Chapter Text
Kung Lao pulled the red cloth tighter as Liu Kang gasped under him. He grinned as the cloth rubbed the other man’s wrists raw. Cruel excitement curled in Kung Lao’s belly as he leaned down on the younger man, who clenched his teeth and closed his eyes in pain.
“Look at me, shi di,” Kung Lao whispered, lips hovering a mere inch over Liu Kang’s own. “Let me see those fiery eyes.”
But Liu Kang continued to close his eyes and turn his head away.
“I said look at me!” Kung Lao exclaimed, pulling the cloth tighter, in turn, pulling up Liu Kang’s tied hands over his head, the red snaking over and under the iron bed rail he was using like a pulley. He dropped his voice low. “Come now, shi di, be good and do what I say.”
Liu Kang opened his eyes slowly. They were shining with unshed tears, brows furrowed in anger, sweat rolling down the side of his face, and didn’t he look absolutely delicious. Kung Lao looked down at his handiwork, his right hand pressing a small blade into the other man’s stomach.
He twisted the dagger deeper and grinned when a tear rolled down Liu Kang’s cheek. Kung Lao leaned closer. Blood slipped out between the younger man’s lips and Kung Lao let out a sigh of satisfaction.
“So trusting, so naïve,” Kung Lao said with a sneer. “You are your own worst enemy, Liu Kang.”
He scoffed and pulled the blade free. Blood flowed freely, Liu Kang’s throat working like he wanted to say something but didn’t have strength to let the words out.
“And I?” Kung Lao murmured, raising the blade high. “I am your undoing.”
Then he plunged the blade into Liu Kang’s heart.
.
Kung Lao bolted upright, shirt clinging to his back, cold sweat breaking out on his nape. He took several deep breaths as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. And the first silhouette he sought out was the one sleeping soundly on the bed right across from him.
It was little more than a lump, covered in a thick blanket, but knowing he was there was enough to calm Kung Lao’s wildly beating heart.
“Nightmare?” a voice to his left asked.
Kung Lao jerked a little in surprise and turned to the other bed. Cole was leaning back on the headboard, his phone in his hand.
The Shaolin champion wet his lips and cleared his throat. “It’s nothing.”
Cole nodded slowly then glanced at Liu Kang’s sleeping form. “Is it about him?”
“I said it’s nothing,” Kung Lao snapped.
Cole raised his hand in surrender. “Hey, I’m just worried. You and Liu haven’t been talking much, and considering it’s just the three of us here, I just wanna make sure we’re all good.”
Kung Lao rolled his eyes at him and leaned his back against the headboard. “There is nothing to worry about. Go to sleep.”
“Your turn’s not in another thirty minutes,” Cole said, frowning. “You can still catch some sleep.”
But Kung Lao merely waved a dismissive hand. “I’m already awake. I might as well start my watch.”
“Well, maybe you could use some company,” Cole said with a shrug and a small grin.
Kung Lao raised a brow but let out a small huff before shaking his head, as if to say, Do what you want.
Cole went back to his phone, and he chuckled.
Kung Lao raised a brow as the other man looked up and caught his expression. He didn’t say anything, but Cole seemed to have taken that as invitation.
“It’s Emily’s birthday in a few months’ time,” Cole said softly, turning the phone around to show Kung Lao a video of a young girl smiling over a cake, a cone-shaped hat on her head, a woman singing beside her. “This was when she turned twelve last year.”
Despite Kung Lao initially wanting to be left alone to brood during his watch, he was also curious about his fellow champion’s family. Cole handed him the phone, and he took it gingerly, holding it carefully in his hand, like he was holding a piece of Cole Young’s heart, and wasn’t that a strange thought.
The little girl, Emily, had her mother’s eyes and her father’s smile. She blew the candles and dragged a finger over the pinkish cream—icing, he had once learned—on the cake.
“No, young lady!” Cole’s wife, Allison, Liu Kang had told him, brandished a finger. “Dessert’s for later.” She turned around, muttering, “and where on earth is the knife?”
Emily looked at the camera—at her father—and scooped a huge dollop of cream with her right hand. When her mother turned around, the young girl attacked her face.
There was a shriek and laughter, and Kung Lao pulled his eyes away, returning Cole’s phone to him, emotion lodged in his throat.
“You have a beautiful family,” he said.
“Thanks. I miss them every day,” Cole said, heaving a deep sigh, taking one last look at his phone before putting it on the bedside table. “But right now, it’s safer for them to be away from me.”
Kung Lao nodded, eyes straying back to the motionless figure on the bed across his. He’d have preferred for Liu Kang to sleep on the farther bed, but the younger monk was adamant about sleeping closer to the door. In case of intruders, he had said. Of course, there was another reason, Kung Lao knew.
“We do what we can to protect the people we love,” he said softly and directed his gaze to the window close to his head, the paper-thin curtains moving minutely from the breeze of the air-conditioning unit of the motel room.
“But pushing them away kinda seems counterproductive, doesn’t it?” Cole said.
Kung Lao’s lips thinned into a straight line, but he didn’t bother turning to the side when he said, “I thought you understood, Cole Young.”
“Oh, I do,” Cole continued, sounding nonchalant. “But your situation’s different from mine.”
This time, Kung Lao did turn to give Cole what some students at the Wu Shi had called his Death Glare.
“And why is that?” he asked in a low voice.
Cole raised a brow at Kung Lao’s unnecessary aggression. “For one, my wife and daughter aren’t fighters. Heck, I wasn’t raised to fight supervillains. My family had a choice, and I was glad they did. You, me, Sonya, Jax, and Liu Kang…we have no choice. So, I don’t see how you pushing him away is going to make a difference. He’s here with you.” He shrugged and leaned back on his pillow. “So… you might as well be with him.”
Kung Lao didn’t say anything, eyes flicking between Cole, who had closed his eyes, and Liu Kang who was still deep in sleep.
Soon, Cole’s breathing evened out and a soft snore could be heard. Kung Lao sat up straight, folded his legs. and took a deep breath. He stayed that way for a long time, but his meditation was unsuccessful, thoughts constantly filled with a certain Shaolin.
**
Cole hoped to every god on their side that this would work. It was Sonya’s plan, and it had merit, but it could also just fall on the sideways. He really hoped it would because he didn’t think he’d actually be able to pull off kidnapping a celebrity right off a production site.
“It is an honor to meet you, Johnny Cage,” Liu Kang said with a slight bow as the actor eyed him up and down with interest.
“You’re one of the stunt crew?” Cage asked with a grin. “You must be new. I’ve worked with Huang’s crew before, and I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered a pretty face like yours.”
Cole threw a glance at Kung Lao standing beside him. The other man didn’t make a move, but he was certainly throwing out some murderous vibes, and Cole just wanted everything to go according to plan.
“Please, you embarrass me,” Liu Kang said with a slight uptick of his lips, but his eyes remained sharp. “Mr. Cage—”
“Call me Johnny,” the man said with a wink.
Kung Lao folded his arms over his chest and shifted his stance. Cole let out a deep breath.
“Johnny,” Liu Kang said obligingly, and the actor’s face lit up, “I wanted to show you some moves. Mr. Huang wanted to incorporate some choreography that he thought would look good on screen. He said you’d really like them.”
“Oh?” Cage asked, approaching Liu Kang with a swagger in his steps. “Is that all you want to show me? ‘Cause I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t really do it while in production, but you know, when we’ve wrapped it all up—”
“I wonder if it’s true what the rumors say,” Kung Lao said, throwing his voice loudly as he looked meaningfully at Cole who found that his feet and throat were frozen in surprise.
This was not part of the plan.
Cage looked up at them and frowned. “What rumors?”
“That you don’t actually do your own stunts,” Kung Lao said with a scoff.
Cage shook his head, chuckling as he walked past Liu Kang and approached Cole and Kung Lao.
“And where’d you hear these rumors, sweetheart?”
Cole looked over Cage’s shoulder and saw Liu Kang looking none too happy about this. Cole suddenly had a vision of himself presenting Johnny Cage’s burnt and dismembered corpse to Lord Raiden.
“It doesn’t matter. They’re just rumors, right?” Cole said, stepping forward and drawing Cage’s attention to himself. “We heard the rumors, but we told them Johnny Cage is the real thing. Which is why we’d really like to spar with you for the movie. We’re huge fans—”
“Alright, you’re overselling it, pretty boy,” Cage said, waving a hand. “What, is Huang starting a boy band or something? Look, just go do your stunts, alright? I already told my agent I don’t like fans on the set—”
He attempted to leave, but, quick as lightning, Kung Lao threw a punch at Cage’s face.
Cage evaded it in the nick of time, and when he turned to look at Kung Lao, a glare had appeared on his face.
“Now what the fuck was that?” Cage exclaimed. “You wanna throwdown, pretty boy?”
“I’d like to see you try,” Kung Lao said with a smirk.
But Cage shook his head, chuckled menacingly, then threw a quick punch—which Kung Lao dodged with expert ease. He grabbed Cage’s arm and pulled him down, but the actor managed to catch his fall.
He got to his feet and glowered. “You wanna get fired, punk?!”
“Ah, so that’s how you settle fights,” Kung Lao said, one brow and the side of his lips raising in mocking. “Perhaps the other rumor was also true. About your match with that kickboxer—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Cage said through gritted teeth, rolling his shoulders menacingly.
“No, of course,” Kung Lao said, stepping back and raising his chin. “You’ll just have your people throw us out. Because you can’t finish your own fights. Others have to do it for you.”
Now, Cole was unsure whose corpse he was going to bring back to Lord Raiden. What if Cage’s arcana manifested right here, right now, and it was some form of acid attack? What if Kung Lao couldn’t call his hat in time? One look at the tight expression on Liu Kang’s face told Cole that if Cage hurt Kung Lao, the younger monk would set the actor on fire.
Cole sighed.
“You really wanna get an ass-whopping, don’t you?” Cage spat, puffing his chest and squaring up to Kung Lao, who didn’t back down.
“We’ll see who’s on the receiving end of that,” the other man said.
Cage’s eyes darted over Kung Lao’s face, and he scoffed. “I’ll make you eat dust, pretty boy. Seven tonight. At the local gym. I’ll give you a thrashing like you’ve never seen.”
Then Cage turned on his heel and walked off, leaving Cole in the company of two frowning monks, both angry for different reasons.
**
“The plan was to befriend him,” Liu Kang said, dropping his voice in anger, “not to make an enemy of him.”
“I highly doubt it was friendship on his mind when you talked to him,” Kung Lao said, eyeing Cage who was doing stretches on the other side of the ring.
“Why, what is it to you if there’s something else on his mind?” Liu Kang shot back, eyes blazing.
Cole took in a deep breath and planted himself in the middle of the conversation.
“Guys, focus,” he said. “Now’s not the time. Lao,” he began, turning to the other monk who had a look of utter frustration and slight hurt on his face. On any other day, Cole would have comforted his friend and the man who saved him, but, well, Kung Lao had made his bed, so he had better lie on it. “Try not to hurt him too much. If his arcana doesn’t manifest, we try again after this.”
Kung Lao gave him an unimpressed look. “Yes, and we’ll just wait for Outworld to kill him.”
“No,” Cole said emphatically. “We try to get his trust—which was what we were supposed to be aiming for in the first place. If worse comes to worst, we’ll have to do Plan B.” Kidnap a fucking celebrity.
Kung Lao heaved a sigh like sticking to the plan was an inconvenience to him. He jumped into the ring in one fluid motion.
“We can do this,” Cole said, more to himself than anyone, then turned to Liu Kang. “We can do this, right?”
“Your optimism is impressive,” Liu Kang said dryly, eyeing the other monk sharply.
Cole shook his head. “As long as he sticks to the plan.” Then he remembered the events earlier. “Why didn’t he stick to the plan?”
Liu Kang folded his arms over his chest. “It’s not exactly out of character for him. But he always manages to turn things around.”
“Well, let’s pray to all the gods on our side that things go well,” Cole said.
Liu Kang frowned. “But they don’t always listen.”
“Alright, let’s get this started,” Johnny Cage said, flicking out a series of impressive-looking kicks.
“It will be finished before you know it,” Kung Lao said as he began the fight with a quick spin kick.
Cage blocked it with an upper arm, but Kung Lao was already turning and dropping to sweep him off his feet. The actor fell with a surprised grunt and rolled on his knees.
From there, the fight only grew in intensity. Cage was obviously tiring, but he was also getting angry. Kung Lao, too, looked increasingly frustrated that his opponent was still standing, and for that, Cole had to give it to Johnny Cage. The man was too stubborn to back down.
In the end, the fight was decided by one roundhouse kick from Kung Lao that grazed the tip of Johnny Cage’s nose and sent him stumbling backwards.
“Fuck,” Cage said, arms pinwheeling as he struggled to stay upright. “Alright, alright! Goddamnit! You could’ve broken my nose!”
He straightened his spine and flexed his muscles but winced when he raised his right arm. “I’m done with this!” he said. “I still have a film to finish!”
“Excuses,” Kung Lao spat. “But I understand it’s important in your profession to take care of your most vital asset—your face.”
“Well, it’s a very good face,” Johnny said, raising a brow in challenge.
“It is also your only asset,” Kung Lao added. “So I can understand your concern, when you even had to resort to bribing that kickboxer to throw the fight.”
Cage glared at him, nostrils flaring in anger. “I. Did. Not. Bribe. Him.”
“A lot of sources say you did,” Kung Lao insisted. “You challenged him to a fight but realized you couldn’t beat him. Is that a recurring thing for you, getting into fights you can’t win?”
“I may not be Jet Li,” Johnny Cage spat out, “but I don’t need to bribe someone to win. And I’d rather lose than take credit for something I didn’t do.”
“Then why didn’t you propose a rematch?” Liu Kang said from the ringside. “Were you too scared to prove everyone right?”
Johnny Cage took deep breaths, but his nostrils flared, and his eyes seemed to be shooting lasers in Liu Kang’s direction—figuratively speaking of course, but memories of Kano’s arcana activating flashed through Cole’s mind. He readied himself and his arcana to jump in front of Liu just in case the actor’s arcana also happened to be a laser beam.
“Too scared to show the world what Johnny Cage is really made of?” Kung Lao added, picking up where his partner left off.
“Too scared to let them see that deep down there isn’t much to look at?” Liu Kang said, and oh boy that one absolutely burned.
Cole was glad he never got to be on the receiving end of what he secretly dubbed the Shaolin Duo Burns.
“What’s wrong, Johnny?” Kung Lao sneered. “Whatever happened to promising me a ‘throwdown’? Have you realized that you had no chance of winning to begin with?”
“That you were never as good as you thought you were?” Liu Kang added.
And Kung Lao delivered the final blow, “That you fill your life with vice and vanity because the truth is, you are hollow and empty inside, and there is nothing special about you.”
Cage’s face was red, beads of sweat rolling down his temple, his chest heaving quickly.
Any minute now….
Cage took a step forward and Cole braced himself.
And then the actor released a low chuckle. “Sure, whatever you say.”
Huh?
Cage shrugged, a cold smile stretching his face wide, a spark of hurt flashing in his eyes before it darkened into anger. “You’re not the first people to say those things to me. And you won’t be the last. I’ve heard it all, and guess what? I don’t give a shit.”
He shook his head and chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Whatever this thing is, whatever setup you were trying to do, it’s not gonna work on me. Now, get outta here before I throw you out.”
He jumped down from the ring and crossed the room to the door, but not before saying, “You guys can go fuck yourselves. And I’m not talking about the fun kind.”
He flung open the door and let it shut loudly as he left.
“Hn,” Kung Lao began, still staring at the swinging doors. “He has more patience than I thought.”
“Well, at least no one got hurt,” Cole said, looking at his companions with what he hoped was a winning smile.
“Only our chances of winning him over,” Liu Kang said morosely.