Chapter 2-My Victory?
For many years, centuries going into a single millennia to be exact, I served Onaga as a faithful warrior, and moved myself up the ranks of his army swiftly. First, I was just one of his many soldiers, then a Commander, a General, and finally...Chief Advisor. I worked hard in everything I did under his command, but it wasn't enough. I wanted to find the realm from which I was truly born in, from which I was hated by those residing in it, and by those fools no doubt celebrating what they had done. No doubt they believe what they saw was my demise and my promise no longer at the forefront of their minds or fears. Even their descendants most likely had no idea of my existence, my name being stained by those that wrote it, and mocking me for ages to come. It only drove me further, as one realm after another fell by my hands, I grew stronger in the process, and in time I realized that no matter how hard I tried...I may never find what I wanted.
Especially when I noticed how Onaga was dragging his feet all for the sake of finding a means of achieving eternal life. Bah! Eternal life, who needs it? Its a crutch for cowards! I have been in so many life or death situations, I have no reason to seek out such a thing as eternal life. By the time my frustration had reached it zenith, it was at that point the idea to remove Onaga as Emperor of Outworld began to form within my mind, and a plan to kill him soon emerged.
First, I had to weaken him to the point where I could kill him, and assert my authority to take control of the realm from those who would try to take it from me afterward. I wasn't a fool when it came to measure my power against Onaga. The Dragon King was stronger then I and by a good margin too. To face Onaga head on would be foolish, suicidal, and I am neither in regards to my chances in fighting him. So I planned it out. I had to weaken him, poison him using his favorite drink, using an agent loyal only to me, and handled the goblet Onaga drank from. The poison itself was tasteless, even to the Dragon King's own tongue, and by the time he realized something was amiss with his weakened condition...I struck him multiple times in the head.
Violently!
The irony of it was I used the Wrath Hammer, the very same Wrath Hammer that he gave me when I first came into his service.
When it was over, I sat upon a throne, I had become the new Emperor of Outworld, and I crushed all who opposed my rule. I gathered the strongest warriors of Outworld to serve under me and appointed their leaders as my most trusted Generals. Prince Goro from the Shokan race had been made one of my highest ranked Generals and provided me with the loyalty of their race as a whole. I had them compete with the Centaurians for the right for it and keep the skills of both sides sharp through competition. The Tarkatans came next, as they showed promise with some of their brood with Baraka eventually becoming the General representing his race. Another trusted warrior was Reptile, but unlike the others who represented entire races, this creature did not, for he was believed to be the last, and was without a real purpose.
Feeling a sense of something from a memory long ago from another life, I gave him one, and brought the creature under my command. Many times, I had sent Reptile on scouting missions to find my realm, and on several occasions I thought he had succeeded. Only to learn each realm he found was not the one I was once from and I could sense what I was looking for since I became Shao Kahn was still alluding me.
I grew increasingly frustrated by my failure to finding the realm I was looking for after so long. I became increasingly impatient and above all else...increasingly aggressive.
It slowed down however, after I conquered the realm known as...Edenia.
It was a beautiful world, filled with life, and the resources of this realm made me want it all to be mine. Naturally, I was opposed by the King, and Queen of the Edenia despite my right to take the realm after winning 10 consecutive Mortal Kombat Tournaments. They fought me for the right to Edenia, I won in the end, and took the spoils that came from the war. First, the realm itself was made mine. Second was the Queen Sindel, who I married, and made my Queen while adopting Kitana as my daughter. Sindel was a beautiful and strong woman, one of the reasons I made her my Queen. The other reason was because a part of me believed that another girl from the past would have grown up to be just like the Edenian Queen, and Kitana would have been the daughter we would have had together.
But in the years following my ascension to becoming Emperor of Outworld had made me paranoid, the memories of those who betrayed me would sometimes rise to the surface of my mind, and Sindel's suicide years later strengthened it. All he had left was Kitana, who I had raised as my own daughter, and trained to be my personal bodyguard at the same time. But even with that fact and knowing Kitana was too young to truly remember her real Father, I had suspected it was only a matter of time.
Hence why I commissioned my personal sorcerer Shang Tsung to make preparations to make me a daughter using sorcery and Kitana's blood mixed with Tarkatan. He along with the Shadow Priests assigned to the project succeeded and soon Mileenia was born.
And aside from Mileena's facial appearance being different along her mouth...she was an exact physical copy of Kitana with only the color in their choice of clothing being able to tell the two woman apart at a distance. Now I had twin sisters for daughters I could now call my own, but by the time this happened, Kitana was starting to shift away from me, and the betrayal that was sure to follow once more made my blood boil. It reminded me of how that place had betrayed me, the people their betrayed me, and it meant time was turning against me on when the girl I raised as my own would stab me in the back!
Hence why I had insurance in having Mileena secretly assigned to watch Kitana for when the inevitable happened in order to...dispose of her.
And the inevitable did happen.
By that time, I had directed my attention toward Earthrealm, on the advice of a sorcerer named Quan Chi, who came to form a secret alliance with me at the behest of the fallen Elder God Shinnok. I agreed, in the belief it would give me the edge needed to take Earthrealm, and call on the fallen Elder God to combat the Thunder God Raiden himself when I made the crossover to my newest conquest.
I was mistaken.
I had fought the warriors of Earthrealm and lost due to my own arrogance. Kitana had betrayed me like I had foreseen, but Mileena had failed to stop her, and I had lost one daughter at the hands of the other. It was by that point, I had to retreat, my losses grew, and I my strength declined. After I made my return to Outworld, I realized at this point that my weakened condition, my defeat at the hands of Earthrealm's warriors, and my overall failure in conquering Earthrealm was from me having grown stagnant. I had only been in a few battles since I had taken the throne, some of my muscles had become a bit flabby, my enemies had grown too strong, and my forces too incompetent along with too ambitious to fight them properly. Sheeva had killed Motaro, Kano had allied with Sheeva to betray her to me in exchange for my sparing of his life. Goro was now gone, Kintaro was dead, and I just had killed Sheeva after she entered my throne room to kill me.
As for Shinnok, he along with Quan Chi were now waging their own war with Raiden, and his Earthrealm's warriors who survived my battle. Sindel and Kitana now had Edenia back after they pried it from my control and weakening me further. It was only a matter of time before my enemies successfully overpowered what loyal troops I had left and came for me. I had Shang Tsung on my side, but I had punished him after his failure in taking Earthrealm, and his loyalty was always in question when it came to serving me.
The sorcerer always was an ambitious little snake. Part of my mind whispered that he was just like another pair of snake from a past long ago.
So I had devised a plan. A plan to turn the tables and become more powerful then ever. I needed to get back into the fight. To turn the flab I had gained from sitting on the throne and barely fighting back into solid muscle once more. So I used almost all of my power to make a solid clone and flee from my position knowing I couldn't stay.
Soon after, I heard whispers of my clone dying at the both the hands of Shang Tsung, and Quan Chi under false pretenses of an alliance. From what I heard, they came to my clone to offer the services of their powers to help my troops combat Edenia's army now allied with the Shokan to kill me. As I made my way through the terrain of Outworld, I saw the sight of a badly injured Goro, who lay dying at my feet, and would have surely perished had I not saved him with the last of the power I still had. Goro made have sided with the realm of Edenia, but I still respected him for his years of loyal service, and offered him it when he regained consciousness.
That and to prove his race was superior to the Centaurians also helped provide the needed incentive to side with me. So we fled, fooling the Edenian warriors that Goro had been killed, and we escaped together to plan for my return to the seat of power. Though I soon learned it would become a challenge once more, as Onaga had returned from beyond the grave, more powerful then ever, and had killed the two sorcerers.
I should know they died because Shang Tsung appeared before me in a crude body due to a pledge he made years ago to my person that would not allow him to die so long as I was alive. The three of us prepared ourselves, Goro rallying what troops he could to fight for me, and Shang Tsung going to a village he knew of in order to absorb the souls there to regain his lost strength while restoring his mutated body into what it had been prior to his death.
And together, the three of us had succeeded in that regard. We fought our enemies all over Outworld, we grew stronger once more, the fire I had when I first became Shao Kahn had returned. The fire to fight my own battles personally that I had lost was back, and reminding me of my skills as a warrior. What I truly was in life.
A conqueror of realms.
By this point, Raiden's forces had failed to defeat the Dragon King, but were able to divert his attention, and weaken his position to the point where I could take the throne from him. We fought once more, but unlike the first time where I had poison, and surprise on my side...I had Goro helping me in the fight to kill the former Emperor once more with his soul going to the Netherealm. After Onaga had been dealt with, I went to deal with the Edenian forces fighting Onaga's, and now MY troops once more. When I smashed into the throne room, I saw Kitana there being protected by her Sages, ready to defend their Princess with their lives, and fight to the bitter end for her.
They should have known better then to trust Kitana because the woman they were now protecting was not Kitana at all, but in fact it was...Mileena.
My Mileena. My daughter. My heir to the throne of Outworld should I die. But I wasn't dead. Not yet anyway.
She had been impersonating Kitana for sometime, using her twin's forces to fight for the throne of Outworld, and become its new ruler. It made me proud inside at having such an ambitious daughter, but that alone was not about to let me stay my hand in knocking the woman aside to take what was mine. Not that I needed to, as Mileena personally killed the Sages protecting her, and stepped aside to let me sit on the throne of Outworld once more so she could serve me.
I was pleased and yet disgusted at the same time. Not by Mileena, but by the revelation I had regarding how my sitting on the throne of Outworld was what weakened me in the first place. Had essentially weakened Onaga in the belief he could not be challenged and focus on achieving eternal life and ignore the delight of fighting to expand his realm. It was there, in that moment, I made another promise to never let the throne weaken me, and cause my downfall. That I would fight like all my troops on the battlefield and no one stop me from getting stronger until not even the Elder Gods themselves could stand in my way.
Speaking of Elder Gods...Shinnok had somehow saved Quan Chi and came to visit me once again about a pyramid hidden in Outworld, made by one of the Elder Gods named Argus. Hence why it was named the Pyramid of Argus, where it was said the power, rank, and abilities of an Elder God were locked away. A power that only a warrior of great strength and skill could achieve the right to become an Elder God. To become one of the very toothless worms I had come to despise with their rules and regulations on how realms should be taken by means of Mortal Kombat.
Still, to become an Elder God was promising, as I could not only become more powerful, possibly become THE strongest of the Elder Gods, but to find my home realm, and crush it like I had promised myself long ago. While those that betrayed me were long dead, it was only fair in my mind that their descendents pay the price, and I kill everyone of them while the souls of the betrayers they are born from curse me in death.
So after much thought, I accepted the alliance made between myself, and Shinnok once again. However, I made a small reminder in my head to kill Shinnok once I became an Elder God, and all of his followers joining him in death's cruel embrace. But there was a small catch it seemed, as I would not be the only one partnering up with Shinnok, as I would be forced to ally with Onaga, who the fallen Elder God brought back, but weaker now then when he first returned to claim his throne, and he no longer held such a gap in terms of power over me.
What was even more surprising was Raiden had been corrupted since his initial attempt to kill the Dragon King and offered all of us in the alliance a deal. He would let the one who won have all the realms from the Realm of Chaos to the Realm of Order, Edenia, the Netherealm, and any other we wanted with the exception of Earthrealm. Naturally we had accepted the deal for we knew that no matter what, Raiden along with all the other Elder Gods would have to honor it. Raiden himself had become an Elder God after his victory over Shinnok, and still spoke for them despite his corrupted state. Therefore none of the Elder Gods could break it and the realm taken after taking the power at the Pyramid of Argus would not be in violation of Mortal Kombat.
The end result? After the fighting that would take place at the Pyramid of Argus...Mortal Kombat would no longer hold sway over me.
I would relish that day forever. Add to the fact I would be fighting in the heat of battle once more only strengthened my bloodlust further. Raiden's Earthrealm warriors had no idea of the deal he made with us, and yet he led them onto the field of battle on a united front against our side. My side. We all knew what was at stake. Both sides charged onto the battlefield, knowing that whoever came out the victor would hold the Fate of the realms in the palm of their hands.
To bring peace to the realms? Or to bring about Armageddon?
During the battle, the Pyramid of Argus appeared, rising up from the ground, and making itself known to us all at last. It drew us to the top of the pyramid shaped structure where a bonfire like flame stood, swirling, calling out to me, and me alone while saying "This is your chance. Take it!" inside my mind.
I fought my way there. To the top. Knock back one kombatant after another with my Wrath Hammer. None could oppose me. I may not have been the fastest to race up the pyramid, but I was the strongest, and I could knock the more nimble warriors away. It was only after Shang Tsung broke the alliance did get farther then any of the others, but I forgot about Onaga, and his hidden thirst for revenge. The Dragon King appeared in front of me after I received a kick from the sorcerer and was carried away by my predecessor to be tormented by him.
However, it seemed luck was once again on my side as it had been ages ago, for Onaga was attacked by something from behind, and it must have been something powerful due to how it seemed to injure him. I saw the opportunity to strike him hard. It was enough to throw him off course and crash into a nearby mountain side before crashing to the ground below. Fortunately, Onaga took most of the collision into the mountain, and when we fell so my injuries were minor. Not that I cared about being hurt, as the pain helped make me feel alive, and the Pyramid of Argus was still calling to me while hearing the roar of the guardian Blade defending the power I so desired.
But first, I had to deal with Onaga, and ensure he never got in my way again.
The Dragon King was dizzy when he tried to stand with all his injuries from the surprise attack to mine and those leading to the fall had weakened him. He never saw the hit to his skull with my fists or the other blows I landed on him without mercy. I had known by that point, the only sure way to kill the Dragon King was to do it with my bare hands. No other substitute for his death would suffice or put my mind at ease in believing he was truly dead.
After smashing his face in, I snapped his neck, and ripped it off before crushing it in my hands to ensure no form of regeneration could happen if the head was left alone for the scavengers to feast on. With my personal mission done, I ran back to the Pyramid of Argus, knowing time was of the essence, and any of the warriors from either side could possibly take the power of the Elder Gods for themselves. Fortunately, by the time I got there, it wasn't the case, as my enemies, and allies had all killed each other to reach the top.
Leaving only one other opponent aside from Blaze.
Raiden himself.
I would eventually defeat Blade in a well earned fight before Raiden could even hope to stop me and my power was enhanced by the end result to new levels. Raiden himself was no match for me despite being an Elder God, as he had been fighting the others earlier, and was not even able to tap into his full power as the God of Thunder due to being in the Realm of Outworld.
"Where are the Elder Gods, Raiden?" asked Shao Kahn, as he stood over Raiden's body, and laughed at the pathetic sight before him that was the defeated Thunder and Elder God of Earthrealm.
"Their pathetic Mortal Kombat shackles me no longer," declared the Emperor after he picked up Raiden by the front of his armor before striking him several times in the face with his fists before throwing him across the top of the pyramid.
"They masquerade as dragons, but are mere toothless worms," mocked Shao Kahn, as he walked over to Raiden's downed form, his Wrath Hammer in hand, and saw the Thunder God turning over before stomping a massive foot down on him.
"My venom spreads. It is the end of all things. Armageddon!" exclaimed Shao Kahn, as his body was sudden covered in a golden fire, and bathing in its power.
"STOOOP!" Raiden yelled out, but all he got was a content sigh from the one standing over him.
"It is done." remarked Shao Kahn before picking Raiden up so the two could look the other square in the eyes.
"Your time has passed," said the Emperor before throwing Raiden back to where had first fallen near his broken amulet.
'I need to do something. Anything! But what? The Elder Gods aren't intervening. There is nothing left I can do to stop Shao Kahn except perhaps...,' thought Raiden, as he noticed the broken amulet on the ground, and reached for the majority of them.
"Ages wasted in foolish resistance. Now is the dawn of my rule!" declared Shao Kahn, as he walked toward Raiden, who picked up the amulet pieces, and began chanting in an unknown language.
It made Shao Kahn laugh.
"Yes. Pray to the worms, Raiden. As your world ends!" declared Shao Kahn just before Raiden finishes his chanting and brings his Wrath Hammer up to bring down the killing blow with a war cry.
"He must win!" whispered Raiden before seeing the Wrath Hammer come down on his head.
In that moment, time along with the Fate of all the Realms had been changed forever, and so would that of Shao Kahn himself.
(A/N: YAY! Another update! This came to me soon after the first chapter was posted so that's why it is out so fast. In case you are wondering, yes this was basically a retelling of the original timeline of Mortal Kombat, and the next chapter will now be leading into the alternate one where things will change. Personally, I like some things about the alternate, and hate at the same time. Like Cyber Sub-Zero. I like the Sub-Zero from the original (his MK Deception outfit was awesome!) timeline while Noob Saibot from the alternate is badass. So its a bit of a give and take with me. Also, Raiden should have let things play out as they did in the alternate timeline like they did in the original until he got to the point where Shao Kahn was pushed back, and then changed thing things from there. In the end, he made things worse since so man key warriors needed to fend off Shinnok are now under Shinnok, and Quan Chi's control. Should be interesting how the story line will go in the next Mortal Kombat game now that so many new things have happened. Until next time...PEACE!)