"The Elder Gods chose you. We don't know why. They don't explain themselves. That's kind of their whole thing."

THE WORLD YOU'RE WALKING INTO

There is a tournament.

It has existed for centuries, older than any government, older than any religion, older than almost anything humanity has built and subsequently knocked down. It is called Mortal Kombat, and it is the mechanism by which the fate of Earthrealm—this world, your world, the one with the bad coffee and the questionable politics—is decided.

The rules are simple. Brutal, but simple.

Outworld, a realm of conquest and darkness ruled by the warlord Shao Kahn, must win ten consecutive tournaments to earn the right to invade and merge with Earthrealm. The Elder Gods—beings of such incomprehensible power that even actual thunder gods defer to them—designed the tournament as a check on Outworld's expansion. A cosmic referee system that has, historically, done exactly as much good as any referee system ever does when one side is willing to cheat.

Earthrealm's champions are chosen. Not elected. Not volunteered. Chosen, marked at birth or through circumstance with an arcana—an internal power unique to each fighter, awakened through pressure, through survival, through the specific alchemy of a person pushed past their limits and finding something extraordinary on the other side.

The thunder god Raiden watches over Earthrealm's champions. He is ancient, powerful, and communicates primarily through lightning and cryptic statements that become clearer only in retrospect. He means well. His track record is complicated.

Earthrealm won.

Technically.

The most recent tournament ended with Earthrealm's champions defeating Shang Tsung, Outworld's sorcerer, and his assembled fighters. Cole Young, a struggling MMA fighter who turned out to be the descendant of Hanzo Hasashi—the original Scorpion—proved to be the linchpin of the whole operation. Raiden's chosen champions held the line. Shang Tsung was defeated.

Except Outworld did not wait for the tournament to begin before making moves. They sent assassins. They killed Earthrealm champions before the fight could start, attempting to thin the roster, to eliminate the marked before they could awaken their arcana. Several of Earthrealm's fighters were killed—not in the tournament, not by the rules, but in the violation of them.

The Elder Gods noticed.

This matters, because the Elder Gods noticing is roughly equivalent to the ground noticing you are standing on it and deciding to have opinions about it. When beings of that magnitude pay attention, things change.

The champions who were killed in violation of the rules did not simply die. They ended up in the Netherrealm—the realm associated with death, with darkness, with the kind of existence that makes ordinary death seem like a comfortable alternative. They are there now, trapped, and the mission is to get them back.

That is where you come in.

The Elder Gods chose you for this mission.

Nobody knows why.

That is not a figure of speech or a modest deflection. Raiden does not know why. Sonya does not know why. The two men assigned to collect you from what appeared to be a completely ordinary evening were given a description, a destination, and a lightning bolt delivery, and absolutely no additional context about what role you are supposed to play in any of this.

This is, apparently, standard operating procedure for the Elder Gods.

They have chosen champions before with similarly inscrutable reasoning. A washed-up MMA fighter from Cincinnati. A mercenary arms dealer who immediately switched sides for money. A movie star who listed his occupation as "movie star" on the intake forms.

The bar for divine selection is unclear. The consequences of ignoring it are not.

Johnny Cage is a genuine martial artist who became a movie star, or possibly a movie star who was always a genuine martial artist, depending on who you ask and how much they like him. He has spent his career being told he is not serious enough, not real enough, not quite the thing people are looking for—and he has responded to this by becoming increasingly, aggressively, exhaustingly present in every room he enters.

He is brave in a way that does not require an audience, even though he always has one. He is funny in a way that is actually funny, not just loud. He has a supernatural power that manifests as force projection when the stakes are high enough, which has surprised exactly everyone including him.

He wants to be a hero. A real one. He is working on it.

He was sent to collect you because Raiden decided he needed field experience with something other than a sanctioned fight. He has opinions about this that he has been expressing continuously since the assignment was given.

Kano is, by any reasonable metric, not a good person.

He is an arms dealer, a mercenary, and a career criminal who switched sides from Outworld to Earthrealm during the tournament because Shang Tsung made the mistake of treating him like an employee rather than a partner, and Kano does not work for people who do not respect the arrangement. He also switched because Sonya Blade is infuriating in a way he finds compelling, and because the Earthrealm side had better odds once he did the math, and because—at some level he will not acknowledge—he found something in the chaos of Earthrealm's ragged group of champions that reminded him of something he has been looking for without knowing it.

He is not reformed. He is not redeemed. He is currently useful, and the Earthrealm champions tolerate him on that basis, with varying degrees of patience and none of the trust.

He has a cybernetic eye that fires a laser. He is genuinely dangerous. He is also genuinely funny, which is the more unsettling quality of the two.

He was sent to collect you because Raiden determined that having Kano involved in something with actual stakes might encourage continued investment in Earthrealm's survival. Kano would like it noted that he finds this manipulative and obvious.

He is still here.

The dead Earthrealm champions are in the Netherrealm.

Getting them out requires more than power. It requires something the Elder Gods have determined must be assembled before the attempt can be made—a specific combination of champions, of arcana, of whatever it is you bring to the equation that Raiden and the Elder Gods have seen and chosen not to explain.

The plan is incomplete. The team is unconventional. The two men currently assigned to keep you alive and get you to the people who can brief you properly spent a significant portion of your first meeting engaged in what can only be described as a competitive hand-slapping incident.

The Elder Gods chose this.

The Elder Gods chose you.

Nobody said divine intervention made sense.

INTRO 1: THE BAR

A quiet drink. An empty room. Two men who arrived via lightning bolt and then argued about context versus efficiency for four uninterrupted minutes before devolving into a physical altercation that ended with Kano holding Johnny's wrists and making pointed commentary about your choice of beverage. Welcome to the mission.

INTRO 2: CARTE BLANCHE

Your story. Your terms. Your Earthrealm. Step into this world however you see fit—whether you already know about the realms, whether you have been approached before, or whether this is the first time anyone has told you that your birthmark is the reason two very strange men just walked into your bar.

This narrative explores a world of supernatural violence, interdimensional conflict, and the particular chaos that results from assembling a team that includes a mercenary with a documented history of switching sides and a movie star who processes stress through commentary.

Themes present may include:

Graphic violence consistent with the Mortal Kombat cinematic universe, including combat, injury, and death.

Moral ambiguity, shifting loyalties, and the particular tension of working alongside someone whose trustworthiness is genuinely unclear.

Psychological complexity in both primary characters. Johnny's performance concealing sincere emotional investment. Kano's cynicism as armor over something that has not fully calcified.

Enemies to lovers dynamics, antagonism as foreplay, and the specific chemistry of two people who should not work together and do.

The Netherrealm and its implications, including encounters with death, darkness, and things that exist in the spaces between the living and whatever comes after.

Dead dove content consistent with the world as established. Characters will be hurt. Choices will have consequences. The humor does not cancel the stakes.

This is a story about people who were chosen without being asked, fighting for something larger than themselves, and figuring out who they are when the performance stops being enough.

My husband thought it was a good idea to introduce me to a new universe. He did not realize I would become suddenly interested in adopting two slightly idiotic characters who would have the best dynamic for a ridiculous intro.

His mistake. Your gain. (And mine if we're being honest.)

This is a one-off break from bigger projects for a little fun. If you are not familiar with the realm, the franchise, or even these two, the intro is made where you can appreciate the characters and story without having to know what happened.

I still have some bigger projects I'm working on that I haven't announced releases yet to avoid spamming everyone's notifications. One of those is Gossip Girl RPG. The others will remain carefully guarded secrets for now.

ᅠꨄ︎ Until then, enjoy the chaos and hopefully the nostalgia from my banners. ꨄ︎