I'M NOT DEAD
This is so freaking late, it's unreal. I apologize for the wait! With Mortal Kombat 11 out, most of my time has been spent trying to get the Raiden gear I want. Still don't have three of the hats I want sadly. ^^;
Regular updates to this fic will be soon, for life's still kicking my ass. And this chapter's a bit short due to slight writer's block, but that'll go away pretty quickly too. Until then, do enjoy.
Mornings in Sun Do were quite peaceful to Li Mei. There was rarely anyone out and about due to the chilly winds and very thick fog, and that was the way she preferred it. She was sitting outside her hut, just watching the waves of the sea roll in and out of the beach, several fishermen that were up at this time were already loading their boats and getting ready to head out to sea. One waves at her, and she waves back with a smile.
"You're up early."
Li Mei turns to see Lyrika, the siren quiet as he took a seat next to her. "As are you. Are you planning on running off again for the day?"
"Nah." Lyrika shook his head, "Think I'll help the Thunder God out. Blowing up the Soul Tombs sounds like a once in a lifetime sight to see, and it's moments like that that I don't like missing."
"I would join him, but someone has to keep this village running smoothly." She muses, "We should be fine without you for the day as usual."
"Those fishermen don't mess around with those harpoons. I'm sure everyone will be fine." Lyrika chuckles, adjusting his veil, "I don't think Raiden's boys are joining us on our little trip. They left earlier."
"I didn't think they would. They had that little boy with them. I hope he's ok…" Li Mei was cut off as she and Lyrika hear someone shouting.
"TOP OF THE MORNING TO YA, MOTHERFUCKERS!"
Both flinched at that, looking around. Li Mei caught a glimpse of Rei flying in the air with a smug grin before she was tackled out of the air by Bi-Han, who managed to springboard off a few roofs to pull off said feat. Khameleon and Raiden were watching this from the window of the inn, both looking equally embarrassed, Raiden in particular face palming. She quickly gets up right as she hears a crash from nearby, Lyrika following her. They look around and see some empty crates near an empty hut were destroyed by the two falling into it. Bi-Han rises first, rubbing his head and groaning as he gets out of the rubble. Rei was laying in the majority of the crushed wood, looking like she got knocked unconscious. Miraculously, her gem was still intact and uncracked.
"Don't you have ice powers? Couldn't you have used them instead of tackling her out of the sky like you're a Dragonfly Kytinn?" was the first thing out of Lyrika's mouth for the elder Sub-Zero.
Bi-Han just frowns at that realization, grumbling something under his breath before answering him. "I haven't been awake for 10 minutes, coherent thought isn't something that comes to you in that time frame."
The two look over at Rei again, Li Mei trying to shake her awake. Raiden and Khameleon came out of the inn, Raiden holding the backpack and Khameleon wearing a shoulder bag. Raiden glares at Bi-Han, Bi-Han rolling her eyes.
"She'll be fine. If she can live getting thrown around by a tree, she can live a tackle." He assures Raiden.
"Do that again, and I'll be more than happy to let Fujin know you're still alive." Raiden warns, "He is still mad at you."
"You can tell your brother that if he wants Round 2, it's on." Bi-Han threatened, "But I have already apologized at least twice for my misguidance."
Raiden and Bi-Han just glare at each other, Khameleon stepping away from Raiden to be near Lyrika now. Li Mei looks tired of trying to shake Rei awake, so she went with the next best thing… and smacked her HARD in the face. Rei yelps loudly as she woke up, rubbing her now slightly pale purple cheek with an irritated look.
"The fuck was that for?!" She asks, glaring at Li Mei.
"Good, you're not dead." was Li Mei's response, helping Rei up. Rei groans in pain, putting a hand on her lower back.
"My back is killing me…"
"You'll be fine."
"No I will not be!"
"Ladies, no fighting." Lyrika got in between the two purple clad women, "There will no more violence with me around."
Li Mei and Rei just glared at each other for a bit before they calm down. Rei hobbles over to Raiden, using him as a prop to hold herself up. Lyrika glances at Raiden.
"So, do you need my help or not?" He asks, "Or are you gonna be a stubborn mule?"
Raiden looks insulted by Lyrika's words, but having little knowledge of the Soul Tombs wasn't going to help them alone. He sighs heavily.
"Fine… but if you refer to me as a mule again, Elder Gods help you…" He warns, Lyrika chuckling.
"Had to goad you somehow. Get a sense of humor."
"Do us both a favor and lose yours."
"Welcome to the Soul Tombs." Lyrika announces as the group of 5 arrived arrived at their location. The large temple-like building had a very ominous air to it, and occasionally one of the native Outworld creatures would fly overhead. Khamaleon looks very nervous, fidgeting with the shoulder strap of her bag.
"D-Do we have to go in there?" She asks, "Can't we just throw that bomb in now?"
"We have to get to the heart of the Soul Tombs and throw it in there. It is the only way to ensure it's total destruction." Raiden answers, "You didn't have to come with us, Khameleon."
"I know, but you guys need a Team Medic." She retorts, "Who knows what dangerous things lie in the depths? Plus if this helps anger the Emperor, I'm all for it!"
"Good, keep that attitude. We're all gonna need it." Rei grins, cracking her knuckles. Lyrika stops her before she starts to head in.
"Hold up there, madam." He says, "There's a few things I gotta warn you all about before we head in first. First of all, if it looks suspicious or out of place, don't touch it. Second, watch out for the rock throwing faces. Those things have good aim, and I lost one of my old looting buddies to them. And lastly, like I said earlier, I haven't been to the depths myself, so I cannot confirm if the Hellbeast rumor is true or not. We all need to stay together, separation is a no-go."
"Seems like you know your way around quite well, siren." Bi-Han notes, Lyrika shrugging.
"Like I said, I just loot the place for stuff to sell. Gotta make Koin somehow."
"Quit y'all's yappin' and let's go!" Rei shouts, "The sooner we blow up this place, the better. I'm already getting the need to pick up another Spectrite or two."
The group head into the Tomb Entrance, everyone but Rei and Bi-Han having a weapon drawn just in case they encountered trouble on the inside. The room they came into was a fairly large one. A spiked pit was in the center, and two large grinders were operating to the left and right of it. There was for hallways leading to different areas, but only three of the hallways were accessible. The hallway to their right had a red symbol above the door, the hallway to their left had a green symbol above the door, and the hallway at the upper left had a blue symbol.
"Which way do we go? There's three paths we can take." Raiden asks Lyrika, the siren looking around.
"Red Path first. I know it very well." He advises, "Follow m-"
Two blade sparks strike Lyrika in the back, the siren crying out as he stumbled forward. Raiden and Bi-Han turn to see a group of Tarkata emerging from the Blue Path, rushing towards them. Bi-Han takes the easy method and freezes the floor ahead of them. The Tarkata couldn't stop themselves in time, slipping on the icy floor and straight into the pit in the center of the room. Rei snorts in amusement.
"It's always the simplest things that prove most effective, huh?"
Bi-Han just turns to her with a small smirk as the sounds of Tarkata dying growls and bones being sliced through are heard.
"Very much. It's also why Sektor hated me with every fiber of his being. You ok, pinkie?"
Lyrika was fixing his vest, having examined it for burn damage. "I'm fine, luckily no burn damage… Anyways, as I was trying to say earlier, follow me."
He and the others head into the Red Hallway, Raiden getting his staff out to be on the safe side. Khameleon kept close to him and Rei, still unnerved. They soon entered a room that was rather dark and looked to have a crevasse on the side. On the other side were jail cells, all that had either dying Outworld prisoners or skeletons inside. Rei goes to the crevasse, seeing lava at the bottom.
"That's a hell of a fall if one ain't careful." She muses, "I don't think anyone but a Fire Element could survive it."
"I highly doubt that, Rei." Raiden says as he joins her, "Things are different here. Even if one were a Fire Element here, they cannot survive falling into lava."
"That's bullshit." She looks annoyed, "Back home, Fire Element Asali are able to be in it with no problems. Why's everything to backwards here in your realms?"
Raiden just shrugs. "I do not know the answer to that one."
The two get back up, joining Lyrika, Bi-Han, and Khameleon as they came to two separate pathways: one leading straight ahead and the other heading to the right.
"Which way?" the Saurian asks, moving away from the cell she was close to due to one of the still alive prisoners trying to grab her bag. She swats his hand away, looking stern.
"I usually go to the right, but let's try straight ahead." Lyrika says, the group following him. They enter a large incinerator room, the temperature rather hot. Bi-Han starts getting pale, looking unwell. Khameleon notices this, holding him up before he could fall down.
"You ok?" She asks, worried.
"Too hot in here…" he groans, "I feel really weak all of a sudden…"
"Ice Element Asali are very weak to heat and fire, that's why." Rei says, looking concerned herself, "We need to get through here quickly, Bi-Han could get heat stroke just by being in here for more than 10 minutes."
Three pillars of flame shot up from the floor, Khameleon yelping in surprise. "How are we going to get through that?!"
"If we wait until the pillars go down and move as fast as we can, we can cross without injury." Raiden takes Bi-Han from Khameleon, floating in the air, "We just have to look for the opportunity."
"Speak not of this to anyone." Bi-Han looks annoyed at the fact that he had to be carried, "Or else I will ensure a quick death…"
Raiden ignores him, watching the pattern of the flame pillars carefully. He waits for a minute before quickly flying towards the other end of the room, avoiding the flame pillars as they shot up behind him. However, his victory was short lived as he took a look at the door that was before him. It was shut, and there didn't seem to be anyway to open it. He thought about just using himself as a battering ram to go straight through it, but Bi-Han's safety was more important.
"What is it, Raiden?" Rei yells, "We got to get Bi-Han out of the heat!"
"The door's shut here! The way to open it must be somewhere else!" Raiden yells back. Bi-Han was growing paler by the minute, and more angrier, damn near clawing Raiden's arm hard enough to draw blood. Raiden just glares at him before swiftly returning to the others, the group quickly retreating out of the room and away from the heat. Once they returned to the other room, Rei plucks a chunk out of Bi-Han's shadow via Shadow Mimic and uses her temporary freezing powers to make a chair with. Raiden sets the elder Sub-Zero in it, the Asali immediately starting to feel better.
"I…. am not going back in there." was the first thing he said once he cooled down enough. Rei just chuckles while Raiden looked over his own arm to make sure he wasn't bleeding.
Once Bi-Han was back to normal, they decided to take the other path, Lyrika leading the way. It takes them to a room with a very lovely view outside, some skeletons hanging near the opening in the wall. Immediately, Khameleon and Rei were in awe, going over to look out.
"This is so cool! Look at this view!" Rei beams.
"I can see Sun Do from here!" Khameleon adds.
"Focus, ladies. We got stuff to do." Bi-Han reminds them, seeing a wall of skulls nearby and starting to climb it. Raiden just floats up there, Lyrika, Rei, and Khameleon following in behind the Cryomancer. All that's there was a ledge with another lookout and a pillar that looked ready to fall apart any minute now. Bi-Han sees this, and lightly pushes on it with his foot, causing the pillar to immediately crumble and fall to the ground, smashing into rubble.
"Outworld's architecture really went to the dumps." Khameleon jokes, Rei giggling at that.
"Over there!" Lyrika points to another pathway that was above the one they came from. As they walked that way and through it, Rei decides to check the bag again, curious. Raiden watches her, wondering would would come out of the bag next. Rei ends up pulling out a water bottle, smiling.
"At least Mom thought of the necessities too." She says, giving it to Raiden, the Thunder God giving her a nod as he opened it up to get a sip of it, "Gotta stay hydrated!"
"Oh dear…." Khameleon muses as they walk outside. They were now at at cliff side, the path to the other side of the canyon being made out of a walkway with spikes that shot up from it. Several guards were patrolling the area, three of which were walking in front of metal spiked walls, two of which were at the groups' left and right. The guards didn't seem to notice them, one asleep and the other busy daydreaming.
"Talk about Legos on Brutal Difficulty." Rei says, watching as spikes shot up from the pathway in front of them.
"No kidding." Bi-Han adds, "Gonna be hard to time the spik-"
Lyrika ran past them and onto the spiked floor, leaping over the spikes as they came up and timing it perfectly. This would have been quite an impressive feat if it weren't for the fact that Raiden just teleports to the other side, reappearing near a lever in the ground just as Lyrika got there. The pink clad Siren looks quite annoyed.
"Really?" he asks as Raiden inspects the lever.
"Yes, really." Raiden answers Lyrika, looking back at the rest of the group. Rei just waves while Khameleon examined the spiked wall to her left and Bi-Han looking bored. He looks at Lyrika again.
"What does this lever activate?" He asks, putting both hands on the lever. Lyrika smiles under his veil.
"Pull it and find out, oh great Thunder God." Lyrika says. Raiden just blinks, and with a growl, pulls the lever back.
WHAM!
"EEEEEEEEEEK!" Khameleon screeches as the wall suddenly slammed down, crushing the guard in front of it and scattering bits and pieces of him everywhere. The guard on the other side of them didn't seem to notice as he was watching something else, distracted. Rei and Bi-Han also looked startled, but mostly at the sudden blood splatter on them. The elder Sub-Zero looked a bit disgusted while Rei looks annoyed.
"Give a warning next time, ya rotten eggplant!" She yelled at Raiden in anger. Lyrika just laughs in amusement, but suddenly screams as Raiden grabs him by the collar of his vest and hem of his pants and throws him back over to the others before teleporting to the other side just in time to catch him by his face. Now Rei was laughing her ass off, and Lyrika looks furious as Raiden put him back down.
"There's your warning." the Thunder God says, "Is there another one of those levers?"
"Over here!"
They all turn to see Khameleon at the next lever down from where the first wall collapsed. She waves at them.
"This one might go to the other one!" She shouts, starting to pull on it with all her might. However, unlike Raiden, she had a lot of trouble, not being as strong as he is. The other guard finally saw what was going on, and grabs his weapon.
"You're not supposed to be here! Intruders!" He yells, charging forward. However, just as he got into rage of the spike wall, Khameleon had finally pulled the lever, falling onto her butt as she did so. The guard barely had time to react as he was promptly made into chopped meat, Rei looking disgusted as she was splattered with more blood and guts.
"Can't this place be a bit less gruesome?!" She says, flicking a piece of brain matter off her shoulder. Bi-Han just casually removes some guts that got splattered onto his shoulder with a deadpan look.
"What were you expecting here in Outworld? Sunshine and unicorns?" He dodges a shadow needle from the angry Asali. Khameleon returns to the group, happy of her feat of strength.
"There has to be one more of those levers around here somewhere." She looks around. From the path where the second guard got crushed as a path leading to the third lever. The guard near that wall seemed to be the smart one, having a bow ready. Raiden teleports over to the third lever, and before the guard could react, Raiden pushes the lever down with a mighty kick, and just like that, the third guard was mince meat. This also seemed to stop the spikes from coming out of the floor. The four across the way notice this, making their way forward, the Thunder God teleporting back to them.
After crossing the canyon and going through another incinerator room that wasn't active, they come to a room with a view like the other one… and a spiked ceiling. Both Rei and Lyrika look up at it, seeming nervous.
"One wrong move and you're a ceiling ornament." Lyrika says, "Be careful in here."
They spread around the room, looking around. The other side seemed to be caved in, and in the center of the room looked to be some sort of mechanism, three large, golden Mortal Kombat symbols lay atop of it. Raiden sees this and goes to inspect it, curious. What could this thing be used for? He doesn't see Rei joining him, the Asali looking at it as well.
"...what a waste of good gold." she says, getting Raiden's attention.
"I will agree with you there. Such a waste indeed." he nods, Rei giggling, "However, it's placement here is quite strange…."
"What if it's what's keeping that one door closed in the room Bi-Han won't go in again?"
"..." Raiden seems to have an idea, wordlessly ushering her back before putting his hands together, focusing. Khameleon, Lyrika, and Bi-Han join Rei as they watched, the four looking rather confused. After a minute, Lyrika spoke up.
"What are you do-"
"HIYAAAAH!" Raiden roars as he brought his hand down on the coins, smashing them into bits and pieces. A small pillar rose up from underneath the rubble, and the sound of a door opening somewhere was faintly heard. Raiden winced a bit, shaking his hand to get the stinging to go away.
"...eh, whatever works. Dibs!" Lyrika went forward to pick up the pieces for himself. Raiden just rolls his eyes.
"Now, we go see what's in that room."