Rain cast down upon the barracks like a million daggers over Kotal Kahn's bare skin. Adorned in headdress, an impressive decorum of red and gold feathers from an iron helm, his body down to the waist was bare, save for leather bracers of black and gold. The paint of red idolatry washes slowly down his form from leather belt and linen sash to his winingas. His essence soaked into the dirt as he waited for the Thunder God.
Erron Black and Ferra Torr at his back, they looked to the blurred moon as a wolf called to them in the distance. Through the palace gates into the courtyard and on to the barracks Raiden walked alongside Nightwolf.
"I have waited too long for you, Protector of Earthrealm." Kotal Kahn sneered.
"I travelled as fast as lightning to meet you, Kahnum of Outworld." Raiden shot back. "Why do you summon me?"
"I am idolized as a God in your world, but you are a true deity." Kotal Kahn expressed, "you are the one with true powers beyond my own."
"How good of you to notice, Kotal Kahn, but my time is important, and yours wears thin."
"If you are as powerful you are, and as desperate for my aid against Daegon, you will help me first." Kotal Kahn approached first, he crossed two Ferra Torr's to close the distance between he and the Thunder God. Erron moved behind him, hands at his belt, eyes narrowed.
"Tell me, what do you seek?" Raiden pondered, Kotal Kahn had him, but he would not back down.
In the arena of the Mortal Kombat tournament, Kotal Kahn pointed out beyond the damaged throne and platform. He dared not speak until his feet touched the sand of the arena and he could gauge Raiden's response to the atmosphere around them. Thick, and ominous, grim and sinister, Raiden could feel it like a sickness that swelled inside him.
He lowered his conical hat, passed it to Nightwolf and with aid of his staff motioned toward the spot Kotal Kahn had pointed. Though a vague direction, he could sense a lingering presence just beyond the throne.
"It's not just here." Kotal Kahn walked with him, "but in my personal chambers, and Jade's."
"I am not ghost hunter, Kotal Kahn," he watched the anger rile up in the Kahn's eyes, but he was not finished, "but what you have here is far beyond the dead."
"Spit it, old man." Erron himself spat at Raiden's feet a thick wad of tobacco. He had no time for games.
"I do not know for certain, and I cannot see the energy, but I can feel it. I can feel a purity, and a darkness overpowering it. It fills the entire city."
"It is Jade." Kotal Kahn assured him.
"Likely, but how?" Raiden leaned, knelt to a knee to swipe the sand from where the energy was at it hottest. The burning soil that fell from the wrinkles between his fingers felt as white hot as the flames of the Shirai Ryu. "We must waste no time in expelling this demon. Nightwolf, Kotal Kahn, join me."
The old God arranged the three of them into a triangle around the spot where Jade had fallen. Though it was only one of many, they could not surround them all and Raiden hoped this would be enough. The sky swirled above and the violence of the wind picked up to prick and tug on their flesh, cloth, and hair. The perfect storm roared above Raiden as lightning cast down around them, white hot and as fast as light itself. With Nightwolf's chanting the rare green light cast around him. Kotal Kahn could only draw the heat of the light into him and recite Nightwolf's chants.
The brighter the aura, the darker the center became like a swirling black hole that swallowed the light. The formation of a creature sprawled from the shadow's inner circle and crawled forth with claws and eyes as black as the void itself.
"Let her go!" Raiden hissed and aimed his staff at the void beast.
They could feel its voice through the sand. A subsonic bellow that climbed up their flesh like spiders. Little knives that cut into them all with the same message.
'My blood is on your hands!'
Written in her voice, spilled across the four men in her blood, it retaliated against the light and the presence of a God.
Raiden slammed the staff into the sand and the light at the crest exploded in a great white spark of lightning that touched like a long thin finger from sky to woof and out toward the black hole that grew from the center.
"God damn." Erron, hand on his pistol, lowered the long brim of his leather hat down to protect from the swirl of sand and light.
"We are not enough!" Kotal Kahn screamed as the heat burned his chest and the shadow began to pool at his feet.
"We need another, another that knows how to wield souls!" Erron shouted through the wind, Nightwolf unable to speak as he held his chant.
"I know two!" Raiden, without hesitation, broke the chant, broke his light and reached through the fourth dimension as only the God of Thunder could.
Aligned by force into a circle around the swirling shadow, Shang Tsung and Ermac were shaken from between the realms. Raiden's eyes turned to them, red like blood and his power darkening with the void between them, he shouted to chant, to cast their magic.
"This is a demon of the Netherrealm, and agent of The First no doubt." Shang Tsung confirmed, there was no time for conversation. Raiden shot him with a burst of lightning until his energy bleed into the void and cast around the shadow creature that lorded over Jade's shattered remains only just now visible to the circle.
"Her soul is not yours!" He threatened Shang Tsung, and the demon. "She must be put to rest!"
Shang Tsung, his tongue and lip bitten, pride reserved, joined the circle as Ermac had already done so willingly.
CRACK!
The Sky creased and shattered and the lightning struck the Thunder God from above and below. He could see the green energy of the bear, wolf, and eagle that tugged on the darkness like rope from within Nightwolf. He could feel the power of the sun within Kotal Kahn, but still the figure curled itself around Jade like a spider's cocoon and refused to let go.
"It's not working Raiden!" Kotal Kahn screamed through the wind, the cracks of light, and the shadow that threatened to consume the Thunder God.
The God refused to acknowledge him. His eyes waned and shattered with light white hot and as red as the morning son. His energy flickered, his power crackled with chaos. Ermac watched on as Raiden reached for the shadow to grasp it's power. The white haired God could barely move but he inched, and each step blackened that white hair from the tip to root.
We must stop this.
Breaking formation, the depth of voices that chanted from within Ermac silenced as the entity lifted from the ground. Into the void a black leather glove fell from Ermac's dried corpse hand and the bones and flesh cracked as it reached out into the darkness.
Raiden screamed in anger, aura darkened the closer he edged to the void, but Ermac had beaten him to it. Unable to hold the darkness back, Raiden pushed away and let himself fall like an old man crumbled beneath his age. He dared not journey down that path, even at the expense of losing Kotal Kahn's allegiance.
Once broken, the formation crumbled one by one until the light shined in the darkness and all that remained then the dust settled was Ermac hovered and covered in shadow, almost like that of Bi-Han.
When firmly planted back onto the ground, Ermac swallowed the air around it in a deep dry heave through its face wraps and its green spirit-like energy absorbed the shadow.
"We are now the darkness, and the light. The Shadow and the Gem." Ermac turned to Raiden, then to Kotal Kahn. "We have absorbed the spirit of Jade."
Nightwolf lifted Raiden to his feet, the staff held him above his weakened knees and the God stared back at the entity.
"She must be put to rest." Shang Tsung echoed Raiden's sentiment. "Her soul is not yours to keep."
Ermac nodded.
Almost reluctantly as the Shadow Creature had, Ermac paused and held tightly to its leather coat of black and red until after that long, ugly pause, he unclenched those dead, bony fingers and reached within itself. Like worm from the fish's mouth, it retrieved a single thread of green energy tossed it to Kotal Kahn.
As he caught it, the now hardened gem shined bright in his hand.
"Shatter it, and she will be free." Ermac assured.
"What of the demon?" Nightwolf pondered, for he had noticed that too had to have been absorbed into the spiritual being.
"It cannot defeat the thousands of warriors that comprise us. It is now one of us, and we are many."
"You are needed, Raiden." Shang Tsung cut him off. His hands dusted of the moment, and of Ermac. "We have a war to win."
All eyes turned to the Kahnum of Outworld.
"Give me only the night to arrange my forces." He approached Ermac, "for this gesture, Outworld will go to war for you, and Raiden."