It seemed the Battle for Armageddon was over. In a surprising swerve, Shao Kahn was the last man standing. Not Taven or Daegon, as it was destined. Both of the brothers were slain by Shinnok, who was then slain by Raiden. Raiden was ready to claim the powers of Blaze for himself but that's when Shao Kahn arrived.

Shao Kahn had been abducted by Onaga, how was he here?! After battling the hordes of both good and evil, Raiden was weak. Shao Kahn on the other hand seemed even STRONGER than he was before.

Raiden's beatdown by Kahn was enough for him to realize just how truly dire the situation surrounding him was. Raiden was the last man standing by slaying the good guys he started the battle with. He feigned turning back to the side of good but now, in his final moments, he truly was on that side. Perhaps it was the repeated blows to the head or maybe, it really was the old Raiden finally returning.

As Raiden was battered by the emperor, he heard a voice call out to him. It was the amulet. The very same one Shao Kahn had shattered.

This amulet was an artifact claimed by Raiden thousands of years ago, during the war between the Earthrealm and the Netherrealm. It was an artifact Shinnok had. What it was for was anyone's best guess, but Raiden thought that it was better off in his hands rather than the fallen Elder God's. He normally left it in the Sky Temple, his home, but something compelled him to bring it with him only two times. Once during the Mortal Kombat tournament where Shang Tsung was defeated by Liu Kang and now, during Armageddon. He wasn't sure what it was, but there was something to the amulet. Something that influenced him.

Now, it was calling to him to use it. Without even thinking, Raiden took the pieces of the amulet and began speaking in an ancient language. Even he did not understand it. He could feel it's influence, the power it held. It was now he understood what the amulet was. It was a way to send a message back to the past. He sent as many visions as he could to the past before uttering his last words, "He must win."

The Thundergod's head was now little more than a mess of bloody chunks scattered across the Pyramid of Argus. Shao Kahn tipped his corpse over and stood over it victoriously. Then, he approached the edge of the Pyramid and sat upon the stairs. He removed his helmet and smiled.

"Yes! At long last, victory is mine! No more shall stand to oppose me! The realms...belong to me!"

He looked to the sky, seeing all other realms converge with Edenia. Unfortunately, his victory would be rather short lived as time itself was frozen. Descending from the sky with his arms crossed was Shinnok, with a rather self-satisfied smirk on his face. He walked up the steps of the Pyramid of Argus, appreciating every corpse that surrounding him. Even the corpse of himself...or so it seemed.

"Ahh yes, it seems they fell for my doppelganger gambit just as I thought they would..." Shinnok said to himself as he continued up the stairs.

"You've played your part as my pawn well, Emperor," Shinnok said as he walked past the frozen Shao Kahn. He then turned his direction to Raiden's headless corpse, "But you, Thundergod, without you...my plan would have never worked. So, thank you. Thank you for taking that Amulet."

He grabbed the shattered Amulet and crushed it into dust in his hands. As he did, something else descended from the sky. It was a woman garbed in ornate white and golden robes. She fell at Shinnok's side and laughed, "So, you've finally freed me!"

"Why of course, Kronika" Shinnok replied, "I need you and you need me. Only together can we destroy our fellow Elder Gods and claim the realms for ourselves!"

"Then let us get to work. You must hurry, though. Raiden's message has already been received by his past counterpart. I cannot keep this current timeline up for much longer."

"Send us back to after I was defeated by Raiden. I cannot risk altering time even further back than that. I will meddle with certain slowly, so that our plan can continue forward in the next timeline."

"A smart idea, Shinnok. So be it, then!"

Kronika waved her hands and began speaking in the same language Raiden did as he sent that message back to his past counterpart. When she finished the incantation, she reached to the skies and a white flash sent both Elder Gods back to their desired point in time.

Their interference with the timeline stretched further back than any normal mortal could comprehend. It stretched across millions of years, which was nothing in the eyes of two Elder Gods. It was their knowledge of the future that led to Quan-Chi's becoming a seemingly infallible master manipulator, Sindel's corruption into an evil queen, and many more deviations from the original timeline.

With a Shinnok duplicate's two failed invasion attempts, it was now time for Kronika and Shinnok's true plan to finally unfold. With Kronika's nigh unstoppable powers of controlling time and Shinnok's unparalelled skills of manipulating those around him, the told may very well be unstoppable...

So, how about that Mortal Kombat 11 story? To say I was dissatisfied with it would be an understatement. So much wasted potential.

That's why I've decided to try and rewrite it. Now, am I egotistical enough to say that I could have done it better than the writers of the actual game? No. No I'm not. I'm gonna go further than that! I think just about ANY fan of the games could have done it better than the writers of Mortal Kombat 11! What a trainwreck of a story. It's so dissatisfying. There's about a hundred ways you could do a better sequel to MKX, but with thise I've decided to challenge myself.

I'm going to try to rewrite things while still keeping the general plot of MK11. What I'm saying is that while this is a major rewrite, I'm still keeping the basic plot of, "Kronika manipulates time and brings back past fighters to serve her." It'd be easy to throw out Kronika, her mere existence pretty much destroys the lore of Mortal Kombat, but I'm not gonna do that. Instead of being a Titan, which might be one of the dumber things Netherrealm has ever pulled out of their ass, she's an Elder God. Where has she been? Why has she never been mentioned until now? Why did she only show up now? Don't worry, the story will get around to explaining that.

As for Shinnok, remember when we were supposed to take this guy seriously? They really REALLY want us to believe this idiot is somehow a greater evil than Shao Kahn, Shang Tsung, or even his own lackey Quan-Chi. He was already hard enough to take seriously in the old timeline but now he's just a joke. I'm going to try to rectify this. Shinnok has a lot of plot potential. A fallen Elder God who's practically MK's equivalent to Satan. He should be a serious threat. I always liked the theory that the Shinnok at the end of MK9 was Shinnok from the first timeline, going off of Shinnok's Armageddon ending. So that's what I'm rolling with here.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this prologue. More is to hopefully come.