LAST TIME ON JOURNEY TO THE WEST!
A devastating duel of doppelgangers drew dangerous delinquency as a duo of deadly deuhhhh-monkeys
*shrug noises* battled their way through the far corners of the world, shaking the very
foundations of the heavens with their ferocious and terrifying strength!
Unable to distinguish the deceit in the dreadful duo (yes! we're back in it!)
Tripitaka was forced to rely on the aid of the Buddha himself, who concluded that the
counterfeit cercopithecoid (bit of a stretch) was none other than the near-omniscient Six-Eared
Macaque, one of the four heavenly apes that categorize our clever Sun Wukong, a concept
that definitely didn't come out of absolutely nowhere!
After defeating his dark reflection, Sun Wukong rejoined his companions and they once again
continued their………
Journey to the West!
So our heroes are trekking westward and the seasons have turned onward, carrying our intrepid
heroes into the cool autumn months - or at least it's supposed to, but Tripitaka notes
that the climate seems unusually warm for that time of year, and it's getting downright
toasty to a rather alarming degree, but I wouldn't know anything about what that feels
like.
They roll up on a local village to ask about the bizarre and confusing weather and are
informed that they're coming up on The Mountain Of Flames, a massive permanent fixture of
the environment that's constantly wreathed in unimaginably hot fire, cooking the land
around it for a full sixty miles in every direction.
Sun Wukong commits the faux-pas of pondering a logical worldbuilding question in a fantastical
allegory for the journey to enlightenment and asks the locals how they can possibly
grow the crops needed to eat if they're living in a permanent summer, and they tell him that
once every ten years they bring a sacrifice of livestock and fine foods to the Immortal
Iron Fan who lives in the faraway Jade Cloud Mountain, and the Immortal Iron Fan uses a
magical palm-leaf fan to temporarily quench the flames and bring rain, allowing the locals
a semblance of normal farming conditions for at least a little while.
This arrangement has worked out pretty well for them so far, but unfortunately the Mountain
of Flames is - no surprise - set squarely on the road to the west, and it's much too
hot for most of our heroes to survive the journey, so Sun Wukong hops on a cloud and
sails off to the Jade Cloud Mountain to see about getting that palm-leaf fan and putting
the fire out for good.
When Sun Wukong reaches the mountain, he's informed by a local woodcutter that they haven't
heard of any immortal iron fan, they just have a Princess Iron Fan - but they mostly
call her Rakshasi, due to her much more relevant status as the wife of the powerful and terrifying
Bull Demon King.
Uh oh!
That's a name Sun Wukong is very familiar with!
After all, the Bull Demon King's son, Red Boy, nearly ate Tripitaka a few episodes ago,
and getting him put in the Kuan-Yin Internship Time Out Zone has already pissed off one of
his relatives bad enough to attack the Monkey King on sight.
But hey - maybe his parents aren't holding a grudge, right?
Anything is possible!
So Sun Wukong reinvigorates his sense of sunny optimism and scoots off to the mountain cave
to announce his presence.
Unfortunately, when Princess Iron Fan learns her mountain has been graced by the legendary
Sun Wukong, she flies into an immediate rage, armors up and stalks out to face him.
Sun initially plays dumb about the whole Red Boy debacle but does point out that any hijinks
he may or may not have done would have been heavily justified by how her baby boy tried
to eat his master, and besides, Red Boy's Kuan Yin summer job has bumped him up in the
world by granting him the true immortality of buddhism.
This incidental reminder that she can't visit him anymore tips Princess Iron Fan over the
edge into true fury and she attacks.
Sun lets her get it out of her system by tanking a few hits, and when she realizes her swords
aren't making a dent they escalate into a furious battle that lasts all the way to sunset,
and when Princess Iron Fan finally realizes she can't beat him, she pulls out the legendary
fan itself - but instead of handing it over she swings it, blowing Sun Wukong clear over
the horizon and leaving her free to return to her cave and go to bed.
Sun tumbles through the air all night, unable to get close enough to the ground to land
until he manages to snag hold of a mountain peak.
Once he rallies a little, he realizes he actually recognizes the mountain - it's where he fought
a completely unrelated wind demon back in episode 3 with the help of the bodhisattva
Lingji.
Seeing as he's in the neighborhood, he drops by Lingji's temple and explains the situation,
and Lingji is very impressed that Sun managed to stop his flight after a mere fifty thousand
miles - the winds of the divine fan are supposed to blow the victim a full eighty-four thousand
miles before they're subjected to the sweet release of gravity once more.
Fortunately for Sun Wukong, Lingji can actually help him out, since way back in the day the
Buddha gave him two treasures for dealing with wind-related threats: one is the Flying
Dragon Staff they already used to defeat the Yellow Wind Demon, but the other is a small
pill of a wind-arresting elixir that hasn't been used yet.
They sew it into Sun's collar for future use and send him on his way.
Sun zips back to the cave and hammers on the door, which severely unnerves Princess Iron
Fan, who gears up to fight him again.
This time, however, the wind-arresting elixir makes Sun completely immune to the fan's wind,
startling Princess Iron Fan so much that she bolts back into the cave and seals the doors.
Having tried and failed the direct combat approach twice now, Sun decides to try the
sneaky route and turns into a mole cricket, slides under the door, sees Princess Iron
Fan's servants preparing her tea, and gets a very clever idea.
Ohhhhh noooooo, there's vore in this one.
So Sun… dives into the tea, is… promptly swallowed, and proceeds to use his highly
tactically advantageous position to wail on Princess Iron Fan from the inside.
She begs for mercy and offers him the fan, and he kindly accepts her terms, zipping back
out of her mouth, snagging the palm leaf fan and heading back to the gang.
Mission accomplished!
Or so it seems!
But as they proceed to the Mountain of Flames and Sun readies the fan, he finds that every
swing only seems to make the fires burn hotter!
When three swings of the fan make the heat a thousand times more unbearable, the gang
have no choice but to retreat and rethink their approach.
As they're stewing in their various grievances, the gang is approached by an old man who explains
that he's the local deity of the Mountain of Flames, he saw them having difficulties
and he'd like to help them out.
But as soon as he spots the fan, he realizes the problem - the fan is actually a fake.
If Sun wants the real one that'll let him put out the fire for good, he'll probably
have to seek out the Bull Demon King himself to figure out how he and Princess Iron Fan
have hidden it.
Sun asks if the Bull Demon King is responsible for the fire on the Mountain of Flames, and
the spirit says that Sun has to promise not to get mad, but the Bull Demon King didn't
set the fire - Sun Wukong did.
He quickly explains that way back when Sun Wukong wreaked havoc in heaven and got stuck
in Lao Tzu's brazier for his troubles, when Sun broke out and overturned the brazier,
he dislodged a few flamingly heavenly bricks that fell to earth and lodged in this mountain.
The mountain spirit says he was actually the brazier's attendant, but after Sun's breakout
he was punished and demoted for his negligence and has been stuck taking care of this burning
mountain ever since.
But old news aside, the mountain spirit has plenty of fresh and piping hot goss to dish
on the Bull Demon King.
Apparently he and Princess Iron Fan are actually separated, because the Bull Demon King has
hooked up with Princess Jade Countenance, the daughter of a ten-thousand-year-old fox
spirit who died and left behind a massive horde of treasure, which Princess Jade Countenance
offered in full to the Bull Demon King as her dowry if he'd come protect her with his
big strong arms, so the Bull Demon King totally ditched Princess Iron Fan and shacked up with
Princess Jade Countenance in the Cloud-Touching Cave of the Hoard Thunder Mountain.
But the Bull Demon King's disastrous love life aside, if Sun Wukong can get the Bull
Demon King to tell him how to get the fan, Sun can do three good deeds for the price
of one: let Tripitaka continue his Journey to the West, extinguish the flaming mountain
that is 100% his fault, and get the spirit of the mountain un-banished from heaven!
Sun wastes no time and jets off to Hoard Thunder Mountain, where he finds a beautiful young
woman who he asks if she can direct him to the Bull Demon King.
When he decides he needs a cover story and claims that Princess Iron Fan sent him, the
young woman flies into a rage and Sun realizes immediately that he miscalculated, and she
young woman must be The Other Woman, aka Princess Jade Countenance.
Sun gets remarkably pissed at her homewrecking hijinks, which scares her so much that she
bolts, vanishing into the cave and flinging herself at the Bull Demon King so she can
beg him to protect her from the terrifying monk his ex-wife sent to their door.
This convoluted string of apparent disconnected concepts confuses the Bull Demon King, who
heads out tentatively expecting a fight - and is not expecting to find his former blood-brother
Sun Wukong, who is a picture of politeness as he explains his recent exploits and asks
him for his help in acquiring the fan.
The Bull Demon King is already pretty pissed right from the jump, but the audacity to ask
him for a favor against his own wife is the last straw, and he attacks.
He and the Monkey King clash in a truly spectacular battle that is cut short when the Bull Demon
King gets a dinner invitation he really can't turn down, so he calls a time out and zips
back to the cave to get ready.
Sun is evidently too confused to stop him, but does decide to secretly follow him to
the aforementioned dinner party to see if that gives him any leads.
The Bull Demon King disappears into a mountain containing a deep lagoon, so Sun turns into
a crab and scuttles down after him, where he finds a bubble containing a beautiful underwater
coral palace full of all kinds of aquatic animals staffing a huge party for a bunch
of dragon spirits, with the Bull Demon King as the special guest of honor.
Unfortunately for Sun, the old dragon spirit has a sharp eye for interlopers and immediately
notices the crab out of place, but Sun quickly concocts a cover story about how he's just
a humble country crab who don't know nothin' about their fancy palace ways.
So he manages to escape the fate of crab flogging but is still kicked out of the party, which
is when he remembers he can shapeshift and decides to just steal the Bull Demon King's
ride and pretend to be him.
He flies back to Jade Cloud Mountain perfectly disguised as the Bull Demon King, where he
is of course greeted with the highest honors by Princess Iron Fan, who very politely asks
him what could've possessed him to leave his hot new concubine and return to her humble
abode?
Sun is like "Ah, well you see, I've heard tell that the devilishly handsome Sun Wukong
is on the hunt for the Palm Leaf Fan.
I just want to make sure you're… keeping our treasure safe, you never know when he
might strike."
Princess Iron Fan tells him that Sun Wukong has already struck, but not to worry, she
fooled him with a fake and he'll never find the real one.
Sun asks where she's keeping that real one, you know, for security reasons, but Princess
Iron Fan has held off long enough and declares it's time to celebrate his long-awaited return
by partying hard and flirting even harder, leaving Sun deeply uncomfortable as he quickly
processes the ramifications of doing his espionage in the form of this woman's husband.
He finally gets her back on track on the "where exactly is the fan" question and she responds
by spitting out a really tiny one.
Sun stares at it in abject confusion for a minute before Princess Iron Fan explains that,
as he knows, obviously the fan is hidden in its travel-sized mode until he touches the
specific thread on the handle and recites the spell that'll change it into its full-sized
form just like so.
Sun thanks her for her help, drops the illusion, suggests she dial back on the drinking a little
bit and then bolts, leaving Princess Iron Fan once again absolutely furious.
Sun, meanwhile, busts out the spell and makes the fan big, and then quickly realizes he
never learned how to make it small again, so he just slings it over his shoulder and
slowly starts heading back to the gang.
Meanwhile, back at the dragon party, the Bull Demon King realizes that someone stole his
ride, recalls the Suspicious Country Crab and puts and two together to make Sun Wukong.
He heads straight for Palm Leaf Cave and finds Princess Iron Fan in completely furious disarray
and borrows her swords to go kick Sun Wukong's ass a little bit.
However, when he sees Sun lugging the fan he realizes he can't risk a direct confrontation
for fear of getting blown over the horizon for 84,000 miles, and instead decides to take
a page out of the Monkey King's book - and turns himself into Pigsy.
So he meanders up to Sun Wukong and is like "Oh, hey buddy!
You were taking so long, Tripitaka got worried that the devilishly handsome ladykiller the
Bull Demon King might've been giving you a hard time."
Sun naturally regales him with tales of his cunning victory, and when Pigsy offers to
carry the ponderously huge fan for him, Sun agrees, presumably realizing just a second
too late how out of character it is for Pigsy to volunteer to do anything.
"Pigsy" reveals his true form and swings the fan at Sun, but the wind-proof elixir is still
protecting him so instead they just fight normally.
Meanwhile Tripitaka is really getting sick of the superheated fire mountain and is actually
worried about what could possibly be taking Sun Wukong so long, so he sends the real Pigsy
after him with the spirit of the mountain of flames to guide his way.
Sure enough, they quickly hear sounds of commotion and Pigsy zips down to help out with the fight.
Monkey's pissed right out the gate, but quickly reins it in and tells Pigsy he's not really
mad at him, he's mad at the Bull Demon King for pretending to be him, and Pigsy is so
furious at having his identity stolen that he attacks the Bull Demon King in a frenzy
that actually knocks him onto the back foot.
The Bull Demon King tries to retreat, but his way is barred by the spirit of the Mountain
of Flames leading an army of ghosts that I assume he borrowed from the set of Return
of the King, and with the Bull Demon King cornered he has no choice but to keep fighting.
The battle eventually takes them back to Hoard-Thunder Mountain where Princess Jade Countenance sends
out all their guards to back up the Bull Demon King, which manages to overwhelm Monkey and
Pigsy by sheer numbers, letting the Bull Demon King finally retreat.
But that doesn't slow things down for long, as after Sun gets Pigsy up to speed and gives
a little motivational speech to the troops, the duo smash down the cave doors and the
battle begins again.
But this time the Bull Demon King tries another bold strategy for running away: he abandons
his armor and weapons and transforms into a swan to escape in the confusion.
Sun spots him with his special eyes and sends the others to clear out the cave while he
engages the Bull Demon King in a good old-fashioned shapeshifter showdown.
The duo battle through an assortment of forms, going from birds to beasts until finally the
Bull Demon King enters his true form - a gigantic pure white bull that is fully two miles long.
Sun responds by turning himself into his own mega-version and the two engage in a literal
kaiju battle and it rules.
This cataclysmic clash of colossi alerts every god in the region that some Sh*t is Going
Down and they all join in to help out the beatdown, which quickly overwhelms the Bull
Demon King and he reverts to travel-size to jet back to Palm-Leaf Cave.
Sun pursues with the other gods, soon joined by Pigsy and that ghost army who have successfully
cleared out Hoard Thunder Mountain of bad guys.
They reach Palm-Leaf Cave and Pigsy gets a turn at smashing the door down, while inside
the Bull Demon King gives Princess Iron Fan the palm-leaf fan for safekeeping.
At this point she's fully done with this and tells him to just give the Monkey King the
fan so he'll leave them alone, but the Bull Demon King is too hopped up on vengeance to
listen and gears up with her swords again to fight in yet another kickass battle.
But inevitably he gets tired out again and turns to run, but this time his escape is
barred by four serious big names - the Four Heavenly Kings, buddhist devas that guard
the cardinal directions, block his escape at every turn, having been deployed by Buddha
Himself to make them calm the hell down.
The Bull Demon King finds himself well and truly surrounded by buddhist warriors and
celestial generals.
Fleeing into the sky doesn't help, since he runs smack into Devaraja Li and Prince Nata,
who've been sent to arrest him on order of the Jade Emperor.
He responds by turning back into a Kaiju and throwing hands with Devaraja Li in yet another
kickass epic battle.
Prince Nata reminds everyone of that one time he turned into a three-faced six-armed kaiju
of his own by doing that again, hopping on the bull's back and immediately slicing off
its head.
Unfortunately the Bull Demon King has more in common with the Monkey King than they gave
him credit for, because the loss of his head is a minor inconvenience at most and he promptly
grows it back, a process that repeats like ten more times until Nata clocks that this
isn't working and tries a new tactic by hooking his flaming wheel over the bull's horns.
Having a massive on-fire hoop stuck to his head does not make the Bull Demon King happy,
and he tries to transform to escape but is locked out of shapeshifting by a magic mirror
Devaraja Li has prepared for just such an occasion.
The Bull Demon King finally surrenders and they tie him up and lead him back to the cave,
where he asks Princess Iron Fan to surrender the Palm-Leaf Fan to Sun Wukong.
Princess Iron Fan emerges, uncharacteristically plainly dressed and ready to surrender without
complaint, having done some soul-searching and concluding she's really not happy with
where her life is at.
She hands over the fan without complaint and they all head over to Tripitaka, who is a
little startled when the entire army of heaven rolls up.
Sun swings the fan three times, summoning a storm and finally putting out the fire.
The Heavenly Host leaves with the Bull Demon King in tow, and Princess Iron Fan asks Sun
if maybe she can have her fan back now, since she'd like to use it in pursuit of self-cultivation.
Sun is a little surprised to realize that she's quite sincere, and has actually already
worked her way up to having a real human body, which is something almost none of his enemies
have had - but it does remind him of an important question: how can he make sure the fire never
comes back?
She tells him all he has to do is fan the mountain 49 times, and after he gets through
that last bit of tedium, he returns her fan, because he's a monkey of his word.
Princess Iron Fan leaves to begin a life of moderation and self-cultivation and apparently
eventually succeeds, which is really cool!
With the Mountain of Flames extinguished and the way forward clear at last, our heroes
can finally continue their…
Journey to the West!
The Monkey King's destined battle with one he once called brother has been concluded!
Could this be the end of their trials and tribulations?
Or will there be more battles yet to face before they set foot in the Thunderclap Monastery?
Find out next time on Journey to the West!