Burned

Wukong woke up to the sound of the wind slamming into his window as birds chirped in the distance. He knew this place wasn't anything to look forward to, however, one couldn't deny the peaceful and loving nature of this area. Too bad it was tarnished by the scumbag caretakers that used to live here. 

Wukong got up from his bed and walked to his wardrobe, opening it and staring at the small piles of clothes. Illian was a man with simple taste in fashion. He would never wear anything too flashy or extravagant. Wherever he was going, he mostly wore a hoodie and baggy shorts that reached below the knee. Not that he had any money in the first place for flamboyant clothing.

However, Wukong didn't mind this. In fact, he quite liked it. Promoting him to think if his inner Illian had started to merge with his being.

As he pulled at a hoodie, he was met with the sound of a few clanks. Looking behind the clothing, he was met with wire cutters that looked old and slightly rusted. After looking at it for a few seconds, Wukong decided to dismiss it. He could care less about random wire cutters in a strange place.

After clothing himself and disposing of his last torn and dirty clothes, Wukong sat on his bed and started to think about the previous day. He had almost died several times. That battle was much harder than he thought it was going to be. The way in which they fought caught him off guard. It seemed they had exponential experience and therefore built trust and companionship between them. 

That was where he had miscalculated. He had only calculated his win rate against each individual X-Man, and not them as a team. It seemed their teamwork and understanding between themselves, allowed them to gain the upper hand. Granted he could have just expanded his Ruyi exponentially, crushing them all at once. 

However, there were also kids and people who hadn't caused him harm and hadn't bothered him, standing in that area. Just because he was alright with killing, didn't mean he was an uncontrollable killing machine that murdered innocent people. 

Despite all this, Wukong was not angry or enraged at this loss. He was actually proud that he stood his ground against a team that went toe to toe with the Avengers. However, that didn't mean that he'd forget about what they did. 

Which again brought back to his first problem, getting stronger. What he had been most excited about was the fact that he now knew he could get his power back. First his Ruyi and now his Nimbus. His powers were slowly being funnelled into him. But by whom? His abilities weren't coming from thin air. Someone was behind this. 

This paired with the fact that he was transmigrated and he keeps getting these peculiar screens in front of him, he knew that there was a higher being at work. And if this was true and he was getting his abilities back, how was he doing it? What's the requirement for unlocking the rest of my powers?

Seeing that he had no answers and he started to get a headache, Wukong decided to leave this mystery to a future version of himself. 

Bringing himself back to the present's problems, he thought about how he couldn't allow the X-Men to get away with a win over him. That was outrageous.

"I'll get them back. And that's a promise." He said, vowing another mission for revenge before getting up and heading downstairs where he had heard laughter and chatter.

As he walked down the stairs with his staff in hand, he was met with the youngsters of the orphanage, sitting around a rectangular table as Lorna sat with them. They talked and laughed as they waited for breakfast.

Without saying anything, Wukong walked to the table and sat down as the whole kitchen quickly became quiet.

They all stared at him as if he were a lion, ready to pounce on them at any moment. They hadn't known Illian that well, besides the fact that he had always avoided them and refused to acknowledge them. But now, he had shown up from nowhere after being called a mutant.

Lorna stared at them all, not knowing what was going on. 

'Aren't they like siblings? He grew up here, why are they showing so much hostility to him?' She thought as the silence was suffocating.

Wukong looked back at the youths with a face of indifference.

"Hey." He said with the same face that showed no emotion, his voice making the kids jump a little.

"Wanna see a magic trick?" He asked as he quickly switched emotions and expressed a large grin.

Without saying anything, Wukong stood up as he held his staff in his hand. After a second or two, the staff that he gripped with his hands, had suddenly disappeared.

"Gone. Shall I make it come back?" He said as the room stayed quiet. The audience stared at this phenomenon with wide eyes as they looked at each other, trying to figure out how he had done it.

Before they could answer, the staff once again appeared before their eyes. Gasps of surprise and awe were heard as everyone looked at Wukong as if he were a wizard.

'Wow, well their perception of me sure changed quickly.' He thought as he smiled. He wasn't really doing anything spectacular. He was just retracting his staff to the size of a needle and hiding it in his hand, but to them, I was a sorcerer.

"Again!" Said the youngest child who was about 10-12 years of age, smiling as he exposed a gap in his teeth from a missing tooth.

"Alright, but keep your eyes peeled this time. If you figure out how I'm doing it, I'll teach it to you." He said as he repeated the trick.

Lorna looked on with a smile. She already somewhat knew about the trick, it was just fun to see him change their opinion of him so quickly.

This carried on for a few more minutes before Lia arrived with the breakfast she had been preparing. Wukong was quite hungry, however, he made sure not to eat too much. After all, the food wasn't very much and he didn't want to finish it all from the others. Therefore, he ate about 6 servings before he got up from his seat.

"Who wants to meet my friend? His magic tricks are way better than mine. He can even fly." He said as he had piqued the interest of everyone there, marching them to the outside as he prepared to call for his Nimbus.

"Wait, Illian. Can we talk for a moment?" Asked Lia as she stood behind him.

"Yeah, alright. Hey, Lorna. Take them outside and call for Nimbus."

"What? How am I supposed to do that?"

"It's easy. You just take a deep breath and shout 'Nimbuuus!'" He said as he walked away, leaving the girl who had more questions.

Wukong followed Lia to the living room as they sat on a pair of crooked chairs.

After a few seconds, Lia started to talk. "Illian, I just wanted to thank you. From the bottom of my heart."

"For what?" Asked Wukong as he tilted his head.

"For Mr Devon. I'm not really sure what you did, but I'm glad you did it."

"Oh. Yeah, it's no problem. Everyone seemed to be happy…" 

"I'm not speaking for everyone, I'm speaking for myself." As she tightened her fists, she looked down and trembled. After a few seconds, she carried on.

"Mr Devon was an alcoholic. He would often assault us and wreck the house while he was intoxicated. Whether he was mad or he was annoyed at something, it always resulted in someone being abused. I became so used to it that I can still clearly remember the  screams and cries of the others."

"Whether we begged or pleaded, it never stopped him from fulfilling his daily quota of beatings. It's as if he enjoyed it, he fed off it. It's as if our suffering and pain fed him so that he could keep living. But of course, you already know all this. Therefore, I'll tell you what's happened since you've left."

"The cursing, the beating and the torture weren't the worst of it. Not until he decided to… assault me in other ways." She said as she closed her legs and tears started to form in her eyes, her voice breaking as she spoke.

"He soon lost interest in everyone else and solely targeted me. However, knowing that my sacrifice meant the safety of the others, I kept quiet and soldiered through the torment. I was afraid that if I rejected he would take it out on me and everybody else, even…forcing the other girls. I…I had no choice. I didn't know what to do." She said, finally releasing the tears and emotions that had been swelling up.

Wukong looked at her with a straight face as he waited for her to finish her sobbing. After what seemed to be an eternity of crying, Lia finally paused her overflow of emotions as she stared at Wukong.

Wukong stared back as he stood up and placed his hand on her head.

"You're a strong person, Lia. A normal person wouldn't be able to endure what you have. That is why I say that you're even strong enough to move past this. You're strong enough to not let this anchor you throughout your whole life. You've done well up till now. Now it's my turn." He said as walked to the exit.

"Don't let the past haunt you. You have many things to be thankful for, focus on that. Your suffering ends here. I'll never allow anything like that to happen to any of you again." Said Wukong as he finally walked out of the living room, quickly making his way to the outside.

He was met with Lorna shouting into the sky like a crazy person.

"Nimbus, where are you?!" 

"This is boring. You aren't like Illian. Your magic sucks." Said the 10-year-old boy as he stared at her.

"What did you say?!" She said as she rolled up her sleeves, veins bulging on her forehead.

"Nimbus!" yelled Wukong as he stared into the sky. Soon after, a familiar white cloud zoomed from the horizon and stopped in front of him.

The kids looked at the cloud in awe as Wukong mounted it and soared away from them, disappearing into the sky.

Everyone was silent as they watched the supernatural occurrence. 

"Told you your magic sucked."

***

Wukong sat on his cloud as they travelled at great speeds. After a while, they had made it to a body of water that stretched on as far as the eye could see.

As they lowered to the ocean, they were met with a man whose body had turned red due to sunburn, floating on his back as he breathed slowly.

"Mr Devon. You're alive. Surprising. As weird as this may sound, I'm happy you're alive." Said Wukong as he and his cloud approached the man.

"Wait, please just wait. I'll do anything, just please…" Before he could finish, the Nimbus swallowed him as the man screamed.

"Alright, let's go."

They continued to travel for what he assumed to be half an hour before they reached a small island.

Mr Devon was let out as he scoured his surroundings, completely forgetting the fatigue he was feeling. He was met with earth that protruded from the ground, piercing the air as it surrounded them. Looking behind him, he witnessed a vast hole that held what seemed to be lava inside of it.

"As you can probably tell, we're on a volcano." 

"Please wait, just listen to me…" Before the old man could finish his words, his mouth was wrapped by the Cloud as it restricted his movement.

"That's better. As I was saying, we're on an active volcano. It's funny, being here reminds me of a certain individual. The Bull Demon King. A powerful demon who resided in a fiery mountain and commanded a vast army of demon soldiers." Said Wukong as the old man looked at him with a face of confusion.

"This demon was a tough bugger. Gave me a fierce battle myself, although, of course, I won. You see the reason why it was a fierce battle was his ability. He could control lava. He understood it to a profound level that it even shaped the way he thought of everything." As he carried on, the cloud started to slowly lower Mr Devon inside the volcano.

"You see, he used to say that lava was a powerful thing. Something that if used right could allow you to become a fierce being, a force to be reckoned with. Power. That's what it'd give you. However, the second you get greedy, the second you start to become uncontrollable, that's when the lava becomes your enemy. That's when you get burned." The cloud inched closer to the lava as Mr Devon tried his best to wriggle and resist.

"You, Mr Devon, you got too greedy. Therefore… you're gonna get burned." After saying this, the old man's hand was forced into the lava as he had little to no strength to try and resist.

His hand sizzled and melted as his muffled screams would make a chill run down a person's spine. However, it was quite the opposite for Wukong. He watched with a face of indifference as he made sure to savour every second of this moment. 

Mr Devon's eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness due to the pain.

"Oh wow. See, I wanna let you rest, but my better judgement is telling me 'no'. Well, let's get you up and start again. No rest for the wicked, eh?"

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Author's Note: Hello if you are enjoying the novel so far I would appreciate the powerstones. They really help. Alright, thank you all, Bye.