Disclaimer:  This is all dragon's fault.  (Whaddaya mean, this isn't a disclaimer?  Oh, right.  I'm dragon *g*)

Spoilers:  Vengeance (season/series finale).

Rating:  PG (weensy bit of language).

Author's Note:  Frustration is discovering you have fifteen minutes to yourself and you left your disks at home.   (And your coke is flat, flat, flat.)   dragon used to RPG (role play game).  Sometimes she wishes she could get her hands on the idiot rolling her dice.  No story.  Just a tidbit.  Enjoy.

Librarian's Note:  This piece was actually created  before dragon's  A Possible Redemption and  The Long Walk Home, but due to the confusion of a move and semester exams, it got temporarily lost in my mailbox.  ::clearing throat; mutter::  Translation: I forgot it was there.  Ahem.  ::weak smile::

Idle Time

© 1999, dragon

"So, now you're stranded in Shao Kahn's throne room.  Your champions are dead. Most of the rest of those who might have helped you are dead and EarthRealm is at stake.  What do you do?"

The player made a face, studied the board and his player sheets.  Lord Rayden, Protector of EarthRealm, mentor of the champions and potential champions of Mortal Kombat, all around pretty cool godling, had just blown the roll of his career.  Just when you need that 01 to come around, you roll 00.  The whole shooting match seemed to have fallen into the bad guys lap.  He looked up at the ref with an odd smile on his face.  "Pray for rain?" he inquired with a laugh.

"What?"

"Pray for rain."

"Rayden is stranded in OutWorld without his powers.  What good is that gonna do?  You've lost."

"Rayden's alive.  That's something.  Obviously Shao Kahn has something in mind.  The longer Rayden stays alive, the better off things are."

"You're not a druid," the ref pointed out.

"So I only get 5% to get an answer.  And a 2% penalty because I'm in OutWorld where the Elder Gods have problems.  So, do I get to roll or are you gonna be arbitrary?"

The ref looked disgusted.  "Roll."

He took his percentile dice carefully in hand, rolled them around in his palm a few times, prayed that whatever gods of chance were out there were paying attention and  not having fits of laughter at his expense.  He rolled.  Time seemed to stretch to infinity as the plastic polyhedrons rolled across the surface of the table and finally came to rest.  01.  He practically upset the table as he bounced in his chair with glee.

The ref gave him a darkling look.  "So, what's the big deal?"

The player pointed out the reference in the handbook.  Rayden might be bereft of his powers in OutWorld, but that did not preclude his ability to  use any errant lightning that struck him.  And he had been granted rain,  inside Shao Kahn's palace, not just his realm.  It was the ref's turn to find out just what kind of rain Rayden had gotten.

His face was a study in dark thoughts.  He chose his dice seemingly at random, but both he and the player facing him knew better.  He rolled. These dice were killers.  They had ended several promising characters' careers with a turn of the side to the bad.  00.

"Shit!"  The ref threw down his screen and his books and stomped off into the kitchen.  "You have the luck of the damned, you know that!" he yelled as he pulled a couple of beers out of the fridge.

"Hey.  You're the one who wanted to turn the video game into an RPG."

~*~

A dirty, unkempt, bewildered Rayden looked up into the recesses of the ceiling of Shao Kahn's throne room.  Small drops of cool water fell in his face.  The drops became heavier and heavier until the storm within became a torrent washing his face clean, plastering his hair to his head.   He stood, face up turned, arms outstretched, receiving the beneficience of the storm.

Shao Kahn bellowed in rage.  He was wet.  He pulled his sword, knowing that somehow, bereft of powers as he was, Rayden had engineered this storm.  He bounded down the stairs leading to his throne.  Lightning slammed into the step before him, shattering stone, throwing the tyrant to the ground.  He picked himself up in time to see lightning strike Rayden, turning the powerless god into an incandescent blaze of light.   When the light died down, Rayden was gone.

Shao Kahn howled his displeasure into the mists above his throne.

--Finis--

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