So that was the connection that brazen little upstart shared with Quan Chi... she was his daughter! Very interesting, and so very, very useful. Noob Saibot, having slipped away during the encounter with the Tarkatans, had reappeared at Shao Kahn's palace ahead of the other two, where he did some reconnaissance and found that not only was Shang Tsung alive and well, but was hatching a scheme of his own. And now, while observing the sorcerer for a closer look, hanging upside down from the ceiling over their preoccupied heads, he was fortunate enough to be handed this tasty little snippet on a silver platter... The possibilities of how to proceed with this juicy secret were tantalizingly endless...

Personally he had found her to be a rather drool kind of girl that would grow tiresome after only so many hours spent in her company; she was someone that he could see that inferior Shirai Ryu ninja would take up with, and probably might have had he not been married already with a bratty little spawn that world would not miss. He might not have killed them as Hanzo had been informed, but that did not change the fact the former Lin Kuei was glad to see the end of such inferior pretenders. Getting back to matters far larger than his blood grudge against Scorpion, that Zyanya woman was merely another expendable pawn in his own game, but armed with the knowledge that she, as Evren, was more than just a close ally of Quan Chi... Well, that made her a lot more valuable to his own interests...

Perhaps a deal could be struck with Shang Tsung so that he could whisper a little something into her ear on his own behalf; if not, well, there were many ways to get to her, and if what the old sorcerer had said was true, then he knew exactly how to get his hands on her in a number of ways that would be oh so intimate and extremely satisfying... For him...

-Scorpion-

Following the scent of her blood as best he could, which was a lot harder now that it had dried and the smelled had weakened considerably as it mixed with perspiration - perspiration he cared not to know the cause of - Scorpion found himself stalking the same interlocking figure-eight hallway. Well, at least now he was aware of what the surroundings were like, and that he was as close to her as he could be without actually knowing where she was... Pressing his ear to the first door he came to, using his stealth of the shinobi to avoid detection by even the sharpest of ears, he heard nothing, at all. Placing his palm to the door, he carefully slide the door open - the room was empty, save for piles of rolled cloth, stained with blood; it would seem as if the sheets in this particular room were used to either medical purposes - of which there were undoubtedly a lot of in Outworld - or to dispose of the in. Shutting the door as if he had never seen the contents, he went on to the next door, placing his ears once more to the door, however, this time he was greeted by a faint metallic scratching noise...

Moving to open the door with the catlike grace of the most skillful thief in the night, his movement was stayed by a hand on his shoulder, a soft voice that he found at that point in time to be exceedingly grating behind him, "What are you doing here?"

At that juncture, the strange sound on the other side of the door ceased...

Standing opposite of Zyanya herself, it was obvious that she was just exiting Shang Tsung's room, looking worn down beyond the bone and as if something had died, but other than that, she seemed to be physically fine; her mental state, on the other hand, looked questionable at best, if the frazzled hairs escaping from her multiple ropes were any indication. Judging by the look on her face more than the way she uttered her question, she was clearly shocked to see him standing there, her body language telling him that she had jumped slightly not seconds ago, and the slow way that her words came out, it was blatantly obvious that she had just snapped out of some kind of enchanted reverie. But was it a wall she had built around herself to keep it all out of mind, or was it Shang Tsung's doing that she should be acting so groggy...? It would bode ill to allow her to remain on her own, especially after whatever she had gone through in that room - Scorpion was none the wiser as to what had transpired, but she was in no fit state to be left alone...

Taking it upon himself to do what was best for the girl, although technically speaking she was centuries his elder, he moved from his place by the door like a true wraith and stood at her side, dwarfing her by a good foot, "...I..." He thought about his own position as well as her own, and quite frankly she looked on the verge of collapse, despite standing erect as a statue, so it was best to just keep with the same line he had been feeding her the entire time, "I need answers."

Were she not so drained by her experiences, she might have chuckled at the irony of her partner's words, so instead all she could manage was a feeble sigh, "Don't we all?" She did what she could in the vein of shaking her head at the quizzical expression he wore, "Never mind..."

It was a good sign that she could at least attempt to appear fine. Shrugging at her like he normally would have, Scorpion offered her his hand, leaving her the option to accept his help; if she looked as if she were struggling too much, he would just carry her back to his room by force if need be. Looking like she wasn't expecting him to help her, she shook her head and declined the offer - she did have some pride, after all. Following his foots steps as he guided them back to the one semi-secure room, they walked almost side-by-side, Zyanya disguising her struggle as her body met up with her mind by trailing one arm alongside the walls, to help keep herself steady.

Maybe halfway back to his temporary chamber, he broke the silence, trying to keep her spirits up, doing his utmost to hide from her that he was, "You look like hell."

At that she did smirk, "...As opposed to what?"

Though it was hidden by his mask, he smiled in return, wondering if Jubei would have been just as difficult and enduring as this girl when he hit that age, if he would have been as proud... Ordinarily thinking of his child in the same light as a demon would have wrought very unpleasant thoughts in his mind, but he hardly thought of Zyanya as such. Maybe it was her convincingly human form, or maybe it was that gentle light in her golden eyes - just as blank as his own - or maybe it was just that something in her reminded him of his infant son... A lump formed in his throat at the thought, but at the same time, it was somehow a little easier to think of his son, of what could have been without dwelling however momentarily on his death... He would have done anything for his son, but it had been so hard to think of him...

-Evren-

Making it to his room without much incident, Scorpion all but forced her into a seat not too unlike the one in Shang Tsung's room, albeit cruder and far less comfortable, with an imitation silk throw of an off white hue. She could care less about material things like that; it was merely an observation she made. Thankfully - assuming that he would try and shake her down for the answers he sought - she was saved having to lie or even think of some kind of an excuse by the day taking its toll on her, wiping her out almost the minute her body hit the cushions...

She was in her father's chambers once more, but a warped version of them; the walls, instead of the finely dressed barriers she was used to, were made of all of the mangled skeletons Quan Chi had ever slain, their dark, tainted blood running down the cracking, broken bone, pooling at her bare feet, the voluminous levels of syrupy gore slowly rising as it threatened to drawn her alive. But she was not concerned about that, because her eyes were instead focused on the throne her master so frequently occupied, the entrails of a tattered banner trialling sinisterly, filling her stomach with such dread that it was almost enough to paralyze. As she came closer to the shadowed seat, it became clear that the symbol was not that of anything found in the Netherrealm - it was of Earthrealm...

It was the insigna of the Shirai Ryu...

She stopped walking, terrified of what she would see if she went even a step further. Out of the darkness at her back, wading through the blood with an eerie silence, a hand fell on her shoulder, making her heart freeze in place and her bones jerk out from her flesh. Biting her lower lip with uncertainty, she gazed down at the hand as slowly as she could, and she let out a small scream that grew as she was dragged down into the murky depths of the red river, filling her lungs. Quan Chi, eyes gouged from their sockets and oozing a lush crimson, fell on top of his child, making her fall into the stream of scarlet, dead arms wrapping around her as she fell even deeper into the mixing plasma...

"Trust in him." A disembodied voice echoed someplace in the back of her mind, but it was not a voice she knew...

Trust in who? Quan Chi? Was this her mother's soul reaching out to her for the first time now that she knew the truth of her birth? Perhaps she was meant to put her unyielding faith in Scorpion? The voice in her mind very well could have been his late wife, reaching out to a child in despair, to a kindred soul that longed only for the best for him... But it could have been Shang Tsung and his twisted influence... Or Noob Saibot even... Hell, it could have been someone she hadn't even met yet... It could have been anyone she was meant to believe in, and the voice could have belonged to anything... A spirit, a spell, or even a deity... Just what was she meant to make of this message...?!

As her mind shut itself down while her final moments were spent agonizing over the riddle posed from nowhere, Evren could feel herself slipping away, life fading as the final bubbles of her breath popped one by one, eyes sliding out of focus, muscles going numb, her flesh freezing over... So this was how it ended...

A/N: Nope, I didn't forget about Noob! And I'm sorry this chapter took so damn long to come out! I was more than halfway done with it when my internet completely crashed for two and a half to three days, and then I just wasn't able to get on, and when I could, it is for such a small amount of time... *sigh* well, whatever, the chapter's out now, I suppose... And I guess I should mention it sooner or later, but because I might be getting involved in yet another story, I may or may not be posting chapters right away for this...

Disclaimer: I don't own Mortal Kombat. That honor goes elsewhere. Like (but no limited) to Netherrealm Studios, the WB (or whatever they're calling themselves over at Warner Brothers), and Ed Boon. There might be more, but I'm no lawyer, and I'm certainly not versed in ownership rights, so I don't know exactly who owns what. I can, however, lay claim to Zyanya and other minor nameless characters, and I do.