Chapter Seven
Frost was absentmindedly humming despite the fact she'd been asked several times not to by Min. It wasn't that she was trying to annoy him, it was just something she had a habit of doing when she was bored. At least she wasn't humming something that would get stuck in anyone's head. She tried to remember not to do it, but after walking for a few hours…the mind just starts to go.
She was still humming when LiXue stopped suddenly in front of her. Sometimes it seemed like Wei's daughter had a sixth sense to make up for her lack of hearing. She was staring unwaveringly at a small rock with an abnormal shadow. The shadow was too large by just a bit, but their trained eyes picked it out as much as if the rock had been painted bright yellow. She pointed to Frost and to the right before she started heading to the left.
Min hung back as the two warriors approached the suspect shadow, weapons drawn (or in Frost's case, half a weapon). There was no movement as they got closer, but that was no indication that there was nothing hidden. LiXue had dropped to her stomach, and was crawling along the ground to Frost's amusement. Not knowing why the other woman did it, she continued to creep along, low to the ground, but still on her feet.
LiXue paused when she arrived at the rock, and watched with an impatient gleam in her eyes for Frost to catch up. When she did come up to her companion, she could see the traces of dried blood dusting the ground, and the bloody trail leading up to the other side of the rock. Perhaps this would be an exercise in over caution after all. That was when she heard the rasping breath being drawn on the other side of the rock, and she raised a hand in warning so her deaf partner would know she detected something,
The breathing was ragged and slow. It sounded like it was taking great effort for whoever was nearby to draw air into their lungs. Perhaps it had been attacked by the Tarkata and was wounded. Or, it could be a trap, she thought grimly. The blood trail hadn't necessarily come from whatever was behind the rock.
LiXue continued to worm her way around the rock on her belly, looking very much like a snake. For how ridiculous it looked, it was an incredibly silent form of movement, and Frost wondered if LiXue had any concept of how quiet she really was. Not that the concept of silence would be something she really understood. When her feet were just peeking out from the side of the rock, Frost began her advance, more quickly, but with a lot more noise.
She rounded the corner just in time to have the business end of a katana thrust into her face. The tip rested between her eyes, and she had to fight to keep them from crossing as a drop of blood trickled down her nose. She swallowed heavily, trying not to make sudden movements, and cursing herself for getting herself into a hostage situation again.
The blade was wielded by a battered looking man with a maroon cloth tied about his eyes like a blindfold. He was wearing a uniform of black and there was a white sash coming over one shoulder with a silhouette of a dragon in red coming down it. He didn't seem to be hindered by his lack of sight, though, as evidenced by his near perfect precision with the placement of the blade. Frost could see a scabbed over wound running from his ear down past his jaw and crusted blood under his lips running down to his chin. Whoever he was, he was too good looking to be a Tarkata.
Behind him, LiXue was leaning on her spear as if nothing unusual was happening. Frost glared at her over the man's shoulder, but she only smiled and made no move to lend a hand. She seemed to have more faith in Frost's ability to handle the situation, or maybe she was just hoping the man would finish her off.
"Your friend is very quiet," the man said, still resting his blade on the bridge of her nose. His sense of hearing seemed to be quite acute; no doubt to make up for his loss of sight the same way LiXue did the reverse.
"She's not my friend. Furthermore, she's deaf," Frost replied angrily. "I hope she kills you slowly."
"I would take you down long before she could do anything." The man's threat wasn't an empty one, he could slit her throat even if LiXue did succeed in striking him.
"I don't think you could do anything that could make her happier, which is probably the only reason she hasn't tried anything yet." She huffed slightly.
"Well, that's not very nice." The man seemed to relax, perhaps he didn't consider them much of threat if they weren't going to work as a team.
She sighed, beginning to be frustrated, an almost-casual chat in these circumstances was not making her feel very good. "No, it's not. She probably wishes you were a Tarkata so you would finish me and be done with."
"Those things are after you two?" The man sounded surprised.
"They're not after us, but they probably don't like us trespassing on their land." At least they hadn't been coming after them. But now that they had killed some of their number, they might be a bit more inclined to pursue them.
"You have to be very brave or very foolish to be wandering the Wastelands."
"We're probably a bit of both." Frost said with a shrug.
"Tell me then…why are you here?"
"We're just trying to get home. The only way to the Earth realm portal seems to be through here."
"You're trying to get to Earthrealm?" He seemed genuinely interested now. "I'm trying to get to the portal myself, but I got separated from the person who knew where the portal was."
Frost cocked an eyebrow. Now this was odd...he seemed alright, especially if he had the same goal…but for now, she wanted to stop staring at the katana at the very least. "Can we continue this conversation without the sword in my face?" Frost asked. "We're not out to kill you, we just thought you were a Tarkata." As she spoke, Min finally found his way to the scene, and the man turned to face him as if he saw him.
"He's definitely not a Tarkata," Min said, eyeing the katana warily.
"He's trying to get to the portal too," Frost informed him.
Min cheered up instantly, a wide grin plastered across his face. "You know where the portal is?" he asked eagerly.
"No, I don't. I was traveling with someone who knew where it was and we got separated when we were attacked by a horde of Tarkata. I barely crawled away with my life, I don't know what happened to him." The man looked distressed, and very guilty to have lost his companion, putting his hand to his face and letting the sword fall away from Frost's face.
"They travel in hordes?" Min asked, a hint of fear in his voice.
"I don't know, the ones that attacked us were sent specifically to eliminate us. Apparently the Dragon King felt we were too big of a threat to ignore." The man's face was grim.
"The Dragon King? But…I thought Quan Chi and Shang Tsung were stopped from raising the dead army?" Frost protested, her mind racing with confused thoughts on what could possibly be going on since she had come to Outworld.
"I have been told they are dead, but that means little. The Dragon King is his own entity and is more than capable of taking over the realms on his own, with or without his army." Kenshi looked like he believed whoever his informant had been.
"You haven't seen him yourself?" Frost asked cynically.
"No, unfortunately I was too busy nearly dying at the time. I was nursed back to health just in time to be attacked again." The man's face contorted into a grimace. "I don't seem to be a very popular person."
"Who attacked you the first time?" Frost asked. She wasn't sure if she wanted to deal with someone who had so many enemies.
"The Red Dragon. Apparently they found the fact I was working for the OIA offensive." He rubbed his stomach ruefully.
"OIA?" Min asked.
"Outworld Investigation Agency," Frost replied. "Its part of the United States Armed Forces."
"You know of them? I thought they were top secret," the man answered, confused.
"They're allies of ours. Well, most of them. Blade doesn't like me very much…the feeling is mutual." Frost pursed her lips. If he was from the OIA, why didn't he know where their portal was?
"I lost contact with them," the man said. "I sent out a distress signal, but no one came for me. I think their headquarters might have been attacked by the Red Dragon too."
"Why would the Red Dragon want to shut down the OIA? Their 'business' is usually in Earthrealm." None of this was making any sense to Frost anymore. It seemed like everyone's motives were constantly shifting.
"I would guess they were hired by the Deadly Alliance. They seem to rely a lot on outside assistance for their dirty work."
"I don't mean to break this up, but perhaps we can continue this conversation while walking," Min suggested. Frost hadn't even noticed he had been translating the whole conversation for LiXue; it had become such a normal thing for him to do. The warrior woman was agreeing with him, and watching the open area.
"I don't see why not," Frost agreed, looking to the man.
"Sounds like a better idea to me. I don't know when that horde will come back," he said. "They didn't seem as interested in me, but if they've eliminated their main target…"
"Alright then…uh?"
"Kenshi."
"Okay, Kenshi. I'm Frost, he's Min, and quiet girl is LiXue. Introductions are over, let's get a move on." Now that Kenshi mentioned the horde coming back, she was anxious to get out of the area as soon as possible. Handling the three Tarkata a while back was bad enough; more would probably tear them apart. "So you recovered from the attack from the Red Dragon just in time to get mowed down by the Tarkata?
"Actually, we were chased down by a crazed Seidan first."
"Seidan?" Frost asked. She didn't think she'd ever heard the term before.
"One of the crazies from the Realm of Order. This one had decided to ally himself with the Dragon King for reasons I don't understand. I guess we were somehow a threat to peace and order. Sub-Zero had thought he'd defeated him, but apparently he was wrong."
Frost bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. She hadn't expected her sifu to turn up in the Wastelands. But why would he be a threat to peace and order?
"Sub-Zero?" Min asked.
"Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei. He'd come to Outworld to stop the two sorcerers at Raiden's request. Or that's what he told me. He found me and got me patched up, and we decided that the two of us had a better chance of getting out of here together than we did alone."
Min looked at Frost curiously and looked like he was about to say something, but Frost shot him a look that would have curdled milk and he quickly shut his mouth. "And you don't know where he is now?" Frost asked, trying to sound casual.
"No, like I said, we were separated when the Tarkata attacked. The Dragon King seems to really want him dead. The Seidan that was after us looked like he had a fairly high rank, too. You should have seen the dent he put into Sub-Zero's armor."
So Sifu was somewhere in the Wastelands, possibly dead. At best those beast things were chasing him down. Would they be able to help him if they found him? She wasn't so sure they could do anything. Min would be nothing but a liability as they would have to protect him, and the swordsman looked pretty beat up. That left her and LiXue to do the real fighting, and they had barely defeated three of them…
…what if the horde realized Kenshi wasn't dead and came after them?
She realized she was chewing her lip and stopped. "Do you think the Tarkata will come back?"
"I don't know. I killed the ones who broke off to come after me, but I don't know if they'll find the bodies and want revenge, or decide to try another tactic. I wouldn't take any chances though."
LiXue looked thoughtful for a moment, and started signing to Min. "The Tarkata will come back. If they think their prey has been injured, they will come back to finish it off, like any beast will," he translated for her. He was white as a sheet and shivered slightly.
"She must have had experience with them," Frost said, to answer Kenshi's unspoken question. "She hasn't been wrong yet, I don't see why we shouldn't trust her judgment this time."
"Sub-Zero seemed to think that the portal was to the east, so you'll have to continue through the Wastelands to get there. I never understood how he ended up in the west when the Deadly Alliance was working in the east, but I didn't think he'd want to explain it. He seemed saddened about something." Kenshi tilted his head to one side. "I wish I'd thought to ask him the portal coordinates."
"Are you going to head for the portal also?" Frost asked. Injured as he was, another fighter would be a great help if they were attacked again.
"I will, eventually. I want to find Sub-Zero first if he is still alive," Kenshi answered. "I owe him my life."
Frost didn't have an immediate response. Did she really want to find Sub-Zero now? But what if he died and she could have saved him? What if she found him dead? Would the Lin Kuei believe she hadn't caused his death? Had she caused him to get attacked? She was biting her lip again.
The others were silent, waiting for her to answer. "I'll…do whatever everyone else wants," she said slowly. She didn't want to be responsible for this decision. Letting the others make the decision didn't feel right, but she at least took the pressure off of her…for now.
Min looked at her, and then at LiXue. He looked terrified at the prospect of dealing with more Tarkata but said, "I...I think we should
help. And if this person knows where the portal is…"
LiXue seemed more hesitant to help a stranger when it meant going off of her current mission. "If he really knows where the portal is, then we should look for him. But we shouldn't stray too far from the path," she said through Min.
Both of them looked to her, and she tried to decide. Was she really so cruel that she would abandon the man who spent the past few months personally training her to save her own ass? Even if she survived the journey, would she be able to forgive herself if she left him to die? Was she really afraid of the Tarkatan horde, or was she afraid of having to face the man she had betrayed? Was avoiding facing herself worth possibly condemning someone else to death?
"I guess you can come with us then," she said to Kenshi. "Or we'll come with you, I suppose. I guess it depends on how you look at it." She tried to smile, but ended up with a grimace. "Where do you suppose we should go?"
"East. If Sub-Zero survived he would continue to the portal. He seemed anxious to get back to running his clan. I think he feared someone would try to usurp him if they thought he went missing." Kenshi's curled lip expressed his disgust towards anyone dishonorable enough to try it more than his words ever would.
The traveling time seemed less, even though Frost knew they were going slower because of Kenshi's injuries. It was more of a sense of purpose, even though she dreaded what would happen should they manage to succeed in finding Sub-Zero. At least now they had a reason for marching bravely into what could possibly be their doom that was better than 'I just want to go home.'
Kenshi was traveling in the middle of the pack, fielding the questions of the untiring Min. At least he was pestering someone else with his million and one questions about Earthrealm, even if Kenshi was as cranky as she was about answering them. At the moment, they were talking about the United States army, even as Kenshi protested he was just working as a freelancer.
LiXue was watching the newcomer's every move as if she thought he was going to pull his sword and take a swing at them all at any given moment. Frost was more trusting than she was, but knowing the smaller
warrior was watching their backs gave her more comfort than she was willing to admit. Kenshi didn't seem all that dubious, but there was no telling any more. She probably didn't seem all that threatening herself to Sub-Zero and she managed to do quite a bit of damage.
No matter what she tried, it seemed her thoughts always found their way back to the Grandmaster. It was just that she had no idea what to expect when (and if) they crossed paths again. He'd forgiven a lot of the things she had pulled, including attacking a General in the army, but many people are a lot less forgiving when the damage is personal. Having your student grab the Medallion right off of your chest has got to be embarrassing, and blows to the ego are always more personally painful than any kick or punch.
It hurt more to realize that she couldn't control her powers like she had imagined she could than when the Dragon Amulet had started freezing her from within. It hurt worse to realize the consequences of her actions when her kori powers no longer manifested themselves. In the karmic cycle she was sure it was all fair and good, but deep down inside her inner child couldn't stop screaming 'It's not fair!"
"Penny for your thoughts?" Kenshi's voice startled her out of her morbid musings.
"I don't think they are worth that much," she said wryly. "I'm just wallowing in self-pity."
Kenshi just nodded and stepped up to walk next to her. "Is your friend always that talkative?' he finally asked.
"I honestly don't know. I met him barely a week ago. For all I know he may be secretly an axe murderer and this is just a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security."
"That's a comforting thought. I'd be more worried about the deaf girl."
"Oh, I know she would love it if I died. She's got too strong a sense of honor to take me out though. At least I'd like to believe that. She hasn't actively tried to kill me."
"Tell me, how did you end up wandering the Wastelands with someone you only met a week ago?"
"For starters, I'm wandering around the Wastelands now with someone I just met hours ago," she just pointed out.
"Point taken."
"I came to Outworld to help defeat the Deadly Alliance, and woke up on the wrong side of the Wastelands with no easy way to get to the portal back. Min agreed to help me because he wants to get to Earthrealm, LiXue is helping me because her father ordered her to."
"Somehow that doesn't sound like the entire story."
"It's not. The whole story is sordid and filled with me doing stupid things, so I like to leave those bits out."
"Most people prefer to tell their stories that way, I don't blame you."
The scene was different this time; she was back in the Frozen Catacombs wandering the halls, lost. She was taking turn after turn, not knowing where she was going, but not caring to stand around. The lack of people wasn't disturbing now, she had seen no one but LiXue the entire time she fought to find her way out.
The footsteps still followed her; no matter how fast she ran or which way she turned. They sounded with the same steady cadence, like someone marching in time, or walking with measured steps. In some distant part of her mind, she recognized the sound and knew she was dreaming, but did not wake up. She didn't even fear them anymore, the sound was that familiar.
Finally, she turned the corner to the chamber she woke up in and found that she was no longer alone. Those frozen in death in the niches lining the chamber walls now stood before her facing the same sarcophagus she had risen out of. The one farthest in the front carried a body, and it took her a moment to make out the distinctive pattern of the boots at that distance.
She watched in shock as they lowered the body into the sarcophagus and started placing the lid firmly on top, to seal the coffin for an eternity. They were burying her. Again.
"Stop!" she cried, but no one seemed to notice she was there.
She ran to the head of the group and hopped onto the sarcophagus lid, towering over all of them like some sort of angry goddess. "I'm not dead!" she protested, trying not to see the face of the corpse. She knew it would be a mirror image. She wouldn't let them close the lid if it meant standing in the sarcophagus again.
Then she looked down into the face of her pallbearer, at the scar tracing a path over his right eye and cheek, outlining such a sad expression.
And she woke up crying as her tired brain put together the pieces of what Kenshi had told her. She tried to hold back a sob, but it only made her choke on her breath and cough as the hot tears started sliding their way down her face. The last thing she wanted was to wake the others up. She didn't want to let them see her like that.
It was Min who first heard the sound of her crying despite her attempts to muffle it. He looked unsure of what to do, but equally reluctant to just roll over and ignore her. He crawled over to her side in the dark, still clutching his blanket.
She tried to hide her face, but the uncontrolled heaving of her chest was a dead giveaway that her mumbled, "I'm all right," couldn't be further from the truth. Her face was buried in the blanket but it did
little to stifle the noise.
"What's wrong?" he whispered, reaching out tentatively to touch her arm.
Her lips trembled, and she shook her head, not wanting to voice what she
knew to be the truth. "I'm fine," she said, to reassure herself or Min she didn't know.
"What's wrong?" he repeated, clearly not convinced.
It felt like a dam breaking, and once she started speaking it was like she couldn't stop herself. "He buried me," she sobbed. "He must have thought I was dead, but I wasn't, and he must have taken me to the Traitor's Hall and put me in the sarcophagus and taken the armor," she finally paused for a raspy breath, "And he doesn't usually wear armor but Kenshi said he was wearing it, and he was coming from the east and that was why he looked sad, but why wouldn't he have taken me with him-"
"Frost, who are you talking about?" Min looked completely lost.
"Sifu…I mean, Sub-Zero," she sniffled loudly and started bawling again.
Min was at a loss for words, but put his arms around her and let her cry onto his shoulder. He brushed her hair back and stroked her cheek; talking to her like she was a little girl and telling her it would be all right. She let him hold her like that, not caring that her dignity was completely forgotten.
She was completely out of breath by the time she finally caught control of herself and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry," she whispered, feeling her ears burn. "I feel like an idiot."
"Why?" Min asked, shaking his head.
"I just feel like a little kid," she smiled despite her still watery eyes. "Big girls aren't supposed to cry."
Min just shrugged and went to go back to his bedroll, but Frost looked up at him and said, "Don't go."
And he didn't.
She cuddled closer to him and sniffled, burying her head in his shoulder. She just wanted to be held in friendly arms, no matter whom they belonged to.
