Quan Chi leered in disgust over everyone in the stadium. Most paid no mind to the Netherrealm resident with the sour disposition on stage, though; many were too busy hollering in approval over the last matches or crying out for more blood.
Still, Quan Chi needed to think his next move through carefully. He had obviously not foreseen the fallen god's craftiness, and reprimanded himself on his shortsightedness. He knew now that the next chance he got, he would have to eradicate Raiden immediately. The thunder god was already a liability he could not afford to have on his hands, not when everything else in his plan had gone so perfectly up to this point.
Luckily, the next bracket of matches was coming up shortly. Only two matches from the preliminary rounds were left in the arena, and within a minute both ended in bloody victories for their champions. The crowd roared with appreciation for the blood sport as Quan Chi immediately began thinking over his options for how to deal with the depowered deity on the ground.
He decided he would have to send out one of his most formidable warriors out immediately, much earlier than he anticipated. He knew now how dangerously he had underestimated Raiden.
"Victors," he projected out into the stadium, earning the attention of the competitors on the ground, now reduced in numbers by half. "Well done. You will now face each other for the right to move on to the next round."
Many of the kombatants around Raiden and Fujin let out mighty war cries. Raiden, however, still smarting in many aspects from his round with Nightwolf, started and shrank back slightly.
Quan Chi smirked, waiting for what would be the looks on their faces when he revealed his next bit of new for them.
"Or, shall I say, most of you."
Silence quickly settled over all of the arena's occupants. Many, not knowing Quan Chi, had not anticipated a sudden change in the rules.
"A select few of you will be chosen to personally take on some of my best warriors," Quan Chi explained, noting with amusement the expressions on many of the fighters as they realized they had quite possibly sized up the wrong opponents.
"Perhaps some of you will be fortunate enough to prove your fortitude against these kombatants," he continued. "And the others, well…"
He stopped, letting out a low, rumbling chuckle.
"… let us just say that should you lose, you and I will meet again soon."
Raiden's eyes had widened in terror as Quan Chi had delivered his speech, knowing full well the sorcerer had something wicked in store for him.
"Advance," Quan Chi commanded the lot of them. The remaining fighters stepped out into the open grounds of the arena, igniting the cries from the audience.
Raiden looked worriedly back at Fujin before he forced himself to step out as well. He tried his best to remain outside of Quan Chi's view, but the other kontestants next to him moved out of the way, almost as if they, too, could sense he was some kind of target.
Quan Chi directly singled Raiden out from up on stage. As the audience watched, he raised his hands up to his sides, performing a summoning spell that created two pillars of spiraling green smoke on either side of him. A moment later, two of his drones appeared from the haze.
Like he had with Nightwolf, Raiden shuddered as he recognized Kitana and Sub-Zero standing next to Quan Chi. He clenched his jaw in nervous anticipation as Quan Chi picked out a random fighter from amongst the selection available on the ground, and pointed them out for Kitana, like one would point out a treat for a dog.
Many Edenians in the crowd were shouting words of support for what they thought was their former princess as she descended the stairs from the platform to face her unlucky opponent. Raiden was too busy looking back up at Quan Chi to bother noticing who her foe was.
And for good reason, too; the next second, Quan Chi managed to zero in on Raiden's location.
With Sub-Zero at his side, he pointed a damning finger in Raiden's direction.
Johnny closed the door behind him as he entered his house, taking a second to stop and think as he stood in the open space of his foyer. He didn't know what he was going to say to Raiden, and feared what could have happened in the time he was gone. If he found Raiden, he would make sure to tell him Sonya was okay. Maybe that would lighten his spirits a bit.
He could hear the TV on in the living room. He found it a bit strange, since he thought Raiden would have been too busy sulking to bother with something frivolous like television. Putting his hands in his pockets, he walked towards the sound.
"Raiden?" he called out, waiting for a response. Much to his confusion, however, when he walked into the living room, not a soul was in sight. It struck Johnny as odd, but maybe Raiden had just left the TV on to let him know that he was still in the house, just off skulking over Sonya.
He shrugged, deciding to check Raiden's room next.
"Raiden?" he shouted again as he cracked the door open. Johnny scanned the room. Much to his discomfort, it was completely empty. A mixture of fear and fury began to brew inside Johnny as he looked frantically down both directions of the hallway. There was no way Raiden could have left. No way. No way!
"RAIDEN!"
Raiden silently commanded himself to stop shaking as his opponent stared him down soullessly, the light glinting coldly off of his blue-tinted robotic armor. But Sub-Zero represented more than just another obstacle to overcome in this tournament; no, he was a testament to Raiden's foolishness, a living (so to speak) example of how Raiden's mistakes had irreversibly altered another's life not once, but twice, from human to machine to puppet.
Not that it looked like it bothered Sub-Zero any; he just continued to stare at Raiden lifelessly through the two mechanical slits that his eyes had become.
Meanwhile, Quan Chi was almost outright smiling with glee at the top of the platform as he continued to watch Raiden's episode of mental torment. He took his chance now as his target was weak.
"Round one! Fight!" he shouted quickly, barely allowing Raiden enough time to establish a fighting stance.
Sub-Zero's first attack came swiftly, a punch square in the gut that sent a winded Raiden spiraling some odd number of feet away. Hitting the ground, Raiden tried propping himself up, even as his head spun. He did, however, manage to notice another fighter's match coming in time to roll out of the way.
Unfortunately, the action left him little time to see Sub-Zero as he caught up and delivered a hard kick to Raiden's rib cage. The air knocked out of him again, Raiden was easily picked up by the hem of his collar, which Sub-Zero used to repeatedly slam his opponent's head into the ground until he dropped the unconscious Raiden like a doll.
Fujin looked on in worry as his champion lay lifelessly face down in the dirt. Quan Chi, in the meantime, was happy to view the same sight, completely ignoring the other fighters, even as Kitana quickly finished her challenger with a disemboweling fan cut to the abdomen. He thought the one obstacle on his path to victory had finally been eliminated.
"End of round one," he declared, at this point not even bothering to hide the fact that he was using Raiden's matches as the marker for the end of the fights.
Just then, settling Fujin's fears but reigniting Quan Chi's, Raiden shakily used his hands to prop himself up again. Even as a gash on his skull left fresh blood trickling down the side of his face, Raiden continued to try and stand himself up, almost losing his balance due to his concussion but reestablishing his footing. Seeing that their underdog had once again beaten the odds, some in the audience let out a supportive roar. Needless to say, Quan Chi was not amused. Nostrils flaring, he raised his hand in signal.
"Round two," he barked. "Fight!"
Raiden moved clumsily as he tried to maneuver around Sub-Zero's quick punches, his reflexes severely impaired by the massive headache his enemy's onslaught had caused. He was too slow to dodge the uppercut Sub-Zero delivered suddenly; steel crashed against the bone in his jaw as Raiden again was sent flying in the other direction.
Fujin looked on in massive distress. However, he was quickly distracted by a brilliant flash that illuminated in front of his eyes. He immediately recognized it as a vision of some sort, not one sent through time like the ones Raiden had experienced and told him about, but across the spatial dimensions and through the realms. He could briefly view Johnny Cage running frantically around in his own home, a message Fujin promptly interpreted.
The vision subsided as quickly as it had arrived. His view now cleared, Fujin could see Raiden ducking around Sub-Zero's feet as the possessed cyborg attempted to land a solid stomp on his opponent.
Fujin began cursing himself silently for bringing Raiden into a conflict for which he was clearly not prepared. Even though he had done it with the best intentions, namely protecting Earthrealm and offering his long-time friend another chance at redemption, his heart grew heavy with the realization that Raiden was simply not going to make it out of this alive.
"I am sorry, old friend," Fujin muttered mournfully, an apology that was lost amongst the screams of the crowds.
Suddenly, with an unforeseen burst of speed, Raiden grabbed a hold of Sub-Zero's metallic calf and miraculously managed to keep his grip, sending the robotic warrior spiraling out of balance with only one foot on the ground. Fujin's blank eyes widened in surprise as he realized he may have spoken too soon.
Raiden must have somehow heard Fujin's apology and decided it was unacceptable, because in the next moment he brought up his free hand and delivered a crippling chop to Sub-Zero's knee, breaking the robotic warrior's leg clean in half at the joint.
As the crowd continued to cheer him on, Raiden swung Sub-Zero's knee around like a club, effectively knocking the now one-and-a-half-legged Lin Kuei member back a few feet. Keeping the severed electronic leg in his hand, Raiden rapidly approached Sub-Zero and managed to grab a hold of the wires that protruded from the back of the ninja's head like dreadlocks while he was in mid- swing from the impact of Raiden's blow.
Fujin looked on hopefully for a second before Sub-Zero grabbed Raiden's hand from over his shoulder. In a move that neither Fujin nor Raiden had seen coming, Sub-Zero quickly encased Raiden's hand in a block of ice. With the cords still in Raiden's grip, Sub-Zero turned around, bringing his arm down in a chopping motion that fractured Raiden's wrist at the joint, shattering the ice and incapacitating him as Sub-Zero pushed the former thunder god away, sending him skidding into the dirt. With him went parts of the cords that he had managed to rip out from the back of Sub-Zero's head.
Raiden had little time to acknowledge the stinging flash of pain in his arm and only barely managed to open his eyes in time after the first wave passed. Sub-Zero couldn't get a good running start without two functioning legs, so he instead opted for powering up the ice cannon in his chest cavity and launching into a finishing lunge towards Raiden, forgetting that the latter was still holding his leg.
Thinking quickly, Raiden swung the mechanical limb into Sub-Zero's skull just in time, knocking the android into the ground next to him. The leg too battered to be useful as a weapon anymore, Raiden tossed it aside. As Sub-Zero struggled to reorient himself to his surroundings, Raiden could see flickers of static crackling around the edges of the severed wires in the back of his head. Raiden's eyes lit up as he recognized his only opportunity to get out of this fight alive.
Instinctually, he grabbed for the wires. Immediately he could feel the surge of energy run through his muscles the second he made contact with the exposed cords. His strength renewed, Raiden held on with an iron grip to the back of Sub-Zero's head, yanking the Lin Kuei up and watching him twitch and his artificial eyes flicker as Raiden instinctively siphoned the electrical energy from his system. Raiden's own eyes, however, began to grow an electric blue as static coursed through his veins.
Many in the audience gazed in wonder at the spectacle, Fujin included. He did not mean to doubt Raiden, but in all honesty he had not expected his ally to make such a speedy comeback. It didn't matter in the end, as he found himself cheering with the rest of the audience, earning strange looks from those around him as he unwittingly barked words of encouragement to Raiden. Up on the stage Quan Chi watched in disbelief.
Even though more in the crowd were cheering on for him now, Raiden paid them no mind. He only focused on the task in front of him, on eliminating the drone right before his eyes. He had finally managed to convince himself that these were not the allies he knew and had trusted. They were only Quan Chi's puppets.
With that, Raiden drove a hard fist directly through Sub-Zero's metal skull, his power augmented by the electricity. The robot's face caved in as Raiden's fist came out of the other side of his head, taking with it parts of Sub-Zero's brain, which had been left in during his automation, and a good chunk of the circuitry that had been used to control it.
Once the audience fell into a stunned silence, Raiden withdrew his fist, sending more bits of tissue and gadgetry flying. The entire stadium was quiet enough to hear Sub-Zero's empty shell hit the ground before they exploded into amazed frenzy even more intense than before.
The glow from Raiden's eyes died down as the surge of energy slowly drained from his body. Even as he powered down, however, he continued to look at Sub-Zero with no expression on his face. The former Lin Kuei member's soul dissipated from within the metallic frame, leaving behind a high-tech exoskeleton. Not saying a word, Raiden simply stood up, ignoring the cries from the audience.
However, he managed to tuck something discreetly into his sleeve as he walked away from Sub-Zero's beaten and broken body, not making eye contact with anyone as he walked back to his spot in the stands, not even Fujin.
But Quan Chi had Raiden clearly in his sights as he made his way back to the crowd of kombatants, dumbfounded. How was this possible? How in all of the realms had Raiden managed to defeat Sub-Zero? Quan Chi simply could not process the fact that Raiden had just defeated one of the strongest warriors under his command. He was almost shaking with fury at what he had just witnessed.
His expression dangerously livid, Quan Chi called off the end of round two. He grudgingly and quickly initiated the last of the rounds, keeping an eye on Raiden as he did so.
On the ground, Raiden paid him no mind as he took his place next to Fujin, with whom he still would not make direct eye contact, even as Fujin looked at him incredulously.
"Excellent job, Raiden," he complimented him, still to no effect. Confused, Fujin decided maybe Raiden was simply too disturbed by the last few fights to talk, until his comrade spoke up.
"I managed to obtain this," Raiden explained quietly, showing Fujin the object he had snuck out in his sleeve; it was a circuit box of some sort, with a stem that resembled part of an artificial spinal cord sticking out of the bottom, wires hanging out exposed, and an empty battery chamber. Fujin realized he must have managed to salvage it from Sub-Zero's internal machinery when he had punched in the robot's skull (the battery had either been lost or destroyed).
"I believe it could be useful," Raiden continued to explain in a low voice as he tucked it back into his sleeve. Fujin looked back up at him in slight amazement, admiring his friend for his resourcefulness.
"If I could only find an energy source of some sort," Raiden thought out loud, still not looking at Fujin. The wind god offered no advice on how Raiden would possibly go about performing such a task, but figured that if he had been able to use his surroundings in such an effective manner at this point, surely he would be able to think of something.
Fujin nodded and looked with Raiden back out into the arena as two Tarkatans lifted Sub-Zero's armor out of the ring like it was scrap metal.