In less than twenty-four hours, Kuai Liang's perception of reality had completely shattered, giving way for a much greater understanding of just how truly insignificant he and his life actually were. This, coming right on the heels of the betrayal of his brother, Bi-Han, who had joined forces with the very malefactors Liu Kang had tasked the Lin Kuei with investigating.
These malefactors, it transpired, had been serving as unwitting pawns to a 'Titan' named Kronika from another reality - one that Lord Liu Kang had reached out to in a previous timeline to recruit another version of himself to help defeat a third incarnation of himself. It was thanks to that second Liu Kang's help that the reality Kuai Liang had known his entire life was able to replace the one corrupted by Death God Liu Kang.
And when that second Liu Kang, now ascended to a Fire God himself, had come seeking Lord Liu Kang's help to stop a similar threat native to his own reality, the noble protector of Earthrealm had gladly offered his full support, bringing his allies from the Lin Kuei, White Lotus and Outworld to join the interdimensional army in facing this mad Elder God.
'Titan' was a term that described one who stood above even the gods, crafting reality itself. The Kronika of Lord Liu Kang's original timeline had aspired to attain such a status, as had his own revenant counterpart. Both had fallen to the collapse of their grand ambitions. And now, so must the Kronika of the reality from which this other Liu Kang hailed. It seemed history loved to repeat itself across realities.
There were many realities in which various warriors had managed to ascend to this status through various means, each rebuilding their universes in their own image. Some used this power to seek utopia. Others sought to create a reality they could rule, or one they could conquer.
Bi-Han's betrayal was a common occurrence across many timelines. This typically resulted from his corruption in the Netherrealm, following his death at the hand of Scorpion. But this Scorpion was not Kuai Liang. No, this was an altogether different man. Kuai Liang, he now knew, was supposed to take his brother's place as Sub-Zero, having both inherited the same cryomancy abilities from their Outworld lineage.
Such a reality was scarcely believable for Kuai Liang, who had known naught but the world in which he possessed pyromancy and a preference for the colour yellow. But now, standing amongst the vast army of Titans and champions from myriad alternate universes, Kuai Liang spotted more than one version of himself adorned in blue, a chilling mist emanating from their hands and mouths. Many even had the same scar his brother had just given him at the Ying Fortress. He idly wondered how many of them received theirs from their Bi-Han's. How many might still be on good terms with their brother.
Kuai Liang slowly shook his head. Focus. For all his faults, Bi-Han had taught his brother well. Kuai Liang and Tomas would put what their father and brother had taught them to use in fighting for the survival of their universe, against the vast alliance of dark counterparts now joining the other Kronika atop the vast pyramid that would serve as the uneven battleground for this epic clash between good and evil.
The two armies charged towards each other, meeting midway up the long staircases running up the front of the gigantic structure, in an apocalyptic clash. Kuai Liang lost track of his timeline's Liu Kang, Raiden, Kung Lao and the rest. But so long as Smoke remained in sight, he was confident he could pull through.
The first foe to face Kuai Liang was a fellow Scorpion - but not a fellow Kuai Liang. This must be a version of the man who killed Bi-Han in most other realities. He was certainly as skilled as Bi-Han. But Smoke's assistance allowed Kuai Liang to defeat him and keep advancing up the pyramid. Right after, a blue-clad Kuai Liang approached. He was older, likely older than Bi-Han was now; older than their father ever was. He was the image of what Kuai Liang had always believed Bi-Han would one day become. Alas, this Kuai Liang was a lost cause, and was thus beaten down by Scorpion and Smoke, whose presence seemed to shock their opponent into lowering his guard.
An aerial clash high above them sent red and blue lightning, green and purple magics, and several colours of fire raining down on the kombatants engaged on the steps. Thinking fast, Scorpion and Smoke teleported off the steps and onto the closest ledge that ran around the pyramid's corners. With luck, the stairs on the other sides would be less hazardous.
While they were certainly safer, they were still packed with allied and enemy fighters beyond counting. In Lord Liu Kang's words, these foes were "remnants of past timelines" and "products of realities beyond salvation". Some were simple role changes, such as a half-Edenian Kitana cloned from the Tarkatan princess Mileena. Others were twisted amalgams of warriors, such as a vampiric Shang Tsung/Kung Lao hybrid. But the ones that struck Kuai Liang and Smoke the hardest (both literally and figuratively) were the squad of identical cyborgs that broke off from their own opponents the instant they noticed the two.
According to Liu Kang, most Lin Kueis began experimenting with cybernetics, forcibly removing the emotions and free wills of their top warriors to make them even more efficient killers. With Kuai Liang and Smoke's refusal to accept this fate, they were often made targets, hunted tirelessly by their corrupted clanmates.
From their colours, it was apparent that Smoke and Sektor were among the four. The blue cyborg could only be Sub-Zero. That meant that the blue and yellow cyborgs were either Bi-Han with Scorpion Kuai Liang, or Sub-Zero Kuai Liang with Cyrax.
Kuai Liang engaged the two in question, leaving Smoke to deal with... himself and Sektor. The fighting style of the blue cyborg didn't completely match either Kuai Liang or Bi-Han, so Scorpion could only assume the silent blue machine was himself as a cryomancer, having learned the same style as his brother.
Fortunately, Kuai Liang had a lot of experience fighting Sub-Zero, across many long, painful hours of training, intensified by their father's death and Liu Kang's increasing reliance upon the Lin Kuei's assistance. Bi-Han was not a kind teacher, but he was certainly an effective one. And after their recent fight to the (what would have been for Kuai Liang) death, he was able to keep pace with his counterpart for a while. Long enough, even, to take down his fellow yellow so that he could better focus on himself.
But then, Sub-Zero unleashed a torrent of cryogenic energy from his chest compartment, freezing much of Scorpion's body in place. As Sub-Zero's blast moved further up his body, over his chest, Kuai Liang's mind rocketed back to a time in his past, back before Tomas had joined their family.
Back then, when there had been only two brothers, Bi-Han had taken Kuai Liang aside to show him the difference between immobilising flash-freezing and lethal deep-freezing. He had demonstrated the former's numbing effect on his brother's arm, and then shown a fraction of the latter's horrific intensity. It hadn't been enough to cause serious lasting damage, but it had been one of the most painful experiences of his life. This demonstration had been performed to impress upon Kuai Liang the significance of avoiding getting caught by his brother's lethal attack during the chaos of a pitched battle.
Sub-Zero was attempting a deep freeze.
That familiar icy crackling sound reached Kuai Liang's ears, pulling him back from the past, as a fresh wave of cryomantic energy cascaded over his blue and yellow foes, freezing them in place before they could even turn their heads. The ice block around him slowly cracked and broke apart, releasing him to fall freely to the ground from his inability to feel his numb legs. But it was a large hand that stopped his body's descent, not the stone floor.
"Are you alright?" asked a voice Kuai Liang had given up hope of ever hearing speak in such a soft, concerned tone again. He looked to his right, to find Sub-Zero holding him up and looking him over. As their eyes met, a glint of recognition, of shame, flashed in Bi-Han's eyes. Kuai Liang could tell this was not his Bi-Han from his presence alone, but his snow-white hair, glowing blue eyes and deathly pallor confirmed that this was a much older Bi-Han - one who had achieved the pinnacle of power as Sub-Zero, or was perhaps one of these timeline-crafting Titans.
Kuai Liang felt conflicted about this Bi-Han's presence, but a cry of pain from nearby redirected both brothers' attentions towards Tomas, who was still struggling to contend with both himself and Sektor. Now wasn't the time for introspection. It was time for Scorpion and Sub-Zero to leap into the fray and save their brother.
The enemy Smoke was quick to break off the engagement via teleportation, while Sektor attempted to finish Tomas quickly. Kuai Liang had spent many hundreds of hours training with his foster brother, and thus knew exactly where he would emerge for the optimal attack. Predicting that an algorithm-driven Lin Kuei would target a Scorpion first, he baited Smoke's attack, then flameported into a more advantageous position right as Smoke emerged from his cloud of vapour.
As planned, Kuai Liang dragged Smoke down to the ground, while Bi-Han blasted Sektor with ice. The nozzles of Sektor's arm-mounted flamethrowers became blocked. The fire wasn't able to melt through fast enough for him to attack either of his foes before Bi-Han slid along a trail of ice and swung an axe forged of solid ice for his former clanmate's neck, severing his head instantly, sending inky black oil cascading around the area.
Kuai Liang pushed a flaming hand into this other Smoke's back, melting the durable steel until he reached the organic spinal column, putting all of his might into yanking it and the matching skull right out of his metallic husk. As much as he would prefer to help these cyborgs to regain their humanity, he had no way to know whether their conversion had been forced upon them or entirely voluntary in their timeline. And with stakes as high as these, their best option was to finish them quickly to free their souls.
As Kuai Liang tossed Smoke's skull aside, Tomas sent a look his way that told him he understood his reasons. The three Lin Kuei then turned their attention towards Cyber Sub-Zero and Cyrax, who were now freed from their icy prisons. Kuai Liang and Tomas wordlessly agreed on a specific tactic they had developed with their Bi-Han. They both teleported right up into their opponent's faces, Kuai Liang against himself and Tomas against Cyrax, keeping the cyborgs on the defensive with a barrage of close-quarters strikes.
This served to distract their foes, allowing Bi-Han time to charge up his deep freeze. As that familiar sound came barrelling their way, the two brothers teleported out of the way of the blast, allowing it to strike the two cyborgs for several seconds.
The black lifeblood that ran through their cybernetic bodies was bursting out of their metallic shells, like water in a steel pipe. It was a less grotesque version of how this looked when an organic being's blood froze and expanded outside of their skin, but it was no less disturbing for Kuai Liang to see how far his counterpart had fallen, as no vestige of humanity remained in what was exposed by his frigid death turning him inside out. He looked away from the horrid sight, leaving the task of shattering their foes to Tomas.
Bi-Han took the chance to approach his brother. His body language and distance suggested an uncharacteristic awkwardness about the older brother. Whether this was due to the two not truly being brothers, the surreality of his brother being Scorpion, or something unique to Bi-Han's timeline, Kuai Liang had no way of knowing.
But the Bi-Han standing before him was, indeed, a Titan. He was a timekeeper, having emerged victorious over Kronika in another reality. But just as Kuai Liang had not been Scorpion in that timeline, Bi-Han had not been Sub-Zero. Bi-Han had been the Netherrealm wraith, Noob Saibot. It was in that form that he had bested the mad Elder God and claimed her Hourglass for his own. And it was in that form that he had last encountered his brother.
Kuai Liang, Sub-Zero, Grandmaster of a new Lin Kuei, was a man that Bi-Han could have been proud of, had Shinnok and Quan Chi's corruption not warped his psyche beyond recognition. Even long after both villains had been dealt with, Bi-Han had remained a slave to their design. And that was why Kuai Liang had stood in his way, determined not to allow his corrupted brother to pervert the realms as he himself had been. That had been his final mistake.
In a final battle to determine the fate of the Hourglass, Noob Saibot had stabbed and dragged his jagged nethersteel sickle through his brother's gut, disembowelling him before the Hourglass as it displayed visions of past timelines. Of better days. Of timelines where there was no Noob Saibot, where Bi-Han could rest in peace as his brother took up his mantle in his honour, or where the two lived on as joint Grandmasters.
As Noob Saibot took up Kronika's crown, the Hourglass' visions and the image of his murdered brother dominated his thoughts, bringing an undesirable thought to bear - one that would bring salvation to that reality: Bi-Han, deep down, felt remorse. Despite the deep corruption of his soul by a dark Elder God, Bi-Han hated himself for what he had done to his brother. The man that had always looked up to him. Who had taken up his mantle to honour his memory and legacy. Who had kept the name to redeem it after Bi-Han had rejected everything he had once been.
A part of Bi-Han wanted to honour Kuai Liang as he had once done for him. And that was the part that was empowered by the crown. The black shadow of Noob Saibot was burned away, using the Hourglass' recollection to recreate the true Bi-Han: the Sub-Zero that had once saved the realms from Shinnok's machinations. A hero that Kuai Liang could be proud to call his brother.
It was this Bi-Han that redesigned the timeline, that combined his story with Kuai Liang's to make his brother the one and only Sub-Zero. It was this Bi-Han that watched a Kuai Liang that was no longer his brother, as he excelled as a warrior who inspired the Lin Kuei's betterment. It was this Bi-Han that, while watching his champion successfully assassinate Shang Tsung and make peace with Scorpion, answered Liu Kang's call to stop another Kronika from conquering other realities. It was this Bi-Han that now stood side-by-side with Kuai Liang as another Titan made his presence known.
If reality could splinter off infinitely from choices made by a single person, it wasn't unreasonable to assume that Bi-Han rejecting the crown and his restoration by it would have led to him becoming this terrifying vision of corruption before them. Undoubtedly a Titan Noob Saibot, the inky shadows surrounding him were now more ink than shadow, oozing a viscous black substance thicker than blood and stronger than acid upon the stone beneath his feet. Every footstep, every minute motion in fact, produced more of this corrupting agent, leaving not only the stone turning black and distorted, but the fighters around him as well.
The Giger-esque mask that covered the lower half of his face was pulled loose by a tendril of sorts that emerged from the ribs visible beneath his gaunt skin. The mask proved to be the last vestige of recognisable Bi-Han traits - the flesh beneath was missing, leaving an exposed, black skull to twitch in a manner that Bi-Han's muscle memory informed him was a twisted grin.
A Bi-Han that despised both Kuai Liang and Scorpion would have a field day with a man who was both. That is, were it not for his guardian angel standing ready to die for him. Sub-Zero, Scorpion and Smoke all took up their stances, ready to face this Havik-esque Noob Saibot in kombat. Even as the wraith evened the odds by reaching for the fallen cyborgs with his oily tendrils and giving their broken bodies fresh life as his undead puppets, other warriors found their way over to the alliance's side. A restored Cyrax, a noble Sektor, a loyal Frost, a Scorpion and Takeda whose Lin Kuei had never fractured.
The full heroic potential of the Lin Kuei was brought to bear against this final corruption of its worst attributes. And while none of these fighters would significantly impact the outcome of the battle at the pyramid's zenith, Bi-Han could be satisfied that he had finally put his demons to rest as he rent his counterpart's head from his shoulders and ended the corruption of Noob Saibot across countless realities; and Kuai Liang could return to his own reality with renewed hope that his brother's soul could yet be saved, in his and other realities.
And so, one chapter after it began, the reimagining of M1K is over. That was a short adventure. Sad to see it go.
But seriously, that final chapter would have been way cooler if each character got a unique fight, either in sequence, or like a pre-set rival battle in an Arcade Mode. Kuai Liang Scorpion vs Kuai Liang Sub-Zero, Smoke vs Cyber Smoke, Johnny Cage vs Evil Sonya, Mortal Raiden vs Dark Raiden, Kung Lao vs Evil Liu Kang, Kenshi vs Evil Ashrah, Ermac vs Female Sindel-centric Ermac, etc. You know, fun battles, past incarnations and capstone for old rivalries. That we didn't at least get Cyber Sub-Zero or a Scorpion/Sub-Zero hybrid while there were TWO Scorpion/Kung Lao hybrids just ruins the whole thing.
Also, don't forget to check out the audiobook renditions of the first two chapters on Youtube.