Chapter One
I watch helplessly from the sidelines as my uncle and father go at it. I am only twelve-years-old and Shang Tsung and his army have invaded our safe little village in Luena, Earthrealm.
But the bad people have massacred our home. My mother Ashrah cradles me as I cry big, juicy tears of hurt and pain and my uncle Shang Tsung and my father Raiden go blood for blood in front of my big, watery violet eyes.
I look up at my beautiful mother, whose usually neat brown hair was unkempt and strewn about. Her ocean blue eyes were filled with worry, and she looks down at me for a split second, before tears roll down her face and I look back at my father and uncle.
Shang Tsung has killed my father.
Tsung grabs my father by this throat, taking away his last breath.
"What do you say, brother?" He laughs. I'm angry now. I get up and shake my mother's trembling hands off.
"Where are you going, Jhess?!" Mother cries out. I turn around to reply to Mother, unaware of what was to happen next.
"I'm going to save Father! Do not worry about me, I will be fine!" I yell back.
I turn back around, and my father gasps on the floor. Shang Tsung cut his throat and left him there to die. My mother rushes to his aid as I cradle his head. She sobs as his eyes fade back to its original color.
He coughs. "R-Raiden?" Mother says.
Father smiles despite the blood that gushes from his throat. Tsung has cut his jugular vein, so it is possible that Father will die in a matter of seven minutes.
"Jhessika, take care of your mother. Do not, I repeat, do not avenge my death. That is not the way of our family." He reaches up, weakly, to touch my face. Father's fingers leave red streaks on my cheek.
I look back but Mother is already gone, a trail of blood suspiciously leaving a sign.
I never said that I wouldn't avenge.
I kiss Father on his cheek one last time before his body goes limp, and I run outside to the village.
There are so many evil people fighting against our clan as I look around. I suddenly catch a glimpse of Shang Tsung running down a secluded path, dragging my mother by her hair as she screams for help.
"Mother!" I scream as I pursue them. My long black hair follows behind me as I run--barefoot-- down the trail that leads to my mother's doom.
The air stings my eyes as I see Shang Tsung finally stop, but he converses with Quan Chi.
"I've brought the wife of Raiden. She will be of great information, but there is another." Shang Tsung says. Quan Chi smirks.
He lifts a finger signaling for Tsung to quiet down. "The other is here, Shang Tsung. She is your niece, am I correct?" Quan Chi asks.
Shang Tsung nods. I see all of this from a bush that I am hiding behind. Quan Chi looks over at me like he can see where I am. I gasp but clench my hand over my mouth.
Oh no, I think. He has found out where I am hiding. Now I'll never be able to save Mother if I die. Quan Chi smiles and tells Shang Tsung something that I cannot quite make out.
I sigh out of relief but I feel someone else's breath on the back of my neck. I turn around and scream as Tsung teleports us back to where Quan Chi is. I step on his foot and kick Quan Chi in the balls before I run to my mother.
"Why you little--!" Shang Tsung silences Quan Chi. I flinch as he motions to grab me.
"She will be our little helper. And Ashrah," Shang Tsung strokes my mother's cheek as she jerks her head away. Quan Chi strikes her and she yelps.
"She'll be our little beautiful wife who we shall share." Quan Chi laughs along with my uncle.
The thought of him being related to me is sickening.
I put up a force field between the two and my mother and me.
"You shall not touch my mother, or me for that matter, but you will leave our village without whatever you seek. Or you shall suffer the consequences." I warn them.
My mother kisses me on the forehead and smiles, her skin sallow, pale, and clammy. I see blood shooting from under her white maternity dress.
My mother was pregnant. Eight months pregnant.
Tears form in my eyes. "What have you done?! Where is my sibling? Please give my baby sister back....please, I beg you." I weep. My force field wears down. Shang Tsung laughs as my baby sister cries in his arms. I am helpless now that they have my newborn sibling.
"You are not so strong after all, are you?" He chuckles. "I've asked Ashrah what to name the beautiful blue-eyed baby girl, and she says Kymmery. What do you think?" He raises his voice, and I feel his energy wrapping around my throat, strangling me.
I still do not answer.
"ANSWER ME!" Shang Tsung yells. He squeezes my throat tighter. He looks around for Quan Chi, but Mother has already taken care of him. He lays next to my mother, twitching and breathing his last breaths before Mother lifts her heel and crashes it down onto his skull.
Hard.
"You shall die! Kneel before your master!"
I shake my head no, as a lightning bolt hits him in his head. His energy lets me go and I run to my mother who has passed out on the cold, wet ground.
I shake her gently. "Mother?" I ask in a soft voice. Her eyes open the slightest bit, enough to see me, and she smiles.
"Be good. Live a normal life, go to somewhere far from this realm and take your little sister, Kymmery, with you. I love you both dearly. Goodbye, Daughter." Mother breathes. Her body falls limp and I blink the tears away.
I wrap Kymmery in Shang Tsung's cape as I walk through the portal that Mother made for me before she died.
That was seven years ago. My little sister is no longer little. My mother had did something to her that made her a little bit older that she should be, sort of like...eight years older, which makes her sixteen when she's supposed to be eight.
Now I'm sitting on the subway in New York listening to my music as I ride back to my apartment. I haven't forgotten how my parents died, and how Shang Tsung was never dead himself, but I have forgotten--or at least tried to--about how bad things were back then.
Well, my parents are dead, and me being nineteen and having to take care of my sixteen-year-old sister , is a whole lot of work.
I open the door to my home and see Kymmery sitting on the couch talking to a woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a jacket on with a police badge. She stands up at the sight of me.
"I've been expecting you, Jhessika. My name is Sonya Blade, I'm with the Special Forces. I've been investigating you and your family and I've found that you're from the Realms?" She asks, Sonya doesn't know the answer, but if I say something to confirm it then she will have an answer.
I sigh. Better to tell the truth than to look like a liar. "Yes, I am from the Realms. As is my little sister, Kymmery. Our mother is Ashrah and our father is Raiden. They were very powerful people but a betrayal by Shang Tsung led to my parents' death at the hands of my own uncle, and I have had to raise Kymmery all on my own all the while going to school, though I have graduated already." I take a big deep breath from saying all of that in one sentence.
Kymmery flips her long brown hair and stares Sonya down.
"Well, we need you, Jhessika. My partner Jax and I have been postponing the fact that the Netherrealm and the Outworld are going to overrun Earthrealm. And we only have--what--seventeen other Kombatants to help us defeat forty-one evil Kombatants? We are overwhelmed and out-numbered." Sonya pleads. Kymmery gets a strange glint in her eye and I know exactly what that glint means.
I shake my head no as Kymmery grins widely. "N-no, no, Kymmery, no way in Hell am I--" Sonya butts in.
"Um, just to mention this, you have to actually go to Hell."
Kymmery bursts out in laughter. "Oh my God! There's really a Hell, and we're going to it?! Oh this is just too rich, are we going to meet the Devil while we're at it?" She cracks up.
I smack her in the back of the head when someone knocks at the door.
I open the door and a man with a scar going across his face steps in. Sonya gasps.
"You!" She whispers. I look back and forth between the two.
"You two...know each other?" I ask, completely oblivious to anything that's going on.
"Yes, this man attacked me when I was searching for Kano. I've never seen him since, but that wound has stuck to me forever." Sonya lifts up half of her very-small white tube top to reveal a long scar curving around her side and to her back.
"Eww!" Kymmery turns her head and covers her eyes with a pillow.
The man steps up. "My name is Taven. My father was a God, and my mother was a powerful sorceress, but they are no more. We are in grave danger, I have closed the portal, but somehow Kombatants from the Outworld and the Netherrealm are getting through and murdering innocent bystanders. We need your help, Jhessika. You are the only way, or there's no way." Taven says. I sigh, knowing that I've tried so hard to get away from my past but it just keeps coming back to bite me in the ass.
I put my hands up in mock defeat. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll go with you two to fight whoever the hell it is."
Kymmery taps her chin in thought. "Are there cute guys my age there?" She asks, beaming. Sonya laughs and pats Kymmery on the head.
"Sure, kid. There's guys there." She chuckles. Taven nods and opens a portal to the Netherrealm.
Before I walk through, I take one look at how my life used to be, in contrast to how it will be.
When we arrive it looks as if it's nighttime. We walk through the mysterious world as the flames set the sky on fire.
We enter a temple and we see a guy with a hood standing there. Taven pushes us back and approaches the guy.
"Excuse me but do you know where I can find Shinnok?" He asks. The guy turns and takes off his hood.
Long-ish short-cut blond hair, deep pools of blue for eyes, and a body that looks as if it was carved out by angels. If I wasn't already in Hell, I would've thought that I was in Heaven. Taven shakes his hand and as soon as he catches sight of me, he smiles.
He looks extremely familiar. Who is he? I think.
I forgot to mention to Sonya and Taven that my mother left me a little parting gift. She gave me the ability to read minds, so basically, I could hear everything the guy was thinking about me.
Great advantage point. 1 for Jhess, 0 for.....
"I'm Kobra." He says.
0 for Kobra. He's cute though.
She's so beautiful. Her face is a complete replica of Ashrah's, and she was pretty too, but not like her. Her body is just mouth-watering, and her eyes are rare. What is her name? I feel that she's so familiar. Like we've met before... And why is she so prestigious that everyone wants her on their side? Kobra thinks.
I smile at him, but mostly at his thoughts secretly. "I'm Jhessika, and that's my little sister Kymmery." I gesture towards Kymmery who is desperately trying to get attention that isn't even sent her way.
She flips her hair and blinks her big brown eyes. Alot.
"Hi, I'm Kymmery. At your service." She giggles. I sigh and roll my eyes.
Kobra looks at her and chuckles. "Do you have something in your eye?" He asks. I smirk.
Kymmery presses herself up against him. "I think your sexiness flew into my eyes. Wanna get it out for me?" She smiles. Kobra looks extremely uncomfortable as a woman with short red pigtails and ruby-red lipstick in black and red leather walks up to us.
She takes out her daggers. Sonya and Kobra motion to fight but Taven stops them. I sigh.
Do I have to do everything around here? These people are lazy as Hell. Literally. I think.
I get into my fighting stance as the woman does the same. She lunges after me and I sidestep her as she stumbles to keep her balance. I kick her in the side and scissor-kick her in the face as she falls on one of her daggers. I pick her up by the collar as crimson liquid damages her pretty leather outfit.
Too bad, I would've gladly volunteered to take that for her.
"Who are you and who sent you?!" I ask. She smiles as blood trickles down the side of her cheek from her mouth. She chokes on her own blood.
"M-my name is Kira. I am a member of the Red Dragon Clan. I work for Daegon. I came to reclaim Kobra, because he quit to work with his friend Sonya." Kira explains. Sonya looks over at Kobra, he lowers his head like a dog who has been yelled at.
"Is this true?" Sonya asks. Kobra nods.
"Yes, but at least I can say that I discharged myself from everything and anything associated or affiliated with the Red Dragon Clan. I didn't want to be a killing machine anymore. I wanted to be able to do something good with my strength at least." Kobra explains.
Kira groans and I push the dagger deeper into her body. "Where can we find this 'Daegon'?" I question her. Before she can even produce an answer, she dies.
"Fuck." I whisper.
"Come on, lets go rest. We've had a long day--well, night--wait, the sky's on fire so what time of day is it? Oh whatever. So where do we crash?" Kymmery asks, unusually cheerful.
Taven chuckles. "I'll open a portal and we can go to my village and rest there until tomorrow."
Now I remember where I've seen Kobra before. I've known him ever since we were children. He used to visit my home every week for three days and we would play, and I vowed to love him forever no matter where we were, and I used to call him my boyfriend.
But I was seven and he was eight so, what can I say? But I always keep my word, so....I guess the vow is still on.
I run up to Kobra and hug him tightly. I pull away slightly so I can see his face. Tears form in my eyes. "Hey boyfriend." I laugh. Kobra smiles and kisses me on my forehead.
"Hey kiddo." He smiles back. Taven opens the portal and we step in.