"In the end, you belong neither to the light, nor the darkness. You stand alone."
Raiden spoke before Sonya, Kung Lao, and Liu Kang. Night had fallen over Hong Kong and the docks were busy with all walks of life that Liu Kang had never seen here before. Raiden paced, slow, methodical, and his voice commanded attention.
"Together we can defend Earth realm against the sorcerer Quan Chi, but without the strength inside each and everyone of your souls alone, it cannot be done."
"There can only be one champion." Kung Lao explained.
"Exactly." Raiden stopped and turned toward the group. "Near five hundred years ago, Quan Chi and the brotherhood of the shadow interrupted the Mortal Kombat tournament. It split Outworld into two, and balance between the realms disrupted."
"The realms?" Sonya stared, as unsure of all this as Liu Kang, but he knew the story.
"We're told that the tournament is what binds the realms together, or destroys them. Beings from all across the realms gather to compete to save their worlds, to show their strengths, to conquer other realms." He repeated from memory.
Kung Lao added, "it is a tradition handed down by the first of the gods. The Fire God and his Goddess. Only through Mortal Kombat can peace be maintained between the realms, and only through it can they come together to disrupt that."
"That ridiculous." Liu Kang scoffed, he folded his arms and blocked Kung Lao from his head as best he could.
"I've seen many tournaments before and after. Because no true champion was crowned many years ago, it has caused a ripple effect throughout all subsequent tournaments, an unbalance." He paced again with full attention off is pupils on him. "Mortal Kombat is meant to be a festival of life. It's meant to help maintain order in the realms, even when deciding their fate. Quan Chi has taken full advantage of this to steal every tournament held since, under the apathetic eye of Outworld's emperor, Kotal Kahn."
"The true host of the tournament." Kung Lao explained.
"Yes, as it takes place in Outworld, Kotal Kahn is meant to rule over each tournament, but has delegated that duty to the devious sorcerer."
"No one has survived the tournament long enough to challenge the sorcerer, or the emperor himself. So the broken cycle continues. Until now." Raiden turned toward the docks as all eyes set upon the mist that grew like a great beast beyond the market square and the sea beneath. "It has begun."
A great wooden ship emerged from the mist as thunder cackled and clapped around it. A dragon at the forefront ready to pierce the stale air that barely scraped the torn masts. To Liu Kang, it looked like an old pirate ship, but in all his years in Hong Kong the old man's stories began to trickle into his mind. He thought they had gone in one ear and out the other, not stored up in the recess of his mind to stab him now as they began to finally unfold before him.
Slowly it turned toward the longest cement dock available and a chain unleashed a dented, old ramp that granted access to those who dared to step onto the ship.
"Shall we?" Raiden through a wry smile and a crackle of energy in his eyes turned toward the three and gestured toward the ship.
"That thing?" Sonya wasn't impressed.
"Do you see any other ship ominous enough to travel between realms?" Kung Lao jested as he moved past her with grace.
"I'd rather board the Titanic." She added and followed, with Liu Kang behind her.
The moment his foot stepped on the old, decayed wood of the ramp toward the ship of the old man's legends, Liu Kang remembered a stream of dreams that he had tried to forget. He was on this ship before. Shang Tsung had tried to lure him deeper to keep him locked in the dream, but he would always escape, always awaken before the sorcerer could speak.
The rope was a poor rail, but served enough for Sonya to aid in her ascent ahead of Liu Kang, until he pushed before her, and then in front of Kung Lao. He expected Raiden on the ship, considering he had stepped over first, but the man in the conical hat was no where to be seen.
"Where is he?" He looked around but on deck he could only see other potential fighters, crates, barrels and chains. Behind him, Kung Lao and Sonya looked beyond him. When Liu Kang turned, Raiden had positioned himself on a large wooden barrel, relaxed and his demeanor different than the near excited man that had lead them here. "Don't do that."
Raiden ignored the hint of disbelief and spoke, his tone deeper, more serious. "This is not the tournament I remember taking three people on a rickety ship to." He mused to himself, "so many times before, yet this is different."
"Talking to yourself, old man?" Liu Kang spat.
Rain broke through the dark clouds. They all looked up, with exception of Raiden. The low hiss of the rain did not service to raise his voice, but he spoke on.
"Each of you hold greatness in your hearts and your souls are those of champions that can save your realm, but this is not the same battle. It's not going to be easy to take down Quan Chi, but one of you must."
"Yes, Raiden." A deep voice broke through Raiden's concentration. "One of you must defeat me."
"Quan Chi." Raiden lifted his head from the puddles that slipped through the cracks of the ship and narrowed his eyes as the sorcerer stepped from a side door thought to be too old and rusted to open.
"You're the sorcerer?" Liu Kang eyed him, scanned his appearance.
Quan Chi was a thin, frail man. His flesh was painted in white and red symbols with a gem dotted on his forehead, but he was not Indian. He wore a simple black linen tunic held by a sash and topped with leather pauldrons that curved over his bony shoulders with jagged spikes that reached up past his jaw-line.
"You must be Liu Kang." He stared into Liu's soul. Those deep sunken eyes narrowed, focused, and bore through Liu Kang as a dagger might. His face twisted with deep disappointment. "You are not like the Fire God before you."
"Enough." Raiden appeared behind the trio and broke the threshold of them to approach Quan Chi.
"You hold no power here, Thunder God, nor in Outworld." Quan Chi pecked at Raiden.
"For centuries I've watched as you profaned the great tournament, defiled it in every way you could to achieve victory. This–" Quan Chi interrupted him.
"These are three you've sent to defeat me? To bring stability to the realms?"
"Exactly."
Quan Chi sized up Kung Lao and Sonya next, but neither interested him as much as Raiden and Liu Kang, until he took a second look at the blonde woman that stared him down.
"You must be Sonya Blade." As he took her eyes with his, he pushed past Raiden and never let her eyes leave him, for in them he found what he desired most. "There is so much potential in you, waiting to break free."
"Fuck off." She spat.
Quan Chi snickered and stepped back.
"You only have three champions this time, Raiden?"
"More than enough for you." Raiden shot back.
The door behind him creaked as it cracked. The rust hissed and the wood splintered as it opened wide and smacked a large wooden barrel that refused to let it hit the wall.
"I'd like you to meet the current champion." He turned his head toward the door as the darkness of the room within began to glow with a faint fiery light.
Emerged from the depths of the shadows within, the fire grew what emerged from the threshold was being adorned in black and yellow. He wore a mustard yellow cloth that hid his face, beneath a black hood that cast a great shadow down over his eyes.
"A ninja?" Liu Kang commented, as the man looked like he had stepped out of the history books of old Japanese legends.
The man had a leather bandolier across his right shoulder that harnessed an old black and yellow hilted katana on his back, over a dull yellow tunic and black breeches tapered by old tabi boots held together with tightly twined string. At his left side, a chain was fastened around a belt hidden beneath his sash.
He stood behind Quan Chi, silent, eyes white like Raiden, but held little to no life within them.
"Scorpion, the current champion of Mortal Kombat. Revenant of the Netherrealm."
"What does that mean?" Sonya spoke up, but Raiden answered.
"He is already dead."
"How do you defeat death?" Liu Kang commented, and no reaction was given from Scorpion.
"Chances are you will not have to fight him, for I have new combatants as well, Lord Raiden." Quan Chi added.
"And who might they be?" Raiden stepped forward, curious as the shadows behind Scorpion grew deeper with mystery.
"All things in due time, isn't that right Sonya?" The sorcerer's eyes fell on her and a thin wormy grin stretched across his skull-like face.
As he had emerged, Scorpion vanished into the darkness through a bright fiery light that swallowed Quan Chi with him and the door behind them slammed shut, broken against its own frame. A warning not to enter, and assurance that no one dare to.
"This is crazy!" Liu Kang turned toward the group. "Why have you taken us on this suicide mission?"
He looked for Raiden, but the robed figure had perched on a great wooden barrel again.
"Alone, none of you could ever hope to defeat what awaits you," he continued, his eyes reached deep to peer into their souls, "but if you can find it in you to become a team, to become one together, we may have a chance."
"We must unite if we're to defeat Quan Chi, and only through the strength we give each other will this order be restored." Kung Lao explained.
They stared, a long silent pause until Sonya broke through.
"What bullshit." She was the first to split from the group, then Kung Lao after her.
Liu Kang stepped toward Raiden. He saw the concern that came over those white eyes as he watched two of the three leave for their own path.
"You really are Lord Raiden?" He saw it now, the sparks in those eyes, the depth of his voice, and the power that emerged from each breath.
"Did you ever doubt me, or yourself?" Raiden let the young man see his face completely, to stare into his soul as he did into Liu's.
"I've spent my life running from myself."
"Only you can face yourself, but even you can't do this alone."
"We're really it?" He referred to himself, Kung Lao and Sonya.
"There's others, but I've looked into their souls and from what I've seen, you're it."
"I don't see it, Lord Raiden."
"Give it time. You'll find out." Raiden, finally accepted as the Thunder God of legends, dissipated in a white crackled light before Liu Kang.
Liu turned to find Raiden nowhere in sight.
Alone on a rickety ship off to save the world, he made a path as best he could in the direction of Kung Lao and Sonya.