silence of Wukong's private chambers. It was years before the final meeting in the cave.
He saw Hanuman, not in his physical form, but as a shimmering, blue astral projection, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, surrounded by a mountain of open books and ancient scrolls.
Wukong knocked gently on the doorframe.
Hanuman's astral form startled, the books wobbling. "Oh, brother," he said, his voice a calm, scholarly thing. "What brings you here?"
Wukong walked in, his expression serious, his usual chaotic energy absent. "I want to hear your opinion on this… Arishem fellow."
Hanuman's form flickered in thought. "Ahh, one of the Celestials, hmm? The Judge. From what I have gathered from the texts of other worlds, Arishem has always been adamant in his support for the… outer gods."
Wukong was silent for a long moment. "Is there any possibility he wants to get rid of us?"
"Us? And the other Terran deities?" Hanuman mused. "Hmmm, I am not sure. But we know he has never once invited us to talk. I have heard, however, that some of the other Skyfathers have been meeting with Arishem lately."
Wukong nodded, a dark, dawning understanding in his eyes. "Thank you," he said, his voice a quiet, final thing. "Go back to your books, then. Good night."
"Good night, brother," Hanuman replied, his gaze returning to his ancient texts.
The memory faded, the golden light receding, and Jack was pulled back, the weight of a thousand forgotten conspiracies and a final, desperate loyalty settling into his newly whole soul.
**A/N**
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**A/N**