His knuckles connected with her wrist, the bruise hidden in the darkness as it expanded from bone to flesh. She pushed back and forced him into the rusted bars behind him and the darkness encompassed them.
Johnny's knee lifted and his boot pressed into her stomach, the bars stiff and ready to assist him to launch Sonya back across the tight hall. At the dim edge of light he could see her feet against the bars and another pair beyond her, locked behind the cell.
He had her, he knew it. The woman Kano sought to destroy, now his target. He raised his fists, ready to fight, ready to strike her as she adjusted into a left stance and advanced with a step drag toward him.
His body knew the moves, and followed the motion, but his neck was stuck at the bars. A slender arm reached around to close in on his throat and hold him in place.
Sonya pulled away as Johnny was forced against the cells. She lifted the flashlight and revealed to him the prisoner Kitana had him in a tight, surprisingly strong grasp.
"Enough, Johnny Cage." She commanded in his ear.
He struggled. When he thought he had her arm off his windpipe, another pair of hands reached out to grab his.
"Don't move!" The woman behind him warned. "She'll bite your arm off."
His eyes locked with Sonya's and hers on his as the light tilted to her right. Kitana released just enough to let him have a painful crook of his neck to get only the slightest glance at the ragged jaws that jaws that hovered under and above his flesh. He could feel the hot breath, the moisture drip, and the hunger that bellowed from the prisoner, but her eyes shined like an animal's in the light. He could not pierce through them to see the human behind them, only the monster that held him.
"Don't!" He begged.
His eyes met Sonya's, then beyond to the broken old man in the cell that glared back at him with the crooked smile. He enjoyed the sight of his suffering, he could see it in those old, withered eyes.
He could feel the breath of another, the soft, but commanding voice of the woman that held him edge her lips close to his ears. Her eyes on Sonya as well.
"Who is she to you?" Kitana asked, her voice a whisper, but echoed deep into him.
"Kano's murderer." He responded, the muscles in his arm tense as the monster held him tighter and the time bomb of her fangs ticked away as they edged closer.
"You're Kano's lackey?" Sonya asked.
Kitana and Shang Tsung shared a glance. Through the light and the darkness, they could see the riddle plague through the space between them. Only one could see an answer to this explosive situation.
"He means to kill you, Sonya Blade." Shang Tsung reached out to her with his voice. "He cannot be trusted now."
"Now, wait a minute!" Johnny pleaded, he knew they had control. If only he could get free. "Let's talk this out."
"You're better than this." Kitana tightened her grip, her arm lower, but his body pressed tighter to the bars.
"Than what?" He tried to look back, to catch her eye with his. "Who even are you, lady?"
"This isn't who you are, Johnny." She responded, but not to his question. "Either of you."
"I know who I am." Sonya spat.
"Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage, together again at last. What a sight to behold," Shang Tsung added, "but our time is running out. Let them fight, Kitana, he is not the same person you knew."
She glared back through the darkness, into the eyes of the sorcerer she knew stared back. Sonya tightened her stance, the flashlight readied as her only weapon against him should he be freed.
Kitana leaned into him, her lips against his ear, and whispered only to him, "what has Quan Chi offered you?"
He stood still. His body unable to move as the threat of dismemberment crept up the smooth curves of his arm and the eyes of the woman across from him, cold, apathetic toward his fate stared on and waited for the response.
In that moment he couldn't remember. He wasn't sure if it was even a real moment. Had any of this been?
He wasn't sure what he wanted, nor if any offer would be worth the prize of his destruction at the hands of the grotesque woman that threatened to devour him, and the other ready to choke him into the rust of the their own prison cells.
"The Black Dragon." He let out in a weak breath, but Kitana only choked him harder.
"Anyone with a dick the size of a pea could run the Black Dragon, what does Quan Chi have on you, the famous actor Johnny Cage." She hissed into his ear and the words struck him like lightning.
"How do you know me?" He tried to turn, but she kept him locked in place.
"I am Kitana, Edenian Royality, former Kahnum of Outworld, former deity of the realms, of course I know you." She added, "Quan Chi, whatever he is promising is a lie."
"With the death of Kano," he played devil's advocate, "I have been given the Black Dragon. Then after becoming champion of Mortal Kombat, I will have the power, fame and fortune he promised."
"No man or woman alive has ever become champion of Mortal Kombat since Quan Chi perverted the tournament."
She felt his pulse in his neck, the fear in him rise as he spoke, "he'll kill me if I turn on him." He paused, she let go for a moment so he could turn toward her finally, his arms freed. "I have no power here."
She took a hard look at him. This was not the Johnny Cage she knew. Lines wore across him of trouble rather than arrogance. He had killed to survive before having ever stepped foot on this island. She could see the fear in him, not of death, but of himself.
Kitana reached out with a hand, cold, but gentle and touched his cheek. A soft caress down to his chin where she leaned him to get a better look, so he could look better at her as well.
"He's done this to you, Johnny." She brought him closer, the glisten of her eyes pale in the flashlight's dim aura. "Let me go, and I will save you."
"They'll find out." He hesitated and pulled back.
"Chances are," Shang Tsung chimed in, "he already knows."
"I know you." She took his eyes again, "I know what you can become. Just listen to me, just this once."
Sonya watched as the two stood in a long dark pause. As the air stiffened and grew stale in the heat of their breath, a click echoed through the dark, rusted hall and the cage door slowly tilted outward.
"There are guards in the tunnels." He warned her.
"There's more than that." Shang Tsung added.
"I know these tunnels better than anyone." Kitana stared back at Shang Tsung, of whom could not escape with them.
"Beg to differ, Princess."
Free from their confines, Kitana looked down the hewn stone halls of the cells that once lead to great fire and death traps that could kill any foolish adventurer. She turned to Sonya, a nod, then to Johnny.
"Take Sonya with you, it will look good to have caught her trying to escape." She suggested, though Sonya did not appreciate the gesture. "Quan Chi will not kill you."
Unsure about such assurances, Sonya looked to Shang Tsung who nodded. Mileena, who anywhere other than her jaw looked like the perfect replica of Kitana climbed from her cell for the first time in far too many years to count. She stretched, just Kitana did, and closed the door behind them.
"I owe you, Johnny Cage." Kitana smiled and took Mileena by the hand to escape into the shadows of the tunnels.