"I don't ask that you trust me. I ask that you use me." Scratch, reverse. ".em esu uoy–" Kenshi tossed the phone on the bed as it rewinded the audio file Sonya sent.
Bared in just pants and socks and a whiskey in his hand, Kenshi tried to piece all of this together. He heard it in person, but there was more in the conversation than Shang Tsung spoke about.
If Sonya was a blunt instrument, caught in the present, Kenshi was forced to live in the past, the future always out of sight.
Unlike Sonya, he wouldn't accept Shang Tsung at his word.
So he spent the night in the hotel chair and listened and drank.
When the audio guide assured him the recording was ready, he called for it to play again.
"My beautiful Sonya." He voice began again. After a long pause, Shang Tsung asked if she had missed him.
This was a game. Kenshi could hear it in the sorcerer's voice. Every moment he gazed at Sonya was a moment he cherished, sexually, like a predator that watched its prey before the chase. The lift in Shang's tones when he was with her was all Kenshi needed to form that opinion. If he could see the sorcerer, the red flags would burn his eyes.
"Last time I saw you people died, and you kidnapped Liu Kang."
"Is that your version of the story, Sonya Blade?"
"That's what happened."
"You break my heart, Sonya."
"I don't deal in bullshit." She pressed, having finally sat in the chair across from Shang Tsung, which Kenshi could hear the scrape of the metal legs and the gasp of breath her body took as she pressed down and tucked in. She didn't want to be comfortable, Sonya was never about comfort, she was about being in the moment.
The ice shifted in his glass, the whiskey near its end, but the recording had only just begun.
"Are you still made about that officer you were with? How about Johnny Cage? What do you think he thought when he died?"
"I don't really give a shit about your partner in crime. An officer died because of Quan Chi's games, but I want to know about the kidnapping Liu Kang."
"If you think it was a kidnapping, you're gravely mistaken." He paused, and his voice lit up again, "but, you should know, my dear, I'm not here to talk about Liu Kang."
Kenshi paused the recording.
That alone was a lot to digest. He travelled to the small fridge where the expensive glass of whiskey waited for him to drain his wallet further for the love of the hotel business, and he did readily. He tucked a finger in at the line he'd want to stop, and even there, he let the alcohol rise just a little bit further. Back in the chair he let the sorcerer's voice play rent free within his mind.
This was a game to him. Every moment of Shang Tsung's life was a game he played. From the death of his ancestors, to the unsteady alliance with Quan Chi. Even when he used Sonya to free him. The sorcerer always had an ulterior motive. He recognized Sonya had not realized this, even now, though she certainly wasn't about to play his games on the surface, but the deeper the conversation went, she rolled the dice. Kenshi wondered why he'd bring up the death of Quan Chi and Johnny Cage, the murder of Stryker as opposed to the capture of Jax and Liu Kang. After all, Jax had lost his arms at the Mortal Kombat tournament and Liu Kang had been taken for many, many years locked in the confines of Shang Tsung's mental prison he had contracted for him. A board game Liu had played with the dice stacked against him.
What's your game, Shang Tsung? What are the cards? What are the rules, and how are you going to cheat this time?
He played it again up to that point and let it continue through. The words after this moment muttered as his ears focused on the clang of ice in the glass of whiskey he downed quicker than his wallet could pay for. When his attention came back to the phone recording on the bed, he heard Sonya, the blunt instrument in the room still hammer Shang Tsung with questions about the disappearance of Liu Kang.
Scorpion killed Quan Chi, and Scarlet murdered Stryker. Sub-Zero had violated Jax's body, and even Sonya had killed Kano at the tournament. What did Shang Tsung do? He merely rolled the dice with her and took the earnings when everyone's heads were turned.
The Special Forces had nothing on him, save for the allegations of kidnapping Liu Kang.
What was however, as he began to hear the cracks Sonya refused, about what Shang Tsung wanted to talk about?
"Do you think I would have come here if I did not want to be found?" Shang Tsung hammered back.
"I'm not your lawyer."
"I waive the right anyway."
"All the better for me." Sonya played.
"Liu Kang can have his soul back for all I care, but I don't ask that you trust me, I ask that you use me."
There was another pause. Sonya shifted in the chair it seemed, and the air between them grew stale. This was another card he played before her. If Kenshi could see and could see between the lines, Shang Tsung had already issued his hands on the table for Sonya to read, but she was too blind to it. Kenshi wouldn't be interested in what Shang Tsung had on the table, but what was still hidden in his sleeve.
He listened further.
"I know everything. Of Geras, and Kronika, the previous timeline and all thousands of timelines Kitana and Raiden flipped like pages trying to find the perfect story to fit their selfish desires." He added, his voice leaned closer to the recording as if he had hunched over the table with a to whisper, "Liu Kang gifted me his soul in exchange of his survival. I did not kidnap him."
"I don't believe in the soul, I believe in science and good police work. Liu Kang came forward with the allegation that you held him in Hong Kong for ten years after the tournament." She continued, "rape allegations from women, missing person reports we now have to file through with the Hong Kong government. How deep does this operation of yours run? Are you involved in the Red Dragon too?"
"You don't listen, my beautiful Sonya Blade."
She didn't.
Kenshi stopped it again.
He had heard of the stories of the timelines. The past was over, and though this may be a continuation of someone else's existence, there was nothing that could be done about it. There was no use in Shang Tsung bringing that up unless there was an important piece of information they all missed regarding it. He knew of Kronika through Raiden, Fujin, and Kitana, but he had not heard of Geras. Kenshi could only make a mental note to check this reference somehow on his own, or through another party he could trust.
Takeda and the Shirai Ryu?
He took another gulp of the whiskey until the ice crashed down into an empty glass.
There was more to this conversation, but already there was too much to deep dive. He'd have to find out what there was to know about Geras before he could move forward.