THE COMING OF WINTER
Part 3 of 4: Section 1 written by Victar, e-mail
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Part 3 Section 1
Ultratech's headquarters was in the midst of a decadent metropolis. The air carried a foul taste and nauseating smell. Smoke's coughing fits became more pronounced. His Power should have shielded him, just as mine protects me from frostbite, but perhaps there were trace amounts of artificial poisons in the smog.
The city's buildings were badly in need of repair. Its streets were filthy. The alleys were worse, littered with rotting garbage, metal needles embedded in plastic cylinders, and fecal matter. Insects crawled freely amidst festering pieces of discarded food. Changes in the slight cross-breeze brought the stench of urine. Loud metal boxes on wheels clogged the paved roads, belching black soot as they rolled past. People huddled together, crowding the sidewalks like a herd of cattle. Their body heat combined with the high summer temperature bore down on me.
This place was a sewer.
"It's not too late to call Ultratech and ask them to send back their limousine," Smoke remarked. "Then we wouldn't have to walk through this mess."
I was sure I hadn't spoken that last thought aloud. "If you are referring to that squat black mechanical beast-"
"With luxury seats and air conditioning."
"-then no, I shall not have anything to do with it. I've endured being swallowed by a vile artifact once. No more!"
"It was only a thought."
After three hours of travel on foot, we reached Ultratech's address at the intersection of Dickerson and Main streets. Curiously, both the traffic and the pedestrians shied from the entire block, making the area appear deserted except for the background noise. Sirens, yelling, and nasal commands voiced several decibels louder than what a human being should be capable of blared in the distance, peppered with echos of rattling gunfire.
Ultratech's residence was an extremely long rectangle stood on end, lined with neat, horizontal rows of square-shaped windows. The tower stood apart from its grungy surroundings in that it was sparkling clean, every centimeter polished, every window perfectly clear. Instead of reeking garbage, the place smelled of unnatural chemicals. Looking up the rectangle's incredible length strained my neck, and I nearly walked into a metal beast placed haphazardly next to the road's raised yellow border. Two of the thing's wheels were missing, replaced by brick piles. Wire tips poked out of the smashed wreck of its eyes. Nailed to its mouth was a metal plate with the raised English letters "COMBO." I stepped gingerly around the wounded beast.
"Smoke," I said, "bide a moment. Are you sure you wish to enter dressed as you are?"
"Do you know, I was recently thinking the same about you? While the ceremonial Lin Kuei uniform is appropriate for intimidating peasants, you do rather stand out in an urban district."
"What I meant was, why aren't you wearing your mask?"
"It makes no difference any longer. I haven't worn it in months." A strong sense of finality accompanied his tone, like the thump of closing a musty book.
"If Ultratech knows what you look like, it may use that information to persecute you and your family."
"The Lin Kuei are my family."
"Of course, they are the family of every clan member. I was referring to your biological relatives."
He folded his arms, fixing his eyes on Ultratech's spotless tower. "My... 'biological relatives' were casualties in a protection war between the Lin Kuei and the Black Dragons. The Lin Kuei would have executed me as well if not for your grandfather. It was his decree that I should be Tested first. He thought he sensed something in me. Killing innocent bystanders was nothing new to him, but to accidentally destroy a potential wielder of the Power would be, in his words, 'a waste.' I passed the Test, earning the right to survive as one of the clan.
"So you see, when I say that the Lin Kuei are my family, I am being quite literal." He coughed several times and cleared his throat. "Shall we go inside?"
He had changed in more than just appearance. The Smoke I remembered never talked about himself. The person standing next to me had become notably more loquacious and amiable. Lin Kuei do not consider either trait a virtue.
Perhaps his disease was unhinging his mind.
It didn't matter; now was not the time to think about such things. I approached the entrance to Ultratech's great tower. Their front gate was no common portal. A balanced array of four doors positioned at cross angles to each other rested in the center of a transparent glass wall. Strange. The rectangular doors were made of thick glass, framed with metal borders; heavy rubber lined their top and bottom edges. A long black handle ran horizontally across their breadth, positioned slightly above waist level. Through the glass, I could see the carpeted interior of Ultratech's front hall. Two security guards stood at attention near the clover-leaf doors. In back, a muscular black man with a pair of boxing gloves dangling from his belt was speaking to a willowy, bored-looking receptionist. The boxer was clearly agitated about something, for he banged the desk's surface with his hand.
I pressed on the handle. The door gave a surprising amount of resistance, due no doubt to its heavy weight and that absurd rubber padding dragging against its bottom. Leaning forward, I pushed with both hands. Once I got it moving, it rapidly picked up speed, curving away and to the left.
"Sub-Zero, wait one moment," Smoke suddenly called. "Perhaps I ought to demonstrate-" something abruptly silenced him. I turned around to see what it was, letting the door swing outward. Another of the four clover-leaf doors was barreling toward me. Attempting to evade it, I found myself confined within a wedge-shaped cubicle. The heavy object picked up speed. When I shoved against its momentum, the door I'd opened also slowed, well short of opening into the room beyond. Glass and metal boxed me in on all sides.
It was a trap!
My pulse pounded. Reflexively, I kicked out at the third wall of my artificial prison, a curving pane of glass between the doors. Vibrations of shock traveled up my leg. My heel hurt from the impact. The wall was not an ordinary glass pane; it was many times thicker and stronger, while retaining deceptive clarity. But I was no ordinary prisoner. I sent the Power into the material, chilling it to such an extreme that my next kick shattered it. Splinters of frozen glass dug against the thick cloth of my uniform without cutting through it. The security guard directly in front of me was not so fortunate. Shards sank into his face and arms. He staggered back, groping for his weapon but unable to draw it because of the transparent wedges lodged in his hands.
"Freeze!" yelled the second guard, leveling his firearm at point-blank range. I obliged, casting a stream of the Power into him. He was so close that he didn't have time to pull the trigger before the Ice took hold. I hit him with an open hand chop to the side of the neck. He collapsed, the pistol slipping out of his fingers. Wasting no time, I turned and drove a third wave of the Power into the glass wall. Weakened, it easily fragmented in response to a backwards thrust kick, clearing a path for my escape.
"Where do you think you're going, terrorist?" snarled a breathy female voice. It was the receptionist. She vaulted over her desk like a gymnast and sprinted toward me, carrying two short sticks tipped with yellow, one in each hand. When I hurled a stream of the Power at her, she evaded it with a forward flip. I turned an instant before the spike of her high-heel boots could plow into my ribs; instead, it pierced my shoulder. The force spun me halfway around. I flowed with it rather than fight it, turning the flight back into a series of handsprings.
"You're not getting away that easily!" The receptionist covered the ground between us in a handful of long-legged strides. She was slightly faster than me. In order to elude Ultratech's trap, I'd have to take her out. Smoke yelled something, but I couldn't afford to distract myself listening to him.
I waited until she was nearly upon me before dropping low and driving my fist into her midsection. She tried to jump above the attack like before, but was so close and running so hard that she never had time to leave the ground. My attack was doubly strong because she had thrown herself into it. The receptionist folded in half, pressing both forearms tightly against where I'd hit her. I swung the back of my fist at her temple. She fell to her hands and knees with a shuddering groan.
I'd have to end this quickly. Stepping forward, I curled my second and third fingers of my right hand into a cat's claw and jabbed at her throat. She moved to deflect it with one of her sticks, but was too disoriented to maneuver it properly - or so I thought until a brilliant beam of golden light shot from its lemon-tipped end. The light beam burned my fingers like a torch. If not for the guards I wore, my hand would have been split in half. My breath hissed through my teeth.
"Did that hurt, lover?" she sneered. "C'mon, you can tell me. Don't be shy!" As I jerked the injured member away, she reached forward and made a grab for my face. Her fingertips merely grazed the surface of my mask. She swung her light-blade on line with my neck. I bent over backwards in a kickflip, evading her strike and whipping the insteps of both feet at her wrist. She spat a curse as the weapon flew from her hand and activated her second light-sword. The girl advanced, this time keeping the side of her body turned. She'd learned better than to charge me with a full-forward run.
The girl made a wide swing at the edge of her light-sword's range. I dropped underneath its arc, and transformed a backward somersault toward her into an upward kick, pushing off from the ground. My heels struck the wrist holding her second light-sword. This time she did not have the opportunity to curse before I snapped to my feet and drove my stiffened knuckles of my left hand toward her neck.
"Stop it, both of you!" Smoke exclaimed, deflecting my strike with a chop of his forearm and interposing himself between us. "This is a misunderstanding!"
The receptionist glared around him, at me. "I see your friend is covering for you, terrorist. Are you afraid to finish what you started?"
"Girl," I growled, invoking a frigid blue nimbus of Power around my good hand, "you talk too much."
"I said STOP!" Smoke shouted, extending his flexed palms to physically push the girl and me apart. To her, "We are the Lin Kuei delegation. Ultratech invited us. We have a four o'clock appointment. Our card." From his vest, he withdrew a scrip of rectangular paper with the written words "Lin Kuei" and the clan's abstract sigil.
She glanced at the card briefly, but did not move to take it. "Your friend is a psychopath. He destroyed the front door and attacked two of our guards."
"That 'front door' is a trap!" I spat. "I expected Ultratech to try an ambush, and I am not going to submit!"
She looked curiously at me, then back to Smoke. "He is also completely delusional. Is he a hallucinogen addict?" My eyes narrowed.
"Can we at least agree on a truce?" Smoke pressed, glancing from me to her.
"If you'll keep your pet psycho on a leash," she sniffed.
"From this moment on, I am sending you into the traps first," I warned him.
"Sub-Zero, that door isn't-"
The boxer I'd seen earlier suddenly shoved Smoke aside. "Hey, outta my way you clowns!" He turned to the receptionist and demanded, "What're you gonna do about dis permit? I'm signin' up for da Killer bash 'cause I need da money, not t' pay some damn hundred dollar registration fee, you bitch!"
"'Clowns'?" I repeated, softly.
"'Bitch'?" she repeated, even more softly.
"You heard me. So, what're you gonna do about it?"
She smashed the hilt of her remaining sword into his jaw at the same time as I threw the Power into him. While he was paralyzed, I hit him with an overhead slam to the crown of his skull. She kneed him in the groin. He collapsed.
"At least you agree on something," Smoke commented.
"I don' need dis shit. I really don'," boxer grunted, first crawling, then limping painfully to the trapped set of doors. They should have swallowed him up, but he merely pushed on one and kept pushing until it rotated halfway around, letting him out.
He made it look so easy.
Smoke asked, "Truce?"
"Truce," I muttered, staring at the outlandish doors as they slowed to a stop.
"Truce," the girl agreed. "Hey guys, you can lower your weapons. The situation is well in hand." I turned my head. She had addressed half a dozen additional armed security guards, all pointing their firearms at me. They must have come in response to the commotion. The guards holstered their guns. Two of them approached their injured comrades, while the remaining four kept uneasy watch on us. "You're still breathing only because they didn't want to risk hitting me or your civilian friend, Zero," the girl smirked.
"That's 'Sub-Zero.'"
"Zero."
"I am called Smoke," said the teacher, bowing. "And you, fair maiden, are...?"
"Orchid. Flattery will get you everywhere." She smiled broadly, revealing a perfectly even set of gleaming white teeth. Her expression changed to one of puzzlement as she noticed the smoke trails rising from his collar. "Are you on fire?"
"Only in the metaphorical sense. Your beauty is quite incendiary." Her smile returned. I turned away in disgust.
"That smoke isn't toxic, is it?"
"Short-term exposure shouldn't be a problem. Um, there aren't any children or pregnant women in the area, are there?"
"Oh, no, but if you stay here you might set off the-" A loud, continuous wail assaulted my ears. I shifted into guard stance, but in place of an attack a steady indoor rain streamed down from the ceiling.
"-fire alarm," Orchid finished, shielding her eyes from the downpour. "Damn. Of all the days to forget my mascara."
"Can we continue this someplace else?" I sighed.
A distant exclamation from the boxer carried through the jagged holes in Ultratech's glass wall. "Aw, no! My CAR!"
I smelled Blood River's source before I could see it.
Human bones floated in sanguine red pools dotting the side of the paved stone path. The blood steamed and gave off heat, though not as much as the river itself had. The bubbling pools became more frequent the closer I approached the trail to Leucrotta Castle's front door. Fresh surges of liquid red pouring out large circular openings of mortared stone constantly fed their depths, yet the pools never overflowed. Golems carved from the surrounding rock watched over the sometimes trickling, sometimes gushing streams. I envisioned the liquid seeping down through vents in the rock, to the bed of Blood River itself.
A great deal of clutter lay strewn about the intersection between stone pathway and castle trail. Among the piles of junk were rust-covered weapons, moldering finery, and an open coffin with an elegant black chandelier resting on top. The arch I had glimpsed earlier was surprisingly humble; merely a set of smooth grey stones, cemented into an arc about twice as tall as I was. Bats fluttered and roosted on rock formations nearby; some even flapped their way across the gulf to the castle, though they avoided flying too close to the arch.
Except for the flying mammals, my surroundings were deserted. Neither sentries nor stone golems watched over the archway. Beyond, Leucrotta Castle itself had no gatekeeper, no soldiers manning the turrets, nothing save more bats. Hadn't the sphinx said the castle was "heavily guarded?"
Following my suspicions, I gently lobbed a pebble into the arch. The instant it flew under the curving structure, a brilliant red flare engulfed it. I dove to the ground and covered my head as an explosion shattered it into countless pieces. Discharge of a Power at least equal to Pyre's accompanied the burst.
Stepping to the side, I tossed a second pebble around the arch, toward the pathway beyond. Another red flare surrounded it as soon as it reached the space above the castle's front road. As I took shelter, I glimpsed the crackling red sheet of force enclosing the path, like a tube.
Though I could not be sure how much time had passed since I arrived within Limbo, I felt like I'd been awake for days. Warnings against sleeping in Limbo remained fresh in my mind. I had to find a way into Leucrotta Castle, and soon. The wards guarding the castle's front were too powerful to deactivate quickly, and the gulf's sides were too steep to scale.
Wait. How could liquid be constantly flowing out of the sewer openings? This was a high elevation. Where was the fresh blood coming from?
I navigated around the edge of a blood pool and pressed closer to the largest drain opening. Inside, I saw a tunnel that angled sharply to the right. With a short run, I gathered enough speed to clear the pool and leap into the opening's mouth. Its pouring red contents reached up to my knees. Wading around the bend, I saw a rusted iron gate. The arm of a floating body poked through it. A few more rotting corpses jammed against the grate's lower teeth, forming a limited dam. Like the remains piled upon the dragongods' battlefield, none of the bodies gave off the smell of corruption. There was only the warm tang of fresh blood.
I studied the rusting iron grate. The crisscross holes in the barrier were big enough to let through bones or skulls worked free from the various corpses, yet a shade too small for me to navigate. No matter; a little Ice would fix that. I curled my hands around one narrow middle segment that had almost completely rusted, and called to the Power. Once frozen, the already weakened iron bar became so brittle I destroyed it with a single punch. Stepping through the opening, I waded upstream.
More corpses blocked my path. One, headless cadaver was special. It was dressed in a black, full-length bodysuit. The fabric was tough, resisting decay, and supplanted with long rectangular guards on the hands, shins, and knees.
This unfortunate had been one of the Lin Kuei.
Deep within the Lin Kuei complex, from my throne of Ice, I examined Ultratech's bill. It listed medical expenses, including reconstructive surgery to the hands of one guard and therapy for chronic neck pain in the other. Also present were costs incurred in hiring the sentries' temporary replacements, new "shatterproof" glass doors and windows, plus water damage to the front office. The total was a number five figures long.
I set the bill aside and, for the thirtieth time, flipped through a copy of the file Orchid had given us. Ultratech wanted the Lin Kuei to perform an assassination. They hadn't said why. The target's name was Shang Tsung. Apart from that, very little was known about him. His home was purported to be an island not on any map. A black-and-white sketch of a wizened old man with a long mandarin's mustache and beard was the closest thing they had to a picture. His true physical dimensions were strictly speculative. Corroborated reports suggested that he could change his shape into the forms of other humans or beasts at will. Rumor had it he'd lived for over a thousand years. He was reputed to have supernatural powers; conflicting accounts called him a blood-drinking vampire, a bone-rending lycanthrope, or a demon nourished by human souls.
Shang Tsung was a recluse, who according to legend permitted visitors to his isolated domain only once a generation, to hold a blood-sport Tournament open to warriors all over the world. Losers forfeited their lives and, if the stories were to be believed, their souls. Shang Tsung was the Tournament's overseer and one-time grand champion. The next Tournament would take place within two weeks.
Only one thing was known for certain about Shang Tsung. None of the agents Ultratech sent to eliminate him ever returned. Alive, that is. Charbroiled pieces of their last crack squadron had been elegantly gift-wrapped and delivered with thank-you notes to the entire executive staff.
I was intrigued.
Ultratech and the Lin Kuei were rivals at best, mortal enemies at worst. Ultratech's business empire was vast, and its tendrils extended far beyond their towering city beacons, reaching into the ugly side of city life. Their specialties were advanced weaponry and the sale of addictive synthetic drugs. They supported smaller gangs with arrangements of plausible denial. The Lin Kuei had skirmished with Ultratech's minions in the past, and unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the cartel more than once. So why would Ultratech want to hire the clan, especially for the phenomenal reward of...
"Smoke, I am not entirely familiar with foreign currency. How much is 10,000,000,000 pounds worth?"
"Taking into account all the Lin Kuei assets I'm aware of, the clan as a whole is worth approximately one-third of that," the teacher replied, weakly.
"Ultratech must be desperate."
"Perhaps they do not intend to pay. Their offered contract specifically demands hard proof of Shang Tsung's death. They want his remains, which must be positively identified as his through DNA testing - they managed to isolate a few skin cells from a note accompanying one of Shang Tsung's 'gifts,' and they want to run a parity check on the chromosomes of-"
"So they want his head," I interrupted, cutting short Smoke's stream of incomprehensible babbling. "Go on."
"Once they've got it, why should they pay the fee? What could we do to them if they didn't?" The teacher's voice continued its progressive decrescendo, until he was nearly whispering. "Ultratech is many times wealthier than the clan, and more established. If it came to a flat-out conflict, the Lin Kuei could hurt them, perhaps badly, but we'd lose in the end. That's why the clan has done little more than skirmish with their pawns in the past."
I looked up from the file. If anything, Smoke appeared worse than he had before our trip. His skin had turned a shade more pale. He leaned unsteadily against my chamber's Ice-coated wall, arms tightly folded, and his eyes were half-closed.
"Is something causing you discomfort?"
"Well, since you bring it up, this chamber is a bit cold."
In truth, I kept the chamber no colder than a typical winter night. Smoke used to train students outdoors under similar conditions. It occurred to me that his ailment, whatever it was, could have weakened his resistance to temperature extremes. I released the hold my frame of mind had on the surroundings. While I could not warm the chamber, I could at least cease to chill it. "Is this acceptable?"
"I'll manage."
"Very well. There is another matter I need to speak to you about."
"You're thinking of volunteering to carry out the contract, aren't you. Even though Shang Tsung has destroyed dozens of would-be assassins, and the gods only know how many others."
"That is what makes him the ultimate quarry. The ultimate challenge."
"I can understand the temptation."
"My question is this: has the Triumvirate already selected another clan member to carry out this assignment?"
He pondered for several seconds before replying. "I have not had the privilege of being in their presence for some time, yet I suspect they would grant your desire. After all, they did send you to Ultratech in the first place."
"And that is something else on my mind. Why was I selected to be the clan's ambassador to Ultratech?"
"Because of your innate business sense, complete familiarity with the terrain, and sterling diplomatic skills?" he returned, smiling a little.
"You may dispense with the sarcasm. My point is that serving as an ambassador entailed risks, which any lesser member could have taken. I am curious why they considered me suitably expendable, even though I am the clan's only Ice master."
Smoke's eyes flickered, changing to a lighter shade of grey. One of the plumes wafting from his collar drifted at an oblique angle from the rest. There could be no mistaking that reaction. I'd seen it all too plainly, two years before. My good hand curled tightly around the arm of my Ice throne.
"You are concealing something. Tell me." He looked away, uncomfortably, and was about to speak when he broke into another of his episodic coughing fits. This one was longer and more severe than usual. At one point, he put his hand around his neck, as if to protect it from a constricting noose.
"This chamber definitely does not agree with you," I observed. "We should continue this elsewhere."
Smoke shook his head. "No," he wheezed, clearing his throat, "this is one of the few places that is safe from prying ears. Pyre saw to that."
"Does it matter whether anyone overhears you?"
"I? It wouldn't matter if I told the Triumvirate to jump in a bottomless pit. It is your reaction that should not be overheard."
"My reaction?"
"Yes. You are no longer the clan's only Ice master. An initiate has recently earned his place as a clan member in full standing. His raw talent for Ice has the potential to exceed even yours."
"Interesting. I did not know this."
"You've isolated yourself in this freezer for the past two years. A dragon could devour the sun and you wouldn't know it." For one moment, a hint of the caustic-tongued mentor I remembered showed through.
"If you expected this information to provoke me, then you are deluding yourself. I have long since lost the ability to feel envy, or anything else."
"Eh? Do you really believe that?"
"You are not worth lying to."
"Then you're the one with illusions. You might not envy another's Power, but you're no automaton. If anything, you're ruled by the very emotions whose existence you deny. You care deeply about your brother; the one and only time you've exercised your authority as a Hierarchy member was for his sake. You hate modern technology, and become claustrophobic when surrounded by it; hell, you go into a thinly concealed panic at the thought of riding in an automobile. And-"
"That will be enough."
"-whenever confronted with an idea that cuts you to the quick, your immediate reaction is to shut it out, as if ignoring the cause of your worries will make them go away. Go ahead, order me to be silent all you please; it won't change a thing." I couldn't tell whether he was deliberately baiting me, or merely caught up in his newfound tendency to ramble. Either way, I was not going to let his wild theories distract me.
"My only 'worry' is that you are concealing something important about the clan's new Ice master. Are you?"
He shrugged. "I'm duty bound to answer you truthfully."
"Who is he, then?"
"He hasn't selected a use-name for himself yet."
"I did not ask for a use-name; I want to know who he is."
"It isn't my place to keep biographies of all my students."
"Perhaps not, but I think you know about this one." The inside of my mouth suddenly felt very dry. I stepped down from my Ice throne. "Who. Is. He."
"He is your brother."
"WHAT!?"
Smoke winced and rubbed his ears. "He passed the Test; you know what that means."
"My brother was not supposed to be Tested! The Lin Kuei does not force the Test upon more than one offspring per family!"
"Usually yes, but-"
"Whoever administered his Test is a dead man," I seethed. "I am going to kill him."
"Are you. Are you really," chuckled the teacher.
Something fierce kindled inside of me. I seized his collar with my left hand and yanked him close. My right hand was still maimed from Orchid's gash, but it functioned well enough to bring forth a concentrated aura of Power. "The man who gave that Test is dead where he stands. Even if he is one of the Triumvirate. Even if he is you. Now tell me WHO TESTED MY BROTHER!"
"You did."
The Power I'd called slipped from between my fingers. My uninjured hand fell away from the teacher's collar. "What...?"
"Two years ago, you destroyed your brother's laboratory and all its contents."
"But he wasn't burned..."
"The Test consists of trauma. It does not necessarily have to be physical trauma, though that is what the Lin Kuei usually inflict. Your brother stumbled onto his Power that night, after fleeing the burning lab, when his own tears changed to Ice. Two days later, he came to us. To me, in fact. I tried to talk him out of joining the clan, but he's as stubborn as you are, and had nowhere else to go. You'd forbidden him to leave the village. The only way he could study the science he loved was to get around your ban. He thought that being a clan member might give him some leverage to use against you. He requested that I not inform you of his new affiliation. I promised him the next best thing, that I would tell you only if asked."
I have been scorched with flame. I have been stabbed with steel blades. No physical injury could compare to the bitter shock of knowing what I'd done, and to whom I'd done it.
"Leave me," I commanded, wearily. The teacher raised an eyebrow. "I said begone!" He bowed and departed without further protest.
Alone in my chamber of Ice, I clawed at my mask and hood, awkwardly tugging them off. With a lagging, unsteady gait, I approached one of the chamber's walls. Its swirling curlicues of frost encircled an inset, silver-backed mirror. The mirror's shiny surface reflected the image of a stranger, clad in ceremonial blue and sable. He was taller than average, with short black hair and narrow, sienna eyes. His complexion was atypically pale, for a native Chinese. The left half of his face was a mass of blistered fire-scars from the cheek downward.
I used to have a certain tolerance for the stranger in the mirror. When the fisherman was murdered, I disliked him. Now that I knew he'd damned my brother to serve the Lin Kuei for life, I was filled with contempt for him. My left hand instantly closed in a fist, chambered, and snapped out at the image. The mirror cracked in a spiderweb pattern, dividing the stranger's effigy into discrete, triangle-shaped pieces. One of the shards cut into my extended knuckle. A thin trickle of blood slid down from where I'd hit the mirror. It crawled a few centimeters before it froze, a gossamer fragment of red against a background of blue and white.
end section one of part three
Disclaimer: Mortal Kombat belongs to the creation of Ed Boone and John Tobias and the Midway team. It was created in no way 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.