«Take him to his new quarters. Let him contemplate his future in more comfortable surroundings,» Shao Khan announced, satisfaction brimming in his voice.

He watched as four of his Shadow-priests carted off his utterly defeated brother, Rayden. Just as the group reached the doorway to his throne room he noticed his brother shooting him a silent look of reserved defiance, as if to say, «This isn't over yet Khan.» Khan just smiled back at him, in too good of a mood right now to be even slightly phased by that rude look. He would just have to remind himself to beat the living daylights out of him for an extra hour later. After watching them leave the Ruler of Outworld retired to his immense throne made entirely of the old weapons and skulls of his fallen enemies. He wished he could add his brother's skull to the pinnacle to his throne, but right now he was having far too much fun watching him squirm. He couldn't wait for Rayden to try and contact the Elder Gods, as he knew he would. He wished he could be there to see his face as he kept hitting that block he had the Shadow-priests put around the entire Tower so none of his prayers would ever reach the Elders' ears.

Even though it was quite a reassuring thought to have his brother out of the way, it was only a small victory in this war of his. The Elders could just as easily stop him in his tracks if they got word of what was going on, but hopefully he had already set things into motion that would nullify even that worry. Plus it helped that he had inside info on the doings of the Elder Gods, and right now they were distracted with some other disaster elsewhere in the universe. His forces were just about ready to go through the portal he had so carefully created in Earth Realm, ready to take over the blue jewel and deliver it into Outworld for him. After that, the Elders could do nothing-

Suddenly he felt something snap in the back of his mind, as he sat upright in alarm trying to figure out what the hell it was. There in the ever-expanding mind-net of creatures he controlled he felt a rising buzz of activity. It was his Shadow-priests, souls brought back from death with all the powers of the Ethereal still attached to them, buzzing like a nest of upset bees. They were his greatest tool, each an extension of his own poisoned soul, thinking as one mind that he alone controlled. He dove into that mind only to find a very small fraction of it missing. That wasn't possible, it couldn't be gone, that would mean something actually destroyed a Shadow-priest. Yet it was not only possible, it was reality as not one, but five Shadow-priests had been destroyed in combat. What could destroy something that was already undead?

He was answered just as abruptly as his portal to Earth Realm suddenly snapped open right in his throne room. He had changed the destination in Outworld to his throne room earlier so he could drag Rayden there and he hadn't put the entrance back to where his armies were waiting. It was obviously a good thing he mused as he stood to greet whomever came through the portal's entrance, he was actually kind of interested in meeting the person who could kill something that's undead. They could kill a Shadow-priest maybe, but withstand a God's wrath? He severely doubted it.

He stood there for several minutes waiting, but nothing came through, yet the portal's opening remained. It didn't make sense, you can't get lost in a portal, its essentially a straight tube. Did the fool turn back after making it this far? Wouldn't that be ironic, he laughed to himself. Yet something nagged at him, if some one had left the portal via the opening in Earth Realm, the portal would have already collapsed by now on this side. Finally his curiosity got the better of him as Shao Khan plunged into the portal's opening himself.

He knew it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but he still had the advantage being that is was his portal. He walked on, not in any rush, but still impatient to see what the hell was going on he came upon the area he had fought his brother in. A stroke of pure genius to lure his already enraged brother away from his only power source and drain him fighting Khan. Now it seemed all too easy, but before he had serious doubts his brother would even do such a dumb thing. He grinned, lucky him. He looked around, the place was dark and misty, but strange illumination came from everywhere and nowhere at once so one wasn't completely running blind in the tunnel. However there wasn't a soul in here, as he discovered stretching out his senses to the max trying to locate anything in here with him. He started to seriously consider that either a ghost had come to call or that the portal was malfunctioning in some way, the later the more likely of the two. But then a strange flickering of raw power caught his eye in the side of the portal's tunnel.

There he found the most curious sight, a second portal opening torn in the side of his portal's wall. As he looked at it he found it wasn't torn, but woven from the original portal's own threads of power that kept it running. Each so delicately twisted to drain enough power away from the main portal to form the secondary portal, yet without it disturbing anything as if it was nothing more than a continuation of the original. There was no doubt in his mind now that whoever had destroyed his Shadow-priests had also done this piece of incredible work. They were obviously used to working with very fine weaves of magic with very little power, so much so that it could escape the notice of a God when cast. More than ever he wanted to meet this individual, either to make a deal with them, or just ring the information of how they'd learned to do such a thing. Either way, it was shaping up to be a very interesting day.

Now it was time to play the hunter, as he dove in the second portal opening and when he reached the other end he found himself right back where he started, almost. He stood on a low hill overlooking the huge plaza underneath the Black Tower. Here he was hidden in the shadows of a ruined temple's pillars, but it was still quite a visible spot as he saw an entire legion of Centaurs that were practicing in the plaza below. Khan was starting to loose respect for this individual as who would be dumb enough to open a portal right in front of his armies. Plus, he reflected, leaving the portal up and running for him to follow was a dumb mistake too. He stood there for a moment more, oddly enough not a one of the Centaurs noticed him up on the hill. Obviously he'd have to make a surprise visit and berate them for being so unobservant.

Right as he was about to walk down there, the strangest feeling swept over him, one he hadn't felt in millennia. It was as if a predator bigger than he were watching him, ready to pounce. He whipped around, only to find the portal's opening behind him and nothing else but the dead husk of the temple ruins. He looked all around several times, but he finally looked up at another intriguing site in the skies above. A long time ago when he had first started conquering Realms, he noticed that just the sight of stars gave the people he conquered hope, which was the one thing, he didn't want them to have. It was odd to him that burning balls of gas light-years away could give people the will to rebel, but so be it and ever since there has been no stars seen in the skies of Outworld as he burned the skies to complete darkness. Yet there in one small space of the sky, there were stars to be seen.

Or at least they looked like stars, but before he had time to even speculate about how they got there, the star field started moving towards the Centaur legion in the plaza.

Khan slowly backed up further into the shadows of the old temple, not to hide, but to merely watch what was about to take place. He had no interest in warning his warriors before him, if they couldn't handle the unexpected then what use were they to him anyway? He followed the eerie sight of the moving star field until it was right above the legion and it started to circle lazily. However the lazy momentum of the stars quickly dissipated as the stars turned into a bright silver streak and shot toward one of the Centaurs like a bullet. The next thing he knew, or rather, heard was a loud crack as the silver streak connected with a one of the Centaurs, breaking it's spine in one blow. The rest of the legion finally noticed what had been stalking them and were immediately on the attack. He saw a vague cat-like shape as big as a Centaur itself, dodge and evade the onslaught, ever so nimble and by the time it had launched itself back into the air two more of the Centaurs were dead in it's wake.

This time the legion's commander had the remaining Centaurs form up, but it was useless against an aerial attacker for they had no weapons to hurl at it, or any ground cover to help protect them. The attacking creature rolled, and for the first time he noticed that the silver specks weren't stars, but markings on the creature's plumage. He could still only make out its basic shape, not any details, but the image made a very old memory resurface...

It struck again in a silver streak, but this time it went back up in the air carrying it's latest victim with it, which just happened to be the legion's commander. His screaming and caterwauling was suddenly cut short by the sound of something very sharp slicing through bone. When the head and body of the commander fell back to the ground, the legion was already running helter-skelter desperate for any cover they could find. From then on it was easy pickings for the mysterious black and silver creature, sometimes it would run the Centaurs down like a cheetah would an antelope tearing into the hindquarters of it's prey as the Centaur fell beneath only to find his jugular ripped out. Sometimes its prey would surprise it by attacking rather than running, but it countered the attacker's moves quite effectively with it's huge wings and long silver talons. Then it would escape back into the sky, picking them off randomly until every Centaur in the area was nothing more than a lifeless mound of torn flesh.

As it came in for a landing for the last time, Khan finally got a decent look at the monster creature. It raised it's wings just enough to uncover the rest of it's body, revealing the sleek body of a cat with the aerodynamic head and front legs of a bird of prey. It shook its long hairy mane and head, trying to rid itself of all the blood that had accumulated on its body from the fight. Then as its wings settled down on its back, it raised its huge head and stared at him dead on, two glowing red eyes meeting his own demonic ones. Khan shook himself out of his stupor from realizing what the creature was; something that everyone had thought extinct for thousands of years was now here right before him staring him down. Disbelief melted away revealing his strength, the eternal cold rage he felt in his very core. If the creature wanted a fight, it would certainly get one and Khan didn't care if he would make it an extinct species again. He strolled out of the shadows and let his powers visibly manifest around him showing his great displeasure for having the gall to attack his own base of power.

The creature just stood there, unimpressed with the display as it readied itself to fight as well. Yet right before it was about to launch itself at the dark God, it jerked its head up, ear-tuffs thrust forward as if something had called to it. It backed up a step, growled, and looked back to Khan. However, whoever was calling it was persistent as it finally subsided and moved to launch itself back up into the dead skies.

«I don't think so.» Khan spat as he teleported, so he could cut off the creature's retreat.

However he was too late, for when he reappeared in the exact spot the creature had been it was gone. He threw his senses open to try and ascertain where the thing had gotten to, but found nothing. Like it had been nothing more than an illusion, but there was more to it than that he knew, and whoever it was that had control of that creature was here. Rage consumed him, but he just let it burn inside him, he did not need this on the eve of his greatest takeover yet. Who was this new enemy and what was he after? He had thought he killed all those who opposed him. Pushing the thought aside, he knew those questions could be answered later as right now he needed to find this person and stop them before he damaged Khan's plans or worse...

Author : Lauren Marie Kottke

Creation date: 2002-4-29-11-53

Modification date: 2003-9-14-17-7