Heretical Edge

The fortress stood in the deepest, darkest part of one of the largest rain forests in China. Invisible to Bystander eyes, the walls of the circular structure were constructed from some of the most durable and magically resistant metals in existence. So rare, in fact, that to obtain enough for this one hundred foot tall and fifty foot wide tower, over a dozen alternate universes had to be combed through. No spell would locate or penetrate the tower. No weapon would scratch it. The full force of the entire Seosten fleet could unleash hell upon the tower, and even as the planet itself fell apart around it, the structure would remain as pristine as it had been since its creation.

Nor was its physical durability the extent of the fortress's defenses. It was also protected by no fewer than one thousand of the strongest, most capable combatants who had ever stood upon the face of the planet. One hundred of the most dangerous individuals from ten very different species had been recruited and trained for decades in the harshest conditions to defend this tower. More impressively, their lives were literally sustained by the magic of the structure they were defending. So long as it existed, no amount of harm could permanently end them. However impressive the actual walls of the place might have been, they were all but immaterial, because these soldiers protecting it would never even let anyone get close enough to touch them. They were an impassable force.

They were.

Whistling Harry Belafonte's classic upbeat Caribbean song Monkey, the fairly diminutive, quite unimpressive furry figure known in some places as Sun Wukong strolled casually through a field littered with the fallen, groaning, broken bodies of those who had defended this place. His tail swished behind him cheerfully, while he picked something out of his teeth with his staff (currently shrunk down to the shape and size of an eighteen thousand pound toothpick) on his way toward the base of the tower he'd spent the better part of an afternoon searching for. Ages, really.

Some who heard such a complaint may have screamed obscenities about entire generations of families passing by in fruitless decades or centuries spent looking for this tower. For someone like Wukong, however, an entire afternoon put toward a single pursuit was practically an eternity. He was not what most would call a patient individual. In the sense that the sun was not what most would call a great place to build a ski lodge. Although in Wukong's case, telling him such a thing was impossible would only have convinced the colossally stubborn being to grab a box of nails, an armful of planks, and a snow machine. And being who he was, it would actually work.

One of the fortress's defenders tried to pick himself off the ground with a low groan of fierce determination. But the Monkey King put an immediate stop to that by plucking the miniaturized staff from between his teeth. Without missing a beat in his cheerful song, he extended the thing out to reach that spot over two hundred feet away, and gave the rising man a quick bop on the back of his head with a flick of his wrist. The figure dropped, and actually stayed down that time.

Doing a quick little hop over the fallen body of a massive troll-like figure before continuing on his stroll right up to the tower, all while dancing to the song he was whistling, Wukong examined the structure curiously. The metal truly was as close to unbreakable as could ever exist. Even then, his strength was such that, given a few hundred years, he might have been able to make enough of a hole to squeeze through. But if maintaining a single pursuit for an afternoon was an impressive feat, doing so for centuries would have been as impossible as expecting one of those parrots perched in the trees nearby to break out with a perfect impression of Freddy Mercury-- including his dance moves.

No, Wukong did not plan on beating this tower through sheer brute force. Not exactly, anyway. The metal plates themselves might have been completely impregnable, but each squareish plate was only about fifteen feet wide, and there were very thin seams between them where they had been attached to each other when the tower was being put together. Seams filled with another material that helped hold them together. Material that, while incredibly strong in its own right, was not quite up to the level of the main plating. Not that it should have mattered given how nearly microscopically narrow the cracks were. It really wasn't much of a weakness at all.

But for Sun Wukong, it was enough. He continued whistling the jaunty tune, dancing in place while holding one hand out. Judging his aim, he abruptly stabbed his fingernails into that tiny crack. The furry figure's shapeshifting abilities allowed him to flatten those nails even more, enough to fit in the space. His nails were thinner than a hair plucked from his back, and even then were barely able to work their way in.

With one hand occupied that way, sliding his fingers back and forth to very gradually break more of the material holding those two plates together, Wukong yawned while looking over his shoulder toward the nearest clump of fallen defenders. His nose twitched as he sniffed twice, then extended his tail as far as it would go. The tail shoved its way into the pack on one man's side, rooting around within before withdrawing with its prize: a bag of chips. And just like that, Sun had his tail holding the bag close as he used one hand to pluck chips out of it to munch on. All while his other hand continued to painstakingly force his fingernails through that tiny crack.

After a couple minutes of this, he'd managed to drag his nails back and forth through that crack enough to create an 'opening' less than a millimeter wide. Still, that was enough for him to get his nails around the back side of the lower metal plate and start prying it down. Strong as the material was, even his strength wasn't enough to bend it very much at all. The best he could manage without spending far more time than he wanted to on it was to widen that one tiny spot in the crack he had made to slightly more than twice what it had been from running his nails through the seam. That spot was just a little over a millimeter wide, in a space as small around as a pencil.

It was enough. Satisfied with his work, Wukong tossed the empty chip bag away before cracking his neck twice with a quick twist of his head from one side, then the other. With that, he abruptly transformed into a tiny winged insect (a miniature version of his tail remained, of course), before flying into that tiny hole. It still took a good bit of squeezing, but he forced his body through.

He was in a wide open space. The tower was almost entirely empty, stretching all the way up to its tip. Right in the center stood a golden pedestal with a blue diamond. The gem was as large as a tennis ball, with gold lightning flickering around inside now and then. It hummed with power.

Transforming back into his typical self (nothing about Sun Wukong could be called normal), he walked right up to the pedestal. One final defender appeared, a deadly-looking figure wearing black armor, holding an enormous sword crackling with energy. His booming voice began to issue a challenge that echoed through the open space. But before he could finish the first sentence, Wukong's tail ripped the sword from his grasp and tossed it aside. The force of the yank pulled the man down into the Monkey King's rising fist. It was enough of a blow to completely dent and crack that once-impressive armor, driving the wind out of the man. He was sent flying with a quick toss, colliding with the far wall before slumping down to a fallen heap.

With the last obstacle out of his way, Wukong grabbed the glowing, energy-filled diamond off its stand and held the thing aloft. As soon as he did so, the lightning within burst out of the gem with a sudden crack of power that sent it dancing through the room, all the way up to the tip of the tower before it suddenly came crashing back down to collide with the ground only a few feet away from the one who had freed it. The lightning soon resolved into a grayish-blue figure made of solid energy. The figure was of a ten-foot tall, roundish humanoid nude man with no hair. He regarded the furry man before him before speaking, his booming voice echoing majestically. "You who has touched my prison, who has passed my trials and proven yourself the victor in the face of great adversity, I grant you one singular desire, one wish. Be warned, for you shall not receive any other. Any single desire, any change upon this universe is yours. Riches, power beyond imagining, the return of lost loves or lost kingdoms. Godhood is within your grasp, you need only speak the words and claim your true prize."

With a flick of his hand, Wukong demanded, "Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you what I want. I want you to find whoever started sending Felicity Chambers and a bunch of people she knows to all these so-called 'rifts' through time and bring them right here so I can give them a piece of my mind."

The giant glowing figure before him blinked several times in clear confusion, head tilting. "Err… you did hear me when I said you could be a god, right? Anything you want, anything you desire, anything you could dream of, you only need to ask and it can be yours. Really, anything at all."

"Did I stutter or something?" Wukong straightened up to his full (still unimpressive) height, jabbing a finger at the being from the diamond to poke him right in his upper thigh. "Someone out there started sending that Chambers girl all over the timeline, so get them in here already. Right now."

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There was a momentary pause before the wish-granting, nigh-omnipotent being offered a shrug. "As you wish." With that, he and the diamond he had come from, as well as the tower itself and all of those who had been defending it, vanished. Wukong was left alone in the jungle clearing.

Well, not quite alone. A voice suddenly spoke from behind him. "You requested our presence?"

Spinning around on his heel, Sun Wukong faced the figure. She appeared on the outside to be some version of Joselyn Chambers, but he knew better. "There you are! You're the ones who split up that Felicity girl into all those separate pieces and sent them to those rifts, aren't you!?"

The woman inclined her head. "We are the Ankou. I am known as their speaker, Ceili. If you are objecting to Felicity being put in such dangerous situations, we assure you, there was truly no other--"

"Dangerous, smangerous," Wukong snapped, striding right up to the figure to poke her in the nose. "What I wanna know is why you didn't include me! Why wasn't I part of this adventure, huh? You grab every other person the kid had any real interaction with but not me? What's up with that?" He raised one hand, palm upward so he could pointedly jab the index finger of his other hand into it. "Dozens of universe-ending rifts across all of human civilization and you don't see fit to send me to any of them!? What's a monkey gotta do just to be included around here? It's not right, I tell you. It's rude. Downright rude."

Ceili gave him a long, silent look as though it was actually taking the entirety of the Ankou collective several seconds to comprehend what he was saying. Finally, she made a soft noise in the back of her throat before speaking. "You engaged in this entire quest to acquire an object that could grant you unlimited power merely so you could use it to demand our presence and complain that we did not pluck you from this time and send you to one of those rifts?"

Sun spread his arms wide. "Well, duh. How dare you include everyone else and let them have all the fun? What did I ever do to you? Now unless you want me to get really ticked off, you'll find one of those rifts for me. And you better make it a good one. None of this lame talking out their problems and recruiting new friends nonsense. You find me a rift with big monsters to fight."

There was another pause, this one far more brief before the woman gave a short nod. "As you have quite literally wished. Although it has occurred to us that you could simply have wished for the diamond to send you to the rift where you would have the most fun."

With a pointed scoff, Sun shot back, "Yeah? Well if I did that, how exactly would I give you a piece of my mind? Honestly, the nerve of some people."

A very small smile touched the Ankou construct's face before she bowed her head slightly. "No offense was meant, great Monkey King. We believe we have just the rift for you. It is precisely the sort of situation you excel at." With that, she lifted her hand to indicate a portal that had appeared before them. "I warn you, the dangers you face there will be quite deadly. Make certain that whatever you do, you never--"

That was as far as she got before Wukong gave a loud whoop of excitement and hurled himself face-first through the portal, leaving her voice and the twenty-first century behind.

The instant Sun came through the other side of that portal, he spotted the girl this whole situation was about, along with a couple of her little human friends from that school whose names weren't important enough to remember. They were all in the middle of some open field full of sagebrush and weeds, crouching behind some sort of broken, overturned humanoid mecha. An army of creatures that appeared to be a strange mix of cyborg and monster were bearing down on the trio, who were doing their best to send off the assault. From the look of things, they were exhausted and barely able to muster any energy to keep fighting. The ghosts that Felicity girl wielded with her Necromancy kept flickering in and out, like they were dying lightbulbs.

Wukong didn't hesitate for an instant. Coming through that portal, he was already gripping his staff, and used it to polevault himself up and forwards, making the staff grow in the process to fling himself further. His exuberant war cry completely drowned out the crashing sounds of the metal and flesh abominations stampeding across the field.

The nearest of the monsters looked like a giant, forty foot tall ostrich with metal legs and a humanoid head. It had a mix of biological and cybernetic tentacles, dozens of them emerging from all across the thing that were already stretching out toward the exhausted group behind the fallen machine.

It never even saw what hit it. The thing turned that human-like head toward the sound that had just begun to fill the battlefield, but before even its advanced visual sensors could center on the source, Wukong collided with its face. Or rather, he blew right through the face, and the skull behind it, the brain, and the back of the skull. He punched through its entire head with that lunge, leaving the thing to topple onto its side even as Sun himself continued on to the one behind it.

That second beast looked like an actual tank with multiple gun turrets along the sides. The top of the tank was made up of an alligator body, with a head that kept snapping around trying to bite anything it could. Which might not have post a problem for the ghosts, except its teeth had been replaced with metal versions that seemed to project ghost-fire.

Well, none of that bothered Sun Wukong. He landed right in front of the thing and gave a quick swing of his staff, which extended to several times its normal length. As the massive weapon slammed into the mechagator's snout, the force was enough to knock the thing on its back, making its tank treads spin uselessly until he jumped up there and took the thing apart with several quick blows.

The rest of the monsters were keenly aware of his presence by that point, not that it did them any good. Sun gave a mighty bellow, pounding his fist against his chest like a gorilla a few times before throwing himself fully into the fray. The army of abominations kept coming, hundreds of the things swarming the battlefield. They threw weapons, magic, and sheer animalistic force at him, none of which saved them. None of which allowed them to reach even one inch closer to the spot where Felicity and the others had taken cover. They came at the Monkey King with everything they had, and they failed. They fell one by one and a dozen by a dozen. Sun ripped his way through them without mercy, and without ever halting his deafening war cry.

Finally, the source of these monsters, a strange spaceship that itself appeared half-biological, descended from orbit to hover just above the field and trained its mighty cannons upon that lone figure. It would pummel the planet below with enough fire power to turn the entire continent into a crater if that was what it took to teach that creature a lesson.

The ship never made it that far. Even as it began powering up those cannons, Felicity was shouting, "Sun, you can't let--"

"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on," Wukong interrupted, already flinging himself skyward. He crashed through the bottom of the ship, finding himself surrounded by mechanical squid creatures that were apparently its version of a crew. Or possibly its antibodies, considering the thing looked like it was part whale. Whatever they were, they were not happy about his presence.

But at least they didn't have much time to be unhappy. Within a few minutes of his sudden intrusion, they were all dead, and the ship itself was on its way out. It managed to activate its jump drive at the last second in an attempt to flee. But that wouldn't help it. He had already sabotaged its navigation ability. The thing would jump out and into open space and disintegrate.

Before it could take him with it, Sun jumped back out, falling all the way back to the ground before landing nimbly on his feet in front of the three humans. "Wait," he started with a quick sniff, frowning at Felicity as she stared at him, "you're not human anymore. Wait, are you an impostor? Do I get to fight you now until you admit your deception!?"

Felicity quickly held up her hands, head shaking. "No, no, it's me. I've just been through a lot. I'm Fae now, I guess. Uhh, Rebecca, Eiji, you guys know Sun by now. Did the Ankou decide to send you as backup or something?"

The other girl, Rebecca, was panting heavily while gazing at him with eyes that had blinked since he landed in front of them. "If they did, we owe them a whole big box of brownies."

Eiji, the tall, Asian boy, gave a slow nod, his expression equally amazed. "You do the brownies, I'll do my mother's chocolate chip cookies."

"Hey!" Sun pointed at them, "don't you go giving away my brownies and cookies to those jerks. I had to find out about this all on my own after you got back, then go demand they send me to one of the rifts. You know they didn't even include me at all the first time through? I didn't get to participate in any of this before. What kind of nonsense is that?" He made an annoyed huffing sound.

"Wait, you mean you changed history to-- never mind, I've already got a headache just thinking about that," Felicity managed while giving the other two a quick glance. "I guess, umm, thanks? Seriously, thanks, uh, Mr. Wukong."

"Sun!" he instantly reminded her. "Now, there was something about jumping into a rift."

Eiji spoke up then, looking completely awed by the figure in front of him. As well he should. "I uhh… I think it's only Flick who needs to jump into the rift."

"Pah," Wukong retorted with a scowl, "I don't know why she gets to have all the fun."

Rebecca hesitantly suggested, "Maybe when she jumps in, it'll summon more enemies before the rift completely closes. We might need to protect it."

That was enough to make Sun brighten. "You think so? Well what are you waiting for, a written invitation?" He made quick beckoning motions toward Felicity. "Get your scrawny butt in that rift so we can fight some more!"

Together, they turned to walk toward said rift. On the way, Rebecca murmured, "I wonder what happened here in the version where Sun didn't--"

"Don't," Felicity interrupted, head shaking.

"Sometimes it's just better not to think about it."