Disclaimer: Nobody from either Saiyuki or Monkey belong to me, much to my extreme disappointment. But then again I could not have created such wonderful characters so I'm not quite so sad about it today after all.

Summary: Monkey and Saiyuki are based on the same legend. What happens when the Sanzo-ikkou meet a group somehow so familiar and yet so different? Not shounen ai. Please Read & Review :)

Warnings: Um? Lets see, arguments, name calling, a bit of pushing and slapping. The typical sorts of things you would expect to see from Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy really…

Distorted Mirror

Pt 9

That night, almost everyone was seated down in the tavern, everyone except the still sleeping Goku. Sandy had woken on the way back to town and Hakkai and Gojyo had filled him in on what had happened. Sandy had shuddered and muttered something about having been glad that he had missed it.

Hakkai was tired. He had expended a lot of ki in his attempt to heal at least the worst of everyone's injuries, including Gojyo's, despite all of his protests. He had had one cracked rib, a lot of severe bruising and a wrenched shoulder. To tell the truth, he had gotten off quite lightly compared to other fights against Seiten Taisei.

Sanzo was sitting at the table, smoking and drinking beer, otherwise trying not to move too much. Gojyo was fidgeting and every twenty minutes or so, he would slip away, mumbling some excuse and Hakkai would smile every time, knowing that the hanyou was actually checking on Goku. Hakkai was grateful to Gojyo for doing so, it saved him from checking and he knew it would be a couple of days, at least, before he would feel normal again.

Monkey had been the only one of the Tripitaka-ikkou to be hurt badly, other than being knocked unconscious by that strange lightening and he was still somewhat stiff. Monkey being Monkey, had carried on anyhow, even though as he moved it was a rather comical sight to see. Since he had climbed off of his cloud he had walked around rather marionette like in his stiffness for quite some time. He had assured everyone that it was normal and not to worry about it since within a few hours he would start returning to normal. Pigsy had laughed, taking the opportunity to dig at the monkey king, telling everyone else that when Monkey got like this, he normally carried on like a big baby. Sandy had nodded in agreement and then to be fair he added that it all depended on the company he was keeping at the time. This had started a round of bickering until Tripitaka finally put a stop to it. Hakkai had then insisted on taking care of the worst of Monkey's injuries as well and Monkey had finally agreed, if nothing else, to get healer off of his back.

Now though, they were discussing what had happened that day.

Tripitaka looked at Sanzo curiously, "Why did Goku lose control like that?" he asked.

"Hmmph! How should I know what goes on in that baka's head!" Sanzo snorted in annoyance.

Gojyo snickered, "Well you should, after all, the two of you share a specialbond."

Sanzo suddenly drew out his Smith and Wesson, clicking off the safety as he pointed it at the hanyou's head. "Special bond, kappa? Do you wish to explain just what you meant by that term and it had better be good!" he growled.

Gojyo's mirth became nervousness, "Um, I just meant the truth, that you 'hear' Goku's voice in your head, Sanzo-sama."

Sanzo lowered his gun, though his amethyst eyes still glared at Gojyo before shifting his fierce gaze to Hakkai.

Hakkai smothered his amusement and turned to Tripitaka. "When Sanzo rescued Goku from his prison on Mt Gogyo, he had been able to find him because he could hear Goku's voice calling out to him. Goku had been locked away for 500 years and he is now completely loyal and protective towards Sanzo, no matter how much Sanzo says that he dislikes it. Goku cares for Sanzo more than anyone else. That connection between them shows itself every so often, though it is usually Sanzo that hears Goku rather than the other way around." Even though the monk was continuing to glare at him, Hakkai continued, "Basically, Goku is afraid of losing Sanzo and that if he does, he fears that he will be returned to that dark and lonely place he existed in before."

Tripitaka looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking up again, "If Goku is so afraid of losing Sanzo, why would he try to kill him? Also, when Sanzo went up to him, he seemed a little confused before then swiping his claws at Sanzo. Why?'

"When Goku becomes Seiten Taisei, he doesn't remember or recognise anyof us and he tends to just go completely berserk. Sanzo seems to be able to break through his berserk state a little, enough to at least make him hesitate. Maybe it is that psychic connection they have at work, maybe… it's something more. No one knows. At least it gives us a possibility of survival and a chance to pull Goku back."

Tripitaka smiled gently in Sanzo's direction. "It is nice to see that you do actually care about Goku. From the way you seem to act most of the time, I would almost expect you to just kill him and get it over with." Sanzo shifted his glare to the other priest, "But you really do try your hardest to save him, don't you?"

"Tch! Believe what you like, I don't care." Sanzo denied roughly as he stood, a slight shadow of pain crossing his face, noticeable to only Hakkai and Tripitaka even though the monk very quickly covered it up. "I'm going to bed! The rest of you idiots can do what you like. Don't make too much noise or wake me or I willkill you!" Sanzo then walked to the stairs and disappeared up them.

Once the monk was gone, Tripitaka blinked. "Did he, mean what he just said?"

Gojyo grinned with a snicker, "Oh, our Sanzo-sama meant it all right."

"Though if he did actually try and hit us, we would find some way out of it."

Tripitaka was silent for a moment before saying, "My head hurts so I think I will go to bed also."

Once the priest had left, Sandy turned to Monkey with a knowing look on his face. "So, you crafty ape," Monkey raised his eyebrows in question, "what's your plan?"

Monkey smiled slightly, "Who says I have a plan?

"You always do."

"Heh, heh! I do always seem to, don't I? Well, now that the holy fool has gone to bed, I can think about it."

"We have known you too long Monkey, long enough to know you already have a plan. You have that 'I have a plan and am hiding it from master' look on your face again." Sandy reasoned.

"Well, maybe I do have a little bit of a plan." Monkey admitted, motioning little with his finger and thumb.

"So, how many people does this plan involve killing?" Pigsy asked.

Monkey snorted, "I don't always kill, you know!"

"Only because the master wont let you!" Pigsy retorted.

"But you certainly don't seem to let the opportunity go to waste when you think you can possibly get away with killing." Sandy added.

"Says the cold fish who used to eat any stray humans that wandered past!"

"I gave that habit up." Sandy said dismissively, fingering his necklace of shrunken skulls.

"Only because you let yourself be taught to roll over!"

"I thought he was a fish, not a dog. " Pigsy said in confusion.

Monkey glared. "Don't talk to me about dogs, good or otherwise!"

"Oh Pigsy," Sandy grinned, happy to shift the teasing back to Monkey, "I think you just hit a sore point there! Monkey, I think you should be glad that Yuu-Loong is tied outside, he liked Good Dog. You know," he said changing track, " I often feel bad about leaving Yuu-Loong outside." Sandy mused.

Monkey snorted. "Its not our fault if that dragon-turned-horse is too stupid to be able to transform into his human form without receiving a sudden fright. Anyway, back to the point." Monkey said firmly. "We can't kill those three monsters. They may be our only way home."

"Oh, so the ape's actually thinking ahead." Pigsy snidely commented to Sandy.

"Oh! Do be quiet so we can hear what the plan is, you swine!" Sandy replied in annoyance.

"Why? Its probably going to involve me doing all the work again or being put in danger." Pigsy whined. "You watch, he'll try to trick me into something nasty again, I'll bet."

Monkey stopped rocking on his chair and leaned forward, "I wouldn't try a thing like that!" he smiled innocently. "Anyway, think about it you two. It was because of their leader that we ended up here. When I deflected his attack with my Magic Wishing Staff, it seemed to, I don't know," Monkey stood and began pacing back and forth, "have a strange reaction with the air around us. Obviously, that monster realised he didn't manage to kill Tripitaka or any of us, so he found a way to follow us through, but…"

"But what?" Pigsy asked distractedly. More food had arrived so he had started stuffing his face again.

"But, you greedy swine," Monkey slapped Pigsy's hand away from the food, "that monster obviously didn't have the power or maybe the knowledge, to recreate what happened on his own. Without my Magic Wishing Staff, he needed friends to back him up. You thought that monster's attack was familiar Sandy, do you remember where from yet?"

"No and every time I do try to think about it, I get this awful feeling of dread. I don't wantto remember."

Monkey slapped his hands down on the table in front of Sandy, making the fish spirit jump. "You've gotto! This is important Moony."

"I can't!"

"Try!"

"Just leaveme alone, you great ape! I can't remember so there is no point in pushing. It looked a little wrong anyway"

"Wrong? How!"

"I don't know, it just did!"

Monkey made a disgusted noise and sat down again.

"Anyway," Sandy added, trying to steer them back to the subject, "how does your theory help us? How do we find them? Those monsters ran away faster than Pigsy from a fair fight!"

"Hey! I resent that!" Pigsy interjected. "I don't run away from fights, I pull my weight in this team."

"That's for sure you fat swine!" Monkey retorted.

"You do try to run away unless the odds are in your favour." Sandy added. He then cut off Pigsy's attempted reply by turning back to Monkey. "So, Monkey, how are we supposed to find these monsters anyway? Are you planning to look for them from your cloud?"

"No," Monkey shook his head, "they have probably gone into hiding. We will have to draw them out."

"How do you plan to draw them out?" Hakkai asked curiously.

Monkey replied to Hakkai's question with a wicked chuckle, "With the perfect bait." He grinned mischievously at Pigsy as he spoke.

Sandy, Hakkai and Gojyo all looked confused, Pigsy however, did not. He jumped up from his seat and backed away frantically. "No way! Not a chance! I'm sick of being bait, use Sandy for once instead!"

"Me?" Sandy asked in surprise, "What would you want to use me for?"

"I don't want to use you, Sandy." Monkey answered with a shake of his head.

"Oh, well, that's all right then." Sandy replied, feeling relief though he didn't show it.

"We are going to supply those monsters with one, unprotected holy fool." Monkey smirked, "Bait they can'tresist!"

"Ahh!" Sandy said in sudden understanding. "You're going to have Pigsy shape shift into Tripitaka's form!"

"No!" Pigsy cried petulantly, "I wontdo it! Iwont! I wont! I wont!All of you keep trying to use me for bait, even Yuu-Loong sometimes, well I'm sick of it and I wontdo it! You can'tmake me!"

Monkey's face went hard as he said in a threatening voice, "Oh, can'tI?" As Pigsy backed up towards a corner in the tavern, Monkey's expression lost its threat and he snorted, "Oh, relax Pigsy! I wasn't going to use you anyway."

"You, you weren't?" Pigsy asked in a hopeful voice.

"No, I wasn't!"

"Oh, that's a relief!" Pigsy sighed as he returned to his seat. He sat down and then as a sudden suspicion struck, he asked, "Whynot?"

Monkey's answer was immediate. "Your acting is lousy and your stink would give you away before the monsters got within a kilometre of you."

Pigsy's eyes went wide. "I'll have you know that when I was Marshall of the Heavenly Host, in my spare time my acting was thought of rather highly." He then turned, leaning in close to Sandy, "I don't smell, do I?"

Sandy pushed the pig spirit away and then fanned his hand in front of his nose. "Yes you do!" he stated in annoyance.

"I don't!" Pigsy whined. "What do I smell of?"

"Swine!" Monkey and Sandy answered in unison.

"Ohh…" Pigsy flopped onto the tabletop melodramatically. "I thought we were meant to be brothers and yet, you treat me like this. Its not fair!"

Monkey and Sandy decided to ignore that and continued with the conversation.

"So Monkey, does this mean that you are going to be the bait?" Sandy asked.

Monkey nodded. "I have to be, your shape shifting skills are worse than pathetic!"

Sandy looked mildly annoyed, "You are so rude, you know, you great ape!"

Though they hadn't contributed much to the conversation between the visiting trio, Hakkai and Gojyo had been paying attention and now Hakkai was having trouble keeping from laughing out loud. Gojyo looked at his best friend, somehow a little bothered, "Its not thatfunny, Hakkai!" he said.

Hakkai managed to swallow his laughter and settle for an amused smile. "I know, it is just for some reason that I can't put my finger on, their arguing reminds me of you and Goku."

Gojyo looked quite insulted as he stated, "We don't argue like that and no onecould accuse either of usof being cowards."

"That's true." Hakkai admitted, still smiling but trying to smooth ruffled feathers. "The arguments themselves aren't the same, its more… the maturity level. Oh, Gojyo! Please don't look so offended, you really only get that way when you are with Goku."

The hurt look left the kappa's face.

"Speaking of Goku, how was he the last time you checked?" Hakkai asked worriedly.

Gojyo shrugged, "Much the same. Normal for Goku after having transformed into Seiten Taisei, he still doesn't seem to have moved."

Hakkai nodded, "Yes, that's pretty normal. Based on the last couple of times, it will probably be a day or two before he wakes. He probably wont begin to move until shortly before then." The healer sighed, still a little worried despite Gojyo's assurances to the contrary.

Gojyo watched his friend's face, noting the tiredness within. "Why don't you go to bed, Hakkai," he suggested, "you used a lot of chi today in healing everyone's injuries, including my own. Chi healing seems to take more out of you than when you use it for fighting."

Hakkai gave a tired sigh, "That's true Gojyo and I amtired." The healer stood and began to head towards the stairs. He then paused, turning to face his friend with a smile. "Are you coming up too?"

"Nuh, its still fairly early so I may see if I can find some pretty neechan to spend some time with" Gojyo said with a smirk.

"Okay," Hakkai replied, his smile having lost a little of its spark, "just don't do anything you might regret in nine months time."

"Oh, I certainly intend to try." Gojyo said with a lecherous gleam in his blood-red eyes. Gojyo watched with an affectionate smile as Hakkai responded with a chuckle before disappearing upstairs Once Hakkai was out of sight, the hanyou kappa surveyed the room, looking for someone to approach within the busy tavern. He spotted a pretty, young lady, who appeared to be alone and approached her.

Sometime later, Pigsy was watching Gojyo happily flirting with various women. He seemed to be having quite a good time and was being fairly successful. One thing was puzzling the pig spirit though, even though the ladies that Gojyo was chatting up were returning his attention, he would soon shake his head and then move on, looking for someone else. It was almost as if the kappa wasn't quite happy his choice, as if he were looking for someone in particular. Personally, Pigsy thought that Gojyo was nuts if that was the case. However, the pickings looked quite good so he slipped away from Monkey and Sandy while they were busy arguing among themselves and went out into the crowd.

'So many laaadies!' the pig spirit thought excitedly as he walked by several who were obviously taken. Pigsy didn't let that bother him though, as he pinched their rear ends happily in passing. A few of the women squealed, one glared, another slapped him and three had their boyfriends (and in one case, girlfriend) step up ready to pick a fight. Pigsy quickly ended up sporting a nice right shiner.

Eventually, Pigsy managed to make his way to a small group of single women. He immediately set to work, hitting on them in the only way he knew how. One after another, he began to fondle them and breathe all over them, much to the disgust of each of the girls. The echoes of slaps and shrieks resounded throughout the tavern and one by one at first and then in a group, all of the single women and many of the not-so-single women left. Pigsy was dismayed at the sudden lack of the ladies and Gojyo was quite disgusted.

Pigsy walked dejectedly back to the table that Monkey and Sandy were still sitting at. "I don't get it. All the beyootiful ladies left and before they did, none of them wanted Pigsy… I'm better looking than that Gojyo, what does he have that I don't?" he whined dispiritedly.

"Everything, you stupid pig! Looks charm, personality, he shows the woman that he cares about how she feels, even if he doesn't and on top of that, he has one more advantage that you don't." Sandy said frankly.

"What?" Pigsy asked miserably.

"He doesn't smell like pork!" Monkey stated.

"Oohhh," Pigsy whined unhappily, "Do you have to be so blunt? Pigs are better looking than water spirits anyway."

"Only in your delusional mind." Sandy sniffed. "Everyone knows that water spirits have all the looks, talent and intelligence."

"In this case, I would definitely say that's true." Gojyo's annoyed voice interjected before the pig spirit could reply. "Pigsy, why did you have to scare all the pretty neechan out of here?"

Pigsy's eyes widened. "I didn't!"

Gojyo sighed, he couldn't be bothered arguing anyway. No one that he had spoken to had felt right, so there was no point in dwelling over the loss of potential nightly activities. "Well, I might as well follow Hakkai's suggestion and go to bed myself. There's no point in staying up now." Disappointed, Gojyo slogged heavily up the stairs.

He didn't know what was wrong lately, he seemed to be getting more and more picky when it came to the women that he was hitting on. 'There is just something… missing,' he thought to himself, 'and I don't know whether it's me or them.'

On the way to the room that he was sharing with Hakkai, he paused at the door to Goku's room and smiled in sudden amusement as he recalled seeing Sanzo sneaking out of there. It had been sometime after the monk had supposedly gone to bed. Gojyo had come to check on the teen again to ease Hakkai's mind since the healer himself was so tired, at least, that's what Gojyo had told himself. The truth was that Gojyo was also quite worried. He figured to check on Goku once more before going to bed.

Gojyo slowly opened the door, trying to be as silent as he could. 'Heh! There's nobody else in here.' He realised as he looked around the room. He walked over to the bed and looked down at Goku. Gojyo noted that the boy still hadn't moved, though his expression did look a little restless now. The kappa began to head out the room again when he faintly heard Goku call out.

"San…zo…"

Gojyo turned back for a moment, "Don't worry bakazaru, your Sanzo is just fine. He's just a bit sore, that's all." To his relief, the boy's face seemed to relax slightly, so the kappa left the room.

He reached his own room and making sure to be as quiet as possible, this time so as not to disturb Hakkai, Gojyo entered.

"Not much luck tonight?" asked a sleepy voice.

After Gojyo's initial surprise that Hakkai was still awake had passed, he gave a slight laugh and said, "Thanks to a certain pig spirit, no, not much."

Hakkai responded with a slight, sleepy smile, "Too bad." Then he was silent, having finally fallen asleep.

Gojyo watched his sleeping friend for a long moment before he finally responded. "Yeah… too bad."

To be continued

A/N:

When Monkey, Sandy and Pigsy were talking about dogs, they were talking about what happened in an episode called 'Such a Nice Monster' It is personally my favourite episode from the 'Monkey' series (well, along with one other earlier episode). In this episode, there was a monster who didn't want to be a monster anymore and decided to change his ways. He dressed up in a tacky dog suit and started calling himself Good Dog. He would try anything and everything to gain the trust and friendship of the nearby villagers, even by putting on free teas. The villagers convinced Tripitaka and the others that he was an evil monster and they agreed to deal with him. First Pigsy went to investigate (tricked by Monkey into doing so and with everyone else including Tripitaka encouraging him to go), he got blown away when he attacked Good Dog. Then Monkey, Sandy and Yuu-Loong went to check out the monster's lair. Monkey and Sandy got blown away as Pigsy neglected to tell them that Good Dog could go into cosmic manifestation (grow reallybig) and then blow people away with gale force winds just by breathing. Yuu-Loong, not a fighter, stayed out of the confrontation and overheard Good Dog crying to himself afterward over how everyone was constantly mean etc. He then made friends with Good Dog and promised to help him. Yuu-Loong went and spoke to Monkey and somehowconvinced him to give up the 'witch hunt' and help. This was the first and only true 'defeat' that Monkey had that I can recall seeing on 'Monkey' At Yuu-Loong's urging he went into cosmic manifestation also and pretended that he was the real monster and that he was going to eat the villagers. Good Dog spotted him about to 'eat' a young woman and went to the villager's defence. He fought Monkey head on and though Monkey technically 'let' Good Dog win, he lost the fight. Good Dog did not realise until after Yuu-Loong told him the truth. Monkey admitted to Good Dog that he had really won the fight and that Monkey himself had never ultimately lost a fight before now. He had of course lost battles but never the ultimate victory (except when Buddha challenged him of course.)

Wow! That was a long author's note… but I felt I had to say something about that episode. It may not sound quite as good in the summarised re-telling but it is one of the best episodes and a good Yuu-Loong episode, he doesn't really get a huge amount of screen time..

Next chapter, there will be a little more 'relaxation' and then things start to move again.

Whee! Gandhara Japanese version just started playing, that's the Monkey ending theme and its quite pretty. The dubbed episodes play the Japanese version in one episode and then the English version (sung by the same people - Godeigo) in the next episode.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed

SuSui: Thank you! I really appreciated your comment (I do for everyone else as well). Even though there was no action in this particular chapter, I hope you liked it anyway :-)

Koryu-Sanzo: I hope you made it in time (grins) Thanks again for the song you sent me, Mitsumeitai. It's really good to hear the full song… Now if only I can find the other Gunlock ending song…

Diva-Urd: (pouts) Gee, now I don't have to maul and cripple Sanzo? (sigh) and here I was all set to change my plans to included some Sanzo mauling… Nuh, not really. The rest of the story is basically just needing to be typed and divided into chapters so while I am likely to make minor alterations as I type it, nothing major will be changing. No more complete rewriting. Yay!

Me-Nuriko: Yeah, the Magic Wishing Staff is damn useful. While I have never seen it be transformed into a cage, I have seen it transformed into many different things. Some things there were blatantly inconsistent with the time-period too, including a device for cutting through stone, kinda shaped like a bladed fan on the end of a long pole, looked like it should have been electrically driven :-p and a kind of directional microphone type of thing for when Monkey was trying to listen for the sound of Tripitaka's voice. Basically it appears that it can be transformed into whatever he needs as long as he can imagine it. Monsters return soon.

Deaths Silent Mistress: Thanks, I'm glad you think they were in character. As you know, I was worried about keeping Kougaiji (especially) in character, particularly since he is my favourite. Good Hakkai and Gojyo or Sanzo and Goku moments are always fun. Heh! Those 'moments' weren't in my rough draft, these just kinda wrote themselves in the rewrite. Watching Gunlock, I just wish Gojyo would notice Hakkai's jealousy whenever he goes off with some random tart. He needs to notice dammit and then realize what or rather who is just underneath his nose…