To Kenshi, it was a nameless city. Just another hot atmosphere and sickening dry weather that pressed down on each of them. To have the Cryomancer's was near a blessing, but when they had reached their destination, Sonya was broken to find no hot lead, but a dead cold trail.
She had found the bar had been boarded up, which Cyrax had easily broken through. Inside was just the hollow remains of a building. No tables, chairs, glasses. The back was as empty as ever and all the other hidden rooms now revealed. Two others, one where Willy would have slept and the other just a restroom.
"There's nothing here." Sub-Zero was certain.
Smoke and Frost at each end of him couldn't discern any direction or clue either.
"Can you sense anything, Kenshi?" Sonya asked, though sounded more like a beg.
"Nothing." Kenshi turned every which way, but even the souls in his blade had blanked.
"01000010 01100101 01101100 01101111 01110111" Cyrax rapidly computed and translated in a more human means through the programs and circuitry that relayed what little information he was able to gather. "From beneath you it devours."
"Below?" Sonya translated the binary Cyrax had spoken.
"Devours?" Kenshi tried to understand the other element.
Each took a slow glance down, but the dirt and dust on the ground beneath them showed no opening, no sign of even a hidden chamber beneath them they could detect.
"No." Sonya dismissed it and closed the gap between her and the storage room. "It was here, I know. The bartender brought him back here and then they never came back."
"Shall I initiate program 01110011 01100001 01110111?" Cyrax joined her and scanned the small closet sized room.
"Do it." She stepped back.
Unable to watch, Kenshi could feel the heat rise as from the cold metal of the machine as a high hiss swirled about its chest. The snap and crack of wood that buckled and shattered around the cyborg concerned him, not for the shrapnel, but the consistency of the noise.
"Nothing?" Frost interjected, she tried to peer in, only to be held by by the cold and strong grip of Cyrax.
"Stand back." He computed as the buzz saw was returned to his chest cavity.
The damage around them was just more dirt, rock, and wood.
"From beneath us?" Smoke pondered, he hadn't pulled his eyes from the ground, which kicked up dust and particles wherever he walked. He shuffled and shifted the earth around him still for any opening, but nothing came. He scanned upward for vents. Despite being abandoned and yet hot under the African sun, he felt a coolness that was not just the presence of Sub-Zero and Frost. Someone somewhere had been received the benefit of an air conditioning system that ran through this building.
Close to the storage room, on the left wall where the rest room had been opened up he noticed the only ventilation shaft, sealed by a metal grate.
"Unique." Smoke, if he could be seen beneath the black and metallic grey of his mask would have smirked.
"Let's see where this goes." Sub-Zero caught him and approved. It had to lead somewhere even though the air was faint, somewhere in this structure a machine was running to keep someone cool under the hot African weather.
Frost joined them as Smoke dissipated into the ventilation, then turned back to Sonya, Kenshi, and Cyrax by the store room.
"Say nothing." Sub-Zero stopped her. "We must be careful around that droid of yours."
"You don't trust machines? Welcome to the 90s old man." She was amused, but he was serious.
"I wish to see just how reformed Cyrax has become under the Special Forces." He admitted.
She understood and joined the three in silence.
Beneath their feet was just earth and rock.
Cyrax scanned the ground beneath them for any sign of life but had come up short. At least as it pertained to lifeforms beneath them.
"The ground beneath us is hollow. The entrance is sealed tight enough that it cannot be seen from above or below." He computed.
"Where?"
"I am not sure. I can make a new one."
"No." Sub-Zero protested. "We've already made enough noise."
"Agreed." Kenshi stepped back. He positioned himself dead center in the hollow bar and listened to the world around him.
Cyrax when still was dead silent. Even the fans that ran inside him, the operating systems and the liquid cooling engines were all as still quiet as the earth itself.
Sento vibrated.
A low hum, a light throb of movement at his hip where it held to him. The ancestors stirred and his hand fixed on the pommel for answers.
The sword slowly pulled from it sheath and levitated at his discretion into the thick hot air. Frost, Sub-Zero and Sonya watched in awe as he moved the object with only his mind, but also where it directed.
Like an arrow it aimed, wobbled and sifted until the direction of the blade was still and focused. Directed at the bar itself, Sento raced forward and struck a piece of blank wall space between where the glasses were and the sink. There, large enough to fit a door, Sonya didn't remember seeing one, but she also didn't remember a blank wall just open in that spot. Willy had something there, she just didn't pay as much attention to it.
A noise, guttural and human responded to the blade's attack as it deepened to the hilt inside of the wood. When Kenshi retrieved the sword through the power he had been taught by Ermac, streaks of dark red dripped from the blade. Sento had been sated with the blood of someone.
"Now you can cut." Kenshi turned to Cyrax, the cold machine that hadn't even had the mind to watch the scene unfold.