Baldur Kombat

BALDUR KOMBAT

In Neverwinter, the site of the newest branch of Imoen's new thieves' guild, the Arcane Shadows, Imoen and Yoshimo stood in a lush but spacious pavilion in the city's famous Bus Gardens. The sun shone bright overhead, and citizens walked to and fro around them, but gave them a wide berth, for they practicing a little hand-to-hand combat. Yoshimo was dressed in a sleeveless leather jerkin that showd off his muscles, Imoen in a two-piece leather outfit that was equally showy. Yoshimo held a beautifully crafted katana, Imoen a long smooth quarterstaff.

"Good...good!!" Yoshimo laughed cheerily as his pink-haired 'adversary' parried each of his swings. "Good..OUCH!" he yelped as Imoen knocked a katana thrust aside and managed to club him in the stomach with the butt of her staff.

"Had enough, Yoshi?" Imoen giggled and spun her weapon around flashily.

"Never, Immy!" Yoshimo declared boisterously. "I've yet to unleash my special move - the Yoshimo Turbp Tickle!"

"What the...?" Imoen smiled with amused confusion and gripped her staff, ready to fight, but Yoshimo had dropped to the stones in a sweep kick that took her right off her feet. He put out an arm to break her fall, and no sooner had she landed in his one-arm embrace than he had produced a feather from his suit and began to tickle her bare midriff.

"Wee-hee-hee!!!" Imoen giggle uncontrollably, and inadvertendly boinked Yoshimo's forehead with the tip of her staff. The bounty hunter immediately went flying ten feet over the stones and landed with an "Oompf!"

"Oops!" Imoen bit her fingernails. "Sorry Yoshi! I guess I shouldn't use the Staff of the Ram during practice!"

Yoshimo sprang up and laughed it off. He held his feather aloft mock-menacingly and declared, "Yoshimo shall strike back when you least expect it!" Imoen bit her tongue but couldn't help giggling hysterically.

**********

Sporting clean blue dragonscales and a short crop of light brown hair, Onyx was whistling a merry tune as went for a stroll through one of the orange orchards outside the city. He enjoyed looking down each row of trees as he went by, the 'hallways' each one created, the endless little pattern that it made. It had a certain rhythm, and an orchard also had a certain harmony, he thougth to himself; the land was productive for men, but no less fertile for it.

His idle philosophical musing was interrupted as he walked by another row, and about a dozen trees down, a figure cartwheeled out from behind one. It had the build of a man, but he was completely cloathed save for his eyes in an orange-and-black ninja uniform, and had several weapons over his back. Looks like Yoshimo in one of his more ostentatious outfits, Onyx chuckled to himself. His thoughts were pulled away when the figure turned toward him and struck a menacing pose, and seemed to reach over his shoulder with one hand.

"GET OVER HERE!" the ninja shouted, and his hand lashed out from his shoulder, now gripping some sort of spearhead. The ninja tossed it from his hand, and Onyx saw that the spearhead had a rope trailing it.

The cavalier barely managed to sidestep the spear as it flew past his head, and as he did so reached over his own right shoulder and grabbed his throwing axe. "GET THIS!" he shouted back and hurled it. The ninja let the end of the rope sail out of his hand, and stared down the axe as it approached him. Just before it cleaved into his chest, the space around him distorted briefly, and he disappeared.

Onyx looked around cautiously. Was the mysterious figure gone or not? He heard a faint whistling sound behind himself, and turned just in time to realize that the sound was of a spear sailing through the air. Onyx began to move to dodge, but it sailed into his stomach, cleanly piercing right through his blue dragonscales and tearing into his abs. He winced as the bards hooked painfully in his muscles.

"COME HERE!" the ninja yelled and jerked the spear back with astounding strengthat that sent the cavalier flying into the air helplessly. He sailed in a shallow arc towards his foe, who kept reeling in the rope. Just before Onyx landed, the ninja jerked back into a crouch and then sprang up again with an uppercut that connected solidly with Onyx's jaw the moment his boots touched the ground, ripping the spear out of his stomach as he went flying high into the air and spitting blood.

Onyx crashed onto his back, and glanced down past his feet to see the ninja leaping into the air and pointing an orange boot at him for a stomp kick. The cavalier rolled out of the way just as the ninja's foot landed where his face had been, and sprang up while drawing his greatsword off the sheath on his back. The ninja seemed to flinch briefly as Carsomyr glinted in the sunlight, but did a backflip just in time to dodge its first slash. He pulled a katana from his back as he landed on his feet again, and crossed it with the next swing of Onyx's blade.

The bloodflow from his mouth and pierced stomach slowing as the wounds regenerated, Onyx continued to hack at his enemy, who managed to parry or dodge each blow and tag him with the heel of his boot or the tip of his katana several times. By quickly sidestepping a flashing overhead swing, the cavalier found the time to swing his own sword up and slice a gash in his opponent's chest, and by spinning the sword in both hands, brought it up past the other side of his arms, making a parallel slice, and as the ninja stumbled back the arcing avenger made a third upwards swing into his chest that knocked him off his feet and flying some twenty paces through the air before crashing into a tree, sending oranges that matches his suit falling down around him.

Onyx arched an eyebrow as he noticed the wounds he'd made in his enemy's chest, out of which no blood poured, but rather flames licked. "Who is this guy, some hellspawn wraith?" the cavalier muttered to himself.

The ninja grabbed his mask and pulled it off, but rather than it coming off his mostly-occluded face, the face itself came off like part of the mouth, revealing a skull with a great rictus skin and burning fires in its eyes.

"Man, I hate it when I'm right," Onyx sighed and held Carsomyr at the ready. Just then the wraith-ninja opened its bony jaw and a massive jet of flame billowed forth from its mouth and consumed the cavalier.

It dissapated after a moment, but rather than a charred hulk, Onyx stood there with Carsomyr resheathed on his back, calmly brushing back his slighly singed hair with one hand and holding out a holy symbol of Lathander with the other. "A lukewarm attempt to finish me," he chuckled at the ninja, "Now it's my turn."

The skull-headed ninja took one look at the holy symbol and gave in inhuman shriek of terror. The holy symbol began to glow as if with sunlight, and the wraith exploded, sending bones, fire, and cloth everywhere.

"Talk about religious intolerance," Onyx sighed.

**********

"So where'd you get that feather anyway, Yoshi?" Imoen asked, nudging against the bounty hunter's arm.

Yoshi wrapped the arm around Imoen's waist and held aloft with the other the feather in question. "Our trip to Maztica! Remember all the plumes the eagle knights we fought Yamash with wore?"

"Neat-o!" Imoen laughed.

"I even made a necklace from fangs from the helmets of jaguar knights I slew." He pulled his jerkin open, showing off the tooth necklace.

"Show-off!" Imoen teased him, eyeing more than the necklace itself the pecs on which it rested.

"Hey, Ono!" Yoshimo called out suddenly and Imoen's head spun.

"Hey big bro! Watcha up to!" the pink-haired girl called as she espied her brother walking up. Imoen noticed the singed tips of his hair and exclaimed, "Whoa! Aerie confuse Melf's Massage with Burning Hands again?"

"Err, no," the cavalier grinned a mite sheepishly as Imoen leapt up on him and he caught her in a hug. "This mysterious spear-hurling orange ninja attacked me in the orange orchard east of here just now!"

Yoshimo frowned and scratched his braided black hair. "Scorpion? But he's..."

"Undead," boomed a voice at the same moment the clear sky flashed white, and all three turned to face the voice.

"Kan! Heya nephew!" Imoen shouted with glee as she saw the ethereal form of a white-robed blonde monk standing in the pavilion before them. "Who's he?" She pointed inquisitively at the figure next to him, an extremely tall man in a white fighting robe and a conical straw hat.

The man's eyes flashed like lightning and he boomed, "I am Raiden, god of thunder and lightning and protector of Earthrealm."

"Er, I thought that was Talos?" Imoen scratched her pink hair as Onyx and Yoshimo flanked her in silence. "What's Earthrealm?"

"Another universe," Kan stated matter-of-factly, "As Talos and I are gods here, so Raiden is a god there."

"So," Onyx spoke up, "Who was that freak who ambushed me then? And why?"

Raiden nodded to Yoshimo as he answered, "The ninja spectre Scorpion. He was sent by sorcerer Shang Tsung to assassinate his percieved opponents in the next tournament of Mortal Kombat."

"The next tournament is being held in Toril again?" Yoshimo asked the tall thunder-god.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Onyx gripped his head. "Now I'm even more confused." Imoen nodded enthusiasically.

Kan and Raiden exchanged glanced, and then Raiden spoke again.

"From the realm of Outworld, the emporer Shao Kahn sought for millenia to conquer other worlds. In order to open a gate for his armies to pour through, his minions have competed against the best warriors of Earthrealm, Toril, and other worlds in the tournaments of Mortal Kombat. He was betrayed and slain by his sorcerer Shang Tsung, who has no soul and absorbs those of fallen warriors."

Onyx, Imoen, and Yoshimo exchanged glances. That sounded rather familiar.

"Yes," Raiden said as if reading their thoughts, "It does. Shang Tsung tried to tap into the heavens of Earthrealm as a source of souls, but has been thus far foiled. His eye now turns to other worlds. It is now known that the wizard of your world, Joneleth Irenicus, escaped from the ninth hell to a little-known portal to Outworld. He has now allied with Shang Tsung, for together they believe they can tap into the souls of Earthrealm and your world."

Kan picked up, "You surmised correctly, Yoshimo, the next tournament will be held on Toril."

"Shang Tsung's island palace off the coast of Kozakura?" the bounty hunter asked, and Kan nodded in response.

"Shangy Tsuwhatever sounds like a real meanie," Imoen wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out. She then held a hand up and a small fire bloomed from her palm. "I can play meaner," she grinned darkly.

Yoshimo folded his hands over his chest and frowned. "Irenicus has tampered with all of our souls..."

"...He will not touch another," Onyx clenched his fists.

"Once there, you will be joined by Earthrealm warriors," Raiden stated.

"...and face both Shang Tsung's agents and Irenicus's more familiar associates," added Kan.

Electricity crackled around Raiden and a portal opened between him and Kan. The thunder-god's eyes flashed and he stated, "We must stop this deadly alliance."

******************

LET KOMBAT BEGIN / KOMRADE KOMBATANTS: FELLOWSHIP IN THE RING

No sooner had Onyx, Imoen and Yoshimo stepped through the portal in Neverwinter than they found themselves standing on a tranquil beach; as sunny and warm as the garden pavilion they had just left. Raiden still stood before them, and electricity crackled around him as he opened another rift just as the one they'd come through closed.

A tall, muscular man walked out of the portal. He wore rugged blue pants and a black leather jacket. He had a handsome face with a huge pearly grin under a shiny crop of light brown hair; and between them wore shaded spectacles.

"Hey!" he walked immediately up to Onyx and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "One of my stunt doubles is competing too! Cool! Wow, nice getup!" he looked down over the cavalier's blue dragonscale armor. "You just get off the set of The King Returns?"

Imoen exchanged confused glances with Yoshimo. The guy did look like her brother, although with a more even tan, and more neatly cut (and inexplicably shiny) hair. Across the back of his leather jacket was a large silver star with the words "Johny Cage" embossed on it.

Onyx was looking confusedly at the guy, and about to say something, but then another figure strode out of the portal, wearing clothes that made it relatively obvious she was a woman. She had green leggings made of some extremely thin, tight material, and a matching halter top. Her lips were ruby red, her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she had numerous pieces of strange metallic equipment strapped to her thighs, belt, and around her wrists.

She glanced at Imoen, and then shot an indignant look at the black-spectacled man. "Not just a stunt double, Johny, but your costar as well?" she glared at Imoen and gave a disgusted frown with her full lips. "Geez, I can't believe she played me. She hardly has muscles at all," she flexed her own biceps proudly, "Oh, and the pink dye job doesn't surprise me. I heard she wasn't a natural blonde." She folded her arms and squinted daggers at Imoen. "And don't think I didn't hear how you really got the part."

"Hey, babe, chill out!" Johny Cage shrugged and reached out an arm towards her waist, which she promptly withdrew. "Steven Steelman does the casting, not me!"

The woman sighed with disgust as a third figure walked out of the portal. Another human woman, she wore a tight blue fighting suit over her body, but her limbs were bare save for matching blue gloves and boots. She had a waist-length black ponytail and a mask over the lower half of her face, and her gracefully slanted eyes peered out over it. Two of what Yoshimo recognized as collapsed folding fans hung from her belt.

"Liu?" she looked back at the bounty hunter with raised eyebrows, and pulled down her mask to reveal a copper-colored pretty face. "Liu! You're alive!" she sprang at Yoshimo and hugged him while he gritted his teeth in nervous confusion and shot Imoen a hapless look.

"Okay, okay, what the heck is goin' on here?" Onyx and Johny Cage shouted together in perfectly tone-matched voices, waving their hands with the same exasperated gestures.

"Ahem," Raiden called from aside the disappeared portal. "Onyx, Imoen, and Yoshimo, meet Johny Cage, Lieutenant Sonya Blade, and Princess Kitana; and vice versa."

"Hey," Onyx and Johny shook hands. Imoen and Sonya continued scowling at each other, and Yoshimo politely bowed and kissed the gloved hand of a rather disappointed-looking Kitana.

"So are you one of my new doubles then?" Johny asked the cavalier. "I don't think I've heard your name."

Sonya smacked her forehead and even Raiden let out a slight groan. "Johny Cage," the thunder-god spoke calmly, "Onyx is your mirror. He is the you of a parallel universe, and you are thus to him."

"Hmmm," the smiling man scratched his prominent chin, "That sounds like a good idea for a movie."

"Uh, Johny?" Sonya glared at him. "It's been done."

"By me?" the movie star scratched his head.

"No, doofus," Sonya sighed. "Jet Lu." She then looked back at Imoen and groaned "Ugh! Don't tell me she's my clony-whatever." When Raiden gave her a firm nod, she threw up her hands in frustration. ?Remind me never to dye my hair pink or cut it like that!?

Kitana and Yoshimo exchanged curious glances, looking over each others' understandably dissimilar bodies. "We aren't mirrors, are we?" they asked apprehensively.

"No," Raiden stated with no hint of amusement, "Kitana's mirror is the warrior Tamako or Kara-Tur. Yoshimo, your mirror is the Shaolin monk Liu Kang."

"Was," Kitana looked at the ground. She turned to Yoshimo and explained, "Liu was Earthrealm's greatest champion of Mortal Kombat. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi ambushed him before the last tournament. He...he is dead."

"I knew him not, but I regret his passing, and your sorrow," Yoshimo looked at the princess compassionately.

Onyx and Imoen exchanged glances that both read deja vu.

"So you're from Earthrealm then?" Onyx asked Johny, and now Imoen slapped her forehead.

"Yeah! Sonya too!" Cage chuckled, then looked suspiciously at his mirror. "Wait..you haven't heard of me?" He looked at Raiden. "Whoa?they don't have movies in Toril?" Sonya and Imoen exchanged their first friendly glance of mutual frustration.

"I, however," Kitana looked at the three Faerunians, "Am from the realm of Edenia. It was beautiful and peaceful once, ten thousand years ago, before the invasion from Outworld..." she trailed off and looked longingly at the sea.

"And that," Raiden spoke to all six of them, "Is what will happen again, here and on Earth, if you should fail." He then pointed up the beach, to the island's lone mountain, upon which a beautiful yet forbidding palace sprawled.

*********

"How do you know we aren't just walkin' into a trap, mister thunder-guy?" Imoen asked Raiden innocently as she bounced along beside the straw-hatted god, who stood several heads above her.

"This is a tournament of combat, not treachery," Raiden stated as he led the group through the front gates of the palace.

"Like when Tangy Tonguey ambushed big bro?" Imoen pouted sarcastically.

Kitana answered, "Sorcerer Shang Tsung is clever. Your brother was not yet a Kombatant."

Raiden turned to Onyx and spoke, "From what I understand of paladins of your world, you should find Mortal Kombat to your liking."

"Then you misunderstand. We do not find any combat to our liking, but rather a duty," the cavalier answered solemnly.

The thunder-god impassively continued, "It is combat as it should be. It is a sacred arrangement of duels between warriors. No innocent bystanders to be hurt, no poison while you dine or daggers while you sleep."

"It is my experience," Onyx answered, "That evil agrees to or suggests rules in order to cage good while it slinks around or breaks through them."

Raiden stated, "Shang Tsung is a serpent, but you will find that understanding Mortal Kombat will allow you to forsee your enemy's moves and your own during the tournament just as understanding mortal combat will during the fight."

Onyx nodded pensively as Raiden led them to the end of the hallway, which opened into a magnificent vaulted chamber. Most of the room was a sunken pit filled with tables laden with food and drink, at which warriors of all stripes sat, most of them humans, but a few of them elves, dwarves, or others. Some of them had clothing that looked strange to Onyx, Imoen, and Yoshimo; others in garb that looked archaic to Cage, Sonya, and Kitana. At the back of the room was a raised stone stage, and three tunnels at the back of it leading deeper into the palace.

"Wow!" Johny Cage exclaimed. "Some of these guys look like the extras from my Master of the Rings movies." Sonya rolled her eyes and sighed. "What?" the movie star shrugged at his girlfriend. "You've seen Brotherhood of the Ring and The Two Castles, don't you agree baby?"

Raiden's eyes flashed. "It is about to begin. I must go." He turned around to the six warriors and stated, "Remember, the essence of Mortal Kombat is not death, but life." With that his body melted into a glowing silhouette of electricity and was gone.

A gong sounded from the direction of the stage, and the many heads in the room turned to look up at it. Lines of figures began marching silently out of the right and left tunnels onto the stage.

On the left side of the stage, the first figure out was a short, rotund person with a large beard, a horned helm, a large age hefted over his shoulder in one hand, and a mug of ale in the other.

"Korgan Bloodaxe?" Yoshimo gaped in disbelief, as the dwarf on the stage slurped his beer carelessly and it trickled over his beard.

The next two figures out of the tunnel behind the berserker where two female humans. The first one was an extremely muscular woman with rather well-fitting platemail on her body, a purple diamond tattooed over her eye, and long brown hair and a greatsword running down her back. The next one wore equally tight leather, similar brunette hair, and had a shortbow and a number of small blades strapped to her.

"Oooh!!" Imoen squealed and clasped her hands over her mouth. "It's Shar-Teel! She was mean! And Safana. She was, um..." the mage glanced up at her brother, "...a bad girl!"

"Immy, Immy, Immy," Onyx sighed and wrapped an arm around his sister compassionately. "I never for a second considered replacing the girl who could pick my locks...or heart." He kissed the top of her head and she smiled. Then, glancing up at Yoshimo, he hastily added, "Well, until I had too." The bounty hunter bit his lip apologetically.

As fairly uniform and nondescript minion-men began to file out behind these three, the party turned their attention to the right tunnel. The line was led by a muscular, thugging-looking man who wore a metal-studded black and red fighting suit and more stubble on his face than his head. Most prominently of all, the entire region around his left eye was made of solid steel, and from the metallic eye socket glowed a beady red light.

"Kano," Sonya Blade sneered, balling her fists and gnashing her teeth.

The burly thief glanced down into the audience, and as his eye fixed on the lieutenant, the red light briefly went out as if winking, then he blew a kiss down in her direction. His eye moved a second later, toward Imoen, and then the man held up two fingers and blew two kisses.

"He looks like a bully!" Imoen stuck her tongue out at him. "You don't scare us! Does he, Sonya?" the girl looked at her blonde-ponytailed mirror, who shook her head resolutely.

The man behind Kano looked to Onyx similar to the wraith, Scorpion, he'd fought outside Neverwinter, but his ninja uniform was blue rather than orange, and a scar ran down the left side of what little face the mask showed.

"Sub-Zero?" Johny Cage's jaw dropped as he looked at the ninja. "I thought he was on our side!" He looked at Sonya and Kitana, who merely shrugged helplessly.

The figure behind Sub-Zero was a similarly dressed ninja, who wore green rather than blue, and following him were goons matching those opposite.

"Reptile," Kitana frowned at the green ninja, "Still not extinct."

The two columns of turned inwards once they reached the front of the stage, and each came to a halt and turned towards the tables once Korgan and Kano were about ten feet apart.

Another gong sounded, and now two, and only two, figures walked abreast out of the central tunnel. Each wore loose black pants, one had a single black strap going up the center of his otherwise bare chest, the other had two; and each had a face with black paint or perhaps tattoos around the eyes and mouth, giving a sinister mask-like appearance.

The six warriors all exchanges glances; nothing need be said of these two.

"Welcome, honored guests..." boomed in a loud and gleeful voice the man with a strap over each shoulder, Shang Tsung.

"...to Mortal Kombat," echoed in a loud but dead monotone the one with a single strap leading up to his neck, Joneleth Irenicus.

"Treasure these moments..." the sorcerer crooned.

"...as if they were your last," the wizard uttered.

"Feast and rest well tonight..."

"...for tomorrow, it begins."

*********

Far up on one of the island's wider beaches, nestled into the jungles that wreathed the island's mountain, stood a circular stone dias about a hundred paces in diameter that stood a few feet out of the sand. The large stone disc was smooth and white, and across the top was imposed an emblem of a dragon.

A few paces back from the ring was a small gazebo, and in it twin thrones. One bore on its head a matching dragon emblem, and in it sat Shang Tsung. The other a skull emblem, and in it sat Jon Irenicus.

Numerous people stood in a wide ring at the edge of the circular platform, the warriors and minions from the feast the night before, and among them stood Onyx, Johny Cage, Yoshimo, and Kitana. The four looked apprehensively at the middle of the ring, for there stood Imoen and Sonya.

"I don' really like the way these creeps look at us," Imoen glared at the crowd, from which a large number of leering catcalls came. "Can we please beat them all up today, Sonie? Huh, can we?"

"No, Imoen,," Sonya Blade sighed at her mirror, whom she had let (after much, much pestering on the girl's part) borrow one of her green spandex leotards. Imoen now looked like a pink-haired (and much peppier) version of her. "Combat begins today and many of these warriors from my world and yours will face Shang's minions, whom they now cheer alongside."

"I hope they learn some manners then!" Imoen stuck her tongue out at the crowd. Unfortunately, the signal was misinterpreted by many of the ruffians, who only made more, louder, and more explicit jeers.

"Aye, me mummie tried teachin' me manners, but it jost didn't take!" the two women spun to face this new voice, but Sonya recognized it even before she espied the figure pushing his way up through the crowd.

"Kano," she sneered as the infrared-eyed thief hopped up onto the stone platform.

"Allo Sonya!" He chuckled heartily, straightening his red and black robe and blowing her a kiss. "Ya didn't say ya had a twin!" He looked over at Imoen and blew her one. "Ahh, I always wanted meself a li'l twinsy action, ya know?"

"Me too." Imoen and Sonya glanced the other way, to see the Amazonian figure of Shar-Teel leaping up onto the opposite side of the platform.

"Aye, the more the merrier," Kano chuckled.

"Pathetic man," the tattooed warrior glared at her teammate, "You're not invited."

"Ewwww," Imoen wrinkled her nose and whispered to Sonya, "We traveled together before! She was mean! She hated bro! And I, uh...wish she had just hated me!"

Shang Tsung stood up from his throne and declared, ?Let Mortal Kombat begin!?

"Finders keepers, baby!" Kano shouted over their heads to Shar-Teel, popped a bowie knife out of his belt and tossed it idly once to himself, catching it by the blade. Shar-Teel pulled a throwing dagger from the cleavage of her armor and held it ready.

"Uh, oh..." Imoen squealed, and poised herself. As Kano and Shar-Teel threw their knives, she and Sonya cartwheeled apart.

"Watch it, you cow!" Kano growled as Shar-Teel's dagger grazed his shoulder.

"Ah! Imbecilic male!" Shar-Teel grunted as the thief's knife landed shallowly in her armored thigh.

"Nya nya nya nya boo boo!" Imoen thumbed her nose at Kano as she ran around the outside of the circle.

"Get back here, you!" the one-eyed thug shouted and chased after her.

"You want me?" Sonya glared down Shar-Teel, who smirked back. "You got it!" With that she dashed toward the muscle-bound woman, pulling two kali sticks off her belt and waving them menacingly. The amazon grunted and pulled a greatsword off her back, making a mighty overhead swing that she brought down at the approaching lieutenant, who crossed her kali sticks over her head, catching the falling sword but almost collapsing under the sheer force of the swing. Sonya's knees buckled, but she pressed off the ground with both feet, pushing her crossed weapons up and then springing off the ground and kicking Shar-Teel in the face in midair.

The huge woman stumbled back and grunted, spitting a smattering of blood, and Sonya continued to assault her with rapid spinning kali stick blows upon her chest and face. Shar-Teel swung her sword around overhead and then brought it in from the side to cleave in half Sonya, who dropped to the stones to duck the swing, spinning into a sweep kick that swept Shar-Teel's legs out from under her and sent her sprawling to the stones.

"Come back here, pretty-pretty!" Kano shouted as he kept chasing Imoen around the perimeter of the circle. "I'll play nice with ya, aye?"

"Play with this, meanie!" Imoen spun on a dime, pressed her palms together, and sent a barrage of magic missiles flying from her hands.

"Oomph-oomp-oomph!!" Kano grunted as they slammed into his chest, but kept his feet. He craned his head forward, staring at Imoen. His cybernetic eye began to glow brighter and a red laser beam shot from it towards the mage.

The laser beam zapped Imoen's collar and moved south, burning an incision down the middle of her tight green top. "Aye, that's more like it!" the laser-eyed Kano chuckled as the spandex peeled apart. "I rather like that look on you."

"Ooo!" Imoen growled. "You...you nasty scumy slimeball meany!" Just before disaster struck, she grabbed a shiny dagger from her belt and stuck it through the laser beam, which immediately reflected it back at the cycloptic thief.

"Bollocks!" Kano cursed and terminated the redirected beam as it struck him in a rather embarrassing place.

"Not anymore!" Imoen laughed, but noticed the sudden surge in volume from the crowd. She looked down at the cleavage her now-very-low-cut halter top was displaying, and with an "Eep!" folded her hands nervously over her chest.

After sweeping Shar-Teel, Sonya followed through on her spin and then brought her kali sticks down upon her fallen foe. The fighter let her greatsword go and reached up to catch the sticks, grunting as they stung her palms but quickly grasping them. Sonya tried to pull them back, but Shar-Teel then jerked back herself and pulled her light foe off her feet.

Sonya groaned as she was thrown through the air and smashed onto the stone ten feet away, and looked up while spitting blood to see Shar-Teel tossing her weapons away into the crowd. The special forces agent sprang up in a second and leapt fistfirst into the air, and before Shar-Teel could retrieve her sword from the ground, Sonya?s flying fist smashed across her jaw and they both fell to the ground. Shar-Teel immediately wrapped her bulging arms around her thin foe's waist and began to squeeze, feeling for ribs and applying pressure to crack them. Sonya elbowed her in the face, breaking the woman's grip for the moment, but before she could spring up the huge woman had grabbed her again, and she found herself embroiled in a desperate wrestling match.

Kano growled and began charging his pink-haired prey. Imoen stared him down and began to chant, but the thief sprang off his feet mightily, folding into a little ball in the air and hurtling towards her like a catapult stone. He crashed into the little thief and sent her sprawling, and once he planted his feet on the ground again drew two butterfly knives and chuckled menacingly as he strode over to where she lay.

He roared and brought both daggers sinking down into the stomach of his prostrate prey, but just as he pierced her flesh, she simply vanished. "What the..." he looked up, peering with his mismatched eyes, and suddenly realized he was surrounded by almost a dozen pink-haired foes.

"Catch me if ya can, bruty-boy!" they all laughed at him in unison. Then they began to chant and wave their arms, and Kano stabbed and swung at them with his knives, but each time he struck one of the images, it simply vanished into air, and he growled with frustration. Just as he was about to plunge both knives into the last one with a confident grunt, she finished her chant, pushed her palms at him together, and a horrific purplish-gray cloud of energy emitted from her hands, disintegrating his daggers.

"Wot the...?" Kano growled in confusion as his forearms disintegrated, then his upper arms, then his entire body collapsed into dust, and his metal eye-implant hung for a second in midair before falling six feet onto a newly created pile of Kano-dust.

"Fatality," Irenicus declared impartially from his throne behind the roaring crowd.

Imoen looked over at the other pair. Shar-Teel had grabbed Sonya around the waist and picked up her, holding the much shorter woman upside-down and preparing to pile-drive her. Just before she sprang off the ground, Imoen's mirror wrapped her legs around the woman's thick neck, squeezing it between her knees. Shar-Teel's face began to turn a purple to match her diamond tattoo, and let go of Sonya. The Earthrealm woman simply planted her arms down and remained in a handstand, tightening her legs around Shar-Teel?s throat.

Sonya tried twisting her legs to break Shar-Teel's neck, but it was simply too thick with knotty muscles. After the burly woman went limp, Sonya released her legs and cartwheeled out of her handstand and stood again. Shar-Teel fell to her knees, and sat looking up at Sonya, nearly unconscious, her purple tongue hanging limply out of her mouth.

"Finish her!" Shang Tsung commanded from outside the circle.

Sonya took a handful of powder from a pouch strapped to her thigh, and breathed lightly over it, causing a small cloud of fire to billow from her hand. She then pointed her hand and pursed lips toward Shar-Teel, and took a deep breath.

From the audience, Onyx looked skeptically at Johny Cage and chuckled, "And I thought my lover was the only one who used a spell component for lipstick.?

The movie star grinned back, "Don't take her out for Mexican or Indian then. Trust me."

"Wait!" Imoen ran up to Sonya and tugged her arm, and the inhaling lieutenant turned to give her a peevish face. "She's...Shar-Teel's not that bad! I don't wanna kill her! Can't you show her mercy or somethin'?"

"Last time I did," Sonya sneered and nodded in the direction of Kano's ash-heap, "I lost a partner for my troubles.?

"Please?" Imoen pouted at her mirror. "I got to know her back home. She just had a bad childhood 'n stuff."

"Hmmm," the blonde-ponytailed woman mused, "I might know a way to take care of that."

"Whoa!" Imoen clapped her hands excitedly as Sonya began to gesture towards the barely-conscious Shar-Teel and chant, "You know magic too? Neat-o!!"

When Sonya finished her utterance, Shar-Teel began to polymorph and shrink. She got smaller and smaller until that was left was a little brown-haired baby girl in a tiny suit of platemail.

"Babality!" Shang Tsung shouted from his throne with an amused laugh.

"Coochy-coochy-coo!" Imoen giggled as she picked up baby Shar-Teel. "Now auntie Immy is gonna raise you right!"

"Gag me," Sonya rolled her eyes.

***

KOMBAT KONTINUES

?So wait, these paladins can like, just see who's evil?" Johnny Cage asked Onyx as the two tall warriors strode through one of the beautiful gardens outside Shang Tsung?s palace.

"Well, yeah," the cavalier answered, "But sometimes 'evil' guys can help you and vice ver-"

"Oh yeah, that?s great for plot twists!" Johnny Cage nodded enthusiastically. "Cool! This paladin thing is cool! I definitely need to get Steven Steelman to get me starring as one! Hmmm...'Knight Rider', 'Twelfth Knight,' whaddaya think, dude?"

Onyx shrugged. "Johnny, I don't even really know what you're talking about."

"Well, you know acting?"

"Ah," Onyx nodded, 'So you're sort of a bard then?"

"What, like with a guitar?" Johnny scratched his brunette head and adjusted his sunglasses. "Nah, we call those rock stars."

The cavalier sighed with confusion.

"Okay, it's like this," Cage began explaining, "So you said a paladin has to like, be charismatic as well as tough, to set a good example to people, redeem bad guys, and effectively convey his cause and beliefs and stuff?"

"Yep," Onyx nodded. ?So??

"So an action star is the same thing!" Cage laughed and pointed a thumb at himself. "You and I both can't just kick butt...we have to look good doin' it!"

"Er, something like that," the cavalier grimaced. "Hey, did you hear that?" he suddenly looked around suspiciously, and put his hands on two of his many weapon hilts.

"Huh?" Cage looked around, putting his taped fists up. "Do you ?detect evil? or whatever?"

"No," Onyx shook his head, "But I told you that's not a catch all..."

Immediately a figure sprang out from behind a plum tree in the distance, as did another from behind a rose bush in the opposite direction.

"...as you can see," the cavalier finished with a touch of irony. "Is that the one you called Sub-Zero?" He pointed toward the blue-suited ninja approaching them, and Cage nodded.

"I forgot the name of the babe," Johnny Cage gestured toward the other figure, a leather-clad brunette.

"Safana," Onyx rolled his eyes, "Oh wow she?s so beautiful. I'm so overcome with desire to lay down my weapons and..."

"Well, she is does look like a good catch," Cage added, apparently immune to the sarcasm.

"?And a good aim," Onyx added as he noticed the woman drawing a bow. "Heads up!"

The cavalier and the movie star jumped aside as an arrow flew between them. As it flew on, Sub-Zero casually flinched out of its path as he advanced. The blue ninja then stopped, and began to wave his arms around in a spherical pattern, drawing moisture from the air around him and creating a floating ball of ice.

"Cold magic," Onyx appraised the casting ninja. "I'll handle him."

"Alright!" Johnny Cage laughed. "I get the babe!"

The movie star began to dash towards the archer. After dashing behind a tree as the next arrow sailed by, he sprang out again and then ran at full speed up to her. He jumped into the air, lifting one leg forward, and started moving so fast that he seemed to Safana to blur before her eyes, trailing by his very shadows, and before her next arrow was ready his foot slammed into her, knocking the bow from her hands and sending her sprawling to the ground.

"Johnny Cage at your service," the kicker grinned down at the thief, tossing off his leather jacket to reveal a perfectly-waxed-and-tanned-and-muscular chest.

"Johnny Cage!?!?" Safana's jaw dropped as she hopped up. "Omigod! Kano showed me all your movies! This is so cool!"

"You know," Johnny flashed his patented pearly smile, "I do my own WHOA!!!"

Safana jumped up and kicked him square in the chest, and before she had landed palm-handed him twice in the face, cracking his sunglasses and sending from flying from his face.

"Aw man!" Cage groaned as he looked down at his smashed sunglasses. "You wouldn't know a good place to get sungl-OW" Safana kicked him in the stomach, then rapidly again in the face. He quickly recovered and lunged towards her, but as he went for a left hook, the thief did a split and dropped to the ground.

While staring at him at belt level, she reeled a fist back and socked him square in the groin while cooing "Trust me, I'd rather be..."

"OW!" Cage groaned, backing up and holding himself gingerly. "Hey, that's my move!"

"Like I said, hot stuff," Safana tossed her hair back glamorously as she stood up from her split, "I saw all your movies."

While Sub-Zero prepared his icy treat, Onyx calmly marched towards him, drawing Hangard's Axe from over his shoulder and hurling it at the ninja. Sub-Zero cast the icy orb just before sidestepping the flying axe, and watched as his freeze blast sailed right into the knight, who kept moving.

"Brrrr," Onyx called sarcastically as the throwing axe sailed back into his hand.

Sub-Zero calmly began to draw in moisture again, and the cavalier chuckled to himself until the ninja then sent the icy blast at the ground just in front of him.

"Whoa-oa-oa!" Onyx cried as a smooth layer of slippery ice immediately crept over the ground all around him, and he began to slip and slide helplessly over it right towards his foe. Sub-Zero poised at the edge of the ice, and timed a punch to hit Onyx right in his helmed head just as he sailed into range. The ninja then brought the hand back, elbowing his foe along the way, repeated the combo with the other hand, then spun around and hit the cavalier with a roundhouse kick that sent him flying all the way back across the ice.

Johnny Cage swung a fist out in a hook after removing his hands from his nethers, but Safana tucked and rolled between his long legs, springing up behind him, drawing a shortsword from her thigh, and planting it between his shoulderblades. The movie star groaned and bright red blood spurted from his back as the thief removed her blade and drew a second one from her other thigh. Before she could backstab Cage again, he?d spun around while yanking his nunchucks from his belt, and twirled them around the wrist of her stabbing arm. He grabbed the other end of his nunchucks with his other hand and tightening them, his biceps bulging as he yanked the lithe lady off her feet and sent her flying though the air.

Cage folded his nunchucks in one hand while swinging his fist through the air with the other, shouting a strange keop as green fire began to emanate from his arm, coalescing into a burning emerald orb and flying from the end of his fist, zooming into Safana and burning her as she crashed into the ground.

Sub-Zero dashed past flower bushes toward the sprawled Onyx, gathering moisture from the air which he formed not into another orb, but into a massive kori blade of solid ice. The cavalier rolled backwards as he swung at down at him, and as he made a second swing, Onyx popped up, drew his fiery sword Angurvadal from a hip scabbard, and crossed it with his weapon. Steam billowed around the engaged warriors as the fire and ice swords pressed against one another.

The knight broke the stalemate by pulling the Flail of Ages off his belt with his left hand and swinging it at Sub-Zero?s knees, forcing the ninja to jump over it and backflip out of the melee. Onyx swung at him with the flail again, but Sub-Zero leapt forward, kicking his left forearm and the flail aside, then bringing his other leg up to round kick the cavalier in the side of the head and send him spinning. The ninja came down from his jump with a mighty overheard swing of his ice sword, but the knight followed through on his spin and brought Angurvadal back up just in time to parry it. Onyx then swung the Flail of Ages up into Sub-Zero?s stomach as he landed, and the sheer impact of the blow stunned the ninja and he stumbled back, dazed and barely moving.

Johnny Cage dashed forward and grabbed Safana around the waist as she was getting up from the ground, picked her up, and threw her over his head. She crash-landed and rolled across the grass. Before she could get up, a fiery sword appeared just over her neck, preventing her rise, and she looked up to see Onyx scowling down at her.

Johnny Cage dashed up to them and sighed, ?Man, what a waste,? as he looked down at the lithe thief under the cavalier?s blade. ?And what a waist!?

?Mercy, please!? Safana cried.

?I?d like to, Safana,? Onyx looked down at her compassionately. ?I know you?re not half bad.? He glanced up at Johnny Cage. ?Didn?t you say something about finishing combat in the tournament with a friendship gesture??

?Yep,? Cage grinned. He grinned down at Safana, who smiled back sultrily. ?I think I?ve got just the ticket.? The movie star put away his nunchucks, and pulled out a pen in one hand and glamour photograph of himself in the other. He scrawled ?Safana ? To My Biggest Fan. Love, Johnny Cage,? across the photo and handed it to her.

?Wow!? Safana yelped with excitement and sprang up as Onyx withdrew his sword. She leapt onto Cage and hugged him. ?Wow! A real autographed Johnny Cage portrait. This is so cool!.?

Onyx was looking at them skeptically, but Johnny grinned back, ?Hey man, worked every time back home.?

The cavalier glanced at the stunned Sub-Zero. ?You said he used to be on your side?? he asked Johnny Cage curiously. ?I?d like to be able to spare him too.?

Safana unwrapped herself from the movie star and looked at the ninja. ?Yeah,? she sheepishly smacked her crimson lips ?Dire charm lipstick. I, uh,??

Onyx sighed, ?Oh yeah, Safana, I know. Same ones you used on Coran, right??

The thief grinned guilty. ?Yeah.?

Onyx glanced at Johnny Cage. ?I don?t suppose Sub-Zero was a big fan of yours??

The movie star shrugged, ?Not really. Maybe you could do a friendship move.?

The cavalier scratched his chin and looked at Sub-Zero. Then he walked over to him, put his hands on the ninja?s shoulders, and began to chant. Onyx?s hands flashed blue for a second, and then the ninja?s wounds healed, and at the same moment the cavalier cast a dispel magic upon him.

Sub-Zero?s eyes undilated and he pulled off his mask to reveal a rugged, scarred face under a short mop of black hair, and shook his head violently. ?W-what!? Where am I?? he blinked several times, rubbing traces of crimson lipstick from his lips.

?Hey! Sub!? Johnny Cage laughed, bounding up to the unmasked ninja and patting him on the shoulder boisterously. ?Welcome back!?

Sub-Zero ran his fingers through his black hair and sighed. ?Sorry about almost killing your friend here,? he nodded at Onyx.

?Hey! You wish!? the cavalier chuckled and winked at the ninja while casting a healing spell on Johny Cage?s backstab wound.

Cage hooted and even Sub-Zero grinned and said, ?A good fight, my knightly friend, but far from your last.?

?So,? Onyx glanced at Safana and then Sub-Zero again, ?How did you guys get all mixed up anyway? The last time I heard of you, Safana, you were dueling Nalia de?Arnise in Suldanesellar while I was in Maztica.?

Safana, slipping her Johnny Cage autograph into a pouch of her tight leather armor, began, ?After I escaped from the fight with Nalia and the city, I wandered around Amn and the Sword Coast continuing about my usual ? and, I?ll admit, unfulfilling ? lifestyle of chicanery, until I crossed paths with Kano, ?

?Kano?? Johnny Cage looked confused. ?He was in Toril??

Sub-Zero spoke up, ?Yes. Shang Tsung deployed him in Faerun to gather warriors that Irenicus had hand-picked to hire, with very handsome offers, to fight for him in this tournament. I learned this while spying on Shang Tsung for my ninja clan, the Lin Kieu, and with Raiden?s help followed Kano to this world to track the thief. Unfortunately,? the scarred ninja glanced up at Safana sheepishly, ?I underestimated the magical powers of this world, and Safana charmed me quite easily with a sirenesque ruse. While Kano hired Korgan and Shar-Teel as well and we sailed on the long voyage from Athkatla to Kozakura, a kiss from Safana each day was all it took to keep me an enchanted slave.? Sub-Zero folded his hands as if in prayer and looked down in shame.

?Don?t worry,? Onyx shrugged and gave the ninja a friendly slap on the back, ?Happens to the best of us.?

?A few of you have proved immune,? Safana gave the cavalier a friendly adversarial smirk.

?Safana, Safana, Safana,? Onyx sighed, ?What a rocky road it?s been.?

The thief?s eyes grew moist, and she ran over to the cavalier, who stood a head taller than her, and buried her own against his mailed chest. ?I?m sorry,? she whispered, ?Tell Imoen I?m sorry.?

Onyx kissed the top of her head and warmly said, ?You?ll have the chance to tell her yourself.?

***

BALDUR KOMBAT: THE TWO BRIDGES BETWEEN THE TWO TOWERS

?After Emperor Shao Kahn invaded Edenia and slew my father, the king, he took my mother as bride and myself as adopted daughter. But my mother quickly took her own life, and I was too young to remember any of this. I grew up never knowing of my past, until a few years ago. When I learned of what my adopted father had really done to my homelanded and understood what would happen to other worlds, I decided to betray the Emperor and fight for Earthrealm.?

?Very noble, nobler than I, regrettably, have sometimes been,? said a leather-clad Yoshimo, walking quietly alongside Kitana, who wore her sparing blue fighting suit but left her mask around her collar. They had climbed through the upper towers of the palace, and were just walking out under a full moon night sky onto a balcony of one of the towers, which stretched into a bridge leading to another tall spire at another corner of the palace. A second bridge ran parallel to this one between the towers, and the void between, beneath and around the two bridges led far down into a dark spike pit.

?It was then,? Kitana continued, ?That I met Raiden?s other warriors, including Liu Kang.? The princess stopped walking and turned to face Yoshimo, who returned the gesture. Kitana looked up into his brown eyes with her own, and smiled, her hand briefly lifting from her side and then returning, as if on a reflex. ?Your experiences have weathered you differently, in face and character,? she looked up at the Kara-Turan, ?But I see him in you, again in both, Yoshimo.?

The bounty hunter fidgeted slightly, and looked back down at her graceful face. ?You were close to him, then?? he asked, knowing her answer.

?Yes,? the woman?s eyes flicked down sadly, ?We were in love.?

?I am truly sorry,? Yoshimo nodded compassionately, ?We will avenge him. I will avenge the mirror I wish I had known.?

Kitana smiled up at him, a tear forming in the thin corner of her eye. ?Thank you. Please excuse my manner. It is both wonderful and sad to look upon you, Yoshimo, for it feels as if he lives on, yet I am reminded of his death.?

?I understand,? the bounty hunter whispered, averting his eyes after finding them tracing down her contours, ?Many that I have known and loved passed long ago. I have not been so close to home as I am now in decades, and also many years I lay dead and all that I had before is lost to distance and time. In my new life I both cherish the memory of old loved ones, but when it grieves me, turn my eyes forward and smile upon my new friends.?

Yoshimo found that as he said this, he had turned his head slightly from Kitana and was looking out over the side of the bridge, past the parallel bridge and over the rest of the island and the ocean under the night sky, and also down into the spike-pit below. He had leaned close to her as he spoke in whispers, and as he turned his head back to face her, he saw that she had closed her eyes as if in thought over his words, but once his face met hers again it was now so close that his lips brushed across hers. There is a fine line between accident and instinct, but before he could contemplate such things, he found the gesture returned and his eyes closed peacefully, and the two kissed deeply and embraced, calmly but not dispassionately, for some minutes.

?BUUUURRRRRRRRPPPPPPP!!!!!!?

The two snapped apart, hands going to weapons, but looking about they could see no one.

?I?d recognize that belch anywhere,? Yoshimo snarled and yanked his glimmering katana off his back, ?Face me like a dwarf, Korgan Bloodaxe!?

?Ar har har!!? came a boisterous bodiless voice from some paces down the bridge, ?Invisibility be not so helpful when I can?t be keepin? Shang Tsung?s ?sake? down! It don?t mix with invisibly potions so well. Har!? This laugh was followed by the rapid crunch of boots across the bridge toward them.

Kitana yelled, ?Hide from this, you little monster!? and pulled a fan from her belt, expertly unfolding it in moments to reveal a razor-sharp silver fanblade. She spun the elegant wedge around in both hands, pointing it down the bridge in the invisible dwarf?s direction, and purple ripples of energy began to radiate from the fan as it spun.?

?Oy!!? cried Korgan as he suddenly appeared from nowhere, being helplessly levitated into the air by Kitana?s magic, ?Nobody levitates a dwarf an? be gettin? away with it!? He held hefty axes in each hand and swung them about through the air in vain. While Korgan hung in the air, Kitana leapt up gracefully and kicked him in his big nose with a thin but muscular leg, and then spun around in midair and kicked him in the stomach with her other heel, sending him plunging back onto the stones of the bridge with a loud CRUNCH.

Kitana immediately dashed at the fallen dwarf with unfolded fans in each hand. Yoshimo raised his katana and laughed heartily, but his mirth was cut short when he felt a sharp pain between his shoulderblades. He reflexively dashed forward away from whatever blade was being plunged into his back, even though he recognized the painful feeling of a barbed sword that tore his flesh as it left. He spun around to face a green-suited ninja holding a jagged-edge kirehashi sword with his own red blood on its tip.

?Reptile?? Yoshimo glared at this new foe.

?Yesss. Unlike sssome of my alliesss,? the green ninja nodded past Yoshimo, ?When I am invisssible I can be sssilent asss well.?

?I?ll silence you for good!? Yoshimo roared and swung his katana at Reptile, who parried with his kirehashi. Both warriors lifted legs to kick each other, and their shins crossed. Not to be outdone by the other martial artist, each then sprung off the other leg and leapt into the air, bringing those legs up to kick each other. They sailed up and down, clanging swords and flailing legs, and each landed on his feet and spun away with flashy defensive sword maneuvers before lunging at each other again an engaging in a deadly but artful ninja duel.

Kitana was upon the downed dwarf and swung at him with her fanblades, but he hopped up on his short legs and lifted his twin axes just in time to parry. The woman and the dwarf hacked at each other fiercely, Kitana using her boots to knock aside Korgan?s lower swipes and kick him in the head several times, and at last she managed to slice at him between his helmet and breastplate, and crimson blood spurted eagerly from the dwarf?s neck.

?Ach!? Korgan sputtered and retreated with unexpected quickness on his stubby legs, ?No matter, my pretty! It be takin? more than that to down Korgan Bloodaxe! Har har har raaarr!!!!? the dwarf?s laughs descended into a reckless roar and the spittle issuing from his laughing mouth became a flying froth that Kitana appraised with disgust as bits of it flew onto her copper skin and tight blue clothing. Korgan charged forward in a berserk fury, hacking away like a machine with both axes, both Kitana calmly and gracefully jumped high into the air, landing behind him and tossing one of her fans at him. It spun through the air and sliced neatly through the back of his platemail.

Korgan snarled ferally and spun around with the fan still sticking out of his bleeding back. Kitana tossed her other fan but Korgan crossed his axes over himself and it glanced off them, then the dwarf hurled his own weapons as Kitana dashed at him. She turned sideways to slip between them, but they grazed her, leaving shallow but bloody slices along her stomach and back.

Yoshimo lunged at his foe with his katana thrust forward, but Reptile pulled one arm away from his kirehashi hilt, a shimmering yellow strand of energy trailing between his hands as he did so. The arc of light coalesced into a glowing orb and shot forward at the charging bounty hunter, bursting ethereally against his chest. Yoshimo suddenly found himself catapulted into the air by an unseen force, and Reptile leapt after him, swinging at him with his kirehashi and hitting him so hard the jagged blade not only sliced into his leather armor leaving a slash wound with a series of punctures, but sent him hurtling away from the bridge through the open air over the pits of spikes far below.

Yoshimo kept his wits as he sailed through the sky, and noticed favorably that he was hurtling toward the bridge parallel to the one he?d left. He resheathed his katana on his back, drew a whip from his belt, and slung it forward with an arcing swing of his shoulder. The whip snared around one of the pillars supporting the bridge, and Yoshimo swung underneath the bridge before coming around full circle and landing safely on top of it.

No sooner had he released his whip than he saw Reptile leaping through the air towards him with the kirehashi on his back. The bounty hunter laughed as he realized that the ninja?s trajectory would fall far short of the bridge, but then his jaw dropped open in disbelief as he ninja yanked off his mask in midair to reveal a frightening reptilian face, lashed out from his fanged snout with a long, whiplike tongue, and repeated Yoshimo?s trick of snaring one of the pillars and swinging underneath the bridge before landing on top of it, his tongue recoiling quickly back into his mouth.

Yoshimo leapt into the air with a flying kick aimed at his foe?s reptilian head, but the ninja cartwheeled aside and then jabbed Yoshimo in the ribs as he landed. The bounty hunter recovered and slammed his fists into his opponent?s stomach several times and then palm-struck up across the creature?s extended snout. He shot forward with his other arm, but Reptile dropped and swept Yoshimo?s feet out from under him, then brought an axe-kick down upon the fallen bounty hunter, who rolled out of the way and sprang up while kicking his opponent in the side. Reptile hopped backwards and Yoshimo charged forwards, but then the ninja dropped forward into a roll, bowling through Yoshimo and tripping him over his balled form and then springing up out of his roll while Yoshimo himself crashed into the ground but quickly hopped up again.

As Korgan snarled again and charged in a mindless fury, Kitana leapt forward into the air, spinning around with both legs extended and aerially kicking the dwarf in the face. On her fourth kick, she felt his teeth sink into her bare thigh and screamed as her other foot landed.

?Ow!? she yelled and punched his face, trying to free her leg, but the dwarf kept snarling and biting like a dog. ?You?ll give me rabies!? She yanked his helmet off his head and beat him with it, but it merely echoed off his thick skull.

?Ohhh dwarfie?? she cooed seductively while drawing purplish lipstick from the cleavage of her fighting suit and applying it, ?Wouldn?t you rather feast on a little of this,? she puckered her lips and leaned over, within reach for the dwarf as he bit her leg.

?Oy!? Korgan laughed, releasing her leg and then puckering his own bloody, warty lips, nearly crushing her ribs as he gripped her around the waist. ?Korgan will make ye go berserk when-?.?

?I don?t think so,? Kitana laughed, and just before Korgan pressed his disgusting face into hers, she popped her head up about six inches, grabbed his long beard with both hands and yanked his face down, and quickly planted a kiss on his knotty forehead.

?Yeech!? Kitana hastily wiped her lips off and dashed back from the dwarf as he released her. ?Even that was disgusting!?

?Where ye be goin?, my pretty!?? Korgan growled while stomping his way toward her, ?We just be getting? star-?

Suddenly, Korgan began scratching feverishly at the kiss on his forehead, and his limbs and face grew swollen. They only continued expanding until the already-rotund dwarf was nearly a perfectly sphere.

?Ar!? Korgan yelped, his cheeks puffed up the size of grapefruits, ?Ye be havin? some weird transmittable disea-? BOOM! The ballooned berserker burst and dwarven flesh chunks flew in every direction. Kitana crouched and shielded her eyes as bits of blood and entrails streaked her otherwise-beautiful figure.

Kitana stood and looked over at the other bridge, where Yoshimo and Reptile were engaged in furious hand-to-hand-combat. Kitana grabbed her fans from the scattered Korgan-gore and hung them from her belt, then took a running leap off the side of the bridge toward the other one. As her feet left the edge of the stone, she leapt superhumanly high into the air in a graceful fist-forward pose, staring down her knuckles at the reptilian ninja on the bridge.

Reptile sent Yoshimo sprawling to the stones with a roundhouse, and one eye's slit-pupil turned sideways to see the lithe woman flying through the air towards him. He gave a horrible hissing laugh, and turned his head. His mouth opened freakishly wide and he crouched forward, facing the incoming Kitana. His tongue lashed out and wrapped around her in midair, pulling at her and guiding her airborne trajectory straight down his gullet. His neck and torso bulged like a snake?s, his ninja costume ripping to reveal scaly green flesh, as Kitana plunged into his mouth up to her waist. He stood with the woman?s legs sticking out of his mouth, flailing wildly.

Yoshimo got up and watched in horror as the cold-blooded c

Baldur Kombat: Final Kombat

"Yours or mine?" Johnny Cage asked Onyx, squinting through the darkness across the moonlit courtyard.

"Huh?" the cavalier asked.

The movie star pointed as a ponytailed woman in green spandex came running up. "I can't quite make out the hair color in this light," Johnny Cage explained.

"Try taking off your spare sunglasses," Onyx sighed, glancing up at the night sky.

"Oh, yeah! Good thinking," Cage laughed, and picked his shades off his face and deftly folded them with one hand.

"Heya guys!" the woman shouted perkily as she ran up to them.

"Definently Imoen," Onyx chuckled before he'd made out her pink hair. "What's up, sis?" he called out to her.

"Where's Sonya?" Cage asked.

"It's terrible!" the girl's voice grew frightened suddenly. "They got her! Irenicus is holding her host-"

"Say no more!" Johnny Cage cried and lifted a foot to step forward, but Onyx's gauntleted hand shot out in front of his chest.

"Whoa!" Cage looked sidelong at the cavalier. "Are you deaf, man?"

"No," Onyx said calmly, staring carefully at Imoen, as if looking into her, and lowering his hands to weapon hilts at his belt. "But nor am I blind. Tell me, dear sister, why the change of heart all of a sudden?"

Johnny Cage stared at his mirror confusedly, and gasped in surprise when 'Imoen' suddenly morphed into Shang Tsung.

"You will die, mortals!" the sorcerer screamed angrily, pointing an accusing finger at them.

Johnny Cage swung his arm towards the sorcerer, green fire gathering around his fist, and Onyx began sliding the Axe of the Unyielding from its thigh holster, but a purple-suited ninja woman dropped from the ceiling, kicking Johnny Cage in the head and sending him sprawling to the ground, his sunglasses clattering to the stones beside him. Before he could get up she squatted over him, straddling his bare chest with her thighs, and plunged her twin sais into his heart. Onyx turned towards her as he drew out his axe, but felt a terrible pain in his own heart, and looked down in horror as two long blades sprouted from his armored chest, and he was pulled off his feet, hanging skewered in the air.

"Kitana??" Onyx muttered breathlessly as he looked at the ninja woman, blood dribbling out of his mouth, his axe clanging to the ground.

"Bad guess!" laughed the woman who looked like a purple-clothed twin of the princess, until she pulled down her mask to reveal a huge, inhuman mouth with daggerlike teeth. Onyx craned his head around to look at the figure holding him aloft like an impaled animal, to see a 'man' with a similar monsterous grin and swords sprouting from his forearms.

"Ah, Mileena and Baraka," Shang Tsung laughed smugly and eyed the two assassins, clasping his hands with glee. "So fortunate of you to drop in! What a happy meeting!"

"You?cheat!" Onyx growled down at the sorcerer, watching black splotches cloud his vision as his lifeblood quickly spilled out of his punctured chest.

Shang Tsung shrugged faux-innocently and laughed, "'Tis not my job to protect you from every rouge mutant who happens along!"

Onyx felt himself sliding down Baraka's armblades, his pierced heart and lungs no longer working, and spasmed violently several times before blacking out.

"Fatality!" Shang Tsung laughed as Baraka retracted his swords into his forearms and let the motionless knight fall limply to the stone. "Your souls are mine!" The sorcerer extended both hands, palms open, and Johnny Cage's and Onyx's bodies spasmed one final time as their screaming souls were ripped forth and pulled helplessly into Tsung's palms. He closed his hands around them, uncurled them again to reveal nothing, and laughed maniacally while crushing Johnny Cage's sunglasses under the heel of his boot.

**********

Wandering through Shang Tsung's palace, Sonya Blade and Imoen (still wearing one of Sonya's spandex outfits, bearing the revealing alteration Kano's laser had made) made their way down a hallway filled with brightly burning torches, and statues that seemed to move and look at them in the flickering torchlight.

"I'm startin' ta get a lil' worried," Imoen tugged Sonya's hand nervously, "I haven't seen nuthin' of Yoshi or big bro or anyone!"

"The tournament is in its endgame," the lieutenant answered her mirror, "I have overheard from the palace guards that very few of the invited warriors remain, even though it has cost Shang Tsung most of the challengers under his sway and he and Irenicus have themselves been easily dispatching the invitees from Earthrealm and this world."

"Well, those nasty wizards better watch out, cuz they have yet to tangle with Immy and Sonya!" the mage declared, puffing out her underclad chest proudly. "Isn't that right, Sonie?"

Before Sonya answered, the large twin doors at the end of the hallway, which they now drew close to, opened wide and a villainous but gleeful voice boomed through, "Sadly, you are right, dear Imoen! Jon and I have not yet had the?pleasure of your company."

"Truly," echoed an emotionless voice from the same direction, "What has yet come before us has been utterly pathetic."

Sonya and Imoen stepped bravely through the doors, into an ornate and vaulted throne room with red carpeting. The marble walls were covered in rich tapestries, the corners adorned with many statues and artifacts of gold, and at end of the room opposite the doorways, which slammed shut behind the women at the beckoning of some unseen force, sat thin thrones. One bore upon its crest the emblem of the dragon, and in it sat Shang Tsung, who wore a neatly trinned fu man chu beard and looked more vibrant than when the pair had last seen him, during the battle on the beach. The other throne bore upon its crest the emblem of the skull, and in it sat Joneleth Irenicus, who also seemed more full of vigor than Imoen remembered, even though his face remained an emotionless mask.

"Imoen and Sonya!" Shang Tsung laughed cheerily as the women strode across the carpet. "How delightful! I had looked forward to a?private audience, my dears!"

"Shut up, you slimy meanie!" Imoen screamed up at him. "Big bro and Yoshi are gonna kick your li'l tushy if I don't get to it first!"

"Ah," Irenicus muttered, as if under his breath, and yet loud enough to echo across the throne room, "I'm afraid they have been...disqualified."

"Bullshit," Sonya Blade scoffed, folding her arms skeptically. "Johnny and Kitana could kick your ancient ass back to the Netherealm any day of the week."

"?.or tenday!" Imoen added, waving her tiny balled fist defiantly at the warlocks.

"Don't thank us, my dears," Shang Tsung laughed, while gesturing to a pedestal beside his throne, from which rose Carsomyr, and around its hilt was wrapped Johnny Cage's nunchucks.

The movie star's smashed sunglasses, and a torn and bloody handkerchief which Imoen recognized as Aerie's, sat upon the pedestal just in front of the holy avenger. "Your handsome hunks were disposed of by a few rogue mutants who happened to be trespassing on my island. Nothing I could do about it! Quite a tragedy!"

"And our little interworldly lovebirds," Irenicus stated, gesturing to a pedestal beside his throne, from which rose Yoshimo's katana, and Kitana's acid-splotched fans draped over its hilt, "Fell prey to our dear pet Reptile. The princess proved a tasty treat, but as you can see her armaments were a tad indigestible. As for Yoshimo, he took a little spill into the Pit, but thoughtfully left his beautiful sword behind."

"Go to hell," Sonya sneered at the wizard.

"Been there, done that," Irenicus sighed boredly.

"You?you?.OOHHH!!!!?..you stink!" Imoen cried angrily at them, her cheeks flushing red. "NO ONE KILLS MY BRO AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!!"

"As you wish, sweet Immy," Shang Tsung grinned at her, licking his lips and stroking his moustache, "I'm afraid all the challenges from Toril and Earthrealm save you two beauties are now in the loser's bracket!"

"...And this is a single elimination tournament," Irenicus smirked.

Shang Tsung sprang up from his throne, tossing off his red robe to reveal an extremely muscular and youthful physique adorned only by his black fighting pants and thin straps that ran up each side of his chest over each shoulder. Snaking dragon tattoes coiled down each of his bulging arms, and his bearded and cruelly creased face looked incongruously older by comparison, and his condescendingly glaring eyes spoke of millenia of conquest and victory.

Irenicus rose from his own throne, wearing the same gothic outfit that Imoen had come to know and despise, but he too seemed rejuvenated, and his movements were both more graceful and forceful, and he stood with his muscled arms held low, but taut and poised, as if as ready to strike physically as to gesture in spellcasting.

Imoen moved her own hands to her chest and began to wave them gracefully and chant, and Irenicus did precisely the same, and Sonya couldn't help noticing they seemed to be pronouncing the same syllables, if in voices that couldn't be more dissimilar. Sonya made a fist and clapped her other hand over it, pointing them directly towards the leatherfaced wizard and staring over her knuckles at him. Three rings of pink energy rippled from around her hands and shot unerringly towards him, but from beside Irenicus on the throne dias, Shang Tsung lifted his hands, pressed his wrists together, and opened his palms towards Imoen, his fingers splaying and curling back like the teeth of a dragon preparing to bite. A fiery orb shot from his hands, and as it zoomed through the air towards the pink-haired mage, an ethereal fiery skull seemed to grin from within the flames, and the horrific shriek of some lost soul seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

The fireball struck Imoen forcefully, burning her and sending her flying backwards and crashing onto the carpet as if she'd just been hit with a battering ram. As Sonya's energy rings fizzled against an invisible barrier inches from Irenicus's casting form, Shang Tsung released a second flaming missile at Imoen, and then a third, each crashing into her just as she tried to get up, sending her sprawling back again, bruised and burning. Sonya roared and charged Irenicus, leaping into the air and thrusting a foot forward to smash against his face, but just before she fell upon him, the wizard suddenly raised his arms and shouted.

Sonya froze in midair, her blonde ponytail trailing her and her ruby lips open in a scream, her foot inches from Irenicus's face. The wizard smirked, and glanced around her at the form of Imoen, who lay upon the ground with perfectly still flames sticking up from her. Shang Tsung still stood a few paces to his side, his arms held wide apart and motionless, a triumphant grin between his moustache and goatee.

While the world stood still around him, Irenicus took a step back and chanted another sequence of unfathomable words and discs of pure energy appeared in each of his hands. With deft aim, he hurled one at each of Sonya and Imoen, but they froze in midair the moment they left his fingertips. More discs appeared in his hands, and he threw them one after another until a cloud of energy blades hung in the air before him. When his hands finally stood empty, he shouted again, pressing his wrists together and pushing towards Imoen, causing a large yellow orb to appear in hover in front of his palms.

He then did the same at Sonya, and as the orb materialized, it did not freeze, but shot through the air as everything else came to life around the wizard. The energy blades Irenicus had hurled at Sonya just above him unfroze and shot at her just as she began to drop forward toward them, screaming and kicking, and within a fraction of a second nearly two dozen energy blades sailed into her, and she dropped into the ground, her flesh bruised and sizzling with electricity. The other half of Irenicus's blades flew into Imoen just as she began to rise, and she was knocked against the back wall of the chamber as they continued to fly into her body mercilessly, and she spasmed as streaks of lightning leapt from her. No sooner had the last energy blades cut into Imoen and Sonya then Irenicus's glowing orbs followed, and each woman's writhing ceased suddenly, and they lay quite still.

"Flawless victory!" Shang Tsung laughed triumphantly, and dramatically raised each hand as if pushing invisible things into the air. As he did so, the stunned bodies of Imoen and Sonya rose from the red carpet and hovered, and when Shang Tsung gestured towards himself, each floated to the back of the throne room. Irenicus then pointed toward the stone wall behind him, from which a number of empty shackles hung, and the chains and clamps immediately came to life, like many-headed hydra, the cuffs snapped hungrily at the women as they floated within their grasp, and the limp bodies were shackled to the wall around by their ankles, wrists, waists, and metal bands even wrapped over their mouths.

Irenicus smirked and Shang Tsung laughed and stepped down from the throne dias, and stood before the bonded women, whose eyes snapped open as the stun spells wore off. Imoen and Sonya writhed in their chains with muffled "Mmmpppfffs!!" and the warlocks grinned.

"There, there, pretty Imoen," Shang Tsung grinned, tickling the underside of her chin with an index finger while she tried to scream and wave her head around. Shang Tsung then clamped his hands around her cheeks and braced her head. "I have spared you?for now. I can't tell you how much I desire your soul, but unfortunately, I've plans for your mortal body as well!" With that he leaned in to her, and kissed the metal band over her mouth, while she gave muffled shrieks of terrified anger.

Irenicus smiled haughtily as he traced a finger down Sonya's bare arm, and she squirmed helplessly. "You know, sweet Sonya," the wizard crooned icily, "I used to desire nothing. But fed so many revitalizing souls, I can't help but reawaken." The immobilized leiutenant shouted muffled but colorful profanity.

The wizard's elven ears perked up and he spun around angrily as he heard a noise from the front of the chamber. Shang Tsung growled and spun around too, and saw too figures striding through the main doors into the chamber.

One of them wore part of a blue ninja suit, but the mask was gone, revealing only a scarred face with black hair, and the sleeves of the outfit were gone as well, revealing scarred muscular arms. The man's forearms and the tips of his hair were whitened, as frost seemed to swirl about and stick to them like to steel in the dead of winter, and one felt cold just to look at him.

The other man was completely bare-chested, wearing only black leather pants and a red headband, and he strode forward defiantly, his thin eyes calm, his long black hair loose and falling over his smooth copper delts.

"Liu Kang??" Shang Tsung's face twisted in angry disbelief. "You are dead!"

"Yoshimo?.?" Irenicus frowned contemplatively, "You are double-dead!!"

"No!" he yelled, and pointed up at both of them menacingly, as if he owned the room, "I am Yoshimo and Liu Kang. There will be no ambush, no geas, no treachery."

The frosty man in blue coldly and calmly stated, "There will be only mortal combat."

"Very well!" Irenicus and Shang Tsung shouted in unison. "Let final combat begin!"

Shang Tsung clasped his hands and fired three fireballs at Yoshimo, who dashed forward several steps before jumping into the air, clearing all three, and before he handed, his trajectory changed almost magically and he shot forward like a stone, sticking one foot straight out and holding his hands up in a guard stance. His flying kick crashed straight into the sorcerer's chest and sent him crashing against the wall just beside Imoen, and when Yoshimo planted his feet down, he began to assault Shang Tsung with a flurry of punches over his chest and open-handed palm and knife strikes to his face and neck.

Irenicus began casting a spell just as Shang Tsung was throwing his fiery missiles, but from across the room, the unmasked Sub-Zero crouched, pushed his palms forward, and sent forth an icy blast that shot across the room and into the wizard, freezing him midchant. The ninja dashed across the room at his foe and began to pummel him with rapid hard punches and quick close-range kicks, shattering the icy casing around Irenicus, who still found himself helpless as he was beaten senseless. Sub-Zero finished with an uppercut that launched him into the air, but before the wizard landed, the ninja dashed foward and slipped forward in a slide kick that knocked Irenicus off his feet just as they touched the ground.

Yoshimo completed one combination of rapid attacks and began a roundhouse, but Shang Tsung ducked under it and swept the bounty hunter off his feet, and as he rose the sorcerer went into a crane stance and rapidly kicked him in the chest three times, the third sending him flying back several paces, although he kept his feet.

"You are not Liu Kang!" Shang Tsung hissed angrily, pointing at Yoshimo. Then he pointed to himself. "His soul is mine!" The sorcerer began to shapeshift, and Yoshimo thought he was staring into a mirror for a moment. The man before him wore black pants and a red headband like him, and looked almost identical in physical form. Only the few scars that marked each of their faces and bodies differentiated them.

Yoshimo charged, but the Liu Kang imposter lifted one foot, opened his palms just above the knee, and shot forth a snakelike coil of fire that slammed into Yoshimo's neck. The bounty hunter fell back, gripping his burned throat and gagging, and his doppleganger leapt into the air feet-first and fell upon him, rapidly bicycle kicking him in the face and chest, and finishing off with a pair of hard kicks that sent him sprawling to the carpet.

Irenicus rolled away from where he had fallen, then sprang up, his torso leaning back on his legs and his hands snapping up with the fingers curled, his body forming a mantis stance. Sub-Zero came at him, but the wizard blocked a high kick and then stabbed at him with his open hands, and kicked him several times in the chest with quick frontal snaps, and his hands continued to flay the frosty ninja in an extended combination of twisted, writhing techniques.

The Liu look-alike came down upon the fallen Yoshimo with an axe kick meant to break his spine, but the Shaolin monk's true mirror rolled out of the way, sprang up, and shot out with a low kick that pegged the shapeshifted sorcerer in the groin just as his own kick was at its height. As he groaned, Yoshimo's hand came forward with several knife jabs to the throat and palm hands to the face, and the false Kang fell back, spitting blood and sneering angrily.

Yoshimo then jumped straight at his foe with another flying kick, but his look-alike blocked it with his forearm and then uppercutted him. As he flew back, landing on the carpet in a graceful roll and springing up again, the morphed Tsung in Yoshimo's own but twisted voice yelled "Enough of this mirror match! Face he who slew you before and shall now again!" With that the sorcerer morphed from Liu Kang into Onyx, armor and all, and laughed.

Irenicus's hands shot forward at Sub-Zero with continued jabs and claws, but the ninja's own hands shot forward and gripped the wizard around the shoulders. The frost that coated Sub-Zero's forearms began to spread over Irenicus's body, and soon he was rigily encrusted in ice. Sub-Zero leaned forward on his frozen foe, knocking him to the ground, and then stepped up the ice-encased wizard and pushing off the carpet, sliding across the ground by riding upon him.

Irenicus's frozen head crashed into the far wall of the room, and his icy tomb shattered. Sub-Zero quickly fell upon him with an elbow jab to his nose and another to his chest, but the wizard twisted both his legs around one of the ninja's, and flipped him onto his back. Irenicus sprang up, kicking Sub-Zero in the ribs several times before he managed to rise, opening his frosty forearms in a dragon stance, grabbing Irenicus's next kick between them, and then jerking his leg around and sending him spinning into the air and crashing forcefully against a tapestry.

Yoshimo charged the polymorphed paladin, who somersaulted back through the air, landing just beside the throne he had recently occupied, just behind the pedestal into which Carsomyr was plunged. He then reached for it, but in Onyx's own voice he emitted a terrible scream as his hands clasped over the hilt. Steam and fire sprang from his grip, and he pulled back, his palms seared.

"Your trickery fools no one, Shang Tsung!" Yoshimo declared angrily as he strode towards the image of the man who had killed him so long ago. "You are not Onyx! You are not my brother in arms!"

"No, but his soul is...refreshing," the counterfeit cavalier laughed haughtily, and chills ran down Yoshimo's spine as his mind flashed back to his ally's most arrogant moments years ago, "So...primal. The taint never really left it you know. Oh, the essence did, but not its mark." With that the armored and altered antagonist raised both arms, and telekinetically summoned two swords from where they hung on the walls, and they flew straight into his hands and he gripped them. "The inner beast was not part of a god. It was part of a man!"

The untrue Onyx leapt into the air, flashing the swords Yoshimo recognized as Adjatha and Blackrazor. The bounty hunter tucked and dove forward into a roll, and his armored assailant landed with a crunch behind Yoshimo as he sprang up by the other pedestal, reaching for his lost katana and pulling it forth, then spinning around and holding it high.

As Irenicus fell from his impact from the wall, Sub-Zero charged, but no sooner had the wizard's feet touched the ground than his hands opened with a cloud of force missiles that zoomed straight into the ninja and knocked him back one after the other, sizzling steam rising from his chest. Irenicus began another chant, and a fiery gate opened before him. A hellbeast stepped through and growled hungrily in Sub-Zero's direction. The ninja calmly stood his ground as the fiend charged, and just before it reached him, he somersaulted backwards, but an icy clone of himself remained where he stood. The demon swung and bit into it, but the statue simply shattered and frost began to grow over the leathery hide of the beast, gradually covered it and stopping it cold.


The frozen demon shattered as Sub-Zero kicked through it and stared Irenicus down. The wizard flung his hands forward, completing another spell and sending an expanding cloud of fire at the ninja, who let loose another freeze blast of his own. It collided with the nascent fireball and a huge cloud of foggy steam billowed over the room. Sub-Zero and Irenicus charged through it and engaged each other in blind hand-to-hand-combat.

"Was your friend really so different from myself?" the dual-wielding doppledanger laughed, looking down covetously at his raised longswords as he approached. "He stole life to preserve his own, as do I."

"Well," Yoshimo bit his lip with mock pensiveness as he moved in with his katana, "He wasn't quite a megalomaniac psychopath. Except at competitive drinking games..."

"Enough!" Shang Tsung cried in his own voice and swung his swords forward, "Your soul is next!"

He swung in from the right and left at Yoshimo, who leapt into the air, and both of his legs shot forward, kicking the morphed sorcerer's gauntleted wrists and knocking back his incoming blades. Yoshimo simultaneously shot his katana forward, striking the solar plexus of the man's dragonscale armor. His enchanted curved sword pierced through it like warm butter, and his foe shrieked as it plunged straight through his chest and out his back. He morphed back into his bearded sorcerous self as he coughed blood wretchedly, Blackrazor and Adjatha dropping to the ground with dark clangs as his body twitched and grew limp.

Irenicus came sailing out of the cloud of fog, blood spurting from his mouth, after one of Sub-Zero's roundhouses connected inside the cloud. The ninja dashed out after him, but before he could reach his foe, the wizard had gotten to his feet again and cast forth a lightning bolt that zapped Sub-Zero right in the chest, bounced off the wall behind him, and came crackling through his body again. Irenicus side-stepped the returning bolt and dashed at the electronuted ninja, summoning an ethereal black blade into his hand. Frost swirled and condensed around Sub-Zero as he conjured an ice sword, and their weapons crossed, touching at high speed with a utterly bizarre lack of sound.

The mortally impaled Shang Tsung sprang to life again and looked into Yoshimo's eyes, his own burning fire, and his freed hands shot forward like serpents, stabbing Yoshimo in the throat. The bounty hunter gagged and staggered backwards, pulling out his katana, and Shang Tsung went into a snake stance, his hands writhing like vipers, and darted forward.

Sub-Zero dodged a wide swing of Irenicus's disintegratory sword, and plunged his own icicle of a weapon straight through the wizard's chest. The black blade vanished, and Irenicus coughed dark blood and went limp. But before he could fall to the ground. Sub-Zero gripped his neck with one arm, his head with the other, and began to pull in opposite directions.

Yoshimo saw Imoen out of the corner of his eye, chained, bruised, and burnt, covered in disgusting charred wounds, and his mind filled with rage. As Shang Tsung approached like a hive of serpents, he felt as a beast himself, insane with fury, and the sorcerer seemed to shrink before his eyes, and as he exhaled, plumes of fire seemed to cloud his vision.

Sub-Zero roared and pulled, and Irenicus's head was ripped from its body, the spine emerging from his back as the head left it. Sub-Zero let the body fall to the ground and held the head high in the air, the spine hanging from it. "Fatality," the ninja snarled.

Shang Tsung looked up at his foe, and saw not a man, but a dragon. He screamed with terror and spun, but before he could dart away, the beast's head shot forward on its long neck, descended upon him, its swordlike fangs coming down around him, and enclosing him in darkness and fire and pain. The beast closed its maw around Shang Tsung's waist, and bit him clean in half, devouring his upper body with one bite.

"Animality," Sub-Zero declared with a content scoff as Shang Tsung's legs dropped to the carpet, and the dragon belched forth again his torso, head, and arms, chewed almost beyond recognition.

Yoshimo dropped onto his knees in a weak kneel, holding his own ten fleshy fingers in front of his face and panting, his mind racing. He brushed back his long black hair, and stared at the mangled remains of the sorcerer.

Suddenly the chests of Shang Tsung and Irenicus burst apart, and a white column of light sprung from the floor between them, reaching through the ceiling and shooting out the skydome of the throne room into the night sky, and ghostly shapes seemed to swirl within it. One stepped out of the column, an ethereal man who looked exactly like Yoshimo.

"Liu Kang?" The bounty hunter gasped in awe as he rose.

***

BALDUR KOMBAT: KONCLUSIONS

?Thank you, my brother,? the spirit of Liu Kang said to Yoshimo, folding its hands and bowing as if in prayer. ?At last I am free. We are all free. Shang Tsung now joins Shao Kahn in the Netherealm, where Shinnok too is locked, and Irenicus returns to your ninth hell. Our worlds are safe?for now. I must now go to the heavens of mine. You have defeated Shang Tsung, and you are now champion of Mortal Kombat. Farewell.?

Yoshimo bowed politely, and the spirit floated back to the column of light emerging from the withered bodies of Shang Tsung and Irenicus, and gently drifted up in it, out the skylight of the opulent vaulted chamber along with the other souls.

Yoshimo turned to see Sub-Zero freezing the shackles that held Imoen and Sonya and then shattering them. Both women were bruised and burnt, but alive, and stood after a moment in the unmasked ninja?s arms. Imoen coughed a little blood, then pulled several blue vials from her belt, handed a few to Sonya, and swigged the others. Their skin returned to its usual fair and flawless complexion, even as their hair stayed singed.

?Wow,? Sonya exclaimed, looking at the empty bottle, ?I sure could use some of these in the field back home.?

Sonya and Sub-Zero exchanged hugs and smiles of triumph while Imoen dashed over to Yoshimo and jumped into his arms. ?Yoshi!? she cried happily, planting pecks on top of his head. ?My hero! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou?.? Yoshimo laughed nervously, and when he finally set her down, the pink-haired mage looked around, and noticed Carsomyr still sitting in its pedestal beside the throne, Aerie?s bloody handkerchief at its base. ?Where?s bro?.??

Sonya followed her gaze, noticing the nunchucks and crushed sunglasses strewn around the pedestal. She held her lips firm, but they began to quiver, and a single tear ran down her cheek.

?You know,? came a boisterous baritone voice from down a hallway leading somewhere else in the palace. ?This whole death-and-resurrection thing is a great plot twist!?

?In my opinion,? came an almost identical voice, ?It?s kinda overused in the stories of my world. I bet it?s like that in yours.?

?Yeah, that?s true,? the first voice answered, ?Did I tell you one of my costars, playing the wizard Grampolf, falls into this bottomless pit in The Brotherhood of the Ring, only to reappear in the next movie? But Steven Steelman says taking a fall is great for dramatic purposes. I need to get a gig like that. Maybe I could even win an Elmo!?

Sonya Blade laughed and cried as the owners of the voices strode into the room. ?Not a chance in the Netherealm, Johnny,? she tried to scoff, but found herself dashing towards him. Johnny Cage ran to meet her (his shadows trailing him as he did), and did a very (practiced-looking) sweep-her-up-in-his-arms-swing-her-around-and-kiss-her-passionately routine. Imoen gleefully bounded over towards Onyx, and the pair engaged in a similar, if more moderate, display of affection.

?Tangy Tonguey said you were dead, Ony!? Imoen laughed and cried, snuggling her brother?s cheek as he held her in his arms high enough to do so.

?I was,? the cavalier explained, arching his eyebrows. ?Stole my soul too.? He glanced over at Yoshimo. ?Man, it was really weird having to fight Yoshi again!? The barechested bounty hunter bit his lip and chuckled nervously.

Johnny Cage exhaled with relief after lifting his lips from Sonya?s and added, ?That sorcerer is not a fun place to be. He?s like his own private plane of hell in there. It?s even worse than rush hour on an L.A. freeway.?

?Anyway,? Onyx continued, ?My body must have regenerated itself even without my soul??

?Yeah,? Cage chuckled, ?You were a total vegetable!?

??You were dogmeat, dude!? the cavalier rejoined, and then looked down compassionately at Imoen again. ?So after Yoshi and Sub thrashed Tsung and Irenicus, my soul found its way back into my body. Then I resurrected dogmeat-Johnny here with my handy ol? bracers, and here we are!?

?That reminds me,? Cage perked up, ?Where?s Safana??

?Safana?? Sonya looked up at him with a skeptical frown. ?I heard from the other warriors that you finished her in combat.?

?Er?yeah, but with friendship,? Cage smiled. While Sonya glared daggers at him, the movie star looked over to the unmasked Sub-Zero and asked, ?I thought she went with you.?

?After I assured myself she was benign, we split up for stealth?s sake,? the ninja explained impassively. ?She went to spy on Shang Tsung and Irenicus, I sought out Reptile. But before I could find and challenge the elusive creature, he and Korgan sprang upon Yoshimo and Kitana and, and I could not interfere.?

?Luckily for me,? Yoshimo spoke up, smiling at Sub-Zero, ?The rules of Mortal Kombat did not preclude him from lurking in the Pit and then conjuring a pile of snow to break my fall.? Yoshimo?s face fell and he added, ?Kitana, tragically, was devoured by Reptile.?

?So then where is he?? Onyx arched a curious eyebrow, and immediately found himself looking around suspiciously.

His question was answered right on cue when a large number of heavy footsteps could be heard from down the main hallway leading out of the front of the throne room, the large double doors swung open inwards, and Shang Tsung?s black-suited ninja minions began to file through the large main doorway into the chamber. Suddenly the unmasked Reptile himself materialized out of nowhere at the head of the gang, holding aloft his jagged kirehashi sword and shrieking, ?Ssslay them!!?

?I had to ask,? Onyx sighed, ?It?s amazing how often that happens. You?d think I?d have learned by now.?

Reptile?s next hiss was cut short when another figure jumped from shadows behind one of the open doors and planted a shortsword into his back. The creature fell forward into the carpet, green blood spurting from the wound.

??and enter Safana,? Onyx smacked his forehead.

The svelte thief removed her blade from Reptile?s back, and spun around to face the ninja horde. They looked at her, and past her at the other six warriors and the mangled bodies of Irenicus and Shang Tsung at their feet, and then nervously at each other.

?Boo!? Safana shouted, wiggling her fingers and shortswords at them.

They immediately dropped their blades and polearms, spun around, and crowed back down the hallway, disappearing quickly, as ninjas can.

"That's right!" Imoen laughed and put her hands on her thin hips. "Be afraid of Imoen and pals! Be very afraid!" She stuck her thumb on her nose, wiggled her fingers, and stuck out her tongue.

Yoshimo walked up to Safana, brandishing his katana and poking Reptile's body with it, and inspecting it skeptically. Sure enough, the creature suddenly sprang to life again, but halted its writhing movements and shrieked when it found its neck between the carpet and the bounty hunter's blade.

"Pleassse!" Reptile hissed pathetically, looking up at Yoshimo. "Ssspare me!!"

"Never, monster and murderer!" the bounty hunter snarled down at the reptilian creature as his friends crowded around them.

?Pleassse! Ssshang Tsung ssstole my preciousss Jade and our eggsss! I fight only to sssave them. We are the lasst of our kind! Pleassse!? the creature moaned, and even its scaly, inhuman face seemed to contort in fear and agony.

?You still devoured Kitana, you beast!? Yoshimo snarled, and began to trace the tip of his Kitana down Reptile?s chest. ?And I mean to get her out!?

"Wait!" Onyx shouted just as Yoshimo was flexing for a long incision down Reptile's chest, and looked at the green ninja. "Reptile, could you, uh, expunge her?"

"He did swallow her whole," Sub-Zero nodded, folding his arms.

"Yesss!" Reptile pleaded. The creature convulses, its mouth and neck stretching freakishly wide, and began to hork and cough, and lumps began to bulge in its throat, then blue boots stuck out of its mouth. Reptile continued to gag and push, and gradually muscular but feminine legs stuck out of his mouth, then a thin blue-suited waist, expanding into a bustline, then the muscular arms and finally the head and hair of a cavaderous Kitana. She was in one piece, but her skin was covered in greenish acid burns, and she moved not, looking quite dead.

Yoshimo's face twisted with rage and he flexed his arms to put force behind his hilt. "Dieee!!!!"

Just as he plunged down at Reptile's chest with his sword, Carsomyr's tip appeared on the creature's green-suited chest and the katana deflected against it. "She may yet be alive," Onyx nodded down at Kitana. The cavalier removed his sword, and while Yoshimo held his katana over Reptile but did not strike, Sonya knelt over the ninja woman, administering CPR.

After only a few thrusts against her solar plexus, Kitana suddenly spasmed, coughing up green goop and rolling onto her side, moaning. Her breathing and coughing grew less phlegmatic and more natural as she continued to vomit Reptile?s digestive juices and her own. While she leaned over on hands and knees, coughing out the last and taking deep breaths of fresh air, Sonya patted her back soundly, and Onyx also knelt over her, splayed his hands over her upper arm and side. His hands flashed blue for a moment, and then he rubbed away the acidic residues upon her to reveal unharmed skin.

?Kitana!? Yoshimo let his sword fall to the carpet in disbelief, and hopped over Reptile. He knelt down before her, brushing her slimy black hair out of her face and gently lifting her to her feet. Her stunned gaze focused upon his face, and all at once it was as if her ordeal had never happened. She energetically embraced him, laughing uncontrollably until her vocalization was terminated by the locking of her lips onto his, and the other Kombatants all averted their eyes, finding tapestries or statues on the walls of the chamber that suddenly merited visual study.

With two pairs of human eyes gazing deeply at each other, and the other six preoccupied with the furnishings, Reptile silently rose from the carpet and prepared to sneak off. His form flickered and disappeared, and the air could be seen to waver slightly, as if on a hot day, as he crept outside the circle.

He froze suddenly, returning to visibility, as he felt a cold hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Sub-Zero grasping him, Onyx looking on curiously.

Reptile cringed in fright, expecting to be smitten, but the blue ninja whispered, ?I think you will find Jade and your eggs in the dungeon below, left, left, and right, last cell on the right.?

?As Lathander says,? the dragonscale-armored cavalier added with a mischievous smile, ?Be fruitful of mind and body.?

?Thank you, humansss,? Reptile nodded, then slipped from Sub-Zero?s grasp and vanished.

Johnny Cage nudged Onyx in the elbow and exclaimed, ?You know, that whole slimy-but-pitiable bit sorta reminded me of ?Goblin? in my Master of the Rings movies.? The cavalier and the ninja both rolled their eyes at the movie star.

Onyx looked to his other side, where Imoen stood, and she wore a faraway face as several tears streaked down her cheek, following a little rivulet made by the lone scar on her pretty face. Her mouth curled into a smile when she felt her brother?s arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into his chest and sighed.

?You humans!? came a boisterous, powerful laugh just as a flash of lightning illuminated the chamber. Yoshimo and Kitana sprang apart and the other six turned to face the voice, which belonged to the seven-foot avatar of Raiden, smiling with electric-dancing eyes as his long white hair spilled over a matching robe. ?You never cease to impress me! Shang Tsung and Irenicus made a fatal mistake?underestimating mortal men and women!? The thunder-god chuckled heartily as he strode between Safana and Sonya into the ring of humans, clapping arms down over the shoulders of Yoshimo and Kitana and laughing.

?Whadda we do now, Raidy?? Imoen asked him innocently.

Raiden shrugged. ?Well, with Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, and Shinnok all sealed in the Netherealm, it will be some time before another threat emerges from Outworld. I guess you can all go home!?

?Actually, Raiden,? Sonya Blade spoke up, ?I should call in Major Jackson Briggs and some reinforcements from the Outworld Investigation Agency to secure the island, round up Tsung?s henchmen?.? Most of the others looked at her confused.

?Hey, wait!? Johnny Cage interrupted her, ?What about our Faerun vacation? I need to work on my tan!? Most of the others looked at the already-extremely-tan movie star skeptically.

?That reminds me,? Sub-Zero looked sidelong at Onyx, ?I?d love to meet that martial artist brother of yours. Balthezar, was it??

?Sure thing, Sub!? the cavalier nodded eagerly, ?I was getting bored in Neverwinter. All Aerie wants to do there is shop, shop, shop, sunbathe, sunbathe, sunbathe, gardens, gardens, gardens ?..boring! Now Amkethran, on the other hand?yeehaw!?

?Home?who knows what that is?? Safana shrugged and sighed.

?Hey!? Imoen bounced up and down and skipped over to the thief. ?Come join the Arcane Sneaks! Yeah! It?ll be soooo much fun! And all the cinnamon cookies you can eat at every guild meeting! Mmmmmm! You can help me and Yoshi get the Neverwinter branch running!?

?Ah yes,? Yoshimo chuckled, glancing at Kitana hesitantly.

?I must return to Edenia,? the princess stated from beside the bounty hunter, looking first at Raiden, then around at all her companions. ?With Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn gone, their generals will squabble and Outworld?s imperialism will implode. Now the resistance will have the chance to reclaim Edenia, and gradually rebuild it to what it once was.?

Raiden folded his arms and nodded approvingly. Electricity crackled around the god, and a portal opened. Through it the warriors could see a landscape that at first glance was a wasteland, with ancient ruins in disrepair and the land scorched and the sky veiled in foggy black, but upon closer inspection it could be seen that small plants were breaking through the cracks of the ruins and the parched land, and the black veil over it all was giving way to a sky that was as blue and beautiful as any on Toril or Earth. ?After 10,000 years,? the god spoke, ?No emperor shall rule it from Outworld, and the rightful heir to Edenia?s throne shall be its queen. There is much to be done.?

?And she would hope,? Kitana turned to Yoshimo and smiled, ?Not to have to do it alone.?

?And who better,? Raiden continued fluidly, ? Than the champion of Mortal Kombat.?

Yoshimo bowed politely to the thunder-god, and looked back at Kitana and smiled, and the two clasped hands and beamed at one another. The others stood in awed silence as the blue-suited princess and the bare-chested bounty hunter strode towards and past Raiden and disappeared through the portal.

?Bye, Yoshi,? Imoen mumbled, and Safana and Onyx each put an arm around her, and she held onto them and sniffled back a tear.

**********

IMOEN returned with many of her allies to Neverwinter, where she continued to operate her Arcane Sneaks thieves? guild, with Safana now one of her ranks. The two also soon became close friends, putting behind them the antagonism that their days traveling together in the Sword Coast had engendered. Imoen had a countless number of subsequent misadventures with old and new allies and adversaries, and whether munching a cookie or incinerating a dragon, might giggle and smile, or might quietly look far away, as if thinking of one of her many friends who long ago had gone a separate way?

SHAR-TEEL, however, babalitied during the tournament, spent her second childhood in the close company and care of ?aunty Immy,? as well as other Arcane Sneaks, when the pink-haired mage was off battling meanies or arguing circles around sticks-in-the-mud. But Shar-Teel was joining Imoen on adventuring romps before she was half grown, and grew to be a fierce but kind member of the thieves? guild (and one of its best warriors). At the tender (physiological) age of seventeen, she fell head-over-heels in love with an unassuming young nobleman and paladin from Waterdeep, and the two would have set off into the sunset together, were that city not bordered on the west by ocean. They adventured together for some years, before settling again in Waterdeep and raising a large, happy family.

SONYA BLADE and the Outworld Investigation Agency quickly stormed Shang Tsung?s island in Kozakura, foiled the meager attempts of Shao Kahn?s many infighting would-be successors to helm their former master?s empire, and Imperial Outworld soon crumbled. The O.I.A. was all but disbanded, and Sonya took a position with the F.B.I. in Los Angeles, fighting the gang and terrorist activity that surged at the same time rumors of the mysterious reappearance of Kano surfaced. Additionally, her post in L.A. gave Sonya better ability to keep a close eye on?

JOHNNY CAGE accompanied Onyx back to Neverwinter, which he found to be highly reminiscent of Los Angeles, sans pollution and traffic, and greatly to his liking. After landing the starring role in that city?s production of ?The Brothers Bhaalspawn,? a five-act rendition of the events leading up to Onyx & Sarevok?s first battle, Johnny Cage accidentally took his copy of the script back to Earth when he returned with Sonya. Steven Steelman discovered it in his trailer during the shooting of the latest Mortal Kombat flick, and promptly put into production and cast Johnny in BALDUR?S GATE: THE MOVIE.

SUB-ZERO, before returning to his Lin Kieu clan in China, also journeyed with Onyx to Neverwinter and then the thriving desert trade center of Amkethran, where he met its guardian, the fellow martial artists master Balthezar, and the two exchanged numerous styles that would forever enrich the unarmed combat disciplines of both realms. After returning to Earth, Sub-Zero as Grandmaster of the Lin Kieu extended his clan?s influence to Toril, and in the years to come the freezing ninja and his disciples would fight at the side of his former allies and other heroes against evils in that realm as well as their home.

KANO and KORGAN, both slain during the tournament, found themselves in the seventh hell, but escaped alongside HAER?DALIS when the can?t-keep-a-wily-tiefling-down bard started yet another prison riot across several layers of the hells. They ended up back on Earth, where Kano retook power of his Black Dragon crime syndicate, with Korgan his right-hand-dwarf. (Haer?Dalis purportedly joined a five-piece Boy Band as the ?guy with the tattoos and facial piercings and dyed hair? member, and garnered an obscenely large following of teenage Earth-girls). It was Korgan?s idea to form a new legitimate front for the Black Dragon, which took the form of the magazine BEER AFICIANADO, with Korgan himself its chief beer critic.

ONYX returned with his sister and some of their new friends to Neverwinter, where he had been vacationing with his wife Aerie, who both whined his head off at having been mysteriously gone for a week (to foolishly save the world without her help), and showered him with affection in her joy for his nevertheless-successful return. Aerie?s exclusion from the adventure was probably for the better, if not for the sake of the other Kombatant?s nerves, then because it turned out that Luskan pirates had actually chosen that week to attempt a raid on the fair city, and Aerie herself had been as busy blasting buccaneer boats out of the water as she had shopping and sunbathing. Neverwinter safe again, they journeyed with Sub-Zero to see Balthezar in Amkethran, which had become a bustling desert city renown for gambling and theater and nightlife, which the couple spent the rest of their vacation partaking in. They were not on hiatus from the Life for long: soon Onyx was recalled for duty by Amnian Meisarch Nalia Corthala, to ride the 1st heavy cavalry east to join Marshall Minsc?s light cavalry in the defense of Rasheman against Thay during an offensive masterminded by Premiere Edwin ?the Red? Odesseiron, his Thayvian troops bolstered by the undead army of Xzar the Black.

SAFANA returned to Neverwinter with Imoen and joined her Arcane Sneaks thieves? guild, using her skills (and wiles) to help them combat meanies across Faerun, particularly when it involved ?icky? work with ?slimy-meanies? that Imoen didn?t feel like doing herself. Safana remained an obsessive Johnny Cage fan, however, and eventually found her way to Earth?s Hollywood, where she used her thieving skills as a frighteningly good celebrity stalker. Unfortunately, it turned out that Sonya Blade?s world-class antiterrorist skills were something that she employed to foil her boyfriend?s usual crowd of stalkers, and eventually Safana was apprehended. Luckily, years of charlatanhood had honed her acting skills, and when Cage refused to press charges and instead referred her to Steven Steelman, the director decided to let her play herself in his upcoming BALDUR?S GATE: THE MOVIE?and Steve took the artistic license of giving her a much larger (and steamier) role in the saga than more exacting historical accounts would ascribe. Sonya was not very happy with this, but the box office was.

REPTILE and his mate JADE returned to Outworld, where they hatched many, many eggs, and eventually their otherwise-extinct species thrived again in that realm, which itself became more fertile as the empire crumbled. They and the mutant humanoid race of BARAKA and MILEENA would eventually become fierce racial enemies, and life in Outworld would continue with as much strife and warfare as any other realm, but it would be long before that world launched a serious offensive against another.

RAIDEN, despite the vanquishing of Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung, kept a watchful eye over Earth, and despite the lack of immediate danger from other realms, now peered at them with increased interest, having learned from Irenicus that threats can come from any corner of the multiverse.

YOSHIMO journeyed with PRINCESS KITANA to her homeworld of Edenia. The resistance movement she had led since turning against the vanquished Emperor, Shao Kahn, now became the rebuilders of a free civilization that accepted her as queen. With Yoshimo at her side, Edenia healed quickly and entered a new golden age of prosperity and peace. Yoshimo was extremely happy and extremely busy to the end of his days, which left very little time ? or thought ? for return visits to any continent of his homeworld, although friends would occasionally come to Edenia to see him. Onyx and the others who had known him from his days as a hapless rapscallion in Athkatla would marvel at the change in the man, a close companion who had fallen, caught in his own moral triangulation and the trickery of others, a companion that they had never expected to have more of an epilogue to his life than any of the other souls that had died during that terrible saga. But now, a generation later, he was a great champion, hero, leader, husband, and father. One would expect in such a legendary man to find a bearing solemn and careworn, but upon meeting the man would instead be greeted by a mischievous twinkle in his eye, a wry grin at the corner of his mouth, and a hearty laugh:

? I am Yoshimo!?