Author's Note: I forgot to mention in the last chapter, Kabal's experience with the djinn was based upon an episode of Supernatural that featured a djinn who pretty much did the same thing: he subdued one of the brother's and was sucking out his life while immersing him in a world where he got everything his heart ever wanted. So, similarly, Kabal got sucked into a fake world where he got everything he ever wanted.
Also, this is admittedly pretty much a filler chapter but it was necessary. Regardless, I still hope you enjoy it.
"I didn't know you adopted a pet, Brother mine," Mileena said as she stood before Kuai Liang, bending at her waist to examine him closely.
If the Cryomancer was capable of feeling anything, he would've been insulted by her comment. But as it was, he sat rigid and shirtless on a cot in Reiko's tent, expressionless, emotionless, for all intents and purposes a golem without a soul. He passively returned her gaze, just coldly staring into golden eyes painted smokey black. Her tightly wrapped hourglass figure did nothing to tempt him.
"I would much prefer it if the dog were laying on the ground at my feet," Rain now snarled at him. "Still, he is much more preferable this way." The Hydromancer crossed his arms and looked at the General, who was currently smashing herbs and healing oils with a mortar and pestle to make a paste. "Reiko, why you bother healing this cur is beyond me."
The General scoffed. "This cur has proven quite useful, Rain, and I know that his obedience to me is absolute. But I can't say the same for you. I must sleep with one eye open whenever you're near."
"Then why bother resurrecting him?" Mileena pointedly asked her adoptive brother. She sneered at Rain, her voice whimsical but deadly. "Everyone in Outworld knows he's a traitor. He'll stab you in the back the moment he sees an opportunity."
Reiko turned, holding the bowl of medicine in his hands and wolfishly smiled at the self-proclaimed Prince. "I resurrected him, dear Sister, because he, too, has his uses." Then he walked to Kuai Liang, who heard nothing of this conversation - he'd heard words, but assigned no meaning to them. The General continued, "Although Rain would be more valuable to me if he'd agree to heal Sub-Zero and spare me the trouble of doing it the old-fashioned way."
"I told you before," the Hydromancer snarled, "I will never taint myself with mongrel Cryomancer filth. Let him suffer from his wounds. He has earned them."
"I'm disappointed in you, Rain," he said as he began applying his medicine to the wounds on the Cryomancer's back. "Your blind hatred and petty racism has already cost you your life once before, and still you have not learned your lesson?" He clicked his tongue in ridicule.
"I will see him dead, Reiko," he declared. "He will not be your trained lap dog forever."
Kuai Liang tensed as his master tensed and cast a wayward glance at his underling. "Actually, that is exactly what he will be," he said. "He will remain my servant indefinitely. As such, he is under my protection indefinitely." Reiko's expression darkened. "Do not test my good will, Rain. I will squash you like an insect if you so much as think of harming him."
"Do not admonish me like I'm your mere peasant slave," Rain snapped. "I was the High General of the Third Army of Outworld-"
"And I was the High General of the First," he cut him off. "So I will treat you accordingly."
Rain bristled at that but said nothing more as Reiko finished smearing his concoction across Kuai Liang's stab wounds. "You've been injured by Sareena before," he said to him, but the Cryomancer said nothing. "Do you remember?"
He thought about it. There was a hazy memory of that moment, of him standing triumphant over Noob Saibot until the demoness threw her throwing knives at him and stopped him. "It went into my stomach," he robotically answered his master.
And as he said it, he vaguely recalled a woman - he was helping her, he thought, but helping her how he could not say - but at that moment she'd redirected Sareena's attention from him to her. And then the woman had kept him from bleeding to death until...until what? It was hard to think. That woman...Kuai Liang closed his eyes and tried to remember her, but her face was a blur blinding him to the sight of her. But distantly - so distantly that he wasn't even aware he was feeling it - he ached with sadness and longing for her.
"...Thankfully, these wounds do not go as deep," Reiko was saying, and it was then that the Cryomancer realized he hadn't really been listening to him. He looked into the man's green eyes, forcing himself to concentrate on his master as the medicine on the man's fingers stung his skin like acid. He didn't even flinch. "It is also fortunate that Bi-han didn't wound you more than he did. Fraternal love clearly stayed his hand."
The General finished his task and now forced his minion to face him. "Let me see your wrist, Sub-Zero," he commanded. When the Grandmaster obeyed him, he carefully pushed and prodded it, examining it carefully. "It is fractured," he finally declared. "Hold still while I set the bone," he said, and then he did. Jagged pain like forked branches of lightning surged through his arm, and Kuai Liang winced and grimaced, groaning as Reiko worked, but it was over as quickly as it had started and then he was wrapping bandages around a hard, leather brace that stabilized his wrist.
"Mileena, dear," the General now said, "please hand me that cup of wine." She retrieved it for him, and he put it in Kuai Liang's good hand. "Drink the entire cup, Sub-Zero," he ordered.
Obediently, the Grandmaster gulped down the entire goblet, ignoring the bitter tang of the red wine laced with various herbs. The alcohol instantly hit his brain and vertigo set in. He swayed alarmingly to the right but caught himself with his good hand on the cot's edge. His eyes drifted around the room, passing over his comrades, abruptly realizing he couldn't focus on them clearly. Woozily, he passed the cup back to his master, who smiled and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.
"Trying to inebriate him, Brother?" the construct wondered.
He shook his head no. "Not exactly," he told her, still patting Kuai Liang's shoulder. "It is mulled wine full of powerful healing herbs and psilocybe to help him sleep. It will heal the fracture in his wrist quickly. By the time we march on Seido, he should be fully recovered."
"He is a handsome specimen," she now said clearly from behind her mask. "So very handsome. And he has only grown more so with age." She sat on the other side of Kuai Liang and ran her fingers through the silvery patch of hair above his ear. "I should very much like to play with him, Brother dear."
Reiko chuckled at that as he stood up and she continued to twirl the Cryomancer's hair. "And what would your dearest Tanya think about that?" he pointedly replied.
"I am her Queen," she haughtily replied. "She will think only what I tell her to think."
"Be that as it may," he replied, "you would find Sub-Zero a disappointing lover, Sister. He cannot feel passion or lust, nor instinct to guide his movements."
"If anyone can make this man feel the pleasures of the flesh, it's me," she insisted.
"No, Mileena, I believe that dubious honor goes to his beloved wife," he argued, which prompted Rain to hiss his displeasure from the corner where he stood with arms crossed. "And even if she was here right now, I still don't believe she could pull him from this stupor. The power of Blood Magik is infinite."
"You've been wrong before," she shot back. "You don't know the things I could do to him. Not only would he wake up from this trance, he would beg to leave his wife just to bask in my presence," she boasted.
Reiko chuckled. "And if you were wrong, you'd murder him out of spite," he retorted. "I cannot allow that to happen. I need him still. You know he carries the Dragon Medallion, and none but he can bear it safely."
"Is that the only reason you want him alive?" Rain now asked, his tone almost accusatory, and it prompted Reiko to look at him in surprise.
"Is that not enough?" he asked.
"No, I think you keep him as your pet for more than just that," he replied. "I think he's bait to attract his young spawn to you. You are as intrigued by that Cryomancer whore as you are angry with her for defeating you."
The General narrowed his eyes at him. "Do not speak of Olivia so disrespectfully in my presence," he hissed. "She is young, yes, but she is far more resilient and clever than I ever gave her credit for. And for that, she has earned my respect." He took a dangerous step towards the Hydromancer. "But once more, you put your shrewd mind to work to find my weaknesses and come up wanting. She is out of the picture and precisely where I want her."
As he spoke, both Havik and Skarlet now slid into the tent, the former holding an armload full of large scrolls, both arriving just in time to hear Rain say, "You mean that pathetic little man child with that obvious obsession for her?" He sneered.
"You criticize him for that?" Reiko retorted in amusement as he poured himself a glass of wine. "Was that not how you behaved years ago with Sub-Zero's wife? Were you not obsessed as well?" he smirked.
The Hydromancer glared at him. "Anya was owed to me as payment for helping Shang Tsung and Quan Chi depose Shao Kahn and for healing her," he shot back. "Nothing more."
Something flexed inside of Kuai Liang as he heard Rain speak of the woman this way, and for a fleeting second he felt an irresistible urge to lunge at the man for his disrespect. But it left him as fast as it found him. In a very abstract way, he understood what his master and his comrade meant, but he felt nothing solid in his heart, no kinship or concern. "Bi-han," "Anya," "Olivia"...They were just empty words to him, devoid of all meaning. Why, then, react to them like they had some importance attached to them?
"If that is the story you wish to tell," Reiko teased the Hydromancer. "But regardless, Xinyi will keep my dear, sweet Olivia occupied in Mòhé, and she will be too busy planning her wedding to worry about coming for Sub-Zero."
Once again, some little flicker of rage boiled the Cryomancer's heart, but he remained seated, his senses dulled. His head was growing heavier by the second, as were his eyelids.
Now the General said to his compatriots, "Seido will be the hardest to breach." He looked around at them. "Their warriors are deadly, and their technology is the most advanced in all the Realms. We will not defeat them using sheer brute force. We must outwit them."
"How do we do that, my Lord?" Skarlet asked, her voice husky and always sensual.
"We must study the details of the city until we know it better than even General Hotaru," he told her and then motioned for Havik to bring his scrolls. The Cleric now unrolled them across the General's table, and they all saw plans of the city, Seido. "The Crystal Palace where the Elder Council holds its keep is a fortress," Reiko explained, pointing to it, "and the kamidogu is protected in the vault."
"The vault is located deep below the heart of the Palace, at least two stories underground," Havik added. "It will not be easy to reach under normal circumstances, but we shall also be fighting the Seidan Guard as well as their regular army, and presumably the Earthrealmers too. And should we get to the vault, it is charmed with ancient runes and wards, and the kamidogu itself is protected even more."
"This is an impossible task," Rain grumbled, now looking at the General. "Unless you have someone on the inside-" He abruptly cut himself off when he saw a wolfish grin spread across Reiko's face. "You have someone on the inside," he deduced.
He nodded. "I have been in contact with a man who has no love of the Seidan Guard or its priggish Elder Council," he told him. "He was once an esteemed member of their number, but he became disenfranchised with the tyranny of the government and aided the start of the rebellion."
"What is his name?" he asked.
He shook his head. "You do not need to know it," he replied. "All you need to know is that he has vowed to aid us in finding the weak spots in the Palace armor."
"Does he know about the kamidogu?" the Hydromancer prodded.
"Again, it is not for you to know."
Rain scoffed. "This man of yours doesn't know," he declared. "He would never agree to help you if he knew you were planning to steal Seido's most treasured relic."
"It doesn't matter," Reiko repeated through gritted teeth.
"If you say so," he smirked.
"He and the other one will join us at dawn," Havik told the General. "We have received word that Liu Kang and Kitana will also arrive at dawn with their armies."
"Good," he replied. "I will wait until then to inform you of my plan of attack. In the meantime, I want you all to study these maps of Seido. I want you to learn the city better than the engineers who built it."
"Yes, my Lord," Skarlet replied, and Mileena and Havik echoed her sentiment. Rain merely looked at him dangerously before he knelt over the table and went to work.
Meanwhile, Reiko stood before the Cryomancer and looked down on him as he commanded him to go to sleep. "We have time," he told him, "therefore we must all rest so that we're all well-prepared in mind and soul for battle."
"Yes, Lord Reiko," Kuai Liang told him.
He then did as his master had commanded and stretched out on his cot to sleep. His eyelids fluttered and drooped, rapidly losing the battle against the medicine he'd taken. With no doubts running through his head, with no fears of what the morrow might bring, with no regrets for the actions of his past, it was easy for the Cryomancer to drift off. And so he did, flat on his back with no blanket covering him, listening to the others softly talk about Seido and the Crystal Palace.
In the little moments here and there when Reiko had allowed his warriors to rest, Kuai Liang had been having dreams of things and people that his conscious self could not make sense of. If he had been in his right mind, he'd have known that what he'd seen were his memories poking holes through Reiko's spell. They were visions imprinted on his soul, shining through, fighting hard to punch through the dark veil subduing his mind. But the Blood Magik was always stronger.
Tonight, as Kuai Liang drifted from Reiko's tent, and Outworld, and all thoughts of conquering Seido, his mind swept him to a place he knew well, a secluded waterfall spilling from pool to pool, surrounded by dark stands of tropical trees, and beautiful birdsong filling the air, the water glowing ethereal blue. Here, jasmine perfumed the air, and great water lilies floated around with the occasional frog perched on their leaves. This place was a good place, full of sweet memories of peace and love and the promise of a beautiful future. The Cryomancer was naked as he lazily tread water in the bottommost pond, and he felt both strengthened and invigorated by the magic here. This was Massilia.
Suddenly, a long, slender pair of arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders from behind as a soft mouth tenderly planted a kiss on the side of his neck, setting his skin into goosebumps. Kuai Liang glanced over his shoulder and saw Anya floating in the water behind him, smiling gently before she pecked him on his cheek and then the side of his lips. Now smiling himself, he swam around to face her before pulling her naked body onto his lap.
"Anya," he murmured before he kissed her. It warmed his heart to see her.
"Kuai Liang, where have you been?" she sadly replied when they pulled apart a moment later.
He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What do you mean?" he quietly asked. "I've been here with you this whole time."
She shook her head. "No, my love, you were mad at me. So you joined Reiko. You've been with him this entire time."
He frowned. "I would never join Reiko," he protested. "Not after what he did to Olivia. Not for anything."
"You're with him now," she argued.
Sudden realization dawned on him as memories of the last three days flashed before him - nearly dying in Mòhé, ransacking the Fire Gardens, fighting Bi-han, mutilating Hanzo, mutilating...Livy. He winced and then looked at her with a pained expression.
"This is just a dream," he muttered as he sadly traced his finger around her jawline. "You're just a dream."
"I am a respite from the horrors of the last several days," she said with a sad smile before she pulled him closer and suckled on his lips for a long moment. When she pulled away, she rested her head on his shoulder and held him like he was a life preserver. "I'm just so scared."
Kuai Liang ran his hand over her back and then held her tightly. "Why are you scared, Anya?" he whispered.
She squeezed his shoulder. "I feel like I'm drowning in a great big ocean, and I'm all alone now. Oh, God, I don't want to be alone."
"But you're not alone," he protested. "I'm right here with you. I'll always be here with you."
"No, Kuai Liang, not as long as you're Reiko's prisoner," she insisted. "As long as you stay with him, I'm going to keep drowning."
His mind suddenly flung him through space and time to a little hospital room where he saw Anya hooked up to at least ten different machines forcing her to stay alive. She sat upright in her bed, and he saw that her hair was all gone, her baldness only slightly obscured by the thick bandages swaddling her skull. She looked up at him with a weak, pitiful expression in her dark, sunken eyes.
"I'm dying, Kuai Liang," she told him. "I don't know how much longer I can withstand the Blood Magik."
"What happened to you?" he demanded to know, refusing to acknowledge her morbid declaration. Pulling through was what she did. It was her peculiar brand of bravery, and something he hadn't quite yet realized he'd taken for granted. He didn't truly believe she could die anymore because somehow, against all odds, she'd become quite adept at surviving.
"You happened," she replied before she glanced to the side of the bed.
There, Kuai Liang saw Samantha leaning on Anya's bed, her head resting on her crossed arms. She was sobbing, clearly hysterical, her hunched body heaving.
"Sam," he called to her, but she didn't acknowledge him. "Samantha, heal your mother," he said, louder this time. Once more, there was no reply. Finally, the Cryomancer lost his temper. "Samantha Magdalena Sullivan, heal your mother right now!"
Still nothing.
She can't hear you, Kuai Liang," Anya told him as she sadly looked at her daughter. "She's tried so hard to save me," she told him. "Her poor little body is so tired it's ready to give out." Now she sighed and weakly swiveled her head around to look at him again. "If you make it through this, you should really get her that puppy she's been begging you for. She's really earned it, my love."
"Stop talking like you're going to die, Anya," he admonished, now frowning. "You're going to make it. You always make it."
She shook her head. "I don't think so," she replied, her face a solemn mask. "Not this time."
Anya nodded to something behind him, and when he looked, her hospital room had vanished, whisking his wife and daughter back into the recesses of his subconscious mind where they could no longer hurt him. He now stood upon the shore of a great frozen lake made of polluted, infected blood. Something large and heaving loomed on the horizon. Intrigued, he stepped off the red-tinged snowy bank and stepped onto the ice to investigate.
Kuai Liang walked steadily towards the mass for hours, but never had the sense he was getting any closer. Eventually, from the rising mist emerged three ghostly figures who seemed to be huddling around a campfire for warmth. He soon recognized his twin sons sitting with Miyuki, all of them holding their hands to the fire. He cast them a curious glance but moved on. He didn't know what they were doing, nor did he particularly care.
A few minutes later, an inky shadow rose up before him and solidified into the shape of Noob Saibot. The wraith poised to cut him down with his scythe as he approached, but unexpectedly, Tomas tackled him from behind and wrestled him to the ground, leaving the Cryomancer free to continue on his journey.
An hour passed before another ghostly shape appeared and took the form of Olivia. She crawled towards him on hands and knees, sobbing and reaching for him with blood-stained hands. Every few seconds, her bloody hands drifted to her ear to stop the bleeding, and now he saw that it had been cut off.
"Olivia?" he asked incredulously as he passed her by. But he could not stop for her. He had to press on.
Minutes lazily passed him by...or perhaps those minutes were hours, or those hours were days, or those days were weeks. Finally, though, Kuai Liang reached the heaving mass in the center of the lake and saw that it was the Blue Dragon taking in labored breaths. Her ordinarily vibrant blue scales were pale and sickly, the color of death, and some were missing in places like shingles on the roof of an abandoned house. Her body was tightly wound around itself like a house cat, and her wings fluttered weakly every time she inhaled or exhaled.
"Eidotheia," he said in concern when he reached her. He gingerly touched her side. More scales fell off like clattering tiles. Frowning, he walked around her massive body to find her head. "Eidotheia," he spoke again, louder this time, noting her broken horn as well as the foam bubbling from her mouth.
And now he saw her tail curling around Anya, constricting her like some prehistoric snake, the end of it coiled so tightly around her throat that she was strangling her. In horror, Kuai Liang lunged forward and tried to rip it from his wife's neck, but it was clamped around her too tightly.
"Eidotheia, let her go!" he shouted as he fought with her tail. "You're killing her!"
"She can't let go, my son," a new voice said, and when the Cryomancer whirled around to look, he saw Himavat. "Your souls are all fused together as one," he told them. "As Eidotheia diminishes, so too does Anya."
"Then what will save them?" he demanded to know, his voice increasingly shrill.
"You breaking free of Reiko," he simply said.
"I don't understand," he snapped. "How can I do that?"
Himavat sadly smiled. "You are lost, Kuai Liang," he said. "All I can do to help you find your way is to offer you glimpses of what is and what will come to be."
He pointed to the horizon, and when the Grandmaster looked, he saw an angry storm gathering in the distance, striking lightning on the lake and surrounding flora. Fires immediately exploded into the sky, setting animals to running from the towering flames. The world became awash with orange like hellfire as a dark figure slowly rose from the bowels of the earth, laughing.
"Shinnok is coming," he said.
Abruptly, Kuai Liang jerked himself awake, drenched in sweat. Sunlight streamed into Reiko's tent, but there was a chill in the air, suggesting it was still quite early in the morning. But the Cryomancer remembered nothing of his dreams. And even if he had, he would have felt nothing anyway. Quietly, he rose to his feet and began to dress.
"Did you sleep well, Sub-Zero?" Reiko asked as he too dressed for the day. His minion didn't answer him, which merely prompted him to chuff.
And then suddenly, a new figure darted through the tent flaps. Without a second thought, Kuai Liang had already intercepted him and slammed him to the ground to protect his master. He snarled as he drew back his fist, and then vaguely recognized Reiko's tentative ally, Xinyi. But he did not let him up, and instead pinned him to the ground while the General clicked his tongue and stood above them both.
"Why are you here?" he calmly demanded to know. "You should be nearing the portal to Outworld by now, if my math is correct."
"My brother," he growled in reply.
Reiko narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "Let him up, Sub-Zero. Let him tell us a story." Kuai Liang obeyed while the General sat in his chair and sipped on his goblet of wine. "Where is Olivia?" he asked.
"Jiayi attacked me when we set up camp on the mountain," the Prince reported.
"So, Olivia is with him then," he deduced. He frowned in feigned annoyance. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Xinyi, but your brother is not loyal to me."
A flash of fear crossed his eyes. "No, Lord Reiko, he is not."
The General thoughtfully hummed. "Well, that is troubling news," he told him. "If you cannot handle one young woman, how can you possibly handle the task of managing the day-to-day affairs of a kingdom?"
"I managed her just fine," he shot back. "She learned to obey me quite quickly."
Reiko rose to his feet and flashed a doubtful grin. "Did you really?" he challenged. "That girl is full of fire that belies her lineage, and even I could not make her submit. I do not believe she learned to obey you."
"I cut off her ear and she learned well enough," he hissed.
Inside, Kuai Liang felt a flash of anger that immediately dissipated. Reiko's face, however, flushed scarlet as he absorbed this information. "You did what to her?" he snarled. The Prince started to answer him, but he was abruptly cut off by a fierce two-handed shove to the chest powerful enough to hurl him to the ground. He stretched his arm to the side to summon his scythe from beside his bed. In a graceful arch, he whirled it around and chopped it towards Xinyi's face, only stopping short of his eyeball. The tip of the blade, if one were so inclined to look at it closely, was only millimeters from blinding the eye.
"Please, Lord Reiko," he whimpered like a coward as both the General and Kuai Liang looked down on him.
Reiko was almost literally seething. His shoulders heaved; his breath came in short squalls from between the slats in a fence of clenched teeth. "I entrusted her to you to keep her out of my way," he snarled. "I did not entrust her to you so that you could maim her at whim."
"She wouldn't stop trying to escape!" he argued. "The cobalt collar did nothing to quell her spirit. I only took part of her ear, my Lord!"
"Even the smallest part was not yours to take!" he yelled as he lurched forward as if to swing his blade through the Prince's skull. But then he abruptly stopped himself and pulled back. "Get him up, Sub-Zero," he barked at the Cryomancer, who promptly yanked Xinyi to his feet and held him by the shoulder. Reiko, meanwhile, glared at him in rage. "Where is Olivia now?" he demanded to know.
The Prince nodded. "I am not certain. Jiayi took her from me and drove me away. I fled to the portal in order to find you to warn you that she's coming."
"Let her come," he coldly replied. "I do not fear her. I merely wanted her out of the way, sheltered in Mòhé where no harm could befall her before I could deal with her myself."
"Give me men and I will go reclaim her-"
"You will get nothing!" he shouted. By this point, Skarlet had come into his tent to see what the commotion was about. Without being ordered to, she aided Kuai Liang and gripped his opposite shoulder. "You are not going after her or your brother, Xinyi. You will remain here and suffer your punishment for your failure."
"Punishment?" he bristled. "I am a Prince," he argued a moment later. "You can't do that to me."
Reiko shoved him away, hard. Xinyi stared at him, his blue eyes astonished. No one had ever laid hands on him like that. No one had ever punished him for his mistakes. Rage twisted his features. But the General did not care and shoved him once again, and this time, he went sprawling through the tent flaps, stunned and sputtering. The gathering crowd of Tarkatans and Edenians hooted and laughed as he struggled to stand.
"Hold him tightly," the General ordered Kuai Liang and Skarlet, who did as he commanded. Xinyi was now on his knees, trying to pull away from them, crying incoherently, struggling for breath.
The Cryomancer watched the Prince with cold, detached interest. He was sucking in air noisily, red-faced and sobbing from humiliation. He was a pitiful thing, disgusting and pathetic. But Kuai Liang felt no pity nor disgust with this man who would be king. He simply held him still as the crowd continued to grow.
"You have undoubtedly heard the phrase 'an eye for an eye', yes?" Reiko asked the frightened Prince, who could only nod through his tears. A wicked smile spread across the General's face. "I prefer an ear for an ear," he declared. And then, with his scythe, Reiko slowly sawed off Xinyi's entire ear.
Author's Note: I didn't want to mention it above because, spoilers. But Mileena stans, don't make me fucking regret including her. I'll kill that bitch quicker than you can say her name if you even start to get as pushy with me as you do to Ed Boon. Fair warning. I know I'm being harsh - sorry, not sorry - but I get damn tired of seeing people harass that man on Twitter over her. He is far more patient with that bullshit than I am. Just saying. So behave yourselves, please and thank you.
MKDemigodZ-Warrior, the igloo is maybe four or five hours ahead of them? They're not far from catching up to Olivia. And to answer your question about Kabal's ethnicity, I don't know if he's canonically Asian if I'm being perfectly honest. Way back in the day when I first started writing about him, I looked up the definition of "cabal" to look for possible clues to his character, and I saw something about the word - I'll be damned if I can remember what - made me think of Arabic culture and I decided to give him that background. I had a friend at the time who was literally half-Iranian and half-Mexican, and I thought that was so cool that I wanted to loosely base that aspect of his character on her. But honestly dude, I don't even want to get involved with the race crap. I've already had people come at me for the way I've depicted Sub-Zero, I don't want to be apart of yet another drama.
alwaysdoubted, yeah, I thought it was a golden opportunity for Kabal to show off his detective chops to the gang. I don't think I've ever really done that with him. So I kind of tried to think about Sherlock Holmes and how he would logically deduce things, and so I tried to have Kabal be the same way. I'm glad you enjoyed that. But he's definitely going to be twisted up now because of his experience. It should be interesting. Or I hope so, anyway! And good luck with your story! I'm rooting for you :)
Praxus84, yes, I thought Kabal deserved to be the star of the show for once lol To answer your question, I think there is a mutual respect between Kabal and Erron. I mean, it's not like Kabal was the one who screwed Erron over when he was running with the Black Dragon, or at least not in my head canon. I think he was jaded by Kano, and they're all jaded by Kano, so that's pretty much par for the course. As long as Kabal isn't interrupting him while he's having sex, I don't think Erron has beef with him at all.
ROCuevas, thank you, as always :)
DinoLord00, Artie definitely helps the PTSD, but she's lucky she's cute because she's a naughty puppy just eating everything in sight, including my work uniform. But no, I'm never going to a situation like that again; if I even get a whiff of abuse in a guy, I will bounce so fast his head will spin. His company has to feel better than my independence and freedom. As for the chapter, I agree, I think it was a terrible injustice against Kabal to not develop him in the story in MK11 better than they did. He was just kind of there. What a waste of good material. I think there's going to be a moment when they catch up to Livy and Jiayi and he has a thought that he was wrong. Xinyi might be a little like Joffrey, insofar as he's a spoiled brat that you want to kill - at least until Ramsay Snow shows up and you long for the days of the asshole Joffrey again. But I digress. The Kabal-Cassie exchange happened because of a discussion between my dad and my kids, who called him a boomer and then tried to call me a boomer. I'm like, I ain't no boomer. I'm Gen X, and we're the cool kids. And nah, this is the only vision for Kabal that I've got planned. I'll go into it further in later chapters, but I think Malphas was just trying to spook him, and it worked.
Lastly, at the risk of starting a political firefight, though, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on fascism: communism has always gone hand in hand with fascism. Look at the definition of the word 'fascism': "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism." Communist Russia and China both meet all of these criteria without even a shadow of a doubt. I could write a book right here and now detailing why. With Russia, all I'd have to do is point to the debacle that was Chernobyl. With China, how they handled the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and then went about trying to keep it a secret, going so far as to silence any doctors who tried to warn the public of the pandemic with threat of severe punishment. But frankly, I don't want to chart 100 years of history because I'm tired and I got up early and I have to do it again tomorrow. But in short, I have never seen an example of a communist country that wasn't led by a dictator, that didn't oppress its people, that didn't suppress the free exchange of information, that didn't take complete and total control over their citizens' lives. That is why I believe communism is such a dangerous ideal - in theory it always sounds nice, but in reality, it is a dystopian nightmare for the people who have to live it. And that is why people who live in those countries are always trying to escape. You don't see people in Florida building rafts and trying to get to Cuba, and you definitely never saw people from West Germany trying to get over the Berlin Wall into East Germany. So yeah, fascism and communism are like two edges of the same sword. And so that was my source of inspiration for Seido's culture. It's loosely based - not hard and fast fascism, I'll admit, but it's fascist enough for my purposes.