Chapter Text
The day had started innocently enough.
The twins didn’t have any errands to run for Macaque today, so they had decided to hang out in the old theatre again to tinker on some of their latest projects. These plans got slightly altered however, when Mei showed up. Requesting Jin to tag along to some super secret fun.
Yin would lie if he claimed that he wasn’t at least a tiny bit jealous. The three of them did stuff together often. Almost daily, actually. But exactly that was the thing: they did them together. 99% of the time when they did stuff, it was all three of them.
So for Mei to only take the oldest of them along, leaving the younger twin behind without even so much as telling him where they where going, was a bit irritating. He didn’t question it to much though. It was Mei after all. The girl often had some crazy ideas.
So, instead of tagging along, Yin stayed in the theatre. Tinkering away on one of their projects, alone. It was a bit lonely, knowing he couldn’t just call out for his brother when he needed company. But admittedly, the quiet helped at concentrating.
That was until the door to said theatre was swung open, with so much enthusiasm, that the clang from it hitting the wall lightly made the sliver demon flinch. And if he dropped the thing he was working on in surprise, no one needed to know.
“Mei’s in the house! And I brought food!” the voice of the dragon girl rang out, clear and exited as ever. It made Yin perk up in both surprise and curiosity, turning around to look at the entrance just in time to see Mei kick the door closed and start walking in his direction with a skip in her step.
“Mei! You’re back early!” was the first thing that left the silver demons lips as he took of his goggles. Surprise clear in his voice, but a grin on his lips.
And it was true. It only had been roughly an hour since Mei left with Jin, as a look to the near by clock on the wall confirmed. So whatever they had been up to, couldn’t have taken to long. Especially considering Mei seemingly had the time to buy food before returning here.
That statement however, only made Mei raise an eyebrow. A quiet and questioning “Early?” leaving her lips, before she shrugged slightly as she plopped the bag she was carrying onto the table. Sitting herself on top of the wooden surface mere seconds later as well.
Yin in the meantime looked around, his eyes wandering to the entrance again, as he noticed that Mei was…well…alone. Only she came through the door, and the worn entrance didn’t give any indication of opening for a second person anytime soon.
“Where did ya leave Jin?” the question was spoken with to much casualness, thinly veiling an underlining uneasy in the twins tone. It made Mei halt in her task of unloading the bags contents onto the table.
Dark green emerald eyes slowly turned to the meet silvery blue ones. “What are you talking about?” Mei asked carefully, slightly confused. Her adopted brother mirrored her confusion almost instantly. “You two left together earlier? I assumed you’d come back together?” the twin tried to explain, his statements coming out more like questions.
Mei carefully set the mango down that she had taken out of the bag, courtesy of Macaque since he seemed to have a tendency to burry the twins in fruit lately, for whatever reason. Her brows scrunched together slightly, a strange feeling of unease starting to bloom in her stomach.
“Yin…I don’t know what you are talking about. This is the first time I came here today. I didn’t take Jin anywhere.” She spoke carefully, still confused, but now also alert to how her brother would react.
Yin just stared at her for a moment, blinking a view times. Apparently trying to process that bit of new information. Till his eyes went wide like plates. A confused “what are you-“ leaving the silver demons lips before he cut himself off as some sort of realization seemed to dawn on him.
Mei flinched as Yin suddenly shot up from his sitting position, rocking the table when doing so. Probably because he hit it with his knee, which didn’t seem to bother him though.
Panic set his nerves aflame while making him shiver in cold realization at the same time. He immediately started pacing back and forth in front of the table, his mind going a mile a minute.
“No no no, this can’t be happening-! Where could they have taken him? He left the phone here- I can’t call him- Where should I even start looking-?!” he didn’t even realize that he started to ramble in his panic, the world around fading to a sort of deafening static. It wasn’t until Mei grabbed his arm, apparently having stood up from her seat on the table, that he snapped out of it.
“Yin, what is going on?! You’re kind of freaking me out…” There was concern written all over her face. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen one of the twins react this way before…
But the physical contact seemed to help the younger twin calm down a bit. He took a deep breath to steady himself, before he spoke. “They took Jin…someone came here, disguised like you, and they took Jin.”
Mei furrowed her brows, the clear fear in the silver demons eyes, despite him trying his best to put himself together outwardly, making anger boil insider her. Normally Jin was the overprotective one of the three, which however didn’t mean that Mei took kindly to anyone causing the twins distress. But she couldn’t focus on that now.
“You mean he’s been kidnapped? Why?” she asked while searching her brain for an explanation at the same time. Gasping when a possible answer came to her mind just seconds later. “You don’t think this has anything to do with you two working for Maci, do you?!”
Yin shook his head almost instantly, silver colored bangs swaying from side to side lightly. “No…I mean, maybe. But no, I think this has a different reason…” he answered, noticing how Meis shoulders seemed to relax just the slightest bit at the confirmation that this, most likely, didn’t have anything to do with the twins connection to the six eared Macaque. And by extension, their connection to her.
“Jin and I had our reasons for keeping a low profile all these years. Ya know, before MK showed up and all that.” The silver twin continued to explain, but was promptly interrupted by the dragon girl.
“I thought you just did that because you two suck at fighting” there was a small and teasing smile tugging at Meis lips, despite their situation. Yin just gave her a dead pan look.
“First of, ouch, rude. Second, no. It’s actually because- ya know what? It’s probably easier if I show you” he decided, after coming up empty with exactly how he should explain this howl thing with words. So instead, he took a step back, freeing himself of Meis grip on his arm, and grabbed one of the tools still strewn about on the table. Before Mei could react, he used said tool to cut a decently deep line into his non dominant hand. Nothing to deep, but enough to elect a surprised and shocked yelp from the girl, and more than enough to draw blood.
“Yin, what the hell-?!” Mei started, trying to reach for the twins hand to asses the damage he had done. But she stopped herself when the blue demon in front of her raised said hand, showing her the cut.
The liquid that flowed from the injury wasn’t red. It wasn’t even black, or any other color that she could somewhat logically associate with blood. No. What ran down her brothers palm, over his wrist, and dripped onto the floor wasn’t red. It was silver. A shimmering flow of silver liquid, like molten metal.
Mei could only stare, mouth slightly agape, as Yin started talking again. “We aren’t called the ‘gold and silver demons’ for nothin, Munchkin.” A smile tugged at the demons lips as he watched his sisters reaction, reaching for a cloth to bandage the injury in the mean time. He probably would have found Meis bewildered expression extremely hilarious, weren’t it for the fact that he was still very much afraid for Jins safety right now.
They had gotten in trouble before, in the past. That both other demons, and humans, had been after their blood had been the reason they ultimately decided to lay low. No more getting into useless fights. It took a view, verry long, years. But they had managed that their reputation had shifted to a point that most demons took them for weak and to unimportant to waste time on.
And while teaming up with the six eared Macaque brought the unexpected bonus that some demons now straight up refused to attack them, for whatever reason, it also seemed to have dragged them more into the spot light again. Rumors traveled quickly, and it wasn’t exactly easy to stay unnoticed when you where literally doing errand runs for the six eared Macaque, and hanging out with the Monkie Kings successor…
“Wait…so if you bleed silver…does that mean Jin bleeds gold?!” The girl asked once she recovered from the surprise, effectively ending the silver twins train of thoughts. Both shock and amazement filled her voice, and her eyes almost seemed to sparkle for a moment.
“Yep” was the rather short answer Yin gave her. His lips pressing together slightly to draw a thin line as he watched Mai connect the remaining pieces. Fascination quickly turning to a mixture of worry and fear on her face as her shoulders sacked in grim realization.
“Does that mean…you think they kidnapped him because they..?” she left the sentence unfinished. The words tasting bitter on her tongue and weighing heavy in her stomach.
“Probably, yeah” the silver demon confirmed, and Mei didn’t waste a second to pull her phone out of her pocket.
“I’m calling Macaque” she declared, determination pushing away everything else.
She wasn’t aware that her words send a cold shiver through the younger twin though.
“What?! You can’t do that!” Yin exclaimed, trying to grab for her phone on impulse. She just barely managed to step out of reach, throwing him a confused look.
“If the boss finds out that Jin got kidnapped again, he’ll for sure throw us out! Or worse! We can’t tell him!” he answered the unspoken question of his sister. Something akin to panic…or desperation, in his voice. His eyes pleading with her to understand. The memory of the Tiger demon fiasco echoed in his mind... And the fight durring Nuwa's visit.... Both twins where still pretty certain that one more wrong step would be all it takes for the six eared Macaque to decide that they weren’t worth keeping around.
But Mei just shock her head.
“Yin, this is way too serious to not tell him!” her voice was steady and stern. Her determination unfaltering. “Jin could be gods knows where, and if your assumption is right, we don’t have the time to search the city on our own! Macaque is way better at figuring that stuff out than we are! He’ll know what to do!” she explained, ignoring that Yin looked like a kicked puppy when she hit the speed dial for Macaque and put the phone to her ear.
That the twin still thought Macaque would just throw them out was alarming. But they didn’t exactly have time to address that now. She made a mental note to definitely talk to both of her brothers about this later though. When they all where together and save again.
It didn’t take long for the call to get answered, but still long enough for Meis nerves to flare up a bit again. Every ring feeling like an eternity, till the click and a questioning sounding “This better be important, Gem” from the other line granted sweat relief.
“Papa, we need your help.” She didn’t waste any time on formalities or banter, getting straight to the point. She could hear what sounded like Macaque sitting up on the other side of the call.
“What happened?” Macaque sounded alert, undoubtedly having his full attention directed at the call now. That he immediately took her serious didn’t fail to be reassuring.
“I’ll explain it to you in a bit. Could you just…come to the old theater? As quickly as possible?” Mei barely managed to finish the sentence before she could feel the tell tale tinkling down her back as her shadow shifted. The phone clicked as Macaque hung up, and the dragon girl could watch as her own shadow formed the all too familiar silhouette before the aforementioned demon emerged from it.
“I’m all ears. Explain.” The shadow warrior demanded as soon as he had stepped out of the shadow portal. His arms where crossed over his chest, the phone still in one hand, while his face held a seriousness barely hidden behind a laid back mask. And so Mei explained, with Yin chiming in here and there to add additional information to what happened before Mei had shown up. Macaque listened in quiet attentiveness, not once interrupting till the two where finished filling him in.
The shadow gave a heavy sigh, one hand moving to pinch the bridge of his nose lightly, once Mei and Yin where done talking. “I swear…you three get in more trouble than Wukong.”
His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. If all the info the two gave him was correct, than Jin was missing for close to two hours now.
There was always the off chance that the situation wasn’t as grave as the silver demon assumed. But with the additional information of the twins literally bleeding liquid gold and silver, it was better to not take any chances. Which also meant they where running out of time. Fast.
And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the general worry building up in Macaque, which he never would admit to, over one of the twins simply missing. He wasn’t willing to entertain the thought of why, exactly, he felt so worried.
“Okay. You two better listen, because I don’t have the time to repeat myself.” Macaque turned his eyes back to Mei and Yin. Noting with a shimmer of satisfaction that he had their full attention.
“If you two are correct, we don’t have time to search the entire city. So this is what we’ll do” he began to explain, having an air of confident professionalism surround him. Remnants of his confidence from when he used to be one of Wukongs generals, all those unimaginable many years ago. He guessed giving orders was like writing: something you don’t easily unlearn.
“I’m going to visit an old ‘friend’ and see if she knows something. In the meantime I want you two to go to the demon market. Listen around if anyone knows anything. Mainly search the back streets. If anyone is looking to sell blood, even if it is made out of gold, they’ll most definitely start there. Keep your phones at the ready, and stay out of trouble.” Macaque sternly instructed, leveling both of his trouble makers with a gaze that clearly showed he wasn’t joking. He already had rescuing one missing demon twin on his list, he couldn’t afford worrying about having to rescue the other two remaining siblings as well.
“Understood?” he asked, receiving a determined and serious nod from both of them. Somewhat reassured that Mei and Yin where taking this seriously, the shadow warrior opened another portal. “Good. Call if you find anything. I’ll be back as quickly as I can” And with those words, Macaque disappeared, and mission “find and rescue Jin” began.