The explosion of the mech echoed through the valley, a thunderclap of twisted metal and ignited fuel. The green energy of the Wrath Hammer had done its job; the Battle Jacket was nothing more than a smoking crater in the snow.
But as the smoke cleared, the reality of the situation set in. The sirens of Muscle Tower were wailing. The floodlights turned the snowy night into a blinding, white stage. From the reinforced blast doors, troops poured out like ants from a kicked hill. Fifty. Maybe a hundred. They lined the walls, the balconies, and the courtyard, weapons leveled at the lone figure standing at the gate.
"There he is!" a commander screamed. "Open fire! Don't let him breathe!"
I stood amidst the wreckage, the massive translucent green hammer fading from my grip. I looked at my hands. The hammer was powerful—devastatingly so—but it was crude. It was a blunt instrument of trauma. It drained my stamina too quickly, and against a horde, a single slow swing would leave me exposed to a thousand bullets.
"Inefficient," I rasped, the word lost in the roar of gunfire.
A wall of lead descended upon me.
Shadow Slide.
I dropped flat, melting into the two-dimensional plane of the ground. The bullets chewed up the snow where I had been standing a microsecond before. I moved rapidly across the surface, a streak of ink on parchment, sliding under the heavy steel gates before they could fully close.
I rose up in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by the enemy.
"He's inside! Point blank range!"
I didn't panic. I felt the reservoir of energy I had stolen from the dinosaur and the gate guards bubbling in my core. It was wild, untamed life force.
"I don't need a hammer," I whispered, my eyes glowing with a jagged, hateful white light. "I need a harvest."
I reached out with both hands. I didn't summon the green energy of Shao Kahn this time. I summoned the cold, condensed darkness of the Netherrealm. I pulled the shadows from the air, compressing them until they became solid matter.
In my right hand, a weapon materialized. It wasn't made of steel, but of obsidian-black energy, sharp enough to cut light itself. A long, curved handle wrapped in tattered wrappings, leading to a wicked, serrated hook blade.
The Troll Hammer Sickle.
I summoned a second one in my left hand.
I spun them. The sound was a high-pitched shriek, like wind tearing through a canyon.
"One man against an army," a brave soldier shouted, charging with a bayonet. "You're dead!"
I sidestepped his thrust. With a casual flick of my wrist, the sickle caught his rifle barrel and sliced through the hardened steel like it was wet paper. The soldier stared at his severed gun in shock.
"I am not one man," I corrected him.
I slammed the hilts of the sickles together, generating a shockwave of black mist.
"I am a Legion."
I channeled the excess life force I had stored. I pushed it down into my shadow.
"RISE!"
The shadow at my feet boiled. It split. Once. Twice. Ten times.
From the darkness, figures began to peel themselves off the ground. They were perfect silhouettes of me—lithe, ninja-like, with glowing white eyes. They held their own phantom sickles.
One clone. Two clones. Ten clones. Twenty.
They stood in a circle around me, a phalanx of void. They didn't breathe. They didn't fear. They waited.
The Red Ribbon soldiers stopped their advance. The sheer psychological weight of seeing twenty demons manifest from a single shadow broke their momentum.
"Brotherhood," I commanded, pointing my sickle at the tower. "Clear the path."
The Legion moved.
It was a blur of violence. My clones didn't fight like martial artists; they fought like a natural disaster.
Three clones rushed the heavy machine gun nest on the left flank. They moved in sync, leaping ten feet into the air. As the gunner fired, they turned intangible, passing through the bullets as smoke, only to re-solidify mid-air and bring their sickles down on the gun placement.
CRASH.
The nest collapsed.
In the center, I walked forward. A soldier fired a rocket launcher at me.
I didn't dodge. Two of my clones leaped in front of me, catching the rocket. They exploded, dissipating into black mist, absorbing the blast completely.
"Disposable," I muttered.
I flicked my sickle. A portal opened behind the rocket-man. A third clone stepped out of the portal, grabbed the soldier by the collar, and threw him into a wall.
I was a conductor of an orchestra of death.
I reached the main doors of the tower lobby. They were locked.
"Open," I said.
Four clones jammed their shadow-sickles into the seam of the blast doors. With synchronized strength, they pulled. The steel groaned, warped, and then tore apart with a screeching metallic tear.
I stepped into the lobby of Muscle Tower.
It was massive, polished, and filled with another platoon of guards. But waiting in the center was something else. Something big.
"Intruder Detected," a synthesized voice boomed.
Standing there was a towering figure, nearly eight feet tall. He wore sunglasses, a green vest, and his skin had the distinct sheen of polished metal.
Major Metallitron. (Sergeant Metallic).
"The Terminator," I noted, stopping my advance. My clones fanned out behind me, hissing like vipers.
"Analysis: Biological anomaly," Metallitron droned. "Threat level: High. Solution: Crushing."
He charged. The floor tiles cracked under his weight. He was fast for a giant.
"Legion! Restrain!"
Ten clones surged forward. They grabbed Metallitron's arms, his legs, his waist. They tried to pile on him, using their weightless mass to act as anchors.
Metallitron didn't slow down. He flexed his arms, shattering three clones instantly. He grabbed a fourth and ripped it in half.
"Insufficient mass," the robot stated.
He reached me. He threw a punch that would have taken a normal man's head off.
I blocked with my Sickles.
CLANG!
The impact drove my feet six inches into the concrete floor. My arms shook. The vibration rattled my teeth.
"Strong," I gritted out. "Physical strength is at least 500."
Metallitron opened his mouth. A missile tip emerged.
"Point blank," I realized.
Teleport.
I vanished. The missile fired, hitting the wall behind where I had been, blowing a hole in the lobby.
I reappeared on Metallitron's shoulders.
"Your armor is thick," I whispered into his audio receptor. "But can it withstand the rot?"
I drove both Sickles down, stabbing them into the seams of his neck armor.
I didn't just cut. I poured the Netherrealm energy into the blades.
Shadow Erosion.
The black energy sizzled against the metal. It wasn't acid; it was entropy. It aged the metal, making it brittle and rusted in seconds.
"Warning: Structural integrity compromised," Metallitron droned, reaching up to grab me.
I backflipped off him, landing softly.
"Legion! The neck! Target the rust!"
Five clones materialized from the smoke of the explosion. They leaped, their phantom sickles slashing at the weakened neck joint I had just compromised.
Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Sparks flew. Oil sprayed. Metallitron flailed, swatting at the shadows, but they were too fast, too numerous.
"Critical Failure," the robot stuttered. His head lolled to the side, the servos severed.
"Finish him," I commanded.
I ran forward, sliding on my knees. I hooked my Sickle behind Metallitron's knee joint and pulled.
The giant machine toppled.
As he hit the ground, I stood over him. I placed the tip of my Sickle against his glowing red eye.
"Game over."
I thrust the blade down. Glass shattered. Circuits sparked. The red light faded.
I stood up, breathing heavily. Maintaining the army was draining me fast. The stolen energy was nearly gone.
I looked at my remaining clones. There were only six left. The others had been destroyed by the robot.
"Return," I said.
The six clones melted back into puddles and slithered toward me, reabsorbing into my own shadow. I felt a small bit of stamina return, but mostly, I felt the fatigue.
"One floor left," I rasped, looking at the elevator shaft.
The Penthouse
General White was sweating. He paced around the command room, his pistol in hand. The Jingle Village Chief was tied up in the corner, looking terrified.
"Where is Metallitron?!" White screamed into the radio. "Answer me!"
Static.
"He's scrap metal," a voice echoed from the ventilation shaft.
White spun around. "Show yourself!"
The vent grate exploded. A black mist poured out, coalescing in the center of the room.
I stepped out of the mist. My armor was scorched, my mask cracked, revealing the grey, dead skin beneath. I dragged the tip of my Sickle across the floor, carving a deep groove.
"You..." White backed away, stumbling over a chair. "You're the Ghost of the North. The monster."
"I am Noob Saibot," I said. "And I am evicting you."
White raised his gun. Bang! Bang! Bang!
I didn't dodge. I spun the Sickle, deflecting two bullets. The third hit my shoulder. It punched through the armor and lodged in my dead flesh. I didn't bleed. I didn't flinch.
"Is that it?" I asked.
White dropped the gun. He grabbed the Village Chief, holding a knife to the old man's throat.
"Stay back! Or the old man dies!"
I paused.
In my old life, I would have hesitated. In Dragon Ball, Goku would have stopped.
But I was Bi-Han. I was the darkness.
"You think I care about hostages?" I lied, my voice cold as the grave. "I'm not a hero, General. I'm here for your base. I'm here for your data."
White's eyes widened. He hesitated. He believed me.
That split second was all I needed.
Shadow Clone: Project.
I didn't summon a full clone. I detached my shadow from the floor. It shot across the room, purely two-dimensional, sliding under White's feet.
It rose up behind him.
The shadow grabbed White's wrist.
"What—?!"
"Get over here!" I roared.
I threw my Sickle.
The blade curved through the air. It didn't hit the Chief. It struck General White's shoulder, pinning him to the wall behind him.
"AAAAGH!" White screamed, dropping the knife.
The Village Chief scrambled away, crawling toward the door.
I walked over to the General. He was pinned like a butterfly in a display case, the black blade buried deep in the drywall.
"Please!" White begged, tears streaming down his face. "I'll give you anything! Money! Capsules!"
I leaned in close. My white eyes bored into his soul.
"I don't want your money," I whispered. "I want your network."
I placed my hand on his forehead.
Technique: Mind Manipulation.
It wasn't perfect telepathy—I wasn't a wizard like Babidi. But I could induce terror. I could make him compliant.
"You work for me now," I said. "You will keep the Red Ribbon Army away from this tower. You will report that you killed the intruder. And you will give me access to Dr. Gero's files."
White nodded frantically, his mind broken by the fear I was pumping directly into his cortex. "Yes... yes master..."
I ripped the Sickle out of his shoulder. He collapsed.
I walked to the window and looked out at the frozen landscape. The storm was clearing. The sun was beginning to rise, casting long, sharp shadows across the mountains.
Muscle Tower was mine.
I had a base. I had resources. I had an army of shadows that I could summon at will, provided I had the energy.
I looked at my reflection in the window. The grey skin, the black veins, the glowing eyes.
I was becoming less human by the day. But as I felt the power coursing through me—a power level now pushing past 600 thanks to the combat zenkai and absorption—I realized something.
I didn't mind.
"Let the Androids come," I said to the rising sun. "I'll be ready."