Rain burst awake at the sound of a door slam. He reached beside him to find the warm body of Kia, but the cold eyes of Tanya glared back at him as she stood at the foot of the bad, arms folded, mouth twisted.
"Pathetic little man child, you've never had to make a single difficult choice in your life, have you?" She spat down at him with no remorse.
Caught off guard, he lifted the blanket to find himself still bare, much like Kia beside him and looked about. It was near dusk, the tournament matches would be coming to close for Kotal Kahn in the courtyard, so why was he being cast down from the fires of hell by this Edenian woman?
"Did you know Kitana was free?" That got his attention.
He pushed himself over the edge of the bed and scoured for the loose breeches, as if Tanya had thought him modest.
"I'm just being told this now?" He wanted to strike her, but she struck first.
"I found out just now, but someone as high and mighty as the self proclaimed Prince of Edenia, should have known."
"How could I have?" His arms threw wide and Tanya lead his gaze to the bed and twisted her lips.
"Of course you wouldn't."
"Where is the usurper?" He crossed the distance to the only carved window in the chamber, but it gave no good view of the grounds to make any sort of search effort.
"Usurper? That's rich. She has the true claim to the throne of Edenia if her father dies."
"That's right," Kia chimed in.
"My mother told me my father was royalty beyond any of the kings of Edenia would ever know. I am that throne."
"Still having your mother dictate your life?" Tanya approached, turned him with cold sharp claws for nails and stared straight through him, "half-cocked, half-prince, marrying a mud-blood bitch you don't even love because you thought it was going to get you the throne of an entire realm. I'm from Edenia too, I'm more a man than you."
He pushed, she pulled closer and in that moment at their eyes met she wanted to slit her throat, but knew she could cut him too. She was cold, manipulative, and calculating. He knew this, perhaps why he chose to bed Kia instead, but it clicked in him that she meant to push him in this moment, to light some fire under him, but if Kitana was truly free, Quan Chi would have known. Kotal Kahn would have known.
"What else aren't you telling me?" He yearned for the cold bitter truth, let her finally speak against his crumbled fortress.
"Skarlet is not your ally."
"This again?" The walls pulled themselves back up as he pushed away for the door. "I may not love her like a queen, but she's the best I've got to take that throne."
"You think you can trust her, but she's not loyal to you, not loyal to Edenia. She'll turn on you when its her life on the line against yours. Just like you would do to her."
"I would never."
He closed the door, pulled himself from the tension of the room and waited a moment, but no words were spoken, no objects thrown, no tension released. Just silence, like they were nothing but a shadow to him, a cold reflection that followed at his heels with every fear he had that he hoped would never realize.
Beyond the spires the courtyard waited for him. Where could she be? The heir to the throne and the thorn in his side now stuck deeper and deeper into him.
There was a odd turn of corners on the island that went from a bridge that wrapped around the mountain grave of the Kytinn and gave the best view of the pits of death. It turned into a crumbled stone walkway that curled around gnarled trees unkempt and as wild as the forbidden forest until you were forced to look upon a once golden Naknadan shrine.
Such lowly creatures to have a shrine of their own and yet didn't even know what bloodline his father held to make him so royal to Edenia.
Where to start?
As he gazed upon the aged statue, there was no place he could think of. Kitana, if known by Quan Chi to be free, would remain as hidden as possible, if not using the aid of Raiden to keep in the shadowss. He would have to go to Quan Chi to get the answer.
"Quan Chi will kill you." A voice broke the silence and turned him round to see who crept in the waning light.
"Scorpion. Specter, or are you a revenant of Quan Chi's?" He scrutinized the Shirai Ryu spirit and noticed a hand ready on the hilt of the specter's katana.
"I am vengeance. Only." Scorpion held his position and watched the Edenian bare chested, purple breeches only approach slow and arrogant.
"Take me to your master, slave. I will have words with the sorcerer." Rain had already forgotten the first words Scorpion spoke, so they were repeated.
"He sent me to kill you." The blade began to slide from the sheath.
"Now why would he want that? To piss of Kotal Kahn? Skarlet?"
"He is torturing the witch as we speak." Scorpion held his blade in place, and gauged the temperature of the mad prince.
Rain stepped back and really focused on the white eyes that stared back at him. Without pupils it was hard to really tell who he was looking at, and the intentions behind them. If the eyes were the window to the soul, what happens when the soul is corrupted and the window is closed?
"What for?" He waited, but the silence was too long. "Tell me, freak!"
"Betrayal." Those sinister eyes narrowed, and the hand clenched the yellow hilt.
Rain was unarmed. On an island surrounded by water, the flame of the spirit would burn him before they he could summon a drop, or even a flash of lightning. He stood back in neutral stance and thought how a king might act.
"Take me to him." Rain added, "I want proof."
He didn't realize the other option on the table, as the blade slid from its confines and the point had been aimed at eye level. Scorpion was the master of his craft and Rain unarmed. That other option was Scorpion wouldn't care what Rain wanted.
The specter charged.
In a flash of fire Rain was thrown to the ground beneath Quan Chi's feet. He stared up at the ceiling of a cave, and beyond the sorcerer was the widest view of the pits.
The scene before him played out in Quan Chi's personal chamber where he would scheme and torture, and watch those that had fallen from the bridge bleed out like pigs to the slaughter.
Normally there would be a long table for him to sit at, a desk for an office if you will covered with a map, stone emblems and vials, concoctions, all the sort a sorcerer would desire, but tonight there was none of that. Just bare wood and beyond that where the meeting table would rest with its chairs all aligned in a row with one another, gone.
Rain could see Skarlet had been tied to the stalagmites above them and each foot chained in place. Her face was to him, but he could not see it with the entity known as Ermac between them, and a Naknada known as Kollector before him. He could only see the chains and hear the pain as the six armed beast struck her again and again.
Rain was quick to his feet and shoved around the desk to grasp at Quan Chi.
"What is the meaning of this?" He clenched tight and balled the clothing at Quan Chi's neckline.
"The punishment for betrayal must be doled out." Quan Chi ignored the threat, motioned for Scorpion to pull Rain back and then watched. Eyes never strayed from the squirm and rustle of the chains.
"I'll have your guts for garters!" He tried to free himself from the specter, but the spirit's grasp was greater than his will for freedom. "What betrayal?"
Finally, Quan Chi looked to him.
Those eyes were as cold as Tanya's, but there was pleasure in those darkened pupils.
"Helping the enemy." Quan Chi made no discernment who.
"You think Kotal Kahn will stand for this? He will kill you!" Rain spat, but he fight to escape had died in Scorpions grasp.
"I told him I had her. He'll be here soon to stop me." Quan Chi returned to watch Skarlet's chains. "He won't."
Ermac moved, finally he could see the scene in its full brutality. The large beast struck with its strongest fists, the others would hold her in place. He could catch glimpses of her eyes toward him when her skull was bashed to and fro and the chains yanked back and forth when those hands switched places.
Any moment he knew Kotal Kahn would burst through the entrance and the fight would begin for Skarlet's freedom. The tournament would end with Quan Chi's skull crushed beneath their feet, as he struggled to free himself again, and failed again, each moment passed and no Kotal Kahn.
"This isn't going to go the way you think." Scorpion whispered.
He stopped. His body still. His focus now on the specter that held him.
There were no words left for the spirit to speak. Once the door finally broke and the long cavernous tunnel toward the room clanked with the sound of Kotal Kahn's armor and the drag of his heft weapon ready to swing, Rain prepared itself for action.
The bellow of an angry Kahn filled the room and the charge of a beast rocked Kollector from from his pillar of strength above a beaten prisoner.
Kotal Kahn took a swing at the six armed creature, but Ermac was vigilant, always in the way.
"You will answer for this, Quan Chi!" Kotal Kahn aimed his heavy weapon straight toward the sorcerer, his back to Skarlet to protect her from the minions.
Thinner, wiry, and older looking, Quan Chi almost seemed like a withered old man in comparison to Kotal Kahn, but they both knew that was not the case. His mind greater, and his magic greatest of all. Unmoved from his position, Quan Chi matched Kotal Kahn's vocal projection, but before a word could finish, the grasp Scorpion had somehow slipped and the Edenian was free to lunge forth.
That withered sorcerer was quick to dodge the first strike. Rain was on his back before he could realize that he had not connected with Quan Chi at all.
"Do not lift a finger against me, Ko'atal." Quan Chi ordered.
He had already moved past Rain as Ermac took control of the Edenian'd body and held him in place on the table. Rain could only watch and hope that Kotal Kahn would betray Quan Chi as well.
"Free my general and I won't kill you where you stand." Kotal Kahn shot back, his hand on Skarlet, what effort she could make to move slumped against him.
"You will do nothing to me, Ko'atal." Quan Chi, in a voice Rain thought was arrogance, spoke over the Kahn of Outworld. "I have the only thing you want in the world."
"Empty promises will get you no where." Did he hear the Kahn's voice crack, or was that the chains?
After a long pause, Rain, unable to see Quan Chi behind him, began to feel the aura that must have summoned behind him. A cold breath, a radiant touch. Something was in Quan Chi's grasp that he could not understand, could not see, but saw the wilting of a Kahn before it.
"I do not lie, and you have yet to earn this," he added, "so you will instead beat the answers out of her."
Freed from Ermac's hold, Rain ignored Quan Chi. There was no defeating the man in his strongest moment. Could he at least reach Kotal Kahn?
He approached, but the Kahn refused to let him near Skarlet, as though Rain was Kollector or Ermac.
"We can do this together." He pressed further, "we have served loyally at your side for three hundred years! Is that not important to you?"
There was no answer. The heavy steel in Kotal Kahn's hand dropped. His grasp on Skarlet changed from her body to the chains.
He watched as the Kahn that held Outworld by its throat and staved off both Shao Kahn and Kitana Kahn now bent at the knee of a pathetic sorcerer. Whatever Quan Chi held over his had, this wasn't the moment to challenge it.
"Pick up the whip." Quan Chi ordered and the Kahn obeyed.
Rain ignored, he watched Skarlet's betrayal in her eyes, not of her against them, but the Kahn's. He was invisible in this moment, this strange pathetic moment where he knew that any action would be his death.
Was this how Kitana felt when all of Kotal Kahn's forced gathered around her and forced her to bend at the knee?
"This tournament," he turned to Quan Chi, "is over."
"What's important to you?" Kotal Kahn shot back. "Your blood, or hers?"
All eyes on Rain.
He could even feel the blank stare of Scorpion upon him perhaps harshest of all.
Could he make that decision?
Was this the moment to make decisions?
The only one he could make was to leave.