A dense, dry fog covered the ground around the palace. It followed the cold wind into the twisted streets of the city beyond the Kahnum's fortress. It was almost like snow. My waist waded through the ominous clouds as I neared the palace, its weight settled like a fine sediment in my mind, thickened into a darkened doorway of terrible thoughts.
Although I was welcomed by the guards as I had many times before, as though I myself were the Kahn of Outworld, the toxic event that the Kytinn plagued upon Ko'atal's camp sickened my mind with fear that this would be that last time I'm welcomed here, the last time I would see Kitana as a friend, family, and ally.
To understand the battle that waged in my head, I shifted from my feelings for Ko'atal and Kitana individually, and they just never mixed as well as before that night. Kitana helped raise me, she is the Goddess of Edenia. Descend from the heavens and selected me as her personal bodyguard and friend. Together we fought Shao Kahn, the Shokan rebellion of Goro and Tarkatans. We planned the battle for the Centaur Hills together and it was my plan to include Ko'atal. It couldn't have been known to either of us that there was a plot to kill us from the Kytinn.
She couldn't have.
The palace never looked better in the hands of a woman, an Edenian at that and a Goddess even. The Kahn before here had no interest in reconstruction, no interest in beauty or maintenance. Shao Kahn was a conquerer and a destroyer. We lived in filth and the planet suffocated for it, which in tern turned Outworld into a barren wasteland of hell. The palace spires I pass toward the great hall held flags for Edenia and Outworld on one, and flags for the fallen on the next. This was Kitana's choosing.
'Mortals must choose their own fate,' she said, when Osh-Tekk's last survivors joined Shao Kahn, but then decreed intervention when Edenia and Earthrealm were next on the chopping block. It was only then did the Lord Liu Kang and Kitana intervene. Protectors of the Realms, but how many had fallen before they upheld these titles?
No, these are the thoughts Ko'atal would have me dwell on. He does not know of the nights I would consult and console the Kahn as the realms crumbled around us. There was always two sides of a story, and I needed to hear Kitana's.
The guards at her royal chambers greeted me as if I were Kitana herself. Many nights I'd be in this chamber with her with plots of saving the Realms, of just chatting all night as girls, of practicing combat away from prying eyes that could fly over the courtyard, or camouflage into the walls themselves. Outworld was not safe, even in the hands of a Goddess, so she taught me everything she knew in private. I was her deadliest ally. Knowing all of her secrets.
Inside the chamber, Kitana stood, almost like Ko'atal had, at the large window that overlooked the city beyond the palace. She wore a black and royal blue dress that cascaded like a waterfall down past her feet. Her fingers held to the stone in a most delicate nature as though the fog would creep in and crush them. Those blue eyes turned to me and in one glance, her face smiled with the welcome of family, but knew a moment later that this visit would not be pleasant. Sometimes you just know someone's demeanor the moment you see them, if you know them well enough.
"Did we lose the battle, Jade? I have not heard back from the encampment. I did not expect you to bring my report."
"There was no battle."
"We recruited sixty Osh-Tekk to take Motaro's forces by surprise, and yet you're telling me there was no blood shed?" Her eyes narrowed, "don't tell me Ko'atal learned to tame the great Centaurs and is riding to the palace on the back of Motaro?"
"What a sight that would be, my Kahn, my Goddess, but no. We were attacked by a swarm of Kytinn."
You can tell someone's intentions if you know them well enough by their actions. Not the big movements, but the nuance of their body language. I knew Kitana as well as myself, or so I'd like to think. At this news, she turned to me suddenly, her hands pulled from the stone window like it had turned too cold to touch and I saw genuine concern in those eyes. It couldn't have been Kitana.
"Ko'atal?"
It is good to hear her concerned for him, though I know he would be here, voice raised, chest out and stubbornly proud to accuse her. "He is fine, but we were caught unawares. A scroll that held one of the insects was marked with your seal. He is not sure what to think of this."
"If he Ko'atal believes I had a hand in this, he is wrong. Motaro must be defeated to truly unite Outworld."
"Then why send the Osh-Tekk alone? Why not seek Sheeva and Goro for assistance, or Baraka?"
"You know the nature of these unsteady alliances that only I hold together, Jade. I had hoped they would see the strength of Ko'atal and be assured that my grip on this realm was trusted by its allies. Now, with Ko'atal's defeat, Baraka and the Shokan will question one another, surely certain that they are the only race capable of taking down the Centaurs."
"That is not the fault of Ko'atal and the Osh-Tekk, Kitana."
"No, I suppose not." She added, "but I cannot trust them to perform this attack alone."
She motioned for the door and in one swift breath, dashed several of my hopes of ending this conversation on a note that would strengthen my point against Ko'atal's concerns.
"Pull the Osh-Tekk from the Centaur Hills. I will see Goro and send the Shokan."
Before my friend could pass me at the door, I held her shoulder and stopped her. Her skin, though covered in a silken dress, felt cold to the touch. She had spent much of her time by that window to overlook her domain.
"No, Kitana. You must do it."
My hands was moved with a gentle push at first, and I watched it fall to my side and then looked back into the eyes of my Goddess.
"If this is a task you cannot perform, then I will send Reiko to tell Ko'atal to retreat."
"Ko'atal believes you sent the Kytinn to assassinate me and murder his clan."
"Preposterous! Only an Osh-Tekk would be so stubborn to think such a thing."
Words like a dagger. She took a step back as we would battle this point out until someone, usually her, would win.
"Where is the evidence otherwise, Kitana?"
"You too, Jade? Shall I present my back for you to stab?" She turned in mock jest, but really, those words did hurt her as a dagger would. They needed to be said, but hers did not, "I am your Kahn. You do as I say and trust my word."
"The Goddess that allowed the destruction of realms at the hands of Shao Kahn, until he found Edenia. Until he planned to invade Earthrealm. Where were you as the Osh-Tekk went extinct? As Tarkata fell?"
In this moment of contention, the world around me hadn't fully faded. We were in the palace, in one room that overlooked the city. The Great Hall where Kitana would meet her guests fell directly beneath us and her chamber was connected to the palace chapel and from the window, you could see the castle's dungeon tower. As the progression of our conversation degenerated into madness, I did start to think that was where it would end, but after this assault of words, she pushed herself back to the window to escape me, to take our eyes from one another and I could see she was pensive, hurting.
"There are many secrets I can trust you with, Jade, but not all." She let flow from her lips a darker intention, or is this just lip service to escape our argument?
"You can trust me with everything, Kitana. I have chosen you over Ko'atal more times than he can count. I just want to understand why the world is the way it is. There is growing dissension against you, and I don't want to see you and Ko'atal fight the way we fought Shao Kahn."
"I've saved Osh-Tekk many times, Jade. Many times. Every time I had, Earthrealm, Chaos Realm, Order Realm, or Edenia would all fall to Shao Kahn. I begged Liu Kang after seeing the destruction of Edenia and our people. I thought I could stand back and let mortal men choose their own fate, but ultimately my compassion was too much to see this so vividly, so brutally shred the realms apart."
This was new. This is not something she had ever hinted at. Kitana was a Goddess, so it stood to reason she would have traced the eons with Lord Liu Kang, but to rewrite history? Impossible.
"What do you mean?"
"This is not the first timeline that we have met, Jade. I took you in and trained you, made you my personal guard, because in a previously timeline, you were my closest ally. The only person I could trust. Liu Kang had defeated a Titan to gain control of time and fate, history of the realms in his hands, and those hands chose mine to share it with."
It seemed like fluff, like filler conversation to break the argument with sorrow, with pity. There was truth in her eyes, but her words rambled things that could not be possible. How could you change history? Fate itself is written in stone.
She continued, "I told Liu that the realms, no matter what we did, would still find evil to course them, but as we tried to remain impartial to that, changing only what we felt we could, it became increasingly certain that Evil would win. Shao Kahn defeated Onaga as before, but without Lord Raiden, Earthrealm was defeated in Mortal Kombat. Edenia long gone by that time, and then so too fell the Chaos and Order realm. The Elder Gods did nothing so long as Shao Kahn did not threaten their existence. They too became agents of evil, defenders of Shao Kahn's rule. That's when we decided to change back time and fix things." She added, "we killed Onaga ourselves, but then Shao Kahn still rose up. So we did it again, and this time lost to Onaga, who had partnered with Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, so we did it again. This time, we lasted until the the return of Onaga, where Quan Chi and Shang Tsung had killed the champion of Mortal Kombat, Kung Lao. Without Raiden's sacrifice in the first timeline, Onaga came back and decimated the realms. We never reached the point of Armageddon, where Argus and Blaze would allow us to eliminate our enemies in one fell swoop, one singular battle and allow a single champion to craft a new future. We took time, but time and time again it proved that we had no true control over good and evil."
She turned to me, and with soft rivers that began to trace her cheeks, "I betrayed you to save you. I can only do what I feel is right to steer history down the best path possible. For those decisions, I have lost Liu Kang and Raiden, I have lost my own mother, and I did not want to lose you."
So much said, so many words spoken to absorb. Our conversations seemed ever so brief, but this was a lot to take in. However, one things did come in clear. Kitana had betrayed me, for better or worse, it is still betrayal. She is no longer someone I could trust.
"You have used me as a tool to craft a better future for yourself. If that's true, then I cannot be at your side." The choice was simple.
"I had every good intention, Jade."
"Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best of intentions." Aiding Shao Kahn against Onaga comes to mind. A plan concocted by Kitana. "Ko'atal suffers because you think he has to so you can live a better life. I now suffer because my mentor and friend lied to me my entire life."
She tried to plead with me, tried to curry favor to save our relationship, but as the bridge crumbled, a bridge I wished not to destroy, I pushed her back and stepped away. There was only one choice I could make.
"I must speak Lord Liu Kang."