The present is too fast. Anticipation has killed us. It seemed too long ago, but only days since I was captured and enslaved by Shao Kahn. Though he may have treated me better than my captor, and the vile villain Shang Tsung, I've always planned in my head that one day, I would betray Shao Kahn if need be. Not before I have perfected Blood Magic.
This was supposed to be about the tournament, but it has all spiraled so violently out of control. The hovel above, barely able to contain the vitriol beneath it, let alone hide them. The traitors to the crown.
After only five days left to rot in a dirt cell, except for when Shao Kahn would draw me out to teach me the most vile of magic, I had discovered that the sorcerer Shang Tsung had used my blood to form a creature against her will, against mine, that would serve as a true daughter to Shao Kahn.
Confronted, the true Kahnum of Outworld was very deceptive, I'd even say honest if it weren't for my years of abuse that put any word spoken into question.
That day, the day I learned of my sister, he entered my chamber, which was only five by five of dirt and wood and steel. My wrists bruised and and writhed under chains. My mouth gagged in old cloth that, the previous night, was used to cover my eyes, after the night before then, used to bind my feet when I would kick.
"I have a special lesson for you today." He told me and then removed my bonds for the last time, which I had not realized until I saw what he meant.
The underground channels carved out by his servant Syzoth, and the followers of the true Kahn that still remained in Outworld, did not leave much room for habitation. Two cells, a ten by ten room for Shao Kahn, and then beneath even that, a ten by ten for Shang Tsung, which he used as his laboratory. Shang Tsung did not need to live underground, as people knew him well enough as the loser of Mortal Kombat, but his secrets remained beneath the ground.
Time was foreign concept under Shao Kahn's capture. When there was no light but torchlight, it could have been day or night and I would have never known. He told me that Shang Tsung had been working day and night, for almost a year to create a daughter for him. A daughter with his blood, a Kahn's blood, but also mine.
This revelation was met with instant disgust. Not at the idea of a man in need of family, but that he had used me, abused me like my own family. It was all too familiar to me, but I had to see this through. There was no other choice.
Inside, I began to plot ways to make Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn's life miserable. They would suffer for this, but then I met her.
Her name was Mileena. For a creature born over the course of five days she didn't look much younger than me. In earth years, you might consider her twelve. She had my long black hair, and otherwise pale complexion should I have been locked away in a dark cell for a week.
Shao Kahn introduced her with a veil over her face, so that you could not see her lips or jawline. It was like a pink mask that I thought was meant to make her look regal, rather than ragged. She had my eyes, and fortunately my body, rather than the jagged flesh and gender of the Kahn himself.
Shao Kahn would not stand for a replacement to the throne, no, he couldn't bear to have a boy challenge him later in life like he had with Onaga. He needed a girl, a princess, a paper heir to the throne.
Chauvinist pig.
She couldn't speak at first. Of course she couldn't, Mileena didn't have speech. She was newborn and though agile, lacked muscle memory, and though beautiful, lacked grace. It wasn't until she removed her veil in her first bit of defiance against Shang Tsung, who it seemed she despised, did I realize why she could not speak.
She had my lips, pale and childlike, but they would grow womanly and perfect. However, a row of grotesque fangs, a wiry maw of dissonance and horror scratched across from those two beautiful lines very nearly to her ears.
It was the moment I saw her tarkatan blood that I had decided to kill Shang Tsung. First, I would torture him. Every single day. Every moment he is asleep and awake, I would destroy his life and he would wish he had been slain in Mortal Kombat. His had tortured and desecrated this innocent child with the blood of a monster.
It was difficult not to hide my contempt and disgust. He could see it, and so could Shao Kahn, though he seemed rather proud of this vile creation of science and magic.
She came to me, and I took her under my wing. She was me. We were sisters in blood and together, though our life purpose would be to destroy and kill, I would ensure she had the best life I could give her. If Shao Kahn was victorious, she would be his right hand, and if he did not, then we would escape and I would take her anywhere she pleased. Anywhere but here.
That night she saw herself for the first time.
I had taken it upon myself to escape the tunnels. There was one that attached to a warehouse held by the local Thieves Guild, worshippers of the true Kahnum of Outworld. It was connected to the entrance of the hovel that burrowed down fifteen feet and then branched off in two directions. It didn't take much to convince Syzoth to take us down the path to the warehouse.
A coward by nature, Syzoth could easily be threatened, or bribed. In my anger, I had begun to drain his blood and the power it gave me nearly intoxicated me to the point of no return. His blood was sour and old, ancient sniveling mucus that I would have woken up with the worst hang over had I kept it. Having finally seen the progression of my power, and the ferocity of my anger, he pledged his life to me and his loyalty.
With this in hand, I took Mileena from this gross groveling cretin of malcontent and fled to the warehouse. Above, or "upworld" as she called it, the entry way was just a wooden staircase built into the earth that lead to a door that opened into the warehouse. It was more of just a big building, some boxes, crates, barrels and cloth, however, the building itself was locked with magic. No one in, no one out.
Her voice, though she sounded vaguely like myself, should have filled my mouth with sharp rocks, started to form words taught to her by Shang Tsung and I. He didn't believe she needed much to learn, but I would teach her everything. She couldn't say much, and what she did, was not well spoken.
"What now?" I interpreted from her.
The building was big compared to the others around it. A sturdy twelve feet. There were windows near the top, covered in dirt and muck, grime, anything you could hide the inside with. One, however, only had cloth over it and the dirt was caked dry and easy to wipe. Together we pulled the crates and boxes together into a small staircase. There we would sit and watch the two moons rise over Outworld. There, she would see her reflection in the glass. Faint and nearly concealed by the moon, she had the same look of horror that I had when I first saw her, but I could hide it better.
That night I heard her scream. Guttural and painful. Her tears traced conical and curved teeth alike. She was a monstrosity and she knew it.
"Listen to me," I stopped her, "it was Shang Tsung that did this to you." After a pause, to try and hear her words, but between sobs and anger could not be interpreted, I continued, "we will make him pay for what he did to you. Together. Sisters."
The tournament was the next day. Finally a sense of time had come back to me. Since that night, I had also begun to mercilessly torture Shang Tsung. At first Shao Kahn would punish me. He beat me for the night I let Mileena see herself. He beat me, because I would not let him touch her. No one would touch her.
It was the night I let Shao Kahn break me, but after that he accepted my torture. He began to love it really fast. There was not a waking moment that Shang Tsung did not regret his actions and he lived the vitriol I spewed, and the hatred in my actions. Shang Tsung had failed him once, but I hadn't yet. How quickly things change for those that don't expect it.
On one such occasion, when I had learned Shang Tsung came to the tunnels as the sun would rise on tournament day, he came prepared with a silk changshan he had made for the tournament itself. It would be an insult to Kitana with Edenian embroidery and carefully stitched by an Edenian seamstress. It would symbolize that though he had lost the tournament to claim Edenia, he was still powerful enough to control her people. Something like that, I'm sure he said.
When he rested it in his laboratory, and left to greet Shao Kahn with a low bow, fealty, and praise, Mileena retrieved it with the aid of Syzoth and between those jagged fangs, tore it to shreds and together presented it before Shang Tsung, as he bowed to Shao Kahn.
"What will you wear now, sorcerer? Nothing, like the man that beat you?" I spat upon him and watched as his horror was reflected in the sundown of my blank stare.
"Insolent fool, I–" Shao Kahn stopped him mid breath, and praised this act of terrorism.
Shang Tsung loved his riches and spoils. I will destroy all of it.
I will destroy him.
The morning of the tournament, the mood was different. We were all as one as we exited. The mere sight Shang Tsung was enough to send ripples through the crowds that ran through the streets toward the Coliseum, but to see Shao Kahn alive? Whispers became roars and the air electrified. We could have hidden ourselves, but Shao Kahn wanted to make an impact where it mattered most, with the lower people of the city beyond the Coliseum. The people that followed him before Kitana committed treason. They were his people. Blind faith and sheer ignorance of the world around them, but they knew change.
Change had come for Outworld.