MARKUS X'S POV

"No!" I ducked underneath a slap from Kitana. "We are NOT letting her stay here! She could compromise our entire operation and expose our plans to Shinnok!"

I grabbed her wrists, stepping on her feet and leaning back when she tried to headbutt me. "She is the mother of my children! I refuse to abandon her."

The Edenian princess growled, but calmed down as Jade placed her hand on the royal's shoulder. "Kitana, please... Calm down. If you were sterile, and Liu Kang and I intended to use me as a surrogate mother so you could have a son or daughter, would you try to force him to abandon me?"

"No, but that is different! You are my best friend, Jade, but this woman... She is nothing but pure evil at her core."

"So, like me?" A voice broke through the bitter conversation we were having, one I recognized very well as my girlfriend, her khaki booty shorts firmly hugging her ass and complimenting her magenta accented black tank top and its lovely cut, exposing a trace of the pink bra underneath.

"Precisely." Kitana still had a bone to pick with her clone of a sister.

"Funny... Our mother treated me like the favored child, not you."

The two women drew their weapons and lept towards one another, but Liu Kang and I stepped in front of them, freezing the pair in their tracks. Shinnok had done this intentionally with Kitana, I knew, making her less inhibited towards Liu and more cruel towards her 'sister.' I hadn't known her while she was alive, but it was pretty obvious that he'd done something to her.

Mileena then sighed, relaxing and going back to our bedroom. She was frustrated, and though I knew she got over it, I didn't know how. All I knew is that there were plenty of tissues on the ground. Tissues I always had to pick up.

Deciding to leave Kitana and Liu Kang alone so they could work on her issues, my ears immediately perked up to the sound of something coming from my bedroom. Peering inside, I couldn't help but notice Mileena. I watched her moan, her body shifting as something began to fill her abdomen up. Her bandage-clad stomach began to expand before settling at the size of a woman six months pregnant. She placed her hands on the bulk of her new belly, stroking and cradling it reverently...

Then she began to cry.

A drop of red dripped from between her legs, and as it drew back into her, I immediately understood. Opening the door, slowly and silently slipped into my bed, getting behind the lovely hybrid that was my future wife, kissing her on the back of the neck. "Baby, what's wrong?"

She sighed, leaning back into my chest and taking my hands in her own, placing them on her abdomen. "I want kids..." She broke back down in a frenzy of incoherent crying. "I'm sterile and I want a family and I can't have it!"

I smiled, running my hands over the bandages 'covering' her body. "That's what Adriana is for... She will bear children for you to raise!"

Her sobbing had stopped, but my lovely half-Tarkatan was still having a downer. "I know, but... Surrogacy or adoption just isn't the same. You know they're your child, and yet, they aren't. What if they ask about their real mother? What am I supposed to tell them?"

"The truth," I responded, running my hands over her tummy. "But why fill yourself up with Skarlet?"

"Because I want to know how it feels, Teddy. I want to feel life genetically created through the combination of your and my DNA growing inside me. I want to be a biological mother, having something I helped form live within me, needing me to survive until I finally let it into the light to see it for the first time..."

With that, I watched as Skarlet exited her body, my girlfriend's moans drowned out by her logic.

"Actually, you two, in-vitro fertilization would work. The sorcery that created Mileena didn't cause her to be sterile via magic. It caused her to be sterile because she had no eggs in her ovaries. Using IVF would allow for her to have children."

With that, I began to heavily consider the option of artificial insemination...

ADRIANA'S POV

Little did the couple know, but I was watching them. A small chunk of myself was underneath the bed as I listened in to everything the two of them said. I guessed that if Mileena was going to have kids, it meant I would need to leave.

Opening a portal back to the Netherrealm, I was about to step foot in it when Markus opened my door. "No, Adri!" He rushed forward, taking my hand as I allowed the portal to close. "Why are you trying to leave?"

I sighed. "I know you and Mileena are going to try and have a child between the two of you. When that happens, what use do I have? It would be better for me to go back home..."

Before I could pull away, Markus pulled me closer to him and kissed me hard on the lips. "You aren't going anywhere. I love you, Adri, and even if we have a change of plans, you and I are going to be there for our kids. We're... Mates, I believe you call it." I could only nod as his cluelessness began to show. "So, um... What does being mates mean?"

I decided to give as quick an explanation as I could. "When a demon or demoness finds someone they love, and they grow their trust enough to where they have sex with their other, then as soon as their virginity is lost, they are mates with one another. Imagine marriage, but closer and for eternity."

"I see..." He gave a quick glance at my abdomen and noticed that I was at full size. Though the children were fully grown, they needed time to absorb power from me. Only then would they be ready to be born.

"I should write a story about you... I'll call it 'Saibota.'"

With that, Skarlet burst in. "Actually, Markus, that name's already taken for a fanfic Aileen and some guy named Fusion are writing on the Mortal Kombat game. It's fanfic, I know, but still. Bad taste. I thought you'd know better."

Fan fiction? Mortal Kombat fan fiction? I had the worst feeling that this would involve plenty of yaoi, stupidity, and other stuff I despised in an additional story. God help the poor bastards who wrote anything about Markus and Liu Kang turning around and kissing and and fondling and... I think stopping here is a good idea.

"Speaking of Aileen, I want to talk to her. She's been more than enough of a help to the OIA, and since Sonya's still traumatized over the whole 'Special Forces got killed' thing, someone should reward her for her work with more than just college credit."

I looked at my mate. "What do you mean?"

"Well... You know that thing I made for Mileena that I had you test-fit?"

"What about it?"

"How about I adjust it, make it a bit more... properly sized, and I'll give it to her as her first OIA outfit."

"You do know she is barely legal, if that, right? I would hate for her to have to wear such a minimalistic outfit and be mocked as a whore or slut by her peers."

"You're right... I'll adjust it and check to See if she has any problems with it."

Since Markus was having trouble getting the point that it was wrong to even bring up something like this, I merely did the only thing Icould: I facepalmed. I could have sworn that the children inside of me did the same thing.

All of us needed to be careful. My mother would never kill myself, my mate, or my children. It would rend her too badly, remind her of her own past. Neither would my father do that... Especially considering who he was married to. Quan Chi, however, would take my children to be raised as his personal assassins. I was tired of being a puppet in the hands of others. It was time to live what I wanted to live, love who I wanted to love, and to do what I wanted to do. I couldn't help but smile as Markus slipped his way into bed with me, pulling me tight as he turned the lights out. Even pregnant, I could still have some fun...