Disclaimer: I own nothing. Other people own things, especially the things found in this fanfiction. This includes characters and concepts from Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, Hellboy, BloodRayne, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dresden Files.

NOTE: This story is a side story to my Harry Potter fanfic, Deliria, set just after Alice's first year at Hogwarts. While this fic can potentially be read separately, it is recommended to read that story first before continuing.

Deliria Lovedoll and the Mortal Kombat Tournament

Chapter 1

Boat Ride

Despite it being in the early half of the July, the night at the dock had become foggy and cool and Deliria had a sense that the supernatural was at work. There were plenty of spells for messing about with the weather, so that wasn't so surprising.

The white haired, black eyed Deliria Lovedoll was rather tall for a woman, standing taller than most men. She wore black robes with a hood up over her head, covering the shiny silver circlet she wore on her head. Beneath the robes, the Locket of Slytherin was hidden, along with her glamour coin safely locked inside it. She looked youthful, perhaps in her early twenties, and lithe beneath her robes.

Of course, Deliria was merely a disguise, hiding the girl who was born as Alice Lily Potter, but self-identified as Alice Lily Marvolo Potter Riddle, after absorbing the bit of soul that had once belonged to the Dark Lord Voldemort and assimilating his memories. While sharing many similarities to her spiritual father, the girl was definitely her own person. While she cultivated her identity of Alice Potter within Hogwarts as child celebrity and hero, she also built up an alternative identity of a rising figure in the world of Magical British Crime in Deliria Lovedoll.

And it was this persona that had been invited into the Mortal Kombat Tournament. The Dark Lady in the making had only accepted the invitation as she would prefer other Dark Sorcerers of the world did not enact their plans of opening up a portal to some hell dimension beyond her control and unleashed some sort of doomsday plot that could destroy the world. She preferred to rule a still living world, thanks.

Her full understanding of what this Tournament really meant was incomplete, but from what she could tell Shang Tsung, a nearly six hundred year old sorcerer who sustained himself through application of soul magic that even she found slightly intimidating, was under the belief that he needed to have his champion win the Mortal Kombat Tournament ten times in a row in order to unleash an invasion force from another dimension into their own.

While Alice did not have a belief in the gods he seemed to believe would interfere with such an invasion without this tenth victory, she was willing to exploit those beliefs and stop this plan, preferably by kill the champion and going happily back home.

She hadn't expected many more people to have received this invitation, but was surprised to find many people, including what appeared to be several muggles in the sorts of outfits she would associate with martial arts movies. Even more surprising were a few among the collective of invitees she recognized. One face she was surprised to see in public at all, let alone here, was one Fenrir Greyback, a rather infamous werewolf who fancied himself to be a Revolutionary, but often came across as a thug with a thing for children. He didn't ACTUALLY have a thing for children, he just targeted them under a philosophy that younger meant easier to separate from humanity. He was surrounded by a small pack of werewolves, or at least, Deliria assumed them to be werewolves.

It was even harder to imagine who he'd be rubbing shoulders with, as Deliria recognized several members of the Order of the Phoenix. Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, she remembered them well, especially Albus, as she had only recently stolen the Philosopher's Stone from him, as well as the mirror he had been hiding it in. With her hood up, the group didn't notice her immediately. While not a member of the order as far as she could recall, Filius Flitwick had apparently joined them for the Tournament.

There were a witch and a wizard with them that she didn't know immediately from her memories of Tom's life, though the scruffy looking wizard was staring daggers at Greyback, who upon noticing him had smirked in return. "Well, well, Lupin, the little wolf who fancies himself to still be a man," he growled in his deep voice. "Come on your master's leash, dog?"

Ah, Remus Lupin, the werewolf, now she remembered him. She woman she couldn't think a name of still, though, and she supposed she might have to wait to learn it, or never manage to learn it at all. The wizard werewolf growled and looked ready to start something. "Now, now, gentlewizards, I've heard we aren't supposed to fight before the tournament," Deliria told them before anything happened, slipping her hood down and smirking at the wizards.

"Ah, Miss Lovedoll," said Albus Dumbledore, obviously surprised to see the thief again. "I didn't expect your participation in this event."

"To be honest, I didn't expect yours either, Dumbledore," she told him. "I was told killing was encouraged, and I know that would trouble your soft heart."

"It is a rather important matter, I'm told, and I think I am capable of at least showing some mercy where others would have none."

"Important. Yes, mad sorcerers and opening dimensional rifts into hell dimensions would certainly warrant concern, from both of us."

"Then for this we are allies, then?" questioned Snape curiously, his face impassive despite it being the first time he had met the woman, hiding his full interest in someone who had the skill to duel with the Dark Lord and then escape Dumbledore when he stumbled upon the scene.

"I believe so," she agreed.

"Well, you humans are on your own on that end," said Greyback with a rather fierce grin. "I'm playing for the other team."

"Ah, sorry that I'll likely be killing you then," Deliria told him with a sweet smile. "Unlike Dumbledore here, I plan to hold nothing back. I am told this little island is outside the law, so I get to let loose without worrying about getting higher on the wanted list. Oh, Scabior says hi, by the way."

While the lighter aligned wizards looked at her rather coldly for her willingness to fling around dark magic, Fenrir let out a bark of a laugh. "Oh, your that girl that bastard's workin' for, eh? Heard about you. Maybe you'll prove to be more fun to beat down then these little lightweights."

"Too bad you came to this," she mused. "I always wanted a pet wolf." He scowled at that and looked about to say something when a ship came out of the mist and had them all turn to it. The only sound was the creaking of the wood. The ship looked old, with a dragon as its figure head and an interesting seal on its sails of what looked like a stylized Chinese Fireball head. A ramp was lowered to the dock.

"All kombatants shall board," came a voice, and the guards looked to be wearing black and white masks with pointed edges, several wielding what looked to be spears. She couldn't tell which one had spoken, but decide to be the first one up the ramp. She liked being first. The ship appeared to be rather empty of anyone but guards at the moment, but would start filling with her fellow combatants quickly. The deck of the ship looked larger than the ship itself had from looking at it, but while the apparently muggle martial artists looked like they were trying to wrap their heads around that with confusion, she brushed it off as a simple expansion charm. If there were muggles in this, there was likely going to be a lot of death coming when the fighting began.

"How long until we arrive at the island?" she asked one of the guards.

"Two stops first to gather the remaining kombatants before going to the island. It will not be long."

The mist began to get thicker around the boat as it set sail back into the sea. Alice suspected the mist obfuscated some fantastical method of travel. She knew very little about eastern magic, which had developed into several different variations that most of Europe consider anywhere from archaic to radical. While Japan and India had been partially westernized, much the rest had an eclectic mix of ancient and different traditions.

Rumors and sources were from the area were inconsistent in European accounts, either talking them up as miracle workers or putting them down as archaic remnants of an inefficient and sometimes savage path. She was likely going to learn plenty of new and interesting things while she was on this trip. She might technically be here on a heroic save the world quest, but she could be a little selfish and find other treasures to bring back home along the way.

Deliria leaned over the side of the boat and looked into the mist, and at the side of the boat, trying to find some runes or signs of enchantment that might clue her in. From the water she could see, they didn't appear to be moving faster than an average boat, so she couldn't assume increased speed was how they were moving about the world.

"Fascinating," she heard from a nearby old man muttering to himself. Albus Dumbledore was sharing her view of the mist.

"Not sure what my eye is seeing," mumbled Mad-Eye.

"Just seems like a misty night on the sea to me," said the witch Alice still didn't identify.

"We're stopping by America and then China," Deliria told them, having already been informed of the other destinations beforehand. "It's obvious we're getting there faster somehow if it won't take long."

"I do believe we have slipped out of our own world," Dumbledore said. "None of you felt it?"

Deliria hadn't been feeling for anything like that, and she was not sure quite how. "How so?"

"Ever read about magical transportation before apparition became quite so common? There are written historical accounts of wizards who claimed to have learned to travel through the Faelands and arrive at different points of the human world faster than they would normally."

"Fae? As in Sidhe fae?" she mused. "Disappeared centuries ago."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore. "But that doesn't mean that method of transportation did not exist or has been closed off to us. I simply haven't heard of anyone using it in the modern age."

"Interesting," Deliria whispered, staring at the mist in renewed interest.

"The Nevernever has a few convenient waterways," said a voice, and Deliria was surprised when she turned to see Shang Tsung had appeared to join them. He was very quiet and stealthy when he wanted to be, and Deliria would have to remember that. "Mass transit is made much easier with it."

"So we're really travelling through fairy holes like in old tales?" Lupin asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Apparently," mused Deliria. "Good thing we aren't running into any fae, though."

"The Sidhe tend to avoid the boat," Shang Tsung informed her.

"They still exist?" Deliria asked curiously. While several magical species around today were known to be descended from the legendary fae of old, they had seemingly disappeared from the world in the fifteenth century, and the Sidhe were assumed to have gone extinct.

"Is Lord Raiden one of them?" Dumbledore asked, and Deliria found herself curious who that was.

"Raiden," and Shang Tsung said his name with a sneer, so he must be an enemy. "Is a god. A lesser one, but one nonetheless."

Deliria scoffed at the very notion. Dumbledore, for all that he was an old fool in some ways, shared her skepticism with his eyes. Deliria had to avoid showing her surprise when the sound of thunder clapped before them and a bright light caused her to flinch. A man appeared, wearing white robes with a blue vest, and a straw hat. His eyes appeared white, but unlike Shang Tsung's cloudy mysteriousness, this man's eyes showed with electricity.

"Belief is not required, only the willingness to defend our world," he told them with a booming voice that was as attention grabbing as thunder. The man that would claim to be a god then looked at Shang Tsung, who glared back but began to quietly step away. "You best be careful around Shang Tsung. He only plays by his own rules when he cannot get away with altering them."

"So that was Shang Tsung," whispered Dumbledore.

"He didn't invite you?" Deliria wondered aloud.

"I invited them," Raiden informed her. "As Shang Tsung has tried to recruit warriors who might follow him, I have sought out those who would oppose him."

"And yet he invited me," Deliria mused.

"Some he invited to have eliminated at the Tournament rather than stand in the way of his master afterwards. That and he would like to increase the numbers of souls to feed on during the Tournament wherever possible." Deliria took note that Shang Tsung apparently had a boss he answered to himself, a piece of information she had lacked before now.

"Souls to feed on?" asked Lupin incredulously.

"The man is over five hundred years old," Deliria told him. "He uses particularly powerful soul magic to sustain himself, to the detriment and imprisonment of his victims. He's as bad as a dementor, to be honest." She would never be unable to see that living prison that was that man, nor his hungry gaze when he took a look at her twisted souls. It was rather disturbing. "If you ever feel bad about killing him, Dumbledore, best to remember that little fact."

The disgusted frown on Dumbledore's face told her he might even consider it.

The boat ride seemed to continue quietly soon after that, and four the next fifteen minutes, Deliria was still trying to understand this particular method of travel. This time she had been watching out for the feeling of the air just slightly buzzing with a light touch of magic as the fog lessened around them and a shore line with another dock.

Once more a ramp was lowered, and one of the guards shouted for people to begin boarding. As before, most of those brought on seemed to be martial artists of a wide variety of disciplines. One man in sunglasses and a phone who seemed vaguely familiar was looking less serious then others, wearing sunglasses and a stack of unsigned autographs he brought on bored. This bit of arrogance was surprisingly awarded by a few of the muggles already asking for some. She heard mention of movies and thought she must have seen him in a video store with Megan on a cover somewhere.

That tiny mystery solved, Deliria went back to paying attention, and for anyone that boarded that looked like they might be worth a better look, she legilimized, and noticed she was not the only one, and Dumbledore and Severus were also looking several people in the eyes with intense concentration on their faces.

On occasion, she caught a muggles thoughts, and knew they were at the American stop. A few robes showed off the odd wizard entering into the frey, and a few recognized the famous Dumbledore quickly and began to pester him, though he was quite genial about the whole affair. A couple more familiar faces from the war began to appear, and she recognized the red demon known as Hellboy walking on deck with some woman she didn't know, and just behind him was a leather clad woman known to the Death Eaters as Blood Rayne, a rather vicious dhampir that had killed a few Death Eaters but was better known to hunt down their vampire allies.

"I ask for protection as an Observer from the Watcher's Council," she heard, and spun her head.

"The Slayers here then," she mumbled. A quick glance near the well-dressed man that must be the Watcher, she found a young woman who couldn't be out of her teens yet, but she already had the vicious eyes of a killer, and the way she focused her attention on certain individuals, Deliria wondered if a few vampires had slipped in among the Americans.

"There has been a Slayer in eight out of the last nine Mortal Kombat Tournaments," said the voice of Shang Tsung, who apparently liked slipping behind her so much that she now held herself back from spinning towards him. The man was a tricky bastard. "Of course, as none became Champion, I assume you can guess what happened to them." She could practically hear his lips smirking smugly before he went off to wherever he went. She had the strangest feeling he liked talking to her, and that felt… creepy.

Whatever forces Shang Tsung had on his side in this proxy war, they must have been dangerous foes to slay so many Slayers. That was important to keep in mind.

"We should pay more attention to when he disappears," Dia, the sapient Diadem of Ravenclaw, told her in her mind. Deliria silently agreed but continued to look for interesting figures in the meantime.

She spotted a few vampires now that she was looking for them, various kinds and clans included. The Sabbat, the Red Court, Order of Auralius, many such vampiric organizations had representatives. Some of the easiest to spot were the Cult of Kagan, some of which did not look quite human in the first place. She imagined a few of them were interested in siding with Outworld, but she couldn't be sure that all of them would.

Even when the crowd flooding the boat the ramp had yet to be pulled up for several more minutes, until a man with was looked to be a metal plate over one eye that was glowing red rushed up and sprinted into the crowd. "Come on!" called a woman's voice as she rushed up the ramp, and Deliria could see a blonde with a gun out and wearing a muggle military uniform. She was followed by a similarly dressed and armed black man, but as they scanned the crowd, she saw Shang Tsung appear in front of them and grab their weapons.

"No fighting before the tournament," he said, and then disappeared again with a flash of flame. Deliria's eyes widened and she glanced at Dumbledore who looked more shocked then she did. The only thing she knew that could apparate like that were some races of demon, and Phoenixes.

The ramp pulled up while the woman began shouting, and Deliria wondered if she had been specifically tricked into this. She decided to legilimize her when she could get a glance at her eyes. Military, United States Special Forces, approached by Paranormal Research and Defense when she began to develop… Wandless magic? Deliria blinked, and wondered what things she didn't know about the American Magical World for a moment. How had the woman come into her magic as an adult, or rather, how had Ilvermorny missed her? She assumed they found their witches and wizards in a similar fashion to how Hogwarts did, but she might have taken that for granted.

With this bit of information whirling around her mind, she watched as the fog thickened once more and felt the boat move back into motion between the fabrics of reality. The boat was starting to feel crowded as Delira tucked herself into what was quickly becoming the wizarding corner plus a few special additions.

"These are a lot of muggles walking into their grave," Deliria said thoughtfully, and she could see Dumbledore frowning with a hint of sadness.

"Oh, hey, it's your thief, Albus," said the red headed dhampir Rayne, smiling with all her charm. Deliria smiled back had fought off a few thoughts that slipped in her head from the looks of her.

"You'll know me for more than a little burglary and ghost fighting after this, I imagine," she informed the group who had fought against Voldemort with a smirk.

The trip to China seemed somehow quicker, but once more there were various martial artists coming aboard, but a few had very serious expressions and seemed to put more meaning into this tournament then others. She heard various words and mutterings in Mandarin, and even a couple hints of Japanese from a few who seemed to have made the trip to China just to take the boat to the island.

She didn't bother legilimizing them, as mentally translating their thoughts so she could understand them would have taken more work than a simply glance could allow her. The assortment of martial artists, monks (and there sure were a lot of those), slightly inhuman beings and what looked to be real life ninjas had made the boat quite full.

The boat went on the move for the last time before the Tournament could begin, and this trip took only an additional hour before the ship came out into the night. The island was in view, and the fog disappated away completely as they moved towards the dock. In the distance there looked to be a palace. Several more guards were on the dock, and the combatants and observers were commanded to follow them into the courtyard, where the Tournament would begin.