I'm currently listening to "fire with fire" trying to figure out how to start this story. Do I start when everything went to hell at azure lions fight or when Redson helps him time travel. How should I get him to think of Ink!mk? Maybe make it Meis idea to get him and cause Mk to think of the reflection in the cauldron or does he just go up to the cauldron to have someone to talk to because he needs someone who isn't close to him. That he still knows won't judge or worry? Or maybe Ink!Mk thinks of him with his access to MKs memory's? Does Mei and Redson get him out in the first one. Second idea has Mk just pulling him out after Cauldron!Mk mimes have his palms flat on the cauldron like you would a window and just grabs on. If it's Idea three then have what ever they do to make Ink!Mk a actual stone monkey to the cauldron? If it's that maybe it disappears like Ink!MKs scroll or shrinks down to a wearable size? Like a charm?

Cauldron reflection MK! On top of his peach gold fur his personality would be starting for those who knew sun wukong from when he was still on peach mountain. As earnest as OG!MK but calmer, able to stop and think what to do next as he did as a reflection showing mk how to get out of the cauldron. I am still fleshing out this character so if you have anything to add please comment.

If Cauldron!MK and INK!MK go back in time with out MK. And MK is just sitting there on the floor having fallen wondering why the hell he just tried to balance on a non-existent tail the morning before he gets the staff. Unable to work out why he thought he had a tail.

I call Cauldron!MK that instead of Reflection!MK because I think he would be shaped by the cauldron he was pulled out of. Weather it's by MK or Red son and Mei would change by how much. Off it's in a timeline where MK does it would be that he had mentioned his reflections actions while in the cauldron and those two thinking it a cauldron unique thing and not a stone Monkies thing and that would shape how he appears to them before he gets out. If it's MK doing it then he would be leaning more towards being a mirror of MK in behaviour and abilities. If it's cauldron!MK he might be more resistant to fire then the other maybe outright immune to burning. If it's Reflection!mk then there may be no reflection in the past for OG!mk to talk to when he needs it.

If OG!MK doesn't remember the pre time-travel time except for impressions and vague knowledge of people he hasn't met then the one sided misunderstandings that could pop up because how well they know him or things they say both from the time travel and their own nature because they might be actual Celestial Stone Monkies now, but that doesn't change their origin. Also the sort of bull***P they could pull based on how stone Monkies pop up. about how to make eggs(making Monkey king and six ears think that they are their cubs left alone would be neat angest) or with how no one would know them making everyone else think somethings messing with their memories.

if it's just cauldron!MK and Ink!Mk without OG!MK in the past, then it would have to be someone getting in a lucky shot at the end of the fight against OG!MK, either azure lion or lady bone demon. Or if it's all three MK's the fight against azure lion having consequences in that the cracks in the sky don't go away and only grow worse.