THE COMING OF WINTER
Part 1 of 4: Section 2 written by Victar, e-mail
Victar's Archive (it will be in my profile)
Part 1

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" shouted the shadow who had once been a man. He made a slashing gesture with his hands; the snake-demon and the armored devil responded with a dual attack. The blunt side of two radiant blue claws crushed hard against my abdomen. A different set of sharper claws dug into my back, slicing through the thick fabric of my uniform as effortlessly as they pierced my skin, yet purposefully stopping short of puncturing my vital organs. The living shadow made another gesture, as if grasping an invisible object, and his creatures moved to restrain me. They each held one of my arms spread apart, low enough to force me to my knees.

"Don't EVER call me that again!" snapped the living shadow, whipping a backhand strike to my face. I became limp, allowing the stinging impact to flow through me. "I'll let you off easy once, but say that again and orders be damned I'll KILL you!" He lashed out again with his other hand. One of my teeth came loose. A detached part of myself marveled at how a single word could provoke so much rage. The human shadow's breathing was intensely labored, and a growling animal quiver underscored his voice. "My name is Noob Saibot. Remember it."

"'Noob Saibot'...?"

"Don't ask. Don't even think of asking."

"Less than a minute ago you were advocating the opposite. You said you would answer three questions, so here they are: Are you a ghost? Were you once a Lin Kuei? Are the stories about you true?"

The rakshasa's ears flicked forward. Saibot's solid black head lacked facial expressions, yet I could tell from his posture that he was taken aback. "What difference does it make?"

"Because if you are a rogue Lin Kuei, then you're the first who has lived to tell about it."

"Oh, I see. You think you can restore your clan's honor by assassinating me, is that it?"

"No."

He stared at me, if his featureless visage had eyes to stare with. "Never mind. Start over. I'm in charge here, and I'm going to answer what you should have asked, you blithering idiot.

"Welcome to Limbo, Sub-Zero. No, you're not dead yet, but just you wait.

Limbo is the infinitely recurring no man's land sifting within the great void between worlds. It is a vast Möbius strip, eternally twisting upon itself." The strange phrases he used nagged at me; they kindled a memory that darted beyond my conscious grasp. "You're trapped here, forever. Your soul can't leave without a living body to carry it, and nothing mortal survives here for long. If you perish in Limbo... well, I'll let you guess what happens to your soul. Don't say I didn't warn you.""

Saibot casually unearthed a human skull from the sands and dusted it off. "For every path into Limbo there is a way out; however, some roads are more accessible than others. My friends and I can leave anytime we want, and if you don't come with us, there's only one other route: you'd have to climb down the canyon, cross Blood River, and scale the other side.

"Of course, you could take the quick way down." Saibot gracefully pitched the skull over the edge of the precipice. I never heard it strike anything solid. "Trouble is, once you get there you're not in any shape to climb back up. Anything else you'd like to know?"

"How can you withstand the sunlight?"

"Haven't you listened to a word I've said?" snapped the living shadow. "This is Limbo! You are inconceivably distant from your home, and the precious Sun it orbits! Shandra, rip some sense into this imbecile." The rakshasa lunged forward. There was no warning growl, only the slash of claws carving deep welts across my cheek and lips. The attack came so fast that I did not feel it until it was over. At least now I could breathe freely, through the rents in my mask. The rakshasa placidly licked my blood off its paw.

"Good kitty-girl. Nice kitty," Saibot praised, rubbing the cat's neck. Her ears swiveled back, and her tail lashed from side to side. "Shandra is one of the best. She's all fury! I couldn't ask for a better escort. Now, back to business. You need to get home. We'd like to help you."

"This is what you consider 'help'?" I spat through bleeding lips.

"Shandra!" The rakshasa's claws dug three shallow gashes on my right shoulder. "I shouldn't have to waste my time on threats, Subby, but there ought to be something in you worth salvaging. You are supposed to be one of the Lin Kuei's finest," he sneered, inflecting a heavy dose of sarcasm in the words. "Even though you failed Ultratech."

"Shang Tsung is dead."

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

"A technicality."

For a moment, he appeared ready to sic the rakshasa on me once more. Then his stance shifted a little, the only visible evidence of his change in mood. "Fine. Cling to your silly misconceptions. See if I care. It's all beside the point, anyway.

Without us you're doomed. You can't escape on your own. Do you think crossing Limbo is some pleasant nature walk? Death waits for you in that canyon! Seven obstacles bar your path. Even if you could get past the first six, the seventh is always an inescapable trap where only that which you have loved can save you. So tell me, Subby, how's your love life?"

There was no point in providing him with an answer.

"I thought so. That's why you should join us. We can get you out. Ultratech will have a place for you. You'll learn to like us. We're all one big, happy family." I heard a faint hissing sound; it was drool from the snake-demon, dripping on the fabric of my uniform and slowly eating it away.

"I reject your offer," I said, and let loose all the Power that I'd been gathering during the last minute.

The Ice coursed through my blood and out of my hands, enveloping the two demons that held me and freezing them fast. They would remain paralyzed for a few seconds before their natural warmth dispelled the effect, but for the moment they were like statues. I used their hold on my arms as a gymnast's grip upon parallel bars, bracing my weight for a full forward kick with both feet. Despite Saibot's insubstantial appearance, my strike connected with a very solid jawbone. He went down. I refocused the power to coat my own wrists with a slippery film of cool water, at the same time working the thumbs' metacarpal bones underneath the palms. My hands slid free.

"Sha- Shandra!" Saibot choked, still flat on the ground. With a high-pitched scream, the golden rakshasa charged directly into another blast of Power. The Ice temporarily nullified her momentum, immobilizing her in mid-spring. It wouldn't hold her for long, though. To make matters worse, the other two demons were returning to life, and Saibot was clambering back to his feet. I dashed past all of them, sprinting along the precipice.

"Fool!" yelled Saibot. "Do you really think you can run from us?" A high-pitched, mechanical whine and a heavy, lumbering tread dogged my heels. My inhuman pursuers were gaining on me. I looked directly ahead and saw nothing but flatland and bones. Beyond the precipice's edge was a sharp, nearly vertical slope of layered rock. There was only one option.

I leaped over the side.

There was no way I could have avoided the path that the Lin Kuei chose for me. Resistance, even suicide brings their wrath down upon one's friends and family. I didn't have much in the way of friends, and I cared nothing for the parents and uncles who treated me like an oblation, but I did have a little brother, born scarcely a year before my Test. It wasn't his fault that his home village was the property of killers. It is unfortunate that I wasn't present for most of his childhood, though that was because I didn't want my proximity to endanger him.

He was a strange one, and still is.

Blessed with a genius intellect, he could fix anything. Figuring out the inner workings of a mechanism and correcting its flaws was simplicity itself to him. Furthermore, he loved to design "experiments" and carry them out. He ran errands for farmers, assayers, tailors, and others in return for old pieces of metal or glass. What he couldn't barter, he scrounged from garbage cans, recycled junk, and his own inventiveness.

I remember the first time I entered his makeshift "laboratory." I'd heard about him being absent for long periods of time; when asked about it, he'd make excuses or say that he was "just playing," though none of the children his age reported having seen him. It's probably just a stage he's going through, I thought, but to quiet my lingering doubts, I tailed him unseen.

His trail led far from the village, to a rotting, abandoned old shed once used to shelter livestock during the cold months.
Inside, cloth-covered cinder blocks supported rows of glass bottles. Several decanters held cooking ingredients or other chemicals. A collection of pressed leaves decorated one wall; a cryptic chart of boxes filled with English letters and Arabic numerals hung on the other. In the corner was a haphazard pile of thick textbooks. One such book lay flat open, to a page covered with English writing and diagrams filled with small crosses and hyphens. The sentences were indecipherable. I knew most of the words, yet they were peppered with unintelligible phrases like "pH balance," "litmus test," or "free-floating ion."

Little brother was completely absorbed in measuring a dense, colorless liquid with the consistency of heavy syrup. A protective shell of thick plastic was strapped over his eyes. He peered closely at the open book's pages for a moment, then filled his container to the brim, completely oblivious to my presence. It was rare for villagers to be more than semi-literate in any foreign language - yet here my brother was, reading Hell knows what in textbooks from Hell knows where, carrying out its cryptic instructions because Hell knows why.

"So this is where you've been disappearing. What on earth are you doing?" I demanded, taking away his vial. "This is oil of vitriol! Do you realize how dangerous it is?" I dumped the vitriol into a rusty bucket nearby. "Does our family know-"

"Aaah!" he shouted, turning away as the bucket erupted in fury. I moved to interpose myself between the stinging wave of liquid and my sibling. The thick cloth of my uniform shielded me from the worst of it, except for my bare arms, which suffered minor acid burns while protecting my eyes.

Little brother snatched a clean cloth from atop a pile of cinder blocks and applied it to my arms, carefully padding off the corrosive droplets. "Never do that again!" he admonished, severely. "That was a rinse bucket, big brother. Don't you know what happens when acid and water mix?"

Only twelve years old, and he chastised me like a schoolteacher.

end section two of part one

Disclaimer: Mortal Kombat belongs to the creation of Ed Boone and John Tobias and the Midway team. The characters from Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, and Morrigan from Darkstalkers are likewise not created by either me or Victar. No part of this story may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, without express permission by Victar. I did not write this story, but I had permission to post this, so if you want to talk to him about the fanfiction, go to Victar's website.