Mirrorworld: the Mirror of Y'tilaerPart Two: Distortions

DarkSlayer84

Liu Kang was perched teetering on the edge of the cliff pass that led up to Shao Kahn's fortress. Liu seemed unaware of his delicate balance, his eyes closed as he twisted backward in a combination of yoga and tai chi that would've dislocated vital joints in someone without his skill. He did it without thinking, the way fish swim or birds fly. It was just part of his training, and his training was part of who he was.

Besides, it might get rid of some of the visions he'd been having. Ugly things, dreams of blood and fire and despair, dancing across the surface of a glowing, serpentine mirror. He'd had a lot of those when he lost his parents, and more when his brother Chan was murdered by Shang Tsung.

The dreams were an old enemy, and didn't bother him.

What frightened him was that they seemed more like prophecy than nightmares...

His posture wavered as a breeze whipped up out of the pass, tearing at him with icy, invisible claws.

Behind his eyes, in the visions, they were claws, claws which reached out from within the mirror. Reaching for his heart. Reaching for his soul...

He wanted to scream, and knew better. That would mean a loss of concentration, and that could kill him. He could literally fall to his death, out here.

The way he had sent Shang Tsung to his death. Liu had never actually killed a man before. He'd thought he had, but those warriors had been more--and less--than human. Shang Tsung was still human at the core. An evil, sadistic, perverted one, but a human being nonetheless.

The cardinal rule of the Order of Light: do what you must to walk in the Light, but kill no human man.

But Liu Kang had done just that. There was no way he could win, now. Shao Kahn was too powerful. This was pointless. It was hopeless. It was...

Too many evil dreams for too many days, that's what it was, that was all. It had to be that. Had to be.

Trying in vain to banish the visions from his mind, Liu lost his focus and pitched forward, helped along by the bitter winds. Gravel scraped and swirled under his feet, scattering like bone beads from the edge of the cliff.

Halting, gaining his balance, and backflipping away from the edge were all one thought, one action. When there was solid ground under his feet again, Liu opened his eyes. It was only then that he realized he was shivering.

And it had nothing to do with the cold around him.

"Rayden," he whispered, almost prayerfully. Once, he'd denied his destiny, and fought himself and his fate at least as much as everyone else. It hardly mattered, now.

"Rayden, help me."

The keening wind around him was his only answer.


On the practice yards, surrounded by sky-blue palm trees, Sonya Blade was going through her warm-up routines. They always helped her to think straight. Which was something she needed right now.

Sonya lifted her hands over her head and brought them down, curling them into fists at her sides at the same time, and breathed out.

"Out with the bad air, in with the good," she thought sarcastically.

She still didn't trust this 'Outworld' place. Supposedly another planet, it looked a lot like Shang Tsung's island, and it had the same jungle-tour-from-hell vibe. Rayden had said that Earth was one of many realms, and that Outworld was another one of those realms. Sonya, for her part, still thought it sounded like a sci-fi TV show. Or maybe one of Johnny's movies...

She put him out of her mind, concentrating on her posture as she went through a series of punch-and-grapple combinations. She preferred kickboxing, but it was going to be awhile before she could get back to that: one of Kano's endless supply of moronic thugs had knifed her deep in her right calf a few weeks back. She'd broken the guy's jaw with her other leg, but it didn't change the fact that she'd been hurt bad.

And she didn't like that. Not one bit. She hated depending on others, and she'd had to do exactly that for almost a month. It wasn't horrible--Jax was being real charitable about it--but it still rankled.

She shifted into a crouching stance, put the weight on her good leg, and tried a sweep-kick with the other one. Not bad: the pain was almost gone. She'd be back up to speed in no time, if everything went well. The thought made her grin.

Now for the real test: a jump-kick. If she could still do that, she'd make it out of this whole crazy thing alive. Maybe.

Shifting stances, she gathered herself together and sprung, attacking one of the blue trees. Or rather, the weird pink fruit that was hanging from the tree. She snapped her left leg forward and lashed out.

She hit the fruit with enough impact that it came loose and splattered to the ground. She landed a heartbeat later, breathing hard.

"Damn, girl," said a deep male voice on her right. "Was that with your bad leg?"

There were only two people who would know about that, and one of them was dead. Which left the only other option, her friend and partner on the field: Jax.

"Yeah," she said tersely, between gulps of air, "yeah, it was."

Damn, that had hurt... but she wasn't about to let Jax know. He'd be all over her like some giant mother hen, and that was the last thing she needed.

There was a worried expression on Jax's face, but he forced himself to look normal before she could say anything. He'd been friends with her a long time. Sonya's temper wasn't something you messed with unless you were totally blind or totally stupid.

Jax was neither.

"Listen," he said, "about this Mortal Kombat thing..."

"I can handle it," she snapped.

"That's not what I meant," he corrected patiently. He had a lot of patience, actually. It was one of the reasons they'd been grouped into the same division--nobody else could stand to work with her. "I was just gonna mention that I saw one of those two guys you were with earlier, standin' up on the cliff."

"Really?" Sonya brightened. At least they'd be able to regroup now. She'd never admit it, but she didn't want to be stuck in Outworld alone. "Which one?"

"Asian guy, 'bout yea tall." Jax put a hand up a little below his own shoulder-level. "Looked like he was gonna jump, and then he did a backflip away from the edge." Jax shook his head. "You been hangin' with some weird boys, Sonya, you know that?"

"Better than you think, Jax," she said with a sly gleam in her eye. She looked more like her old self than she had in weeks. "Seen anybody else I know?"

"You mean the blond with the shades and the attitude?" Jax asked. "Last I saw, he was down by those two dudes sparring with nunchakus."

"Don't you know who he is?" she asked, surprised--but she shouldn't have been. Until a few months ago, she had never heard of Johnny Cage, either.

"Uh, no," Jax answered. "Should I?"

"That was Johnny Cage," Sonya explained. Something in the way she said it tipped Jax off.

"You mean, you an' the movie-dude are--? You crazy or what?"

Sonya grinned. "True love, Jax," she said wryly.

Jax shook his head. "True somethin', all right," he replied with a sigh.

They wandered down the beach, off to where Jax had last seen Johnny, with Jax muttering under his breath the whole time.

"Great," he grumbled. "I'm a stranger in a strange land, a really strange land, hunting down Johnny Claude van Cage 'cause my partner thinks he's cute. Damn."

Looking for movie stars on an alien beach--that was weird enough. But Jax had the sinking feeling that the real weirdness was yet to come.


By the time the three of them caught up with each other, the sun was setting, the night deepening. They would be expected to return to the Black Tower, soon... an idea none of them were happy with. They stood at its forbidding gates, staring at the hideous gargoyle statues. They looked like people who had been crucified, with open cavities in their metal chests. In some, there were remains of unlucky animals--and people--who had come too near to the statues.

"That is one spooky-ass place," Jax said. "Dunno how anybody can stand lookin' at it, let alone livin' in it."

"Gothic," Johnny said, "as done by Tim Burton and Wes Craven. In a film directed by John Woo. I've seen worse."

"Yeah," Sonya agreed, "but those were cardboard and poly-foam. This one's real."

"Oooh, good point," he teased, grinning. She punched him playfully on the arm. "Ow," he said, shaking his arm dramatically--Sonya knew she hadn't hit him that hard.

"Are we going to stand around looking at it, or did you want to go inside?" A man asked, with the slightest hint of a Canton accent.

"Liu?" Sonya and Johnny said as one. Neither one had heard him approach. "What're you doing here?"

A second later, Jax chimed in with, "You're the guy from the cliff!"

"One and the same," Liu answered with a hammy grin more befitting Johnny. "I was--meditating up there this morning." He turned to Johnny and Sonya. "Have either of you seen Rayden?" he asked.

"Nah," Sonya said. "I'm sure he's around here somewhere, though. Why?"

Before Liu could answer, there was the sudden sound of drumming from deep within the Tower Hall.

"I know that sound," he said. "They're the same drums Shang Tsung used on the island to call the warriors to dinner."

"Cool," Jax said, "chow time."

The other three favored him with a patient look.

"What'd I say?" he wanted to know.

"Never mind, Jax," Sonya said. "You'll find out in a minute. Come on."

The Hall was crammed end-to-end with long, low tables. The only clear space in the room was a long, narrow raised platform down in front. People were sitting Indian-style on the floor, talking with each other in low voices and picking at food that could only be called bizarre.

"You guys see anything that looks like pizza?" Jax asked hopefully.

"See anyone that looks much like a human?" Sonya retorted. At first, Jax had no idea what she was talking about, but then his eyes adjusted to the dim, smoky torch-light.

And then he stared. And kept on staring.

There were cat-people and bird-people, snake-people and strange figures he couldn't even identify.

"Damn, girl," he said softly. "What the hell have you gotten me into?"

They didn't have time to argue about it, though: shortly after the group sat down, the drumming stopped. Right then, a man strode out onto the platform; a tall, strong figure in a black hood. The cloak draped over his shoulders made it impossible to tell just how tall he really was, but he seemed to loom head-and-shoulders over everyone else--including Jax, who at six-four, wasn't exactly short.

"Man, that is one big dude," Jax said.

"So who is this guy?" Johnny wondered.

"I think I can guess," Liu answered.

The man onstage looked up suddenly, and let both hood and cape fall to the floor, where they were snatched up by white-knuckled servants' hands. He was a commanding figure, cased in armor built from bleached dragon's bones. Its skull formed the helmet of his suit, hiding everything but dark eyes that blazed with power and the hard, bitter line of his mouth.

"Welcome, honored guests," he rumbled in a voice that was earthquake-deep. "Citizens of Earth," his mouth curled in a sneer, "and citizens of Outworld. I am Shao Kahn, ruler of this world. You are here to partake of Mortal Kombat, the greatest contest of skill in this Realm or any other."

"You will die, mortals, blah-blah-blah..." Johnny muttered, with a dead-on imitation of Shao Kahn's granite-hard facial expression. He couldn't quite manage the voice, though. It was inhuman, as unforgiving and lightless as black diamonds.

"Shhh," Liu hissed at him. "You wanna make trouble for us already?"

Shao Kahn hadn't noticed them, although it seemed he was looking right at them. Through them, toward their souls, as Rayden and Shang Tsung had done.

Sonya fought the urge to shiver. Rayden's search had been merely inquisitive, and Shang Tsung's, while slimy, was hardly dangerous. But Shao Kahn's power scraped over her like sandpaper.

"Some of my warriors have offered to provide the entertainment for this evening," Kahn continued, like nothing had happened. "I trust you will all be--amused."

As if on cue, there were too-bright, falsely jubilant cheers from the Outworlders at the tables around them. Shao Kahn raised his hands, and the cheering stopped dead.

"Then let it begin," he said.

From wherever they were--down side-corridors maybe, Liu guessed--the drummers began a rolling, martial rhythm.

One by one, in perfect step, the chosen fighters of the Outworld made their way across the platform, flourishing deep bows to their Emperor before moving down the line and facing front, in their chosen victory poses.

Shao Kahn recited their names, one at a time.

"Reptile. Baraka. Scorpion. Sub-Zero. Shang Tsung." There was room for one more fighter. One who straggled across the stage, head down, shoulders bent.

Shao Kahn's smile was cruel. "And by her own choice, my daughter--the Princess Kitana."