They clawed for solid ground, pooled around each other like they had known each other for so long, and in a moment would have to let go. Bundled like survivors out in the cold, Raiden's snowcap conical hat tilted down as he pondered their next move. All eyes on him, Liu Kang at his right, Kung Lao to his left. Nightwolf stood across from the Thunder God, but his eyes were on Liu Kang.
As the air in the stone hewn chamber meant for the earth realmers to sleep in, not congregate in such numbers, the air thickened and staled with each breath. Liu could inhale the cold intentions behind Nightwolf's eyes and as his chest rose to fill his lungs with that thick, ugly air, he couldn't stand it any longer and finally let it go.
"What is it?" Liu cast a glare back, but held back any cold words he felt peer beyond the valleys of his maw.
All eyes on Nightwolf.
"You are not who you think you are." He responded, eyes never strayed.
"I'm pretty sure I know who I am, and I don't need someone else to tell me." Liu spat.
"Your spirit is torn in half."
Raiden raised the brim of his at and looked deep into Liu's flesh, his eyes, the window to his soul.
"Fascinating." He pondered just above his breath. "How did I not see this?"
"You're too close to him, to all of them." Nightwolf gazed around until Johnny Cage stepped forward.
"Who the hell are any of you?" He added, "I brought this chick back to you out of the kindness of my heart and instead of getting off this island, we're what, going to talk and drink beer?"
"Chick?" Sonya narrowed her sights, Stryker beside her and visibly uncomfortable with the idea Jax wasn't.
"Out of the kindness of your heart? You who runs with Kano and the Black Dragon?" Stryker spat.
"A minion of Quan Chi and Kotal Kahn." Kung Lao added to the pile of shame.
"I'm just–" Johnny was cut off by Raiden
"A pawn in this game Quan Chi is playing with all of us." He continued, "he did not mean to respect this ancient custom of Mortal Kombat, but to weed us out and snuff out the defenders Earth Realm."
"Not Earth Realm." Nightwolf injected a different perspective, "competition."
"Okay, who the fuck is this guy? Do you need to go back to the reservation?" Johnny stepped forward, Nightwolf met him.
"Racism is not an appropriate response to ignorance, Ninja Mime." Kung Lao cut the distance between them and interjected himself between the two.
Johnny stepped back, his shoulders pressed against the thick wood door and the knock pressed at his ribs.
Raiden could taste the tension in the room, the static electricity that built between them all. One thing at a time, he felt, and turned to Liu Kang.
"He is right, your spirit has been torn in two, and you are not wholly you." He tried to explain, but in his head, pondered when it was that Liu Kang had done this. Was it on the table, dying beneath Kitana before Outworld fell to Kotal Kahn, or before then?
"How could that be? I've been this way for all of my life." Liu Kang couldn't understand.
"This life." Raiden's breath betrayed him, but the words had not been caught and fell flat upon the floor. This reminded him of that brittle, shattered moment when Quan Chi had referred to him as the keeper of time.
How could he know?
"Cage, tell me how this all happened?" Raiden singled out Johnny and allowed only the two of them to speak.
"How far back we talking?" Cage was clueless. Time was infinite and this man wished to pick a moment out of a hat?
"From when you found Sonya to the battle on the beach." Raiden urged him forward.
He eyed the blonde across from him, "I was hunting her, but also looking for something else in the underground cells."
"What were you looking for?"
"I don't really remember, but I found the chick here and we had a long chat."
"I kicked his ass." She added.
"She kicked my ass." He admitted, but continued, "but I realized I'd been strung along this entire time by Quan Chi, I just, I don't know, felt like maybe there was just something I needed to do."
"What did he offer you?" Raiden pondered, but he knew Quan Chi's usual pandering.
"Money, fame, women, the entirety of the Black Dragon, you name it."
"Shit, and you turned that down?" Stryker pondered.
"No." Cage snickered, "I realized this entire time I've been turning myself down. This strange thought just crept into my head that all of this should be different. Can't explain it."
"He was held against his will to let two prisoners go." Sonya deduced his feelings to the actions that had transpired.
"Two prisoners?" Raiden turned away from Cage to Sonya.
"I don't remember their names, but they looked kind of alike. It was dark." She couldn't fill the gaps within the shadows of her mind.
"Quan Chi kept saying he needed me for something, and her." Cage pressed. "So I brought her before him and he said you'd do anything to get her back." He tried to imitate the depth and smug tone of Quan Chi as he added, "Raiden is weak for mortals."
"Like Gandalf with the Hobbits?" Stryker tried to understand.
Cage shrugged.
Raiden turned from them all, his back to the group, his eyes cast out through the smallest slit of a window that overlooked the volcanic ridges of the island, he knew what Quan Chi wanted out of Sonya and Johnny, and by now, he would have had planted the seed to obtain it.
"We won't let him succeed." He turned back to them, "we'll play the game of Mortal Kombat for now as Kotal Kahn will not break the rules. We can't let Quan Chi off this island. Not alive at least."
"And Jax?" Sonya interjected.
"I know where he is." Cage added.
"Take me to him." She pressed forward with Stryker, but Raiden blocked their path toward the door.
"Not yet." He assured her, "we will not leave this island without him, but now is not the time to rush in guns blazing, Sonya Blade, Kurtis Stryker."
"When is?" She would push through him if she could.
"You'll know." He then addressed the group. "Until then, Quan Chi will find some way to single us all out and extinguish us one by one before the tournament even ends. He means to eradicate all opposition, to what end I don't know, but this is no longer a tournament to celebrate life, but our struggle to stay alive."
"What about Kotal Kahn's forces?" Kung Lao pondered, the very real threat of forces of Outworld that had no desire to hold to any standard Raiden expected of the tournament was a real threat that now loomed over his head.
"Two assassins from the Brotherhood of Shadow, the Prince of Edenia, the entity known as Ermac, and bloodthirsty right hand of Kotal Kahn himself, Skarlet. They are here to play the game, and expect to win it."
"Kotal Kahn himself will stop at nothing to get what he desires most." Nightwolf assured, he knew the lengths the ruler of Outworld would go, and what he desired, but no man that stared before him, save Raiden himself, could see the need for revenge in Nightwolf, nor the path he would choose should he must make a decision between them and annihilating the Kahn.
"All things in due time." Raiden eclipsed them with his words.