Shang Tsung is a character from Mortal Kombat. This here is very extremely unfinished... but figured I'd post as much as I have, so I can show the part I have to people.




Chapter I: departing

Shang Tsung. He knew the end was close. And this world – doomed. To most who can travel realities, Earth seems now but a mass of flesh and concrete. Ironically, with all the threats thwarted by the vast heroes and forces residing withing this world, it would eventually destroy itself in its power. That Shang knew. Eventually; that is even if it wasn’t to be destroyed by something unknown, Shang sensed coming.
His allegiance to Kahn had been broken a long time ago. He failed the demi-god, followed by Kahn’s own failure in the hands of an Earth warrior. Even a mere mortal, a human, somehow rised to match the mighty Shao Kahn. This, Shang will never understand. But he has no longer any reason to stay. His only way to escape apocalypse, is to escape this realm. And seek one which has been unspoiled by Outworld, has never seen Earth, knows nothing of the powerful gods here, and has never been infested by maddness of the Netherrealm.
It started then. At dawn, infernal fire of the Sun illuminated the sky red upon him. In cold wind he sat down, feeling the breeze. Feeling around him the reality he was about to shed, like a soul-poisoning snake its skin. Trees glowed with primal energy, feeding petty and ignorant humans among those few special. Neither nature nor Earth has blamed Shang for feeding from souls of those same humans.
It had been a long time. Although he was, what was known as a „free roaming sorcerer“, a man capable of moving between realms, he had not travelled between realities other than Earth and the cold and desolate Outworld in a long time. He sensed the awes he had never seen, realms so distant, he had never heard of, as his body was preparing. This time was different. But before he could further speculate why it was so unique, that it was his first time using his own true power to go so far, or what it would be like, he already felt dazzled. His blood flew to his brain, causing extreme power concentration. On which most humans would pass out. He felt... hyper sensitive. All reality around him, he could feel. And now, he made it disappear. First he felt unbound, as soul left his body. It was surrounded by air, blown around by wind and warmed again by the rays of Sun which only partially touched it. All the while he still felt his old body not getting any oxygen, as it had stopped working. Any life had left Shang, and the remnant feeling of that material structure swiftly faded. Shang now left it behind - leaving it to rot. He didn’t miss it. He didn’t even remember it. And before the wind could scatter his soul to ectoplasmic lifeenergy, he disappeared from this plane, into what to him seemed like a spiral of planes.
A dark place of thousands of lights passing by. Some of which gave him chills, though he no longer had a body there. Some made him lose his balance. A state of divine vertigo combined with empyreal awareness. Petrified, he felt something much like a sphere rush by, trying to pull him in. The closer he was to it, the more he felt himself materialize inside it. But it made his mind press together. He could not tell up from down, and was much like in a dream. Thoughts and control started escaping him, memory started to erase and fade. By reflexes, he spared one thought: „Out! Leave! Away from this cursed reality, making me unable to control myself like I can here. Like no other mortal can!“ A fit of anger overcame him, as he willed himself free. He saw better around himself now. All realities were different. He looked and in his soul’s fire, saw down the spiral to a path, towards realms which would simply tear his soul apart. He could not be there. He would simply cease, if he got too close to any of them. This, then, must be where Hades was. Realms which burnt everything. And yet he wondered about planes of the Netherrealm, and the legend of how only evil can exist there. Could there truly be a plane where nothing but evil can exist? And, in truth, how could something as „evil“ be defined?
Those are mysteries he had not time to solve. He knew he had to find a reality, and strived, floated without any grip, yet pulling himself by only will, towards a bright sphere far away from any of the realms combined with Outworld or Earth. As soon as he determined his target, he started moving faster towards it than he had moved in the spiral. And when the sphere started sucking him in, he felt just a little pressure loosening. Like his mind could expand. Though this feeling might lead to meltdown, resulting in the person being left a vegetable, this was more subtle. Shang only felt good, and more released. He had chosen well, for this realm accepted him. It was perfect. Reality which was similiar enough to Earth, by its humanoid inhabitants, its structure. Natural rules of pain and the unexceptional evolution. It was like a copy of Earth with minor differences he had yet to discover. And a very different timeline and a story. He did not even know, if the inhabitants would use words to speak...
This is how much he could gather, as the reality pulled him in. Soon, after being within the sphere, he materialized. Slowly, becoming more and more solid, less ethereal. This was the first time, he had created a body for himself. Guided by the nature and reality itself, to make a form capable of life there. He knew, this help he would not get from Nature again. It was one-time bargain. He was born.

Chapter II: rebirth

Inside the temple of an alien reality of similiar planet, a man was materialized. In meditating state, he was there... for how long? It seemed like he had been there from a hundred years to a time yet to come, that he wasn’t even there yet. After time seemingly passing, the reality became more monotonous, and the time of his appearance there was only toggling between five minutes. All of which were adamant in past. With this, the man rose and opened his eyes.
His eyes were green, as a symbol of all the souls he had absorbed. Though it is a fate far more cruel than death, Shang felt no pity for his victims. Those who would call him inhuman, would mistakenly ignore the vast difference in humans free to choose their own destiny. And to understand everything is in noone’s power. There are few vain enough to believe it matters to understand him. He is what he is and his motives are his; over time, his soul has grown too deep for most anyone to even fully comprehend, could they see into it. And could anyone actually fully know him, it would still not change what is; change what he is.
He looked around and felt surprisingly powerless. More precicely, he didn’t feel aware. He was limited strictly to five regular senses, which felt dense. His mind said it was a balance, tiredness, from his astral trip. It took its toll. But something of it felt wrong. Trying to almost instinctively replenish his lost energy, he began pulling the essence of the man next to him. In vain.
The piercing feeling was much like panic. It struck him instantly, sharply - without new energy, he would lose power. But in time, even worse he would age! He will die of simply existing too long! This realm he escaped to, might ironically just kill him even sooner. In a manner so pathetic.