Dragonhand is the best villain I have ever written. You 3.5 readers have to check Chapter 7 out.
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Zom Fu – Chapter 7
The flames danced and flickered as they consumed the Temple of the Clan of the Mystifying Monkey Slap. The structure creaked and crumbled until it collapsed into a pile of burning rubble.
Dragonhand’s eyes were blank white, completely devoid of any color, but that did not stop him from enjoying the sight.
“Another clan withers under my boot heel,” the fiend said in a raspy voice.
The monstrous warrior’s face was gray and decaying, covered with scars that would never heal and rotten flesh. In contrast to his drab visage, his robes were blood red and adorned with a golden dragon on the back.
“Master,” cried the creepy voice of Lickspittle, Dragonhand’s dutiful toady.
Dragonhand had been referring to his lackey as Lickspittle for so long that he no longer recalled what his stooge’s real name actually was. As an obedient worm, Lickspittle wasn’t about to quibble.
“Why do you disturb my joy?” Dragonhand asked.
Bits of flesh dropped off of Lickspittle’s puss oozing face as he dropped to his knees and presented his master with a gooey, sticky, veiny, blood soaked brain.
“An offering,” Lickspittle said.
“Ahh,” Dragonhand said as he snatched up the brain and sniffed it. “Interesting vintage.”
As the vile zombified master admired the brain he’d been given, chaos ensued all around him. His battle hardened zombies sparred with members of the Clan of the Mystifying Monkey Slap. While the human kung fu warriors fought bravely, they fell one by one to the Clan of the Terrifyingly Unnatural Brain Bite.
Dragonhand chomped his teeth into the brain, ripped out a large hunk, chewed on it and swallowed. Lickspittle watched intently as his master appeared to be lost in deep thought, pondering the substance of what he was tasting.
“Have I pleased you, master?” Lickspittle asked.
The fiend tossed the chomped brain at his lackey’s face, where it landed with a splat.
“No,” Dragonhand said. “That belonged to a rank amateur. It taught me nothing I didn’t already know.”
“A thousand pardons, oh fabulous one!” Lickspittle said as he shuffled away.
“Dragonhand!”
The fiend grinned as the clan’s leader, the Vengeful Master, stepped forward on the field of battle.
“Dragonhand!” the Vengeful Master shouted. “You will face me!”
The undead warrior approached his challenger. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Dragonhand swatted the Vengeful Master’s disciples away as if they were flies. One human warrior came at the fiend with a flying kick, but was tossed aside easily. Another warrior punched Dragonhand, who responded by gripping the warrior’s head, twisting it until the neck broke, then allowing the warrior’s body to fall to the ground like so much garbage.
Arrows and throwing knives pierced Dragonhand’s flesh. He barely noticed.
Before long, the two masters met face to face. The Vengeful Master’s mustache was long and cascaded down both sides of his upper lip. He was about forty years old, skinny yet muscular.
“You have disgraced the art of kung fu with your actions,” the Vengeful Master said.
Dragonhand laughed. “Ha. Your kung fu is no match for my zom fu.”
The Vengeful Master held the palms of his hands out flat and waved them to and fro. “You will now learn the power of the mystifying monkey slap!”
Dragonhand raised his fists. “I’m counting on it.”
The Vengeful Master wailed on Dragonhand’s disgusting body, delivering ten rapid fire slaps to his opponent’s stomach, another ten to his chest, and then one giant slap to the spot where Dragonhand’s spent, useless heart sat motionless.
The fiend smiled. The Vengeful Master’s eyes widened with surprise. “I…do not understand.”
“I defy comprehension,” Dragonhand said.
“You’re supposed to explode!” the Vengeful Master said. “Everyone who faces the fury of the mystifying monkey slap explodes!”
“Perhaps you mean, every ‘human?’” Dragonhand asked.
The Vengeful Master kicked and punched at his opponent but it was no use. It was like attacking a wall.
“Oh, Vengeful Master,” Dragonhand said. “Is that really the best you’ve got?”
Dragonhand stretched out both arms to reveal a long wingspan.
“Because I’ve got the Devastating Crane Strike!” Dragonhand said as he brought both hands down quickly, crushing the Vengeful Master’s throat.
The Vengeful Master stumbled back and grabbed his neck, gasping for air. “But…that…can only be…taught by…”
“The Resplendent Master?” Dragonhand asked. “He begged for his life, as you are about to.”
“Never,” the Vengeful Master said as he threw a punch only to have it answered by a kick that launched him three feet back in the air before he landed on his backside.
“Oh I think you will,” Dragonhand said as he walked towards his opponent. “The Triumphant Master did just before I learned the magnificent mule kick.”
The Vengeful Master was bruised and bloody. His bones were broken but he struggled to his feet. “This isn’t possible.”
Dragonhand jumped into the air and knocked the Vengeful Master to the ground with one punch.
“Funny,” the fiend said. “The Steadfast Master said the same thing, but that did not stop me from mastering the…
The Vengeful Master’s teeth were gone. Blood poured out of his mouth. He attempted to stand, but fell back to the ground as he was too weak.
“The…furious…fox paw,” the Vengeful Master stammered.
“Yes,” Dragonhand said as he wrapped his left hand around the Vengeful Master’s neck and hoisted him into the air.
“I could show you all my tricks,” Dragonhand said. “But I much prefer this one…
Dragonhand formed the fingers of his right hand into a tiger’s claw and proceeded to twist and turn them through the air.
The Vengeful Master choked and wheezed. “You could not…have defeated…the Infallible Master! The Staff of Ages….would not…allow it!”
“Defeat the Infallible Master?” Dragonhand asked.
“Nooo!” the Vengeful Master shouted as Dragonhand’s tiger claw crashed through his skull.
Dragonhand felt the Vengeful Master’s slippery brain in his hand. He twisted it, turned it, then yanked it out of his opponent’s body with the spinal cord still attached.
“The Infallible Master taught me my most useful move in happier times,” Dragonhand said as he raised the Vengeful Master’s brain up to the moonlight. “What a delicious prize.”
The fiend released the Vengeful Master, allowing the fallen leader’s body to drop to the ground. Dragonhand took great delight in looking down at the giant hole where his opponent’s face used to be.
Dragonhand dispensed with the sniffing and went straight to the chomping. He took a bite and rolled the piece of brain along his tongue as he savored it.
“Mmm,” the fiend said as he closed his eyes and threw back his head. “Yes.”
He took another bite…and another…more and more until his face was covered with blood and the brain was gone.
Lickspittle hobbled over on his gamey leg. “How do you feel, master?”
Dragonhand threw out his arms. “Never better.”
At that moment, three human warriors broke through the zombie ranks and charged at Dragonhand.
The fiend tiger clawed the brains out of the skulls of two of the warriors. They collapsed and the vile dragon was left with a brain in each hand. He spiked them on the ground then sized up the third warrior.
“Run away little man,” Dragonhand said.
“No,” the warrior said. “I shall avenge the Vengeful Master.”
“Well,” Dragonhand said as he held the palms of his hands out flat and waved them to and fro. “If he couldn’t avenge himself, what makes you think you can?”
The warrior took ten slaps to the stomach and another ten to his chest.
“What?” the surprised warrior asked. “But how?”
“The monkey slap mystifies me no longer,” Dragonhand said as he delivered the final crushing slap to the warrior’s heart.
The warrior coughed. His eyes bulged. His face and body bloated up and up and up until…kaboom!
Blood, guts, gore and assorted body parts rained down upon Dragonhand and Lickspittle.
“Your messiest move yet, master,” Lickspittle said as he plucked the deceased human’s ear off of his robe, popped it into his mouth and swallowed.
“Indeed,” Dragonhand said. “But where is my sorceress?”
On cue, the burning rubble of the temple exploded, sending pieces of wood and stone everywhere. The flaming form of a shapely female walked out onto the battlefield.
The last five living members of the monkey slap clan ran towards her. They punched. They kicked. The burning woman’s flames grew taller and brighter until she erupted into an inferno, incinerating her attackers and turning them to ash.
As she approached Dragonhand, the female’s fire dissipated and a voluptuous vixen wearing the red robes of the brain bite clan came into view.
“You called, master?” the woman asked.
SNL – Glengarry Glen Christmas
“Nice guy? I don’t care. You’re a good father? Elf you! Go home and play with your kids!”
A Saturday Night Live Christmas Classic:
Zom Fu – Chapter 6
Bohai released Mei-Ling. All four fighters fell into a line and bowed before the master.
“Bohai,” the master said. “You would dare use the Sacred Yet Inscrutable Tiger Claw so recklessly against a member of your own clan?”
“What of it?” Bohai asked. “No rules were specified for this test.”
“Do not play dumb,” the master said. “Our signature move is inscrutable, for it takes years of practice to master. It is sacred because it must only be used as a last resort.”
“There was no other option,” Bohai said.
“Indeed, there was,” the master said. “You could have continued the fight without using our most severe move, or better yet, you could have recognized Mei-Ling’s skill and yielded.”
Bohai blew a raspberry in the master’s general direction. “Pbbht. Yielding power will never be an option for me…especially to a woman.”
The master sighed. “Then I fear I have failed you, my son, for surely you must realize that no one, not even the worst enemy imaginable, deserves to see one of his internal organs ripped out by the mighty tiger claw and displayed before him as the last sight he sees before he dies. If you abuse the tiger claw, you will surely be judged harshly by the Yama Kings when your time to cross over to Diyu comes.”
Bohai rolled his eyes. “Spare me the fairy tales, old man. Give me my staff.”
“You have yet to be chosen,” the master said as he rested the ruby end of the Staff of Ages on the cocky fighter’s shoulder. The ruby stayed dim. “And thank goodness, you will not be.”
“What?” Bohai asked.
“You have much to learn, my son,” the master said before moving on to Niu.
“Perhaps the fates will find the third time to be the charm,” Niu said.
The master smiled as he pressed the ruby against the big man’s shoulder. It remained dark.
“Perhaps not,” Niu said.
“My son,” the master said as he looked up at Niu’s face. “Your devotion to fatalist dogma has clearly given you a sense of peace and tranquility that I wish would exist in all of my disciples. However, a master must make his own fate in the world.”
“I understand, master,” Niu said. “But I believe I am destined to not agree.”
The master patted Niu’s shoulder. “Chin up, for there is another role I will soon discuss with you, one you are better suited for.”
Mei-Ling stood quietly as the master pressed the ruby against her shoulder. No change.
“My daughter,” the master said. “You fought bravely and boldly. You saw an opportunity and you took it. Most importantly, you used your mind as well as your fists.”
The master peered at the dark ruby. “Unfortunately, a master cannot command a clan effectively if she refuses to use her voice.”
Mei-Ling nodded.
Junjie stood at attention as the master pressed the ruby against his shoulder. It lit up brightly, filling the room with red light.
“Master?” an astonished Junjie asked.
“Behold,” the master said. “The Twentieth Infallible Master of the Clan of the Sacred Yet Inscrutable Tiger Claw.”
Without hesitation, Niu and Mei-Ling dropped to their knees and kowtowed to their next leader.
“What?” Junjie asked. “Master, no…”
“Yes,” the master replied.
“But I don’t want this,” Junjie said.
“Which is why you must accept it,” the master said.
A tiny, nearly shredded sliver of respect for the master was all that kept Bohai from turning into a ball of fury and lashing out with his fists at everyone in the room.
“That…staff…is…mine,” Bohai said through gritted teeth.
“The staff disagrees,” the master said. “Who am I to tell the Staff of Ages that it has made the wrong decision?”
“Do you take me for a fool?” Bohai asked.
“You saw the ruby glow when it touched your brother,” the master said.
“A cheap parlor trick,” Bohai said. “You’ve rigged it. There’s a button or something somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“A thousand years ago I was a hundred years old when the Eighteenth Infallible Master called upon me to fight with the three greatest disciples of the clan at the time,” the master said. “At the conclusion of the bout, the ruby glowed for me, as it did for the previous masters and as it does for Junjie now.”
Bohai spat at Junjie’s feet. “I will never kowtow to you.”
“I don’t want you to, brother,” Junjie said.
“I cornered Mei-Ling,” Bohai said to the master. “I was within seconds of defeating her when you interfered, old man. I won that staff.”
“The purpose of the fight was not to win or lose,” the master said. “It was to show the staff who you are…”
The master took the staff away from Junjie and pointed at Bohai. The ruby went dark.
“…and the staff did not like what it saw in you.”
Bohai turned his back on the master and started to walk away.
“Bohai!” the master shouted.
The young fighter stopped.
“There is no need for you to leave,” the master said. “We all make mistakes. Be ashamed of your behavior today. Begin to learn from it tomorrow.”
“I will not be a member of a clan that refuses to recognize that I am its rightful leader,” Bohai said.
“It pains me to say this, but I fear you are walking down the same dark path a former student of mine took long ago,” the master said. “His name was Longwei, and like you, he was a gifted fighter, but he was ruled by petty feelings of jealousy and anger, as well as an unquenchable thirst for power”
Bohai turned around to face the master.
“Do you know what happened to him?” the master asked.
“I don’t know,” Bohai replied. “Did he quit when he couldn’t stand to listen to an old man’s bullshit any longer?”
“No,” the master said. “He renounced our clan, took the name Dragonhand, formed his own clan and has been on a bloody rampage throughout the countryside for the past twenty years.”
Bohai shook his head. “Another fairy tale.”
The master put his hand on his student’s shoulder. “A true tale.”
Bohai shook the master’s hand off. “I am a man. ‘Be a good boy or you’ll end up like Dragonhand’ may have worked on me when I was a child, but you’ll have to do better than boogeyman stories now.”
The master sighed. “If you wish to go, I will not stop you.”
“I will leave in the morning,” Bohai said as he walked away. “And not a second too soon.”
As soon as Bohai left, the master’s remaining students rallied around him.
“Should I talk to him, master?” Junjie asked.
“I fear that will only make things worse,” the master said.
“Do not worry, master,” Niu said. “If Bohai is meant to stay, then he will stay.”
The master exhaled loudly. “Niu, that is the first thing you have ever said to me that makes any sense.”
Zom Fu – Chapter 5
Mei-Ling swung across the open expanse of the tower. Her trajectory took her lower and lower until she crashed through the bannister of the tenth floor. The silent warrior bunched up two ends of her robe and tied them tightly around the staff. She then backed up to the open edge of the floor, hopped backwards, fell and caught the bannister of the ninth floor with her hands.
Clear on the other side of the tower, Bohai and Junjie did the same. All three fighters fell and caught, fell and caught until they rejoined Niu and the master on the bottom floor.
Junjie, Bohai and Mei-Ling fanned out into a circle. They traded glances. They paced about. Mdi-Ling untied the staff and held it out in front of her as if it were a bo.
“Ha,” Bohai said. “Do you honestly think that the Clan of the Sacred Yet Inscrutable Tiger Claw will take orders from a woman?”
Mei-Ling furrowed her brow at Bohai.
“Brother,” Junjie said. “Our sister has made it to the ground with the staff. The test is over.”
Bohai’s nostrils flared. “This is over when I say it is over!”
“This is over when the master says it is over,” Junjie said as he looked to the old man. “Master?”
The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Meh. I could watch for a little longer.”
Two razor sharp swords hung on the wall. Boohoo removed both weapons and tossed one to Junjie, who caught it by the handle.
“I will fight no further,” Junjie said as he dropped to his knees. “Bohai, join Niu and I in yielding to the Twentieth Infallible Master.”
Niu perked up. “Oh, I have not yielded yet brother. I am still in this fight.”
“Idiots the both of you,” Bohai said. “Especially you, Junjie. What? You think if you just hand Mei-Ling this power she might give you a little kiss?”
Embarrassed, Junjie cast his eyes toward the floor. “I have given her nothing.”
Bohai turned his attention to Mei-Ling. “If you’re still alive after this, I’ll let you be my chamber maid.”
Many fighters would have felt the sting of Bohai’s insult, but Mei-Ling ignored it. She raised the Staff of Ages up just in time to absorb Bohai’s attack.
Clang, clang, clang! Bohai and Mei-Ling clashed in a series of spectacular blocks and thrusts, some of which caused sparks to fly as metal struck jade.
“Oof,” Bohai said as he took the ruby end of the staff to his stomach. Bohai fought through the pain and launched a kick at Mei-Ling. It connected and sent the silent warrior flying backward.
Amidst the confusion, the staff fell out of Mei-Ling’s hands, skittered across the floor and bumped into Niu’s leg.
The big man opened his eyes and looked down and reached for the treasure. “The fates giveth…”
Junjie stepped on the staff, preventing Niu from picking it up.
“…and the fates taketh away,” Niu said as he closed his eyes and returned to his mediation.
When the handsome hero picked up the staff, the ruby glowed brightly, almost blindingly. Junjie tried to look away but he couldn’t. He was mesmerized.
The grunts and smacks of the fight between Bohai and Mei-Ling snapped Junjie out of the trance. Bohai assaulted Mei-Ling with sword swing after sword swing, but Mei-Ling ducked and dodged the blade with perfection.
Junjie tossed the staff to Mei-Ling. As soon as she caught it, the ruby’s light went dark.
Bohai looked at Junjie. “Pathetic!”
Slam! Mei-Ling bashed the ruby end of the staff up against Bohai’s head. Enraged, the smarmy warrior hurled himself into the air, performed an airborne somersault, then connected his feet to Mei-Ling’s torso, sending her to the ground.
The crushing blow caused Mei-Ling to drop the staff. Miraculously, it landed right in front of Niu again.
The big man smiled and reached for the staff. “The fates favor me once more.”
Alas, the master was too quick for Niu in reclaiming the coveted object.
“Make up your mind, fates,” Niu muttered.
“Mei-Ling!” Junjie cried.
“You cannot interfere now that you have submitted, my son,” the master said calmly.
Bohai had Mei-Ling pinned. As he straddled her, he held out his hand as if it were a tiger’s claw, twisting it to and fro as if he were turning the lid of an imaginary jar. If Mei-Ling was afraid, she didn’t show it as she remained stoic as Bohai’s claw hand came closer and closer.
The master banged the end of the staff on the floor. “Enough!”
Home Alone Wouldn’t Hold Up Today Because of Harry and Marv
Hey 3.5 readers.
Me again with another Home Alone observation.
So, when this movie came out in 1990, the general consensus among the public was that if you were in someone else’s home and you weren’t supposed to be there, then you deserved to get bashed in the face with a paint can, get a nail through your foot, get your head burnt with a blow torch, get a tarantula dropped on you, get shot in the penis with a BB gun, break your back by slipping and falling on ice and toy cars, have your hand burned and so on.
I should know because I was a kid who saw this film in the theater and let me tell you – white, black, young, old, rich, poor, conservative, liberal, or what have you, every one was laughing at those two and the general consensus was those two got what was coming to them and good for Kevin for giving it to them.
Sigh. I feel bad there is so much division today when in 1990, we all were able to come together and agree that burglers deserve to be tortured mercilessly and caused multiple life threatening injuries by precocious children.
Today? Eh, people feel sorry for criminals today. If Hollywood ever remakes the movie, they might either scrap the abuse received by Harry and Mary altogether, or at the very least, they’d devote a portion of the film to explaining how “the Wet Bandits” turned to a life of crime.
You see, in the 1990 film, Harry and Marv were one-dimensional caricatures of criminals, a pair of incompetent bumbling buffoons who found great joy in ripping people off all day.
In a remake, you’d probably learn that Harry and Marv used to be pillars of the community, but alas they lost their jobs, couldn’t find work and ended up burgling houses in order to save up enough money to buy second-hand suits to wear to job interviews.
Kevin would feel bad for misjudging the poor souls. He’d give them a meal and some of his Dad’s old suits and hide them from the cops and let them live in his basement until they find jobs and become pillars of the community again.
Either that, or Kevin would be sued by greedy trial lawyers for all the damage he did to Harry and Marv.
“Your honor, my clients were just a couple of poor men who fell on hard times and while they are truly sorry for burgling the McAllister home, did they really deserve the brain damage they were caused by taking those paint cans to the face? I think not.”
Hey, if it is any consolation, this movie started a Joe Pesci-renaissance. This movie was the first time I ever saw Pesci in anything. He’d been in a lot of films before but then after Home Alone he pretty much got a part in like every 1990s gangster movie, so there’s some trivia for you.
What say you, 3.5?
Zom Fu – Chapter 4
Mei-Ling took a deep breath, stretched out her arms and delicately balanced her feet on the rope. Slowly, she put one foot in front of the other. As she walked, she swayed a bit to the left and a bit to the right, but was always able to correct herself each time.
Meanwhile, Bohai had ended the standoff with Junjie with a bo staff smack to Junjie’s jaw and was springing from bannister to bannister up the tower once more. Junjie remained in hot pursuit all the way to the eighteenth floor.
The Staff of Ages was within Mei-Ling’s grasp now. Her movements became a precarious dance. She kept her left arm straight out as she grabbed hold of the staff. A feeling of pride overwhelmed her, but there was no time to celebrate. Her ears filled with the sounds of fellow students at battle, prompting her to press forward.
“Bahh!” Bohai shouted as he kicked at the bannister. Junjie threw himself in front of the wooden railing and caught his opponent’s foot.
“Step aside,” Bohai said.
“Never,” Junjie replied.
The handsome hero delivered a roundhouse kick that knocked Bohai to the floor. Seeing his opponent on the ground, Junjie did not hesitate to pin Bohai down and deliver a deluge of rapid fire punches to Bohai’s face in rapid secession.
Bohai rolled out of the attack and jumped up to his feet. Both men traded punches.
“Damn you!” Bohai shouted. “Your loins have ruined your brain!”
“Your lust for power has ruined yours,” Junjie replied.
“Get out of my way,” Bohai said.
“Think of what you are doing,” Junjie said.
“I will stop at nothing to get what is mine!” Bohai shouted as he pounded Junjie’s face.
“You’d even kill one of us?” Junjie asked.
Bohai’s eyes lit up as if they were on fire. “I would kill all of you and step over your graves to rule this clan!”
With that, Bohai performed a backflip kick that grounded Junjie.
Out on the tightrope, Mei-Ling was holding the staff straight across in both hands, using it to keep her balance. Her concentration was broken when Junjie screamed.
“Mei-Ling!”
The acrobat didn’t turn around. Her situation was much too precarious for that. Instead, she gripped the staff with her left hand, then leaned down and grabbed the rope with her right.
Crack! Bohai kicked the the bannister into splinters and Mei-Ling plummeted rapidly.
RIP Zsa Zsa Gabor
Hey 3.5 readers.
Sad news as Zsa Zsa Gabor has passed on at 99. Perhaps you’ve seen her a rerun of Green Acres, but as a Professor of Pop Culture, allow me to explain her appeal.
She was pretty much the first person to be famous for the sake of being famous. The first “celebutante.” Without Zsa Zsa, you wouldn’t have Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and so on.
Feel free to argue about whether or not that’s a good thing, but at least Zsa Zsa carried a sitcom. What have Paris and Kim done for us lately?
Zom Fu – Chapter 3
“Perhaps we should discuss this first,” was the last thing Junjie managed to say before his mouth was shut by Bohai’s foot.
Junjie brushed the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, nodded at his opponent and asked, “So that’s how it is, is it?”
“It is,” Bohai replied as he cracked his knuckles.
“So be it,”Junjie said.
The two men paced to and fro like a pair of hungry jackals until Junjie threw a punch. Bohai caught it with his left hand then attacked Junjie with his right. They became locked in an attack and deflect pattern for several minutes until Junjie finally landed his fist on Bohai’s face.
“You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that, brother,” Junjie said.
“Ahh,” Bohai said as he spit blood out of his mouth. “You have no idea how long I have wanted to do…this!”
Bohai lunged for Junjie’s arm, gripped it, and flipped Junjie into the air before slamming him to the floor.
A grounded and dizzy Junjie looked to his right to find Niu sitting perfectly still on the floor, meditating with his eyes closed.
“You’re not interested in becoming the Twentieth Infallible Master?” Junjie asked Niu.
“Oh I am,” Niu answered. “But if I am meant to have the staff…”
“…then you will have the staff,” Junjie said as he leapt to his feet and quickly dodged Bohai’s foot.
“You are daft as you are humongous, Niu!” Bohai shouted.
“Perhaps I am the last one you should be worried about,” Niu said as he pointed a finger toward the ceiling.
Bohai and Junjie looked up to find that Mei-Ling was already five floors above them and easily jumping up to the sixth.
The master laughed. “Hmm. Perhaps the first female Infallible Master’s time has come.”
Bohai performed a running jump to the second floor’s wooden bannister, grabbed it, stood upon it precariously, then jumped up to the third floor bannister. Junjie followed, nipping at Bohai’s heels.
The chase was on. Junjie remained just below Bohai until the tenth floor when Bohai decided to improvise and stomp his foot down on Junjie’s head. Knocked off balance, Junjie let go of the bannister and began to fall until he grabbed Bohai’s leg and yanked him down with him.
The duo fell through the air for a few levels until they rolled to the right and crashed through the fifth floor bannister.
Back on the ground, the master was lecturing his most gigantic student.
“I am disappointed that you are not in this, Niu,” the master said.
“I am in it,” Niu said with his eyes still closed. “If I am destined to lead then I will.”
“Sometimes I think my foot is destined for your ass,” the master said.
“If your foot is meant for my…”
“Silence!” the master shouted. The old man looked up to see Mei-Ling moving higher and higher.
“Children!” the master shouted. “Have you found the toys I have placed around the tower? Play nice with them!”
On the fifth floor, Junjie and Bohai spotted a couple of the toys in question hanging on the wall. Junjie seized a pair of nunchucks while Bohai claimed a wooden bo staff.
“Stand down before I destroy you, Junjie,” Bohai said.
“You are not worthy of the Staff of Ages,” Junjie replied. “Your disrespect of the master has proven that.”
“It is mine by right,” Bohai said. “I am the best!”
Junjie gripped one end of the nunchaku and used it to twirl the other end by the metal chain. “Prove it.”
The pair had a stair down for a while. Finally, Bohai brought his bo staff through the air in a sweeping motion. Junjie cracked his nunchaku against the staff, deflecting the attack just in time.
Attack and deflect. Attack and deflect. Eventually, Bohai managed to get a jab in against Junjie’s chest. Not to be outdone, Junjie answered the hit with a nunchaku smack against the side of Bohai’s face.
Down below, the master and Niu listened to the commotion.
“I have done nothing but show you kindness since we were children and you have done nothing but mock me for it!” Junjie cried.
“How can I make you better if I don’t point out every one of your many, many flaws?!” Bohai asked.
“Hmm,” the master grunted. “Those two have some issues to work out.”
“If they are meant to work them out then…”
The master interrupted Niu. “No one likes a fatalist know-it-all, my son.”
“Perhaps they aren’t intended to, master,” Niu said.
“Ugh,” the master said as he slapped his forehead.
Up above, Mei-Ling was now on the eighteenth and final floor. There she found a bow, an arrow, and a coil of rope. She tied one end of the rope to the bannister and the other end to the arrow.
The tower was circular in shape, little more than an extra large cylinder. Mei-Ling could see the Staff of Ages hovering just underneath the skylight, but it was much to far too reach with her hands. So, expert markswoman that she was, she took aim at a wooden support beam on the other side of the eighteenth floor, fired, and scored a direct hit.
In doing so, she created a taut tightrope. Now she just had to walk it.
However, as she leaned over the bannister and looked down to see how tiny Niu and the master looked from this height, she realized that the feat she was about to try was easier said than done.
Zom Fu – Chapter 2
The Infallible Master released the staff, but it did not fall. Instead, it floated slowly – up, up, up towards the top of the tower. The quartet watched as the coveted symbol of power hovered past the stone figure of Longwei, the clan’s founder and first master. Longwei’s humble nature, as evidenced by his wide grin and thoughtful eyes, had served as a source of inspiration for countless generations of disciples.
The staff continued its ascent, passing a different stone preserved master along the way. The seventh master, the eighth master, the ninth master. Good men but all three presided over the clan during times of peace. Peace makes for happiness but provides little in the way of interesting stories.
Aiguo, the Tenth Infallible Master, was a particularly angry and foul mouthed leader. His scornful, contemptuous visage masked a deep love of his country and emperor. He wasn’t remembered for being very kind, but was revered for the role he played in aiding the Emperor with the resolution a bloody civil conflict.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen…the staff finally rested near Cheng, the Eighteenth Infallible Master and Yaozu’s immediate predecessor. Due to his buck teeth and crossed-eyes, Cheng was also considered the ugliest of the Infallible Masters Past, but he was still very much beloved all the same.
“Life and death,” Yaozu said. “These are the diametrically opposed forces that the Staff of Ages bends to its will. Just as it extended the life of so many masters, so too did it extend my existence well beyond my natural lifespan, thus allowing me to share my wisdom with the clan for many centuries.”
The Infallible Master basked in the sunlight peaking in through the window in the ceiling. “When I expire, a new level will constructed. The next master will use the staff to preserve my remains in stone so that I will be able to join our ancestral leaders in watching over the clan.”
“A well-deserved honor, master,” Junjie said.
The master shrugged his shoulders. “Meh. It’s kind of creepy if you ask me. Personally, I’d rather my carcass be burned but what are you going to do?”
“Very good, master,” Bohai said. “But enough with the song and dance. Let’s get my staff down here so I can stone you up and start running this place.”
The master chuckled. “I’m not dead yet, my son. The staff will still be mine for as long as it chooses to keep me alive. Maybe a few days, maybe a year, maybe a decade. I do not know. All I know is the staff demands a successor and therefore, I deduce that it has selected the day upon which my mortality will no longer benefit from its protection.”
Bohai rolled his eyes, then began to walk away. “Yeesh. Thanks for wasting my time then. Call me when you start to feel sick.”
The master stomped his foot and shouted, “Bohai!”
The cocky fighter stopped in his tracks and turned around to face his leader.
“What makes you so sure that you will be chosen as the Twentieth Infallible Master?”
Bohai snickered. “Why wouldn’t you choose the best?”
“Are you the best?” the master inquired.
Bohai’s head looked as though it might explode with rage. In his mind, he was so clearly the right choice that he could not comprehend the master’s inability to see it.
“Is it not obvious?” Bohai asked. “I train the most. I study the most. I know the most.”
“You are formidable,” the master said. “But no more than your contemporaries based upon my observations.”
“Bah,” Bohai scoffed as he looked away.
The master stepped towards the brash young man and looked him in the eye. “You make a mistake…”
“The only mistake I made was staying in this clan for so long,” Bohai said. “Surely there are other clans that would recognize my accomplishments.”
The master’s face filled with sadness. “There aren’t as many clans as there used to be thanks to Dragonhand, young one. Be thankful you have found a home here filled with people who care for you, despite your best efforts to exasperate them.”
“The Clan of the Mystifying Monkey Slap would be happy to have me,” Bohai said.
The master openly guffawed. “Oh young one. We masters differ in our teaching methods. Whereas I prefer to allow my students to make their mistakes so they may learn from them, the Vengeful Master would have cut out your insolent tongue and monkey slapped you with it by now.”
Junjie butted into the conversation with an “Ouch.” Niu followed it up with, “The fates would almost certainly cause that to hurt.”
As usual, Mei-Ling said nothing.
The Infallible Master paced about the floor. “Now Bohai, before I was so rudely interrupted, I was about to tell you that you make a mistake in assuming that I choose the next owner of the Staff of Ages.”
“Who chooses then?” Bohai asked.
The master pointed a finger toward the high ceiling underneath which the staff was hovering. The ruby was glowing red once more.
“Why, the staff itself, of course.”
The students looked at one another. The master clapped his hands.
“Have at it,” the old man said.
Bookshelf Battle 