As if on cue, a cloaked figure, holding that pole-blade weapon again, and adorning some sort of wooden mask, walked in. It walked so smoothly that it appeared to almost be gliding, but it obviously wasn’t.

“Take him,” Shang Tsung said cooly.

The figure grabbed me, and we walked through the place to this new area. While we walked, I noticed that the place was mostly stone, and rather dark. Strange, deranged paintings and sculptures were in and around the area. Doors lead to unknown but presumably obscure places.


I don’t know how long after this was, but I remember walking down some dark, cold, damp, stone corridor (in this new strange human form I found) when I bumped into someone else. They were about my age, too, I could tell by the height.

And they scowled at me. And pushed me back into the halo of light behind me, so I saw the face. It was a boy, for sure, that looked human, except bald. . as well as having no lips and two-inch long sharp teeth that couldn’t close completely. His skin was this strange reddish color, and his clothing was a simple white no-sleeved shirt and oversized black shorts, accompanied by black shoes. That grin was slightly eerie, and the surrounding air became stuffy when he was near.

“Hey, what do you want!?” He shouted in English at me, a smirky sort of attitude behind false sincerity. His voice sounded almost doubled over slightly, but high nonetheless. “

I didn’t do anything, you should watch where you’re going!” I shouted back with equal force, sincere or not. But I did want him to watch where he was going next time. I have to admit, screaming at someone like that was rather entertaining.

“You watch where YOU’RE going, human!” He just shouted right back. Right then, he and I both knew that this conversation was going nowhere. Why it was even continued was a strange occurance. Nonetheless, he had just called me a human.

Human? He called me a human. Of course this is a mistake to be made if you look exactly like one in a certain form, but, I wasn’t human. And I wanted him to know.

“I’m not a human! I’m what YOUR kind calls a Raptor! You’re so much closer to a human than I am, that you’re probably just as weak as them, too!”

Well, what would you expect from an eight year old?

Blades came out of his arms. Sure, I was suprised as hell, wouldn’t you be if two shining metal blades ripped out of someone’s flesh bloodlessly, with that little cold “shing” sound? I hid it, however, and responded with a lowering of my left eyelid and a nice morphing back into my original form- that is just like morphing into my human form. My form looked like, and still does, basically, an anthropomorphic lizard-like creature with dark green scales, but tan underscales, dark, dark, charcoal-like aquaish dark green on the top part of my head, going down in a sort of crest down my back, but this was hidden by my clothing.

He did the same as I did, sort of a blinking glare.

Glaring. We didn’t blink or take our eyes off of the other’s for a good minute or two. Not a “looking through your soul” thing or anything, just an imposing glare.

And he broke the silence.

“How old are you, anyway?”

“I don’t know; I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten here. All I know is that I’m here so that I can protect and make sure that the humans, from earth realm especially, don’t do anything to us anymore, because they’re the bad guys, you know?”

“I don’t care. Whatever. You just watch where you’re going, or maybe next time you’ll get more than you bargained for, gecko-boy.”

What did you expect? This was Baraka. He always seemed a little Americanized to me although he probably doesn’t know or didn’t know what America is and was. Yes, I’ve held a grudge for him, and still do, and I know he holds one for me, too. But that’s what they call the Halo Effect. Of course, there were other certain factors that lead to more than a ‘grudge’ later, since obviously I hold a little more than that towards him now.