"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.