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Conflagration

Liu Kang's fingers danced through the air like a those of a master seamstress at an archaic loom. The digits touched nothing but air, but the responding glow from the great hourglass not an arm's length away indicated interaction. That lightshow and the thrums emitted from the hourglass were the only signs of its work mortal eyes could perceive. Liu Kang's senses were not so limited. He could see alternate branches in time just as he had when he attempted to interface with Kronika's timepiece without her crown. This time he did not feel the device shudder or splinter under his ministrations. His view into the branches was not infinite. Had it been so, Kronika's defeat would have proved impossible. Still, it had allowed Liu Kang enough forewarning to predict Shang Tsung's method of treachery and outwit him for the crown and the chance to make a better world for the people of Earthrealm.

Liu Kang looked out from the plateau down at what could barely be called a settlement at all. He could see some of its residents peacefully going about their work, unaware of the war host creeping upon them. The settled humans had begun to experiment with agriculture, allowing the community to stay situated and maintain its size. Its attackers had no knowledge of this wonder and would snuff agricultural progress out in this area for some years to come. None of settlement's people would survive. Millennia before the petty wars that would be commemorated in the oral traditions attributed to Homer occurred, uncountable years before humans would have words to describe massacres, this place would set the precedent for mass killings beyond battles between hunter gatherers for resources, breeding, belief, or pride. This was a place where civilization could have been saved rather than cut short to grow again elsewhere. Liu Kang had watched humans and their ancestors suffer enough without his intervention. It was time to make change.

As soon as the attack began, Liu Kang was upon the assailants. He called down lightning to blast the first to cross the border of the town. The attackers screamed and tried to kill Liu Kang, but their weapons had little effect. He fended them off easily, destroying a few of the attackers' most dangerous warriors. Those that did not immediately flee, Liu Kang cut down with fire. They screamed as flame licked their flesh, boiled their fat from their bodies, and blackened their corpses. Soon, no aggressors remained. The farmers, recognizing Liu Kang as divine, though uncomprehending of his true nature, fell on their knees before him and worshipped their savior.

Liu Kang attempted to guide them on their way. He could grant blessings like the healing of injuries, and though he would not rush his worshipper's technological progress, he settled disputes fairly. More early humans came and joined the community while others spread far and wide with the secrets of agriculture. Liu Kang ushered in a golden few decades for these people. That was until disease swept the settlements clean. The populations that were much denser this time around proved a fertile ground for an illness even a god of thunder and lightning who could mend the fiercest of wounds could not cure. Tribes that would have survived as hunter gatherers disappeared in the plague.

Liu Kang waved his hand, and the remaining strands of time from that timeline swirled from his mystic sight. His first failed experiment. He'd been undone by his own early acts of benevolence. Worse still, when he stepped from the plague-ruined civilization he'd tried to start and interacted with the titan's timepiece, he learned a horrible truth. Most of his friends would never be born. Indeed, his divinity was all that protected him from being wiped from history as well. Either the disease or his destruction of all raiders that threatened his people had eliminated his distant ancestors and those of so many other Earthrealm Warrios. The human race would eventually recover, but he'd set them back rather than started them forward, and what would come would not survive the trials of Earthrealm's Mortal Kombat to come. Like Raiden before him, Fire and Lightening God Liu Kang had failed. Worse, Kronika's crown needed to be charged with souls in order to restart the timeline. Liu Kang had not the knowledge necessary to save his realm nor any knowledge of how to circumvent such a horrible fuel for the magic. Not at that time.

"All is ready, Lord Liu Kang," A cold, haughty voice said from behind the Fire and Thunder God, drawing him from his recollection.

Liu Kang did not turn to regard Shang Tsung. "It had better be. There can be no mistakes this time."

"There will be none." Shang Tsung smirked at the back of former enemy. "At least, not on my part."

"Watch your tongue, sorcerer," Liu Kang said in a low voice.

"Or what? You'll kill me again? Perhaps erase me from time until you need me next?" Shang Tsung did not sound afraid. This was an old game between them by now.

Liu Kang watched as the sands of time coalesced into the form of the man he most hated. Shao Kahn had killed his best friend. Sindel had killed Liu Kang's great love. Shang Tsung, though, was the worst of the lot, a being so evil that Liu Kang erased him from existence rather than let the sorcerer threaten the realms again.

Shang Tsung gasped his first breath of air as his lungs struggled for life denied them not a second ago. He looked around in fear. The last thing he remembered was crawling away from the very being that stood before him now. "Stay back." Shang Tsung put up a hand as if to protect himself and staggered away from Liu Kang. That was when he paused. Shang Tsung remembered his hands turning to sand. Now he was whole. He then looked down and patted his chest as though looking for reassurance he lived.

"Do not think to command me, sorcerer." Liu Kang did not advance. He did not need to. The power in the room was his.

Shang Tsung looked around them at the inner workings of Kronika's lair. "What is this?"

"Where you ended. Do you not recognize it?" Liu Kang felt his smirk at the memory die in the face of what he had to do.

"It is. Yet it is not." Shang Tsung's face gave away his quick calculations. "A different time, however."

"Indeed."

Shang Tsung's confidence returned as fast as his body had. He let out a hearty laugh as he rubbed his chin. "I thought you aimed to erase me from time itself, Liu Kang?"

"I can still do that if you do not care for my mercy," Liu Kang said.

The sorcerer shook his head. "Not even you are so merciful as to suffer my threat. No, the only reason you would tolerate me is if I were needed, which means…." Shang Tsung trailed off and his eyes moved to the dormant crown on Liu Kang's head. "Which means you, oh God of Fire and Thunder, have failed."

Liu Kang raised a hand and lightning shot from his fingers, brining Shang Tsung to his knees with a pained cry. "Do not mock me." Liu Kang's voice boomed with power.

The sorcerer fell to his side when the lightning ceased. He panted for air and fought the urge to curl into a ball. "Hurt me, all you will," he managed to hiss, "but that does not change anything."

"Hurting you may make me feel better," Liu Kang said, taking a step towards his enemy.

Shang Tsung wheezed and cackled as he pulled himself along the floor away from Liu Kang. "To hear those words of wickedness pass your lips brings me great amusement."

Liu Kang halted in his tracks. He had said those words. In the moment he uttered them, he had meant them. "You seek to shame me?"

"You overestimate my power to do so." Shang Tsung fought to stand. "Only you have the ability to do that. How far the mighty and righteous has fallen."

Liu Kang raised a hand to blast Shang Tsung again but stopped just short of letting his power leave his hands. "Watch yourself."

"Of course. Where are my manners?" As soon as Shang Tsung righted himself, he gave Liu Kang a little bow. "What measure of my services do you require."

If Liu Kang were capable of feeling the urge to vomit, he had little doubt he would. "The crown." Liu Kang took the ornament from his head. "It needs to be powered to restart time."

A grin split Shang Tsung's face. "You must know what that means, oh great keeper of time."

"No. You will share with me the secrets of the crown. We will find another way." Liu Kang stood straighter as he spoke, which meant little considering he never slouched.

"Of course, why did Kronika not think of that. It would have saved her all the trouble of needing a treacherous snake like myself every time she wanted to start her great work. If only time could be captured some other way." Shang Tsung made a show of pondering this idea.

"You will help me find another way."

Shang Tsung hid his glee underneath a paternal countenance. "Of course. Let me show you how it works."

Liu Kang finally turned from his work and stalked towards Shang Tsung.

The sorcerer held the crown in his hands, his usual knowing smile plain to see. "Your crown, my lord." His tone at the pronouncement dripped mockery.

"I am surprised you did not come wearing it this time? No attempt to seize the hourglass this time?" Liu Kang did not relax, his body tensed for whatever trick the sorcerer had ready this time.

"I find your belief in my predictability insulting, my lord." Shang Tsung handed over the crown without a fight. "After trying to take your place using the power of the crown almost a dozen times now, you must admit that even I would realize the futility. When I betray you next, I do not want you to feel cheated by a repeat performance."

"Yes, like poisoning the interior of the crown with the bane of the gods." Liu Kang glowed, and his fires burnt away the poison. Then he inspected the ornament. "And warded it with a curse." He blasted away the hidden runes the hourglass warned him about."

"I also forgot to polish it. I hope you do not mind," Shang Tsung added as a polite addendum.

"I expected you to hide your armies better this time," Liu Kang said as he donned the crown.

"What can I say? We have grown so close in these many, many years. It is so hard to keep a marriage alive after nuptials grow stale."

"Save your taunting for one who cares," Liu Kang said as he floated up to the hourglass.

"Do you hear how he speaks to me," Shang Tsung lamented to the air. He walked over the board game set up in their lair. It was an Outworld strategy game far more complicated than chess. Shang moved a piece, then surveyed the board. "It appears that I have won."

"You sound surprised. That was always your game."

"You have an hourglass that would let you perceive my moves. You could have thwarted my strategy at any time," Shang Tsung said even as he basked in his minor victory.

"I am not cheat."

"No. You simply destroy timeline after timeline, allowing me to kill thousands and take their souls to fuel your next doomed attempt. Your failures must have surpassed Raiden's by now."

Liu Kang refused to even give Shang Tsung the small victory of a glare. "Do these petty attempts to rile me amuse you so?"

"It used to be so much easier." Shang Tsung crossed his arms over his chest. "Look at us, bickering like an old married couple. Sniping at each other over helpings of bitterness and poor choices."

"I'm sure that is an experience of everyone who has ever chosen you as a partner," Liu Kang said.

"Including yourself?"

Liu Kang frowned as is own barb came back at him. "We are in no way shape or form partners."

"Oh yes, I am just the one you use to do all your dirty work. I clean up your messes again and again like a servant. Come now, how does that not sound like some marriages to you?" Shang Tsung proceeded to reset the board. They may need it again soon.

Liu Kang waved his hands about, letting the soul-stored time flow into the hourglass. "Well, now that you mention it, there is a bitter old hag that continues to pester me."

"So you see me as the woman in this, do you?"

"Spiteful, manipulative, conniving, cruel, and an eternal nag, all while I set about the work. You are definitely the woman in this relationship," Liu Kang muttered.

"How terribly unenlightened of you to say such things," Shang Tsung mocked. "One would thing you had learned no lessons from all the competent women who have died under your care."

"There is only one woman I care about right now." Liu Kang's brow furrowed at the thought.

"So focused after all this time." Shang Tsung mad a tutting sound. "I am sure she would be flattered, if not somewhat disturbed. If you're feeling lonely during one of these timelines, I'm sure I could take enough of her soul to let you enjoy her shape."

Liu Kang glowed hot with anger and he whirled on the shape-shifting sorcerer. "You will do no such thing!" Thunder boomed in accompaniment to Liu Kang's outrage. Flames flickered from his body like the aura of an avenging angel.

The look of victory on Shang Tsung's face vanished. He lowered his head in grudging obeisance. "Of course. My apologies for…" he searched for the proper words, "dishonoring her memory."

"She is no mere memory." Liu Kang's fire still burned hot. "At least, she will not be for much longer."

Shang Tsung thought it wise not to add a "this time" to Liu Kang's statement. The truth hung in the silence between them without words.

"It was not supposed to be like this," Liu Kang whispered when he finally found her.

Kitana looked so small surrounded by the much larger corpses of her bodyguards, her limbs bent in awkward directions, what remained of her face slack and lifeless. Her seared flesh made half of her unrecognizable.

Liu Kang crouched beside her as he did all that time ago the first time he had seen her die. "I came to save you," he continued to say to the corpse as he took her in his arms. "I came to save your realm." Once again, he found himself cursing the foolishness of the elder gods at the side of his dead lover. This time they had done more than fail him.

"Is this what you wanted?" Liu Kang shouted to the sky despite knowing the Elder Gods could not hear him. They were dead. Liu Kang killed them in the war that created this bloody battleground out of what had once been beautiful Edenia. His armies, Kahn's armies, what forces the Elder god's marshalled, and the brave few Edenians that remained dotted the countryside. The wounded and dying moaned in agony or tried feebly to continue killing each other. The carrion eaters already descended for their many meals. "Were your rules worth this?" He had only come to Edenia's aid to prevent Shao Kahn from usurping the realm. Now, after centuries of war trying to prevent Kitana from growing up in a world of voice, Liu Kang had ensured that was exactly how she lived and how she died. So many realms consumed, all for this result. "Was any of it worth this?"

As though in answer, there was an electric hiss in the air. A plume of fire followed, snaking into an oval shape. Shang Tsung, his youth restored by the glowing crown on his head, emerged from the circle with a sneer of abject vindication. "All hail the conquering hero," Shang Tsung announced, throwing his hands wide.

"I am in no mood for your betrayal." Liu Kang let Kitana slump from his grasp. This was not quite true. He wanted most of all to have his love safe and alive. He could not have that, so sating his burning desire to enact violence would have to do. The Elder Gods were dead, so there was no great evil left to purge except for Shang Tsung.

"And miss this delightful moment of your utter failure? I think not." Shang Tsung let one hand slide behind his back in his favorite pacing stance as he started his back and forth walking. "I did warn you, didn't I?"

"Next time I will not allow the Elder Gods to get in my way. In this next world, I will not even allow their existence." Liu Kang's fists clenched, and flames wreathed his body.

"Another foolish move. Sadly, you will not get another chance. This next timeline will be mine to shape, and it is you who will not feature," Shang Tsung Said.

"I will again return you to the sands of time." Liu Kang noted that Shang Tsung had already charged the crown, meaning the sorcerer was of no more use in this timeline. "Never shall I allow your evil to spread."

"Don't you mean our evil? You are the one who has be ply my trade. All the crimes I have committed since you took the hour glass and your own mistakes, from you sacrificing your friends for your success to tearing asunder every failed timeline and all of its lives, fall upon your shoulders." Shang Tsung shook a chiding finger. "That's a body count that no single figure in this history could hope to match. One day you may reach even Kronika's tally."

"They are not dead," Liu Kang said in a firm tone. "They will live again when I perfect this universe."

"And now you begin to understand Kronika's madness. A version of them may yet live, but when you destroy a world, what do you think happens to those unique versions? No, you now stand above even the greatest of non-chronomatic mass murderers. I will dominate this new future, not seek to perfect it with the hourglass." Green light surrounded Shang Tsung as he took a fighting stance. "I will not fall to the timekeeper's illness. To think, that almost makes me the hero."

"You are no hero, Shang Tsung."

"Well, at least I am not the one who sought to mold the woman he loved in a previous life into what he wanted her to be from childhood to eventually become his lover. I believe the world and time you came from frowned on things like that." Shang Tsung tapped his lip. "Yes, come to think of it, that is even sick for me."

Liu Kang too took his own fighting stance. "This will be the last time we meet, sorcerer."

"Yes," Shang Tsung agreed. "It will be."

"What of Geras," Shang Tsung said, changing the subject from Kitana.

"The timeless one will be needed again. Save the designs for when we create this new era," Liu Kang instructed. "We will have plenty of time at the beginning of the universe to reconstruct him."

"I was hoping you would say that." Shang Tsung packed up all of the lore he had researched on the methods Kronika used to create Geras. As imperfect as all of their attempts to recreate him had been, this next time should get it just right.

"Fondness, Shang Tsung?"

"Does that surprise you?" There was no hint of mirth in Shang Tsung's voice. "I too value loyalty in my followers."

"Is that because you have none?" Liu Kang said, his stance relaxing somewhat. "I suppose a servant is as close as you will ever have to a friend."

"Or an enemy?" Shang Tsung gave Liu Kang a mischievous look for a moment, then sighed. "Geras reminds me of Goro."

"Yet another tool of yours."

Shang Tsung inclined his head. "Yes, but a friend I have missed these long years. I hope one day to see him again. A version anyway."

Liu Kang stared for a few moments before deciding to take Shang Tsung's humanity at face value. Of all the beings Shang Tsung mocked, he never counted among them his loyal island servants or Goro. Perhaps the sorcerer did have some perverted code. "I may yet spare him my wrath if we succeed this time."

"I assume we will be keeping a lower profile this time?"

"Yes," Liu Kang said. "As far as the Elder Gods will know, the hourglass is a myth once more, Kronika nothing but a story, and me simply the demigod of Fire and Lightning, protector of Earth who consults them for their wisdom."

"Leaving them sure they know best without ever knowing your true intent or powers." Shang Tsung gave a slow clap of approval. "You take to your lessons well."

"I had a despicable teacher." Liu Kang grimaced at the lows he had to sink to."

"It is either that or more deaths and restarts. If that eases your conscience, believe that." Shang Tsung tried to sound extra conciliatory considering Liu Kang had nearly immolated him not moments ago.

"I am aware." Liu Kang had long since made a habit of excusing action after action with the claim of taking the best of the available options. So much so he found himself bound to continue. For if all he had done were wrong or in vain, what was it all for? What did that make him? He had to succeed for his own sake.

Once Shang Tsung shook off the aftereffects of again being revived from the sands of time, he stumbled to his feet, panting. "Ah. I gather, things did not go as planned?"

The Liu Kang that sat upon the stone throne could barely move his head so great were his wounds. The injuries mended before Shang Tsung's eyes, but Liu Kang appeared worse off than some of the most tortured souls in the Netherrealm. One of the former monk's eyes was missing, and his entrails snaked their way back inside his body. Only one of the god's limbs remained intact. "Spare me your poison, snake."

Shang Tsung was about to reply when Kronika's realm shook as though it were a boat suddenly tossed by the waves. "What was that?"

"Our defenses weaken. All the realms have fallen. My fortress is the last remaining bastion against them." Liu Kang's voice was weak as he spoke, defeated.

"Ahhh." Shang Tsung steadied him. "The titans and other eldritch horrors of the universe, I take it?"

"Why did you not warn me?" A bit of fire flickered in Liu Kang's eyes, his rage stronger than his body.

"If you recall, I did plan to kill you so I wouldn't have to. Pity you killed me and ruined the world yet again." Shang Tsung proved better prepared when next Kronika's chambers shook. Still, he was nearly thrown from his feet, forcing him to grab one of the silver pillars Liu Kang decorated the lair with. Their design was reminiscent of the old Shaolin temple.

"Why did they come?"

"I assume you did not have Elder Gods to keep the balance this time around?"

Liu Kang nodded, his pained expression showing even this simple action hurt him.

"Have you not once wondered why the Elder Gods cared so little for the affairs of the realm beyond issues of balance? What even they might fear. Kronika was not the only one of her kind."

"More evil claiming the purpose of good for its own while the world rots," Liu Kang growled. "I suppose even they are better than this. We must fix the timeline before it is too late."

"Ah, you see, that is something of a problem. I require souls to charge the crown. Many, many souls, as you know. If the destruction of this realm is so far along, where am I supposed to get them?" Shang Tsung sounded almost pithy in the face of the universe's end.

"I yet know of way." Liu Kang managed to fight to his feet. "Some of these beasts consume souls. Store them. The souls of those I have failed fuel them. Kill one of those, and we may yet succeed."

"That could do it. Of course, I could kill you and do it myself."

Liu Kang gave a mirthless smile to the sorcerer. "If they could do this to me, what do you think they will do to you alone without the aid of souls or the crown?"

"I see your point and admiring your ever improving rhetoric." Shang Tsung nodded his head. "Together again as allies. Next time, however, let us not invite universe-ending eldritch horrors to the table. Please."

"Is there anything else you would have of me?" Shang Tsung asked in the sycophantic voice he mastered while working for Shao Kahn.

"Not until the new era." Liu Kang floated back to the time piece.

"It has begun." Shang Tsung muttered under his breath. Then, after a brief pause, he added, "Once again."

Liu Kang was well practiced at this by now, and he was steeled for the task ahead. He'd learned to kill his compassion when it came to the minor events between realms. He'd learn to turn his will and eyes away from starving souls behind barbed wire, armies of horse warriors, plagues, men in chains, and so much more. He needed an earth realm hardened for Mortal Kombat for his end game to succeed. He needed the stability of the groundwork Kronika had already laid, building on her careful ministrations to forge a timeline he knew well enough to begin to make the changes he wanted to see. This time Liu Kang would create perfection. He could not fail.

X X X

It was an odd sound that could not possibly be the monks outside training that drew Kung Lao's attention away from the statue he had been finished up. He started in surprise at the sight before him. Floating in the air was a white haired being with glowing tattoos across his muscled body. Even more amazing was the fire and lightning this person, if it was a person, emitted from their body.

Kung Lao wobbled on his feet in stunned silence, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Kung Lao," the being said in a calm voice.

Hearing his name caused the aforementioned monk to fall back against the table in surprise. "Where did you—Who? Who are you?"

"I am Lord Liu Kang, God of Thunder and Fire." Liu Kang spread his hands out wide as though to demonstrate his own magnificence.

"God of—" Kung Lao started to say before he realized he should be doing something else rather than questioning the divine. Kung Lao quickly gave the proper bow of obeisance.

Liu Kang returned the gesture with one of his own.

"Forgive my disrespect, my lord."

"Enough, Kung Lao," Liu Kang said as he took to the ground. His voice was calm, brotherly even. "You are humble. Not like the Kung Lao I knew."

"The Kung Lao you knew?" This poor monk was clearly out of his depth. Shouldn't this god be talking to someone more important?

"A story for another time." Liu Kang stepped forward and placed a hand on the shoulder of the man who would eventually become the Great Kung Lao. "I have chosen you as my champion, Kung Lao. We have work to do. You must be prepared. Trained."

"Trained? For what?"

Liu Kang gave a warm smile, knowing smile, trying to show Kung Lao the faith he himself had lost a long time ago.