There have been many powerful warriors throughout the millennia, but ages of Mortal Kombat had begun to tear at the fabric of the realms.
The critical point had finally been reached.
United as one, the army forged in the earth cracked desert of Edenia. Wedged between barren mountains and dissonant crags, Raiden's forces merged for the final battle.
In the front line, he dared himself to walk. Behind him, Mileena, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Reptile, Kotal Kahn, and Fujin.
"This is it." He told them, the dust already clouded the battle field far across the way. The others had begun to march.
"We put differences aside this one last time," Kotal Kahn assured.
Shang Tsung crossed the sea of people to the front and clicked his metallic claws in place. At any other time he would have gone for the Thunder God's throat, but in this moment, as he had foreseen, smiled that old cocky grin and looked out as the bodies marched nearly a two football fields away. What a game it would be, he and Raiden together.
"It has begun." He recited.
Behind the front line was Skarlet, Cyrax and Sonya, Sub-Zero, Smoke and Frost. Behind them, Nightwolf, Ferra/Torr, Erron Black, Ermac, Sareena, and Ashrah. Finally in the back, Kung Jin tugged on his quiver one last time to ensure it was tied and his stock of arrows plenty. Beside him Kenshi, Jacqui and Takeda stood to his left, whilst Taven Bo' Rai Cho, Kai, and Darrius were to his right.
Hanzo, having broken rank with the Special Forces in the back moved to the front, hand on the hilt of his katana, ready to march as Havik and Geras emerged before Raiden's army. Though they held no lasting alliance with one another, nor Raiden's forces, this would not be something to miss.
"I did not expect you to escape the Sea of Blood." Raiden remarked of Geras.
"For eons I have waited for this moment. Lord Raiden, I am ready to die." Geras turned to him and spoke with a wry grin, "I will take many with me."
"Then you will be rewarded in the new era." Raiden jested, but all jokes aside, the army that marched as equal in size as they were had neared the point of no return.
So too must they.
To oppose them, though a broken formation, they gathered as one all the same. Daegon lead the group, his immediate forces behind him. Nitara and Jax, Sektor and Triborg. Kabal and the Black Dragon, comprised of Jarek, Tremor, No Face, Kobra, Kira, Tasia. The Red Dragon comprised of Mavado and Hsu Hao stood to Daegon's immediate left and right. Beyond that, though free game on the battlefield, they were joined by Bi-Han, Reiko, Tanya, Kia, and the various forces from Outworld and the Netherrealm collected by them to enforce the Brotherhood of Shadow from Komodai, Aynos, Zenkoro, Skull, Hideyoshi, Prince Duroc and King Gorbac, Belokk, Moloch, and Drahmin. At the back, Kollector waited with Forrest, Dairou and Hotaru, and Rain.
There was little spoken amongst them. Hatred spilled like a volcano across the rocky ground they all stood upon. There would be little to no faith that any of them could be trusted, but none of them would dare fight for Raiden, none of them for anyone other than themselves.
Daegon stood as the army charged ahead. Opposite throughout the dust clouds that formed, Raiden was first to emerge and immediately the front line of his forces behind him.
A storm brewed heavily within the white eyes of the Thunder God. From his touch arched three hot lines of lightning that focused in on the first victim that dared challenge a God.
Fast to swoop in, Nitara lifted up as the first arch nearly struck her and pinned her to the earth. The second veered forward without miss as it collapsed Mavado to the ground, the third to enter his body from the screaming of his fried maw. Left only a coal form of his former self, the ashen remains were quickly trampled as the arms collided.
At the collision point, there would be no shield wall, and not reason to hold the line. This was chaos, and each combatant knew the consequence of losing. As Raiden had slain the Red Dragon member, Mileena was fast to pass him and leap into the colliding line.
Before she knew it, gun shots were fired, the clinking of swords and various metal against each other and the screaming, grunting, and hard fat slap of bodies filled the atmosphere.
She had launched onto Hsu Hao, an unknown to her, so she pulled off quick. She had a single target in this war, and no one got her fangs before him.
She rushed through the sky of rage and dust as the world paid for the hell of all they had done, Mileena pushed body from body, dodges swords and took the brunt of a stray bullet through the surface of her right leg to find Kabal.
Already engaged with Reptile, the vile Black Dragon heathen spotted Mileena race toward him from the left and ducked back out of the battle. With Reptile, she charged out and singled him out. Armed with his hook swords, and reptile with his fangs and claws, she slipped her sais from each boot.
"I didn't kill Kitana!" He cussed them out. "But I did fuck her to death."
Reptile hissed and leapt for him, only his body fell forward into the dead sand. The only other living saurian, aligned with Reiko, piled on top of him.
Oblivious, Mileena charged to meet Kabal. His hook swords were as long as a hand-and-a-half sword, thus had greater reach than her dagger-like sais. He also had speed over her and as soon as she took a low swipe at his thighs, he was behind her.
"Too slow." Kabal wrapped the hooks at her neck, held from her flesh only by the flat bridge of her sais.
Unable to maintain the strength of her sais against the two hook blades, he would cut her down before she knew it. He held them so that when he'd finally force her loose, they'd swipe cleanly left and right to decapitate her with only the the outer side guards of her sais kept him from this.
She struggled and growled. Her Tarkatan rage flared to maintain the strength to hold those blades at bay, even as he pulled his bare chest up against her back and kneed her lower back. He'd press her into it, or down onto her knees.
At the breaking point of tension between her muscles and his, she took the simple advantage he had never seen coming in just tilting her sais down. In her hands they were pointed down, so as she held them to keep his hook swords from down at her neck, they faced out at an awkward angle, and her arm flared flat across the arch of his blades. She let that knee to her back bring her down, folded the sais flat as well and let the hook swords arch through with only air to catch.
Planted in the dirt, the sais were quickly dropped for something else attached to her hip. Laid almost flat, the metallic fan of her sister was tied at the waist for just this occasion.
Too quick for him to see, she swung around, the hook blades had already come down for an overhead that would stick into her shoulders.
Mileena swept around, fanned the weapon out and felt the hot breath of guts splatter across her open maw. Eyes closed and body ducked to avoid the hooks, she lowered about boot level with Kabal until he staggered back, his body creased open at the navel.
In her position, she could just lunge forward in a step or two and slit his throat wide with that fan, so she did.
As he folded into the earth like a paper doll, she sealed the fan shut. Tucked back under the belt around her waist, it would be there with her until the end, but now that Kitana had been avenged, the new Queen of Edenia would prove herself on her own.