1
THOM NGHO HAD BEEN WRONG about many things lately, but there were four things she knew to be true.
One, the Monkey King had betrayed her, just when she thought she would finally achieve the one thing she had always wanted to do—get rid of her superstrength.
Two, she had changed her mind—she knew her power was a part of her she couldn’t change. A part that came from her father, the Boy Giant, who had wanted to give her an opportunity to learn and train with him, one she now wished she hadn’t turned down.
Three, the Monkey King had turned her mother into a cricket—which was why she needed to go after him.
And finally, Thom was pretty sure that she and Kha were in over their heads.
They crouched in their hiding spot behind a cluster of trees. As a dragon, Kha could turn invisible, but he’d changed into his human form now. From their perch on the hill, they had a perfect view of the tallest mountain on the island, the home of the demons where the Monkey King had taken her when they had still been friends. Before he had betrayed her.
Thom wondered if she and Kha were at the wrong spot—there were so many mountains on the island, and since they’d arrived, she hadn’t seen anyone—not the demons or the Monkey King.
“It’s so quiet,” she whispered to Kha. “The Monkey King should be here. He had a head start.”
After he’d turned her mother into a cricket, he had revealed that he was just a clone of his much stronger self, a version he was going to break free from under the Mountain of a Hundred Giants. Once the true Monkey King was released, he would be even more powerful than the clone that had tricked her.
Kha frowned and gazed out at the view. If they hadn’t been on a dangerous mission to stop the demon-god from unleashing himself from his five-hundred-year prison sentence, it would have been a beautiful scene: the lush field at the base of the Mountain, the green canopy of trees growing along the slope, the expansive blue sky, and the ocean in the distance. But a heaviness weighed the air, a tense pause like something bad was about to happen.
“This is the right mountain, though, I’m sure of it,” Kha said.
“How?”
“I can feel some sort of enchantment around here, like there’s a spell keeping the Mountain intact so the real Monkey King can’t break free.”
Thom unstrapped her backpack. She reached inside and pulled out the mason jar containing the cricket—her mother. One antenna twitched like she was trying to reach out toward Thom.
“Hey, Ma,” Thom whispered, feeling silly. Could Ma understand her while she was a cricket? The black beads of her eyes shone, and her antennae stilled as if she were listening intently.
“How’s she doing?” Kha asked.
Thom held the jar up to him. “She’s a cricket,” she said dryly, like it was the worst thing in the world, because it was the worst thing in the world, at least to Ma.
Kha pouted sympathetically. “We’ll catch the Monkey King, Thom. And we’ll make him turn her back.”
Thom tightened her jaw. Yes, they would. She was going to make the Monkey King pay for what he’d done.
Something rustled down below, then grew louder. The crunch of dried leaves and the snapping of twigs. The thundering of feet.
Demons.
As they marched into the field at the base of the Mountain, they looked scarier and bigger and stronger than what Thom had remembered them to be. The demon friends she’d met the last time she was on the island had been gentle giants. These demons, the ones gathering as if they were assembling an army, looked like they could snap her in half with a flick of their wrist. They were all some breed of predator—a chimera with the head of a boar and the body of a lion, a hyena with the head and neck of a giant snake, a wild boar with the muscular legs of a stallion.
And there were so many of them. Hundreds, maybe thousands, pouring in at the base of the Mountain, most on feet, some on wings. As they gathered, they grew louder like the crowd at a concert, a constant roar, but high-pitched and wild. Feral.
Thom stuffed the mason jar securely into her backpack, where her mom would be safe, and turned to Kha, whose horrified expression mirrored what she was thinking. How were they supposed to go up against that? Where had so many demons come from? She knew the Monkey King had friends, but the last time she was here, there had been twenty, maybe thirty of them.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Kha’s chest moved up and down a few times, his eyes scanning the crowd below them. “We wait until they calm down, maybe later tonight, and then we sneak to the base of the Mountain and…”
“And what? Guard it? Wait for the Monkey King to show up?” Thom could take on the Monkey King; she could beat him if she really tried. Maybe with a bit of luck, she could steal back the cudgel, and then she and Kha would have a fighting chance. But the thing was, the Monkey King wasn’t alone. He had an army now.
The demons roared. They were excited, jumping, shrieking, some tackling one another. Fights broke out in parts of the crowd, circles forming to make space as the violence spread.
Then they all quieted, something catching their attention.
The Monkey King.
He skipped through the air, twirling a wand like he was conducting a symphony—only it wasn’t a wand at all. It was the iron cudgel. He’d shrunk it down, showing it off like a long-lost toy.
At the sight of him, Thom’s fist clenched. If she could fly, she would have launched straight for him. But she could only stand at the top of the hill, hidden behind the trees, and watch as he flew above his followers, whirling his iron cudgel and changing it back to its staff-length size. The weapon that she had stolen from the heavens for him only so he could betray her.
“Brothers!” the Monkey King called in his giggly, singsong voice. “Some of you have traveled far to witness this momentous event. For four hundred and ninety-eight years, I have been stuck under this mountain!” He pointed the cudgel at the base of the incline behind him, and the demons roared, the air filling with their shrill excitement.
Thom stepped back, easing behind a tree, even though the demons were too far away to notice her. These guys were much bigger than the ones she’d arm-wrestled, their muscles bulging, their roars guttural, their teeth sharp as they growled at one another. No way could she take on a whole army, even if she was superstrong, even with Kha by her side.
“Now,” the Monkey King continued, silencing the demons, who went still with anticipation, “is the time for my imprisonment to come to an end.”
He dropped to the ground. The demons moved back to make space, bowing, some lowering to all fours as if to kiss his feet. A circle formed around him as he approached the base of the Mountain, holding his cudgel like a baseball bat.
“We have to stop him,” Thom said, moving forward.
“Wait, Thom.” Kha darted in front of her. “We’re outnumbered. There’s no way we can beat him and all those demons down there. Maybe if we had more time or more people on our side—”
“We don’t, though. We have to try now, on our own!”
Thom tried to walk around him, but Kha transformed into a dragon so fast that she bumped against his scaly body. He circled her, but his coils remained loose, like he was protecting her instead of trapping her.
“Look at them,” he said, jerking his head at the demon army. Their shrieks echoed across the mountainous terrain. The leaves quivered, the ground rumbled.
He was right. Thom and Kha were outnumbered, and the Monkey King would destroy them both. They had no plan—heroes always had a plan. Already, nothing was going how she’d expected. She’d thought she would find the Monkey King alone, that she could take him on by herself.
She stood helpless, watching as the Monkey King turned to his demon brothers one last time, gave them a smirk, and then flew at the Mountain. As he raised the cudgel, Kha’s dragon body curled tighter around her, almost like he was afraid she would rush down toward the demon army on her own.
Text copyright © 2021 by Van Hoang
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Nguyen Quang and Kim Lien
