From atop the palace, Mileena stared out beyond her domain. No matter how much and hard they cleaned the streets, she could swear Kitana's blood lifted in the air and stained the world around them. A shadow crept past her, undetected, and swift in the darkest of Edenia's night. Kia, an silk shadowy figure, lurked every slowly down and down the tower until she'd find the room where Raiden's voice could be heard.
There were seven openings in the tower, Mileena's chamber, a guest chamber, and then four others that revealed either the staircase up, or a small guest room for those beneath royalty, but still worth a view beyond the palace. The last of course was the entrance.
She crept into the spiral staircase and listened door after door, level by level, but she never heard the Thunder God. Frustrated, the shadow moved from the cracks of the doorways from the bottom up.
In the first, Liu Kang meditated, candles and incense around him with no window to enjoy the view. He had been demoted as soon as Mileena took charge. Kia retreated from the room and climbed to the next, Kung Lao meditated as well, Bo' Rai Cho with him as a visitor. A boring sum of parts in Raiden's army, but the further up, she hoped she'd find him, or some answer.
As she neared the room that smelled of blood, likely Skarlet's, she paused and retreated into the crack of the stone wall that spiraled up. Just outside the room Jataaka stood in her way. Jataaka, who had died long ago.
Unwilling to betray her presence, she fled with the shadow out of the palace, but Jataaka followed in hot pursuit, not as a shadow, but every turn she made, her former sister in Shadow would appear before her.
Tanya had chosen to search the city, and would be far from a good idea to call out to her, even quietly. They could not betray their position. There was no going back to Bi-Han, and no returning to Raiden now. They had their own path, and if they could find the crown first, they would unwrite all of this. If only this strange image of Jataaka would cease its haunting of her.
At ground level she was safe in the back of the tower to emerge from the shadow. Jataaka appeared before her and smiled, she knew it was Kia.
"What are you doing here?" Jataaka bit, she stared into Kia's soul.
"You died, how are you here?" Kia tried to reach out to her to confirm it, but Jataaka stepped back.
"Why shouldn't I warn the guards? Tell me what you're up to. You and Reiko and the others." Jataaka cut through her, she knew all about the betrayal and now demanded one of her own.
"Is this a trick?" Kia pondered. She rushed the image and passed on through to the other side. When she turned back, she realized it indeed was a trick. The entity had appeared before her.
"Daegon will not win. I will see to that." Kia spat.
"Yet you sneak in the shadows when you know Raiden would have welcomed you back?" Jataaka prodded, "what has that meathead put you up to?"
"None of your business. You're nothing to me." Kia faded against the stone wall, into the cracks of the shadows and ascended up.
"Then maybe you should find out." Kronika lifted from the ground as she transformed from Jataaka and followed the shadow up until it had reached Liu Kang's room on the other side.
Kia watched as the woman adorned in gold and white slipped through the stone like it was nothing. She'd have to go around the palace completely, into the stair case and descend to find that room again. She rushed herself, sloppy, and stirred the guards with noise, but she had to be fast.
The candles betrayed Liu Kang. They flickered and ceased, stirred him from his thoughts. When he came to from the trance, the Keeper of Time levitated in front of him. He had not seen Kronika in eons, and had made sure to never see her again.
"You're not really her. You're just trying to annoy me." Even he had grown old of the entity's tricks. He closed his eyes again to return to his meditation until she spoke, not a threat, but a warning.
"Tanya and Kia have rejoined the Brotherhood of Shadow. They are here seeking information about how to manipulate the Hourglass."
"Why should I believe you? You're just trying to distract me." He shrugged it off. He knew the entity could not hurt him.
"If they find Geras in the Sea of Blood, they will have all they need to retrieve the Crown and turn back time." Kronika warned, "all you have done will be erased."
"That's impossible, Geras was thrown into the sea many timelines ago." Liu shifted and pulled himself up. The haunting would not stop unless he bit at the bait, but he would not follow.
"Geras," Kronika explained, "is a fixed point in time. My greatest creation," she added, "he is the very sands of time, and cannot die, Liu Kang."
"I do not believe you."
"It doesn't matter if you believe or not, we are being listened to as we speak. You've said all they needed to hear."
The candles flickered and the shadows of the room pulsed. As the room chilled around him he searched for the possibility that the entity was right. Had Tanya and Kia betrayed them? Why would the entity then betray Daegon by helping them?
Unsure of the answer, and unable to detect any other presence, he sat back down, still hesitant to go along with the vile entity's whims.
"I don't believe you'd betray Daegon. He is your puppet."
"You are all my puppets. If I cannot have my way through Daegon, I will do it through the Brotherhood." Kitana kneeled before him, "remember, Liu Kang, you were the one who refused to fix everything. You decided it was time to let things happen as fate decided. Now I get to reap the rewards of such ignorance."
As she faded in the flicker of candlelight, Liu Kang ripped himself from the floor and burst through the door. The entity may not be able to touch him, but if its warning was true, they may not even reach Armageddon before time itself was thrown into chaos.
He would consult Raiden and Fujin.
Outside of the palace, at the very tip where the tiles draped down and cast Mileena's chamber into shadow as the night drew further, Kia waited for the entity to reach her. Mileena had left her chamber. Still, Kia refused to reveal herself, though they were high above the city, there would be many that could spot her.
She accosted the entity, "why do this?"
Kitana sat at the edge of the palace tower roof and gazed out to Edenia one last time.
"I have no doubt that Reiko's incompetence will be the death of him." She added, "no doubt Bi-han will betray you all, and anyone else that dares seek to use the Hourglass will find it far more difficult than you think."
"I will do it." Kia left the entity to rot at the city's highest point. As she dissipated, Kitana shook her head, amused.
Kitana could sense in the air. The tides of war were close and soon everything would fall into place. Raiden would split his forces to stop Daegon and Reiko, and Daegon, with hell itself behind him, would march on the pyramid at full force. Blindsided by their own incompetence, the Brotherhood had removed themselves from the competition.
Still, as she gazed down at the sleepy city, there was hope for yet another opportunity. A slim, near dead one, but still there.
"All things in due time." She lulled to the city.