As Sun Wukong continued to eat his popcorn, he listened to his new friends' attempts to convince him that he should make peace with the Monkey King rather than lock him up again. The first part of the story came from Kitten, discussing Tiger.
"When Jackie was younger, his life was...not ideal," Kitten explained, his evasiveness plainly an attempt to avoid discussing things he felt the youngsters present weren't ready to hear.
"Gee, who would have thought being the only Asian in an American classroom shortly after World War 2 would be rough?" Tiger offered waspishly.
"It wasn't that close!" Jackie countered. "It was the next generation!"
"You mean the generation of kids who grew up with their parents' hate but not understanding the reason for it, and so focused it through childish bitterness rather than mature distaste?" Jade pointed out flatly.
Tiger chuckled as Kitten winced. "These kids aren't dumb," he pointed out in amusement.
Sighing, Kitten continued. "Anyway, Jackie was left with a lot of anger...and our training in martial arts with Uncle taught him discipline. But..."
"That just led to him taking everything he felt risked him becoming a bad guy, and locking it up deep inside him until it became me," Tiger finished bitterly. "Not enough to create a complete split personality until the Tiger Talisman got involved, but enough to leave him with problems in managing his anger."
"Oh?" Sun Wukong asked curiously. "How so? It sounds like he - or you - had things under control."
"Suppressed anger is under pressure inside the heart," the Domestic Viper observed calmly.
"And prrresssurrre...makes things strongerrrr," the feline Viper added. "The longerrrr it is contained, the harrrderrr that becomes...until eitherrrr it explodes, or a vent is forrrrced..."
"And Jackie refused to let himself vent," Kitten explained regretfully. "He feared letting his anger out once would make it easier to do again...and again...until he didn't bother putting it away again."
"The few real explosions that happened probably didn't help..." Tiger allowed apologetically. "Probably should have handled it better with that gang in-"
"No, that was totally called for," Kitten insisted. "What we saw? They needed to pay."
Tiger raised an eyebrow. "If you agree that they deserved it, why did Jackie collapse emotionally from it?"
"Oh, I can answer that," Sun Wukong spoke up. "It's easy to accept that something is deserved or necessary. Dealing with having done it yourself, however, is a completely different story, and much harder." He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "And I suppose I see what you mean about locking things away. The internal issues that created the Monkey King inside me...it would indeed have been better to deal with them rather than locking it away. And dealing with it now should happen. But...I don't see why that includes making peace with him, rather than breaking him down and reassimilating him into myself."
"Won't that just recreate the problem?" Sweetie asked curiously. "I mean, this all happened because you didn't like that side of yourself. If you still don't like that side of yourself, what's to stop you from doing it again sometime down the line, convinced it 'won't happen that way this time'?"
"Setting aside the whole question of...well, how do I say this?" Jade scratched her head as she tried to think how to express what she was saying.
"I don't think you trust...in...my...self-righteous suicide..." Audrey crooned gently.
"...yeah, that," Jade pointed out. "Monkey King may be a part of you, but as of now he's his own distinct entity with his own personality. Incomplete like you, but...alive. Is it right to just kill him?"
Sun raised an eyebrow. "Do you truly think it's possible for one as dedicated to the Light as I to coexist with something that dark and evil?" He blinked as Emeraude waved at him from Jade's shoulder. "In the same body..." He frowned as Queen flaunted herself from Jade's other shoulder, only for Emeraude to start yelling at her to 'act Jade's age'. "...I see. Well, I suppose it is possible. But why would I want to do it? And why would he want to? It seems to me it might be better to make the separation permanent."
Kitten and Tiger exchanged a look. "Well, at least he doesn't want to lock him away anymore," Tiger allowed ruefully.
"A step in the right direction," Kitten agreed. "Now we just need to convince him that the parts the Monkey King represents are essential to being his true self."
"Somehow I doubt that'll be easy," the Domestic Viper observed. "We'd probably have better luck convincing the Monkey King of that than the other way around."
"Then why don't we?" the feline Viper purred. "Then we can let these two talk it out. It's betterrr forrr them if they worrrrk it out themselves, anyway, rrrright Jackie?" She sauntered between the two Jackies, brushing up against both in a playful manner that drew their attention to the fact she was clad only in her fur.
"An excellent idea," Sun Wukong concluded. "If you can get my other half to be willing to talk things out, I will be more than happy to come to a compromise with him regarding how we become whole. After all, one of my issues is how unreasonably wicked he is, going way too far with his pranks, especially on those who can't handle it."
"Well, this went better than I anticipated," Hsi observed calmly. "One half is already ready to reconsider. Now we just need to find the Monkey King and talk him around-"
A sudden wrench seemed to hit the entire world, followed by an aetheral howling that seemed to dig at the mind without bothering to go through the ears. Colors outside the visible spectrum flashed into vision, and touches of octarine light bounced off enchanted surfaces as the magics flinched from the auric impact.
"...before his attempts at pranking tear the world asunder," Hsi murmured worriedly as he spread his wings.
"How odd," Sun Wukong mused thoughtfully. "He doesn't normally go this overboard. He normally has more self control in how much of his power he uses at once...oh, that's me, isn't it?"
Yes, first new chapter of three more things this year. as I mostly fallow you here, I was afraid that the post holiday crash had stifled your muses.
it is all so amusing watching you write someone dealing with an outside of personal context problem so clearly.
Finally, the continuation of a great series! I am almost dying from anticipation!
Ha Ha Ha, what a great fan art. Making me wish it happened in the real show.
I think the real question should be 'who has he encountered with?' in today's San Fran - where magical creatures are norm and, if I recall correctly, some very powerful entities from the East are studying at the same school as Jade and the fillies?
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm so do they apologize to section 13, or Valmont?
Ah yes, when kids need to talk sense into adults. Yes, maybe other 'adults' started it off this time, but they certainly finished it. Credit where credit is due.
Oh my god. You managed to reference Chop Suey. How the hell do you pull all these awesome things off?
Oh, also:
"In Doublemint Gum"
Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Eight
"Bad Day"
Chapter Count: 0
Total Count: 48
"I'm not his/your Mistress!"
Chapter Count: 0
Total Count: 12
Is there a day when Jackie will tell about what he did at that gang? I can imagine the only person who could see blood on his hand and not make big deal and being a good listener would be Sonata and I don't know the reason why. XD
9458141
Jackie’s more likely to open up to Valmont.
Who at this point is the closest thing he has to a best friend.
If there is one thing which Valmont’s portrayal has been in this story, it’s his sense of fairness. Despite being on the criminal side of the law, he truly believes the punishment should fit the crime (which explains why he is so good at avoiding being caught).
Valmont would listen to Jackie. He may offer his consoul, if Jackie asks, but he shall not judge. If anyone would understand the temptation to commit acts of evil in the name of self righteous justice, he certainly would.
9458189
You know, it would be ironic if Agent Black would be there too, like the 3 of them taking a beer while talking that.
9458196
I sense a possibility that a chapter like that could happen, maybe soon, maybe later, but it is possible.
9458227
I think it would be cool if Valmont would say if the movie was still in production or not. LoL
Well that went well. I wonder how his other half will take the revelation?
9458354
Given that said other half was last seen on the verge of dissociative personality disorder (poetic irony, I know) and psychotic break, brought about by prolonged sensory deprivation... Yeah, there is no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again at this point.
So great to see a new chapter of this.
Chapter One Hundred Ninety Eight
"Aiyah!"
Chapter Count: 0
Total Count: 50
"One More Thing!"
Chapter Count: 0
Total Count: 86
Nice chapter, love how Sweetie is being the one with reasonable suggestions.
Nice SOAD reference.
9458846
True those were more pronouced in earlier chapters.
But ctrl + F found only 80x "one more thing" I guess "more things" counted aswell but that still leaves it at 82x (one being tree more things and one being five more things and I didn't count the one from the title)
And there are 52x "aiyah"'s displayed aswell.
It could be good to see it... 'Good Jade' and 'Evil Demon Queen Jade'... See you in the next month for the next chapter.
9459204
While I admit I could have missed something, I've been pretty meticulous so far, and I know I counted at least one case of Uncle saying "Three More Things" as 3 instances, and there could have been a second case of something similar. I case you're interested, in each chapter (except the first couple before I officially started doing this) I've left a "Counts" comment quoting what I've counted, and I there are a couple comments stating my methodology, but I'm planning on going through all the chapters once this story has a "Complete" tag with Ctrl+F to double check everything anyway for my "Final Counts" post.
Pretty good update
9459007 This
Oh dear... did Monkey King break reality?????
I like the pick of jade & her 2 half's. very nice.
9459470
I downloaded the .html file of the fic opened it and pressed ctrl+f
I'm quite confident in my skills.
NO. FUCKING. DOI!
9459763
In that case, I invite you to compare your HTML File search against the instences I've Quoted here in the comments and PM me the differences so I can go through and make corrections to them and my notes. Otherwise I'm honestly not all that fussed about it and won't be doing my own deep search until I see a "Complete" tag attached to this story.
I'm more surprised no one bothers to ask the popcorn guy if he could find the monkey king and buy a few large bukets from him and watch the show
Sun: "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE WORLD FOR ATTENTION?!"
MK: "WELL I NEVER GOT ANY FROM YOU, DAD!"
*record scratch*
MK: "...I said that last bit out loud, didn't I?"
love the Fan art
Love the fan art, but it makes me want to see a gallery of all the characters with their shoulder consciences.
9460509
I wish I could give you more than 1 thumbs up.
9574428
Nah. I'm just a guy on vacation.
9574434
That's a relief
9578900
if you got the reference your relief would either multiply by at least a hundred or plummet faster than Jackie's stomach after seeing Cthulhu.
9578918
Bit of column A bit of column B... since The Captain is worse than any Elder god I've seen so far.
9579214
I am not Blackbeard if that is what you think. Though some people think I was. You will have to tell me which captain you mean as I have had to guide alot of them on their final voyage.
9579231
The Captain is a character from the online comic Addictive Science, and throughout the comic, he has steadily become more and more of an eldritch abomination in disguise.
9579533
Yeah, well, my alter ego is the one they call when eldritch abominations run amuck. He has tangled with such beungs as Dracula, Mr. Hyde, Morgan Le Fay, and, yes, Cthuhlu. That was a fun fight.
9579533
9579575
Can you please limit discussion in comments to the story itself, and take anything else elsewhere?
9579582
sorry I'll head to his page.
9579582
Sorry, we were discussing an earlier comment I made.
9579588
I know, but once it gets three comments beyond story related, it really shouldn't be on the story page at that point.
9579603
Fair enough.
9604238
And Shendu wasn't alive anymore so clearly he paid for the imbalance.
(I have no idea what the context of that post was, so I'm just taking a shot in the dark here)
9458189
i agree with you their