Rain drowned the shrine of my ancestors. Burdened with the weight of the tournament and the travel to my last so close, I had to visit them. I had to apologize them.
Down to my knees, a mantra to please, and the stone tablets glistened under the moonlight, and wavered through the reflection of the rain. It was like my ancestors watched me as I fell before them.
"I have brought dishonor upon the Kung family."
My father would glare down at me and strike me with his staff. He would hit me so hard it would make his ancestors dizzy. Number one in my class, extensive training under the Shaolin Monks of the White Lotus Society, and yet I watched my wife wither and leave me as old age took her. Our son disappeared with her, grown to a man I'll never meet, perhaps to have a son I'll never know. The Kung line would possibly die with me.
"Who is this man I see," my reflection stared back, aimless down a thousand mile line that swayed and swerved with the rain. "For fifty years I have lived to honor you, to prepare only for Mortal Kombat."
Set before them, my equipment for travel. Cloth to keep the sweat from my eyes. Leather braces, sent from the champion of Wales to the Western Kingdom. The dragon medallion, silver, and etched eons ago by the Elder Gods themselves. With this medallion I have survived for far too long.
Raiden would have no doubt prayed to his ancestors much as I had, but Lord Liu Kang chose him to go before me. No doubt he awaited me in Hong Kong when I could have already been there. What is it in Raiden, that Lord Liu Kang no longer sees in me?
Is this a sign of things to come?
"Ancestors, I pray to you, will I defeat Prince Goro?"
Fifty years ago, Lord Liu Kang had only just arrived into my life. It was unbelievable that a deity would have such interest in the champion of Mortal Kombat when never before had this happened, with exception of Kitana Kahn.
As a man, swift as thunder, and fierce as a raging fire, he guided informed me of my destiny to compete in this tournament fifty years before I knew it. I'd have gladly followed the current dynasty to war, or served the mongols, sat lazy like a monk beneath a false God, or here, a stone, with my ancestors.
"Father, you missed the day I left to honor Earthrealm and our ancestors by defeating the vile sorcerer Shang Tsung. With you in my heart, we ended the reign Outworld held over Earthrealm." A loss of breath, the formation of words, the stare at his tablet. Silence in my mind, but soon he would hear me, and I would hope he answered my voice. "I do not feel you anymore. Father, Grandfather, Mother. I feel nothing."
As the moment passed and my words left unanswered. No wisdom to be passed to me, no words of anger or dishonor from my ancestors. Just silence. Just nothing.
There are no spirits that watch Kung Lao, no Gods in the heavens, just mortal men in a universe too vast to understand. A speck of dust on a speck of dust.
We live in a universe, but it does not live within us.
As I turned away, ready to collect my things and take this apathetic journey to my eventual death or unending life, a cricket stopped my hands from the bracers. It was blue and stretched it's leg across its antenna to produce a strange noise. I watched it as it hopped again and landed on my father's tablet.
Before I could swipe it from the tablet, a black and yellow insect leapt for the bug and tore it in half. Once a lucky blue cricket, not a shell of ichor and death.
The yellow and black insect flew toward my face and buzzed with anger. It meant to harm me, but I had swatted it in the presence of my ancestors. As it fell against my Great Grandfather's tablet and crushed its wings, I inspected it further. A bulbous, mucus covered body and thin twig like wings that crunched and bent into the stone. The body fell wingless down to the last word etched into his tablet and I could see the pincer still tried to cut my flesh.
This was no normal insect. This was a hell beast from Outworld.
It amused me in the moment. This horrible sign. I could only hold in a laugh, so as not to dishonor my ancestors further, but how could I not muse further with the words of my former rival.
"It has begun."