Prologue

I landed in front of what I knew were two demons from the Netherrealm. Even in the past, they still resembled the ones I fought many times before. Gray skin, pulsing veins of orange, razor sharp teeth and dark red glowing eyes. Currently, these two were closing in on an innocent family. There was a man lying bleeding on the ground with a large chunk missing from his arm. One of the demons still had pieces of it stuck in its teeth. Why it didn't finish off the helpless man I didn't know but it must have thought that the young woman and her child was the better option. Yeah, ok, not on my watch. I swooped down from high above and grabbed one of the demons by the throat and squeezed. It screeched in pain while spraying my face and glasses with bits of flesh and putrid smelling breath. A quick jerk of my hand caused a loud snapping sound to reverberate in the air. The demon fell limp in my hand. His buddy turned at the sound of the neck snap and saw me standing there with a limp body in my hand. Deciding to be cheeky, I waved at the other demon and motioned it toward me as I threw the dead one to the ground as if I was discarding a candy wrapper. The demon dropped to all fours and charged at me while the mother and her child screamed in fear. No matter. A quick upward motion and a spurt of yellowish orange blood put a stop to both of those things. How you ask? Well, I'm an aeromancer. With the ability to create constructs out of the air. Swords, daggers, axes you name it, I can conjure it. The now bisected demon fell to the ground near his buddy with a fleshy slapping noise and I immediately rushed over to the injured man.

"NO! DON'T TOUCH HIM!" the woman shouted from behind me. I mean, I didn't blame her. My get up didn't really give off the "friendly guy from across the street" kind of vibe. Instead, picture a heavy metal fan from the 1980s. Complete with long hair in a ponytail, leather jacket, jeans and some boots. My face was covered by a half face mask and a pair of sunglasses. I turned to see her attempt to run at me while still shielding her child's eyes but she stumbled and fell…right into the pool of demon blood. She screamed again. Brilliant. I lifted my hand and commanded the winds to remove the blood from her face and clothes and obliged at once. It was like calling an old friend. I actually didn't think it would work due to the special circumstances on how and why I'm here. I'll tell you in a second, I have to heal this guy. I used my other hand to lightly touch the man's wound and called the winds to my aid again. Just like before, they answered and obeyed my command to patch up and heal this man's wound. Skin cells regenerated, more oxygen was being pumped throughout his body and I even forcefully sealed the wound closed when I was done. The man stirred and sat up. His eyes saw me.

"What?" he mumbled before his wife shouted "JACK!" and she was upon him at once along with Jack's daughter who was saying "Daddy!" over and over again. Jack hugged his crying wife while I gave the family some space. The woman was eventually able to look at me with tears still filling her eyes.

"Th…thank you…." she blathered. "Who…who are you?" I gave a very small bow.

"Thrash,"...was what I wanted to say but instead I actually said "Thra-AHH!" and clutched my head in pain. I saw Jack and his wife's face pull looks of confusion while I stood there holding my head. Millions of thoughts were running through my head. I couldn't stop it either. I saw…so…so many things. Many of which I didn't remember…and the things I tried to remember just made my head ache even more. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I just shot back up into the air and away from the scene.

I found who I was looking for pretty much immediately thanks to the winds. Four people standing together. three males and one female. One of the male figures was wearing a rice hat, one had white hair and the other had long brown hair. The female was a woman around my age with a blonde colored grown out pixie cut wearing army pants, boots, a black short sleeve shirt and a jacket. I saw her head look skyward and point at me. I landed next to her and the others. She immediately hugged me upon my touchdown.

"I trust the demons were no trouble," the man with the brown hair asked me with a warm smile. I shook my head…but that caused it to throb with a little pain again.

"Accustomed to this timeline already eh?" the man with the white hair asked. Both the woman and I nodded but we shot each other a knowing glance. I guess she had experienced the same painful throbbing I had just experienced. Allow me to explain everything now that I've got some time. My name is Victor Harris but most people call me Vic. The woman next to me is my wife Cassie. We are not actually from this time period. Like at all technically. The guy with the brown hair, who's apparently the god of this realm named Liu Kang, spelled it out for us before we arrived. He told us that there were multiple different timelines, you know like a multiverse right? Cassie and I are actually from a timeline where some titan named Kronika never interfered after Cassie had beaten the fallen Elder God named Shinnok. Liu Kang is from a timeline that Kronika did interfere with and was subsequently killed in. Liu Kang observed our timeline's events and decided that he wanted to "induct" us into his new era, granting us new memories and everything. This was what was causing the problem. These memories were interfering with my old ones in many ways. Before Cassie and I arrived, about five years ago actually, I had to fight and kill my demonic biological father as he was attempting to goad me into joining him in the Netherrealm. This guy had also killed my mother years prior to that so you could guess what my answer was when he asked if I would join. My dad had a real bad day once my tornado powers unlocked. But here's the thing, ever since yesterday, everytime I remember the "original" events, my head starts to throb uncontrollably. Like what just happened, it was eerily similar to an event that happened early on in my "career" when I was out protecting others from demons in my own time. I just so happened to be thinking of a time where I saved another mother and her daughter. Man…that was a mistake wasn't it?

"Vic, are you ok?" the guy with the white hair asked. He walked over to examine me and I looked into his stormy gray eyes. At that moment, I recalled looking into a similar face but instead this face had glowing white eyes and my head pounded again. So bad I even cried out.

"Fujin, is he alright?" the guy with the rice hat asked after he looked over. It was Cassie's turn to cry out in pain and I felt her hand dig into my shoulder.

"Going to go with no Raiden," Fujin answered. It was Liu Kang's turn to walk over and this was when I experienced the worst pain in my life. For some reason, my mind had decided to remind me of a time where I fought with and ran from an undead version of this very man. It was like someone had smashed the world's biggest gong in my head. The pain was so bad. Through my stinging eyes, I was able to see Liu Kang's kind face fall a little bit.

"I was afraid of this," he muttered. "I assumed that it would not happen."

"Afraid…of…afraid of what," I managed to say before falling to my knees along with Cassie.

"The merge," Liu Kang answered. "Your new memories are trying to take over. Causing you great internal pain. You are attempting to be one whole person but your body is rejecting the old versions and memories of yourselves. The only way to stop it…is to actually have you experience what your mind is attempting to show you," Cassie and I were on the ground now. Both clutching our heads as many other memories were trying to make themselves the dominant ones in my head. My brain was insisting that I never joined the Special Forces and that Zayne Jacobs was just one of my mom's former boyfriends and not my real father.

"Make…Make it stop….please," I muttered. The pain was getting more and more intense by the second. I could hear Cassie whimpering in pain as well and I forced my body to face her and reached for her hand. She took it after a few attempts and held on tight.

"I can…but doing so will have you 'go around again' so to speak," Liu Kang said as he knelt down to our level. "Your old self will cease to exist and your new personality will take over. A rebooted life if you will."

"I mean…they can't really help in this state can they?" Raiden said and folded his arms. Doing that caused Cassie to scream in sheer misery.

"Kang…please…do it….DO IT!" Cassie yelled and squeezed so tight I thought she was going to break my hand. I too was experiencing extreme levels of pain and it simply would not stop. Flashes of memories kept replaying in my brain and with each one, the pain intensified. I forced my eyes to open and focus on Liu Kang. He was looking at us solemnly, as if he knew what he had to do was the right thing.

"Promise…me…." I managed to say. "We'll…meet again…" Cassie squeezed my hand again. Liu Kang gave me a smile, as did Raiden and Fujin. Fujin looked as though he didn't want this to happen but knew it simply must. He even traded a glance with Raiden. Raiden nodded once. I looked at Cassie one more time. She managed to open her eyes too and was looking at me with a look that plainly said "I love you." I managed to raise her hand to my lips and kissed it once right as Liu Kang raised his own hand. He gave the pair of us one more small smile. In that smile, I knew that he would take my words to heart. Liu Kang snapped his fingers once…

And everything went dark.