From alt.games.mk Sat Aug 6 22:21:46 1994 Path: panix!zip.eecs.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!uunet!news.delphi.com!usenet From: Stephen Karstensen Newsgroups: alt.games.mk Subject: OUTWORLD (part 1) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 94 20:00:43 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 405 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1f.delphi.com this story is unfinished. However, several people have requested more fanfiction, and us writers with the big egos are always happy to oblige. If you like what you read, kindly mailbomb me and tell me to get my ass in gear and finish it. Outworld: The Kombat Continues Windmill kick! His legs splayed out and his feet smacked the ancient one's head twice in succession as his body rotated around an unseen axis. Then, the uppercut that sent the wizened foe reeling, blood spraying from broken teeth. It was a satisfying victory, to say the least. Liu Kang raised his head, these thoughts of his final battle with the hideous demon Shang Tsung scattering like leaves in the wind. The elders of the Society were speaking to him in his mind, and surely he would receive these congradulations upon his return home. "Young Master, you have proven yourself in your skill, and only through your devotion did you see your goal through. Little did anyone know the horror that had been brought upon this Earth by the Evil One, but now the Scales of Justice are once again in balance. You have earned your place among the leaders of the Lotus Society." Liu Kang smiled to himself, and lowered his head once more, concentrating on the road in front of him. He would be modest, of course. "I only did what was necessary, Master." "You did indeed. Rise, young Kang, and take your place in the ranks of the noble." Pain. Fire, and torment. The cries of the damned assaulted his ears, but he paid little heed. His only concern was the towering form that was now slowly rising from the throne of skulls and horn. "You failed." The deep, evil voice echoed, its tone low and unsettling. He trembled visibly, but tried to hide it. "Yes, Master." "I gave you a simple task and free reign, and you failed." The ancient one's blue robes fluttered as he shook in fear. He knelt, his hands clasped in prayer. "Can you forgive, Shao Kahn?" "YOU ARE TO BE PUT TO DEATH!" The voice roared, shaking the walls of the throne room. Shang Tsung tried to rise, but the adamantite spear of one who used to serve as his personal castle guard restrained him. "I do not tolerate such dismal failure!" "Wait!" Shang Tsung's voice cracked in panic. "Why should I listen to you a second time?" Shao Kahn snarled, his features still hidden in the darkness enshrouding his throne's alcove. "Goro is dead, and Kintaro will want to tear you in half for it!" "Because, Shao Kahn...this time, I cannot fail. I was robbed of my youth..." "By losing the tournament to Kung Lao," Kahn interjected. "You had your stolen souls beaten out of you!" "Lao won on a technicality." Tsung supplied weakly. "How was I to know the Elders would allow his hat to be worn into the battle?" "I had to send you Goro to ensure your final hold. You were close to victory, and a young upstart...who wasn't even a full Lotus, brought you down and scattered all you had worked for!" "But if you restore my youth, I can gain it all back, and more!" Shang Tsung cried, beginning to panic. "Bring your opponents here, to the Outworld...we will stage a second tournament to lure them, where they will kill off one another for you! And should one defeat the others..you may kill him yourself." Shao Kahn was silent. Was he thinking? "And what would your youth have to do with this?" He finally asked, his tone low and unsettling. "I will take down any victor before he engages you...as your personal protector. With my youth restored, and the stolen souls of the fallen..." "And what if he should defeat you? I have little confidence in your ability at this point." "He couldn't possibly! Think of it! Your most powerful enemies dead..and I with all of their forms and abilities!" "And what if he should defeat you?" "Then you would kill them, and lay to rest all opposition." "I shall think on it. You have bought yourself some time, Tsung...but do not rest too comfortably." As the guards dragged Shang Tsung away, Shao Kahn's eyes narrowed. "And if you think I will allow you to live with the strength of all of my most powerful enemies, you are out of your mind." "Baraka!" The mountains echoed with the call, but they answered not. "BARAKA!" "Who calls?" Finally, the gravelled, animalistic voice sounded in response. "It is I, Shang Tsung. I have a proposition for you." "Shang Tsung? You still live?" The owner of the voice stepped into the light: it wore a karate gi and black pants with red marking, a metal-plated belt, and black bands on his biceps. His forearms were studded with spikes jutting from the skin, and near the wrists gleamed metal. Sneakers rounded out this odd ensemble. "Shao Kahn dares not to kill me," Shang Tsung grinned. "I am too important." "You're too big on yourself, Tsung." The mutant's face was a hideous parody of a human, with pointed ears and bald skull. Its face was a mask of wrinkles and scars, and its lips (or lack of) drew back in a wide, grinning sneer that revealed gleaming metal fangs. Its eyes were black as night, and they bored through you as if they were awl pikes. "But what has happened to your body, I wonder?" The form who stood before Baraka, the one who claimed to be Shang Tsung, was nothing like the old man in blue who had claimed the lives of those in the tournament mere days before. He was young, with a muscular body and black hair, wearing black tights and yellow suspendered uniform. "I am young again, Leader of the Khashigei. And I need your help." "Will it be evil?" Baraka's grin split wider, as his claws clenched into fists. "Very. You and your fellow mutants will be allowed free reign to do what you do best...rend flesh and spill blood!" "I like the thought of that." A faint metallic clang sounded as two four-foot sword blades snapped forth, extending from Baraka's wrists and glinting in the setting sunlight. "Point me in the right direction and set me free." Liu Kang's eyes widened as he looked ahead of him. There was smoke rising from the horizon ahead. He broke into a run, hoping to reach the top of the hill before whatever was happening to his temple was too late to be stopped. The inferno that greeted him was one that sent his mind reeling in shock and horror, though. As Kang reached the crest of the hill, he saw that his beloved home was in flames. A horde of hideously misshapen beings had set upon his brothers, and were slaughtering them with wicked-looking blades. Standing in the doorway of the temple, wreathed in flame, was the most hideous of them all. His grinning fangs seemed to glow in the firelight, and as Liu Kang watched, this monstrosity's black eyes connected with his. Their gazes locked, and the thing gestured with one forearm. Filled with rage, Liu Kang bolted into a run, weaving among the fray and howling like a madman. The thing's grin seemed to widen, and it backhanded an overconfident young monk out of the way, sending him pinwheeling to the ground. "We finally meet...you who had disposed of Shao Kahn's favorite slave. I shall enjoy this." Baraka began to shove his way through the melee, slashing and clawing all who stood in his way. One of Kang's brothers suddenly appeared before him, having disposed of the mutant who'd attacked him. Baraka swung, one of his blades extending during the strike, and the young monk shrieked, his head snapping back to let his slit throat spray blood in a wide gushing arc. Baraka knocked him aside with a shoulder ram, then struck a second monk out of his path with his other arm. Blade extended again, and this unfortunate hit the ground a few seconds before his severed head followed suit. Soon the distance closed, and Baraka crouched as Kang launched himself forward in his now-patented horizontal flying kick. Kang sailed over him, and Baraka spun as he stood. Both blades extended with a snap, and he quickly dragged one along the other. A screeching metallic sound ripped forth as a deadly blue spark flew toward Kang, striking his back. The young Lotus hit the ground awkwardly, taken completely by surprise. Baraka spun him around, then growled in bloodlust. "You were no challenge. Die with your bretheren." Both blades pierced Kang's chest as Baraka rammed them home, lifting the beaten young Lotus into the air. Liu Kang writhed, growling in a high-pitched whine of agony. Blood began to run from his mouth as his eyes glazed over. Silence reigned. The blood-soaked earth was quiet, littered with the corpses of many Shaolin brothers and the burnt ashes that was their temple. Then, it began to rain. The water ran among the blood and dirt, gradually lengthening into a torrential downpour. The clouds grew thick and angry, then lightning struck. Its explosive force scattered severed limbs and shredded bodies, churning the ground viciously. When it cleared, a form stood. His wide, disc-shaped hat obscured his face in shadow, but he lifted his head to reveal chiseled and rough features, eyes glowing in an electric purple. His baggy clothes were no longer plain white, but a red overgarment covered his back and chest now, along with circular dragon patches on his sleeves. Raiden surveyed the scene with an angered scowl. "This will not do, Shao Kahn. This time, you have overstepped your bounds. If the Celestial Bureaucracy will not act, than I shall myself." He slowly stepped through the carnage, stopping before a single body. "Arise, Liu Kang. Seek your allies in those who have fallen from grace, and then exact your revenge in the Outworld. Yet, should you fail, and your followers as well, then I shall strike myself." Soon, it was quiet again, the rain drizzling away into nothing, the sky swollen and thick with stormclouds. Then, lightning struck. It hit the young monk's corpse, lifting him upright, and causing him to arch his back in agony. The twin impale wounds closed, and a new red headband and stripes down the legs of his sweats appeared. Spiked wristbands adorned his arms, and he howled to the sky as Raiden's words echoed in his mind..... He raised his head, gazing into the candle. Meditation did not come easy to the exiled these days. Nor did sleep. "I failed you, great ancestor," he murmured, trying not to let his anger bubble to the surface. "I have failed." "Are you sure this is the way?" His young brother echoed his own thoughts for the six hundredth time that day. Kang had found the young monk huddling under a split tree crying after the attack. He had been quite confused as his last thought was of sliding down two cold blades toward an evilly grinning face, but here he stood, with a sudden purpose in his mind. "If I recall, we should take this path uphill." Liu Kang said, indicating the steep path up between two rocks that then led downward into a canyon. His young charge bounded up the dirt road. And his headless body collapsed, then fell and rolled back down towards Kang. Kang growled, then proceeded himself. A second time the projectile soared, but Kang saw it coming and caught it. It was a hat, flattened with a wide brim...and the brim was dripping fresh blood, due to it being encircled with a keen razor's edge. "Kung Lao! Cease this senseless activity and show yourself!" "Be gone." The voice was heavy and bitter, and came from down in the valley. "I need your help." Kang began to step down the path into the shadowed trees. As he did so, the hat faded from his grasp until he was holding empty air. "Take a hike." "Listen!" Kang's voice dropped as his anger began to show. "The temple has been destroyed." "What temple." "Yours, Lao. The Lotus Society." Nothing. "You exiled yourself after I defeated you in the judgement match. Why hold such a grudge?" "I was to enter the Tournament in your place, to dispose of Shang Tsung." "Tsung no longer lives." "It matters little. The elders chose you, who had no stake in the fray, to go instead of me. My great ancestor was killed in that Tournament! It was only just that I avenge him." "It was still no reason to force yourself into exile and step away from the Society. You were such an honorable man, Kung Lao. I thought of you first when the Thunder God told me to seek my allies. "Raiden? The thunder God? Since when did He begin calling to mortals?" "Since the slaughter that came to our temple is related to the Tournament in which both he and I participated." "You lie." "I do not. I fear the mutants who leveled our home came from the same place Goro did, and the threat is resurfacing." "Goro....he was the creature who killed my ancestor. What does he have to do with our temple? And what of these mutants you speak of? "Your time for revenge has come, Kung Lao. Join me." "What are we doing back here?" Kung Lao's gaze swept the carnage that was once his home. Now in the light, one could see him for what he was: a thin, wiry figure in baggy pants and overtunic, the latter inscribed with a single rune, that of his family. His hat was now cleaned of the blood and its razor edge gleamed in the sun. "I need to contact our second ally." Kang led the way through the charred wreckage to the meditation area, where he had spent so much time preparing for the first Tournament. He dug in the dirt until he found what he was looking for: an intact incense candle. Lighting it, Liu Kang knelt in lotus position and began to meditate. The hideous, reptilian hissing grew loud as Shang Tsung stepped on to the cement ledge. His gaze swept among the bloodied spikes, and the charred spot where Raiden's body was once impaled. "Reptile...APPEAR!" "Yesss..?" A form stirred in the darkness. It lifted its head, then crouched back down in suspicion. "You are not my masssster. Who are you?" Reptile paused, cocking his head to one side. "And yet, you remind me of he. Perhapssss...if he were younger, yesss?" "It is I, Shang Tsung. He who you have sworn to protect through all trials." "Till my death." Reptile intoned, stepping into the light. His green uniform mirrored that of a Lin Kuei assassin, but his posture and mannerisms suggested an origin other than that of a human being. "Join me in the Outworld, Reptile. A new Tournament is being born, and your service is necessary again." Reptile nodded quickly. As Shang Tsung snapped his fingers and the spell took effect, Reptile faded from view. Tsung smiled. All was going according to plan. Not only were his enemies going to slaughter themselves for his benefit, but Reptile was the link to an army that would provide the muscle to deal with Baraka and the Khashigei. Shao Kahn would kneel before Shang Tsung before this was over. Oh, yeah. Shao Kahn regarded the two slender female forms in front of his throne with distaste. He knew he could trust neither of them, but their effectiveness could not be doubted. They appeared to be identical twins, wearing tight sleeveless bodysuits of purple and blue, respectively. Mid-thigh high boots of the same color, as well as facemasks that hid their features from the nose down, were also in place. Shoulder-length hair and bandannas tied around the forehead framed faces that appeared angelic, yet seductive and dangerous. The one in purple drew her hands over her front, making a pair of steel sai appear, seemingly from out of nowhere. She spun them, then crossed them overhead in salute. Her twin snapped a pair of iron gunsen, or war fans, from a similar nothingness, spreading them to glitter in the torchlight of the throneroom, then crossed one arm and extended the other, bowing with a flourish. The two stole hating glances at one another; sisters they were, and yet the open dislike was mutual and tough to hide. "We arrived as soon as we recieved your message, Shao Kahn." The one in blue snapped her fans closed with an expert flick of her slender wrist, making them vanish on her person. The one in purple nodded. She never spoke, that one...but her sais vanished as quickly as they had come. She folded her arms, listening. "Kitana and Mileena...the two of you are my most successful assassins. I need your services again. Shang Tsung-" "What is that slimy little shit up to now?" Kitana interrupted, her dislike for the sorcerer taking precedent over manners. "He is organizing a Tournament here in the Outworld. The two of you are to keep an eye on him, and the others. Many powerful beings are coming together in this event, and the...security risk will be unmistakable." "Who exactly are we referring to?" "He who defeated Shang Tsung in the first tournament. Two allies follow him-" "Earthworld mortals? How common." "...Reptile is returning, as well as Baraka. They do not know it yet, but they are going to be in the fray as well. I am going to provide bait for one I know will be strong, and who could be a problem if not taken out now." "And who is that?" Kitana's eyes narrowed slightly. Shao Kahn, cloaked in a veil of shadow, raised his staff. A red globe was set upon its end in a claw, and he struck the staff upon the stone floor. A vision appeared, swirling from mist until it became clear. It was the Arena, and Kahn's throne there was flanked by two stone pedestals. These discs were flanked in turn by tall posts, carved of wood and topped with skulls, from which dangled manacles. "The two mortals who died in the Earthworld who would bring this man to us...rise from your slumber, Sonya Blade and Kano the Scarred." Flames struck the pedestals, and when they cleared, Sonya and Kano stood upon them, tugging in puzzlement at the manacles that now bound them. Shao Kahn laughed. "Major Briggs would give his life to free young Lieutenant Blade. If I do not lure him now, he will meet up with Raiden's chosen three, and I do not want that. He must come before them." "What does this have to do with us?" Kitana interjected, her voice puzzled. "Keep an eye on things, love." At such a comment, Kitana bristled. "Make sure that my rule is not threatened. If even Shang Tsung should prove...disloyal, you have my permission to kill him or any others who stray from their path." "And who should win?" "No one." Kahn smiled hideously. "For if even Tsung should defeat all of our foes, he would be too powerful...and a threat. You must kill him should he prove victor. In fact, whoever kills all others and wins, you must destroy." "It shall be done." Kitana bowed quickly, and turned to leave. Mileena merely nodded, then slid downward into the floor as if it weren't there, vanishing without a trace. Shao Kahn turned to look beside him, where in an apparent hole in the air let him look to the two captives in the Arena. He chuckled to himself. "And Major, wouldn't you care to know where Sonya is, hmmm?" The hole shifted view to Shang Tsung's former palace, then to a muscular African-American male in combat camouflage gear. He was standing near a makeshift table on the edge of a jungle clearing, his radio man seated on a log. "Lieutenant Blade, do you copy. Repeat, Sigma Delta Epsilon and over. Lieutenant Blade, Come in." He paused, then removed his headphones. "Dammit Jax, it's been a friggin' week. Call off the search, will you?" "Not until Sonya is found." Major Briggs snapped, focusing his binoculars on the castle he had just sighting in the clearing. "And if she's dead, I want her corpse. End of story." "Sonya disappeared on this island last week tracking Kano, right?" The radio tech peered in the direction Briggs was looking. "You think it's the least bit weird that her whole strike team vanished too? Kano and his Dragons knew they were being tailed and set up an ambush. End of story." "Quiet." Jax was following a bit of movement in the castle. Nice Asian architecture, it was. "Countersign Phi Phi Alpha, recieve. Come in, Major Briggs. This is Sonya....repeat." Jax nearly fell over the log as he dashed for the radio. His assistant fumbled with the headset for a second before slapping it on his head and picking up the mike. Shang Tsung stood before the growling captive, grinning. "Repeat your message, Sonya. Or should I do it for you?" "Fuck you." Sonya raised her head to glare at him. "You already got me and Kano, leave Jax out of this!" Shang Tsung laughed before letting his form shift, his features melting like soft clay. Soon Sonya was again staring at her own face. "Return signal, Countersign Phi Phi Alpha, Recieve. Is that you, Jax?" Shang Tsung could barely keep himself from laughing. Such a simple plan, really. "Sonya! This is Jax. Where are you?" "In the castle..I can see you from he-ARGH!" Jax gritted his teeth. "Sonya! Are you all right? Answer me!" Shang Tsung wiped the blood from his mouth as Sonya's leg swung around in an arcing kick before returning to the pedestal. "You really are helpless here, bitch." Shang Tsung spat some crimson before approaching her. His fingers traced her bare stomach, exposed by the green spandex halter she wore. She flinched from the tickling before crying out as he rammed his fist into her groin, knocking the wind out of her. "No matter. Jax is on his way to save you, and I could use some soul food." Shang Tsung chuckled, stepped down from the platform. Sonya swung another kick, but missed. "Johnny, can I have your-" "Johnny, sign my-" "Johnnyyyyy!" Cage slammed the door to his dressing room, almost breaking three female arms in the process. The publicity over his being dumped from Dragon Fist III had generated an even larger number of people following him around, especially fans and press. Now what? Johnny sank into his favorite chair, the one with the swivel thing on the bottom. He stared into his big, lit mirror, before tossing his sunglasses onto the dresser in frustration. And then nearly pissed himself. The face of a young man he had tagged as a Bruce Lee wannabe was in his mirror. Actually, the mirror seemed like a window into a smoke filled room, and Liu Kang was encircled in the mist. Kang raised his head to look at him. "Johnny. Once again the scales of Law have been tipped, and I need you to join me in the Outworld. Goro's master has returned." Cage's mouth hung open. Kang opened his mouth to speak again, but his image was swept aside as if by black smoke, and a new form appeared. It was a grim-faced man with a skull helmet that grinned hideously at him. "Yes, Cage...join us, won't you?" "Johnny...about that renegotiation.." Johnny's agent knocked on the door several times. "Johnny? Yo, John." No answer. Upon letting himself in, Johnny's agent found an empty dressing room. Odd. Johnny had just come in here a few minutes ago.