Victory doesn't come with redemption. Happy endings are never always the outcome of a long and hard fought battle to reach freedom. It's the moment you've realized that you've finally become the person you were born to be, the one person you've needed in your life all your life.
Raiden wasn't quite there, but to see the final moments of Johnny Cage reach his own struck a chord with him. As the ashes and the burning embers that surrounded him settled and the squirming bodies of the injured screamed and or lay motionless, his attention was not on them, but the war between the animals on the tournament ground.
Kotal Koahn held Nightwolf's throat in his wide maw, and great big paws that dug sharp talons into the wolf's chest had pressed tight to the ground and prepared to return the Native to his Great Spirit.
A strike of lightning clashed between them and the two bodies swung in separate directions. Both men forced into their human forms crashed into rock and bodies.
"Enough, Ko'atal! Nightwolf!" Raiden's voice rumbled through the bedrock beneath their feet.
Kotal Kahn pulled himself to his feet first, Nightwolf not far behind. Raiden closed the gap between them in a flash.
"Help them, or I will end you both." There was no denying the order.
Nightwolf raced to the scene, Kotal Kahn however was hesitant. A spark of anger, a gleam of red streaked the God's eyes.
"You are no God, Kotal Kahn."
"No. I am a broken man."
"Then mend the broken and I will see to it that you are among them."
"You cannot fix me, Thunder God."
"Quan Chi cannot return Jade to you, but there is a way to reach her without needless war."
The God lowered to Kotal's level and reached for his hand. Hesitant, Kotal stood unable to take it, unable to take any action. The bonds of Quan Chi's promises held tight to him, but the sorcerer had never promised action, only words.
"There are no second chances. No promises, Ko'atal." Raiden stayed his hand, extended, but not forever. "I do not offer this out of pity, but expectation that you will live up to your end of the bargain, and your role as a Kahn of Outworld."
Within the palace walls Skarlet traced the prison cells that lead to a path with one of many hidden entrances into the lair. She had seen the commotion on the tournament grounds, but her plan was to reach Quan Chi in the throne room with Shang Tsung and Liu Kang, not to interfere in Raiden's affairs. In the great hall that lead to the throne room and personal quarters of Quan Chi, the once lavish and lush chambers of Shang Tsung, she paused to stare down each end. Kotal Kahn had reached for Raiden's hand and the two had found some semblance of a common ground in this chaos. If only that could have been her and him.
She spat. It was too late to turn back. The job needed to be done.
With no sign of Shang Tsung, she passed from chest to chest, pillar to pillar and between the ruined walls until the great portal doors were shut tight before her.
There was no opening them.
Not without Shang Tsung.
Unless I can go around.
From the forest she could possibly find some way in, or through the jagged ledge to her right climb, but that would be far more treacherous. She could also use the blood to lift herself over, but that would also expose her to the enemies on the other side.
She must find Shang Tsung.
Skarlet began to trace back, taking the left side of the isle and occasionally she would peer down the stone steps, past the open doors to the tournament ground to ensure Raiden's horde and most of all Kotal Kahn were busy. There was an opening, several now, to the forest where she could hug the walls to search for entry points, or trace back to the lair to check for Shang Tsung.
As she turned the corner, the rubble like a staircase up and over the massive hole in the palace wall, she was met with a strike that forced her back into a stone pillar.
Smack!
Her back cracked against the stone and her vial fell from her waist. It took a second to jog her brain back after her neck had snapped back into the stone, but before her was a stranger sight than she had expected.
Having emerged from the hole in the palace wall, a woman in pink and black simple clothing readied to strike again. She figured this person must have been the one to hit her, but the sight was hard to discern as the woman before her gritted a maw of tarlatan teeth.
Just like the child.
This half-tarlatan looked nothing like Skarlet, but more similarly to the Edenian that emerged behind her.
"Kitana?" Skarlet spat blood at her feet.
"I don't have time for you." Kitana disregarded the blood witch.
This was the straw that broke her. The abuse, the suffering, the torture and servitude all to be told her entire life that she'd never be good enough, never amount to anything equal to those she served. To be disregarded so offhandedly by the former goddess and have the mutant shoved in her face that Shang Tsung had created after the failure of her own blood to form the perfect Mileena, this was it.
No words need be spoken to the oligarch. Skarlet reached out with the blood still hot on her flesh and sent it like daggers scattershot toward Kitana and Mileena.
The Edenian absorbed as much as she could with the full opening of her fans, Mileena behind the shield, but first to break the folds to lunge at Skarlet.
She struck stone with a punch the witch dodged and shook it off as her knuckles immediately split and bled. Skarlet straight kicked the half-tarkaten into the small stone ornamental fence that would have encased a lavish treasure chest in Shang Tsung's days. As Mileena tripped over onto the ground, Kitana was next to swing each fan one after the other to slice her old enemy.
Skarlet rotated around the pillar to escape the sharp edges of the metallic fans and with the blood spilled started to form the shape of a scythe. Once fully realized, the pole arm was tilted and the reaper's edge came down on Kitana, but the Edenian was quick to use the pillar for protection just as Skarlet had.
Mileena flanked the blood witch, her maw wide and salivated, the rage within her like that of a full Tarkatan.
Caught between a rock and two vile enemies, she stuck Mileena with the butt of the blood scythe and then swung up with the blunt edge of the blade to distance herself from Kitana, then in a quick series of steps turned and spun the scythe to swipe at the half-tarkatan. The blunt edge had caught Kitana's cheek and knocked her to the center of the isle, the stain of blood, Skarlet's and Kotal Kahn's splashed from her face to mix with her own.
Mileena forced herself into Skarlet's measure and took hold of the blood witch's wrists. A struggle ensued for the weapon, but Mileena was outmatched by Skarlet's magic. Once a pole arm, the scythe melted into tiny daggers of coagulated blood that speared into her.
A thousand needles all struck her like hornets and forced her back. Kitana pushed forward, but the blades swiftly altered course to strike at her behind Skarlet.
Her focus on the half-tarkatan, she began to step back and trie to find a pillar to back into. She had a plan, but with two enemies at her throat, she needed to be careful.
Together again, Kitana and Mileena flanked the blood witch and edged her to the center of the path toward the palace.
In the distance, just over the shoulder of the mutant, she saw Raiden's group slowly pull themselves together. Soon the God would interfere, but never in her favor. She had to make her stand, or she would never join Shang Tsung and Liu Kang against Quan Chi.
"It doesn't have to go this way!" Kitana offered, but the blood lust of the half-tarkatan and the witch were too great to penetrate with rationale. She tried again, "come with us."
As the spinning wasps of blood swung around her like a buzzing tornado, she heard Kitana, but the sight of the half-tarkatan was too much to ignore. The sight of what the child could have become had it not been slain by the sorcerer. Had her blood not been slain before her eyes. Mileena was an abomination, no matter who's blood was used to create her, but to know it was Kitana's that was allowed to live and not hers.
"You wish!" She spat and raised herself into the air.
Mileena leapt for her and held tight to her legs. The witch was thrown off and the buzzing spears of blood cut and stabbed and stung Mileena and Kitana as they lunged in measure.
She struggled to free herself. From the claws of the half-tarkatan, and the servitude offered by the Edenian oligarch. To free herself from her own torment. Skarlet cast the blood down at them, but Mileena's Tarkatan blood would not let her give up. She dug her claws in, her teeth next and swung the witch like a bat into the nearest stone pillar.
Kitana reached out to her, but Mileena leapt for her prey and in one hard bite bore a chunk from the witch's shoulder and neck, then her ribs. Before she realized Skarlet had stopped fighting back and the blood had settled, Mileena was forced off her.
Skarlet reached for her vial, but it had fallen so long ago in the fight. She tried to scream, but the wound at the corner of her shoulder and throat boiled over with pain as her muscles, exposed, desperately gasped for air.
Kitana pulled Mileena away and the two rushed to through the nearest entrance, toward the prison cells.
Skarlet alone, reached out with any strength she could muster for the blood that spilled around her, but there was no stopping it.
"This is it." Raiden looked around them, Kung Lao hung an arm over Liu Kang's shoulder, Jax, unscathed save for the melted parts of his arms sat Sonya down on the stone rubble, but beyond the loss of Johnny Cage, none were too injured to continue.
Smoke and Sub-Zero emerged from the cavern entrance past the pit that lead to the Naknada statue. The Lin Kuei immediately soothed the burning of the earth around them, but they could not piece together their fallen ally.
"The Naknada have receded back to Outworld. Scorpion has found a way into the palace from the back, Shang Tsung has opened the way." Sub-Zero announced.
"Not all of us should go." Liu handed Kung Lao to Nightwolf. "We need to focus our effort on Quan Chi, too many people will make it easier for him to hit us all at once."
"He's right." Kotal Kahn added, "Quan Chi's skeletons will make short work of your injured friends, Raiden. Take Liu Kang and Sub-Zero and meet Shang Tsung. That should be enough."
"What about you?" Liu turned to the Osh-Tekk, the trust not yet there.
"I do not trust myself to not intervene. I will stay and as best I can." He assured, but only when his weapons were tossed amongst the rubble did Liu Kang believe it and gather with Raiden and Sub-Zero.
"I don't need to sneak to get in." Raiden reached for the two and in the light, blinded the group until the flash was gone with them.
Shang Tsung emerged at the portal doors to the palace. Raiden, Liu Kang, and Sub-Zero appeared shortly after him.
"I had meant to appear inside." Perplexed, Raiden approached the doors.
"They are bound by his magic." Shang Tsung answered, but the snake's lips smiled. "Unfortunately for Quan Chi, this is my island and it obeys only my command."
The defenders of Earthrealm parted the way as Shang Tsung began to chant a low hymn until a crease widened between the large red doors. Ancient but sturdy, but the spell cast upon them by Quan Chi twisted at the hinges, and cracked the ancient wood. With aid of a strike of the God's lightning, the doors gave way and the throne room that had seen many final moments of thousands of champions throughout Mortal Kombat laid open before them.
"You first." Shang Tsung paid deference to the God, and Raiden was quick to take it and enter.
Shang Tsung's grin melted the moment they entered, for though he would join them, something had caught him in the distance.
Before him, the stone pillars that marched down the wide gates into the tournament grounds looked as though they had taken many hits and many chucks tore from them. He was not pleased at the sight of his island in ruins, but something else caught his attention more than that of the rubble he would tireless work to repair.
Carefully he approached the body of Skarlet. Unsure if she still lived in agony of her wounds, but the shell beneath him was not quite dead yet as he would discover.
She gasped for breath, but choked on her own blood. It spilled like rivers down the corners of her mouth and past the hill of her bottom lip.
"You don't look so good." He offered humor, but realized the grim scene before him was worse than his jest.
The half-tarkatan had taken deep, fatal chunks out of Skarlet's body. The whites of her ribs jutted over the tattered muscle that was meant to protect them, and the pulse of her neck spilled further onto the ground all the blood that was meant to keep her alive.
"I cannot heal you." She watched as he knelt before her and spoke softly. "At least, not physically."
Unable to respond, unable to process this in the trauma of her injuries, she could only watch as he raised from his knees and reached over her.
Shang Tsung peeled back the long sleeve of a silk tunic he had salvaged and from the creases of his palms a light emerged. She could only hear his mantra, fear that her soul would be devoured and forced to live forever in servitude within the sorcerer.
"I promised to reward you for freeing me." He broke the mantra and smiled, but the eyes that stared back no longer blinked. The blood that flowed now spilled like a stagnant pool. "This belongs to you."
His eyes closed as the light reached for her in the form of two small hands and the face of the half-tarkatan child he had once taken from her.
"Your soul."
As his eyes opened he stepped back. This was her moment now, and he was needed elsewhere.
Inside the palace, Quan Chi stood on the second floor and gazed down at the hunger city of ravenous mortals eager to tear him limb from limb.
"Is this it, Raiden?" He slowly descended the staircase.
Liu Kang and Sub-Zero stood side by side with the Thunder God as skeletons emerged from the fine stone flooring.
"This is all you have to fight me with?" The sorcerer snickered.
"No, but it's enough." Raiden shot back.
Quan Chi grinned, arrogant and ready to see the end of the Thunder God, he reached deep with his voice and readied a hollow bellow that would summon a legion of the dead far beyond the skeletons that followed him.
A staff emerged through the veins of lightning within Raiden's right hand and he clapped the end against the stone floor, but his display was nothing in comparison as the snake that was Shang Tsung appeared behind Quan Chi.
"I'll be taking my island back." He smiled, but not to see the surprise of Quan Chi's face as he turned to see Shang Tsung behind him, but for the split second he Scorpion passed between them to erupt in flames and spit the two outward from the ashes of the crumbling staircase.
Shang Tsung hung in the air. Scorpion lunged for Quan Chi, his blade drawn, but Raiden knew better. Before the specter could take the sorcerer's life he let lightning consume him and darted for the two.
Scorpion's blade swung down like a guillotine at the fallen sorcerer's neck.
The crack of lightning, the flash of light.
Blood erupted over Raiden's white robes and Scorpions yellow and black attire.
Only Raiden remembered that it was Quan Chi's energy that would set Hanzo free from the specter. His grasp of Scorpion was tight, but he could not hold Quan Chi soon enough. The sorcerer's head rolled and the skeletons crumbled to dust.
Raiden's free hand still clutched for Quan Chi, but the deed was done. Scorpion swung the blade clean of the sorcerer's blood and pulled himself from the God's hand in the fire that was his very essence.
"Well," Shang Tsung lightened the atmosphere, "that was more anti-climactic than I thought it would be."
"Still, it is done." Sub-Zero chimed in.
"No." Liu Kang pushed forward. "You said you had something of mine, I want it back!"
"Oh? Did I say that?" A smile returned to the sorcerer and soft chuckle. "I suppose I did."
"Return his soul." Raiden raised up with him, he could see within him. Liu Kang reached out for Raiden from within the confines of the snake that bound him.
Incensed, Liu would be betrayed yet again, but he stood his ground. Shang Tsung must live up to his end of the bargain.
Right?
Raiden prepared to perform the same power needed to return Scorpion to his humanity, but this time to for Liu Kang to be pulled from the snake before them.
"You've done that before, Raiden." Shang Tsung caught him off guard.
Lightning stretched and the hands of light clasped for Shang Tsung. The white veins of the God's power crashed into itself and the sorcerer vanished.
Instead of the energy meant to restore Liu Kang, he felt a corruption in the lightning that returned to him and heat that encased the Thunder God. It burned his flesh and the air around them hissed and cackled until he crashed to the ground, to grass instead of stone.
He quickly pulled himself to his feet and instantly horrified at the sight before him.
Liu Kang, Sonya, Nightwolf, Kung Lao, Kotal Kahn, Sub-Zero, Smoke, Jax, Kitana and Mileena. All of them expelled from the island back to Earthrealm.
Raiden traced the eyes around him to Liu Kang. Broken. The Revenant still within him.