"The Tournament" - Part Five

Part Five

            Training, fighting, training, fighting, and then more training and fighting.

            That was all Margie ever did over the last several months since she and Toby had been locked in this single dimension. Margie was so driven from her quest to end Shang Tsung and his tournament that she lost focus on who she was. Toby knew from the times Cara reminisced of the Time War that she was a fighter of sorts – a “gladiator” was what they called her on Gallifrey. She wouldn’t have guessed there to be one under all that blonde, white, and crazy.

            And yet, there it stood in front of her, in the form of a Filipino woman dressed like Elektra. “I know I’m only pretending to be you, but now I feel like I am you,” Toby told Margie, who practiced the techniques Raiden taught her with the sais in the T.A.R.D.I.S. console room while her companion tinkered a little with the controls.

            It was evident to Toby how they swapped roles since Margie took up her crusade.

            “You wanted the name, now you take the baggage it comes with,” Margie countered, not bothering to look Toby’s way.

            Toby’s frustrations finally boiled over. “When will this pointless mission end?!”

            “Pointless?!” Margie’s sights finally homed in on her companion. They looked exhausted to Toby, baggy with an intense fiery glare frozen in them. “That man is killing people in his death tournament! I’m trying to save lives by stopping it and him!”

            “But why is it any business of ours?! Neither of us is from this world! I just wanna go back home, Margie!”

            “You have no home! When I found you, you had no one! You have nothing to go back to!” These words, no matter how true, were more harmful than Margie intended for them to be. That much was so from the tears streaming down Toby’s face.

            The young woman left the T.A.R.D.I.S. in anger.

            Soon after Toby left, Margie heard despondent chirping nearby, finding Gizmo – her pet Mogwai and longtime companion – sitting in one of the console platform chairs that dwarfed his tiny figure. Margie hadn’t even realized he’d been there the whole time. He’d gotten so adept at appearing in and out between places that it drove his owner crazy at times.

            But no more so than at that time, when Margie snapped, “What’re you looking at, you little hairball?!” Her tone was harsh and antagonizing towards the little Mogwai; but, most of all, it was out of character for her. No matter what new body she regenerated into, Neas would’ve never been so cruel to Gizmo of all creatures.

            His chirping got gloomier and his bat-like ears drooped.

            The very sight of him broke both of Margie’s hearts. She stared at the sais in her hands, not seeming to have let go of them since Raiden presented them to her, and then afterward to her revealing ninja garb. What have I become, she subconsciously questioned.

            Ridden with guilt, she discarded her sais and went to her littlest and longest-serving companion. She dropped to her knees, the right position for one to beg for forgiveness. “Oh, Giz. I’m so sorry, lil’ buddy. I shouldn’t have yelled at you that way. I don’t even know who I am anymore…not in this body, at least. Can you forgive me?”

            The Mogwai, not the type to hold grudges, delivered a pardoning chirp.

            Margie happily stroked his small, furry head with her index finger, giving it a kiss thereafter. Though it relieved her to have Gizmo’s forgiveness, there was still the matter of a certain teenaged orphan who deserved more of an apology. Immediately, she rushed out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. to catch up with her.

            She stopped cold in her tracks once she saw Toby being abducted by a four-armed humanoid creature of immense size and build. Near it stood Shang Tsung, oozing with arrogance. He pointed a crooked finger at Margie and issued a new challenge: “Face my champion, Goro, and your ultimate death…or the girl dies!”

            They vanished in a flaming haze before Margie could move a finger.

            The scene, as well as Shang Tsung’s issued challenge, perturbed Margie. It urged her to go to Raiden and his Earthrealm defenders, relaying the news to them.

            “I should have considered her well-being in all of this,” she bemoaned. “But I was so fixated on ending Shang Tsung and this tournament of his! Now Toby could die, and it’s all because of me!”

            “Take it easy, Margie,” Sonya said. “We’ll get her back.”

            “All we need is a plan – a good one,” Liu Kang added.

            “Yes,” Raiden agreed. “If Margie faces Goro alone, she will surely perish. Shang Tsung will see to that either way.”

            It was then Margie snapped her fingers in jubilant revelation.

            “I think I’ve got just the idea,” she cheered.

-----------------

            “You’re wastin’ your time kidnappin’ me! Margie doesn’t care about me! Her head’s so far up her butt tryin’ to stop you and your tournament, she wouldn’t even know I’m gone!”

            Having a chatty mouth was always Toby’s biggest design flaw.

            And she talked most when she was afraid.

            Shang Tsung might’ve looked like a frail old man on the outside, but he still possessed powers unimaginable. It didn’t help much either for Toby to be standing in the middle of Goro’s spooky dungeon lair, with a skeleton hanging from a few shackles nearby and multiple pairs of glowing yellow eyes blinking in the distant darkness.

            “Your friend’s death is inevitable,” Shang Tsung told Toby. “Goro will decimate her in ways I have seen over many that have fallen at his might. He will separate her skin from her bones…rob her of all her limbs…perhaps even bludgeon her head into her stomach.”

            Toby was not at all disturbed by his horrid depictions. “You know, while you were tellin’ me all that, all I could think about is how shriveled your pride must be from a combination of old age and being shown up by a woman…especially one that came back from the dead.”

            There goes that chatty mouth of hers again.

            As good of a comeback as it was, it was effective enough to damage even an ego as massive as Shang Tsung’s. Infuriated, he snapped his fingers and called on Goro. Toby felt the ground beneath her feet vibrate at the stomping of his. The Shokan warrior’s imposing form was enough to terrify her, witnessing it the first time.

            “Watch yourself, girl,” Shang Tsung warned. “You can still be destroyed whether your friend accepts the challenge…or not!”

"The Tournament" - Part Four

Part Four

            With the exception of Toby, Raiden, and the Earthrealm defenders, everyone dispersed from the courtyard, following the death match between Scorpion and Margie that resulted in the latter’s death. Shang Tsung declared it the end of the first round of the Mortal Kombat tournament.

            Toby was in stunned disbelief, mourning in the passing of her Time Lady friend.

            “This is all my fault,” she lamented beside Margie’s dead body. “I forced her into this nightmare only because I wasn’t sure if I could trust this new woman she regenerated as.”

            “Regenerated?” Raiden reacted to the term curiously.

            Staring at Margie’s ravaged inert form since the end of her match, they suddenly detected a shift in movement. Grief changed to astonishment as Margie’s wounds began to heal rapidly. Shortly thereafter, she awoke with a loud, raspy gasp.

            “You’re alive!” Toby cried.

            “But how?!” Sonya questioned. “Scorpion killed you!”

            Margie put her hand over the spot on her chest where Scorpion’s spear perforated, feeling her second heart beating again. “Good thing I’m still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration…that’s how I survived,” she enlightened her companions. “But, next time, I won’t be so lucky.”

            “Next time?!” Toby couldn’t believe she even said those words. “We should get outta here while our heads are still intact!”

            “And give that arrogant old fool the satisfaction of believing he bested me?!” Margie countered, evidently triggered by her earlier encounter with Shang Tsung. “I’m going to win this tournament and rub it right in his face!”

            Toby struggled figuring whether Margie was joking or not; if that old trickster she once was as Cara showed itself in this sick, twisted joke of a declaration she made. Unfortunately, the determined look in her dark brown eyes told Toby that the Time Lady was dead serious.

            “Shang Tsung still thinks you’re dead,” Sonya pointed out to Margie.

            “And that gives me an advantage,” Margie said. “The whole time he’ll be relieving in my ‘death’, I’ll be getting some much-needed training before I step back into the spotlight and show ‘em what I’m really capable of.”

            “I will train you.”

            All eyes centered on Raiden, who volunteered for the task.

            The Elder God was still unable to ascertain how Margie returned to life, yet he saw some great potential in her. “I must caution you…your training will be extremely difficult,” he stated. “It may even change you.”

            “I’ve been through a few changes already,” Margie coyly noted. “Hit me with your best shot.”

--------------

            Over the next days, Margie underwent rigorous martial arts training under Raiden’s tutelage. In the span of this time, Toby could see exactly what Raiden meant by the experience changing Margie – or, more or less, establishing the personality of this incarnation of Neas.

            Margie acceded to a more hard-edged demeanor that was miles away from the goofy persona of her previous life. Even her attire reflected this established personality, wearing revealing red ninja garb. Her weapon of choice became a pair of sais that Raiden helped her grow accustomed to fighting with.

            Once she stepped back into the tournament, she surprised everyone, particularly Shang Tsung (just as she hoped). No mortal could have survived Scorpion’s fatality, the old man contemplated. As soon as he was over the shock of her resurrection, he pitted her in a rematch against her first (and only) opponent so far in the tournament: Scorpion.

            This time, it was an evened match between the two.

            Margie put up a much better defense, managing at one point to deflect Scorpion’s spear maneuver with her one of her sais – one of the tactics Raiden taught her. In fact, her sais were the deciding factor in this rematch, catching Scorpion off guard entirely. She sliced at his arms, legs, and abdomen. She ultimately brought the demonic ninja to his knees, having drained him of both energy and blood.

            For Margie, the match was over. She had more than proven herself worthy of proceeding on with the Mortal Kombat tournament.

            Shang Tsung, however, had not declared the match over.

            “Finish him,” he commanded Margie.

            She stood firm, glaring at Shang Tsung from her victorious place on the courtyard fighting stage. “No,” she boldly refused. “Once I win this tournament, I will end it and you permanently!”

            This was none too pleasing for Shang Tsung.

            Margie made herself into a formidable threat in the old man’s eyes.

            As such, after the match, he retreated to the lair of his grand champion – the four-armed Shokan warrior known as “Goro.” Between the stone walls and dark passageways, he consulted with the Shokan:

            “This mortal, who has the ability to rise from death, is a nuisance. We must do whatever we can to destroy her…starting with her young companion.”

"The Tournament" - Part Three

Part Three

            Rising up from his throne, Shang Tsung declared, “Scorpion wins! Flawless victory!” He was a decrepit old man with pale skin, long balding white hair, and a beard and mustache to match. Donned in robes with shades of blue and yellow, he oversaw each match of the Mortal Kombat tournament. Following Scorpion’s bout, he challenged to the crowd of spectating fighters, “Who wishes to step forward and test their might against him next?”

            Not a single fighter in the audience came forward.

            They were all frightened, and rightfully so.

            Of course, Toby seemed more so than the rest of them, turning to Margie and panicking: “We can’t do this! This was a mistake!”

            “Calm down,” Margie beckoned her companion.

            “What do you mean ‘calm down’? Don’t you get it?! We’ve accepted to be part of a real-life blood sport from Hell! Look at me! I am not Jean-Claude Van Damme!”

            Toby’s loud, expressive ramblings did not go unnoticed.

            They attracted attention from most of everyone in the courtyard, including Shang Tsung himself. “You,” he bellowed, putting an end to Toby’s worrisome blathering as he pointed one of his dangling thin fingers, its long fingernail aimed specifically at Toby. “You shall be Scorpion’s next challenger!”

            Toby’s body went rigid; Margie could hear a loud gulp go down her throat.

            She saw the fear in her eyes – a young woman who knew she was going to die.

            “No,” Margie defied. “I’ll be his next challenger!”

            The Time Lady made her stance on the matter clear, approaching the fighting stage and standing directly across from the demonic ninja.

            Needless to say, Shang Tsung was not pleased.

            “Only I make the choice of who fights in the Mortal Kombat tournament,” he asserted. “And I chose the girl to fight, not you!”

            “Why a girl when you can have a woman?” Margie retorted. “What’s wrong, old man? Scared that your flaming bonehead will be beat by one?”

            Her words were laced with much disobedience towards Shang Tsung.

            There were murmurings of it among the spectators; some talked of how Shang Tsung might retaliate, with the removal of Margie’s tongue serving as punishment, while others were fascinated by her bravery.

            Shang Tsung, on the other hand, hid his fury with pleasure.

            The foolish mortal doesn’t stand a chance!

            “We have our new challenger,” he said. “FIGHT!”

            Without a moment to prepare, Margie was forced to defend herself from the immediate onslaught of Scorpion.

            Displaying an unearthly set of martial art skills, he did not hold back.

            Margie was bloodied and bruised only a minute in.

            She lacked her own fighting skills to square against the demon ninja, believing those she inherited in the Time War would have sufficed. Clearly, she miscalculated the odds of her survival. And it got worse as soon as Scorpion unleashed a spear that was concealed somewhere in his gauntlet. Attached to a metal chain, it penetrated Margie’s chest and punctured one of her hearts.

            “GET OVER HERE!” he exclaimed in a haunting voice, painfully dragging Margie towards him and delivering a brutal uppercut to her face.

            Margie’s body was tossed high across the air, landing several feet away.

            “NO!” Toby shrieked. “Somebody stop this! Please!”

            Raiden and the Earthrealm defenders were hesitant to interfere.

            “We cannot,” the Thunder God told her. “To do so would mean that she forfeits her spot in the tournament.”

            “And that is punishable by death,” Liu Kang added.

            “Looks like it doesn’t matter any now,” Sonya indicated Margie’s unmoving, battered body on the floor.

            The match was over, with Margie’s death signifying a default win for Scorpion.

            “Scorpion wins,” Shang Tsung made it official. “Flawless victory.”

            Though Raiden hated to admit it, it was indeed a flawless victory; Margie never stood a chance.

            At the corner of his eye, he could see Toby dropping to her knees, crying.

            “This can’t be happenin’,” she whimpered.

"The Tournament" - Part Two

Part Two

            “What the heck?!”

            Toby circled around this new woman, standing right where Cara had not less than a minute ago. She was dressed like her, even with the bloodied laceration at her stomach where the Tarkatan’s blade exited.

            “Who are you?!” Toby asked the woman.

            She snickered at the question. “What do you mean ‘Who are you’?! It’s me…your buddy…Cara!”

            “No, no,” Toby denied. “One second you were a young Jane Lynch, and the next you look just as Filipina as I do!”

            Her description rose curiosity in the woman, who by all means was still Neas.

            She inspected her hair and skin, both of which she found to be darker in shade and slightly less so in pigmentation. She looked to her reflection on the control console monitor, seeing her new face for the first time.

            “Oh, my goodness,” she said, alarmed. “I am Filipina!”

            “No need to sound so scared about it,” an offended Toby told her.

            “I still don’t understand what has happened here,” Liu professed in suspicion, his eyes having never left Neas since her regeneration. “Are you a shapeshifter? Like Shang Tsung?”

            “I don’t know who that is, but I’m not a shapeshifter,” Neas told him. “Like I already explained, it’s regeneration. When I’m dying, my body changes completely…right down to my DNA.”

            “Can you change back?”

            Neas turned to her, seeing the great uncertainty on her face. She had seen it before many times with those she traveled with – those who were fortunate (or less fortunate) to witness the change.

            “I can,” she confirmed to her young companion.

            “Will you?” Toby asked, almost beseechingly.

            Neas shook her head. “No. Toby, I swear to you that I’ll do my best to earn your trust back. I know I’m a totally different woman, but I promise you that I’m still the same goofy white girl whose butt you saved along with two weird-looking kids – a cat-boy and a fish-boy – when we were staring down alien invaders on the cusp of Independence Day. You lost everything to those aliens. Your family…your friends…your whole life. Then you met me, and I gave you the one thing you needed at the time: hope.”

            Toby’s eyes flooded with tears as Neas recollected.

            No one else could have known about those events.

            For a brief moment, it made her beam with familiarity, before Sonya alerted to the group, “There are more of them coming this way!”

            They saw her staring at the view-screen across from the console platform, which displayed a live feed of the multiple stampeding Tarkatan warriors, charging straight for Neas’s T.A.R.D.I.S. She was swiftly prompted to make a hasty escape back into the infinite dimensional corridor.

            Unfortunately, the controls were unresponsive.

            “Uhhh…why aren’t we moving?” Toby questioned.

            Neas frantically turned knobs and flipped switches – nothing worked. “Something’s grounded us! The T.A.R.D.I.S. is unable to dematerialize!”

            This news unnerved everyone aboard.

            But it was no more unsettling than the sight of the dozens of Tarkatans edging dangerously close to the T.A.R.D.I.S. They were nearly on the threshold until a thunderbolt struck the Gallifreyan module.

            It vanished from its spot in the living forest while incinerating the Tarkatans.

            In the split of a second, the T.A.R.D.I.S. and its crew were transported to an island specifically located between the realms of Earth and Outworld. The garden they materialized in was particularly recognizable to Liu Kang:

            “We’re back on Shang Tsung’s island.”

            Another thunderbolt hit close by the T.A.R.D.I.S.

            Out of it formed a man wearing a straw coolie hat.

            “Raiden,” an overjoyed Sonya identified him.

            As she, Liu, and Kenshi left the T.A.R.D.I.S., Toby was quick to find out that Neas disappeared from the console room. With the ship’s ever-so-expansive interior, Toby knew it would take hours to find her – or possibly end up getting herself lost, making matters worse.

            There was still a lot that she didn’t know about this new version of Neas.

            Was she even a rational-minded woman? Sure, Cara was no model citizen, yet Toby could always depend on her to be there when she needed her to be.

            The very thought of being in a parallel world with a total stranger terrified her.

            But she had to be brave for her own sake.

            Gathering courage, she stepped out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and joined with Liu, Sonya, and Kenshi as they caught up with Raiden. The coolie hat-wearing man’s appearance was beyond otherworldly. It literally sparked with electricity; his eyes pale white and glowing.

            “What is this vessel you have arrived in?” he gestured to the T.A.R.D.I.S. “I have never seen anything like it.”

            “We’re not sure where to begin,” Sonya responded. “It’s…”

            “My T.A.R.D.I.S.,” Toby instinctively blurted out, much to the perplexity and surprise of Liu, Sonya, and Kenshi. “My name is Neas. I’m a Time Lord from a planet called Gallifrey in another dimension.”

            “Say what?!” Toby heard the real Neas exclaim right behind her.

            She twisted around to see her standing outside the T.A.R.D.I.S. with them, donned in a robe of some type to replace the bloodied, tattered clothes of her predecessor.

            Her unexpected entrance only further challenged Toby’s impromptu fabrication.

            Thankfully, she was hocked up on initiative: “And this is my companion…Margie!”

            Neas grimaced upon the name now associated with her new face.

            Pulling Toby aside, she confronted her companion on the lies: “What are you doing?! And who is ‘Margie’?!”

            “It was my grandmother’s name, and now it’s yours,” Toby said before snootily adding, “You’re welcome.”

            “O.K., but why are you telling them you’re Neas?”

            “I didn’t know where you were, so I panicked, alright?!”

            Their private conversation ended just as soon as Raiden approached. “Whoever you travelers might be, I hope you have brought combat experience with you,” he told them. “Shang Tsung will undoubtedly enlist fresh souls like yours for his tournament.”

            “Wouldn’t be the first time you were forced into a fight…right, Gladiator of Gallifrey?” Margie discreetly teased Toby.

            The teen scoffed, playing the part. “You kiddin’? Fighting tournaments are my thing! Just show me whose butt I have to kick to get that trophy!”

            Toby was so sure of herself…until the first battle she witnessed up close.

            It was between a rather demonic-looking yellow-and-black ninja that went by the moniker of “Scorpion” and the poor random soul chosen to be his opponent.

            The fight was brutal.

            Scorpion thrashed his challenger all across the courtyard where they fought.

            However, that wasn’t the most frightening aspect of the battle.

            That came at the end when Scorpion removed his mask, revealing a flaming skull face, and breathed a long stream of fire at his opponent, burning him alive. The scent of scorched flesh would forever stay in Toby’s senses.

            She finally figured out what Raiden tried to warn her and Margie:

            Fighting in the Mortal Kombat tournament meant fighting to the death.