The sun had set in Outworld, as the group finished putting on disguises consisting of festival attire while waiting for Syzoth to return from scouting out their path. Though, Sweetie Belle needed a moment to mentally reset herself from seeing Rota willingly tear her own tail out of her back, much less with the surprising casualness the Saiyan did so with, just to avoid an accidental transformation. Once done, the filly, under the careful eye of Rota, shapeshifted herself into a human form, this time a grown woman dressed as if she were an Outworlder attending the festival.

As the rest were adjusting to their new outfits, Johnny finished putting a hood on Quan Chi’s head as he lay unconscious against the wall of the all they were huddled up in to make sure he wouldn’t be recognized as they brought him to their destination.

“Nighty-night, sweet Prince of Darkness,” The A-lister quipped before standing and turning to the others as they tested their mobility in their temporary garb. “Oh! Perfect,” he complimented. “You’ll fit right in.”

Ashrah seemed to have an issue with her disguise and chose to speak on it. “You couldn’t steal a more functional hat?”

“What?” Johnny asked in slight exasperation. “It hides your face.”

“Also, it looks good on you,” Sweetie Belle said as she put on a mask she pulled out of… her shirt.

“I still don’t know about this,” Kenshi said worriedly.

Rota agreed. “I’m with Kenshi here, carrying him around will put eyes on us that we don’t want,” she said referring to Quan Chi.

Johnny looked between the two of them and the unconscious sorcerer in disbelief, then gave his counterargument. “Look at it out there. It’s like Mardi Gras. People will think he just partied too hard.”

A slight thumping sounded off before Syzoth slid off of the roof, along with another individual, a woman just under Rota’s height, clad in what seemed to be a customized shinobi uniform of some kind, with glasses on her face, half covering a scar across her nose. Before anything could be brought up, Kung Lao addressed her with information that cleared suspicion before it could take root.

“Hey, I remember you. You were with the group of Lin Kuei that tested Raiden and I,” he said as if reminiscing, before saying to the others, “She works for Liu Kang. We can trust her, whoever she is.”

“Nice to see you again, Kung Lao. My name’s Selia Fukuro, no need to give me your names, I’ve been following you the whole mission, along with my colleague, who’s staying low until we can extract, unless something goes wrong otherwise, ” the woman gave with little fanfare. “Stepping in before now would have gone against orders, though I’ll admit we were rather tempted to in the Living Forest.”

“We’ll sort personal issues out properly later. For now, I assume you and Syzoth scouted out our route,” Johnny asked the pair.

“Go toward the stage, then turn right to reach the gateway,” Syzoth replied. “But there are soldiers and constables everywhere.”

“Are you sure these are enough? One person spots us…” Kung Lao reasoned, voicing his doubts regarding their disguises, “...and we are dead.”

“Which is why Selia and I will create a diversion,” Syzoth countered as Selia nodded.

“They’re out for you, too, Syzoth,” Kenshi reminded the Zatteran, then addressed the new arrival. “And will likely figure out you are with us, Selia.”

“To catch us…” Syzoth said as Selia put her hands in front of her in a hand sign, “they must see us,” he finished as both him and her vanished.

“Damn,” Johnny said in praise. “You didn’t tell me you could go full Predator.”

Amidst the cheerful revelry of the crowd, the group tried to remain subtle as Kung Lao and Johnny carried Quan Chi with them toward the portal gateway. However, before they could even reach the stage, they ran into a squad of patrolling soldiers that seemed primed to arrest them.

Kenshi, sensing the situation thanks to Sento, commented, “We could use that diversion.”

As if on cue, some fireworks went off, flying around haphazardly and striking the buildings and decorations, setting them ablaze! As the crowd fled in panic, the group looked at the growing flames, Rota rolled her eyes. “What is it with shinobi and committing arson as a distraction method?”

“It works, now let’s get going,” Ashrah argued as the group hurried toward their destination.

Selia kept an eye on the group from above, keeping hidden both in the shadows and with her shinobi mysticism, as well as using the fireworks to cover her louder actions, even going out of her way to set a few more as necessary, trying to keep the group able to move toward the gateway. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she noticed Syzoth crawling across a rooftop… and then as she looked over properly, noticed that General Shao and the First Contable of Sun Do, Li Mei, had also spotted him as he scurried away. Seeing Shao assign Reiko to join the chase with Li Mei, Selia rerouted to try and help him. Syzoth had just gotten to a perch to hang from when Reiko took out a shuriken and tossed it at the Zaterran, the star cutting across the back of Syzoth’s upper arm, causing him to cry out as he fell to the street below. Selia tossed out an impact smoke bomb near Syzoth and ran over to help him get moving again, fleeing the continued pursuit of The First Constable and Shao’s Most Trusted Soldier. The two ran into the smoke as it parted, but Syzoth and Selia were already gone, with the only sign of their direction being the blood that Syzoth was leaving behind.

The pair of rogues lead the authorities through the crowd, trying to at least keep them from finding the main group, who were now getting just past the stage when Sweetie Belle, Rota and Kenshi noticed Syzoth and Selia’s energies near them. Looking back, the three saw as Selia and Syzoth ran through the crowd, Syzoth clutching his arm. As the pair ran off, Li Mei and Reiko showed up, seemingly tracking the other pair by Syzoth’s blood.

“You two go, I’ll help Ashrah keep the other’s safe,” Rota said before Kenshi and Sweetie Belle ran toward what seemed like an impending scuffle.

The pursuit ended near the entrance to a dockyard, both rogue’s dropping their invisibility as Li Mei and Reiko caught up to them.

“Green blood?” Li Mei questioned. “You’re Zaterran. How can you-”

“There is quite a lot you don’t know, First Constable.” Selia interrupted, placing herself between the opposing duo and Syzoth. “Like what the General is actually up to.”

“Surrender and I’ll hear you out,” Li Mei negotiated with an admittedly authoritative tone. “I can’t if you resist arrest.”

“Once you have us under arrest, the General will expedite us straight to execution, assuming Reiko doesn’t just slit our throats while your back is turned,” Selia argued as she took on a loose combat stance. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go.”

Sweetie Bell suddenly teleported herself and Kenshi next to Syzoth, healing the Zaterran quickly as she took on her anthro form while another pair of women came, evening the odds between the two sides. The new arrivals were a woman dressed in a royal blue dress-like attire that was more fanciful than the rest of the populace and armed with bladed hand-fans, with her companion, a dark skinned woman garbed in a more monastic style set of robes colored yellow and armed with some sort of rod that could turn into a three section staff. The battle began with both sides splitting off into four individual duels.

Selia engaged Li Mei with a combo of strikes that sent Li Mei reeling for a moment, but the First Constable recovered and performed a series of spinning kicks that summoned purple spectral dragons. Selia managed to dodge most of them but was quickly forced to block a pair of energy infused punches that still sent the Shinobi stumbling. She recovered in time to parry a right hook with her left arm, then pulled back the other arm and focused a spiraling sphere of blue energy into her palm, then shoved it into Li Mei’s torso while crying out, “Rasengan!” The sphere erupted into a unidirectional blast of energy, sending Li Mei flying backwards for several feet. The First Constable leapt back up to her feet and used a burst of energy to lunge at the Shinobi.

Reiko rushed at Syzoth with red energy coating his limbs, which seemed to extend the reach of his strikes, throwing the Zaterran off slightly. Syzoth quickly adapted, slamming an elbow strike into the soldier’s torso then slashed him with an uppercut, shifting his arm midswing. Reiko rolled with the momentum and tossed a set of shuriken at Syzoth, who swiped them out of the air with his tail, only to end up being picked up by the soldier and thrown to the ground. Reiko straddled Syzoth’s torso and rained blows down on the Zaterran. Syzoth defended himself as best he could, eventually spitting out a spray of acid that the soldier dodged at the cost of control of his opponent, letting the Zaterran shove Reiko off of him.

Sweetie Belle ended up facing off against the seemingly royally dressed lady with the fans. She heard the lady in yellow call out, “Be careful, Princess,” shocking the filly as she realized who she was facing.

Seriously, Author? Are you TRYING to get me to hate you?

Princess Kitana lashed out with a spinning back kick that Sweetie Belle deflected before pulling out her whip. Using it in staff form in tandem with her wings (protected by a form-fitting magic shield), Sweetie began an exchange with Kitana, parrying and dodging the princess’s fans while fighting back without hurting the princess too much. Loosening three cannons into their whip mode, Sweetie swung her staff, wrapping the whip end around Kitana’s arm. With a firm yank and a quickly called-out apology, the filly threw the princess into another woman garbed in yellow that came out of some form of invisibility on impact, sending them both to the ground and drawing the attention of the dark-skinned warrior woman, who had been fighting Kenshi.

Before she could act, however, a series of impacts rang out as she, Reiko and Li Mei were suddenly sent flying into the surrounding structures. In front of the Earthrealm group, a human woman, a bit shorter than Selia, appeared. Her skin was a bit pale, and a white outline emitted from her form while her clothes seemed almost ethereal in color. Her hair was a snowy white and her right arm seemed to be mechanical.

Sweetie Belle could instantly tell that she was the one who took out Li Mei, Reiko and the woman in yellow. Turning to the group and revealing her glowing green eyes behind a blue visor-like scouter, the woman nodded to Selia and then spoke in a slightly high-pitched German accent that gave an ever so slight echo.

“Introductions later. We must extract.”

Meanwhile, as the fight between Sweetie Void’s group and their pursuers was ending, the other group, consisting of Ashrah, Rota, Johnny Cage and Kung Lao carrying Quan Chi were making their way towards the portal gateway as quickly as possible with drawing attention. Unbeknownst to them, however, they had already been spotted and were now being followed by General Shao and a group of his elite.

Before they could get much farther, Quan Chi began to wake up with a groan. As the sorcerer steadied himself while backing away from Johnny and Kung Lao, who then gave him a small beat down before he ran off, Rota detected Sweetie Belle’s energy signature (as well as another that she recognized but couldn’t quite name) above and behind them as they faced off against General Shao, Goro, and a group of soldiers. As the group prepared to fight, Johnny made a comment.

“If this were one of my movies, this is where we’d be saved by a plucky, comic sidekick.”

As if on cue, a volley of green energy blasts rained down between the two groups, forcing them to step back a little further. Sweetie Belle and the glowing woman landed at the front of the Earthrealm group while Kenshi, Syzoth and Selia came down from the roof using a pair of ropes like ziplines.

Rota recognized the human woman immediately

“Nikoletta!?” She asked in surprise.

“Not now, schwester,” the woman said as she glared at General Shao.

“Well, we’re saved, I can tell that much,” Johnny quipped before he suddenly gave a lunging side kick to Goro, making the Shokan stumble as the fight commenced.

Sweetie Belle used two sections of three cannons in staff mode as escrima sticks to strike at the soldiers, keeping the remaining four in her pocket dimension. She kicked one soldier’s shield hard enough to shove him away and off his feet, then spun as swept another soldier’s legs out from under him. While the filly was getting back to her hooves, Ashrah parried another guard's blade, protecting Sweetie Belle, who returned the favor by knocking out the guard with a punch to the nose. Turning her attention to another guard, the filly beat his blade aside with one stick and smacked the side of his head with the other, then slammed the first one into his opposite cheek.

Rota tore her festival disguise off and threw it into one soldier’s face then roundhouse kicked him in the head, knocking him out near instantly. Rechambering the leg, she hit the next soldier with a flurry of kicks then sent him flying into another pair of soldiers with a kick to the torso, the three of them crashing to the ground in a pile. Returning to her stance as another set of soldiers charged her, the Saiyan backhanded one while punching another, sending them to the ground. Catching the next soldier’s punch, Rota punched him in the torso, then hit him with a hook to the jaw, knocking him out. The last soldier to attack her was armed with a wide bladed spear, using it with quick thrusts to keep Rota from approaching. Assistance came when Kung Lao used his hat to cut the spear-head off and then knocked the soldier out with a rising kick to the chin.

Selia was helping Johnny face Goro, who himself was helped by another pair of soldiers. Selia deflected one soldier’s punch, catching the arm and putting it in a lock. Spinning her captive around, she rammed him headfirst into the other soldier’s crotch. Finishing him off with a spinning heel kick as she moved closer to the fight between Johnny and Goro, the Shinobi leapt and struck a flying knee into the Shokan’s back, making him stumble into a punch from the A-lister, stunning Goro for a moment. Taking advantage of his daze, Johnny spun into a kick, striking Goro in the cheek and sending him stumbling into an energy-laced lariat from Selia. The force of the strike made Goro flip in the air and come back down hard on his front.

Nikoletta, Syzoth and Kenshi faced off against General Shao. Syzoth and Nikoletta engaged Shao, with Kenshi turning his attention to the remaining soldiers. The Zaterran spun while cloaking, launching a strike that the General caught, only for Syzoth to reveal it was his tail that had been trapped. Kenshi slammed the pommel of Sento into Shao’s back, driving the wind from him and allowing Syzoth to strike with a dragging whip of his tail, sending the General off his feet.

Recovering with a role, Shao sneered at Syzoth as he got back to his feet. “It’s unlike Shang Tsung to leave loose ends.”

“Now that I’m free of him, I’ll reveal your conspiracy to all of Outworld,” Syzoth swore.

The General laughed mockingly. “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Shao retorted as he prepared for kombat. “Dead men tell no tales.”

Shao suddenly rushed Syzoth with a flurry of cleaving swings of his axe. Syzoth managed to dodge as best he could, then, after the General brought his axe down in an overhead swing, struck back with an uppercut that caused Shao to stumble into a punch from Nikoletta’s robotic arm. Syzoth kicked him in the side, leading to the two of them beating him down for a moment before the General held his hand out toward his axe, both glowing with red and black magic. The axe returned the Shao’s grasp and he immediately swung it across, driving Syzoth back, only for the blade to pass right through Nikoletta as if she weren't there. A look of disbelief crossed the General of Outworld’s face before the Metal Armed Ghost knocked him out cold with an energy infused flash kick.

“Dead men, maybe. But I’m a dead woman,” she quipped.

Looking back to the others just as they finished off the last of the soldiers, they took a second to breathe before the crowd parted, revealing a Centauren armed with a large falchion and joined by several more guards charging toward them.

“We must go,” Syzoth ordered. “Now!”

With one last punch to keep Goro down from Johnny, the group fled from the guards, managing to reach and go through the portal before the guards could reach them.

Emerging from the portal back in the Fire Temple on Earthrealm, the group turned to see the portal still open and got ready in case some soldiers came through. Thankfully, the portal closed before any did as Liu Kang approached the group from behind.

"Johnny, Kenshi, Kung Lao, Sweetie, Rota, Nikoletta and Selia," he greeted the lot, before noticing Kenshi's eye's.

"By the Elder Gods!" The Fire god said in horror.

"Princess Mileena has Tarkat... And my younger sister is a fucking ghost possessing her own damn corpse... Liu Kang... I need answers for that second one... and I need them soon," Rota demanded through grit teeth in a tightly controlled and intentionally kept low voice, getting in Liu Kang's face.

"Answers will come soon, schwester," Nikoletta gave in a tone that spoke of her already accepting her words won't work. "Please remain calm."

"I WILL CALM DOWN WHEN I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON, NIKKI!" Rota practically exploded in annoyance, shocking Sweetie Belle and the rest of the group.

"Regardless, it would be best if you all took some time to rest and recover," Liu Kang suggested in a patient tone. Rota snorted before grumbling out an agreement, soon echoed by her stomach.

While most of the group went to relax a bit, Sweetie Belle and Johnny approached Liu Kang and told him bout what happened, presenting Syzoth and Ashrah to him shortly into it.

The news of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi working together gave the Protector of Earthrealm a surge of concern.

"A new deadly alliance?" He asked with worry. "Come, all of you," he then requested. "You must tell me all you know."

Syzoth and Ashrah followed without a word while Sweetie and Johnny stayed back for a second and gave each other a worried glance before following suit.

The Observer in the Void noted the developments on both sides of the current situation and debated with itself.

Should They reveal Themselves early simply to ensure Their entertainment doesn't end?

Or would it be more interesting to see how events unfold as they are now?

With a moment's consideration, the Devourer made Their choice.

Time to say hello, I suppose.

Author's Note

I went back and forth for a bit on how to make this chapter flow properly IMO.

Settled on something I like, hopefully others do too.

Nikoletta's.... condition will be explained in further depth next chapter, but those of you who are familiar with Nickelodeon in the mid 2000's might know of a certain tv show... starring a certain adolescent who got into an accident... and woke up with Snowy White Hair and Glowing Green Eyes.

Anyway, see you guy's next chapter.