Author's Note: I'm sorry it's been sooooo long since I've updated. I just became crippled with writer's block and needed to take a break from Monster. So I worked on my original novel instead. But now I need a break from that so I felt ready to pick up Monster again. I find that taking a break from one is occasionally a good thing because it helps me get back on track. Thank you to everyone who reached out and wanted to know if I was okay. I hope you all had a lovely holiday season. Now, onto the chapter. One of the things that helps me get out of a rut is switching to a different character's perspective, so that's why this chapter is all from Kabal's point of view. I kind of wanted to accomplish a few things with him, but one of those things was showing him actually working as a detective. So, let me know what you think!
It took Kabal longer than expected to see Anya after she emerged from surgery because Tomas and Kailyn went to her room and sat for a while. In that time, the detective met up again with Stryker, and together, the two of them interviewed the survivors in an effort to construct a timeline of events. Both men agreed that it would probably amount to nothing, but some significant clues could emerge from canvassing. So they compiled dozens of witness statements, and when that work was done, and everyone had vacated Anya's room, Kabal snuck in to see her.
He scarcely recognized her, though. They'd shaved most - if not all - of her head, but the thick layers of gauze and padding around her head obscured her baldness as well as whatever incisions they'd made in her skull. Several small wires trailed from tiny pads beneath and around the bandages and her hospital gown to monitors mounted in the wall behind her bed. Those wires twisted in messy heaps like spaghetti across her body and across the overstuffed pillows strategically placed around her to keep her laying semi-upright.
Her face, however, was what really drew his attention. The gentle oval shape of it was a full moon marred by bruises and abrasions. An ugly gash cut a jagged 'c' from her nose through her cheek, and it had been closed up with tiny butterfly stitches. The skin on either side of the wound was swollen and angry red. They'd shoved a feeding tube down her nostril, a ventilator down her throat, and an IV up her arm, all of which tethered her to space-age machines on the far side of her bed. She looked so small - so helpless - laying in her hospital bed, her appearance a far cry from the beautiful, vibrant image of her forever seared into his memory.
Behind his mask, Kabal's face wrenched in anguish. Anya deserved better than this.
Inhaling deeply to calm himself, he peeled off his gloves and then carefully threaded his scarred fingers through hers before he finally sat on the edge of the bed beside her. With his free hand, he tossed aside one of the pillows to make room for his ass. Then he just looked at her for a while, soaking in how horrible she looked right now, daydreaming about killing Kuai Liang for doing this to her, no matter how inadvertently. And, as God was his witness, he'd make his old teammate pay for what he'd done.
"Hey, Girlie," he finally spoke after a long moment spent in uncomfortable silence. "The doc told us you're still in a coma," he continued, his raspy voice barely louder than a whisper. "He said that we should talk to you because you might be able to hear us. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is true, I kind of thought I'd try to make it easier on you." He cleared his throat and squeezed her hand tighter. "I thought maybe you're too weak to hear me right now, so maybe it'd be easier if you felt me instead."
Now Kabal thought about his words, scoffed, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Anya," he apologized. "That is not how I meant it. That came out sounding terrible. I meant that…" he trailed off and then smiled. "Well, you know how I meant it."
He deeply sighed and then let his masked chin sag to his chest. "I know I haven't seen you in a while," he said. "Not since that New Year's Eve party at Jax's farm, what was it, three years ago?" Kabal frowned behind his mask as he did the math in his head. "Damn, sweetheart, that's a long time. Sure flew by, didn't it? I was still dating Shelby at the time. Remember her? You and her had quite a bit of Johnny's secret family eggnog that night and got a little wasted together." He chuckled under his breath and gazed out into the distance, the memory of them giggling like little girls burning brightly in his mind. "It was good to see you guys like that, especially after all that trouble Livy got into. I like seeing you laugh, you know?"
He looked at her, wistfully smiled, and then cupped his free hand over his other one and hers. "I don't know if you ever heard but...she dumped me," he began, and then he scoffed again at the remembered pain. They'd been together a couple years, long enough for him to start entertaining the notion of popping the question to her, before she decided to move out.
"Can't say as I blame her," he continued. "There was this guy, you see, Kobra. I, uh, I recruited him to the Black Dragon. You know, back when I was still running with them?" He cleared his throat. "Anyways, the FBI caught him and dragged me in to testify against him. No big deal, you know, except the thing is, I never told Shelby about my past. I never told her I used to be Black Dragon. As far as I'm concerned, that Kabal is dead, and she didn't need to know he ever existed to begin with. It would just hurt her to know that I was a gun runner and mercenary for hire, so I just...I just went with it...and I thought I was doing pretty good keeping it from her...I made up this whole lie of a life to keep it from her. Told her I got napalmed by some gangbangers, and that's why I'm so attractive now. It just made sense at the time. How was I supposed to tell her about Kintaro and Kano and Outworld and you guys and shit?"
Kabal sighed heavily and then squeezed Anya's hand tighter, perhaps to reassure and comfort himself. "Anyway, the feds called me in to testify against Kobra because he and his shyster lawyers were trying to get out of some organized crime charges by saying he wasn't Black Dragon. I didn't tell Shelby all that, I just let her think I had to go testify because I was one of the detectives who'd investigated him. Didn't work out so well. One of her friends was one of Kobra's attorneys, and she told her about my oh-so-sordid past. Shelby did not take it well…" He chuffed behind his mask. "Well, obviously," he said after a long moment. "Turns out women don't like being lied to, and especially about shit like that. Who knew?" He bitterly chuckled.
Now he pulled Anya's hand to his chest and pressed it there while he absently traced a scarred finger around the bruises on her battered forearm. "I know what you're probably saying, sweetheart," he finally said. "I should've been honest. You don't have to beat me over the head with that, I know I fucked up." Once more, he sighed. "At least with you, you already knew from the get-go what I was, what I'd done. You knew I was a hired goon from the start…" He trailed off and then shook his head. "It didn't matter to you, though. It didn't matter…"
Kabal sat there in thoughtful silence for a moment before he carefully lifted his outermost mask over his head, revealing his hideously scarred face and the tiny mask shoving air into his nose. And now he kissed her hand. "I suppose it's for the best that Shelby left," he told her, and his raspy voice, devoid of the mask muffling the sound of it, sounded strange and harsh to his ears. "She was a good woman, you know, but my heart's probably always gonna be stuck on you. And that's not fair to her."
He kissed her hand again and then gently rubbed her forearm. "I think your kids are gonna be just fine, Anya, so you don't need to worry about them," he told her. "We're taking turns looking out for them. Poor Sammie is running herself ragged, but I think she was finally able to heal Livy for you. She's being a little trooper about it, but I know she'll be relieved when you wake up and can help her out. All your kids will, but especially her." He smiled at her.
Kabal sat in silence for a moment, contemplating just how fast life was moving along, so fast that even he couldn't keep up with it, and then his thoughts shifted to Kuai Liang once more. "I just want you to know that I'm going after your polar bear, Anya, and I'm going to fuck him up royally for what he did to you and everyone in the Temple." He winced as he thought of the Tarkatans swarming through Arctika like so many locusts, killing everything in their path. "I know that if you were awake, you'd probably be begging me not to, and trying to convince me to help him because he's in trouble right now. But I don't care. And I don't care if you're mad at me for it. It needs to be done. I'm sick of him just…"
Kabal trailed off, somehow unable to articulate all the hatred and resentment he felt for Kuai Liang for stealing Anya before the detective even got a chance with her, for marrying her, for having kids with her, for building a life with her, a life that should have been his. He frowned and then nervously chuckled and said, "Well, I'm just sick of him."
Now he looked at Anya, who hadn't moved a single muscle since he'd first entered her room, and slid off the edge of her bed before he leaned over and planted a gentle kiss at the corner of her nose, just as close to her lips as possible. Inwardly, he cursed the ventilator covering her mouth right now. But hopefully, somewhere in her brain, wherever she was lost in her own sea of thoughts and memories, she sensed his love for her through that little kiss regardless. When he pulled away, he smiled and cupped her cheek in his hand.
"Hey, Girlie, I don't suppose when you'd wake up you'd dump the dodo and finally get with a real man, would you?" he all but whispered, afraid to ask her louder than that. "I mean, I may not be a looker, but you know I've got it where it counts." He bitterly chuckled at his own joke, knowing deep down that she'd never leave Kuai Liang, no matter what the fool did. "Well, just think it over anyway," he told her before he now kissed her cheek and finally withdrew.
Just at that moment, klaxons began to shriek throughout the base as red alarms started to flash. Immediately, doctors and soldiers sprinted down the hallway and out of the hospital wing. Frowning, Kabal lowered his mask over his face and looked once more at Anya. "Hold that thought, sweetheart," he said before he, too, took off running.
He quickly shoved his way through a sea of people until he reached the giant hangar housing the portal. It was open, he saw, with the vortex burrowing to an idyllic forest landscape, but the forest was on fire. Data streamed into the base computers on massive screens flanking either side of the portal.
"What the hell is going on?" he yelled at Sonya, who was barking orders at her underlings on the dais in front of the portal.
"The Shirai Ryu base was just attacked," Kenshi answered him as he joined his side. "Scorpion sent a distress signal."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" he replied. "Let's go!"
"We don't know if we're walking into a trap," the blind swordsman as he grabbed Kabal's arm to stop him from charging forward. "We need to be patient until we have a clearer idea of what we're walking into."
"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea," he said, relaxing for a moment. "I didn't even think about that."
Kenshi loosened his grip just enough for him to break free and dash towards the portal anyway. In the blink of an eye, he had crossed the threshold into Japan, the sound of his old friend's indignant cries fading behind him. At the top of the hill overlooking the Temple, Kabal stopped to gauge the danger. As far as he could tell, the invaders were gone now, but the valley was burned, and dozens lay dead on the ground. Immediately, he punched buttons on his wrist-comm.
"Ft. Albany, this is Kabal. It looks like the enemy is gone," he reported. "I'm going in now to look for survivors."
"No, goddammit, you wait!" Sonya barked on the other end. "I will court-martial you, Kabal, so help me God!"
"I'm not one of your lap dogs, General," he replied. "Now you can either follow me or let these people die, but I wouldn't take long deciding because this was a fucking massacre."
"Kabal!"
He pressed the button again and silenced her.
Before him, entire swaths of trees had fallen, cut down by potent magic and brutal weaponry. Splintered wood and tattered leaves, churned soil and scorched earth, stretched to the towering cliff wall that naturally barricaded the eastern side of the Shirai Ryu lands. He could smell the blood through his mask, still wet and seeping into the dirt, but he didn't need to; he felt the death in the air, hanging over him like a filthy blanket. Twisted helixes of smoke wafted upward, each tendril struggling to be the first to touch the sky. Flurries of cinders still snowed down, and Kabal was struck by the thick aroma of burnt wood and seared flesh.
"Scorpion!" he bellowed, wondering if the Grandmaster. "Scorpion!" he called again, but there was no answer. "Goddammit," he cursed and began to jog.
He dashed from the copse of trees through blasted clearings, smoldering wounds in the bucolic forest, then closer to the Temple. So far, he saw no survivors, only the bodies of the Shirai Ryu mingled with those from Outworld. More than a few, he couldn't help but notice, had been frozen where they stood, when they hadn't been smashed into a thousand pieces like glass. For a few more moments, he ran over crunching leaves and sticks that popped under his heavy boots like the joints of an arthritic grandparent.
"Scorpion!" he yelled again, and this time he was answered.
"Here," a weak voice croaked.
Kabal scanned his surroundings again, his eyes fluttering over the piles of bodies on the ground, and this time saw a battered arm reach for him like a fresco by Michelangelo. He stepped lightly over the corpses as he made way to the survivor. Not far from the base of the older stone Temple, he found the Grandmaster.
"Fuck," he muttered as he took in the sight.
The greatest warrior the Shirai Ryu ever produced laid flat on his back on the ground with his hands wrapped around a large kori sword jutting from his chest, gripping it so tightly that the blade had cracked and the sharp edges had ripped through his palms. It steadily drained down the melting ice and smeared it with gore that joined the growing puddle on his chest. His face was ghastly white, drained of all its normal color. Vicious gouges marred the flesh from forehead to cheek on both sides. More blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"Save the others," he wheezed.
"I didn't see any others," Kabal replied as he knelt by his old teammate. It was the entirely wrong answer, he quickly realized as Scorpion wrenched his face in grief. "I'll keep looking," he hastily added. "I just got here. The others are right behind me."
"Reiko did this," he breathed. "Sub-Zero was with him."
That Scorpion was conscious, let alone cognizant and rational, was more than enough to impress the former mercenary. "What were they after?" he asked, the detective in him coming alive. "What were they looking for?"
The Grandmaster coughed up a bubble of clotted blood. "Earthrealm's kamidogu."
Kabal recoiled at that, frowning, just as a distant female voice shouted CLEAR! at someone. He looked over his shoulder and saw a squadron of Sonya's soldiers, including her elite team commanded by her daughter, sweep through the area with their guns aimed to fire. But at the General's declaration, they lowered their weapons and began looking through the corpses littered across the field for survivors. Takeda was with them, he saw, and as soon as their eyes met, the boy was racing over the carnage to reach them.
"Sensei!" he cried as he threw himself to his knees beside the man. "Don't move," he babbled as he took Scorpion's hand in his own. "Hold on. We're going to take you to the base." Before his mentor could reply, he screamed for the medics to come help him. Tears, Kabal saw, were now streaming down his face.
The detective wasn't completely aware that he'd rested his hand on the boy's shoulder and patted it reassuringly. "He's gonna be okay, Tak," he said. "He's gonna be okay."
The medics arrived then, and carefully began the tedious process of transferring Scorpion to the cot. With his insides split open, threatening to spill out, they took care not to remove the sword since it was likely the only thing staunching the bleeding and keeping him alive. Instead, they packed thick pads of gauze around it to stabilize the sword and absorb all the blood. Stoic though he was, the Grandmaster still groaned and whimpered in pain as the medics moved him.
"Go with him, Tak," Kabal told the boy. "The rest of us can work to find the other survivors."
"I can't just leave," the young man quietly replied, though his eyes revealed that's precisely what he wanted to do. "Not without General Blade's permission."
"Fuck her," he replied. "This man was like a father to you. Go with him. And if she wants to say something, you direct her to me and I'll tell her exactly what of mine she can kiss." Takeda faintly nodded before he trotted off after the medics.
While the other people occupied themselves with looking for survivors and separating the good guys from the bad, Kabal crouched beside one of the mutilated bodies, studying the child's corpse to look for clues. The blood, he noted, appeared as if it came into contact with water. Frowning behind his mask, he glanced around. The river, he saw, was easily a half a mile away, but he doubted that the dribs and drabs of water came from it. There was too little of it and besides, what there was pooled inside the gash sweeping across the boy's chest. There were no other apparent water sources immediately close by.
It could've been caused by melting ice from one of Sub-Zero's kori swords, but something bothered Kabal about that theory. True, he couldn't deny that he wanted one more crime to pin on his old teammate just to justify killing him when he found him. But the wound wasn't consistent with that of a kori sword. Kori swords - at least Kuai Liang's - were massive things, better to use for blunt force trauma, terrible for slicing through flesh. His weapons were meant for stabbing, not cutting. But this wound was surgical and precise, more in line with what a katana could do. The way the damaged tissue ripped and curled around the gash almost suggested something wispy or ghost-like, something...windswept.
When the revelation hit him, it hit him hard and he recoiled. He'd seen wounds like this before. There was only one weapon he'd ever seen that did damage precisely like this: a storm sword. It was the weapon of a Hydromancer. Kabal's heart sank into his stomach. Oh, God, please no, he inwardly pleaded, but as looked at the surrounding victims, the more he believed his suspicions were justified.
"Kabal," Sonya growled as she stamped towards him, "we need to have a talk. I-"
"Rain was here," he blurted out, cutting her off.
"Like hell, you say," she snarled. Though, her eyes flashed uncertainly, betraying her.
"I don't know how, but he was here."
"But he's dead," she argued. "He's been dead for twenty five years. Anya's family nailed his body to their village walls."
Kabal scoffed at that. "Well, we all though Reiko was dead too, didn't we?" he challenged her. "So now we know that bastard has both Sub-Zero and Rain under his control."
"And Havik too," Kenshi told him as he joined them. "I can see his energy everywhere here. It's absolutely chaotic, for lack of a better word. This place is tainted with him."
"Fucking fantastic," Kabal growled, his heart pumping hard in his chest now. "Is there any other of our enemies he's somehow dug up and recruited? Shang Tsung perhaps? Quan fucking Chi!" With that, he kicked a dead Tarkatan.
"I don't think you have to worry about those two," the blind man told him. "He's a powerful sorcerer in his own right, and whatever he's up to, he's not gonna want the competition."
"Scorpion said he took Earthrealm's kamidogu," he reported to them both. "I didn't even know Scorpion had it, did you?"
"No," Sonya replied, shaking her head.
"No," Kenshi echoed. "But Smoke informed me that Reiko also took Outworld's kamidogu from the Cryomancer's. He's collecting them, clearly, but for what, it's hard to say. Perhaps Raiden will have the answers we need."
Kabal sighed and crossed his arms, now surveying the landscape again. Special forces and many of the uninjured Lin Kuei were now scouring the battlefield, looking for survivors. Miraculously, he spotted several medics bandaging the young Shirai Ryu warriors here and there, and loading them on cots like they had with Scorpion. Apparently, Sergeant Cage and her team found the mother lode of survivors inside the ancient Temple built into the cliff wall because at the moment, a line of small children dressed in yellow walked down the stone-worked steps with them. That was one blessing to count today, he mused.
His eyes continued scanning the scene, but now they found Frost sitting on the wooden steps of the newer Temple, cradling a teenage boy in her arms. Kabal didn't even know he ran to her until he was already there, his feet kicking up a cloud of dust as he came to a halt. The boy she held could barely only have been thirteen or so, with Asian features, and a limp arm frozen a solid blue hanging towards the ground. That injury wasn't even the worst he'd suffered. He'd been run through by a broad sword, and now the detective recognized Sub-Zero's handiwork. The boy was dead.
"Are you...crying?" Kabal suspiciously asked her. When she looked up at him with a face irritated with him for even asking the question, he saw that yes, her eyes were damp and red-rimmed. "I didn't know you knew how to do that."
"Go to Hell," she snapped. "You're not funny."
"I'm not trying to be," he said.
"My brother did this," she sniffed as she held the boy tighter to her and then stroked his hair back. "I can't believe he did this. This is something that I..." she trailed off.
"Would do yourself?" he interrupted when she didn't finish her sentence.
"That I never thought he was capable of," she growled.
Kabal nodded. "Well, my lovely little lollipop triple-dipped in psycho, I don't care if he's on autopilot or Reiko's slave or what. I'm going to find him and I'm going to kill him."
alwaysdoubted, thank you, and thank you for your support. Yes, it was interesting how it all worked out well for them. I hope I conveyed (you'll have to tell me if I did) how great of a general Reiko is, not to mention how they caught the Shirai Ryu completely off guard, and how outnumbered the Shirai Ryu were. If I didn't show that well enough, I'll have to back and make it more apparent because that was my intention and I want to show that's why they were able to massacre the Shirai Ryu like they did.
EshaNapoleon, thanks!
MKDemigodZ-Warrior, yeah, I kind of loosely modeled the massacre on the Shirai Ryu after the MKX comics, and that's why I had Fox get killed. And Reiko is definitely confident in his abilities as a general. His strategy for dealing with Netherrealm is going to have to be more clever than with the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu. He knows it's going to be a much bigger challenge and is going to have to take a little bit more time to prepare, which will give the Earthrealm Champions more of a chance to recover from their losses and go after him. I'm going to have to research brilliant military strategy before I can begin to work on his assault on the Netherrealm.
ROCuevas, thank you for saying so!
Reptaliator, haha thanks :) Yeah, I thought making Sub-Zero the actual bad guy for once would be an interesting take. Granted, he knows not what he does, so does that truly make him evil? But it's definitely going to make a lot of people salty, especially Scorpion.
Prexistence, I'm glad you think so! I like to maintain that tension level :)
jeanosauryehet27, yay! And thank you!
carrocio66, no, I just took some time away to work on my original novel because I was suffering from writer's block on this one. But now I'm having writer's block on my novel, so I'm picking up this one again. I find that alternating between WIPs helps keep the creative juices flowing.
Guest, thank you, I had as nice of a holiday as I could, and I hope you had a nice one as well :)