Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (12 page)

“Yes, Father,” he said. “I most certainly do.”

Liu lead Kitana into the decaying, long-abandoned temple with the others following at their rear. There was no roof atop the barren structure. Its stone walls were crumbled and full of holes. Here and there, faded murals – some of them defaced with graffiti – gave testament to Edenia’s former glory...
and present shame
, Liu thought, his eyes moving over the vulgar scribblings.

Sindel lay stretched out on an altar at the rear of the temple, Jade standing watch beside her.

Kitana gasped in shock. Her eyes leaped from her mother to Jade.

“What are
you
doing here?” she asked.

Liu was bewildered by the overt hostility in her tone. “She helped us rescue you.”

Kitana opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut, at a loss for words.

“You can end this, Kitana,” Rayden said, stepping up to her. “Only your love can reunite Sindel’s body and soul to break the hold Kahn has over her... and close his Portal to Earth.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

Liu guided her to her mother’s side. Forcing back emotion, Jade threw her arms around Kitana.

“I want it to be like it was,” she whispered, her lips brushing against Kitana’s cheek. “For you, for us... for Edenia.”

Liu stepped back with the others, easing Jade away from Kitana, wanting to give her some room.

Kitana just stared at Sindel, her features etched with disbelief and a sort of reluctant hope. slowly, cautiously, she reached her hand down to push the tousled hair from Sindel’s face, then ran her fingers across her cheeks, tracing its planes and angles almost like a little girl.

Minutes passed. No one spoke. No one moved. Finally Kitana knelt beside the altar, and with genuine reverence tenderly kissed her mother’s cold, pale hand.

Behind her, the rest of the band watched in breathless anticipation. Liu glanced anxiously at Rayden, who nodded his encouragement, then gestured back to the reunited mother and daughter.

Sindel’s eyes had flickered open. First wide with fear, they quickly focused on Kitana... the fear subsiding, giving way to recognition and a heartfelt smile.

“Kitana?” she said. “Is that you?”

Overwhelmed, Kitana literally forgot to breathe. She gasped a little, her hand fluttering to the hollow of her throat.

“Mother... I have prayed for the day when our love would bring us together again,” she said.

Liu felt a lump growing in his own throat and swallowed it down. Rayden looked over at him, put a hand on his shoulder.

“The Elder Gods have served us well,” he said, coming out of his silence at last. “We can–”

“Wait,” Sonya said suddenly. Tense with surprise, she pointed a trembling finger at the altar. “Sweet heaven, Rayden,
look
!”

Something horrible was happening to Sindel. Her face had grown sharp and avid, her eyes becoming cruel black points, her maternal smile mutating to a screeching cackle.

“Love?” she said, and abruptly rose to a sitting position. “I
never
loved you!”

Kitana withdrew in disbelief, drifting backward almost like a sleepwalker.

Sindel sat up straighter, her shrill, witchy laughter brewing to the heights of the temple.

“With such a pathetic child as you, what reason was there to live?” she said.

Kitana’s features hardened. “I should have expected this.”

“No!” Rayden shouted. He moved forward, shaking his head in denial. “It cannot be!”

“But it can, it is, and you are powerless, my so-called Thunder God,” Sindel said.

She released another burst of gleefully malevolent laughter, then snapped her waist-length black hair out at Rayden. Whiplike, it caught him right below his shoulder blade, ripping through his leather tunic.

He dropped to the ground with a terrible scream of pain, clutching his arm. Sonya and Jax rushed over to where he’d fallen, and were hauling him to his feet when they heard Jade’s voice behind them.

Her tone was as chilling as the words that came with it.

“It’s all over, you fools,” she said. “You’ve lost, been tricked, wasted your precious time on a wild good chase. Now the merger is nearly complete.”

His face aghast, Liu stared at Jade as her betrayal sank in with him. “How could you do this to us?”

Jade smiled.

“It was
so
easy,” she said. “That’s what made it fun.”

Sindel cackled again, her long tresses standing on end, winding into braids that writhed and twisted like serpents on a medusa.

And then she began to levitate. Snaps of electricity dancing around her body, her eyes bright and wild, she rose up off the altar... up through the collapsed temple ceiling... up and up into the air above the temple, where she released a keening, earsplitting war cry that cut across the pitted Outworld landscape, signaling her troops to arms.

Liu was staring at Jade. “You will die for this!” he shouted.

She gave no answer. The treacherous, wickedly beautiful smile still on her face, she turned and ran from the temple, fleeing through a broken section of its rear wall.

He started after her, but Rayden’s hand clamped around his arm, halting him in his tracks.

“Let her go, Liu,” he said. “Now is not the time.”

Liu looked at him silently, his mouth trembling, his eyes wounded and outraged.

“She told me she would help,” he said. “I trusted her.”

Breaking free of Rayden’s grip, Liu went tearing after her in hot pursuit – only to stop short again when he reached the gaping hole in the wall.

He stood there, his eyes fixed on whatever was outside.

Rayden followed him to the opening. A moment later his normally imperturbable features clouded over with distress.

Out on the royal road, marching toward the temple in a line that stretched to the limit of visibility, were hundreds of Shokan and Centauran warriors reinforced with rank-and-file Extermination Squads.

“It’s an ambush,” Liu said to Rayden.

Kitana had come up behind Liu and was looking out over his shoulder.

“If we go our separate ways, maybe one of us will make it to Kahn,” she said.

“Forget it,” Sonya said bitterly as she and Jax joined them. “We lost. It’s over. Rayden’s plan didn’t work–”

Jax shot an accusatory look at Rayden. “We trusted you, man, and what happens? You take us on a goddamned wild good chase!”

“I don’t understand,” Liu added, also facing him now. His tone was grave and direct, but far less harsh than Jax’s. “You were advised by the Elder Gods.”

Rayden’s throat worked soundlessly. He licked his lips, wrestling with the words he wanted to get out.

“The gods must have lied to me,” he said at last, humbled.

Kitana was incredulous. “How could that be?”

“My faith was blind,” he said flatly. “I have failed you all.”

Jax snorted in disgust. “Hey, forget your gods. And immortals, and all that crap! I say the only ones we can trust from here on out are humans. Nobody else.” His glaze held pointedly on Rayden. “Not even
him
.”

Kitana shook her head once. “By leading us here Rayden has become mortal, just like you,” she said. “All his powers have been sacrificed.”

“You ask me, that’s even worse,” Sonya said. “How do we stop Kahn now?”

There was a long pause. All of them were looking at Rayden.

“There is more to this than Kahn,” he said. “If Sindel was not the key to the Portal, Kahn must have had someone else open it for him.”

“Well, that’s nice to know,” Jax said, and glanced out at the advancing troops. “While you’re at it, here’s another news flash from the front – we’ve got about five minutes before we’re history.”

Rayden exhaled heavily. As he turned to get another look for himself, Sonya noticed something on his shoulder, some sort of colorful mark under the torn sleeve of his shirt. She leaned in for a closer examination, then tapped Jax on the elbow and pointed it out to him, her eyes large with astonishment.

“That tattoo,” she said. “I’ve seen it before. On a robot. And a woman. Both tried to kill me...”

“And both of them worked for Kahn,” Jax said bluntly, finishing her thought.

Liu shook his head, unbelieving. He looked as if he’d been slapped hard across the face. “First Jade... and now
you
, Rayden?”

Rayden simply stared at his tattoo for a few seconds, then turned to the others, knowledge flooding into his eyes.

“It is true,” he said. “I led you into this trap. But I did so unwittingly.” He rubbed his chin, all the pieces of a confounding puzzle finally coming together for him. “This tattoo is a family crest, endowed by my father to my brother me. It alone allows safe passage between realms for the bearer and his charges.”

The thought lines on Sonya’s forehead deepened and lengthened. Maybe
Rayden
had seen the light, but she was even more terribly confused than before.

“If it’s your family’s, how can Kahn’s side have them, too?”

“Because my father is one of the Elder Gods, and only they can bestow such a marking,” he replied, seemingly excited by his own powers of deduction.

“Your
dad’s
an Elder God? Funny you failed to mention that before.”

Preoccupied, Rayden ignored Sonya’s comment. Things were continuing to fall into place for him, and it wouldn’t do to be distracted. “Don’t you see? It must have been my father who lied to me... who opened the Portal himself. He knew I would trust the gods.”

“Wait a minute,” Jax said. “If you and your brother were the only ones to actually get these crests...”

The rest of the sentence hung in the air with a gravity that bore down upon the entire group.

“You’ve come to the right conclusion,” Rayden said after what seemed like a very long time. His voice was slow and halting as he read their expressions. “Shao Kahn... is my brother.”

Liu could hardly believe his ears. “Why would your father betray you and choose Kahn?”

“Because, Liu, power is the most important thing to my father. But he always wanted to keep it in the family... and he knew I wouldn’t join him.” He paused a beat. “Years ago, he decreed that his heir to the family throne must be strong enough to kill his own brother in battle if necessary. I beat him, but I could not kill him. And for what was deemed my weakness, I was banished to the realm of Earth.”

“For not killing your
brother
?”

“Back then, my father believed Earth was a pitiful and inferior world,” Rayden said. “Whatever became of my brother, I did not know... until now.”

Jax ran a hand over his nap of black hair.

“Man,” he said, “you got one dysfunctional family.”

Kitana’s eyes returned to the gap in the temple wall. She had heard battle cries vaulting upward in the near distance.

“Our time is almost up,” she said.

Rayden nodded.

“Kitana’s right,” he said. “And only one thing is certain... Kahn must die.”

“This time you’re going to kill him?” Liu asked.

Rayden looked closely at him.

“I could not murder my brother then, and I cannot now,” he said, expelling a deep sigh. “I can do no more for you.”

Stunned, the others watched him turn away, then gaze out at their approaching enemy through the broken wall.

“So what do we
do
?” Liu demanded.

Rayden kept his back to them.

“You will do your best,” he said. “That is all that can be expected.”

There was another seemingly endless silence. Peering outside, Sonya saw a splinter group of Extermination Squad warriors clambering toward them across the rubble of the city... close enough for her to hear the gritty crunch of their boots stamping down on scattered, tumbled, debris.

“They’re almost here,” she said.

Jax frowned with utter despondency. “We’re screwed Totally screwed.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Liu said. “After everything we’ve been through–”

“Listen to me, all of you!” Kitana cut in. Her eyes were stern and fairly reproachful. “Liu, not Rayden, is our best hope!”

Liu retreated visibly from her insistent gaze.

“I want to fight Kahn,” he said. “But I... I don’t know if I’m ready.”

She stepped forward, the dark pools of her eyes holding steady on his own, seeming to reach deep inside him – reach into his secret heart.

“If you believe in yourself, Liu,” she said, her voice softening, “then I believe in you too.”

He considered her words.

Hesitated.

Considered them some more, looking around at his friends.

They were all nodding.

Finally, he nodded back.

“Together, we can do this,” he said.

“Yes,” Kitana said, and took firm hold of his hand. “Together.”

Crouched behind a toppled pillar at the side of the highway, Rayden watched Liu and the others leave the temple and go racing away from the Outworld forces, sprinting from one place of concealment to another. Their disappointment in him was troubling, but far more was at stake than his image... or their injured feelings.

At any rate, he mused, it was ridiculous to be worrying about that now. The game was well in play, why not have some fun with it?

He waited until the little group was out of sight, then leaped onto the pillar, waving his arms at the Outworlders.

“Who wants a piece of the Thunder God?” he shouted. And took off running.

Sprawled on the floor of Kahn’s war room, Jade touched her fingers to her mouth where the sorcerer had just struck her, and winced in pain. When she brought her hand back down it was covered with fresh blood.

“It was not my fault,” she said, glaring hatefully at Kahn. “I did everything you ordered.”

He walked around the council table where Queen Sindel, Motaro, and Ermac were seated.

“Your job was to lure them to an ambush,” he said. “If they have escaped, then you have indeed failed me.”

Jade rose onto her knees.

“Your men were too slow,” she said, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. “We never could have stopped them alone.”