Reiko stood at the edge of a great cliff that shot sharply up for hundreds of feet, looking at the imposing wall shielding the palace on the western side, concealed from the Seidan Guards by a thick line of leafy trees. Behind him and all around the plateau, his army's great siege engines rolled into place. Beyond them, far down in the valley where the city thrived, roaring fires sprang up where many of his forces began salting and burning the earth, and cutting down any city-goer who got in their way. The Oni that went with them had ventured into the cool night with the sole intention of slaughtering as many Seidans as they could find and feasting on their blood. The sounds of distant screams touched his ears as they ripped Seidans apart with their bare hands, and also the sounds of battle, even as the rest of his men advanced towards the palace. Their torches could be seen winding up the road in many lines.
As he waited with closed eyes, imagining the configuration of the combined Earthrealm and Seidan armies on the palace walls, he suddenly sensed a surge of life, a creature appearing nearby where there had been none before, at the same time he heard a warning squawk from the trees above. Wings beat rapidly against the wind and then a hefty raven circled twice and settled on his shoulder.
"Yes, Bane," he told the bird, his beloved Scourge's brother from the same clutch of eggs. His voice was low, even though it was unlikely he'd draw the attention of the Seidan Guards, who were presently too focused on the army marching on their gates to notice the General. "I believe our guest has arrived." When he said it, the raven left him, resettling in the trees above to keep watch for his master.
Reiko turned and saw one of his two inside men approaching. The man's hairline had been shaved nearly to his crown, and from there hair as dark as night dangled to his waist in a single braid. On his dramatically widened forehead, the General saw intricate red tattoos sweeping back like fire. Below that, he wore dark maroon robes around light plate armor, and a black cloak over that, allowing him to easily become one with the shadows. Inside that floating cloak, he was short, thin, and bony. His face was crumpled, his stub nose shoved into his cheeks almost like a dog, ugly without silliness.
"Greetings, Dairou," Reiko opened as the man approached.
"General Reiko," he returned.
"Darrius speaks highly of you," he said. "He said your work is exemplary."
"I do not work for free," he coldly replied. "You know what I want as payment?"
The General nodded. "It will be done. When I successfully take Shinnok's mantle, I will restore your family and exact revenge on the Seidan council for unjustly imprisoning you after their untimely deaths."
Dairou curtly nodded and then extended his forearm for Reiko to take. As they clasped forearms, he solemnly said, "Do not betray me, General. There will be no place in Heaven or Hell or all the Realms in between where you can hide from me if you do."
The Edenian thinly smiled. "I do not double-cross my allies," he replied. "What are we if we have no honor?"
"Do not betray me," he warned again, now releasing him. "Follow me."
Dairou silently led him deeper into the darkness, closer to the foot of the plateau. There, under gloomy black trees that were only slightly visible due to the fires burning in the distance, they came to a flat, unremarkable depression in the stone. The disgraced Seidan Guard quietly passed over the limestone, and where his hand moved, faint glowing lines appeared like slender veins of silver cutting through the rock. Soon, the gossamer outline of a door appeared, and with it, several of the protective wards and runes of his people.
"Only the Seidan Guard can open this door," Dairou explained, almost as if to warn Reiko not to try it on his own now that he knew the location. "It is an escape tunnel should the palace come under siege and the battle turn against her defenders."
"Then we must make haste," the General replied. "Your people will be running for their lives soon enough."
"They are no longer my people," he replied before he uttered a spell in his native tongue, prompting the door to slowly swing open.
When they passed through the secret door, the door swung shut behind them, and for a moment they stood in complete darkness before Dairou withdrew a lantern from his belt and held it high as it winked on, burning with some kind of energy that was not fire, that was more brilliant than fire. Reiko only mildly marvelled at it. The Seidans had mastered many technologies that he barely understood, and this glass-encased torch wasn't even the most impressive he'd ever seen. Vaguely, he thought about how his army would only reasonably be able to keep the Seidans distracted because of their superior magic and technology, but that was their only real purpose here. He needed them to keep Hotaru's eyes off of his own actions long enough to take the kamidogu from its sacred resting spot.
Dairou led him up a steep set of stairs, his magical torch held aloft, casting light and shadow onto everything it touched. The wide stairway was sound and undamaged, if not dusty and riddled with untouched cobwebs dangling like sheets across their path. As they came to each one, the former Seidan Guard swiped his autumn dao at them, cutting a way through. Even still, the dusty threads of silk occasionally caught on his clothes and on Reiko's armor, draping them in ancient white.
Long they walked, the stairs cutting back and forth in steep flights. Sounds of the outside world were muffled in here, but he heard his siege engines begin their assault on the palace, and the entire mountain trembled with thunder. With any luck, his men would knock the walls down and obliterate the combined armies of the Seidans and the Earthrealmers inside before he even needed to intervene. Havik, he hoped, could do that much at least.
At last the walls to their left and right abruptly vanished, having passed through some arched doorway into a dark and empty space and met a draft of warm air. Dairou raised his torch, and for a brief instant there was a blaze like a flash of lightning. Shadows sprang up and fled, and for a second they both saw a roof high above their heads upheld by many support pillars carved from the stone. Before them stretched an empty anteroom, its black walls polished and as smooth as glass, the only other signs of life the Seidan suits of armor left like imposing sentinels to stand guard. In the vast room around them, more black arches led in all directions away from here.
"The treasure you seek is that way," the Seidan told him as he pointed towards a hallway blocked by a chained gate.
Even as he said it, Reiko suddenly sensed someone else in the vaults with them and alarmed, scanned his surroundings. He looked up just in time to see a massive block of ice falling toward the two from high in the air above. "Look out!" he cried as he dove to the side. Dairou wasn't quite as fast, and the block landed on him, knocking him unconscious.
Reiko looked at him in stunned amazement before someone leapt from the shadows with a feral scream and wrapped slender arms around his neck, locking his head in place as they dragged him to the ground. The person was much smaller than he was, he could tell, but quite strong for their size. Even still, he reached over his shoulder to grab their shirt before calmly yanking them over him and slamming them onto the ground with a ferocious grunt. It had the intended effect; the woman's air left her lungs and she writhed on the ground in pain.
Olivia? he thought in mild amusement for a long moment, and then he realized his mistake. She was older than his favorite Cryomancer - middle aged - and undoubtedly had been beautiful in her youth. But now she had tight, sinewy muscles and a face that was hardened by time and almost brutal, a face that might have been chiseled by a sculptor who had a very jaded view of beauty. Still, the resemblance to Olivia was quite unavoidable; they possessed the same sapphire eyes, snow-white hair, and vampire-pale skin, and even pressed their lips together in that same hard edge hinting at stubborn determination.
"You must be Frost," he spoke as she clutched at her belly, struggling for air. "Forgive me, I mistook you for my lovely Olivia at first."
With that, he brought his boot hard onto her face, somewhat surprised when she caught his foot instead and tossed him backwards. Reiko couldn't regain his balance in time, and suddenly crashed into one of the Seidan suits of armor, the individual pieces exploding outward in a chorus of crazy clattering. As he fought to push himself up, the Cryomancer kipped up onto her feet and stomped to him before she dug her thin fingers into his scalp and threw him into a different set of armor a few feet away. More plate armor clanged to the floor around him, somewhat stunning him.
"She's not your Olivia," the woman furiously hissed as she stomped to him and yanked him to his knees by his hair. "And you'll never touch her again. I won't let you."
Her ice cold hands quickly slid to the crook of his neck and clamped down hard on those tendons and muscles. Immediately, Reiko recognized what she was doing. Cryomancers - especially the Outworld variety - seldom used their powers to stun their prey, and usually just killed them outright. But this Cryomancer, he sensed, was hesitant to do anything of the sort, and now opted to knock him out instead of kill him. And it was working. He began to feel as if he were trudging through Mòhé and the perpetual blizzard therein, and soon, his eyelids began to droop as if weighted down by lead. He relaxed and then slumped backwards against her knee, his head involuntarily tilting back into her stomach.
And then she suddenly shrieked and let go of him, letting him fall to the floor on his face. Reiko's senses quickly rushed back to him in time to see Dairou now throw her body across the anteroom like a ragdoll. When Frost rolled to a stop, she scrambled to her feet and slid into a fighting stance, but the Seidan suddenly vanished in a puff of yellow smoke. Within a split second, the two had magically traded places, putting her within inches of the General, who had gotten to his feet by this point. Bewildered by what had just happened, she didn't even have time to react to him launching his body into her with his shoulder leading, violently knocking her into the air and through a set of armor. She crashed headfirst into the opposing wall, and slid to the ground with a pained groan, stunned stupid.
"Go retrieve my prize," Reiko ordered Dairou as he elegantly twisted his hand through the air, summoning his scythe from the ether. "I can't help you with that part anyway. I will deal with this woman."
As the Seidan rushed off to do what he'd been instructed, the General calmly stepped towards her with a wolfish grin set across his features, looking into her soul as she laid on the ground, knocked silly. He saw tragedy there, and pain...great pain. Her birth father's wickedness had defined her, even now when she was no longer forced to suffer him. It was a trait she shared with her brother, Kuai Liang, and with Bi-han as well. Like them, she knew it and resisted him, fighting hard to be better than he was, to do better than he would. So determined was she that upon first glance, it seemed as if her valiant plan to stop Reiko had only been hatched to prove she was not evil as An Zhi had been. But then it occurred to him that wasn't it at all; Frost wanted to restore her older brother to his rightful place at the head of these armies because she knew they'd fall without him. It was both noble and pathetic.
"Your plan to destroy Outworld's kamidogu will fail," he told her. "Your plan to save Kuai Liang will fail. Your plan to save Earthrealm will fail. I see your weakness, Sarah, daughter of An Zhi and Magdalena. You do not have the strength nor the willpower to defeat me because you are afraid to become what you need to be in order to win. You are afraid to become Frost once more."
The Cryomancer spit out a mouthful of blood and groaned as she pushed herself onto all fours. "I'm not afraid," she whimpered as she wiped her face.
"Prove it to me then," he challenged her with a smirk. "Show me the monster you really are." With that, he swung his scythe towards her neck to chop off her head.
Not surprisingly, she had some fight left in her, and she stopped his blade with her own scythe made of ice before she deftly hooked it around his haft and yanked it from his hands. It flew through the air now and harmlessly clattered to the ground, even as she pushed herself to her feet and twisted her weapon through her hands. Frost screamed an ear-piercing shriek that hurt his ears as she charged towards him.
A split second before she reached him, her scythe suspended over her head to chop into him, he threw his arm out like a sword and speared her directly in the throat with his fingers, stunning her and forcing her to drop her weapon behind her. Then he quickly drilled his foot into her stomach, knocking her to the ground. As she fell, though, she flailed her arms and threw thousands of tiny ice daggers at him. He scarcely had time to react before he back-flipped out of the way, and some of her blades still found their way through and sliced both of his arms with dozens of minor cuts.
"I'm impressed," he told her in all sincerity when he landed. "Very rarely does someone draw blood from me, even in such a small amount."
In response, Frost raced towards the General and then flipped through the air, landing on him with another feral shriek. They fell as one, but before they hit the ground, she sprayed a jet of ice beneath them, forming a slippery slide. A staunch chill prickled at the General's skin when he landed, but he barely had time to notice it before she now aimed a new jet of ice behind her, using the subsequent energy to propel them both towards the wall. He made no sound as they flew over the slide, but she screamed triumphantly, stopping only a moment before he slammed head-first into the wall and she jumped to safety.
Stars exploded through Reiko's sight, and for a second time in that fight, he was stunned stupid. And then sharp, stabbing pain filled his skull as his brain discerned what had happened. But by then, the Cryomancer had lifted him up by his heavy armor and started pounding him in the face. On her last punch, however, she got greedy, wound up her arm too far, and gave him enough time to duck out of the way when she threw it. She missed him entirely, but her momentum carried first her fist, then her face, into the stone wall before her.
It only slowed her for a split second, and then Frost sprang to her feet with two kori daggers held tightly in each palm. She swiped her arm at Reiko's chest to cut him, but he leaned back enough so that the weapon skirted harmlessly over his body. She screeched in annoyance and snap-kicked at his groin. This time, he easily blocked her. She wasted no time stabbing at him again with her opposite hand, but as he blocked this time, she anticipated his movements. She gracefully sidestepped and shoved her elbow into his cheekbone, knocking him into the wall behind him.
Not to be outdone, the General grunted as he reached for his scythe and then slashed it at her when it returned to his hand once more. The weapon found Frost's cheek, cutting a perfect line deep into the otherwise flawless tissue, and she yelped as his quick momentum turned him completely around. Now he tried to swipe her in the chest, but she danced out of the way as she threw one of the daggers at him and then formed a glowing blue orb in her empty palm before she threw it at his feet. Unlike ordinary ice balls, this one exploded on impact and chucked him into the air like a rag doll. Reiko landed a second later on the ground with a pained thud and small shards of ice crystals jutting from his legs.
With a determined war cry, the Cryomancer jumped on his middle before she threw a right hook at him and smashed her fist into his jaw. She then threw another punch straight at his nose, but this time she missed when he ducked to the side. Angrily, she swung her arm around to backhand him with her fist, but now he caught her wrist with one hand and struck her in the sternum with the other palm. She lurched forward, gasping, but still managed to bat away his hand and throw a straight punch at his face. But again he blocked it, threw a punch of his own, and then head-butted her directly in the forehead. His blood boiled with mild gratification as she yelped and fell from his waist, clutching her now gushing nose.
It took a moment, but both of them soon climbed to their feet, both of them reeling with pain. The General then stalked towards her, but she moved her hands from her face and sidestepped. The two warriors glared at each other as they paced around each other in a half circle until Frost finally threw a straight punch at him. He blocked it with his right hand and then plunged his fist into her gut with his left. She groaned as he grabbed her knife hand once more and yanked her closer to him to wrestle the ice dagger loose. With a ferocious roar, she tried to punch him in the head and succeeded, but he ignored the hard blow to his temple and whipped her with his bent elbow once more.
Frost yelped in pain, and immediately shoved him backwards with resurgent strength, still clinging to her frozen knife. Reiko, startled, stumbled to the side. She screamed as she charged towards him and swiped her dagger at him, but she missed when he knocked her hand away once again, expertly avoiding the blade. With a shrill, incoherent shout, she threw a right cross at him with her free hand, but he blocked and prompted her to try with her knife hand. Once more, he deflected her attack and then uppercut her before rearing back and throwing a right hook. She stumbled and then stepped into a sloppily executed roundhouse kick that he easily ducked.
Now she charged him, but he threw up his hands and caught her by the chin before she completely reached him. As he held her, he swiftly swept her off her feet when he curled his leg around hers and yanked on her knees with it. Firmly planted, she didn't fall completely, so he yanked her arm behind his head before he leaned down and elbowed her in the kidney. She doubled over in pain, whining as he continued to grip her. Finally, he whirled around and drove his elbow into her temple. She slumped over, dazed.
Reiko tsked at her as he swept his hand in a broad gesture, casting a spell over her, placing her in a magical paralysis. "Don't struggle, my little Cryomancer," he smiled spitefully as he lifted her to her feet and pressed her against the wall. "You have a strong will, but you can't contend with mine. Not really."
With that, he grabbed her hair with both hands and kissed her violently on the lips, sinking her teeth into them like a vampire, and as he enchanted her, he felt the power blaze from his head into hers, shrinking and strangling her heart. Through the connection, he felt the real Frost gnashing at him, scratching at the cage keeping her a prisoner, both cursing him and loving him for touching her this way. And soon, he sensed her spirit finally flex beneath him and bend to his power.
"Good girl," he breathed as he released her and let her fall to the ground, now unconscious.
Dairou now approached carrying the kamidogu. "What of the woman?" he demanded to know after he gave the treasure to the General. "We should kill her so she cannot interfere again."
"She'll die soon enough, one way or another," he sneered. "Netherrealm poison is corrupting her as we speak. Besides, my enemies should bear witness to the birth of a god. Let her see and tell all the rest of her cohorts." He looked from her to the Seidan. "Let us cast the spell."
Quickly, Reiko went to work painting symbols in dragon's blood ink on the floor. He created a circle at the heart of a nine-pointed star whose arms reached the corners and walls of the antechamber. Then he inscribed a red pentagram within that star, the points of which he placed black candles in weirdly shaped holders that he'd been carrying in a pouch on his hip. When the ink had dried, the General now arranged the kamidogu in the circle in the center of the star with the tips of the six blades touching the Dragon Medallion, which was resting in the deepest part of his creation. Dairou watched in quiet interest as the Edenian finished his work by strategically painting odd sigils and runes in the precise geometrical segments of the stars and circle.
At the outer edge of the nine-pointed star, Reiko chanted the opening sequence of words. Almost immediately, pain sheeted through him, like a starving monster was trying to claw its way out of him. Quite against his iron will, he wept. His warm tears slid across his face like tiny, slithering snakes. The room around him went pitch black, and so did his spirit: black as coal. Reiko had never felt hunger and sadness so profound. It was as if he couldn't move, couldn't eat. He could only sit in the dark and give birth to his colony of snakes. They bit him from the inside, infecting him with the poison of revenge; against who, he knew not. Joy long eclipsed, hate festered inside him like a sore that refused to heal. And this time he would let that cut decompose into something worse.
Between sobs, Reiko strained to reach for the small athema hidden inside his gauntlet. The sharp blade was cold between his fingers. Deathly cold. He contorted his torso as a marrow-deep ache threatened to lynch him. But he absorbed the trauma, swallowing the pain, then kicked his way slowly back to the surface. Soon, he thought in stubborn determination, he would attain his goals...or die trying. The room seemed to darken even more as the thought blossomed inside his mind like a black flower. In one quick jagged motion, he slit his palm with the blade and then watched in wonder the sight of his blood flowing down his wrist. He only felt a prick; it was nothing compared to the searing, blinding agony roiling over him in waves. As his blood dripped onto the intricate star painted on the floor, he recited the words he had memorized in Quan Chi's laboratory while the Netherrealm denizens were preoccupied.
Suddenly, some unseen force threw him to the ground, and he fell on his knees on the star, now panting and struggling to catch his breath. The floor shook. At first he thought he was just trembling from the pain of casting the spell, but then he rapidly realized his error. The vaults in their entirety were vibrating, swaying and creaking. Small chunks of stone and ancient dust crumbled from the walls and ceiling, sifting onto their heads.
Then he realized he was now bent over the kamidogu and the Dragon Medallion, all of which were now encased in a magical dome that was, he vaguely understood, draining the energy from each of them. The dome was aflame with a strong, bright milky light, one powerful enough to shine red through his fingers. Around him, the star began to blaze with white heat. He saw many fiery lines shooting from the star and disappearing through the cracks in the ceiling, and as it did, the whole roof of the vaults suddenly flared up while the ground began to shake even harder. Quite involuntarily, Reiko straightened his body as his arms fully stretched to either side, red sparks gushing from his fingers.
The vaults fell away from his sight then, just as some spectral creature flared blindingly in his vision. Out of the light - the light of the universe, the General knew - a dour mouth appeared snapping its drooping lips at him, smiling at him, but it was not a smile to make anyone feel happy. Indeed, when that pale, gray mouth laughed, it sounded as serious as boulders falling down a cliff. It frightened Reiko, but he didn't back away. Instead, he stubbornly waved his arms, now shouting the ancient incantation.
The creature, tangled in the brilliant magical light but still laughing, threw himself at him, opening his jaws. The General clenched his teeth as it swallowed him and penetrated him and embraced him. Suddenly, he was falling...falling...falling...He fell, and when he landed, he crashed back into vaults, sprawled on the star, screaming his incantation. He felt a terrible force drag him from the ground and hurl him across the antechamber until, with a violence that stunned him, he slammed into a suit of armor and shattered it completely. Then that same force looked around the room and found Dairou, who recognized his peril and bolted for cover down one of the darkened corridors.
Frost, who had recovered her senses during this time, staggered woozily to her feet but then leapt away from blazing red shafts of light that shot from the General's fingertips. She was clearly tired, but the magic wasn't directed at her so much as just out, so she avoided them without much difficulty. She stood over him in the flickering radiance of the magical glow, amidst the flashes of rays shooting without purpose like lightning bolts around the vaults, streaming white hair and eyes blazing sapphire. Those eyes, he vaguely understood, looked at him in horror.
The ceiling cracked open. The spectre surged towards him. When it found him, it was still laughing that cruel, malicious laugh, even as it sank into him, becoming one with him. The vaults exploded. Limestone, beams, and pieces of armor flew up in a cloud of smoke and sparks. Roaring with triumphant laughter, the creature, free now, not tied to anyone's will, imbued Reiko with its strength, and it poured into him, charging even the tiniest specks of him with divine power. The General shrieked as it overwhelmed him, boiling from his eyes, streaming from his fingers, even hardening his groin. It was both agony and ecstasy that overloaded his synapses, darkening his vision. Unconscious, he collapsed across the kamidogu.
The spell had worked; Reiko was now a Blood God.
Praxus84, thanks, it was fun showing that "dad" side of Tomas throughout this thing, that's for sure.
MKDemiGodzilla-Warrior, the funny thing about that summary is that it makes you write something down for the readers' benefit, and when I started Monster, I had some vague ideas of how to have the Frost/Olivia buddy cop story, so I went with that in my summary. But the story kept wanting to go in a different direction and I let it. I do think those two will team up before the end, for sure. But the story this became is different. Now, it's like it wants to be about all the different kinds of monsters live inside of us. Like Miyuki fighting Frost, Bi-han fighting Noob Saibot, Livy fighting her PTSD, Xinyi fighting his lust for power, Reiko fighting his ambition, Kuai Liang fighting the blood magik. So yeah, it started out one way and has just kind of become something else. And I'm okay with that. I actually kind of like that it became more all-encompassing in its themes.
ROCuevas, thank you!
DinoLord00, I'm really glad you're excited for the upcoming chapters. I'm excited to see the finished product, but I'm soooo not looking forward to all the planning and fight choreographing I'm going to have to do to prepare. I guess it'll be worth it if you all like the final battle :) As for Livy and Jay, it's been fun developing that. I don't believe I've ever shown the progression of a developing crush, so that's been an interesting challenge so far. And I'm also glad you've enjoyed Frost's development. I like good guy Frost, but in a way, I kind of really miss bad guy Frost, and I'm kind of diabolical, so yeah lol
alwaysdoubted, Noob might come back, or will something worse happen? ;) And yeah, it was nice having showing the kids just being ornery with each other, and you're right, they all have something at stake, even though Livy is the oldest and feels like it's her duty to shelter them. I'm glad that you liked Frost in this chapter. I'm setting things up to kick everyone in the proverbial balls, so have some tissues on hand for the upcoming chapters LOL