Author's Note: For my friend, Obelisk of Light, who has been waiting over a year for this showdown :)


"Well, I'll be damned," Kuai Liang tiredly muttered as he looked over the sea of skeletal warriors and saw his kin descend upon the enemy army. "They came after all."

"Thank the Elder Gods," Fujin panted next to him, feeling a swell of relief. The Lords of Mòhé broke over the skeletons like a tidal wave. Those soldiers at the rear flanks broke off their attack on the rebels to turn and face the new threat. "But we're far from finished, Cousin," he said a moment later.

Thunder cracked over the battlefield then, a deafening peal that accompanied towers of clouds building in the sky above. Fujin swallowed hard, instinctively knowing that his brother had finally shown up to fight. He glanced up; indeed, Raiden was there, floating high above, falling into the thunderheads, his arms rising slowly into the air, his fingers reaching upward. His head rolled back as his eyes crackled and sparked with electricity. Lightning arched wildly from him. The power of it tore through the very fabric of the air, electrifying it, leaving the scent of ozone in its place.

"That's my cue," Fujin said to the Grandmaster, hating that he had to attack his brother.

"Need help?" his cousin volunteered as they froze another swath of undead soldiers.

The Wind God half-heartedly smirked. "Save your strength for Onaga. I can handle my brother."

"You sure?"

"Nope," he said. His time in Outworld had sorely depleted his powers. But before Kuai Liang could protest, he was already rising into the air to meet Raiden.

Darkness began to gather more quickly now, the growing storm stealing the light away, yanking on it just as easily as it lassoed the wind into its updrafts. Lightning tore violently across the blackness of the sky, flashing rapidly in every direction, forking, doubling, and doing it over again until the sky itself burned. The bluish-purple bolts vibrated and danced, and with gathering speed were pulled into a vortex, sucked to Raiden within the heart of a thunderhead. Pale blue light coalesced into a jagged egg shape around him. He was a glowing form of light in a sea of darkness. Fujin could see nothing but his brother.

"Raiden!" he called, hoping against hope to appeal to his brother's inner goodness. He really didn't want to fight him. "What are you doing? Stop this madness! Please, remember who you are, brother. You're the Protector of Earthrealm, not the Dragon King's stooge."

Raiden slowly turned. One arm came to his side. The other arm stopped halfway down, his palm reaching towards his younger brother. The blue light bled from the ring that surrounded him into one spot, where his fist was. It seemed to fuse and in a sudden release, blasted in a line of light between them.

With a solid strike, it hit Fujin, lighting him at contact, as if he were connected to Raiden by a thread. It bathed him in the pale blue glow and violently threw him backwards, knocking him from the sky. The line of light extinguished itself. Thunder rolled over the battlefield as Fujin crashed into the ground with all the ferocity of a meteor. The ground shook. All about, it cracked open in jagged, ferocious tears that swallowed many warriors – mostly skeleton soldiers – whole.

The Wind God groaned as he pushed himself up, the lightning bugs still scurrying through his muscles, biting at him with tiny mouths. He weakly collapsed and closed his eyes to will the dizziness away. It didn't work. The world around him spun and burned, and even when he heard Raiden land hard near him, he couldn't make it stop.

And then he heard someone new stalk close, and a deep, familiar voice – Kotal's voice – say, "The dark can't protect you, Thunder God."

"Who are you?" Raiden's hypnotized voice demanded to know.

"When death calls, don't be in such a hurry to answer," was Kotal's reply.

Fujin managed to turn his head to the sound just in time to see the green-painted Osh-tecc hurl a thick, golden plate at his brother. The disk caught Raiden in the face, and it picked him up and carried him backwards into a boulder. He slumped to the ground, momentarily stunned, as Kotal helped the Wind God to his feet.

"What an exquisite performance," the warrior drily remarked to the god. "I can't wait to see how you'll top yourself tomorrow."

"Oh, shut up," Fujin muttered as he threw out his hand and blasted an approaching Raiden with a violent gust of wind. He knew he had to move quickly now, quickly and violently, even though he struggled to move at all. His muscles still screamed as he gritted his teeth and forced the energy to flow from his palm and into his brother, who was unwillingly scooting backwards on his behind now.

But soon, even that proved too much for him, and he staggered as he dropped his palm. He began to slump, but Kotal caught him and held him upright. "This will not do," Kotal criticized. "How can you fight him if you are weak and wounded?"

"One punch at a time," Fujin breathed, standing on his own again. "I'm rapidly regaining my strength, Kotal." It was true. The pain in his overwhelmed nerves was quickly receding.

"I shall deal with him," the Osh-tecc fearlessly said as he pulled out his macuahuitl and stalked towards the Thunder God.

With eyes glowing in white and electricity, Raiden lifted himself into the sky, his long white hair whipping around him in the wind. He watched with an almost sinister smile on his face as Kotal approached, and then he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and pulled even more daylight into him. The sky over the screaming battlefield darkened even more, and the thunder came in loud, rapid peals. And then all was still.

For a moment, Fujin heard sound as if underwater, as if time had slowed to a near stand-still. A voice was screaming. It took him a moment to realize it was him; he was shouting a warning at Kotal.

And then, an angry, brilliant circle of lightning exploded from his brother's body and radiated outward. In a brief, tremendous flash of light, Fujin saw the plains around them suddenly stripped bare of grass, as every stalk was blown back in a cloud of yellow. A wall of dust and sand hit his face, feeling as if it would strip the flesh from his bones in its explosive passing. It carried Kotal with it; thankfully, he had the foresight to shield himself with a golden aura before it ripped the meat from his body.

Even before Kotal rolled to a stop, Fujin had already launched himself on a gust of wind towards the Thunder God, his fist extended, his eyes narrowed in determination. But Raiden calmly threw his hands towards his younger brother, and with them followed sparking bursts of electricity that caught Fujin in the chest and pushed him back. The attack set his skin into mounds of taut gooseflesh that summoned the lightning bugs again, and once more, he doubled over in pain.

But Raiden was not satisfied with that; immediately, he called down a thick bolt of lightning that enveloped Fujin with such violent force that it launched him straight into the air. At the apex of his flight, Raiden, who'd followed him, caught him in his arms, and bear-hugged him as he ruthlessly electrocuted him. Fujin tried to scream in pain, but the sound just wouldn't come. When he started to fade away into unconsciousness, the Thunder God released him from his grasp, his face twisting into a sneer as he threw his hands out to either side. More lightning arched from his hands, head, and feet, and he looked like a great and terrifying cross, but those little bolts streaming from him in squealing clusters paled in comparison to the one he now summoned. Brilliant white agony crashed into Fujin's body, both now racing towards the ground at the speed of light. When he hit, the ground rippled like water, bending and melting outward to accommodate his body.

Raiden had teleported beside him in his newly formed crater, and while the Wind God moaned and rolled around, he calmly lifted him by his braid until his feet no longer touched the ground.

"Let this serve as a warning to all those who defy the might of the Dragon King," he said. "Your destruction is at hand."

He held a fist sparking with lightning to Fujin's face, threatening to hit him and end him once and for all. But then, Kotal wrapped his arms around Raiden, chanting ancient words that the Wind God could scarcely make out. As the Osh-tecc murmured his spell, the geometric tattoos on his body began to glow gold as his eyes shimmered red, and the Thunder God dropped Fujin, his powers streaming into the warrior like a river flowing backwards. As he spoke, the thunderclouds overhead faded.

"Up the stair path," Kotal began, his voice now loud and booming, "the fire's edge. I pray the sky to scorch the land." As he said it, a brilliant beam of sunlight raced from the sky and wrapped Raiden in its searing arms. He wailed as it burned at his exposed skin, and then Kotal somehow redirected its energy to blast him backwards.

Fujin, who had lain on the ground in a daze during Kotal's dramatic moment, felt his head swirling with voices, ghosts of memories that haunted and hurt him, all overlapping, blending together, echoing.

You're completely useless! If it had been me in her shoes, I would have let Onaga have you.

I have grown fond of Tomas. He is a much better man than I originally believed.

If history has taught us anything, it's that gods can't be trusted. They are selfish and evil, even if they come to us as benevolent beings. Isn't that right, Wind God?

The shoes ofsu hermanoare not so easily filled, hmm?

You know, if your brother had actually done his job, we wouldn't be trapped in this hellhole.

Something snapped inside of Fujin then, a great, overwhelming crack that bled horrid memories into his heart, sparking within him uncontrolled rage. At that moment, the fury of the wind was unleashed. With glowing white eyes, he lifted his head and raised his body from the ground, his arms extended to either side as rising columns of dust pushed him higher into the air. He stared dispassionately at his brother, feeling no mercy, no love – only pure, raw anger. Raiden, Fujin saw, was curled almost into a smoldering ball on the ground, his head bowed, his hands on opposite shoulders, the pale blue light still tight around him. He stretched slowly to his feet, though, and as he stood his immortal ichor trickled from his wounds down his bare chest.

Suddenly, from the far north came a low howl of wind, and it converged with a sharp whistling in the air from the south, a shrieking like steel on steel that was so loud, the ground began to groan and reverberate from dread. The north and south winds coiled around Fujin at his command, angrily clashing as both swept debris into the sky, carrying even boulders they'd uprooted from the earth. They chased each other in a circle, faster now, roaring in deafening wails as they whipped through the sky. Nearby, many warriors on both sides toppled like toys, and the rebels fled to nearby lines to escape the god's growing wrath. Many weren't fast enough, and they were easily lifted into the air in a chorus of frightened shrieks. Fujin did not hear them – nor would he have cared to save them – as he slowly spun two or three times as he rose farther into the air. It was very dark around the Wind God now, the twisting walls nearly black with dust and blotting out all traces of sunlight, though at the center of this bedlam was perfect calm, the air still, the pressure of which kept him suspended high in the growing column. To those on the ground, he had disappeared altogether into his terrifying creation.

In spite of his searing rage, Fujin somehow sensed Raiden approaching over the memories of pain and anguish, the older god undoubtedly unafraid of a tornado, even one so large as this. Soon, the Thunder God joined his younger brother in the very heart of madness, the soft blue glow still swaddling him in powerful light. Not surprisingly, Raiden threw his hands towards the Wind God, commanding lightning to strike him down. But this time, Fujin was too fast for him.

With a roar to match the wind's voice, he summoned an Edenian's body to him from the twisting air, using the man as a shield. Blackness swallowed the vortex save for the brilliant explosion of blue-white lightning around the screaming mortal. Showers of sparks rained from his body in red-orange embers, searing him like a piece of meat until steam wafted from his flesh. When Raiden's attack had finished, Fujin thrust his hands forward, ordering the wind to throw the corpse at him. It obeyed and used the body to shove his brother into the wall of debris.

The Thunder God tried to counterattack with more bolts of surging lightning, but he was now in the Wind God's domain and completely at his mercy. Fujin slightly nodded at the winds racing behind his brother, and they wrapped their arms around him, holding him in place. As Raiden struggled, the younger of the two guided the debris into him like missiles, and he cried out as they ripped holes into his body. The wind itself, carrying a fine spray of dust and tiny pebbles, mercilessly pummeled him until it rapidly started flaying the skin from his muscle. He began screaming, and the sound made Fujin sneer in satisfaction as it filled him with sweet, cruel vindication, the sense that vengeance had at last been fulfilled.

Behind his suffering brother, the Wind God caught sight of a massive boulder roughly the size of a shack circling around as lightly as a feather. With a shaky breath, the anger and adrenaline overwhelming him, Fujin bent and twisted the currents of air to carry it to him. For a moment, he tumbled it before him with his powers, winding it up with kinetic energy. It began to spin, quicker and quicker, until its sharp contours were mere blurs of color. And then he breathed on it, the wind from his lungs blasting the boulder into his brother like a rocket.

It shoved Raiden through the walls of the tornado, and with a pained and horrified scream, he plummeted towards the ground, caught beneath it. Fujin ruthlessly pursued him and watched as the earth exploded like a bomb around him when he hit, and as he followed the tornado followed with him, its raw power trickling back into him, reenergizing him. The dust began to settle around Raiden; the Wind God saw him trapped under the giant boulder, squirming and grunting, with tears streaming from his cheeks.

Fujin landed hard on top of the boulder. "Let this serve as a warning to Onaga and his minions," he jeered, now pulling a halberd from the ether. "I will destroy anyone who threatens Earthrealm. Starting with you." He raised his halberd, preparing to decapitate the older god.

"Fujin, stop!" Kuai Liang's voice cut through his single-minded fury. "That's your brother."

"My brother is dead," he growled, the anger now spilling from his eyes in thick, wet streams. "I don't know who this monster is." He clutched his halberd more tightly, aiming the sharp, conical point at his weakened enemy's nose.

"We might be able to save him," the Cryomancer pressed.

"No, Cousin," he stubbornly replied. "We can't. Onaga's taken everyone from me because that's what he does! He's gone, Kuai Liang. He's gone!"

"Fujin, I know what you're feeling-"

"You can't possibly!"

"Oh, yes, I do!" he shouted back, and for the first time during their conversation, the Wind God glanced at his cousin. Kuai Liang was looking up at him with eyes full of urgency and desperation of their own. "My brother meant everything to me, Fujin. And he died because of Quan Chi's sick game. You know what happened to him. He's a monster too."

"He chose that fate-"

"Just like Raiden chose his," he cut off. "Listen to me, Fujin. My brother nevergave up on me. Ever. No matter how much I screwed up, no matter how much he suffered because of me, he never gave up. If Raiden trusted you enough to make you Earthrealm's protector, then it's obvious he never gave up on you either." He swallowed and his eyes hardened. "Noob Saibot has done despicable things as Quan Chi's slave, but I have never stopped believing that he could be saved. If I can believe that of my brother, then how could you lose your faith in yours?"

As Kuai Liang said it, Fujin suddenly remembered an ancient city, Numeira, leveled. It had shaken occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory. Scorch marks marred the ruined buildings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints of once-bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling walls. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck down by the debris that had swept over the streets, or burned by the fires that had engulfed the city, or had been stuffed into the bricks by angry gusts of wind.

Fujin had wandered the city, wearily floating just above the ground, feeling sick and dizzy but not quite sure why. The edge of his green cloak trailed through blood as he drifted across the body of a woman, her still-open eyes frozen in disbelief, completely unaware of her. Behind him, the air rippled with shimmering lightning and solidified into Raiden's form; the Thunder God looked around, his mouth twisting briefly in disgust. He stepped towards Fujin carefully, his attention rigidly fixed on the dazed god hovering before him.

"Brother, what have you done?" Raiden asked in concern.

"I don't…know," he stammered, his head aching. He shuddered and raised a hand as though to push back something. Then he stared at his hand, fascinated by the patterns of grime. Then he wiped his hand on his even dirtier cloak and looked at his brother. "Eidotheia is gone," he whispered. "Onaga murdered her. It's my fault. It should've been me."

Tears blurred his vision as Raiden reached for him, taking his hands to pull him to the ground. Pain blazed inside Fujin at the thought of his cousin, who had so bravely sacrificed herself to stop Onaga, and he toppled backwards, crashing to the ground. His eyes fell on the dead woman, and the horrified shriek that exploded from him dwarfed every other sound he'd ever made before. Tottering, almost falling, he scrambled to her. It took every bit of strength to pull her into his arms. His hands shook as he smoothed her hair back from her blankly staring face.

"By the Elder Gods, did I do this?" he wept. He remembered, a cloudy memory like a dream of a dream, but he remembered that he did do it.

"How did this happen, Brother?" Raiden gently asked him. "What is the last thing you remember?"

Carefully, Fujin had laid the young woman down, his fingers gently brushing her hair. Tears blurred his vision as he stood, but he preferred it that way. Everywhere he looked, his eyes found the dead. Torn, broken, or burned. Everywhere laid lifeless faces of all ages, even children. Gods, even children! All of them sprawled like broken dolls. All of them struck down by his hand. Their faces accused him, blank eyes asking why. He could not bear it, the pain.

He couldn't answer Raiden. Instead, he fled through a portal that deposited him far from the city. The land around him was flat and empty. A river flowed nearby, straight and broad, but he could sense there were no humans within hundreds of miles. He was alone, as alone as he could be, yet he could not escape the memory. Tears glistened on his cheeks as he turned his face to the sky.

"Elder Gods, forgive me," he said as he sank to his knees. He did not believe they would do any such thing. But he begged anyway but it was all he could do.

"Fujin," Raiden's soft voice pursued him. The older of the two knelt behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Leave me, Brother," he said. "I've disgraced our family, I've disgraced myself. I hurt people. Innocent people. I deserve to be chained in the Netherrealm alongside our father." At the mention of Shinnok, the tears flowed harder. "I'm more like him than I thought," he mused.

"You are not like him," Raiden insisted. "But you must learn to control your anger so this never happens again. I will teach you to control your powers. Let me help you, Fujin."

"You must hate me," he mumbled, not really hearing his brother's words. He felt tired. "It should've been me, Brother. I should've been the one to die. Not her."

"And then I would have lost the person I treasure the most," he said. Now he grabbed the Wind God's chin and pulled his face up and back to look at him. "I do not know what transpired here today. But I do know that there is no evil so strong in this world that we cannot overcome it together. You will make it through this, Fujin."

The younger god sniffed. "How can you be so certain?" he wondered.

Raiden half-heartedly smiled. "Because you're my brother."

So now, on the field of battle, poising to kill the Thunder God, Fujin looked at Kuai Liang in shock. Then he looked from Raiden's battered, bloody face to the swath of land his tornado had carved out, and with shaking hands, he dropped his halberd. Sudden sweat made tracks down his face through the dust and dirt. By the Elder Gods, he'd nearly destroyed his brother.

"Let me free!" Raiden grunted, his voice pained and furious. He lifted his palms, which were still loose, to blast Fujin with lightning once again.

"I can't do that, Brother," he said sadly as he quickly yanked his crossbow from the ether. Just as the lightning left Raiden's hands, he calmly fired two bolts, one into each palm, abruptly nailing them to the ground above his head. The Thunder God wailed, but finally stopped resisting.

"You did the right thing," Kuai Liang praised as Fujin hopped from the top of the boulder.

The Wind God glanced at him but said nothing as he knelt by his brother's head. "Raiden," he began, "I know you don't remember me or much of anything right now. But I want you to know that I'll never give up on you. I don't care how long it takes me – I don't care if the universe dies and is reborn a hundred times – I promise you that I will find a way to save you from Onaga. We'll get through this…together."

Even as he spoke, there came cruel laughter echoing across the battlefield, and in the sky above the two armies came a great, sweeping shadow like a bat eclipsing the sun. For the briefest of moments, everyone on the field turned their attention to the sky, somehow knowing something even more terrible than a tornado had arrived. Indeed, there was Onaga soaring, wisps of smoke streaming from his nostrils. He swooped close to the rebels, deeply inhaled, and then breathed a long, continuous stream of fire onto the Edenians and Shokans fighting at the rightmost side of the front line. Panicked shrieks filled the air as fire swallowed those warriors whole.

"Hold the line!" Kuai Liang roared at the rebels as they started to flee. The Cryomancer, along with Fujin, Kotal, D'Vorah, Kia, and Jataaka, fought to keep the men standing strong. It worked. After their moment of sheer terror, the rebels reformed and continued fighting the skeletons, resuming with the Grandmaster's plan.

Meanwhile, Onaga dove to the battlefield, and he snatched King Henryk into his great claws, and he ripped the Hydromancer open from his shoulder to his belly, laughing before he threw him half-dead to the ground. At last, he landed hard on a boulder, stretching his great, leathery wings out as far as he could as he beat his fists against his chest and roared, spewing flames towards the sky. When he'd finished, his glowing yellow eyes glared at Kuai Liang, and he sneered.

"Such a day trembles to begin," he declared with a wicked smile.