Beyond the torn stone flesh of the Kahn's throne room rested a quiet Outworld. Skarlet gazed down on the once hungry city through the peeled cracks the palace wall etched like torn flesh that was peeled away from the skull throne of Shao Kahn. Through the helm, she was Kahn now, and it gave her perspective to stand in the place he once did and ponder the dull musings of the city she once hid in like a rat.
"You are a conquerer without a realm to invade."
A voice echoed in the silent chamber. The empty throne room with its fires and pillars all lit and in a row with no one there to confide in, to hide from her, to cower, or to rule as he once had.
"I am no conquerer." Skarlet turned to face Kitana, "but I am not like you either."
"Then what kind of Kahn are you?" Kitana stood, never to kneel before the red and black Kahn who assumed the throne.
"I'm not even a Kahnum of Outworld."
Skarlet reflected, the helm only a set piece on her head to play Kahn before those that would come before her.
"The emperor with too many clothes?"
"The Pale Emperor."
Kitana tried to understand. Her eyes narrowed, lips bit, and she stepped toward the stone window with the flesh tear designs to see what Skarlet had.
The red queen gazed over at the dead blue entity and waited for her to speak.
"Well?"
Kitana glanced up at the skull throne, and down through the eyes of the skull on Skarlet.
Nothing.
Skarlet's guards waited outside and the world beneath them went along as if it were just another dull day of life, of existing without purpose.
The silence cradled her thoughts and her cold flesh with needles and bites that ripped and pricked like the stone flesh carving behind her. Little tears at her moral and mental fabric until she could not longer handle the deafness of this darkness before her.
"Tell me!"
Kitana stood at the center of Shao Kahn's face, the circle etched and sealed with resin at the center of the room just before the throne like she had done many times many years and many timelines ago.
"You should have let me become corporeal." Raiden morphed from Kitana's flesh. His conical hat tilted down at first, but slowly raised to gift Skarlet the view of his red eyes.
She stared back as he spoke, the electricity that sparked wildly and with pure chaos and rage almost pulled her from the throne like an afterthought of excitement.
Raiden folded in his black robe, hand out only to form the staff to rest upon in his old age as he spoke.
"Now, Skarlet Kahn, I am all that you will ever know of the outside realms."
"Is there no way?" She pulled at him, begged him.
"There is, but not for you."
As the entity faded and left Skarlet in her cold solitude, she sank in the large throne built for a great muscular Kahn and dwelled on the one hope to restore magic to realms.
Shang Tsung, the only man she believed that could make it happen. The only man she knew that would also betray her for it.