1 01- Help I've Been Randomly Reincarnated as a Cop who's destined to die in order to show off how OP the new Big Bad is!

I awoke to a strange mind numbing headache… if it were any worse, I would've called it a migraine.

But as I got out of bed, I found myself stumbling into a nightstand table that I definitely didn't own before…

Maybe I had gotten it while I was drunk? But then again, I don't remember drinking last night…

As I blearily walked around the house, bumping into more furniture that I didn't recognize as my own, I finally caught sight of a mirror.

"...This isn't me" I said in shock, with a voice that wasn't my own as I looked at the large, broad shouldered muscular man with blond hair and blue eyes in the mirror… I flexed my newfound muscles before pinching my bicep, and yet I didn't wake up.

Had I just done some sort of Freaky Friday bullshit with a random guy?

Or was some other sort of weird shit happening?

As I thought that, my headache began to grow more and more painful, as if someone was jamming an icepick into my brain… but as it happened, there was some sort of knowledge entering my mind.

I learned that this was the body of… Kurtis Stryker, a man who seemed to share the name of a Mortal Kombat character of all things.

He was a cop, working for the New York City Police Department… and has been described by his fellow officers as a 'One Man S.W.A.T Team'.

I recalled that this body was once decorated for single-handedly thwarting the terrorists in the famous Greenberg Tower Incident, and again for rescuing passengers of a speeding crosstown bus rigged to explode… along with how he took down a notorious criminal who flooded a commercial plane with highly dangerous and venomous snakes, before landing the plane himself.

Those sounded suspiciously like the plots to Die Hard, Speed and Snakes on a Plane!?… Ah fuck. Fuck… I was Stryker, wasn't I?

…Fucking Stryker, though? Not someone like Scorpion, Liu Kang or hell… even Kung Lao would be a better alternative.

Kano would have been good too, at least he was a fellow fucking Australian. Even if he was an unrepentant criminal… but then again, badass cyborg laser eye.

But no, I get Mr. 'Police Brutality Coming Up' himself, just a random ass fucking cop… against revenants, gods and literal demons… and whatever the fuck else is out there.

At least I'll probably have some sort of plot armor as an underdog, right?

Nope… if I remembered correctly, this was the reboot timeline from MK9, where Stryker literally fucking died.

And how did I know that this was the MK9 timeline? Oh, that was pretty easy with Kabal as my fucking partner…

Surprisingly, he was once a member of the Black Dragon clan before giving up his life of crime and joining the NYPD to fight against the underworld element he once served… and honestly, Stryker respected him for it.

And my memories of what would happen to Kabal honestly horrified me… and the Stryker that was within, knowing what fate his friend and partner would have when Outworld invaded.

I had to do something about that… not just for myself or for Kabal, but to save the countless lives that would be in danger due to the Invasion of Outworld.

Now, if I only knew when it would happen… I should have paid more attention to the Mortal Komabt Lore. Sadly I only really played the newer games… and barely even paid attention to the story with the exception of Mortal Kombat 9. That shit was my childhood.

I needed to train, to ensure that I was capable of fighting anything in my way.

After all, against the likes of Kintaro, Goro, Sheeva and fucking Shao Khan, let alone Ferra-Torr or D'Vorah… I needed all that I could get.

So, I decided to hop onto Stryker's computer, remembering the password after a few moments… and really? BlueBlood?... You know what? I've actually heard worse.

Now logged in, I began to search up every character I could remember…

Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs were members of the Special Forces… alongside Hsu Hao. Who I only remembered, because of that random 'Worst Mortal Kombat Characters' list I read.

Johnny Cage was making a bunch of Martial Arts B-Movies, and honestly? They might be cheesy, but Master of Conquest, Cage Match and Inferno Fist were legitimately entertaining movies… I can see how Johnny Cage got so famous.

Especially since, with Stryker's knowledge on combat… It was fairly obvious to the trained eye that most of Johnny Cage's moves were all natural. Sure, there were a few that were definitely touched up in post production, but other than those few? Johnny Cage was an all natural and honestly incredibly talented fighter.

There wasn't much about Liu Kang or Kung Lao, due to them being Shaolin Monks and thus… not really in the limelight, the same could be said for Sub Zero, Scorpion and Smoke...

Though, there was quite a bit of information about a talented up and coming martial artist by the name of Art Lean… and looking at his fights? I can see why there was so much buzz about him, he looked to be around as skilled as Johnny Cage himself, apparently he learned under a man by the name of Nimbus Terrafaux.

Looking up anything about Kenshi only brought up rumors of a blind swordsman wandering the world, in search of a man by the name of Shang Tsung.

Researching Kano only brought up the Most Wanted List, unsurprisingly, while searching up Erron Black came up with nothing strangely enough… and annoyingly those were all the characters based in Earthrealm that I could remember from the top of my head.

I knew for sure that there were Earthrealm-based characters that I was forgetting… Hopefully they weren't important enough for me to need to remember.

…They would have been side characters for me to not remember them, well that's what I'm hoping at least. But knowing my dumbass, they probably were important.

With this, my research was finished and I had to figure out just what I was going to do with my life… I'd still be a police officer, protecting and serving New York City. But with the knowledge of coming events, I knew that I had to do something.

…It was my responsibility as a future Kombatant to do so. At least, that's what the Stryker part of myself was telling me… and I wasn't going to deny that.

And so, I needed to start with finding someone to train me in martial arts. My CQC and police training would serve me well. But I needed more tricks up my sleeve.

...It would also be so fucking awesome to be able to fire off energy blasts like Ryu from Street Fighter.