I.O.F Chapter 6: A ninja showdown with a smiley face

Sub-Zero walked with a steady pace. It was raining and it did not seem that the rain would not soon but the warrior did not mind. He had fought many battles in the rain and actually liked the cool water after these hot days on this strange island. After the battle against the gunwielder where he finished his opponent off with a fatality, Sub-Zero had met a strange clown who used cards, a really odd gun and even gas to fight the mortal kombat warrior and as a resul  Sub-Zero had frozen him. When the clown had thawn out during the battle, the clown had escaped and Sub-Zero put up a full persuit but in the end, Sub-Zero had lost track of the clown.

The icy warrior was now walking around, trying to figure out where he was but without much succes. He was completely lost. The warrior kept walking when he suddenly saw someone sitting on a large rock. The person was fully dressed in black and was clearly a ninja from his looks. Sub-Zero had dealt with ninja's before as he fought them a lot and even he himself was a ninja. Therefore, he was pretty shure he knew that he could handle this one. He stepped towards the ninja and started speaking: 'I challenge you to mortal kombat' His voice was loud and clear. He may have lost track of the clown, but he now had a new opponent he could kill to have one less person stand in his way to win this tournament and confront Scorpion. The opponent looked up just as Sub-Zero started with his freeze attack.

Ryu was meditating. He had found a large rock today and spent his time wondering what to do with his inner conflict. He had been lured on this strange island with the promise of a artifact that would keep his village save forever. The man who had spoken these words and accompagnied the words with images of the village burning, the men killed and the woman raped and enslaved. Knowing that the village had been attacked several times in the past, Ryu had little choise but to accept the offer of the stranger.
Now he was sitting here, he regretted it. The stranger had played him and had struck Ryu on his weak point, his village.
It was clear that the man had been lying and that there were no artefacts. After he had seen the first fight in the arena, Ryu was shure that that the pictures he had seen were mere illusions of his own fear.
The few days he had been avoiding opponents and trying to find a way out but it was indeed impossible to escape. The inner conflict that now played was that of taking out his opponents and hoping that the stranger would indeed keep his word or keep avoiding the other warriors and try to find the man who lied to him.
Suddenly someone spoke behind him and Ryu turned around. He had not heard the words but he knew the man meant trouble.
As he was turned, Ryu saw a man standing a couple feet away. The man was wearing blue and white armour, completed with a blue helmet. The man also had lightblue arms that looked like they were made from ice.
As he was watching, a blue ball was searing towards Ryu and the ninja jumped over it. The choise had been made for him and Ryu would act it out ruthless. Before he landed, the ninja drew the dragon sword and landed with weapon in hand on the ground.

The two ninja's stood ready to fight. Sub-Zero also had his frozen koriblade in his hand and was ready to duel this opponent. Seconds later, the swords collided and a vicious duel ensued. Both men slashed and blocked the attacks of the opponent. Sub-Zero moved with a thrust at Ryu but the ninja dodgded the attack and slashed the icy warrior across the chest. As Ryu was stepping backwards, Sub-Zero slashed him in the leg and and followed up with a kick aimed at the chest of Hayabusa.
The warriors crossed their blades again and after a lot of dodging and blocking, managed to deliver miner scratches each.
Ryu rolled backwards to avoid impalement and as he stood up, he threw two shurken at his opponent. the shuriken hit the suprised Sub-Zero and before the mortal kombat figher could focus on his opponent again, Ryu came with a powerfull attack. Sub-Zero was just in time to raise his sword and block the attack but he saw how chips of ice flew off his sword. As Ryu recovered from his failed attack, Sub-Zero glided towards him and hit the ninja with a cold shoulder attack. Ryu dropped his sword and fell on the ground. As he stood up, Sub-Zero froze Hayabusa and walked to the man who was dressed in ice. Sub-Zero dropped his koriblade and came with a punch that broke Ryu free out of the ice, after which he delivered some clawed punches the the face, neck and temple areas.
After getting hit three or four times, Ryu managed to counter a punch and struck Sub-Zero in the side with his own attack. He then threw Sub-Zero to the ground and kicked the Lin Kuei in the chest.
Sub-Zero started to breath heavily as Ryu found and grabbed his sword. The hawk warrior stabbed his dragon sword at the ice warrior but Sub-Zero stepped backwards and left a icy clone. Instead of being frozen himself, only his sword got stuck in the ice version of Sub-Zero.
The two warriors walked towards each other and started figthing using their martial arts. Both used hands and feet to try to take down the opponent but each attack got blocked very well. As Sub-Zero moved to put his fist into the face of his opponent, Ryu ducked low and avoided the attack. The then slammed his own fist into the stumach of Sub-Zero. As a response, Sub-Zero pushed his knee in the face of Ryu and as the ninja stood up, Ryu got a crushing headbutt that send him backwards.
Sub-Zero prepared a ice beam but before he could launch the attack, Ryu suddenly dissapeared and left only a few leaves on the spot.
Ryu appeared behind Sub-Zero and gave a flying kick that hit the back of the icy warrior. Sub-Zero managed to transform his fall into a roll and grabbed his sword.
He walked back towards his opponent, holding his frozen koriblade at the level of his waist while Ryu was moving his hands in a pattern. When Sub-Zero was almost upon his opponent, he noticed that the enemy would unleash a attack and quickly slided aside while he kept his sword up for defence.
Ryu had used his energy to create a razorsharp wind and send it off, just as his opponent was moving aside. The attack missed its target but Sub-Zero was unable to pull his sword into safety in time and saw how the ice got cut in half.
The angry mortal kombat fighter threw the lower half of the sword on the ground and readied himself to glide towards the black ninja.
Ryu threw his incendiary shuriken and as the small projectiles hit, they caused fire and that gave Ryu enough time to manipulate the ki energy.
Sub-Zero was finally recovered from this sudden fire attack but Ryu was ready also and used his ninpo to send a fireball towards Sub-Zero. Before the ball hit its target,  Ryu send his second and last ball towards the Sub-Zero made of ice that still held his sword.
The first ball of fire hit Sub-Zero square in the chest while the second one destroyed the ice statue and releashed the dragonsword. Ryu retrieved his sword while Sub-Zero stood up. The ice warrior was weakened and knew he could not fight much longer. There were three things he could do. He could either fight, flee or commit hara kiri. As he was a Lin Kuei, the running was no option and that left only fighting or taking his own life by hara kiri. In Seconds, he made his choise.

Sub-Zero quickly created two small daggers of ice. He would not give up and would fight untill death. He ran towards his opponent, wanting to get the initiative. Ryu attacked with his sword but Sub-Zero used one of his daggers to block the attack and used the other to attack Hayabusa. The small hit the shoulder of Ryu and he as Ryu tried to ignore the pain, he was fighting off the second dagger. Ryu kicked out and struck Sub-Zero in the side but one of the daggers struck him in the leg. Ryu tried another tactic and stepped inside the reach of his opponent. He then threw Sub-Zero to the ground and came with a sword attack. Before the mortal kombat warrior could defend himself, Ryu slashed the wrist of his opponent. He followed up with a kick in the face and stabbed the dragonsword in the chest of Sub-Zero.
Sub-Zero gave one more try to raise himself up but Ryu Hayabusa was using his ninpo and seconds later, a sharp wind cut the head of Sub-Zero off.

Ryu was breathing heavily and after he had pulled the sword out of the body of his opponent, he took a few moments to rest. The fight had taken more energy then he had thought and Ryu should have had started using ninpo earlier in the battle. Damn hindsight. The only good thing in this was that his body was healing itself while he was resting up but he woud not be able to put another hard fight up for a while.
Suddenly, Ryu head the sounds of clapping behind him and he spun around, with his sword ready. There he saw a stranger walking out of some bushes. The man had a white face, green hair and a purple suit. 'Very well done. What a wonderfull show.' The man spoke with a big grin on his face. 'Who are you?' Ryu asked. He was not shure if this man would be a opponent, he did not look dangerous but the ninja kept his sword ready. 'I am the Joker!' The clown almost the last word. He kept on smiling and walked unafraid towards the ninja and past the point of the sword. 'I am no fighter. I just saw the fight and found it great entertainment. I will reward you for such a spectaculair fight.'
It was a strange combination, the ninja and the clown. Altough he was still not convinced that the clown was as innocent as the said himself, Ryu lowered his sword.
'Let me give you a present.' The Joker spoke and making true to his word, he took a flower that was attached to his suit. Before Ryu could do anything, a gass erupted from the flower and hit the ninja straight in the face.
At first, nothing seemed to happen but the effect became clear seconds later when Ryu started to laugh. He did not know why he was laughing and found out he somehow could not stop. Normally Ryu would focus his energy but he somehow was unable to do so because of the laughing.
The was laughing with him and took his hand. Electricity suddenly struck Ryu and seared through his body. While the Joker was holding the hand of Ryu, both men were laughing and one of them was dying.
A full five minutes after the Joker had taken the hand of Ryu, he releashed it and Ryu dropped on the ground, dead. The Joker was still laughing and took a small knife out of his pocket. He then started to carve up the ninja who had fallen for his tricks rather easily and after cutting the face and throat of the ninja, The clown prince of crime stopped with mulitating the body.
The Joker then walked up to the head of Sub-Zero while still having a smile on his face. He tucked the small knife away and spoke to the severed head. 'Look who is out cold now.' He then burst out laughing.

Shang Tsung was walking towards his master. That damn Angst had said that he wanted to absorb two souls now to make him even more powerfull. The sorcerer was not shure why he wanted it now since he would absorb the souls later on anyhow. It really messed up the plans of Tsung. The soulstealer had planned to wait untill the last warriors had died and then absorb all the souls himself. He would then have the oppertunity to slay Angst and take his place as a god. Shang Tsung was not ready yet to absorb the souls now because he feared that he would just absorb the memories and knowlegde of the dead warriors since he had so many souls in him already. For someone else, it would work but the sorcerer was not shure how it would work on himself. If Angst knew that Shang Tsung was planning to betray him, Tsung had a problem and when the souls made Angst stronger, it would be harder to betray the would be god. Angst also had full controll of the clone army and Shang Tsung had not found a way to counter it yet. Things were turning to the worse now, as Shang Tsung was walking towards his master.

'Shang Tsung.' Angst spoke as he turned off the tv. He had just seen how Genghis kahn had killed a warrior named Hannibal Barca. The fight had not impressed him and Angst had wondered if he would let the two real warriors fight to the death once. He could do that, why should he not then.
'My lord.' Shang Tsung nodded. 'I was under the impression that you wanted to have all the souls at once.'  The magician fished for anwers. 'My dear Shang. I want to see how well this works. I never planned to get all the souls in me. I will rather use the winner. He will get all the souls and do my bidding as a unbeatable servant. These two souls are ones I want myself because i like the powers they come with.'
'Very well my lord.' Shang Tsung said.
The first soul was that of Zuko. Shang Tsung manipulated the soul in the orb and transferred the green energy into Angst. When the master of the tournament had taken the whole soul, his face slightly changed. Instead of a clear face, Angst got a burnscar around his left eye. For the second soul, Mewtwo was the victim and after his soul been transferred, the skincolour of Angst changed from white to grey.
'All done.' Shang Tsung spoke. 'Thank you.' Angst answered with a smile. As Shang Tsung was turning to walk away, two armed guards stopped him.
'I need to test the powers first ofcourse.' Angst answered before a question could be asked. He then moved a glass using his mind. As the glass was flying in the air, Angst moved his hand and fire erupted from it. The fire hit the glass and shattered it on impact. Angst knew for shure that he now controlled the powers of Zuko and Mewtwo.
Before Shang Tsung turned to walk away, Angst spoke. 'I want you to use your magic so I can bind the victorious warrior to my will.' 'Very well sir.' came the answer as Shang Tsung walked past the clone guards. He had been expecting this after the would be god had told about his plans. Shang Tsung had a new plan now. He would put the souls into the winner of the tournament but instead of binding the warrior to the will of Angst, he would bind the man to his own will. Shnag Tsung walked away with a smile.