Authors: Jeff Rovin
Shang Tsung grinned with delight as he looked at Rayden. The Thunder God remained unflappable.
"Now then," Shang Tsung continued, "though I am leaving you, Rayden, my colleagues Goro and his Outworld associate Reptile will be remaining behind. Reptile is the personal bodyguard of Lord Shao Kahn, so I expect you'll have your hands full." Shang Tsung regarded the god for a long moment. "Unless, of course, realizing the hopelessness of your position, you'd care to throw in your lot with us?"
Rayden said nothing. After a moment, Shang Tsung shook his head.
"Too bad," said the wizard as smoke began to rise from his hands again, "though I'm not sure you would have enjoyed our little band. By the way, Mr. Woo and Mr. Schneider: you are hereby terminated, though I do have one final use for you."
Before the two of them could protest, they were swallowed in a burst of red and vanished.
"As for you, Ms. Blade," Shang Tsung extended an arm toward her, palm out, "you may have lost a fiancé and your quarry, but you've gained a very special honor."
Red lightning flashed again, and when it faded, Shang Tsung and Sonya were gone, and Goro and Reptile were moving to the left and right of Rayden, Goro gurgling with delight and Reptile drooling acid on the grasses beneath his bare feet.
Goro reached out a massive arm and pointed a finger at Rayden.
"You cannot die, Thunder God," said the Outworlder, "but even immortals can be killed. And we're going to be the ones to kill you."
Rayden continued to look straight ahead, watching his opponents from the sides of his eyes. The cold glow of those eyes and the stony set of his jaw revealed nothing of what he may have been thinking or feeling.
Goro's red eyes moved like little machines as he stopped closer from the left. On the right, Reptile's sharply down-slanted green eyes and sinister green face mask were unflappable. Dressed in a skintight black cowl, green leggings, black slippers, and a black bodysuit with green trim, he moved with a fluid grace that was lacking in his burlier companion.
"You talk too much, Goro," said Reptile, his sibilant voice sounding hollow behind the mask.
"It keeps my energy level up," said the brute, moments before he ran at Rayden.
Instead of meeting the charge, Rayden vanished and Goro found himself running directly toward Reptile. But the serpentine Outworlder avoided the collision by leaping out of the way. He grabbed a low-hanging tree branch and swung up into it, moments before a lightning bolt fired by Rayden from a higher branch sliced through it and sent Reptile crashing to earth.
Reptile was on his feet in an instant, hissing loudly, his fingers curled like claws. Goro dug a massive foot into the ground to stop his forward momentum, then turned toward Rayden.
"Fight, coward!" Goro bellowed.
"Dolt!" Reptile said to Goro. "He uses his brain, which is the most effective fighting tool of them all!"
Drawing back his head, Reptile spit acid at the base of the tree. The bark crackled and popped beneath the steady stream of vile green fluid, but Rayden had already somersaulted off the tree and landed behind Reptile before it fell. He air-kicked the Outworlder from behind, and as Reptile stumbled forward, Rayden leapt onto his back, simultaneously knocking him ahead and using him as a springboard. He landed on the serpent-man's back with a jump-kick, causing Reptile's arms and legs to splay out. Rayden had already vaulted off his foe and was standing, facing Goro, when the four-armed giant charged.
This time, Goro lunged the last few feet and managed to catch the leaping Rayden about the thighs. Goro wrapped all four arms around the Thunder God, tackling him and landing with his left shoulder in Rayden's midsection. He quickly put two hands on the wrists of the dazed Thunder God, pinning them so he would be unable to aim his fire.
"I'll still take muscle over mind every time!" Goro said as he peered down at his captive.
"Hit him!" Reptile yelled as he climbed to his feet, shaken by his run-in. "He can still–"
Even before the words were out, Rayden had vanished in a flash of light and Goro fell forward on the bare earth.
"Damn!" said the Outworlder. "I forgot–"
"Behind you!"
Goro spun as Reptile yelled, but he was too late to avoid the Thunder God's roundhouse kick. His foot caught Goro in the side of the jaw and literally spun him around so that he landed on his back. Rayden swung his arms around and pointed them at his foe, but before he could fire his lightning Reptile leapt at him – vanishing in the midst of an air-kick.
Rayden had begun to get out of the way, checked himself when Reptile disappeared, then went flying backward as the Outworlder's foot struck him high in the chest.
"You may be able to teleport," the fighter said in an eerie, aspirating voice, "but can you make yourself invisible?"
Rayden had the air knocked out of him as a knee came down hard in his belly. He managed to fire a lightning bolt ahead of him, saw the silhouette of Reptile fly backward in the blast, then lost him again as the glow disappeared – replaced by the charging Goro.
Rayden glowed dully, trying to teleport, but was unable to muster the strength.
"He's done for!" Goro said, scampering from all sixes to his feet, raising a leg, and bringing his foot down hard between the Thunder God's shoulder blades. "We've beaten Rayden!"
"Move aside!" Reptile hissed. "I want to dissolve this relationship."
Goro lumbered several paces to the side as his companion drew back his head. Rayden managed to get his right hand beneath him, raised himself to his left side, and looked at his enemy. He was trying to muster his strength, intending to push away at the last possible second before Reptile spit his acid. His arm was trembling, and he wasn't sure he could do it–
Suddenly Reptile went flying to the left, propelled by the feet of a figure in black. The figure's legs were stretched before him, his back facing down; while his feet were still in contact with Reptile, the newcomer did a pirouette so that he was facing down, and as Reptile flew in one direction the figure in black landed on his hands, did a handstand that became a handspring, landed facing Goro, and pummeled him with a deadening series of uppercuts.
The startled giant took several swipes at the figure, who ducked, punched him in the lower belly, and jump-kicked under the chin. The bronze-skinned brute staggered back and fell against a tree, which shook and dropped twigs all around him.
Those precious seconds were all the time Rayden needed to get to his feet.
"My name is Liu Kang," the figure in black said to the Thunder God as the two stood back-to-back, awaiting a renewed charge.
Reptile was on one knee, his arms cocked at his side; Goro was rubbing his jaw as he stepped away from the tree.
"
Thank you, Liu Kang,
" said Rayden. "
Leave now – this fight is not yours.
"
"I've heard of this four-armed goon," he said, "and if you're fighting Kano and Shang Tsung, this
is
my fight."
Reptile came forward, chuckling incongruously as he brushed leaves and grass from his tights. "I, too, thank you, Liu Kang," he said. "Now Rayden has someone to worry about – he cannot simply teleport away."
"I can take care of myself," Liu Kang said.
Goro renewed his attack with a roar, and the White Lotus warrior met it with a roundhouse kick to the top of his left arm. But Goro blocked the kick, wrapped his upper left hand around the mortal's shin, and twisted hard.
"You Mother Realmers amuse me," Goro laughed, though as he spun Liu Kang around, the young man stiffened his other leg, which, cartwheeling toward the giant, caught him in the cheek as it came around.
Goro dropped the smaller mortal, who landed catlike as a lightning bolt flashed over his head. The explosion caught Goro in the middle and doubled him over, after which the renewed Rayden spun to meet Reptile's charge with a second burst. Reptile air-kicked, rising above the bolt and landing beside Rayden, on the Thunder God's right. While the two exchanged a series of punches, interspersed with blocks and kicks, Liu Kang ducked and weaved to stay out of reach of the enraged Goro, catching the giant with occasional sweeps and crouch-kicks.
And then both Rayden and Liu Kang froze as icy clouds covered each of them.
Goro and Reptile stood back and gazed into the brightening skies of the east, whence the sheets of ice had come. A figure was walking toward them from the rising sun, a man dressed in blue and black, with a metallic mask over his mouth and a black hood pulled over his eyes.
"You know," he said, "it's rather refreshing to make an entrance like that, rather than sneak and skulk as I am wont to do."
"Who are you?" Reptile asked as he looked from the stranger to Rayden, who was covered in a layer of ice several inches thick.
"I am working for Shang Tsung," he said, "as I gather you are. I was hired to dispatch the White Lotus blossom on the right. As for the one of the left," he said as he reached the Outworlders, "consider him a gift from Sub-Zero."
He moved with speed far greater than human.
Shortly after sunrise, the nimbosity that was Kano and Kung Lao reached the foothills of Mt. Angilas, the long-ago Mt. Ifukube, and drifted swiftly past the ancient caves of the monks of the Order of Light, along the cliff faces themselves to the heights where the gods dwelt in their temples.
The gray, living fog poured up toward the Temple of Rayden, whose columns and facade were as radiant as they had been fifteen centuries before... cared for by the monks, kept fresh by the crisp mountain air, and preserved by the very purity of the soul of the god the temple honored.
As Kano-Kung neared, a dullness seemed to fall over the blue-white alabaster and brilliant gold that symbolized the moon and the sun – the shadow of corruption that the unholy hybrid brought with it.
Guided by Kung's knowledge, which he was unable to suppress, the Kano side of the creature moved toward the rock where, long ago, Kung Lao the First had entombed the sacred amulet of Rayden.
The humanoid smoke stopped in front of the stone, which bore the scars of the battering Kung Lao had given it – still looking fresh as the day they were made. With something that looked like a smile on his distorted face, Kano moved closer, his thick fingers thinning and becoming tenuous, snaking behind the rocks and through the cracks, feeling their way with phantomlike delicacy–
And then the smile became fixed and wide as he found what he was looking for. Willing the fingers to become more material once again, Kano pulled the stones forward. They fell around and through him, and then there it was before him, glowing white and gold in the sunlight. He slipped his airy fingers through the stiff, ratty leather strap, pulled the amulet to him, then turned and glided down the mountain.
Behind him, the full luster of the temple did not return as its heart was carried away by the adulterated child of wickedness...
Sub-Zero surveyed his handiwork as he slipped the knife-tipped pole from his back.
"The effects of the cold will wear off shortly," he said. "When they do, you'll want to be prepared to dispatch your friend. He's conscious inside there, can hear everything we say, see everything we do. I imagine that he'll be rather annoyed with us all."
Goro agreed. Lumbering behind the ice containing Rayden, he wrapped his arms around the block and lowered it to the ground.
"Think you can hit him this time?" Goro asked.
Reptile approached with a slow, slithering gait. "I was struck from the side by a new assailant, Goro. However, you had no excuse for that first charge when we disappeared."
"My excuse was that he disappeared!" Goro said. "I knew about his lightning, but I didn't know Rayden could teleport!"
Sub-Zero's ears perked. "Rayden? I've defeated a god?"
"You had help," Reptile said, bending over the head of the frozen deity. He let the acid run through his mask, and the ice began to evaporate in billowing, sizzling sounds.
"Did I?" Sub-Zero said, tapping his chin through his mask. "When I arrived, he appeared to have the two of you at a disadvantage. Perhaps we should let him up again and see how you would fare–"
"In a fair fight?" a voice rang out from the direction of the sun.
The three henchbeings looked over, squinting red, green, and human eyes into the light. They saw no one, then leapt aside as a pair of short-stemmed harpoons screamed toward them. The barbs snagged the frozen heroes in the ice between their feet, and as the servants of Shang Tsung watched, the blocks were quickly drawn away from them. An instant later, the air between them wriggled and darkened and a figure materialized in their midst, a man clad in black and gold, his face all but hidden behind a gold mask.
The newcomer faced Sub-Zero. "You defeated a god with the help of two others, fiend – the same number it took to help you beat an unarmed man."
Sub-Zero moved so that his face was flush and close to that of the newcomer. "Don't come to my battlefield and lecture me, pup. Don't you dare."
"Stop me," said the youth.
"In time," Sub-Zero replied.
"I'll stop you," Goro grunted. He ground his upper left fist into his bottom right palm, and upper right into the bottom left. "I'll rip your living heart out. I don't like braggarts."
"Calm yourself, Goro," said Sub-Zero. "What is your name, boy?"
"I am Scorpion," said the youth.