Disclaimer: I still do not own anything Mortal Kombat related that's recognizable in this fanfic. Only the plot is mine.
Author's Note: Uh oh, shit's going down in this chapter. But before they do, I need to backtrack and explain how the Black Dragon was infiltrated and who's there (which I'm sure you all know who it is, but still). I had a hard time starting the chapter, so I just want to thank NeedsANewPenName for her assistance. I also fixed some minor errors in the previous chapter, just so you know. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Enjoy.
It's all or nothing, Sonya thinks to herself as she observes the print-out of the blueprint she's been given. Her mood is tense and angry though she's trying to calm her nerves; she cannot afford to make any more mistakes, especially at the expense of her daughter. "Okay, here's the plan," she starts to explain to her group which consists of Johnny, Hanzo, Kenshi, Takeda, Jacqui, and Jax, "Kenshi and Takeda will take the northern corridor on the top floor and work their way down. Jacqui and Jax will take the south corridor. Hanzo, you'll meet up with your charge on the east side. Johnny and I will take the west side. Stealth is of the essence here. Quicker we get in, quicker we can get Cass out."
Oh the irony of working with Sonya again, Johnny contemplates to himself. Any other time would've been a joyous occasion for him, but now isn't the time. If what Cassie told him through message was true... he shakes his head. He can't think that way right now. "What do we do if we find her? If we're caught—" Johnny questions Sonya.
"When we find her, we're leaving," she tells him matter-of-factly. He breathes a sigh of relief. She probably forgot about her revenge on Kano.
"What happens if one of us finds Kano, ma'am? Do we just leave him alone?" Takeda asks Sonya. Johnny covers his face in defeat. Her eyes twitch in anger. "Ma'am?" he prods as Jacqui slaps his shoulder.
Sonya growls primitively. "Better hope I don't find him first," she states angrily.
"Sonya," Jax begins.
"No!" she shouts, already anticipating what her friend was going to say. She turns to him with enraged tears shining in her eyes. "He hasn't taunted you the way he's been taunting me over the past two decades. And then he drags my only daughter into this? If he tortured Jacqui the same way he's done to Cassie, you'd feel the exact same way. Hell, I'd still feel this way. He needs to die." Jax is about to say something else but Johnny shakes his head ever so slightly. Everyone else understands the situation at hand. Satisfied, Sonya checks the clip in both her desert eagle and her silencer. "Let's move," she says. They all split up to cover their designated posts.
As Sonya and Johnny are tip-toeing down the hall, Sonya sees two men knocked out cold on the floor. He walks slightly ahead of her and checks for a pulse on both men. Finding none, he signals to Sonya and they continue down the hall. They make a left and see another henchman with his throat slit. Upon closer inspection, Sonya realizes the type of cut made to his jugular and carotid vein; it's jagged, indicating an impulsive last-minute decision. "Oh, Cass," Johnny sighs forlornly.
"Survival instincts," Sonya informs him. "Let's split up," she whispers to him.
"No! You know what happens when—" Johnny argues before he's interrupted by the sound of a shutter going off in one direction and footsteps in another. "Fuck. Meet me on the other side," he decides. She goes left and he goes right, leading them to the same room. From Johnny's and Sonya's angles, he sees Cassie taking pictures of boxes and she sees Kano stomping over to Cassie angrily. They make themselves scarce.
"Hey! How'd you get out, princess?" Kano asks her as they begin to circle each other menacingly. Johnny's heart begins to pound anxiously. Sonya tries to clear her rapidly reddening vision.
Johnny carefully scoots closer to Cassie's side as she growls, "Don't worry your ugly little head."
Sonya catches Johnny's eyes and gives him a signal only they both know to give each other. Even though she's finding it increasingly hard to do, Sonya tries not to attack Kano yet as he keeps circling out of her line of fire. She takes a deep, quiet breath in an attempt to calm her heart down and addresses the group through the wrist comm. As Kano lunges for Cassie, Cassie waits until he gets closer to her to sweep him off his feet. The knife Kano is holding flies out of his hand and stops short in front of Johnny. While Kano is preoccupied with calling Cassie a bitch and swinging at her again, Johnny carefully picks up the knife and discards it somewhere behind him.
After a small struggle, Kano grabs Cassie's hand, drags her towards him, and wraps an arm around her neck. Johnny ducks, but not before Cassie notices him in a flash. Sonya swallows a bubble of rage when she sees Kano lean in close to Cassie. She almost doesn't believe her ears when she hears him say, "I guess you haven't learned from the first time, huh?" He then licks the shell of Cassie's ear and she digs her fingernails into his forearm, trying to get away. "Well, it's your lucky day. I'm in a teaching mood."
So am I, Sonya thinks as she pops out from her hiding space and walks closer to Kano. As he's poised to cut her with another knife which looks unfamiliar to both adults, Sonya says in a measured voice, "You move, you die."
Kano turns to see Sonya staring him down, her desert eagle pointed at him. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Mama Blade. Come to join the party, love?" he taunts her.
She swallows thickly. "I'm not into parties," she tells him, surprised her voice is still as calm as it is. "Let her go, Kano."
He sniffs Cassie's neck again and she whimpers. "I'm afraid I can't do that. You see, your beloved here has done many great services for me, haven't you, princess? We've even sent ya postcards."
It's Johnny's turn to narrow his eyes from his hiding spot. Without thinking, he fires a low shot, somehow managing to nail Kano in the ankle. "Fuck," he mutters as Kano buckles under the weight. Cassie takes the opportunity to elbow him in the stomach. While doubled over from that, her fist slings back, catching him in the nose. She then flips him over her shoulder as Johnny moves from his hiding spot. Before Sonya can blink, Kano grabs Cassie's leg and drags her to him. He then stabs her in the abdomen near her pelvis and she wails in pain as she begins to bleed. With her other leg, she kicks him in the face. Johnny runs over to her. By the time Johnny gets close to Cassie, Kano stabs Johnny in the thigh with the same knife, nearly hitting his femoral artery. Sonya fires a shot into Kano's calf and all three are now curled up on the floor. Cassie is trying to crawl away, bringing her dad with her.
When she gets closer to them, Kano pulls a small pistol from his back pocket and aims it at Sonya. The bullet grazes the shoulder of her dominant arm but still manages to knock her down from shock. Her ears are ringing from both the impact of her fall and the bullet sailing past her ear. Undeterred and in full Mama Bear mode, she gets back up and walks over to them. He tries to fire another shot at her, but she reaches him in time to kick the gun out of his hand. She stomps his face. She goes for a hit to the abdomen, but he seizes her leg and trips her. She falls on her back and does a backward roll to stand up.
Despite his physical pain, Kano stands up and faces Sonya. "I'm delighted you've decided to join me, Sonya. Ya thought I forgot about what happened at the Refugee Camp, didn't ya?"
"I should've killed you then!" she screams as she lunges for him. Predicting the oncoming attack, he stops her with a sharp jab to the face, followed by twisting her arm and punching her in the gut. She untwists herself from his arms and delivers a well-placed knee to the nose, hearing a crack. He yelps as she fires a blast of pink energy from her gauntlet. He falls and she further incapacitates him with a gunshot to the same leg Johnny shot at previously. Hearing both Cassie and Johnny groaning from their injuries temporarily distracts her. She runs over to Johnny and observes his abdomen, which is now bleeding thick blood. "Venom," she wonders in disbelief. She quickly notices Cassie whose leg is cut and also bleeding coagulated blood. The handle of a knife hitting her sharply in the back knocks her down next to her daughter. She recovers easily and is staring at Kano incredulously. He's somehow standing again, putting most of his body weight on his uninjured leg.
Kano laughs evilly. "I'm really enjoying this little family shindig. Aren't you?" he heckles her. He then launches another knife at her, which she dodges. She commences another series of attacks which he parries and blocks with his hands. Taking advantage of her current rage, his fist swings widely and connects to her jaw in a powerful right hook that jars her whole body. She shakes her head to clear the exploding stars from her vision. She launches another attack: an uppercut, which is followed by a left hook, a double punch to the right of his jaw, and a snap kick that rocks his head into his back. He falls back like a piece of flattened cardboard and hits the floor hard. When she walks over to him to stomp on his face, his arms stick out and trips her once again.
Sonya inadvertently lands on top of him. Before she can roll off, he knees her in the stomach and backhands her with such force that she's forced to roll off with the force of the hit. "Son of a bitch!" she cries as she cradles her jaw. She gets up to her feet again and does a second attempt at a face stomp, which connects this time. His nose is shattered now. She begins to strangle him, squeezing his windpipe between her fingers. He paws at her hands and sputters, but she won't let up. Not wanting to suffer the same fate twice, he pushes her away with his foot. She rolls around on the ground several times before coming to a stop. He manages to grab a hold of his mini pistol again and shoots at her wrist, rendering her left gauntlet useless. Another shot hits her left forearm and she screams almost inhumanely. From her back pocket, she grabs her silencer and fires off three shots in his direction, unsure if any of them connected. Hearing the sound of metal hitting the floor is her only indication he dropped his weapon.
After a brief moment, Sonya gets up and walks over to him. "You are the biggest piece of shit that has ever crossed the face of the earth!" she shouts as she first steps on his fingers and then begins kicking him repeatedly. Each kick she delivers brings back another memory of their bitter history together. A kick to the face reminds her of when he sweet-talked his way into being her confidential informant. Crunching on his fingers again reminds her of when he tied her up to a pole and almost beat her within an inch of her life. Another one reminds her of how he shot her former partner execution-style as he forced her to watch him die. Stepping on the wound Johnny created on his ankle reminds her of the Mortal Kombat tournament when he tried to hit her while she was down. Stomping on his knee until his patella shattered reminded her of the fact that it was his fault Shinnok was released from his amulet. Finally, she kicks him between his legs for the explicit pictures he sent her of Cassie's abuse at his hands. "Fool me once, shame on me," she says as she kicks him in the jaw again. "Fool me twice, and I was stopped from killing you with my bare hands," she says again as she digs the balls of her feet into his crotch again, almost relishing in the way he howled.
"For fuck's sake, woman!" he cries out, but she wasn't having it.
"But you messed with the wrong bitch when you raped my daughter!" Sonya stomps on his stomach again, forcing him to cough up blood.
"M-mercy!" he manages to choke out.
Sonya laughed evilly at his pathetic request. "You want me to show you mercy? The same mercy you showed Cassie?" she asks in a saccharine voice. He continues to cough up blood but nods at her. "What did I tell you before, Kano?" she questions him as she readies her silencer. "I don't," she grinds out with a shot to his manhood, effectively castrating him. "Negotiate," she continues as she shoots him on the shoulder, giving him a matching injury to hers. "WITH SCUMBAGS!" she yells as she shoots him in the non-cybernetic eye. The last thing he sees before his life drains away is the manic look of sadistic joy Sonya has on her face.
Not noticing the rest of the team is now working on evacuating Johnny and Cassie, she empties the rest of her clip on his body in blinding fury. When it's empty, she kneels down and grabs his head, smashing it into the floor repeatedly. Brain matter is splashing onto her face, but Sonya doesn't care; her anger can't be quelled with mere words. She vaguely hears Jacqui crying for her to stop and footsteps, but she's unrelenting. Almost 30 years of animosity and bad blood has her bashing his head repeatedly until she is forcefully removed from his body and tossed into boxes; the same boxes of explosives that Cassie noticed earlier. It's only when she hears a clicking sound that she comes back down to earth.
"What was that sound?" Hanzo wonders. Kenshi and Takeda sense it and stare in shock.
"This place is set up with explosives," Kenshi explains as Takeda continues his telepathic search.
"Uh… guys? We only have about five minutes before this place explodes," Takeda informs everyone.
"Everyone, fall back!" Hanzo shouts. He grabs Sonya and throws her over his shoulder like a lightweight and the group maneuvers their way out of the building.
Still, in a state of shock, Sonya is quiet throughout. They all get out just in time to avoid being caught in the massive explosion, which blows shrapnel and smoke their way. When they all reach outside, Sonya jumps into action. "Where's Johnny and Cassie?!" she inquires when she does not see them outside with her. "Where are they?!" she screams into the air. Hanzo struggles to calm her down long enough to tell her that the two were en route to a hospital via air.
"General," Hanzo tries to tell her as he's holding her wrists hostage, "general! Calm down! Johnny and Cassandra are on their way to the hospital."
After a few minutes of struggling, she finally begins taking in deep breaths. "They've been… they were… they…" she struggles to say as she begins having a panic attack. Hanzo manages to get Sonya's head between her legs to try to regulate her breathing. "They… were… venomed," she struggles to say. He rubs her back soothingly as she collapses in the fetal position on the floor in hysterical tears, finally breaking after years of hiding her pain.
A/N: So Cassie's saved, Kano's dead, and Sonya has a breakdown. Problem(s) solved, right? Wrong! The backlash this way cometh. You'll just have to wait and see what will happen next chapter, won't you? As for Kano, it may not be the fatality kill scene you all wanted, but I still hope I did justice. I just had to do it my own way. Questions and concerns in the form of reviews are appreciated as per usual.