Jacqui stood in right stance, wielded a carbon steel hand-and-a-half sword with the point between her opponent's eyes. Stripped down to tank top, slacks and boots, she circled with Sub-Zero.
The grandmaster of the Lin Kuei watched her as he circled, unarmed in a Dragon Stance. She was first to strike with a left shoulder swing. He pushed into her measure, seized her wrist and pushed her back at her core.
Jacquie posed the sword overhead, point between his eyes and rushed in with a drag step to cut down with a long arc toward his open hip, but he was quick to slide back. The blade shattered through his frozen image, but did not stop her advance forward. She tried an extended lunge over the ice, just in range to prick his chest if she could hit, but he had the advantage still. Sub-Zero beat the sword up with left bracer, then back down to catch it with his right.
At the handle, she felt the high carbon steel cool and begin to frost. From the point down a slow moving vein of ice crept toward her. She tried to slice between his bracers, but her reach had already been maximized in the extended lunge. She could advance forward a step into neutral stance, but the more time she spent on what move to do next, the faster the ice reached her hands.
Before she knew it, a foot of the blade broke clean off, the unfortunate side effect of a high pierce, but near paper thin weapon. It shattered at the crack, the remaining piece still between Sub-Zero's grasp and the rest now just the size of a blunt seax.
Jacqui retreated with a roll to the left and tossed the weapon in defeat.
"You still had a weapon on you." Sub-Zero scolded. "Never drop your weapon, never let the opponent give up your position if compromised."
"It's broken." She argued.
"It can still cut, and you still wield a gun." He dropped the blade piece and assisted her up.
"I'm not going to shoot you." A relief for him, but that wasn't the lesson. She didn't get it.
"My life doesn't matter. You must survive, by any means necessary. This isn't a drill."
"It's war, I know."
"Do you? This isn't Afghanistan, the shores of Normandy, nor Mortal Kombat." He added, "there are people who are their own weapon."
He pulled her in fast, twisted her so her back pressed against him and held one hand on her neck, the other on her chest to crush her against him. His hand at her throat started to chill and her flesh burned as the ice formed around the fresh living cells.
"Enough!"
"Do you understand that I could kill you without even seeing you? You need to grab your weapon, I already have mine." He growled into her ear and held her tight until her struggle was too much, until the boiling of her blood chilled beneath his tightened fist. Then, and only then when he had gone too far had he pushed her down to the ground. "Never let go of your weapon, Jacqui. It's all you have."
She rubbed at the ice on her throat, eyed him with the glare of a thousand daggers, but he was right. This was no worse than Sonya's boot across her face when she disobeyed or failed a task. Sub-Zero extended a hand again, his posture neutral, but she slapped it away to pull herself up instead. Around her, Frost snickered, Smoke watched with arms crossed, and even Scorpion mused, his head nodded. He knew.
"Almost everyone here has an ability beyond your comprehension, Jacqui," Scorpion taught, "not matter what technology you think you have, I could drag you to hell before you pull the trigger."
"Then how do you win a fight in this world?" She threw her hands outs, defeated, frustrated, she was just a mortal.
"The point is not to win." Frost remarked.
"It's to live." Sub-Zero turned her round to face him, "here endeth the lesson."
Sonya and Jacqui took residence in one of the newly abandoned homes in the high district. Many lives were lost during the siege, yet they survived. Mileena asserted they fill the vacancies, should another attack come, they would not all be holed up in one place. Still, Jacqui was tasked with emptying the home alone.
She cleaned it of shoes and clothes, of paintings and letters. The smell of another persona's living space had to be washed away and the blood that stained their doorway needed to be cleansed. This was not the part of war she had ever experienced, it was her mother that handled the fallout when her father never came back.
All of his things had been tucked away in some hidden place in the attic for the hope that one day she could come back home with him, or they'd know to bury his belongings.
Who would miss the people in this house? They didn't have the means to survive, no weapon, no ability like hellfire, or ice, Tarkatan teeth and spikes. Just people caught in the landslide.
Being hardened, all Sonya cared about was the mission. At this point, it was their base of operations for the Special Forces. Here Takeda, Kung Jin, Kenshi and Cyrax would meet to discuss their next move, and not a single word of home was allowed.
Sonya had weaponized herself. Kung Jin's family was in the city as well, only being his father. Takeda was in the same boat, but Jacqui had her mother. A mother she had not seen in months. A mother that asked her to come home at all costs, even if it was without her father.
She wished the pyramid would rise and everyone would fight and the war would be over. They'd count their kills, enjoy their spoils, and drink to another night alive, but she'd get to go home this time. She'd be able to bring her father and start a new chapter.
So, in this bleak existence where life and death hang on the hem of her fabric, what did it take to survive? What did Sub-Zero mean when he choked her, when he threatened her life so easily and she knew if just a second longer, he would have taken it. How do you survive something when all you have is the desire to live?
That night, she sought answers from a different kind of teacher. A man lambasted for his ways and treachery, but yet had survived all these years with just the desire to live, if not a little bit of help from his friends.
There was a Cobalt Mine beneath the city, accessible from the outside of the walls where miners could take a wooden bridge down the cliff just deep enough to find the stone used for the walls, the streets, and the homes they lived in. There is where Shang Tsung waited.
The atmosphere was thick and the rain heavy. It was a slippery slope to death should the bridge collapse, or she fall in just the right way, but luckily she had a little help from her friend.
He spotted her and held the rope for her with spiritual energy. Surprised to see the young solider, he had just stepped out to muse at the rain. Welcomed in, she slowly followed behind, but she wasn't here for visitation rights.
"I want to ask you something." She prodded him and stopped him in his tracks.
"Sergeant Briggs. How can I be of assistance to you?" He smiled and turned.
"You were born on Earth right? One of us once." She pondered.
"One of you?" His lips smacked in disgust, but that wry smile stitched over it and he continued, "yes, I was born in an Eastern Province in China. Centuries ago."
"Do you remember anything about your life?"
"Not enough to interest you. What are your intentions, Sergeant?"
Unable to find an appropriate seat, there was no way to get comfortable in the cold cavern entrance. Beyond them was the mineshaft that had been boarded up and a bed Shang Tsung had prepared of silk and and rich fabrics. She dare not sit there, so she stood, awkward, unsure how to move forward without seeming vulnerable to the one man she shouldn't.
"You don't think you'll make it, do you?" He knew.
"How do you know?"
"I can see right through you, Jacqui. I see through you so far that your parents are looking back at me."
Too far, she thought, but she pushed on. "How did you survive this long?"
"Magic."
"How?"
"I was taught everything I know by Shao Kahn."
"You steal people's souls to live, what happens when you lose them?"
"What do you think, my beautiful Jacqui?"
He had crossed the line. She bit her lip and backed away. She would not be degraded like that by this husk of a man.
"Are you asking me," he stopped her, "to teach you how to take the souls of your enemies?"
She wouldn't answer. Jacqui rushed out of the cave left him far, far behind her.
What did she want from him? What was it she really wanted to get out of such an encounter with the devil?
The gun at her hip never felt more like a part of her as her hand never strayed from it the moment she left the cave.