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Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the MK universe or its franchise; it belongs to Netherrealm Studios.
What's in a Word?
Breakfast was a quiet affair, much to the god of Chaos' displeasure. He was the judge on duty in the dining hall and as such, he'd expected more of a show. Really, though; a horde of individuals from all walks of life, some with conflicting backgrounds and powerful vendettas, yet there was no sort of action whatsoever. Everyone was just sitting there, in groups of threes, chowing down. Kochal would've narrowed his eyes if he had any, but as it were he had to settle for just furrowing that surprisingly-pliable bony brow of his over his eye sockets. It was definitely one of his more disturbing expressions. The judge held that look as he stalked past the rows of busy eaters. When he got to the head of the room, he folded his arms and cleared his throat.
That got no one's attention.
Oh you wanna' ignore me, huh? He thought vindictively, and in the next instant he rose his hands towards the heavens that he'd never inhabit and caused a great multitude of fireballs to come raining down.
"Ahh!"
"What the hell?!"
"My eye!"
Those not lucky enough to either dodge the sudden attack or counter it with a move of their own found themselves about fifty degrees hotter.
"Silence!" The judge boomed.
Sonya Blade, who'd been relatively unmarred by the blast, stood far from her scorched table with her fists on her hips.
"You just tried to fry us," She deadpanned, "And you expect us not to make noise?"
"No, flesh-bag," Kochal corrected, "If I wanted to fry you, you'd be fried."
"Well why'd you burn us?"
"Yeah, what's the big idea?"
"I was still eating!"
The flames that surrounded Kochal's head grew mightier as he grew more agitated.
"Oh, wah-wah-wah!" He snapped, "You'll get to stuff your faces again later. Right now there's something else you should be worried about."
"And that is?" Mileena prompted.
Kochal said, "Not a single one of you has done anything thus far regarding teamwork."
Noob asked, "Why would we?"
"Because, you insipid wraith, the better you work with your team, the better chance you have at making it to the final round." Kochal explained.
Noob merely shrugged, not being one to take offense easily. Beside him, Kitana was nodding her head at the judge's logic, as were most of the others. The only one not in full agreement of what was going on was that insufferable demigod.
He said, "What's the point of getting to know our teammates if there can only be one winner?"
"Each week a team will be eliminated," Kochal replied, "So ignorance is a liability."
"Sort of like how your face is a liability?" The prince smirked, "And that's how come there's no 'goddess' of chaos?"
Awful as his quip was, it earned him a few hushed and poorly-stifled snickers. It also, however, invoked that judge's ire who served as the butt of his joke.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" Kochal sneered.
Rain smirked and said, "I know I am."
"Oh?" The judge challenged, "Well you know what I know?"
"Uh, what?" the royal frowned.
"Your stupidity just cost you fifteen points." Kochal revealed.
The demigod shrugged nonchalantly and would've retorted, had Mileena not kicked him under the table: and hard. He glared at her, but his stare was no match for the venom and acid that was her own glower.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she groused to herself, he's gonna' end up putting our group dead-last if he keeps this up!
Rain intended on repaying his teammate for what she'd done but then Tanya laid her hand in the crook of his elbow. He turned to her, and was surprised at the disappointment and mild anger he found in her brewing white eyes.
"What?" he frowned.
She shook her head and said, "Just let it go. We're already down fifteen points."
"So? What's fifteen points?" The prince complained.
Kochal cut in with, "A lot when you only get fifty each week."
"But what's so important about them?" Rain insisted, "I thought the challenge at the end of the week determines if a team gets eliminated?"
"True," Kochal acceded, "But even if a team places last in the challenge, they can still stay in the running if they happen to have the most points. Now do you understand?"
He did, as did everyone else. This only aggravated the females in his group even more. His outbursts had definitely set them behind and now they'd have to work that much harder if they wanted to stay in the competition.
"So all we must do," Kuai Liang spoke up, "Is keep our fifty points until the end of each week?"
Kochal shook his head and answered, "You'll have plenty of opportunities to gain more points, like if a particular judge sees you getting along especially well with your teammates. Don't ever expect me to reward that mushy behavior, though."
Sonya frowned and asked, "Is there any other way to earn points, then?"
"Of course," The god responded, "Each day you must participate in a game, worth 25 points, so that by the end of the week you'll have gained up to 100 extra points."
"Okay," She mused, "And what game are we playing today?"
Kochal's 'face' morphed into a parody of an agitated frown.
"Why do you skin-bags ask so many questions?"
"No, it's mainly just her," Ermac attested from their personal dealings with the lieutenant.
Kochal was hardly convinced.
"The first game," he stated anyway, "is fairly simple, so you menial brains should be able to comprehend the rules: in two minutes, you are to write down as many four-letter words as you can."
"That's it?"
"What do we write with?"
"When do we start?"
"Enough with the questions!" Kochal barked, "I'll hand out your papers and writing utensils, and then I'm gettin' the hell away from you lot. When I come back, I'll collect your lists and announce the winner, and we can all get on with our lives...well, with regards to the contest, that is."
And he said no more as he did just as he'd told them he would. First he slapped pieces of parchment down on the groups' tables, or in some cases people's faces. At the same time he would reach into the folds of the black cloak he wore and procure little pencils.
Looks like the ones I used to take standardized tests with, Sonya thought to herself as she was handed one rather rudely. Kochal definitely wasn't her favorite of the three judges.
"Now, like I said," Kochal spoke, "I'll be leaving. When I come back, I don't want to see a pencil in anyone's hands or else you'll be disqualified."
This worried the younger of the two Lin Kuei brothers.
Kuai asked, "What if some people try to cheat?"
"Out-cheat them." Was Kochal's reply, "Just don't let me see you when I come back."
"But-"
The god let the slam of the dining hall door serve as his response, much to Kuai's dismay. Across from him Sheeva only shrugged.
"Just take his advice," She suggested to the Cryomancer.
"Noob, you never told us your brother liked to whine so much," Ermac observed loudly.
To which Noob replied wryly, "Well, he is a Cryomancer."
And while they chuckled heartily, the slighted Tundra turned to his group and angrily snatched his pencil from the table.
"Let's just get to work." He muttered.
That's what everyone else was doing. And for a moment the hall was quiet. But that didn't last long. If the cheating could be pin-pointed, it'd have to be said that it broke out at the table where the host and the wraith sat.
"Um, take. Give. Live. Life..." Kitana murmured to herself as she wrote.
She was doing the grunt work, and she didn't much mind. It distracted her from the dissonance she felt upon seeing her two partners enact their foul play. First Ermac started staring real hard at the young leader he'd just been teasing, trying to knock the Lin Kuei's mind off track. And while they did that, Noob sent out his right-hand, er, inside man, Saibot. The wraith's counterpart didn't tackle anyone this time. No, he instead made a bee-line for one of the opposite team's tables.
"Something wrong, Kuai?" Liu Kang asked.
The young leader held his temple with a bewildered frown. He blinked, but couldn't dispel the odd, overbearing sensation within his head.
"I had the words coming," Kuai said, "but now it's like I'm...drawing a blank or something."
It was at that time Earth's Champion noticed the black figure leaning over Kuai's shoulder, dripping his essence onto the floor and table.
"Well I've got a word," Liu said with a hint of irritation, "Nosy."
And while Sheeva took the pencil from Kuai and tried futilely to hold it properly, Liu took it upon himself to get rid of their unwanted 'guest': He cupped his hands and shot a thick ball of fire at the enigmatic being. It did hit Saibot right in the chest and, like the dramatic creature he was, Saibot clutched the gaping, burning hole in his body and then staggered backwards. He managed to knock over a few chairs before he fell right on top of someone else.
"For goodness sakes, Saibot, have some dignity!" Noob winced, then called his minion back.
Scorpion was the one who'd been assaulted and was thus covered in that black gooey mess all over his back.
And this was my good tunic, too, Scorpion fumed. He was all too ready to flip a table and yell for all the gods and everyone else to hear. But his teammate waved a hand in front of his face.
"Hey, Scorpion!" Jade called, "Let it go! Just let it go!"
The most the spectre did was glare before turning back to his group. He still had his hands balled and his white-hot eyes narrowed into slants. Jade swallowed.
"It was an accident," She told him, "Let's just finish this, alright?"
Scorpion blinked slowly and let the anger pass. He did know lots of words, four-letter words, much to his group's surprise. He would never tell them, but he'd once been eloquent when it came to words; though he may not have always chosen to speak them, that is.
"We're on a roll," Smoke smiled, "We might actually win!"
"Unlike them," Jade said, and indulged in a small smirk.
It did her heart good to see one of her enemies struggling, and Tanya was indeed struggling. Not only did she have to write as fast as she could, but she also had to tune out the sheer idiocy spewing from her teammate's mouth; and no, not Mileena, she was actually helping.
"Bake, fair, sale, four, fore-" She offered.
Rain had to interject, "You said the same word twice."
"I know," Mileena snapped, "They're spelled two different ways. You'd know that if you ever pick up a book sometime."
"I've read plenty of books," He sniffed.
"Like what?" She challenged, "The Kama Sutra?"
Tanya rolled her eyes and said, "Focus or shut up!"
"Jeez, you sure are pushy," Mileena frowned.
Tanya's eyes wandered as she murmured, "Sure...Push...thanks."
"What about crime?" Rain offered after a pause.
Mileena sighed, "That's more than four words."
"No it isn't!"
"Yes it is," Mileena argued patiently, then told him, "Spell it."
"K-R-I-M." He declared.
The girl closed her eyes and murmured, "Rain, you dumb fuck-"
"Dumb," Tanya noted, "Fuck; that works, actually."
Mileena met someone's eyes across the noisy room and saw that, although Tanya approved, they didn't. No, Nightwolf hated when she used such vulgar language. But he also couldn't condone what was going on in his own group, either. Shang sat beside him, slack-jawed in his seat, a translucent green aura about him. While he channeled the spirit of a famous linguist whose soul he'd stolen decades ago, the shaman shook his head.
"You know," Sonya spoke, "If Kochal comes back and sees him like this, we could all get flogged."
She knew, for she was quoting the rules for reference. As a woman of the military, she was usually a rule-abiding kind of person. But amazingly, Shang Tsung was coming up with about five words per second. He may have looked like he was strung out on a hard hit of morphine, but his hand was really going, and she did want to win. So she warily watched their backs so that they wouldn't be found out.
"Alright, you sacks of flesh, I'm back!"
That warm and fuzzy greeting heralded Kochal's return. He came striding through the room and the players groaned as they begrudgingly put down their pencils. Well, not all of them that is.
"What are you doing?" Kitana hissed in a whisper. "You're going to get us disqualified!"
"Not so, Princess," Noob said politely, "You see, Kochal said that pencils had to be 'out of everyone's hands'. Technically, his hands aren't touching the pencil, so..."
It was true. Ermac was controlling the pencil with one of their mental vectors, guiding it fluidly down the white parchment in steady, furious scribbles. Kitana was hardly placated, despite Noob's rationale.
"Wait a minute," She wondered, "Where is he getting all these words from?"
Noob chuckled and said, "You'll see."
Ermac dropped the pencil only milliseconds before Kochal had come around to collect their list. By then, they'd gotten at least twenty-something more words. Kitana was impressed but had a feeling the surplus was due to some foul play.
"Now don't hold your breath," Kochal spoke, "I've got to count these things."
Smoke looked at Kuai and asked, "In the meantime, we can just, uh, talk amongst ourselves?"
"If you can talk without breathing opening your mouth, then yes." Kochal responded.
"You could have just said 'be quiet'." The enenra said flatly.
"I could have."
So the dining hall returned to that relative silence it had taken on since before Kochal arrived. It took him all of about ten minutes to count, scratch off, re-count, proofread, criticize, spell-check, and count once more everyone's words. The general fun that was struggling to bloom in the air in light of the game had long since died by the time he was finished, leaving everyone looking immensely bored. Some of them were hungry, having been denied their meal with that fire-ball stunt the god had pulled. In every case, they were glad to hear his voice for once when he started to speak again.
"Okay," He said, "First of all, let me hand this back."
To Jade, Smoke, and Scorpion he gave the list of words with over half of them scratched off.
"I don't understand," Jade frowned.
"Well for starters, about three-fourths of these words aren't even in English." Kochal told her.
Smoke smiled proudly and said, "They're Czech words."
"Well Czech gets no check," Kochal stated, "English only."
"You didn't say that before!" Scorpion seethed, dangerously close to losing his temper.
"Well that's too bad, isn't it?" Kochal said, unfazed. "The next group, well, I have to hand it to you: your extensive vocabulary of all words profane does impress me."
He gave the paper to Mileena and added, "But you didn't come up with enough of them to win."
"Uh, what about us?" Liu asked.
"Quiet, Dragon-Boy!" Kochal snapped, "Whoever wrote for your team definitely has the nicest handwriting and it looks like you had a good streak at first, but from half the page onward all I see is chicken-scratch."
Liu sighed, "See Sheeva? I told you I should've been the one to write after Kuai stopped."
Sheeva frowned. She had wanted to prove to the do-gooder Shaolin that he wasn't the only one who could excel. However, he was right this time. Holding a pencil with her three-fingered hand was a disaster and now they'd all paid the price for her obstinacy.
"Now with the last two groups, it was a close-call." Kochal spoke. "In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the last twenty-odd words were the exact same for both lists. But hey, what are the odds?"
Sonya tilted her head and asked, "Who won?"
"If I get another impromptu question, I'm docking 30 points!" Kochal threatened.
Composing himself, he said, "And if you must know, I was trying to build suspense."
"The winners, not really a surprise to me, are those sacks of meat over there!" Kochal announced. "Congratulations!"
Not a single applause came in conjunction with the onslaught of attention that winning table suddenly received. Ermac and Noob stared back, unaffected, but Kitana flinched. She came from a place where she was princess and not many people were so bold as to look at her like that. Like they wanted her to go die in a hole at the least, or be disemboweled and set aflame and then left to die in a hole; yes, that was Scorpion. He either hated you or he didn't, there wasn't a happy medium with that guy.
Kitana shuddered and looked away.
"They hate us, not you, Princess." Ermac said, reading her mind. "Get used to it, because we're only going to keep winning."
A/N: Hello again, everybody! Thanks for reading my nonsensical story! Go ahead and tell me what you think of it so far?
Who do you think is going to really go home at the end of the week?
Do you think Ermac's team really will win it all? Or will it be someone else?
What game do you think is coming up next?
Heh, well, I'll try to update soon, but only if you guys are still into this story, so let me know. Until that time!
~DymondGold~