The sky above Edenia was the color of a bruised plum. On six continents of the merged realm—formerly Earthrealm, Outworld, and the Netherrealm—the fires of Armageddon raged. But here, at the crumbling peak of the Pyramid of Argus, a different kind of war was ending.
The misunderstanding spiraled.
Johnny Cage, miraculously still alive, threw his hands up. “Ma che cavolo sta succedendo? Perché stiamo parlando italiano all’improvviso?” (What the hell is happening? Why are we suddenly speaking Italian?)
Scorpion tilted his head. “Was?”
When Raiden shouted in Spanish: “¡Taven debe morir o el caos será eterno!” (Taven must die or chaos will be eternal!)
A serrated spear punched through Taven’s shoulder. The chain yanked. He stumbled forward, dropping the sacred chalice of Blaze’s flame. It clattered across the stone.
The Cognatus spell had partitioned them. Each warrior heard only their own language—but . Except for one critical flaw: emotional nuance .
Taven opened his mouth to speak his plea in Edenian—the universal tongue of the realms. Nothing came out. Instead, his vocal cords vibrated with a single, locked language:
Taven, impaled on three different weapons, crawled toward the chalice. The flame flickered. He reached out—only for a stray fireball (from a confused Kitana who thought he’d called her a “stinky fish” in German) to shatter the chalice.
Scorpion materialized from the nether-realm of shadow, his skull-face burning with undead fury. Behind him, Sub-Zero’s frost crept along the pyramid’s edge. To the right, Liu Kang—a revenant no more, but a scarred, living warrior—landed a flying kick that sent three Black Dragon mercenaries tumbling into the abyss.
He furrowed his brow. “Cozy? What?”
