Sonya gazed out beyond the bowsprit dragon. The sea darkened the further she tried to peer into it and the dock seemed grayer with each glance. Along the main deck she found peace between the large wooden barrels and crates covered in fishing nets and old ragged cloth. She pressed herself back against a stack of wooden crates and unclipped her radio.

Hiss!

"Jax, you seeing this?"

Psst.

Hiss!

"Jax here! Yes, I am. What the hell, Sonya?"

Hiss!
He tried to peer beyond the docks for her team. As soon as she had found time alone away from Raiden, she was able to radio in. She scanned the ship again, only a few stray travelers still boarded and others seemed down climb down to where their rooms awaited.

"Kano is on this ship, I know it."

"You brought us across the world on a hunch?"

"No, but you're not going to believe why."

"I saw man spontaneous combust in front of me, I'm open to things."

Hiss!

"Sonya, this is lieutenant Stryker, we are about to board the ship."

"Raiden said it undocks at O-One-Hundred hours."

"We got some time."

"I'm going to see if I can find Kano and get off this ship before then, if I don't radio you in thirty minutes, come for me."

"Got it. Jax out."

"Get that piece of shit, Sonya. Stryker out."

Krsch!

She clipped the black metal box of a radio back onto her right hip strap and let her gun feel the warmth of her hand, ready to pull at any given moment.

From bowsprit, past the main deck and mast, toward the door jammed by Quan Chi, Sonya travelled slow and remained hidden when able, and normal when other passengers from the docks boarded crates and barrels for the travel. She was welcomed on the ship, she knew that, but if she were to find Kano, she'd have to be stealthy about it and go where she had been told not to.

The door was warm on the handle, the costumed freak, as she had thought of him as, hadn't even touched it. She remembered it looked like burning embers has emerged from the depths of the staircase beyond the door, which might mean an engine room, but she wasn't sure.

She had to get in.

Had to know where this lead.

Had to find Kano.

With a hard kick after a careful scan of her surroundings, Sonya was able to bust the old door loose and it swung, broken, inward. It had come off the lower hinge, but she caught it before the wood would smack against the wall. She needed to be quiet now, as much as possible as she had no clue where this staircase would take her, only that she was not welcome in this particular part of the ship.

That meant Kano.

In the darkness she refused to turn on her light. She had now clue how far the staircase took, or even if there was a broken step she'd need to be careful for. What little moonlight the darkened clouds let peer through this hollow crack in the ship, she was thankful for, but sixty feet in, it was pitch black.

She felt one with the shadow. Slow, quiet and let it channel her deeper until each shallow step brought her closer and closer to a dim light that seemed to have taken her two levels beneath the main deck.

There was a fire down a long stretch of wooden hall. There were doors, open and closed both in the hall that segmented with the ship and on each side. She hugged the darkest side of the hall, the left, and slowly crept toward the nearest door. She peered across to see if there had been a label stamped, etched, or placed on the door. Nothing.

She couldn't test them blindly.

Not without her gun in hand.

She took it slowly from its holster and held it in both hands, steady, sturdy, and careful. She let her arm guide her across the first door on the left until she felt the knob and leaned carefully against the old wood and listened.

Silence.

Nothing.

She'd have to come back for the other, as the hall had arches that allowed her to hide and hug the side without being seen beyond a certain open stretch. There were two doors in each stretch on each side. She moved past the first and onto the second and again leaned, waited, and listened.

Silence.

Nothing again.

She cursed under her breath and turned toward the right side. With two quick step drags she was on the other side. Five feet across, not far, but with the old creaks in the wood to follow her movement, she silence was of the essence if she were to catch Kano off guard, or at all.

Second door in on the right, she grew bold. Her left hand parted from the gun and slowly reached for the wooden knob. She listened first and when a moment passed with no sound, she turned the knob and let it quickly open as quietly as possible. The barrel of her gun aimed head level straight into the empty room, right toward an open porthole window.

It was a bedroom.

Inside the small room, about ten-by-ten feet there was a wooden bed with a thin mattress under the porthole and a desk to her immediate right. On the desk she noticed black wiring, tools and metal casings. This was not the tools for a weapon, but something that looked like a mechanical, or electrical project. Underneath the desk were two black and slate-blue crates of metal make. A symbol on both she did not understand, but looked like the Chinese markings she'd seen around Hong Kong.

She scrutinized it further to find a small design beneath the Chinese characters. An upside-down triangle inside of what looked like three blades, or a circle with three respective recesses to create three blades that jutted out from each straight line. She committed it to memory, but all the same, she realized this was not a room of interest to her.

She watched her breath turn icy cold as she slowly emerged from the room and tucked the door back shut with as little sound as possible. Inside the hall, it seemed unnaturally warm, or perhaps that room was unnaturally cold. She had only just noticed, but had no time to question and moved on.

Past the first door in the hall there was another row of four doors. Two on each side and all of them closed. Then beyond that the next hall door was slightly ajar and seemed to turn into another downward, spiral staircase.

As her feet quietly carried her toward that door, she heard movement and the cracking of old wood being knocked and bent by heavy boots. She had no where to go without having to force open a door and hope it was as empty as the first she entered.

She waited.

Her body straight and lined against the arch that jutted into the hall and gave her only enough cover to make the first shot point-blank.

After three seconds, she heard nothing.

It seemed to take forever for her to move as the sound had dissipated as fast as it had caught her attention. She let a breath out, and noticed sweat had begun to roll from her forehead and arms. Her breath was thick and the room began to heat up. That staircase had to lead to the engine room, but the ship showed no exterior sign of needing one.

She chose to abandon the mission, not for Kano, but for the journey down that hall.

With her next step toward the exit back to the main deck, she heard the rattle of chain, like a snack that hissed when startled. She moved quick and precise, and once half way toward the winding steps up, she heard a loud chain thud and crack against the wood of the hall and reel back up like the anchor was being pulled up grip by grip.

She turned. The dim firelight of the small candles that adorned the walls just above the doors burned brighter than she thought possible. The heat from the candles melted the wax quick. She caught a glimpse of that bright ember presence she had seen when the door opened and the man adorned in that old ninja getup.

From a distance she couldn't see his eyes, or much of him aside from the gleam of a metallic point that raced toward her as a deep voice echoed through the hall like a chamber in a dungeon.

"Get over here!"

She shot a round off at the chain and watched it bounce to the side. He reeled it back in with near lightning speed and prepared to send it off again.

"Motherfucker!" She shot a round off at the ninja, between the eyes.

When the flash subsided he was gone. The bullet struck wood on the other end and she turned quickly toward the unbearable heat behind her to find him with a high kick toward her gut to slam her into the wall between the doors on the left. She shot off another round and struck him in the gut, but the shot did not stop him.

She heard Raiden's words echo through her when she had tried to do the same to him. The gun was useless here.

She shoved it back in the holster and raised her fists as he swung with the chained spear to strike her head. She ducked and grappled the chain to pull him in like a fish then kneed the costumed freak in the chest, a right haymaker to the cheek bone and then he dragged her by the arm she had linked with the chain to slam into the other side of the hall.

She ducked under a straight punch and untangled herself. Quickly, Sonya fled to the staircase that lead up as she heard commotion at the top, but the man was fast on her and before she could reach the top, he kicked her back down. All she saw was a glimmer of burning light before his boot met her face.

Pain trickled down her spine, her shoulders burned with the blunt trauma as she slammed against the floor after a quick tumble down splintered steps. She turned onto her back and looked up as the man slowly stalked toward his prey.

She ignored the warning and aimed her gun between the eyes.

"One more step and I'll blow your brains out!"

His eyes narrowed. She noticed there was nothing in them. White, almost dead.

She could barely breath and each breath was more labored than the last. This tense moment caught her off guard when she noticed that suddenly each breath was becoming colder and crisper and the air around them revealed just how thick and labored her breathing had been, but his? Nothing.

The ninja faded upward into the shadow as a cool draft overtook Sonya from behind. It was like the arctic itself breathed over her shoulders and down her crooked body.

She turned back on all fours and pulled herself up as best she could to race up the staircase toward the surface. There, the air was foggy and warm like the night had been before this whole mess. She watched a crowd surround Jax and Stryker. They had soared the ship, guns ready and a team on the dock ready behind them.

Raiden was there to extend a hand for her when she needed help to stand.

"I can see you don't listen." He looked down at her, but he was amused, not upset. She didn't care much either way.

"Get off me!" She pushed forward and broke the crowd.

In the center, just before the ramp as it slowly began to raise, Quan Chi and the ninja known as Scorpion stood before Stryker and Jax.

"You dare board my ship without my permission?" Quan Chi glared, stepped forward, Jax and Stryker aimed precisely for him.

He gave them a wry smile.

"Those will not help you here." Raiden intervened. He appeared within the circle, behind Jax. "I have invited them to fight for Earth Realm, they're late."

"We're here for Sonya." Jax disagreed.

"Sonya is not leaving anywhere, and neither are the two of you." The sorcerer noticed her intrusion into the circle and turned toward her.

"On my ship, I am the law. On my island, Mortal Kombat is the only law you must obey. Any more outbursts and I will see to it none of you make it there."

"You wouldn't dare." Raiden spat.

"Let them come." He turned to Jax and Stryker, "they and all the Black Dragon on this ship mean nothing to me." Those deep sunken eyes met Sonya and he smiled, thin, worm-like, and spoke only to her. "Getting you to my island is all that matters to me, Sonya Blade."

She spat at him.

Scorpion stepped forward, but dared not step beyond Quan Chi.

"Behave, Sonya, and I'll give you what you want."

"I want Kano."

He smiled and backed out of the circle. Scorpion, still, lifeless dissipated in a burning flame that caught the two officers off guard, as well as all the others that suddenly stepped back from the circle.

Raiden approached her once Stryker and Jax cleared him and seemed to move past her, almost ignored her with his conical hat aimed down toward his feet. He stopped at her shoulder and she could feel the whisper of his voice trickle down the holes of her ears and a static chill bumped her flesh, and chilled her bones.

"You have no idea what you've done."

"I don't give a shit."

"You will."

He parted through the crowd and she caught the stares of Kung Lao and Liu Kang amongst the many faces that watched her. Jax and Stryker stared at her, the ramp now clear from the docks and the ship now set to sail.

There was no going back.