Annoying as it was to wait for him, Mileena knew that it would be well worth the wait, and that was from personal experience; The Tarkatan hybrid had had her fair share of partners, but not many of them could compare to the wraith she had her orange eyes set upon. That woman of his, the one marrying that other undead warrior, she was certainly a hiccup in the road to happiness with Scorpion, but soon the harlot would be out of the picture completely, and the Shirai Ryu would be all hers... Soon, very soon...
Flesh quivering in excitement, the partial ruler of Outworld could barely contain herself as she imagined all of the things that she would do to Scorpion once he had seen the light! And speaking of the light, the clone of true royalty marveled at the strings of darkened light twisting through the air of their own accord, the diffusing waves melting into the stationary candles lining the path to the newly constructed alter. Made of some kind of blackened metal that would hold better to the eye than the blade, Mileena noticed that it was exactly the same stuff that was holding her dress together. As much as she was loath to admit it, Mileena thought that the bride was actually rather pretty in the gown, but it was soured a great deal by the look upon her face - such a shame that such a lovely face should be so marred by bitter emotion.
"Not the ideal place for a wedding," Vorpax, the Kreeyan Queen and the mother of Reiko's woman, looked around at the labors taken to make the chamber presentable, eyes flashing over at the pale man seated nearest to the bride, "but then again, there is only so much to be desired from this place."
Flinching in disgust, the woman she was speaking to - her eldest daughter Ebele - stuck her tongue out in distaste, knowing exactly to whom the Amazonian was referring, "Don't tell me you're actually thinking about rekindling the past..."
Vorpax, seated just in front of Mileena, swatted her daughter's arm, "Hush! Your..." She pursed her lips, looking around, "The bride is about to say her vows. "
Ebele grumbled under her breath, "About time... Who's bright idea was it to have the vows BEFORE the fun stuff?"
The Kreeyan rolled her eyes at her daughter's blatant jealousy, "Not every realm upholds the same customs. Nor does the first child to marry always have the more fulfilling life." She glanced around her daughter's other side, at Reiko, "But the first to marry do seem to have a family first, and who doesn't love a good family man? Were this woman of importance in the realm, I'm sure that her husband would be viewed quite kinder by his peers."
Looking at Ebele from the corner of his eye, Reiko said nothing, "..."
Merely a few seats away, the chief protector of Earthrealm, along with his understudy, wondered quietly to themselves just how much talking there would be amongst the guests. Raiden, aware of the deeper connection that Scorpion shared with the bride, wondered when the inevitable interruptions would begin. He and Fujin knew more about this situation than it might appear...
Standing at the top of the alter, her back to her family and 'friends', the bride could barely pay attention to the man all of was supposed to be about; the fallen Elder god himself was reciting an old text of unionizing magic from another, albeit forgotten, realm. As he drowned on and on in a tongue none present understood, her mind was preoccupied by the feeling of being almost naked in front of all of these people. But, that wasn't the only thought in her head...
Glancing over her shoulder, peeking down at the soft carpet strewn with the shredded petals of white dahlia and the remains of the fresh corpses of a hundred shared kills with her groom, Evren saw that some of the guests were conversing amongst themselves - while it was too quiet to hear what they were saying from this distance, it was still rude, despite the reasoning behind the nuptials. Scanning the neatly arranged seats, her eyes found that one special face that could make any hell bearable, and suddenly every was alright, the feeling of public nudity gone, replaced with a glowing warmth. So long as she had Hanzo, everything was going to be alright...
Just as Bi-Han finished recounting a laundry list of lies, Shinnok jerked his head in the direction of the distracted demoness, indicating that it was her turn to recite. "And the bride?"
Nodding wordlessly as she snapped back to the present, Evren gazed back first at her father before forcing herself to look upon her groom, mentally preparing herself for what was to come, to what she was going to lose, to what would be gained, "I stand here before my family and friends today to share my love with the world, a love that has given me everything when I had nothing, that has carried me through my darkest hours. I could stand here for a thousand years, saying just how in love I am with this man, but it won't even begin to scratch the surface - only time can know the full extent of my heart. Time, and you, my soul mate," She looked out at the crowd once more, eyes locking into his, speaking every word just for Hanzo, "I would say that you complete me, but before I met you, I was never alive, not even as a fraction of what I am now. Even if I die here and now, it will be with a smile, because now the world will know that I love you; desperately, hopelessly, irrevocably. I am yours, forever, my dearest... My world... Hanzo Hasashi."
Just as the smile broke on her lips, many things happened all at once - too many to recount in perfect detail or order - from a Kreeyan woman's mirthful whoop to a Tarkatan's mouth-dropping stunned silence, almost every pair of eyes gathered looking around to locate the man that had stolen the bride. But while Raiden smiled openly - making no attempt to hide his mirthful cheers - truly glad that the wraith could move on towards a better path, one that might lead to calling him an ally in the not-too-distant future, not every reaction was so simple...
"Whore!" Noob pointed an accusing finger at her, "I warned you!" As if on cue, the windows shattered all around, the stained glass raining overhead, but there was worse to deal with than a simple shower of shards.
Seated amongst the guests - hidden by various means - were the revelers of chaos, the inhabits of the Chaosrealm, led by the cleric Havik. Holding nothing sacred but anarchy, the minute that their disguises fell, everything went haywire, things flying this way and that. While most of the guests were capable kombatants in their own rights, they were unprepared, and that boded well in favor of Noob and his allies. Using the distraction to his advantage, Havik himself capturing Evren in his arms, Noob simultaneously sprang upon Shinnok with a hidden blade.
But Shinnok was not stupid - anticipating this very act of treason from the beginning, he was only waiting for the snake in the grass to lunge. Like the mighty bird extends its claw, so too did the former god, his fingers darting around Noob's blackened neck. "You fool! You think you're enough for the likes of me?!"
Freeing himself with an immense show of skill, Noob struggled against the old god as his shadow materialized at his back, helping their main body to attain freedom. No longer bound by the withered hands of an outdated relic, they began to duke it out, fists parrying fists and sweeping kicks elaborately jumped and dodged. Frenzied by a good fight, they became like blurred shadow as it merged with smoke. Or they would have been, to the untrained eye...
Speaking of trained eyes, Scorpion was fighting the insanity to reach Evren so that he could better watch her back - that girl just couldn't avoid trouble for the life of her - but in the meanwhile, she grappled against Havik. Going back and forth on her feet, the train of the dress ripping away with a sickening sound from where the corpse-like man stepped on it, Evren successfully managed to free herself. Forced to go hand-to-hand against Havik - who proved himself a much more capable opponent than expected - she eventually found herself losing ground, but not quite as soon as others might have anticipated out of her. By rights, Evren had the shadow of a great man to stand against, and by choice, she had a fierce warrior to compete with.
However, the effort wasn't enough; knocked on her knees, Havik was about to deliver a crucial blow to her head with his cruelly spiked morning star, but at the very last moment, she was caught from behind by Scorpion's kunai, the weapon wrapping harmlessly beneath her bust. Reeling her in like the catch of the day, they exchanged a brief smile as he helped her stand up. "A little late, don't you think?"
Offering her his hand, Scorpion pulled her vertical. Once more his face was obscured, and yet the playful smirk was evident in his tone. "You didn't tell me that you were going to use my real name."
Evren snorted, "I didn't tell you what I was going to say at all." But she didn't have to, because he already knew.
Fighting back-to-back as two random chaos-realmers attacked, Scorpion and Evren showed a stunning display of teamwork, making mince-meat of the assailants. It took them back to the slaughter of Tarkatan hordes on the sands of Outworld. Charged by a fresh face of cleaved skin, the couple each grabbed one arm, and swinging their limbs in opposite directions, sent the body spiraling into the opposite wall, the bone ripping away as the corpse was torn in half by their fatality.
From that point on, everything seemed to go even crazier, as none other than Mileena approached next, one sai blade pointed right at the other woman's chest. "You don't deserve him!" She shrieked like a little girl fighting over a favored doll with another child. "I am a queen! You are just a stupid worm!"
Possibly offended by that remark even more than Evren was, Scorpion prepared himself to take on Mileena personally. Shaking her head, Evren held her hand out to stop him. "No, I think this fight is mine." Quan Chi's daughter then addressed the hybrid, speaking coldly with an undertone of command, "I am going to finish you, but it isn't because of Hanzo - he has already made his choice. I will end you, only to end your suffering, pitiful child."
Roaring in outrage, Mileena and Evren began to duke it out in a battle-royal-style brawl, throwing a barrage of kicks and a flurry of fists, no holds-barred. Using her trusted sai when her own strength failed to be enough for the other monster's perseverance on its own, Mileena went for Evren's face, thinking that if she was to be horribly disfigured in some way, Scorpion would no longer desire her. An unfortunate failure on her part, as he will always care about Evren, no matter what she looks like. They had that kind of a love.
Weaponless, the necromancer's daughter had little choice but to throw her arm up in defense. The sound of metal twisting through bone was grating, and the sounds of her cries as they mingled with the crunching sound could have fueled a symphony of the dead. Plunging through the marrow in a painful melody, the Tarkatan's blade penetrated both side of flesh, puncturing the demoness' cheek. Screaming out in agony as her maneuver only caused the sai to slow down, Scorpion - not too busy dealing with random assailants that tried to approach the two women - paused for the briefest of pulse-pounding seconds to watch as Evren used the opportunity to kick her opponent in the lower abdominal region, using that advantage to extract the weapon from her arm. Armed now, albeit with her weaker arm, Evren came out victorious as she stabbed Mileena in the chest, running her heart through, twisting the stolen sai until the deranged female toppled over.
Before she could decide about whether or not to finish off her enemy for good, despite her previous words, Evren was grabbed from behind, a rather ornate, gold-plated knife at her throat. Having faith that she could look after herself for five minutes, Scorpion missed her victory over the jealous Tarkatan, instead witnessing an opening he could not pass up. Sprinting away with the sweet promise of vengeance looming on the immediate horizon, white eyes blinded to all, the wraith stood opposite against Quan Chi...
Knife digging into her throat as he pulled her into the background of clamoring souls, a voice whispered in her ear, a pair of strong hands pulling her out of the fray, "It must be nice to have all of them fighting over a disgrace being like yourself. Too bad it was all for nothing."
Realizing who the voice belonged to at once, the demoness gasped, making the blade dig a little bit deeper into her flesh. "Shinnok?! What are you doing?!" She might have asked of Noob's whereabouts for the fear of what he could do to her next, but that was hardly an issue in her mind at the moment.
"Silencing my enemies." He spoke as simply as if they were out at lunch, not a wedding-turned-bloodbath. "You know, I never understood how they thought that their scheming went unnoticed... Quan Chi might have fooled a lesser god than I, but it was pure hubris of him to think that he could do the same to me. Your father is too prideful for his own good - he must be taught a lesson."
Somehow, it came as no shock to Evren that Shinnok would know everything of her father's schemes. "Then why go through all of this, if you knew? It would be easy enough for you to just kill him." It was frightful for her to imagine just how many opportunities there had been during this whole ordeal.
"Your father wasn't the only one scheming behind my back. Yet, I was unprepared for this." He was undoubtedly referring to Noob's alliance with Havik. "A true shame that he had to defy me. Perhaps it is a bigger shame that you threw your lot in with that miserable bastard."
Aware of the steady drizzle running down her neck, any anger that she might have had over that slight was diminished, eyes darting through the battlefield to find Scorpion and her father. They were fighting near the exit, neither having the upper-hand. Watching them go at it was a thousand times worse than being held captive at knife-point. "What are you going to do?"
"Make an example of two idiots and the one woman unlucky enough to be caught in the middle." Shinnok had no regard for the demoness, nor anyone else that dared to disagree, he made that abundantly obvious.
He was going to kill her?! Evren could feel her own eyes bulging out of her skull, both real and artificial. Well, she thought with some small consolation as she took one last look over at the duo in the distance, at least Scorpion was going to be safe from the sight of her death. Wait a minute, where was Scorpion? Frantically searching through the chaos for the pair again, in everything that was happening, Evren had lost sight of him. They were both nowhere to be seen...
So this was it. She was going to die alone, unable to fight back, unable to see anyone she loved, aware that there would be nothing but pain and misery and suffering. Somehow this was always how she had expected it to happen, only she wasn't frightened, because even though she was about to become permanently departed, Evren knew that she wasn't really alone. Not anymore. Closing her eyes as she imagined her favorite memory of Hanzo, Evren whispered into the air, "Goodbye..."
About to say something snide and condescending, blood spewed forth from Shinnok's mouth, frothing up in the corners, splattering the entirety of her shoulder. Back painted as a second blade severed flesh and bone - head from shoulder - his arms fell slack enough for her to throw him off completely. There was no remorse as his corpse hit the floor, gilded weapon bouncing down to the ground with a final clang, a joyously familiar sword sticking out of his chest from the back. Retrieving the Mugai Ryu, Scorpion smiled down at the stunned female, wrapping his arms around her waist as he embraced her, no absent amount of relief in the breaths he need not take. She returned the smile, at first.
Shoving the wraith away with a hitch of hesitance as something monumental occurred to her, Evren frowned, brow creasing in dismay as she scoured for signs of the dead necromancer. "Where's...?!"
"I didn't kill him. Yet." Hanzo made it clear to her that he was still going to do it someday.
It came as a relief to hear that the deed had not been accomplished on this day. A small one, but a relief all the same. Even for all of her talk, for all of her happiness, she still wasn't ready for the lasting goodbye. "Thank you, Hanzo. But why?" For the love of the Elder Gods, she couldn't fathom what had held him back.
Leaving Evren to fend for herself, Scorpion had chased after the sorcerer and left Evren, not even knowing that Shinnok had turned his attention from Noob. Quan Chi did, and there was nothing that stopped him from taunting the enslaved wraith, pointing out that as strong as she was, she was no match for an Elder God. Not that he started out by goading his daughter's secret lover with that information, greatly revealing in the petty jabs and insults he hurled at the ninja. Once he heard that she was in danger, the specter froze. Disturbing as it was to let the weasel slip away like this, it wasn't worth losing Evren, not when it was in his power to save her still. "I love you too much to let you die."
But now wasn't the time for that.
With Shinnok dead and some of the commotion dying down with the dwindling number of kombatants, there was enough space for a flying projectile to hit a distracted target and only the intended target; said projectile was in fact a handful of sharpened shuriken, each spinning with ferocious velocity for Scorpion. Seeing this as they embraced once more - not even urgency enough to spoil their moment - Evren shoved him off to the side, taking most of the metal stars in her back, so unprotected by that tacky garment she had been forced into...
Recovering from her intended stumble technique - reminiscent of a land version of his aerial throw - catching her in his arms before she hit the ground, Scorpion gandered upon her in unmitigated horror. "Evren?! NOOO!"
Coughing up copious amounts of blood, mouth full of that fabled copper taste, it was painfully obvious to even those locked in kombat that she wasn't going to make it, a resigned smile on her face, "You give your life..." there was much hacking and gagging as she struggled to find the words around the steel grinding against her heart, the light rapidly dimming in her eyes as she fought to keep him in focus, "to the... one... that... you... love..." And she died in his arms, face locked in equal tellings of torment and serenity, lips parted meekly against the shape of the faint 'v'. A small tear mingled with blood fell from the corner of her eyes.
Screaming aimlessly at the heavens as he clutched her corpse to his chest, cursing his fate as he refused to ever let her go again, he held her lifeless form in his arms. He was not alone in his unbridled grief, however. Furious that Noob had gone so far as to slay his daughter - the owner of the unique stars only obvious - Quan Chi ordered the remaining members of the Brotherhood to seize him, promptly ending this senseless scuffling. As the dark one was taken away in magical shackles, stunned to see that Evren's devotion to Scorpion was more than words, that she would actually give her life for his, Raiden went to Scorpion's side, gaze gentle.
"Take her." As the fighting stopped for good and every one left alive either vanished into thin air or looked around at the damage done, the Thunder God created a portal to take them back to Earthrelam. Hanzo, already in this very same position once before, refused to move, secretly afraid that like the last time, she would crumble away into nothingness, naught but dust in the wind. Raiden surmised as much, repeating kindly. "Take her. Go to my allies, and wait for me. I have business to attend to here."
Being of the Netherrealm, it would have made more sense to leave her here, to enshrine her remains, but he knew that this had never been a home to her, than anywhere else would have been better, so he did not fight it. Not needing to be told again, Scorpion took Evren as gingerly as he could, pausing before stepping into the portal to Earthrealm. "I will be back for those that made her suffer." It was a promise, and Quan Chi knew that he was included...
A/N: I know, I skipped ahead quite a bit, but really, nothing very interesting happens in those between chapters. It also didn't help that I was completely stuck on how to start this... But thankfully, my friend totally helped me figure it out! And speaking of friends helping me out, I want to thank Obelisk of Light for one of the final reviews in NFNF, because if not for that, I never would have realized that Shinnok was being a tad too gullible. So thank you, you really did help me fashion this chapter, even way back then (I say as if it was years ago lol). See, good ideas can totally spring from small exchanges! Reviews totally help, in other words *hint* *hint*.
Ok, so now that that's over, I guess it's time to grab the torches and make that horrible author who wrote this story pay. But before you all form an angry mob, just let me tell you now that there is a sequel to this, "(Don't) Say It". I was originally going to do two more stories to this, but sadly I don't know if I'd ever finish it (heaven knows this one took more than long enough), so I have opted instead to narrow it down to one more part. But, I'm not sure if I'll be updating (Don't) Say It as frequently as I did in the past, because I'm working on a lot of other fics too. But don't worry, I still have a bit left to tell here!
Disclaimer: I don't own Mortal Kombat. That honor goes elsewhere. Like (but no limited) to Netherrealm Studios, the WB (or whatever they're calling themselves over at Warner Brothers), and Ed Boon. There might be more, but I'm no lawyer, and I'm certainly not versed in ownership rights, so I don't know exactly who owns what. I can, however, lay claim to Evren, Ebele, Blaanid, Serik, and all the other minor nameless characters, and I do.