Mortal Kombat: The Phoenix Verison

Prologue: The Phoenix Rises From the Embers

Nineteen years ago an epic battle between good and evil took place, determining if Earthrealm would survive free. Nineteen years ago a large city, once a metropolis, was devastated by unholy forces and abandoned by those who survived the invasion.

Some distance from the city's outskirts was a small forest and on a hill was a cave. The cave was nothing special and very easy to miss, especially with all the snow. A large rock sealed the cave.

It had been nineteen years since anyone had disturbed the cave.

Inside was bare except a lone block of ice a little more than five feet long. The interior of the cave was so dark that one couldn't see inside the ice. All was still and all was quiet.

Until she woke up.

The ice was so cold around her, she squirmed in discomfort. The ice block began to slowly melt away from the heat she started to give off. When she finally opened her eyes they were greeted with such darkness that she wondered if she was dead.

But wait, she was.

The ice finally thawed enough for her to attempt to stand up, her legs wobbly and her limbs tired from her long rest. There was some soreness but nothing compared to the pain she experienced in her last minutes of life. As her mind began to slowly catch up, she frowned and ever so gently her pale hand traveled to her stomach.

She gasped.

Where there once was a giant hole exposing blood and organs, the wound that had killed her, was her stomach unscarred and without even the dampness of blood.

Having grown tired of the darkness, the young woman snapped her fingers and a small flame flickered from her index finger. She willed more fire to illuminate her surroundings but she was too weak. Unable to produce proper light, she unsteadily stood up and began to feel her way around the cave.

A strangled cry left her chapped lips as her legs gave up on her and she crumpled to the cold and harsh ground. She struggled to even crawl.

Exhausted, she found a large rock that didn't belong to the rest of the cave and which she could faintly hear the whistling of wind from the other side. It took nearly all of her strength to push the rock away and allow moonlight to fill the cave.

The cold air nipped at her face, feeling cold was something she was used to but in her weakened state she was unable to do much about it. Boots made contact with soft and pure white snow and her long auburn hair moved with the wind. She could see a sea of trees, but over that she could see a city. Her city. The one she called home and the one she tried and failed to protect.

Her shoulders slumped as she looked at the dark city, used to seeing bright lights that indicated human activity. It was all gone.

"K...Kuai" She croaked out, lips cracked and throat dry from years of no use. Wrapping her arms around her she looked for her brother. She didn't care if he had been turned into a robot, she wanted to know he was there.

When no one replied to her call, she tried calling someone else. "To...m-mas?" Silence. "Kitana?" Still nothing.

She knew she was alone.

The young woman made her descent from the hill, through the forest, and into the city. She was becoming too cold and thought if she could get inside somewhere she could regain her strength. It was during her journey through her home that she realized how much nature had taken over in her absence. It stabbed at her to see familiar streets and buildings rotting and mingling with the wilderness, all devoid of human life.

She used to get annoyed at all the people who seemed to be rushing from place to place within the city, now she wanted it.

Even though it had been a long time, her feet knew where to take her. She wasn't even aware that she was heading to the Feather of the Phoenix base until she reached the cover building. It was unsettlingly easy to break in.

Making her way to her old room, she passed by the throne room where her father, Erasmus, used to sit and do business with clients. Her feet stopped. She remembered him having a couple of Feathers-members of the clan-at his side in case the client was giving them a hard time. Her father always made her leave the room in those instances, but she knew what happened once she saw the Feathers wielding bloodied weapons.

Before she could think too much on the past, she hurried as fast as her legs could go to her old room. Inside, she lit a few candles with shaky hands and gazed at her room. It was only then had she noticed the doll and the picture she clutched to her, the doll her mother had given her and the photo of her on her sixteenth birthday.

Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of her mother, not knowing if she had perished in the invasion or escaped.

She gently placed the doll on her bed before letting out another gasp. Her arm. It wasn't just pale, but there were small cracks in her skin filled with a dull yellow glow. Quickly she faced the mirror.

She fell to her knees, eyes wide, mouth open.

All over, as much skin as she could see, there were the cracks. She nearly resembled a doll in the process of shattering. Her eyes were worse, her whole eye glowed the same yellow. Her heart sped up as her eyes alternated from their normal color to the sickly shade.

She had died, and now she was back. The nineteen year old girl stared at her unrecognizable reflection, gazing at how truly dead she looked. The tears began to fall and no one was around to hear her sob.

Her hand traveled to her stomach and she couldn't suppress the tears. Her last moments of life had been so painful, there was so much blood...she had never experienced pain like that nor did she ever want to relive it.

Collapsing over into the fetal position, she sobbed into the floor. The first time she was able to move in nearly two decades and she comes back to this. But that was not the only reason she loudly cried in the empty base.

For all those years she was imprisoned in that block of ice, she wasn't asleep, she was very awake. She was aware that no one tried to look for her. Everyone had left her-even her brother. She didn't know what hurt more, to be an undead mess or that everyone she had cared about had forgotten about her.

The sobbing wracked through her, her breathing ragged as the tears streamed down her undead cheeks to spill on the dusty floor. She forced herself to glare at the mirror, baring her teeth as she reared back her shaking fist.

The shattering of glass into sharp shards mingled with her wailing. Blood dripped from her knuckles, staining the glass with red.

She was monstrous and abandoned.

Abandoned for nineteen years.