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Marvel MK: CH 137 – The Monkey and the Cobra
🕑 Added 2025-08-26 14:32:09 +0000 UTCThe vast, emerald-green plains of Peng Lai echoed with a sound they hadn't heard in centuries: the gleeful, unhinged laughter of a god chasing a pig.
Jack Hou was a blur and chaotic energy, weaving between the giant, black-bristled pigs with the joyous abandon of a child chasing a ball. The enormous stature of the beasts didn't scare him in the slightest. In fact, he was smiling, his golden eyes wide with a look of pure, culinary delight. To him, this wasn't a field of sacred animals; it was an unlimited bacon buffet.
"Kekekeke, come here, bacon!" he cheered, his tail swishing with excitement. He began to list off a menu of possibilities. "Roast pork, sweet and sour pork, pork belly buns, tonkatsu, char siu… oh, the possibilities are endless!"
He was about to try and ride one of the larger pigs when he finally noticed the imposing, unmoving figure waiting for him in the center of the plains. Fat Cobra stood there, his arms crossed, his expression a mask of grim patience.
"Oh, fat pig!" Jack called out cheerfully. "Did you wait long?"
A low growl rumbled in Fat Cobra's chest. "It's Zhu Pang She," he shouted, his voice a powerful, booming thing.
"And I'm a void monkey," Jack shot back with a grin. "Kekekeke."
Fat Cobra didn't say another word. He settled into a low, powerful horse stance, and the ancient sutra tattoos covering his massive frame began to glow with a soft, golden light.
"Kekeke, let's see what you've got," Jack said, his own expression turning sharp and focused. He held up the Ruyi Jingu Bang. It was a massive, pillar-sized staff. He looked at Fat Cobra, then back at the staff, and made it smaller. Then he looked at Fat Cobra again, a thoughtful, appraising look on his face, and made it smaller still. He repeated this process one more time, his grin widening, until the legendary, god-battling weapon was the size of a sharpened pencil.
The sheer, unadulterated disrespect was the final straw. With a roar of pure, unadulterated rage, Fat Cobra moved, his massive frame a blur of impossible speed as he launched his first attack.
The air on the plains of Peng Lai went still. The gentle breeze died, and the distant grunting of the giant pigs faded into a tense, expectant silence. Zhu Pang She, the Fat Cobra, moved.
It was not the charge of a lumbering brute. It was the explosion of a coiled spring. His massive frame, which had seemed so solid and immovable, became a blur of motion. He crossed the fifty-foot distance between them in the space of a single heartbeat, his fist, glowing with the golden light of his chi, aimed directly at Jack's face. It was a blow meant to shatter mountains.
Jack didn't move. He just watched the fist, the size of a small boulder, hurtle toward him. At the very last possible nanosecond, he tilted his head to the side. The fist, carrying the force of a freight train, shot past his ear, the wind from its passage whipping his hair.
He then raised his hand, the one holding the pencil-sized Ruyi Jingu Bang, and gently tapped Fat Cobra on the wrist.
Tink.
The sound was absurdly small, yet a jolt of pure, disruptive energy shot up Fat Cobra's arm, extinguishing the golden glow of his chi and forcing him to stumble back, his attack completely neutralized.
"Oof, careful there, big guy," Jack said, his voice a cheerful, unconcerned thing. "You could put an eye out. Did you know that it's impossible for most people to lick their own elbow?"
Fat Cobra's face, which had been a mask of focused fury, twisted into one of pure, baffled rage. He roared, a sound that sent the distant pigs stampeding, and attacked again. This time, it was not a single punch, but a flurry of strikes—fists, palms, and elbows, each one a blur of impossible speed, each one carrying enough force to pulverize stone.
Jack became a ghost. He didn't block. He didn't parry. He simply… wasn't there. He weaved between the strikes, his movements a fluid, effortless dance. He used the tiny, pencil-sized staff not as a weapon, but as an extension of his senses. He would tap an incoming fist, not to stop it, but to redirect its momentum, sending Fat Cobra stumbling. He would flick an elbow, disrupting the flow of chi just enough to make the strike go wide.
"You're fast, I'll give you that," Jack chirped, ducking under a sweeping palm strike. "But you're very predictable. It's all just punch, punch, angry face, repeat. Did you know that we don't know where eels come from? They just… appear. Like a bad sequel."
Fat Cobra, his frustration mounting, changed his tactics. He stopped his barrage and instead began to move in a slow, circling pattern, his feet gliding over the grass, his massive form as graceful as a dancer. He was using the 'Flowing Mountain, Still River' technique, a style that combined unstoppable momentum with fluid, unpredictable attacks.
He lunged, his hand shaped like a cobra's head, aimed for Jack's throat.
Jack, for the first time, met the attack. He didn't use his staff. He used his own hand, his fingers mimicking the cobra strike perfectly. Their hands met in a soft, almost gentle clap. But in that single point of contact, a universe of martial knowledge was exchanged. Fat Cobra felt his chi being not just blocked, but understood, unraveled, and turned back against him.
"Oh, this is a fun one!" Jack said, his eyes lighting up with genuine interest as he effortlessly pushed Fat Cobra back. "I know this style. But the version I learned has a better finishing move. It involves a lot more groin-punching. Did you know that we still don't know where bats go in the winter? Kinda makes you wonder what Batman does when christmas comes, right?"
With every taunt, with every unhinged, nonsensical fact, Fat Cobra's focus began to fray. He was a master, a champion, the pride of Peng Lai. And he was being toyed with by a man holding a pencil.
He let out a final, desperate roar and unleashed his ultimate technique: the Hundred-Coil Constriction. He moved, his body a blur, creating after-images, surrounding Jack from every direction, his strikes coming from all angles at once.
Jack just stood in the center of the storm, a calm, unmoving island. He closed his eyes.
He didn't need to see. He could feel it. The flow of the wind, the shift in the chi, the intent behind every phantom strike. He moved, his pencil-sized staff a blur of motion, a dozen precise, perfect taps against a dozen different pressure points on Fat Cobra's real body.
The after-images vanished. The storm of strikes ceased.
Zhu Pang She, the Fat Cobra, stood frozen in place, his body completely paralyzed, his face a mask of pure, stunned disbelief.
Jack opened his eyes, a wide, innocent grin on his face. He walked up to the immobilized martial arts master and gently poked him in his large, tattooed belly.
"Tag," he said cheerfully. "You're it."
…
From a safe distance, the Cobra Commander and a dozen of Zhu Pang She's most elite warriors watched the spar unfold. They stood with their arms crossed, confident smiles on their faces. They had seen their master fight a hundred times. They knew his speed, his power, his grace. This strange, tailed monk would be put in his place in a matter of seconds.
Then the fight began. And their confident smiles slowly melted away.
They watched as Zhu Pang She, their champion, unleashed a blow that could shatter the gates of the city, only for the tailed monk to dodge it with a lazy tilt of his head. They saw him counter with a tap from a pencil-sized stick that made their master stumble.
"What was that?" one of the younger Cobras whispered, his voice full of disbelief.
The Commander didn't answer. His eyes were narrowed, his focus absolute. He watched as Zhu Pang She unleashed the 'Rushing River' fist technique, a torrent of rapid-fire punches. The tailed monk didn't even seem to try. He weaved between the blows, his movements a fluid, impossible dance, his tiny staff a blur as he tapped and flicked at their master's arms and legs. With every tap, a new, ridiculous shout echoed across the plains.
"Crispy Pork Belly Barrage!" Jack yelled as he deflected a series of punches with a flurry of taps from his staff.
Zhu Pang She roared in frustration and shifted his attack, attempting a powerful grappling move, the 'Serpent's Coil.' He lunged, his arms like steel bands, ready to crush his opponent. But the monk simply twisted, slipping through his grasp like water. He reappeared behind their master, delivering a sharp, precise strike to the back of his knee.
"Twice-Cooked Joint Lock!"
The Commander's jaw was now hanging open. The other Cobras were silent, their faces a mask of pure, stunned shock.
"He is a real Sage," the Commander finally breathed, the words a quiet, reverent admission of a truth he could no longer deny. In his mind, he still believed in his friend, in his master. But what he was seeing now was an undeniable fact. This tailed man was not just a powerful warrior; he was a god toying with a mortal.
Zhu Pang She, now desperate, unleashed a powerful palm strike, the 'Mountain Toppling Hand.' The monk met it with his own open palm, a soft, almost gentle clap that sent a shockwave through their master's body.
"Sweet and Sour Deflection!" Jack cheered.
The Commander turned to his men. "Go," he commanded, his voice a low, urgent thing. "Prepare a banquet."
"But, Commander," one of the warriors said, confused, "the elders are already—"
"Make more food!" the Commander snapped, his gaze still fixed on the one-sided battle. "I can hear that the Sage is hungry." He turned to them, his face grim. "Now go!"
The warriors, finally understanding, scattered, leaving their commander to watch alone. He saw his friend gather all his remaining strength, his final, desperate technique.
The Commander muttered to the empty air, a quiet, desperate plea. "Let's just hope he is hungry enough to stop before he accidentally kills Zhu Pang."
…
In the vast, howling emptiness of the Siberian wilderness, another of Jack's clones was on the hunt. The snowstorm was a blinding, roaring beast, and the clone, dressed in a white hanfu that blended perfectly with the blizzard, was a nearly invisible figure. Only his long, jet-black hair, whipping in the wind, gave him away.
He sat down cross-legged in the middle of the storm, the snow piling up around him. "Humph," he grumbled to the howling wind. "I can't see shit. Why can't I be the one searching in Tokyo? I bet you a fragment is hiding in the middle of the Shibuya crossing. Or Hawaii! Those beaches sound so suspicious. Or Bali! I bet those surfers are using my fragments to make taller waves."
He then slumped backward into a snowdrift, giving up completely. He stared up at the swirling, grey sky and, in the middle of the raging storm, he fell asleep.
Not far from where he lay, a secret base, disguised as a remote SHIELD weather station, was being torn apart from the inside out. A man in a red and purple helmet floated serenely in the eye of the metallic hurricane he had created. As he flew, every piece of metal in the base—from the structural beams to the paperclips on the desks—ripped free, reforming into a swirling vortex of destruction that shredded the facility. It was Magneto.
He had discovered this was SHIELD base, one of many used for horrific experiments on mutants. Unfortunately, there were few survivors, but Magneto and his Brotherhood had saved those they could.
A voice crackled through his comms. "All cleared," Mystique reported.
Magneto raised both of his hands. The swirling vortex of metal and debris coalesced, the entire base reconstructing itself into a single, massive, compressed sphere. With a final, contemptuous swing of his arms, he slammed the sphere into the ground, flattening the entire site into a silent, metallic pancake under the falling snow.
…
In another of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, the air was not filled with the scent of misty mountains or the silence of stone. In Z'Gambo, the air was a constant, swirling miasma of green mist, carrying the faint, metallic tang of old blood and the dry, dusty scent of bone. The city itself was a personal ossuary, its structures built from the petrified remains of ancient, forgotten beasts, a monument to a silent, eternal victory.
The green mist coalesced, shifting and solidifying into the form of a man. John Aman, the newly dubbed Prince of Orphans, stood in the center of his city, his expression as cold and unreadable as the bone-white towers that surrounded him.
A subordinate, his form also wreathed in the green mist, materialized beside him. "My lord," the subordinate said, his voice a reverent whisper. "The tournament is set to begin in nine months."
John Aman did not turn. His gaze was fixed on some distant, unseen point beyond the borders of his realm. "There is still time," he said, his voice a low, chilling thing. "I can feel it. There is something… odd with this place. I feel a barrier within this third-world country of Wakanda."
The subordinate bowed and, without another word, dissolved back into the mist, leaving John Aman alone. The Prince of Orphans looked down at an ancient, leather-bound book in his hands, his fingers tracing a map that led to a land rich with a metal that could defy the gods.
He wanted the Vibranium. It would give him more than just an edge in the tournament; it would give him an empire.
