Board Me Strikes Again In The Form Of Another Story Idea After Listening To The Song "Stronger Then My

Board me strikes again in the form of another story idea after listening to the song "Stronger Then My Storm" by Citizen Soldier on repeat for ages while just being in a monkey king mood.

In particular, what if Wukong didn't go on the journey to the west, what if he was never freed from the mountain he was trapped under till a few years before the LMK show's Mk appeared, what if spending that long being stuck trapped with the weight of a mountain on his back and only occasionally getting "food" in the form of molten or red hot metal left it's mark on Wukong's body.

Note, if you like the idea after reading the basics I set up feel free to use it, all I ask is to link it to me later! I want to read other people's interpretation!

So, the way I am playing this is that Wukong got imprisoned under the mountain for the same reason as in the original tale (though it isn't yet shown why he was put under the mountain in the show, it is somewhat implied that it might have been his punishment for defying heaven and trying to take over with his brotherhood because there are no indications so far that the imprisonment under the mountain was related to the celestial horse stampede or the massive party crash and subsequent defeating of the celestial army... Twice if you include the havoc he caused after escaping the furnace... That in the original tale gets the Buddha called on him and leads to his subsequent imprisonment. Wukong had to have been punished for his and the groups attack on Heaven and we do not know when in the timeline this event falls, so all we can assume as of now is that the mountain was his punishment). However, instead of getting freed after 500 years to go on the Journey to the West, the Jade Emperor decided Wukong was too dangerous to be re-release into the world despite Guanyin's promise that she would give the Buddhist monk Tripitaka a method to keep the celestial monkey in check. Instead, the Jade Emperor "threatens" the Six-Eared Macaque, who at this point knows Wukong was trapped under the mountain (for how long, no clue, we don't get any tells when in the timeline Mac visited Wukong, so I'm going to say within the first 100 years) and had taken to being the Macaque King of Flower fruit mountain since he figured Wukong would never return, into being a member of the Journey to the West after basically getting a contract from the Emperor that at no time during his time away from his island may the Celestial army or any of its soldiers or denizens of the celestial realm invade and destroy their island in retaliation for Wukong's "crimes" and once the journey is complete this will remain in place since all crimes will have been paid for.

As such, Wukong never met Ao Lie, Sha Wujing, Zhu Bajie, or Tang Sanzang and history would only know Wukong as the first king of Flower Fruit Mountain/the Monkey King due to the tales passed down of his journey for immortality and his subsequent imprisonment when he goes to far, using him mainly as a message for never letting yourself become so engrossed in your plans for the future that you stop seeing the harm your actions cause in the present. This also means that none of the deaths or imprisonment that would happen in the original tale/the demons and immortals that Wukong met along the way would know him or have happened. We would have to assume Mac helped imprison Lady Bone Deamon as well as extract the Sumadi Fire from Red Son and that whatever caused D.B.K.'s rampage (which I believe is somewhat implied to be LBD), at what I am currently assuming was just after the Journey to the West, never happened.

However, despite the winds of fate having shifted so far off course, the world will always try to align it's self with the intended path of history. As such, Tang (who I am imagining as more of an archaeologist instead of a pure historical scholar like he is in the show) would still be obsessed with the Journy to the West and the tales relating to it, particularly with the tales of the First King of Flower Fruit Mountin. As such, he takes many a trip out to find historical ruins and sights to try and find remnants of forgotten tales about this long lost King. As such, roughly 3 years before MK would be found in front of Pigzy's shop, Tang would find the the mountain range Wukong was trapped under and unintentionally find his was down into his imprisonment chamber, where he would find the comatose King still taped with roughly 260 billion (this is only an estimate of what Quora says an average mountain weighs) tons of mountain on top of him, with the magic spells keeping him locked up weakened (because time will affect anything, including magic as shown in the show), but still active. Upon seeing this and recognising who this must be Tang would rush to the nearest town, get some stone breaking supplies, rush back to the mounting and climb the mountain to remove the seal that was told in legend to be keeping the king trapped under the mountain. Tang would then go back down into the cavern of Wukong's imprisonment and spend many days slowly chiseling the comatose former King out of the mountain. After which he would take wukong to his vehicle and bring him back to Megapolis and checking the king into a hospital under the guise of being just a plain old Demon Monkey who he doesn't know the name of, since revealing Wukong as the lost king could end horribly for the injured and comatose King.

Wukong would spend a year within this hospital (with all bills being paid for by a donation fund set up for demons who have not registered or no not wish to register into modern-day identification systems that is funded by wealthy deamon families that want to help their fellow demons in this modern age) in a coma, eventually waking up after many centuries of unconsciousness. After which he has to learn how to speak, write, and walk again after many months of therapy learning during this time through talks with his savior, talks with the doctors, and self examination the true gravity of his current situation.

That being that he was isolated from the world for over 1000 years (having been in a coma for what the monkey can only guess is 500 years of that time span or so) and is now in a world completely different from the one he knew, he is now an enigma of history only really known for his cautionary tale, his throat and stomach had been heavily damaged from the centuries of being forced to eat molten metal leaving his voice quiet and gravely and his stomach paralyzed (though the doctors suspect over time it may heal), that so long with so much weight on his lower back has left him a paraplegic (with odds of him ever fully recovering being low by the doctors examinations), and that most if not all of his Chi (magic? mana? energy? who knows, the show never properly names this internal energy source) is blocked off and it could take year's for him to reopen all the ley lines in his body to use more high-intensity incantations and auras again for battle, if he can ever fight again.

During his time in the hospital, and then in hospice as he regains his strength, Wukong and Tang become friends, and Tang (after a chat with Pigzy who the partially broke archaeologists is living with) invites Wukong, who decided to hide himself in this new day and age under his old name "Shí Hóu", to come live with them. There are some minor issues in the beginning for the three due to needing to figure out how to work with a house member in a wheelchair the majority of the time, but they all make it work eventually and after a while Wukong finds a job in the animation industry and adds another income to the apartment dwelling household. Eventually MK joins the three after a appearing at Pigzy's shop and Wukong essentially becomes the babysitter of the group, what with having the least dangerous and most easily able to multitask job.

Thanks to MK Wukong meets Redson for the first time after a 6 year old MK runs off while Wukong and him are at a coffee shop and Redson, being much more kind-hearted due to not losing his father, helps Wukong out after the monkey man manages to either lose or fall out of his whealchair. And Red son, now curious about the monkey who somewhat reminds him of the Sun Wukong from his father's old tales starts to insert himself into Wukong's life. Leading to Red basically ending up as MK's big brother figure and leading to MK becoming friends with Mei due to Red and his family having connections with other mystical families like those of the dragon from the journey to the west. This could lead to DBK and Wukong meeting again early on, or much later then in the show depending on how you want to spin it, however I would do it as they meet earlier, but DBK does not know Shí Hóu is Wukong until much later. Though Wukong would know and be somewhat depressed thinking he lost his last brother to time because revealing himself could lead to DBK denouncing him (not that DBK would).

How the original show would progress from there would depend on the writer's interpretation, but I would still have Monkey king teach MK to fight and such, but with MK being more patient and understanding of not being able to get into intense battle-type things due to Wukong being a paraplegic. And without any Mac interference, because he thinks Wukong is still in prison, and would at most think "huh... This kid strangely has a lot of Wukong's powers and skills. Weird, but oh well."