Thirty thousand feet above the planet and he couldn't escape his head. He sat back in as little comfort as possible and let his eyes wander between the disfigured man and the painted sorcerer.
Not days ago he was a man that was on the way back to Los Angeles to sign a deal for a new film. The sun that shined down with a smile upon him and the clouds that parted ways for his. Women bent when he was rigid, and the people reached out when he'd walk on their drool like water.
Every breath, hallelujah.
Threatened by the weight of normality and desperation, he couldn't foresee himself with the plastic of mundanity suffocate him like the people he stepped over. No money, no love, no identity. Just a human that walks the Earth like everyone else until they die. He couldn't do that.
Every breath, just getting through it.
The world is filled with a secret whisper that beyond all the hard work you do, the bleeding and the crying too, all of it just something temporary. He didn't believe in that. If you could look on the fake hills of Hollywood down at society, you're no less human, but that human struggle is less so.
He looked out the window of the plane at the mourners, little vacant dots he could pretend were ants the sunlight would burn away from the surface. Above it all, he would survive that burn, that scorched Earth. On this fake hill.
Now every breath, hell-for-you-all.
Back at the red eye and into the sunken sockets of Quan Chi, he took in the foul odor of both men, including himself. He realized that despite the desperation, this was no saving grace, but slavery through a better lens.
"What do we do?" He asked, unsure of the gate he passed through to escape broken humanity.
With his good eye, the disfigured man glared through Johnny. The blood of the fallen gang member pooled from the door and the man was not pleased. Knife in hand, twirled and toyed with, he kept his eye on the newcomer.
Quan Chi, strange name for a strange guy, bore into Johnny with those skull traced eyes and twisted the right corner of his lip, tempted to speak truth, tempted to lie, tempted to say nothing at all.
He chose to speak, "I have seen the future." He added after Johnny tried to crack at him, "yours. Mine, and events that unfold, up to a point."
"You can see the future?" Johnny pondered.
"Saw it, not see it. The future is never set in stone, but I have seen events unfold that lead me to believe you are the seed that becomes the most important key to it al."
With a sudden breath, disbelief.
"Tell me, what do I do?"
"Save the realms."
"The realms? This all a big game of dungeons and dragons?"
Kano liked that, but he kept quiet.
"Mortal Kombat, the great tournament held once every generation. It's what binds the realms together, or destroys them. I have foreseen something else exists that does that with the power of a God."
"There is no God."
"What makes you think that?" Kano intervened.
"Why would an all loving, knowing, and omniscient deity allow such death, horror, and destruction among the innocent and evil so apathetically?"
"An evil God." Quan Chi added.
"That would assume that he acted out on those urges. The world would be worse, wouldn't it?" He let that hang, and added, "instead we have this boring, harsh, apathetic world that doesn't care if you're a billionaire or penniless, saint or sinner. Innocent or evil, it's just the world we live on, and there's no point to it."
"Grim, nihilistic, pathetic." The sorcerer commented.
"Reality. I enjoyed life by staying on top, but that doesn't mean I couldn't smell the shit on my shoes."
"Well," Quan Chi took in a deep breath and glared, annoyed. He knew better, and and needed Johnny to know as much. "You're a fool. A child that has yet to really understand reality for what it is."
Johnny sat back and watched the two stare. Quan Chi took that moment to prove it.
"The gang will get there on time, let me show you what I have in store for you both."
His fingers crunched and curled, arms moved and danced in slow circles until a green light surrounded them and blinded them.
When the ugly world filtered through his eyes he could only see darkness. The grim grey of the sea and the dark clouds above it. There was no land in sight.
He turned, Quan Chi and disfigured man emerged beside him on an old ship. Every step was a crack in the wood that sounded and felt as though they'd fall through. At the head, he saw the shape of a dragon guide the ship along, but the entirety of it escaped him.
"Where are we?" He saw raised levels with doors and a metal grate that overlooked the lower level where men in heavy wrappings passed by with large barrels and boxes.
Quan Chi looked out to the sea, gazed up at the black clouds and watched as the sky cracked and cackled. He snickered and turned, the look on Johnny's face of horror and awe was worth the pain that stretched through his body from the spell that had drained him.
"The wormhole to Earth Realm. The abyss. The nothing between the realms." He answered, as Johnny moved forward with Kano to observe their surroundings.
"This ship will take us to my island where the Mortal Kombat tournament will take place. There, Johnny Cage, you will carve out the future I had foreseen for you. It's why I chose you."
"Something more than human?" He looked back into those sunken eyes.
"You were always destined for greatness." Quan Chi took his shoulder and watched the eyes of a man that finally believed.