Water slapped the rocky shore and bow of the ship that contained the army of Kotal Kahn. The sea knew the ship would soon sail and tested its strength with strikes from every side that curved like jabs toward the shore where the fists would bleed foam from the hard impacts. Skarlet watched from the stern as the mainmast slapped back against the wind and the pillar that held it together all the way to the main royal swayed. It left a pit in her stomach that she had not felt even when they arrived, nor when they battled the Sheeva's army.
She was adorned in all leather, black and red from high boots to long gloves that nearly extended up toward her elbows. She could be mistaken for a pirate if the sails were black and the skull flailed in the wind as opposed to Kotal Kahn and Quan Chi's symbols.
The sea did struggled to attack the stern, though closest to shore, was also where the sorcerer's insignia flew. Skarlet herself was not sure of the ominous symbol that waved overhead, but ahead, near the bowsprit, Kotal and Quan Chi stood with Rain and Jataaka. She would not question Kotal Kahn's inclusion of the free-roaming sorcerer, so long as his involvement earned them Outworld, but from her time with Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung, she had heard treacherous whispers of this being from the Nether Realm.
Kotal Kahn turned to meet her stare from across the ship and dismissed himself from Quan Chi's presence, but with him came Rain of Edenia.
"Are you ready to set sail, my Kahn?" She asked and paid deference to him, but not to Rain.
"Kitana will see the ship well before we land. The element of surprise is not with us." He responded, and turned back to the cold, violent sea. "However, the surprise is not my intentions to land in the city of the great palace."
"What are you thinking?" Rain interjected, eyes scrutinized Skarlet and narrowed, but Kotal Kahn ignored him and pushed further with the conversation he had started.
"You will be with me in the capturing of the main palace, where the Goddess awaits us." He stole Skarlet's gaze from Rain.
"Yes, my Kahn."
"There can be no failure in capturing her."
"With the fall of the Edenian Goddess, so too will her allies." Rain added.
"Yes, but she is not the only deity present."
"No god threatens me." Kotal declared, fire burned in his eyes, a great flare that caught Skarlet off guard.
"We must set sail, Kotal Kahn." Rain pulled away and recused the Kahn from Skarlet's presence. "Quan Chi beckons our presence."
She watched as they parted. Kotal had nodded to her as he had is other soldiers and commanders, his eyes stern and distant. She couldn't tell if he had even seen her this entire conversation, but Rain was certainly focused on her. The nerves beneath her flesh quivered and plucked like the string of a rusted bow. Kotal Kahn granted Quan Chi deference she should have received, as if he was of a higher station than even the Kahnum of Outworld.
She must discover the sword of Damocles the sorcerer held over Kotal Kahn's head.
Kitana watched over the city from the highest point in the tower. The prison cells that held her most dangerous political enemies. Once home to Shao Kahn, now caged her thoughts on the looming war. For all her power and experience, to lose Outworld and Edenia all at once was something she could not prepare for.
Behind her, Raiden stood and watched over her, with little interest in the city below. When she could stay in her thoughts no longer, she turned to him, and stared deep into those aged human eyes.
"Ships travel fast over water, Raiden," she added, "but word travels faster over the wind."
"It does." He agreed.
"Are we certain my spy has been honest with Fujin in this report?"
"Ko'atal travels with the vile sorcerer Quan Chi. Even your spy despises him."
She turned back around and expelled a heavy breath. She let her hand meet her lips to hold in her thoughts, and watched again as the city below, busy, and lively, waited for destruction with blissful ignorance.
"This changes everything, Raiden."
"How will you act?"
"This means Ko'atal failed to resurrect Jade."
"Did you ever think he would succeed."
Her shoulders dropped and her eyes scanned back for his, hurt, but understood what he implied.
"I had hoped he would be the first."
"Kronika is no longer here to bend the moral fabric of reality. Jade is gone, and who ever falls in this battle will also never return."
"So we must make this fight matter."
"War is not always the answer You may still be able to reason with Ko'atal."
"I pray you're right, Lord Raiden"
Far from the palace that overlooked the city, and even hidden from the city that begged beneath the feet of the Coliseum walls, the Shokan army were encamped.
Here, Goro pressed one large foot down into mud after the next and left a trail from the city toward his own kind.
There were less Shokan now with the destruction and betrayal of Sheeva's half, but he trusted the ones that watched as he entered through the wooden gate into the training ground. Here there would be battles, tests of might, and speeches to rile and empower his people. Today, however, he looked around, his lower knuckles rested on his hips as the top arms folded across his chest, and he saw Shokan that stood, lingered, loitered, all aimless and uncertain.
Word had gotten around that Kitana, Goddess of Edenia and Kahnum of Outworld would bend the knee to Ko'atal. This did not sit well with the loyal Shokan that had stayed behind to defend her. This did not sit well with Goro, her most trusted ally.
"Form rank!" He called out them and they were quick to gather.
The sight before him was not the army he and Kitana had tirelessly constructed. He eyed each of them and they returned the cold glare until one broke rank and spoke out of turn.
"The Kahn will betray us, Commander."
As he spat at the outcast for treason, he couldn't help but feel a hand claw at his stomach and tear it open as that same sentiment spilled into his guts. He forced officer toward the back with the foot soldiers, lucky not to slain. In truth, their army was slim, the Tarkatan were greater even without Baraka. The battle at the Living Forest had halved them and now as the echoes swept through the wind of Kitana's possible defeat, even Goro started to feel the wear and tear within the army.
He maintained posture, decided that she would not go through with it, even if it were Raiden's council. Even though he heard her say it. He could see a fissure between the Shokan and their long trusted ally form and part into a great canyon before his eyes.
This will not do.
He would need certainty.
The ship sailed over a haunted sea of mist and stale air. It felt like a skeleton would reach up and choke the break out of her when she peered over into the black abyss of the sea. With Quan Chi on board, that may even happen, she thought and slowly reeled back.
With Quan Chi came two assassins that were allegedly born in the Nether Realm and escaped with the aid of the free-roaming sorcerer. She kept an eye on them, on the sorcerer, but most of all on Kotal Kahn.
The bowsprit stabbed through the stale air and heavy mist like steel through the chests of their enemies. Kotal Kahn watched in solitude as it cut deeper and deeper before him. Skarlet waited until behind her, two of the Shokan that had come up after a drink had gone back down, and the assassin Kia, who also seemed interested in the actions of Kotal Kahn disappeared from view. She was not pleased with these new developments and had yet to get time alone with the Kahnum of the new world. Now would be her chance and she walked toward him. She approached from starboard, but before she could reach even half the distance between them, the vile, pale sorcerer's voice broke through the dense air and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"The Kahnum must focus." Quan Chi, with his deep voice and frail figure sank into her from ears to the pit of her stomach. She did not understand the sorcerer's intentions, nor did she care to. His eyes narrowed down at her, arms folded to tighten the grip on the spikes that adorned his leather pauldrons.
"I am second in command of this army, I will not follow orders from you." She turned and spat, her voice low as though any higher might awaken the skeleton that desired to drag her into the sea.
"Of this army, but not of Outworld." His tone struck her as though she were a bug, smeared and scarred across the salt stained deck of the ship. She could hear the insignificance of her own existence in his voice.
She didn't know how to respond to this. Her blood began to boil and all she could think of was to drain his into the black ocean below, but knew she couldn't. Quan Chi was too important to Kotal Kahn, more important perhaps than Outworld itself, certainly more than her. He was the key to Jade, and that's all that mattered to him now.
In that moment, she realized just how lost their cause was. If Kotal Kahn had no real interest in the unification of Outworld, then he would fail to defeat Kitana. She must remind him why he had set himself on this journey. Jade would not want his path to stray on her accord.
"You will go to your quarters, little blood mage, and wait for the ship to land. Then you will make use of yourself." Quan Chi stepped closer with those big black boots that knocked on the wood as he tried to tower over her, despite his thinner, frailer form.
The wind began to pick up and it scraped like blunt knives over her bare neck and arms, but did not scathe Quan Chi. She could feel a crack and tap at the bottom of the ocean, somewhere in the cogs of her mind as a skeleton began to climb like spiders up from beneath the depths to drag her under.
She could no longer tolerate his presence. Her chest thickened with anxiety, and her breath started to grow heavy over the hot flow of bitter blood.
She noticed another pair of eyes upon her and turned toward port side to find the two assassins, ever watchful, like carrion crows that waited for a corpse to fall.
Skarlet took three steps back from Quan Chi, but paid no deference as she retreated beneath the deck. He followed her with long slow strides until the door closed behind her.
"We will break her."
In the Coliseum she trained. In the same spot she once killed Shao Kahn in the timeline that gave way to this. In the same spot she saw her mother die. The only spot she could find a reason to shove her body to move and work out the motions of combat.
Kitana folded and unfolded her fans, she step dragged to the left, swung with her right, and then performed a cover to turn around and strike with her left toward an invisible target.
Here she could concentrate and let her thoughts run the many paths she had chosen, and the roads still yet to be travelled. So many timelines, so many ways to save the realms and yet still destruction was imminent.
Fate cannot be controlled.
All things must come to an end.
How it all ends does not matter to Fate.
Dust kicked up onto her black and blue boots and the familiar scent of battle and desert sand filled her nostrils. Every war, every tournament, each man and woman that stood here before her and Shao Kahn rushed through her mind like a fog she was forced to race through to find the clarity she desired. She was still uncertain where that clarity was and if she would recognize it, but she raced, and her fans cut, and her feet danced in mortal combat until suddenly as she struck the air with a right jab, fans folded down like a dagger, a huge force grasped and stopped her in her place.
"Goro!" She was startled, but was never frightened by the sight of him.
"Kitana Kahn, spare me a moment of your time." He released her to pay deference with a bow that offered his neck.
"For you, a lifetime." She responded and stepped back into a neutral stance, fans tucked away on her belt straps.
"Have you given more consideration to Ko'atal's invasion?"
She took a moment to answer, the fog of that decision still had not been cleared, even as she felt it stronger to defend the city against the coming army.
"The sorcerer Quan Chi travels with Ko'atal. I will never let this city fall to the likes of him." This was too vague an answer for Goro and he pressed forth.
"The Shokan are unsettled by the idea of surrender."
"I can feel that you are as well, and so am I, Goro, but I assure you, there will be surrender as long as Quan Chi stands with Ko'atal."
So many indications, and a thick cloud of vague intentions frothed up between them. The idea that only Quan Chi would convince her not to maintain the loyalty she had worked so hard to earn with the Shokan insulted him, but perhaps it was more complicated than that. He didn't like complications, combat was easier, good and bad, dead or alive. With her words chosen, he chose to hope that Quan Chi did stand with Ko'atal when they stormed the city.
"It's hard to tell you how I feel." She broke through his thoughts.
"You have told me everything up to this point, my Kahn."
"Not everything, but certainly more than I had ever shared with Raiden or Liu Kang."
Understandable, but he pressed her for more. There was a cyst beneath her flesh that needed to be lanced and he believed it might let flow the information that would help him, as well as his army, understand her position, or where they fell in this whole situation.
"You can tell me everything." He assured her, "I have never judged you for it."
She gave him a playful glare.
"At least not spoken." He returned in kind, but he was serious still, this wasn't time even for a crack of light to break the dark clouds above them.
"Then keep this locked deep within you, Goro."
He nodded and folded his arms, all ears for her.
The room sloshed to and fro and the water steadily angered the closer they reached the city beyond the palace. It felt like the turmoil that churned in her stomach, and swirled within her mind. Skarlet lay in the stiff bed within her quarters, which she had found to be smaller than even Quan Chi's assassins. Wooden bed, some space to move from there to the door, and a wooden keg she had her weapons and clothes in when not needed.
For now she was in a simple black and red tunic, leather belt and black pants, much unlike the style of the women in the city, she was more in tune with utility than societal norms. Her boots tapped the wood and her arms were crossed beneath her breasts.
It felt like betrayal.
She had worked hard to escape her life within the city, and then Shao Kahn, then the Coliseum, and now here she was laid out in another cell. Each moment in time she had found herself in hell and with no way of escape. Was her pain not ashamed to repeat itself?
Bang!
Bang!
Two loud knocks at the door nearly broke it open. A sturdy metal latch was all that kept it together, and her quarters private. She didn't need to hear who was on the other side, no need to ask. Skarlet wrinkled her nose in disgust scent of the Edenian Tanya and refused her entry with silence.
"We need to speak."
Silence.
She could hear the cackle of paper being crumbled and then stuffed underneath the cracks of the door. She did not idle. Skarlet collected the paper to find Tanya had written that she too was under threatening eye of Quan Chi and requested she meet even further below the ship where the cargo and food had been stored.
She crumpled it tighter than Tanya had and then heard the Edenian's footsteps swiftly fade down the corridor. After minutes of silence had passed with only the wind and water to move her in the small cabin, she chose to go for it.
Slowly she began to descend into the darkness of the cargo hold. No candlelight, nor magic to illuminate the way. Just sweat to neatly squish between boot and wood, and the musty smell of crates mixed with the odor of near rotten food to beckon her down with each careful step.
"No one followed you?" Tanya whispered.
Skarlet couldn't see, but it sounded as though the Edenian was to her far left. The hold was big, for the Shokan and Centaurs demanded a lot, which meant there were plenty of places for the Edenian to hide.
"No." She replied.
"He will find out eventually." Tanya returned.
"Then I would like to know before he does."
She moved through the darkness. Her hands to the front as they traced corners and surfaces of metal, meat, and salted flesh until Tanya's voice was closer than her footsteps.
"It is not Outworld he desires." Tanya whispered of Quan Chi, afraid any louder and he would crush her throat before Skarlet would even hear her words.
"I do not care what he wants."
There was a pause, then Tanya added with slight indignation, "then you are foolish, Outworlder!"
"I care about Kotal Kahn, and the Outworld he chose to build, and of myself."
"There will not be an Outworld. No you, if Quan Chi succeeds."
"Tell me then," Skarlet could feel Tanya's breath on her and as she asked for the information, looked around her as though a door would open and the assassins would enter at any moment.
"Have you heard of Argus?"
"The deity?"
"The Father of Armageddon."
"An old Edenian myth."
Tanya reached out to clutch Skarlet's chin and drag her closer, "a myth Quan Chi believes he can make real. Take this seriously, it will save you."
She was pushed back against a massive keg, the sound startled both, and a moment of pause without a single breath from either followed silence and then confidence to continue.
"Quan Chi has no desire to take Outworld from Kotal Kahn. He desires Nothing."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You and I, Kotal Kahn, Outworld, the realms as we know them, and time itself. All of it will cease to exist."
"Quan Chi does not have the power to end time."
"Not now. He seeks the key to unlocking the chain reaction that will lead to Armageddon."
"A key?"
"I do not know where it is, but I do know that someone on this ship does."
"Kotal Kahn?"
"No."
This was a lot to absorb. It was a lot to believe and she wasn't sure if she did. Tanya was not the most trusted ally, but she had served Kotal Kahn well enough in Skarlet's eyes. She would have to validate this information, but had no clue as to how. Still, she had one last question before they would return to the surface, and the watchful eyes of Quan Chi and his assassins.
"How do you know?"
"I lurk."
"Why tell me, for you know I am second in command of this army and would surely tell Kotal Kahn of this treachery."
"Was second in command. Now, and possibly sooner than you think, you are nothing."
The door to the cargo hold breathed vile light into the abyss and a shipmate, human, walked down to retrieve food for the centaurs. Skarlet and Tanya stood, breathless, and still.
This was too much for her. Too much to digest, too much to formulate an immediate response to. Was it true? If Bo Rai' Cho and Li Mei had chosen to travel by ship, she would just ask them, as the old master had close ties to Fujin and Liu Kang, who might know better than even Quan Chi, but unfortunately at the sight of the sorcerer, they chose to travel with the wind, and would not participate in the fight along side the pale sorcerer.
Tanya had indicated there was one person on this ship that held locked the truth inside of them, but who could it be?
The hair crashed down onto the ground like a millions daggers that stabbed away at Goro's flesh with every step through the courtyard of the palace. He was about as certain about his fate as not, and his position still entangled between his loyalty to Kitana, and Shokan. He arched his back and glared up at the blackened clouds that cracked and crushed themselves to bleed those tiny daggers.
Just rain.
Outworld was used to storms. They would come and go, from rainfall to hurricanes, drought and more. This one seemed different, much more ominous, but he shrugged it off.
Soaked to the bone, he slammed the door of his chambers three stories beneath the surface, where most of the Shokan resided. Here were interwoven throughout the palace grounds chambers of stone that almost mirrored his lair on Shang Tsung's island, but so much more decadent. He was more than a prince under Kitana, he was her Prince. Ruler of Outworld should anything befall her, not that he'd ever wish it, but these days, he wondered how he'd handle the same situation she was in.
For years he worked along side General Reiko in Shao Kahn's extermination squads and together they rendered whole realms barren of life. Now Reiko was nothing more than a solider in the army of many, but Goro had risen up in the ranks thanks to Kitana. His loyalty to her matched that toward the Shokan, and to see the two tear him for that loyalty tore him deeper than any sword could.
A knock came at his door, heavy and high up on the wood. A Shokan. He was greeted by one of his generals, one that had seen Outworld before Kitana, and after, just as Goro had. He had a stern look about him and entered once Goro opened the door, then closed it firm behind him. No one needed to hear this conversation.
"You spoke with Kitana?"
"Kitana Kahn, to you, General." Goro corrected him.
The Shokan nodded and tightened his lips, "apologies, commander. I spoke out of turn, but my honor and loyalty to the Shokan, to our people, has a greater hold of me than this Kahn."
"Do you prefer the rule of Shao Kahn? Who treated us like slaves and pawns in his wars?"
Goro glared, and bared his teeth for a moment, sharp like a dragon. The Shokan General nodded and acknowledged this second misstep.
"Forgive me, Commander Goro, Prince Goro."
Goro ignored him to instead slip an open flame from a oiled string to light as many candles around them until the General's face was clear enough to see.
"I did speak with Kitana Kahn, and she assured me that she stands against Ko'atal and is army." Goro turned toward the General as he spoke, he needed to see the Shokan's reaction.
"Is that so?" Disbelief was expected, but also indignation. Curious to Goro that the General would seem upset by this news that the army had so desperately sought.
"What is wrong, General? Not what you had hoped?"
"No, I am glad, it is just that our lives are in her hands, and she flips them so often."
"She does not flip her hands, General." Goro added, "every decision is carefully thought out, with advisement from the council."
"The council? Raiden and the Fire God?"
"As well as myself. The voice of the Shokan."
"So, tell me, Goro, what did your voice say when she chose to submit to Ko'atal?"
Raiden had advised her to bend the knee and swear fealty to Kotal Kahn, and Gore had deeply disagreed. He turned away from the General and stuffed a full chicken into a stone furnace, his eyes and face hidden in the orange light.
The Shokan had heard all he needed and stood tall and proud for the Prince.
"We follow you into battle, Prince Goro."
It took a moment, a few breaths for Goro to turn and pull himself from a sturdy wooden bench to see the General off. The entire Shokan race hinged on those words. They would follow Goro to battle, no matter what choice he made, whether it was the same as Kitana's or not.
The door closed behind the General and Goro returned to the flame. He felt lost in the embers, and his soul shaken within the prison of his mind.
"Ko'atal and Quan Chi will breach the horizon at nightfall. Fujin has assured me that Bo' Rai Cho and Li Mei have chosen not to join the battle." Raiden informed Kitana as he, Liu Kang, Fujin stood around a wooden table with a scroll unfurled with the map of Outworld inked on it.
She took a stone etching of a ship and moved it closer to the shore near the palace.
"Where will they land?" She eyed Fujin for an answer.
"They will likely trike closer to the city," this caused her to move it south toward the streets than north by the palace and coliseum as he responded.
He pointed out the path the storms he had conjured to slow the ship, and the trajectory of the sails would take them.
"Quan Chi would want to cause chaos in the streets. This would likely lure Havok to join the battle as well." Liu Kang chimed in, arms folded, eyes narrowed at the map.
"Not if I contact the Order Realm and seek Hotaru's assistance." Kitana thought aloud.
"Hotaru will not assist us, as Outworld's fate does not phase him in the slightest." Raiden shot it down.
"Fujin, can you sink that ship?" She rephrased that, "would you?"
"I will not engage in combat, Kitana." He explained, "my position is to see a unified Outworld, no matter its leader."
"Why are you here then?" She prodded.
"It is also my position to protect the realms, and Quan Chi poses a greater threat than Kotal Kahn."
"Ko'atal!" She spat.
The tension was broken by Goro's entrance. He could see her distress and approached her quickly. At her side, he could see the position of the ship, the pawns on the board and the faces that laid out on the men around them.
"The Shokan and the Tarkatan will destroy them." He moved the Tarkatan army to the city, and the Shokan by the palace.
"No, Goro." She corrected him and moved them back where she preferred, the Shokan in the city and the Tarkatans by the palace. "The Tarkatan are many, yet the Shokan are stronger, if I had you in the city then it would be easier to blockade them."
Raiden added before Goro could finish his breath, "the Tarkatans would surround anyone that stepped foot in the courtyard, let alone the place walls. It would be too much, even for Ko'atal's Osh Tekk."
"You forget that he has some of Sheeva's forces with him." Goro glared down at the Kahn. "You would pit Shokan against Shokan?"
"Who better to ensure the traitors meet their punishment." Kitana looked up to see the anger within those eyes. She added, a hand on his lower right shoulder, "I trust you more than I did Baraka, which is why you will be in the palace with me."
This seemed to calm him, but she could feel the heat that coursed through his veins. She couldn't linger, war was upon them, and her next turn was toward Liu Kang.
"Will it drain you?"
"No."
She nodded, and a curious glance was shared between Goro and Raiden. Raiden could see answers behind the eyes of the Shokan, but Kitana and Liu refused to respond to him, "what is this?"
A moment of silence before she composed herself enough to turn back to the board.
"Fire." She spat quickly, like a fence to hide from Raiden's inquiry. "Liu Kang will summon fireballs from the sky to fall upon the ship and sea."
Raiden was not pleased with this answer and tightened his posture. He had trained Liu Kang better as a God, but Liu's eyes told a different story than the one Kitana began to explain.
Fujin leaned toward Raiden, and whispered, though he knew Liu Kang could hear, Kitana could not.
"Quan Chi is our only enemy here. You know this."
"Not the only one, but the only one that matters."
Kitana caught the exchange and beckoned their focus.
"We strike as soon as the ship is visible." She felt the intent behind that whisper even though she couldn't hear it. It felt like a spider crawled down her spine and told her she would soon be replaced. That frightened her, but worse, she wanted it.
She needed it.
Kitana felt more insecure about this battle than any before it. She held no resentment for Ko'atal, but she could not let Quan Chi control Outworld. Could she? A large hand gently warmed the soft curve of her left shoulder and she looked to see Goro's gaze back down at her.
He held tight, but gently to her and she knew what must be done in that moment, reflected in the pain of torment of his eyes.
Darkness enveloped her like a heavy shroud, or arms that held her down to the drunken wood of the ship. She couldn't scream, she couldn't move, any thing would tip off Quan Chi to her sins. Thoughts of light that peaked through the pores of her flesh. As the light shined in the darkness, the darkness could never understand it.
Skarlet was free to escape the cargo hold after Tanya had cleared the shadowy underbelly of the ship. There was so much that shrouded her mind with doubt and now the key to armageddon would be found within Kotal Kahn's army. The key to destroying all existence. The pressure was too much on her and the weight of her past did not help as her ribs felt crushed by each breath.
She needed to see Kotal Kahn.
At the surface of the ship, he was nowhere to be seen. Several centaurs and shokan stood in wait as they neared the horizon toward the palace. It was likely that Kotal Kahn was in his quarters, which as it were, was not the Captain's Quarters. That honor went to Quan Chi, per the sorcerer's demands.
Beneath the surface she would find those illustrious quarters and that of the assassins that joined the foul Nether Realm sorcerer, beneath this floor, Kotal Kahn should be found. Beneath that was the level for the crew, the fighters, and individuals like Syzoth and herself.
The long hall that stretched from nearly one end of the ship to the other was vacant and poorly lit. Near burnt-out torches rested in low cinders to guide her quietly down three doors to the left and right. Kotal Kahn would be the fourth on the right. Third biggest quarter on the ship, per Quan Chi's orders.
She stopped a moment as a knock and a clang clocked the wood of the ship like the sea had bashed a sword against it, but it was just the metal and heavy steps of Kotal Kahn in his room. It sounded to her as though he had begun preparation for the battle. She had lost track of time, but knew it would not come for at least another night.
Her fingers, bare of the black leather gloves that normally stretched up to her shoulders that would also dampen the noise of bone on wood, tapped gently against it. Kotal Kahn would hear it even underneath his armor that clicked and clacked as he moved.
The door opened and Skarlet peeled herself from the wall to pay deference and beg for a moment of his time, but instead Kia, the assassin beneath Quan Chi had greeted her.
"Explain yourself, girl." Kia was dressed in leather armor from a single pauldron carved with Quan Chi's symbol above one she could not recognize, down to brown carved bracers, grieves, and boots. She was prepared for war much as Kotal Kahn was inside. No one told her battle was imminent and to prepare immediately.
"She is second in command to my army, you would have respect for her." Kotal Kahn growled from inside the room Kia hid from the intruder.
Kia did not like that, her face scowled and wrinkled and her eyes narrowed to find Skarlet in the dim light.
"Quan Chi will not be pleased to know a low ranking officer has travelled above her station."
"He will not be pleased to find your body empty of it's life's blood." Skarlet returned. She tracked her right side from rib to rib to hip to a vial of blood she had kept just to beyond her dagger, a gift from one of the dead during the village raids.
She was adorned in near similar colors as Skarlet's armor, black and red, but the traces of brown masked her in these halls in the dim light. Kia's hair was as dark as night and black, dagger-like markings stretched up and down her face from jaw-line to cheek bones and forehead to the bridge of her nose. The outlines of her facial features, nose, mouth, eyes, all emphasized in the dim light like a her flesh had been sucked into a jagged void.
Her eyes narrowed tighter down at Skarlet and she bared unnaturally white teeth with small pointed ends like that of a beast. She took a step forward to abandon her post at the door and to show her size difference to Kotal Kahn's second in command. A foot of difference, but Skarlet paid it no mind, which only served to raise the ire of Kia.
"Do you know what it is like to be raised in hell itself, little girl?" She pondered, the answers never to be found in the skull of her enemy.
"No," Skarlet admitted, "but you'll find out what it's like to be tortured for eternity there when I send you back."
"Quan Chi will here of this." She used that as some threat, but Skarlet could not feel the edges of her fangs as they tried desperately to sink in.
"Enough. What business do you have Skarlet?" Kotal Kahn broke through between them and immediately the two took a step back.
Skarlet expelled the hot air within her and glared up at Kotal Kahn, "my business is with my Kahn, not a pale, pathetic sorcerer."
"Then enter, I will hear what you have to say." He seemed distant, peeled from the two as though he no longer cared if they struck one another. His back turned and his body cleared of them, Kia crunched her teeth into her lips and passed Skarlet with haste, no doubt, the blood mage thought, to inform Quan Chi.
Once alone, Skarlet entered and closed the door, and the gap between them.
"I have been made to feel like a fool, a peasant in this army I helped create."
"You are my second in command, Skarlet, and that will not change."
"Feels as though it has."
"Have you only come to complain?"
"No, Kotal Kahn, I want to understand Quan Chi's role in all of this. Why you pay a frail man deference."
"He is no fragile man."
"No," she spat, "he only controls the Kahn of Outworld."
Kotal Kahn could not respond to this. Though he stared through her to find some sense of higher ground above this statement, it was completely true. Instead he folded his arms and responded, "so you wish to leave my army?"
"No, Ko'atal," her voice almost as soft as Jades if not for her stone-like dialect, "I want to know that the Kahn I chose to follow, the Kahn I know who desires a One Outworld, is still that man."
This was a good question, and one he refused to answer. Though she did not pose it as one, the question played over in his mind from the moment he opened his eyes to the second they closed day in and day out. Somewhere buried within him was that man, but since the Spirit Walk he had been unable to let himself out.
In response, instead of the honesty she had hoped, he stood his ground, tightened his arms against his chest and let his stern features bore into her soul.
"I would follow that man to my death." She could see the prison gate he had put up, but not the answers that begged for release behind them.
"Get ready for battle, we strike now." The jagged spires of his teeth held the prison tight and only allowed stale air to reach her in the form of battle orders that sounded deep, but hollow of the Kahn she knew.
This caught her off guard. Though she had seen Quan Chi in his armor, Kotal Kahn now in his, and even Kia dressed, there was no one to tell her they had reached close enough to invade. One look out the small port window would tell her they hadn't for all she could see was bitter ocean.
The longer her eyes lingered on that port window, what she thought was just rain against the skin of the sea, was water being pulled from it.
She moved past Kotal Kahn to look outside and the sea began to swell like a cyst ready to burst with salt, foam, and thousands of pounds of pressure. It all carved across the surface of the ocean into a rogue tsunami. She rushed out of the quarter and pulled herself onto the deck. Behind her, nothing, ahead by the mast, Rain stood alongside Quan Chi and his two assassins.
The Edenian had reached into the depths of his being to pull forth the energy strong enough to carve out a wound so deep that the sea would lash out against anything in front of it. The tsunami would reach the city beyond the palace and drown all that dared to stay.
"It has begun!" Quan Chi bellowed with pride as the beast around them lunged forth toward the horizon.
Rain collapsed to his knees. The took each side of him as Quan Chi stepped forward to watch the mountain move across the sea. The sun itself hid from the raw power displayed by the Edenian, and the light hid from the darkness, damaged beyond repair.
Skarlet watched the horizon swell, and her heart pounded. For her, for the innocents on land, and all who watched Quan Chi drunk with the power of those leeched from, she realized in this fragile moment that there was no escape, and no going back.