The Forest welcomed them with open maws and smiles, but they knew that its bark had bite. Kotal Kahn urged his army in a diagonal direction so that very little of the forest would consume them before they reached the coast where Fujin had suggested he find the Shokan General.
"Kiss me" Voices filled Skarlet's head as she wandered by the widened trees closer to the edge. "Kill for me." She shook the thoughts from her head and began to let her mind wander toward her fallen sister in blood, Mileena.
She tugged closer to Kotal Kahn as the moved, with Rain behind her left, and the Centaurs at the outer edge of their formation. They knew these forests better than any creature, save for the being they called Reptile, who travelled deeper into the forest well ahead of the army.
Inside, claws scraped against mossy bark to mark his path and Syzoth, invisible to the human eye, trailed himself along the coast with his eyes to the sea.
"Make us bleed." He heard begged into his ear, but he had heard it all before. False promises to feed the forest with voices that howled like ghosts in the wind.
He wore armor of padded green and black cloth, a leather mask in the shape of a screaming maw and as he urged forth toward the foam that spilled from the lips of the sea, his body began to change. His flesh warped from scale to skin, hewn structure of human bone edged his high cheeks and carved inwards smaller eyes that blinked as a human. His head, covered by the tight black hood. His claws receded into nails and as the edge of the forest opened for him, the being known as Reptile stepped forth to observe the scene before him.
Shokans as far as the eyes could see. Many float bloated by the sea, some torn by the sharks and creatures that dwelled within the depths of the sea, but far more struggled to gather themselves to land. The tallest among them, strangely to Reptile, was a female. Adorned in black and red cloth and metal armor that covered her shoulders, and chainmail that rusted from the sea and scraped her cloth with streaks of orange dust. Sheeva, the General of Kitana.
None had spotted him, but that wasn't a problem for Reptile. He made his presence known and walked, unhindered toward the General herself as many Shokan became quickly aware of his presence.
"Syzoth." She greeted him, but her demeanor was never that of joy to see him, and it seemed almost in defeat as they pulled the dead to shore.
"Ko'atal is on his way with his army to pick off the last of the Shokan you have brought and imprison you." Reptile warned her and this almost startled Sheeva.
"How could they have known of this?" The wreck was far from the hills where Kotal Kahn had landed.
"They have scouts all throughout the land." A lie from Reptile, but his words were chosen carefully here, and Sheeva need only know what he desired her to, just like Kotal Kahn. "Prepare the remaining Shokan for war."
Sheeva nodded and began her rally call. What remained of the dead would be claimed by the sea as there was no longer time to grieve and pull them ashore to bury. The men, women, all warriors trained under Goro, Sheeva, and Kintaro took their best weapons from the dead if they had none on them, and rallied to their leader.
"Go, Syzoth, and report back when they are close."
"They are already closer than you think." He responded with a hiss. There was no time, he knew.
They could see the fog of war lift from the ground within the forest as the trees could sense the blood that would spill upon their ravenous maws. The souls that would seep into their roots caused the ground to foam with anticipation and the heat carried it into a thick, frothy mist.
There was no time. Reptile pulled from the group, three backward steps out of respect for Sheeva, a bow, and then he bolted for the forest. His body shifted as the trees concealed him so that he could hide in his transformation back into the reptilian creature he truly was and then he was invisible.
Beneath his feet the ground began to beat like a heart, faster and faster as the march of the Osh-Tekk and Centaur drew closer and closer until even Sheeva could feel it.
Kotal Kahn mulled Fujin's words in his mind like wine in a shallow glass. It swirled his thoughts to think that they could work with the Shokan, that to change the world it would begin where the world bleed. Could he even convince the Centaur and Shokan to work together, or would it all be for nothing? He was prepared to go to war, but if there was even a moment that the two sides could unite against the Kahn, no, for Outworld, then what could he say to break that tension, to be the leader he needed to become?
He walked with Motaro's second in command at one side, and an Osh-Tekk at his right. He lead the army ahead through the curve of the forest until they could ear the water slap the cold, rock covered shore, and the mumble of Shokan voices.
Beneath his feet marched the drum of a heart that beat faster and faster and carried their feet on the wings of intent and anticipation of a new world just beyond the horizon of this cruel and cunning forest.
Before they broke tree-line, Syzoth watched from a thick branch that stretched like an arm to choke the sky as the show would soon play out. Which side he was on, only he knew and it excited him to gamble with their lives.
"General Sheeva!" Kotal Kahn broke the tree-line and called out to the great Shokan warrior.
He was not prepared for them to be armed and waiting. They knew he was coming and stood in wait for action. Sheeva stepped forward with her great, massive legs that carried her nearly like the trees to tower over Kotal Kahn stood her ground at the shore, mere feet from the enemy.
"You will return to the city and swear fealty to the Kahnum of Outworld!" She demanded.
"I am the Kahn of Outworld!" He returned and the trees shook with glee and lust for blood as the tension grew and the vitriol within the stomachs of these two warriors coated their hearts and boiled their minds of all reason.
"Then you will be brought back a prisoner. Alone." A single arm raised, the top right with a fist that then lowered like a guillotine to command her army of fifty shaken to march for the forest line.
As the heft of their bodies marched with great speed, so too did the Centaurs break formations around the Osh-Tekk and coursed through the tree-line ahead of Kotal Kahn and, spears and swords in hand, met the Shokan in battle.
Kotal Kahn and Sheeva stood motionless as their eyes refused to stray from the others. Their armies met all around them and a splash of blood coated Sheeva's left cheek, a signal to her to charge the Osh-Tekk traitor.
"For Outworld!" They both screamed with their own respective meanings and clashed sword with swords.
Behind the trees, where Syzoth waited, Scarlet marched the champions of Edenia that sided with Kotal Kahn toward the tree-line. He let the voices fall down to the ground and meet those that waited their moment to charge, but urged by the lust of the forest, they too were coerced into war. Rain and Tanya at each side of Skarlet as the broke through to shore and launched at the nearest Shokan.
Syzoth watched on as the drums of war barked for blood, and he loved every moment of it.
Skarlet's dagger drew forth the blood she needed as it slid from the hide of a shokan's neck and began to form an orb of blood, crimson and hewn and split into the shape of ten spears of various sizes. The shokan, its massive three-fingered hand on the cut that burrowed into its neck, and its eyes near dazed as it turned toward her. She unleashed the spikes upon her enemy in a fast, downward trajectory. For his own blood to pierce his flesh, between ribs, neck, thighs, and one that stuck into the warrior's left eye, he was helpless. The tall beast dropped to its knees before her and as the blood still held its hardened form, she grasped the end of the spike that pierced his eye and pushed it through the thick skull of the shaken warrior.
Behind Kotal Kahn and Sheeva had a near stand still in combat. Though he began to best her, the arms and size gave her leverage. She was a brute and he was brutal. Kotal Kahn could see moments around them, like flashes of images of shokan warriors dead and bled out, mixed with the dead and beaten Osh-Tekk and Centaurs. The war around them was thick with blood and tense with anger, and the whispers that lifted form the earth begged for more. It was a voice that seemed almost unnatural and startled him.
She swung down with her swords, all four blocked by the flat of his Macuahuitl. She pressed down with all of her weight and her muscle mass matched, if not overpowered his. She was crazed, covered in blood, and determined to destroy him just as he had felt for her moments ago.
The strength of the General forced Kotal Kahn down to a knee and though the flat of his sword held the edges of hers from a clean slice down his body, he could not do anything else. His mind began to race as it rushed the haze that chased him. The bellow of the trees that screamed for blood within his ears. He could hear them and they urged I'm to fight just as it had all of their man around them, but he thought, for just a second, to break that spell. With all of his strength he beat the swords aside and opened Sheeva up for a kill shot, but instead kicked her ribs and pushed her down to the ground with a body check after. He put her the Shokan on point even as he knew she still had him with three swords left in hand.
"Scenario!" He called out through the screaming around them.
She was confused. Overtaken by the spell of the forest, she could not understand why he would not kill her then.
Reptile spotted this from afar and knew it was time to take action. He lunged into battle, pushed Tanya aside and raced toward Kotal Kahn. He had chosen his side, but just as he prepared to launch onto the Osh-Tekk's back, Sheeva dropped her swords and called her man to hold.
"Hold!" He added immediately after and they both, in unison after that.
He planted is feet and stood his ground, unsure of this, and what to do. Everyone around him had the same demeanor. Swords were held at necks, men gasped their last breath, or screamed in agony. Reptile could only watch, just as the rest.
"I did not come here to fight you." He admitted, "Sheeva, General of Kitana, I came to make peace."
"This is a strange idea of peace, Ko'atal." She responded, mildly amused by the idea that peace could lead to war.
"The voices." He could hear them, "the forest calls for blood."
"It bellows from the Earth." She noticed, finally, as the ground began to rumble beneath them.
The forest was not pleased to see the battle had ceased. The blood that washed ashore and no longer spilled on the bark that fed on the lives of these warriors would soon stain and dry. This wouldn't not do.
Kotal Kahn aided Sheeva to her feet and as their men and women stood baffled, a howl pierced them from the forest with a great sharp wind that carried like a thousand needles into their skin.
"The forest will not be sated without sacrifices." Reptile approached, he knew the forest better than anyone. Now in human form, he broke the gap between Sheeva and Kotal Kahn. "It calls for blood, or it will devour us all. It cannot be denied."
They looked down at the assassin, both believed that he favored one over the other, but Reptile stood amongst both and then it hit them.
"Then we will drown it in blood." Kotal Kahn turned toward the Prince of Edenia, who stared back in confusion.
"If you truly desire peace, Kotal Kahn, return with me to the city and make your point to Kitana." Sheeva entertained the idea, but she did not trust it.
"So be it." Kotal Kahn did not desire this outcome, it played into Kitana's hands, but there would be no One Outworld if he and Kitana were to continue their war.
She stepped forward to join Kotal Kahn, and he motioned toward her, she watched him grip his great weapon and pulled it from the Earth, ready to sheath it.
"She will work with you if you bend the knee, Ko'atal."
With her next step, she extended a hand to him. With his, he lifted the great sword and drove it deep into her chest. The cavity split, her maw fell slack with a most horrendous scream as it drove and pinned her into the Earth. In her death, her face, sunken in pain resembled the trees that watched on with hunger. Before any foot moved, he forced her down and twisted the blade to break through her ribs, and cast his gaze toward all around him.
"Outworld will never bend the knee to the Mad Queen!" He bellowed from the depths of his lungs and carried with the wind of the forest's howl of approval, "Shokan! Listen to me, I will give you honor, I will give you freedom, and I will give you death. Take which you please, for from here on, you are free man and women and I will not be your ruler, but your savior!"
This gave them pause, Rain, Skarlet, Tanya, Reptile, the Centaurs and Osh-Tekk all unsure of as he bellowed and chanted the demands of the forest and the promises of a new world.
"You may return to Kitana and fight until you die as she sits on her golden throne, or you can march with me to the castle and free Outworld. Together, we will become one. That is the only rule I will bend the knee to. Freedom for all of Outworld."
The headdress he had adorned with pride, Kotal shook from his head and let it soak the blood of Sheeva's corpse.
"Rain." He called out to the Edenian and singled him out as all eyes cast toward him. "Give the damn trees what they want, and drown them in blood."
The Edenian noble watched as the bodies around him parted way to clear him a path toward the sea and he had no choice but to act. He made the short journey until the blood soak froth of the water soaked into his boots.
His eyes closed, his hands formed the symbols that called to the cold sea for it bend to his will. All that stood between him and the forest line were the bodies that littered the graveyard shore and the water began to howl back as the wind that carried from the scarred branches hissed and bit down upon it. A great maw formed of the sea and raised up in a massive wave that towered over the forest and pulled the sea back until it was nearly a mile out before the waterline.
The blood, the froth, the bodies that littered the battlefield were swiftly engulfed by the oceanic maw that split its legs to forgive Rain and all others that stood before it.
Syzoth watched as the water marched like soldiers to war and then like a giant's fist punched its way into the treetop, through the treeline, and smashed bark, branches, trunks, roots and spilled the ground with earth, blood, and the cursed trees that haunted the massive forest that stretched almost as far as the Coliseum city itself. Kotal Kahn spared Sheeva's swords but not his headdress as all things dead and inanimate washed into the mud and splendor of the forest's destruction.
There was no choice now. As the foam washed back to sea slowly between Rain, exhausted and near collapse, Reptile was first to kneel.
He was not the last.