1 Monkey King

"Monka... EDI!" The teacher screamed as he pulled out Monke's paper from the others.

Monke, who had just got to class and sat down stood up again with a tired expression on his muddy face. He was sweating and breathing heavily, his shirt untucked and his tie loose bellow his collar bone.

He walked forward with a limp, he seemed like he was no longer able to keep his broad shoulders up. Someone gave him a push from behind but he didn't bother to check who did it, along his way no one else dared to touch him or even make eye contact. The other students forced their eyes forward.

Once at the front he extended his arms to receive his paper from the middle aged looking teacher who sat behind a gigantic desk. The desk was decorated with the country's coat of arms and on top of it were a lot of other test papers for students who couldn't come and fetch theirs.

"You look like trash, did you have a competition yesterday?" Mr Peterson lowered his glasses and his deep voice shook the ground.

"No sir, I ran into some problems this morning." Monke said, his voice wasn't as deep but was still formidable.

"You better not bring any more thugs to school this time around."

Monke chuckled and grabbed his paper.

"5%. You continue to disappoint me, why didn't you just sit this one out instead of making us mark your zeroes."

"But I arrived late at..."

"It's always excuses with you." The teacher turned from Monke and faced the class. "I keep saying this and I am going to say it again. Time waits for no man."

Monke had already started walking away as Mr Peterson started his regular motivational speech. And as always not many people were excited to hear it, some continued their morning nap, others went through their test papers while most just talked amongst themselves.

At the back of the class, near the window opposite Monke's seat right in front over a giant blue and cream white poster were some boys chattering and laughing. As Monke got closer to his chair they grew louder.

"Who fucked you up today." the first one to speak sat directly in front of Monke, his hair was short and styled into thin tiny braids in the middle and a myth to the sides of his head. It was dyed red but eyebrows showed its true color, the usual black. He had a face for the movie screens with a smile that could blind and finally a nose ring. His name was Joao, it also worked as a nickname.

"If you used that magic you're always talking about you would've passed." Next to Joao was Tshepo better known as Po laughed at Monke, he had lazy brown eyes that somehow attracted more attention than the predator smile he always wore proudly. He had a dark black afro and a comb sticking out at the top, his ear also made their presence felt as they made the boy appear to be an elf.

Monke cringed at his mates and opened up his test paper. "At least I got everything I answered correct." He whispered to himself.

"YOU ANSWERED ONE QUESTION!" The teacher screamed.

Monke jumped slightly and glanced back at Mr Peterson before throwing himself down on his chair. "What is he, a dog?" Monke folded his arms on the desk and laid his head to rest.

Po and Joao however kept on talking and laughing at a comic book they had with them. Mr Peterson continued to write on the board the answers to paper despite the chaos growing in his classroom.

Monke decided to calm his breathing, he inhaled and exhaled with a rhythm. Slowly the voices in the class started getting fuzzy until they all but disappeared. Some sound remained though, the sound of the chalk, the rapid breathing of the excited students.

This was something Monke picked up a few days ago in a brawl. It allowed to drown out loud noises in exchange for the ones that are nearly inaudible but still within the hearing range of the human ear.

Doing this excited Monke, the opposite of what the skill is intended for.

He closed his eyes and the a new world was painted for him in black, white, blue and red. The red being the heat produced by the people in class and the other colors showed the densities of various material in the class.

Slowly this scene started to gain color and Monke himself appeared in it, weird. The locations changed, Monke found himself now walking on the streets, his uniform still intact. He started to continue on his down the street, there were a few cars but a lot of people passing by. Most of the cars were vans either carrying something for sale or someone to drown. Everything his body did was out of his control.

After walking for a short while he saw a few elementary scholars heading into a construction site. Monke never bothered with other people except those close to him but these were children and his mother had taught him to protect them since they were innocent. That is when Monke recognised this as a memory from this morning.

The reason why he was beat up was because he rescued those kids from the collapsing building.

The world rumbled and sound returned returned to it. Monke opened his eyes pissed because he was unable to piece together today's events. Paper flew into his eyes and two voices rose in discord scrambling his mind.

"SHUT IT!" He screamed.

Joao who was holding a comic book to Monke's face removed it and flicked him with it because he was startled. "Bastard, you dare pick that tone with your grandfather."

"Boy, nobody wants to be your grandson." Po laughed.

Joao punched Po and he fell on his lap still laughing. Po's laugh was terribly annoying so Joao tried to silence him with pain.

Monke's crankiness dissolved at the scene so he quickly snatched the comic away from Joao's hand.

"So why did you wake me up? It better be good."

"Oh yeah, I've never seen you mope after a fight. What's going on." Joao said.

"Some kids walked into an unstable building and I got injured rescuing them."

Po raised his head and along with Joao they gave Monke empty looks, they cringed for a few seconds before laughing. "Wow, we have a superhero here."

Monke folded the comic in his hands and smacked the boys with it. "This is why I didn't want to tell you." He said in harmony to his hits.

"Whoa, hold on calm down." Po said while struggling to get words out of his mouth instead of chuckles.

Monke fell back in his seat and crossed his arms again.

The boys cleared their throats and Joao put on a serious mask while Po's grin remained.

"So you, are telling us." Joao pointed and used hand gestures with a now solemn voice. "That you, Monkey King, risked your life, for some kids you just met."

Monke nodded.

"I don't know, sounds like bull to me. You had your butt handed to you didn't you?" Said Po.

Monke put the comic under the desk and stood up to walk away.

"Oh come on. We were just kidding."

"Don't act like a baby now."

"Monkey!"

"Monkey!" Po and Joao screamed but Monke limped forward until he exited the classroom.

Mr Peterson adjusted his glasses and turned back to his class. "You will be rewriting a test with the same topics covered on this one. None of you will be allowed to participate in their sporting thingies if they fail. That would be all." He took his stuff and left, the class fell quiet and the students started looking each other on the faces.

"So how many people do you think will be forced to drop out this time?" Joao asked.

"The real question is, which nerd is going to give me their answer sheets." Po said as he stood from his chair. He was skinny but tall, his cheekbones were well defined which added to his intimidating smile.

Most of the people in class turned to look at him as soon as he finished talking. No one said anything and for a second a cricket could be heard in the distance.

Po looked around the classroom before picking up his paper. "Chill, it was just a joke." He raised it and laughed. "I got a 60! I am that..."

Joao pushed him from behind. "Come on, we need to find Monkey some clothes to change into."