Chapter Text
Macaque pushes the right side of his headphones back, setting one set of his ears free. It was quiet at the office. He couldn’t hear any of his coworkers nearby, and he suspected, if he pushed his hearing further, for miles.
Macaque wonders, not for the first time, where everyone else went.
If today was another obscure Celestial holiday that none of his coworkers bothered to tell him about and he didn’t actually have to be here, he was going to break the coffee maker on purpose this time.
He remembers the office being plenty busy earlier. There was more chattering than usual and his coworkers seemed almost excited. Immortals stuck on the lowest rungs of heaven with nothing but infinite paperwork to match their infinite life didn’t get excited about much. Macaque would have been more interested in whatever got his coworkers so excited if all their talking hadn’t hurt his ears. Instead, Macaque slipped his headphones on before burying himself in paperwork.
Now the office was almost too quiet. The cubicles next to him were empty with no mugs or coats left behind to signal their owner’s swift returns. The receptionist’s desk across from Macaque was unmanned and a peak into the hallway revealed no guards at their usual stations.
Macaque checks his email again. No new messages. Though it wouldn’t be the first time he was conveniently left off the mailing list.
It didn’t matter that he had worked here for centuries, he wasn’t a proper Celestial in most of heaven’s eyes. Which also, Macaque figured, was the reason why he was in almost the same rank as when he first joined heaven.
He remembers with a sort of fond embarrassment those lofty dreams of making some kind of difference which carried him from his aunt’s palace to here. They lead him to becoming an over glorified paper pusher surrounded by bigoted coworkers who couldn’t get over the fact that he wasn’t humanoid enough for them.
Macaque readjusts his headphones to cover all his ears. Normal headphones were just abut useless to him, these were reinforced with countless noise-reducing seals. With them on, his hearing was only a little better than most humans. Without them there was no way he could stand to work here. The clicks of keyboards and the meandering chatter of coworkers would have driven him insane a long time ago.
Macaque would like to just head home, it seems most of heaven already did, but truth be told, he was more than a little behind on work. Two of his coworkers transferred last week and his supervisor decided to pile all their leftover paperwork on him.
Macaque doesn’t blame them for transferring. The department of mortal-immortal relations wasn’t exactly very popular. It was truly a thankless job. Little pay, little glory, extensive paperwork, and little upward mobility led to a department with little passion or drive.
Macaque starts on the first stack of scrolls. All official heaven paperwork had to be hand inked on scrolls which was oh-so quaint and traditional of heaven and a total pain in the ass for Macaque. Department paperwork could be done on his computer which has these lovely things called Google Sheets and the ability to copy and paste. But, no, heaven needs Macaque to write out spreadsheets by hand for some higher-up who probably won’t even read the damn thing.
Macaque wets his brush on his ink stone. He’d better get started. If his coworkers are still gone by lunch and he gets caught up, maybe he’ll leave then. He glances at the tall pile of scrolls on his recently transferred coworker’s desk and the thought of leaving anytime soon starts to feel like a pipe dream.
“Hi there!” A cheery voice says, startling Macaque enough to almost drop his brush. A splattering of ink goes right where Macaque’s signature should be. Macaque quickly dabs at the ink, trying to place that voice. It sounded unfamiliar and far too cheery to be working here.
Macaque looks up from his scroll and sees a mortal. At least he’s pretty sure the kid is a mortal. He’s certainly dressed like one. Jackets and t-shirts weren’t exactly commonplace in heaven. Macaque didn’t know when mortals started wearing bandannas again. Though it has been a while since he’s last gone down to the mortal realm.
There’s some sort of weird power radiating off the kid. It’s rude to assume just because someone is radiating power that it’s their power and not some ancestral curse they are very sensitive about. Macaque has watched enough workplace sensitivity training videos to know that by now.
The mortal stares down at him expectantly. He’s got a smile, wide and goofy. A more genuine one than Macaque has seen in a while. Though it is slowly growing more strained by the second.
Macaque’s first thought after getting over the shock of seeing a mortal in the Heavenly Realm is, this mortal is going to try to sell me something, isn’t he?
It’s happened before, okay? Demons sneak up to the Celestial Realm all the time trying to sell nick-nacks, magazine subscriptions, and ancient priceless artifacts of dubious quality. For some reason, they seem to think he is an easy mark. Macaque is just flattered they think he has money.
The mortal rings the bell on Macaque’s desk and Macaque realizes he’s been spacing out for a while.
“Sorry, could you repeat that?” Macaque asks, realizing only after he’s spoken that he used the same tone of voice he uses with newly hired interns.
“Oh, I was just saying you kinda look like Monkey King. I kinda thought you were him or like a clone he sent for a second there, but now that I’m really looking, you don’t look that similar. Maybe an edgier, more tired version of him.”
The mortal nods to himself, not taking a single breath before continuing. “Wait, do you know Monkey King? Not that you would just because you’re both monkeys or anything.”
Macaque blinks. He has not had enough coffee or sleep to deal with this mortal.
“Sorry, that was kinda rude.” The mortal sounded genuine enough.
“It’s fine. I kinda get that a lot.” Since he started dropping his glamors a dozen or so centuries ago countless Celestials from all departments asked him for Monkey King’s autograph or if he could introduce them to the king. It was almost tiring enough for him to put the glamors back up but he was tired of doing what had come to feel like hiding. At least his coworkers stopped complaining about demons around him after he shed the glamors.
The kid fidgets with his staff, passing it from one hand to the other.
Macaque is about to ask which immortal brought him up here and if they could please take their mortal back when said mortal gets a sheepish look on his face.
“Do you like work here?”
“Uh, yeah.” Macaque gestures to the paperwork currently taking over his desk.
“Oh, that is so cool! What’s it like? Do you see the Jade Emperor all the time? Nezha?” The kid gasps, “Have you met Buddha?”
Macaque laughs. If he had any doubt about this kid being a mortal, it was fully extinguished now. Only mortals got this excited about the Celestial Realm. It was honestly kind of refreshing.
“The Celestial Realm isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but I have met Buddha.” Macaque smirks, watching as the kid’s smile grows before adding, “Twice.”
“Is he around? Could I get a quick photo?” The mortal’s eyes nearly sparkle with excitement. He turns his head, inspecting every corner of the office as if he really was expecting Buddha to be there.
“You want to ask the Buddha for a selfie?” Macaque laughs.
The mortal nods. “Tang and Mei–my friends would be so jealous. Wait, did you say ‘selfie’?”
“Yeah?”
“Since you work here, no offense, but I kinda thought you’d be all old and out of touch.” The mortal shrugs.
“Well I can’t deny the old part, but I try to keep up.” His department was mortal-immortal relations, after all. He might not get down to the surface often but he didn't need to, the internet keeps him up to date. It was honestly his favorite mortal invention.
Celestials had their own version of the Internet long before the actual Internet was a thing. It was used mainly by the Celestial court and its departments for work emails. Occasionally the Jade Emperor would post heaven-wide announcements or livestream some unfortunate demon’s punishment. It was stuffy and boring and there weren’t nearly enough cat videos on it. It just didn’t have the spark the mortal-made internet did.
Not long after the actual Internet was created, some clever Celestials figured out a way to get it to work in the Celestial Realm and Macaque has been using it to kill time at work ever since.
“Where is everyone else by the way? This office is pretty empty.” The kid glances at the cubicles bordering Macaque’s.
“Work holiday,” Macaque forces out. He wasn’t about to admit to some mortal that he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Or the fact he was very likely left out of a mailing list.
“Wait, then why're you still here?”
Macaque wordlessly gestures to his towering stacks of paperwork.
“Go home and relax, dude. I show up to work like less than the time and I haven’t been fired.” The mortal stares at Macaque like he is the weird one here.
“I’ll consider it.” Macaque shrugs.
The kid mutters something about workaholics and a pig. Macaque wasn’t sure he heard that last part right, but the kid’s reaction was fair. Even by Macaque’s standards, that wasn’t very convincing.
The kid starts twirling his staff only to stop half a second later with a gasp. His grip grows slack and the staff drops on the marble floor. Macaque winces, raising a hand to his headphones.
The kid apologizes, quickly reaching down to pick up his staff. When it's back in the kid’s hands, he starts fidgeting with it again, sending quick glances at Macaque and then the floor.
“Just spit it out, kid.”
“So crazy question… do you know where the trigram furnace is?”
Macaque looks past the spiky hair and too-bright clothes and realizes for the first time, that this mortal does not have a day pass. There should be a small piece of yellow parchment with a department representative’s seal pinned to the left side of his jacket, right above this mortal’s heart.
A model employee would call security right now. His coworkers might even be mildly impressed he managed to capture some intruder. But all Macaque can think about is the 4-page incident report he’ll be forced to write if he calls for the guards. And maybe the fact that he doesn’t want to call security on this kid who honestly doesn’t seem that bad.
He rolls his chair forward and sticks his head out past his desk. He quickly checks down each side of the hallway. There’s not a single other Celestial employee in sight.
“Down the hall, take two lefts, a right, go past the courtyard, and up the stairs to your right, you can’t miss ‘em.”
The mortal blinks, processing Macaque’s words for a second before a too-wide grin takes over his face.
“Thank you,” The kid squints down at Macaque's desk, “Junior Representative, Macaque.”
“… you’re welcome.” Macaque resists the urge to sigh.
The mortal turns and rushes down the hallway, giving Macaque a small wave goodbye as he goes. The kid looks so eager, he almost doesn’t regret it.
When the kid is completely out of earshot, Macaque stops holding back a sigh. He runs a hand through his fur as he processes the fact that he really just did that. If that kid blabs, he’ll say goodbye to the two weeks of paid time off he's accumulated in the past century. Getting fired would be too merciful, he’ll get transferred and demoted.
Macaque grips his brush, steadying himself. All he did was give directions. If asked, he’d say he thought the kid was a visitor.
He relaxes his grip. That could work.
It wasn’t like Macaque gave away any information that wasn’t public knowledge, even in the mortal realm. It was honestly more impressive the kid managed to find Macaque’s tucked-away desk, probably one of the few places where someone was actually at work today before he found the Jade Emperor’s throne room. It was hard to miss, being the focal point of the whole palace, entirely too big, plus most passageways lead there.
Wait, what did that mortal actually plan on doing with the furnace? It’s too heavy for one mortal or even a dozen to steal.
Well, it wasn’t Macaque’s problem anyways. The mortal was probably on a weird sightseeing trip. Maybe he’s an overzealous Monkey King fan or something. He’d take a few pictures with the furnace before returning to the mortal realm never to cause problems for Macaque again.
The kid should have no trouble getting there, now that he actually knew where he was going. Those stairs really were hard to miss. The furnace was just up those stairs, past the lion guards, and–He didn’t warn the mortal about the lions guarding the furnace, the guards chosen to guard the emperor and capable of tearing mortals to shreds in seconds.
Macaque tightens his grip and the wooden handle creaks. The kid would be fine. Probably.
Macaque throws himself back into his work. He has more important things to focus on than some mortal running around heaven. Especially when said mortal is likely to get him in enough trouble already. He barely makes a dent in his first stack of paperwork before two more mortals show up.
“Hello, my fellow Celestial.” A mortal places his arm on Macaque’s desk, leaning over before flashing what Macaque was sure the mortal thought was a convincing smile. The pig demon behind him facepalms.
“Yes?” Macaque stares up at the pair, raising a brow. Was this ‘bring your mortal to work day’ or something?
Neither of them had visitor passes and Macaque was honestly starting to question heaven’s security.
The two made an interesting pair. The pig was dressed like a chef, though Macaque supposes he probably is a chef and the other wore the pajama version of a scholar's robes.
“Me and my friend are new here. Newly hired, umm.. apprentices of Lao Tzu.” The mortal laughs awkwardly. “This whole place is huge and confusing. And so after doing a few chores for Lao Tzu we got a bit lost. I’m sure you understand how easy it is to get all turned around here. We tried to retrac–”
The pig demon elbows the man aside. Though now that Macaque looks closer he might not be a demon. It could just be traces of demon ancestry. “Do ya know where we could find some pills of immortality?”
The man pouts. “Pigsy, I was getting there.”
“We’re kinda on the clock here, Tang.”
“… are going to eat them?” Macaque asks, getting straight to the point.
His branch was in charge of immortal-mortal relations. Any time a mortal gains immortality, they do the paperwork. Those pills make up a good twenty percent of his workload. And don’t even get him started on those immortal peaches.
“No, no. Of course, not. Why would we do that?” Tang shakes his head, laughing in short awkward bursts.
“Because you’re mortal?” Macaque squints, tilting his head to the side.
Tang clears his throat and pushes his glasses up. “Living forever, watching your friends and the earth slowly outgrow you. As things change you remain eternally unchanged. You will outlast all you have ever known and the world will—“
“Tang, get to the point.”
Tang clears his throat, “In short, immortality is a curse worse than death.”
Macaque stares blankly at him.
“N-not that there’s anything wrong with being immortal. I’m sure you have a lovely immortal life up here in the Celestial Realm.”
“You’re not going to eat the pills for philosophical reasons?” Macaque raises a brow. That was certainly a new excuse. One he was sure his supervisors wouldn’t find particularly funny.
“Well, I mean, sure, that’s part of it at least.”
“Look, as much as I’d love to help. I’m kinda on the clock here.” Macaque lifts up a scroll, putting it between him and the mortals. Helping that other mortal was a one-time thing. Not to mention, he can’t exactly go around giving mortals Lao Tzu’s pills.
“Listen here, pal.” Pigsy grabs the collar of Macaque’s robe. He pulls on it, forcing Macaque to meet his eyes.
“Pigsy!” His friend’s eyes go wide.
“I know heaven doesn’t really get involved with earthly affairs or whatnot. But demons have taken over our city and turned people into these creepy spider things. We have people down there fighting right now and heaven doesn’t seem to be in any rush to help them.”
The pig demon takes a deep breath, relaxing his grip. “We are their only hope. These stupid pills are their only hope of things ever gettin’ back to normal. So either help us or stop wasting our time.”
It’s suddenly obvious these weren’t regular intruders, they were heroes. Their bluntness, the fact they didn’t even try to sneak around, suddenly it all made sense. Macaque honestly feels stupid for not realizing it sooner.
Almost all of heaven had the day off on days when heroes were prophesied to show up. Which means Macaque was almost definitely left off a mailing list. That was an email to send HR later, right now what was important was the fact that he probably wouldn’t get in trouble for helping these mortals out. Or at least in less trouble than if they were real intruders.
“Down the hall, take a right, a left at the long hallway, go past the courtyard, and up the first tower to your right, Lao Tzu’s lab will be on the seventh floor.”
“Thank you,” Tang says, sighing in relief. “Uh, Pigsy, you can let go of the nice immortal now.”
“Oh!” Pigsy releases Macaque’s collar fast enough that he nearly falls out of his chair. “Sorry about that.”
Macaque gives him a flat look as he readjusts his collar. He prefers the kid from earlier. He wasn’t nearly as grabby.
Pigsy turns just before they are out of sight, not enough to face him. Enough for just a glance. He sighs, “And thanks, really.”
Macaque has heard about heroes running around heaven and seen an invasion or two of heaven in his time but he wasn’t expecting this. Those mortals, those supposed heroes, seemed so ordinary. They had to ask him for directions. How exactly were they supposed to save anyone?
He was expecting a bit more to be honest. Some gleaming armor or a bit of muscle would go a long way in selling the whole hero thing. They didn’t even have any weapons. Wait, actually, that kid did have a staff. He treated it a bit more like a baton than a weapon, but it was a start.
Now that he thinks about it, he could buy the kid more as a hero than the other two. He seemed a bit too genuine. That was probably going to get him hurt. If he survived the lion guardians that is.
The other two mortals would be fine. It was hard to get hurt in an alchemy lab unless you started downing potions. Still, he’d better check on them, too.
Macaque’s brush stops. When did he start thinking like that? Check on them? They were intruders, likely heroes, and certainly none of Macaque’s business.
Even if they were in trouble, there wasn’t anything he could really do. Sure, he could risk life, limb, and rank fighting some lions for a kid he just met. Or better yet, he could hand deliver the furnace and the pills.
They were heroes. They could figure it out.
“Oh, let’s ask him for directions.” A voice sounds from the hallway.
“What!? We can’t just ask a Celestial for directions. This is a stealth mission! Or have you forgotten that we are very much not supposed to be here!”
Macaque glances over and sees a mortal and demon pair doing their best to subtly peer into the office. The tops of their unruly hair peaked through the door frame to his office. He can just make out a head of spikey fire-red hair and a head of neater black hair.
“Chill. I remember, okay? But, if we don’t find the peaches soon, who knows what Spider Queen will do,” The mortal girl says.
“Okay, fine. We can ask.”
“Besides if he tries to call the guards we can always.” Widely gesturing with her hands, she makes a series of explosion sounds.
“And what does that mean?”
She facepalms. “We’ll beat him up, duh.”
“Was that not the plan from the beginning?” He cackles, popping a few knuckles. “Why else would he answer us?”
“Look I know you’re new to this whole being a hero thing, but not beating people up is hero 101.”
He sputters, “I’m not a hero–Didn’t you just say we should beat him up?”
“That’s if he doesn’t cooperate—that’s different.”
“I fail to see the difference.”
“You’ll get it soon enough. Now up and at ‘em, hero boy.”
“What are you-“
Macaque looks up and sees the mortal girl pushing the demon into the hallway. He briefly makes eye contact with the demon, causing the boy’s hair to flame up, before looking back down at his scrolls. Macaque sighs, he was never going to get any work done. This was his life now, looking after stray mortals.
“You there, Celestial.” The demon points at him.
“Yes?” Macaque puts down his brush.
“Where is the Heavenly Orchard?”
“Aren’t you already immortal?” First the pills, now the peaches. It felt like the heroes were just pillaging heaven at this point. He shudders to think of the paperwork if the heroes lost track of any of them.
Macaque is sure they needed the peaches for some very important hero work, but if heroes kept asking him for directions, Macaque was going to have some fun with the situation. This wasn’t a customer service desk, after all.
“Well, yes. This is entirely unrelated.”
“Red Boy, ask him about the peaches,” The girl whisper-shouts from the doorframe.
“I am doing that, already!” Red Boy turns around to yell, his hair flaming up again. “And you are being no help!”
“You got this. I believe in you.” The girl gives him two thumbs up.
Red Boy grits his teeth before turning back. “Where are the peaches, simian.”
Macaque frowns. Now that was just rude. And to think he was gonna take it easy on this group of heroes.
“What peaches?” Macaque tilts his head innocently.
“The. Immortal. Ones.” The demon’s eye twitches which Macaque counts as a win.
“Oh, those.” Macaque shrugs. “They should be around here somewhere.”
“And where exactly would that be?”
Macaque taps his brush to his chin as he pretends to think. “The Heavenly Orchard, I’d imagine.”
“Horse girl.” The demon glances back, a grin stretching his face as he crackles his knuckles. “I believe he is being uncooperative.”
The room grows hot as the demon’s hair flickers rapidly. Macaque is suddenly aware of all the very flammable paperwork surrounding him. Maybe he messed with the demon a bit too much. In his defense, he didn’t think heroes were supposed to react like this.
Macaque pools shadows beneath his chair, gathering enough for a quick getaway. In a few more moments, he’ll have enough to bring his desk and most of his paperwork along too.
“Woah, woah. Cool your jets, Red Boy. It’s like ninety degrees in here, now. Thanks to you.” The mortal girl approaches his desk. She takes in a big gulp of air before blowing on the demon’s hair.
“What are y–Stop that.” Red Boy pushes her away. A pout shows on his face as the flames die down.
“That’s better.” The girl’s eyes turn to Macaque. “Now then.”
She stares him down, a not-quite-carefree smile on her face. Macaque detects, for the first time, trances of something more in her, more than mortal.
She feels a bit more like he was expecting a hero to feel.
“I’m Mei.” She sticks her hand out.
“Macaque.” He returns the handshake. It was a bit awkward with him still sitting down.
“And that’s Red Boy.” She gestures to the displeased demon behind her.
“Red Son,” He mutters.
“Listen, Macaque, let me level with you. I could give you a whole hero speech about how much we need those peaches and trust me it is a real tear-jerker. Or,” Mei shrugs, “you could tell us where they are and we can get to saving the world and you can get back to all this.”
She nudges a scroll, half collapsing one of Macaque’s many piles. He bats away her hand before she can try to fix it. As fun as this was, he really did need to get back to work.
He didn’t plan on telling them where the Heavenly Orchard was so easily after Red Son’s little performance. On the other hand, the demon’s reaction would be priceless.
“Well since you asked, take the next right, a left at the red doors, and it’ll be just past the next courtyard,” Macaque says.
“What? Just like that! Are you kidd–”
“A pleasure doing business with you, Macaque.” Mei wears a conspiratorial grin as she watches Red Son’s enraged reaction.
The air grows hot, pulsing with Red Son’s flames.
“Say thank you to the nice Celestial.” Mei throws an arm around Red Son’s shoulders, uncaring of the flames still raging inches away.
“I will do no such thing.” Red Son crosses his arms.
“Thank you, Macaque, from the both of us.” Mei gives him a little salute, dragging Red Son away from his desk.
“Good luck,” Macaque mutters. He doesn’t look up as they leave, his eyes already on the next scroll.
When no heroes show up for twenty minutes Macaque starts to grow worried. He didn’t want them to show up, Buddha knows he’s still swamped in paperwork. He’s just gotten used to it.
Five heroes was a lot, Macaque supposes. He has probably seen the last of them. Though they might need directions on the way out.
Macaque glances at the clock, it is nearly time for his lunch break. He could check on them for just a minute and still have time for lunch. Besides he was just checking, no harm in that.
Macaque sets his brush aside. He reaches up and slips off his headphones.
The world rushes back to his ears.
Sharp chirps from the courtyards. Gentle giggles of Celestial maidens. A thousand echoes of a thousand conversations. Heavy footsteps on marble.
Even heaven nearly empty is too much for a moment.
Macaque tunes most of the noise out, focusing on voices. He listens for the first hero, that kid after the trigram furnace.
It takes Macaque longer than usual to pinpoint the kid. The kid’s voice sounds muted, like he was in a soundproof room. Macaque doesn’t know of anywhere like that in heaven, if he did he would be spending all his breaks there.
Despite being muted, his voice echoed. Macaque listens further, there is something else wrong with this picture. The echoes carried a tinge to them, almost metallic.
The kid’s voice is coming from the hall leading to Jade Emperor’s throne room, Macaque is sure of it. There isn’t much there that could cause such an effect. The hall is practically empty, besides the furnace, naturally.
The furnace.
Macaque groans. Surely the kid didn’t fall in. He was a hero. He was supposed to be somewhat competent.
Macaque strains his ears, he is able, just barely, to make out the kid’s words. It sounded like the kid was either berating himself or giving himself a pep talk, or possibly both at the same time which was honestly kind of impressive.
Macaque shifts his focus away. He feels more than a little awkward listening to that. As someone able to hear almost everything, he knows most things do not need to be overheard.
At least the kid wasn’t getting mauled by the lion guardians. He somehow got himself into the trigram furnace, he should have some sort of a plan for getting out. Macaque then remembers having to give three groups of heroes directions to the three most visited and written-about places in heaven.
It wasn’t like Macaque could shadow portal the kid out, the furnace had enough seals to keep the Monkey King in check. Not to mention heaven would immediately trace his magic signature as soon as this fiasco was over.
The other heroes were probably doing better.
Macaque hears Red Son next. The kid talked so loud it was harder not to hear him. His voice is accompanied, naturally, by the sound of raging flames. Mei and him were yelling and then running. Loud, heavy footsteps chased after them.
Macaque winces as pavement is reduced to rubble and trees are ripped from the ground. Those two seemed ready for a fight earlier. Looks like they finally found it.
Macaque listens for Pigsy and Tang next. They made it to Lao Tzu’s lab, but he could hear someone else close to them, he didn’t sound like a Celestial. The intruder walked with four, no six metal legs.
“Here Piggy, Piggy.”
“Oh, we gotta do something,” Pigsy says, keeping his voice low.
Macaque hears the clink of vials being pushed around and the shake of a potion held by nervous hands. The heroes laugh nervously and the intruder cackles. Glass breaks and the intruder, growing closer, cackles some more.
“Did you just make him bigger, Tang? We have a hard enough time dealing with him normal-sized!” Pigsy yells.
“I thought it was going to turn him into a little ducky, okay!?”
Those two had struck Macaque as the least hero-like when he met them. No weapons or muscles or obvious powers. Now, they feel even more like just two ordinary people. They weren’t trying to play hero, they were just trying to survive.
Macaque gathers the shadows from the corners of Lao Tzu’s lab and closes his eyes. From what he could hear it wasn’t going well, now that he could see, he could tell it was going even worse.
The intruder, some sort of spider demon, has Pigsy pinned to the wall with two of his metal legs. Tang tries to push the demon off of him only to be batted away with one of the intruder’s rear legs.
So either help us or stop wasting our time.
This much magic, just enough to peek in but not change anything, couldn’t be tracked, not unless heaven already knew what they were looking for. They were heroes. They didn’t need his help.
And thanks, really.
Macaque wonders when the last time he had been thanked for just doing his job was. He has been thanked by every hero, minus Red Son, naturally, who came to him for directions today. He was unhelpful, almost rude, around them and they still thanked him.
Macaque dumps the deadliest-looking potion he can find on the spider demon.
Those two shadow portals won’t escape heaven’s notice.
In for a penny, in for a pound. After making sure the demon was thoroughly incapacitated, he looks through Mei’s shadow. Another spider demon was after her and Red Son. This one was bigger and more destructive, taking the chance to trash any part of heaven even slightly in his way.
Macaque flicks his wrist and the spider demon sinks into his own shadow. Mei and Red Son don’t notice, too busy making their getaway. Macaque holds him there, ignoring the not small amount of squirming. He hasn’t used his powers like this for a long time, just a few minutes of holding the spider demon back has him tired.
Macaque releases the demon and listens for the kid. His voice is louder now, no longer muted by the furnace. Lions roar behind him.
A peek into the kid’s shadow tells him it is going well. The kid was riding some sort of mechanical lion. As to where in the Celestial Realm he could have gotten that, Macaque has no clue. The lion guardians were chasing after him, though there was a good distance between them. The trigram furnace dangles from chains held in the mechanical lion’s mouth.
“Oh! There’s Sandy. See we’re gonna be fi–”
The kid’s lion crashes into the side of a pavilion and Macaque starts estimating the repairs costs and how much will be taken out of his department’s budget before he remembers the lions.
The kid is thrown across the street as the guardians dive for the furnace. The kid’s lion doesn’t give it up easily, biting firmly into the chain still in its mouth. The lion guardians take up the second chain lying on the ground.
The kid stands up, holding his head and blinking rapidly. He shakes his head and tries to get in between the lions.
“Bad kitty! Let go of it already!”
He wedges his staff between the lion guardians and the furnace, but neither budges.
Macaque debates holding the lions back with their own shadows. Before he remembers he doesn’t have the energy for it and laying a hand on those lions was probably the Celestial equivalent of a federal offense.
The kid was on his own.
He listens for the rest of the heroes. Mei and Red Son were far ahead of the spider demon chasing them. Tang and Pigsy didn’t have as big a lead on their demon but seemed mostly okay, minus all the screaming.
The kid lets out a roar and in a puff of smoke, he turns into a gorilla. Huh, Macaque can’t remember the last time he’s seen a mortal pull off one of the 72 transformations. With his new strength, he starts prying the lion guardians’ jaws open. The lions fight him for every inch.
The chain rattles, nearly slipping free.
“C’mon just a little more,” The kid says, hyping himself up.
The lions hold firm, refusing to give any more ground.
Macaque wants to do something, anything to tip the scales. He can’t touch the lions and his shadows don’t have the strength to compete with them anyways.
He’s never been all that good at fighting, he never really tried or even trained. His more unusual powers made him stand out in heaven and that kind of attention wasn’t anything good. Today is the most he’s used them in years.
His powers weren’t strong, but there was one thing they were always good at, putting on a show.
He gathers shadows from the rumble of the pavilion the kid crashed into. He takes the shadows from the kid and his lion for good measure.
Macaque coalesces them into a familiar shape: a boy and his lion, complete with their very own trigram furnace.
“Bye, kitties!” The clone yells in a perfect recreation of the kid’s voice. The clone lion jumps away, the furnace trailing behind.
The guardian lions stare, their jaws loosen, just slightly, and the real furnace flies from their grasp.
“Not sure what that was, but I’m not gonna question it!” The kid jumps back on his lion, speeding off before the guardians can recover.
Macaque dissolves his clones and slumps down in his chair. He checks the clock. His lunch break is already over and all he’s done is help heroes. And they were still in the Celestial Realm.
They would be okay now. Probably.
He should just get back to work. Macaque’s eyes wander towards his tower of paperwork and he is filled with the knowledge that regardless of whether or not he helped those heroes, he will still be working overtime for at least the next week.
With a sigh, he starts listening for the heroes again.
He’s broken at least a dozen Celestial laws today, what’s taking an hour lunch compared to that?
He hears them at the edge of heaven. Tang and Pigsy were on top of something loud. It had a lot of big fans and moving mechanical parts. Some sort of hovercraft, if Macaque had to guess. Which would partially explain how they managed to make it to the Celestial Realm.
After some more yelling and running, Mei and Red Son make it onto the hovercraft. Macaque hears an unfamiliar voice next to them and nearly portals the intruder away before hearing Pigsy address him.
Macaque has to remind himself despite their poor showing today, they were heroes. And he was nearly out of magic anyways.
The kid yells, still too far away for Macaque’s liking, telling them to start the engines. Macaque’s ears flicker as the fans start to whirl.
The two spider demons from earlier approach the hovercraft, getting in the kid’s way. The guardians are still on the kid’s tail.
Macaque dips into the kid’s shadow, one last time. He readies his shadows. They’ve come this far, he wouldn’t let them stumble at the finish line.
The kid’s lion races towards the hovercraft, the furnace’s chains still firmly in its maw. Just before the spider demons, the kid pats his lion stills and it stills, dipping down for a second. Macaque looks up, the kid doesn’t look worried.
His brow furrows and an almost cocky grin spreads across his face.
The lion jumps, clearing the demons and barely making it onto the hovercraft. Mechanical claws scrape across the deck. The engines scream and suddenly the kid’s shadow is too far away for Macaque to look in on.
They did it. They really did it.
Those directionally challenged heroes managed it, somehow.
Macaque opens his eyes and remembers he still has paperwork to do.