Chain 101: Mortal Kombat

Chain 101: Mortal Kombat
Location: Shang Tsung's Island
Identity: [+300] Drop-In, Human, Factionless
Drawbacks: [+800] Dead Or Alive, King of Fighters, Konquerer of the Multiverse

[Free]      Theme
[Free]      Kombat Style: Tai Tzu Long Fist
[Free]      Variation
[Free]      Stage Hazard
[300/2100]  Mortal Kombat!
[600/2100]  Fatality
[800/2100]  Blind Fighting
[1000/2100] To Hell
[1200/2100] Unsealing Ritual
[1600/2100] Lin Kuei Cyber Initiative
[1900/2100] Shang Tsung's Island
[2100/2100] Kompanion Import: Demona, Conspiracy

Kostume Supplement:
[Free]    Classic
[100/500] Klassy
[300/500] Cyber
[500/500] Godly

Having the unexpected pleasure of gaining an island under my control from the start made things rather... interesting. Being obligated to host the Mortal Kombat tournament, well, that was perhaps a bit less desirable. It might not have been so bad, but Raiden was definitely not Christopher Lambert, which indicated an inauspicious beginning to the tournament. It had a slightly more comic-book feel than I expected, but at least it kept it from feeling like a B-movie... which was good, because something kept screwing with my precognition, causing me to be blindsided. Things like, say, the assassins from Outworld trying to murder me to try and overtly seize control of the tournament, or the Lin Kuei abducting me halfway through the tournament to try and sway it in their favor, and turning me into some kind of freaky cyborg as a result. (Spoilers: it REALLY did not work out well for them.)

Or Raiden confronting me after my return asking who I even was, since he was sent back in time to save the world, and my existence complicated things immensely. As did the woman with the red hair that he didn't recognize. Or the legion of one thousand ninja on the island. I pointed out the plot twist to him, told him it was insufferably lame, and I came here with the intention of fully ending Shao Khan's reign as well as everyone under him. Heck, I might even just steal Outworld outright, for giggles. At least it would leave the Earth realm safe, after all.

>"You... have your own realm?"
"Of course I do, doesn't everyone?"
>"Why have I never heard of it?"
"Well, it wasn't here until I arrived, I'm not a local after all, I mostly just came here to kill Shao Khan."
>"...What?"
"Come on, if you can use an overwrought plot, I can do the same. I challenge him to Mortal Kombat, kill him, take Outworld, and split it up for kicks."
>"You realize that Mortal Kombat doesn't actually work like that, don't you?"
"Oh, it will, Raiden. It will. Besides, they lose, they have to start again from the beginning, but they can't very well do that when someone else challenges THEM, now can they?"

Of course, the actual getting to Shao Khan to DO this was a whole different battle entirely. Having talked Raiden into not interfering this early in the timeline, things went pretty much true to form with the Conspiracy foiling the assassination attempts before they could reach me for the most part, even if I kept my appearance mostly concealed post-cyberization. Or whatever they called it. Though it gave me a GREAT opportunity to study a lot of what I can do and figure out how to put it into mechanical format in a different way than I'd already figured.

After Liu Kang wiped the floor with Goro, I crowned him the winner, although Shang Tsung made an appearance in hopes of killing Liu Kang so he couldn't repeat it in the future. Instead, after Kang beat the crap out of Tsung, I dragged him to the portal back to Outworld and told him to inform his master of my challenge. Unfortunately, Shao Khan had stepped out of the portal behind me that led to Outworld, and I did not realize that he was a blind spot in my precognition until he replied, "Why wait?" And the battle was joined.

Demona and the Conspiracy evacuated the island, and if I'd had the opportunity I'd have remarked that it sounded like quite a good name for a band at that point. Unfortunately, that wasn't really possible - I discarded my limiters, since I couldn't see what Khan would do, but could see my death otherwise. And even that wasn't enough. The fight went back and forth and lasted longer than it had any right to. A military blockade was put in place by three nations' navies on Earth as we fought, to try to contain the violence, complete with occasional bombardments of cruise missiles, bombs, or naval artillery.

Stage hazards, I suppose one could have called them.

Khan died repeatedly. I KNOW he died, because I decapitated him twice and bisected him once. His remains immolated and he was reborn from the ashes, quite literally. Of course, by the same token, so did I - my soul bound to my horcrux, my body reanimating as it regenerated thanks to my connection to Demona, and taking advantage of the other scant methods I had of surviving an otherwise fatal experience... the fight turning into a series of endless escalations between the both of us. At one point I gained the upper hand and managed to move the fight to Outworld. His forces there tried to interfere, but it was fairly ineffective.

In the end, I failed to slay him, but he was well and truly defeated... after three years. Three. YEARS. THREE STRAIGHT YEARS. Of fighting. Of exchanging blows strong enough to shatter buildings, of the fight rendering my island little more than a very large lifeless rock, of a trail of destruction crisscrossing itself across Outworld and leaving scars even as Outworld's absorbed realms split apart under my will and were freed.

As for Shao Khan himself?

Rather than facing death in the end, once his power was finally stripped, he was made one of the guests of honor in my Helvault.

Death is too good for someone like him.