by Jeff Rovin
Somersaulting as his shoulder struck the door, Liu Kang was on his feet in an instant and facing the window. There, breathing hard amid the dull orange glow of the lanterns, Liu felt he stood a chance against the ninja, who relied on darkness to work his deviltry.
Time was measured by the rapid beating of his heart, and the attack never came. Instead of relaxing his guard, Liu continued to stand with one hand raised in front of his face, the other angled in front of his chest, his left foot resting only on its toes, prepared to deliver a roundhouse kick if necessary.
When he’d leapt through the window, Liu had seen the boy cowering under the table, and asked, “What happened here?”
“I–I’m not sure,” said Chin Chin. “I was about to be shot when white fire exploded over my head and shot through the window.”
“It originated in here?” Liu asked.
“Yes. One moment the room was as you see it, the next moment there was heat and thunder everywhere. And then it was quiet again.”
Liu said, “Whoever sent that fireball saved us both.”
“But who could have done it?” the boy asked. “Kung Lao has forbidden the practice of magic, and we have been taught that the gods no longer interfere with the lives of mortals.”
“Perhaps these are more than mortals we are facing,” Liu said. For though it was true the priests taught that the time of the gods had passed, the Thunder God Rayden was still the patron deity of the Order of Light. And the flame that had been sent here was designed to save the boy without destroying the scrolls and the books. That was the reason it had been discharged through the window: Liu’s having been struck and empowered with the ability to radiate flame was probably just a very lucky consequence of Rayden’s efforts to save this boy.
Unless you believe in fate, Liu Kang told himself, in which case perhaps I was supposed to be there. But it was difficult to believe in fate, and in the benevolent protection of the gods, when he thought of his loyal friends probably lying dead outside. Why save him and not them? If anything, they were younger and more innocent.
But this was not the time to ponder philosophical matters. There was a town to secure, and when that was done he still had his mission. He glanced at his watch and thought of the lighted ‘2’ – of the other lives that were still at stake.
Walking on the tips of his feet, Liu made his way to the window. Standing several yards back, he fired a burst of flame into the night, then quickly looked to the right and then to the left. Sub-Zero was nowhere to be seen – though in the fast-fading glow, Liu saw the bodies of his comrades, their dead eyes open, thin red ribbons of blood around their necks. They’d been garroted with a thin cord that ninjas carried – caught from behind, unable to cry out as the wire or nylon was slipped around their throats and pulled tight.
Sad and angry, Liu knew better than to run into the night, the ninja’s element, seeking revenge. Someday he would face Sub-Zero again and things would turn out differently. In the meantime, somewhere out there was Sonya Blade, and he must get to her side as soon as possible….
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Shang Tsung’s hands began smoking again and the red flash exploded, Rayden’s white eyes narrowed. He peered unflinching into the evil lightning, watched without fear for himself as it struck the earth between Goro and the wizard, and saw a tall shape begin to coalesce amid the ruby glow… a shape that was dimly human in form but clearly not in nature.
Shang Tsung said, “It occurred to our all-knowing Lord Shao Kahn that perhaps I underestimated the Order of Light.” The magician sighed. “Well, perhaps that’s so. No one likes to admit his weaknesses, but I’m only human after all. Just like Mr. Woo and Mr. Schneider and this would-be pull-plugger of a woman who I am compelled to believe was never my ally at all.” The wizard cast her a knowing sideward look. “Is that not so?”
She rose from the trench and said proudly, “I’m Sonya Blade, agent of the U.S. Special Forces.”
Shang Tsung reacted with surprise. “With so much on its mind, your mighty government has targeted me? I should be honored.”
“They’ve targeted you at the request of the British government in Hong Kong,” said the woman. “As for me, I came here to get Kano.”
“He’s wronged you?”
“Three years ago he killed my fiancé, Cliff LoDolce.”
“The martial arts sensei?” asked Shang Tsung. “Kano was responsible for that?”
Sonya nodded once.
“Then Kano must have attacked him from behind,” Shang Tsung said, “or in the dark. LoDolce was said to have been a supreme martial arts master. Kano would never have dared to fight him.”
“It was from behind and in the dark,” Sonya said, rage in her voice. “When Cliff refused to use his skills to fight for the Black Dragon Society, Kano shot him with six slugs from a .45.”
“That’s Kano,” said Shang Tsung, “a living overstatement. And you vowed to find him. How almost unbearably touching.”
While they were speaking, the red bolt had faded and the new arrival stood in the darkness. Rayden could see clearly what the others could not: that the being had a normally proportioned human body and head, though the lower half of the face was covered by a green mask with a series of horizontal slashes on either side. Liquid dripped freely from the openings; where the saliva struck the ground, puffs of smoke arose.
Acid, thought the god. There was only one Outworld creature who was like that.
“Kano is a crude and heartless fellow,” Shang Tsung admitted, “but in my defense, he’s not entirely without value. He is extremely greedy, and coupled with his physical prowess and ruthlessness, that makes him effective. Although I must admit,” Shang Tsung said as he stole a glance at the new arrival, “had I all of it to do again, I would never have hired Kano or any mortal to do a god’s work. Try to save a piece of your soul and look what happens.”
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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
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.
&nb
sp; “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.
The giant was snarling with anger and moving faster than before. His top two hands reached for Rayden’s neck, but the Thunder God dropped down, extended his legs straight before him, placed the bottoms of his feet against Goro’s belly, and used the giant’s own momentum to lift him up and flip him over. But though he had been caught off-guard, Goro managed to stretch an arm behind him. With his monstrously long reach, he latched onto Rayden’s left foot, and as the Thunder God was being pulled over, Reptile air-kicked him in the exposed, vulnerable small of his back. 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.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
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…
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
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.”
