Chapter Text
Nightwolf woke to the crackle of flames, echoing and needling his ears like the fangs of a serpent. He pushed himself up, squeezing his eyes tight and rubbing his sockets with his palms. His eyes burned with the itch of sand. He rubbed the dust off as best he could, but only served to irritate them. Nightwolf felt a drip of water along his brow. He instinctively leaned up, letting the water slide along his face, loosening and carrying the sand grains down his cheek.
“I- Thank you,” Nightwolf said with a slight bow of his head. When he looked up again his vision had cleared, allowing him a better view of the figure. His jaw fell as the man before him returned his bow with a poise honed over countless centuries.
“You are quite welcome,” Shang Tsung said with a sly smile. The flame in his hand glowing like a captured star. Nightwolf growled; he called on his spirit energy, the cry of a wolf echoing in his ears, sending a burst of energy through his legs. Rolling back, Nightwolf summoned his spirit bow as he turned back, leveling an arrow at Shang Tsung.
“What is this,” Nightwolf shouted out. His eyes glanced around the seemingly endless blackness that surrounded them. No walls or ceiling in view. The only sources of light emanating from Shang Tsung’s flames and the glow of Nightwolf’s bow, casting a mixture of red and green over the Sorcerer's withered face and reedy grey beard and mustache, “another one of your traps or infernal prisons?”
“I can understand why you might leap to that conclusion, especially given my history with your legacy title. But this place being my prison?” Shang Tsung clicked his tongue, shaking his head like a disappointed instructor, “that’s just insulting. Even the worst corners of my flesh pits had the accommodation of torchlight. This place, however…” He glanced around, his teeth biting the edge of his bottom lip as he looked around them. Nightwolf tightened his grip on the bow string, but followed Shang Tsung’s line of view. There was no reflection of any walls or ceiling, not even any distinguishable signs of the floor; an endless abyss in every direction. “I can assure you, I’m as much a prisoner here as you are. Now, your assistance in thawing out our mutual acquaintance would be more than appreciated.” Shang Tsung skated his fingers along the block of ice, the ruby and emerald flames emanating from his palms glowed over the outstretched limbs of the frozen figure.
“What mutual acquaintance?” Nightwolf asked, the tension in his bow string loosening as he turned his elbow inward.
“See for yourself.” Shang Tsung didn’t even glance back at Nightwolf. His gaze focused solely on the figure encased in the ice.
Nightwolf chewed at the inside of his cheek, but after a moment he let the bow vanish from his grasp. He instead grabbed at his axe, letting azure flames ignite along the steel. He took a step forward, seeing a shadow of a smile on the corner of Shang Tsung’s face as he approached. He held up the axe to the ice, seeing a finely muscled arm wearing a gold gauntlet over a leather glove; the face of a growling lion carved into the gauntlet. Nightwold held his axe up further, seeing the faint glow of a tattooed symbol on the figure’s shoulder, and the edge of a silver and burgundy tunic over the figure’s chest. Nightwolf raised his axe again and looked up to the figure’s face, the air catching in his throat as he recognized the long thread of the figure’s silver braid.
“Lord Fujin?” Nightwolf pressed his free hand against the block, feeling the sting of the cold pierce his finger tips like a thousand tiny razors.
He searched frantically for some signs of life in Fujin’s expression. The wind god’s mouth was parted as if he was caught off guard while speaking mid sentence. His hand extended and opened as if reaching out to a friend in need. His pearl white eyes were parted wide; turned as blue as sapphires under the layers of ice and the glow of Nightwolf’s flames. “We need to get him out, now!” Nightwolf barked at Shang Tsung. The sorcerer merely rolled his eyes.
“Do you not think if I could have I would not have done so al-”
Nightwolf smashed his axe into the ice, leaving a large crack in it’s surface and sending small flecks of ice into the sorcerer’s open mouth, causing him to wretch, losing his poised composure as he balked.
“I didn’t think it possible, but it seems I underestimated your foolishness,” Shang Tsung coughed, “are you trying to kill him!”
“No,” Nightwolf gripped his axe with both hands and took a breath; letting the air flow down his throat into his lungs, and back out his nose as his chest fell, “I’m saving him.” Azure flames spread wide around the ice, glowing and rising around the block as Nightwolf channeled his energy. The edge of the ice mound started to drip; the corners smoothing out like the edge of a shell, but Nightowlf could tell it was not enough. He needed to be faster, to have more power to melt the cold away. He summoned as much energy as he could through the axe, calling on whatever spirit energy he could conjure in this realm, but the gentle hand of his eternal guide was nowhere to be found. The great spirit’s kindly echo was silent here.
“If you’re so determined to follow this course of action,” Shang Tsung’s voice pierced at Nightwolf’s ears. The rings of his wrinkled knuckles falling on Nightwolf’s elbow; his touch feeling as soft as shedded snake skin, “Allow me to assist.”
“Back away, sorcerer!” Nightwolf recoiled, yanking his arm from Shang Tsung’s grasp, but causing his hold on his axe to loosen. The blue flames turned somber. The darkness of the void suddenly encroaching on them like a swarm.
“Your so-called guardian is not here to aid you or your ally. If you had followed my initiative we could have taken him out slowly, braced him properly. Now if we do not revive him fully the shock may very well kill him. You must accept my aid!”
“I would hardly trust you with my own life, and I would certainly never trust you with his!” Nightwolf spat back. He glanced at the sorcerer, then back at Fujin, seeing a stir of light in his eyes even as the flames continued to shrink ever so slightly with each passing moment.
“He will not have one if you do not accept my help. You must choose!” Shang Tsung’s voice resounded through the void like a symphony, bearing into every cell in Nightwolf's body. The Matokan warrior closed his eyes, pouring all his might into the flames, causing them to momentarily brighten, then fade. He called out desperately, once again searching for any thread to his deities as the well inside him began to run dry. No one reached out. He was trapped with only one source offering a hand.
“Spirits, forgive me,” Nightwolf prayed. He opened his eyes and turned to Shang Tsung. He nodded. The seer gave a simpering smile, then took hold of Nightwolf’s wrist. A sickly green glow suddenly arising and flowing through his arm and into the axe. A pain spread through Nightwolf’s arm, burning his skin like molten iron. The flames reignited, glowing brighter than ever, then slowly churning about with new form, shapes of scaled arms churning in the flames as they hissed. The burning pain spread up Nightwolf’s arm like poison. Inhuman voices screeching in his ears like the cries of a thousand dying elk. Nightwolf’s hand wavered, his fingers loosening as the pain spread up his arm and into his neck; coiling over him and tearing at his flesh like the talons of a vulture. He considered letting go, giving in and letting his grip on his axe go.
Then he thought of Fujin. The demi-god lounging in the air on a twister as if it were a hammock. His laughter carried with the wind as they’d met in the mountains outside the Matokan reservation. The sun glimmering in his silver-white hair, cut short back then, but still flowing like he was swimming through the underside of a river. The muscles of his chest were bare to the sun, catching the light like an oil fire. The air turning about him as the hawks above cried. The birds had taken to flying in circles around the wind god before one particular hawk had dipped down, the edge of its brown-gold feathers skating by Nightwolf’s head. Fujin’s eyes had followed the hawk, allowing him to catch sight of the young man below him. A look of surprise had overtaken him, then he’d smiled. Beckoning Nightwolf with his finger to emerge from the thrush.
“So you’re the new Nightwolf,” Fujin said as the twister lowered him to the ground, “You have a lot to live up to,” a glint of light carried down from his eye to his cheek as Fujin’s feet met the grass, “But I trust you will live up to it, as have all those whom came before you.”
Nightwolf fell from his memory, the burning pain had spread from his shoulder up to the entirety of his upper torso. The screams tore at both sides of his head, causing his eyes to well with tears. He could still let go, be done with it, but he only tightened his grip, refusing to let his fingers fall from his axe. Then the ice splintered and shattered like a mirror.