Mortal Kombat: The Eleventh Battle

Summary: Once a generation, the great Tournament, Mortal Kombat, is held. The best fighters from all four corners of the Earth come to fight the Emperor's forces from Outworld. If the realm of Earth loses ten Tournaments in a row, Outworld will be free to invade and enslave the planet. The Tournament is the most revered, important event for each generation of warriors; but this time, something has gone wrong.
She is the Witch, a murderous creature from a dimension far from both Outworld and Earth, and seeks to rule over both. She has the power to absorb the abilities of any fighter she bests, even their own powers and magical arts. The Witch seeks to enter the Tournament, and may very well win, which will be disastrous for both realms. Earth's combatants set out to stop both her and the Emperor Shao Kahn, but the youthful fighters forced to carry their generations' weight have enough problems: understanding themselves, and each other...

Author's Notes: First of all, a word about my rights to the story. I came up with this idea, yes, and I wrote much of it. But I shared the story with Justin Hamilton, a friend of mine. He wrote several parts of the stories, helped develop the idea, and was great with supplying me with a few martial arts moves for the tale (he was, last time I saw him, a brown belt in Tae Kwan Do). However, I ended up moving away, and Justin is at college now; I have no idea how to contact him, and many of both our stories were lost to me when I moved. So, Justin, if you happen to stumble across this, I still consider you my co-author, and thanks for all your help.
Second, (damn, this is getting long!) I'd like to say a word about the Witch. I'm an avid believer in ancient magic, and I've studied Wicca. Wicca, which is based on ancient Witchcraft (for those of you who don't know), is a very positive religion that swears never to harm and doesn't believe in Satan or the Devil. I won't be making any references to Satan-- I don't believe in him myself-- but, for the sake of the plot of my story, I needed a powerful being, able to control the weather and magic. She is not anything like an actual Witch, I know (I won't explain Witchcraft, but look for its true meaning and beliefs online), but it was the only word I found that could describe such a person in the mind of the public (even if the public's Hollywood version of Wicca and Witchcraft is warped). I wanted to add this so everyone would know I don't think Witches are some evil devil-worshiping cult full of crazies; I know they're not, and I've studied the ways of Wicca. I thought saying so beforehand might cut down on reviews and e-mails that flame and rant I've portrayed Witches in a negative light and Witches aren't like that; I know that already. I'm sorry to say "Witch" with such a meaning, but I had written the story long before I'd heard of Wicca, and nothing else sounded right by the time I had. I don't want to persecute a religion I see as valid, so if you are a Witch or Wiccan or pagan, etc., please accept my apologies, and if you aren't, I advise you to educate yourself if you are still under the belief Witches are Satanic, evil beasts. They're not.
Finally, please feel free to e-mail me if you don't have an account or don't want to use the review system. My address is raingoddess_47@hotmail.com, and I adore praise, flames, and any comments. As long as you don't flame me for something I've already disclaimed in my Author's Notes, I think flames are a great idea. They really help me learn to write my best, and see things in my story that should be fixed. Someone reviewed my Everworld story with plain old constructive criticism, and it made me see the story in a new light that I believe will help it turn out better (if you've read it, I DO plan on finishing it, but it's taking me awhile; my apologies). So, flame or praise (or ask me on a date; I'm a single nineteen-year-old female) away, but it may take me awhile to reply. Internet problems.

Disclaimers: I don't own Mortal Kombat or anything else mentioned within my story that holds a copyright. Do love the games, though. I retain the rights to my story, however, and to the plots of all my online tales. They don't pay me to write these things, either, so you wouldn't get crap if you actually were bored enough to sue me; go sue whoever did the special effects for the Annihilation movie (PLEASE).

Mortal Kombat: The Eleventh Battle
Prologue


Everything in the universe must balance. "For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction." This holds true in all things, and it must remain so. If the scales of balance were to tip, to upset, the destruction of nature would follow. For every evil, there must be a good, and vice versa. Even the most horrible flood fertilizes soil, and each time the lion feeds to sustain its life, another animal is dead.
This is necessary, the ancient Gods and Goddesses knew. No equilibrium should never be scorned. Yet, when the Universe divided, the powers of the Gods could not control everyone who would upset the Balance at once. So as the Realms were created, rules were set forth. The only way to breach another Realm from one's own would be honorable combat or deed. Thus Mortal Kombat was born: the Realm that won ten straight battles held once each generation could enter the Realm they had defeated in noble, one-on-one war.
Outworld sought to enter the realm of Earth, and was forced to submit to the Ordains set forth by the ancient Gods. They were stopped after nine Mortal Kombats, by the Earth's greatest Champions: Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Jax Briggs, Sonya Blade, and many others. These great Champions even bested the Emperor's plot to enter Earth and return his dead bride Sindel to the living. In reward, they were given the Champion's Right: Immortality until the next Mortal Kombat, that they might fight in the next Tournament.
None of them had realized what that meant until it was received. The immortal Champions were sent to an Other Realm, a limbo of infinite emptiness until the next generation was called to fight; at which time, they would leave the Other Realm and be able to fight in the Tournament again. It would be fifty years before the new Tournament was initiated.
No Champion enjoyed such a thing, but many endured the long wait patiently with the realization that they would be needed to protect their Realm.
Sonya Blade, however, was an exception. Just before she had been granted the Champion's Right, she had given birth to a daughter, and had looked forward to raising the baby with its father, Major Jackson Briggs, or Jax, another Champion. She was never given this opportunity, and her daughter was "orphaned"; the girl would be forty-nine before Sonya was released from the reward she saw as a prison. Liu Kang, too, had been blessed with a child; the baby was only a few months old when he was removed from the Realm, but he was lucky: his baby's mother was Kitana, a Princess of Outworld whom they had been aided by in Mortal Kombat. Her race was human in the way a housecat was related to a panther, and Kitana's incredibly long lifespan would be passed to the child. The baby would scarcely appear more than twenty years old by the time the Tournament came again, and would remain so for more than a millenium.
Rebekah knew all this. Her plan was centuries old, and the new Champions carried to one of the Other Realms had been only a minor setback. She had not expected them to win; Rebekah had been certain Outworld would overtake Earth, and then, in the destruction of the realm of Earth that would surely follow, she would enter the open Portal and murder the Emperor and anything else that stood in her way. From the moment Outworld had initiated the "entry," not even bothering to hide their plans for invasion, Rebekah had seen her chance. The Emperor had been born from her Realm, and had taken over Outworld in the same manner he planned for Earth: to win the Right of Entry, and then to destroy everything in his path that might oppose him. Rebekah had not entered Outworld at the time many of the people of her Realm had, and was uninterested in the idea of leaving: she had become a Queen in Shao Kahn's absence, ruling whatever people remained in the Realm. She had grown in strength and power, now rivaling that of Shao Kahn, and was the strongest creature any sorceress or demon could become without traveling Realms like the Emperor, absorbing powerful energy from the greatest beings in each one. She, the Great Witch, the Queen of the Realm of Sorcery, was content.
Then, when Shao Kahn had crowned himself Emperor and demanded the Right of Entry by Kombat to Earth, she had felt the Balance tear. The Portal that he began between Earth and Outworld grew with each victory in the Tournament. As the plot to lay in wait and destroy him when he removed Earth's defenses formed in her mind, the Portal, Shao Kahn's backup plan, had also grown in strength. When the Outworld Warriors had nearly lost to Kung Lao, Liu Kang's ancestor, Shao Kahn had fully developed his plot: the mother of the girl he had claimed as his heir upon entry to Outworld-- the now-dead True King's daughter, Princess Kitana-- had been slain by her "loving husband" Shao Kahn. Sindel, the Empress of Outworld, who had been no less evil than the Emperor himself, was sacrificed, and her spirit was trapped on Earth. When Shao Kahn had lost the last Mortal Kombat, he had revived Sindel, using her corrupted soul to gain entry through the Portal... but the Champions defeated him once more, thwarting his plan with the aid of an "unholy power" the Emperor could not fathom: Rebekah.
But the Portal remained. Shao Kahn was a patient sorcerer, and had discovered a hole in the sequence of battle to gain entry to Earth. The Gods of Old had placed another rule of the Mortal Kombat laws: if there were nine battles won, and only one-- the tenth-- lost, the eleventh Tournament could be fought. If the Emperor won, he could enter Earth. If he lost, however, Earth could overrun Outworld in the same mannerism. (Which was an option the Earth would no doubt fore-go; they had no such ambitions.) If he entered, though, he would not use the Portal; when the unseen power had stopped him from executing the use the Portal was originally created for, Shao Kahn had abandoned any thought of using it, as fighting Rebekah's power would take long centuries of researching the power before he could unlock the secrets. He had no knowledge of her newly-gained strength that matched his own, having severed all ties between Outworld and his previous Realm to prevent a rival from such a powerful dimension.
He did not know that she would, when and if the Eleventh Tournament was won by Outworld, use the Portal for her own means and enter. She had developed a spell that would thrust her from the Realm of Shao Kahn's birth to whichever he inhabited by the Portal's magics. As his successor in his former Realm, she had the right to use such a spell; the Gods had not bothered to destroy the magic that would allow her to do so and disrupt their precious Balance. They had been fools, to trust that each and every creature and human and demon would do nothing as dishonorable as the illegal Portal!
And the old, wise Elders of Earth were just as laughable. They had not looked into the "slight disturbance of the fabric of space" they had felt at the start of the Mortal Kombats they would fight. Many of the Realms had been challenged previously in the Tournament's ways; Earth had not, which was probably one reason Shao Kahn had sought to challenge it next. The Elders, too, believed Shao Kahn would be honorable, and had assumed the disturbance was natural. As the Elders were forgotten, their descendants training warriors and using magic to find others, the disturbance of the Portal had been forgotten.
Earth was defenseless. Only a few scrawny humans stood between Rebekah and her Quest.
The last variable in the equation had been the Champions. None of them knew the rule of the Eleventh Battle. They would assume it was the beginning of ten, and with their frustrations at losing their lives on Earth to protect their Realm-- the two children, the career of Johnny Cage's, etc.-- who knew if they would continue the virtuous duty they were assumed to fulfill? They would be in complete shock when Shao Kahn took over, and by the time they realized their mistake, it would be far too late.
The Emperor was willing to take that chance; Rebekah was not. If Earth won, her Quest could become very difficult indeed. Outworld would be weakened, and the Emperor had nearly been killed last time. She needed his powers, which would be restored fully after the Tournament; the Emperor was allowed to use very little magic by the rules of Mortal Kombat. He was able to be destroyed in the Tournament, but without the rules to govern him, he would be nearly unstoppable, by anyone... save by his successor, the Witch Rebekah. Once she murdered him, she would rule unchallenged.
So she couldn't allow the Champions to win, or even to weaken Shao Kahn too much. The outcome could be disastrous, especially with the Thunder God Rayden and the Princess Kitana thrown into the mix. So Rebekah would devise another spell that would stop the Champions from entering directly. Unfortunately, the magic that insisted they be able to fight was unstoppable, being as it was bound into the fabric of the Universe itself; her only chance was to keep them from leaving by any means other than the possession of a body on Earth. If they could find a way to do so, she would be surprised; the binding spell would take them by surprise, and it was difficult to master possession for the greatest of Witches.
Only one thing caught Rebekah by surprise: Shao Kahn had discovered an amendment to the Eleventh Battle law. The Eleventh Battle was optional! If the Emperor didn't wish the fight to continue, he didn't have to exercise the Eleventh Mortal Kombat-- and was given fully one quarter-century to decide. As the Elders' descendants on Earth had forgotten many of the old laws, their warriors would certainly not be ready in time... and Shao Kahn demanded the Eleventh Battle be fought only eighteen years after the Tenth!
She was enraged. Her binding of the Champions had been completed in time, but it would end up a boon instead of a hindrance: they could possess the unprepared warriors of Earth! The New Champions hadn't even begun training, and wouldn't for a few years yet-- the Old Gods' stupidity!-- but now Earth's previous Champions were now free to possess hapless passers-by and turn them into deadly fighters, by her own hand!
Shao Kahn would pay for this, for causing her to err, and so would Earth. All would know Rebekah's wrath.
The Tournament would finish as quickly as it was begun, she decided: Rebekah would fight in Mortal Kombat. She would bring dissension among the warriors of Earth; weaken and confuse them, and destroy some of the soldiers of Outworld who might be a threat to her plan to reign. Shang Tsung, for example: he was a dangerous demon and sorcerer, and she dared not take on both he and the Emperor at the same time, especially when they were both strengthened from the souls they would devour from Earth's people. The idea of her being on Earth's side would also hide her from any Outworld warriors who might discover and thwart her plan.
As Shao Kahn initiated the Tournament of Mortal Kombat, Rebekah stepped through the Portal.