Red Dragon Mavado

My name is Mavado, leader of the Red Dragon forces across the globe. We are an honourable and sacred organisation, inspired by the original creature of myth. Long ago, it was stated that all beings were once dominated by the greatest beings of all, the Dragons. The Red Dragon was said to be the mightiest of these, and as such, we moulded our ideals based on this Dragon. The belief is that the Red Dragon, using its own fiery blood, created the hot, red, molten Earth and breathed onto the world to cool it and allow life to thrive - it is based on this that we believe that Earthrealm is rightfully our domain to do with as we see fit.

Our services are mostly requested by humans, usually assassinations or large-scale robberies, allowing our members to infiltrate different circles to influence our own agenda, but when Quan Chi and Shang Tsung appeared before me, it was to hinder the abilities of the Special Forces, in exchange for protection from the sorcerers' attack on Earthrealm - Hsu Hao completed this task, and with it, our trust was earned, and I was placed in charge of killing a spy Kano had seen in Outworld. My reward would be the chance to eliminate any last trace of the Black Dragon from all the realms.

After a long and vicious battle, I left the rogue OIA member Kenshi for dead, and the sorcerers promised me the chance to kill the last Black Dragon, Kano. The Black Dragon divided from us several decades ago, and we had put our domination plans on the back burner until we had every member of that inferior group exterminated. He spent all of his time hiding away in Outworld like the coward he was, and with great satisfaction, I finally sent the opportunistic cyclops to Hell, where he belonged - the only good Black Dragon member is a dead one, and with them all gone, it was time that the Red Dragon took a more focused direction on conquering Earthrealm, and Quan Chi recognised how useful we could be, so he would help us take over, as long as we would remain loyal to him. We would have no trouble dealing with the OIA, but when Quan Chi brought up the Lin Kuei as a possible threat to our domination of Earth, I grew worrisome. Unlike the OIA, who focused primarily on technology like we did and were predictable in their methods for dealing with threats, the Lin Kuei under Sub-Zero's leadership would be a serious problem. All their warriors had their own strengths and talents honed for many years, most of which were not even natural human gifts, and as skilled as we were, the Red Dragon would not be able to overcome these foreign powers. Having only started dabbling in otherworldly techniques, we would be at the mercy of the Lin Kuei without magical help. I looked to Quan Chi for a solution, and in exchange for our immediate services (he desired our protection from Shang Tsung's Oni warriors), he gave me scrolls he had found when he first entered the Sarna Ruins in Outworld. The scrolls contained the ancient secrets of the actual Red Dragon creature itself! It wasn't a myth after all... He said that those would help us in destroying the Lin Kuei. I told him I would send Hsu Hao to deal with the Oni in exchange for the scrolls.
I returned to Earthrealm to prepare the rest of my men for war. The scrolls indicated a way for all of us to use the Red Dragon's powers and be almost invincible. This was the most important event in our history, so every single Red Dragon member on Earth had to come to the grand ceremony. Despite our massive numbers, the scrolls never indicated how much of certain ingredients we needed to grant power equally, just that ``all worshippers would bask in the Red Dragon's glory upon hearing the teachings.'' The text was in an ancient language, but Quan Chi had no trouble translating it before I left for Earthrealm. He encouraged us to obtain this power, and said that he would send Hsu Hao back to me with further orders. I waited days to ensure that all members would be present, but we had to go through the ceremony without the majority of our Japanese recruits, and even without Hsu Hao, who had still not come back from his mission - I feared the worst, as he was a very efficient warrior, and would not take so long to kill a few Oni.

When all the ingredients were mixed together in a cauldron of steel, I read the incantation aloud and the cauldron exploded in a massive fire, and covered us all in flames. We neither burned, nor felt pain, but our bodies and minds changed... We all felt like we were in the presence of a greater power, one that not even Quan Chi and Shang Tsung could ever fathom. We were all... Blessed by the Red Dragon, and took in its spirit. Together, we realised that we were one with the creature, and we had a true purpose now - take back Earthrealm for ourselves, as the Red Dragon intended it.

The powers we exhibited after our ``conversion'' were more than adequate to deal with our foes. We became resilient to the cold, could create fire at our leisure to either shield us or attack our enemies, and even form Dragon-like wings and fly! Perhaps the most astounding ability we acquired was that of true unity. When a vast majority of us would band together, we could merge our powers, and form the burning silhouette of our fallen lord, and attack in unison. We do not become an actual Dragon, nor do we physically fuse together, we just share a consciousness while engulfed in flames, and can take to the skies, and rain fire onto our enemies. We are almost indestructible in this form! After weeks of intense, secluded training, we were ready to face our greatest threat to dominate Earth - the Lin Kuei.

The Lin Kuei had relocated their base to the Arctic regions of Asia, so I knew that they would be very difficult to locate, but there was something that helped me find Sub-Zero... Something made him stand out in my mind, as if he was wearing some sort of homing beacon and had no knowledge of it. My clan felt this as well, and it did not take us long to pinpoint the location of their new base. The Lin Kuei relied on mountains and glaciers to deter invaders from pursuing them, to hide away and avoid their foes, but Sub-Zero never took into account that if enemies ever did get past the treacherous climb up the icy slopes, and somehow scaled down the mountains, the Lin Kuei would have very little time to evacuate the premises, and very few escape opportunities.

Having no knowledge of the current Lin Kuei's numbers, I decided to take no chances and led almost all my forces up the mountains, braving the frigid temperatures and difficult climbing conditions thanks to layers of clothing, our inner strength from the Red Dragon, and, of course, retractable cleats. We all wore our traditional war armour, fashioned based on ancient Spanish conquistador designs, and when we finally got to the other side, with the temple in sight, I howled to the clan that it was time to destroy our foes and to fear them not, as the Red Dragon would guide our blows and grant us victory.

We retracted our cleats and using the Red Dragon's spirit, ran down the mountain at full speed towards the Lin Kuei Temple. We saw Sub-Zero attempt to block us by creating a colossal, spiny ice wall, but he did not count on the Red Dragon coming to our aid - we fused our powers together and formed the Red Dragon spirit, and made little work of his ice wall with a strong breath of flames. We could not melt the entire wall though, as we learned at that moment that we could not keep that united form for more than a few minutes, the time directly related to how much energy we used while together, so we could only afford to weaken it. Once we crashed through the wall, we had to separate and continue fighting as individuals. The Lin Kuei was waiting for us, and we were going to oblige them with a battle. Using whatever magic they had, the Lin Kuei became instantly stronger and charged at us.

Despite having my hook swords drawn, I merely knocked out every Lin Kuei warrior I encountered, as if there was a reason to let them live for the moment... No matter, my goal was not to kill the underlings, but their leader, Sub-Zero. As he froze a handful of my comrades, our gazes met, and we walked towards each other, as if by destiny, knowing that we would battle to the death.

He was a rather bulky warrior, and with his ``Kori'' abilities, he resisted the majority of my attacks and dodged them with ease, and he was also resistant to my fire techniques, covering his body in icy armour whenever I would summon my flames. Even as my flaming hook swords cut down his weapons, he would recreate them instantly, making them stronger and harder to melt. He had an advantage over me, as I could not continually attack with my own abilities, since the ice would melt around me and hinder my movements. Eventually, he summoned enough power to create a constant ice shield around his body, making it too cold for me to even fight properly, as I could not even touch him without suffering from intense freezing. I had to get aloft and remain in perpetual fire to attack him, to stay agile, and resilient to his abilities. Eventually, we both tried to smother the other with our powers. Our weapons clashed and we fought for total dominance, driving everyone away from us with the amount of power we were using. It came to the point that we could barely keep ourselves awake, and we both were on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion... Until an explosion knocked us both to the ground.

I looked up and saw Sub-Zero stare into the direction of where the shots came from, into the eyes of a massive, mechanical monster, which was standing in front of an enormous portal to another realm. Sub-Zero did not stare at this creature with wonder, but with resentment - whatever it was, it was a personal enemy of his, and based on my instincts, I knew that that monster was not going to let any of us leave the area without a fight, and I could tell that my men felt the exact same way.

We saw Sub-Zero attempt to fight on, and watched him struggle to summon enough energy to create another barrier, but he was too drained to channel any power; we realised he was prepared to do whatever it took to not only defeat this new enemy, but protect his people from it. I am not certain whether it was we who felt this, or the Red Dragon's spirit, but a sense of admiration overcame the clan and I, and we all knew that we could not let such honourable men die at the hands of a robotic nightmare - the satisfaction of eliminating the Lin Kuei would belong to the Red Dragon alone, and only we would taste the glory that would come of it. Seconds before impact from a missile barrage, we flew towards the Lin Kuei warriors and took them out of their range, and as I neared Sub-Zero, he screamed what I now know as the creature's name - ``Sektor''.

I introduced myself to Sub-Zero and explained to him that this creature was a common threat to both our groups, and we needed to defeat it with our combined forces before it would destroy us all. He was not at all pleased with this idea - however, in the end he realised that siding with the lesser of two evils was better than facing both at the same time, and he hesitantly agreed to the temporary truce. Once again, the Red Dragon was working together with an opposing group to tackle a common foe.

We charged towards the gargantuan automaton, and it roared an animalistic cry while an army of red robots came out of the growing portal behind it. Sektor barely moved as our groups fought, and when we had the upper hand, we left the Lin Kuei to handle the machines while we united into the Red Dragon spirit and attacked Sektor itself. We breathed a stream of fire, engulfing it in enough flames to make the ice around it became steam, enshrouding it in a haze of fire and fog. We thought we had destroyed it, but then a large surge of energy blasted through. We tried to swerve away, but the attack was too quick and strong, and we took a direct hit, and separated. By the time we all got up and brushed ourselves off, Sektor, having been fortunate enough to be standing on ice-covered rock during our attack, summoned more opponents onto the battlefield, consisting of Oni and Mummified Soldiers - when I saw the Mummies fully functional, I believed that the Deadly Alliance had betrayed the Red Dragon and made a deal with the Netherealm creatures. The robots began to change and shift their body parts as the Mummies and Oni charged into them and they melded, creating an army of untold might. Magic and science working as one... A perfect union of power.

Although we were many, their numbers must've been double our own, and as I had pointed out earlier, we had no easy escape routes to take advantage of, so we had no choice but to abandon the temple and fly out, with each of my warriors carrying at least one Lin Kuei. After ensuring that we were not followed, we returned to our own base and I offered the Lin Kuei warriors access to the medical and training facilities, to show my sincerity about the truce. As I briefed the rest of the clan of the events that transpired, Raiden appeared to us, explaining in detail how the Deadly Alliance was no more, and replaced by a stronger alliance consisting of the fabled Dragon King and his army of Mummies, an Oni-Sorcerer mad for blood and power, and the robot Sektor, who had actually taken over Japan while we trained in seclusion, explaining why so many of my Japanese men were missing. Raiden commanded all available forces from each realm, including ourselves, to unite in order to prevent the rise of these three armies; the God was taking this threat so seriously, he had contacted every military faction in Earthrealm, and ordered them to fight for the realms no matter what degrees of hatred the factions had for one-another - which meant that I was forced to work with the OIA, despite my trying to destroy them.

I was able to quickly realise events that Raiden had not brought to my attention once all the groups came together - Hsu Hao was killed by Major Jackson Briggs, who kept his mechanical heart as a trophy he wore with the rest of his cybernetics; the blind man I fought, who somehow recognised that I was his attempted killer, had survived thanks to (the now promoted) General Sonya Blade's chance encounter with him - obviously none of them were happy to see me, and the feeling was mutual, particularly with Major Briggs...

Accepting the spirit of the Red Dragon has changed the entire Red Dragon clan, including myself - if it was not for the strange sense of honour I felt towards the Lin Kuei, I would probably be helping Onaga with his plans... I no longer question the Red Dragon's instincts, as now I understand that there is a bigger picture to all of this. The only reason we saved the Lin Kuei was because we want our chance to face them - it almost feels like a personal rivalry, perhaps because of Sub-Zero's Dragon Amulet. It is actually a Dragon relic, unbeknownst to him, and is one of the fewest pieces of evidence that a Dragon culture existed before we all came into being. The Red Dragon spirit was able to find the amulet and allow us to find Sub-Zero. It cannot be a coincidence that both our clans are connected to the Dragons of old, that we have to join forces, and face the self-proclaimed Dragon King. Too many Dragons involved... There is a reason, always a reason... What does this all mean? All I know is that when this war ends, assuming we defeat Onaga, the truce with the Lin Kuei and the other defenders of the realms will end, and the first mission of the Red Dragon clan will be to destroy the Lin Kuei - and I will deal with Sub-Zero personally and steal his medallion to further enhance our power.

Author : Maria

Creation date: 2007-2-24-14-17

Modification date: 2007-2-24-14-17