Chapter 12: (Futile) Frenzy

AN: New chapter!

I am so sorry for the wait guys. Writer's block was a REAL bitch this time. I had a bunch of ideas and concepts I typed down, but I was never satisfied with anything, and I kept retyping stuff over and over and over again. It got to the point where I had over 2,500 words for this chapter alone. In the end, I decided to split the chapters into two. I don't know when the next chapter will come out, but I promise that you all won't have to wait as long as you did for this chapter since about half of it is completed already.

Outworld

Within the Flesh Pits of Outworld, a vicious battle echoed through the Living Forest.

Mileena, seeing that her sister and friend had been safely teleported away, stopped holding back. Tearing off her veil, Mileena tore into the neck of her opponent. Skarlet screamed, and then disappeared in a flash of blood, revealing herself to be a simple Blood Clone. The real Skarlet, meanwhile, leaped into the air and landed on a railing.

"What are you waiting for?! Kill her!" She commanded. A dozen Tarkatans began to descend on the Pits, cornering Mileena.

Mileena snarled, bringing up her sais.

"Let us dance!" She shouted, running up to the closest Tarkatan in her vicinity.

He swept up his arm blade in an arc, trying to slice Mileena in half. In a flash of light, Mileena teleported away. Confused, the Tarkatan didn't have any time to react before Mileena reappeared behind him. Kicking him in the back, the Tarkatan was unprepared for Mileena's sais to sink into his chest.

Plunging it in a few more times to make sure, Mileena clenched her fist and threw a small handful of blood into her next opponent's eyes.

Feeling the rage within her, a feeling that she thought she had left behind a month ago, Mileena roared. Bringing up her sais again, she clashed them against the arm blades of another Tarkatan. As the Tarkatan kept his attention on Mileena's sais, he failed to notice Mileena's right leg quickly winding back. A moment after their clash, Mileena drove her knee into the Tarkatan's lower half. The Tarkatan shrieked in pain, before Mileena's sais were driven into the back of his neck. Another Tarkatan, noticing the opportunity to strike while she was distracted, ran towards her in glee. Mileena, however, took notice, and threw her latest victim towards her attacker's chest, bringing him crashing down to the ground. The Tarkatan, winded, barely had any time to react before Mileena brutally brought one of her stilettos down onto the Tarkatan's eyes.

The remaining Tarkatans, now wary of the Kombatant, rushed to attack, but Mileena didn't care. Her rage had wiped away any rational thought of retreating, of surrendering.

All that was left now was Kombat.

As they reached out to grab her, Mileena waved her sais in an arc, slashing their hands away from her. As they reeled in pain, Mileena struck, targeting the Tarkatan closest to her.

As the Tarkatan tried to swing his blade to her throat, Mileena, in a burst of speed, ducked down underneath it, throwing the sai in her right hand in a backward grip as she evaded the blow. Open to her counterattack, the Tarkatan couldn't defend himself from the stab Mileena delivered to his throat. As the Tarkatan choked on his blood, Mileena grinned, before slashing her other sai across the Tarkatan's throat.

The next of her victims didn't even have the opportunity to attack, as Mileena had become too fast for her opponent's eyes to track her. In the span of a few seconds, one of the Tarkatan found his throat slashed and his spinal cord cut by a pink blur, while another found a sai buried in his heart.

The rest of the Tarkatans stood still, staring in disbelief at the speed and skill of the Half-Tarkatan.

Mileena snarled, bringing her sai to her chin.

"Anyone else?" she growled, as her other sai appeared in her left hand in a flash of pink light.

The Tarkatans stared at her for a few more moments, before quickly running out of the Flesh Pits, as if Onaga himself was nipping at their heels.

Mileena breathed heavily before she began to chuckle.

"Is this the best you can do, Skarlet?! Bringing these creatures to take me down whilst retreating like the cowardly pest you are?! Pathetic!"

Just then, Mileena heard a "click".

She froze.

Izuku had taken the time to show her how his pistol worked in the time that the Koliseum was still being built. While Mileena had found the weapon fascinating, Izuku quickly warned her how dangerous they were.

"A single nine-millimeter bullet is capable of traveling at fifteen-hundred feet per second. Not even you or Kitana could dodge something like this, and based on what I've seen going on in Outworld lately, I'm concerned that you might find that out the hard way."

Mileena dove just before hearing a loud BANG echo through the Flesh Pits. Thinking she was safe from the projectile, Mileena didn't have any time to react as the bullet ricocheted off the arm blade of a dead Tarkatan, sinking into her calf.

A few moments later, the pain registered, and Mileena screamed in pain. Landing on the ground, she desperately looked around for her attacker. Seeing a silhouette by the entrance of the Flesh Pits, Mileena threw her sai at her attacker.

BANG

Her beautifully crafted sai, a companion that had been with her since she was a mere child, shattered in midair. Mileena didn't even have time to blink before another bullet tore into her left hand. Forced to drop her other sai, Mileena stared at her attacker.

"Gotta be honest, when I heard about you, I was expecting more of a fight."

"Fight me...w-without the element of surprise, coward, and I-I'll show you exactly how much of a fight I can g-give." Mileena replied, breathing heavily. Her injuries were beginning to take their toll now.

Her attacker laughed. "Spirited, too. A real shame it's gotta be this way."

Just then, a bright green light appeared in the Flesh Pits, revealing the right hand of Shao Khan.

"Shang Tsung." Mileena growled.

Shang Tsung chuckled. "I see you've met my personal enforcer! Shao Khan may have had you and Mileena, but I wasn't fortunate enough to find an assassin of your caliber here on Outworld. Instead, I had to...outsource. Mileena, I would like to introduce you to my personal assassin..."

The man spun his revolvers in his hands, before spinning them back into his holsters.

"...Erron Black!"

AN: How many of you guys were expecting that reveal? XD

As I said before, this chapter was a REAL pain to write this time. My original idea was to combine Mileena's rampage and Izuku's rescue mission all into one chapter, but as I said earlier, it got wayyyy too bloated and I was never satisfied with any of the scenarios I was writing. One example of which is that I originally wanted Mileena to fight off an entire horde of Tarkatans (100+), instead of a (half) dozen of them. I soon realized how silly (and how exhausting) it was to write that scenario, so I scaled down from that ridiculous number.

Also, as I said earlier, you can expect a shorter wait for the next chapter, because I've pretty much got at least a quarter (if not half) of it done already.

Also, expect more characters in the modern games to show up, as well. (Except D'Vorah.)