A/N: Well here we are, the fourth chapter rewritten! (Throws confetti.)

9023 B.M.K.

"Interesting, the design of this statue is… unlike anything I've ever seen."

"What are you doing?" Viper looked up to see Reptile.

"You should get a look at this, see the structure of the face? It's nowhere near outworlder, the style or the features. This jungle must've been home to a species long extinct, or at the very least diversified into moder-" Reptile interrupted him.

"That's interesting and all, but look, back there," He pointed towards the edenians.

"Huh, mosquitoes maybe?" Viper said.

"Slowing them down, you mean? It's likely," Reptile placed his claws at his chin.

"You keep walking, I'll make sure they don't succumb to the mosquitoes," Viper smiled and jogged back to his companions.

"I was wondering where you went," Jade said as she saw him approaching.

"I was admiring a statue."

"That one?" She pointed ahead to the face, that now had a python slithering out if its eye.

"Yes, actually. If only I had my journal, I must've misplaced it," He turned to see Jade paying a strange amount of attention. "You alright?"

"Can we get moving?!" Reptile yelled back at them.

"Wait for Kitana! She's… back there somewhere."

"Not used to jungle mosquitoes?" Viper asked.

"Sindel sees to it that she gets more localized 'work,'" Jade said.

"Well, anyway, mosquitoes are why I'm here," Viper said.

"Mosquitoes?" She said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, they seem to have a penchant for edenian blood, and I'm here to make sure you don't catch malaria."

"Well we better find Kitana then."

"I'm here!" The princess said, slightly worse for wear.

"Good, good," He smiled at Jade and kept pace with them for a while. His instincts told him that their target would want to be away from the densest jungle. Further support of this theory was because of the location of the statue itself, the four of them were on a slightly less lush giant plateau and the jungles below, although only barely explored, showed no signs of buildings even in the most livable areas. They also shouldn't have been animal-like, the statues, even if they were simply pieces of art, they also were humanoid.

When the four of them came across a river, Viper and Reptile offered to scout ahead. The two saurians came across a large building, it was in the same style of the statue, barely any color other than brown, made by or from giant stones, and seemingly built into the only part of the plateau that wasn't flat. It was similar to osh-tekk architecture, although there were clear enough differences to prove that it wasn't, it made sense that the target would've come here. "Probably felt like home to him," Viper took a telescope out of the bag and took a closer look. It almost seemed abandoned, with the only signs of life being a few furred guards.

"Get Jade and Kitana, I'll make sure no-one sees us."

"You're certain you'll be fine on your own?"

"Reptile, if you have to ask that question-"

"Just say yes or no!"

"Yes, Reptile."

And with that, Viper was alone. He moved a little closer to the structure and smelled the air, not with his tongue this time, his nose picked up a nervous smell from the guards.

"Good," He thought.

He stayed observing the building for a while longer, attempting to make out any sort of enemy, besides the guards he had already seen, they would have to fight.

"Viper," The voice of Reptile cut into the silence like a hot knife.

"Admiring another statue?" Jade's voice followed suit. As he turned, he said: "Why would I need a statue to admire when I have something much fairer to see?" He smiled, although his own conscience hit him again.

"That was… well it would've been charming if anyone else said it… but unfortunately, you were the one," So, accordingly, to finish the round of banter, he said: "I'd have thought the insects had gotten to you, it's good to see otherwise."

"Tell us what you found," Kitana prompted, crouching near Viper.

"Murids, only seven of them though," He answered, placing the telescope back into the bag.

"What's a murid?" Kitana asked.

"It makes sense you wouldn't know, they aren't seen outside of Osh-Tekk very often. They're mouse, or in some cases rat-like creatures."

"Murids…" She trailed off, her tone being one of surprise.

"Considering you're with two saurians, it strikes me as odd that murids are such an impossibility," He smiled to let her know that he was joking, but a stern look accommodated her face. The only one who seemed to realize, and laugh at, the remark was Jade. Although, that was enough for him.

"Have you seen any structural weaknesses?" Reptile knelt.

"If windows count, then there are plenty," Jade added, pointing to a few at the front of the building.

"Good start," Viper said, scratching his chin.

"Either way, it seems we'll have to kill the guards at the front," Reptile said.

"Or incapacitate them," Kitana offered.

"It'd probably be better to dispatch them permanently… although incapacitation might be a good idea if we need more information out of any of them," Viper said.

"Kill most of them, keep one or two alive then," Jade said. Viper smiled at her, apparently grinning like an idiot whenever she spoke was an instinct, and responded with: "Yes, that seems reasonable."

"Do we have any information on the guards themselves?" Reptile asked.

"Yes, I picked up their scent. They're nervous, they shouldn't be fighting at full capacity," Viper said.

"We all know what we're doing?" Kitana readied her fans.

"Yes," The other three responded in unison, and with that they prepared to fight.

Seconds later…

Unfortunately, the guards they had chosen to keep alive only spoke their native tongue. So, accordingly, they were given a quick death. Viper let the acid wash off the blood, when the vitriol solidified, he let it drop into the river.

"Viper?" He turned to see Jade.

"Hello," He said, the crooked smile slowing taking form on his face.

"I'd like to speak to you in private," She pulled him aside.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no. It was just that I was the one that took your journal," He half expected her to take it out, alas, she didn't.

"Oh. Did you… see anything interesting?"

"I only looked at one part in-depth, but yes. The one with the drawings of the realms."

"Oh," He said. It was strange, he was almost happy that she had seen them.

"I was quite interested by the one on Edenia, I'm not sure you have much expertise in teaching or storytelling but… could you tell me about the realm?"

He stayed silent all the while she talked, his claws fiddling with each other. His tail slowly wagging, the end of it making small ripples in the shallow water.

"Yes!" He answered, suddenly. "It'll be… another reason to survive this mission."

"Great," She smiled, pat him on the shoulder, and then walked off.

"Why did we agree to that?" The voice asked him.

"What do you mean, why? You don't just help people sometimes?"

"We've never before."

"That's not true!" But before he could think of anything else to say Reptile called him over, Viper had no excuse for declining. Well, at least no excuse besides: 'the voices in my head are trying to make fun.'

Reptile scaled the wall, looking into the building to see which entry would be the best to use. He dropped down, and pointed to one at the side of the building. The saurian entered a loping position, and let the edenians grab onto their backs. They climbed up the side and Viper pressed his fingers into glass, spreading his acid across the window. When they crawled in they checked the door for any signs of guards.

"See anyone?" Kitana asked.

"No," Reptile returned from the doorframe.

"This place seems so… empty," Jade said. "It feels, too easy."

"Let's make this quick, then," Viper pulled the small vial of poison out of his bag. "I'd prefer not to engage him in direct combat, but if it comes to that, It's best to finish him quickly."

The target's name was Drimiz. Viper had read the dossier, it listed off his crimes, the worst of which were ones against Shao Kahn's dominion of Outworld. Supposedly, he had brown fur, yellow eyes with no visible irises, and was quite short.

"This is a large bulding, we should split up in pairs to cover more ground," Kitana said.

Viper let the others divvy up the teams. It wasn't that he didn't want to go with Jade, it was just that she was his greatest distraction.

Unfortunately, he was to go with Jade.

A few seconds later…

The saurian was smiling his crooked smile. Not that that was an uncommon thing, every time she seemed to even say hi to him, he grew happier to be in her presence.

Truth be told, she had a fondness for the saurian, but she never did think of him as a potential suitor. Although, having a man that liked you wasn't such a bad thing.

"We'll take downstairs," Jade said.

"Reptile and I'll search here then," Kitana responded.

"When should we meet back here?" Reptile asked.

"Let's keep it simple, an hour," Viper said.

"Right," Jade said. Viper walked over to her, pressed his finger into her shoulder, and cloaked them in a shroud of invisibility.

They journeyed to the front of the building where once again there were no guards. When they inspected the corridor at the end of the foyer, and the rooms that accompanied them, nothing was to be found. The last chamber seemed to be a storage room. And while Jade was about done foraging for clues, Viper seemed to be preoccupied reading a book in the corner.

"What are you doing?" She said.

"Reading notes about the Kuatan Jungle, why?" He looked up, preparing to flip the page.

"Shouldn't we be looking for a certain murid?" She said, walking toward him.

"If you want me to teach you about your homerealm, you need to have some interest in anthropology, Jade," She admitted, there was a strange feeling to asking him for help. He was a good friend, but he always had a guard about him. And while it was true, she had discussed her interests with the others in the court, their unsatisfying answers weren't the only reason she never took the conversation much further.

"What do the stars have to do with Edenia?" She smiled.

"Very funny, Jade," He said, still not moving from his position.

"What's so interesting about that book, no civilization has been in this jungle for years."

"Exactly why it's so interesting! Earlier I was inspecting the statue, the structure of it implied that the people were humanoid. But, apparently whoever wrote this book found the same statues below the plateau."

"So people willingly lived in a dense and inhospitable jungle?" Jade took a seat next to him, deciding that having an interest would help her learn of her homerealm.

"Apparently so. Although if that's true, it could mean that the people were not as humanoid as previously theorized, the statues may have been an ancient societies representations of deities such as the elder gods."

"Interesting," Jade said as she took the book from his hands and flipped the next page, her eyes scanning the information in the tome. She heard him foraging around in the chests again, and after a while of him digging, she saw him place one of the books into his satchel.

"Do you always do that?" She said, seeing him put yet another book in.

"Only if there's something worth taking," He responded, he was serious, but never lost his playful tone.

"Then I'm guessing you'd like to keep this one?" She handed him the book she was holding.

"I was just about to ask," He eagerly took it and stored it in his bag. For a while they kept reading together, and after they had looked through the notes of the Kuatan Jungle one more time, Jade said: "We should get back to Kitana and Reptile, I'd say it's been about an hour anyway," She stood and opened the door.

They began to walk back to the front, having looked at everything downstairs. As they went to meet Kitana and Reptile, Jade saw something much more foreboding. She called Viper over, and when they both had a chance to fully take in their surroundings, it was clear that the building wasn't empty, and something had discovered their friends.

Before them lay Kitana's fan, covered in blood.

"They would've had to have been uncloaked for this to happen," He said, picking the weapon up.

"If we're going to find them," Jade paused, and pointed toward the hallway, trying to push out the thoughts of what might've happened to Kitana.

"We should probably follow the blood," They said, in unison.

Seconds later…

Viper examined the red paste that was caked across the floor. It was hard to determine who the liquid belonged to, no familiar smell was attached to it and due to the color of the blood, Reptile was completely out of the conversation.

After a few more seconds of tasting the air, he decided that the two of them weren't down this hallway. Turning the opposite direction, across the staircase and away from their meeting room, there was another corridor.

"Do you have any idea where they are?" Jade asked.

"One idea… there," He pointed to the other hallway. "This isn't their blood," He said, hoping that that was more of a good sign than a bad one.

"Right then," She said, taking her staff into hand. They sauntered toward the place, their pace a little slower than usual. When they entered the corridor, the saurian couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. The place had no sources of light, and even Viper's eyes were having a little trouble seeing.

From what he could make out, this hallway was much longer. The color was the same though, a sand shade of brown. He tasted the air and, after actively filtering out Jade's scent, he could make out a vague idea of where Reptile was.

"Got anything?" Jade asked, her staff in its true form.

"Yes, but it's faint." He said pointing to a few chambers in the general area of Reptile's scent. She got to one side of a door, and he followed in unison. They were still cloaked in invisibility.

She poked her head into the room and entered to examine if anything was there. After a few minutes she left and shook her head.

This cycle continued, she would enter the room, he would stand guard and make sure Drimiz wasn't sneaking up on them. But, once they had reached the last room, Jade made note of the unusual darkness, even for the already lightless hallway around them. He didn't quite know why, even if there weren't any windows or candles in the room, the darkness shouldn't have blotted out everything.

"What does it look like to you?" She asked.

"Same as what you described. I have an idea, though."

He took something, a derelict experiment of sorts, and lightly threw it at the shroud. Seeing it go straight through, next he stuck out his hand and felt no resistance. He beckoned Jade forward, telling her it was safe. Although, as she walked in with him, she seemed to disappear. Needless to say, he was confused.

"Jade?" He asked, idly into the darkness.

No response.

Simultaneously

She pushed herself back to her feet. It was hard, considering the feeling of weights dragging her down. Once she did, her first instinct was to find Viper, being separated was a bad idea. But, the haze that blacked out the room was too thick for her to see through, and even though she tried to call the saurian's name, she realized that the endeavor was fruitless.

"Maybe… I just need to-" She thought about how her sight was largely obscured. "See this from a different angle," She closed her eyes, and payed attention to the noise.

…

The silence was almost maddening.

…

It felt as if the noiselessness was crawling up her back, breathing on her neck, priming its tendrils to attack.

…

The weight that had previously held her from moving almost seemed to return, her feet refusing to move in the process.

…

But then… she thought she heard footsteps.

Simultaneously

Calling for Jade was useless, he had started to rely on smell. For a while that too was pointless, although he had started to pick something up. And when she bumped into him, he exclaimed: "Jade!"

"It's… good to see you too," She said, as he placed her back onto the floor. She paused for a moment. "Do you have any idea what this… 'thing' is?"

He paused for a moment, needing to think about the pitch black environment around them.

"It might be some form of magic? A mind trick maybe?" Viper said.

"Now, we just need to break it," He thought to himself. "We could use magic against magic, I suppose. Although I won't lie to you, my magic is… it leaves something to be desired."

"Right now, anything we could use to get out of this is better than nothing," She said, urging him to start.

He shot out his hand, and… nothing. This went on for quite a while, he would do some gesture and try to generate any sort of magic, and it would only huff a strange noise that progressively sounded more and more like annoyance.

Until finally, a small flame seemed to spark to life in Viper's hand.

"I did it!" He yelled with glee. Jade gave him a pat on the shoulder, and reminded him of why he had summoned the fire in the first place. He let the flames jump to the floor, and when he took control over it it blazed a trail. The shroud disappeared shortly after.

"There!" He heard Jade call, she threw her glaive. It grazed the back of a murid. He turned his gaze to the left and saw his friends, Kitana and Reptile, unconscious and chained.

He loped out the door frame. When he was close to Drimiz, his opponent tried to use some form of magic to attack. But, Viper pounced and kicked the murid straight into Jade's staff. She swung it across Drimiz's face. When he stumbled back into the saurian's grasp, Viper pressed his claws into the murid's throat, and raked them across his neck. The target lay there, experiencing his last few seconds of life.

Viper sat down, his back hunched and his legs crossed. He didn't know why, but the flames made him feel like a child again. He got up from his position and stumbled down the stairs, aimlessly he returned to the storage room where he and Jade sat not half an hour ago. He soon tripped over himself and fell to the floor.

He heard a squeak as he hit the stone, although when he looked around the room no-one was to be seen. When he turned his gaze back to the floor, he saw a hatch, small enough to be effectively hidden, but large enough to be crawled in or out of. As he opened it and looked in, all he could see were more eyes. They belonged to murids and when he fully took in the surroundings, it became clear to him that they were nothing more than children.

The last thing he truly could remember from his time in that black shroud, were two similarly colored glossy eyes. Eyes that summoned a horribly familiar voice telling him to jump into an inferno, envelop himself, and meet reemerge in the inhospitable depths of the Netherrealm.

Hours later…

Jade, needless to say, was a bit worried. Many people would be if they saw a giant lizard man sitting in a hallway, watching an oversized rodent slowly lose his lifeblood. But as they had awoken their friends and started riding back, he had been especially quiet, and the swamp drake he had taken as his mount was always a few paces back than everyone else's. After a few hours of riding, he stopped, and when the rest of them asked what he was doing, his answer was that he wanted to spend more time in the jungle. She followed him and offered to stay with him.

"No," He said, quite curtly.

"Come on, Viper," She said.

"No."

"Why can't I come? You think I'm going to push you off a cliff or something?"

"No, I just… I just need to be alone right now," He said. She paused for a moment, wondering if there was anything she could say to change his mind.

"You can't always be alone, Viper."

"I appreciate your concern, Jade. But…" He trailed off.

"I wouldn't want you to get malaria," She smiled, humor had always been a good way to persuade him in their other dealings.

"Right, because reptiles have never preyed on insects," He said, with such a tone that most people would've left. But Jade, was not most people.

"Oh come on," She went after him, still riding on her mount. He drifted aimlessly, until finally he came upon a clearing. It was still surrounded by jungle, but to have had anything other than a constant humidity in the air was a welcome change. She watched him sit, hunch his back, cross his legs, curl up his tail, and wait.

For a while, that was all he did. Eventually, Jade went to join him.

"Did something happen, with Drimiz?" She asked.

"Not with Drimiz, really," He said as he looked to the heavens.

"You know, you can talk to me," She said as he stuck out his hand, and from the palm, fire ignited. His fingers encased the flame, and when he opened it again, it was gone. He did it, as if it was to be some sort of an explanation.

"What about the fire?" She asked, to her it was just another power to be added to the roster of abilities the inhabitants of Outworld could do.

He sat there, looking toward the growing dark of the sky. The shifting light slowly getting lost in his eyes.

"Whatever you're thinking about, you can tell me," She reaffirmed.

He remained silent. The flames slowly burning out in his hands.

"If you don't want to now, then that's fine. But I want you to remember something."

The flames started to become only a cinder, an ember, among the shadows that seemed to stick to his scales.

"I make a promise, Viper. A promise to never judge you."

He stared at her, a stare that some may have found unsettling or repulsive.

Later, when they had already realized that night was soon upon them. They made a campfire, although this time Viper refused to call upon his abilities. Instead, he took some flint and steel from his bag and ignited the flame.

They sat there, hearing the crackles of the blaze.

The next night…

"This is a horibble idea," The voice said.

"I disagree."

"Something's going to go wrong, she'll probably kick us out and then sh-"

"Hold your tongue."

Viper ignored his voice, a process that was easier when he was around Jade. He breathed calmly, trying to shake the feeling of vertigo from his head. He banged on the dragon shaped knockers, and his stomach lurched.

The door opened.

Jade was standing there, a look of surprise on her face. Although her expression soon turned to that of happiness.

"I wasn't expecting you," She said, resting against the doorframe.

"None of the best things are… 'expected,'" He said, although inside he was still silently cursing at himself to shut up.

"So, what brings you here?" She said.

"You know… what we felt after what she said… is… ineffable. I think we should tell her that," The voice seemed to finally be giving some actual advice.

"Well, if you're ready to return my journal, I think it was high time we started these… night-lessons," He took a book out of his bag, it had a brown leather cover, with the word 'Edenia' embossed onto the front in golden letters.

"What are you smiling about?" His voice said, angry. It was weird to him, how the entity could change its manner in a matter of seconds.

"I like making her smile."

"It's not like that's going to lead anywh-"

"Hold your tongue, I need it to talk about Edenia."

22 A.M.K.

Viper pressed his fingers into the heat of the candle. The flames didn't hurt him. His physiology gave him accelerated healing and a high endurance, but even so, he had never felt pain from fire. As his hand moved from the wax, he snapped his fingers and the familiar element sparked to life.

"You have pyrokinesis?" Jacqui said.

"Yes…" He said, remembering the first time his father had taught him.

"Why didn't you ever use it?"

"Who says I didn't?"

"My parents, Cassie's parents," She said. Viper extinguished the flames.

"Fire can be dangerous, sometimes," His mind turned to an uncomfortable memory.

But as he was about to try to explain further, the door swung open. Karanba stood there, he wore black armor made of a decarburized steel that was tied together with red chords. On his gauntlets were an empty hole where his bone blades could be used. And sitting atop his head and shoulders was a red hybrid of a cloak and scarf.

His message was a simple one.

"Master, Mileena is at our gates."

A/N: Well… I admit… that may have taken me an unreasonable while to rewrite