One.
Two.
Three.
Each step a beat of heart.
She felt Kitana's chest race with her feet down the dark hall as the shadows fled from the torch in her grasp. Mileena's shadow cast before each metal mouth empty until the furthest from the spiral staircase. As quickly as they approached two green lights faded from the torch flame and Kitana pulled close to the bars to find the broken man known as Liu Kang.
"It's you." He spoke first, recognized her face, but as she tried for the key at her waist pouch he reached to grab her. "Where am I? Let me out!"
Mileena saw the strength he tugged on her with and the fire near burned between them. She felt anger rise in her maw and the mask ready to tear away to get at him, but Kitana pushed him back and closed the pouch.
"Not until you've spoken with Fujin." She stepped back and held the torch between her and the metal teeth that held him in their solid bite.
She waited for him to settle, and Mileena to approach.
"You know me." She assured, "you have no reason to fight."
"Where am I?" He pressured, but the grasp for the bars went slack and his hands held up to pull himself back into the dim corner of the cell. He would not fight her, not yet.
"Outworld. You're in the prison tower at the center of the palace." She informed, no need to lie, whether he believed was beyond her. "I came to free you. We need you, Liu."
There was a deeper meaning in those eyes, the fragment of light Mileena caught inside of Kitana that Liu Kang could not fathom. His dull human pupils stared at her like a familiar face he knew nothing about beyond that one time they fought at the tournament.
There was more to this than he would know, and a rabid animal he became. She recognized that in him, and knew it would be best to leave him in this cell for now.
"Don't let him out." She echoed through the halls.
"Not until Fujin speaks with him." Kitana agreed.
"Even then." Mileena protested.
Kitana ignored it.
Even half blood she could sense something was wrong with him, perhaps Kitana knew, or perhaps not. Mileena didn't like him. Not his look, not his scent, nor his heart beat. Most of all, she hated the feeling of Kitana's when close to his.
"If you let him go, you must let Rain and Tanya go." She continued to protest.
"Enough!" Kitana pulled from the cell and left Liu in darkness as she grabbed Mileena to cast themselves down the hall.
Diseased eons worth of disappointment flashed through Kitana's eyes as they reached Mileena's chambers. There the halfblooded would wait, but before Kitana could pull away, her sister demanded an answer.
"What is going on?" She prodded.
"I will tell you when the time is right."
"I think that time is now." Mileena pushed for answers.
Kitana, like the older sister she was threw her hands up and shut the door. Mileena's maw stretched and that gravel in her throat that bared the Tarkatan anger flared through her.
This would not do.
If Kitana would not tell her, then the prisoner would.
Not held captive herself, Mileena was quick to leave once Kitana had recessed to the meeting hall where she undoubtedly would try to summon the God of Wind for council. Instead of attend this, Mileena found herself in the high tower sever floors above Liu Kang to where the three were locked away.
In this small level of cells, the middle layer of ten, she moved quietly, and without torch until she felt the cool breeze of water through the barred window at the other end. Liu Kang's level faced east, Rain's faced west back toward the palace.
She could feel him stare back at her. Her body curves, neck line, and chin all would have reminded him of Kitana except for the exposed jaws of a Tarkatan between full lips.
"Th'hell are you?" He cussed her.
"Mileena." Tanya breathed, she had heard this name before whispered in the streets of Outworld. "She is one of Shang Tsung's creations."
"From the flesh pits?" Kia chimed in, like a game to toy with the half blood.
"Construct." Tanya hissed.
"Stop it." Rain reeled them in. He closed the gap between himself and the bars and looked as deep as he could into those wayward eyes.
A long ugly pause staled the air between them. Undoubtedly he knew the words of the two around them had gotten to her. He could feel her blood boiled like the vents deep within the depths of the ocean. It thickened the air, and he loved every moment of it.
"She's Kitana's sister." Rain explained.
"I have a name, Half-God." The 'construct' hissed.
"Half-God? Is that what I am?" The dots connected like the constellations above them. "I haven't been able to do the research, but I've started to get that I'm very important to a lot of people."
"Only to yourself." Tanya scoffed.
"Bite your tongue, bitch." He pinched at her lips with his teeth. "Why are you here?"
"Why are you here?" Mileena proposed a better question for him.
"What does Kitana say?"
"You three will be killed tomorrow." She added, almost in disbelief, "you cannot be allowed to reach armageddon."
She looked into his eyes. The light that shined in the darkness, but she felt nothing. He was clueless.
"He doesn't know yet." Tanya added.
"If I should, enlighten me." Rain, annoyed hissed back at her.
"What is it?" Mileena needed to know and pulled closer to Tanya's cell.
"Let me out and I'll tell you."
Mileena grimaced. Those fangs clicked as they gnashed and she shook her head. There would be no sharing, only information pulled from one side. When Tanya grasped that, she shrugged and hunkered back into the shadow with Kia.
"Who told you about this?" Rain pondered. "Is this why you've been following me? Why that absolute brick head had been trying to kill us?"
"You." Kia confirmed. "Trying to kill you."
"How loyal." Her reached for the bars and looked toward Mileena. "Hey."
She returned to him with her glance, but her bodied remained guarded before Tanya's cell. The Edenian knew much, and somehow she would get this information, if not from Kitana, then from the limp body of this vile woman.
"I feel a disturbance in the wind." He measured her. "Ask the Protector of Earthrealm to see me. Would you, please?"
"Kitana won't allow it." Mileena wasn't so sure, but she needed to pull out as much from him as she could. His intentions, his truth.
"Just," he pressed and tried to reach for her, but a barrier neither could see crushed his fingers to the knuckle. Rain pulled back, frustrated and full of hot air. He finished, "just let him know I'm here."
As she pulled away he crunched his hand against the bars again to get her back.
"Also about the Red Dragon! That's important too it seems!"
Mileena glared, eyes narrowed at the pathetic man before her, but perhaps what he indicated would work. To bypass Kitana and go straight to the Protector of Earthrealm? A true God wouldn't hold back when the fate of the realms was at stake.