Children ran through the streets with smiles and wooden swords. Banners for their favorite realms and champions. Gongs and horns, strings and wooden flutes. The children of the summer spring would gather on the hot seats, rest on their hands and watch the tournament. The fighters, our spirit would touch their souls, it wouldn't, but it will seem that way.
Oh, to have memories of a free festival.
To capture just one drop of all the ecstasy that swept that afternoon when Kung Lao defeated Shang Tsung and saved Earthrealm. Imagine all of the mountains, the highest highs man has pushed beyond their brains. That was Mortal Kombat. A festival of life, and a festival under ivory clouds that would change the course of the realms.
This would not be that festival.
Liu Kang at my side, Shujinko beside me to my right, where he better stay. Fujin and my old friend Bo' Rai Cho behind us, we marched onto the field as the opening ceremony began.
So few champions this time around, knowing that Fujin and Liu Kang could not compete. Bo' Rai Cho competed for Outworld, he had no choice.
Inside, Kitana Kahn had already begun her speech to greet the crowds. Amongst the combatants, it needed to be noted was Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung.
"Look over there." Nudged to look, Liu Kang locked gazed with them and then back at Kitana. There was nothing to be done now about this, but I could feel it already that the stakes had been raised and regret started to settle inside of his heart. We were not ready for this.
"What do we do, Raiden?" He asked, eyes on the Kahn.
"We defeat them in Mortal Kombat. They are as much Kitana's enemies as ours. In that commonality we will work together to rid of them once and for all."
"Shang Tsung." Kung Lao spotted his rival.
It felt strange to be around Kung Lao this time. In the first timeline, though he longed to return to the mortal coil, he was proud to fight for Earthrealm. He was proud to give his life for the realm. I was there to guide him every step of the way. Have I wasted me time with Liu Kang, only to neglect The Great Kung Lao?
Too much happened at once.
Dances, speeches, and cursed all of it and more happened before our eyes when all we desired was to compete and leave.
The rules had changed as well.
The first round would be to the yield. The second to the death. This, she explained, would be a saving grace to competitors too cowardly or unsure of the spirit in them to compete for their realms and give them the chance to battle without the threat of death. A whimsical reason. There was something else in her voice that suggested a more sinister plot.
However, this would be perfect for the new, sudden plan of needing to get rid of Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung before. They cannot be allowed to live.
"When do we begin, Raiden?" Shujinko would be among the body count, if I can help it. He looked at me with eyes he believed to be innocent. Perhaps he was just a pawn the whole time, but his part in all this must stop if Onaga is to be crushed in one fell swoop.
"No matter your feelings for Kitana, this is our only chance to be rid of Shao Kahn, Shang Tsung, and Onaga."
That last one caught him off guard. He turned toward me, but before even another word could be exchanged, a swarm of Kytinn filled the Coliseum.
At center stage, D'Vorah and three hooded figures.
"Who do you fight for?" Kitana addressed them. A question she had asked of us all.
"This one fights for the one true Kahn." D'Vorah spat.
The four of them made a display to bow before Kitana Kahn. Did she truly mean to fight for Outworld? A quick glance across the field in the mess of combatants, the now self proclaimed Kahnum of Outworld, Kotal Kahn was visibly upset by this display. His great sword out and ready to strike. It took Motaro and Jade to hold him back, but it was not D'Vorah he looked to be after.
What has transpired in Outworld since the last tournament?
The first fight was Kung Lao against Bo' Rai Cho. A safe fight for them both. It would be a pleasant match to enjoy, but there was no room for fun here. I would see Kitana immediately.
Beneath the seats were hall ways that combatants and guards could use to get from one gate to another with ease. Liu Kang and I had chosen to speed our way to Kitana's personal entrance. Here we would wait as she oversaw the first match, as is custom.
There, however, in the shadows just before a great white cast of light beamed down against the first door, leaned a familiar face. Shang Tsung.
Adorned in just boots and breeches, wraps on his wrists and youthful presence, he greeted us with a sinister grin.
"Raiden, Lord Liu Kang." He bowed before Liu Kang, having known him instead of me this time around. If only he knew what Liu Kang had done to him the first time around.
"We do not have time for your filth." One step forward, he would not let me pass. He looked to the God among us.
"I would ask time of the protector of Earthrealm, not his lowly sycophants." He struck a nerve, but it had already hardened before his words could hurt.
"What ever you say in front of me, can be said with Raiden present." Liu Kang, again, refused to rise to the occasion, but as they stared, I took a glance to notice that Kitana had left her throne. She headed this way with Goro as her guard.
"It is fine, Liu Kang. You do not need me." This was my chance to push him out into the world, and myself out into the path of a great and powerful Shokan. "Kitana Kahn, if I may."
"You may not!" Goro's great three fingered hand pushed me into the structure of the bleachers. This mortal body would have broken in half had he meant to in that otherwise delicate shove.
It was in her eyes. Hatred. For me? For Liu Kang?
"Please, forgive me," I begged, as though it were for me, "please allow me to redeem myself with just a moment of your time."
She swung around, annoyed, undesired of this attention but after a cold blank stare, agreed. Shang Tsung had retreated to the shadows, undetected by the Kahnum, and Liu Kang dare not approach his ex just yet. One day he will have the strength to.
"You have until the end of the next fight, Raiden. It is Jade against the Kollector. It will be quick." She looked hurt, proud, destroyed, held together, all so much she tried to be in one glance. Perhaps she was as troubled as I in this moment. This would definitely be a delicate discussion if so.
Outside the walls, Kollector charged the smaller Edenian. To the yield, weapons were not allowed, but Kollector had six. His arms. Still, I had confidence in Jade, but not in the strength of her Kahn.
"I promise to keep it brief." With a bow, I followed her into the great hall.
With the closing of the doors, Goro lifted me and tossed me to the floor with enough strength to bruise the left side of my ribs. The floor was paved in stone. Kitana stepped elegantly, but with seething hatred toward her former friend, and I was lifted to my feet, then shoved into the wide stone pillar that may as well have been as hard as Goro's chest.
"You screwed everything up, Lord Raiden!" She was still the same Kitana.
"Forgive me!" So, the hatred was for me.
Goro folded his arms and watched on as she stood back and spit filth, "you foul cretin. Did you know what you had done to Liu and I?"
"I did not break the two of you up."
"Not that, have you had to live to see your mother betray you when all you wished for was to be at her side?"
"No."
"To be forced out of your home because, as a God, you have none? I wanted to grow up in Edenia, to be my mother's daughter, my father's daughter. You took that from me."
"I did not, Kitana. You accepted Liu Kang's offer to join him as Gods."
"Maybe, Raiden, but no matter how much we altered time, he became more and more apathetic to the evil I have worked so hard to destroy."
"Evil cannot be killed, Kitana. Only contained."
"That's what I told Liu Kang at the beginning of time. The realms would choose their own fate, but yet still, Onaga rises, Shao Kahn conquers, and the realms fall to armageddon."
As mortal, I would not remember the many timelines they would have lived to discover this. As I've been told, Liu Kang and Kitana never made it to Pyramid of Argus, but all timelines seemed to end at that point. "Then you are in the same position I was."
She was taken aback by this. She even looked disgusted, but for a moment, I could see she had started to think about it. Perhaps my words would help her understand.
"In another timeline, we had reached Armageddon. Shao Kahn became victorious and destroyed the realms with no one to stop him." To relive this again and again as I had, it is easy to understand her frustration with futility. "I had tried to send a message back to myself to alter that timeline so he would not. That failed, all but once."
"When?"
"When I gifted my status as a God to you and Liu Kang." She let this sink in for a moment, even Goro could understand, as he had fought many wars and the strategies he would have to play over in his mind must have realized the millennia I had to go through to reach this one. "It was you and Liu Kang that stopped Armageddon."
"But we didn't, we're just back at the beginning, where the story really began."
"With the Great Kung Lao's death." Goro knew this part, which means she had told him everything.
"Yes, Goro, but by the orders of Shang Tsung. See, you have taken his place, and Shao Kahn's as the true power of Outworld. You have saved realms that otherwise would have been destroyed."
"I could not save realms that otherwise should have lived."
"Fate, Kitana, is not Time. It cannot be changed. In the end, all the realms will be destroyed somehow, someway. That's the way of the universe."
She did not like that, but it was truth. The universe itself had begun to tear itself apart billions of years ago, well after the Big Bang, but it would be a slow and cold death we would never see. The truth still stood that even though you could save Edenia, Osh-Tekk, Earthrealm, no matter what, some day it would fall.
Her moment came, as the fight ended and the crowds roared for Jade. In this quick stream of time, I thought she would cut it even shorter, or crush it within Goro's many fists. Instead, she looked into my eyes, almost as she did before all of this happened.
"Why did you wish to see me?"
"Shao Kahn, Shang Tsung, and Shujinko." I explained, "Shujinko is here to fight for Earthrealm.
"The student of Onaga?"
"Unknowing, but yes."
"Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, and Onaga all here at this moment in time."
"Give or take."
"Then we must take them." She had a little spark in her eye, the old fire of change seemed to ignite. "Raiden, can I trust you to handle Shujinko and the Kamidogu he holds?"
"Yes, Kitana Kahn."
"Then I will handle Shao Kahn." She looked back at Goro, "and yourself, Prince Goro?"
"The Shokan fight for you." He seemed eager to crush Shang Tsung's skull though he need not say the words.
"If you wish to redeem yourself, Raiden, prove yourself wrong and help me change the course of history for the better."
I took this in. Let it sink like the sands of Kronika's hourglass. The champions now had freedom to choose their own destiny, though fate would always guide us in some strange way, the end result should always be the same. It was as I said, no matter what realm rises or falls, they will all become one at the end.
In all of history, there had been no greater threat to Earthrealm than those three men. Now would be our chance, and now my opportunity to make things right with Kitana.
"I have made too many mistakes, Kitana. I believe you are the person to make things right. I will do what I can to see that through."
"Good. Now get ready, you'll fight Shao Kahn tomorrow." She began to leave, and a little curios struck me cold. She said she would take care of Shao Kahn.
She didn't say she'd use me to do it.