Author's Note: Sorry for the delayed update, but 1) my dad jacked up his shoulder at work and had to have surgery, so I've been taking care of him, and 2) I got the new Mortal Kombat game and have been somewhat distracted by that. This chapter was also difficult for me to write because I was feeling a bit blocked, so I hope it's enjoyable.

"You can't just leave Mom in there!" Samantha argued with Tomas for the fifth time in as many minutes. Her cheeks were covered in soot, slicked clean in trails where her tears had fallen.

"Samantha," Tomas began, his teeth now clinched as he slammed his fingers into the computer buttons, "I am done discussing this. The answer is no. It is not up for debate."

"This isn't fair!" she yelled. "We need my mom. Livy needs my mom."

With that, she cast a worried glance over at her older sister, who had woken up from Miyuki's cold stun and was stretched out upon a cot. Her leg laid there at a strange angle nature never intended it to make with the splintered bone jutting out the side. Blood-black clots decorated the wound. Olivia herself was largely quiet, though she was grimacing and groaning occasionally, her fingers balled into white-knuckled fists on either side of her body. Tears silently slipped down her cheeks to either ear, and Bi-han knew she was in considerable pain right now in spite of the field morphine Cyrax had administered to her. But she'd stubbornly refused to let him stun her back to sleep, nor had she allowed anyone to hold her hand for comfort. Still, Bi-han sat on a wooden crate by her side, stroking her hair out of her eyes.

"It is too dangerous," the Enenra reiterated, pulling his eyes from the computer panel and looking at his gravely wounded niece. He looked back to Sam. Miyuki had joined her side by this point.

"But-"

"Enough, Samantha!" he finally snapped.

Bi-han, who'd been watching his lifelong friend struggle to retain his patience in spite of the inordinate amount of stress he was currently under, now swiveled his head from Livy to look at his youngest niece. The Hydromancer girl stubbornly stood before Tomas, her arms crossed like a petulant child, her bottom lip quivering. She glared at her Uncle with lavender eyes like daggers cutting him down where he stood. But she said nothing further.

She was right, Bi-han decided, but then again, so was Tomas. It really was too dangerous to stage a rescue right now. Tarkatans currently swarmed through the Temple, searching for the survivors, killing any that they found. It would only be a matter of time before they found this little bunker in the catacombs, and they would fight hard to penetrate their technological defenses. Reiko would settle for nothing less, he suspected. And maybe they would succeed. Who knew how vast the General's knowledge of magic and spells was, and if he was capable of using that magic to break through the blast doors? Going for Anya right now was suicide. There was no viable way to save her…

...except for one…

"Smoke," Bi-han spoke and took a step toward his friend. "I can save her."

Tomas started at the interruption and then looked from Samantha to him, raising an eyebrow. "You, Bi-han?" he asked, puzzled. "What can you do to-" He immediately cut himself off as sudden understanding hit him, and his expression fell into a worried mask. "Bi-han, no," he urgently replied. "You can't!"

"Sam's right," he replied. "We need Anya here. There are far too many wounded for Sam, Danika, and Connor to care for. And we have no way of knowing when or if General Blade will arrive to save us."

"And if Anya's already dead?" he challenged, prompting Kailyn to start to cry, though he ignored her. "Would risking your soul be worth it then?"

"It is a risk I'm willing to take," he said.

Tomas' concerns were definitely justified, and Bi-han inwardly admitted that the ever-present demon in his head jumping with glee over the prospect of being turned loose did nothing to reassure him. Raiden had warned him - when he'd saved him from Quan Chi's clutches years ago - that Noob Saibot was not gone, only subdued, and unless he wanted to become a wraith again, he would never use the demon's powers for anything. Since then, the Cryomancer had obeyed the Thunder God faithfully. Never once had he answered the darkness within, never once had he used those powers, never once had he given in to temptation. Surely, he argued with himself now, one time wouldn't be enough to turn him.

"This is a terrible idea," Tomas frowned. "You can't risk losing your soul inside Noob Saibot again. Anya wouldn't want that. Kuai Liang wouldn't want that."

At the mention of the wraith, everyone within earshot noticeably tensed. Though his face remained a cold mask, Bi-han inwardly flinched as well, his brain quickly overwhelmed with terrible memories best left buried. But he calmly looked his friend in the eye and said, "It is not your decision to make. And it is not Anya or Kuai Liang's either. I'll be back soon."

"Bi-han!" Tomas started to argue, but the Cryomancer had already let the oily black stain escape from his brain and whisk him away from the bunker.

As he slipped into the cramped spaces between the Realms and into the tiniest of holes between the atoms that made up the very fabric of reality, Bi-han was once again confronted by the demon: it was darkness made something tangible and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring...gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth...and soon found its way to his soul. But this time, Bi-han drove it back. He had to hold Noob just close enough to use those powers, but also had to push him away just far enough to keep his soul from absorbing the blackness. It was a terrifying conundrum, he vaguely realized, and his heartbeat quickened as he struggled to keep himself in balance.

By instinct, he knew where to emerge from the cosmic slipstream into Anya's infirmary, though out of necessity, he forced his body to stay out of phase from reality as he scanned the area. Tomas' suspicions had been accurate - several support beams pinned his sister-in-law to the floor, and if he moved one, the rest of the ceiling would collapse upon them both. A halo of blood surrounded her skull, which had been split by errant debris, but with his hellish vision that could recognize the presence or absence of a life force, he saw her pulse steadily beating through her neck, weak but alive. She was unconscious.

"This might feel somewhat strange," Bi-han told her as he phased through the fallen beams and slid his hands beneath her body, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. When he touched her, she immediately phased out of the material reality too, and he yanked her into his arms. Expectedly, the beams shifted in her absence, and with a quaking groan, more debris fell from the ceiling. But they were already gone anyway.

"Mom!" Sam cried when Bi-han re-emerged in the bunker a moment later, holding his sister-in-law's limp body in his arms. She, along with her twin brothers, ran to their uncle and frantically examined their mother. "She's alive!"

"Back up," Bi-han barked at them. "Give her some air."

Tomas pulled himself from the computer panels once more and gazed at the Cryomancer with a stern expression. "I am glad that you saved Anya," he began. "I just hope you didn't trade your soul for her life."

"I'm fine, Tomas," he growled before he carried the nurse to a cot next to Olivia's. "Come, scan her," he ordered. "Her head is wounded."

Still seething, the Enenra complied and held up his cybernetic hand over Anya's body. For a brief moment, there was a mechanical whirring and computerized trilling coming from his prosthetic. "She has a depressed skull fracture in the middle cranial fossa and significant damage to the temporal lobe. Her brain is swelling slightly and it is bleeding into the cranial cavity from the wound. Also, she's leaking cerebrospinal fluid."

"How can you tell that?" Jamie asked, looking at his uncle in puzzlement.

"I can see it dripping out of her ear," Tomas reported matter-of-factly as he pointed with his human finger at her ear on the afflicted side. As he'd said, a clear fluid speckled with tiny spots of blood dribbled over her ear lobe.

"Oh, my God," Sam breathed as she lunged to her mother's side. She gently rested her hands on Anya's forehead and battered hand before closing her eyes. In a moment, however, she angrily shook her head and then, with tears in her eyes, looked up at her family. "I don't have enough energy," she whined. "I used it all helping the others." She cast a look at her cousins, Danika and Connor. "What about you guys?" she wondered.

Connor, the nineteen year old Elite who had Kailyn's pale cornsilk hair and strong jawline, shook his head no and said, "I'm sorry, Sam," while he knelt beside both her and his aunt. "My energy is spent too."

"So is mine," Danika added as she curled her arm around Kailyn's waist and rested her head on her shoulder. She favored Tomas more, with her oval face full of mirth. "I spent what I had left trying to help Livy."

"Is Mom going to die?" Tommy now asked, looking from Tomas to Bi-han and back again.

Bi-han saw the Enenra swallow hard before his head sagged to the floor and he nodded. "If Anya doesn't have surgery to fix this soon, she'll probably die."

The teenager recoiled and frowned. "Then we need to get her out of here. She needs to get to a hospital."

"Oh, sure, we'll just jump in our car and go," Jamie snapped at his brother.

"Shut up," the other hissed at him before shoving him.

Jamie started to lunge back at his twin with his fist drawn back, but now Bi-han interposed himself between them and glared at them both as he grabbed their ears. "Both of you shut it," he growled, ignoring their yelps of pain.

"Yes," Tomas agreed, scowling at his nephews. "I don't need this nonsense right now."

"I know we can't just leave," Tommy grimaced. "But Uncle Bi-han, can't you take Mom to Ft. Albany?"

"No, he can't," the Enenra replied.

"Yes, I can," Bi-han immediately countered. "But I won't. Using Noob's powers just enough to get your mother from the infirmary pushed me dangerously close to the line. I would have to cross that line completely and let him overtake me in order to have enough power to get to a location hundreds of miles away." Tommy didn't argue with that, but he wilted, prompting his uncle to say, "We'll do what we can for her here, and pray that help arrives quickly."

Suddenly, an alarm droned from the computer, and the survivors in the bunker let out a collective gasp. Tomas immediately shot through his family to the control panels and Cyrax joined his side. Kailyn, who was kneeling by Anya, gripped her spear while the uninjured Elites and Masters made for the door with their weapons drawn. Bi-han followed only two steps behind.

You can end all these Tarkatans' lives, an unearthly, ghostly voice suddenly whispered through his head, and for the first time in nearly twenty years, Bi-han heard Noob's raspy voice speak to him. He noticeably tensed, prompting Tomas to cast a puzzled glance in his direction.

"What's wrong?" he demanded to know.

"I'm fine," he lied.

Why wait for help when you can take care of the problem yourself? You know what I speak of. The Tarkatans are no match for the power of Death.

Bi-han said nothing, but he silently willed Noob to shut up.

You would use my power to save one pitiful woman, but not the lives of everyone in this Temple? The demon laughed. His voice was dry and cracked like old parchment. You always were a coward.

Again, he willed Noob to shut his mouth and return to hibernation in the back of his mind.

Always too afraid to do what is necessary...

"SHUT UP!" the Cryomancer now yelled, prompting everyone around him to jump.

Now Tomas narrowed his eyes at his old friend. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded to know.

Bi-han swallowed hard and shook his head. "Can't you shut that damn thing up?" he swore, pointing at the blaring red alarms. "Every Tarkatan within a hundred miles is going to hear that."

"I'm working on it," the cyber-ninja slowly replied. He clicked a few buttons on his keyboard and silenced the droning shrieks. He looked back to the screens. "But the Tarkatans have already found us," he reported, pointing to the monitors. On the screens, a sea of snarling beasts flooded the catacombs and pressed in one heaving mass towards the door.

It wasn't long before the snarling cries of the Tarkatans touched Bi-han's ears, and the horde began to slam and stab at the blast shields. A rapid fusillade of muffled thumps, like a pummeling from a line of battering rams striking all at once, reverberated through the walls. The entire shelter shook as a series of concussive blasts ripped across the corridors outside, shockwaves hurtling earth and dead fighters this way and that, white-hot flame melting into slag anything those shockwaves missed.

"They're coming through!" Morgan cried, poised at the front of the line with her spear.

If they make it through, everyone dies…

Bi-han couldn't even argue with his demon's conclusion.

You can stop this.

"I...can't…" he whispered to himself, his voice drowned by the noises at the door.

You know what they'll do to your family, Noob reminded him. They've already claimed Kuai Liang. But what about the rest of them? Will you really let your bloodline end here?

No, he inwardly sighed. He couldn't.

Of the three Cryomancer siblings, Kuai Liang was the one who'd made it. He had proven, time and again, to be the strongest of them, the best of them. And for his strength, he'd been blessed with the chance to have a family of his own, and for them he was nurturing, protective, supportive. Bi-han's own nurturing instinct was mildly sadist - doing things to his nieces and nephews that verged on cruel, things like picking them up and threatening to drop them, things that Kuai Liang would never do in a thousand years. But even still, Bi-han adored those kids almost as much as their father did. He had to protect them as stubbornly as their father would, even at the expense of his own soul. For Kuai Liang...

Bi-han leaned back, bracing himself against the wall, and his head drooped in concentration. The air, which had been still and rancid with the smells of blood and sweat, eerily whistled around him, yanking his stringy hair over his face. And for the second time that day, he let Noob Saibot free.

The first line of Tarkatans that broke through the defenses came snarling through the ash and died as quickly as they appeared. Inky shadow spread over them, poured from some unseen well, and the life simply fled from their bodies. Even inertia seemed sucked from them, for they immediately ceased their charge and toppled, some tripping the next line of monsters behind them. Cyclones of dark, demonic power rose from the debris and chewed through flesh like it was nothing more than a soft stick of butter. Forks of black lightning seared them, blasting holes through their bodies and making craters in the ground, prompting the surviving Lin Kuei to attack with deadly weapons and powers alike.

On and on, for minutes that felt like they dragged into hours, Noob's powers raged beside the more earthly ones while on and on, Reiko's army of Tarkatans advanced, a rising tide of bony armblades and snapping fangs. Bi-han, for all his powers, knew his people couldn't hold them off forever. This bunker was never intended to stand up to a genuine siege, and there were too many Tarkatans to drive off entirely. The thought pushed him ever closer to the demon's outstretched arms.

But he fought Noob inside of him just as he fought the enemy without, and soon, the black lightning and the inky shadows all slowed. Fewer Tarkatans attracted notice, and the notice they did garner killed less of them. But still, the horde came as if the debris and the fallen warriors littering the ground gave birth to them all over again.

When he sensed his demonic powers begin to fail him, Bi-han sprang into action and plowed into their army, letting their armblades careen harmlessly from his armor. He swung his massive kori sword in broad strokes, rending Tarkatans several at a time, the heavy blade crushing any beast that stood too close. Few of the enemy came anywhere close to hitting him, and those that did met a swift and bloody end. Only when he had no other choice did Bi-han rely on Noob's power to stop an incoming stroke; in those moments, his darkest shadow left his body and ripped his attackers into very literal pieces.

And then something unexpected happened: help arrived.

The first shots rang through the tunnel, piercing the chaos of battle with deafening explosions. Bi-han cried out to Tomas to retreat before he dived forward, his shadow and him both fighting to block the Tarkatans' passage into the bunker. More gunshots rang out as little flashes of light burst in his vision, raining a barrage of bullets through the corridor, felling the monsters from their rear. Other shots pinged off the solid rock of the catacombs, but they left deep gouges in the walls like honeycombs. Smoke from the guns wafted through the confined area and wreathed the Tarkatans' heads in a sulfuric haze.

It wasn't long before the source of the gunfire came into view, and Bi-han recognized the Special Forces cutting down their enemies one by one. They were lead by Sergeant Cage, General Blade's daughter, and her cohorts, Specialist Briggs, Takeda, and Kung Jin, as well as Johnny Cage and Kenshi. Guns continued to fire and arrows flew. Takeda killed many Tarkatans alone with his razor whips and his psychokinetic power, the gift he shared with Kenshi. Almost comically, several enemies rose into the air on unseen hands and then violently snapped into walls, killing them in an instant. On the other side of the warriors, the surviving Lin Kuei were reinvigorated with hope, and they charged forward with a war cry that drowned out all the other sounds in the catacombs. The Tarkatans never got the chance to retreat. Between the Special Forces and the Lin Kuei, none of them survived long enough.

"Clear the Temple!" Sergeant Cage yelled at her men when the catacombs were secured. Immediately, the men, led by Specialist Briggs, Takeda, and Jin, trotted off to track down any other Tarkatans they'd missed.

Kill them all! Noob hissed inside Bi-han's head, his bloodlust boiling over inside of him. Groaning, he somehow forced the wraith to back down.

"We got your distress signal," Sergeant Cage told Smoke as Johnny and Kenshi joined her side. "We came as fast as we could. Wish we could've gotten here sooner."

"You arrived just in time, " Tomas told her with a half-hearted smile. "Thank you for answering our call, miláčku." He patted the young officer on her shoulder.

"Tarkatans in Earthrealm, though," Johnny now spoke. "What were they doing here?"

"That is a long story," the cyber-ninja sighed. "But the abbreviated version is this: Reiko's back and he had a score to settle with the Lin Kuei."

"I bet Grandmaster Coolio doesn't take too kindly to that," he muttered, prompting Bi-han and Tomas to exchange a look.

Tomas cleared his throat and sadly nodded. "Well, again, that is a long story. But first, we must evacuate the wounded. There are many in need of critical care, especially the Grandmaster's wife."

Leave her to die...Leave her! Leave her! Leave her!

"We have two C-17's standing by close by, waiting to take you guys to Ft. Albany," Sergeant Cage reported as Bi-han crossed his arms and wrenched his eyes shut to force Noob to go away. "I have another team scouting out the perimeter to make sure they're all gone."

"Yeah," Johnny drawled with that confident swagger of his, "the creeps outside hightailed it out of here through a portal when they saw us show up. But that doesn't mean there aren't more waiting to ambush us when we leave."

"No," Tomas sighed. "Reiko wouldn't risk that. He's not about to let his army get wiped out."

"Still have to make sure," Sergeant Cage insisted, and he bowed his head in agreement.

Bi-han then looked at his old friend with some difficulty. "I'll recruit the uninjured to help us take the wounded to the planes." And then he walked off, still mentally warding off Noob inside of his head.

Reiko strode through the portal, surrounded on all sides by Tarkatans and Edenians, accompanied by Rain and Havik, to a bucolic forest just barely beginning to awaken from its long winter slumber. Suddenly, he saw the buds on the cherry trees around him; he could feel the energy packed within them, a bouquet of fireworks whose fuse had already been lit. He could smell them, too, a subtle essence of children's candy, the sweetness deepened by the scent of the slowly warming earth below them. Kneeling in the shade of one was the Grandmaster Sub-Zero, waiting. As the General emerged and approached him, he looked up, stood, and gazed at him with all the emotional range of a piece of wood.

"You did well," he praised his slave, though he knew the Cryomancer currently harbored no ego to stroke, therefore he couldn't possibly care about receiving compliments from his master.

"Many of the Lin Kuei survived," Rain protested.

"An unfortunate turn of events, I'm afraid," he told his old friend. "I didn't expect the other Earthrealm Champions to arrive so quickly to help them." He sighed. "But it is no matter. Their numbers are severely decimated. The ones who survived are wounded. They will not be able to challenge me for quite some time."

"If that is indeed their intention," Havik reminded him.

"Oh, it is," Reiko wolfishly grinned. "They'll want revenge on me for destroying their Temple, killing their warriors, and possessing their Grandmaster. But by the time they're strong enough to do something about it, I will have succeeded in claiming Shinnok's amulet and I will wipe them out of existence." He clapped the Cleric on the back. "Let us concern ourselves with the next target." He glanced down the path at the structure standing peacefully in the distance.

It was the Shirai Ryu Temple.

MKDemigodZ-Warrior, you know, I've been entertaining the idea of moving the Temple closer to everyone else, but to be honest, I'm not sure if that's something I want to do or not. We'll see.

ROCuevas, thanks!

Daniel Barga, yes, there will come a time when he'll fight against his brother and sister, only the tables have turned and he's the bad guy ;) I'm glad that you liked Frost helping her niece. There's sure to be more of that down the road. Thank you, as always, for your continued support! :)

alwaysdoubted, agreed. Livy can be a butt sometimes, but I think she can recognize what her aunt did for her and be grateful for it. But as with all my stories, it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.

Westcoast Witchdoctor, I'll have to look that song up on YouTube LOL But yeah, it definitely could be a turning point for Livy and Frost. They're both gonna have their hands full from here on out.

iceangelmkx, yay, I'm glad you're caught up! Aw, you know how I roll. Just when you think it can't get any worse, I go there LOL