The Hunger Games

[Shang Tsung]

Whistling as he worked, Shang rolled the desiccated corpse into a shallow grave that he’d dug over the last few minutes. Without losing his tune, he buried the dead guard and patted down the rich, black soil. Turning around, the sorcerer slipped the shovel into a bag on the dead man’s horse.

After taking a moment to fastening the dead knight’s scabbard around his waist and under his robes, Shang gracefully leapt up onto the horse and turned it back in the direction of the town. Now that he’d addressed the issue of restoring himself to his youth, he needed to figure out what realm he had been pulled into by the all-white god. Given the fact that the curse placed upon him by Shao Kahn to remain an old man was no longer in effect, Shang knew he had to be someplace very foreign. After all, there were few realms that could escape the influence of the Emperor…

A half an hour later, Shang Tsung arrived a mile from the outskirts of the rustic little town. Based on the drab architecture and colors, it looked like a depressed, Victorian-era settlement. Dismounting from the horse, he snatched the soldier’s haversack and shooed the animal away. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself when he entered the town.

Entering from the side of town opposite to the inter-realm doorway, Shang pulled his hood over his head and slipped a hand inside his cloak. His fingers closed around the hilt of the dead man’s sword. He didn’t yet know if this world would impede his magic, so he would be ‘forced’ to rely upon centuries worth of swordplay and beating people to death with his extremities.

“Hello, traveler!” A man shouted as Shang passed in front of his cart of goods. “May I interest you in some of Darkshire’s best dried goods?”

A fitting name for such a drab little place. Shang mused as he walked passed the car without a glance. The last time he’d been in a village this small was when he’d murdered a dozen Shaolin monks to help ‘motivate’ Liu Kang into entering the Mortal Kombat tournament. From the look of these people, he could tell he was looking at plenty of easy souls to consume. Now that Kahn was gone, no one would prevent Shang from replacing all the lives he had devoured leading up to his defeat and near-death at the hands of that damned monk.

So many souls to consume… I hope there are some here with a little vigor.

Just as the thought had been processed, Shang heard a loud commotion a few streets ahead. Snaking his way through the growing crowd of people, the sorcerer drew close enough to see the source of the news. A burly man, his body glazed with a mixture of blood, sweat, and viscera, had dragged a carcass into one of the town’s squares. The creature was a mixture of a skinless dog and a morning star, with its glossy, sinewy flesh dotted with spikes and horns. Its feet were little more than stumps with giant claws.

“I’ll be damned… he did it!” Someone whispered in front of Shang.

“He killed that damnable behemoth. I think the cattle herd will be able to rest a little easier tonight,” a second man added.

“We’ll all be able to sleep a little easier!” A frail old woman tacked on.

“All… all in a day’s work,” the man muttered as he accepted a rag and wiped the blood and specs of viscera from his visage. Under the crimson muck, he had rugged, angular features and eyes that probably served him just as well at a bar as they did on the battlefield. The warrior’s jovial tone elicited cheers from the townsfolk, who quickly descended on him to offer whatever help they could.

Once again, Shang slipped from the crowd and entered the nearest building, which bore a softly swaying wooden sign emblazoned with an image of an ale flagon and the words ‘THE Pub.’