Bondage
by Nyohah

12
The Shock of Recognition
Sixth Day of Mortal Kombat

Shang Tsung smiled. "Congratulations on your survival in this tournament—"

"But not everyone survived," protested Jax.

"But they're not here for me to congratulate. Now if we're done with all our interruptions, we might just get done with today's events." He looked around expectantly, waiting for someone's comment. "Thank the Master," he said when no one else spoke. "So what we have is Sub-Zero's victory over Kung Lao, disqualifying him from the tournament, and Liu Kang's victory over Raiden, doing the same. Our stats are, of course, Sub-Zero with two strikes, and Liu Kang and Mileena still undefeated. What suspense! Who will win? Will one die? Will one be maimed for life in a struggle that neither can afford to hold back in? It'll just have to wait for a while. Not even tomorrow."

Mileena lazily raised her hand. "I have an idea. How about we skip this nonsense and I fight you now."

Shang Tsung looked surprised, and a little confused. "What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

She pronounced her next words slowly and precisely, as though explaining something very simple to a small, mentally-challenged child. "I, Mileena, challenge you, Shang Tsung, to a one-on-one fight."

"You can't do that," he protested a little desperately. He turned to Shao Kahn. "Can she?"

Kahn seemed to ponder this, then it almost seemed as though a smile grew under his mask. "Actually, I think she can. She is undefeated, you know."

"But, but..." Shang Tsung's mouth moved, no audible arguments coming out.

"You aren't afraid of her, are you, sorcerer?" asked the emperor mockingly.

"Of course not." Shang Tsung straightened himself, flicked off his yellow jacket and strode into the arena. "Well, are you coming, Mileena?" he questioned, his ego impatient with its desire to protect itself. She flipped into the arena, landing lightly on both feet, and shifting into her fighting stance.

At Kahn's announcement to fight, Mileena again flipped forward. Tsung, expecting a kick, prepared to counter, but was caught off guard when she flipped past the point of attack and landed behind him, greeting his turning body with a swinging elbow and a spinning crescent kick. Tsung fell back, dropping to the ground and morphing into Johnny Cage.

This made no difference to Mileena. She swung her straight right leg in a crescent motion, first away from the other leg, then back toward, catching Cage-Tsung in the face with the side of her foot. Succumbing to her momentum, she jumped, spinning all the way around, attacking first with an inward crescent kick with the left leg, and then with another outward crescent kick from the right.

Recovering quickly, Cage-Tsung lunged forward, shoving the heel of his foot into Mileena's diaphragm, Cage's patented Shadow Kick. As was the risk with using such special powers, Mileena recovered more quickly than Cage-Tsung did, snapping the ball of her foot out three times from a side stance, first at his thigh, then kidneys, and finally head, connecting with all three roundhouse kicks. Not letting her advantage slip away, she swung her foot forward above his head, only to smash is backwards with a hooking heel kick to the side of Cage-Tsung's face which had not yet been kicked. Though at this time, he was so stunned he morphed back into his normal body, Mileena was not finished. Still not resting her foot on the ground, she pulled it in close to her body and shoved outward, forcing all her strength into Tsung's mouth with her heel, knocking free teeth and splitting open his lip.

He fell backward and backed away, crawling. Not trusting the sorcerer for a minute, not willing to let him regain his senses, nor needing a break herself, Mileena rushed forward, preparing to finish his beaten body off.

Then, as she was about to strike, without warning she froze, the trembling of her body the only visible movement. Grinning maliciously, Shang Tsung stood, flinging the blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. He landed one hooking punch, followed by an uppercut. Mileena fell to the ground, unable to move and therefore, unable to stand, and the necromancer laughed.

"That'll teach you never to mess with me. You're mine; you cannot betray me. I own you. I have complete control over you. Never try such a thing again," he whispered, his threatening words not heard by the others.

"Shang Tsung wins."

Mileena hung her head as she carefully stepped into Shang Tsung's room. "You summoned me?"

"Ah, Mileena." He relaxed in a large chair, arms crossed, a smug look on his face. The woman crossed over to him, staring at the rug under her feet. The other frowned. "Why the glum look? We still win." He laughed.

Yes, but do I want you to win? thought Mileena, biting her lip so she would not blurt it out. Shang Tsung still didn't know she had killed the Master and wished Outworld's defeat.

"Well, we all want this tournament to be over already. We're not sure whether you can beat Liu Kang. Oh, you probably could at best form, but if you even sneezed or something minor like that, you might lose. It's a fight I wouldn't want to risk anything of value on. But there is a way that we will win immediately. You must kill an earth warrior."

Just as Jade warned me. "But Johnny Cage is already dead," she softly reminded him, hoping to free herself from this task, "Why must we kill another?"

"First of all, Cage isn't exactly prime for our needs; oh, he will work, just not as well, as he wasn't killed according to the rules. Secondly, this warrior is needed for a completely different reason. If you kill him, we automatically win. No more fighting. Done, end, over, finished."

"So you're saying I have to assassinate Liu Kang. Jade already tried that. It didn't work. He's never alone. Especially now."

"No, no, no, Mileena," he sighed, "you're not assassinating anyone. You're fighting—"

"But you said I might not be able to defeat Liu Kang."

"What makes you think you're fighting Liu Kang?" exploded Tsung, frustrated.

"He's the present Mortal Kombat Champion. Shouldn't I have to defeat him to win?"

"I have a better idea. Why defeat him, and then whoever else nine more times, when there is a person you can fight who will both give us the honorable blood we need, the right way, and win, even more than the tournament, for us."

"Isn't that against the rules?"

Shang Tsung smiled, the most wickedly happy smile Mileena had ever seen. "In this case it isn't. You will kill Sub-Zero. And we will win. And we will not even need our former plan anyway. And then you and I will be married. And everything will be very, very good."

Mileena stepped out of Shang Tsung's room and collapsed against the wall outside the door, inexplicably upset, balking at her orders. Get up, she yelled at herself, and pushed away from the wall continuing down the hall.

She wandered for what seemed like hours, until she finally looked around to notice she was nowhere near her room, having taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Not even caring anymore, she threw herself against the wall and slid down, collapsing into a heap. After a few seconds of total thoughtlessness, she fell asleep, exhausted from the day's events.

An undeterminable time later she awoke, and after wondering at her surroundings, remembered why she was there. She had to kill Sub-Zero... Lifting her head, she brushed away the locks of hair that had fallen in her face as she'd rested her head on the cool tile floor. She looked down at the floor, examining her disheveled reflection in the shiny surface.

A drop of salty water dripped onto her hand. Another on the reflection's face, disrupting the image.

She could just lose, except that she would never allow herself to throw a fight. And oddly, the thought of Earth being conquered, or even something worse than that, was not as unappealing as the thought of killing Sub-Zero.

And she didn't know why.

What's wrong with me? He's my enemy. So he's kind of cute, all shy and stuff, and he did give me a present, but he's hardly Yuan! She gritted her teeth and violently threw her head back against the wall, welcoming the pain as at least she knew what this wave was from. Pull yourself together, Ching.

She rubbed at her eyes, trying to stop the tears. And then she saw a flash of color. She traced the painted canvas, past the bottom border of Mandalorian scripts, into the portrait.

A woman stood in a fighting stance, one leg stretched out behind her, the other bent. She wore tight black pants and a white, sleeveless top. Camouflaged with the pants were the almost knee-high black boots she wore. A small pin was emphasized on her right shoulder, almost seeming to gleam. Her jet-black hair was in two long, thin braids. The arm farthest away from the artist was upraised, holding a short, bright-blue blade of some sort; the artist had perhaps tried to make it seem as though it was...glowing? The other hand held a similar blade, but straight out from her body, forming a line parallel to the ground. Despite the fact that the woman was facing right, her head was turned so she just barely missed facing the artist.

Along the top were huge Mandalorian characters, much larger than the others, and she wished she could read them. In a smaller image in the bottom the woman was wearing a pure white, hooded dress, with a Mandarin collar, for unimaginable reasons.

But these were not the things that almost stopped Mileena from breathing. The woman was nearly a mirror image of herself. The portrait was large enough, and the artist talented enough, that this was manifest. The only apparent differences were the color of the woman's eyes, as one was a dark blue, and the other a teal, and the fact that she had no long bangs drifting across her face.

Mileena stared at the image for many minutes. First she thought she had stumbled across a portrait of Kitana's mother, but then she would have been wearing something a little more stately, wouldn't she? Besides, she could barely see a picture of the Mandalorian Queen farther down the hall. Somehow, she'd stumbled into the gallery of Mandalorian paintings, the area that mocked the fallen leaders of their civilization as it depicted their most sacred images.

It had seemed as if Shang Tsung had cut short his tale of the 'scum,' possibly not wanting Mileena to see her elder duplicate.

Finally, she rose. She slowly exited the gallery, not having the energy or will to even lift her feet.

Before she even reached her room, Mileena had decided what she must do. She'd tried this before, but this time, she had the motivation to do it herself.

But first, she must finish her tale.

Dressed in her white wedding dress, her raven hair wrapped in a short, wide bun that hugged her head, the woman sometimes known as Mileena hurriedly finished her letter. She wrote the last words to the person she had loved, and loved still, and paused, her pen set on the line after the very last, not sure how she should sign it, not knowing her full name, and 'Ching' not sounding serious enough for her attitude.

It doesn't matter, she finally decided, He's not going to get it anyway.

She very carefully closed the red leather book, so she would not smudge the last bit. Gathering the extra fabric of her dress, she rose, approaching a small wooden table. She opened the black case on the table and pushed away the layer of purple velvet from one side of the case, revealing a gleaming silver sai. Carefully, as though holding a small child, Mileena lifted the sai from its resting-place and placed against her index finger, testing its point. A small drop of blood dripped from her fingertip and ran down the slick surface of her white skirt, as she sank to an empty spot on the smooth wooden floor, away from any expensive rugs, rugs that might have been precious heirlooms of conquered societies.

She positioned the tip of the blade just under her left breast, gripped the leather handle of the weapon tightly, and took one deep breath, preparing to plunge it through her heart.

"They're going to kill him anyway."

Mileena opened her eyes, looking toward the doorway, where a tall, thin man in a gray Lin Kuei uniform stood. He casually leaned against the doorframe, the scroll given to him by Jade and a mysterious envelope tucked into his belt.

"What do you know?" she retorted, internal pain straining her voice.

"Some," he said, not moving from his position. "For instance, if you kill yourself, they'll simply resurrect you again. You can't win. They'll kill him anyway, just differently. And they'll probably kill you too, forever, but do you really want your quest to end your life to end his, as you'll still be killing him, if indirectly."

"Why should I care about him?"

"If you don't, why are you committing suicide?"

"I'm being forced to marry an evil creature. Is that not reason enough?"

"That's not until after the tournament, unless I'm mistaken. Why are you lying to yourself?"

"Why are you bothering me?" cried Mileena, losing control. Her hands were shaking tremendously, and she barely flinched in pain, as she felt her knife puncture her skin.

Seeing this, the gray ninja finally moved, slowly walking toward the woman until he was very close. He squatted down next to her and gently took the sai from her hand. Surprisingly, the female ninja did not resist.

"Because you look exactly like your mother," he said at last, "Lietei..."

"Wha..." Mileena trailed off, cowering away from the ninja as a different, yet strangely similar scene entered her head unbidden.

The raven-haired girl stared at a tall thin man in a gray ninja's uniform, instructing the adolescent boy he spent all his efforts on. "Daddy?" she murmured.

The ninja spun, startled to see the little girl, and even more surprised that she could tell who he was underneath his mask. He sank to the floor in a cross-legged position and pulled her into his lap. "What are you doing here, lietei?" he said, using his pet name for his younger daughter.

"Why are you wearing that?" She reached up and pulled off his mask, disliking the sight of it by instinct.

"I have to, Ching. How did you get away from Her Ri—Mi—Mrs. Li?" He stuttered, used to calling his babysitter something different.

"I climbed out the window," she shrugged as if it were nothing. "I wanted to know where you went. Why do you always go away every night? I wish you would stay."

"I wish I could. I really do. Now you go on back to the Lis' house, okay? Syada."

Suddenly, Mileena jolted herself out of the flashback. "That's it," she whispered to herself.

"Hmm?" Smoke looked slightly confused.

"Syada. It means 'I love you,' doesn't it?"

"Well, yes... Why?"

She pointed over to a small shelf where a miniature gargoyle sat. "It's carved into the bottom of that."

Smoke looked at it, and recognizing it, slowly shook his head. "Strange child..."

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing you need to know...yet," he added under his breath. He reached over to her, brushing the stray hairs from her face. "The resemblance is truly uncanny."

"What happened to my mother?"

"Well, six months after you were born, I—we—umm..." The ninja stared at the ceiling, searching for words. Then he pulled the envelope from his belt. "Maybe this will explain it better."

Mileena slowly took the paper. It was very old, soft. Three strokes of the graceful Mandalorian script adorned the front. She carefully opened the envelope, noting that it had never been opened before; someone was saving it for her. The note inside was, too, written in the smooth characters. She gazed at it for several seconds, biting her lip.

"I can't read this," she whispered, handing it back to the gray ninja.

He took it from her, setting the sai he had been holding down beside him, and breathing deeply, began to read the aged letter to her.

Hua Ching Sa, my beautiful baby daughter—

I am hoping that you will never have to read this, that I can throw it away when we return to Mandalore. I am hoping that I will be right by you when your first tooth comes in, when you lose the first one. I am hoping that I will be right by you to braid your hair for your wedding. I am hoping you will be right beside me to kiss me one last time before I die of old age. But every instinct in my mind tells me this is not to be.

I have always been blessed with the psychic gift. And I had a dream last night. First you must know that while I am writing this, we Mandalorians have just finished with a war. We are negotiating the peace treaties, and everything is going well, except for a small clan of rebels, but they are few, and our allies have become great.

My dream was a warning. It almost seemed to be telling me that I mustn't protect the queen for my own safety. Yet I cannot do this. I have pledged to protect Her Righteousness. She is not only our beloved ruler; she is my best friend, and the person who has always been kindest to me. She had never looked up on me as a slave, always as a person, a friend.

Maybe you do not remember in your time the burden that was the suffix of Sa, the suffix of the slaves. I am hoping that my efforts, the efforts of the other freed slave in the Honor Guard, and the many in the army, and even diplomatic corps, have already made Sa a title to be proud of. In case they haven't, dear daughter, I have bestowed my namesake unto you.

I only ask two things of you, Ching. The first is that you work your hardest on glorifying the name of Sa in recompense of all the atrocities done to those carrying it before my adulthood. The second is very important. Serve your Creator with all your heart, body, mind, and soul. Destroy the evil you see. Do not let others drive you from the righteous course.

I've lied to you. There is a third thing, and I do not have time to start over. I find it hard to apply this last instruction to you, as I am watching your tiny form sleep not far from the table I write this on. But it is also very important, possibly more important than the first (never the second, it should have been first). If you find true love, you mustn't let it get away from you. Devote yourself to tracking it down if you brush against it. If your soul mate must travel far away, follow him. Give up everything if you must. You will not regret it. If you lose him, you will, for the rest of eternity.

I was lucky that my match had a similar goal in mind for his life, and that I could pursue mine alongside him. My husband is also an Honor Guard.

Sweet child, if I do not survive these next few days, I am trusting your father will save this for you. I do not feel a need to write to your older sister. I feel you will be far more important eventually; I do not know why. Your father and I both know that you are mostly likely the two prophesied girls who can delay the evil, but that should make you equal in importance. This is a fact that confuses me, but do take care of your sister. Let no harm come to her.

This has been a most horrible war. I can only hope it is over. I feel otherwise.

Please heed these things I have written to you. I love you, Hua Ching Sa.

"In...truth..." Smoke began to choke, fighting back the tears forming from the painful memories of his late wife.

"She died just as she thought she would, didn't she?" whispered Mileena.

"Yes. She had the most reliable warning anyone could ever have—a warning from our Creator—and yet she still had to protect the Queen. Not because anyone would have condemned her if she hadn't, but because her personal honor would not allow her to sit back and watch while anyone suffered needlessly." He looked to see Mileena shiver uncomfortably. "Are you all right?"

"I'm just, a little...shocked from everything. You know...I lost you so many years ago, and for you to just show up... It doesn't seem right."

Her father sighed. "Yes, well, it's not over yet." He stood. "I'm going to try and find him."

"Who?" asked Mileena, but her father had already gone.

Leaning against the wall just outside Mileena's door, Sub-Zero watched as Smoke stepped out, and walked away, not even noticing him.

He bit the inside of cheek and stepped in.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mileena, harshly.

"I just...came to say hi...Ching."

She sharply retreated. Wrapping her arms around her legs and cowering, she whispered, "How do you...know my name?"

He reached toward his mask, then stopped, his hand wavering at chin level. He began to drop it, then looked down at her again; even terrified, she was so gorgeous, and he knew he had to do something... He closed his eyes again, took one deep breath, and swiftly, so he could not again hesitate, swept off the mask and hood.

Mileena screamed.

His eyes widened in fear, apprehensive of who might hear and decide to investigate, and he dropped to the ground, slapping his hand over her mouth to smother her cry. "Ching, please, don't be upset. It's okay. Calm down." He slowly released his grip on her.

She scuttled away from him, pushing herself up by the table. "You're dead," she whispered. Then louder, "You're dead. I watched you die!"

"Ching..." He held out one hand, slowly advancing, almost as one would approach a spooked horse.

She frantically launched a wild kick in his direction, forcing him to lean away, nearly falling from the momentum. He continued to stumble backwards, and watched as she sank back to the ground, sobbing in terror. He too, sat, his head hung low in defeat.

All this way for nothing...his brother dead...the second chance he would have never thought possible, and that he'd been so elated to find...a hysterical, disbelieving mess.

Closing his eyes in sorrow, he dropped his left hand to the ground, dragging the tips of his fingers...until a sharp prick made him instinctively jerk away. A small crimson dropped oozed from his index finger, and he could see the short red line forming across the skin. He stuck it in his mouth, the salty taste of blood coating his tongue, and glanced at the floor.

A gleaming metal sai lie there. Blood adorned the tip, dried; his own fresh blood was barely visible along one side.

He picked it up, forgetting his cut finger, and for the first time noticed the streak of red running down Mileena's otherwise perfectly white dress. He knew immediately what had happened. This could not continue.

But how? He glanced around the room, hoping for inspiration. A small red book was on the bed, a case on the table, the closet half open, revealed violet silk dresses, all of different cuts, and there was a shelf on the wall, containing a miniature gargoyle—his gargoyle—and a pot of flowers. He smiled at the thought that Ching had liked his present enough to place it on that nice shelf, alongside the flowers.

Flowers...

"Ching," he began, setting down the sai and cocking his head toward her, "Do you remember the flowers?"

She turned her head, brushing her hair out of her face and roughly rubbing her red eyes. "They're dead," she answered bluntly, "As are you."

"I'm not dead. And neither are the flowers."

"Yes they are," she argued tenaciously, "I left them in the lab without water. It's been a year."

"Okay, so they are now. But that'll be the second time, remember?"

Mileena inhaled sharply. "You did it, didn't you. You resurrected the flowers... Yuan, you resurrected yourself..."

"That's not possible, and technically, no. I wasn't ever dead. The flowers were, but plants are quite a bit different from animals, even in cell structure, there's several differences... I was almost dead. I knew I had no chance. So I thought, why not? Hey, it worked, didn't it? I was still alive—barely—when they found me..."

"You were dead," she stated, emphasizing each word clearly, "You were not breathing."

"Well, maybe there was some act of God, some miracle that helped me first, but what I did to myself did help, at least some... I don't know... Maybe you were supposed to think I was dead..." He shook his head, "Oh, never mind..."

"No, Yuan, you might be right. I would have stayed, and if I hadn't helped Tung and Number Seven... Look, they were about to die when I arrived. I am the one who killed the Master...and maybe I wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't thought you were..." She trailed off.

Sub-Zero forced a smile. "See? It was all for the best."

"You idiot!" Mileena's sudden outburst was accompanied with an open-handed slap that sent Sub-Zero sprawling on the floor. "How can you say that? I died that day! On the inside, if not the out. Do you know what I had to live for? Revenge. And then the amazing sense of freedom for the first time in a decade and a half. But even that didn't last very long."

"I didn't mean it that way," he assured her, mellowed. "I was just trying to cheer you up. I mean, I'm even less of a serious person that before. I've just learned to treat things lightly in order not to upset people. You know, after spending three months confined to my bed, and another two without being able to do anything athletic lest I cough up blood—I still do sometimes. It's not very fun," he added casually, shaking his head almost in jest.

"I think I get it now. You were like this before, but not about having consumption." She shook her head, trying not to laugh at his reaction.

"Consumption!" He clapped his hands. "Funny medical problems! I'm all about things like that."

"Yeah, which friend was it, 'I don't know what I have, and I don't know what Scurvy is, therefore, I have Scurvy.'"

"Oh, that was Yen Mu Lan. She's great fun. She's my other half, the person who taught me to interact with people, and who makes me talk. If it's me and Ying, very little talking."

"I wish I had any concept of who these people were. I never really had any real friends." Mileena half-smiled. "You seem to have great friends."

"Oh, yeah, but I don't have many. Romping about High School your second year proclaiming 'Calculus is easy' to anyone and everyone when many of the fourth year students are only in Trigonometry—a year before Calculus—is not a very good way to make friends," he admitted. "But I have a few good friends, all back home."

He looked back down at the ground, and softly added, "You know, your sister came back to Yanxubin, to visit your father, and she told me that you had died. I was still in bed then; I was not happy. I'm lucky I have such great friends. I don't know what I would have done."

Mileena rubbed her temples, her head hurting now that she had been crying, and then it hit her. "You live in the same town as my father?"

"Yeah...all Lin Kuei live in Yanxubin. One girl's boyfriend got killed the day before she graduated—"

"And he didn't just move there. And you have an older brother, a much older brother whom my father trained. And your family's name is Li."

"Of course." He looked confused. "What does this have to with anything?"

"I just remember you from when you were little."

"Oh...that's bad... I wasn't too great—"

"I have to say the late beginning was worth the result."

Suddenly, the door opened, and in walked Smoke, carrying a very large mug of water. At the sight of his younger protégé, he shook his head. "I knew it. I look everywhere for you, and where are you? Right where I started from." He set the water down in front of Subby.

"Well, you walked right by me." He picked up the water.

"Did you get enough?" asked Mileena sarcastically.

"Well, in all reality, I'm not sure," Smoke replied. "He did drink two liters of water in an hour once." Yuan nodded his head in agreement, gulping water at the same time. "It didn't help that we were on a bus trip to Beijing at the time," added the eldest.

Mileena sighed. "For a genius, you sure are an idiot." Yuan shrugged, still drinking from his glass. She watched him for a few more seconds before stressing, "Breathe, child."

He did. "What makes you think you have to right to call me 'child?'"

"The fact that you're four years younger than I am." She patted him on the head. He glared at her half-heartedly, and she turned back to Smoke. "And why do they call you Smoke?"

"Because when I use my powers I emit smoke rings."

"Can you turn them colors and make designs?"

"Sure. I write my name a lot."

The younger ninja looked surprised, "Really? How come I don't know this?"

Mileena slapped her hand to her forehead. "For a genius you sure are an idiot."

"Didn't we already establish that fact? Besides, gullibility is not the same as stupidity."

"Yes it is."

Smoke cleared his throat. "You know, maybe the time has come to start being serious. What do you say?"

"Well, if you must," grumbled Yuan. "Shoot."

Smoke pulled a small scroll from his belt. "Yuan, you're the smartest one in this tournament, you get to analyze this. Find anything you can that will help us. Ching, I'm going to show you how to resist Shang Tsung's control over you. You'll have to challenge him again tomorrow, somehow. We only have a few hours. May our Creator help us in our quest. We'll never do it without His help."