Chapter 3: Skeletons From The Past

As he was dragged along the blazing river, he heard voices ahead. The monk grabbed the inner riverbed and pulled himself to a stop. He got out and ran to the nearest rock. Then he listened. It was voices he had heard. Somehow the conversation he had heard had fused into something else between the river and here, it was more of a single cackling, like a mocking hyena.

He looked around. There was no change between the previous labyrinth before the river and here. It was a web of red hot bedrock and fires that would not go out. There was no exit. As he looked desperately for the source of the sound, and whether he was insane or not, he felt a sudden pressure in his chest.

FWOOOOOP.

If he still had breath it would have been taken away. There was a sudden sensation of pressure in his torso, as though he had pulled a muscle. He looked down and what looked like an arrowhead stared back at him, poking out from a bloodless wound in his chest.

"Get over here!"

And with that he was pulled backwards and off his feet for what felt like miles. As he flew back he saw the rock he was behind grow smaller and smaller, his only point of reference to which he'd know how severe his situation was. In mid-air he turned yanked out the arrowhead from the back with both hands, only to find out it belonged to a snake of sorts. The monk blindly summoned the tiger spirit from within and outstretched his legs in different directions for a counter assault. Where he should have landed after being pulled his shadow continued, giving him more momentum and speed, heading towards the perpetrator.

Then he felt his boot impact the other monk who went flying back and fell on a pile of bones.

"Who are you!?"

He finally had a chance to look at him as he lay there. The other ninja that had been following him. He was in a yellow ninja warrior garb tied at the waste over a black leotard and a facemask. He looked into his white, expressionless eyes and he could see no soul staring back. The ninja's eyebrows furrowed and he flipped up to a fighter's stance. Then, in a flash and puff of flame and smoke, he vanished.

The monk turned around looking for him and felt a searing hot punch connect with his jaw. He teleported, but not using electrical currents to re-materialize like the robot. No, this was sorcery, just like...

From here there was a flurry of kicks to the stomach and punches to the left and right of his head and chest. He had both arms up but could not connect a clear shot. He could not parry, could not block. Then with a flying kick he was sent reeling over the side of the rock and several feet below into a graveyard of bones. He lay there trying to recollect his thoughts. He saw the ninja monk walk to the edge of the jutting bedrock above and look down at him.

"My name was Hanzo Hasashi. Do you remember me, murderer? Do you remember my clan?"

"I do not know you, or your clan."

The face under the mask became skewed and angry. "Lying Lin Kuei scum!"

Then he heard the cackle again. He began pushing at the bones to gain footing, but the bones themselves began to move. He yelled desperately to reason with the ninja, as this place drained his energy to the point he realized he could not win. "I did not kill them!"

But the bones kept shifting, now stirring in a vortex of crunching and dust. He saw pieces connect, a leg, a foot, a hand, an arm. Then the vortex stopped, and lying in front of him was a skeleton with tattered cloth over his shoulders, but no head. Then, the skeleton began to stand, and at full height he knew what he was looking at...who he was looking at. The devil on the deep blue sea, he thought. Then there was a rolling sound as he saw a skull rolling on itself across the pile of bones toward the body of the skeleton and up its leg, to sit firmly on his head.

"Spinal."

The skeleton's hollowed out eye sockets began to dim and two tiny red bulbs from within illuminate it. "Jago!" Followed up with a cackle. "Aaaaaahahahahahahahah."

The ninja monk jumped down from the ledge to stand beside the skeleton. He brandished a cutlass and presented it to the skeleton. The skeleton took it. "Obliged, nether-monk." Then they both looked at their foe, who stood up in surprise. Jago was outnumbered. "Listen to me."

Spinal responded, "I don't have ears." He cackled again like a hyena. Scorpion stepped forward, "We have no need for your words, just your suffering."

"I am not who you say I am, I do not know why I'm here!" Jago said.

"People arrive in Netherrealm everyday for one reason only, because they are dead. But you...I have been waiting for you for years. Hundreds of years."

Spinal and scorpion poised for attack. Seeing his words were lost, Jago prepared to fight a battle he would lose. He had left his kora behind, it was useless anyhow. The ninja and the skeleton ran towards the monk.

Then suddenly...

Ffffeeewwwmmmmmmmmm.

A beam of blinding white light appeared behind his opponents. Before they could turn around the beam materialized at its base into a humanoid figure, all white and seemingly on fire. Spinal and scorpion looked forward in surprise as the white figure began to regain an orange colour, like a fire but less hot. In a flash it shot out a flaming fire ball towards Scorpion and it exploded on him, sending him flying back thirty feet into the side of a cliff and vanishing into its foundation in a crash of rubble. Spinal looked to where scorpion was and back at the flaming humanoid. He ran with his cutlass held high. The humanoid ran towards him as well but jumped into a diving pose and spun his body, becoming a horizontal tornado of sorts. It ran through the skeletion, rearranging its bones and sending its composition in different directions, before coming back to a vertical halt in front of Jago.

Jago looked at its face. It had no eyes to identify it. Not even a mouth. Before any questions could be asked, the thing reached forward and grabbed Jago, wrapping him in his arms in an unbreakable grip. Then Jago heard its voice, but in his head.

Nightwolf! Now!

And then that beam returned and swallowed them in white light, and suddenly he felt the rush of movement upwards. He supposed this was what an elevator was like, he had never been in one before.