Rhea sat silently at the kitchen table, eyes closed tight and jaw clenched, waiting for her father, Raiden, to conclude his lecture so that she could start her day. She couldn't stand to look at him when he went off like this because his eyes would cloud over into a bright white color and shoot sparks like a malfunctioning electrical socket. He was the God of thunder. He was sent to Earth Realm to protect and watch over it after his wife and Rhea's mother, Thora, was murdered by the omnificent Shao Kahn, emperor of Outworld and Edenia. Rhea was only an infant when this took place, so she has no recollection of it, and Raiden never told her the complete story of her history. Since the incident, Earth Realm has been eerily calm, almost unsafe in its serenity.
"Listen, my dear. I understand that you're 19 years old now and that we have had no problems in Earth Realm thus far, but your life style is not what I had intended, and I cannot have my hands tied with saving you from villains if I am going to be effective in my assignment from the Elder Gods." He put his hand on his forehead and sat down across from her.
"Really, Dad? What was your intention? Did you think I would have weird 'thunder' powers like you? Was I supposed to be all electrical and save the world? I was only protecting myself from those creepy guys in that alley last night. Why do you call them villains? They're people! And who are these 'Elder Gods'?"
Rhea had gotten into a fight the night before. She and Raiden lived in a house in the outskirts of Shao Lin, a small village by New York City in the United States. Rhea was in town with her two best friends, Liu Kang and Kung Lao. They decided to go to a boxing match while she shopped for the new platform shoes that she had been wanting for months. She told them she would meet up with them in an hour and headed for the designer shoe store on the corner. The quickest way to get there was through an alley between the local Italian restaurant and the theatre, but no one ever walked through the alleys in Shao Lin alone. Rhea wasn't your typical nineteen-year-old girl, however. Ever since she was a young girl, her strength was what many would call, "out of this world." She played rugby in high school and sent a few girls to the hospital throughout the four years. She broke two girls' hips while tackling them and sent another one off the field with four broken ribs. She never understood why this was, though, because she was far from fat, and she wasn't "ripped" like her friends Liu Kang and Kung Lao were. It wasn't until she was about eighteen that she began to embrace it. Now that she did, her confidence was enough to send her through that alley alone.
The walk seemed to be a complete breeze until she got about three quarters of the way through. There were two men leaning against the walls of the buildings. One was African-American and one looked to be Japanese. By the way they were dressed, Rhea assumed that they had just come out of the arena that Kung Lao and Liu Kang went into. The African-American man was dressed in a yellow, the other dressed in red, and both outfits resembled Kung-Fu style, with a robe and a belt on top of black under armor. They didn't seem to be doing any drugs or drinking, they were just standing there. Rhea thought that it would be safe to walk in between them without saying a word, so she put her head down and quickened her pace. Just before she reached them, they removed themselves from the wall and stood side by side, blocking her path.
"Excuse me," she said as she tried to maneuver through them.
The Japanese man put his arm out so that she could not pass. She could see now that they were both significantly taller than her, which was rare since she stood about 5'8. She looked up to see that they each had pony tails and a head band about their foreheads.
"What is an innocent girl like you doing in an alley all by yourself?" the African-American one asked her with a serious tone, but somehow his voice was not threatening.
"I'm going somewhere…to take care of something. If you could get out of my way, that would be—"
"We're not going to let you go anywhere in this city alone, Rhea, or for that matter, we're not going to let you live in this city at all anymore. Now, come with us," said the Japanese one.
"What? That's not my name… You have the wrong person," she said, trying to hide the panic in her voice as she attempted to push through them with her strength.
The two strangers picked her up by both arms and started to walk towards the wall of the theatre. Rhea did not hesitate to bring both of her legs up to kick both men in the chest. They flew in opposite directions, letting go of both of her arms. She fell to the ground and tried to pick herself up quickly so that she could run to the end of the alley, but before she could run, the men were back at her sides. She put her arms up in a fighting stance, ready to participate in her first real fist fight. She had wrestled with her two best friends before and had seen them fight other men, but she had never fought anyone herself.
When the man dressed in yellow threw himself towards her, she grabbed him by the wrist, twisted, pulled, and flipped him over onto his back, knocking the wind out of him. If she could knock the other one down, she would have enough time to run, so she pulled back to punch him. As she brought her fist back, she felt something stop it, something gentle. It couldn't be the African-American man. She quickly turned to find her father, Raiden, there, holding on to her hand.
"No one's going to hurt you now," he said.
"No! Dad! Stop! We have to…" Before she could finish her sentence, she realized that the two men were no longer fighting. The one that she knocked down had gotten up and they were standing side by side again. She brought her arm down to her side. "Let's go."
She started to walk again but soon noticed that her father was neither by her side nor behind her. She turned to find him standing in the same spot. "Dad—"
"Cyrax. Sektor," he said.
"Who?" said Rhea, remaining still, her pounding like a wild beast trying to escape from its cage.
"Raiden," said the man dressed in red.
"It has been years since I've seen either of you or anyone from the tournament for that matter. I presume that you're serving Shao Kahn now in Outworld," Raiden said, placing his fist to his palm and bowing to the two men.
"We are, and he wants your daughter," the man named Cyrax told him.
"For what purpose?"
"That is not to be discussed. Let us take her."
"You will not take her," Raiden had now stepped in front of Rhea and grabbed her by the hand.
"Shao Kahn is your emperor too, Raiden, don't forget. You are not from Earth Realm and you do not belong here. Soon it will be a colony of Outworld anyway," said Sektor as he demandingly stepped towards the girl.
"I have spoken," Raiden said.
Before the others could say a word, Rhea felt a sharp, shocking sensation throughout her entire body. It almost felt as if she had been struck by lightning, but before she could determine the feeling, it was gone, and she was now standing with her father inside the boxing arena.
"I've never teleported with you before," she said, looking up at her father whose eyes were now back to the normal blue grey color rather than white like they had been in the alley.
"Tell them goodbye. Quickly. You will not be meeting back up with them. We're going home."
Rhea knew he was absolutely serious by his tone of voice, and she was still feeling nervous about the men in the alley, so without saying a word, she walked through the crowd to find Liu Kang and Kung Lao. After pushing drunken men out of the way and tripping over several feet, she found the two in the front row by the ring, cheering on a shirtless man with black pants. By the crowd's chant, she assumed his name was Johnny. She squeezed between their bodies and they both turned to her.
"That's Johnny Cage! Hollywood action star!" Kung Lao exclaimed, putting one hand on her shoulder and putting at the man in the ring with the other.
"That's excellent. Listen. I can't meet up with you guys later. I have to go home with my dad now."
"Is everything okay?" Liu asked her, turning his attention completely away from the match.
"I'll tell you later. I really have to go. I love you guys," she shouted above the crowd as she pushed through to get back to her father.
The two men stared at each other for a moment, their focus completely detached from the boxing match now.
"She only says she loves us when something has gone wrong," said Kung Lao with his hint of an accent.