Hi everyone!

Thanks for coming to check out chapter one of my re-imagined story. I wrote Seems like a lifetime... (what seems like a lifetime!) 20 years ago. Now more than! At the 20 year mark I decided I'd have a look at it again, and like most things after 20 years, it seemed a bit off. So I decided with 20 years of extra knowledge and experience, I'd go back and take another swing at it! This is the draft of Chapter 1, just to give you a taste of what I'm cooking up. It's a labour of love, and as a very time poor person I don't get a lot of opportunities to sit down with her, but I hope to get some motivation to sit down and finish my definitive version of Seems like a lifetime...!

For some context, this story takes place during Mortal Kombat's original timeline, from Mortal Kombat (1992) to Mortal Kombat 4.

Enjoy! If you like it, leave me a note. My writing is fueled by compliments and attention.

Part 1

The evening sky was clear and crisp atop a high cliff face in Edenia. The ground was covered in a beautiful thick green grass, the likes of which had never been seen in Earthrealm. A strong breeze was coming down over the rocky mountain peaks surrounding the clearing Sonya Blade found herself in after having tracked her enemy Jarek. The wind whipped her ponytail around her face, making Sonya thankful for her baseball cap keeping the rest of her hair away from her face, allowing her to stare in Jarek's eyes. Or glare in this case.

"It's over Jarek. Shinnok is dead, the good guys won. You're coming back with me." She snarls at him; her voice raising over the sound of the breeze.

"Never, Sonya. I agreed to help defeat Shinnok, not turn myself in to the Special Forces. The Black Dragon live on!" Jarek retorts, advancing on the lieutenant until they find themselves at the edge of the cliff. Sonya realises she has her back to open air. In her desperation to pin Jarek down, she inadvertently allowed him to get the upper hand. A stupid mistake, she chides herself. Her mind understandably on other things, she tries to justify, but still a rookie error. She refuses to back down from him though, her eyes taking in the surroundings and surveying escape options. All of a sudden, Sonya gets an idea. It's a little crazy, but then, what in her life isn't these days?

"The Black Dragon died with Kano. You're the last one, Jarek." Sonya provokes him, smirking.

This enrages Jarek. In a blind rage, he runs at Sonya with all his effort.

"Never!" He cries as he leaps at Sonya. This is exactly what she was hoping he would do. She leaps out of the way at the last second, glancing over her shoulder just as Jarek topples over the edge. Sonya brushes herself off as she stands, breathing a sigh of relief that her encounter is over. Her mind happily wandering back to the news she learned before setting out to find Jarek. She catches herself smiling before pulling her radio out to make contact with Jax. As she's trying to reach her partner, she slowly approaches the edge of the cliff face to see if there's any sign or confirmation of Jarek's fate.

"Come in, Major Briggs, this is Lieutenant Sonya Blade ove..." Before Sonya can finish, a hand explodes up from the side of the cliff and grabs her by the ankle. 'You idiot!' She admonishes herself. 'Get your head out of the fucking clouds, you've got a job to do!'

She looks down to see Jarek holding on to the edge of the cliff face. He glares at her and uses his remaining strength to pull at her ankle, and then tug on her leg. Sonya loses her balance and falls. As she trips, she tries to spin her body to catch the edge, or at least grab Jarek to save herself. She feels her heart stop as her fingertips graze the back of his vest, and then touch nothing but air as she falls past him. She is now in free-fall.

As she falls her ears are slammed by a range of noises. Wind pelts her eardrums relentlessly and another sound which she soon realises is her own scream. Panic sets in as she desperately flails her arms trying to grab anything to save herself. Tears stream down her face from a mixture of the wind force and her own devastation at what she soon realises, is inevitable.

'I'm gonna die.' She hears her mind tell her. 'What was it all for? After everything I've seen and done.' Sonya stops flailing, going almost limp. She feels thoughts start to encroach on her conscious mind, almost forcefully. Almost as if answering her question. As Sonya Blade falls to her inevitable death, she starts to recall her life leading up to this moment.

Sonya Blade was a military brat growing up. Her father was a member of the Elite U.S. Special Forces unit as well. She and her twin brother Daniel had idolised their father growing up. Major Herman Blade was their hero; they would join him in his training sessions every morning, trying to match his push ups and sit ups. Sure enough, over time, they caught up to him too. Sonya never forgot the look on her father's face when he stopped, and his twins kept going. No longer was she trying to beat her father, now she was trying to beat her brother. This also, in time, she did too. Then Sonya faced her greatest rival; herself. She had found and embraced the love of self-competition, a skill that would push her on to the many successes she had in her life.

However, as they grew, she and her brother went down very different paths. Daniel pursued a somewhat rebellious life after puberty, falling in with a less than reputable crowd, taking drugs, petty crimes, anything to go against his disciplinarian father's wishes. Sonya however went on to follow in her father's footsteps, continuing her efforts to make him proud, and prove she had what it took. A choice that Daniel never held against her. He was proud of her if anything, Sonya knew that. She felt for her twin as she watched him and her father grow apart over the years. She even tried reasoning with her father to go easier on Daniel but her father wouldn't have any of it. Daniel merely wanted a different life for himself, away from the oppressive shadow of Herman Blade. But Major Blade had grown quite fond of his little mirror images following his footsteps. Sonya often felt somewhat guilty that it was a life she did want, as that gave him more to hold over Daniel. When Sonya was 18 years old, she walked in on a screaming match between her father and brother.

"Why can't you be more like your sister!?" Herman screamed at his son. Daniel simply stared at his father before turning and walking out. Herman turned to address Sonya afterwards, but she cut him off.

"How dare you." She glared at him. Herman was in shock. "You did this to him! You pushed him so hard to be like you, you ignored every attempt he made to carve out his own life and you pushed him down this path."

Herman was about to reign fire down on his daughter for disrespecting him. But as the words were forming in his mouth, he heard her words. She was right. Sonya watched it unfold on his face. "I just wanted him to be successful."

"What you wanted was another you. You couldn't handle the fact that he wanted something different. I mean, was your daughter following your footsteps not enough? Is it so shameful to have a woman take after you, you had to force your son to do it to make it okay?"

"Sonya…" He started, but Sonya was already walking out.

"No Dad, just… don't." She said walking out the door.

They never saw Daniel again. She received a call from her father later that day with the news that Daniel had been found dead of an overdose under an overpass in the city. Her father never recovered. He blamed himself of course, Sonya always felt a twinge of guilt for that as well as she had laid the blame squarely at his feet that very morning. On some level, she always regretted this. She simply compartmentalised it and let it drive her even more to be successful in her father's image. She felt like she owed it to him.

After her father passed away Sonya took it even more on herself to impress him, which of course became impossible since he was dead. On some level, Sonya always knew this too but it still continued to drive her throughout her life.

She of course came up against a lot of challenges throughout her career. She was the daughter of Major Herman Blade, but she was also a female. The military was very much a 'boys club', which her chromosomes kept her from joining, so Sonya settled for outdoing these boys at every step. This achieved a couple of outcomes. First, some resented her for it. They became jealous of her success and humiliated at their defeat. This can sometimes be a dangerous position for a woman to find herself in, Sonya welcomed the challenge. Those that didn't resent her for her success came to look up to her. They were proud of her, inspired by her.

On one occasion she was confronted by a meathead recruit that took issue with her gender and forced a confrontation with her. Sonya held back as much as she could, but soon a crowd began to draw, and she felt she had little recourse. She also couldn't control the fire building in her gut anymore. Finally, she snapped and shoved him hard, sending him staggering back before she leapt into a handspring and grabbed him around his thick neck with her thighs. The crowd went silent. Sonya engaged her core, and with everything she had, pulled her legs back down to the ground, flinging him over her head and into his nearby friends that had gathered in the circle, sending all of them scattering on the ground like bowling pins.

Sonya slowly rose back to her feet, staring him down in the pile of bodies he had created when he impacted his friends. The crowd erupted into a cheer, unfortunately drawing the officer's attention, and getting Sonya and her aggressor reprimanded for their efforts. She didn't care. The whole squad had seen what she could do and took her seriously from then on. It was one of her proudest moments, standing over them, a single eyebrow cocked and a subtle wry smile on her face. Her teammates would speak of it often, warning people not to piss her off or she'd 'leg grab' them out the window. She'd get requests from new recruits for her to teach them how to do it. She once joked with her CO that of all the things she had accomplished, this would end up what she was remembered for.

Sonya rose quickly through the ranks of the Special Forces, her drive bringing her great success. It wasn't until her mother passed away that Sonya realised she had been so busy forging her career, that she hadn't had time to consider building a family of her own. While she was still in her early twenties, she had no desire to follow what society kept trying to force on her. She hated the term 'feminist', however in hindsight she had flown that flag quite fiercely her whole life. Every time someone had tried to limit her, or place an expectation on her because of her gender, she went out of her way to prove them wrong.

Sonya gave everything to her career. This led to her becoming quite admired in the Special Forces, and quite despised in the criminal circles of the world. Though, for all the enemies she had made throughout her life, she had never hated any of them before. Not until Kano.

The U.S. Special Forces jurisdiction covered a lot of different elements. It began out of the changed world that was left after the events of September 11, 2001. However, over the years it began to change into a different organisation, and branched off into different areas. Sonya found herself looking after a specialised field that investigated the criminal underworld. One such organisation was The Black Dragon. A centuries old organisation that had grown out of China but had now been overtaken by petty thugs and criminals. They were into drug trafficking, weapons trade, human trafficking, they were the sort of gang that had their fingers in far too many pies to follow easily. Within the Black Dragon's ranks was a young man by the name of Kano. He, like Sonya, was quite dedicated and devoted to his work, so much so that he was looked up to by many for having more drive than most. He had a symbiotic relationship with his work that the more he put into his life of crime, the more satisfaction he got out of it. Essentially, he was the yang to Sonya's yin. A fact that brought them into conflict many times. They were at the very top of each other's shit lists. Yet Sonya didn't hate him. Not at first anyway. He earned that hate. Over the years, it seemed to be something he strove for. But Sonya was a professional. She refused to let her emotions drive her actions. In her line of work, that was a very dangerous path to tread, one she had seen many of her colleagues disappear down.

The memory of the day he earned her hatred and caused her to forget this mindset was burned into her brain. She had been tracking him for days, and had finally cornered him in one of the Black Dragon's warehouses in China. Sonya's team had them surrounded, the element of surprise finally hers. They moved on her word and only hers.

"Sparky, I want you to flank him. I'll create a distraction and confront him. You take him down from behind and restrain him. Remember, I want him alive. He's got a lot to answer for."

"You got it, partner." Sparky replied before moving into position. Sonya carefully moved herself into position, her eyes burning a hole into Kano the entire time, never once leaving their mark.

"On your mark, Lieutenant." Sparky's voice whispered in her earpiece.

Sonya took a deep breath, almost suppressing a smile. "That's as far as you go Kano!" Sonya had her gun trained on him, emerging from the shadows. On queue her whole team similarly emerged from their hiding places and restrained Kano's men. He slowly turned to face her with his hands up. He gave a slight chuckle as he addressed her.

"Well blondie. You got me. Took you a while, but you got me." Kano smirked at her.

"Get down on your knees and place your hands behind your head. Now!"

Kano did so slowly. Sonya was taken slightly off guard by this; she never imagined that he wouldn't put up a fight. Taking her opportunity, she motioned to Sparky to cuff him. Sparky walked over to Kano from his hiding place and pulled his handcuffs out.

Before either of them could do a thing, Kano spun on his knees, grabbing Sparky by the wrist as he rose to his feet. As he rose, he continued to spin, placing himself behind Sparky, and grabbing him around the neck and holding him in front of himself as a human shield. The whole thing happened in one fluid movement that would have been impressive if not for the fact that Kano now held her partner hostage.

"Freeze!" Sonya yelled, jumping forward. "Don't do it Kano."

"Sorry sweet cheeks, looks like I win again." Kano pulled out a huge serrated knife and held it to Sparky's throat.

"Please Kano. We both know you're not that stupid. You have nowhere to run. We're not letting you out, so just let him go." Sonya warned him, inching closer. She held her open hand out, palm facing Kano in a sign of platitude all the while keeping her gun trained on him.

Kano looked to his left to see an open cargo door, and some crates to shield him along the way. Blocking the path was another of Sonya's men. He turned back to look at Sonya, who was still inching towards him. He weighed up his options. He could easily throw Sonya's partner towards her as a distraction and make for the exit. The soldier blocking the path was clearly a rookie, Kano thought he could take him out with a dirty look. But he chose the option that would hurt her the most. Not for any tactical advantage, purely just to get at her.

"Not this time kiddo." He grinned. And with those words, he dragged the serrated blade along Sparky's throat. Sonya's world slowed down. She could hear the faint ringing of her own scream as she leapt forward, but she couldn't be certain. All she could do was watch as Sparky's throat opened, spilling his life blood all over the floor.

"No!" Sonya finally woke up to the word screaming out of her mouth and found herself opening fire. Kano dropped the body and took off. As he got to the second of Sonya's men he flung his bloody blade towards his face. It found its mark in the stunned young soldier's eye, killing him instantly and throwing him backwards and out of Kano's way. As he stopped to pull his knife out of the young man's face, Kano turned to get one last look at the chaos he was leaving behind and a stray bullet ricocheted off the wall and hit him in his right eye. He cried in agony and flung himself out of the open warehouse door. Some officers gave chase but they quickly lost him in the night.

Sonya knelt down beside her dead partner. She cradled his head, not caring about the blood running all over her legs. She had never lost anyone on her team before. It had been a long time since she'd lost anything. Sparky had joined her years before and had followed her everywhere. They never shared any romantic relationship, but in a way they were just as close as if they had. Working together in this line of work brought a kinship most people will never know. As Sonya cradled his head, she wept into Sparky's hair and whispered into his ear through gritted teeth.

"I will kill him for this. You have my word. I will avenge your death."

Kano went to ground fairly deeply after this. It took several months for the Special Forces to even confirm he was still alive. It was even longer before they could catch up with him again. Sonya was driven more than ever though. His face haunted her dreams, taunting her. Sonya had literally chased him all over the world. Kano predominately operated out of Japan and China, and this is where they spent most of their time. However, on occasion they would give chase in Europe and the US. One trip also led to Australia, where Kano claimed to come from. Sonya knew very little about his actual life before joining the Black Dragon. He claimed a lot of things, and anyone can develop or learn an accent. Kano had told so many lies, Sonya had to wonder sometimes if he even knew the answers to these questions himself.

Eventually she tracked him to a seaside dock back in Chinatown. Sonya and her new partner Jackson Briggs were staking out the warehouse where they had last had eyes on him. They had been waiting for just under three hours in the dark, Sonya never taking her eyes off the building. Jax had learned in these moments that small talk with Sonya just wasn't worth the effort. As the two stared at the old building, a thick fog rolled in seemingly out of nowhere across the water. It caught Sonya's attention as it slowly lapped up against the warehouse.

"Weird. Fog seemed to come out of nothing." Jax said quietly, watching the thick cloud spread out from the water. The way it moved almost felt alive.

From within the fog, an old Chinese boat appeared, slowly moving towards the dock. It didn't just look old, it looked ancient. To the point that it was a surprise that it was sea worthy at all. At the front of the ship sat a figurehead of a dragon, its tongue flicking out.

"What the…" Sonya muttered to herself as the boat docked. Two soldiers in strange triangular masks stepped down the gangplank and stood either side as people began shuffling up and onto the boat. Even these people seemingly came from nowhere. Had they been waiting this whole time? What the hell was going on here, it surely wasn't any sort of commercial vessel.

As Sonya watched, she kept casting her gaze back at the warehouse so as not to miss Kano. Was this a diversionary tactic he'd set up to slip past them? She noticed a dull red glow from the warehouse. She stared at the glow until she saw a figure emerge from the shadows. She barely noticed the grimace forming on her face as she recognised Kano walking out of the shadows and towards the gangplank. When Sonya heard Jax calling after her, she realised she had already taken off after him. She had no time to acknowledge Jax's pleas for her to stop, coming somewhere from behind her as she sprinted after Kano. This was the first time she'd seen him in person since he had murdered Sparky in front of her. She had heard about the prosthetic he had installed where his right eye used to sit. Tracing the medical records was how they had managed to catch up with him finally. Kano's entire right eye socket was now replaced by a metal sheet, the eyeball a glowing red crystal. In her mind he looked like the Terminator after he'd been hit with something.

Kano was watching her run for him as he walked up the gangplank. He had shown something to the guards that had allowed him passage onto the vessel and he continued to walk up and onto the ship.

As Sonya got to the gangplank, she was stopped by the two guards. She held up her I.D. in order to get past.

"Lieutenant Sonya Blade, U.S. Special Forces. I am in pursuit of a wanted criminal and he just boarded your vessel. Let me pass or this tub and everyone on it will be sent to impound and you'll be tied up in immigration red tape for so long your grandchildren will still be signing paperwork."

The guards didn't even flinch at Sonya's empty threat, and she had no time to argue or try persuasion. She pushed past one, and the other immediately grabbed her shoulder. Without thinking Sonya grabbed him by the hand and twisted it. She then threw her elbow into his jaw, sending him backwards into the water. Sonya turned to the other guard and side kicked him so hard he also went flying backwards into the water, leaving her free to run up the plank and board the old barge.

The boat was surprisingly crowded; there were men everywhere, of all different ethnicities and backgrounds. Sonya did take notice of how few women were among them. In her line of work, hardly a surprise, here it felt a little odd. What she couldn't see however was Kano. He had disappeared into the crowd. She feared for a moment that he had doubled back and left her on the boat while he made his escape. Panic began to set in when she got to the edge of the ship and noticed that they had now left the dock and were sailing back out to sea.

"Shit." She muttered, returning to search the faces of the many men on board. The more faces she sifted through, the more she became concerned. She grabbed one man and spun him to check his face.

"Excuse me." She said after not seeing Kano's cold face stare back at her and went to walk around him.

"No, it was my fault. Hi I'm Johnny Cage." He said with a smile, moving back into her way to stop her from moving on.

"Great." Sonya faked a smile back and continued on her way. Johnny caught up and repeated himself as if she didn't hear him.

"Uh...Johnny Cage? The film star." He told her looking for some recognition in her eyes, but there was nothing. She looked at him incredulously. "I guess you don't watch a lot of movies."

"I guess not." Sonya replied uninterested. She pulled out a picture of Kano and showed it to Johnny. "I'm looking for this man. Have you seen him?"

Johnny looked at the picture.

"I'm sorry, no." Sonya went to move on again, but once more Johnny intercepted her. "You know, you could do a lot better than him."

Sonya could feel this guy was not going to give up easily.

"He's not my boyfriend, he's a killer." She pulled out her badge. "My name is Lieutenant Sonya Blade; I'm with the U.S. Special Forces. If you see him, I want you to find and tell me immediately."

Johnny nodded and looked at the massive crowd.

"Fair enough. Though I doubt you'll have much luck. It's like looking for a sensible man at an RNC rally here."

"Tell me about it." Sonya sighed and walked off, with Johnny in tow.

"I'd love to." He said to himself, smiling.

They walked off together through the crowd. Sonya was about to tell him to leave her alone, but she bit her tongue, quietly grateful for the company. She decided to head inside and search there; however the first door they came across was locked. After trying the handle, Johnny had given up. He turned to Sonya, shrugging his shoulders. She raised her eyebrow at him before slamming her boot into the door, splintering the jamb and letting a gust of stale air out from inside.

"Or, you could do that." Johnny said following her inside. Sonya moved smoothly through the interior; gun drawn. Johnny was impressed with her form. As they continued to move through the dimly lit halls of the interior of the old boat, they could hear the sound of a struggle. They proceeded into a room to find three men attacking a young Chinese man.

"Hey!" Sonya yelled, preparing to jump in and help. Before either of them could join the man, he had taken all three out with ease. Johnny and Sonya stood in the doorway, lowering their fighting stances slowly.

"We're here to save you…" Johnny joked quietly. Sonya shot him a look before holstering her firearm.

"My name's Lieutenant Sonya Blade, I'm with the U.S. Special Forces. Are you okay?"

"I am fine, thank you Lieutenant. Thank you for the diversion." The man responded. "I am Liu Kang."

"Nice to meet you Liu" Johnny shook his hand too. Liu looked at him waiting for him to introduce himself. Johnny looked back at Liu strangely for a moment, trying to figure out what he was doing. When he realised, he looked at Sonya who was barely masking her amusement, and then back at Liu.

"Does nobody watch movies anymore!? Johnny Cage? I'm an actor!"

"Nice to meet you Mister Cage" Liu greeted him.

Johnny waved him away, "Ah, whatever."

"So, are you both competing in the tournament as well?" Liu asked the two of them.

"Damn right!" Johnny responded excitedly, while Sonya looked at them both with a confused expression.

"What tournament? I'm here to apprehend this man, have you seen him?"

Liu studied the picture of Kano for a moment. "I believe so. I saw him fighting his way through a group of people before. However, I feel you have stumbled upon something much larger than you anticipate Lieutenant Blade. This boat is headed for the Mortal Kombat tournament."

She studied Liu Kang's face for a moment, processing what he was trying to tell her.

"Please, call me Sonya. What tournament?"

"For eons, the Mortal Kombat tournament has been all that has stood in the way of Earth Realm's complete and utter destruction…"

Liu Kang explained the history of the tournament to Sonya and Johnny. About how the sorcerer Shang Tsung had corrupted its once noble traditions. About the Emperor Shao Kahn's quest to conquer untold realms. And about Goro. The fierce "Shokan" warrior who had remained undefeated for the past five hundred years. Sonya struggled to hear it all, she kept feeling herself tuning out as if she was just listening to a random story. She kept having to remind herself that the things she was hearing were quite possibly real. And that if these people were telling the truth, something she would be confronting soon enough.

As Liu Kang finished his seemingly ridiculous story, a blast of lightning struck the deck in between them out of nowhere, throwing Sonya and Johnny diving for cover. Sonya turned back to the blast sight, her gun instinctively drawn and pointed at where the blast had come from. Standing in the midst of some charred deck and a wisp of smoke was a tall man in a Chinese fisherman's hat. Liu Kang instantly recognized the man as if he almost expected him to appear and greeted him.

"Lord Raiden. What brings you to us?" Liu asked, bowing to the man.

"I have been observing these warriors, and I must say I'm rather disappointed." Raiden said, taking a seat on some crates. His voice had a strange echo to it. As if he was speaking to them from a great distance, yet he was in front of them as clear as day.

"Lord?" Liu asked.

"I have looked into the souls of these fighters, and only six of you have what it takes to win. Unfortunately, only the three of you have noble intentions."

"Us?" Sonya asked, keeping her weapon trained on the strange man.

"Yes. You three have what it takes to win. But there are others here that could take victory from you. A spectre named Scorpion. Once a ninja of the now extinct Shirai Ryu clan. A Lin Kuei assassin named Sub-Zero. And an arms dealer and criminal mastermind, Kano.

"Kano!?" Sonya spoke up. "He's why I'm here, my unit has been tracking him for months. Look, I don't care about this tournament, I'm sorry and I realise your intentions are for saving the world or whatever, but this man needs to be brought to justice."

"And he will be Lieutenant. But only if you compete."

Sonya stared defiantly at Raiden for a moment. "And if I choose not to?"

"Then Shang Tsung will kill your teammates that he has captured."

"Wait, he what!?"

"Tobias McGregor and John Boon. When you left your team on the dock with your partner Jax, they were ambushed. Tobias and John were captured by Shang Tsung's men and brought to his island. Now he has chosen you to compete in the tournament and is holding your teammates hostage."

"That son of a bitch!" She swore and began pacing around the cabin. "What about Jax? Is he okay?"

"Jackson Briggs remains uncaptured. He is currently returning to your headquarters to try and mount a rescue operation." Raiden replied.

"Sounds like Jax." She smiled, relieved that her partner was okay.

Johnny tried to console her, and put his arm around her shoulders. Sonya instantly stopped moving and turned her head slowly to him.

"Dream on Cage." Sonya shot him down.

"You three are the Earth Realm's last hope of survival…" Raiden continued. As he did Sonya sat and tried to put everything together in her mind. She didn't need any of this bullshit. She was convinced that she had fallen asleep and was dreaming the entire thing. How else could this be explained? It certainly didn't make any sense to her. She wondered if she'd somehow been poisoned. If Kano had managed to get something into her food or drink. Something, anything to give this bullshit a logical explanation. The more she tried to find an explanation, the more she drew a blank. And that was starting to worry her.

Eventually, the old boat dropped anchor off shore of a large, mysterious island. The landscape seemed Asian, yet she knew they hadn't been at sea for that long. In fact, if anything they should probably be somewhere near Hawaii. There wasn't anything else this close to North America that had a landmass this size. Certainly nothing with such a heavy Asian influence. Out of anyone Sonya had met thus far, Liu Kang seemed to know the most about what was going on.

"Hey, Liu." She called over to him. He turned and walked towards her as all the other passengers began to mill around to look at the sights. "Where are we?"

The young Asian man stared knowingly out at the island. "We have arrived at Shang Tsung's island fortress. This is where the tournament will take place."

"Right, okay…" She pondered. "But, like, where exactly is that? As in, where on Earth?"

"Not Earth, Lieutenant. Outworld." Raiden explained as he appeared out of nowhere.

For some reason she wasn't expecting, this response just angered her.

"You know what? I thought I was gonna get an actual answer. I don't know why! Just forget it, I don't have the brain power for any more bullshit right now."

With that, she marched defiantly towards the gang plank and off the boat.

The three of them made their way up the shore of the island, eventually coming to a large set of stone steps. Once they had reached the top of the ancient staircase, they found themselves in Shang Tsung's court, where the man himself sat in what could only be described as a throne. He had been waiting for everyone to greet them, flanked by more guards dressed like the ones Sonya had attached when she boarded the vessel. The area was surrounded by what looked like monks, and guards, all dressed vaguely Asian, but somehow not of this world.

Shang Tsung himself looked to be well into his late 70's, not at all what Sonya had been expecting based on Liu and Raiden's bullshit story. He barely seemed able to walk let alone conquer whatever a 'realm' was. He had a large fu manchu-esque moustache that almost made her laugh, and was dressed in fairly fancy robes that again felt vaguely Asian, but still something else.

He glared at everyone as they entered his courtyard. It all appeared to be laid out in a long pitch, his throne in the centre. In front of him sat a bunch of monks, all sat as if they were the audience for this strange runway everyone found themselves on. He had a strange, creepy glare on his face, arrogance oozing from every inch of him. He watched as the final few people made it to the top of the stairs and found a place to stand, then he stood from his throne and addressed the crowd.

"Greetings. Welcome to my island. You are here to compete in the tournament of Mortal Kombat! I am your host, Shang Tsung. The tournament will begin tomorrow so for now, enjoy my island, explore the festivities, and good luck for the coming tournament. You'll need it."

With that Shang Tsung left his 'stage' and walked off. At the side of the runway they were on was an old wooden board with sheets of paper all over it. These had everyone's names listed and a cabin assigned to them. Sonya watched as everyone approached it to find their names and then follow the path behind the board that led to a heap of old wooden cabins that were placed along a mountain path that led to the peak of the highest mountain on the island. The island itself seemed like one giant mountain, a huge temple sat at the top which Sonya assumed was Shang's. This pathway looked like it snaked its way around the mountain towards this temple.

While everyone found their room assignment, Sonya stepped away and pulled her radio out and tried to contact Jax. All she seemed to be able to find was static though. The crowd started to thin out so she then turned back to the board and approached to find her name and room. She then walked behind the board and up the path towards her cabin. Johnny and Liu had already made their way up the path, she had no idea where Raidan had gone.

The island was gorgeous, if it wasn't the most insane situation she could possibly imagine, it would make for a nice vacation. Sonya eventually found her cabin, which was built into the side of the mountain and had a view out across the water. Inside, she found a fairly small room with two single beds. There was a bathroom in the back with a simple toilet and a small tub to bathe in.

"Not quite the Hilton." she said to herself. She tried contacting Jax again, but still only drew static. Feeling frustrated, she threw the radio on the bed and sat down. Sighing, she turned her head to look out the window. She could see the sun beginning to set. Below the window was a small table, she noticed a sheet of paper on it. It was an itinerary that outlined where the first match would be, where to go for dinner and what time everything was happening. She took note that dinner would be starting soon and where to go before stepping outside to watch the strange sunset. The colours were something she couldn't place. Like most things on the island, it just seemed off.

"The fuck am I doing here…" she asked herself. A loud bell started ringing, which worried her until she realised that was the sign to head to the dining hall. She stepped off the small porch and began walking up the path to dinner.