Descending from that sweet, sweet dream, Evren found herself back in her fiancé's scrutiny just a little too expeditiously, the momentarily contented woman's mind wandering back to everything that had been said and done in her private getaway, the heart destitute of liberation from every whisper, whimper, and sigh, Hanzo's arms around her even still. Absentmindedly humming to herself as she ran an ornate bristle brush - the scarlet-ivory handle contrived of the tusk of the first oni she had slain - through her anemic gold waves so she could re-braid the sections later, the demoness was only half able to pay attention to Noob's verbal pawing. She was too lost in the glowing aftermath of the affair to notice it, but Bi-Han was not unaware of her rendezvous with his old nemesis. Prisoner to the bliss, the mind and body were respectively reeling, not only from their corresponding confessions - the demoness' less of her immediate dealings with Noob Saibot and their purposes and more of her at her most basic of levels - but also from exerting the little bit of strength remaining... Unfortunately, Noob had a rather good way at bringing his pawn back to attention...
At no time atingle to see the female, the reverent cast off an aura that insinuated he was especially irked at her superfluous company, additionally vexed at more than just her disgustingly immoral romance with his fellow wraith, and that was mostly due to the fact that some of the wedding guests had started to arrive earlier than expected - a full week early to be exact. At any rate, the perpetually pissy phantom was far from happy to have to greet this particular guest and her entourage on his own, as being of great importance in more than her own native realm, it looked a little off to just be formally greeted by the groom. But the exchange wasn't without its merits...
Forced to uphold his own charade, Bi-Han frequently had to make a deliberate show of spending his valuable time with his future bride, which although annoying did grant him with plenty of time to plot, so it wasn't strange for him to be seated - in this case atop the discrete table at the foot of the royal canopy bed, the fluttering veils in silken hues of mauve, violet, plum, and lavender - in her private quarters. What was out of the ordinary was the former Lin Kuei pivoting his neck around to fix his fiancée with a stern, dour gaze, getting straight to the point as a result of his sullen mood, "Blaanid tells me that you sudden vanished during your fitting. Where were you?" Ascending to his full, intimidating apex, the honor-less undead warrior laid his hands over the woman, forcibly grabbing her by the upper arm, his left thumb digging deep into a smarting bruise left a few days prior, tracing the dying indent of the desk with his right hand, handling her as rough as possible, "I thought we already had this discussion, that you were supposed to be in a known location at all times?"
Evren flinched away from him, everything crashing around her as the image of utopia in her mind shattered at the mere sound of his voice, golden orbs cast down as she gave him the same excuse Hanzo had given to Serik, "I had to go lay down. I wasn't well."
Sensing her bullshit a mile away, the apparition cocked his head as if he truly believed her cockamamie story, "Is that so?" Pulling her into his arms - the closest they've ever been without an audience - his darker side revealing in her gasps of pain and protest, Bi-Han took a deep breath of the dried sweat lingering, inhaling sharply as he thundered, "Then why do you reek of that Shirai Ryu bastard?!" Before she could come up with a lie, the malicious male tore off the simple yet tasteful teal nightdress the demoness had dawned in place of that savage extravagance he had ordered upon her, throwing her stark naked body to the floor, "You don't deserve to wear a fine ladies gown, you lying whore!"
Beating and kicking her body with feral savagery, the spiteful spirit only became angrier when she tried to fight back for the very first time, incensed that she had tasted enough strength from her lover to fuel her desire to live a while longer. Aiming a well-placed drop kick as her ribcage, he was more than elated to hear not the sickening popping crunch of bone breaking, or even the loud cries of agony as her vision began to blur in blood; no, what sated his aggravation was the silent whimpering of his slave falling back into line as her spirit was broken once more. Calling her unrepeatable names and saying a number of horrible things in her ear as he hoisted her by the skull to his eye-level - as if she deserved to even be graced with his visage - Noob did not stop his onslaught, not even when she began to bleed from her mouth and nose, the blood trickling to the floor, the copious gore smearing across her face as he bashed her head into the solid marble-esque floor. She wanted to be a lying whore, he might as well treat her as such. Her surge of newfound strength was also very telling as to what else they gotten up to, that at the very least he had made some pitiful admission to bolster the hope he had been so sure to annihilate, and that served only too infuriate him further.
Stopping at long last, just before she could lose consciousness or give in and perish, only half slated to see her curled up form convulsing in a tremulous ball, Noob pulled out one of his last two trump cards - in terms of Evren - and showed her a document he had stashed away, lowering it in front of the one eye that hadn't been completely sealed shut, allowing her to read a small section of it to show her that he was always one step ahead, taking exactly what she needed before she even knew that she should look for it. No longer just limited to crying on the outside, Evren lost it on the inside as well, bawling throughout her entire being... All of those hours spent pouring through dusty manuals, hand-written in dead languages, days alone spent sorting through volumes of orderless tomes, and now all of that hard work amounted to nothing in the scheme of things, her goals dust in the proverbial wind... And what was worse, Noob had found it first, knowing exactly what she had been searching for...She never knew that it could hurt so bad to lose hope...
No, not everything was gone forever, because she knew that Hanzo loved her... Noob might be able to squash all other rays of light, but that was one thing that even he could not take away from her! Hanzo really, truly, honestly did love her, and even in the jaws of utter defeat, that meant everything...
Curling his finger around that little metaphorical mustache, the malevolence masquerading as monster was intending to keep this one a little longer, but after her rather expected betrayal, he let his eagerness get the better of himself, figuring that his second smoking gun was perhaps the best in his arsenal against domestic disturbance, albeit a rather shocking discovery. Ripping her from the ground by the roots of her hair, several strands splitting from her scalp in the process, Noob tossed her against her gilded dresser, making her put something else on so they could go for a little walk and meet their first guest, as a couple this time. Conquered, that beautiful fantasy dying inside her chest, Evren proceeded quickly into a pair of simple pants and a robe-like top that hung from her shoulders, following him out of the bedroom, too beaten to wonder why they had to do whatever it was that they were doing at that time. Without so much as a glance from her betrothed, she knew that once they were in the open to put up a glamor, so she did the minute that her door was open. The smile wasn't nearly as easy.
-Scorpion-
After parting from Evren as she returned to her room to be dressed for bed - a small part of him wondering how she could even plan to sleep after their tryst - the taste of her lips fresh as they exchanged one last covert lip-lock for the time being, he had intended to return to his own chambers. He wasn't as tired as he might have expected after their understanding had been reached, nor was she, but that probably had to do with the good twenty some minutes spent simply lying in each other's arms, basking. Anyways, while he was not quite dead on his feet just yet, Hanzo's mind was full of racing thoughts, and he needed to be alone to sort them all out. But he never got the chance to even make it to his destination...
Even on cloud nine, Scorpion was still more than skilled enough to know when he was being tracked, and by a long shot, his pursuer was an amateur at best. As much as he did not not appreciate the advances, he had to admit that as a kombatant, the hunter was fairly formidable - he had first-hand experience to know - and their abilities were quite keen when the mind was not addled by lustful delusions. Swiveling on the ball of his foot, Scorpion stood face-to-face with none other than -
"Mileena?!"
But it was not the specter that spoke the Tarkatan Princess' moniker - it was Evren, a most unwelcome hand applying an obviously cruel amount of pressure upon her shoulder, a satisfied smirk upon his lips, almost as if he had caught sight of something he shouldn't have, "What luck, to run into the two of you here." Noob knew that the princess of Outworld would be chasing Scorpion the minute he had returned from fucking his fiancée, and he made no great effort to hide that fact, "That's right, the last time we four were gathered was Shang Tsung's little get-together in Outworld, wasn't it?"
Cringing inwardly as Scorpion's own recollections of that night swam to the surface, months of trying to forget paying off at the wrong time, the ninja looked over at Evren with pleading eyes, mutely attempting to communicate with her that that banquet was not his fault. It was a cimmerian gloom for all, but even still, there was no excuse for what he had done... It was the very same evening that Evren had been forced to publicly announce her sham of a relationship with Noob, Bi-Han doing most of the talking as he did not trust her to deliver the right message to the the beings gathered, mentioning the wedding in the first toast of the night. Playing no small part in his poor decision-making of the night, everything that had recently transpired was weighing especially hard on Scorpion, going as far back as the time of his death, everywhere he ran a reminder of what he had lost... Alone, he was easy prey...
"You promised me a dance that night," Mileena leaned in for Scorpion with her arms outstretched for an embrace that was never going to come, almost completely oblivious to their company as her voice broke though the haze of the past, "I hope this time you won't leave me after we..." She smirked suggestively in his direction, wriggling her eyebrows, licking her lips beneath her gossamer veil, "Have our fun."
Whatever Noob had just done to her body and spirit had no equal to what she felt in her heart right in that moment, her saffron eyes brimming over in an instant, heart breaking to a billion unfixable pieces, world ending before it could really even begin to live, creation ceasing on the cusp of the sixth day, "You didn't!" When he said nothing, she gasped, "You did!" There was not accusation in her words but cold, hard reality, realization settling that what she thought was not, that the person she had given everything for had so betrayed her. Hanzo had willing shared himself with Mileena, while if Noob had even so much as touched her, she would have performed the ultimate cleansing...
Noob's pleasure couldn't have been any more tangible than if it had been the fifth point of a pentagon, his sadistic malice soaking in the misery, heart lifted somewhat as he reveled in his riches, "But he did."
Never more wrong in her life, Evren fell apart at the very seams as she realized that Noob was able to take everything away from her, that his flawless victory had begun at this very moment. Unable to contain herself for a moment longer, the glamor fell away as if it had never been in the first place, manifesting first and foremost the heavy streak of crimson across her face, the blood dried now but still hopelessly bright, but between the horrors of her appearance and the shining tears in her eyes that haunt him for the rest of eternity, Scorpion didn't know what sight hurt him worse, "...Evren..."
Trembling, the abandoned and unwanted demoness pulled herself free from her fiancée, fleeing without another word, not even a hurt look back. And then she was gone...
Scorpion felt like nothing short of shit for what he had done, all the old wounds opening once more as she departed, including those that had resulted before he had ever heard of the likes of a place like the Netherrealm, the Mortal Kombat tournament, or Evren. Mileena seemed not to notice so much what was going on around her, nor did she care, her shapely orange eyes busy raking over the wraith of the Shirai Ryu. Noob failed to see what the appeal was to Scorpion, but it made no difference, because once the Netherrealm was his, there would be no Scorpion... A part of him wished that his psudeo-wife was going to live long enough to see that fucker die...
A/N: Reading those reviews... Wow. Just wow! Now its my turn to be unable to thoroughly express just how much reading these reviews have moved me! I have received a fair share of reviews that really meant something to me, but never before this have I had so many for one series, let alone that have collectively moved me beyond speech! All I can say is simply thank you, from the bottommost part of my heart, and that this has truly been the highlight of my entire time on the site, and as an aspiring writer, one of the crowning achievements so far, ranking just second. In almost twenty-one years of life, trust me, that is truly saying a lot. I only hope that I can achieve even greater things when I spread my literary wings! But that's going to be quite hard, I think. So thank you! I really can't say it enough, but I really have to give infinite thanks to TheHemomancer, Obelisk of Light, and Cold Recluse - while I'm grateful to everyone that reviewed either of NFNF or WWBD, my heart really goes out to you guys especially. So thank you!
About the story, particularly the part of the creation and six days and all that, and even my various references to culturally different deities in past chapters, I want it understood that I mean none of it personally. I'm simply drawing comparisons from legitimate sources (yes, apparently both wikiepedia and mythology are credible).
Disclaimer: I don't own Mortal Kombat. That honor goes elsewhere. Like (but no limited) to Netherrealm Studios, the WB (or whatever they're calling themselves over at Warner Brothers), and Ed Boon. There might be more, but I'm no lawyer, and I'm certainly not versed in ownership rights, so I don't know exactly who owns what. I can, however, lay claim to Evren, Blaanid, Serik, and all the other minor nameless characters, and I do.