We're getting close to the biggest part of the story. The final fight at the SkyDome.

C/W: Demoralization and destructive violence

The day of Kris's birthday finally arrived and Elsa had baked a lovely cake for him. And they invited Roar, Rudolf, his two uncles from his father's side of the family and Dr. Tom Sato, a Japanese-American occultist who worked closely with Morten and a friend of the family who was like an uncle-figure to Kris. Right now, the boy stood by his bedroom window and gazed out, watching the signs for 4*Town being shone in the sky from the SkyDome on the horizon and sighed.

Stig knocked at the door to his brother's bed and didn't bother waiting for an answer, since he knew there wasn't gonna be one, and entered to see his brother looking out the window.

"Bro, everyone's downstairs waiting for you." He said and his brother still did not answer, making the goth roll his eyes. "For god's sake, you can't possibly keep this charade up forever, you know. Everyone is worried about you."

He puts his arm around his shoulder and looked out to see the 4*Town signals in the sky.

"Look, I know I don't say this often, but I'm worried, too." Stig told him honestly. "And I know you're hurting, but that's normal, okay? Getting hurt is a part of life. But the more you withdraw from the ones you love just to protect yourself, the more your pain is gonna get worse before it gets better. And it's your birthday today. You deserve to have some fun. Don't you think so?"

Kris then turned his head to face his brother. He didn't answer, still, but at least he was actually listening to him.

"Hey, tell you what? Why don't you bring down your guitar and play a song for us? You know, like dad used to do?"

The selectively mute boy nodded in response, which made Stig smile with hope. So Kris retrieved his precious electric guitar and Mei's tamagotchi before he followed his brother downstairs to where his other family members were. His uncles, Adam and Charlie, his father's brothers, were seated in front of the television together. Adam's two teenage daughters, Izzy, 17, and Jaz, 16, and Kris's cousins, were there as well. Izzy was this tall and skinny girl with a tomboyish appearance and Jaz was this plump girl who was more girly and trendy than her sister.

Dr. Tom Sato was at the table with Kris's two grandfathers and his teenage son, Toshio, 15, was also there sitting on the floor with Gnasher and Grinder. Adam was a divorced former lieutenant corporal for the Royal Canadian Corp of Signals for the 36 Signal Regiment whose wife left him two years back before he had taken custody of their daughters while Charlie was an assistant manager at Best Buy; never been married.

And Tom, on the other hand, was a widower. His wife got gravely ill and passed away.

"Hey, cuz!" Jaz cried happily and brought her cousin into a warm hug, but he didn't hug back. "So glad you could finally show up."

"Yeah, about time, too." Izzy remarked snarkily, but with a smile.

"Hey, there he is!" Tom came over and hugged the boy as well. "Happy 15th Birthday, little man! Or should I say, BIG man? Since you're getting so old?"

"Tom." Elsa chuckled, rolling her eyes.

"I mean, getting old isn't that bad. Right?" Tom replied and turned to Carl, who just grunted a response.

"Anyway, come on in! Have a seat." Tom grabbed the boy's hand and brought him over to the table. "Your mom's about to light the candles."

Kris was placed at the end of the table where Roar, Rudolf and everyone else sat down.

"So what's up, champ?" Tom asked. "Why so gloomy? It's your birthday, isn't it?"

"It's kinda hard to explain, really." Stig answered for his brother. "And don't bother expecting an answer out of him, because he's been refusing to talk lately."

"For real? How come?" asked Charlie.

"He got fired." Rudolf nonchalantly said.

"Dolf!" Stig hissed.

"Is that it?" Izzy responded in disbelief.

Rudolf was about to say more, but Stig cupped his mouth closed and glared at him, reminding him to drop it.

"I think, for Kris's sake, it's better if we don't talk much about it." He told everyone.

"Okay, here it comes! Get ready!" Elsa cried, carefully bringing in the cake and everybody began to sing. It was a chocolate cake with a red outer layer with vanilla frosting, little cartoon lightning bolts around the words 'Happy Birthday, Kris' and there were five candles. After they were done singing, Kris blew out the candles and everyone applauded.

Elsa and Morten sliced up the cake and everyone received a slice of the cake and ate together at the table while Kris ate as quietly as possible. Then they decided to play a board game together and they all spoke familiar things amongst themselves like Toshio joining the swim team at his school and Charlie looking over some dating websites - the poor man was lonely - before Stig asked Kris to play his guitar for them. At the behest of everyone else in the room, Kris caved in and half-assedly grabbed his guitar. But before he could even play a note, the doorbell rang. Elsa went to answer the door.

"Kris, your other friends are here!" She called.

But the boy continued playing, though Stig and the other two boys got up to go see Miriam, Abby and Priya all standing in the doorway, all prepped and ready for the concert with stars and '4*Town' drawn on their faces and other apparel.

"Oh, hey, girls. What brings you here?" asked the goth boy.

"Didn't they tell you?" Miriam asked, shooting a hard glance at Roar, who rubbed his neck nervously.

"...must've slipped my mind."

"Tell me what?"

"They wanted to, uh…invite Kris and us over to the concert with them." Roar sighed before explaining.

"Excuse me?" Stig sputtered in surprise.

"Yes. Since Mei isn't coming with us, maybe you guys can." Abby replied sadly.

Stig looked back over to the kitchen to see Kris still sitting silently without a word with his family and the goth boy looked completely lost and unsure.

"I don't think that'll be a good idea." He denied.

"Come on, please. We want to do this for him. It is his birthday, after all." Miriam insisted.

"Please!" They all begged at the same time with puppy-eyed looks, which the boys knew they were helpless against.

"Alright, fine." Stig groaned. "I'm not a fan of these guys, but we'll go for you. Kris, get over here!"

The boy in question inaudibly obeyed and walked over to the door with his guitar.

"Happy Birthday, Kris!" Abby shouted. "We were wondering if you'd like to come to the concert with us for your birthday."

Although he persistently clung to his vow of silence, he wordlessly answered by shrugging his shoulders and nodded.

"Awesome." Priya smiled. "Maybe bring your guitar with you."

Kris looked at it.

"He says, 'why'?" Stig sarcastically asked.

"Just…offering, is all." Priya simply answered with.

.

.

.

"..."

Kris shrugged again, agreeing.

"Okay, guess we're doing this." Stig sighed and shook his head.

After asking for their mother's permission, she seemed a little hesitant about it, but after some convincing, she allowed it and because she wanted her boy to have some fun on his birthday. Elsa slipped them a little bit of extra cash just in case. They all decided to take the bus to the SkyDome where all 4*Town were crowding inside to await the arrival of their favorite band. On the bus ride there, Kris looked up at the clear sky to see the full moon that was just eclipsing with a bright red glow.

Which meant the red moon ritual was about to begin and Kris glowered.

It was only a matter of time now.

By tomorrow, Mei's red panda will be gone forever and she'll go straight back to her old, boring, straight-A, goody-goody, perfectionist, overachieving life full of expectations and responsibilities as if nothing ever happened just like her mother wants for her. And Mei; she will probably start forgetting Kris even existed. If they would ever pass each other at school and Kris tried speaking to her, Mei would ignore him and tell him to back off.

That thought alone only broke his heart even more. The girl has been with for a long time, the girl he had done everything for just to help her see this concert and the girl who has fallen in love with and tried professing his love to will cast him aside like trash and start walking all over him, just like her mother did.

Nobody with him noticed, but Kris sniffled a bit and let a lone tear run down his cheek.

At last, they made it and boy, was it crowded as hell. They waited in line until it was their turn and Miriam bought tickets for all of them. Pushing their way through the crowd, they all stopped at a spot while they awaited for the grand performance to start. Kris clutched his guitar protectively to himself. Now this would be a most momentous occasion for the girls, but since Mei betrayed them and won't be joining them, it just didn't feel at all that exciting. But, thankfully, they had their boyfriends with them and Kris, especially.

"Well, it's not Nörthfölk, but this is starting to look fun." Roar replied.

"Oh, yes, maybe these guys won't be too bad. Right, Kris?" Rudolf asked the noiseless boy and got no response. "That's okay. Take your time."

"Too bad Mei couldn't be here." Miriam sighed sadly and resentfully.

"If you ladies don't mind, me and Kris are gonna move a little farther for a front row seat." Stig told them, patting his brother's shoulders. "You know, for the birthday boy."

"That's cool." Priya shrugged then said sternly, "Just don't go too far, okay? We need to see and know where you two are."

"Gotcha." Stig nodded and ushered Kris through the crowd away from their friends to help get him a better view until they rested on a spot that was much closer to the stage and then they waited for the show to start.

"MEI-MEI!"

Few minutes went by until Stig believed he heard a noise.

Looking behind him and then skyward, he sees none other than the form of Mei plummeting from the heavens through the opening, her hair still red. Guess she didn't go along with the ritual and decided to come here after all. But Stig didn't care as he glared spitefully towards her and turned back around. Did she really think that after everything, she would just show up?

Mei landed perfectly on the ground next to her friends, Roar and Rudolf and they all looked toward her with bewilderment to see that she actually decided to come to the concert. But they all frowned and glared at her before turning their back to her. Though, Mei couldn't blame them for giving her the cold shoulder.

"Well, look who decided to show up, after all." asked Miriam, refusing to look at her.

"I couldn't do it, you guys." Mei admitted. "The panda's a part of me and you guys are too."

"It's a little late for that now." muttered Roar.

"Mei, you threw us under the bus." Miriam chided.

"And you got Kris fired. Thanks a lot, by the way." Roar scolded, equally pissed.

"I know and I'm sorry." The Asian girl mournfully said with regret. "I've been, like, obsessed with my mom's approval my whole life. I couldn't take losing it, but losing you guys feels even worse. Especially Kris."

"Well, too bad." Priya scoffed. "Because you did."

"What are you guys doing here, by the way?" Mei asked the boys.

"What's it to you, anyway?" Roar barked at her.

"Okay, I guess I deserved that." She winced.

"Yeah, you're damn right you deserved that." snapped Roar, now facing her and she took a step back from his tone. "You know, your mom slapped Kris in the face and called him a 'retard' and you didn't do or say anything about it. Who the hell even does that? I mean, after begging your mom to hire him in the first place, you just had to go and let your mom fire him all because you were too afraid of looking bad in front of her. Especially since it was you who convinced us to help you with this plan of yours."

"But, but, but…"

"And worse, he's been dead silent ever since because of you." Rudolf chimed in with fury.

"W-What?" Mei gasped, tears now forming in her eyes.

"Yeah!" He nodded. "He just wouldn't say a single word no matter how many times we talked to him. And he's been completely ignoring us, too."

"I…." Mei lost her sentence as a new wave of guilt flushed over her. Betraying her friends at Tyler's party was already heartbreaking enough, but the fact that her very inaction regarding Ming's mistreatment of Kris had crushed him hard enough to make him push everyone away with the silent treatment just made her feel sick.

"I didn't mean…." Her voice was beginning to break and now she was getting desperate. "Please. I know I messed up and I messed big time, that's all on me. But I wanna make this right. I really can't stand not being with all of you. Kris, too. So please. Give me a chance. 4*Town forever?"

Everyone shared looks at each other, silently wondering if Mei is being genuine or if they should let her prove how much she's changed.

"Okay, for the concert's sake, we'll let this one go." Roar started.

Mei smiled sadly and went to hug them, but Miriam stopped her by holding her hand up to keep her at a distance, giving her a stern gaze that almost reminded her of her mother.

"For now." Her friend spoke evenly. "But after this, you still have a long way to go, starting with Kris. Just be thankful if he ever talks again at all."

"Okay, I promise." Mei swore with zeal. "I will do my best to earn your friendship back."

"And what about your mom?" asked Abby. "She must've gone nuclear."

"Forget about her. What's she gonna do? Ground me?" Mei jabbed with a mocking laugh.

A familiar-sounding laugh was heard and everyone looked behind Mei to see…..Tyler!? At the 4*Town concert?!

"Tyler?" Mei gasped with huge, widened eyes that matched the expression on the other girls' faces. Tyler, in 4*Town apparel of his own, noticed them and yelped with shock to see them there too, but tried to lamely deny it for the sake of his tough-guy reputation.

"No! Tyler? Who's Tyler? I don't know a-"

"You're a 4*Townie!?"

Then Mei and the girls all screamed with joy and delight and ran over to bring him into a group hug, which he begrudgingly accepted.

"Well, look at that." Roar smirked. "The little shrimp loves boy bands, too."

"Who'd of thunk?" jokes Rudolf.

The entire crowd cheered with sheer excitement as soon as the performance was about to start. In the front, Stig and Kris weren't as abuzz as the rest of the audience, but they awaited for what was to unfold. And finally at long last, the boy band, 4*Town made their grand entrance to the crowd one-by-one - Robaire, Aaron Z., Aaron T., Tae Young and Jesse - and in no time at all, the crowd went absolutely wild.

Fanboys and fangirls alike all screamed with delight, wailed and sobbed tears of joy and passion at seeing their beloved stars. Kris and Stig just covered their ears and listened, as did Roar and Rudolf. Although they weren't 4*Townies themselves, they didn't mind the experience per say.

Mei and her friends, Tyler included, were over the moon at finally seeing their favorite singers up close and began to shed huge ugly tears and their noses dripped like the passionate fans they were.

"~ You want it?
(I want it)
You want it?
(I want it)
You want it?
(I want it)

Give me on, two, three four
You wanted it, you went for it
And, baby, you got it
I wanted it, I went for it

And, baby, I did it on my own
Did it on my own
(Own)
Did it on my own….~"

THUD! THUD! THUD!

All the band members were lifted up into the air with angel wings when suddenly, all the music stopped abruptly when there came a series of loud rumbling noises like giant footsteps approaching the SkyDome and everyone's eyes darted all around to see what was going on. Stig and Kris looked at each other before they all looked upwards and saw a sight that chilled every single person inside to the core.

Peering inside with eyes of unrelenting fury was the form of a gigantic red panda almost as big as a skyscraper or a kaiju and it gripped the outer side of the SkyDome as it leered its head inside. And not only that, but this one had a familiar looking coiffed hairstyle, a beauty mark on its cheek and long eyelashes. And it didn't take very long for the two brothers to realize who it was.

"Mei-Mei!" It roared thunderously.

"You gotta be shitting me." Stig hissed with annoyance, not the least bit scared.

"Mei-Mei! Where are you?!"

It looked all around for the girl in question until its eyes fell upon her. Mei, however, was undoubtedly terrified beyond belief, especially when it called out her name. All color drained from her face and her heart stopped and her eyes were as wide as flying saucers when the horrifying realization came to her with an icy chill up her spine.

It was her mother.

And she's come for her.

"Mom?!"

"MEI-MEI!"

Then Mei screamed and ran like hell along with her friends. And just like that, everyone began to freak out and scream in terror at the very sight of the giant red furry beast. The giant panda Ming climbed herself inside, causing some damage to the structure in the process and even the band themselves, still suspended in the air, began screaming helplessly as the panda kaiju mom started to attack their concert.

While Stig ran away as well to catch up with the others, Kris just stood there motionless, holding his guitar behind him as he just blankly watched as Ming ripped the ceiling doors open like a rampaging gargantuan monster to get inside. He always wondered what Ming's red panda looked like, but he never imagined she'd be at this size. Then a bunch of people that Kris instantly realized were Mei's family members, judging by all the green outfits they wore, and Mr. Gao in some traditional garments. The older woman, presumably the mother of Ming and Mei's grandmother, had a scar over her right eye, no doubt due to a red panda altercation years ago.

Then Ming jumped inside the arena, the impact of her feet landing on the ground creating an earthquake that knocked everyone to the ground, then stood up tall and menacingly and yet, Kris remained still, soundless and unfazed.

"Mei!" Mei's father, Jin, cried out to his daughter as they hugged.

"Dad?"

"We have to save your mother!" He shouted.

"She's gone loco!" Aunt Chen distressed.

"Mei, we have to do the ritual again." Her father informed her hurriedly.

"What happened?! She's huge!" screamed Mei with fear at seeing her mother at a ginormous size.

"It told you she was big!"

"That big!?"

"What about Kris?!" Roar screamed, worried for his friend's safety now that the transformed Ming was here. Heaven knows what she might do to him if she spots him. "We can't just leave him here!"

"Who's Kris?" asked Aunt Helen.

"Wait, the Bengtsson boy? He's here?" Jin asked, dumbfounded.

"Bengtsson…" Wu murmured ponderously. Why does that name sound oddly familiar to her?

"Yeah, we kinda brought him here to get his mind off of things. You know, for his birthday today." explained Roar.

"Oh, well, tell him I said 'Happy Birthday'!" Aunt Ping replied encouragingly.

"And who might you all be?" Grandma Wu gestured to the three boys.

"We're friends of his." Rudolf answered quickly with a goofy, friendly smile. "I'm Rudolf. Nice to meet you."

"What's with all those piercings on your face?" Wu pointed at Stig judgmentally.

"Wow. That was the first thing you picked up on?" Stig deadpanned snarkingly at her. "I envy your enthusiasm."

The old woman scoffed and sputtered at the boy's disrespectful attitude while the aunties all eyed the boy with curiosity and surprise at his audacity towards their strict and traditionalist elder relative. Then Ming brought a giant paw down at Mei.

"Mei-Mei!"

And swoop her up in her paw while everyone yelled out with worry.

"You are in big trouble, young lady!" She hollered at her while the girl struggled in her fist. "I'm shutting this down, right now!"

As she grabbed at the 4*Town sign above the stage and ripped it clean off, Kris found himself finally taking action to protect himself for the first time in a while, climbing up on top of the stage and running away to avoid getting crushed or hit by any falling debris and threw himself onto the ground, covering his head.

"Everyone, go home!" Ming barked at the crowd beneath her feet. "Where are your parents? Put some clothes on!"

In the process, she dropped the sign to the ground at the base of the stage, shattering it to pieces, thankfully missing Kris.

"This isn't you!"

"THIS IS ME!"

Mei, for the first time in her life, got really angry at her mother for denying her the chance to be her own self for a change and finally screamed back at her mother before becoming a panda to bite her mother's hand, forcing her to let her go. If it weren't for his resentment at Mei at the moment under the circumstances, Kris would've been mentally congratulated her for finally stepping up to her mother.

Her family and friends all rushed to her aid as she then faced her mother, feeling more angry at her than she's ever been before. No longer was she gonna let her mom tell her what to do. No longer was she gonna keep letting her force her ideas onto her. No longer was she going to be forced to be her perfect little girl anymore.

She was a growing woman now with her own needs, her own interests and her own life. And it was high time her mother saw that one way or another.

"I'm not your little Mei-Mei anymore! I lied, Mom!"

"What?"

"It was my idea to hustle the panda! My idea to go to Tyler's party! It was all me! And you had no right to mistreat Kris all his life either! He would never do anything to hurt me and he definitely never asked for any of your stupid bullcrap! I like boys! I like loud music! I like gyrating! I'm 13! Deal with it!"

Mouths were agape at the girl's uncensored tirade towards her illiberal mother. Ming had equally been stunned into silence by her own little girl talking back to her and dropping that enormous bomb on her. Kris and the boys looked at her in amazement at finally letting her mother know who she truly was and not who she wanted her to be.

Has it really taken her this long to finally grow a spine?

However, Ming's utter disbelief quickly turned into pure rage since her daughter's rebelliousness and disobedience only increased her wrath and she then roared loudly into the air like a monster about to destroy the city.

"HHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHGGHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Then the Lees quickly got to work in trying to recreate the ritual in order to stop Ming's insane rampage while Mei worked to keep her busy as she was too incensed to listen to even listen to reason to focus on getting herself back to normal. While they worked to form a giant circle around the area and began to sing, Stig rushed over to where Kris was to try and get him out of the SkyDome before Ming sees him.

"Get back here!"

"Make me!" Mei refused.

"You think you're so mature? Lying to me! Blaming me! How could you be so…so…CRASS?!"

"Oh! That's nothing! You wanna see crass?" Mei chuckled smugly at her, moving her body and hips all around in that favorite dance of hers to taunt and disgust her mother purposely, then began to twerk at her face, shaking and bouncing her large, panda booty at her nauseatingly with an evil smirk.

"What are you doing?! Stop moving like that!"

"What's wrong? Is this bothering you?"

The girls and Tyler began cheering their friend on.

"Yeah, Mei!"

"Destroy her with your big butt!"

The boys, however, all eyed the scene with a combination of confusion, disgust, cringe and disbelief. Though, Kris doesn't seem to be bothered by Mei's shaking her large butt at all.

"What's happening?" asked Rudolf.

"I have a confusing wave of questions spinning in my head right now." Roar droned, trying to look away.

"Huh? Take it, mom! Take it!" Mei jabbed even further, spanking herself and shaking her ass some more with no remorse.

"STOP IT! STOP IT!"

When her mother started to turn around, unable to bear looking at her daughter behaving so unladylike and so shameful anymore, Mei barely had time to react when her mother's tail suddenly whacked her to the ground.

And that's when she finally noticed Kris standing over there by the stage.

"KRIS?!"

"Kris?" Jin asked, looking toward the boy.

"Wait, that's him?" asked Aunt Ping.

"Huh, he looks kinda cute." Lily commented with a smirk.

"Quiet, Lily!"

But then things started to go from bad to worse when Ming turned toward Kris's direction until he was right in her line of sight and then she glared dangerously toward the very last person she had expected to see and he stared back at her and her fury now reached volcanic levels. Her pupils taking on a hellish shade of red crimson.

Like a fire-breathing dragon or a demon.

"You…!"

"Oh, shit." Stig groaned as he pulled on Kris's arm to try and get him to run away with him before the angry Momzilla could get to him, but Ming was already on top of them. She brought her giant paw back down once more to pick Kris up and clutch her tightly in her grasp. Stig desperately kept a hold of Kris's arm as he was being lifted up, but was forced to let go and drop to the ground.

"No!"

"Mom, no! Stop! Don't do this!" Mei begged with all her might, yanking on her mother's furry leg to get her to stop this before she does anything she regrets, but Ming simply shoved her away with her foot, ignoring every word her desperate daughter was saying. Kris's hands gripped onto the strap of his guitar to keep it from falling.

"Ming, stop it! Now!"

"Let him go!"

"Put that boy down this instant!"

"Leave him alone!"

Mei, Rudolf, Roar, Stig and everyone in Mei's family all shouted, screamed and yelled pleadingly at the giant mother to let the poor boy go, but unfortunately, their cries fell on deaf ears as Ming held the Norwegian boy close to her face, making him look directly in her venomous red irises as Kris could do little else but look her in the eye as the spiteful panda woman's rage rose to unprecedented levels, reaching a point of no return. Then she filled the entire SkyDome with nothing but her high-volumed voice as she ranted into the boy's face.

"Of course it's you! It's always you! Everywhere my Mei-Mei is, you're there!" She raved on and on as Kris listened in quietly, unblinkingly. "Wasting my precious time at the temple, going on breaks without my permission, taking advantage of my little girl and now here you are, stalking her and waiting for the moment to get your smelly, grubby little mitts on her! You just couldn't stay away and leave well enough alone, couldn't you?! Couldn't you?! You ugly, fat, lying, stuttering, braindead, no-good, imbecilic, bubble-brained and unwanted little shit! You would do this whole world a huge favor if you just DIED!"

A tense silence fell upon the Lees as the giant Ming cursed, raved, disparaged and emasculated a poor, innocent and defenseless young boy in front of them all and it brought a wave of emotions among them. They've always known Ming was the most uptight out of all of them and she's always been a bit judgey towards certain people who rubbed her the wrong way or gave her bad vibes, but this was just a whole level of wrong and now they were beginning to feel sorry for Kris.

Mei was also positively mortified, flabbergasted and taken aback by her mother's long-winded verbal attack on her friend, including her friends, who were just as horrified by Ming's hurtful, stinging words. Jin looked directly toward Ming as she said all that, unable to see the woman he had married for just a brief moment.

Rudolf and Roar were especially irate, looking ready to boldly shout back retorts of their own at the kaiju red panda, clutching their friend.

And Kris…well, had no words.

This apparent lack of response only seemed to anger Ming even more as she started to forcefully apply more pressure on her grip on Kris, intentionally starting to crush his body in her fist, causing him to wail in agony from the pain.

"DO! NOT! IGNORE ME!" She hissed at him.

"Mom!"

"Ming, stop! You're hurting him! Stop!"

"Oh, I'm just getting started!" Ming now had the face of a madwoman, almost reveling in Kris's pain and watching him squirm.

At this point, Stig had had it with watching her assault his brother like this and wasn't going to take this sitting down any longer. So he ran over to her and started to punch angrily at her leg.

"Hey! Put my brother down, you fucking bitch!"

A collection of gasps erupted from the Lee women by the boy's use of explicit language toward their kaiju-sized, rampaging relative, given the circumstances.

"Oh, dear."

"Why I never."

Ming's fury was refocused onto him now.

"What did you say to me?"

"You heard me!" Stig screamed at the top of his lungs. "Now let him go right now! I mean it!"

"Why you little…!"

"Stig!"

Priya took off running toward the unafraid goth boy right as Ming lifted her massive foot up and shoved him out of the way just in time as Ming brought her foot down to try and crush him.

"How dare you! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?!"

"I don't know! Do you?!" Stig shouted back defiantly, not caring that he was just about to be stomped to death.

"Stig! Shut up!" Priya tried to shut him up before he made it worse.

The sudden movement of Ming turning to face his brother on the ground caused Kris to suddenly lose his grip on the guitar strap until his fingers grew tired and he accidentally let it fall. The guitar plummeted straight to the ground and plopped flat onto the ground. There was a jotting on the back of the guitar's body that said:

'To my loving boy. - Dad'

Ming looked downward at the instrument and now got visibly annoyed, remembering Kris's taste in music, which she had hated with a passion.

"You and that stupid guitar! You and that loud, angry, shrieking noise you have the nerve and the gall to call music! So, you know what?!"

"Mom, no!"

Despite everyone yelling at her stop, Ming brought her giant foot up again and Kris knew exactly what she was about to do. He desperately wanted to speak up, to yell, to shout, to beg her not to, but he just couldn't Since he knew in hindsight that she wouldn't listen anyway. He didn't have the strength to even utter a single phrase and had no choice but to helplessly watch in over-the-top abject horror the moment Ming slammed her foot right down onto the guitar on the floor….

….and crushed the instrument underneath her sole without hesitation and without a second thought. After a couple of seconds, she took her foot off of it to reveal to be nothing much left of it, but a bunch of broken pieces.

Mei gasped with trepidation at what her mother had just done, unable to stop the strengthening and freezing dread from gripping her heart. Her family and all her friends observed the scene with shock with no words to properly express their quiet disbelief, to think Ming would ever allow herself to do something so…horrid.

So….cruel.

And Kris?

...No words in any vocabulary or dictionary in the word could describe what was going through him right now as he shakily looked down at the remains of his precious guitar that was most important to him, that was all he had left him.

His father.

And if you thought Ming had gone too far before, well…

.

.

.

.

…she had now crossed a major line.

And it's happened. Kris has been invited to the 4*Town concert by the girls for his birthday to help cheer him up and Mei, thankfully, has decided not to go along with the ritual. However, a lot of damage has already been done and Mei has a lot to fix before she can be forgiven for throwing everyone under the bus, even Kris.

Holy shit! Ming's become a red panda herself and she is a gigantic in size, apparently furious at her daughter for disobeying her and not contributing to her wishes. And seeing Kris there at the concert must've been her final breaking point as well, especially after she's already made it perfectly clear to him to stay the hell away from her daughter. But Kris was only in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it's really taken Mei this long to finally stand up to her controlling mother and assert herself, not wanting to be her perfect little Mei-Mei anymore. But things have only gotten worse before they could get better. Kris just had to agree to bringing his precious electric guitar to the concert with him, which compelled Ming to remorselessly destroy it in front of him, just to spite him.

How well is THAT gonna turn out? Stay tuned and find out.

And we've been introduced to Kris's other family members like Adam and Charlie, the brothers of his late father.

Next Chapter: Ming had done it. She's destroyed something very important to Kris, having finally had it with seeing him near her daughter. However, this proves to be a huge mistake, resulting in some...terrifying consequences.

Next Update: March 10, 2023