Great Sage Above Brockton Sakadagami 2.12

The poem says: 

Vain thoughts cannot be slain by force. 

Why must you seek after Suchness? 

Refine before Buddha your self-existent mind一

Are not illusion and enlightenment the same? 

Enlightened, you reach instantly the Right; 

Deluded, you sink in ten thousand kalpas. 

If you can cultivate one thought with Truth, 

Sins vast as Ganges' sand are wiped out. 

• Journey to the West, chapter 29

-x-

“Careful with the brush, my dear. Remember, no need to press. A light stroke and a gentle twist. The tool does the heavy work for you; what remains is for you to guide it.”

Taylor exhaled and hung her brush limply over the rough paper. With gingerly hands, she dragged the brush along the paper. Ink trailed after the hairy tip, a wobbly line that, ever since her teacher gave her the brush, she never seemed to draw straight. 

Wukong, however, merely smiled at the attempt. “You focus too much on the line and not the destination. Uncertainty taints your stroke. Keep one eye on the end of the road and the other on your feet, and let your fears fade with the brush.”

“I’m trying,” Taylor insisted. The stacks of paper beside her were proof enough, filled with countless strokes and symbols.

“This Old Sun does not mean to belittle your progress, dear child,” Wukong countered. He picked up one of the pages from the table and traced a finger along one of the lines. “Rather, he commends you for it. You display a studiousness both in the study and in the yard worthy of any cultivator, and a firm grasp of the simpler characters is within your reach. Yet you…stumble. A leap you fear to take before the stroke can be completed.”

Taylor flushed at his words and set about drawing a circle. Even when he commented negatively about her drawing, Wukong lacked the apathetic sting of her former teachers or the cruel barbs of Emma and her cronies. His tone never rose or settled into a deadpan, but was always gentle, and his criticism was constructive rather than disparaging.

‘Even if he sounds like a fortune cookie,’ she inwardly grumbled while maintaining a face of sheer concentration. Start at one point and return to it, simple as that. ‘Okay, maybe not all the time, but he can’t help sneaking in one of those corny proverbs into every sentence.’

She finished drawing the circle and Wukong leaned over, rubbing his furry chin. After a few seconds of humming at her work, his smile grew wider and he nodded. “Excellent, my disciple. A perfect circle, with even ink and no gaps.”

“Thanks,” she replied, satisfaction filling her. “Drawing circles feels easier than lines.”

“It is natural for certain strokes to come with less effort than others.” He grabbed two blank pages and set one in front of him. “Let’s try something new today.” Plucking his own brush from behind his ear, her teacher dipped it in the inkstone and raised it over his paper. With utter serenity, he drew four elegant strokes. A short, vertical one, followed by a long curve, ending with an upward flick. Above it, he almost tapped the paper - that’s how brief it was - and two short, diagonal dots crowned the hook. 

Taylor had no idea how he was able to make writing appear like a show, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her mother had excellent penmanship and always insisted on signing her name in flowing cursive. A few signatures still adorned her notes back home. In those Wukong’s demonstrations of calligraphy, she couldn’t help but be reminded of those signatures.

“This is xīn. In your tongue, its literal translation is ‘heart’, but as with many symbols, it can hold many meanings beyond the obvious. It can represent the physical organ beating in your chest,” he reached out and tapped her sternum. “But it also refers to your center. Spiritual or mental is irrelevant; there is no difference with xīn. Thoughts are formed from logic and emotion, all within the xīn.”

“What about the brain?” Taylor asked. “Cognition comes from the brain.”

“If you observe only the physical, then yes,” Wukong rebutted. “The brain holds the thoughts, but how do they churn? The heart pumps blood through the body and into the brain. Outside your conscious thoughts, the brain commands the heart to pump blood throughout the body. Separate organs they may be, dear one, but they are so intricately linked it is not wrong to refer to them as one entity.”

Taylor blinked, then slowly nodded at his logic. “I suppose…” she trailed off. “But does it mean my thoughts are inherently emotional, and logic tempers them? Or is it the other way around, with logic forming my thoughts and my emotions warping them?”

“Why not both? A mother will act with no regard to her own life if her child is at risk, and a mathematician writes sums with no care for emotion. A poor farmer, desperate to sell his meagre crops at a winter’s harvest, may offer a fruit to a starving beggar, just as the mighty general decides with a heavy heart to sacrifice part of his men, whom he considers family, to guarantee victory in the battle ahead. The xīn is both and neither, a heart-mind combined. It is a mirror of the self, and one should take care when staring into its reflection. Both must be regarded with equal respect, lest the push and pull of the world drown the self.” He raised a finger. “But when realized, it becomes will. Your thoughts and emotions merge and manifest drive, and drive begets action. Learn to cultivate both, and not even the will of the heavens can stop you.” He blew on the paper, drying out the ink, and held it aloft. “A potent character, one that should be treated with due reverence.”

Humbled, Taylor stared at the character as an air of contemplation settled around her. Oftentimes, be it during training, calligraphy practice, or even hanging out in the shop, Wukong would bring up a random subject for casual debate. It started as questions on innocuous things, like TV and plastic, but soon evolved into discussions about the mayor, economics, and broader subjects. While she was taken aback at first and had trouble coming up with replies, she soon found her footing and grew to enjoy those moments of verbal sparring. It didn’t take long for him to introduce those debates to their calligraphy lessons and the kitchen table, with Mr. Luo - he didn’t care whether she called him that or Peizhi - joining in with the odd comment. There was always back and forth between them, and Wukong would end with the final word, except for anything involving technology, which he was always pleased to lose.

‘Seriously though, just how rural is his home village?’ Taylor asked herself as she stared at the flawless script. ‘There’s too much that he doesn’t know. I’m pretty sure even the most remote villages in the CUI have fridges and lightbulbs, but he treats them like they’re the inventions of the century! Mr. Luo asked me not to pressure him…but it doesn’t make sense. Maybe he was raised by some woodland hermit? They exist in China, right?’

But he also mentioned children. As in, plural. Taylor suspected he was old; he certainly had an elderly disposition, but old enough to have kids?

“What do you think?”

Snapping from her musings, Taylor cleared her throat. “It’s…I never thought of it like that, that both the heart and the mind are responsible for both logic and emotion. If you’d ask people, the first thing they’d say is they’re separate.”

“That is why we must be open to new knowledge: the world grows a little bigger with each piece. Once you climb the mountain of ignorance and skepticism, the view of the universe opens before you.” He set the paper down and placed a blank one in front of her. “Now you try it.”

A burst of jitters ran down her hands. “This one? But we haven’t practiced it.”

Wukong merely kept smiling and tapped the paper, his claw not even denting the page. “This Old Sun feels this character shall resonate quite well with you. Please, wet your brush and write.”

Taylor hesitated, glancing at the page and Wukong’s brushmanship. Part of her laughed in disbelief at how her arm trembled and how the paper suddenly felt a million miles away. It was just another drawing! You’ve got plenty of rejects beside you, so who cares if you screw up? It sure as hell doesn’t bother him! 

But another part warred against that proclamation. The same stubborn voice that helped her hold out, however little, against the Trio, through the shock of the heroes letting her down, and through the often-hellish training sessions which the hero she now held with the highest esteem put her through, his quirks be damned.

Don’t you want to hear him say ‘well done’?

That was all it took.

So with trepidation, Taylor dipped her brush in the inkstone. Once it absorbed enough of the black liquid, she raised it above the paper, holding it by the very end of the handle, and began to draw. Silence reigned supreme in the kitchen, save for the odd chirping of birds leaking from behind the closed window and her sallow breathing. The chair’s padded cushion crinkled beneath her with every motion she took. Wukong himself stared at her paper with a face carved from stone as she recalled the various stroke types and the ones she’d need for the character.

Left dot stroke, slight release

Hook stroke, end with a flick

Right dot stroke, slight release

Right dot stroke, above, slight release

Her brush rose at the last stroke, and she slowly released her breath. It was done.

Placing her brush on the floor, she sat straight and stared at her work. It barely resembled Wukong’s work: the hook’s turn was faded, she pressed too hard on the left stroke, and the crowning stroke was much thinner than its brothers. 

She bit her lip as her hand trembled. ‘Damn it, another one wrecked! And I was so close.’

Wukong, however, was deaf to her inner turmoil. He picked up the page with both hands and appraised her work with piercing red eyes. A few seconds later, his grin returned in full force.

“A superb job, my dear.”

Taylor’s head shot up. “Superb?”

“This is by far one of your finer examples. True, your wo guo faltered at the bend, and there was a touch of misappropriation of ink to the diăn, but I dare to say that you have outdone yourself on this one.” 

“What makes you say that?” she asked. He never praised her for a first-try character attempt before. It was usually after several repetitions that he commented about her improvement, or lack thereof. 

Wukong raised his eyes from the paper and nailed her with a single raised eyebrow.

“Because of all the characters you’ve written so far, this one is true.”

…she didn’t know what to make of that. But a weight was released from her chest and her lips quirked upward.

Watching the simian cape blow on the paper and set it apart from the piles, right next to his own, Taylor couldn’t help but blurt out a question that had begun to take form since the first time she watched him draw.

“Um, Master Wukong?”

‘I need to find another way to address him. I understand that ‘master’ is like a martial arts master, but it sounds weird. I can’t just call him by his…name, though. That’d be awkward.’

“Yes, disciple?”

“Why do you regard calligraphy with such praise?” She asked, gesturing at the pages. “I understand it's a lot of hard work now, and that people use it for meditation, but what makes it so special compared to, say, regular painting? I looked it up and I couldn’t quite understand.”

From her brief research before the Incident, she knew Chinese and Japanese people loved to hang them on walls, and that there were tons of museum exhibits before Kyushu's sinking dedicated solely to calligraphy. But there was a difference between reading an internet article or a blog and asking someone who did it with the same ease as breathing.

“Oh? Do your people not regard writing as an art? Granted, your language’s letter system is based on a completely different maxim than hanyu, preferring to form sounds rather than words and meanings, but surely there’s appreciation for the written hand.”

“We have cursive, and everyone loves a good autograph, but…it’s not really popular,” she shook her head. “I think there’s still an art form of Latin script calligraphy, but it's rather niche. Old books have a lot of those. It was a bigger deal back before the printing press was invented, but it’s fallen to the wayside since then. Most people type these days, and they can read their own handwriting well enough, so there isn’t really a need for artistry in writing.”

Wukong hummed and pressed his fingers together before shrugging. “Shame, but I suppose that’s the nature of the written word. When I was freed by Master Tang from my mountain prison, I discovered that an entirely new writing system had replaced the one I was familiar with. I preferred the old script, far easier to read than the scribbles scholars deemed legitimate writing, but there was an elegance to it which I couldn’t ignore. It grew on me, and it became the script I am teaching you right now. As to why calligraphy is regarded as a pillar of scholarship…”

He picked up another blank page and set it on the ground. “The empty self within reflects the world, much like this paper. If the world is chaotic and unjust, the self will become unjust, and the Way is lost. The self deteriorates and gives in to doubt, and doubt…”

Gesturing for her to continue with his brush, Taylor recalled his previous words. “Doubt makes you hesitant and…” she bit her lip. “Hesitation weakens action?”

“Indeed,” Wukong nodded and began to draw with elegant strokes. “No better art form expresses this better than calligraphy. It is the purest expression of the soul. When you hesitate, your strokes shake. When focus overcomes you, the strokes can wind up sharp and glaring. The soul of the self is cast upon the ink and paper, and through writing the characters, your turmoils become apparent as fresh fallen snow on the mountain’s peak.”

Taylor leaned in closer as the character slowly took form. It was significantly more complex than their previous attempts, and as he began to draw the final strokes, a sort of gravitas welled up within her as she maintained her stare, as though what he was writing was far more than some brushstrokes on a page.

“Once I see the state of my strokes, I know how to act. Whether to improve, erase…or leave as is.” He turned the page around to show the character. What stood out was that, unlike his previous drawing, some of the topmost strokes had too much ink on them. But instead of scrapping it, Wukong simply blew on it and put it with the rest of their finished calligraphy. 

“That is why this Old Sun was so pleased with your calligraphy, Taylor. To the boorish and rigid scholar, it would be a poor attempt indeed…but it was a reflection of your self, a true one that no closeted meditation could reveal to you. Your tribulations have been numerous and will not cease on the path you’ve chosen to embark on, and fear grips you before that momentous leap…but you are determined to see it through, even when the future is brumous.” He crossed his arms and puffed out his chest, tail gently swaying behind him.

“After all, is that not what art is truly meant to be?”

…

…she stared at her xīn character, the wobbly hook and pressed dots no longer glaring judgmentally from the page. Her lips twitched as yet another surge of pride filled her. 

“...I think I get it,” she said. “As long as it’s me, and that I keep improving, I don’t need to be perfect? Just sure of myself?”

“I could not have worded it better, my dear,” Wukong replied with a pleased smile. He then looked to the window and his eyes widened. “Oh dear, the sands of time slip by unnoticed! I daresay we’ve done enough for today.”

Taylor mentally agreed; for all her newfound respect for calligraphy, sitting too much like this caused her ass to ache. At least they didn’t try another lesson writing on the floor; even Wukong agreed it wasn’t worth the spilled ink, despite the ‘positive reinforcement for her balance’.

“What else do we have planned for today?”

Wukong tapped his chin and hummed. “Today? Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes. You’ve earned yourself a day’s break at the very least, disciple. No need to pull the cord when it's at its tightest.” 

She tried to protest, but when he gathered all the pages, her words dissolved into a sigh. Once he said those words, she knew nothing would change his mind. 

‘But I don’t like sitting around doing nothing.’

In a way, she blamed him for it. Her teacher’s training sessions were so intense at times, she’d developed a dislike for lying about idly, even when common sense and at times her own mind said otherwise. 

“Can I at least-”

But Wukong was already gone, no trace of him remaining save a few strands of monkey hair.

“...I hate it when he does that.”

So, with her teacher bailing out for the rest of the day, Taylor leaned back and started to veg out. The tightness in her growing muscles slowly unwound, and without the focus of the calligraphy, Wukong’s chatter, or any of her usual daily activities, her eyes closed, and her mind began to wander.

…

…

…

‘Sorry, I can’t take this.’

After what seemed like hours (which ended up being only half of one), she woke up from her drifting and started pacing around in the kitchen.

“I know I have to rest, but sitting around doing nothing isn’t an option,” she muttered. ‘What else is there? I’ve read through most of the books, I don’t feel like watching another old movie…and I don’t think Mr. Luo would like it if I just played with the toys downstairs. Hell, everything I’ve done so far involved the Trainyard and Mr. Luo’s house, except for that time at Christmas.’ Her countenance briefly turned morose at the memory of writing those words on paper, words she’d never thought would see light. ‘I hope Dad found the letter.’

Were the walls closing in, or did her antsiness reach its peak?

“Oh shit, I’ve got cabin fever, haven’t I?” she asked herself. “That does it, I need fresh air. I don’t care if every gang in the city and the PRT are looking for me, I’m going for a walk.”

Of course, saying those words was one thing compared to reality. 

‘I’m not going out looking for fights, just a quick jog around. If I keep my head down, nobody will spot me.’

She rushed to her bedroom and grabbed her hoodie, along with a woolen cap and a neck warmer Mr. Luo gifted her before Christmas, when the winter chill overpowered her sweaty body during their routine sessions. She felt bad about the gift at first, thinking how he’d already helped her enough, but he brushed it off, saying money wasn’t an issue and he wouldn’t let her catch hypothermia just because he was stingy. She’d accepted the gift with a quiet thanks in the end, though she didn’t miss how his eyes drifted to his bedroom and how his face briefly shrivelled up like he ate a bad lemon.

‘Whatever it is, I won’t pry. It’s the least I can do, and it can’t be anything illegal.’

Donning the garbs, she went downstairs and noticed the counter was unmanned. 

‘Wait, he did say that he’d be running out for an errand…that’s perfect. I’ll be back here before anyone notices.’

Tucking the neck warmer and the cap so only her eyes, glasses, and nose would be visible, Taylor stepped out onto the chilly street. Once she ensured no one was around, she began her jog. At first, her heart almost jumped out of her hoodie a few times when passersby eyed her, but relief soon followed when said glances lasted seconds and they returned to minding their own business. Not to say she paraded herself in front of the neighborhood; she stuck to the side alleys and avoided crowded lanes, which ensured she didn’t stick out too much. For all the rest of the district knew, she was nothing but an ordinary teen jogger looking to burn some excess winter calories.

‘Heh. If I’d tried running here last year, I’d be on a missing persons list before the day would be up and sold to sex slavery in the ABB’s underground brothels.’ She thought morbidly, watching as a Caucasian blonde walked alongside a few Asian girls. The wall they walked by had a fading graffiti of Oni Lee’s mask behind the ABB’s emblem. ‘But now, it’s almost like ancient history.’

Her fist clenched, and she began to pick up the pace. ‘This city can change, I’m seeing living proof. And if Wukong can teach me how to do it, I’ll take whatever gauntlet from hell he throws at me.’

Some minutes later, Taylor found herself approaching the Asian district’s center, where its famous park resided. As usual, no one paid her much attention. She even spotted a couple more joggers running around, clad in shorts, shirts, and sweatbands suited for summer rather than winter, even a Brockton Bay winter. To her left, Lord Street cut a wide path down faded brick-and-concrete houses, and in the distance, she spotted the often-vandalized Chinese gate leading to the district in much better condition. Signs in all manner of Asian languages surrounded her, be it the flashing neon Chinese characters towering over storefronts to painted Vietnamese cardboard signs taped to windows. Two teenage boys passed by her, muttering excitedly to each other in a mish-mash of what she was pretty sure was Korean and Japanese. The sizzling of oil and the scent of spices wafted from corner shops and stalls, causing her nose to tingle and for drool to pool in her mouth…until she remembered a rather crucial fact.

‘Right, I don’t have any money,’ she slumped morosely. ‘Damn it. Come to think of it, I could really go for a bite right now. But…yeah, no way I can just waltz up and ask for a free bowl.’

With that conflict settled by forces beyond her financial control, Taylor resumed her jog. She didn’t get far, however, because she barely crossed three streets when the excited laughter of a child broke her concentration. In the store in front of her, a mother held the hand of a child as he reached for a mask on a high shelf. One in the shape of a monkey’s face, painted white, red, and black in the shape of a snout.

“Mama, can I get the mask?”

The mother chuckled. “Well, I promised you, didn’t I? You want that mask?”

“Mm-hm! All the big kids have Wukong masks. Thao has a really cool one, he’s from sixth grade!”

Wukong masks. So there was already unlicensed merch of him being sold on the street.

The shop owner, a balding Asian man with tan features and a jolly smile, chuckled at their antics. “Your kid has a good eye, ma’am. The designs are straight from the homeland, just like they used in the old xiqu shows! I swear by my baba, may he rest in peace, these designs were used in the Beijing houses themselves! All the other two-bit hacks on Lord Street and by the park - bah! They’re phonies. I’m selling the real deal!”

Taylor found herself raising an eyebrow in tandem with the mother. ‘Okay, classic lines there. I’m sure if I go to a store over on the next block, the shopkeeper will say the exact same thing about you, and how his merch is ‘one-of-a-kind’.’

“How much?”

The aging vendor huffed and made a show of stroking his chin as the kid bounced in place eagerly. “Well, these are premium pieces; it took me quite the effort to secure them…” he trailed off. His gaze fell back to the boy, and his smile returned. “But for a bright young man, I’m offering five bucks. Take it or leave it.”

‘Five bucks for a plastic mask? Pull the other one.’

Alas, the mother either didn’t know or didn’t care that she was being scammed. Which was why the pair left five bucks poorer and one mask richer.

‘Eh, what’s the point? At least he’s not hurting anyone.’

Taylor huffed and kept jogging, eager to put the incident out of her mind. Yet something about the balding man’s words refused to leave her mind.

‘What did he mean by ‘xiqu shows’?’

And wouldn’t she know it, more excited cries of children distracted her from her excursion. This time, it came from a gaggle of Asian children standing and sitting inside a bar. Taylor blanched at the sight - why the hell are so many little kids inside a bar? - before she saw some couples sitting on the stools, keeping a firm eye on the kids. Must be their parents.

Curiosity overcoming her, she walked over to the bar and entered. Inside, she discovered two things: one, she remembered it was a weekend, which was why there were so many kids walking the streets early in the day. Some of them wore similar masks to the one in the shop. Second, the children’s attention was chaotically locked on the large TV screen hanging at the corner of the bar, the one where news and sports games would usually show. Instead, a cartoon was playing, and it looked different than the usual Disney or Looney Tunes kids their age gushed over. It was in Chinese, for one, but with English subtitles. And when the panel changed from an old man in a fancy golden dress riding a cloud, her eyebrows shot up when a monkey with a face similar to the masks appeared in the next scene, dancing and laughing alongside a horde of smaller monkeys. He stood atop a red pillar…which then shrank to the size of a staff.

Her jaw dropped as the cartoon kept playing, showing the small monkeys dragging the old man to the clothed monkey.

‘There’s no way he could have cartoons about him so soon,’ she adjusted her glasses to ensure she wasn’t seeing things. ‘Even Armsmaster didn’t have a cartoon until after a year!’

But her confusion was given the final stamp when the old man spoke to the monkey.

“The Jade Emperor asked me to bring you to Heaven to offer you an official position.”

“Why to Heaven? And an official? Is that interesting work?”

“Heaven is the home of the gods, completely different from here in Flower-Fruit Mountain. Everything is resplendent and magnificent, decorated by exotic flowers. There is the Milky Way made up of stars, and there are bridges of rainbows. It’ll be such a pity if you don’t pay a visit there, Great King.”

“Hm! Fine, then this Old Sun will pay a visit to Heaven with you!”

That sealed it. Only one person addressed himself like that, and he’d picked out and eaten a bug from her hair yesterday. 

‘How?’

She took a step back as questions bounced in her head with the force of a ricocheting bullet. What was happening?

Turning around, desperate for an answer, she spotted a couple not far from the kids, a mother and father with light winter wear. 

‘This just goes back on what I’ve been trying to avoid…but I need to know what’s up with that. Besides, it’s not like they can point me out. It’s been weeks since the Incident, and they didn’t plaster my face over the news too much.’

Steeling herself, she pulled down her neck warmer and approached the couple. “Um, excuse me. Can I ask you a question?”

The parents spun around in slight shock, but quickly cooled down when they realized they were just looking at a teenage girl. “Oh, sorry. What is it?”

“What’s that cartoon?” she pointed to the screen. “And what are those masks on the kids' heads?”

A relaxed smile crossed the father’s face. “That’s a really old cartoon I used to watch when I was a kid. They released it in the West back in the 80s, and Jackie over there-” he gestured with his head to a heavyset Chinese man covered in wrinkles behind the bar. “Had a tape of it. A little something to distract the kids while the grownups talk shop and chat.”

“It’s a little ritual we do from time to time on the weekend. Normally, we’d put on some Disney movies or cape flicks and let them run wild, but…” the mother rolled her shoulders and gave her and her husband a knowing look. “With everything that’s been going on, they’ve been asking for more of Wukong. So we figured they’d enjoy it, and so far there are no regrets.”

“The 80s? I don’t understand.”

The father chuckled and leaned against the counter. “Eh, it’s fine. Sun Wukong isn’t exactly well-known out here in the West. He’s one of us: everyone in the older generation grew up with stories about him. Think what Robin Hood or what’s-his-name, King Arthur, are for British people, and that’s what we got. We didn’t think anyone remembered him enough to care, so imagine the surprise when the new guy comes out and whacks Lung a new one!” He banged a fist and laughed. “Right from the old stories!”

It took a few good moments for Taylor to pick apart what the man said, but the lightbulb slowly began to flicker on. “So…Sun Wukong, the original, is a Chinese folk hero?”

“He’s what you get if you gave old comic superheroes a furry makeover and combine all their powers,” the mother said. “He’s a real ancient figure, and there are stories about him long before the Westerners even came to China. I’ll give our new Wukong credit; he’s nailing everything about him, and not just the fact that he looks like a monkey. It’s like he stepped out of that cartoon into the real world.”

Nodding, Taylor digested that bit of information. ‘My teacher is basing his cape persona off a Chinese mythical hero, and he’s doing such a good job that no one is shaming him for that. If that’s true, it explains the reactions of some of the Asian kids at Winslow.’

“Where can I learn more about him? He sounds popular.”

The father hummed and sipped from his mug. “There’s a book called Journey to the West. I think you can find a decent English translation in one of the bookshops nearby if the whole district hasn’t bought them out. It should tell you everything about him.”

Journey to the West.

It could’ve been a trick of her imagination, but why did he say that name with so much weight? Regardless, it sounded like a book worth checking out…if she had any money. 

‘I hope the library has it, at least.’

“I’ll take a look. Thanks for answering, by the way. I hope it wasn’t any trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” the woman replied, her eyes warm and affectionate for a stranger. “It’s always important to show an interest in a culture not your own, no matter what those gweilo Nazis preach.”

After casting one last look at the cartoon, Taylor thanked the couple again and left the bar. Pulling her neck warmer back up, she returned to her jogging. Yet even as she moved past more masks and pictures of the fictional monkey, the questions continued to pile up.

‘If he’s based himself on a mythological figure, that would explain a lot of his… eccentricities. Kinda like Mouse Protector, she always speaks in cheese puns and loves trolling criminals. But it still doesn’t explain why he’s so out of the loop when it comes to modern technology.’ She bit her lip as she kept heading southward back to the house. ‘Maybe he was raised with that book, Journey to the West, far off in some remote village, and when he Triggered - something to do with his children? - he started to emulate the folk hero Sun Wukong as a coping mechanism? But how did he even come to the US from the CUI?’

At this point, Taylor knew she was entering the realm of pure speculation, but she couldn’t help it. She was deeply curious about her teacher and seeing how she’d bared her whole life story to him, it was only natural she’d be interested in hearing his own. Or at least the one hidden behind his colorful descriptions.

“Oi, fuck off!”

A rough teenager’s voice drew Taylor from her ruminations. She stood at an intersection of a narrow street, and down it, she saw a small group of Asian teens facing off against several shaven men at the mouth of an alley. 

‘E88? What are they doing so far out here?’

“I don’t think you’re getting the picture here, chink,” the leader of the Nazis - because she’d eat a scrap of metal from the Trainyard if that weren’t the case - said. “I’m offering you an easy way out. Just hand us over the keys and you can carry on with your pathetic life.”

The back-haired teen scoffed. “As if. You think I was born here yesterday? I don’t know what you pigs want with a place like that, but I wouldn’t bet my chù’s flyswatter you’d use it as a frat party den.”

“What we want with it doesn’t concern you, Viet Cong,” the leader replied, nonplussed. He shifted his stance to a more aggressive one. “You think just cause that stupid reptile ain’t watching your back anymore means you’re hot shit in this city? Nah, the Empire’s rule is absolute. And when the hammer comes down on the rest of you slant-eyes, we’ll throw you in the ovens just like they did to the kikes in the old days. Play nice, and you have a chance to jump ship. Maybe you can swim back to the jungles you call home.” His cronies, eight of them in their shaven and tattooed glory, snickered at his sorry excuse for a joke. The Asian teen - Vietnamese, apparently - only glared at them. 

“Wow, I’ve heard that Nazis get lobotomized to decrease their IQ, but I’d never thought I’d see the results in person,” a teenage girl with hair tied into a ponytail at the boy’s side spoke up. As Taylor crept closer, she spotted a younger girl, with a white flower in her long hair, hiding behind her legs and clutching her jeans. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time your big shots strutted around here thinking they could roll over us?”

Oh, she did. It was hard to forget a beatdown the likes of which Wukong delivered to Crusader and Victor when you were standing at ground zero. 

A few of the skinhead mooks glanced around them with a nervous eye, but the leader just smirked. “I don’t see any stinking monkey here. Probably off munching some fleas. Scratch that, I see them every second I walk down these streets. But don’t you worry your tiny little heads; that son of a bitch is gonna get what’s coming to him, and so will you if you don’t cough up the keys to that apartment. So how about it?”

The Empire thugs slowly began to surround the smaller group, brandishing knives and brass knuckles. The leader did neither, though his hands strayed to his belt. ‘Does he have a gun?’

Shielding what Taylor assumed was her younger sibling, the older girl glared daggers while the self-appointed leader took a stance, and his two friends, also Asian but with lighter skin, stared at the group with growing nervousness. 

The old Taylor would’ve kept her head down and walked off. Sights like this were common in Brockton Bay, with each faction racking up hospital and body counts of innocents of both sides. That Taylor hadn’t undergone training that squeezed the life out of her muscles day after day.

After everything she endured, no way in hell she was just going to stand by.

“Have your fun, boys. The girls will send a nice message.”

Needing no other cue, Taylor pulled her hood over her cap and sprinted to the growing conflict. With a mighty leap, she tackled one of the thugs and punched him in the gut twice before sending a right hook to his face that knocked him down.

At once, the whole group turned to her with shock and alarm. One thug, who looked like his brain’s size wasn’t proportionate to his physical size, had the idea of a lifetime and charged at her with a knife, roaring a warbled battle-cry.

Do not exert yourself when unneeded. Let your opponent blunder and drop victory into your waiting arms.

Sidestepping his stab, Taylor clenched her fists and allowed the qi to flow through her arms. She chopped at the meaty arm, and bone snapped. Before the skinhead’s eyes could finish bulging out, she twisted and punched him right in the nose. With a resounding crack, the thug shot off like a rocket and crashed into the parked car a few feet away.

“Go, I’ve got this!” she shouted, her words muffled by the neck warmer. The Asian teens shot her looks of alarm, but when the Nazis’ stares morphed from bewildered to incensed, the older girl grabbed her little sister and bolted away, with the other two quickly following her. 

The leader hesitated, but steeled his expression and followed his friends, though not before shouting back as he ran. “Don’t worry, I’ll get help!”

‘With luck, be done here before that,’ she thought, bending her knees and extending one arm before the other.

“You little bitch!” The skinhead leader snarled. “Think you’re a hero, don’t ya? That just means we’ve only got one body to smack around! GUT THE HEEB UP!”

The six remaining thugs bellowed and rushed her, brandishing their weapons, no doubt thinking she was easy prey.

‘Joke's on you, Nazi shitstains.’

Two rapid strikes to the chest stunned one thug, and a knee to the guts, followed by a shove, forced him into the path of his friend. A skinhead with thick brass knuckles began to wail on her, but she maneuvered her arms to deflect the incoming strikes, shifting with every blow. Instead of breaking her skin and inflicting bruises, Taylor felt the energy ripple through her arms and as they became love taps. Palming his outstretched fist aside, she pivoted and jabbed her elbow into his face. His nose shattered under the force of her blow, and his head snapped up when her uppercut smashed into his chin. With a quick exhale from her lips, she raised her legs and kicked him right above the pelvis, eliciting a squeal as he flew back and tumbled down the sidewalk. 

‘Wow,’ she blinked as the remaining Nazis gaped at her with growing fear. ‘I didn’t think I’d do that much damage. I’ve punched that damn swinging training post enough times to know my punches deal some serious blowback…but this much?’

Wukong’s superhuman endurance didn’t serve as a good benchmark of her progress. But seeing what it did to normal people…

‘I won’t lie, I could get used to this.’ Her lips twitched upwards, threatening to break out into a grin.

“Fucking die!” A skinny one pulled out a baton from his sleeve and swiped at her and Taylor smacked his chest with open palms, feeling the ribcage quiver under her touch. Suddenly, two beefy arms slid up from under her and heaved her up. 

“SHANK HER NOW!”

The remaining gangsters roared and charged with wicked knives, bloody murder on their faces. Taylor tried kicking the one holding her, but she forgot to direct her qi to her legs, so he merely grunted.  The knives were barely inches away from piercing her skin, and she grit her teeth in rage. Focusing her qi into her sternum and her arms, she pulled.

“Let…go!”

Golden light flashed and a crackle overshadowed the sound of tearing cloth. Taylor’s wings hummed as she heaved and regained her bearing, feeling the energy rush and circulate throughout her entire body. Feeling a draft stinging her back, Taylor glanced behind her to see the thug who held her groaning on the ground and two large scars marring his shoulder. 

She winced at the sight of his blood, but then remembered he intended to use her as a stabbing target and that he was a Nazi. So she promptly returned her attention to the last of the Empire mooks, who had crossed the line between so-called Aryan to ghost.

“Another fucking cape!?” a gangster with a nose ring cried out. He turned to the leader, whose mouth was pressed into a line. “We gotta bounce now, this ain’t worth it! Bad enough that the monkey’s somewhere swinging around, now there’s this broad? Screw it!”

“Don’t you fucking dare leave!” The leader roared, grabbing him by the collar as he tried to book it. He then turned to Taylor and adopted a warmer approach. “Golden wings, a teenage white girl…you’re that Herbert girl, aren’t you?”

“It’s Hebert,” she blurted out. The instant her words caught up to her brain, she clamped her jaws shut.

‘Oh come on!’