-Outworld-
All things considered, Emperor Nicholas Winters, or if you knew him better, Emperor Rain, should have never been.
He should have been a footnote, a side story in a great battle between realms, too arrogant and assured of his own power to ever really succeed. Whatever his fate was, hiding, death by betrayal, something else entirely, it was a prime example of pride goeth before a fall. Far more a wannabe than a what-could-have-been.
But in the fragmented mirror of existence, sometimes there was more than one path. Sometimes there were many, playing out in a patchwork. Most ended up more or less the same. But sometimes, a left was taken instead of a right, a door opened instead of closed, and Rain (maybe a Rain? Trying to figure out the idea of split paths existing simultaneously, different ones intersecting with different OTHER paths, and some of them being more ‘right’ than others rapidly became an incomprehensible idea and most people just ended up accepting it and moving on) had stumbled out of his realm and into purifying fires that had actually honed his potential and ground down his ego enough that he actually managed to make something of himself. Now he sat the throne of Outworld, one Outworld anyway, and there had been issues, there always were, but he still sat the throne…
He’d never heard of a ‘Kronika’, and he would have taken immense offense if she told him his fate was completely wrong and needed to be erased from existence. He didn’t underestimate the woman, nor overestimate himself. He’d slain Shao Kahn, managed to make peace where he could and beaten down resistance where it wouldn’t take. He’d even aided in taking down a fallen Elder God, well...he’d been a strong spear in the wall of them in regards to Shinnok’s end, anyway. He would fight and he would win…
Except this being, this so-called guider of time, she didn’t just have herself. She had access to the same sands that had strewn across existence and sometimes made unique shapes. Worlds where others sat on his throne. Where others lost themselves to bloodlust.
And worse.
Others supplanting what had been. Rain barely knew Queen Sindel, but from his interactions with Kitana, she sounded like quite a woman. She would have been a great ally, and her suffering at the hands of Shao Kahn was yet another reason why it was good he was gone.
This was not her.
Well, it was. The hair both strangling Rain and smashing him into the ground made THAT clear enough. But otherwise…
A perversion. Almost a blasphemy. A power hungry, sexually sadistic traitor, murderer, and tyrant. Oh she claimed she was Sindel. That the stories told had been lies, that she had always been this way...but as the bard once said, methinks the lady doth protest too much.
“Is this it?” The sneer on Sindel’s face would have made anything, never mind the go-to predatory fish, run in terror. “Is this all the Son of Argus can muster against me? No wonder your father cast you aside in his grand scheme!”
Rain was still conscious despite the multiple times he’d been slammed into the floor and walls during this exchange. The jury was still out on if that was a good thing, because he was acutely aware of the many thin, wire-like strands coiled around his throat, cutting off his airways. His sword was in two pieces somewhere else and he was nowhere near enough to reach for her. And strewn around him were the unconscious forms of his allies. Reptile, Ferra-Tor, Ermac, Baraka...
She hadn’t killed them. They had been mere obstacles. Rain was the problem. He sat on the throne reserved for her emperor. Her family. Her, specifically. To see the man who should have been no more than a blip in the history of the Realms, never mind what claims of demigod status he made, sitting there was too much of an insult.
But the Emperor of Outworld didn’t just keel over and die. Especially if someone was going to rub the whole “Armageddon” thing into his face like a tired old meme video.
“L-like how… you cast your husband… aside?” he croaked.
The binding hair tightened in response.
“Jerrod was a coward,” Sindel retorted. “He had no spine, no motivation. He would have sat in Edenia’s throne until his flesh fused with the upholstery. And the kingdom would have decayed and stagnated, until it crumbled under its own weight. It needed a leader with vision and power, not a snivelling toady who “Yes, and”-ed the rabble into ruin. It needed an emperor, not a king!”
“An emperor… with the morals of a jackal... and the brains of an ox?!” Rain spat from the prone position. “Jerrod had his faults, but… he was… twice the king-”
“SILENCE!”
He never finished. He was lifted up and slammed down yet again, coughing as his bruised ribs received yet another pounding. Blood burst from his mouth in a cloud.
“You aren’t fit to speak! You sit in his throne, Betrayer of Realms, and you think you can pass judgement?! You, of all people?! You should be crawling on your hands and knees, kissing my feet and thanking me for permitting you to rule long as you have! In the throne that was mine or Mileena’s by right! The throne that you stole, like you’ve stolen everything you’ve owned, Nicholas Winters!”
The stiletto heels clacked across the cracked tiles. Dazed, winded, the world slipping in and out of focus, Rain didn’t hear her coming until she was looming over him, golden eyes leering mockingly down. With one hand trapped by the coils of hair, he felt for his Storm Daggers with the other, but his fingers felt like rubber and he couldn’t tell what was cloth and what was metal...
“And besides, Shao Kahn was thrice the man Jerrod was.” Sindel gave a chuckle. “Believe me, I should know.”
Disgust turned Rain’s stomach. “Don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t anything more than a piece of meat to him. Another conquest. The moment you failed him, he would have thrown you aside the same way you abandoned yours.”
Sindel shrugged. “Who’s to say? But then again, his own inadequacies were tiresome, in their own way. His failure to conquer Earthrealm… One can only tolerate failure for so long before it passes into the realm of boredom. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before I cast him aside, like so much trash.”
As if to prove her point, she brought up one foot and slammed it down into Rain’s sternum. The half-god howled - his ribs might have cracked, he wasn’t sure, but the pointed heel had definitely stabbed him. The rumours that she kept them sharp for special occasions had proven true. Had she ever gone for the “low blow”, as Johnny Cage would have phrased it? Elder Gods’ mercy upon the one who received that.
Sindel was looking him up and down, a half-smirk on her face. She eyed the blood pooling from his chest, then fixed him with the same glare.
“Imagine if I had,” she mused. “Perhaps you could have chosen me, instead of waiting for daddy dearest to give you the attention you never had. I would have been your one-way ticket to being a real Emperor, with a real Empress. Perhaps our heir would have inherited some of your fancy weather tricks?”
Rain’s stomach churned even more.
“As if I would ever lie with someone like you, you backstabbing old hag!” He spat.
The heel dug in some more, and Rain’s scream turned to a croak as the hair tightened.
“Mature women have more experience, dear”, was the former Queen’s retort. “I would have taught you so much. And truthfully, I did quite admire you, Nicholas. Young, handsome, ambitious. The way you betrayed the last of those rebels? All for power and glory? I could respect that. Had Shao Kahn failed me, you’d have been my first port of call.”
She knelt down and lifted one arm so that the hand was extended, palm-outwards, towards the demigod’s face. Her fingernails - talons, really - glinted too close, dried blood - his own - still glistening on them.
“Instead, here you are. A moral coward ruling over even more spineless worms, with a shrieking hussy clinging to your arm. No less the snivelling leech you were when you first began. I’d laugh, if it wasn’t so pathetic. But then again, considering Taven and Daegon seemed to gain all the family favour without even trying, pathetic is all you really-“
Rain’s hand closed on a familiar hilt.
A flash of steel, a roar of lightning, a scream.
Rain rolled to his feet, gulping down air with blessed eagerness. The Storm Dagger still crackled, purple fingers of electric wrath dancing along the length. His aim had been true.
But it hadn’t been for Sindel. Not her, specifically.
“Me, pathetic?” He grinned, lifting the other hand and brandishing a limp clump of hair in his grasp. “Says the one who chose to talk instead of kill.”
She’d staggered back as the dagger flashed out. Some of the lightning had hit her face, singing angry red lines across her complexion that smoked and hissed. Her hair had been abruptly truncated, severed about halfway down the length by a single swing. Sickly violet sparks dribbled from the split ends, magic pouring feebly and uselessly out. And from the rage on the former Queen’s face, Rain knew what he’d achieved.
Her best weapon was gone.
But a lioness wasn’t any less dangerous just because you cut the teeth out. There were still the claws to worry about.
“A mistake I will not make again!” Sindel shrieked. She charged for him, energy flaring to life along the length of her arms. Rain braced himself, pain singing through his limbs, but still ready to go.
Which was when the fiery hand came down on a fist onto Sindel, the giant fingers opening and seizing onto the woman before she was thrown, facefirst, right through Rain’s throne, which shattered like it was a toy. Darn. That had been one of his more comfortable seats.
“...I did hit the right person, didn’t I?” Shun’ei said.
---
Some people might have said that, while any rescue was a good one, the CHOICE of rescue wasn’t.
Shun’ei was no shrinking violet. He did possess strange, destructive powers and had been trained to fight with them for years, along with his fists and feet, as had Meitenkun, who was backing him up. And it wasn’t like the pair of them hadn’t been in fights for their lives, especially in the last tournament.
But the violence and brutality of ‘kombat’ was something else. There had been more than a few higher quality martial artists and warriors who had lost because the other person could wield the horrors of the fights better. And Dawn had known that. The best solution for a problem in this slice of existence was a fighter, or fighterS, with an edge.
So she’d sent Joy. And she hadn’t sent her alone.
But she’d made...something of a tactical error.
The flesh pits of Shang Tsung (and others) had spawned many abominations. And it wasn’t just the prime movers and shakers who had alternates to draw on. Once, a fusion of a princess and a warrior race had created a rather unpleasant in face and manner clone warrior called Mileena. But Mileena had been elite work, with expert craftsmanship.
This fusion of human, Takartan, and Naknada...not so much. The jaw was distended, barely able to chew, the spine was twisted due to the arms almost casually stuck onto a human’s frame, a lot of said sets of six arms having a withered, useless one amongst them more often than not. Between that, the mad pain in their eyes, and their less than able fingers, which tended to drop weapons if they were struck with not-that-impressive-force, it was clear what these hybrid abominations had meant to be. Fodder and shock troops, existing just to die in the hopes they’d take some of their enemy with them, or scare some of them off.
Also, they exploded when they died. Some sort of weird massive adrenaline spike when a fatal injury was suffered caused a further chemical reaction that tended to make the creatures pop like balloons, spraying mess everywhere. Maybe it had been meant as a last ditch defense effort, the blood and viscera meant to be toxic, an effect that hadn’t managed to make it into the ‘final product’.
It just delighted Pitohui all the more as she shot down the latest trio who had come for her with blades and maces and guns, the three erupting into fountains of gore that would do Evil Dead effects and Nightmare on Elm Street beds proud.
It’d been too long since she’d been allowed to cut loose. To just completely remove the moral weights she’d imposed on herself and go back to her old self. She’d never go ALL the way back, but it was always good to remember where you came from, and why you’d been that way. And this, told to face down a horde of monster things, for whom death would be a mercy, and whom certainly would not show an iota of hesitation in trying to kill HER? Hell, she’d have paid Dawn for it, instead of vice versa. That was just a nice bonus.
Pitohui hadn’t been surprised she’d been paired with Joy. Though she still wasn’t quite sure what was going on in regards to the pairing and mission. Some old Kobber ally was under attack? Dawn had found out first and this was her immediate response as she went to prepare a second wave if needed? She’d must have had Pitohui on speed dial for such an event with how fast she’d been yanked in, all her gear ready. Joy had frowned a bit, but it seemed that this concept hadn’t been a TOTAL surprise to her. And while the blood between them still had traces of bad, Joy was not the type to try and settle scores in the middle of something else. If Pitohui wanted to throw down again AFTER this, great, but for now, they were partners.
Partners who had been given slightly different orders, unbeknownst to either. Pitohui had just been given the general situation. Here’s the people on our side, here’s the enemy, kill the enemy.
Joy, on the other hand, had been given a touch more detail. This is Emperor Winters, he might need help, you need to penetrate the enemy lines and help him.
Dawn’s thought process had been simple. Pitohui would get into the slaughter and more or less run off. She’d make such a ruckus in the process that she’d draw the majority of the creatures with her. She could handle herself, Joy would assume she could handle herself, and Joy would cut down what remained and go assist Emperor Rain to victory. QED.
A fair plan.
Except Joy hadn’t let Pitohui run off. THAT part had been correct. Pitohui, back in her merry dance of death, had split from Joy and engaged in a running battle. And she PROBABLY could have handled herself.
But Joy hadn’t let her go. She’d seen them get seperated, gone forward a bit, realized that the majority of the monsters were going off to attack her erstwhile partner...and she’d gone after Pitohui instead.
Which meant instead of splitting the forces, they’d been able to re-congregate onto the pair. Who knew how desperate a battle the original idea would have ended up? Maybe not at all. But in this mindset, Pitohui had ALWAYS worked by herself. And in matters of utter violence, Joy had a lot more experience in going solo as well.
There’s a reason the myth is of the lone gunslinger, after all. But there’s myth, and then there’s refrain, and a large refrain in war was that even the most unlikely could work together to keep themselves alive.
Not that Joy, her back to Pitohui as the woman dropped her empty KTR-09 machine gun (so to speak, she had it on a strap over her right shoulder, so it just settled down to her side) and drew out her twin Heckler and Koch VP9s, laughing merrily as she blew warped fangs out the back of warped heads.
“Hey, toss me one of those gems again! Worked out well the last time you did!” Pitohui yelled.
Joy’s response was to just fire her shotgun again, pausing to let it cool, instead raising a hand and firing off a bolt of lightning.
“That’s the only reason you beat me.”
“Oh come on now! You haven’t fallen into sour grapes since the last time I saw you! I expect better, Merilee!”
“I still gave you a handicap.” Joy racked her shotgun and blasted a hole in another flesh pit creature chest. Yeah, fodder. “Kombatents” could handle unfathomable injury and keep fighting. These things? Far too ‘mortal’.
“Teach me how to literally spit fire and-SWITCH!” Pitohui whirled around, Joy moving with her as the woman drew out her laser blade, slashing through a pair of arms and then a torso. A mass of blood erupted, spraying all over her and by extension, Joy, the white of shining, feral eyes and teeth the only standout on the red that had rapidly soaked the two.
“You let it get that close on purpose.” Joy said.
“You didn’t watch your six!”
“You’re nuts!”
“And you LOVE IT! Reload!”
Joy reached behind herself and yanked the machine gun off of Pitohui, even as the idol singer drew Joy’s sidearm, aimed over her shoulder, and fired, shooting down another pair of attackers as Joy ejected the empty clip, swiped one from Pitohui’s on-body equipment, snapped it in, and swapped guns back before the two turned around and resumed firing. Gods, it was like one of those undead crisis situations her father talked about: they just would NOT. STOP. COMING.
“And you’re still dual firing!” She hadn’t even USED the machine gun, she was back with her handguns, that loon.
“These wastes deserve it!” Pitohui said, as she paused in her firing to chuck a grenade, the pair ducking behind a rock to avoid the shrapnel. It seemed like a good time to use such a thing. They’d battled through a temple, some city streets, muddy lands outside said city, and had tried to enter a forest, only to be driven away by a sudden fresh swarm of creatures. Now they were...on the outskirts of some mine, or rock quarry, or something in that vein, a long trail of gore in their wake.
“I don’t care if you’re ambidextrous! Shooting two guns-!” Joy blew off a head, twisting her own away as blood showered her. “With one in your weak hand just ends up wastin’ coffin nails!”
“Lemme borrow your gun again. I wanna play with the gems.”
“No! You’ll set off the wrong one and blind us or something and I ain’t gettin’ ate because you think this is some sort o’ party!”
“Oh, you’re no fun.”
“I didn’t sign up for this for-” Joy was vaguely aware that Pitohui was producing...something. Dawn had all sorts of ‘magic bags’ that could carry large items and keep them concealed until needed, she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d handed one off to Pitohui, or if Pitohui had swiped one…
She heard the THUNK of the tank on the ground and glanced around, only to recoil when the massive blast of heat hit her, Pitohui once again laughing her head off.
“DID YOU HAVE TO BRING A DARN REAL SPITFIRE?” Well, it was a flamethrower, but Joy didn’t know that technical name.
“Who wouldn’t use a toy that works for the job? It’s one thing to read about this baby, but it’s another to use it! HA HA HA HA HA-!
“You are crackers and the cheese’s long gone.” Joy said, turning back around and resuming fire.
“Twenty-seven! Twenty-eight!”
“This is not the time for competitio’!”
“Oooh! My my, when you get annoyed your accent really comes out, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, go hang.” Joy was starting to regret not letting the crazy woman run off. But what did it say about her if she just let the woman potentially hang herself if she slipped? “We can’t keep going in a line. We’ll get pinned down in that pit if we enter, it’ll give ‘em the high ground. I ain’t havin’ that shit, let’s go around it!”
“Or just kill them all! Aw darn, outta gas.” Pitohui said, as her flamethrower ran dry. “BUT NOT OUTTA BULLETS!” She resumed spraying with her KTR. To her disappointment, she only managed to get seven more before her gun clicked dry. “Damn it. Next time I’m going to ask Dawn for some bigger clips.”
The only response was a ‘Gurhk-!” and Pitohui turned around to see Joy vanishing over the edge of the rock quarry’s main dig.
“Hey! You don’t get to ignore the advice just because you gave it!” There was a lull in the battle, and Pitohui ejected and then snapped in new clips for her handguns. “COME BACK HERE, I’M NOT DONE OUTDOING YOU!”
To her credit, Pitohui didn’t just run and jump into the pit. She was battle-crazed but she was GOOD at being battle-crazed, and she was not STUPID.
Demonstration of such, number 1. She’d thrown her voice in mid-exclamation. If someone tried to follow her voice to target her, they’d be off.
Demonstration 2. She ran in a jagged stutter step towards the pit, trying to throw off any possible attack by someone expecting her even more by playing the angles.
Three, though it looked ridiculously dramatic, she didn’t jump-jump, she did a backwards flip in the process, turning 180 degrees so her head and arms were now facing the ground. Fancy nonsense? Not wholly. By putting herself vertical, assuming she was attacking a foe on lower ground, she was reducing her mid-air profile.
So, a good trio. It wasn’t exactly Pitohui’s fault that she found herself confronted by a counter that operated on line of sight and high mobility. That being, a metal tentacle whose end slammed into her gut, before it instantly coiled around her waist and yanked her down, slamming her into the ground (which made her drop her handguns) before throwing her across the quarry, the idol slamming into Joy as the cowgirl tried to get up.
Joy didn’t so much catch Pitohui as she sort of grabbed her and tossed her aside. At the least, it was a gentler landing than a proper grab and counter. And she wasn’t doing it to be mean. She’d been drawing her gun to get a shot, and didn’t want to lose it.
No dice. The tendril slashed upside her head, Joy’s last moment dodge preventing her from losing both her eyes, before the lashing whip slashed her wrist in turn, knocking her gun free. Pitohui was back up, trying to bring her machine gun to bear, but it clicked on empty. Damn. Bad oversight. And one she didn’t get a chance to rectify, as she was seized by the waist again and yanked into a spinning kick, before the form did a semi-dance forward and kicked Joy upside the head as well. The two did an oddly similar ‘get knocked back, but try and counter’ move, but the interruption was the same.
Micro-blades erupting across the twin metal whips, the pair were both slashed across the face and chest. A superficial wound, but meant to distract, before the blades retracted and the two whips coiled around the two women’s necks, their windpipes and arteries suddenly greatly distressed, as they were yanked up almost on their tip-toes, hanging from each length.
“Ah ah.” Their attacker finally spoke. Horrible fusions of several races weren’t the only weapons in Sindel’s arsenal.
Takeda Takashi hadn’t had the easiest life. But in terms of his ‘Prime’ counterpart he’d made it through his father’s abandonment, his mother’s murder, and other hardships to become a great warrior and hero.
Not all of him had been strong enough. Who knew where the change was? Perhaps instead of being spared by the thugs who had killed his mother, he had been taken and broken. Perhaps his teacher had faltered and taught Takeshi the worst of lessons, or maybe he’d just been mentally weaker and unable to resist a mighty woman’s charms, unable to realize that it was all just a form of abuse until he was in too deep. It didn’t really matter. Here was a Takeda who had become an utter disgrace and had long stopped caring about it.
And he had them square. Fuck.
Yet, they weren’t dead. Yet. He could have taken their heads off at any point, or sliced through enough tubes in the neck that immediate and very severe consequences would result. Probably more for Pitohui than her, Joy mused in the back of her head. She had Intricacies, her body was protected even if it seemed she had bare skin open to the world. It might throw him off, if it came to that. But it shouldn’t, she couldn’t let it, just give her a brief moment, as long as Pitohui didn’t say anything STUPID-
“I don’t wanna hear it. Just kill us and be DONE.” Pitohui said, spitting out a tooth. If it hadn’t already been happening, Joy would have strangled the woman herself.
“...Nah.” Alternate Takeda Takashi, who sometimes operated under the name Recluse (with said name henceforth being used to refer to him). With his arms out, twin high tech gauntlets projecting his deadly bladed whips, Recluse scooped up Joy’s gun with his foot and kicked it upward, grabbing it in his right hand. “Whoa. You one of those girls who really wished you had a dick?”
“I have enough dicks in my life.” Joy said.
“Ohh. Revolver. Haven’t seen one of these since I fed Black his.” Recluse, almost with a mild childish glee, spun the barrel on Joy’s gun with his thumb.
She had it. Her moment, given by another. She should be dead. There was some sort of delay here. Joy could sense it. The man either wanted to savor his helpless prey or he was building up to something. An offer, maybe. The thought turned Joy’s stomach and made hot rage bloom in her guts and pulse. She promptly directed it where it needed to go.
“This is your fault, you know.” Joy said to Pitohui.
“Oh don’t complain! You died before. Hell, it was me who killed you.”
“THAT WAS NOT AN EXPERIENCE I WANT TO RE-LIVE!”
“Technically you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t toss words like they’re horseshoes, Pitohui! You screwed up this mission ever since you put feet on the ground. I’m pretty sure Dawn picked you just because you were expendable!”
“I wasn’t the one who got dragged in first.” The argument held Recluse’s attention like it was a good tennis match, his head ticking back and forth. He had all the advantages already. He had both of them in a noose and covered with a gun for extra security. Let them yell.
“Are you still sour at who I am, Joy? I’m pretty sure Dawn picked you because you hold a grudge like she does!”
“Hey buddy, if you kill her first, I’ll pay you to watch.” Joy said.
“Kinky.”
“Oh, you’re disgusting. I don’t see you getting us out of this.”
“Hey, when you’re got, you’re got.”
“That’s just like every gem of an idea you’ve ever had, Pitohui. None too bright.” Joy said.
Then she clenched her fist and the Light gem implanted in the gun went off, even as Pitohui shut her eyes tight.
Kinda crazy, she was, Joy thought. But damn if she hadn’t picked up on what Joy was secretly doing instantly and protected herself.
Recluse, on the other hand, had a flashbang equivalent go off directly in his face, causing him to recoil. His mechanical armaments responded automatically, wheeling out more line instead of yanking the two women forward. That hadn’t been expected or hoped for, but it was a nice bit of luck. But the two were still tied at the neck with metal ropes.
Then Joy raised and slashed her hand down, breaking several bones in her carpal as she both cleaved and heat-cut through the rope around her neck, and at the same time, gave the new end of the rope a magnetic shock that flew backwards and knocked her gun out of Recluse’s hand, even as he tried to get his sight back.
“CUT!”
The blades erupted along the length of his other tendril...as Pitohui, almost in slow motion and at the very last quarter second, yanked the noose open, pulled it off and over her head, and let it go before the blades sliced her head or fingers off. The two women glanced at each other.
Then a pair of bladed tendrils, spikes having popped out of the end, went for their heads, and they both dodged and went for it themselves.
Recluse spun, his blades surging into motion along the length of his whips, plasma energy activating as he slashed to his left, trying to cleave Joy in half. The woman went to her knees and slid, snapping her head back in a makeshift limbo, the deadly length barely grazing her chin as it flew over her head and kept going, even as Pitohui did a split and planted her torso directly on the ground, the length flying over her own head, cutting off the end of her ponytail and slashing through the lower mechanisms of a conveyor belt esque transport that had been behind the women, the plasma whip ripping through it in a shower of red hot metal drops and sparks. Joy turned her semi-limbo into a roll as she snatched up her gun, turned and aimed…
Recluse brought his other whip down on it, cutting off the barrel with a sizzling snap.
“FUCK!”
“YOU!” Pitohui said, both as a follow up and to distract Recluse as she got her legs primed under her and, combining a sprinter’s start and a lunge, both got to her feet and closed the distance between her and Recl-
He was swinging his bladed plasma whip at her already. Fuck.
Then Joy smacked him upside the head with her gun, via throwing it. It wasn’t much, but it threw off his whipping slash, allowing Pitohui to duck under it and get right in close, grabbing his right arm with her own right, yanking his arm up, and driving her fist into his kidney, before switching her grip with insane speed, her left arm and hand now grasping his right wrist as she smashed a second punch into his solar plexus, and then an elbow into his face before he got free…
The lightning bolt was rather small and pathetic, but it hit what it was aiming at, crashing into both of Recluse’s arm gauntlets and shorting them out. The whips fell flat, the blades auto retracting, and Pitohui reached down, grabbed them with frightening speed, and yanked Recluse into a pistoning knee to the chest, before she headbutted him (using her reinforced headband so he took all the impact and she took a lot less) and then flipped him over her shoulder, slamming him to the ground.
She found her grip on the tendrils going slack. He’d hit something and the lines had popped free from his gauntlets. She didn’t have him in a position of leverage any more.
He used that and spun on the ground, slamming a kick across Pitohui’s face, but even as she was knocked aside Joy came in, sliding along the ground as she delivered her own arcing kick across Recluse’s face, her spur slicing deep. Blood flew, and then so did bullets, as Recluse turned his recoil into a downward grab, snatching up one of Pitohui’s dropped handguns and opening fire, one bullet slamming into Joy’s chest before she closed in, grabbing Recluse’s gun arm and wrestling with him, bullets whizzing by her ear as he kept trying to twist his arm at the right angle to shoot her, before he gave up on that and shove-punched her away.
Pitohui, however, had NOT dropped her machine gun. It had remained hanging on her body via the strap this whole time. And she had finally managed to reload.
Now she was back in melee range, smacking Recluse’s gun aside with her own before drawing it up, but her own attack was thwarted by its success: Recluse had lost her handgun, but he immediately closed in and grabbed her machine gun, wrestling her over it as she tried to riddle him at point blank range and he shoved the gun aside so it fired over his shoulder and past him instead, bullets smacking into a mine cart and pinging across the quarry before Recluse yanked Pitohui forward, his back slamming against the conveyor belt as he got a firm grip on the gun and pulled it out of Pitohui’s hands, one hand blurring down and drawing something that slashed through the weapon’s strap and let Recluse toss it fully away.
Pitohui promptly put on a pair of brass knuckles with her own great speed and smashed his nose to splinters with a punch. Recluse responded by drawing another blade, kunai, they were kunai, and trying to first gut Pitohui and then slash her throat as she juked and dodged, but he also dodged her follow up punch and switched his kunai’s angle of attacking, this time to drive it downward into Pitohui’s eye.
Before Joy came in from the side, hooking his elbow with her own to stop the downward stab. Pitohui zipped in again, firing off another brass knuckle punch.
Recluse shifted just right as a counter, and Pitohui accidentally punched Joy in the face instead.
“Sorry!” Joy didn’t have time to make a return remark, as he blocked Pitohui’s follow up punch, twisted said blocking arm around to punch Joy in the face again, causing her to lose her advantage in the elbow around elbow grip. Recluse shifted his own weight and turned the failed grip into one of his own, spinning Joy around and trying to slam her into Pitohui again.
He succeeded, only for Pitohui to do the exact same thing, sending Joy back at him like it was some sort of ultraviolent square dance. Recluse dodged and went forward, attempting to slash Pitohui with one of his kunai once more, but Joy’s arms clamped around him from behind, yanking him backwards. He went with it, slamming her back into the conveyor belt, his right arm slashing down as he tried to stab Joy from his front. He felt the blade sink in and hit hard resistance, and then Joy shoved him forward and kicked him in the back, sending him towards Pitohui. With the speed of a striking scorpion, he immediately tried to slash Pitohui again, only for the idol to dodge and deliver her own driving forward kick, sending Recluse stumbling backwards into Joy’s arms again before he was flipped over the conveyer belt in a german suplex esque toss.
He immediately rolled backwards as he hit the ground, regaining his vertical base, snatching up a nearby small sledgehammer, and throwing it at Joy. She dodged aside, the hammer spinning past her and smacking Pitohui in the face instead with an almost comical ‘THONK!’
“Sorry!” Joy tossed over her shoulder as she leapt the conveyor belt, meeting Recluse’s deadly kunais head on. A bad idea, as he slashed open her uninjured hand at the palm, glanced her forehead with another strike, and nearly drove both blades into her gut before she grabbed his wrists, headbutting him as her eyes flashed around. Mine carts, mining tools, piles of crushed rock AHA A ROCK CRUSHER!
Joy shoved as hard as she could, grappling Recluse at the wrists to keep his kunai away, as she feigned a kick at his groin and twisted the angle, kicking what she HOPED was the device’s activation switch, and when she was rewarded by the sound of powerful metal grinders firing up to shatter large rocks down to near dust (which could then be carried along the conveyor belt for examination), she zapped Recluse with all the voltage she could muster. Which wasn’t much, but it stunned him just enough to let her spin and slam his arms against the side of the crusher’s vertical feed, the kunai falling into them from his hands and the machine making an agonized shriek as it tried to tear up a hardened construct instead of a basic mineral.
It cost her, as Recluse kneed her in the gut, and then slammed her face into the side of the complaining, smoke belching machine, before he briefly took a moment to slap at his right arm. Another mechanical noise sounded, and a fresh length of metal line emerged, a backup whip, Recluse helping himself to another weapon even as his backup finally activated. A pickaxe.
He smashed Joy across the side of her head with the flat of it, and then turned and threw it at a returning Pitohui. This time, she dodged at the last second, the weapon whirling past her head as Recluse leapt the conveyor belt, lashing with the whip. Pitohui duck-dodged, expecting the blades, but this whip was just a whip, and that attack had been a feint, as Recluse cut the lash short and then fired the whip out again...towards Pitohui’s fallen handgun once more, the end seizing the grip and pulling the gun into Recluse’s hand as he spun and put a bullet right into Pitohui’s center of mass.
She fell, blood spewing from her mouth. Recluse kept spinning, as he lashed his whip around again and once again caught Joy around the neck as she tried to get back into the fight.
Pitohui slammed into Recluse; she’d been hit but somehow between body armor and sheer bloody minded stubbornness and bloodlust she’d powered on and was grappling Recluse’s arm, yanking it up as he fired her gun, having been intending to shoot Joy. The gun kept roaring as he kept firing anyway, Pitohui either trying to disarm Recluse or literally dis-arm him, and with a snarl Recluse went with her, briefly taking a hand away to slap at his gauntlet.
The whip disengaged, the other end flying through the air. But not randomly. It was a launch, and as Joy tried to recover from the choke, said other end flew into the rock crusher, the inner workings immediately seizing the length of the metal rope and beginning to both resume choking Joy and dragging her towards the machine.
Pitohui, despite it all, laughed, as she kept fighting Recluse for the gun...but he was stronger, she was losing, and she had no help coming, her help was being yanked to her death and…
She grabbed at her waist and turned on her own plasma blade.
She had no time to aim it properly. As a result, she horrifically burned the top of her own right leg as the energy blade shot forth...but that meant it went right through Recluse’s own leg. He screamed, and she laughed.
The blade turned off as she grabbed at her gun again, twisting his arms as he kept firing, and she went with a twist and aimed. And fired.
The bullet ripped through the metal rope just as Joy had been dragged up onto the rock crusher’s lip, freeing her at the last moment.
“Not sorry!” Pitohui said, and then as Recluse’s leg buckled from his injury, she seized the shift in weight, grabbed at her gun, and smashed it up against Recluse’s face, fresh blood splattering her own as he dropped it, but that was fine, she smashed him across the face with another brass knuckle punch, and he tried to punch her back, but she grabbed his arm and spun him around, Joy sliding onto the conveyor belt and smashing another kick across his face, Pitohui spinning Recluse around to face her fully before she hammered another punch into his face, and he was stumbling backwards and Joy was leaping to her feet on top of the conveyor belt and she KNEW, and she charged.
She rammed herself into Recluse, and with one last mad burst of strength and with a devilish gleam in her eye, pulled Recluse off his feet and up into the air...into Joy’s hands as she smashed/shoved him down, headfirst, into the rock crusher.
He only got a moment to scream.
The ladies got several moments to get showered in fresh mess, both erupting from the machine’s top and then outward as it suffered a critical malfunction. With one last wet gasp, it ceased operation, leaving what had been a man little more than an extended morass of hamburger and shrapnel.
Pitohui was giggling. She couldn’t stop. After a few moments, Joy’s head popped around the side of the ruined machine, as she wiped at her eyes.
“If you fall down and start makin’ angels in his remains, we be done. I don’t care how well we sync. You’re NUTS.”
“Sorry, but I'm not sorry. If he wants to play on the equipment, it's not my fault when he gets hurt,” Pitohui said. She wasn't so desperate as to seek out fights like this anymore, but, if someone wanted to stake her life and their own to come after her, she was going to at least enjoy giving them hell.
And then the shrieking began. The remnants of the flesh pit mutants had held off while their boss was fighting, but their boss was now very dead, and they were coming. Down into the pit, where Joy hadn’t wanted to be.
Fuck.
But it was what it was. Joy still kept the sour look on her face as she gestured, her sheathed saber, stripped from her when she’d initially been grabbed, coming to her hand, the warrior drawing the blade as Pitohui helped herself to Joy’s also-stolen shotgun Momentous, which had been tossed aside and could only now be recovered.
“Try not to fall over and die in the middle of mopping up.” Joy said.
“Oh please. I could do this all day.”
“That’s not something t’brag about.”
And then the remnants were on them.
---
It was strange to Nicholas. He’d never, as far as he could tell, ever seen a pair who were so well trained and yet so...incompetently trained.
Of course, Rain’s whole fighting style wasn’t just based on skill and power, but directed violence as well. Everyone in these realms’ was. But these two young men? Shun’ei and Meitenkun, he thought that were their names? They didn’t have that hard edge. They had skill, and training, and powers, they could manifest superhuman abilities just like he and other kombatents could, but they just didn’t have that brutal side.
That might not have been such a disadvantage if they weren’t facing someone of the caliber of Empress Sindel. Or at least this sordid claimant of her name. Rain was sure the real deal would have also been one heck of a fighter, but someone who just cared for strength and dominance was a level above. She hadn’t done all the damage she’d done through vamping, after all.
Their lack of ‘violence’ had another bad side effect. They were more protective, defensive, trying to avoid suffering horrendous injuries. It lessened their offense, and even with Rain on their side and Sindel’s hair damaged, you couldn’t hold back against her. And so, even three on one, she was coming out ahead, and it looked like she was going to stay there.
“Okay…” Shun’ei coughed, spitting blood. “Now just where...did we lose control here?”
“I think...when the rabbit said...we had to go in...because Merilee had gotten herself sidetracked.” Meitenkun said.
“You’d already lost.”
Sindel hadn’t gone without injury herself. Between Shun’ei’s fire, Meitenkun’s own martial arts and immense ki reserves, and Rain’s daggers and lightning, she’d come off with bruises, cuts and burns of her own. But she looked a damn sight better than either of the trio in front of her, still standing strong and glowering with barely-concealed loathing.
“You lost,” she spat, “because you sided with this wretch instead of with me. Because you don’t have the edge and the spite. None of you whelps are Kombatants, not one! Even a mere Tarkatan or Zaterran would reduce you to offal the moment you stepped up to them! You’re as weak and pathetic as the man who trained you, and he deserves nothing but shame for your failure!”
“Do you ever shut up?!” hissed Rain. His veil long ripped away, he wiped away blood that was seeping from his lip. One arm had been torn so badly, some of the flesh had gone in great rents - Sindel’s nails. And blood was seeping from his ears, courtesy of several sonic screams from the woman who had once been Shao Kahn’s Empress.
Sindel sniffed. “Honestly. You have no flair for the dramatic.”
“Drama is for honorable conduct, witch.” Shun’ei said.
“And don’t be mean to Master Tung.” Meitenkun said.
“Also, is he with you?” Shun’ei said, pointing.
Sindel looked.
The blazing fists of red and blue fire shot out, backed by a blast of power from Meitenkun’s hands.
Sindel shattered it with one mighty arm swipe, her limb smoking as the attack broke apart and fizzled out around her in a hundred whimpering sparks.
“...Not bad. That actually stung...a tad.” Sindel said. “But give me time to work on a safe word before you start spanking, hmmm?”
“This woman has issues.” Shun’ei said.
“I don’t know, I'm with her. You want to play it safe when you get freaky. Makes it more fun. Not that you'd know anything about it. I'll take a wild guess here and say you're not much of the hookup type. Otherwise, there's no way you could've resisted a catch like me.” Pitohui said, and opened fire.
Well, she technically said the first three words, THEN opened fire, spilling out the rest of her sentence between the short bursts of her gunfire. The best distraction was a multi-layered one, after all. And while Sindel had thwarted the seeming sneak attack, Pitohui, finally arrived from all her own battles, an utter mass of red gore from head to foot and every inch marked by her trail of dead, had popped out from behind cover and started shooting
Sindel took several bullets before she could turn to defend, and to her, that wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it would have been for a normal person. The air exploded with her horrific banshee shriek, the woman both assaulting Pitohui with sonic waves and manifesting sonic force as a shield to deflect the shots that continued to spew forth from the idol’s gun.
Pitohui was not completely unprepared for this. Dawn knew what she’d potentially be getting into. And she’d provided Pitohui with advanced ear protection, a variant on a hearing aid that negated sound instead of enhanced it. It rendered her virtually deaf as soon as she’d turned them on, but it also meant Sindel didn’t render her deaf and worse with her lethal levels of decibels. It was so bad, that even with some distance and not having the noise directed at them, Shun’ei and Meitekun were rendered nearly helpless, trying to plug their ears from the scream.
She’d held back before, they realized. She probably could have popped their heads at any time, if she’d wanted to really yell like she was doing now. Oh, she’d screamed at them, Rain's ears spoke to that, but this was a scream that the fires of hell would be hard pressed to match.
And even with tree-falls-in-the-forest protection, it couldn’t do anything about the actual physical FORCE that Sindel was emitting via being able to produce, direct, and enhance sound to that degree. Sound at high enough levels could liquify rock and shatter steel, let alone flesh and blood.
Pitohui responded as if Sindel was singing her a lovely song, her ever-feral grin never wavering as she stalked forward, fighting against the force, even as she emptied her gun. She dropped it and pulled out a shotgun, continuing to fire. When that ran dry, she drew out her handguns again. Her knees gave out before her ammo did, her body unable to keep going as she half-fell, half went down onto her knees, her arms suddenly feeling very heavy. Maybe you could ignore the pain and the damage, but eventually, it wouldn’t be ignored.
The next moment, a hand had grabbed her around the throat. With Rain having cut her hair short, Sindel was forced to get physical now. And with the way her nails dug into the flesh of Pitohui’s neck, she was relishing it a lot more now.
“What,” she hissed, venom dripping from her voice, “did you do to my boy?!”
Rain started, uncomprehending. Did she mean “boy” in the context of a son, or…?
Then Sindel’s demeanour changed. Her expression softened, and she looked the limp Pitohui up and down with a cocked eyebrow.
“No matter,” she drawled. “He had skill, no doubt. But he only listened to what he wanted to hear. Perhaps I pampered him a bit more than I ought to have done. I often wondered if it would be the downfall of him. Seems I was right, if you made it past him. A worthy conquest, but in the end not quite the warrior I’d hoped for.”
She reached up with her other hand and ran it down the idol’s cheek. Her nails grazed her skin, a subtle hint of violence.
“Perhaps you could replace him? The fact you’re a woman makes no difference to me. I’d treat you just as well as I treated him. Your armaments would give the Black Dragon a run for their miserable Earth currency. And someone so delightfully in love with pain…”
She licked her lips and smirked.
“I could have some real fun with you.”
Pitohui’s eyes, a little glazed, had come back into focus during the talk. She’d dropped her guns, and with the cock of a head and a cough, one of her ear protection plugs fell free.
“...sounds...like fun.” Pitohui said. “Where do I sign up?”
“Right here, if you wish. Once I’ve stomped out these worms, of course.”
“Then my first job is to tell you I don’t think she’s gonna play ball.” Pitohui said, and pointed.
Sindel whirled around, and Joy, her body a mass of surging, raging electricity, thrust out her hands and fired a lightning bolt the size of a car.
It was beautiful, if you had the eyes to track its swiftness. The wrath of the heavens.
Sindel sidestepped it, her hair only frizzing a bit from the overwhelming voltage, whereas Pitohui’s hair stood straight on end. With a sigh of disgust, she tossed the idol aside.
“You children. Do you think I have thrived, conquered, reigned, for THOUSANDS OF YEARS, because I have the slightest iota of foolishness in me? Your efforts are as futile as your aim.”
“Who said I missed?” Joy said.
Sindel turned once again.
Too late.
Rain, a thunderbolt in human form, drove both daggers into her jaw. The lightning, a combination of his own and the stuff Joy poured into him, shot through her skull, frying what remained of her hair. Blood spurted from her orifices and she gave a muffled scream. But she didn’t fare better when Rain let go of the daggers. Instead, the axe kick he gave to the back of her head as she bent over sent her to the floor, the hilts impacting with the stone and driving the blades deeper.
Suddenly, she rose, lifted into the air by a column of watery spears that sliced through her. As she hovered, writhing in agony, Emperor Nicholas Winters yanked the daggers free, then let her drop before ramming them deep into her shoulder blades, bone cracking and blood spurting.
“COVER YOUR EYES!” he yelled.
Then he raised his hands
It was probably the biggest bolt of lightning he’d ever conjured. It smashed through the roof of the palace, sending white-hot shards of tile and wood raining down. It struck Sindel like a hammer, the thunderous roar of the impact louder than any of her screams. The shockwave swept through the room like an avalanche, the flash of light defying the sun as the greatest, if just for a moment or two.
When it was over, a burnt and broken shell of the former Empress lay slumped in front of the shattered throne. Rain remained kneeling over it, hands raised as if in supplication to some forgotten deity.
And just like that...the storm was over.
Though its after-effects lingered. Shun’ei and Meitenkun weren’t just recovering from the battle, but Rain’s final strike, their faces screwed up in disgust and unable to meet the sight for long. Even Joy, no stranger to extreme violence herself, seemed to have a touch of disquiet over the aftermath.
Pitohui...just snickered as she stood up, rubbing a finger under her nose.
“Oh no, go on, your majesty.” She smirked. “Tell her how you REALLY feel.”
Rain needed a few seconds to realize it was a joke. Kobberspeak gallows humor. It had been some time. He reached down, pulled the daggers out and stood up.
“I would have gone for the Fatality,” he remarked, idly. “But we have children present.”
---
“It was all over but the shouting then.” Joy sat on the bench, a towel wrapped around her, as she worked a nail file under her ring finger nail to get...whatever bit of mess had gotten stuck under it. Between the unstable flesh pit creatures and Takeda’s gruesome end, she’d needed two showers and work between the first and after the second to try and get all of the mess off. She’d once thought multi-headed showers a ridiculous, absurd luxury. Now...well, she still did, but they had their uses.
At least she wasn’t hurt any more. She’d been given a small vial when she returned that, when she drank it, healed her up. It couldn’t do anything about the mess though.
“Rain’s people pulled themselves together, dealt with the remains, his wife came back from her job, she was doin’ some protectin’ of the people, she’s a brassy one, too...and once that was done we got called home, I dunno where Pitohui went after she slurped her heals, for all I know she’s gone back to shoot more monsters. I don’t mean much when I harp on her, but there’s somethin’ real funny in her head. Not always laughing funny.”
Neeko just made a general noise of agreement, as she brushed Joy’s hair. A first time experience, but Joy’s form had been so caked with mess she needed an extra set of eyes and hands to try and get it all. While Joy had told Neeko the story, in her telling she hadn’t given all the messy details. In fact she’d generally skipped over anything but the basics. Neeko could pick up that she probably wasn’t getting the whole story, but it really wasn’t needed. The mess she’d helped clean off spoke for itself.
“Then I came in here and as I was ponderin’ if I could ever get my clothes clean you came in. Sorry, no Oovi-Kat stuff in Rain’s world. That was purely a Kobber providing aid for an old guard Kobber who left before we came along. Dawn’s sent along a few more to help Rain with the recovery and she’d contacted Jumpropeman about whoever dropped that sex-crazed empress and her monsters in Rain’s lap. Once a Kobber, always one, it seems.”
“Kobbers must be big tribe,” Neeko observed as she worked the brush through a particularly stubborn bit. “For Dawn to know so many, I mean.”
“I do wish she hadn’t doubled it up with her own mission. So yeah. Your sorrow...wish I could have been there for it. Er...you know. I’mma have a talk with Dawn about her methods.”
“Neeko not stop you. And...”
Neeko set down the brush for a moment, and then put her arms around Joy’s shoulders. The closest she could manage to a hug at the moment.
“Is okay. Dawn say there may be chance. Not know yet. Maybe not know for long time. But we find out. And at least you here now. Neeko appreciates that.”
“You and me both.” Putting down the nail file, Joy leaned back. After all the punching and violence, basic gentle, benevolent bodily contact was more relaxing than any drug she could get her hands on.
“...maybe you should go give the boys some hugs as well. We’re really dragging them through the mud too.”
Neeko snorted. “Boys smelly! Neeko hug them, need another shower to get stink off!” Joy chuckled at that, turning her head around, shifting a bit to she could be face to face with Neeko, giving her cheek an affectionate pat.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“...what that word mean?”
“I actually don’t know, but Vent uses it towards Dawn all the time so it must be SOMETHING good.” Joy deadpanned, before smirking and closing her eyes, as Neeko instinctively rested her forehead against Joy’s own. Maybe a romantic relationship would never happen, for one reason or another, but romance is not a necessary ingredient for intimacy.
And neither does it ensure that ‘the mood’ won’t get spoiled, as Joy vaguely became aware of someone else and opened her eyes.
“Where’s more soap? You two used it all.” A bloodsoaked, stinking, dripping with water because she’d gone right into the showers with all her clothes on for her first rinse-down Pitohui said, having leaned down to place her face between the pair (albeit off to the side of them) holding up an empty soap tray.
She got it, and much more than needed, as she was driven from the locker room by a flurry of thrown bathroom products.
---
-Some Time Later-
Vent was doodling.
It wasn’t something he did often. He was more of a figures and equations person. Artistry didn’t come naturally to him. When it came to art, he had more interest in the exact chemical composition of the pigment of Napoleon’s cape than the technique. And he never took the time to try arty things himself. But recently, he’d found that whenever he was stressed, a series of messy lines and shapes on some scrap paper often helped him to unwind and clear his mind a fair bit.
So far, he’d done a falcon and a shark. At least, fairly simple representations of one. He was now trying to do a tiger, but the stripes were giving him trouble. He could never remember the exact number. It was getting to the point where he considered trying something a bit simpler. Maybe a bear or a gorilla…?
He didn’t know what made him look up. Maybe he just needed to take his eyes off the paper for a bit. Or perhaps he’d wanted to say something to somebody.
But it meant he saw the hail. A quick glance to his mother, but she was buried in her latest work. No problem. He pushed his chair over.
A written message hail. In code. From Bernard. He’d gone off on another mission soon after the last one, despite his irritation with Dawn. Now what was this code again…?
Vent called it up and began breaking it down. Unexpected issues, send help, and…
“Mother?”
“Yes?” Dawn’s head appeared from the guts of the machine she was working on.
“Did I translate this right?”
Dawn looked at it and compared notes. Very simple and quick when you were both robots who shared a computer system.
“Yes.”
“Who’s Julia?”
END
---
-Alternate Ending-
Pitohui responded as if Sindel was singing her a lovely song, her ever-feral grin never wavering as she stalked forward, fighting against the force, even as she emptied her machine gun. She dropped it and pulled out a shotgun, continuing to fire, somehow taking another step, and another, against the tidal wave of sound battering every inch of her..
Until Sindel blurred over and slapped the shotgun away.
“...ugh.” Pitohui said; she may have been poker facing like a champion, but she was about to collapse. “Oh no, I lost my grip...on my shotgun. What a drag...to get hooked...on my shotgun.”
Sindel didn’t respond to her nonsense, slapping Pitohui across the face with an impact that made her ears ring in a completely different way, before grabbing her by the front of her outfit.
“Quite a grip...I’m hooked...lost my shotgun.” Pitohui said.
“What ARE you babbling about?” Sindel said.
“Hey empress, settle a bet for me, would you?” Pitohui said, as she jammed the giant metal hook into Sindel’s front armor plate. “Does that thing look like a big cat to you?”
Sindel looked down at the hook. Then at the metal rope attached to it. Then followed it to the overturned combat jeep the hook and tow line were attached to, as Joy, Shun’ei, and Meitenkun finished the process of pushing it off the nearby cliff edge.
“ARE YOU SERIOUUUSSSSSS-?!” Sindel screamed as the immense weight immediately yanked her forward, Pitohui jerking free as the empress was pulled across the ground, her sonic shrieks going wide before she went off the edge, seeming to hover briefly before she went down, the final screams echoing across the land.
“...Your double-wordin’ sucks.” Joy said.
“It was YOUR plan.”
Then Springtrap emerged from offscreen.
“this reference makes no sense. can’t she fl-?”
THE END
