Marvel: Monkey King

Days blurred into a weeks. The seasons outside Kamar-Taj shifted, but within the hallowed library, time moved at its own pace—measured by the slow turning of ancient pages and the soft hum of contained magic. Master Wright, the library's unyielding guardian, moved through this domain with a quiet, unshakable confidence. This was her kingdom. Not of land or titles, but of knowledge.

She loved her work with the fierce, steady pride of a master craftsman. Her job was not merely to shelve scrolls but to guide the souls who sought to read them. She had seen it all. The arrogant new disciples, puffed up with their newfound gifts, who believed they could conquer any tome through sheer talent. They were peacocks, strutting before a mirror that would eventually show them their own ignorance. She would let them try, let them stumble, and be there to point them toward a simpler text when their pride was bruised.

Then there were the older disciples—the humble, the patient, the ones who had seen the vastness of the mystic arts and were now too afraid to take the next step. They were timid mice, circling a feast they felt unworthy of. Her job was to nudge them forward, to remind them that knowledge was not a cliff to fall from, but a mountain to be climbed one step at a time. Navigating these currents of ego and humility was her art, and she was a master of it.

But then, Jack Hou had arrived. The young god didn't fit into any category. He was not a peacock; he was a meteor shower. He wasn't a mouse; he was a bull in a cosmic china shop. He hadn't just disrupted her carefully curated ecosystem of learning—he had stomped on it, set it on fire, and then tried to sell tickets to the blaze.

His first week had been a masterclass in pandemonium. Convinced that more heads were better than one, Jack had created a dozen clones to tackle the ancient book the ancient one had given him. She watched from her desk as the clones descended upon the tome like a swarm of hyperactive locusts. 

They couldn't read a single passage in unison. One clone would be arguing with another about the proper pronunciation of a forgotten deity's name, while a third was busy drawing a mustache on a celestial diagram. Their shared consciousness, it turned out, was also a shared, incurable case of ADHD.

His next attempt was even more baffling. Master Wright found him one afternoon sprawled across the book, fast asleep, snoring with his tail twitching rhythmically. When she nudged him awake, he shot upright with a bloodcurdling scream. 

"THEY'RE AUDITING MY SOUL!" he had shrieked, eyes wide with terror. "THE COSMIC IRS WANTS RECEIPTS FOR MY SINS! THEY SAID MY KARMA ISN'T TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!"

He claimed he was trying to absorb the knowledge through osmosis, but all he absorbed was a nightmare about divine bureaucracy. 

Now, months later, he had settled into his final, most infuriating tactic: pestering her. Every single day, he would find her. "Hey, Master Book-Lady," he'd start, "Got that audiobook version yet? Or a 'For Dummies' edition?"

At first, she thought he would never last. He was a force of chaos, antithetical to the patience required for true study. But as the months wore on, she saw it. Beneath the noise and the nonsense, he was still there, every day, wrestling with the first chapter. He pressed through, a stubborn weed growing through a crack in a divine monument. 

His progress was minuscule, almost nonexistent, but it was there. And though she would never admit it, a grudging, quiet sense of pride had begun to bloom in her chest.

One afternoon, as Jack was loitering near the restricted section, using his tail to idly bat at a floating scroll, a familiar presence entered the library. The Ancient One. Yao walked in, his steps silent. He gave Master Wright a simple, knowing nod, which she returned.

Yao approached Jack, who was still deeply engrossed in the first few pages of the book, his brow furrowed in concentration. The Sorcerer Supreme peered over his shoulder and let out a soft chuckle. Jack's head snapped up.

"Yao! You bald maniac, you came to visit!" Jack shouted, his voice echoing through the sacred silence. He dropped the book and scrambled up, rambling like a little brother tattling on a sibling. "This book is bullshit! It's written in, like, ten different dead languages at once. And Master Wright won't even give me the cliff notes!"

Yao just chuckled again, his eyes twinkling with amusement. He didn't respond to the rambling. Instead, he gently smiled, raised a hand, and pointed to his own eyes. "Use your head for once in a while," he said softly, his voice carrying a weight that went beyond the simple words.

Then, without another word, he turned and left, leaving Jack standing there, blinking in confusion, the library once again settling into a quiet hum around him. Jack stood frozen in the quiet library, the echo of Yao's words ringing in his ears. "Use your head for once in a while."

He pondered the phrase, contrasting it with the cryptic, often violent, "lessons" from his old master. Master Perv's teachings were a maze of metaphors wrapped in beatdowns. If his old master wanted him to use his head, he would have just hit it with a stick until enlightenment seeped through the cracks. Yao's words were different. More direct. Almost... literal?

A familiar, reckless grin spread across Jack's face. "Fuck it," he muttered to himself. "Let's just try it."

He sat down again, pulling the heavy tome into his lap. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then snapped them open. A streak of brilliant light flared from his pupils as he activated his Golden Gaze, focusing its divine sight directly onto the ancient script.

The effect was instantaneous and overwhelming. Knowledge flooded into him—not as understanding, but as raw data. It was like shoving food down his throat without chewing, without tasting, without even knowing what he was eating. Entire languages he had never seen in his past life or his current one suddenly became comprehensible. Ancient histories, cosmic laws, and divine principles poured into his mind in a torrential, chaotic rush.

He read faster and faster, his eyes scanning pages in a blur of gold. But his body couldn't keep up with the mental deluge. A wave of profound nausea churned in his stomach. His head swam, the room tilted, and he gagged. "Aagghhh—"

He scrambled to his feet and threw up right onto the library's pristine floor. But before the vomit could even touch the polished stone, Master Wright, with the speed of a seasoned master, conjured a swirling portal directly beneath his mouth. The vomit vanished into the shimmering vortex.

The portal snapped shut. Jack wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, looking around with a dazed expression. "Aagghhh... where did my vomit go?"

Master Wright appeared beside him, her face a mask of unimpressed calm. "To the middle of the ocean," she stated flatly.

Jack, still swaying, pointed an accusing finger at her. "Heyyy," he slurred, "that's littering."

She ignored him, her gaze sharp. "Go to your room," she commanded. "You are clearly not ready to read another page of that book."

But Jack, now acting like a man drunk on pure information, stubbornly shook his head. "No," he insisted, stumbling slightly. "I need to finish this. I need to get this done. I can't be... be left behind by muscleheads like Ares."

Master Wright's patience had worn thin. She didn't take no for an answer. With a swift, practiced motion, she conjured another portal—this one aimed to teleport him directly to an empty, quiet room where he could recover.

But even in his disoriented state, Jack was still the Monkey King. His instincts screamed. He dodged the portal with a clumsy but effective roll, his tail whipping behind him. He stumbled back to his feet, a wild grin on his face, and fell into a sloppy, drunken fighting stance. "You wanna go, Book-Lady? Let's go!" he shouted, ready to fight.

Jack swayed on his feet, his grin wide and unfocused, his body moving in a fluid, unpredictable rhythm. It wasn't a real fighting style; it was the physical manifestation of chaos, a drunken master's dance fueled by an overdose of cosmic knowledge. His tail twitched erratically behind him, like a confused serpent. "Come on, Book-Lady!" he slurred, pointing a wobbly finger at her. "Let's see if you're as good at throwing hands as you are at... shushing people!"

Master Wright didn't dignify his taunt with a response. She simply exhaled, her expression one of immense patience, like a tenured professor dealing with a particularly disruptive freshman. Her hands, however, moved with practiced, deadly grace. She drew a glowing orange sigil in the air before her, the light humming with contained power.

"I tried to be reasonable, Jack," she said, her voice echoing slightly with mystical energy. "Now, it's time for your nap."

With a sharp gesture, she sent the sigil flying forward. It wasn't an attack; it was a cage. The light expanded into a web of shimmering energy chains, whipping through the air to ensnare him.

Jack just laughed. "Ooooh, kinky!" He dropped to the floor, rolling backward with impossible agility, his tail slapping the ground for momentum. The chains lashed at the space where he had been, striking the stone with a loud clang. He scrambled up, stumbling into a bookshelf, and dramatically pretended to read a title upside down. "History of... Eldritch... Plumbing? Fascinating!"

Master Wright's eye twitched. She made another gesture. The floor beneath Jack's feet turned to shimmering quicksand. Jack yelped as he began to sink, but instead of panicking, he used his staff—which he'd somehow forgotten to let go of—as a pole vault, launching himself into the air with a wild "Wheeee!"

He landed on top of another bookshelf, swaying precariously. "You know," he called down, "for a librarian, you've got a real destructive streak! What's next? Burning the books you don't like?"

"Do not tempt me," she muttered. This time, she didn't attack directly. She summoned her sacred item—a simple-looking, yet immensely powerful, jade abacus. Its beads clicked softly as they rearranged themselves, glowing with a soft green light. With each click, the gravity in the room shifted.

Jack slid off the bookshelf, tumbling through the air as the room's orientation twisted. He landed on what used to be the wall, now the floor, and slid down it like a disoriented penguin. "Whoa! Anti-gravity! You guys have all the cool toys!"

He pushed off the wall, using the shifting gravity to propel himself toward her. Master Wright was ready. The abacus clicked again, and the very air around Jack thickened, becoming dense and heavy as honey, slowing his movements to a crawl. He struggled against it, his limbs moving in exaggerated slow motion.

"Cheater!" he yelled, his voice distorted and slow.

"Discipline," she corrected, walking calmly toward him as he was suspended mid-air. She reached for his forehead, intending to apply a pressure point that would render him unconscious.

But Jack was still Jack. Even slowed, even "drunk," his mind was a whirlwind. He grinned, his golden eyes flashing. With a final, desperate burst of chaotic energy, he twisted his body, using his tail to whip his staff forward. The staff, acting on its own divine instinct, extended just an inch, tapping the jade abacus.

CLINK.

The connection shattered. Gravity snapped back to normal. Jack fell to the floor, landing in a heap, but he was already rolling. He came up right at Master Wright's feet. She stepped back, raising her hands to conjure another spell, but he was too close.

In a move so swift it was almost invisible, Jack's hand darted out. He didn't grab her wrist. He didn't go for a strike. His fingers danced past her guard and plucked the Sling Ring right off her hand. Master Wright froze, her eyes wide with disbelief. He had it. The Sling Ring.

Jack stumbled back, holding the ring up to the light, cackling triumphantly. "Kekekekeke! Look what I got! I'm gonna go visit... I dunno, the Dinosaur Dimension! Or maybe that one place with all the talking teacups!"

He fumbled with the ring, trying to slip it onto his own fingers. He raised his hand, attempting to make the circular motion he had seen sorcerers do a thousand times. A few pathetic orange sparks fizzled from his fingertips.

He tried again, concentrating hard, his face scrunched up. A wobbly, misshapen portal sputtered to life for a split second, showing a glimpse of what looked like a swamp filled with angry badgers before collapsing in on itself.

"Ugh..." Jack groaned, his body swaying. The mental overload, the physical exertion, and the sheer chaotic energy he had expended finally caught up to him. His eyes rolled back into his head.

"...Tacos..." he whispered. And with that, he passed out cold, collapsing onto the floor with a loud thud, the Sling Ring slipping from his limp fingers and clattering beside him.

Master Wright stood over his unconscious form, breathing heavily. She looked at the mess in her library, at the passed-out god at her feet, and let out the most profound, soul-deep sigh of her centuries-long career. She needed a raise. And a very, very strong cup of tea.

…

A gentle ray of sunlight streamed through the window of the small, sparse room, painting a warm stripe across the wooden floor. Jack Hou's golden eyes blinked open slowly. He sat up, the thin blanket pooling around his waist. For a moment, he felt… different. More human. It had been a long, long time since he had truly slept. Usually, he would just meditate, his mind drifting through his soulscape while his body rested. He didn't need sleep, not in the mortal sense. But this… this was nice.

"Kekekeke," he chuckled softly to himself, the sound quiet in the morning stillness. "It felt good."

He stretched his arms high above his head, his back arching as he let out a satisfying yawn. His mind, once a chaotic storm of half-digested knowledge, now felt clearer, sharper. The fog had lifted. And with that clarity came memory.

He recalled the events of the previous day—the fight with Master Wright, the shifting gravity, the jade abacus, the dizzying dance through the library. And the Sling Ring.

"Fuck," he muttered, a look of genuine disappointment crossing his face. "I almost had it. The Sling Ring could have been one more addition to my collection." He exhaled in a dramatic, sorrowful sigh.

But the melancholy lasted only a second. His expression shifted instantly, the familiar, unhinged grin returning to his face. "Aha!" he declared to the empty room. "I still have time! I still have several books I have to read! Kekekeke!"

And so, Jack Hou became a small, chaotic addition to the ancient order of Kamar-Taj. Though his explosive presence was mostly contained within the silent halls of the library or the tranquil confines of the training yard, he was there. He wasn't a disciple, not truly. He was a god in residence, a storm in a teacup, a lunatic on a quest. All of this, not for mastery of the mystic arts, but for something far more personal: to finally understand the divine power that coursed through his veins—the power even his master never told him about fully.