The island was a temple of ruins. Which ever turn she took, or hall she travelled along there were whispers, cracks, and rubble to ignore. She had already heard of several combatants that had gone mad when lost in the spires. Jax and Stryker had attended one of the episodes and described that the robed figures had carried the wailing off to be silenced. No ship sailed that day, no more screams heard that she had heard once before.
The hewn stone tunnels carved through the mountains spires, but she had already memorized the path to her chamber, where Jax and Stryker waited for her. The first round seemed lackluster to her, almost like the an useless display of bravado than a war for the realms as Raiden had described to her. The second round would occur in the next two days, as told by the robed figures, but she wasn't going to wait.
"I'm going to look for Kano." She told Jax and Stryker, who had agreed to back her up, but that they would take separate paths, figure out the channels within the spires should either of them get lost, or go mad.
The main spire was claimed by Sonya, it held the dining hall and seventy other chambers above and below. It was the most frequented by the Naknada, and the men that followed Quan Chi. The men looked almost like Egyptian's in their style and colors. Their skin as deeply shaded as them, but they were adorned with symbols she did not recognize as Egyptian, but had seen worn on withered sorcerer. When she'd pass them, they'd only stare, their mouths covered by cloth, their eyes judged her every step.
Near the lowest level, where the great dining hall welcomed her with the aromas of roasted beasts and food of all kinds, she found a corner of tunnel that was covered in old webbing. Never travelled, and as wide as a single body. It seemed to carve just above the floor where the hall was and she took a risk to travel through.
Twists, turns, jagged stone, and a dressing of cob webs, the roughly hewn path seemed to take her up and down, and never once opened up or met with another path until she neared a dimly lit flicker that watched her round the corner.
It had to be a sconce light that reached out from the vaulted ceiling of the dining hall. She moved forward and the closer she got, the flicker brightened. When she rounded the corner the hall extended further, but the cool blue darkness and the webbing that now adorned her flesh had given way to a long stretch of dim light that pulsed with each step forward.
As she moved forward, one step at a time, she could just make out the carved opening at the furthest edge of this path and froze as though someone had clutched her heart when a voice echoed down the channel.
"Aye mate, you see the fights today?" She recognized this voice as Kano's.
"No." She didn't recognize the one that met his.
"Too busy fucking your chamber slave?" Kano laughed, but there was silence in response.
She lurched forward, one hand on the gun that stuck her fingers with webbing thick enough to wear as clothing. No use. She wouldn't be able to pull it free and instead continued slowly along the hewn tunnel until a meter from the opening.
The channel turned into a forgotten balcony that overlooked the dining hall. It was blocked by several rotted wooden planks that would have once served as framework for the ceiling to look more prestigious than some stone cave.
Ahead of her, about a meter, large metal chandeliers hung three in a row. The metal bolted to the stone ceiling. She looked over the edge where a wooden rail had rotted away and saw Kano sat at the head of the center table, wooden and metal bowls and plates all at the edge for him to reach for and gorge on the food left over from that night's meal.
On the right of him, three chairs down, another man sat and listened to Kano's insufferable grunts and suckles of food and meat. The gurgle of words between chews and the loud gulps of beer in between. The man was dressed similar to Kano, white tank, black jeans and combat boots. The Black Dragon logo in black on the back of his top.
"So, So, Quan Chi tells me he's got plans for ya'!" Kano chewed and spat.
"I keep hearing that." The other man turned fully toward Kano and leaned back in his chair, which forced Sonya to step back and hunch.
She had cover with the chandelier and ruined barrier, but she couldn't watch. She knelt to one knee and began to slowly wipe away the webbing from her gun as they continued.
"Personally, I've got plans for ya'. Need a new mate, ya know! Yer not half bad." Kano added, "Sub-Zero's taken a liking too. Maybe fix ya' up with something robotic and the two of us can run this operation."
"End up looking like you? No thanks." Kano didn't like this response and she could hear him spit out a thick mouthful of food.
"The fuck you just say?"
As the weapon slid from its holster, she heard the hiss of fabric and metal echo. The voices continued, louder, arguing and disgruntled. Her trigger finger rested horizontal above the trigger, not ready to shoot. She pressed her free hand against the stone and began to slowly lean over.
"Listen, ya' dirty shit, you do as I tell ya' and you'll get what you want, but don't ya' fuck around with me!" She could hear Kano's anger flared and bounce off the stone walls. Sonya could see the back of his head, the gleam of metal and the face of the man that argued with him. His fingers clenched and toyed with black shades on the table, not a single plate near him, save for those thrown by Kano.
To her left, the tunnel rounded back where she came, the floor above the hall was far from the staircase, but there were guards stations all over. To her right, more cobwebs and a winding, forgotten path.
Take the risk?
Her finger gently touched the trigger and her sights focused on Kano, right between the ears. The man looked up, took her breath with him as she pulled back and hunched further, almost completely on the ground. A moment played out and silence fell over the dining hall. When she heard the sucking and gulping of the pig Kano, she returned to her spot and slowly edged forward to refocus her sights.
Click.
Loaded and ready she leaned further and found Kano still in his chair, oblivious.
She could hear her father's voice warn her not to pull the trigger. She could see his lifeless body tell her otherwise. The sound of the building crumbled around them, and screams of officers caught in the wreck. The moment she realized the informant had played her like a fiddle, and the second she realized they had her family.
"Motherfucker." She whispered deep under her breath.
BANG!
The man stood up fast, the blood instantly splattered across the dining table and the skull burst with an ugly hole spat through it. He called for the guards, spotted Sonya, and she darted for it.
Cage looked down at the red eye as it slowly flickered and faded. In seconds the hall was flooded with human guards wielding daggers and staffs, but when he pointed in her direction, the assassin was gone.
She raced, raced at the beat of her heart as it bounced off the jagged walls of this poorly hewn path. It closed in on her, only a meter wide now and twisted upward. The webbing was thicker, the dust coated her lungs, but she had to move.
She could hear the commotion far behind her and the stomping that followed her on the second level. She wasn't sure if they would find how she had gotten to the overhang, but it didn't matter, she needed to follow this through.
Further, faster, but the walls began to cave in and the jagged stone cut and scraped at her like claws that swatted at her every move. Finally it reached a point she could go no further, a dead end and jagged stone that reached out for her the size of fists threatened to hold her in place. She looked around and could feel the army looking for her far behind. Eventually they would find her, but she would go mad well before they find her.
She tried to turn back around, to see if she could wait out the storm by the ledge, but to turn her body was harder than she thought. Sonya realized she had been trapped and stopped herself. There had to be a way out.
Through the darkness a voice called. A hand reached down, but when she reached up to feel what she believed was another person, she felt only stone. She pulled away and looked up.
Nothing.
"My beautiful Sonya." The voice of the man in the white room trickled down those fist-like stones jutted out from the thin tunnel.
She couldn't see. Couldn't move forward or back, but she had reached up. She inhaled deeply and let the gun fall from her grip so she could climb.
"Climb." He reached out to her.
She slowly ascended, one step at a time until the darkness became a dull candlelit opening. Small openings that allowed light through let her see that she had begun to climb the spire further and further up until the the walls began to dent inward and she was no longer moving up, but at a diagonal.
She had no clue how long she had climbed for nor realized her blood had already caked onto her flesh and clothes by the time she reached an opening through the spire that revealed the third one close ahead.
There was no way across.
"Jump, my dear." The voice assured.
"Fuck!" She dared not.
"I will expel the last of my energy to help you, but you must let go."
She couldn't explain the voice, couldn't explain how she had ended up here to begin with. The madness crept into her and she wondered if this is how the others felt before they were whisked away.
With no direction left to go, she let one for move in front of the other and gravity take its course.