So, this chapter came quicker than imagined, huh? Well, I had been writing it alongside the last chapter since they both kinda happen at the same time. Those of you who know of the more obscure Mortal Kombat Games will recognize where this is from.
Do enjoy!
Things were not going well. Things were not going well at all.
"GET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING TREE!"
"I'M TRYING, I'M TRYING!"
Rei screams as she was flung around by a tree branch. She, Raiden, and Bi-Han had came out of the portal straight in the heart of the Living Forest, Bi-Han nearly getting eaten by one of the trees. Normally the trees would have left them alone, but due to Azriel drop kicking them in, they had both crashed into a tree, and managed to piss it off. Now Rei was being tossed around like a rag doll, Bi-Han was trying to freeze the branch that was holding her, and Raiden was fighting off a swarm of putrid corpses to try and get to Rei.
"Good thing these corpses are fragile!" Raiden stated as he split kicks two corpses and punches off another's head, but is jumped by one from behind, and tries to shake it off. Bi-Han manages to freeze the branch that had Rei, the branch snapping as a result of being frozen and Rei's weight, dropping her onto the ground. Rei hits the ground with a thud, but she quickly gets up, rushing to help Raiden.
"Get your filthy, decayed hands off MY man!" She snarls as she rips the putrid corpse off Raiden and flings it into the mouth of another tree, the tree devouring it instantly.
"Satisfy our cravings to pass." It says, it's voice deep and with an echo. Raiden dusts himself off, Bi-Han landing on his shoulder.
"Thank you, Rei… but since when am I your man?" He asks.
Rei just grins. "I just felt like saying it, plus someone's gotta watch your back, since you clearly can't do it yourself."
"You just got tossed around by a tree like a rag doll." Bi-Han spoke up, Raiden snapping to look at him with wide eyes.
"Sub-Zero?!" He says in shock.
"Yes?" Bi-Han answers, calm. Rei grins, taking him from Raiden.
"What part of me saying "or is it" earlier did you not get?" She laughs at Raiden's confused look, but she's immediately grabbed by the same tree, screeching as it flung her to the other side of a pit full of very spiky vines. Raiden just shook his head, floating over the small pit to check on her.
"You were saying?" He asks, watching her just lay there with an annoyed look, Bi-Han resting on his shoulder again.
"Fuck you." was Rei's response, the girl getting up, "Don't you know your way around here?"
"I am afraid not. The Living Forest was one part of Outworld I dared not enter until now." The Thunder God answers.
"Great, so we are lost." Bi-Han deadpans. Raiden looks at him again, but sighs. He'll get Rei to explain how she had Bi-Han in such a state later. But for now, they had to keep going.
"I am sure if we search, we will find our way." He starts heading down a path, Rei following him. They come across a wall of spiked vines blocking the way to what looked to be ruins. A small campfire was the only thing that lit the area, and there was another tree nearby, but this one seemed dormant. They see the spiked vines, both frowning.
"Oh crap, how are we gonna get past that?" Rei complains, "I'm not about getting thorns up me snatch!"
"Perhaps we can find a way to burn the vines down. There is a campfire here." Raiden thought out loud. He starts moving towards the campfire, but Rei notices something moving on the group. She quickly grabs Raiden by his belt, pulling him back.
"Don't move another step." She says sternly, "We're not alone."
"We are surrounded by living trees, I know we are not alone." Raiden looks confused.
"Not like that!" She says. The movement on the ground is revealed to be caused by strange shadowy humanoids that rose from the ground, brandishing sickles.
"The girl can sense us?" One spoke.
"It matters not. We will kill them!" Another says.
"Yeeees!" The third one adds.
Rei cracks her knuckles, "Stand back, Raiden. I'll show you why I embody darkness!" She proclaims before rushing out. The shadow creatures retreat into the ground, cackling. Rei just reaches down into the shadow like it was water and yanks one out by it's throat, Rei smirking.
"What's good?" She says, the shadow creature gulping.
"Mommy…" it mutters lamely before Rei starts beating it senseless. The other three come out to try and save their friend, but Rei proceeds to use the one in her hand as a glorified club, pummeling them with it. Eventually, the one in her hand was barely alive, so she throws it into the vine wall, impaling it on the spiky thorns. She sees one trying to get away and grabs it by the leg, spinning it around before flinging it into the vine wall as well. The final two she decides to just kill via stomping their skulls in. Raiden looks quite impressed at the whole ordeal.
"A wonderful display, Rei." He praises.
"Shadow Demons are child's play." She boasts, "They can't hide from me!"
The wall of vines starts to move, coming down to allow them passage. The two Gods notice, but then also have an epiphany, Raiden sighing as he pinches the bridge of his nose while Rei face palms.
"...we couldn't just flown over it." she says with a groan.
"You both are idiots." Bi-Han comments, flying up to the ruins and waiting on them. Raiden floats up there while Rei summons her wings to flutter up there herself. They walk through the ruins and end up in another area in the forest. This one had a small pond with a waterfall flowing. Across the way was another living tree, along with several more putrid corpses walking about.
"Ugh, more of these disgusting things?" Rei complains, looking grossed out as they occasionally vomit up blood and bile.
"The tree earlier said to satisfy their cravings and they'll let us pass. I believe that means we are to feed them these corpses." The Spectrite spoke. Rei looks even more grossed out, dry heaving.
"While it may seem vile, it is our only means out of here." Raiden says, calmly going up to one of the corpses, grabbing it, and slinging it into the mouth of the tree, said tree devouring it instantly to the sound of Rei's dry heaving.
"The forest hungers for life." the tree spoke.
"We get that, anything useful?" Rei asks it, but it goes silent once again. Raiden slung the other one into the tree's mouth to see if it would answer. But sadly, it didn't, but it did look satisfied. Rei sighs heavily.
"We're gonna be here a while…" she says, looking upset.
Upon going through another ruins pathway, they come at another new area, a campfire illuminating it. Another lake with a waterfall is here, along with another living tree that was similar to the one that slung Rei around earlier. There was a small temple that had some clay statues in front of it, though two looked darker in color than normal. Near them was yet again, another campfire.
"Oh great, another tree…" Rei frowns as she jumps over the small creek leading to the lake. Raiden just floats over it.
"Try not to go near it." Raiden says dryly as he goes to example the small temple. The second he approaches the small temple, the two darker clay statues come to life, startling him. Usually their shields would needed to be broken first, but due to startling Raiden, he just electrocutes both statues, blowing them to pieces. Now Rei looked impressed.
"How'd you do that?" She asks, amazed. Raiden just blinks, realizing what he just done.
"I… I do not know. I think it might be due to Azriel's Amulet." He looks at it. It looked very pretty, having a more butterfly theme than a dragon theme.
"Well duh! It's an amulet of an Elder God! It powers you up!" Rei grins, "I bet you're able to shock anything to death at this point!"
"She may have a point." Bi-Han adds. Raiden nods, pinning it back in place.
"HELP ME!"
The trio were startled by the sudden plea for help, looking around. "The fuck?" Rei says.
Bi-Han flies up higher to see if he can see where the shout came from. Across the small lake he sees two transparent skinned humanoids running their way. One is female, the other male. The female looked to be running away from the male, looking desperate.
"Help!" She screams again, jumping onto the rocky platforms on the lake, narrowing avoiding getting bitten by the large river snakes. As she jumps closer to the waterfall coming out of an ominous temple, she trips on a root, getting stuck. The male creature grabs her, pulling her up.
"How DARE you try and run from me, beloved!" He says in anger.
"I am NOT your beloved! Let me go!" The female one begged, but the male isn't having it, tying her up. She sees the trio, and screams.
"HELP ME PLEASE!" She begs, but she's silenced by the male knocking her out.
"Hey! Let her go!" Rei yells, Raiden attempting to hit the male with a lightning bolt. The male creature dodges it, hopping up the pedestals to where the waterfall starts.
"No one will tear me away from my beloved!" He proclaims, "Not even a God!" He runs into the temple carrying the female.
"We must save her!" Raiden shouts, flying after them. Rei and Bi-Han quickly follow, heading inside. They come out of the pathway and into the murky and humid temple. More of the spiky vines covered a path that was up ahead, and there was a small pond before them. Bi-Han flies up high again to see the male heading into the deeper part of the temple through an entrance that looked like a giant snake mouth.
"He's going deeper in, but we need to rid of these vines to cross safely." He says, flying back down to Rei and Raiden's level, "They are far too high for us to just fly over."
"Well, shit." Rei huffs, "Guess we need to find some more of those corpses to fling into them…"
"But yet I see none." Raiden looks around, stepping forward. The second he set foot into the water, spikes shoot up from the other side, putrid corpses fall from the sky, and four snakes emerge out of the water, looking hungry. He blinks.
"You were saying?" Rei says in a snarky tone. Raiden shoots her a glare.
"くたばれ." Raiden says, Rei looking confused while Bi-Han immediately understood thanks to studying the Japanese language, the Spectrite snorting loudly and trying not to laugh. Rei looks at him.
"What did he say to me?"
"Same thing you said to him earlier."
"WHAT?!" Rei glares looking angry, "How dare you! Don't have the guts to say it to my face in English?!"
Raiden couldn't answer back, fighting off the corpses while avoiding the snakes trying to bite him. Rei goes in to help despite being mad at him while Bi-Han stayed high in the air to avoid both the snakes and the fight below. Rei attempts to throw one corpse into the spiked vines, but the snake near it snatches it out of the air before slamming it into the water a few times. It tossed it up into the air and caught it in its mouth, going back underwater to devour its prey.
"Raiden! Feed the snakes!" She says, fighting another one. Raiden grabs the one he was fighting and throws it in the direction of the other snake closest to the wall, the snake snatching it and smashing it around a bit before going under with it like the first one. Two more corpses drop from the ground, but before they could even get up, the two Gods grab them and sling them into the open mouths of the final two snakes, who proceeded to just go under with their prey. While the spikes surrounding them went down, the vines blocking the way to the snake mouth entrance didn't. Bi-Han flies down to rejoin them.
"I surely thought feeding the snakes would bring those vines down." He muses, "However…"
"Please tell me there isn't another-"
"-tree? Yes. And it looks hungry."
"Gods damn it."
"Rei, we cannot damn anything right now."
Rei just shoves him into the water, Raiden glaring at her. At least the water was shallow. He gets up and joins Rei as she walks towards another campfire. Another tree was seen not far from them, and two more corpses were walking about.
"Your turn." Raiden says, "Feed the tree."
"I'd rather get electrocuted." Rei frowns.
"I can make that happen." Raiden already has an electrical current in his hands.
"I was joking!"
"Joking or not, I still will do it if you do not go feed that tree."
Rei lets out an annoyed groan. "Fine!" She goes up to one of the corpses, grabbing it and throwing it into the mouth of the tree, the tree devouring it happily.
"Chameleon hides with the giant snakes with his unwilling bride." It spoke, Rei blinking.
"Chameleon? Who the fuck is Chameleon?"
"That may be the name of who took the girl." Bi-Han notes, "Look, the vines went down."
The two Gods saw that the vines indeed went down around the snake mouth entrance, and along with that, the eyes on saif mouth were open. An eerie green glow comes from within. The two Gods look at each other, nod, and head in.
"Oh! This is familiar."
"Huh?"
They came to a strange room illuminated by torches. In the center was a small indented area with eight lines in the ground leading to it. The lines connected to what looked like to be doors. Raiden goes near the center indent.
"I have seen something like this before. It is to test your agility in hitting opponents." He turns to Rei.
"How fast are you able to hit these targets?" He asks, inviting her over. Rei looks confident.
"I'm pretty damn fast, thank you very much." She boasts, "Shall I prove it?"
"Do go for it." Raiden steps back.
Rei steps onto the center, the area glowing. Two doors open up, and two clay statues were sent her way. She smashes them with ease before they were able to be sent back.
"Excellent! Now faster!" Raiden tells her.
Rei grins, watching as four more came out, this time moving at a faster rate. She ends up hitting all four with a break dance-esque kicking maneuver, looking smug.
"Good! Prepare for more!" Raiden warns her, looking impressed. Bi-Han does as well as he rests on his shoulder. Rei prepares herself, looking ready. 6 more statues come flying out at her at a faster rate, Rei hitting them all with the same break dance kick, but this time she is glowing faintly with a light purple magic, as if she charged something up.
"You're quite fast, but there is one more test." Raiden tells her.
"Good! I get to show you something then." She grins, looking eager.
With that, all 8 doors open, sending out statues again at the fastest rate it could. Rei does the break dance again, but this time without the kicks, and when she finishes with rather stripper like pose on her knees, shadow spikes shoot up from the ground around her, hitting all the statues at once and destroying them.
"Shadow Rave, baby!" She grins, "My own little technique I made when I ascended~"
Raiden was very much impressed, clapping a bit. "You are certainly very creative." He praises with a smile.
"Why thank you~" She bows happily, "Since I can pretty much do whatever I want with shadows, I decided to come up with techniques exclusive to me, Shadow Rave was one of the first ones."
"To be honest, I did not think Darkness Deities could do anything like that. I assumed they were like Moon Deities." Raiden says, looking around the area a bit. He sensed that they weren't alone, but couldn't figure out where the enemies were.
"Nah. Moon and Darkness Deities do different things." Rei corrects. The sounds of something hitting the floor nearby makes her sigh heavily.
"Corpses?"
"Corpses."