Chapter Text
“Can you please stop playing with your hat?” Liu Kang said with a sigh, not sure if he should already be packing away the medical kit or if he should keep it on standby in case his companion injured himself.
“I’m not playing with my hat, shi di. I am training—ah!”
Liu Kang whirled around, and sure enough, Kung Lao was cradling his left forearm to his chest, a red gash sitting boldly on his skin.
“You need to rest,” Liu Kang thundered, gripping his shi xiong’s hand tightly.
Kung Lao hissed as the motion pulled his wound wider.
“If you’re going to be hard-headed, you have no right to complain about the pain,” Liu Kang said, but deep inside, he was angry at himself for not being stricter with Kung Lao. “It’s only been two days since you returned to us. You should be in bed, not throwing around a dangerous weapon.”
“Staying in bed all day makes me restless,” Kung Lao said, grin marred by the occasional wince as Liu Kang placed needles around the wound. “What would the Great Kung Lao say if he saw his descendant lounging around in perfect health?”
“He would say you were an idiot,” Liu Kang persisted, summoning fire to his palm, which he placed over Kung Lao’s wound. “You are not, in fact, in perfect health.”
But the older man only scoffed. Then, he leaned closer and smirked. “Is this how you treated the wound I gave Cole Young?”
Liu Kang shot him an unamused look.
“Did you hold his arm with a sure grip and cauterized the gash? Did you look up at him through your pretty lashes and frown at him with your perfect red lips?”
“That is enough, Kung Lao,” Liu Kang said, pursing his lips. “Go back to your quarters.”
He made to leave but was suddenly pulled back. Caught by surprise, he stumbled into Kung Lao’s chest, hips bracketed by the other man’s legs.
“Not going to join me?” Kung Lao said, the edge of his lips curling up in a grin. Liu Kang’s red sash was wrapped around his uninjured hand. He gave it a short tug. “You’re not going anywhere, shi di.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Liu Kang said, gaze dropping to Kung Lao’s lips. But then he caught sight of the red cloth around his shi xiong’s arm, and he drew his eyes up. “Do you remember when we made that vow?”
Kung Lao seemed to have caught his meaning because he tugged at the red sash. “We tied this cloth around our hands.”
“You tied our hands with it,” Liu Kang said with a smirk. “And then we promised that where one would go, the other would follow.”
“Even in death.”
“Even in death,” Liu Kang echoed.
“You are mine,” Kung Lao said, dropping his voice to a mere whisper, the hot air from his lips ghosting over Liu Kang’s ear and making him shiver.
Kung Lao caressed his hair and pulled him close, lips grasping his fiercely.
Passion lit Liu Kang’s heart like a flame. His body felt so hot he thought he would burn. But when he drew back to take in air, Kung Lao retained his strong grip on the back of his head and attacked his lips once more.
“Wait,” Liu Kang said, but the other man’s grip did not loosen, and he was starting to get light-headed from the lack of air. Everything was so hot; the heat was almost suffocating.
“Mine,” Kung Lao growled. “You said you were mine, remember?”
His grip on the sash and Liu Kang’s head tightened, and a sense of wrongness and fear coiled around his chest.
“Lao,” Liu Kang said, voice rising as he tried to get away. “Stop it.”
“You promised. You are mine!”
Liu Kang, focus!
Liu Kang jolted as if a loud voice had spoken right in his hear.
Listen to the sound of the flames.
What?
Liu Kang got distracted, and it was enough for Kung Lao to make his move. The other man covered his neck with both hands and squeezed.
“Lao!” Liu Kang gasped, but the vice-like grip around his neck continued to tighten.
Oxygen left his lungs even as he tried to take in gulps of air. His entire body was on fire, and his lungs were burning.
The flames, Liu Kang.
Focus on the sound of the flames!
Flames?
Burning. Hot. Suffocation.
Despite the pain in his chest and around his neck, Liu Kang closed his eyes and focused.
Flames. Burning. Heat. Suffocation.
And then he heard it.
Flames crackling and snapping, licking the air like tongues. His skin felt the fire, but there was no pain.
He opened his eyes.
And found himself alone, surrounded by walls of fire.
He remembered where he was.
Netherrealm.
One last door.
It was the voice again, and this time, Liu Kang remembered. His late-night visitor from another universe, his talk with Lord Raiden, and their plan to bring Kung Lao back.
Only, Liu Kang had been waylaid by the visions he saw through the various doors he’d passed.
Visions of him never being found by the monks, languishing on the streets, a bone-thin orphan dying in the rain as people passed by.
Visions of him being burnt alive as his arcana swallowed him whole, his spirit not strong enough to control the fire in his heart.
Visions of Kung Lao blaming him for not saving him, not following him in death.
Liu Kang steeled his heart and pushed through the door in front of him. Inside, it was dim, the crackle of fire quiet but still menacing. The air was heavy and stale. While the other room smelled of burnt flesh and air, this one smelled of sickness and impending death.
After several minutes in, he finally found what he was looking for.
But the sight before him rendered him speechless and motionless. He was rooted to the spot, his eyes adjusting to the figure in front of him.
On his knees, wrists raised over his head and connected to a chain on the wall, with his black hair over his face, it could have been someone else.
But Liu Kang would recognize him anywhere.
“Shi xiong,” he whispered, sprinting towards the other man.
Energy crackled over the motionless form. Liu Kang was afraid to touch him, so he satisfied himself by looking the man over for injuries. There was none. Just like Lord Raiden theorized, it seemed that Shang Tsung had given Kung Lao’s soul to Netherrealm’s necromancer to turn into one of his warriors.
Quan-Chi was the name, and he and Shang Tsung were working together. A deadly alliance, Lord Raiden had called it. He had been busy investigating a series of rumors around the other realms, of sleeping gods that would awaken soon, and of sorcerers creating an army of the undead.
It seemed that Quan-Chi had fashioned a new flesh for Kung Lao, but it was gray, dull, cracks running up and down his body, his mark gone.
It was that observation that brought Liu Kang fresh pain. The mark handed down from his ancestor, the Great Kung Lao, had been a point of both pride and pain for his shi xiong, who wielded his birthright like a weapon and a shield.
And now it was gone.
But that can wait. First, he had to get Kung Lao out of the chains before—
“Oh, what is this? A visitor from Earthrealm?”
Goosebumps littered Liu Kang’s arms, and even with the heat, cold had seeped through his bones. He turned around to see what he could only describe as an apparition.
The man was bald, with markings on his face, his skin white as chalk. He rippled like a reflection on a lake. But bit by bit, his body was becoming more solid.
Liu Kang would have to fight his way through, it seemed.
He widened his stance, muscles hardening with effort as he pushed out fireball after fireball. The quickly materializing Quan-Chi stumbled backwards with a grunt. Liu Kang turned around and gripped the chains holding Kung Lao captive.
Fire engulfed his fists and he pulled.
But the chains did not give way.
“You cannot take him, Earthrealmer. He belongs to me now.”
Liu Kang spun around and delivered a swift kick to the sorcerer’s neck. But the other man caught it and aimed a strong punch at Liu Kang’s chest.
The Shaolin stumbled into the wall behind Kung Lao, the impact displacing rocks, soil, and the smell of must into the air.
“Abandon this foolish quest,” Quan-Chi said, “before I decide to take your soul, too.”
“I am not leaving without him,” Liu Kang said through clenched teeth.
Quan-Chi lunged at him. Liu Kang dove sideways and launched himself at the opposite wall before somersaulting over Quan-Chi. He grabbed the sorcerer’s head and snapped it.
A sickening crunch filled the room as Liu Kang dropped to the ground. But the sorcerer did not fall. He merely brought his hands to his head and snapped his neck back into place.
“Surprised?” Quan-Chi asked with a low laugh. “You can’t kill me here, Earthrealmer. Netherrealm is my domain. I serve the god of death, and he rewards me generously.”
Quan-Chi took a step forward and flicked his wrist. Immediately, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of Liu Kang’s lungs.
“Now,” the necromancer said, approaching slowly, hand hovering over Liu Kang’s head, “let’s end this charade. You have potential. You will make a great addition to my lord’s army.”
Liu Kang’s lungs burned, but this time, it was not an illusion he could dispel.
“Fire cannot survive without air,” Quan-Chi said with a grin. “You will soon join your dear friend, so you should rejoice, Earthrealmer.” He placed a hand on Liu Kang’s head and started to caress his hair. “Your power is impressive, but you are not yet strong enough. Don’t worry, my god of death will show you your true potential.”
Quan-Chi raised his other hand and said, “Now, you will belong to me—!”
There was a quick, sharp sound of metal slicing through the air, and it was the only warning they got before Quan-Chi stumbled back, his hand dropping in front of Liu Kang.
“No,” a new voice started, “he will not.”
Liu Kang turned around, eyes wide as Kung Lao raised his head and looked at him.
“You will not touch him, sorcerer.” Kung Lao, voice low and raspy, skin gray and cracked, bared his teeth, and flicked his wrist.
His hat flew through the air and cut through the chains in one fluid slice.
“This cannot be,” Quan-Chi exclaimed even as he reattached his hand to the bleeding stump. “You should no longer have an arcana. You have no mark!”
“Says who?” Kung Lao said, as he struggled to his feet, puffing his chest.
There, even in the dim light, they could see the dragon mark was forming.
Liu Kang caught him before he could stumble, awed and relieved at the weight and form of the man in his arms.
“But how?” he asked under his breath.
“How indeed,” Quan-Chi spat, glaring at the two Shaolins. “I own your soul, Kung Lao! Your spirit may be strong, but I can continue to break you. I just underestimated how long it would take to mold your spirit into my lord’s minion.”
But Kung Lao merely laughed. “You do not own my soul. You never did.” He gripped Liu Kang’s hand. “Because I had already pledged my soul to another.”
Liu Kang stilled and looked at Kung Lao whose eyes were now bright and shining with life.
Kung Lao threw a smug grin at Quan-Chi. “You kept my soul here, but you were never—and will never—be able to own it.”
Hope, awe, and love…. All were fighting for dominance in Liu Kang’s chest, and the dread hovering over his head since he entered Netherrealm dwindled. He remembered the fire god’s words to him.
He straightened his spine, and stepped in front of Kung Lao, staring the necromancer in the eye.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and gathered the heat and the flames towards him.
“This is not Earthrealm,” Quan-Chi said with a sneer. “You cannot control the flames here!”
Liu Kang’s arms and legs burned with his arcana. He spun and delivered a series of flaming hot fire attacks at Quan-Chi, who stumbled under the onslaught.
“Fire is the same everywhere, necromancer,” Liu Kang said with a smirk.
Quan-Chi shook off the attack, though not without smarting from the burns on his skin. He would heal, Liu Kang knew, but his mission was never to defeat the necromancer anyway.
A clap of thunder reverberated throughout the room, and Quan-Chi paled.
“No!” he screamed just as a pillar of lightning descended upon Liu Kang and Kung Lao, taking him home.
**
“The Elder Gods are not happy,” Lord Raiden said as looked down on the sleeping Kung Lao, a thick blanket thrown on top of him by a relieved Liu Kang.
“Not happy?” Liu Kang echoed, brows furrowed in anger. “They’re unhappy that you saved your realm’s champions? But they couldn’t be bothered when Outworld fighters invaded Earthrealm?”
“They did not consider it an invasion,” Lord Raiden said, a furious expression on his face. “I argued with them, but they thought realm champions fighting each other before the tournament was a benign problem. Harmless, they said. As long as they didn’t destroy cities or civilians.”
Liu Kang bolted up from his seated position on a chair beside Kung Lao’s bed. “Shang Tsung had Cole’s family taken! They were not fighters.”
“But because they were a fighter’s family, the Elder Gods argued that it was par for the course,” Lord Raiden said sadly. “They also said that if I kept interfering, it would only be fair for the gods of other realms to interfere as well.”
“They don’t know anything about fairness!” Liu Kang spat, flames coming to life around his fists. “They never do anything to punish Outworld for breaking the rules.”
“You are right,” Lord Raiden said, “and I told them as much. But if the Elder Gods do not make a move to stop them, then we can only train harder and become stronger.”
Liu Kang took a deep breath, and his flames subsided. “And what about the god that Quan-Chi had mentioned? It is not possible, is it? We still have the amulet he is trapped in.”
Lord Raiden nodded. “Yes. And I asked the Elder Gods. They confirmed he is still trapped in it. But, to be honest, Liu Kang…”
Liu Kang held his breath.
“I don’t think we can fully trust the word of the Elder Gods. They have their own agenda, and Quan-Chi knows something we do not. We have to keep our eyes open.”
Liu Kang clenched his fists but nodded anyway.
“Then, I shall leave you to rest now. You need it as much as Kung Lao.”
Lord Raiden left, and Liu Kang allowed his shoulders to drop. He lowered himself on the chair beside Kung Lao’s bed, and finally allowed himself to just feel the exhaustion.
He leaned back on the chair and closed his eyes for a moment.