This is an MK2/Heroic Trio crossover (Heroic Trio is copyright 1992 Paka Hill Film Production Co.) with a little bit of Star Wars I guess, (Star Wars and ‘Mandalorians’ is copyright Lucasfilm.)

The stranger asked the villagers if they knew of any sisters who fit the description he offered. Two men immediately grabbed Tung and I, almost desperately, dragging us to the front. My father stood up, but what could he do to stop this inevitable thing? They didn't care what happened to my father; they only cared that their pitiful lives might somehow be improved. He was not the most popular person in town; neither were the Li’s for that matter.

Suddenly, there WAS pain. Most people wouldn’t think that resurrections would leave any pain in the body, but just because you’re alive doesn’t necessarily mean your body is completely healed. And you’ve just been violated by necromantic magic. Maybe that doesn’t bother demon sorcerers like Shang Tsung who wallow in it every day, but me? It hurt my soul. And my body, while not broken in bits, did have bruises, and my left arm was still broken. I bet if he’d spent a little more power, he could have rid me of that, too, but demons are stingy with their power. They always want more, not matter how much they have. Like a billionaire who lives in a shack and won’t pay his child support payments because he’s afraid he’s going to lose his money, even as he gets thousands more every day.

Our opponents are also rather interesting. First and foremost there is Liu Kang, an Order of Light monk, fire elemental, and winner of the previous tournament. Next is Kung Lao, also an Order of Light monk, and the owner of a rather eccentric hat trimmed with a razor blade. Raiden is the ‘god’ of thunder, and a survivor of the previous tournament; most of our opponents are his Chosen Ones, for he is the protector of the realm of Earth. Unfortunately, he reminds me of the demon master, the lightning and all. Johnny Cage is also a survivor, and a (rather vain) movie star wishing to prove that he is a true martial artist. Major Jackson Briggs, a.k.a. ‘Jax,’ is Lieutenant Sonya Blade’s partner in the U.S. Special Forces. Sonya and her nemesis, Kano, survived, but didn’t escape from the previous tournament. They’re chained up on either side of Kahn’s throne in the arena. The last two were surprises. Sub-Zero is an ice ninja who supposedly died in the first tournament, but somehow showed up again. Scorpion also returned, probably to try and kill him again, for Sub-Zero killed him and Scorpion is not truly alive; under his mask lies a skeleton’s head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pounding on her door startled the woman writing, causing her to drop her pen. Soon, a voice accompanied the abuse of the door.

“Mileena! Hurry up! We’re going to be late!”

She quickly hid her pen and the small leather notebook she had been writing in, and strode out the door. Kitana stood there, anxiety easy to read on her face. “Come on, we have to hurry.”

“You already said that,” mumbled the woman. She assumed a proud stance as they rounded the last corner. Everyone else was already there, except Jade. Once again, Mileena wondered what Jade was going to be doing in this tournament.

“Finally, you decide to join us, ladies.” That was Shang Tsung, who was informally in charge. He was the one who'd suggested another tournament, and Shao Kahn would rather watch the fighters than actually participate or converse with them. Shang Tsung, on the other hand, loved to verbally torture them. “As you are now here, I will give you all the details of the tournament. There are only eleven of you, which rules out a bracket tournament. One of you will have to sit out each day until we have an even number. You will fight until you have lost three matches. On your third loss, your opponent may kill you if they like. Once a winner is decided out of you eleven, they will proceed to fight me, then Kintaro, and finally Shao Kahn, if they make it that far.”

“Kintaro?” joked Johnny Cage, “is he related to Goro?” He meant it to be a funny, but the demon sorcerer’s smile, made him, and the other’s actually think about it, and Raiden, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Scorpion, and Johnny Cage himself, all tensed up, praying it was not true.

“As a matter of fact, no.” A wave of relief washed over them; most took deep breaths in relief. “But they are the same species. And Kintaro is even bigger than Goro!” declared Tsung impishly. The Earth warriors’ reactions returned, some lowering their heads, some groaning. Mileena found herself studying them. Kung Lao probably knew Goro from his ancestor having fought him, or Liu Kang telling him about the Shokan. Liu Kang, Raiden, Scorpion, and Johnny Cage had all fought in the previous tournament. Jax had probably never heard of him, as Sonya had never returned from the tournament. But Sub-Zero had been in that tournament, too. She noted this, and it bothered her.

After her match, Mileena sat down for a few moments, only to find that she was too restless to sit. She paced the halls of the palace, aimlessly wandering, and trying to sort out her thoughts. She wandered by a waiting hall and decided to sit in there, away from the demons. She was surprised to see that Sub-Zero had gotten a similar idea.

He was sitting at a table with his elbows on it and he rested his head on his hands, his cheekbones pressed against the back of his hands, as if he were studying the grain of the table.

Mileena walked over and sat down across from him.

“Hi, Subby…can I call you Subby?” He stared at the table. “Do you talk? Do you move? Can you imitate a rock? Very good!”

He slowly lifted his head up. “Why does he hate me?”

“Huh? Rephrase your question. You can use Mandarin if you need to,” for some reason that she could not figure out, she felt almost happy, and decided to tease the ninja.

“Scorpion. I could practically feel it. Why?”

“Well, I don't know, you did kill him, but that' s no reason to hate anyone,” she said sarcastically.

He went back to looking at the table.

Mileena sighed, and decided to try to get him to open up again. “You did really good in your fight,” she said, meaning it. “You're pretty quick, for an ice ninja.”

“Actually,” he whispered, “I'm water.”

“Really?” She tilted her head curiously.

“The Lin Kuei way of using power naturally translates that into ice.” He sunk even lower, and his voice, too dropped, to just above a whisper. “It’s not a good thing.”

“Hmm,” she said, thoughtfully, trying to decide what he meant, and to get him to elaborate, but an appearance at the door stopped her. “Oh, hi, Kung Lao.”

“Am I missing something? You haven’t fallen for her beyond gorgeous body, now have you?” He asked Sub-Zero, shaking his finger in mock reprimand.

“Yeah, well, I'm not as easy as I look. I'm really...hey, I think he's blushing!”

“What?” Kung Lao gave her a look that all but screamed ‘psycho alert!’

“Look!” Mileena pointed at Sub-Zero.

He buried his face in his hands and sunk even lower.

Kung Lao raised an eyebrow at Mileena. “How can you tell? He's wearing a mask! And he facing the table! Honestly.”

“No, really, I think he was blushing!”

“Whatever.” He sat next to Mileena. “Do you think he's going to sit up again? He's barely done anything the entire time we were here.”

“Well, I did get him to talk to me.”

“Really. Amazing. You must really have some feminine charms to make hi-” He cut off his sentence and also put a hand on his face as Shang Tsung stepped into the room.

“Are you hiding from me?” he said. “We've finished all of today's matches, and I'd like to congratulate you three on your win. Guess what your prize is!”

Kung Lao looked hopeful. Sub-Zero actually moved. Mileena rolled her eyes.

“You get to fight at least three more times! Doesn't that just make you ecstatic?”

Kung Lao and Sub-Zero both sank down into their seats. Feeling proud of himself at ruining yet two more people's day, Shang Tsung strode out of the room.

“Imp,” said Mileena. She looked at her companions, waiting for them to say something, but the light-hearted mood had been broken.

“I would have to agree, Mileena,” said Kung Lao, “but I really ought to get some rest. Bloodbath tournaments and tired people don’t mix.”

He left. Mileena looked at Sub-Zero. She even leaned her head down to try to get his attention. It was no use. She stood up.

Kitana grunted as she pushed herself through the hole in the ceiling. Jade had shown her the way to the secret room she had found. Kitana hoped it was worth the effort. This hole was barely half a meter square. She placed all her weight on the ceiling on one side of the hole, praying to Master Kahn that it would hold her weight. This building was older than anything else she had ever seen was.

Or that she remembered she had seen.

She remembered, as clear as if it had happened a moment ago instead of four years, when she had awoken in a hospital bed, Shang Tsung sitting next to her, looking distraught.

“My Princess Kitana,” he said. “You do remember you’re Princess Kitana, don’t you?”

Kitana had nodded, feeling quite confused.

“I’m so sorry,” Tsung had continued. “We didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“What?” she’d asked. “What happened?”

“Oh, you don’t remember any of it,” he groaned. “You were hurt very badly, you were in a coma for almost a year. You’ve suffered head injuries. Now we’re afraid you may have amnesia.”

“Amnesia?” Kitana had become quite panicked by this time.

“How much do you remember, Princess? What was your last birthday?”

“The last birthday I remember,” she had answered, thinking deeply, “was my twentieth.”

Shang Tsung had cursed, looking horrified. “Are you sure it was your twentieth?”

She thought harder. “Yes. Master Kahn gave me my ninja outfit, and my fans, and I was only supposed to get those on my twentieth birthday.”

Shang Tsung had looked at the ground, not daring to meet her eyes. “My Princess, in that case, you are missing nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight years of your memory.”

At first she hadn’t believed that she could possibly be that old. She only looked like she was in her early twenties. But he had explained to her, how she was of a grand race that lived millions of years. That most all the Outworlders were of this race, except for the mutants, who didn’t live near as long, and the Shokans, who lived longer, and the Centaurions, who lived almost as long as the Shokans.

It was all so confusing to her. She felt she had been stripped of most of her life unfairly, and she thanked the Master Kahn for her even retaining the twenty years of the beginning of her life.

Jade was suspicious of this. Of course Jade was suspicious of everything. That’s why she crept around the castle and knew every secret entrance—there were almost a hundred—spying on people, though Kitana had tried to get her to stop. She had met Jade just after she woke from her coma. Jade had been taking care of Master Kahn’s business in place of Kitana for the year she’d been asleep.

And now Jade had found this place, and she insisted that Kitana visit it. She’d told her almost a month ago, but with the preparing for the tournament, Kitana had just now gotten any time to see it.

She replaced the ceiling tile that led into this passage. It was cut on an angle so that it would stay in place, and it was cut so well that you couldn’t tell from the outside. The rest of the thousands of tiles in the grand hallway were all glued to the ceiling; she knew because she tried the wrong one several times. She wondered how Jade found the time to test every single one. Then she remembered Jade’s uncanny ability to turn herself not only invisible, but intangible as well. She probably just walked through the walls until she found a passage, and then found the proper entrance.

The passage was completely dark. Kitana silently cursed herself for not bringing a light, and placed her hands against the opposite sides of the tunnel, feeling her way around, not ever actually lifting up her feet. She concentrated on her directions, repeating Jade’s exact words. Turn right at the first opening, then follow that hallway until it stops, and then turn left. You can’t miss it. It’s huge. There’s a lantern right inside the door.

She had managed to get up enough courage to walk normally, when she slammed into the dead end at the end of the second hallway. She sighed as she picked herself up off the floor, and followed the final hallway until the walls on both sides disappeared.

Just as Jade had said, there was a small lantern sitting by the door on the right side. Kitana opened it up, and used the flint inside to start a small fire going. The light quickly grew to a brightness that was far beyond what the tiny flame should have managed, and Kitana wondered if the lantern was enchanted. Perhaps she should keep it.

The room was huge, and filled with books and chests of all sorts. They were all separated into piles. Hundreds of piles. Maybe even thousands of piles. She studied the books on the closest pile, and saw they all contained the word ‘Edenia.’ The one opposite of it was ‘Mandalore.’ Nearby, there was also ‘Shokan,’ ‘Kloesh,’ ‘Meerta,’ and ‘Chissss.’ She vaguely wondered why the last was spelled with four S’s, then she picked up the top book on the first. Not only because they were the closest; also because the book on top had no dust on it, like everything else in the room except for the lantern.

‘Narrative of Downfall: Edenia,’ she read.

‘Edenia was the sight of the capital for the Union, the twelve inhabited planets with interplanetary communication in this galaxy. Edenia was also the last to fall to Shao Kahn.’

Then it launched into the history of the planet practically starting with the first bacteria that ever appeared. Kitana flipped through the book, and found that it opened to one page. A page whose corner had been folded down, exaggeratedly, so that one picking up this book could hardly miss it. Obviously folded down by a person recently, obviously Jade. The contents of this page shocked Kitana, forcing her to sit down and rethink everything she believed in. Most importantly, this paragraph:

‘Then Master Shao Kahn took the daughter of the treacherous snake, the Mandalorian Emperor Yuen Jer Rod and his bride, the Edenian Empress Sindel. The baby’s name was Kitana. She was nine months at the time Master Kahn killed her father, and her mother killed herself. She had been born in the fall of the year by the Gregorian calendar of the planet Earth, 1974.’

Kitana had dropped the book after reading this, and oddly enough, the first thought that ran through her head was What year is it now? 1998? So, I’m only twenty-four. There never was any amnesia. I was never in a coma. There was never any accident. It was all a lie.

She stood up from the position she’d taken on the floor and yelled, “A LIE!” She threw the book onto the pile it had been sitting on. “My whole life is a lie!”

I woke from my daydream, at the insistent prompting of another of the waitress girls. She told me to go get a glass of tea for the leader. It was so easy. The tea was isolated from the performance. I swiped one, and slipped my little tube of iocane powder into it. Immediately after serving the cup to the leader, I disappeared. Iocane works rather quickly, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he suddenly dropped dead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eleven fighters and one sorcerer gathered in the arena. Shao Kahn sat on his throne. Lieutenant Sonya Blade and Kano were chained on either side of the fighting area. Many outworlders had begun to populate the stadium.

“Winners,” said Shang Tsung, “I congratulate you on your victories yesterday. Of course, there were also some losers. Scorpion, Reptile, Kitana, Raiden, and Jax all have one strike against them. Kitana, however, will get to sit out today. Why? Because she’s the princess.” A ripple of shock went through the Earth’s defenders. “And, still talking about Kitana, Kung Lao managed to beat her yesterday. But can he beat her twin? Mileena, Kung Lao, get ready. The rest of you, be prepared. Duel of the Winds!”

The two fighters headed to the arena to prepare for their fight. Mileena swung her right leg up in front of her, then the left, stretching them out. Kung Lao practiced a few punches, then adjusted his hat and adopted his fighting stance, fists making circles on either side of his waist, bending his knees and rocking ever so slightly on the balls of his feet. Mileena pulled one fist behind her head, her forearm perpendicular to the ground while her wrist made a ninety-degree angle from that, and the other guarded her stomach. Her rocking was more pronounced, less bouncy, as she shifted her weight almost completely from one leg to the other.

“FIGHT!” yelled Kahn, his voice reverberating throughout the arena.

At his announcement, Mileena flipped forward and aimed a jumping kick at Kung Lao's forehead. He quickly spun, creating waves of energy that repelled her kick, knocking her back a few feet. She did a quick kippup, and stopped Kung Lao's advance with a swift, high, stepping sidekick. He stumbled back a few feet, dazed, and ducked just in time to miss her sais hurtled through the air toward his shoulders. He teleported to the other side of the arena, behind her, and threw his hat. At that moment, however, he saw that her sais were back in her boots, and realized what that meant. He almost had enough time to block before her heel landed on his forehead, just above the brim of his hat, knocking him to the ground. Almost.

His hat had likewise rematerialized on his head before he got to his feet, only to be knocked back down by a low, backwards sweep. This time, he hit her with a rising uppercut as he stood. She let out a scream of surprise and rage as she landed a few feet away on her back. He ran toward her, planning to sweep her before she could stand, as she'd done to him, but she was up too quickly and instead grabbed his waist and leaned way over backward, smashing his head into the ground and easily standing back up.

The world was spinning as Kung Lao stood back up. Mileena was already there, raising her right knee as she pivoted on the ball of her left foot, and snapped out her right foot, forming a bruise on his cheek. She followed through with the rotation and pushed the heel of her left foot into his teeth, causing him to almost choke on one. Then she ducked and imitated his uppercut, sending him flying back a few feet.

Instinct, rather than thought, allowed Kung Lao to perform the jumping front kick that stopped Mileena's second jump kick. She turned her fall into a backward somersault and swung her right leg in a low arc, knocking Lao down just as he began his throw. She jammed her fingers into his throat like a spear rather than let him recover, and as he bent over gasping for air, she his him just below the neck with an axe kick. Kung Lao dropped like a rock.

Mileena once again pulled out her sais, this time twirling them around twice before crossing them over her head in a victory stance, and the audience roared.

Liu Kang and Raiden revived Kung Lao after his fight. Sub-Zero and Baraka were preparing for their fight when he awoke.

“Did you see that, man?” Johnny Cage asked him. “She fell through the floor and just appeared above you like she was in a jump kick!”

“I didn't actually see it,” he replied, “but I did know what happened, thank you very much.” He pushed Cage out of the way and started to walk back to his room.

“What's wrong with him?” asked Cage. The others looked at him like he was nuts.

“Maybe you missed it,” said Jax, “but he just got his butt kicked!”

“Kung Lao, stop,” said Kitana. She had followed him a few paces into the hallway, a ways away from the others. He turned around and studied her. She was a bit bigger than her twin was, and compassion much more evident in her dark eyes.

“What is it?” he said at last.

“Mileena can make even the most accomplished of fighters look like amateurs. In fact, I have never seen a match where her opponent even looked to be close to her skill. The simple fact that you actually managed to hit her says a lot for you skill. I barely even accomplished that much, last time we fought. A match between her and Liu Kang is not one I would like to bet on.”

“Really? She's that good?”

“Didn't you watch her fight Raiden? She's the fastest thing I've ever seen! Quick little darting motions, yet with as much power as anyone could need. The roundhouse, spinning sidekick she did to you, it was like a blur. Don't worry about it. You're very good. There's just no competing with her in the terms of speed.”

“Are you really the princess of Outworld?”

Baraka fell to the ground and didn’t get up.

“Sub-Zero wins,” announced Kahn, as the victor raised his right fist in the air. Blood was running down his upraised arm from a rather severe cut induced by long metallic blades.

Slaves ran into the armory to drag away the mutant’s unconscious body as Sub-Zero exited the room, and headed back to the main arena, to get some bandages.

Mileena saw him exit, awake, and had the last of the fights of the day wrapped up, so she returned to her room. Just as she was about to start writing, there was a light knock on the door.

“Mistress Mileena?”

“What is it?” The door opened, and in walked two slave girls, carrying a white dress.

“The Master wants you to try this on. For your wedding.”

Mileena sighed. Her wedding was not what she had wanted to be reminded of. The dress fit fine, though she hated how she looked in it, hated the prospect of her husband. She dismissed the girls, depressed, and exited her suite shortly thereafter.

She wandered into the public training room. Kung Lao and Liu Kang were already in there, practicing their Shaolin styles, and Sub-Zero was doing what looked like forms. Lao waved and smiled, cheering her up ever so slightly. She found an open area, facing away from the door, and began to practice some contortionism. She started by raising her right leg up to her side, without leaning over. Then she swung it behind, and held her big toe to the back of her head for several seconds. She went through this exercise with the other leg, then started to lean over backwards. Halfway down, she looked into the doorway and noticed Jax and Johnny Cage, standing there, a look of disbelief on their faces.

Mileena smiled under her mask and got an idea. She slipped it off, and dropped it to the ground. Then, she continued to bend over backwards, grabbed her ankles, and pushed down further, picking up her mask with her teeth.

She straightened herself back up, and saw Sub-Zero had stopped to watch her. As he saw her face, a look of shock registered on his. Contemplating how odd that was, she spun 180° , waving her mask like a flag.

“How is that humanly possible?” asked Jax.

Mileena shook her head, and looked down to the ground, disappointed. “Americans,” she sighed. Sub-Zero had walked up beside her, and he whispered something quietly in Mandarin. “Of course!” she replied, smiling.

She hopped up, placing her left hand on Sub-Zero’s head, and her right on his upraised left hand. She spread her legs in full splits, and tilted the line 45° . When she got her balance, Subby let go, so she was balanced on one hand.

“That’s insane,” murmured Cage.

Mileena lay on her bed, writing about the day’s events in her letter. Without any warning, Jade suddenly dropped down from a hole that had suddenly appeared in the ceiling.

Mileena jumped up and the two women faced each other, neither daring to move. Jade finally broke the silence.

“I know what you did.”

“So what did I do,” said Mileena evenly, not wanting to give anything away.

“You betrayed your Master, and if they knew what you did, they would kill you on the spot. I won’t turn you in, though, because Kitana wouldn’t want that.”

“Why should you care what Kitana wants?”

Jade didn't acknowledge her question. “You must promise me one thing, or I will turn you in, no matter what Kitana thinks. You mustn’t kill an earth warrior, for all of our sakes. More specifically, you mustn’t kill anyone with good intentions.”

“Don’t kill anyone with good intentions, got it. Who has good intentions?”

“From what I’ve heard, everyone except for Shao Kahn, Shang Tsung, Baraka, and Reptile.”

“Admitting that your masters are evil, isn’t that a little risky?”

“I’m being serious Mileena. Shang Tsung is creating a clone of you. It’s almost done. And if that isn’t enough to convince you of his evilness, she does not have your mouth. She has a mutant’s mouth, like Baraka.”

“Oh, really,” said Mileena, skeptically. “But believe me, I do not need to be convinced of Tsung’s wickedness. That, I already knew, I assure you. And just how do you know these things? Do the walls have ears?”

Not long after that, the invisible robe started to work, as long as there wasn’t any ultraviolet light shown on it, in other words, the sun wasn’t up. You trusted me with your secret, and I stole it to do something terrible. I stole babies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Reptile has two strikes against him, and Scorpion, Jax, Kitana, Raiden, Kung Lao, Baraka, and Johnny Cage have all been defeated once. Kung Lao will not have to fight today, however. Congratulations to the undefeated—Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, and Mileena. Our first fight, in the arena, is Baraka versus Johnny Cage.”

Johnny Cage removed his sunglasses, and strode into the arena. Baraka followed, panting from excitement.

After the announcement of the fight’s beginning, Baraka started off with by rubbing his arm-blades together to create a spark. Cage flipped over it and landed a jumping kick on Baraka’s face. Not that any kind of beating could make him look worse, thought Mileena, beginning to lose interest in the fight as she thought of what she would write next in her letter.

Baraka swung a hook at Cage’s face, but he did the splits, ducking underneath it. At the same time he lashed out with a powerful punch to Baraka’s groin. Baraka bent over double. The men in the audience cringed. Mileena turned to look at Kitana sitting next to her and saw the she too was laughing.

Cage uppercutted Baraka’s bent form. It was beginning to look as if Cage would win the fight, and she saw Kung Lao start to beckon for Jax to hand over a bet. Baraka was enraged, it was quite obvious. He blocked Cage’s jab, and lashed out with what seemed to be a lung punch with both hands, but something changed at the last minute, because Cage did not react as someone who had been punched in the stomach. His body flinched, and a drop of blood ran out from between his lips. Everyone gasped at the appearance of Baraka’s arm-blades sticking out from Cage’s back. With a look of utter contentment, Baraka lifted his arms up with enough force to crack through several of Cage’s ribs as they tried to stop the blades. Finally, a rib held and Cage was lifted off his feet. He gasped, trying to breathe through torn lungs without the success. Shang Tsung stood up, quivering with rage.

“I said NO KILLING!!!!!” he screamed. “Until they’ve been defeated THREE TIMES! That was only twice!”

“What you mad about?” grated Baraka, the first time even Mileena had heard him speak. “Master Kahn just bring him back.”

“Yeah,” said Jax, hopefully. “Shao Kahn’ll bring him back.”

Kahn, seated on his throne, looked at the eager faces of the Earth’s defenders, and of Sonya, as she had been roused from her self-imposed trance, and was screaming obscenities at the mutant. “No.”

“No?!?” said Shang Tsung. “But he wasn’t supposed to die yet!”

After the day’s fights were up, Shang Tsung summoned Mileena.

“Master Kahn would like to see you,” he said.

“Now?”

“No, in about thirty minutes. First there’s something I would like to show you.” He led through the palace to a hall she’d never entered before. “This is where we keep the valuables of those we’ve defeated. Most importantly, the Mandalorian paintings.”

He brought her to a picture of a stern-looking man in an altered ninja outfit. “This was our first Mandalorian ally ever. Emperor Yuen. He was Number Three before you.”

“What happened to him.”

“He died.” Mileena rolled her eyes. “But this,” he said, stopping in front of a picture of a young, beautiful woman, “is what I wanted to show you. The last Mandalorian queen, Yuen Ming.”

There were several paintings of the woman. In one she looked very sad, her hair was down, her head was drooping, all that showed she was royalty was the silver circlet she wore. “That one was painted on the trip from the war back to Mandalore.”

In another of the paintings she was wearing what appeared to be fighting garb. Black pants, a green tank top, her hair in a braid, and she brandished what appeared to be a glowing bo. “See, she was a fighter, also, which is what made her so dangerous.

“And these, of course, depict her in her various queenly dresses, her face painted, her hair done very elaborately, her dresses unique, original, artworks, made only once, and only worn by her.

“All the power that this woman had, I’m offering to you. Do you understand how lucky you are now?”

Mileena knelt in front of Shao Kahn, listening.

“I brought you here, Mileena, because I’m am suspicious of Kitana?”

“Kitana? She hasn’t a treacherous bone in her body.”

“But she does, Mileena. We saw her speaking alone with an earth warrior. We fear she may have discovered the secret of her true identity.”

“What would that be, Master?”

“That she is not my daughter, that instead I killed her father when she was still a baby.”

“I understand, Master.”

“Watch her, Mileena, make sure she does not betray us. We know that you are faster, stronger, and stealthier than she.”

Shang Tsung stayed after Mileena had left. “Why didn’t you resurrect Johnny Cage? We can’t use him! He wasn’t defeated three times.”

Kitana found the answer at the back of the secret archives.

She had gone back up, after absorbing even the most boring historical parts of the book she had taken, and still wishing for more information about the planet she ruled by birthright.

She almost missed it. The room was huge, longer than the stretches they used to race sewer rats. Each Outworld rat was four times as large and far more bloodthirsty as the rats one would find on Earth, and the sport was a favorite due to the Outworlders’ violent natures, and the fact that one rat a race, at least, was torn apart by the others.

Even though each pile was small, the room still continued on for what seemed forever, each pile proclaiming the bitter, or glorious, depending what side you’re on, defeat of a civilization. Kitana almost started on the Narrative of Mandalore, wondering why the defeat of this one seemed to be considered such a victory. It had twice as much memorabilia as the other. Then, she decided to see how long the room was, to try and decipher how many galaxies Shao Kahn, the wretched beast of a creature, had taken over.

Jade was sitting in the Living Forest, oddly her favorite spot, sharpening her fans. Kitana’s were self-sharpening, truly unique pieces of art. The blades, made of a white metal that had been found only on Edenia and that was strong as the titanium-steel alloy praised on Earth, were put together that they appeared to be paper, up until the very moment they cut into your skin.

Jade’s were really poor imitations, easily dulled, made of reddish-brown metal that was not nearly as strong. She had many more fans, as she had no telekinetic skills to bring her thrown fans back and had to rely on the fact she could hide them and their holders from view, making it seem they magically appeared to the ignorant. She cursed as the blade on her fan broke, yet again, and she would have to find a replacement. She was just getting up to leave when she heard a familiar voice.

“Jade? Are you here?” It was Kitana. She soon appeared from around the corner on Jade’s secret path, seen only by those she wished to see it. She was holding a scroll in her left hand. The tension washed off her face as she saw the green ninja woman. “Jade,” she said, her relief evident in her voice as well. “I need your help. She held up the scroll. “I need you to give this to an Earth warrior.”

“Why?” Jade crossed her arms and tried to look uncooperative. She knew she had to do it; she had learned long ago that just as she could not disobey Shang Tsung, she could also not disobey Kitana, but she didn’t need Kitana knowing that. Jade didn’t think she was the kind who would take advantage of that sort of thing, but one never knew.

“I read the book. I need to get my revenge on Kahn, and I’m going to help the earth warriors, but you mustn’t tell anyone. If you value my friendship at all, and respect my wishes, even if you do not help me in this quest, please don’t betray me.”

Jade was shocked. Friendship? A friend? Not colleague, not partner, not servant. Friend?

“I would never betray you, Kitana. And I will help you, by all means.” Jade held out her hand to take the scroll. Kitana slowly reached over and placed in her outstretched palm. Jade closed her fist around it. “I will accomplish this task, Princess. I promise.”

You idiot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sub-Zero was already in the living forest, trying to ignore the trees’ faces as he stretched, when Mileena arrived for their fight. She looked around, marveling at the odd curse that had caused the trees to become alive, when she saw a flash of bright emerald behind a tree. She looked closer and saw there was a slight drift of smoke from behind the same tree. She slowly backed away, staring at the tree. Finally, she saw the green more clearly—Jade—and the source of the smoke—a ninja wearing the same uniform as Sub-Zero, but in gray, with odd plumes of smoke drifting away from his body.

Jade had something in her hands, and from the positions of the two ninjas, they were having some sort of conversation. The ninja in gray nodded, and Jade handed the object she held to him. It was about the same size as one of her fans, but it was not quite the same, as there were knobs on the sides, and some sort of yellowed material rolled around the poles. A scroll? wondered Mileena.

She had no more time to wonder about the subject, because Kahn’s voice suddenly appeared from no where; apparently they’d judged that the others were ready, and they’d waited on Mileena long enough.

“Fight!”

The two fighters circled for a long while, before Mileena became too impatient and attacked first. What ensued was a battle of who could punch and kick fast enough to penetrate the other’s guard. Mileena was quite surprised at the speed of the ninja. He had been holding back in this area in his other fights. He hadn’t needed to be extraordinarily fast. Mileena hit him with more strikes than he did her, and he began to waver.

She thought she had it won, after she managed to fit a spinning crescent kick in and it sent him a few feet away. He jumped back to his feet, not as quickly as before, and she was aiming a roundhouse kick, when he suddenly leaned back, lifting his foot out of the way, and covered a meter circular area with ice.

Mileena slipped on the ice, flailing her arms and trying to keep her balance until the thin layer melted. She needn’t have worried about that. He struck with two quick roundhouse kicks, one to the ribs and another to the head and followed it with a spinning hook kick, without ever setting his left foot down.

Rather than let this opportunity slip away, Sub-Zero flipped after Mileena, and as she rose, he grabbed her shoulder, stuck his foot in her gut, and rolled backwards, letting go at the end.

Mileena stood up, and backed away slowly. Sub-Zero stayed in his spot, having already risen, and they were both glad for the mutual agreement to take a short breather. And then, by accident or luck, Mileena’s mask decided to be belligerent for the first time in her life, and slipped off. Just as the gray ninja was leaning from behind a tree.

He saw her face, and Mileena saw a look of shock register on it. The second time she’d been unmasked, the second expression of shock, and the second Lin Kuei ninja. What is it with these Lin Kueis? Do they have a goddess that looks like me or something?

Jade dropped in on Mileena again that night. Mileena decided not to mention the secret meeting in the woods. How could a scroll possibly hurt someone?

“There’s something I must show you.” Jade beckoned for Mileena to follow, then jumped back into the hole on her ceiling. Reluctantly, but realizing she really had nothing else to do, Mileena followed. They traveled through pitch-black darkness for several minutes, and just as Mileena was beginning to wonder if they were lost, a light appeared. As they approached, it grew brighter to become a slit in the wall. By the glowing light, Mileena could see Jade signal to be silent with a finger to her mask. She lay down by the hole peering through it. Mileena did likewise.

“Take my hand,” said Jade. “We need to be invisible so we are not spotted. This hole is not very well protected.” The other ninja obeyed, and she found that being veiled by someone’s natural talent was much preferable of the invisible robe.

They were looking down at a room that Mileena had never seen before. There was a giant tank inside of it, with a technologically advanced console that seemed completely out of place in the midst of the ancient demon runes that decorated the walls of the chamber.

“A computer,” Mileena wondered aloud.

“It’s keeping her alive while she finishes growing. You can’t see her from this side, but you can from the other. And I cannot take you down there because I cannot make two people intangible and invisible at the same time. It’s too much of a stretch on my chi.”

“So why did you bring me here? I still have only your word that what you say is true. You could-“

“Shh! He’s coming.”

The door of the room opened and Shang Tsung walked in, followed by Baraka.

“Even though you have been bad, I still am going to give you your present,” the necromancer was saying. He walked around to the back of the tank, and pressed on the buttons. Baraka was on the other side staring in fascination.

A light blinked on the edge of the tank for a full minute. Then the door opened, and Shang Tsung walked back around to the front.

It stepped out of the tank, long black hair, mutant teeth, and completely naked.

“I thought you would like her,” said Shang Tsung. “I call her Mileena, after her ‘mother.’”

Sitting up in the hidden passage, Mileena hissed. She began to lunge forward, maliciously, but Jade put her hand up.

“What are you doing? You can’t fit through that hole,” she whispered.

“No,” replied Mileena, drawing a sai, “but this can.”

Jade grabbed the wrist of the hand she was holding it with, and wrenched it around. Mileena dropped the sai, and it clattered to the floor of the secret passage. Then Jade rolled onto her back and threw Mileena away from the opening using her wrist as leverage. Mileena hit the ground with a thud.

Shang Tsung looked up sharply. Then he ran out of the room, leaving Baraka leering at his new lover.

“He’s heard us,” said Jade, rising from her spot near the opening. “Quick.”

“No,” said Mileena. “There’s a faster way. Take my hand again.” Jade obeyed without question, and Mileena teleported to her room. She let go of Jade, and teleported again, to her room.

She put away her letter, then looked up. To her horror she saw the secret passage still open. What I wouldn’t give for Kitana’s telekinetic powers. She quickly teleported to the passage, and slid the tile back in place. Teleporting back into her room, she slid into the Chinese splits, and reached over backwards, stretching for her back foot, as Shang Tsung slammed open her door.

He looked rather disappointed in finding her there. “Have you been here for the last hour?”

“But of course,” she said, sitting up from her stretching position. “I have to practice for the tournament.”

The sorcerer raced back out the door, in the direction of Jade’s room, without even shutting the door.

The raven-haired girl laughed as she evaded an adolescent boy’s pitifully slow attacks once more.

“You must not telegraph your movements,” said the tall thin man, not to his daughter, but to his main pupil, the Li’s eldest son. “And never forget to watch her eyes. They can betray her intentions, and you can use peripheral vision to see everything else. If you look down at her feet, she will punch you in the face, and you will never see it coming.”

The girl smiled and effortlessly swung in two fast kicks, that connected lightly with the boy’s padding, then she spun away.

THUD, THUD, THUD.

In the depths of her brain, something surfaced that made Mileena stop and think to herself, I don’t remember that happening.

She opened her eyes, slowly and heard the sound again, though not near as loud. A rather nervous sounding knock on the door, as if the person knocking was afraid of the resident actually opening the door, which quite ruled out Kitana. And Jade would have probably dropped in through the ceiling, or walked through the door.

She finally reached the door, and opened it. A rather nervous looking ice ninja stood there, trying to decide whether what he wanted was worth the effort. He was holding something gray.

“What do you want?”

He stood there for a long time, until finally taking a deep breath and thrusting the object into her hands. “I thought you might like to have this.”

She looked down at it. It looked rather gruesome, demonic. It was a small stone statue of some kind of imp. She held it up and looked questioningly at Sub-Zero.

“Why would I want this? It’s a demon.”

“No,” he corrected. “It’s a gargoyle. They used to put them on cathedrals to scare away demons.”

“Does it work? I actually saw something like this in the underworld.”

“Does a dream catcher work? It’s symbolic. My mother gave it to me to bring, but I think you need it more than I do.”

“Well, I’m asking it there was some sort of guarantee, so I could sue you if it doesn’t work.”

“I’m not Sony, and that’s not a CD player.”

Mileena smiled. “Thanks.” Sub-Zero nodded his head, and swiftly left. Mileena shook her head. She shut the door and started to walk back to her bed. On an impulse, she turned it over, to look at the bottom. There were a one word carved there, ‘Syada,’ followed by a sign in a different language. She realized it was Mandalorian writing, the language they’d used in her village, and that the Demon Master had later taught to her as the Forbidden Language, used by his enemies. However, she didn’t recognize the word. Somehow, from the back of her memory, she recognized that the two went together, and she knew she’d heard someone say the word to her before, but she could not remember who, or why.

Later that night, in the morning actually, she had another dream.

The tall thin man gathered the raven-haired girl and the other little girl in his arms, and hugged them. “Syada,” he said in Mandalorian, then in Mandarin added, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

The Book of the Dead lay on a table made from marble slat supported by Shokan femur bones. A vile that had once contained a liter of thick, red liquid sat next to it.

Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung waited, having just finished the last step in the resurrection process.

“You’re sure Cage’s blood was sufficient?” asked Tsung, miffed, a little at the waiting time, a lot at the unidentified visitors he’d had in the cloning chamber. Kahn did not have time to answer the question, because there was a bright flash of crimson, and as the smoke settled they saw a shape.

It did not appear to be the demon they had set to bring back to life. It was rather rectangular with points sticking out from an odd shape at the top. Then, they saw a creature rise from the odd shaped thing. It walked out to greet them, and they realized their mistake. The odd shape was a dragon shaped pallet.

The creature was their intended target. He was rather short, wearing flowing robes, and a ram’s horn headdress. “I have returned from the depths of hell, back to continue the fight against out enemies. And I am quite disappointed in your lack of progress since my unfortunate departure.”

It had been far too long since Tsung had heard that voice, and he had to keep himself from laughing at the woman’s voice the powerful demon used, due to the fact he was, indeed, a eunuch. But anyone who had any kind of sixth sense could feel the power that radiated from him, and it was more than enough to stop the sorcerer’s amusement from increasing.

“Master,” he said, “We do have a plan. But first, may I ask how you died?”

“You do not need to know sorcerer. They are on earth, they cannot hurt you when you’re on Outworld.”

“Simply curiosity, Master.”

“Is this plan one of yours, necromancer?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then perhaps I should consider promoting you again if it works, Shang Tsung.” He started to walk back to his pallet.

“Yes, that would be most gratifying.” Shang Tsung gave Shao Kahn a smile that was the epitome of their backstabbing relationship.

Eighteen of the nineteen missing babies were recovered; only two babies were killed during the entire adventure. The police took partial credit for the recovery, Inspector Lau dubbing us the Heroic Trio. And we were esteemed heroes, even if we caused the city a lot of money to repair that block we had basically destroyed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Syada, syada, syada. What in the universe is syada? Mileena was still being bothered by this word. She knew what it meant, and she knew she knew what it meant, but she could not manage to bring it up out of the depths of her mind.

“...Outworld to Mileena!” yelled Shang Tsung.

She sat up suddenly, a little embarrassed that she’d been daydreaming.

“Now that we’re all awake, we can start. Reptile and Jax are out of the tournament; Johnny Cage has been killed. Scorpion, Kitana, Baraka, Kung Lao, and Raiden all only have one more chance. Sub-Zero has only been beaten once. After today’s first fight either someone will no longer be in the tournament or someone will no longer be undefeated.”

Liu Kang started to rise. “No,” laughed Tsung. “This fight is between Baraka and Mileena.”

Mileena and her new enemy had hardly reached the arena when Shao Kahn declared, “Fight!”

The mutant lunged at her with his arm-blades. Mileena flipped over him and kicked backward with one foot as she landed, slamming her heel into the back of his head. He fell flat on his face, and she ran toward him, lifting him up and leaning over backward, slamming him into the ground. She followed her throw with a sweep kick that knocked him off his feet, and an uppercut.

She began to pace toward Baraka. He rose quickly and, when she was in range, slashed at her neck with his blade. Mileena stepped further back along the blade’s path, forcing the top of her right forearm into the bottom of his, holding it up. At the same time, she swung her left leg in a wide crescent until it ended up on top of the blade, where she slammed it to the ground with an axe kick. The blade snapped completely off Baraka’s arm and he screamed in pain, though he—and the audience—wasn’t sure what happened, as it had happened too fast for them to see.

Mileena spun around and forced Baraka away with a spinning side kick to the face. She flipped back, gaining herself some space, which she used to throw her sais at Baraka. He managed to dodge the left one, but the right impacted into his left shoulder, severing the muscles that allowed him to extend the blade he still had.

Once the threat to her throat’s continued existance was gone, Mileena engaged herself in a semi-close quarters fight, smashing powerful kicks and punches into various parts of Baraka’s body. As Baraka was beginning to lose the ability to concentrate on his opponent, Mileena twisted her body and hooked the side of her elbow into his cheek. She continued to spin, following the strike up with a backhand punch to the temple. Baraka fell and did not rise.

Mileena pulled off her mask. She leaned down and grabbed Baraka’s stained shirt, wrenching him to his feet. She leaned forward, and to everyone’s disgust planted a kiss the side of his bald head. She picked up one foot and bent it back toward her hip as something odd began to happen to Baraka. He seemed to shrink, and she sucked him up into her mouth. When he was completely gone, she turned around spit out his bones. She turned around and faced the audience.

Everyone stared at her. Shao Kahn forgot to declare her victory. At last, Shang Tsung spoke.

“Well,” he said, obviously disturbed, “we’ll take a twenty minute break.” He almost ran out of the arena, followed, more slowly, by Reptile and Shao Kahn.

Mileena walked up to the others. They all had wide-eyed stares of disbelief, staring at her. Jax recovered his voice first.

“You ate him.”

“Hmm?”

“You ate him.”

“No. Actually I didn’t. Would you like me to explain?” All seven fighters nodded. “When I kissed him—and there was a reason for that but I don’t feel like explaining—it looked like I sucked him up. But, actually, at that moment I was teleporting his bones away—that’s why he kind of deformed. Then I teleported the rest of him where I had sent the bones—the middle of the wasteland—and brought his bones back, making it appear they came out of my mouth.” She shrugged. “It’s really not that difficult.”

“What on earth, or Outworld, I guess, made you come up with a crazy idea like that?” asked Kung Lao. He never got his answer, for at that moment a flash of bright emerald came out of nowhere and landed on Liu Kang. It forced him to the ground, where he struggled with a dangerous looking dark-skinned female ninja with bronze fans. Jade had one of the fans aimed toward his throat, and as she swiped right, Liu Kang forced his right hand in the opposite direction, where he grabbed her by the wrist, holding the deadly fan away from his neck, and struggling to make her drop it.

Still pushing on the fan, Jade reached down toward another of the many stashed in her boots. Liu Kang likewise grabbed that wrist and shoved his foot into her stomach, rolling backward and flipping her away from him.

Kung Lao and Mileena each kicked a fan from her hand as she was standing back up. Jax caught her right wrist and twisted it behind her and up toward her shoulder, almost to the point of breaking. Kung Lao grabbed onto her other wrist and held it with a death grip. Mileena tried to get the other fans from her boot, but Jade’s kicking feet prevented her, so she settled for grabbing one of her legs. The other kicked her in the soft spot under her chin, and broke her grip, sending her sprawling on her back, coughing.

A hooking kick connected with Kung Lao’s stomach, and would have hurt a lot more if he hadn’t seen it coming and started to duck. He still gripped her wrist with both hands.

Liu Kang and Raiden approached carefully to help, but Sub-Zero stopped them. He addressed Jax and Kung Lao. “Let go on my mark.”

“Are you crazy?” asked Jax.

“Trust me,” said the ninja, a little annoyed. “3, 2, 1...” He crouched and released a blast of ice. “...Mark!” Jax and Lao let go, and the blast connected with Jade before she could move, freezing her.

Kitana suddenly came back from where she had been, though no one noticed her absence, carrying some rope. As soon as the ice melted, eight warriors tackled Jade at once, pinning her down in a chair as Kitana and Raiden tied her to it, and Mileena finally was able to remove all her fans and set them aside.

Kitana addressed the very irate green ninja. “Jade, what are you doing?”

“Killing Liu Kang,” she whispered.

“Pardon me if I’m wrong,” said Mileena, “but wasn’t it you who told me not to kill any warrior with good intentions for everyone’s sake?”

Jade glared up at Mileena. “Shang Tsung ordered me to. Do you think I could just disobey him like nothing was going on?”

“Jade,” said Kitana, “you’re a person. You have just as much ability to disobey as any of the rest of us.”

“No, I don’t,” she replied. “And no I’m not.”

“What are you saying?” asked Kitana, lowering herself into the chair next to Jade.

“I’m saying,” she replied angrily, “that there are two people in this universe that I simply do not have the ability to disobey. One is Shang Tsung.” She lowered her head. “The other is you, Princess.”

Kitana looked at Jade in disbelief. Kung Lao asked the next question. “What is that other thing you were saying, about not being a person?”

“That’s part of the reason why I can’t disobey them. I’m not an Edenian person. I’m...” Her voice began to quaver, like she was...crying? “I’m a...just a,” she swallowed, and finally spit it out. “Kitana’s clone.” She choked and began to cry harder. “He took some of your genes. Kahn always thought you had a most marvelous heritage. He wanted more than just one of you. And Shang Tsung has this thing with cloning—he loves playing God.” She looked up at Kitana, drops of salt water trailing from the corners of her eyes. “He changed me, a little. He darkened my skin to normal Edenian standards instead of your half Mandalorian, half light-skinned ancient Edenian royalty. He also changed my abilities, decided to give me intangibility and the almost non-existant actual natural invisibility, not like Reptile’s chameleon camouflage.” She lowered her head down almost to her lap, covering her face. Her voice came out muffled when she spoke again. “The whole reason I’m here is to cheat; to keep the Earth warriors from winning at all costs—even murder.”

Kitana didn’t know what to think. Her best friend, her partner, her confidante, not real? A clone? As in evil replicas of nature created by Shang Tsung?

“I say we kill her,” said Liu Kang. The others started to agree, all except Kung Lao and Sub-Zero, who wanted to make sure she couldn’t hurt them, but not murder her, and Mileena, who’d been in situations all too similar to not be able to look past the fact she was a clone to the truth—she had to. And if she really wanted to kill Liu Kang, she could have stayed invisible and simply decapitated him before anyone else could do anything about it.

Kitana was startled out of her reverie by their agreements to slit her throat. “No! You can’t! She helped me.”

“She tried to kill me,” said Liu Kang.

“She had to! You heard her. She couldn’t disobey Shang Tsung.”

“How do you know? She could be lying.”

Kitana sat there for a second. She stuck out her tongue and attempted to touch it to the tip of her nose, not successfully. Kung Lao raised an eyebrow at her unexpected behavior.

“Jade,” said Kitana, “I order to stick out your tongue and touch it to the tip of your nose.”

Jade stuck her tongue and attempted to do so, falling short. For several minutes the others watched at the ninja attempted the simple feat, trying everything she could think of to stretch her tongue out longer. Eventually she began to strain against her ropes, so she might use her hands to assist her.

“Okay, Jade, you do not have to do this anymore.” Kitana crossed her arms and legs and looked back to Liu Kang. “Satisfied? Good.” She looked around, and when she determined that Reptile was nowhere in the area, she continued. “Jade helped me, as I said before. I got the rules to the tournament—the new ones that might have loopholes. I gave them to Jade, and she gave them to one of you.”

“If Jade gave them to one of us,” said Liu Kang, disgusted, “then where are they?”

“You don’t have them?” asked Kitana, genuinely surprised. “Jade, you can’t disobey me. Where are they?”

“I gave them to Smoke! I swear! I did it to give less of a trail back to you, Kitana. He was supposed to get it to one of them. Please believe me,” Jade pleaded.

“I did see her give something to a gray Lin Kuei ninja when I was in the Living Forest for my fight with Sub-Zero,” said Mileena, matter-of-factly.

“Smoke’s here?!?” Sub-Zero said, and everyone was quite amazed at the volume of his voice, the loudest they’d ever heard it. “During our fight? And I missed him?” He slapped his palm against his forehead and sank down into his chair.

“I still say we kill her.” Liu Kang was not amused, as most of the rest were.

“Liu Kang,” said Kitana harshly, “Isn’t it a rule on your planet ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Well it was on Edenia, and I am not going to let you kill her until it is proven that she destroyed the rules.”

“Kitana?” asked Jade, “How do you know that was a rules on Edenia? It was taken over when you were a year old!”

“Be quiet, Jade,” she ordered, still glaring at Liu Kang.

“I would have to agree with you, Kitana,” said Kung Lao, “and don’t mind my friend here. He’s a Fire elemental. It’s the equivalent of a woman having PMS—except all the time.”

“Well,” said Mileena, “as long as we’re having this whole confession session. I have one question to ask. Subby, what in the worlds happened to you? You are so much different than anything I’ve ever heard about you. What is going on?”

“Uh...that was two questions, Mileena.”

“Shut up, Kung Lao.” She turned and faced Sub-Zero again. He had his face buried in his hands.

“You know,” he said, suddenly sitting up, “I wasn’t actually expecting to get this far. It’s not like we’re really that much alike or anything. He’s nine years older and almost eight centimeters taller than I am for crying out loud!”

“Who?”

“My older brother. The Sub-Zero who went to the last tournament.”

“Do they name all brothers the same?” asked Kung Lao, wondering about this odd little detail.

“Actually, I think I’m the only brother of a Lin Kuei assassin who’s also an assassin, but yeah, I guess if they were the same element and they couldn’t think up a better name they might as well. Causes confusion.”

“Yeah, to your mother,” laughed Jax.

“Okay, sure, ‘cause my mother named me ‘Sub-Zero’.” He rolled his eyes at Jax. “There’s only one reason why I agreed to come to this tournament.” He turned and looked straight at Scorpion. “What happened to my brother?”

"How are we supposed to fight in that?!?"

<small black dot>

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shang Tsung smiled. "Congratulations all on your survival in this tournament-"

"But not everyone survived," protested Jax.

"But they're not here for me to congratulate. Now if we're done with all our interruptions, we might just get done with today's events." He looked around expectantly, waiting for someone's comment. "Thank the master," he said when no one else spoke. "So what we have is Sub-Zero's victory over Kung Lao, disqualifying him from the tournament, and Liu Kang's victory over Raiden, doing the same, our stats are of course, Sub-Zero with two strikes, and Liu Kang and Mileena still undefeated. What suspense! Who will win? Will one die? Will one be maimed for life in a struggle that neither can afford to hold back in? It'll just have to wait for a while. Not even tomorrow."

Mileena lazily raised her hand. "I have an idea. How about we skip this nonsense and I fight you now."

Shang Tsung looked surprised, and a little confused. "What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

She pronounced her next words slowly and precisely, as though explaining something very simple to a small, mentally challenged child. "I, Mileena, challenge you, Shang Tsung, to a one-on-one fight."

"You can't do that," he protested a little desperately. He turned to Shao Kahn. "Can she?"

Kahn seemed to ponder this, then it almost seemed as though a smile grew under his mask. "Actually, I think she can. She is undefeated, you know."

"But, but…" Shang Tsung’s mouth moved, no audible arguments coming out.

"You aren't afraid of her, are you, sorcerer?" asked the emperor mockingly.

"Of course not." Shang Tsung straightened himself, flicked off his yellow jacket and strode into the arena. "Well, are you coming, Mileena?" he questioned, his ego impatient with its desire to protect itself. She flipped into the arena, landing lightly on both feet, and shifting into her fighting stance.

At Kahn's announcement to fight, Mileena again flipped forward. Tsung, expecting a kick, prepared to counter, but was caught off guard when she flipped past the point of attack and landed behind him, greeting his turning body with a swinging elbow and a spinning crescent kick. Tsung fell back, dropping to the ground and morphing into Johnny Cage.

This made no difference to Mileena. She swung her straight right leg in a crescent motion, first away from the other leg, then back toward, catching Cage-Tsung in the face with the side of her foot. Succumbing to her momentum, she jumped, spinning all the way around, attacking first with an inward crescent kick with the left leg, and then with another outward crescent kick from the right.

Recovering quickly, Cage-Tsung lunged forward, shoving the heel of foot into Mileena's diaphragm, Cage's patented Shadow Kick. As was the risk with using such special powers, Mileena recovered more quickly than Cage-Tsung did, snapping the ball of her foot out three times from a side stance, first at his thigh, then kidneys, and finally head, connecting with all three roundhouse kicks. Not letting her advantage slip away, she swung her foot forward above his head, only to smash is backwards with a hooking heel kick to the side of Cage-Tsung's face which had not yet been kicked. Though at this time, he was so stunned he morphed back into his normal body, Mileena was not finished. Still not resting her foot on the ground, she pulled it in close to her body and shoved outward, forcing all her strength into Tsung's mouth with her heel, knocking free teeth and splitting open his lip.

He fell backward, and backed away, crawling. Not trusting the sorcerer for a minute, not willing to let him regain his senses, nor needing a break herself, Mileena rushed forward, preparing to finish his beaten body off.

Then, as she was about to strike, without warning she froze, the trembling of her body the only visible movement. Grinning maliciously, Shang Tsung stood, flinging the blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. He landed one hooking punch, followed by an uppercut. Mileena fell to the ground, unable to move and therefore to stand, and the necromancer laughed.

"That'll teach you never to mess with me. You're mine; you cannot betray me. I own you. I have complete control over you. Never try such a thing again," he whispered, his threatening words not heard by the others.

"Shang Tsung wins."

Mileena hung her head as she carefully stepped into Shang Tsung's room. "You summoned me?"

"Ah, Mileena." He relaxed in a large chair, arms crossed, a smug look on his face. The woman crossed over to him, staring at the rug under her feet. The other frowned. "Why the glum look? We still win." He laughed.

Yes, but do I want you to win? thought Mileena, biting her lip so she would not blurt it out. Shang Tsung still didn't know she had killed the Master and wished Outworld's defeat.

"Well, we all want this tournament to be over already. We're not sure whether you can beat Liu Kang. Oh, you probably could at best form, but if you even sneezed or something minor like that, you might lose. It's a fight I wouldn't want to risk anything of value on. But there is a way that we will win immediately. You must kill an earth warrior."

Just as Jade warned me. "But Johnny Cage is already dead," she softly reminded him, hoping to free herself from this task, "Why must we kill another?"

"First of all, Cage isn't exactly prime for our needs; oh, he will work, just not as well, as he wasn't killed according to the rules. Secondly, this warrior is needed for a completely different reason. If you kill him, we automatically win. No more fighting. Done, end, over, finished."

"So you're saying I have to assassinate Liu Kang. Jade already tried that. It didn't work. He's never alone. Especially now."

"No, no, no, Mileena," he sighed, "you're not assassinating anyone. You're fighting-"

"But you said I might not be able to defeat Liu Kang."

"What makes you think you're fighting Liu Kang?!?" exploded Tsung, frustrated.

"He's the present Mortal Kombat Champion. Shouldn't I have to defeat him to win?"

"I have a better idea. Why defeat him, and then whoever else nine more times, when there is a person you can fight who will both give us the honorable blood we need, the right way, and win, even more than the tournament, for us."

"Isn't that against the rules?"

Shang Tsung smiled, the most wickedly happy smile Mileena had ever seen. "In this case it isn't. You will kill Sub-Zero. And we will win. And we will not even need our former plan anyway. And then you and I will be married. And everything will be very, very good."

Mileena stepped out of Shang Tsung's room and collapsed against the wall outside the door, inexplicably upset, balking at her orders. Get up, she yelled at herself, and pushed away from the wall continuing down the hall.

She wandered for what seemed like hours, until she finally looked around to notice she was nowhere near her room, having taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Not even caring anymore, she threw herself against the wall and slid down, collapsing into a heap. After a few seconds of total thoughtlessness, she fell asleep, exhausted from the day's events.

An undeterminable time later she awoke, and after wondering at her surroundings, remembered why she was there. She had to kill Sub-Zero…Lifting her head, she brushed away the locks of hair that had fallen in her face as she'd rested her head on the cool tile floor. She looked down at the floor, examining her disheveled reflection in the shiny surface.

A drop of salty water dripped onto her hand. Another on the reflection's face, disrupting the image.

She could just lose, except that she would never allow herself to throw a fight. And oddly, the thought of Earth being conquered, or even something worse than that, was not as unappealing as the thought of killing Sub-Zero.

And she didn't know why.

What's wrong with me? He's my enemy. So he's kind of cute, all shy and stuff, and he did give me a present, but he's hardly Yuan! She gritted her teeth and violently threw her head back against the wall, welcoming the pain as she knew what this wave was from. Pull yourself together, Ching.

She rubbed at her eyes, trying to stop the tears. And then she saw a flash of color. She traced the painted canvas, past the bottom border of Mandalorian scripts, into the portrait.

A woman stood in a fighting stance, one leg stretched out behind her, the other bent. She wore tight black pants and white, sleeveless top. Camouflaged with the pants were the almost knee-high black boots she wore. A small pin was emphasized on her right shoulder, almost seeming to gleam. Her jet-black hair was in two long, thin braids. The arm farthest away from the artist was upraised, holding a short, bright blue blade of some sort; the artist had perhaps tried to make it seem as though it…glowing? The other hand held a similar blade, but straight out from her body, forming a line parallel to the ground. Despite the fact that the woman was facing right, her head was turned so she just barely missed facing the artist.

Along the top were huge Mandalorian characters, much larger than the others, and she wished she could read them. In a smaller image in the bottom the woman was wearing a pure white, hooded dress, with a Mandarin collar, for unimaginable reasons.

But these were not the things that almost stopped Mileena from breathing. The woman was nearly a mirror image of herself. The portrait was large enough, and the artist talented enough, that this was manifest. The only apparent differences were the color of the woman's eyes, as one was a dark blue, and the other a teal, and the fact that she had no long bangs drifting across her face.

Mileena stared at the image for many minutes. First she thought she had stumbled across a portrait of Kitana's mother, but then she would have been wearing something a little more stately, wouldn't she? Besides, she could barely see a picture of the Mandalorian Queen farther down the hall. Somehow, she'd stumbled into the gallery of Mandalorian paintings, the area that mocked the fallen leaders of their civilization as it depicted their most sacred images.

It had seemed as if Shang Tsung had cut short his tale of the 'scum,' possibly not wanting Mileena to see her elder duplicate.

Finally, the woman in the hall rose. She slowly exited the gallery, not having the energy or will to even lift her feet.

Before she even reached her room, Mileena had decided what she must do. She'd tried this before, but this time, she had the motivation to do it herself.

But first, she must finish her tale.

Dressed in her white wedding dress, her raven hair wrapped in a short, wide bun that hugged her head, the woman sometimes known as Mileena hurriedly finished her letter. She wrote the last words to the person she had loved, and loved still, and paused, her pen set on the line after the very last, not sure how she should sign it, not knowing her full name, and 'Ching' not sounding serious enough for her attitude.

It doesn't matter, she finally decided, He's not going to get it anyway.

She very carefully closed the red leather book, so she would not smudge the last bit. Gathering the extra fabric of her dress, she rose, approaching a small wooden table. She opened the black case on the table and pushed away the layer of purple velvet from one side of the case, revealing a gleaming silver sai. Carefully, as though holding a small child, Mileena lifted the sai from its resting-place and placed against her index finger, testing its point. A small drop of blood dripped from her fingertip and ran down the slick surface of her white skirt, as she sank to an empty spot on the smooth wooden floor, away from any expensive rugs, rugs that might have been precious heirlooms of conquered societies.

She positioned the tip of the blade just under her left breast, gripped the leather handle of the weapon tightly, and took one deep breath, preparing to plunge it through her heart.

"They're going to kill him anyway."

Mileena opened her eyes, looking toward the doorway, where a tall thin man in a gray Lin Kuei uniform stood. He casually leaned against the doorframe, the scroll given to him by Jade and a mysterious envelope tucked into his belt.

"What do you know?" she retorted, internal pain straining her voice.

"Some," he said, not moving from his position. "For instance, if you kill yourself, they'll simply resurrect you again. You can't win. They'll kill him anyway, just differently. And they'll probably kill you too, forever, but do you really want your quest to end your life to end his, as you'll still be killing him, if indirectly."

"Why should I care about him?"

"If you don't, why are you committing suicide?"

"I'm being forced to marry an evil creature. Is that not reason enough?"

"That's not until after the tournament, unless I'm mistaken. Why are you lying to yourself?"

"Why are you bothering me?" cried Mileena, losing control. Her hands were shaking tremendously, and she barely flinched in pain, as she felt her knife puncture her skin.

Seeing this, the gray ninja finally moved, slowly walking toward the woman until he was very close. He squatted down next to her and gently took the sai from her hand. Surprisingly, the female ninja did not resist.

"Because you look exactly like your mother," he said at last, "lietei…”

"Wha…." Mileena trailed off, cowering away from the ninja as a different, yet strangely similar scene entered her head unbidden.

The raven-haired girl stared at a tall thin man in a gray ninja's uniform, instructing the adolescent boy he spent all his efforts on. "Daddy?" she murmured.

The ninja spun, startled to see the little girl, and even more surprised that she could tell who he was underneath his mask. He sank to the floor in a cross-legged position and pulled her into his lap. "What are you doing here, lietei?" he said, using his pet name for his younger daughter.

"Why are you wearing that?" She reached up and pulled off his mask, disliking the sight of it by instinct.

"I have to, Ching. How did you get away from Her R--Mi--Mrs. Li?" He stuttered, used to calling his babysitter something different.

"I climbed out the window," she shrugged as if it were nothing. "I wanted to know where you went. Why do you always go away every night? I wish you would stay."

"I wish I could. I really do. Now you go on back to the Lis' house, okay? Syada."

Suddenly, Mileena jolted herself out of the flashback. "That's it," she whispered to herself.

"Hmm?" Smoke looked slightly confused.

"Syada. It means 'I love you,' doesn't it?"

"Well, yes…Why?"

She pointed over to a small shelf where a miniature gargoyle sat. "It's carved into the bottom of that."

Smoke looked at it, and recognizing it, slowly shook his head. "Strange child…"

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing you need to know…yet," he added under his breath. He reached over to her, brushing the stray hairs from her face. "The resemblance is truly uncanny."

"What happened to my mother?"

"Well, six months after you were born, I--we--umm…" The ninja stared at the ceiling, searching for words. Then he pulled the envelope from his belt. "Maybe this will explain it better."

Mileena slowly took the paper. It was very old, soft. Three strokes of the graceful Mandalorian script adorned the front. She carefully opened the envelope, noting that it had never been opened before; someone was saving it for her. The note inside was, too, written in the smooth characters. She gazed at it for several seconds, biting her lip.

"I can't read this," she whispered, handing it back to the gray ninja.

He took it from her, setting the sai he had been holding down beside him, and breathing deeply, began to read the aged letter to her.

'Hua Ching Sa, my beautiful baby daughter-

'I am hoping that you will never have to read this, that I can throw it away when we return to Mandalore. I am hoping that I will be right by you when your first tooth comes in, when you lose the first one. I am hoping that I will be right by you to braid your hair for your wedding. I am hoping you will be right beside me to kiss me one last time before I die of old age. But every instinct in my mind tells me this is not to be.

'I have always been blessed with the psychic gift. And I had a dream last night. First you must know that while I am writing this, we Mandalorians have just finished with a war. We are negotiating the peace treaties, and everything is going well, except for a small clan of rebels, but they are few, and our allies have become great.

'My dream was a warning. It almost seemed to be telling me that I mustn't protect the queen for my own safety. Yet I cannot do this. I have pledged to protect Her Righteousness. She is not only our beloved ruler; she is my best friend, and the person who has always been kindest to me. She had never looked up on me as a slave, always as a person, a friend.

'Maybe you do not remember in your time the burden that was the suffix of Sa, the suffix of the slaves. I am hoping that my efforts, the efforts of the other freed slave in the Honor Guard, and the many in the army, and even diplomatic corps, have already made Sa a title to be proud of. In case they haven't, dear daughter, I have bestowed my namesake unto you.

'I only ask two things of you, Ching. The first is that you work your hardest on glorifying the name of Sa in recompense of all the atrocities done to those carrying it before my adulthood. The second is very important. Serve your God, Yahweh, the God of Heaven with all your heart, body, mind, and soul. Destroy the evil you see. Do not let others drive you from the righteous course.

'I've lied to you. There is a third thing, and I do not have time to start over. I find it hard to apply this last instruction to you, as I am watching your tiny form sleep not far from the table I write this on. But it is also very important, possibly more important than the first (never the second, it should have been first). If you find true love, you mustn't let it get away from you. Devote yourself to tracking it down if you brush against it. If your soul mate must travel far away, follow him. Give up everything if you must. You will not regret it. If you lose him, you will, for the rest of eternity.

'I was lucky that my match had a similar goal in mind for his life, and that I could pursue mine alongside him. My husband is also an Honor Guard.

'Sweet child, if I do not survive these next few days, I am trusting your father will save this for you. I do not feel a need to write to your older sister. I feel you will be far more important eventually, I do not know why. Your father and I both know that you are mostly like the two prophesied girls who can delay the evil, but that should make you equal in importance. This is a fact that confuses me, but do take care of your sister. Let no harm come to her.

'This has been a most horrible war; I can only hope it is over. I feel otherwise.

'Please heed these things I have written to you. I love you, Hua Ching Sa.'

"In…truth…" Smoke began to choke, fighting back the tears forming from the painful memories of his late wife.

"She died just as she thought she would, didn't she?" whispered Mileena.

"Yes. She had the most reliable warning anyone could ever have--a warning from Yahweh--and yet she still had to protect the Queen. Not because anyone would have condemned her if she hadn't, but because her personal honor would not allow her to sit back and watch while anyone suffered needlessly." He looked to see Mileena shiver uncomfortably. "Are you all right?"

"I'm just, a little…shocked from everything. You know…I lost you so many years ago, and for you to just show up…It doesn't seem right."

Her father sighed. "Yes, well it's not over yet." He stood. "I'm going to try and find him."

"Who?" asked Mileena, but her father had already gone.

Leaning against the wall just outside Mileena's door, Sub-Zero watched as Smoke stepped out, and walked away, not even noticing him.

He bit the inside of cheek and stepped in.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mileena, harshly.

"I just…came to say hi…Ching."

She sharply retreated. Wrapping her arms around her legs and cowering, she whispered, "How do you…know my name?"

He reached toward his mask, then stopped, his hand wavering at chin level. He began to drop it, then looked down at her again, even terrified, she was so gorgeous, and he knew he had to do something… He closed his eyes again, took one deep breath, and swiftly, so he could not again hesitate, swept off the mask and hood.

Mileena screamed.

His eyes widened in fear, apprehensive of who might hear and decide to investigate, and he dropped to the ground, slapping his hand over her mouth to smother her cry. "Ching, please, don't be upset. It's okay. Calm down." He slowly released his grip on her.

She scuttled away from him, pushing herself up by the table. "You're dead," she whispered. Then louder, "You're dead. I watched you die!"

"Ching…." He held out one hand, slowly advancing, almost as one would approach a spooked horse.

She frantically launched a wild kick in his direction, forcing him to lean away, nearly falling from the momentum. He continued to stumble backwards, and watched as she sank back to the ground, sobbing in terror. He too, sat, his head hung low in defeat.

All this way for nothing…his brother dead…the second chance he would have never thought possible, and that he'd been so elated to find…a hysterical, disbelieving mess.

Closing his eyes in sorrow, he dropped his left hand to the ground, dragging the tips of his fingers…until a sharp prick made him instinctively jerk away. A small crimson dropped oozed from his index finger, and he could see the short red line forming across the skin. He stuck it in his mouth, the salty taste of blood coating his tongue, and glanced at the floor.

A gleaming metal sai lie there. Blood adorned the tip, dried; his own fresh blood was barely visible along one side.

He picked it up, forgetting his cut finger, and for the first time noticed the streak of red running down Mileena's otherwise perfectly white dress. He knew immediately what had happened. This could not continue.

But how? He glanced around the room, hoping for inspiration. A small red book was on the bed, a case on the table, the closet half open, revealed violet silk dresses, all of different cuts, and there was a shelf on the wall, containing a miniature gargoyle--his gargoyle--and a pot of flowers. He smiled at the thought that Ching had liked his present enough to place it on that nice shelf, alongside the flowers.

Flowers…

"Ching," he began, setting down the sai and cocking his head toward her, "Do you remember the flowers?"

She turned her head, brushing her hair out of her face and roughly rubbing her red eyes. "They're dead," she answered bluntly, "As are you."

"I'm not dead. And neither are the flowers."

"Yes they are," she argued tenaciously, "I left them in the lab without water. It's been a year."

"Okay, so they are now. But that'll be the second time, remember?"

Mileena inhaled sharply. "You did it, didn't you. You resurrected the flowers…Yuan, you resurrected yourself…"

"That's not possible, and technically, no. I wasn't ever dead. The flowers were, but plants are quite a bit different from animals, even in cell structure, there's several differences…I was almost dead. I knew I had no chance. So I thought, why not? Hey, it worked, didn't it? I was still alive--barely--when they found me…"

"You were dead," she stated, emphasizing each word clearly, "You were not breathing."

"Well, maybe there was some act of God, some miracle that helped me first, but what I did to myself did help, at least some…I don't know…Maybe you were supposed to think I was dead…." He shook his head, "Oh, never mind…."

"No, Yuan, you might be right. I would have stayed, and if I hadn't helped Tung and Number Seven…Look, they were about to die when I arrived. I am the one who killed the Master…and maybe I wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't thought you were…" she trailed off.

Sub-Zero forced a smile. "See? It was all for the best."

"You idiot!!" Mileena's sudden outburst was accompanied with an open-handed slap that sent Sub-Zero sprawling on the floor. "How can you say that? I died that day! On the inside, if not the out. Do you know what I had to live for? Revenge. And then the amazing sense of freedom for the first time in a decade and a half. But even that didn't last very long."

"I didn't mean it that way," he assured her, mellowed. "I was just trying to cheer you up. I mean, I'm even less of a serious person that before. I've just learned to treat things lightly in order not to upset people. You know, after spending three months confined to my bed, and another two without being able to do anything athletic lest I cough up blood--I still do sometimes. It's not very fun," he added casually, shaking his head his almost in jest.

"I think I get it now. You were like this before, but not about having consumption." She shook her head, trying not to laugh at his reaction.

"Consumption!!" He clapped his hands. "Funny medical problems! I'm all about things like that."

"Yeah, which friend was it, 'I don't know what I have, and I don't know what Scurvy is, therefore, I have Scurvy.'"

"Oh, that was Yen Mu Lan. She's great fun. She's my other half, the person who taught me to interact with people, and who makes me talk. If it's me and Ying, very little talking."

"I wish I had any concept of who these people were. I never really had any real friends." Mileena half-smiled. "You seem to have great friends."

"Oh, yeah, but I don't have many. Romping about High School your second year proclaiming 'Calculus is easy' to anyone and everyone when many of the fourth year students are only in Trigonometry--a year before Calculus--is not a very good way to make friends," he admitted. "But I have a few good friends, all back home."

He looked back down at the ground, and softly added, "You know, your sister came back to Yanxubin, to visit your father, and she told me that you'd died. I was still in bed then, I was not happy. I'm lucky I have such great friends. I don't know what I would have done."

Mileena rubbed her temples, her head hurting now that'd she'd been crying, and then it hit her. "You live in the same town as my father?"

"Yeah…all Lin Kuei live in Yanxubin. One girl's boyfriend got killed the day before she graduated--"

"And he didn't just move there. And you have an older brother, a much older brother who my father trained. And your family's name is Li."

"Of course." He looked confused. "What does this have to with anything?"

"I just remember you from when you were little."

"Oh…that's bad…I wasn't too great--"

"I have to say the late beginning was worth the result."

Suddenly, the door opened, and in walked Smoke, carrying a very large mug of water. At the sight of his younger protege, he shook his head. "I knew it. I look everywhere for you, and where are you? Right where I started from." He set the water down in front of Subby.

"Well, you walked right by me." He picked up the water.

"Did you get enough?" asked Mileena sarcastically.

"Well, in all reality, I'm not sure," Smoke replied. "He did drink two liters of water in an hour once." Yuan nodded his head in agreement, gulping water at the same time. "It didn't help that we were on a bus trip to Beijing at the time," added the eldest.

Mileena sighed. "For a genius, you sure are an idiot." Yuan shrugged, still drinking from his glass. She watched him for a few more seconds before stressing, "Breathe, child."

He did. "What makes you think you have to right to call me 'child?'"

"The fact you're four years younger than I am." She patted him on the head. He glared at her half-heartedly, and she turned back to Smoke. "And why do they call you Smoke?"

"Because when I use my powers I emit smoke rings."

"Can you turn them colors and make designs?"

"Sure. I write my name a lot."

The younger ninja looked surprised, "Really? How come I don't know this?"

Mileena slapped her hand to her forehead. "For a genius you sure are an idiot."

"Didn't we already establish that fact? Besides, gullibility is not the same as stupidity."

"Yes it is."

Smoke cleared his throat. "You know, maybe the time has come to start being serious. What do you say?"

"Well, if you must," grumbled Yuan. "Shoot."