Black Dragon (Mortal Kombat)

  The Black Dragon  The Black Dragon's most notorious leader Kano

The Black Dragon is a faction in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series.

About the Black Dragon
According to legend, the Black Dragon split from its parent organization, the Red Dragon in 1947 and was founded by Morihei Ueshiba, who also fathered the martial art of Aikido. The reason the Black Dragon was founded was a deep-rooted discontent with the strict codes of honor and stealth that pervaded the Red Dragon.

History
While the Black Dragon garnered notoriety around the world, the Red Dragon marked every renegade for death, and the United States government formed the Special Forces to deal with their activities. In the events leading up to the first Mortal Kombat tournament, Kano and his Black Dragon gang lured Sonya Blade and her unit to Shang Tsung's island. Though Sonya was at a severe disadvantage with her unit massacred and forced to compete in the tournament held there, the tournament would also be the beginning of the end of the Black Dragon's current incarnation.

After the tournament, Shang Tsung fled to Outworld, taking both Sonya and Kano captive to appease Shao Kahn and to lure the other Earthrealm warriors to Outworld to compete in a second tournament. During this tournament, Jax rescued them both, but Kano soon escaped back into Outworld. He was able to convince Shao Kahn to spare his life in exchange for his assistance in training Outworld's army how to use modern weapons. Through deceit and trickery, he even made it to general after Kahn's foiled invasion of Earth, feigning death. At this time the Black Dragon had fallen apart, with most notable members arrested, disappeared, turned away from criminal life (such as Kabal), or simply killed (such as Jarek).

The Red Dragon was persisent in eradicating all those who had once belonged to the Black Dragon, however. When the Deadly Alliance assumed power over Outworld, Mavado, one of the Red Dragon's operatives, defeated the swordsman Kenshi for them, and in exchange could kill Kano. Reportedly, he had already killed Kabal in combat. But unknown to him, Kabal was saved from the brink of death by Chaosrealm cleric Havik. Though Kabal had renounced his life of crime, Havik was able to rekindle his anarchist ideals. After taking revenge on Mavado, Kabal reforged the Black Dragon more as an ideological than a purely criminal organization, and vowed to learn from its past mistakes. Together with his two new recruits, Kira and Kobra, he travelled to Outworld to assist Havik in his schemes and test the strength of his new gang.

Trivia

 * There was an actual Black Dragon organization in Japan during the 1920s, but its ideology was more akin to fascism than anarchy.
 * In reality, Morihei Ueshiba never had anything to do with the Black Dragon organization.