The sun slowly raced over the horizon as Liu Kang entered the courtyard. To his left was the platform Kotal Kahn and Quan Chi would observe the fights from, and to his right a hall of champions and a series of more desolate courtyards with various themes, but most importantly, the lair of Goro. Each entrance and exit seemed to be covered by a single Naknada guard, but he was able to move freely until he reached the statues.
As his eyes turned to the statue of Raiden that had been decimated by age and discontent, the eyes of the guards turned toward him. One direction lead to a small path that extended out to the stone bridge and the greatest view of the wilted horizon sun he had ever witnessed, but the other side was the entrance wrought with ruin, and guarded by four of the Naknada.
He felt it somewhat late to have so many guards on an island of serial killers that had previously had their way with the island. Any secret den must have already been explored, any forbidden gem within the mystic's land shattered for the sake of some hidden agenda. So, with that in mind, he approached the entrance of the old Lair with the four around him as a barrier.
"You will not enter, Earth Realmer."
"I don't see anyone here capable of stopping me."
The towering monsters looked beyond the Earthrealm challenger at a figure at the statues and collectively pointed behind him.
"He can."
Liu Kang turned to find Scorpion stare him down from the distance, eyes white, hand on the chain at his hip.
Confused, he approached only until Scorpion's chain began to swing and stepped into an offensive posture.
"I have to get in there."
Nothing from the specter.
The true ninja lashed out like lightning with the spear and called out to Liu Kang. The chain covered a greater distance than Liu expected and had nearly pierced his shoulder had not he side stepped. The chain punctured between the ribs of a Naknada guard and the hive began to buzz.
The body was launched back toward Scorpion to be sliced in half in one clean swing of his Mugai Ryu. With blood now stained at his feet he lunged forward into a mist of flame to appear behind the Naknada as they erupt in chaos.
As quick as Scorpion was, the Naknada at each side of Liu Kang seemed as quick with such large steps to reach him before he could see where Scorpion had appeared. A roundhouse kick to the one at his right launched him into a punch from the one on his left, but a punch from a large six armed beast wasn't just one, but four.
He could feel his jaw swell already and ducked under the next swing from the second creature. When he lifted to counter the next attack, the two had already fallen.
Scorpion stood closer now, eyes white, narrowed, and sword aimed between Liu's eyes.
"Why did you help me?"
"You're going to help me kill Quan Chi." Scorpion tucked the sword back into its sheath, but he remained at a threatening distance to Liu.
"Why don't you do it yourself?" Liu Kang pressed against the offensive posture of Scorpion and spat.
"I need a distraction, but when the time comes, he is mine and mine alone."
"Then get me inside there, and I'll help you."
"It's already done."
Liu Kang threw his arms up to block the lunging specter, but no strike landed and neither lick of flame peeled away his skin at it engulfed the two. When he could see as the flames fell to Scorpion's feet, they were inside the lair.
No questions to answer, no words to speak. Scorpion pointed down the twisted tunnel he needed to travel and then dissipated as fast as he had arrived. He would be the chaos that would pull Quan Chi from hiding, but Liu Kang realized Scorpion had to know what was down this hall to have sought him out.
What was it though?
On the wall nearest to the opening before the wide chamber he was in became a long cave of prison cells was a lit torch. There were three in the room, nothing more than an antechamber that lead down a long hall to an effigy of Goro on an ancient throne.
Slowly he began to trace the jagged hall and ragged trail in. The prison cells were small, only big enough to fit a single person in, but they got bigger as he went deeper.
Stone became earth and the bars rusted more and more the further in he went until a voice caught him by surprise and he turned to find the scarlet witch that had slain Sonya friend in cold blood.
Skarlet. She was chained to the walls and held tight against herself in leather bonds fastened like a straight jacket. The aim was that she could not use her magic to escape, but her mouth remained uncovered.
"It's you." He pondered, her name did not quite come to him.
"And you." His didn't come to her either.
"I saw you in a vision. What were you doing?" He approached the cell and peered with the flame in upon her.
She grimaced then postured as best she could with a wry smile, "I'm not responsible for dream me."
"I suppose not." He turned away, the flame pulled from the bars and the light from her face. He had already given up on her, but two voices reached out, hers and another's.
"Wait!"
"Cease, Liu Kang, before you doom us all."
"Who is that?" He turned each way, but only empty cells and halls peered back at him, so he looked to Skarlet. "Who was that?"
"I am Shang Tsung." The voice beckoned him from deeper down the twisted tunnel.
"How do you know me?"
"I know you better than you know yourself."
He followed the voice, the echo chamber of the tunnel lured him to gaze up at the gnarled stalagmites, the jagged spikes of stone that jutted from every corner, and eventually a bigger opening with several cells suited for several prisoners to be held within them.
He looked in, the fire just barely burning enough to grant him visage of the old face that peered back. An ancient man in withered skin and tattered clothes barely held together by his own bones.
"You are Shang Tsung?"
"In the flesh."
"I saw you in my dream. That witch was trying to free you."
"I once thought it would be the lovely Sonya Blade to bring me freedom, but how clever it be my old nemeses."
"Why should I help you?"
"I have something of yours. Something you've been missing for five hundred years." A thin wiry grin stretched across the old wrinkled face and those eyes pierced through Liu Kang. "Now, let the witch out and she her blood will set us free."
He stared back. All of this so much to take in. The flame warmed them, and the bars he touched became to much to hold so he moved it away and stepped back. The bars behind him led to an open door where it seemed someone had escaped already.
"I must tell Raiden this." His first thought, but he shook it off. Still, Shang Tsung reached out quick with hand and voice.
"No, Liu Kang! Everything you need is already here, but not until you set me free." He added, "I'm your only way out of here."
He stared back into those eyes. Something about them felt as though he himself looked back. He could feel his own spirit burn, but the cold comfort of that withered old man yearned for him to part those bars and set him free.
To be a slave to other's passion, or make his own way?
Raiden had pulled him into this, this journey he had never asked for even after the White Lotus had tried to drag him unsuccessfully into Mortal Kombat. Now here, with little to no means of escape save for death, he realized there was no other choice but to accept this moment of chaos.
"You will help me, and all of my friends get off this island if I set you free!" He threatened, but he knew Shang Tsung held the power.
"Consider it done, my old friend."
That phrase, that intent behind those eyes, that smile. Everything about this old man know Liu Kang from flesh and bones to spirit. He knew nothing about him to say anything back, only the vision implanted by Nightwolf's trance. How does he know?
What does he know?
Back at the cell that held the blood witch Liu Kang found the bars easy to break open. Rusted to hell and barely held by crumbled stone, it wasn't the bars that held her in place, but the bondage and the chains.
"I cannot break these." He said of the chains that bound her to the Earth.
"Free my hands, and I will do the rest." She assured, but he was not so certain. She was bound like this for a reason.
Still, unable to accept any alternative with no means to turn back now, he tore at the leather until it ripped and shred and with great strength, broke her free.
She reached at her hips, but no vial to find, only chain locks.
Her only approach would be to cut herself. Shallow cuts, shallow little markings across her flesh that let the blood flow like little daggers that soon grew larger and larger until her power coagulated that blood into a weapon to break the chains. One at a time and with greater strength than it took to form them, she was able to split the links and key the locks with the blood until her body fell into Liu's arms.
He raised the torch from their faces and looked at her with a clearer view than he had ever seen. Bruises, welts, and her back as she crumbled, showed him the marred flesh from the cold cracks of a whip. She had been tortured and brutally scarred.
"Was this all Quan Chi?" He asked, unable to understand such violence upon the human body.
"Not just."
Together, collected on his arm, Skarlet held to him until she could move on her own as best she could and leaned back against the open bars when they reached Shang Tsung's cell.
She took in deep breathes, finally able to, and finally at such a crossroads as to free the man that raked her soul from her flesh, created and murdered her only kin, and now promised her the only means of vengeance and freedom.
"You better do what you say." She bit her lip, the hatred boiled within her as she stared him down between the bars.
"He will!" Liu Kang pushed between them. "Now let him go."
"You have my word, Skarlet."
"Your words have not meant much, you old snake." She spat, but she moved toward his cell with purpose as her hands began to coat with blood.
"It's not just my words I'm offering you in exchange for letting me out." He couldn't move closer, his withered body barely able to breath out each word he did speak.
"What choice do we have to get out of this alive?" Liu pandered to her senses, assuming she had any.
She eyed him, then Shang Tsung, then with little thought left, clenched the blood soaked hands around the bars and watched as the metal withered like dust within them.
"The blood of my enemy will set me free." Shang Tsung snickered, then coughed, still old, still withered away like a pile of bones. "You're not my enemy anymore, Skarlet."
"Where do we go from here?" Liu Kang pushed forward to assist Shang Tsung to his feet and soon all three gathered outside the cell.
"To get off this island, we must kill Quan Chi. He plans to end existence as we know it." Skarlet offered.
"Not just him." Shang Tsung added, "we must take care of Quan Chi, Kotal Kahn, and of course Raiden."
"I will not kill Raiden!" Liu Kang hissed. "As much as he has to blame for all of this, I understand he is trying to help."
"I do not expect anyone to murder a God, but he will try and stop us." Shang explained, "so then Skarlet, you will take on Kotal Kahn."
She let that sink.
She couldn't answer at first.
Whatever this mortal felt for Raiden, she felt for Kotal Kahn far much so, but the betrayal of her Kahn was deeper even than that. Could she free herself? Could she really be her own person and find some semblance of existence without him, without the army?
"You must believe in yourself." He could feel her turmoil, but something in his eyes reached out to her. She knew those eyes, but she could not understand it in that moment, so she collected herself as best she could in the torment of her body and nodded.
"Then I will kill Ko'atal."
"Only the three of us together can stop Quan Chi. We will meet in my old throne room when Raiden has been stopped, or makes his decision to help us, and when Kotal Kahn is defeated."
"What about you?" Liu asked, his eyes narrowed and he looked to find something in Shang Tsung that could spill the answers he needed through the viper's tongue.
"I will deal with Ermac."
The green hue of the entity matched the flame of the torch. The entity had been there far longer than they would have liked and the last guard within the lair for none shall enter, and none shall leave.
"We really doing this?" Skarlet looked back to Shang Tsung and Liu kang as together they formed this deadly alliance.
"I will see you in the throne room!" Shang Tsung collected himself, that withered pile of bones as best he could and used himself as a barrier between Liu Kang, Skarlet and Ermac.
He bore into the green light of the corpse's sockets for eyes and stretched an old playful smile across his ancient face as the two behind him fled.
"I believe those souls were mine!"