As we traveled through the forest, suddenly, we saw strange-looking trees. They appeared to have faces on them. And some of them were actually roaring...as if they were...alive.

So far, everything about this realm has sent chills down my spine. Just when I thought I'd never feel pure fear...I had no idea what I was in store for.

«Beware. You could find yourselves attacked by all sorts of vicious beings here,» Raiden warned us, and the next second, he was gone. That's been very typical of him, as of late. He seems to just come and go without notice at random.

Just then, I found my new comrades under attack by none other than Smoke.

«More Outworld warriors...prepare to die!», Smoke spat. Holy shit, I thought.

«We're not from this realm, and by the looks of things, you must not be, either,» Liu Kang tried to persuade my fellow Lin Kuei.

«Don't play dumb with me!»

Suddenly, Smoke hit Liu in the head with a roundhouse, identical to the one I hit him with earlier in front of the portal.

Liu stumbled back. «No point trying to convince you.»

Liu did the same bicycle kick he used on a few Portal Guards earlier. The fight dragged on, neither one of them landing a decisive blow. I stood behind one of those non-living trees the whole time.

Suddenly, Kung Lao leapt in the air and nailed Smoke with a diving kick from behind. But Smoke did what I've seen him do in tough fights like this; shielding himself with smokescreen. When the smoke faded, Smoke started having the upper hand on both Lao and Kang. Johnny Cage joined in, followed by Jax.

Cage did the «splits» and tried to punch Smoke in the nether regions, but Smoke caught his fist, and kicked Cage in the ribs. Jax tried to grab Smoke, but Smoke, once again, shielded himself with a cloud of smoke. It was all too much for me to see...my new comrades and my longtime friend fighting to the death. I had to stop this fight, and I had to stop it right then and there.

«ENOUGH!», I shouted with a booming voice.

All five of them turned to face me, now standing before them.

«Sub-Zero?» Smoke looked surprised.

«The fight stops now!», I demanded. I turned to Smoke. «I'll have you know that these four are from our own realm!», I demanded.

«The rest of you, meet one of my fellow Lin Kuei; Smoke! And I apologize for the misunderstanding,» I assured them.

The other five just looked to each other. «And Smoke, meet my new comrades I just met.» I introduced each one of them by name. «We'll talk about where we ended up at later, Smoke. But right now, we don't have time,» I said to him. And when I tell him «we don't have time,» he always listens.

«So now that we've located each other, now what?», Smoke asked me.

«You're coming with us," I told him.

«Us?», he asked, confused.

«That makes seven of us now,» Raiden spoke, once again, sneaking up on us. I told you he comes and goes as he pleases without notice.

«Didn't I see you at the Lin Kuei compound?», Smoke asked the Thunder God.

«You sure as hell did, Smoke, and you're gonna be seeing him quite often, too! Meet the God of Thunder and Protector of Earthrealm...Raiden!»

Smoke looked at him, then his eyes shifted to me, and then back to the Thunder God. He put his hands together and against his chest and bowed to him.

«Now that I don't see anymore enemies, let's move on,» Raiden insisted.

«We have a problem, Thunder God...»

«Just call me `Raiden',» Raiden cut off Smoke, correcting him.

«The problem is, you just don't `see' any more enemies...well, look behind you!»

Raiden turned, and the rest of us faced in the same direction.

«Well I'll be damned!», Jax exclaimed!

«More Tarkatans,» Liu mumbled under his breath.

«You know what that means! More cans of whoop-ass for us to open! You guys wanna add fries with it?», Jax shouted in his usual enthusiastic tone of voice.

«FUCK YEAH!», Cage yelled. «TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL GUYS!»

As the Tarkata were closing in, I put my hands together, and gathered my Kori energy. Aiming the palms of my hands to the ground, I shot a stream of Kori on the ground. Suddenly, a huge patch of ice covered the ground in front of me. Enough ice to keep the ground frozen for an hour, I thought. As the Tarkata closed in on us, I could see about at least twenty or so of them losing their balance. They obviously couldn't put the brakes on in time.

"And these guys are the ones Raiden told me to beware of? They don't look as dangerous as I thought!", I taunted.

"They are vicious", Liu Kang pointed out. "Vicious, but not very smart, as you can see here."

Being the only one who could control his footing at fast speeds on frozen ground, I immediately did a sliding kick to one of the Tarkata. He fell to the frozen ground to his feet. As he tried to get up, he ended up slipping back down. Frustrated, he retracted his blades from his forearm and stuck them into the ice for balance, but even then, he still slipped as he tried to get up. I hit another of the slipping Tarkata with my elbow, cracked another Tarkata in the facewith a roundhouse kick, and did an axe kick on a third.

Suddenly, another wave of Tarkata came from the other side. I decided to let these Tarkatans have their little fun with trying to control their footing on the frozen ground and help my comrades out. If they're going down, I thought, then I'm going down with them.

"SPREAD OUT!", I ordered all five of them.

"The hell you say, ninja?!", Jax spat.

"First of all, I'm not a 'ninja'!", I corrected him.

"And second, I'm not going to tell you all again! Trust me! I know what I'm doing!"

Smoke looked to my direction, then to Jax's.

"I've known him for years! When he tells you to do something, just do it, because he knows what he's doing, unlike these mutants!", Smoke said to Jax.

Jax seemed to finally be convinced. "Fine, then! Do what Mr. Freeze says!"

With that, all five of them spread themselves apart, giving me an opening.

Lifting my right hand, palm up, a strange ball of ice rose from my palm. Only this time, it was solid. It looked almost like a snowball.

I looked straight to the one who appeared to be leading this next wave. Squinting my eyes, I thought to myself, there's my target.

I hurled the solid ball of ice at him with such force and speed that his torso burst into thousands of pieces upon contact. It did not freeze him, though.

I saw his legs collapse. By killing the leader of this wave of Tarkata, I had made the job easier for my allies.

Smoke had again surrounded himself with a cloud of smoke, and fired it at a few Tarkatans much the same way I fire my ice blasts. Within seconds, I could hear them coughing. But it was no ordinary cough. Their coughing was like nails on the chalkboard to my ears, and they were coughing as if their lungs were being burned to ashes. I know how his smoke works. If the smoke is strong enough, then it can literally burn your lungs upon inhalation. Such is how he's been able to silence anyone who blew his cover during his days as a spy against the Shirai Ryu.

As the smoke cleared, the number of Tarkata attacking us from that side was reduced to about half.

Cage just did a kick, sliding on his right foot, with his left foot extended, and I could see fading images of him behind him as his right foot slid. He had cracked one Tarkatan on the ground. Another tried to slice him from behind, but he was cut short by a backhand from Cage.

Kung Lao was surrounded by about five Tarkata, when suddenly, he put his hands together in front of his chest and started spinning like a tornado. Within seconds, all five of them were knocked into the air by Lao's whirlwind, and Liu Kang leapt in the air, striking them down with a flurry of kicks and punches, ending with a mid-air fireball.

Jax wrestled with one Tarkatan, and suddenly, he grabbed him by his armor, and lifted him.

"GOTCHA!", he shouted, before punching him in the face four times. I could see his steel teeth falling out, and after all four of those punches, I could see blood trickling down his mouth. He punched him in the face one more time, and that punch had so much force to it, that it sent the now-toothless Tarkatan flying into one of the living trees.

That tree opened its mouth, and with one bite, snapped the Tarkatan into pieces.

Just when we thought it was easy...another wave of Tarkata came...even greater in number than the first two waves. The first wave, needless to say, I pretty much took care of, myself.

Within seconds, we found ourselves surrounded.

All of a sudden, streaks of lightning flew across the Living Forest. Like the fight Liu and I had with the Shadow Priests, we all saw the Tarkata become reduced to ashes, and bloody bones in the blink of an eye. And when the lightning cleared, Raiden stood before all six of us.

"As Liu pointed out to you," Raiden said, looking to me, then to Smoke, then back to me. "The Tarkata are vicious, but not very smart."

"Now I understand why you warned me about them."

"Strength in numbers is what they have. Their main weakness is, they usually attack you blindly, and only if you're smart enough, can you outlast them," The Thunder God pointed out. "Just play a game of chess with them. You'll see what I mean."

Raiden walked past us, and we turned to his general direction.

"Just a little down that way," he said, "is the Wastelands of Outworld. I must warn you that the Centaurians call this place home. Even though none of you have been to this realm before, you should know what they look like. Your realm's Greek mythology refers to them as 'Minotaurs'."

With that, Raiden walked into the distance.

"So where did you end up at?", Smoke asked me.

"Excuse me?", I asked, confused.

"After we went through the portal."

"Some weird place...red spiral sky, with a black hole in the center of that spiral...that's all I remember about that place," I told my fellow Lin Kuei.

"That's a permanent portal...as a matter of fact, it is the portal Shao Kahn will use to enter Earthrealm should he succeed in this tournament," Liu added.

I nodded. "How about you, Smoke?"

"I ended up here," he replied. "Ever since then, I've been attacked nonstop by lots of Outworld warriors. Which is probably why I mistook your new allies for them." Smoke turned to Liu Kang.

"Sorry for mistaking you for an Outworld warrior," he told Liu, extending his hand out to him.

"Don't worry about it," Liu replied, extending his hand, shaking Smoke's.

Kung Lao stepped forward. "Shall we go?"

All of us nodded. We walked in the direction Raiden walked earlier, headed for the Wastelands of Outworld.