"What would you do if you were at the edge of oblivion and all you dreamed about was gone, because everything you strived to become was something that could never exist?" Those words fell like fallen leaves, like hopes and dreams escalated just to be pushed off the palace walls.
"I would not mind being alone at the end of the world." A deep voice rumbled like the dull roar of a lion. His lungs filled the chambers of my halls, but he merely let out a casual breath. The power of a Shokan in even the most moot of opinions.
"I believed in everything. Everything Lord Raiden offered us. Everything Liu Kang told me could be real."
"Power is a terrible thing to waste on love." He was such a gem with his words, Goro.
"What is power with no one to rule?"
"All in your mind, and if you're alone, that's all that matters."
Goro had never felt love, not like I had. He had lovers, women he would bed, but never a woman. It wasn't about Liu Kang, it's not about one person, but the feelings that were had. You create something with another human being, male, female, Kytinn, it doesn't matter. All the promises and all the time spent just thrown away like this, but in this case, over the course of eons.
Honestly, the idea of love is nothing to me now and the idea of power is equally moot. There's no need for a hand in mine, when I have an army behind me, and no need for power, when I know that no matter what I do, evil and good will still shape the realms into the same thing it'll always be and become. My heart is moot, and our struggles are foolish.
So, though Goro may never understand, nor Baraka, or Jade, or anyone for that matter, I am Kahn of Outworld, not to rule them, but to assure my place in the amoral fabric of time.
I just am.
His palace was on an island far away from this, though it seemed more like he had lived underneath the palace Shang Tsung bathed in scores of women within. As Shang Tsung had a world of beauty and gold and power, Goro was forced to live in the same dwelling as the slaves and prisoners. Not under my rule.
My allies dined as one, and my generals all at my right hand. Their realms as protected as best I could, though evil will always triumph sometimes. This is the point of contention with the Fire God Liu Kang.
"He saw with Raiden's eyes. Apathy and tone-deaf to the realms around him. So consumed with his own power and ability to ignore it that I had no choice but to try to change him, to change reality."
Goro didn't answer. We sat together at the end of a long table with food that could feed the poor beneath us. Tomorrow it would, but I know Goro could eat scores of poor folk just in one sitting. I sat across from him, for though I was his Empress, he was still my equal. A ruler of the Shokan, a race far stronger than any Outworlder like Shao Kahn.
He dined on fat suckling pigs and feasted on large Moa birds taken from Earthrealm. He sucked and chewed and spat as the Shokan do, and I didn't mind. He was content, and if my people are happy, who am I to complain? Not everyone can be happy, but maybe everyone should find the time to see happiness in this inane moments of existence.
"The tournament is next week, Goro. Days away."
"Am I still bound by your laws of 'to the yield,' Kitana?"
This took me a moment. Shao Kahn had killed and Shang Tsung murdered, just as Goro and Baraka and their foul assassins and creatures from the filth and mires Outworld, but not me. There is no reason to conquer the realms, only to show superiority, to show sport.
However, my spies in Earthrealm had traced deception to the Centaurs. At what level, I do not know, but our rivalry continues when I had sent Ko'atal to end it in blood. There are rumors of the Kytinn making themselves known through Outworld again, and no doubt they have a plan to enter the tournament for mere chance of regain their power, and feasting on those that try to stop them.
This tournament, before it even began, had shaped into something much like the very first Mortal Kombat.
"No. You are free to kill if you please." This shocked him. His eyes raised from his plate of half skeletal remains to mine. I looked back into his with resolve. He knew what it meant.
"That is most appeasing, my Empress."
For a moment, I allowed him that joy of being the Goro he once was, but then reigned him back into the man I had molded him. "However, do not kill without reason. Do not kill without compassion. Do not kill without my permission."
This had a darker tone to it than I had anticipated my voice being able to convey. Yes, I would be there to oversee his battles, but it were only a few people I would like to see litter his feet with blood. D'Vorah, Motaro, should either be so bold to grace my Coliseum, and Raiden.
The greatest betrayer of my trust.
He could sense it in me. As blunt and abrasive as the Shokan looked and behaved, they could sense emotion much like any being could. They were sentient and self aware and loved, bleed, and cared and cried. Goro protected me from Shao Kahn, he would know me better than even Liu Kang, better than Jade.
"After billions of years, you still hate this Lord Raiden?"
"I loved him, Goro, like my own father. I had no father to grow up with, and now that I can see him, I cannot reveal who I am to him. Not even to my mother." This was the curse of being a Goddess. "Just because I could restart time, doesn't mean I could relive it. I am still Kitana, adopted daughter of Shao Kahn, forgotten Edenian princess, and sister to Mileena."
Everything from the past, though so long ago still seemed fresh. Liu Kang and I had chosen a point in time to travel to on many occasions. I begged him to change time, so much so that I realized that destiny and fate are as rebellious to change as teenagers craving it.
There was no more Kronika, no more Shinnok and Cetrion, no Geras but Blaze still existed. Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, Scorpion, all these horrible things still come to pass. At some point, I understood what Raiden told us about time and the power to shape it.
The realms must shape their own destiny, we are merely players in this great stage of life, but we are not the show itself.
Raiden, however, always had to stick his nose in that fact. Was it not Raiden that turned evil on all of us, let us all die and become Revenants? I had to fight myself just to free the realms from the insanity of Kronika and the Elder Gods. Was it not Raiden that decided Liu Kang would be the Fire God? My power and wisdom would have served much better alone.
Raiden was the one to scold us each time evil triumphed as if he thought it could be stopped.
"He let The Great Kung Lao die. He let everyone die." My thoughts became words as Goro stopped his loud chomping of anything that he deemed food. "That's why Liu and I chose this moment as our final pass. To stop Kung Lao from dying. To stop Shao Kahn from tainting Mortal Kombat, and to just live. Live our lives."
"And yet you are alone."
"Not truly, Goro." I added, "I have my friends and Outworld, and Edenia. What does Raiden have? Mortality? I aim to see him take Kung Lao's fate in this tournament. So, Goro, when you wish to kill, now you know who I mean to see dead."
Raiden ruined everything. I saw my future. I saw the end of Armageddon. I saved the realms from Shao Kahn. It took magic to see that, for we never reached that far in time, but Liu Kang had absorbed not just Raiden's power, but some of his memories. Liu Kang may forgive a traitor, but not I. Raiden betrayed me, cursed me with eternal life in an apathetic existence. Raiden blamed me for doing things he gladly, and with evil in his heart did without question.
Now, I will see him take Kung Lao's place in the tournament, just so I can see a God die.
"I wish show him fear in a handful of dust."