"Who are you trying to impress?"
The white haired God cut through the second and third rib of a bared demon before him and turned toward Sareena, no answer for her question, but acknowledgment.
He moved into the circle of combat as she and Nightwolf were forced to join. Nightwolf offered no answers either, not until the twenty demons that still encircled them outside the village could be vanquished.
Behind her directly was the wooden pike wall of the village and granted her some defense from the rear, but two tall and broad demons, horned and faces disfigured into perpetual scowls charged in at each angle. In the distance she could see the white haired God had lifted himself over the shoulders of a demon and slain it with a decisive cut into the skull of the beast, but no closer to assistance. Nightwolf was gone from her vision as the two demons surrounded her.
As they lunged in to close the gap, she faded into shadow, a mist of black smoke and emerged behind them to flank them. The first one, she rushed forward and when her big black boots met tepid flesh, she kicked the demon in the abdomen five times before being able to launch off that broad body to land back and clear some distance between them. For the demon, however, as she took a glance at her fine work, it was just a glancing blow.
The second beast, though both unarmed, readied to grab her, but an axe lodged into its left eye broke the spell of combat. Now alone, the first demon trained on Sareena was met with her daggers, small shallow cuts for sure, but she pin pricked it before she twisted out of its grasp to let Nightwolf complete the task with a cut that would have shattered through the ribs and pierced the first layer of flesh in its heart.
Two down for her, but nearly over ten remained for them as a whole.
"This is going to raise alarms all throughout the realm!" Sareena warned Nightwolf, but he heeded nothing and continued to fight.
What was on the deity's mind? Why come in with his sword swinging and rile the beehive of hell?
With chaos pin pointed to a single plane in the realm, it would raise suspicion with the higher demons, and perhaps the Specter, or the Wraith, or anything strong enough to traverse realms with ease.
Like her.
One by one the deity slayed the demons, Nightwolf assisted, and Sareena did all she could to cut them one by one to thin the numbers until there were only bodies before them and dust to settle.
Outside the village, as the smog of combat slowly dissipated, a white ghost emerged from the ashes of battle and approached the three.
Conical hat, veil, white robes, Sareena knew this to be the demon Ashrah. A former nemesis of hers, but perhaps the chaos had caught her attention as it had herself.
Once gathered in the mist and their eyes now clear to see, Ashrah glanced at Sareena, the old animosity in her eyes were still bared, but the desire to take action had faded. Still, she could feel the cold glare until it reached the deity Fujin.
"Protector of Earthrealm, you dare start a war in the Neatherrealm, and without me?" Ashrah jested
"You've only just arrived." Fujin replied, his tone not as light-hearted for his eyes scanned the clearing horizon for another being met him in the distance.
Nightwolf moved forward to get a clearer view and yes, in the red haze of burning hell the yellow and black linen attire and katana fastened at his waist, the white eyes of the dead stared back.
"Scorpion." Sareena recalled, but his was a very well known name in the depths of hell.
"Behind you, Protector of Earthrealm." Ashrah pointed and the next army of marching demons emerged for the horizon behind them.
"What do we gain by this?" Sareena pondered, but no answer came. Still.
With no words and presumably no thought behind his action, Fujin rushed to meet the demons that marched toward them, Nightwolf close behind him and with no means to pause or stall, Sareena and Ashrah joined together in the race for battle.
The line of demons was breeched with a great gust that forced four back against the line behind them and then two behind them would stagger back. This created a gap enough for Fujin to then swirl through with his blade and begin to cut and fight his way through. Nightwolf slayed the demons that had fallen before they could reach their knees.
These demons, red and black, horned and grimaced, resembled almost all the others of this plane, all natives of the Netherealm as much as Sareena and Ashra, but different from the humans like they were.
Stronger, it took Ashrah and Sareena's teamwork to down one demon at a time, but the wind picked up, weaker than on Earth, but great enough to force the demons it affected to hold their ground rather than fight. They struggled against the storm that brewed around them and before long knew it would pass, but did not know as their feet began to catch flame, that this tornado urged forth by the God would encase them in Scorpion's flame.
The specter cut demons down one by one with ease and little resistance, the kind of strength the three humans could only obtain through teamwork. Soon it was Fujin and Scorpion that began to take down the masses, thirty or more that marched around them with more on the way.
It wasn't until the final demon fell of this second wave that Scorpion, with sights of a third and forth on the horizon, pulled the group together and forced them into his own portal where they would emerge in a hell forged by the specter itself.
Sareena collapsed to her knees for the force of Scorpions flaming portal matched with the wind of the white haired god thrust her nearly skinning her into the rocky ground of their new destination.
Ashrah lent a hand for her and she took it. Nightwolf joined her to check, but in hell, and a demon, her wounds were just flesh and flesh healed faster for them.
"Is this what you wanted?" Sareena asked, eyes locked onto Fujin and demanded answer.
He only nodded and turned toward Scorpion as the specter met the group again, approached two meters from the God and demanded answers as well.
"You do not belong in this realm." He spoke of Fujin and Nightwolf, "you must leave immediately."
"I come seeking your aid!" Fujin admitted
"We must stop Kotal Kahn." Nightwolf explained.
"He is beyond your reach." Scorpion to Nightwolf, but turned to Fujin, "but not ours."
"I'm going with you." Sareena added and approached.
"We all are!" Ashrah demanded.
Scorpion mulled this in the eyes white enough to blind all emotion from his face and cut deep into all those that stared into them.
Before he would agree, there was a caveat.
"Under one condition, Earth God."
"Name it."
"Restore my clan."
"I cannot, but I can restore your soul."
This gave the specter pause and he remained silent for what seemed like ages in hell. Ashrah and Sareena, Nightwolf and Fujin all had something they desired and as trivial, or human as it may be, none of this would be done without the specter, and none could perform the task promised without the sorcerer Quan Chi.
Sareena, uncertain if this promise she gave would be worth her time, or death, still breathed with relief as the specter gave only the slightest of nods. How, or why, and when? None of this was known, but now she was caught up in it, and she would see it through.
To escape hell, she would do anything.