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Your name is Jelani. You and your mother are in China, training under the Lin Kuei. Your mother had trained with them before.
Your name is Jelani. You are not called by name anymore. You are called "The boy in yellow" now.
He is training with another student. A girl called Shia. You are called Shia's shadow after a few weeks.
You are Shia's shadow. People do not notice you, but your mother and trainer say that is good. For what is a good assassin or protector, if they are easily noticed?
You are the Yellow Shadow. You have started to train under Liang-Shifu, who has tasked himself to be your instructor.
He also wears yellow. He is patient, despite his Elemental nature.
You notice how his brother is the one without much patience.
You are the Yellow Shadow. If it were not for your mother, you would have forgotten your own name by now. You have taken to Liang-Shifu's teachings. You wonder if Grandmaster Bi-Han has the same last name.
You do not ask, for their third brother does not have the same name.
You are the Yellow Shadow, and despite your best efforts, Shia always bests you, trained under Grandmaster Bi-Han himself. You do not find yourself jealous, because your teacher is kind and forgiving in ways others have not been.
You find yourself with Vrbada-Shihan. He's apparently Elementless. You find this almost impossible, after all, he can turn invisible. But, according to him, it's all slight-of-hand magic. The kinds of things you saw when your mother took you to the circus.
You find yourself interested in the gimmicks. Liang-Shifu encourages it.
You somehow turn a smoke-bomb, into something that foams, and hardens. Neither of them are angry. They are proud. This is new, and useful.
It is yours.
You tell your mother about this. She tells you what her title used to be. Something that had only belonged to the women of her family, but... She passes the title onto you, as you have proven yourself.
You are Cyrax.
You have made some gloves, simple and crude, but the metal is resistant to your own foam, so it's useful.
You have a "Kombat" with Sektor. She's got a full robotic suit now.
You know she's gotten help from Grandmaster Bi-han.
You have a trick she's never seen before.
You win the fight, for the first time ever.
You are Cyrax. You feel wrong when people call you by name now. When people call you male.
You feel better when on accident, someone called you "She". They thought you were your mother, due to your new armour. You didn't correct them.
You felt good.
You went to a therapist, and now you're taking hormone blockers and E. All paid for by the Lin Kuei. You are grateful, but Sektor is being distant now. She does not train with you anymore.
You mother calls you Chiku now.
Liang-Shifu and his brothers have to go for some important mission given to them by the Elder God Liu Kang. You assume he's an elder god, but he may just be a god. Perhaps a Demi-God? You do not know.
A few weeks later, and apparently your Shifu has defected, as has Vrbada-Shihan. You do not believe it.
You are Cyrax now. A girl in a metal suit of armour, who doesn't rely on all the tech Sektor does. You rely on your own skills and abilities most of all, but you do not forgo this gift.
You are at the wedding, sent to recapture Kuai Liang, to answer for his abandonment.
You do not look as many wedding guests are slaughtered. You do not think about how they didn't even carry a knife to protect themselves. They were just humans.
You cannot get the thoughts of that child's face out of your head. You cannot get the screams out of your ears.
You want to curl up into a ball, forget this entire day, pretend it's a bad dream, just... forget.
You see three Lin Kuei trying to kill the bride. You stop them, as that was not the mission.
A voice in the back of your head whispers that nothing about this was what you were told the mission was.
Kuai Liang stares at you, seemingly angry, before softening. He... He didn't move to attack you. He doesn't do anything to you, but went back to protecting the other guests.
There's three strange other men here. You don't recognize them. It seems two have powers, while the last doesn't. How odd.
And then you learn the truth. You want those that lied to you, hurt. But, you do not. You only let the others capture them, as they have crimes to account for.
LIke your original mission.
You are in a new Timeline. You do not know what any of this means. You do not know these people. You have not met them.
You deal with it like you do everything else. You don't think about you. You let it pass around you.
After this ordeal, you almost forget that it happened, if you had not woken up in the Sharai Ryu temple. The Fire Garden.
You do not understand much, but... You feel as if your life just got a lot better.
You know you wouldn't have it any other way.