Mortal Kombat 9: Ember Edition

Chapter 2: Mortal Kombat

Strange exotic birds chirped throughout the jungle, hidden in the trees and only the sounds they made proved their presence. Streams of sunlight slipped past the coverage of the large trees that nearly covered the jungle floor in darkness; one strip of sun settled on Ember's closed eyes and made them squint. She tried to open her eyes but the blinding light of the sun stung, resulting in her rubbing them till they adjusted to the lighting, or lack of. Once adjusted she rolled over on her stomach and lifted herself on her feet, feeling the dirt and fallen leaves on her hands. Making a 360, she noticed that she was in a jungle, a very dark and eerie one to be exact.

'How the hell did I get from Johnny Cage's apartment to a jungle?' She sighed and blinked, wondering if this was possibly a dream. Unfortunately it wasn't, it was real. She looked at the small sliver of sunlight allowed through the trees and shielded her eyes. "Crap..." She muttered to herself, she could barely see anything. Some of the foliage crunched nearby. "Who's there?" No one responded but a bird that chirped. Ember sighed with relief that it wasn't someone preying on her.

'Wait, where's that ninja guy? He's the one who attacked me! He must've brought me here...but where is here?' The man was nowhere to be seen, as far as she knew, Ember was the only one in the area. The girl cursed as she withdrew the knife that she carried with her and held it protectively in front. In the distance she could faintly hear the sounds of what she assumed to be people cheering. With no reason to go in any other direction, Ember decided to walk towards the noise. Hopefully she would find people, people that could help her out.

During her walk through the eerie jungle, Ember contemplated why she was left where she was; and how was that man able to get her there in such a small amount of time.

'Why did he attack me?' Her foot caught a root sticking out of the ground, but she grabbed onto the nearest tree before she could land flat on her face. Carefully removing herself from the root, after cursing it out quietly, she continued to tread cautiously.

'What if...' She thought, 'what if they're here? What if that dude really HELPED me and Bi-Han and Kuai-Liang are somewhere in this jungle?' At the idea, Ember smiled excitedly.

Of course, she had to be careful not to get too excited, because there was the possibility that her siblings weren't in fact in the nearby area and she was just kidnapped and left for dead. The girl forced herself to calm down and pay attention on getting out of the damn jungle; she already tripped three times!

Finally she saw the light, literally, and ran eagerly out of the shady trees. She brushed herself self-consciously in case there were any bugs that had crawled on her. After she was clear of any insects she saw a temple looking building, in the distance. The cheering from afar had gotten louder and was loud enough for Ember to be certain there were people there. It was so much better out in the open because now she could actually see where she was going. She ran straight for that temple building. Not slowing down until she reached it; when she did she was out of breath and red-faced from the exercise.

"Yeah...running was never my favorite part of training..." Ember wheezed, doubling over and inhaling as much air as she could; the sharp intakes of oxygen scratching at her lungs. The tired girl looked up at the large walled off area that made the building look important. Now the cheers were much louder but mingled in with the hoots and claps were occasional screams of unimaginable agony. At the first scream, Ember raised an eyebrow and stared at the wall wondering what the hell was going on.

To her left was a big sign that read "Welcome to the 10th Mortal Kombat Tournament" reading the sign to herself she narrowed her fire-colored eyes.

'Whoever wrote this needs a spell check...' She shook her head and ignored the typo, reading the list below that had the names of the participants and where they came from. The girl skimmed through the names, not really interested in reading every single one on there; it was only when she saw three participants' names from the Lin-Kuei was she interested.