An Emerging Warrior Spirit: Li Mei, the Ghost of Sun Do

Chapter 4: Farewell​

As the rain continues to pour from the sky, Jinhai dashed through the woods, swiftly avoiding every single tree and obstacle with the sort of skill and dexterity that belied his age. Li Mei closed her eyes and held on tight to her father, but she was not scared or concerned, having rode on his back while he was running before plenty of times as a child, and simply rested her head on his shoulder as he ran, carrying a pleasant smirk on her face. Her smirk quickly fades away to give way to a more concerned look however as she lifts her head up, opens her eyes and thinks about what her father said to her earlier, in particular him saying that he will not let the Outworld empire take advantage of the two anymore. What did Jinhai mean by that? Why are they going to visit this Master Bo Rai Cho, and who is he in the first place? What is he planning to do? These questions ran through the curious Li Mei's mind until a moment afterwards, Li Mei tells herself to stop being so concerned and let her father handle things, and let her head rest again.

Her moment of silence is interrupted when Jinhai asks her if she remembers doing anything like this as a child. Li Mei, being slightly surprised, lifts her head up and opens her eyes wide. She responds yes. He then smiles and tells her those were good times, but that the moment would be better if it weren't pouring out outside. Li Mei chuckles and agrees, but this alarms her as she starts to pick up that something is very different within her father.

Jinhai is not the type of person to want to bring up old memories, especially not as casually as Jinhai just did. He had also just seen his entire village slain! Li Mei had not seen him act this way since Fei Yen was still alive. She questions whether Jinhai is acting this way to cover up his emotional distress, but quickly dismisses this, reasoning that Jinhai would never do such a thing around his own family; it would be pointless as Li Mei knows him better than anyone else in the vast realm of Outworld, and she would pick up on it faster than anyone else.

Jinhai starts to slow down, proclaiming that they have arrived to their destination. They are now out of the woods. Jinhai stops and allows Li Mei to safely hop off his back. Li Mei walks in front of him and takes a moment to look around at her surroundings. She sees a large village directly in the far distance on the hill she is standing on. Li Mei is about to tell him about the village she found as she suddenly hears a whoosh and a thump sound. She turns around and screams at what she sees.

A tall, slender man with black markings around his eyes, black hair and traditional ninja attire is revealed to be standing over the body of her now-dead father, who is now on the ground, his body decapitated and clothes bloodied. The man takes his dagger and licks the blood off the edges of it in a sadistic, almost self-satisfying manner and directs his soul-piercing blue eyes at Li Mei.





Gonna update Chapter 4 later on, hopefully today or at least tomorrow
 
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Apologize for making the fanfic so long BTW, I just needed time to develop and flesh out my characters

Appreciate those who been on board for this long, y'all are some real troopers

In response, I'm going to make the prequel fanfic no longer than 2 chapters + sloppy buttsecks on my behalf for all of you <3 <3 <3
 
Metal, why are you apologizing for making a fanfic long?
Dude its your fanfic, do what you want with it
 
Chapter 4: Farewell (cont.)​

Li Mei stands completely and utterly frozen in fear and disbelief, her eyes locked on the mysterious assailant and her knees trembling at the sight of her beloved father drowned in his own blood. The one person in the world that she cared the most about, the one person left that cared about her, was now gone. Jinhai's murderer develops a smug smirk on his face and greets Li Mei, revealing his name to be Reiko. He then asks her whether she is Li Mei or not.

As he walks up to her, Li Mei ignores his question and quickly turns around to run away from him, straight down the slope of the hill she was on. Reiko chuckles to himself and jumps high in the air towards her direction, landing in front of her as she runs. She then suddenly stops, trips on the mud of the slippery slope and falls to the ground. She tries to roll down the slope in order to get away from him, but Reiko simply walks down to her and stomps on her chest, making her cough uncontrollably and gasp for air. He holds his foot on her back to keep her in place for a second and then lifts her body up by her left arm. He tells her calmly that it was rude of her to run away and not answer the question and asks her if she agrees. Li Mei ignores him yet again, demanding him to let her go while squirming around in his grip. which annoys Reiko and leads him to smack her hard across the cheek before toss her down the slope of the hill. Li Mei rolls violently down the hill until she finds herself sloppily laid out across the flat grass of the ground beneath her.

After a moment, she rolls over to face the sky and opens her eyes, only to have a rude awakening that it is still pouring down outside, as raindrops get caught in both of her eyes. She rubs her eyes to ease the burn of the raindrops that rested on her eyeballs, and then looks over to see Reiko, still calm and collected, walking casually down the slope towards her. Li Mei finds the strength somehow to roll away from his direction and then get up, running towards the village aimlessly seeking help. This causes Reiko to comment that she is a persistent one, and reasons that giving up a false sense of hope before killing her would prove to be more interesting and satisfying, despite the fact he can easily kill her now if he wanted. So he continues to walk instead of dash after her while Li Mei runs away from him.

Li Mei, having picked up speed now, runs as fast as she possibly can towards the large village in the far distance, praying that she would make it. The raindrops that fell from the unforgiving skies of Outworld washed away the tears that streamed down the young woman's face. Getting to the village by foot from where Li Mei previously was at takes several minutes, and Li Mei herself is fully aware that she could be killed in only several seconds. Li Mei is uncertain of who to turn to and what will happen to her, but she continues to run anyway, needing to find something or someone somewhere.

Reality starts to blur for the confused young Outworlder as the maturity in her voice is non-existent, her normal sobbing replaced by more high-pitched panting. Li Mei is markedly shorter, the sky is now pitch black instead of purple and trees now surround the area. She desperately yells out her mother's name in search of her.

The same vague, blurry flashback that both Li Mei and her father had before is now rearing its ugly head in full force, this time much more vivid. The younger Li Mei runs through the dark forest in pursuit of Fei Yen, relying on the lightning storm that lit up the sky in an effort to keep track of where she was going. It was not only rainy outside, but windy. Jinhai had left Li Mei earlier in the day at home with the village while he and his mother went with the Edenian Resistance. It had been nighttime and neither of the two had showed up back home yet, so the concerned yet naive Li Mei set out to look for her beloved parents. It being nighttime and her being a child by her lonesome in the outside world, Li Mei was scared but stayed determined to find her parents and never look back, being extremely worried about them.

A lightning bolt from the sky allows Li Mei to finally see two people standing near each other in the forest. Li Mei quickly takes notice of this and runs towards the couple. While running towards to them, she yells out to them, asking them who they were. Hearing her, the two, who in actuality are indeed Jinhai and Fei Yen, turn towards that direction. Now noticing that it is Li Mei's voice calling out to them, they yell out her name towards her, as well, confirming to Li Mei that the two were her parents.

Multiple lightning bolts light up the sky around the forest as bodies are shown to be scattered all across the area where Li Mei's parents were. The bodies were shown to all have royal Edenian patterns all over their armor. The entire Edenian Resistance save for Fei Yen herself, Jinhai, Rain who is nowhere to be found and the newest Outworld recruit had been slain earlier in that same area. Fei Yen had found their bodies and became enraged, beginning to think that Shao Kahn may have sent the Outworld recruit to destroy the resistance force from the inside.

Li Mei runs up to and embraces both of her parents tightly, telling them how worried she was about them. Fei Yen kneels down to Li Mei and places her hands on both of Li Mei's shoulders, telling her how much she loved her and she meant to her. She gives her daughter a kiss on the cheek and one last embrace before turning towards her husband. She walks up to him and kisses him for a few moments before telling him that she loved him and the moments they spent together.

Fei Yen then announces to both of them that there is something she must do now. She tells them that perhaps they will all meet each other again, which alarms both Jinhai and Li Mei. She tells Jinhai to not ever lose hope and curiously, tells Li Mei to protect her father. Li Mei is confused by what her mother means by this, which leads Li Mei to ask her. Fei Yen simply smiles at her daughter while Jinhai asks her if she was going to go fight against Rain and the empire to avenge the deaths of her comrades. Fei Yen simply reiterates that they will all meet up with each other again someday before turning around.

Fei Yen walks away for a moment before stopping where she is and turning back around. Her family asks her what was she doing and what was she up to, and Li Mei in particular starts to cry while asking her if she was going to go get herself killed. Fei Yen does not respond. She continues to ignores them and looks up, closes her eyes and spreads her arms out in the air. Suddenly, after a few moments, a beam of light shines down from the skies and stretches out. A transparent light structure in the shape of a large, rectangular wall appears between Fei Yen and her family and seperates the two.

Li Mei continues to yell out to her mother, asking her why she won't answer her. Fei Yen finally tells them that unfortunately, this is where things end for them and she can't allow them to go with her any further. She thanks the two for everything they've done for her and bids them farewell. Li Mei runs up to the light structure, demanding her to come back as she walks away and that she shouldn't just leave them like she's doing. She pounds on it repeatedly in a futile attempt to break through it and catch up with her mother. Fei Yen simply responds tearfully that what she is doing is for the best, and that she cannot allow her loved ones to interfere and lose their lives because of it. Tears run down Li Mei's face as she yells for her father to help her break through the barrier. Jinhai himself is shocked and speechless, not even moving until he suddenly falls to his knees, crying.

This was the last time anyone had ever seen Fei Yen.
 
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Here's a little bonus treat for everyone before I get started on the finale

The Story of Jinhai's Life and Origins​

Jinhai was born in Outworld, but is half-Edenian as his Outworld mother had married and conceived him with the male ambassador of Edenia at that time. Jinhai's mother was captured by Shao Kahn for her beauty, as the emperor planned to make the reluctant woman the primary sex slave of Shao Kahn's, but she was able to escape to the realm of Edenia one day after hearing about it. There she met her soon-to-be lover and husband, and the two quickly fell in love and had Jinhai. Unfortunately, Jinhai's mother was killed by Shao Kahn for her betrayal and his father was slayed as well by Shao Kahn (the latter also claimed the former's soul) during the merging of Edenia, and Jinhai was left alone young until he met an Edenian refugee at the time named Tanya, and the two grew up together in Outworld. The two protected each other from Shao Kahn and the Outworld menace and learned how to fend for themselves by growing stronger physically, making their own food and weapons and being wise to the outside world. At one point later in their lives, they even became full-fledged lovers. The two had been through everything together, surviving and holding their own as nomadic Outworld rebels for years to come, with no forseeable end.

Conflict started to arise between the two however when Tanya started to show interest in learning black magic, witnessing them first-hand in their various battles with Shadow Priests. She grew tired of constantly being on the run fighting against Shao Kahn's minions, developed a lust for power and set her eyes on claiming the throne of the emperor, and brought this up to Jinhai, wanting him to share the power with her. Jinhai rejected this offer, saying that he was content with his lifestyle as a rebel and saw it as going against their code of honor to learn something as dishonorable and shady as black magic. This resulted in a heated argument between the two, ending when Jinhai stormed off on his own to find materials for new weapons.

Tanya was alone for a long while while Jinhai was away, sitting in deep thought when Shao Kahn suddenly appeared before her. Her beauty caught the eye of Shao Kahn, who offered Tanya a chance to be one of his personal assassins. Shao Kahn ignored her decline of the offer and attacked her, not willing to take no for an answer. She tried to fight back but was easily overpowered by the emperor's strength, rendering her unconscious. Shao Kahn then opened up a portal and took Tanya with him.

Shao Kahn then arrived with her at his fortress and threw her body into a dungeon. When she woke up the next day, he let himself into the dungeon, beating her and forcing himself upon her. Because of this, Tanya finally gave in to Kahn and accepted his offer. He then backed off and walked away, leaving her in the dungeon but telling her that he would be back for her later.

Beaten, bruised, naked and raped, Tanya cried and called out for Jinhai, hoping that he would rescue her. Despite the argument they had, she still loved him dearly, and planned to betray Shao Kahn as soon as she came in contact with her. Meanwhile, Jinhai himself comes back to see Tanya missing. Worried, he searches all over for Tanya, asking nearby villagers and looking everywhere he possibly could for her. He finally gave up searching for her weeks later, coming to the conclusion that she was either dead or had abandoned him already, one fateful day when he met a beautiful Outworld woman named Fei Yen while wandering, who was looking for new recruits for the Edenian Resistance. Heartbroken and with no one else to turn to, Jinhai accepted and went with Fei Yen.

Over the years of his service in the resistance force, Fei Yen and Jinhai had learned a lot about each other and grew extremely close as a result, Fei Yen even allowing Jinhai to move in with her at the village of Sun Do. Eventually Fei Yen slowly but surely won Jinhai's heart and the two became lovers. Jinhai could not resist the graceful and lovely figure of her one night as he lost himself within her beautiful curves and united with her as one; the two had finally made love. This resulted in the conception of Li Mei, their first and only child together. This also led to the two to finally wed and make their relationship permanent. Jinhai and Fei Yen happily raised their daughter during her early childhood while serving in the resistance force.

Tanya herself was still working for Shao Kahn at this point. One day Tanya had been sent to deliver a message to Fei Yen, that Shao Kahn personally invited her to do battle with him at his colosseum. Telling her that she lived in Sun Do, Tanya traveled her to inform Fei of the message. Meanwhile, Jinhai along with Li Mei are outside playing. Tanya noticed the two and walked towards them, asking them if they knew where Fei was currently. Jinhai, holding and smiling Li Mei up in the air, was about halfway through his sentence of telling Tanya that she is in the house when he looked at her, his smile giving way to a look of shock when he noticed that it was Tanya standing right in front of him...

Tanya reacted the same way, faintly calling out his name in disbelief that she had finally met up with him. She then asked where he's been all these years. Jinhai sets Li Mei down and told her that the he could ask the same thing, considering the fact that he didn't know what happened to her, that he didn't know whether she died or betrayed him. He said that he searched for her for days on end and still couldn't find her. Tanya then walked up to Jinhai and hugged him, explaining everything to him that happened since they last met. Jinhai tells her how sorry that all happened for her and that he shouldn't have left her alone the way he did. Tanya forgives him, saying that she has been waiting for this day and that is simply grateful that she found him again. She goes on to ask who Li Mei, the little girl, was standing by him. He tells her that it is her daughter, and that he had gotten married over the years and had a child.

Tanya had planned to reignite the old flame the two had so many years ago, so she did not take the revelation very well. She dropped down to her knees and started to cry. Jinhai, alarmed, asked her what's wrong and tried to comfort her. She looks up at Jinhai and simply responds did you forget about us, and all the time that we spent together. Jinhai, still trying to console her, responds no, and that he always remembered the good times they had while keeping her in his prayers. She then yells at him, asking why did he betray her then by letting someone steal him from her. He responds that although he is sad that things had to end the way they did, he still had to move on with his life and find happiness for his own self, and that he couldn't wait for you forever. Tanya, angered at his response, stands up and slaps him hard, telling him how ungrateful that he is and that she sacrificed everything to be with him and waited for the day to finally reunite with Jinhai, only to find out he crushed her heart with his selfish desires. Li Mei yelled at her to not hit her father again, Tanya told her to be quiet and stay in a child's place. Jinhai told her that not to talk to his daughter like that; he then yells at her that although he enjoyed the time he spent on her, in the end, he moved on and so should she. He drove home the point when he said that as his lifetime friend, she should be supportive of him and his new relationship instead of accusing him of betraying her and clinging on to the past.

Tanya could not believe anything that was being said to her, and didn't know how to respond. Jinhai tells her that whatever business she has with Fei Yen, handle it now and leave their presence as she is not welcome there. Tanya looked at him scornfully for a couple of moments, chuckled and then walked off to talk with Fei Yen when he yelled at her again to leave.

After making sure she left, Jinhai hugged Li Mei, apologizing to her about what just happened. Meanwhile, while walking, Tanya thought to herself that if she couldn't have him, no one else could, and decided that Fei Yen should pay a visit to the Elder Gods...

500 years later, before Jinhai's murder at the hands of Reiko, Jinhai realized the inner strength of Li Mei and her potential during the embrace they they shared back at the village, and decided to have her train with Master Bo Rai Cho, a friend of his that he meant during his days of service in the Edenian Resistance, to become stronger in order to liberate Outworld of Shao Kahn's rule. He also decided that, to redeem himself, he would fight against Shang Tsung while leaving his daughter in her care. Jinhai had lived a life of shame after the death of his beloved wife, and that fighting against his enemies, regardless of whether he lived or died, would be the way to atone for siding with the enemy. His spirit free of the weight of the guilt that he brought himself, Jinhai decided to have one last moment with his daughter, Li Mei, before going off to face his uncertain fate.

That moment in particular? Reliving his older days of running through the woods with Li Mei as a child.
 
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Chapter 5: A New Beginning​

The memory of Li Mei's mother telling her to protect her father consumes the mind of Li Mei; although she finally approaches the village, her sadness overcomes her desire to escape from Reiko, as she slows down until she finally falls to her knees, her will to live slipping. The more she thinks about every single person that wound up dead in her presence, from Jianyu to his grandmother to the rest of the villagers and finally her parents, the more she loses herself in the memories of her loved ones smiling, therefore losing her grip on reality. Confused, sad, defenseless and alone in the muddy Outworld plains, she looks up to the sky, wondering why everyone else but her is dead, why did everyone leave her here in Outworld by herself in her time of need. Reasoning that her existence is pitiful and purposeless and blaming the deaths of everyone squarely upon herself, she stands up and patiently waits for her father's murderer to come before her. She decides that it is time for her life to end as well.

During all this, she fails to notice the silhouette of an obese man carrying a staff in the distance while she turns around to face Reiko right in her face. He quickly uses his dagger in his right hand to slash her across the chest and then kicks her to the ground. Li Mei flies back down to the soil beneath her, laying there motionless as blood leaks from her superficial yet lengthy slash wound. Blood drips from Reiko's dagger as he motions towards Li Mei. He tells her that he got bored waiting for her to make it to the village before killing her and just rushed in to end things quickly. Li Mei eyes look away as she comes to the conclusion that this is it, that she was going to die right then and there. As Reiko stands over her soon-to-be lifeless body, Li Mei asks him something: she asks him before she kills her, that could he tell her why he killed her father. She asks her if Shang Tsung sent her to kill her and Jinhai. Reiko simply responds no, and tells her that he was bored and that the two of them happened to be there for him to kill.

The half-dead look in Li Mei's face suddenly lights up with an intensity uncommon of Li Mei. She can not believe what she just heard. Her only loved one left in the world died because someone... was bored. Li Mei feels this change within herself but does not know what is going on within her as her previously disheartened face twists into a look of rage. She clenches the soil beneath her tightly, breathes heavily and slowly sits up, ignoring the wound on her chest.

Reiko, noticing this, asks her what it is going on. Li Mei, slowly walking up to him, calmly yet angrily responds by telling him that her father did everything to make sure she was safe on the right path, and worked hard to live his daily, humble life, only to have the life robbed from his body by some pathetic low-life that didn't even value the life of others. As she balls up her fists tightly, she tells him that when she dies, it won't ever be by him.

Li Mei herself cannot believe that she is doing this, but she feels compelled to do so; a newfound flame had broiled within her soul. Reiko simply tries to cut her head off with his dagger but the normally timid and mild-mannered Li Mei suddenly blocked his attack by tightly holding his forearm with just her right arm. Li Mei's already red-hot anger only seemed to rise even more as Reiko himself, surprisingly, struggled to get out of Li Mei's grip. Li Mei, through her anger, found the strength to hold off Reiko's attack, with only one arm. Reiko repeatedly punches her with his free arm, but Li Mei's grip only tightens. Her nails pierce through his skin as he starts to bleed slightly from his forearm. Li Mei angrily yells out that it's because of people like him that the people of Outworld suffer before yanking his arm down towards her direction, which causes Reiko to scream in pain. Reiko is now free from her grip. He kneels down in pain for a moment, motioning to console his forearm. Strangely, all he feels is his upper arm now. He slowly looks up to see Li Mei holding onto an arm with a dagger in its hand.

Reiko looks down and realizes in horror that his right forearm has been ripped from his hand...

Blood drips down from his severed arm, as Li Mei stares him down. She notices that she is holding something in her right hand. Looking down, she sees Reiko's forearm and lets out a sigh of shock. She drops it to the ground and looks at her bloodied hands. She can't believe what she has just done, looking at Reiko with wide eyes as the rain washes away the blood on her palms.

Reiko, still kneeling, says to Li Mei that she'll pay for what she's done. He tells her that he'll make her suffer greatly. Li Mei walks up to him, kicks him to the ground and stomps violently on his chest with her left foot, telling him that she's already suffered enough, which makes him cough. She tells him that she'll be leaving now and walks off. Reiko, shocked, lays there in agony for a moment before deciding to head to the Flesh Pits to get his forearm reattached by Shang Tsung. He slowly stands up and tries to keep his balance, walks over and grabs his severed forearm. He scornfully stares at her for a moment before walking off in the distance.

Li Mei herself finds herself back at the same point she was before: wondering what to do now, but this time reflecting on what she just did to Reiko. She starts to wonder if something or someone possessed her and tapped into her inner strength. She comes to the conclusion that maybe this Master Bo Rai Cho her father talked about could provide her with answers, and sets her new goal to find, when she sees the same obese man from before, carrying a staff and within walking distance. The man had a full face, beard and his hair was tied up in a ponytail. Li Mei walks towards and yells for him, saying that she needs to ask him something. The man stops in his tracks as Li Mei approaches him.

She introduces herself as Li Mei to the man, and asked him if he knew who a man named Bo Rai Cho was, and where he stayed at. The man, smiling, tells her that he is in fact Bo Rai Cho. Li Mei, shocked, asks him to confirm whether he really is Bo Rai Cho. He then responds that he doubts he could be anyone else, and laughs. Li Mei laughs as well in embarrassment. Li Mei is about to ask Bo Rai Cho something when the latter notices the slash wound on her chest, and he then asks her what happened to her. Li Mei herself had forgotten about her injury during everything that happened. Before she opens her mouth, he tells her to come with him so that they can treat her injury.

As they walk, Li Mei tells Bo Rai Cho about everything that happened, from Jianyu and the villagers being slayed to her fending off Reiko's attack. He asks him if he knew how she was able to do what she did, why her father wanted him to see Bo, and why was he so happy all of a sudden before he died. Bo Rai Cho, shocked that she was able to do what she did to Reiko, theorizes that her anger simply allowed her to reach into her inner strength in her time of need, and that her father, knowing that Bo Rai Cho trained some of the most powerful warriors of the realms, may have wanted Li Mei to train with him. He also says that maybe he had finally found peace with himself in some way but how they may never know.

After a while, Bo Rai Cho then arrives at his house, telling her to rest and that he'll tend to her wounds there. He tells her that when her wound has fully healed, that the two of them will travel to Earthrealm, leading her to look at him for a few moments before smiling and laying down.

She thinks about her mother, her father, Jianyu and everyone else. She promises that one day, she alone will make Outworld a better place for all and and that they wouldn't be disappointed in her from now on, before closing her eyes.



Epilogue coming tomorrow! Really enjoyed writing this story and hope you all did too!
 
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Thanks! Did a few minor changes such as edit the original third chapter with the update BTW

After the epilogue, I'm thinking about remaking of the first chapter without dialogue and editing that into the OP. Would you all like that or...?
 
Very beautiful story Metal. Can't wait how you set the ending to this wonderful backstory for Li Mei. I know some Li Mei fan member up in this site that will absolutely love the hell out of this story.
 
Thanks FireDragon and Yantie, that really means a lot to me <3

But yeah, I'll do the epilogue and Chapter 1 tomorrow when I get home
 
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