Hello and welcome! If you found this, I'm impressed; this has got to be the only fic in this section at all! But, I just couldn't help myself from creating this thing because it has been on my mind for a while. It might seem like a strange think to mix the worlds of Mortal Kombat and Persona, but if you stick with me, I'll do my best to not disappoint you.

If you are reading this first, I recommend that you click on my profile and find my previous story Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall and give that story's epilogue a read, as it deals directly with this story. Other than that, I hope you enjoy as we lay the groundwork for our crossover to begin!

Mortal Kombat and all of its associated properties are the full ownership of Warner Bros. and Netherrealm Studios, et. al

Shin Megami Tensei and Persona are the full ownership of Atlus et. al

SPOILER NOTE: This story will contain spoilers for Persona 4, Persona 4: Arena, Mortal Kombat 9, and Mortal Kombat X

4/27/12, Southern Japan Countryside

Cassie Cage sighed dispassionately as yet another scenic view of a rustic Japanese village passed by her window. She had been sitting on this train for almost seven hours, and she was having a hard time keeping her head up looking at such a similar scene for so long. She had left in such a hurry that she had forgotten her headphones, her usual remedy to this particular issue.

At the time, of course, grabbing her headphones seemed so insignificant. She just had to get out of Iga, and packing the bare essentials and hopping the nearest Shinkansen Kodama train was the only way to do that. Frustrated, she thrust a sneaker into the empty seat in front of her and pouted silently, doing her best to focus on everything but the insane act of vanishing that she had just pulled.

Lately, Cassie's life went from what she would describe as "complex" to "in-fucking-sane." At just the ripe old age of 23, Cassie was a sergeant in the in the United States Special Forces, a secret black-ops squad dedicated to rooting out terrorist and crime organizations. Of course, that was the official story: the real intentions of the group were to protect the Earth from otherworldly invaders.

It still sounded like a fairy tale to her: Earth wasn't just a planet in the solar system, but its own realm, one of many formed after faceless deities, known only to her as the Elder Gods, split their world to allocate and balance the power in the universe. Earthrealm was a particularly sought after source of power, and powerful leaders in the other realms were eager to merge their own dominions with that of the Earthrealm.

In older and less turbulent times, Earth was protected by the Mortal Kombat tournament, a fighting event constructed by the Elder Gods to prevent invaders from merging the realms and unbalancing the world as they had constructed it so many years ago. Alongside the tournament, a minor deity named Raiden, God of Thunder, kept a watchful eye as its celestial guardian. For a time these two fail safes had worked, but a series of hostile invasions from the realms of Outworld and the Netherrealm had left Earth fragile and weak; it had only been through direct intervention from the Gods through Raiden that Earth had been spared against the might of Shao Kahn, the former Emperor of Outworld.(*)

From the day her mother explained this to her to now, Cassie still believed it to be absolutely batshit crazy. Elder Gods? Realms? Magic powers? It sounded like something out of a paperback novel, but it was the 100% honest truth. Cassie had seen the evidence of these fantasies for herself many times before, but never participated in an active battle against these forces until just six months earlier.

Cassie's mother, Sonya, and her father, Johnny, were two of Earthrealm's strongest champions, having survived the invasions from both Shao Kahn and, soon after, Shinnok, a fallen Elder God who had assumed direct control of the Netherrealm. While Shao Kahn was ultimately slain, an Elder God like Shinnok was not so easy to destroy; he was sealed into his own amulet and put under Earthrealm's lock and key until he was finally set free.

Cassie, now a member of the Special Forces with her own unit, had done her best to stop his return, but his agents succeeded in releasing him into Earthrealm. Undeterred, she and her team gave chase, confronting Shinnok at Raiden's sanctuary, the Jinsei Chamber. As he began to seize the life force of Earth, Cassie was suddenly overcome with a mystical energy that had been passed down from her father. With this new-found power, she was able to fight off Shinnok and defeat him, saving Earth once again. Like her parents before her, she was now a champion of Earthrealm. (**)

As it turned out, however, being a champion of Earthrealm wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Not a few days after the showdown with Shinnok, Cassie was whisked away by Raiden to southern Japan, to the city of Iga. There, at a secret compound, she was put under the tutelage of Hanzo Hasashi and Kuai Liang, two veteran Earthrealm warriors who were to help her learn to control the power she had unlocked. Hasashi and Liang were the leaders of two different clans, the Shirai-Ryu and The Lin Kuei, respectively, that helped to protect Earthrealm from the shadows. They were harsh teachers, and even Raiden had begun to show a much more stern attitude toward Cassie as he pushed her into training every day, warning her of the consequences for not being prepared.

A lifelong doer, Cassie had tried for a few months, but began to chafe under the three men's constant negative reinforcement. She wondered if there was ever going to be a break, or if there was ever going to be time to see her fellow Special Forces friends again. These questions went unanswered by her teachers, who always told her to stop talking and get back to work. Fed up, Cassie stole away in the dead of night, looking to get back to Tokyo and to an international airport.

And so here she was, many hours into her flight from her training and struggling to stay awake. She was afraid to, really; she felt the minute she let her guard down, Raiden would pop up out of nowhere and take her back to Iga. As a God, Raiden seemed to know all and had the ability to appear and re-appear at will, seemingly anywhere he put his mind to. Cassie knew that "running" from Raiden wasn't really an option, but she'd be damned if she wasn't going to try. She had inherited her mother and father's legendary stubbornness.

Still, despite this fear, she couldn't help as her eyelids, feeling like they weighed a hundred pounds each, began to flutter in the orange glow of the late evening. She tried clenching her fist, pounding her thigh, anything to provoke enough force to jolt her awake. These tactics produced no result, and it wasn't too long before she felt herself slowly drift off as she curled into the hard plastic seat of the train. She hoped she wouldn't, but she slowly began to dream as she fell into a deeper sleep.

For Cassie, every dream for the past six months had been the same, and this one was no differet: her, bleeding out on the harsh cave floor of the Earth's Jinsei Chamber. The blue Jinsei, the blood that flowed through the arteries of the Earth and kept it pure, would slowly begin to turn red and vile, as if a volcanic eruption was just beginning to surface. To her right, her father lay helpless and imprisoned in a cocoon of slimy bugs and tiny monsters that slowly robbed him of his blood and flesh. To her left, her mother lying horribly still, her neck twisted all the way in the opposite direction and, thankfully, away from Cassie. Even her nightmares couldn't conjure up the image of her mother dead.

At the center of the chamber, gloating over the lifeless body of Raiden, was Shinnok, the fallen Elder God and soon to be ruler of the realms. His grey, lithe body had been hideously transformed into a tall, monstrous demon that had long horns and a glowing core powered by the God's amulet, a bronze talisman that hosted untold and terrifying power. She watched idly as Shinnok's corrupt red energy tore through Raiden, obliterating every speck of his body into the swirling and misty air.

With a laugh that sounded like burning coals, Shinnok turned his attention to Cassie. As always, she would try, but could find no energy left in her body to get to her feet. At best she could move her fingertips, which did little to stop the Elder God from lifting her up by her thin neck. Losing air fast, Cassie tried to kick her legs but found that even the will to fight back had been sapped from her. She couldn't tell if the tears stinging her eyes were from the agony of her gaping stomach wound or the awful, sulfer-like smell emanating from her attacker.

Without a word, Shinnok would take his other hand and place it on top of her head, mockingly caressing her blonde bun before gripping her entire cranium and tugging. He seemed to do this for what felt like eternity, pulling until the bones in her neck cracked like twigs and there was a sickening pop as her head became separated from her shoulders, the slivers of her spine dangling from the open hole left by the sudden separation. It was always here where she would wake up, sweating and crying before remembering the truth of what had happened. (***)

This time, however, the nightmare stopped, but instead of collapsing awake, the black curtain over her eyes never rose. Eventually, a foreign but calming sound started to sound out through the darkness; Cassie couldn't be sure, but it sounded like water, crashing and wheezing as it did its best to form waves on its murky surface. The darkness began to slowly take form. Cassie could make out shapes, and under her feet she thought she felt wood, confirming it as she looked down and clearly saw the planks that made up the surface of wherever she was.

A sudden jolt underneath her feet caused her to lose her balance, catching herself on a few barrels that were hanging out near a wooden guard rail. As her eyes continued to adjust she thought she could make out a large sail in the dark sky. Was she on a ship, she wondered? As if the world was waiting for her to catch up, a misty spray of foam and water came over the railing and splashed the ground to the right of her. The water was cold, and she put her arms around her body, feeling the temperature in the air. She was wearing what she had been on the train: a black tanktop over a purple sports bra, a white sweatshirt tied around her waist and some black leggings that went down to her calves, a white stripe on either side. Shivering, she untied the sweatshirt and hastily zipped it on.

Trying to get her head around what was going on, she stepped over the newly formed puddle of water and saw a wooden staircase that lead to the ship's main deck. She jumped down over the three steps and began walking toward what she was sure was the helm of the ship. She stopped a moment as another vibration was sent through the entire deck, then kept pushing forward. Another wooden staircase, this one a bit longer, greeted her on the other side. At the top of the steps there was a cabin, most likely the bridge of the ship. Cassie ran up to the door and felt the knob, finding it surprisingly unlocked. She stepped in, only to be greeted by a bizarre scene.

Unlike the rest of the ship, the bridge had a deeply blue carpet that hid the wooden paneling underneath. Front and center in the room was a long desk, the top covered by the same velvety blue material that was on the carpet. The ship's wheel, clearly being driven by a shadowy figure, stood a little to the left of the door she had entered. The walls were covered in a similarly colored material that looked like the soft covering on the back of a chair.

Another figure, shrouded in darkness, was sitting at the desk, but Cassie couldn't make out what it was without any light. She could see that his arms were propped on the desk, his mouth covered by his tightly clasped hands. More clear was the helmsman of the ship, a stern faced man dressed in a dark suit. His tie and jacket stood out in the darkness, both a stark blue compared to the shirt and pants, as well as the glowing brass on his cuffs. He wore a small pillbox hat; Cassie thought he looked like an old-timey bellhop from some wacky hotel. Taking in the scene, she just uttered the first thing on her mind.

"Uh…th' fuck is this?!'

Neither of the two people in the room reacted to her obnoxious expletive. Both stood perfectly rigid, merely meeting her with a seemingly amused stare. The figure at the desk finally looked up, and Cassie almost recoiled when she saw his face. His nose was extremely long, looking almost 5 or 6 inches away from his face. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, a sinister smile stretching his mouth.

"Why, hello there, my dear young lady," the man chuckled, his voice strangely high, "Welcome to the Velvet Room! My name is Igor, and I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

Cassie wasn't sure whether to scream or leap over the desk and punch the creep in his face. His smile was making her more and more uncomfortable, as was the thundering silence from the man at the wheel. The creepy guy, Igor, eventually waved a gloved hand over at his helmsman.

"This is Theodore. He is a resident of this room, much like myself."

Theodore suddenly turned around, hands totally off the wheel, and offered a meager bow with his hand on his chest.

"Very pleased to meet you, my lady," he greeted, his deep voice sounding buttery smooth in comparison to Igor.

Cassie was now starting to slowly back away toward the door, not totally sure what was going on or who these people were. "Uh, is this, like, a dream? Tell me this is a dream. This is wayyyy too fuckin' weird…"

Igor laughed, a hoarse giggle that sounded like he was in pain. "Why yes, child! This is a place that exists between dreams and reality, mind and matter. But before we proceed any further, we must discuss your contract…"

As he finished, a red notebook suddenly appeared on the desk, as if from out of nowhere. In truth, because Cassie had seen seemingly everything under the sun in her short life, the idea of a very long nosed man floating along in a ship offering her a contract probably wasn't the craziest thing in the world. All the same, she approached the desk cautiously, keeping one fist cocked and ready should any funny business go down and she needed to wake up quickly.

The notebook was made of red leather and held a single piece of fine parchment paper in the middle of it. There was a fountain pen lying adjacent to the paper, obviously there for Cassie to sign the thing. The contract was barely readable; the print was so fine that it wasn't even legible. She looked up at Igor, confused.

"So, I usually always sign whatever some creepy guy with a big nose gives me, but I literally can't read what this says. What, uh, what am I signing here? To be his slave girl?" she scoffed, pointing at Theodore, who seemed like he was embarrassed by the statement. Igor calmly shook his head, still smiling.

"Ha, such precociousness! We have not seen a guest like you in some time. This contract is bound only to you, and states that you may have access to the Velvet Room. Without this contract being signed, we cannot proceed any further, I'm afraid."

Cassie made a face. A contract to be in this strange place? Fuck that, she thought. "Oh, so I can't be in here if I don't sign this…whatever?" She got a slight nod from the strange man. "Oh, okay. Then I'm good, peace!"

She closed the book and began to walk away when Theodore stepped in front of her, looking a little agitated. "Uh, miss, perhaps you should reconsider…"

She cocked an eye, wondering if he knew who exactly he was messing with. "And if I don't?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Igor stand up from his position. His smile had faded.

"My dear child, you have limitless potential, potential that we here in the Velvet Room can help unlock! Are you very sure you do not want to sign this contract and be our guest?" He asked, opening the notebook again. Cassie turned around, rolling her eyes. What was up with these guys? How could she dream something so bizarre?

"Look, dude, I have enough people sayin' that I got potential comin' outta my ass. Really. I need one more person to do that like I need a drill in my small intestine, m'kay? So whatever weirdo fantasy Twin Peaks room you guys have here, I'm not into it, okay? See ya in another dream some other day," she ranted, going to move past Theodore and out onto the main deck again. Igor spoke up again, his voice sounding very somber.

"I…see. It is a shame you have chosen this path. Before you go, I'd like to give you…a warning. Please, have a seat," he gestured as a chair magically appeared across from his desk. Cassie glared at him, then at Theodore, who flinched visibly, before crossing her arms and going to sit in the seat across from Igor. Hopefully she could get back to regular dreaming if she heard him out.

"I'm listenin'."

Igor waved both of his hands, and from the red book on the table, two cards suddenly appeared out of thin air. They had a blue mask of some sort on the back, so it was hard to make out what they were. Playing cards? Cassie couldn't tell since they landed on the table face down.

"Okay, so what? You gonna pull some Mindfreak shit on me?"

Igor said nothing as he waved his left hand and one of the cards flipped over, revealing that the other side of the card had a small painting on it. The painting was of a tall ivory tower, in flames, with people fleeing off the side of it. Cassie realized that it must have been a tarot card.

"Oh, one of those new age guys, huh? I know my sign, but I'm not sure what this shit means. Looks rough," she commented, squinting to see other parts of the card.

"This is a card of The Tower arcana, placed in the upright position," Igor explained, looking grave, "It means that an unfortunate accident is in your future, perhaps sooner than you might expect! As for the other…"

He gently waved his right hand, flipping over the other. The card was upside down, but if Cassie flipped her head, she could see that it was a lady in very nice clothes petting what looked like a lion.

"The Strength arcana, flipped in the reverse position. This represents self-doubt, and potential weakness…hmm, indeed. So you will encounter a misfortunate situation at your final destination that may revolve around a critical moment of weakness. Very interesting reading!"

Cassie suddenly felt a little nervous. Self-doubt was kind of spot on. But this tarot card thing was bullshit, right? Who was she kidding-she knew two different telepaths. Anything was possible. A little disturbed, she got out of the chair.

"Hey, look, thanks for the…fortune telling, and all, but I gotta run," she said nervously, again heading for the cabin door. She heard Igor click his tongue, the universal sign for disappointment.

"We in the Velvet Room simply do not want your future to be lost. We can help you harness your gifts in order to protect your future, and find the truth amongst the readings. But, should you choose not to accept our help, then so be it. I bid you good tidings on the rest of your journey," he said sadly. His eyes turned down, focusing more on the cards than Cassie.

Sufficiently freaked, Cassie now bolted for the door, where an alarmed Theodore hurriedly got out of the way. As she threw open the door, a bright white light greeted her instead of the ship deck, and she hesitated. In that brief moment, she could hear Igor sadly contemplating her departure.

"A shame…the power of the wild card is not one to be trifled with, my dear child. Not at all."

What the hell did that mean? Cassie turned, venom in her eyes. She didn't know what it was, but this whole thing was starting to not just give her the creeps, but actively terrify her.

"Hey, just shut the fuck up, ya freak! Leave me alone and let me outta here, dammit!"

Igor sighed heavily and pointed toward the open door that was still bursting with blinding light. Cassie looked between the exit and Igor, before gulping and taking a few tentative steps toward what appeared to be a portal to another realm. Throwing caution to the wind, she got a running start and tore through the doorway, a strange feeling erupting all over her body. The light seemed to envelop her, and she felt lightheaded as she closed her eyes to stop the light from damaging her eyes.

4/27/12, Yasoinaba Station

"Miss? Miss?"

Cassie jumped awake, her fist cocked and ready to strike whatever creep was grabbing her shoulder. The culprit, a shy conductor, closed his eyes and began to beg her not to. Embarrassed, she put her hands down and stared hard at the floor underneath her seat.

"W-whattya want? I was tryin' to catch some shut eye here, dude," she said irritably. She could see the conductor was trying hard to catch his breath.

"Uh, well, yes I see that it's just…w-well, this is the last stop for the night! You can get back on tomorrow, but I'm afraid I must have you leave the train…please don't hit me!

The man put his hands over his face and one leg up in something resembling a standing fetal position. Cassie rolled her eyes, annoyed at the idea of having to leave the safety of public transportation. Out in the real world, she was a sitting duck for Raiden or the two clan leaders to easily find her. She decided to ask the cowering man where she could stay.

"Whatever, fine. Can you at least tell me where I am and where a hotel or fuckin' hostel or whatever is?"

The man gulped, still locked in his defensive stance. "Y-you're at Yasoinaba station, just outside of Inaba. There's an inn, a famous one! It's called the Amagi inn, just upstream from the nearby flood plain. It's pretty hard to miss," he squealed, little beads of sweat starting to form as Cassie's face showed disapproval.

Inaba? She had never heard of it, but she hoped it wasn't too far from Tokyo. She muttered a form of gratitude to the conductor before gathering her sturdy drawstring bag from under the seat and stepping toward the exit.

Outside, she could see from the quarter moon high in the sky that it was probably somewhere around midnight. The station was eerily empty, with no one in sight and barely any lights on aside from the glowing train. She remembered the man in the train saying something about a flood plain, so she squinted at a nearby sign to try and see if it had a hint.

Her Japanese was a little rusty, but she could see that the sign clearly mentioned the plain being due east of the train station. Satisfied, she shouldered her bag and began to walk that direction. As she began slowly traversing the town, she could see that she wasn't exactly in a high class area; the architecture looked several decades old and the road was lousy with cracks and potholes. Clearly it hadn't been touched in a while, but she supposed it had a small-town charm, if you were into that sort of thing.

She felt herself wishing again that she had brought her headphones. The ambient sounds of crickets chirping and the buzz of the cicada made her uneasy; she was a city girl through and through, not really used to the rhythmic symphony of nature in full bloom. She figured it was something that her Special Forces teammate, Kung Jin, could appreciate more; he was a former thief who often had to camp out in the woods to stay away from trouble.

Cassie hadn't thought about them in a while. Whether it was the amusing banter she could have with the easily irritable and cocky Jin, or rolling her eyes at the obvious mushy feelings being shared by Takeda and Jacqui, the other two members of her team, Cassie truly felt as close as blood to all three of them. Being separated for these months had slowly began to bum her out, and it couldn't be any more evident than walking alone down a dark path in some hick town in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from home.

And why was she gone so far? Because, seemingly by accident of being born, she was chosen to save the Earth from invaders from magical realms. Cassie loved a good fight, but sometimes she wondered if champion of Earth was more of a death sentence than anything; she had heard some bad stories about her father's predecessor, the Shaolin monk Liu Kang. His win in Mortal Kombat over the dreaded sorcerer Shang Tsung, had lead him down an increasingly dark path, until he was accidentally killed in Kombat with Raiden. Cassie now knew him as the Dark Emperor of the Netherrealm, a hellish landscape where dead souls went to suffer.

She also thought of her dad, Johnny Cage. A former actor in blockbuster action films, Johnny was long seen as a joke until he proved himself by surviving the harsh battles against the Outworld. It was he that first used the mystical energy in the Cage bloodline to defeat Shinnok, although he was never again able to conjure it. While he was still relatively healthy and good natured now in his fifties, Cassie could occasionally see the toll that losing so many friends had had on him. Occasionally, her nightmare scenario would show her what would happen to her friends if Shinnok had succeeded, and it was the worst part of all.

Shaking her head, she tried to clear out the negative thoughts and focus on getting to the inn that she had been told about. She had made it to the flood plain, a long road that was adjacent to a flowing river. As she enjoyed the oddly beautiful view of the moon being reflected in the river's surface, she thought she heard a noise behind her. She whipped around to see nothing and no one along the road. Was she really just losing it?

Again, the tiny noise poked her in the ear and ran off again. She heard it for sure this time! Stepping off the paved road, she looked off into the distance past the river, but saw nothing. She turned back away from the riverbank and saw a small park bench, and next to it, a growing junk pile. Was there someone or something trying to scare her in that pile? Cassie's curiosity got the best of her, and she wandered a little closer to the bench, quiet as she could be.

The pile was quite big, easily big enough to hide a punk kid or some other vagrant out to cause a commotion. As she got a little closer, the noise perked itself up again; gotcha, Cassie thought. She triumphantly stood up in front of the pile of garbage, old parts, and clunky electronics, hands on her hips.

"You can come on out now, asshole. Come out now and I may only break half of your face."

No response. Perplexed, Cassie went around to the opposite side and saw there was actually no one there. Just as she went to turn around, the noise came back, and Cassie finally saw what was causing it: it was an old TV. Somehow, the giant clunker was flickering on and off, despite its lack of a power source. It was a plasma TV, something Cassie hadn't seen in years. The bottom part of the screen was cracked, and it had a bunch of missing pixels.

Somewhat mystified, Cassie continued to stare at the strange electronic when suddenly the picture showed up again, this time revealing a hazy yellow screen. She squinted her eyes to fight off the strain of looking so close, and thought she could a see a figure in the mess of yellow. She tried to grip the TV in order to get a closer look and almost screamed when she saw her thumb and two fingers go inside the screen. Right through it!

"Woah…okay, I'm clearly trippin' major here. Was it that fuckin' smoke that Master Hasashi had me inhale? God damn, I knew somethin' was up with that," she rambled to herself, trying to talk her way out of what just happened. That had to be it, right? Psychedelics? Trick of the eyes?

In her frantic pacing, she failed to notice an entire arm was now coming out of the TV. It was a black sleeve that had a pale, glowing hand coming out at the end of it. It only became apparent when the arm lashed out and grabbed at Cassie's wrist and clamped down like the jaws of life.

"Woah! What the fuck!?"

Cassie frantically tried to tear her hand loose, but this thing was holding on like a shark. She placed one foot against the TV and tried to kick it away, but that still did nothing to alleviate the pressure. The arm than began to retreat, pulling Cassie with it closer to the TV. Cassie could feel the slimy embrace of the grass and the cold dew on the blades as she was dragged, literally kicking and screaming, closer to the TV. She cried, she begged, but the hand still would not let go.

Realizing all her attempts were failing, Cassie's experienced mind compelled her to action. She reached into the waistband of her pants and pulled out her cell phone, hurriedly trying to get the camera on it activated. Finally, with her arm almost all the way in the TV, she snapped a photo with her left hand and dropped the phone in the grass. Everything turned into a blur as her head came next, a horrible ringing going into her ears.

Everything started to spin, and she could only see odd black and white spirals going on and on as her body began to meld deeper into the TV. When her last sneaker had come through, her whole body ceased to feel anything solid, and she began to fall. For how long and how far she didn't know, for it only took a few seconds for the overwhelming cacophony of noise and sights to cause her eyelids to droop and her mind to empty into a deep, black abyss.

Oh man, poor Cassie. We'll see if her efforts to leave a trail were enough to help in the next chapter. Please read and review, and if you have friends that may be into both these franchises, please send them my way. Thanks, and until we meet again!

Footnotes:

*- As seen in the ending of Mortal Kombat 9's story

**- These paragraphs are a summation of the events of Mortal Kombat X's story

***- This dream is a twisted remembrance of the climactic final battle in Mortal Kombat X's story