Characters / Mortal Kombat 3

Mortal Kombat Main Character Index
Original and Reboot Timeline: MK (1992) | MK2 | MK3 | MK4 | Deadly Alliance | Deception | Armageddon | MK vs. DC Universe | MK9 | MKX | MK11
The New Era: MK1
Spin-offs: Mythologies: Sub-Zero | Special Forces
Non-video game: The Movie | Conquest | Defenders of the Realm | 2021 Movie
Individual Characters: Scorpion I (Hanzo Hasashi) | Sub-Zero I/Noob Saibot (Bi-Han) | Johnny Cage | Liu Kang | Raiden | Shang Tsung | Sub-Zero II/Scorpion II (Kuai Liang) | Kitana | Mileena | Shao Kahn/General Shao | Quan Chi

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Spoilers for 1, 2 and Mythologies will be unmarked

Here, we're going to list the characters introduced in Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

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Cyrax

Cyrax (LK-4D4)

"Safeties disabled. Combat mode engaged."

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3 (Sal Divita)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat Gold (Sultan Uddin), Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Rhassan Orange), Mortal Kombat 11 (Ike Amadi, English; Guillermo Rojas, Latin American Spanish, non-playable), Mortal Kombat 1 (Kameo)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (J.J. Perry), Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, Mortal Kombat: Legacy (Shane Warren Jones), Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (Artt Butler)

A cyborg assassin for the Lin Kuei. Cyrax was one of four people chosen to become a new breed of soulless warriors for his clan. In time Cyrax regained his soul with the aid of Special Forces operatives.

His first mission was to hunt down and destroy the deserter Sub-Zero, who had refused to be cybernetically enhanced, along with fellow cyborgs Smoke and Sektor. However, Cyrax soon found himself defeated by the combined force of a rogue Smoke and Sub-Zero. Reprogrammed to hunt down Shao Kahn by his former target, he ended up stranded in the desert.

Recovered and repaired by the short-handed Lin Kuei, it soon become clear that Cyrax's was experiencing lost memories. The glimpse of the former life he had and what it was to be human prompted Cyrax to seek out aid to restore his soul. With the aid of OIA operatives Jax and Sonya, his humanity was restored and in gratitude he joined their ranks.

Whilst scouting in Outworld, Cyrax's arm console was damaged by Reptile, leaving him unable to use it to return to Earthrealm. The vampire Nitara offered to send him home in exchanged for retrieving a lost artifact. As he had little choice in the matter Cyrax agreed. The cyborg retrieved her mysterious relic from a lake of lava and had time to give her a respectful bow before she sent him home as promised.

In Mortal Kombat 9, it's revealed that Cyrax was opposed to the cybernetic enhancement process the Lin Kuei were undergoing, but he was still a loyal member to them. He eventually rebelled against them at Raiden's suggestion, however, but it was for naught, as he was captured and transformed regardless. His whereabouts after the game are unknown, but he was not explicitly mentioned to die, so it is likely he's still around. Whether he will eventually recover his humanity or not remains to be seen.

In the Mortal Kombat X comic, he is revealed to be still active and Sektor's comrade in arms after the latter's takeover of the Lin Kuei. However, after Sub-Zero invades the hidden base of the Lin Kuei and uploads a virus into the main network, Cyrax's slaving protocols get disabled, which causes him to regain his memories as a human, upon which he turns on Sektor. After Sub-Zero kills Sektor, the remaining cyborgs swear fealty to him and he self-destructs to purge the cyber Lin Kuei for good, clearing the slate for Sub-Zero to rebuild the clan. Unfortunately, a copy of his memories and abilities which the Lin Kuei kept was used in an experimental cyborg template by the Special Forces along with Smoke's. This creation eventually rebelled and sought out Sektor's head from the Lin Kuei temple, giving birth to Triborg.

Another Cyrax would later appear in Mortal Kombat 11, but this time as one of Kronika's enforcers... And just like last time, Cyrax pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to halt the production of the Lin Kuei cyborgs after Scorpion and Sub-Zero bailed him out again.

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Tropes related to Cyrax (human)

• Breaking the Fourth Wall: He leaves a "present" for the players as he teleports away in his winpose in MK9.
• Contemplate Our Navels: 9 reveals that he, much like Sub-Zero and Smoke, had his qualms with the Lin Kuei automating its warriors and suppressing their free will. In his chapter, Raiden's words seem to make a breakthrough, causing Cyrax to actually defeat Sektor and tell him that he's resigning from the Lin Kuei... but he apparently wasn't too successful.
• A Day in the Limelight: In Mortal Kombat 9, he's the focus of Chapter 4.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam:
  • He starts off loyal to the Lin Kuei, but is against the idea of giving up his free will and humanity. Raiden manages to get to him during the first Mortal Kombat tournament, slowly bringing out his better side, and in the end he decides to spare Johnny Cage, leave the Lin Kuei, defeating Sektor in the process, and presumably ally himself with Raiden. The next time we see him, the Lin Kuei have taken him by force off-screen and turned him into a soulless cyborg with no free will whatsoever. This could be justified that his ultimate Heel–Face Turn without the Door Slam should be at Mortal Kombat 4 era.
  • The MKX comics have him defect from Sektor the moment Sub-Zero's virus was fully uploaded.
• Hidden Depths: According to the Deadly Alliance's Krypt extras, he seems to be a movie fan. He's not a fan of Johnny Cage's films, however, and specifically wants his money back from seeing Ninja Mime and feeling "particularly robbed of his eight bucks".
• Magic Versus Science: To a degree, this contrast is shown between him and Sektor with their human forms in 9. Whereas Sektor uses modern weaponry like flamethrowers and missile launchers and somehow uses cyberspace to move around the terrain, Cyrax's arsenal is decidedly more low-tech and/or mystical by comparison. His standard bomb projectile utilizes an explosive substance encased in an orb that ignites when the shell is cracked open, his teleportation is a traditional ninjutsu Smoke Out, and his nets and buzzsaws can be found stored on his suit and wristbands.
• McNinja: He's from Botswana, a country in Southern Africa.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted. He receives his own chapter in 9 (Chapter 4) and begins to gravitate towards Raiden's side, only to be captured off-screen and roboticized anyway.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Cyrax's accent is American, despite the fact that he was later revealed to be from Botswana. Initially, you'd think that the American voice is something Cyrax gained due to being roboticized... but when you play as his human self in 9, his accent is still American, not African.
• Not So Above It All: Cyrax apparently is a movie fan though he doesn't like Johnny Cage's movies.
• Teleport Spam: In his human form, he throws down a vial of an unknown substance before teleporting away.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: As of 9, Cyrax wanted no part of having his humanity taken but it was still thrust upon him by the time Sub-Zero's chapter in Story Mode rolls around.
• Wrestler in All of Us: The finisher to his X-Ray attack in 9 is a skull-smashing jumping sitout piledriver.

Tropes related to Cyrax (cyborg)

• And I Must Scream: Avoided. His 3 ending involves him being stranded in a desert for an indefinite amount of time (you can even see him in the background on said stage) but he was rescued by the Special Forces in the next.
• Alien Blood: His blood is black, and appears to be oil.
• Become a Real Boy: He wants to be fully human again.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Happens to him quite a bit.
  • In 3, he is programmed by the Lin Kuei to hunt down the rogue younger Sub-Zero. Sometime later, however, he ends up malfunctioning and left to wander aimlessly in Jade's Desert. Fortunately, the Special Forces manage to find him and restore his soul. Grateful that he is free from his programming, he joins the Special Forces and becomes good.
  • 9 further establishes that Cyrax was turned into a cyborg against his will. This cyberization carries into the X prequel comic, where he is still programmed to carry out orders by the cyber Lin Kuei until Kuai Liang manages to free him by using a virus.
  • Happens once again in 11, where a time displaced Cyrax is turned into a cyborg against his will and forced to carry out Kronika's orders. And once again, Kuai Liang manages to reprogram Cyrax and restore his conscious.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Same deal as above.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Yes, his pulse blade is green. Yes, Sektor's are red. Why do you ask?
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Subverted. MK3 explicitly stated that he could not be detected by Shao Kahn because he had no souls for him to steal, but his soul resurfaces after he is lost in the desert during the aftermath of 3 (you can see him in one of the stages), and at the end of Gold, Sonya and Jax fully restore it.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Historically, Cyrax has been known for having plenty of gadgets to dominate matches, but requiring a lot of skill in order to use them. The epitome of this came in 9, where Cyrax became known for having absurdly powerful combo potential tied around his bombs — on one hand, said bombs only explode after a fixed timer and must be positioned carefully to hit, and the player has has to account for three different fixed distances to launch them at. On the other hand, they're a completely unblockable Launcher Move, and make for exceptionally good setup and resets.
• Downloadable Content: For downloading Skarlet, either just as the update pack or to actually play as her, you get his MK3 skin for 9.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: In Mortal Kombat 4 as a Fatality, borrowed from Cyber-Smoke from MK3.
• Expy: Along with the other Lin Kuei cyborgs, of the Predator with his mask and dreadlock cables along with his razor net. His appearance in Mortal Kombat 9 downplays the physical resemblance.
• Good Counterpart: Becomes one to Sektor, his red colored human-turned-cyborg counterpart. They both started off as Lin Kuei warriors who were turned into cyborgs as part of the Cyber Initiative. Unlike Sektor, however, Cyrax never wanted to become a cyborg, eventually breaking free from his programming and aligning himself with the good guys while wishing to be restored as a human.
• Heel–Face Turn: After his ending in Gold. In Deadly Alliance, he's one of the good guys.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the new timeline, he activates his self-destruct mechanism after Sub-Zero disables his slaving protocols, destroying the cyber Lin Kuei for good.
  • He does it again in MK11, this time simply shutting himself and a good chunk of the Cyber Lin Kuei down in order to weaken Kronika's forces with the hopes that one day the Lin Kuei will be able to restore the humanity of the unwilling cyborgs.
• It Has Been an Honor: Makes a speech saying how privileged it was to fight alongside a restored Sub-Zero again before he makes his Heroic Sacrifice.
  "If anyone can restore the clan's honor, you can. Fighting alongside a real Lin Kuei warrior one last time was as good as it gets. Thank you."
• Laser Blade: His weapon from Deadly Alliance onwards has been a "Pulse Blade". In 4, it was instead called a Sabre of Light.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He's a Lin Kuei cyborg with no soul.
• Not Quite Dead: Cyrax lives in Triborg's consciousness in X, as one of the latter's Variations contains his moveset. He's then revealed to still be alive in 11, sacrificing himself in order to deactivate the Cyber Lin Kuei much like he did in the X comics.
• Palette Swap: Originally of Sektor, but later games changed this by making them more visually distinct from each other.
• Put on a Bus:
  • He is given a lot of characterization and even his own chapter in MK9, but in X there isn't even a single mention of his whereabouts aside from Sub-Zero saying that he succeeded in fighting back against Sektor's forces. Sektor fairs far worse, though, as mentioned below.
  • The MKX comics expand on his fate: He has his slaving protocols disabled by Sub-Zero, and kills himself via self-destruct when the Cyber Lin Kuei choose him as their master to get rid of them for good.
    • The Bus Came Back: He returns in MK11 however, due to Kronika's Time Crash altering history somewhat.
• Suddenly Ethnicity: His Mortal Kombat Gold ending revealed he's at the very least dark-skinned, which is at least a little unexpected since he's part of a Chinese assassin's guild. 9 confirms that he's of African descent (Botswana to be exact).
• Taking You with Me:
  • His Self Destruct Fatality. Sure, he blew himself up, but the opponent got caught too.
  • In the MKX comics, this is what he does to the Cyber Lin Kuei. At least before Kronika's mucking about with time in 11 altered his fate.
• Teleport Spam: In his MK3 debut. Unlike Sektor, he manually breaks his body apart and then reconfigures it in another location.
• Threatening Shark: His Animality.
• We Meet Again: He makes this promise to Sub-Zero as he shuts himself and a good number of Cyber Lin Kuei down, hoping to wake up with his humanity restored.
• Wrestler in All of Us: See his human form's entry.

Sektor

Sektor (LK-9T9)

"I will show no mercy!"

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3 (Sal Divita)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat Gold (Sultan Uddin), Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (Game Boy Advance version), Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Andrew Kishino), Mortal Kombat X (Vic Chao, English; Carlos Hernández, Latin American Spanish, non-playable), Mortal Kombat 11 (Dave B. Mitchell, English; Carlo Vázquez, Latin American Spanish, non-playable), Mortal Kombat 1 (Kameo)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, Mortal Kombat: Legacy (Peter Shinkoda), Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (Dave B. Mitchell)

Volunteering for the automation process out of loyalty, Sektor was the first cyborg assassin created by the Lin Kuei. Utterly ruthless, uncompromising and having no hint of emotion. He was the embodiment of what the clan was attempting to accomplish.

The assassin's first mission was to hunt down and kill the renegade Sub-Zero with his partners cyborgs Cyrax and Smoke. Despite several attempts on his life he failed to eliminate the deserter. His repeated battles with Outworld forces soon lead to his program being corrupted as he believed the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei was now "inferior" and killed him.

Only the intervention of Sub-Zero prevented Sektor from gaining the Dragon Medallion. After his defeat he fled to Japan to form his own clan of cybernetic ninjas, the Tekunin.

It is revealed in Mortal Kombat 9 that Sektor pretty much had no mercy or morals even before being cybernetically enhanced (his robotic personality did not differ much from his human one), as well as him actually being the Lin Kuei Grandmaster's son. Just like Cyrax, his status after the game is unknown, but he's probably still around. Mortal Kombat X reveals that he became Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei by killing his father, just like in the original timeline. Sub-Zero then swore to eradicate him and restore honor to the Lin Kuei. Unlike the original timeline where Sektor escapes, in this one, Sub-Zero kills him off for good.

Unfortunately, Kronika's actions resulted with Sektor being brought back in Mortal Kombat 11, and then recruited as one of her accomplices. He ends up dead after being used as a living bomb by Kano in an attempt to wipe out the Special Forces for Kronika.

A new incarnation of Sektor is confirmed to exist in 1, but like Cyrax is only mentioned and not seen. He once again serves as a loyal member of the Lin Kuei.

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Tropes related to Sektor (human)

• Beard of Evil: Has a villainous goatee, much like Shang Tsung's younger form.
• Combat Pragmatist: While Cyrax in his human form prefered to use more mystical devices and weapons as fitting a martial arts fighter, Sektor uses obviously more high tech weapons, such as wrist-mounted flame throwers (with a visible tank on his back) and portable missile launchers, showing that he was already embracing technology in his trade long before the Cyber Initiative.
• Enigmatic Minion: As shown in 9, although the original canon tells us that we should know better.
• Fantastic Racism: In 11 he's revealed to have sold out his own clan to Quan-Chi on the promise that the sorcerer would slaughter the Shirai Ryu because of his hatred for their clan.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: His flamethrowers.
• Kill It with Fire: In his human form, he wears a pair of fuel tanks on his back and the flames launch from vents on his wrists.
• Loophole Abuse: The deal with Quan Chi for his clan's lives was Quan Chi exterminating the Shirai Ryu down to the last child. When Sektor sees Scorpion resurrected as Quan Chi's bodyguard, he points out that is technically a breach of their deal and angrily tells him he is now owed nothing.
• Magic Versus Science: In contrast to Cyrax, Sektor falls firmly on the 'science' side. Even before becoming a cyborg, he uses a wide range of advanced military hardware compared to Cyrax's affinity for more traditional ninja weapons like smoke bombs.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Even more so than the Elder Sub-Zero. In fact, he decides to go along with the Cyber Initiative and have his free will eroded because he believes it will make the Lin Kuei more loyal and more efficient warriors.
• Overlord Jr.: He's the Grandmaster's son after all.
• The Sociopath: Even before literally losing his humanity, Sektor was a cold-blooded killer who enjoyed his work as an assassin who willingly colluded with Quan Chi to see the Shirai Ryu exterminated down to the last child, as well as showing no emotion at the death of Bi-Han.

Tropes related to Sektor (cyborg)

• Accidental Hero: Sektor's ending in 3 has him setting off an explosion in Shao Kahn's palace which closes the portal between Earth and Outworld and returns the Earth to normal.
• Adaptational Villainy: The NetherRealm games exclude the justification that Sektor's programming was corrupted, leaving his agency intact and making it clear that he betrayed his father by choice.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Turns on the Grandmaster and takes over the Lin Kuei to establish an order of cyborgs.
• And I Must Scream: Sub-Zero keeps Sektor's severed head and arm kept on the bare essential life support in order to gain information from his memory banks. It's unknown how aware of his surroundings he is, if at all.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Cyrax, who hates him for forcibly converting him into a cyborg and whom Sektor hates for deserting the Cyber Lin Kuei.
  • Kuai Liang. They constantly clash for the position of the Lin Kuei Grandmaster.
  • To a lesser extent, Hanzo Hasashi. Once he found out that Sektor was the one who made a deal with Quan Chi to slaughter the Shirai Ryu, Hanzo hated Sektor ever since.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: When challenging Johnny Cage in 11, Sektor is confident he will win with the logic that 1) Cyrax once defeated Johnny when the latter was younger and in his prime, and 2) Sektor was Cyrax's superior and thus, Johnny's as well. Johnny shows the former Grandmaster how wrong he is.
• Bat Out of Hell: His Animality in 3.
• Big Bad Wannabe: His attempt to create an invincible army in the MKX comics barely even gets off the ground before Sub-Zero dismantles his entire operation, then dismantles Sektor himself.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • In 9, he gets beaten up by Scorpion, then again the next chapter by Cyrax in his human form. After the Cyber Initiative, he gets beaten up three more times by Smoke, Cyber Sub-Zero, and Nightwolf. The last time ends with him getting tomahawked in the chest, and we never see him after that.
  • In between 9 and X, despite having taken over the Lin Kuei from his father, Sub Zero dismembers the cyborg and puts his head and arm-console on life support. It's unknown if he's still "alive", as his head is mainly used to see his old memories.
  • In 11, he is resurrected only to be killed by Sub-Zero or Scorpion. Kano repairs him only to get beaten up by Johnny and ends up being used as a bomb in a failed attempt to kill the heroes. Kronika promptly replaces him with Frost as leader of the Cyber Lin Kuei.
• Control Freak: Sektor doesn't take "no" for an answer where the Cyber Lin Kuei are concerned; anyone who refuses to become a cyborg is either killed or forcibly converted, and once converted, slaving protocols keep them obedient to Sektor's will.
• Crosshair Aware: His homing missiles do this.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Literally; MK3 explicitly stated that he could not be detected by Shao Kahn because he had no souls for him to steal.
• Downloadable Content: For downloading Skarlet, either just as the update pack or to actually play as her, you get his MK3 skin for 9.
• Dual Wielding: His weapon style in Armageddon is a pair of short Pulse Blades.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Cyrax, his yellow colored human-turned-cyborg counterpart. Both are Lin Kuei clan members that became cyborgs but while Cyrax refused to become a cyborg, Sektor willingly accepted his new cybernetic enhancements as he was the son of the previous grandmaster of the Lin Kuei and viewed them as the next step in perfecting the Lin Kuei. Whereas Cyrax struggled with his initial programming before breaking free from it and becoming good, Sektor makes no attempt to break free from his own programming and stays firmly on the side of evil.
  • To the second Sub-Zero. Both are proud members of the Lin Kuei, but the difference between the two of them is that Sektor had embraced his cybernetic makeover (even personally volunteering to be one of the first earlier prototypes for the project itself) while Sub-Zero himself was horrified with the experience. Sub-Zero had personally defected to Earthrelam as soon as he had gotten his free will back while Sektor had continued to turn the remaining members of the Lin Kuei into cyborgs long after Evil Overlord Shao Kahn had bit the dust. Ironically, both Sektor and Sub-Zero are trying to rebuild their clan, though Sektor himself is just doing it in a bad way.
• Evil Overlord: Becomes one after Sub-Zero retakes the Lin Kuei from him.
• Expy: Like the other cyborgs, of the alien from Predator, but more so in appearance than in abilities. His appearance in the reboot even amplifies his resemblance. Now Hilarious in Hindsight since he came back as Triborg in Kombat Pack 2 of MKX, and the Predator itself became a playable character in Kombat Pack 1.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: His flamethrowers.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Lin Kuei Grandmaster wanted to create a ruthless killer with no compunction. And the Grandmaster knows firsthand he succeeded.
• Hammerspace: Had one of the most memorably daft Fatalities in Mortal Kombat 3 in which he crushes his opponent with a giant compactor that emerges from his chest. The question of how he fits such a giant mechanism in there is about as pertinent as how Jax inexplicably turns enormous for one of his Fatalities, i.e. not very. invoked
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Tries this with Taven aboard the Tekunin warship in Armageddon until the Special Forces attack the warship.
• Kill It with Fire: Sektor packs some flamethrowers in his wrists. When he was introduced in MK3, he used these to incinerate his opponent as a finishing move. In later installments, he can use them during the fight as well.
• Killed Off for Real: Sektor is disarmed and beheaded (in that order) in the MKX Comics, courtesy of Sub-Zero. MK11 has his past version become reverse engineered as a nuke once Kronika's forces escape from the Special Forces.
• Klingon Promotion:
  • Becomes Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei by killing the old Grandmaster after his programming deteriorates. Made worse by his MK9 bio stating that the Lin Kuei Grandmaster was his own father. And even worse when MK9 states that he was planning to kill his father even before he became a cyborg.
  • On the receiving end of this in both timelines, Sub-Zero wresting control of the Lin Kuei from him. In the original timeline, he relocated and started a new cyborg clan. In X and it's prequel comics, not only Sub-Zero uploaded a virus on the clan's systems, but he trashed Sektor so hard, that all that is left of him is his head and one of his arms.
• Lack of Empathy: Hoo boy! Even as a human Sektor didn't care much for anyone.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Uses it as an attack and fatality in 9.
• More Dakka: His fatality in 9, using missiles. His fighting style in general is zoner-based and revolves around suffocating opponents with projectiles and Teleport Spam.
• Moral Myopia: In 11, Sektor calls Sub-Zero's alliance with Scorpion an act of "dishonor", which rings more than a little hollow considering Sektor has been kidnapping and forcibly cyberizing Sub-Zero's followers to bolster his own army.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Extremely close to that exact description, being a Cyborg Lin Kuei without a soul and, by Armageddon, has a Cool Airship.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • Sub Zero was keeping Sektor's head barely alive to extract information from it. This means, however, that cybernetic loyalists could sneak in and whisk him away to be rebuilt.
  • The trailer for Kombat Pack 2 in X has his head being recovered by Triborg. In-game, one of Triborg's variations contains his moveset. Like Cyrax, he's seen alive and well in 11, serving under Kronika out of his own volition, and self-destructing, taking a big chunk of the Special Forces Desert Base with him, though with no casualties.
• Offscreen Teleportation: He drops into a hole in cyberspace... or something. According to 9, he had this ability before he became a cyborg.
• Palette Swap: Until later games, where he is much trimmer than Cyrax.
• Red Is Violent: He's basically pure evil and his cyborg armour is crimson.
• Self-Made Orphan: An interesting example as it only becomes clear when you combine details from both canons. We know in the original canon that Sektor killed the Grandmaster to become the new Lin Kuei leader around the time of 4 but it's only until backstory from Mortal Kombat 9 emerges that we learn the man who was killed was in fact his father.
• Shooting Superman: If the player chooses Hanzo to fight him in Mortal Kombat 11, Sektor tries incinerating him with his flamethrower. As we can expect, it does absolutely nothing to a man who can control fire
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • He's totally inert in X, but Sektor's preserved memories are what convince Hanzo to bury the hatchet with Kuai Liang, as well as to murder Quan Chi, no matter how bad of an idea the latter might be.
  • He is not playable in Mortal Kombat 11, but he has more impact on the story than some playable antagonists.
• The Starscream: To the Lin Kuei Grandmaster, who, as stated above, is his own father.
• Start My Own: In the original timeline, after Sub-Zero exiles him from the rebuilt Lin Kuei, Sektor goes and forms the Tekunin.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the original timeline, he gloriously realised his ambitions of cyberizing his own branch of the Lin Kuei, the Tekunin, and rampaging across the Earth with a fully-armed, militarised war fleet with huge starships at his command.
• Transhuman Treachery: After being upgraded into a cyborg, Sektor ultimately decided that his human Grandmaster was no longer worthy of leading the Lin Kuei, which leads Sektor to kill him and take over for himself.

Sheeva

Sheeva

"For the Shokan!"

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Lani Minella), Mortal Kombat 11 (Vanessa Marshall, English; Nik Stewart, Face Model; Gisela Casillas, Latin American Spanish)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Marjean Holden), Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (Dawnn Lewis)

Appointed the personal bodyguard of the resurrected Sindel during Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm, Sheeva is a powerful Shokan warrior. Despite the Shokan race having the emperor's favor for many years, she discovers that the extermination squads are being led by the Centaurian Motaro. Bitter enemies of the Shokan race, the insulting presence of Centaurs only serves to create anger and suspicion within Sheeva.

When Kitana and Jade confront Sheeva in an effort to reach Sindel, the Shokan finds herself outmatched and defeated. Fleeing in shame, Sheeva arrives in Outworld to find Shao Kahn has betrayed her people and is in fact launching an offensive against them. After confronting her hated rival Motaro and leaving him for dead, she seeks out Kano. Sheeva releases him from his cell with the promise of riches if he aids her in Kahn's demise.

However Kano betrays her and informs the emperor of her intentions. Sheeva finds herself easily defeated and apparently killed.

Sheeva is pretty much unchanged in Mortal Kombat 9. The MKX comics revealed her as the successor to King Gorbak's throne, after the latter's demise and Goro having lost his claim to the throne due to his wounds.

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• '80s Hair: Sports a mohawk-mullet combo in all her appearances.
• Action Mom: Her ending in 11 reveals that she has sons and daughters, many of whom died in kombat. In fact, several of her intros talk about parenthood.
• Adaptational Modesty. In the comic books◊ and the movies◊, she tends to show much less skin. As of 11, she now wears a practical and regal set of armor rather than a slingshot bikini.
• Amazonian Beauty: Like the male members of her species, she's tall, muscular (especially in Armageddon), and monstrous, though to a much lesser degree. Most of her outfits were also extremely revealing.
• Anti-Hero: Sheeva's interests are only in her people's well-being. So much so, it outweighs value for her own life. Apart from her brutal fatalities, she harbors little malice or ill will even in comparison to her male counterparts.
  Cetrion: What kind of sovereign are you?
  Sheeva: The kind willing to die for her people.
  Cetrion: So be it, Queen of the Shokan.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She becomes the leader of the Shokan by winning a Shokan-only fighting tournament (same rules as the Kombat tournament, naturally) in the events of the comic book series, after Shao Kahn's death. This event is fully elaborated on in dialogue with Cassie in 11:
  Cassie: How many fights did it take to win your Crown?
  Sheeva: Twenty-four, all ending in fatalities.
  Cassie: DAMN! Ever heard of tapping out?!
• Back from the Dead: At the end of 3, she is betrayed by Kano to Shao Kahn, and he impales her with a sword. She is back in Armageddon with, all together now... no explanation.
• Bodyguard Babes: Was appointed to be Sindel's by Shao Kahn.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: While Sheeva is Sindel's bodyguard, Sindel herself is a powerful kombatant.
  • One of Sheeva's 11 intros sees her accompanied by a platoon of Shokan, but they take no part in the fight.
• Cute Monster Girl: Is somewhat more conventionally human-looking than Goro and Kintaro and embodies some Fanservice tropes.
• A Day in the Limelight: She serves this in Chapter 14 of MK11's "Aftermath" expansion.
• Death from Above: This was the name given to the move in which she leaps into the air and lands feet first on her opponent. In 9, the move's name was changed to "Jump Stomp" and to "Dragon Drop" in 11.
• Decapitation Presentation: In one of her intros in 11, she enters the battlefield carrying a Horned Humanoid head(possibly a Centaur). She then sticks her fingers into the head's mouth, and pulls off its lower jaw, spraying her uniform with blood.
• Destroyer Deity: Her Armageddon ending has her become a goddess of destruction, a nod to the Hindu deity after which she is named.
• Distaff Counterpart: She was created as a female version of Goro and Kintaro.
• Draconic Humanoid: As is expected of a member of the Shokan.
• Dynamic Akimbo: Like Goro, she can do four-armed version of this, with the upper two arms usually making a bicep flex.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Sheeva is downright appalled by the Joker, expressing he is a vile man devoid of any honor after catching wind of his deeds.
  • She is also horrified by Sam Trautman's role in making John Rambo a One-Man Army.
• Flayed Alive: "Stripped Down", her signature fatality, has her rip her opponent's skin off like a cheap sheet.
• Fragile Speedster: Not in the overall scale, but certainly compared to her Spear Counterparts; she's faster than Goro or Kintaro, but nowhere as durable.
• The Ghost: Sheeva receives a brief mention in MK1 as one of the opponents Raiden defeated off-screen.
• Goomba Stomp: Like Goro and Kintaro, she can pull this off.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: An MK9 fatality involves lethally bitch-slapping her opponent with their own arms. After they're down for the count, she uses their severed arms to clap comically. One must fight the urge to say "Give yourself a round of applause!"
• Has a Type: When Johnny asks Sheeva what it would take to get a Shokan girlfriend, she suggests he be more polite and submissive, implying these are traits she finds attractive.
• Have I Mentioned I Am a Dwarf Today?: Most of her intros in 11 remind the player that she's a Shokan.
• Hellish Pupils: Added in 9.
• Horned Humanoid: Four small horns.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Only within the better interests of her people as queen of the Shokan. In Mortal Kombat 11, Kitana has to prove serving Kotal will yield better prosperity than Shao Kahn, especially with the Tarkatans on the latter's side.
• It's Personal: Big time with Kotal for killing Gorbak and Goro. She detests him so much over this, Kitana is sent to negotiate an alliance with her instead.
• Jabba Table Manners: An outro in 11 sees Sheeva bring out a full goblet and messily down it, splattering her drink all over herself.
• Jerkass Ball: Despite being relatively benevolent to most Outworlders, she has moments of this in 11.
  • She mocks Jax for Goro tormenting him and promises to break him where he failed.
  • Unlike Goro, who tremendously respected him, she mocks the memory of Kung Lao's ancestor to his face and generally has a negative opinion of Earthrealmers.
• Jobber: Has a tendency to repeatedly show up during 9's story mode to get beaten up, but Reptile, Baraka, and Noob Saibot all show up more than she does.
• Kick Chick: At least when compared with Goro and Kintaro, Sheeva does more kicking than any of them. Justified in that unlike them, Sheeva is a playable character rather than a sub-boss, so she has to make up for the gap of strength with faster punches and the addition of kicks in the arsenal. Even when her male counterparts become playable in Armageddon, Sheeva still does more kicking than them, especially with her being the only member of the Shokan to do aerial combos where she can freely use her legs. By "9" she still does more kicking than Goro and Kintaro but she is more of a stomp version now. Most of her special attacks and even her X-Ray attack focused around stomping her opponents.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Subverted; she's anything but.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Her newest weapon in 11 is a round buckler with several blades sticking out of it that she uses to bash her opponents, block attacks and throw it at them.
• Male Might, Female Finesse: The Finesse to Goro's and Kintaro's Force.
• Meaningful Name: Named after Shiva, a major deity in the Hindu pantheon who also possessed multiple arms and is sometimes interpreted as a destroyer god. Possibly given a Shout-Out in her Armageddon ending, where she's turned into a destroyer goddess.
• Misery Builds Character: In her Aftermath ending, Sheeva creates a timeline where the Shokan are builders rather than warriors. Unfortunately, this results in them becoming sloven and decadent. Sheeva comes to the conclusion that the wars the Shokan fought in, as painful as they were, are what made them a great people and thus she restarts the timeline again, restoring their warrior ways. She acknowledges that many Shokan will die but believes the sacrifices are worth it.
• Monster Modesty: Generally wears only the equivalent of a slingshot bikini.
• Ms. Fanservice: While Sheeva tends to embody masculine traits more often than not (being part of a Proud Warrior Race might do that to you), 9 shows that Sheeva is no stranger to her own feminine charms; her win animation should she clench a match without using a Fatality has a camera-facing Sheeva, after performing two bodybuilding poses and grunting, make a suggestive moan, running one pair of hands through her hair as the other slowly snakes its way down her sides and thighs. If left idle, Sheeva, still eyeing the player, and rather seductively at that, continues to sway back and forth while posing with her arms behind her head and her hands on her hips.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Like all Shokan, Sheeva has four arms.
• Multiarmed Multitasking: She uses her four hands to play wine glass music in her Friendship in 11.
• Older Than They Look: In the reboot, which states that Sheeva was Sindel's personal protector in the distant past, before she originally committed suicide. This actually creates something of a minor Plot Hole, as it would make Sheeva somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 years old, which is significantly older than the only other Shokan whose age is known (Goro who is 2,000 years old and not implied to be particularly young). While elderly Shokan might be able to live to such a ripe age, Sheeva shows no signs of being so old (if she really is that old and it's not just a goof Netherrealm missed).
• Physical Goddess: She becomes a goddess in her non-canon Armageddon and Aftermath endings.
• Playing with Fire: Her projectile is a large fireball - notably, in defiance of Mighty Glacier expectation, it is the most damaging non-x-ray projectile in Mortal Kombat 9.
• Punch-Clock Villain: She seems this way in 9. See Token Good Teammate below.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: As the acting ruler of the Shokan, she's much more willing to negotiate and work with foreign powers, like Earthrealmers, than her predecessors. She's also laid back enough to let her soldiers have fun on the job.
• Redemption Equals Death: In the original timeline, her turn against Kahn over the promotion of the centaurs resulted in her being betrayed by Kano and killed.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As to be expected from a Shokan.
• Scary Scorpions: Her Animality.
• Shield Bash: 11 gives Sheeva a bladed shield that figures into a lot of her attacks.
• Shockwave Stomp: She traditionally has a 'localized earthquake' variation as a special move.
• Statuesque Stunner:
  • Justified in that the Shokan race dwarfs most species in terms of height; Sheeva is no exception, standing a little bit over seven feet tall. Even when compared to Goro and Kintaro, Sheeva isn't much shorter (if at all), meaning that either Shokan women are just as large as their male counterparts, or Sheeva's a statuesque stunner even for her own race.
  • Toned down in 9, where she is merely taller than human characters and much less muscular and large than in Armageddon.
• Straw Feminist: In intro dialogue with Kano, she boasts, "Men are inherently the weaker sex."
• Stripperiffic: In 3, she wore a slingshot bikini that only barely covered her unmentionables. In Armageddon, she at least has the decency to swap it out for a Chainmail Bikini (which does a slightly better job of covering her up), but her 3 costume is still her alt. outfit. In 9, her 3 outfit remains as her default, while she gets an alt. that is just as lacking. Completely averted in 11, where Sheeva now dons practical attire. Interestingly, a comment made by Shao Kahn claiming he misses her old bikini indicates he enforced that dress policy.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: As compared to most of the male cast, and the reason Sheeva was created. Players had wanted to play as Goro or Kintaro ever since the first game, but technical limitations at the time made that impossible due to their size. So, they make Sheeva as they naturally assumed the females of the species would be smaller.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • For the villains in 9. Factoring out those who lacked self-awareness or the choice to choose sides for themselves (i.e. Ermac, Cyrax, Sindel), Sheeva's shown to be pretty cordial to her enemies, with no malice towards any of the heroes she faces. She seems pretty decent, and out of the three Shokans, she's the least bloodthirsty by a considerable degree. Also, many would say that Sonya was clearly Tempting Fate by insulting her and the Shokan in general while being held prisoner at the Dead Pool; Sheeva didn't seem offended at all. An example showcasing this would be Jade's chapter of the story mode of 9, where at one point she claims that Kitana's execution is "the only means of regaining her honor".
  • In her arcade ending, after the defeat of Shao Khan, instead of ruling Outworld or slaughtering the enemy races, she and the Shokan choose to leave Outworld and live in Earthrealm in peace, with the Shokan swearing to protect their new home realm. In the process, they received Australia as their new homeland.
  • The MKX comics goes further on that with the reveal of her being the newest ruler of the Shokan and a newfound ally towards Kotal Kahn. Her alignment officially shifts from Evil to Neutral in this story.
  • This gets to the point that, as the only remaining Shokan character in a leadership role, she allies with heroes mid-way through the story in 11.
• Undying Loyalty: Sheeva is loyal to Sindel long past her death, viewing it as her greatest failure. When offered to resurrect her by Shang Tsung and company in 11, she is greatly reluctant to betray Kitana but goes through with it. However, this trope is subverted when Sheeva later discovers how evil Sindel is, staking her life to fight her for Kitana.
• Unexplained Recovery: As with several deceased villains in Armageddon, Sheeva returns with no fanfare on how she managed to come back from her death in 3.
• Your Size May Vary: Shockingly, despite historically being a giant only slightly shorter than her male brethren (248cm), Sheeva in 11 is roughly only slightly taller than Baraka (198cm) for comparison.
• Youthful Freckles: 11 gives her a dusting across her cheeks to give more of a sense of her as a young ruler and put the cute in Cute Monster Girl.

Sindel

Sindel

"Who's your Queen?"

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3 (Lia Montelongo)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Deception, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Lani Minella), Mortal Kombat X (cameo) (Kelly Hu, English; Carla Castañeda, Latin American Spanish), Mortal Kombat 11 (DLC) (Mara Junot, English; Ashley Heller, Face Model; Carla Castañeda, Latin American Spanish), Mortal Kombat 1 (Mara Junot, English; Carla Castañeda, Latin American Spanish)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Musetta Vander), Mortal Kombat: Legacy (Beatrice Ilg)

10,000 years ago, Sindel was the queen of Edenia. When Shao Kahn invaded her realm, enslaved its people, killed her husband, Jerrod, and took her then-infant daughter Kitana as his own, she was Driven to Suicide. Thus was the tragic end of her story...

... Or was it?

Aided by Quan Chi, Shao Kahn used dark magic to revive "his" queen, but not on Outworld. Instead, she was to be revived on Earth, thus allowing him to step through the portal between his realm and Earth and circumvent the rules of Mortal Kombat to claim her. She was brainwashed into forgetting her past and having complete loyalty to her "husband." But while Kahn may have partially merged the realms, his adopted daughter was the plan's undoing. Kitana convinced her mother of her true past, leading Sindel to complete a Heel–Face Turn. Earthrealm's victory also split Edenia from Outworld, and Sindel vowed to rebuild her once-great civilization and bring Shao Kahn to justice.

Sindel's story changes heavily during the events of Mortal Kombat 9. Sindel is not resurrected by Shao Kahn but by Quan Chi, and thus stays loyal to Outworld through the whole story. She mostly stays out of the events of the Outworld invasion of Earthrealm until the end, when Motaro is killed in battle. Shao Kahn, fearing that he may be pushed back, uses Shang Tsung's life energy to empower Sindel, to whom he sends to Earthrealm's base along with a squad of cybernetic Lin Kuei in the hopes they can thin out Earthrealm's forces. The plan works spectacularly, with Sindel killing almost every Earthrealm defender in a single battle (the only survivors being Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade with Raiden and Liu Kang not present). However Sindel is ultimately struck down by Nightwolf, who destroys himself in an effort to put an end to her rampage. Like the Earthrealm warriors she killed, her soul is given to Quan Chi and forced to serve in his Netherrealm forces.

Sindel returns in 11 as part of the DLC Season Pass, with a completly retconned backstory. Sindel greatly valued her position as Queen of Edenia, and when Shao Kahn invaded, she sold out her husband Jerrod in order to retain her rule. She enjoyed the wealth and power granted to her through being Shao Kahn's empress, but her rule was not to last. Quan Chi, already someone who Sindel distrusted when he stated his intentions to ally with Shao Kahn, assassinated her. Her death was then framed to look like she committed suicide out of spite towards Shao Kahn for conquering her realm, in order to manipulate the emperor for Shinnok's (and Kronika's) plan. Quan Chi then used Sindel's soul as a seal in order to prevent Shao Kahn from invading Earthrealm.

Sindel initially does not appear in the main story mode of 11, but she plays a major role in the Aftermath DLC expansion. As one of the most powerful warriors from the Outworld invasion, Shang Tsung seeks to revive Sindel from her undead Revenant state in order to aid in the mission to take Kronika's crown. After being defeated, she is freed from Quan Chi and Shinnok's corruption. Unfortunately, it's later revealed her true allegiance lies with Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn, not Earthrealm or Kronika. In her belief that Edenians should rule and conquer realms by divine right as descendants of the Elder God Argus, she betrayed her late husband Jerrod to Shao Kahn and instead married him to use as a means to achieve her goals of conquest, which were briefly thwarted by Quan Chi and Shinnok's intervention. In the end, however, she realizes too late that Shang Tsung has used her and Shao Kahn for his own purposes, and dies alongside her husband, her soul being consumed by the treacherous sorcerer.

---

• Adaptational Villainy: The original timeline Sindel is really a benevolent queen put through harsh situation. Once 3 ended, she resumed her position as the Queen of Edenia, ruling wisely and even risks her life and teamed up with Jade in order to save Kitana from the brainwashing of Onaga. The second timeline reveals that she was instead a power hungry evil queen. Her only good 'deed' so far, which was committing suicide in the face of Jerrod being killed by Shao Kahn, turned out to be a lie, she actually preferred Shao Kahn and was the one murdering Jerrod. Averted in the third timeline by Fire God Liu Kang, where she's not dead yet and shows that she's genuinely benevolent like before.
• Affably Evil: In the new timeline, as one of Quan Chi's revenants. She gives a warm welcome to a revived Jax when he comes back to the Netherrealm, and promises her opponents that they will get along nicely under Quan Chi's control. She also promises to give Cassie a "proper upbringing" once she kills her (Cassie declines). Unfortunately... see Faux Affably Evil below.
• Ambition Is Evil: In 11, it's revealed that she enjoyed her position so much that she betrayed Jerrod in order to retain it as Shao Kahn's empress.
• Animal-Themed Fighting Style: She uses Fu Jow Pai ("Tiger Claw System") in Deception.
• Asshole Victim: Her Aftermath counterpart is revealed to have betrayed Edenia for Shao Kahn. She and Shao Kahn end up being betrayed by Shang Tsung who kills them and absorbs their souls.
• Ass Kicks You: 11 gives her a move in which she uses her sonic scream to launch herself ass first at her enemy. Apparently using your ass to fight is hereditary given Kitana does a similar move.
• Back from the Dead: As part of Shao Kahn's Evil Plan to bridge the gap between Earthrealm and Outworld. The whole scene is seen in Mortal Kombat 9. She is later revived by Quan Chi as a revenant.
• Barrier Maiden: Her death created a ward that prevented Shao Kahn from setting foot in Earthrealm. Her resurrection broke said seal. Or so Quan Chi told Shao Kahn. In reality, it was Quan Chi himself who used Sindel's body as the seal.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In the new timeline, when Shao Kahn invaded Edenia, Sindel betrayed Jerrod to him in order to remain queen. She enjoyed her newfound power and wealth, but it cost her the approval of her people. Thus, regardless of the circumstances surrounding her death, almost no one in Edenia mourned her loss. 11 Retcons this slightly when she reveals that in order to retain some of her subjects loyalty she allowed a false rumor to spread suggesting that she had nothing to do with Jerrod's death and her loyalty to Shao Kahn was the result of brainwashing.
• Bee Afraid: Her Animality sees her transform into a giant purple bee/wasp insect.
• Berserk Button: In the new timeline, rejecting her orders. Turns out you don't have to worship her to either follow her or earn her wrath.
  Sindel: Kneel and lick my boots.
  Johnny Cage: Maybe on our second date, sweetheart.
  Sindel: I. Said. Kneel.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In the first two timelines, she is brought back under Shao Kahn's control to instigate his invasion of Earthrealm. This is heavily emphasized in 9, where she delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the heroes and kills her daughter without remorse. In 11 she reveals that she was not actually brainwashed by Shao Kahn when she betrayed her first husband. She simply allowed the story of her being bewitched to spread in order to hide her true intentions from the Edenian people who still looked up to her.
• Brainwashed Bride: In the first two timelines, when Shao Khan conquered Edenia and killed their king, Sindel, the queen, killed herself out of grief. However, Shao later used dark magic to revive and brainwash her to be his bride and lethal weapon in his conquest of Earthrealm. As a result, she became completely loyal to her "husband" and became the biggest hero killers in the franchise. However, in MK11, it was retconned that she was not actually brainwashed by Shao Kahn, and she betrayed her first husband to retain her rule. She simply allowed the story of her being bewitched to spread in order to hide her true intentions from the Edenian people who still looked up to her.
• Breath Weapon: She sends fireball projectiles from her mouth.
• Broken Pedestal: 11 reveals her to have become this to Jade. Based on one of their intros, Kitana's bodyguard used to revere her as a child but claims to have "outgrown" Sindel as an adult, after witnessing what she has become.
• Combat Stilettos: How she kills Kabal and Jax in Mortal Kombat 9; she stabs the former in his respirator and the latter in his neck. She also uses them in her Fatal Blow in 11.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: In Mortal Kombat 9, she effortlessly defeats 10 people at once. See No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Dark Is Evil: In the second timeline. Sindel keeps dressing in purple and black outfits that would befit a villainess more, and 11 reveals that she is much more black-hearted that never had the intentions to be good no matter what.
• Dark Is Not Evil: In the first timeline, even after her Heel–Face Turn, she keeps dressing in purple and black outfits that would befit a villainess more. In the third timeline, she sports a vicious fighting style like her previous incarnations, but is still ultimately a benevolent and just Empress.
• A Day in the Limelight: She became the focus in Chapter 16 of MK11's "Aftermath" expansion, along with Shao Kahn.
• Dominatrix: Has shades of this in MK11, where she tells Johnny to "kneel and lick [her] boots", telling Sonya she'll have him as a pleasure slave, and so on. It serves to fuel her evil Retcon.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Sindel promises to spank Cassie and Kabal until they bleed in 11.
• The Dragon: After being fully restored in Aftermath, she unwittingly becomes this to Shang Tsung.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Both Sindel and Shao Kahn try to steal Kronika’s power for themselves, but they fail to do so as Shang Tsung defeats them.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In 11, where she is unquestionably villainous, she still holds attachment to her family, considering Mileena just as much a daughter as her legitimate child Kitana, starting a fight with D'Vorah to avenge her death in one pre-fight intro, and is very content with Shao Kahn.
• Evil All Along: It's revealed in 11 everything previously known about Sindel was a lie she fabricated to maintain the trust of people. In truth, she conspired to murder Jerrod with Shao Kahn and is Happily Married to him. At least, that's how it is in the new timeline. In the old one, she's still genuine.
• Expy: Of Silver Banshee. In fact, her fatality in MK3 was referred to as "Banshee Scream."
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Sindel's villainous portrayal in 11 pairs her stunning good looks with a total lack of morals, to the point that her own daughter is worth discarding if she doesn't fall in line.
• Face of a Thug: When Sindel is bought back in Deception , she still has the dark color palette from her first appearance, as well as pure white eyes and a solemn expression. However, she’s shown to be compassionate and loyal to her daughter and subjects, stopping at nothing to protect both.
• Fanservice Pack:
  • Her outfits began relatively modest, but this slowly was thrown out of the window by Deception, Armageddon, and 9. Like Sonya, however, she still shows a fair deal of less skin than the others. She's even brought back naked (albeit without the sexy bits seen) in 9.
  • Her alternate costume in 9 is probably her sexiest yet, showing a lot of skin with fishnets. Possibly justified story-wise as she was under Shao Kahn's control, who seems to enforce this manner of dress code amongst his subjects.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards Kollector, whom she constantly belittles as a slave and throws racist remarks at. Kollector even calls her out as a vile racist. Her ending and Aftermath reveal that it's even worse than just Kollector: she's racist towards everyone and anyone who isn't her, from her family, or from her realm, considering all of them equally as "lowly savages and serfs".
• Faux Affably Evil: In the new timeline, when not in control of Quan Chi as a revenant. As part of her retcon in 11, she is very much capable of speaking in a regal, gentle tone. Turns out, however, that due to her allying with Shao Kahn, she was never a good person to begin with, and she is a mistress of deception, capable of helping orchestate a plan to fall the realms alongside Shao Kahn and betraying several of her allies in the process. Many of her intro dialogues also have her take on a Dominatrix-like tone, speaking softly while not breaking her evil character a bit, and breaking her cool whenever things don't go her way.
  Sindel: You may have the privilege of serving me.
  Joker: ...heheHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
  Sindel: (her smug expression drops) ...did I say something funny?!
• Femme Fatalons: In 3.
• Flight: This sort of ability is rare in Fighting Games, and she was one of the first characters who could effectively do so.
• Foil: The Aftermath DLC of 11 reveals that she is one to Rain. As the Edenian race is descended from Argus, an Elder God, both Rain and Sindel believe their race has divine right. However, Rain uses his claim to godhood merely as a means to satiate his own ego, as he is a direct descendant of Argus. Sindel is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who does wish the best for her people, but believes that in order for them to prosper, they must assert their divine right through power and conquest.
• Freudian Slip: There's a single moment in Aftermath that foreshadows her eventual betrayal: an offhanded comment during her Aftermath chapter where she throws shade at Raiden.
• A Glass of Chianti: In 11, she's at her absolute wickedest, and her Friendship move has her enjoying a nice glass of red wine.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Her Friendship in MK11 has her attempt to shatter a wine glass with her scream, but she breaks the TV screen instead! And since the glass didn't break, she just drinks the wine before tossing it offscreen.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: In the second timeline, she is implied to be so much worse than Shao Kahn as a ruler that every last one of her former subordinates is glad Quan Chi killed her. She used to avert this in the original timeline, however; when she completed her Heel–Face Turn at the end of 3, she resumed to become a beloved High Queen of Edenia that everyone respected. In the third timeline, this is gloriously averted, where Sindel has always been a good, beloved Empress looked up to by her daughters.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: In many of her default costumes.
• Groin Attack: Gives one to Smoke in Mortal Kombat 9. She then snaps his neck. It's also part of her X-Ray Attack.
• Happily Married:
  • In the original timeline, to Jerrod, before their deaths at the hand of Shao Kahn. In her endings she will usually try to resurrect him and peacefully protect and rule Edenia again alongside him and become a happy family with their daughter Kitana.
  • In the second timeline, this is called into question in 11 with the reveal that Sindel betrayed Jerrod to Shao Kahn, with all indications suggesting that she lost faith in Jerrod's "bleeding heart" as a ruler and fell in love with Shao Kahn for his strength.
  • In the third timeline created by Liu Kang, Sindel is once again in love with Jerrod for real as in the original timeline.
• Hated by All: Apart from Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung, everyone is taken aback by how horrible Sindel is in 11. It says something when even Kano calls her out on her hypocrisy and evil in their interactions. Lampshaded by D'Vorah, who expresses she can't fathom why Shao Kahn values her when everyone else despises her.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In 9. At some point during the events of Mortal Kombat 3, she should've realized that Shao Kahn was manipulating her, but due to Raiden's interference with the timeline she ends up being empowered by Shang Tsung's soul, brutally killing most of the heroes, and dying as a villain when Nightwolf sacrifices himself to stop her. And as it turns out, her Arcade ending was rendered non-canon for the timeline, so Sindel stays heel and not expecting any door slam during the event throughout this particular timeline. Averted with this timeline Sindel always having been villainous, as revealed in 11, so there wasn't really a chance of this Sindel reforming.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Starts out Good, then is brainwashed into Evil when revived, and then returns to Good after Shao Kahn's defeat and stays that way for the rest of the series until she is killed by the end of 9 and turned into one of Quan Chi's revenants in X. Then it's revealed in 11 that she's actually been Evil All Along.
• Hero Killer: In 9, especially once she has Shang Tsung's souls. Literally, even, as she kills eight different heroes in a single scene.
• The High Queen: To her homeland of Edenia after her husband's demise. Goes on to take this role for both Edenia and Outrealm in her arcade ending. Unwillingly goes the God Save Us from the Queen! route in 9. Was apparently leaning towards God Save Us from the Queen! going from what MK11 reveals on her current backstory combined with her intro dialogues in it.
• I Want Grandkids: One intro in 11 has Liu Kang invoke this to her as an insult:
  Sindel: Kitana will always belong to me!
  Liu Kang: Not her, not your grandchildren.
  Sindel: Now you've gone too far!
• Lady of Black Magic: Regal, gothic, and possessing vast mystical powers, manifesting in battle as Prehensile Hair and powerful sonic screams.
• Lady of War: Always looks and acts regal, even when kicking ass. It's obvious where Kitana gets it from.
• Large Ham: While MK characters aren't known for their subtlety, Sindel stands out with her gothy makeup, regal persona, signature powers being a Super-Scream and Prehensile Hair, and purple outfits. She's a favorite among Drag Queens.
• Leotard of Power: Wears a purple leotard in all her appearances.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: And capable of killing people with it too.
• Mama Bear:
  • In the original timeline, when she learned that Kitana has been killed, raised as an undead by Onaga and then made to be a prison guard, imprisoning her, Sindel teams up with Jade to break out from her prison and then kick many of Onaga's minions in the ass in order to save Kitana.
  • Subverted in the new timeline. Sindel seems to be upset that Kollector fought Kitana for Shao Kahn, but she isn't upset that he tried to harm her, but rather that he isn't family.
• Mask of Sanity: Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath shows that she can still put up an effective facade of motherly niceness around Kitana and her Earthrealm allies, but her true nature is anything but good. This is best demonstrated in a scene in which she hugs Kitana; behind her daughter's back, she shows no emotion for her at all.
• Meet the In-Laws: Some of her intros with Liu Kang in 11 revolve around their opinions on his and Kitana's relationship. For Sindel's part, she despises it, dismissing him as a mere "commoner" who will never have her blessing, and saying that Kitana will always belong to her.
• Monochromatic Eyes: To date she has yet to be seen without them, even when not under Shao Kahn's control. Her human costume in 11 finally shows her with normal eyes.
• Mrs. Robinson: Her appearances from 9 to 11 are very flattering and 11 gives her a dominatrix-esque personality to match.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's always been attractive, but 11 especially plays this up in both overt and subtle ways. Her default dress has a Navel-Deep Neckline showing of her ample bust, the back of her skirt is cut in such a way that it shows off her plump rear, she wears high-heels and has a very seductive personality.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Subverted in 11 via retcon. She truly loved Shao Kahn, but Quan Chi framed it to appear as though she despised him for merging Edenia with Outworld.
• Naginatas Are Feminine: Sindel’s primary weapon is a Naginata and she's a graceful, Lady of War-type character, so this trope applies.
• Naked on Revival: Her revival from nothing more than a skeleton in 9 leaves her alive, but without a stitch of clothing. She's only seen with Shoulders-Up Nudity and Toplessness from the Back.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Starting in Deception, Sindel's outfits usually incorporate a rather low neckline, which reaches its peak in 9, going all the way down to her abs. Since then, several of her outfits in future games also feature plunging necklines.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers a vicious one on the heroes in 9. Of the group assembled (Cage, Sonya, Jax, Cyber Sub-Zero, Smoke, Kitana, Jade, Nightwolf, Stryker, and Kabal), only Cage, Sonya, Kitana, and Nightwolf survive. Kitana soon succumbs to her wounds afterward, and Nightwolf sacrifices himself in a kamikaze attack to ultimately kill her. She kills Cyber Sub-Zero in three hits, stomps Kabal in his respirator, puts her heel in Jax's throat, snaps Smoke's neck, rips out one of Jade's vital organs, punches a hole through Stryker's head, and slowly beats down Kitana and rips out part of her soul.
• Older Than They Look: Aside from being over 10,000 years old, she's Kitana's mother but could probably pass as her older sister.
• One-Woman Army: After being empowered with Shang Tsung's magic in 9, Sindel becomes unstoppable, brutally slaughtering most of the heroes and needing a kamikaze attack from Nightwolf to finally be brought down.
• Our Banshees Are Louder: Her scream powers are based on those of a Celtic banshee, and in 11, she can summon a spirit that resembles a classic banshee.
• Phrase Catcher: Awfully fond of using Shao Kahn's "Pathetic fool!" in several intros of 11.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Though mainly a power-hungry tyrant who wishes to become Empress of all realms in 11, several of her intros display her bigotry: she actually gets called a "racist shrew" by Kollector after dismissing him as a "Naknadan dog", and looks down on Tarkatans as well. She is also very classist and mocks Liu Kang and Johnny Cage as being "commoners" to her.
• Power Floats: As a special, Sindel is able to levitate. Also seen in her Victory Pose in 3, three times in Deception (her getting up pose, her victory pose if you didn't perform a Fatality, her Sonic Screech Fatality), and twice in 9 (her intro pose and non-Fatality win pose).
• Prehensile Hair: She can use her hair to grab things, including unlucky enemies. This ability was shelved during Deception and Armageddon, only to come back in 9 in both her X-Ray move and her attempt to steal Nightwolf's soul in Story Mode.
• Punny Name: An unintended one on the part of the developers. Her name is very similar to the Japanese word "shindeiru" (as in "already dead").
• Really 700 Years Old: Kitana is young at over 10,000, so Sindel has be older than that. And this is not counting the years she's been dead, too.
• Reforged into a Minion: After Nightwolf sacrifices himself near the end of 9 in an effort to put an end to her rampage, she and the Earthrealm warriors she killed are turned into brainwashed revenants serving Shinnok and Quan Chi. She remains a revenant at the end of X.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: Wears the tiara-like Royal Crown of Edenia in her alt. from Deception and Armageddon. The tiara (in a slightly altered form) reappears for her alt. in 9.
• Retcon: A very radical one. Before MK11 came along, Sindel was described as an unwilling victim of Shao Kahn's conquest of Edenia - she was forced to become his new wife after her true husband, King Jerrod, was killed in Kombat. She couldn't bear living with the mad tyrant and took her own life to escape him before being forcibly revived by him. This backstory was mostly the same for the new timeline except her death was also a Heroic Sacrifice to create a ward around Earthrealm. As of MK11 itself, Sindel willingly traded Jerrod's life in exchange for being Shao Kahn's consort, both to keep her power, and also because of his strength. In addition, Sindel didn't actually kill herself, instead Quan Chi assassinated her and then framed it to look like suicide so that he and Shinnok could manipulate Shao Kahn. Sindel is NOT happy when recalling it during interactions.
• Retractable Weapon: Her Kwan Dao can retract into a shorter form in 11.
• Shadow Archetype: Revenant Sindel is this to her 11 counterpart. In 11, Sindel is depicted as a queen whose primary belief is that Edenia should embrace its divine heritage and use it to assert power and superiority over other realms. It is because of this belief that she is so compatible with Shao Kahn, as they both desire conquest and an eternal empire to rule over through superior might. Though while she may be evil, Sindel does have her own standards and pride, which she upholds to the letter. Revenant Sindel has none of those qualities, meaning she is what would happen if Sindel fought solely to see others suffer. Not for her own enjoyment or for what she perceives to be good for her people, but for the sake of a higher power controlling her, thus becoming no different than one of the lowly commoners her living self takes so much pleasure in lording over.
• Shoryuken: Gains one in 9 as a command normal named Rising Fist.
• Statuesque Stunner: Being an Edenian, she's no shorter than her daughter and equals many male kombatants in height.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: According to the writers of MK11, she was turned evil to remove her "problematic" backstory of being a "tragic abused trophy wife" and it shows as it's never addressed how she went from good in the original timeline to Evil All Along in the rebooted timeline.
• Super-Scream: Her signature fatality, as well as her stun move.
• Swapped Roles: In Deception, Kitana is killed by the Deadly Alliance and then resurrected by Onaga as one of his undead slaves. This puts Sindel in the position of having to fight her daughter and free her from an evil emperor's control.
• That Woman Is Dead: Tells Kitana that she is not her mother during the aforementioned No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Sure, it was the brainwashing talking, not Sindel herself, but the comment still hits Kitana pretty hard. Then it turns out in 11 that this is played straight, in a very cruel twist. The woman Kitana thought Sindel was never even existed. Her kindly queen persona is just that, a facade she made to hide how evil she really is, and it turns out the real Sindel is even worse than her Revenant!
• Time Abyss: As an Edenian, she's long-lived and given Kitana is young at 10,000, Sindel is likely even older without counting the years she was dead.
• Together in Death: When called out by Cassie in X for being proud of killing her own daughter along with the rest of Kitana's friends in the previous game, Sindel brushes off the accusation, stating that they're all "bonded in death" and Cassie herself will soon join them.
  Cassie: Nice offer, Mommy Dearest... but I'll pass.
• Undeathly Pallor: A grayish-white skin after being revived as a brainwashed minion.
• Unholy Matrimony: In the new timeline, with Shao Kahn, after she disposed of her former husband, King Jerrod. The chapter of the Aftermath expansion to 11, in which Sindel shares the protagonist role with Shao Kahn, makes clear that they both love each other.
• Unwitting Pawn: Sindel and her husband Shao Kahn were this to Shang Tsung in the Aftermath DLC, Sindel and Shao Kahn tried to kill Kronika themselves and create a new empire but Shang Tsung betrays them and tells them that killing Kronika is his destiny and their’s is to serve him. After Sindel and Shao Kahn were defeated their souls were stolen by Shang Tsung, killing them instantly.
• The Vamp: She's deceitfully promiscuous, often flirting with her target and then trying to kill them afterwards. Her outfit is also skimpier when compared to the heroic women and she's too curious about other peoples' sex lives.
• Volcanic Veins: She gains these upon being revived as a brainwashed minion of Quan Chi.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Aftermath reveals that Sindel is a Type 1. Her goal in making Edenia prosper is admirable, but her methods in doing so involve asserting Edenians' divine right as descendants of the Elder God Argus through conquering other realms. It is for this reason that she became attracted to Shao Kahn - a man whose goals were similar to her own - and betrayed her then-husband Jerrod who desired a peaceful rule and coexistence between Edenia and other realms.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Does not appear in the story mode of 11 alongside Smoke, Stryker and Nightwolf despite still being a Revenant… until the Aftermath expansion, that is. She does, however, appear as a DLC fighter with her own Arcade ladder. Certain interactions, however, reveal that the vast majority of the other revenants, Sindel included, were Killed Offscreen by Dark Raiden.
  • Bringing her back from the dead again becomes a plot point in the Aftermath story DLC.
• World's Strongest Woman: She is the most powerful female of the series (particularly for her magical prowess, which completely kept Shao Kahn out of Earthrealm until he revived her in 3), while her bodyguard Sheeva is the physically strongest. Sindel also has the highest body count canonically, since she kills half the cast in MK9, albeit only after receiving one hell of a power-up from Shao Kahn beforehand in the form of all the souls housed within Shang Tsung's body.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: This was done on her in Aftermath. When she and Shao Kahn try to take Kronika’s power Shang Tsung betrays them and he was only using them for his own plans.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Attempts this on Kitana in the reboot, but is stopped short by Nightwolf, who she also attempts this on before he pulls a Taking You with Me on her. Unfortunately for Kitana and the surviving Earthrrealm warriors, Kitana still dies.

Kabal

Kabal

"Let's see what you're made of..."

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3 (Richard Divizio)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Deception, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Jarod Pranno), Mortal Kombat 9 (David Lodge), Mortal Kombat X (non-playable), Mortal Kombat 11 (Jonathan Cahill, English; Nathan Kamp, Face Model; Erick Selim, Latin American Spanish)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (Kevin Michael Richardson), Mortal Kombat (2021) (Daniel Nelson (body); Damon Herriman (voice)), Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (Keith Silverstein)

A mysterious masked stranger who joins the Earthrealm warriors in their fight against Shao Kahn, Kabal is actually a former member of the Black Dragon, Kano's outfit. During Shao Kahn's initial assault wave on Earthrealm, he is heavily scarred by his annihilation squads, leading to his masked appearance. While initially helping the Earthrealm's warriors to face Khan, Kabal eventually reverts to his former criminal ways. During the events of '"Deception'', he reforms the Black Dragon and hunts down Mavado, the leader of the Red Dragon, who had wounded him and humiliated him between the events of the third and fourth games.

Mortal Kombat 9 has a slight change on this. Rather than just being a strange Earthrealm defender, Kabal is actually a police officer who works as part of Stryker's riot control unit, having abandoned his lifestyle as a Black Dragon member to do some good in the world. During the Outworld invasion, he is severely injured by Kintaro's fire and left to die on the streets. He is rescued by Kano, who revives him with the aid of Shang Tsung's magic in Outworld, which is also how he is granted his super speed. Rather than join his former ally's cause, he escapes back to Earthrealm where he commits himself to helping Raiden. However, like many of the heroes, he is killed when Sindel and the cybernetic Lin Kuei descend on their base of operations. Quan Chi revives his soul as a Netherrealm soldier and by the time of Mortal Kombat X, he is still serving Quan Chi.

An unburnt and still-living version of Kabal returned in Mortal Kombat 11 alongside his revenant counterpart as a minion of Kronika, still a member of the Black Dragon and mistakingly accusing Sonya as "the skank who burnt him", which is actually a lie the older Kano made up.

---

• Affably Evil: In a few intros in 11, he tries to be friendly and offer to work together with some of his opponents. Most of them end up failing.
  Kabal: Maybe not Kano, but you can trust me.
  Kitana: Give me a single reason, Kabal.
  Kabal: Ah, I can't. You got me.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: In Mortal Kombat 11, Kabal's skin went from being naturally human (albeit disfigured) to grotesquely gray, much like Jade, because he is still a revenant.
• Ambiguously Brown: His unscarred appearance◊ in 11 gives him a dark skin tone and in one of their pre-fight dialogues, Johnny says to him “From now on your name is Carlos” in an imitation of a Latino accent. Meanwhile, his pre-fight dialogue with Nightwolf ("You could've gotten out, like I did") hints that he may be Native American.
• Ambiguous Situation: The Past Kabal doesn't seem to be originated from the same time period the other past characters are pulled from as he is still aligned with the Black Dragon. This however contrasted with him getting his powers after his injuries.
• Arch-Enemy: To Mavado for his attempt on Kabal’s life. A mirror match intro in 11 even has him assume his duplicate is Mavado.
• The Atoner: Hinted in his Deception bio, fully seen in 9. Putting his skills to use to combat the underworld forces he once aided apparently eases his mind and helps him forget about his dark past.
• Badass Longcoat: From Deception onward. It was intended to be included in his design from the beginning, but had to be left out due to size constraints with the digitized actors.
• Balloonacy: His infamous balloon fatality in 3, where he pulls out a bike pump to inflate his victim's head until their eyes are almost popping out of their heads then they float up in the air and explode, it even hilariously works on the cyborgs, whom as mechanical beings should be immune to it.
• Barbarian Longhair: Usually seen with long flowing hair that emphasizes his nomadic look, although sometimes it is kept in a ponytail.
• Bluff the Imposter: Subverted in a mirror match intro in 11, where Kabal assumes his double from another timeline is Mavado tricking him, but still doesn't believe him when he corrects him.
  Kabal 1: Mavado, is that you?
  Kabal 2: I'm you, from an alternate timeline.
  Kabal 1: Yeah, right. That's what Mavado would say.
• Body Horror: His entire body is littered with third degree burns. It’s a miracle that Shang Tsung's magic and Kano's enhancements were even enough to keep him alive at this point.
• The Bus Came Back: Returns in Mortal Kombat 11 after being non-playable in MKX. Notably, his pre-disfigurement Black Dragon self appears alongside his revenant counterpart.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The past version in 11 is told by Kano that Sonya tortured him and caused his future disfigured face. This is a lie.
• Cool Mask: Which comes complete with a respirator and a pretty sweet echo effect. It can be customized or even removed with the gear system. The games prior to 11 had it equipped with a laser device while that game swapped it out for poison gas.
• Covered with Scars: Especially from 9 onwards, which made the source of his injuries burn scars. In 11, there are different skins that both have and don't have his burn scars for customization.
• A Day in the Limelight: In Mortal Kombat 9, he's the focus of Chapter 13.
• Deadpan Snarker: Much like just about everyone else, he occasionally gets a few snarks in his interactions in 11.
  Kabal: So who the hell names their kid "Rain"?
  Rain: Do not dare insult my mother!
  Kabal: She didn't do you any favors, friend.
• Defector from Decadence: Shades of it can be seen in his bio from Deception, but it's much more prominent in 9.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: One of his interactions with Raiden in 11.
  Kabal: How fast are you, Raiden?
  Raiden: Only lightning strikes as quickly.
  Kabal: Oof, that's slow.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Has historically been on the more technical side with a rough learning curve, due in no small part to the demanding execution of even his most basic tricks and especially his combos. Of particular note is his ‘MK9’ incarnation, where he gains the ability to fake out his Nomad Dashes, which is the crux of his pressure and combo games, and just prevents the opponent from punishing an otherwise unsafe move. When mastered, however, the player has one of the most consistently powerful characters in the series’ history.
• The Dragon: The human version we see in 11 before he underwent a Heel–Face Turn, back when he served as this to Kano in the Black Dragon.
• Dragon Ascendant: Kano's disappearance in Deadly Alliance gave Kabal room to revive the Black Dragon as its new leader. At least in Deception anyway.
• Empowered Badass Normal: It was implied in the earlier games, but stated flat-out in MK9 that Kabal's amazing speed was gifted to him as the result of magic. This is said to be the result of Kano getting Shang Tsung to heal Kabal from his burns.
  • Strangely, other sources including Mortal Kombat 11 imply that he always had this ability, even before Shang Tsung's magic healed him.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Noticeably averted in that he has no problems working with the Joker if he pays well, something Kano even doesn't want anything to do with. However, when he learns the Joker has no problem murdering his workers For the Evulz if he feels like it, Kabal does reject his offer.
• The Faceless:
  • Unless you perform the appropriate Fatality. His mask can also be damaged in 9, revealing a sizable chunk.
  • When he's seen without a mask in Shaolin Monks, he looks perfectly normal. Of course, the game takes place prior to the attack that scarred him.
  • Mortal Kombat 9 reveals that he was part of Stryker's riot control unit, until he was burnt by Kintaro and kidnapped by Kano to be operated upon.
  • Averted in 11, where Kabal can remove his mask as part of the gear system and one of his outfits capitalizes on it by showing his pre-disfigurement look.
• Fair Cop: As seen in 9, before his Emergency Transformation. Was Bash Brothers with Stryker and appeared to be something of a Cowboy Cop.
• Flash Step: Part of his moveset since 3. Explained in 9; when Kabal was dying of his burns from Kintaro, Kano got Shang Tsung to heal him up with his magic. As a side effect of said magic, he gained Super-Speed.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: He's seen with a ring on his finger before he's viciously burned by Kintaro, indicating that he's engaged at the very least.
• Gas Mask Mook: Served as an underling of Kano, and in the original timeline became boss of the Black Dragon.
• Gas Mask, Longcoat: From Deception onward, including the reboot. Points for being a sleeveless coat.
• Girlish Pigtails: In 9, he sports two of these. Of all the hairstyles to have...
• The Grotesque:
  • Not as bad as most, but still quite noticeable, especially in 9, where his design makes his injuries even more gruesome. A deformed face, mangled strips of flesh (think Freddy Krueger), charred lungs, a blind left eye... Kabal's got it bad.
  • His appearance in Mortal Kombat 11 is somewhat better. While he still retains his burn scars, his face is fairly normal looking otherwise and he no longer appears to be half-blind.
• Handicapped Badass: He can't breathe without the aid of his facemask respirator and is half-blind in the reboot, but is one of the most effective and powerful of all the Earthrealm kombatants. Averted come 11, where his burned self can function without his mask and he appears to no longer be half-blind.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Starts out evil before 3, becomes good in 3, ends up evil again from Deception onward (Havik's resuscitation of Kabal may have had to something to do with that last part, though).
  • In 9, his backstory places him as Evil (one of Kano's Black Dragon buddies in the past), but he remains Good throughout the story (having renounced his past to start clean as a police officer). That is, until he's killed and forced to serve the Netherrealm as one of Quan Chi's revenants. He remains that way in 11 and his evil past self is brought back by Kronika.
  • In 11 a version of Kabal having either escaped his predicament as a revenant or simply being done as a good guy mentions how his reforming didn't stick in an intro with Jade.
  Jade: You're as vile as your revenant.
  Kabal: Tried a face turn. Didn't take.
  • Given other intros state he doesn't remember the events of the Earthrealm invasion suggest that it took multiple attempts to turn Face before it stuck. His Arcade ending backs this up, establishing that he's not exactly passionate about the Black Dragon and is just trying to figure out what will really make him happy.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Implied from this exchange with himself.
  Kabal 1: Mama always said: life's like an armed robbery.
  Kabal 2: Never know who you're gonna kill.
  Kabal 1: Run, Kabal, run!
• Hooks and Crooks: He dual-wields Chinese hookswords.
• Horrible Judge of Character: In 11, the past Kabal actually believes Kano that Sonya will one day torture him via burning that resulted in the injuries his present self has.
• I Am a Monster: His initial reaction to being revived by Kano in 9, and although it soon turns to pure rage because Kano didn't leave him to die. He later decides to put his skills to good use as one of Raiden's chosen defenders.
• Interspecies Romance: With Sareena in his MK11 ending◊.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: According to 9, this is what he looked like before his disfigurement. The latter trope also applies to his appearance in Shaolin Monks. 11 shows that he is indeed quite a looker thanks to the ability to remove his gas mask with customization. This also carries over somewhat to his normal and revenant models. Removing his mask via damage shows that he is not nearly as grotesque as his injuries were portrayed in the previous game, even as a revenant. It seems that, much like Sub-Zero, Kabal too has received "benefits" from Quan Chi's resurrection process.
• Malevolent Masked Man: Throughout most of the original timeline, he's been a rotten villain. Downplayed in the rebooted timeline, where he starts out as a Black Dragon member before joining Raiden in Earthrealm's defense, at least until he is killed and made into a revenant. In 11, his past self falls on the malevolent side, but lacks a mask in story mode.
• Meaningful Name: A cabal generally refers to a group or organization and Kabal was part of the Black Dragon. This is particularly prominent in Deception, where Kabal is focused on reviving the Black Dragon.
• Mistaken Identity: A mirror match intro in 11 has Kabal assume his duplicate is Mavado in disguise, but he remains unconvinced.
• Nightmare Face: His Fatality in Mortal Kombat 3, with one foot in ugly-cute territory in his Defenders of the Realm appearance.
  • It reappears as a Brutality in Mortal Kombat 11.
• Not Me This Time: Kano's actions with Kotal Kahn in MKX have caused the emperor to hate the entire Black Dragon, Kabal himself included. His interactions in 11 with Kotal and Baraka imply he has no hard feelings towards them, and tells them to solely blame Kano; unfortunately, none of the two are convinced.
  Kotal Kahn: Surrender and death will be painless.
  Kabal: Like I told Baraka, your beef's with Kano.
  Kotal Kahn: As he told you, all Black Dragon are culpable.
• Reforged into a Minion: He was brainwashed to become one of Quan Chi's revenants near the end of 9, and remains that way in X and carries onward into 11. Subverted with his living self in 11 due to being a Black Dragon member before the story began.
• Revenge: He mistakenly bought Kano's lies of Sonya "burning and torturing him to get dirt on the Black Dragon" in 11.
  Kabal: I hope you're ready for some pre-emptive vengeance!
  Sonya: What the hell are you talking about, Kabal!?
• Rhino Rampage: His Animality seems to be this, though the morph is actually a Kirin, a mythological Chinese beast.
• Shadow Archetype: Revenant Kabal is this to his past self in 11. It's revealed that in the past, while Kabal was a former member of the Black Dragon, he only joined as a sort of "get-rich-quick" plan, forgoing becoming a police officer under the impression that it "wouldn't pay the bills". Eventually, his better soncience would catch up to him, and he would abandon the Black Dragon to repent for his crimes, before being unceremoniously killed in the line of duty, resurrected, and then killed again. While a Black Dragon member, Kabal was very prideful and kowtowed to no one, not even Kano, as it's shown that Kano had to trick Past!Kabal in order to get him to fight Sonya. Revenant Kabal, by contrast, is fully subservient to those who command him and, whether he realizes or not, more in line with how Kano viewed him.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps. His regular look is a sleeveless trench coat or tunic while two alternate costumes in 11 have him go shirtless or wear a tank top.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He is among the many MK3 characters killed off in the reboot. His revenant self and a time-displaced Black Dragon Kabal return in Mortal Kombat 11.
• Super-Speed: His most well-known trait, along with his long hookswords. He is able to run at such speeds that would even spin his opponents around. Mortal Kombat 9 reveals he gained this as a side-effect of Shang Tsung's healing magic. The crossover with DC implies that he had this ability around the events of the second game in the original timeline, though the game is non-canon. Mortal Kombat 11, however, implies he had it before that even, and that his heart is strong enough to allow him to reach the highest speed possible.
• The Starscream: In loving Black Dragon tradition, most of Kabal's explained reasons for fighting Kano in 11 versus matches is to murder him and seize control of the clan. In contrast to how Kano treated Kabal before, he does not take this well.
  Kabal: Time for a regime change.
  Kano: Back off, you ungrateful yobbo.
• Stealth Mentor: To Kira and Kobra. Their journey to Outworld at Havik's behest to deal with Onaga will help Kabal weed out members for the revived Black Dragon clan. It's revealed in Kira's ending that only one of them would be chosen and the two would have to battle to the death to receive that honor.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: While his height is unknown, Kabal is dark-haired and has been shown to have been quite the looker before his disfigurement.
• Tattooed Crook: His living self in 11 sports the Black Dragon insignia on his right arm. It's present on both his burnt and unburnt living skins, but it's not quite as visible on the burnt versions.
• Villain Respect: As fast and prideful as he may be, an interaction with Erron Black in 11 shows Kabal has respect for him.
  Kabal: I'm too fast to shoot.
  Erron Black: I've hit a hummingbird at 50 yards.
  Kabal: That's actually impressive.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Two alternate costumes in 11 have Kabal shirtless, one of his disfigured self and another of his pre-disfigurement appearance wearing a jacket zipped open.
• We Can Rebuild Him: His respirator saved his life. His ending in 9 has this happen again, with Kabal's respirator being permanently damaged during his fight with Shao Kahn, forcing him to track down Kano and the cyberneticist who developed Kano's eye laser. He's saved in the nick of time, but now must fight to repay his hefty debt. He seems to be able to function with the gear piece that removes it in 11, however, possibly due to Gameplay and Story Segregation.
• We Used to Be Friends: Kano gives him this line in MK9, and apparently truly believes it, as he went to the trouble of saving Kabal from Kintaro and getting Shang Tsung to heal him up. Kabal doesn't reciprocate the sentiment to the point of rejoining his old partner in crime, but he does opt to knock out Kano rather than kill him after forcing Kano to take him to Shao Kahn.
• What a Drag: His "Road Rash" fatality from Mortal Kombat 11 has him hook the opponent's leg with his hook sword and run at Super-Speed, dragging the opponent behind him and rather graphically stripping away the skin on their face (including ripping their eyeballs out) before throwing them in front of him, Flash Stepping forward, and slicing them in half.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In 11, both his revenant and past self disappear from the story following their fights, despite not seemingly having been killed. This is of course made irrelevant by the timeline being erased again at the end of the game.

Nightwolf

Nightwolf (Grey Cloud)

"Ancestors, give me strength!"

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3 (Sal Divita)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Deception (Paul St. Peter), Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Larry Omaha), Mortal Kombat X (non-playable), Mortal Kombat 11 (Daniel Lujan, English; David Midthunder, Face Model; José Luis Rivera, Latin American Spanish; DLC)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Litefoot), Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (Tod Thawley), Mortal Kombat (2021) (cameo)

An Apache warrior, shaman and historian, Nightwolf learned of Shao Kahn's impending invasion from Raiden. He used his magic to set up protection for his people, then headed off to defend Earthrealm. He got Put on a Bus after MKT...

... then it came back. In Deception, he began having visions again, this time of Onaga returning from the dead to wreak havoc. He chose the role of a Sin Eater, which basically meant that he would absorb all of his tribe's sins, then release them all at Onaga at once. The plan worked, and Onaga was stuck in Outworld to be beaten into submission by Shujinko.

In Mortal Kombat 9, Nightwolf's role gets heavily expanded. The story of 9 shows Nightwolf was in fact present at the tenth Mortal Kombat tournament to decide Earthrealm's fate. He faces off against Scorpion but loses. He is considered a close confidant of Raiden, to whom he refers to as "Haokah". He helps to recruit Stryker to Raiden's cause during Outworld's invasion and acts as the leading figure for the Earthrealm defense during Raiden's absence to try and broker a solution with the Elder Gods. Unfortunately, when Sindel arrives, he is forced to sacrifice his own life to stop her and his soul is claimed in the Netherrealm by Quan Chi, where he continues to serve as a slave to the sorcerer during the events of Mortal Kombat X.

Nightwolf returns in 11 as part of the DLC Season Pass. Along with this, more details about his backstory are revealed. Formerly known as Grey Cloud among his people, he earned the title of Nightwolf by heroically protecting his homeland from being attacked by members of the Black Dragon. In recognition of his deeds, he was blessed by the Great Spirit with immense magical power, becoming the shaman of his tribe.

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• Animalistic Abilities: In 11, Nightwolf can call upon the animal spirits of the wolf and the bear to empower him. The wolf increases his strength and attack damage while the bear boosts his defenses.
• Animal Motifs: As the name implies, wolves. He ends up adding a bear and eagle to this in 11.
• Attack Reflector: As a special, he can create a green aura around his body that redirects projectiles.
• The Atoner: His "Sin Eater" role let him do this for HIS ENTIRE CLAN in the original timeline. In the rebooted timeline, he clearly is trying to make up for his troublesome days as Grey Cloud
• Badass Bookworm: Makes his living as a historian. In Defenders of the Realm he is the heroes tech support and Mission Control.
• Badass Native: A Native American who serves as one of Raiden's chosen warriors.
• Bears Are Bad News: His appearance in 11 has him accompanied by a spirit bear, Komo, that assists in battle.
• Blue Is Heroic: His costumes in 3 and 11 give him a predominately blue palette.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: His original design in a nutshell. Among the many Native American characters included in fighting games of the 1990s, Nightwolf was one of the most widely disparaged, but subsequent appearances have made him less of a one-note stereotype, more in line with the developers' original intentions.
• The Cameo:
  • He appears in a book illustration in the 2021 film.
  • While he isn't a Kameo fighter, in Mortal Kombat 1 Nightwolf is one of the characters who can execute you from offscreen if you fail Test Your Might.
• Canon Immigrant: Not Nightwolf himself, but one of his animal spirits in 11 is shockingly lifted from the old Defenders of the Realm cartoon, Kiba the wolf.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Defied. While most of the Revevants take great pains to avoid killing their past selves and erasing themselves in the process, Nightwolf eagerly declares he’ll kill his counterpart to ensure Kronika can’t be stopped.
• Carry a Big Stick: In MK11 he adds a Gunstock war club to his arsenal.
• The Chosen One: He is the Great Spirit's chosen one and champion, in the same vein that Liu Kang is Raiden's. In the new timeline, both were chosen to defend Earthrealm in Mortal Kombat. In 11, the two even voluntarily spar to test one god's champion against the other.
• Darker and Edgier: In 9, Nightwolf is one of the nicer Earthrealm warriors and lectures Scorpion on letting go of the past, referencing the fact that his own people have also suffered. 11 gives him a more acerbic persona and intro dialogues indicate that he now seeks reparations for the Matoka's historic persecution. The latter game also implies that he has a Dark and Troubled Past as Grey Cloud before he took on the mantle of Nightwolf.
• A Day in the Limelight: In Mortal Kombat 9, he's the focus of Chapter 15 and in Chapter 13 of MK11's "Aftermath" expansion.
• Deadly Upgrade: The Sin Eater ritual will allow Nightwolf to descend into the Netherrealm and use his clan's sins to attack Onaga's spirit, but the transformation will alter his temperament and eventually cause him to become a danger to his allies. Understanding the ramifications of such actions, Nightwolf works in seclusion during the events of Deception.
• A Death in the Limelight: In 9, he along with most of the other heroes dies in the same chapter in which he gets A Day in the Limelight.
  • Somewhat in case with MK11: Aftermath. Nightwolf gets the Mirror Match with his Revenant self - which is later promptly killed off by Shang Tsung who absorbs his soul.
• Facial Markings: Wears red paint on his face.
• Fusion Dance: With Kiva ^note  From Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm causing Nightwolf to assume his appearance from 3 and effortlessly kick the villains' asses from here to the moon.
• Geek: He's a computer whiz who provides Mission Control in Defenders of the Realm, unlike his shaman portrayal in the games.
• Genius Bruiser: In DotR as a result of being a computer whiz, although being a historian in the games would imply he's this to begin with.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Nightwolf's second fatality in 11, Komo-Tose. He subjects his opponent to a Neck Snap, then bats them into the air with his gunstock warclub, then snaps their spine with the help of Komo the spirit bear, and tears them in half.
• Heroic Sacrifice: A kamikaze variant in 9. As the only one on the heroes' side not currently out of commission, he faces down Sindel (and prevents her from immediately killing Kitana) but ultimately has no success. Sindel then attempts to steal his soul. In return, Nightwolf begins a chant as a last-ditch effort. The end result? The spiritual equivalent of a Kill Sat rains down destruction from the heavens, killing them both.
• Hunk: Much more so in 11, surprisingly enough. Then again almost every male fighter in said entry is rather Hunk-ish
• I Let You Win: Pre-Fight dialogs reveal that he let Scorpion win their fight back in 9. Scorpion is not happy when he finds out.
• Jawbreaker: One of his fatalities in 11: he sticks a tomahawk into the side of his opponent's jaw, pulls off their jaw (and the entire front half of their body with it), then throws his tomahawk at their heart to slice it in half.
• Killed Off for Real: His Revenant version, as 11 reveals.
  Nightwolf: Raiden destroyed my Revenant?
  Sub-Zero: He took no prisoners in the Netherrealm War.
  Nightwolf: He and I shall have words.
  • While the revenant self was alive when shown in the Aftermath Story Mode... he immediately gets his soul sucked out by Shang Tsung after the former gravely wounded the latter.
• Kill Sat: Essentially a mystic version that he summons for his fatalities. In 9 he even uses a pair of daggers as an "aiming beacon" when summoning the light ray to eviscerate his foe.
• Knight in Sour Armor: A bit jaded compared to most of the other Earthrealmers, but he still fights for the right causes. Important to note is that the "Sour Armor" was there before the "Knight".
  Liu Kang: So what were you, before becoming Nightwolf?
  Nightwolf: A broken man with a death wish.
  Liu Kang: You owe much to your Great Spirit.
  
  Nightwolf: Stealing power from souls will kill you.
  Shang Tsung: What powers you, Nightwolf? Hope?
  Nightwolf: Despair and resolve.
• Legacy Character: MK11 reveals that there were a lot of Nightwolves before Grey Cloud came along in MK3. Geras claims to have fought some of them. In his arcade ending, when he becomes the new Keeper of Time, his title becomes passed onto yet another Matokan worthy of the name.
• Mage Marksman: The Arcane Archer variety. Nightwolf can create a bow and arrow of green spirit energy.
• Magical Native American: Given his abilities include materializing tomahawks, spirit animals, bows and storms, he almost comes across as an exaggeration of this trope.
• Mission Control: In Defenders of the Realm, he's a computer expert who largely stays behind to give technical support.
• Nerves of Steel: Particularly noticeable in 9. One such instance is during Sindel's entrance to the heroes' stronghold in The Cathedral where she screams and manages to shake, distort, and knock down some of the warriors but Nightwolf's stance remains firm and he keeps a cool head throughout the attack.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Freddy Krueger's ending in Mortal Kombat 9, Nightwolf is the one who recognizes Freddy as a malevolent spirit and, unaware of his modus operandi, quickly seals him back in the Dream Realm before he could cause harm with the power he gained from killing Shao Kahn. This allows Freddy to return to the Dream Realm (as he is immortal in that Realm), now capable of causing a global massacre without resistance.
• Noble Wolf: Gains one- Kiba- as a spirit animal that assists him in 11, with which he howls in unison as an outro.
• Number Two: To Raiden in 9. Due to his status as one of the few humans with spiritual awareness, he knows Raiden on a personal basis and apparently goes looking for/recruiting Raiden's chosen warriors during the Outworld invasion (he's also seen with the Nakama that is Raiden's warriors during the time of Shang Tsung's tournament). He even leads the heroes when Raiden leaves with Liu Kang to enlist the Elder Gods' help and subsequently leads the charge against the Lin Kuei and Sindel.
• Off with His Head!: His first Fatality in 9 has him throw an enchanted tomohawk into his opponent's skull then throws a second one horizontally to decapitate them, holding their severed head up with the first tomahawk still embedded.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: In his arcade ending, after defeating Shao Kahn, his soul attaches itself to Nightwolf's spirit wolf guide. His evil infects Nightwolf himself, turning him into a vicious werewolf and plans to infect each single mortal in Earthrealm.
  • In 11, Erron Black mistakingly thinks that Nightwolf is one.
• Passing the Torch: After becoming the Keeper of Time, Grey Cloud decides to pass Nightwolf's mantle to another worthy Matokan.
• Reforged into a Minion: After his Heroic Sacrifice to stop Sindel's rampage, his soul was brainwashed to become one of Quan Chi's revenants near the end of 9, and remains that way in MKX and in MK11: Aftermath.
• Reimagining the Artifact: Kiba was a wolf Nightwolf fused with in Defenders of the Realm, but aside from that, she just seemed like the Team Pet (Who hated Stryker). In 11, she's reimagined as one of Nightwolf's spirit animals.
• Retcon: Originally, Nightwolf was an Apache warrior. In Aftermath, he is retconned into being from the fictional Matoka tribe. Also, Nightwolf was originally believed to be his given name but in Aftermath his real name is Grey Cloud while "Nightwolf" is a moniker bestowed on a Matoka by their tribe's Great Spirit.
• Revenge Before Reason: Calls out Scorpion for this in 9, telling the wraith that he's channeled his anger over his clan's fate and put it towards better uses. Nightwolf attempts to knock some sense into Scorpion himself, but fails.
• Shadow Archetype: As with the others resurrected to serve Shinnok, Revenant Nightwolf is this to his past self. Years ago, Nightwolf had fallen from the righteous path and had been at odds with the faith of his people. Revenant Nightwolf is what would happen if he had remained a criminal and givne in to evil. He has completely renounced his faith in the Great Spirit and is now purely devoted to Shinnok.
• Shock and Awe: His shaman magic lets him zap his foes with lightning, both as a special move and as a Fatality. He also gives himself a jolt in Mortal Kombat 9 as his pre-fight intro.
• Sin Eater: In Deception, Nightwolf undergoes a Sin-Eater ritual to absorb the sins of his entire tribe. This comes with the risk of being potentially corrupted by the sins he has absorbed and he can't even fall asleep. The ritual pays off when Nightwolf uses the sins to bind Onaga in the Netherrealm.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Nightwolf can create bows and arrows made of green energy.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He is among the many MK3 characters killed off in the reboot.
• Summon Magic: Nightwolf in 11 incorporates spirits of bears, wolves and eagles into his moveset.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's a dark-haired Native American who walks around shirtless, after all.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Deception, he voluntarily descends into the Netherrealm and binds Onaga there using the sins of his ancestors, allowing Shujinko to finish off the Dragon King. Even more so in 9; How does he stop Quan Chi's Soulnado? By beating the tar out of the sorcerer and then Sparta-kicking Noob Saibot into it. He then tramples Cyrax and Sektor when the Cyber Lin Kuei attack the heroes' stronghold. He's then one of four heroes to survive Sindel's initial onslaught and is ultimately the one to fell her (see Heroic Sacrifice above).
• Undeathly Pallor: A grayish-white skin after being revived as a brainwashed minion.
• Volcanic Veins: He gains these upon being revived as a brainwashed minion of Quan Chi.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: How he turns into a wolf. Not so in his MK9 ending thanks to Shao Kahn.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Save for the DA-D-A trilogy, all he wears on top is an open vest.
• Warrior Poet: Serves as a shaman and historian when not fighting.
• Warrior Therapist: In some of his lines he does try to advise others, such as Scorpion.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Alongside Smoke, Sindel and Stryker, Nightwolf makes no appearance in 11's story despite still being a Revenant. (As noted under Killed Off for Real, his Revenant may have been destroyed by Raiden.)
  • Aftermath reveals that Revenant Nightwolf was still around during the events of the main story. After the Mirror Match with his living self, he perishes when decaying Shang Tsung absorbs his soul.
• Witch Doctor: He is the shaman of his tribe and his powers invoke spirits.
• Wolf Man: His Animality is a wolf.

Kurtis Stryker

Kurtis Stryker

"Police brutality, coming up!"

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3 (Michael O'Brien)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Matthew Mercer), Mortal Kombat X (non-playable), Mortal Kombat 1 (Kameo)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (Ron Perlman), Mortal Kombat: Legacy (Tahmoh Penikett in the first season, Eric Jacobus in the second), Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (Matthew Mercer)

Before the events of Mortal Kombat 3, Kurtis Stryker was just a member of the NYPD's Special Riot Control Department. He was chosen by Raiden to be one of a handful of mortals to survive Shao Kahn's genocide of the human race. Even Stryker himself doesn't know why.

In Mortal Kombat 9, Stryker is pretty much the same, although his joining Earthrealm's champions is not as ambiguous, since he is hand-picked by Nightwolf, who sensed his determination to protect Earthrealm and his skills as a fighter. 9 also shows that he was partnered with Kabal, who was working as a riot control officer to escape his past as a Black Dragon syndicate member. Like most of the other Earthrealm warriors, he is killed by Sindel's attack and his soul forced into the servitude of Quan Chi.

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• Badass Normal: Is only a cop with grenades, stun batons and a gun against monsters and magic compared even to Sonya and Jax, who use laser weapons and high-tech equipment.
• Berserk Button: His ending in 9 has him become an overnight celebrity after defeating Shao Kahn, despite his insistence that he was just doing his job. He doesn't mind all the attention or merchandise that follows, but when Hollywood asks to make a movie about him, he tells them no. His reason?
  Never would he allow himself to be portrayed by Johnny Cage.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior:
  • His victory pose if he doesn't use a Fatality to end a match in 9. He simply throws a grenade at his foe's unconscious body, and ends up getting sprayed by their blood due to the ensuing explosion. One way or another, Stryker's opponent won't be leaving the battle alive.
  • It also appears in his second Fatality in 9, which is pretty much the same thing, only with Stryker jamming the grenade directly into their midsection.
• Boom, Headshot!: For his first Fatality in Mortal Kombat 9 he starts by shocking his opponent with a tazer then draws his pistol and blows their head off.
• Bottomless Magazines: Apparently, his gun has infinite ammo, although he's shown reloading it if he wins a round in 9.
• By-the-Book Cop: Gives off the impression of being one in 9, though he's not afraid to get his hands dirty if the situation calls for it.
• The Cameo: In Robcop's Arcade ending in 11, we see him among the Special Forces agents who accompany RoboCop back to OCP to bring them to justice.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He is not seen or mentioned in MK11 despite the major role the revenants have in the story.
• Combat Pragmatist: Given that he's the most normal member of the cast, this was a given. He was the first kombatant in the series with the gall to outright whip out a gun and pop a cap in his enemy's head. His X-Ray move in 9 has him blind his opponent with a flashlight, smash the top of their skull in with it (causing the skull to actually cave in), and then knock them upside the jaw with his baton (breaking their neck) before finally tazing 'em. When he delivers the quote reproduced above, he's not kidding.
• Comicbook Fantasy Casting: In 9 he's a dead ringer for John Cena.
  • In Armageddon, he's a dead ringer of Sting (founding member of The Police). It helps that one of his main combat stances makes it look like he's telling his opponent "Don't stand so close to me"...
• Cool Shades: Armageddon only.
• Cowboy Cop: Stryker originally veered closer to this. The backwards-turned cap was your first clue.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Stryker is one of the few kombatants who seems to kill an opponent even if he does not use a Fatality. His non-Fatality victory pose in 9 has him toss a grenade over his shoulder in the fallen foe's direction, causing an explosion and a lot of blood.
• A Day in the Limelight: In Mortal Kombat 9, he's the focus of Chapter 12.
• Demoted to Extra: Out of the regular playable cast of MK3, Stryker has had it the worst. He has two other playable appearances only because one is a Dream Match Game and the other is a Continuity Reboot. After that, the rest of his appearances in the NetherRealm games are non-playable cameos or as an Assist Character.
• Does Not Like Guns: In the original MK3, he couldn't use the gun he used in his victory pose. Ever since then, creators have been sure to let him use his gun... to the dismay of many players. invoked
• The Everyman: Stryker's main appeal is that he's just a normal cop thrust into the madness of Mortal Kombat. He always wonders why Raiden and Nightwolf deemed an ordinary, superpower-less man like him worthy to be one of The Chosen Many to defend Earthrealm.
• Fair Cop: Moreso in the new timeline thanks to having a proper uniform and his biography painting him as the MK equivalent of John McClane.
• Firing in the Air a Lot / Gun Twirling: How he celebrates winning a round in 3.
• Formerly Fat: He is noticeably slimmer in Armageddon versus his introduction in 3.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: His X-Ray attack opens with him blinding his opponent with a flashlight to make them vulnerable for his attack. Apparently, this works on cyborgs, hellspawns with no real eyes, celebrities with sunglasses, and an already blind person.
• Hunk: Especially by Armageddon.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: As a revenant under Quan Chi, Stryker can cap a guy from several hundred feet effortlessly while on zombie horseback.
• Improbable Weapon User: On top of all the probable weapons he uses, Stryker makes use of a flashlight in MK9 for his x-ray move. Said flashlight is notable for being able to blind anyone, as noted above.
• Informed Occupation: His bio card in Armageddon mentions that he was a former member of the United States Marine Corps and had served in the Gulf War, yet there has been no reference to him serving before or since.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: As seen in both Armageddon and 9, Kurt has a nice, wide manly chin, which goes great with him being a cop and all.
• Last-Name Basis: His first name usually isn't used.
• Lawman Baton: Stryker's main melee weapon is a nightstick.
• Ludicrous Gibs: A fatality in 3 and 9 revolve around him blowing up his opponent with explosives.
• More Dakka: Capable of using his side arm and grenades in combat. His EX versions even allow to shoot more bullets and grenades. A fatality in 3 and 9 also revolve around blowing up his opponent.
• Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: Subverted in the Midway-era games, in which his ability to use firearms in a hand-to-hand kombat game was as broken as you'd expect. Some fans will still never let him live down his apparent dishonour (or pragmatism). invoked His gunfire attacks are more manageable in later games.
• Police Brutality: In 9, it's his Catchphrase, and he certainly means it. invoked
• Reforged into a Minion: He was brainwashed to become one of Quan Chi's revenants near the end of 9, and remains that way in MKX.
• Shout-Out: His 9 biography seems intent on making him one of John McClane, going so far as to call him "a die hard cop" with an additional reference to Speed.
• Silent Antagonist: As a Revenant, Stryker doesn't speak apart from some grunts and groans in combat.
• Sociopathic Hero: Probably more just another case of Gameplay and Story Segregation, but as noted above Stryker in MK9 is literally incapable of showing any opponent mercy outside of babalities (as opting not to do a Fatality with him simply results in Stryker taking the matter into his own hands and finishing the deed as part of his win pose). As Stryker is apparently one of the heroic Earthrealm defenders, this heavily implies him to be this. The only non-lethal victory he makes is during a round of "Test Your Luck," where he'll simply fire a few rounds in the air and produce his Catchphrase line.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He is among the many MK3 characters killed off in the reboot.
• Super Cop: Especially in 9, which lists off his many exploits on the line of duty, even before Kahn invades Earthrealm, in his bio.
• Static Stun Gun: As a Fatality since 3, a special in Armageddon and part of his x-ray in 9.
• The Team Normal: Of Raiden's chosen warriors. Even Sonya and Jax (the two other warriors closest to Stryker in terms of being regular Joes) have stuff like death-dealing smooches and cybernetic arms respectively.
• Think Nothing of It: Of the All a Part of the Job variety during his Arcade ending in 9.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Can throw grenades as an attack and uses one in a fatality and his win pose in 9.
• Took a Level in Badass: His portrayal in 9, which emphasize his Badass Normal attributes. During Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm, he singlehandedly takes out Reptile, Mileena, Kintaro, and Ermac. Outworld invaders, Stryker will have none of your shit. Prior to Kahn's Invasion of Earth, Stryker's badass credentials include thwarting terrorists in the Greenberg Tower Incident and rescuing civilians on a city bus wired to explode.
• Undeathly Pallor: A grayish-white skin after being revived as a brainwashed minion.
• Unfazed Everyman: Relatively unfazed, though he does note that being an Earthrealm defender is above his pay grade.
• Vigilante Man: In his Armageddon ending, Stryker decides he is no longer bound by the law after acquiring Blaze's power. He traverses the realms delivering his own brand of vigilante justice to criminals and the corrupt.
• Volcanic Veins: He gains these upon being revived as a brainwashed minion of Quan Chi.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Alongside Smoke, Stryker does not appear neither in the story of Mortal Kombat 11 or Aftermath despite still being a Revenant. If not for a single piece of dialogue between RoboCop and Jax, Stryker would be a victim of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
• Would Hit a Girl: With the armies of kombatants gawping at the Pyramid of Argus rising from the ground, Stryker is the first to take the initiative to thwack the nearest person, Mileena, on the jaw and make a dash for the top. It's hilariously unexpected. He also fights Mileena in his chapter in 9.

Motaro

Motaro

"Without your weapons, you are no match for Motaro!"

Debut game: Mortal Kombat 3

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (cameo), Mortal Kombat 1 (Kameo, non-playable)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Deron McBee), Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm

Motaro is a Centaurian, a race of half-man, half-horse beings that reside in Outworld. His people are vicious enemies of the Shokan, the race of four-armed half-dragons that Goro, Sheeva, and Kintaro belong to. During the events of Mortal Kombat 3, he is the commanding general of Shao Kahn's Earthrealm invasion squads and serves as the mid-boss before Shao Kahn, having been promoted following the defeats of Goro and Kintaro and Shao Kahn losing faith in the Shokan race. He returns during the events of Armageddon, though his appearance now takes the form of a minotaur as a curse placed on his people by the Shokan have stripped them of two of their legs. He arrives at the pyramid in a gambit to make Goro and his people pay for what they wrought upon his race.

He serves the same role in Mortal Kombat 9 as he did in MK3 but is reduced to merely a cameo. He is killed during the invasion of Earthrealm by Raiden, who does so to save Johnny Cage. This event does not change much of the timeline in itself but the consequences of it cause major alterations in the events to follow.

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• Artificial Stupidity: In the iPhone port. On lower difficulties Motaro will literally walk into your punches, all you have to do is stand still and repeatedly tap the punch button.
• Attack Reflector: Unlike previous MK bosses who were all vulnerable to projectiles, Motaro was not only invulnerable to them, he would actually reflect them back at you. Certain ports changed this so that projectiles would simply pass through him, and he lost the ability when he was Brought Down to Normal in Armageddon.
• Back from the Dead: It was mentioned that he died by Sheeva's hand in Kano's Konquest story in Deadly Alliance, but is back without any explanation in Armageddon.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Motaro can trip you with it as his sweep attack, and he has a powerful projectile that he fires from the tip of his tail while holding it arched over his head.
• Brought Down to Normal: Sort of. He and the rest of the Centaurs are transformed into Minotaurs by a Shokan curse in Armageddon, which reduces their fighting abilities.
• The Bus Came Back: He makes a return to battle in MK1 as a Kameo fighter and non-playable character.
• Death by Cameo: He makes a surprise appearance in one of Sheeva's 11 intros as a severed, beaten head that she promptly tears apart before the fight begins.
• Demoted to Extra: In MK9. He only makes a handful of appearances in the story and his role in the MK3 portion has been downplayed. This is because of the difficulty in rendering and accommodating his 4-legged horse body once the games moved from sprites to models; when he did show up as playable again he was transformed into a Minotaur.
• The Dragon: He serves as the leader of the Earthrealm invasion for Shao Kahn in MK3 and is the sub-boss.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Raiden rams him through a bridge (no pun intended) to save Cage, killing Motaro. Unfortunately, this action causes Shao Kahn to take off his kiddie gloves and empower Sindel with Shang Tsung's soul, leading to her bloody No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of the heroes.
• Expy: According to Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias, Motaro's design was inspired by an action figure of the villain Baron Karza from Micronauts, which came packaged with a horse that it could combine with to become a centaur. In addition to the character's basic concept, Motaro's segmented metallic tail also comes from Karza◊.
• Fantastic Racism: He's apparently a victim of this, due to the Shokan and Centaurian's long standing blood feuds. Of course, once the Centaurs gain favor with Shao Kahn, they become the perpetrators.
• Hero Killer: In the original timeline, he kills Johnny Cage. Tragically, Raiden's attempt to prevent this in the new timeline leads to Sindel becoming an even bigger Hero Killer.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He's a rat-tailed, ram-horned centaur creature.
• No-Sell: Motaro scoffs at the idea of being hurt by projectiles or being juggled (you can, however, combo him if you can catch him in midair). Note that in MK3, only most projectile attacks can't hurt him (Sindel's can, but still, she's better off with physical attacks against him).
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Outworld's Centaurs have horns, scorpion-like tails, Attack Reflector skin and the ability to teleport.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: In Armageddon, the centaurians are cursed into losing their hind limbs by the Shokan, making Motaro resemble a minotaur.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: As evidenced by this line he spouts in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation:
  Motaro: Centaurians are known for their hunting prowess. As your general, I will personally hunt down every human soul, and spare no one!
• Put on a Bus: His role since the games went 3D, as the difficulty of creating a four-legged opponent with models instead of sprites made it practically impossible to bring him back. This caused him to become two-legged in Armageddon and his role in the MK3 portion of 9 to be heavily downplayed.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He has only a cameo in 9, but his death causes Shao Kahn to seek drastic measures that kill many of the heroes.
• SNK Boss: Not surprisingly, Motaro deals a lot of damage and has many tricky attacks and patterns.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He is among the many MK3 characters killed off in the reboot.
• Super-Strength: On par with that of Shokans, as like them his normal punch will send an enemy flying across the screen.
• Teleport Spam: Quite fond of using it in MK3.
• The Unfought: In MK9, likely due to the difficulty in programming a four-legged opponent.
• Your Head Asplode: His Kameo Fatality in 1 involves him stabbing his opponent through the head with his tail and then firing off an energy blast from it, utterly obliterating the victim's skull.

Characters debuting in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Ermac

Ermac

"We are many. You are but one."

Debut game: Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (John Turk)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Deception, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (Michael McConnohie), Mortal Kombat X (Jamieson Price, English; Salvador Reyes, Latin American Spanish)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (John Medlen), Mortal Kombat: Legacy (Kim Do Nguyen)

Ermac is a being composed of entire legions of souls, created by Shao Kahn to serve as one of his greatest warriors. A powerful telekinetic capable of manipulating all manner of physical objects and even levitation.

His actions under direct control, he served Shao Kahn well during Outworld's invasion of Earthrealm. However after Kahn's subsequent defeat and weakening, Ermac found himself wandering Outworld without any commands. He was eventually severed from his bond to the emperor by the blind swordsman Kenshi and in gratitude he instructed him in the ways of Telekinesis.

With his newfound freedom Ermac decided to dedicate himself to atoning for his past actions. Finding a literal kindred spirit in Liu Kang, he aided the shaolin monk's spirit in liberating his allies from Onaga's control.

Ermac never gets to be free during the events of Mortal Kombat 9, so he's an enemy of Earthrealm's warriors throughout the game. His whereabouts after the events of the game were unknown until Mortal Kombat X, where he initially remains loyal to Shao Kahn's heir Mileena. However, he switches sides and joins Kotal Kahn.

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• Ambiguously Brown: In his human form, before his design was made into an otherworldly creature in later installments.
• Amplifier Artifact: The emerald on his forehead from Deception onward (called the Gem of Ermac in its Relic description from Armageddon) harnesses great telekinetic energies, increasing Ermac's powers tenfold.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Before being part of the Klassic Pack, buying the Kollector's edition of 9 gave you this item.
• Ascended Glitch: Ermac was created out of a false rumor that the first game had a rare occurence where Scorpion or Sub-Zero would appear in a red outfit, and the words "ERMAC" would appear over the life bar, as shown by a faked screenshot in Electronic Gaming Monthly. This was actually a hoax, which was done by hacking the game. The name is short for "error macros," only appeared on a debug menu, and the red costume was because, when the actors performed their moves, their costumes were usually colored red to avoid clashing with the green screen. The original sprites were red, with blue/yellow/green/whatever added on as a color palette to differentiate between characters. So the "Error Macro" coinciding with a complete lack of a color palette makes sense. In any case, the hoax became so famous that Ermac was made into a real character.
• The Atoner: Part of the reason Ermac decides to assist Liu Kang in Deception is to atone for his past history as a villain. In X, this serves for both Ermac and Shao Kahn.
• Badass Longcoat: His alternate costume in 9 and his default in X is a hooded, knee length, black coat with a red trim.
• Catchphrase:
  • "We are many, you are one."
  • A modified variant is said to Ferra/Torr instead. "We are many, you are but two."
• Character Development: From just an extra under Shao Kahn's control in UMK3 to a powerful force for good in Deception. In the X Timeline, this goes to being a servant of Kotal Kahn, for both Ermac and Shao Kahn.
• Death by Cameo: His appearance in MK11, where he is seen falling to his death in the Krypt and his amulet is acquired by his player to progress.
• Downloadable Content: Klassic Ermac from the 1992 MK, a game he never appeared in but started off as rumored to be, is a selectable skin in 9.
• Forced Transformation: His Friendship turns the foe into a rabbit.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Thanks to Kenshi who freed him from Shao Kahn's control. This is given a nod in X, where Kenshi states to Ermac in one of their pre-fight intros that he wishes to free Ermac, not do battle with him.
  • In his ending in 9, it's King Jerrod's soul imprisoned inside of him who prompts this.
  • Happens quite literally in X during Kotal's coup against Mileena. Note that Shao Kahn is also a part of this, even if Ermac themselves denies this fact.
    Ermac: "Our creator, Shao Kahn, is dead. We will serve whom we choose."
• Heroic Build: His heroic portrayals in Deception and Armageddon show him with a fair amount of bulk, made more apparent with his alternate costume. This contrasts with his evil counterpart in the rebooted timeline, where he becomes Lean and Mean by MKX.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Apparently, with Kenshi. It remains to be seen if the new timeline will follow suit.
• Humanoid Abomination:
  • He's an amalgam of countless souls in one body. According to his Arcade Ladder ending in 9, one of those souls is King Jerrod, the fallen King of Edenia.
  • In his dialog exchange with Scorpion in Mortal Kombat X, another is implied to be Shao Kahn, which for Tremor, is sadly confirmed.
• I Am Legion: Ermac is a concentrated combination of many souls, not just a single "person," per se. Consequently, he refers to himself as "We" and "Us," speaking for the whole instead of a singular persona. Averted at times, but only due to Shao Kahn speaking.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: His Pest Control Fatality in 9 involves shrinking his opponent before crushing them underfoot.
• In the Hood: His alternate costume in 9, and his default look in X.
• Kryptonite Factor:
  • The Netherrealm drains Ermac of the souls that compose his being, severely weakening him. Otherwise, he would seem to be a borderline Story-Breaker Power for the heroes, as he was shown fighting off a brainwashed Kitana, Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, Sonya, and Jax with little effort.
  • While it crosses over to Logical Weakness, anyone capable of draining souls can potentially kill him, just like Shang Tsung did in his ladder ending. Also, according to Havik, a shot from Shinnok's amulet powered by Ermac's many souls can punch through Raiden's cosmic barriers that both blockade and protect the Netherrealm.
• Lean and Mean: In MKX, he looks borderline emaciated due to Shao Kahn's magic no longer existing to maintain his physical form. His personality is also more unstable and psychotic than before due to the long Time Skip after 9.
• Make Them Rot: Without Shao Khan's magic to sustain him Ermac's body is beginning to rot away.
• Merger of Souls: The souls comprising Ermac are people who died fighting Shao Kahn. As punishment, he forced them to be his bodyguard instead of letting them move on to the afterlife. It's said that there are thousands of souls inside him, but they're in perfect accord.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: His overwhelming quantity of souls is not conducive for mind-reading, as revealed in X. Takeda is briefly stunned from the mental overload.
• Mind over Matter: Ermac can use psychokinesis to lift and slam their opponents, toss them around the arena, or just tear them apart, limb from limb.
  • He clarifies in MKX that his powers derive from spirit energy, as opposed to Kenshi's straightforward Telekinesis.
• Monochromatic Eyes: White in 3, green from Deception onwards.
• Motor Mouth: Should he engage in a Mirror Match in X, one of his potential lines:
  Ermac 1: We are many.
  Ermac 2: We are many more.
  Ermac 1: We are manymoreplusinfinitytimesinfinitynopaybacks.
• Palette Swap: Started as yet another Lin Kuei guy.
• Power Echoes: Reflective of his multiple souls, his voice sounds like several people talking over one another, and mixes with Baritone of Strength when Shao Kahn speaks
• Power Floats: His telekinesis allows Ermac to levitate. This is best seen in X, where Ermac hovers above the ground in his fights, fitting his warlock-like appearance.
• Pronoun Trouble: "Him" or "Them."
• Race Lift: Originally, he (his physical body, at least) was dark-skinned when he was first introduced in Ultimate. In Trilogy, however, he had white skin; come 9, his human costume reverted back to tanner skin tone. He is now completely remade into a mummified-like creature since Deception.
• Red Is Heroic: When he's good.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: When he's evil.
• Redemption Promotion: Pretty much the poster boy of it in MK. After becoming an Ascended Extra and having a Heel–Face Turn, Ermac really started to shine. Sadly, Shao Kahn shows otherwise.
• The Reveal:
  • His Arcade Ladder ending in 9. King Jerrod (Sindel's husband and Kitana's father who was killed by Shao Kahn) is one of the many souls that comprises Ermac's being. When Shao Kahn is defeated, Ermac is no longer bound to him, resulting in the numerous souls fighting for dominance over the body; Jerrod's willpower ultimately overcomes them and he reunites with his family, acting as Edenia's protector.
  • Subverted horrifically in X where both Jerrod and Shao Kahn remain in Ermac.
  • Then curbstomped like no tomorrow in his X ending, where Shang Tsung steals all of Ermac's souls, King Jerrod and Shao Kahn included.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Both King Jerrod and Shao Kahn reside in Ermac, with the two fighting to take control in a Mirror Match in MKX.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Has both a major good and major evil character, King Jerrod and Shao Khan, residing among his many souls, fighting to take control in a Mirror Match in MKX.
• Sinister Schnoz: He has a rather large nose which protrudes from his bandaged mask in post-reboot designs.
• Teleport Spam: Posseses an attack where he telports behind the opponent and punches them.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Outside of Death by Cameo, he makes no appearance in 11 during the story, save for brief mentions by other characters regarding his fight with Jax in 9.
  • Subverted with later add-ons to MK11 where Shang Tsung reveals to Kitana that he killed Ermac and got Jerrod's soul that way.
• The Worf Effect: In 9, save two occasions (the one which prompted Jax's use of cybernetic arms and another cutscene in which Johnny Cage is taken down), the only reason he seems to exist is to be trashed. Granted this was a much better track record than pretty much every other villain until the final act.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: His between-rounds victory animation in MK9 has him do this on himself. Specifically, one of the many souls in his body flies out, and he catches it and sucks it back in.

Rain

Rain (Zeffeero)

"I am a son of Argus! I was not merely declared a god by befuddled commoners, Buluc."

Debut game: Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (John Turk) ^note Only appears in the arcade version's Attract Mode - playable in the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis versions.

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mortal Kombat 9 (DLC), Mortal Kombat X (cameo) (Andrew Bowen, English; Eduardo Garza, Latin American Spanish), Mortal Kombat 11 (DLC) (Dempsey Pappion, English; Dave Ramos, Latin American Spanish)

Non-game appearances: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Tyrone Wiggins), Mortal Kombat: Conquest (Percy Brown), Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (Rino Romano)

The son of an Edenian general, Rain was smuggled away during Shao Kahn's invasion of Outworld and hostile takeover of Edenia. Thousands of years later, during Shao Kahn's attempted conquest of Earthrealm, Rain reappeared and was attacked by Kahn's extermination squads. Rather than die, Rain saved his own skin by pledging allegiance to Shao Kahn. In Trilogy, Kitana revealed to Rain the valiant last stand of his father, sending Rain into a blind rage and a suicide mission against Kahn. By the time of Armageddon, Rain discovered his true heritage as the illegitimate son of Edenia’s protector god, Argus, hidden away out of shame and given to the man Rain had believed to be his father. Still on the side of evil, but no longer in servitude to Shao Kahn, Rain now sets off to kill his half-brothers, Taven and Daegon, aiming to take the prize of Blaze's power for himself and reclaim his royal birthright.

His backstory undergoes a few changes in Mortal Kombat 9. A refugee orphan taken in by the Edenian Resistance, Rain's prowess in battle allowed him to quickly jump through the army's ranks. This shaped Rain into a very arrogant warrior. When he was denied command of his own charge, Rain, seething with anger, left their employ and offered his services to Shao Kahn. After Shao Kahn's death, he has been recruited by Reiko to help the fallen empress Mileena against Kotal Kahn, proving himself by weakening Kotal K'etz's sun powers in an ambush, allowing Goro to finish off his enemy's father. He's later incinerated by Kotal Kahn's solar beam, but Word of God states he survives this. After regaining consciousness, he tips off Mileena about Reiko.

During Story Mode he is Mileena's number two general in her rebel army, alongside Tanya. Rain claims he is the architect of plan to steal Shinnok's amulet. However, like many things he involves himself with, it serves an ulterior motive: by using the amulet, Mileena kills herself a little more each time. While she uses it to thin the ranks of Kotal Kahn's regime, she is also decaying her own body and once she is no longer able to fight, he will assume the lead of her army and lead it to victory over Outworld, installing himself as the emperor of the realm. He meets D'Vorah and Cassie Cage in the Kuatan Jungle, where his rebel forces are camped. He squares off with D'Vorah but is defeated and has the amulet taken. He survives the events of the game and is likely still on the run from Outworld's army with Tanya. 11 clarifies Tanya and Rain parted ways with Mileena's death and that he is still an active fugitive while Tanya wasn't so lucky. He reappears as a DLC character for 11, as part of Kombat Pack 2 and the Ultimate expansion.

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• Ambidextrous Sprite: An odd example of a Zigzagged Trope. For gameplay and balance purposes, Rain's katar in Mortal Kombat 11 functions the same as Vega's claw in the Street Fighter games — The weapon is equipped on whichever hand is closest to the foreground depending on which direction the player is facing. If Rain is facing to the right, the katar will be on his right hand, but if he switches stances, it'll switch to the left.
• Ambition Is Evil: As his MK9 bio puts it, "Power will be his, no matter the cost." Rambo cites this as a valid reason not to work with him.
  Rambo: Guys like you are never satisfied.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: As the son of Argus, Rain is quite confident in his abilities and believes he deserves to get whatever he wants no matter the cost.
• Badass Cape: His redesign in Armageddon.
• Bastard Bastard: He's the bastard son of Argus, the Edenian version of Raiden, as well as a devious schemer who is only out for himself.
• Best Served Cold: His 11 ending has him take revenge on Argus for letting his mother die believing he was a stillborn by killing him, Taven, and Daegon, while leaving Delia to grieve their deaths
• Birds of a Feather: Surprisingly cordial with Frost from some of their intro dialogue, almost to the point of flirtation. Considering both are major egomaniacs, it's not surprising.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Rain uses a katar in 11.
• Blasphemous Boast: Proclaiming his godhood is already his speciality, but his ego is so massive that he considers himself Raiden's superior.
• Blatant Lies: Several intro dialogues in 11 have him swear to his opponent that he would never, ever expand his proposed Edenian empire into Earthrealm. Nope, not in a million years. Few are convinced, especially those like Nightwolf who have heard such promises before.
• Bohemian Parody: His second Fatality in 11 briefly shows the heads of Reptile, Ermac and Smoke, all positioned like the album cover of Queen II.
• Cain and Abel: Although Taven and Daegon already had this dynamic, Rain aims to be the "Cain" for both of them. He succeeds in killing them both in his 11 ending as revenge against Argus for betraying Amara, Rain's mother.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: By the time of X, everyone knows he's only serving himself and it's only a matter of time before he betrays whoever he is working with. Despite that, he's effective enough that they work with him anyway. By 11, Mileena is sour about his betrayals, and even Alex Murphy can tell he is untrustworthy.
• Co-Dragons: With Tanya, serving Mileena. He is a Dragon with an Agenda, however, which is par for the course in Rain's playbook.
• Cool Mask: Used to hide his identity as Edenian nobility and Argus' son.
• Creepy Souvenir: His first fatality in 11 sees him collecting his opponent's eyes in a water globe after he's killed them.
• Defector from Decadence: His backstory in the 2011 game, where he defected from the Resistance to serve Shao Kahn because they did not give him an army of his own to command. In his ending in 9, he does it again to Shao Kahn, for the same reasons he did the Resistance.
• Dimensional Cutter: A new ability Rain demonstrates in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate is that he can rip lightning bolt-shaped holes in the fabric of spacetime for combat purposes; this includes doing so with his katar to directly attack opponents with the spacetime tears themselves, opening a rift in front of him to absorb projectiles (and doing do with two or more empowers the previous grounded attacks to inflict a krushing blow with their enhanced forms), and sending his opponents flying through them and coming out on the other side with either an enhanced water blast or—more famously—his signature roundhouse kick enhanced (which now seemingly explains how he was able to do this in previous games though no such explanation exists for other imitators/practitioners). Such moves where he attacks with the rifts themselves are flagged as being of the darkness element instead of the lightning element.
• Downloadable Content: He was one of the DLC characters in 9. Notable for being one of the few characters from Trilogy to be absent in the base game, the others being the twin Chameleons.
  • He would become this again in 11.
• Entitled Bastard: One of his most obnoxious traits is his extreme entitlement, the result of childhood neglect and lack of acknowledgement from his father. Although Rain really isn't anything special, he believes that his divine heritage and noble Edenian blood entitles him to power, status and reverence, none of which he is equipped or deserving to handle. He remorselessly casts aside anyone who fails to meet his high expectations.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He's quite the self-centered jerk, yes, but in his 11 ending, when he learns that Argus lied to his mother that their son was stillborn and left her to die from grief, his first instinct is to take revenge on Argus for hurting her by killing him and his sons.
• Evil Plan: He sides with Mileena and has her use Shinnok's amulet which kills her a little every time she uses it so he can take out both her and Kotal before claiming the throne for himself.
• The Evil Prince: His heritage is divine, not royal, but in this universe there's little difference, and his father being an Elder God is all the excuse he needs to declare himself Edenia's prince. He naturally fits the trope like a glove, being charming and handsome while also being a cunning and ambitious cutthroat.
• Evil Sounds Deep: His voice has a metallic tinge in MKX, likely augmented by his mask. Averted in 11, where his voice has a much softer, lighter tone to it.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Rain's mask hides a very handsome face, which in turn, hides a man of pure evil.
• Faux Affably Evil: Similarly to Shang Tsung. In his MK11 intros he is always courteous, and even respectful, and often extends olive branches of friendship to his enemies... but dialogue always reveals that he schemes behind his would be "allies'" backs, not to mention that he turns violent whenever others don't interpret "alliance" as "shows constant devotion and subservience to Rain."
• A God Am I: Rain is indeed a demigod by birth, but he insists on being referred to as a full-fledged god, demanding worship and validation from everyone he meets. He deems Kotal Kahn nothing more than a pretender to godhood, even though Kotal did far more to earn the loyalty and worship from his human disciples than Rain ever has.
• Gratuitous Ninja: The developers admitted that they were running out of colours for the palette-swapped ninjas by the time they invented Rain. Ironically, he is one of the few to not undergo much of a significant Divergent Character Evolution in terms of design; aside from having a more regal, Edenian-themed wardrobe in later games, he retains an overall ninja-inspired look.
• Hated by All: As a result of being extremely egotistical, delusionally entitled, an incorrigible traitor and overall a colossal douchebag, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the MK world (and beyond) who doesn't hate this guy.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Kitana apparently turned Rain against Shao Kahn after Trilogy (after telling him of his adoptive father's death), but he's back to Evil by the time of Armageddon. In the reboot, he starts evil and stays that way, though he switches his exact allegiances constantly.
• Hot Consort: In MKX. Tanya's ending states that he served not only as muscle for Mileena's rebellion, but a consort on the side.
• Hydro-Electro Combo: While Rain mostly uses water attacks, he can also call down lightning from the sky.
• In the Back: This is how he dropkicks Kotal Kahn in one scene of the Story Mode, shown in the trailer, no less.
• It's All About Me: After discovering his true heritage, Rain becomes extremely egotistical, calling himself the prince of Edenia and venturing forth to stop Taven and Daegon despite the realms being at catastrophic risk. He's also painted in this light in 9. Doesn't get command of his own army within the Resistance? Joins Shao Kahn. Shao Kahn also doesn't give him an army? Kills Shao Kahn. Thanked by Raiden and finds out he's Argus' son? Decides that the right to rule is his and goes on a campaign to conquer all the realms, starting with Earthrealm.
• Jerkass: Since Armageddon, Rain has been portrayed as a self-centered jerk who backstabs others with visions of godhood. See It's All About Me above.
• Jerkass God: Jerkass demigod, but the spirit of the trope still counts. True to form, Rain is disloyal, ungrateful, and self-serving simply because he has divine heritage.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While he is complicit in treachery against her, Rain calls Mileena out on her utter denial of Tanya using her during their interactions in 11.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Not quite proper katanas, but they certainly fit the basic aesthetic. And he has two of them.
• Kill It with Fire: Ironically, he is burned at the stake in Tanya's X ending after she rats him out. Why he doesn't try to douse himself is another question^note Kotal Khan, having some skill with magic, probably had some Kryptonite Factor in place to make sure he couldn't.
• Kill It with Water: Both of his Fatalities from 9. The first involves him summoning a ball of water that surrounds the victim's head, they are then inflated with the water until they explode like a living water balloon (basically a watery variant of Kitana's infamous Kiss of Death fatality from II^note with the victim's poses even being near identical during the fatality , albeit a less gory version). In the second, Rain uses a highly pressurized stream of water like a sword to decapitate his opponent.
• Making a Splash: As his name implies, Rain uses moves that involve water, including both his fatalities in 9.
• Meaningful Name
  • Several of his specials involve weather elements such as water and lightning bolts.
  • His real name, Zeffeero, means "sapphire", a blue gemstone said to resemble a water droplet.
• Mr. Fanservice: Sure, characters like Liu and Johnny go shirtless too, but Rain is a noted Pretty Boy garbed in gold jewelry. Curiously, Rain is the only major male Edenian we see, and his Stripperiffic clothing and beautiful appearance make him come off like a male version of Kitana and Jade.
• No-Respect Guy: Because of his unbearable ego, unrepentant treachery, and overall unpleasantness, almost none of the other kombatants respect him. Good luck finding any willing to validate his grandiose claims of godhood.
  • There is some meta subtext to this. Rain was introduced late in the life cycle of the original trilogy, having been created as a joke by the developers with no intention of making him playable initially (see Promoted to Playable and Red Herring below). As a result, he is consistently treated as an afterthought in later games, usually being relegated to DLC or NPC status; meanwhile, his vainglorious characterisation makes him something of a Hate Sink, saved only by his status as an suavely evil ninja. Yet, paradoxically, he has made more consistent appearances than some of the more popular ninja characters like Ermac, Reptile and Smoke, having appeared in all three Netherrealm reboot instalments (albeit in X as a non-playable story mode opponent) and having technically not missed a canonical instalment since Armageddon.
• Not So Above It All: He has an interest in starring in a Johnny Cage movie. Johnny, however, rebukes him as being too much of an asshole to work with.
• One-Steve Limit: He shares his real name, Zeffeero, with an NPC from Mortal Kombat: Deception.
• Palette Swap: Started out as a purple Lin Kuei palette swap; one of the last created for the series.
• Parental Issues: With his father, Argus, who did not acknowledge him. Rain will use his father's name to justify his claim of godhood and right to rule Edenia, but otherwise he has nothing positive to say about him.
• People Puppets: His Mind Control Orb special allows Rain to briefly control his opponent's movements. In 9, the move is changed to instead ensnare them in a bubble using Rain's hydrokinetic powers to control the path of the bubble.
• Power Fist: In MK11, he uses a triple bladed katar to slice up his enemies. Two of the blades are springloaded and fan outward when triggered.
• Power Stereotype Flip: Water powers are generally associated with healing, purity, calmness, life, creation, and creativity, which generally points to a wizened, calm personality. Rain is anything but, to the point of being openly hated by most of the cast for his petulant behavior.
• Pretty Boy: A rare example within the series, but with his dashing good looks and princely features, he definitely qualifies.
• Promoted to Playable: He was included in the attract mode of the arcade version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as an intentional Red Herring to mislead fans into believing they could unlock him. As with Ermac and other rumoured characters, fans desperately tried to find him in the game to no avail. He was subsequently made playable in the console versions and MK Trilogy after the predicted fan demand.
• Psychotic Smirk: Removing his mask from his look in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate will reveal that he does this quite a bit from some of his intro and victory animations to both of his fatalities having him do this. Par the course for Rain, of course.
• Punched Across the Room: One of his signature moves, colloquially called the "around-the-world kick", is a roundhouse kick which causes the opponent to exit the frame on one side and get launched back in from the other. MK11 finally made sense of this move using his newly-explained portal-making abilities.
• Punny Name: Rain wears a purple costume, and Armageddon reveals that he's a prince.
• Purple Is Powerful: Rather fitting as he can manipulate water and is the son of Argus.
• Race Lift: His appearance in 11 gives him a darker skin tone similar to Jade's as well as mixed features and bone structure, despite all other iterations of him being clearly fair-skinned; just like half-brothers Dagon and Taven. Plus, in X he was given clearly Asian-like shiny black hair and slanted eyes uder his mask from what is shown in the cinematics of the game. To be fair, his face has never been fully revealed before 11, thus it was never clear what he truly looked like until then.
• Rags to Riches: In Rain's revised story in 11, he was raised by a poor Edenian family and joined the army, working his way up to higher ranks. Then he learned about his divine parentage and let his pride go to his head.
• Really 700 Years Old: Kinda par the course for an Edenian. Even more so for Rain, seeing as he's half-god.
• Red Herring: His appearance in the intro for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is this.
• The Reveal: His face was a complete mystery before 11.
• Shock and Awe: Has the additional ability to summon a lightning storm.
• Shout-Out: Of Rain from Big Trouble in Little China, particularly in name and sword abilities and has the ability to use water, something Rain was accompanied by in his introduction. His appearance in Armageddon even gives him a ponytail to better resemble him. When he was created, he was a shout-out to Prince; Ed Boon had been listening to the Purple Rain album in the car one night, inspiring him to create a purple ninja named Rain. Later games specified his status as an Edenian prince to further the connection.
• Smug Snake: He isn't far behind the likes of Kano, Quan Chi and Tanya in his predilection for treachery, and constantly gloats about his ingenious scheming. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that only the most naïve and gullible, namely Mileena, place any trust in him.
• Status Buff: His H2O Boost in 9. It gives Rain a damage boost, but removes his ability to block as a trade-off.
• Stripperiffic: His costume in X makes him a borderline Walking Shirtless Scene that really shows off his muscles. In Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate, his third costume mesh has a simple sash going around from his back to the front which does little to conceal his tanned and chiseled physique.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Par for the course as an Edenian. He gets an even more noticeable tan in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate.
• Teleport Spam: He can whisk himself away from one place to another via large splashes of water.
• The Un-Favourite: In regards to half-brothers Taven and Daegon, which prompted his Face–Heel Turn.
• Villainous Crush: His intros in 11 show Rain has an interest in Jade, evening outright telling her she should marry him over her lover Kotal.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In X. Apparently the Edenian tradition of going into combat while dressing like a stripper doesn't just apply to women....
• War Elephants: His Animality turns him into a small elephant that blows a loud sound from his trunk, making the opponent's skin dissolve.
• Wild Card: As of 11 Rain is a fugitive unaffiliated with anyone. As Kollector notes, he is practically wanted by all of Outworld.
• Weather Manipulation: He can control water and summon lightning and thunderstorms out of nowhere. This was instrumental in defeating the solar powered Osh-Tekks led by Kotal K'etz.

Characters debuting in Mortal Kombat Trilogy

Chameleon

Chameleon

Debut game: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (John Turk)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

A seldom seen fighter, almost nothing is known about the enigmatic Chameleon. Whenever he appears, he’s a formidable doe, having the abilities of all other ninjas like himself, and yet he disappears just as quickly afterwards. His resemblance to the Saurian Khameleon and his green blood point to a Saurian origin, but nothing is concrete. He may have even played a role in the invasion of Earthrealm.

In reality, Chameleon has always there, lurking in the shadows. He had watched Liu Kang’s first victory, the invasion of Earthrealm, the rise of the Deadly Alliance and the return of the Dragon King Onaga as he bided his time for a moment to finally strike and claim victory for himself. Unfortunately for him, when the moment finally came at the Pyramid of Argus, he fell like all the other fighters, and his legacy forever remained in the shadows.

While he not make an appearance in 9‘s brand new timeline, it can be inferred that nothing had changed for Chameleon, and even as events took a very unexpected turn it is likely that Chameleon spent his days observing and waiting until the timeline met its end at the battle for Kronika’s hourglass.

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• Bald of Evil: In Armageddon.
• The Cameo: In Mortal Kombat X, whenever there is a Mirror Match between 2 Reptiles one of them will claim to be Chameleon.
• Ditto Fighter: Limited to the male "ninja" characters, not including unmasked Sub-Zero or the Cyber Ninjas.
• Flat Character: Chameleon had no story in his original appearance, and his backstory in Armageddon only establishes that he wants to be the true champion of Mortal Kombat.
• Invisibility: Borrowed from Reptile.
• Meaningful Name: Chameleons can blend in their surroundings by changing color and camouflaging; Chameleon constantly changes colors in battle. Additionally, a chameleon is a reptilian species, perhaps hinting at a connection to Reptile's Raptor/Saurian/Zaterran race (a connection that's more readily apparent with Reptile and Khameleon).
• One-Steve Limit: If you tried saying Chameleon and Khameleon's names aloud, you would have absolutely no way to tell the two apart. Plus, they only appear together in the Wii version of Armageddon.
• Palette Swap: Justified due to his powers.
• Put on a Bus: Hasn't made a full appearance since Armageddon.
• Mysterious Watcher: Chameleon is described as this in Armageddon.
• Spear Counterpart: To Khameleon.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Sort-of. He's essentially what Reptile was in the original Mortal Kombat (a ninja who uses the special moves of all the other ninjas) before they decided to make Reptile his own character in II.
• Teleport Spam: Borrowed from Scorpion.

Khameleon

Khameleon

"I have spent a lifetime hidden from view..."

Debut game: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (Becky Gable)

Other appearances: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Johanna Anonuevo; Wii version only) Mortal Kombat 1 (non-playable)

The last female of her race, Khameleon seeks revenge on Shao Kahn for the destruction of her people. Above all else she desires the restoration of her species.

After searching for the longest time across the realms Khameleon discovered another of her kind, Reptile. Informing him of his races true fate at his masters hands, she hoped to take away the hold the emperor had on him. However Reptile soon fell under Shao Kahn's influence again and she barely escaped with her life. Khameleon now desperately continues to search for a means to resurrect her race and destroy Kahn for his crimes.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: Transparent-gray
• Adam and Eve Plot: The reason she was searching for Reptile.
• Bittersweet Ending: Her ending in Armageddon has her turn Shao Kahn and the Forces of Darkness into subservient Raptors using Blaze's power, but she also unfortunately turns the Forces of Light into Raptors as well.
• The Cameo: You can see her in her MK3 attire in one scene of 9. This is also her first non-Nintendo appearance. She's also one of Reptile's support kards in MKX's mobile version. She also appears in MK1 as a member of the Umgadi and Tanya’s NPC Kameo.
• Combat Stilettos: Due to starting as a palette swap of the female ninjas.
• Distaff Counterpart: Of Chameleon (and to a certain extent, Reptile).
• Ditto Fighter: Limited to the female "Ninja" characters, not including Frost (in Armageddon).
• Fanservice Pack: In Armageddon. Still manages to be one of the more conservative ladies.
• Last of Their Kind: Khameleon believes she and Reptile are the last Raptors (Chameleon may or may not be a third). Her motivation, besides getting revenge against Shao Kahn for destroying her realm, is getting Reptile on her side and... amending this situation.
• Leotard of Power: Wears the same style of clothing as the female ninjas due to her origins as a palette swap.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: In Armageddon.
• Meaningful Name: See Chameleon's entry.
• My Nayme Is: The only way to tell Chameleon and Khameleon apart without seeing pictures of them.
• One-Steve Limit: See Chameleon's entry.
• Palette Swap: See Ditto Fighter; however, unlike Chameleon, she had grey as a standard color in Trilogy.
• Prim and Proper Bun: In Trilogy, sharing her look with the other female ninjas.
• Put on a Bus: Like Chameleon, hasn't made a full appearance besides a cameo since Armageddon.
• Version-Exclusive Content: She's only playable in the Nintendo 64 version of Trilogy (replacing Chameleon) and in the Wii version of Armageddon.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: While Chameleon managed to escape the MK tendency for this, of kourse this female version pulled it!

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