Work Text:
"Where is she?"
Sonya stalked into the castle and people got out of her way. Her face, her demeanor, and the fact she literally kicked in the door in were all good indications she wasn't in the mood for anyone to cause her any further problems.
(Sonya was very careful about which door she kicked in. This one wasn't actually part of the castle, but a prop. Made of real, solid, heavy wood. That she kicked open anyway.) She stormed onto the set, ignoring the low ambling buzz of crew and actors taking a deep breath between shots. She ignored the security men in their painted-on t-shirts and heavy muscles.
(They were pretending very hard they didn't see her either. They were not paid enough to try to stop Sonya Blade in a bad mood.)
She turned, heading down a hall towards the rooms the film had temporarily turned into storage.
The director took a deep breath and looked over at Johnny Cage, whose expression was rapidly morphing between 'she's glorious' and 'oh shit, this is going to be expensive' all the way to 'wait. who is she about to find and murder?'
"Johnny. Buddy. Pal. Are you sure you can't get her to audition for She-Ra? Because come on - you gotta see it. You just gotta. I got the rights to the live action! I can make it happen!"
Johnny Cage shook his head, wincing at the sound of a crash down the hall.
"Oh. No. Yeah. I see it. All the damn time. But, uh, there are many things in life I have no control over. Things in life I don't want control over. And things that if I tried to control, I'd be killed. She is all three, in a sexy, violent, and wonderful person who is probably going to do something dramatic you don't want on your movie set. So, I'll catch up with you!"
The director blinked, still trapped in visions of Sonya Blade's acting debut as the Princess of Power making him millions of dollars only for the rest of his thoughts to catch up with him. "Johnny! Johnny! Avert the crisis! Avert, subvert, revert - just don't let it happen!"
Johnny ran after Sonya, who was steadfastly ignoring him, too. She didn't glare at him, or even really acknowledge his existence, which meant it probably wasn't his fault this time. Given his recent track record and how hard they had both been trying, he was fairly certain it couldn't have been.
He'd only made a couple of juvenile dirty comments since that morning, and while he hadn't toned down how much or how extravagantly he flirted with her on set, he was at least doing it as much off camera as on.
Johnny, as he chased after Sonya, noticed something that sent a chill right up his spine and switched his brain from averting a crisis to the same mode he operated in when he went with Sonya's team into Outworld or Edenia (or even places on Earth) for missions he wasn't technically supposed to be on.
He saw Sonya's stuntpeople - almost all of them - were taking positions at doors and corners like guards. A lot of them had law enforcement, military, and martial arts backgrounds, meaning they knew what they were doing. They were in checkpoint formation.
Each one was holding a position that had been cleared.
Johnny watched as Sonya worked her way down the hallway (which sloped down and was mostly stairs with random doors off to the sides) checking each door with heavy knock and a bellow.
"You in there?"
When no answer came, Sonya went to the next door and someone would move from a position at an already checked door to that one. It wasn't a precision military operation, but it was as close as you got on a film set, but it was a very thorough and professional search pattern with Sonya on point.
Johnny slowed his jog and noticed all of them had their phones out and were doing something with them. He wasn't sure what.
Sonya was making no attempt at stealth; her boots hammered on the stone like it was at fault and she was in as close to tactical gear as she got on set: cargo pants, t-shirt, hoodie, and a belt and pockets full of random things he wasn't sure how she managed to carry and still move with such grace and power.
"Sonya! Read me in!" Johnny yelled. It was one of their phrases. Other people got it, but they didn't really get it. He was telling her he was there to get her back. This was her thing and he was going to support her in it, no matter what.
Johnny Cage knew Sonya had a temper. Hell, so did he - he was just as volatile as she was, in his own way. He was also mercurial, whimsical, and somewhat flighty. Sonya was a laser-guided missile. Once she had target, she flew at it with the kind of single-minded determination not much could shake or derail.
But that was their phrase for: 'I don't know what this is, but I've got your back.'
Sonya paused in mid stride and looked back at him, blue eyes sharp with anger, her mouth a thin, tight line. Her fists were clenched, and -
She was worried about something. Her eyes were darting everywhere, and her head was up, listening.
"Got a message from Elspeth. Someone has locked her in a closet in this area and she can't get out, can't see because there are no lights, and her phone is about dead. I called Rosie, who got the same message, but Rosie is just panicking and mad."
Johnny's world slowed down as if someone had hit the slow motion button on his brain, His thoughts ramped up and he shifted his weight. "As in, someone attacked her and threw her in a closet? That's what you just said?"
Sonya's nod was a singular motion, sharp and fast.
"Right side doors are yours. I'm left." Johnny didn't need Sonya to ask. He didn't need Sonya to tell him. He knew what she needed. She needed people she trusted on the search and someone helping her. The castle was a huge and full of odd little rooms, some of them with doors that didn't always work.
And a lot of them without lights. It was a castle being rebuilt and being used for films and commercials, not as a museum. It wasn't supposed to be the kind of thing where every room had a purpose - because, eventually, someone would need a room just like it and the room would be there.
Some of the doors looked just like walls. Some of the walls looked just like doors. This wasn't just bad - it was a disaster.
They had to find Elspeth - that was the first thought. The second thought was worse: We have no idea who to trust, because we don't know who attacked her.
They knew Sonya's stuntpeople were likely their people. He and Sonya had spent hours with them in the gym and in the ring over the past several weeks. Rosie wasn't behind it. She thought Elspeth had hung the moon and talked the sun into rising every morning (just to torment her.)
Johnny wanted to blame Greg, but after Sonya's conversation with him a couple of weeks ago, the morning after sending her out in the rain without so much as an umbrella, Johnny wasn't sure Greg felt safe being on the same continent as Elspeth, let alone being willing to attack her.
He realized what the stuntpeople were doing with their phones. They were using the set map app that ID'd, mapped, and located every room the film crew had access to and gave it a name or a number and they were marking the rooms that Elspeth wasn't in as 'green' or - not in use. They weren't supposed to do that, and it would likely take someone hours to remap the set correctly, but that was a problem for future them.
Present them had to find Elspeth.
Johnny had no idea if she was hurt. Which was a terrifying thought, because some of the rooms had some surprisingly deep drop-offs, and not all of them had ramps, ladders or stairs built yet.
Fuck.
He started banging on the walls. If Sonya was sure this was the right part of the castle, he'd start banging down walls if he had to. Elspeth had started out as an amusing kid. Someone to have fun with on set while he was dealing with Audra's crap. Hitting on him - fine. He could deal with some karma. Given how he used to act on set, bad flirting and blatant invitations to fuck between takes weren't anything he could throw stones at.
He had that much coming.
Forgetting every line, changing every cue and arguing about every bit of blocking and choreography? That annoyed him. Ad-libbing was every actor's right. They were as creative and as much artists as any writer or director, and Johnny would die on that hill. But everything she was doing had more to do with moving the story wrong. Having romantic tension between their characters at the wrong times.
It had been miserable. As much of a playboy and show-off as he was, Johnny Cage did take his job seriously. He knew most of what he knew about the 'craft' of acting he'd learned a move or two later than he should have, but he was pretty good now.
Then she became a rock in Sonya's shoe, and Johnny tried to keep Elspeth entertained and away from his girlfriend. He had failed, because Elspeth had rightly figured out that Sonya Blade was a fascinating, amazing woman who the world should get to know and love as much as he did.
Then, somehow, inch by reluctant inch, Sonya had been drug out of her shell by the overly energetic intern. By the time the Ice Bucket Incident had happened, Sonya had already become protective of Elspeth - though, she wouldn't have admitted it at the time. When the backlash of that hit Elspeth, Sonya had ripped Artie apart from half a world away and had considered her and Elspeth as comrades in arms against the internet.
It had worked. Here they were, over a month later, and Sonya's single social media platform had over one million followers, and Sonya was using her platform in all kinds of ways. She spoke about service. She spoke about fitness. About finding yourself and forging your own path.
(She also let Elspeth coax her into zany stunts she liked a lot more than she'd ever admit out loud. One of Johnny's favorite hobbies was finding things that were just fun he could get Sonya to try. Somehow, Elspeth could do it with puppy eyes and a pout. Which was some kind of a cheat code.)
Johnny knew Sonya had all-but adopted Elspeth when they met Rosie. The blue-haired, tattooed, pierced girl zooming around in her wheelchair had gotten stuck when one of the people playing pranks on Sonya had missed and gotten Rosie with what Sonya had called 'an amateur muddy pit trap.'
Sonya had gotten a shamefaced text asking for help from a number she didn't recognize - Elspeth had been getting supplies in the nearby town and was forty-five minutes away and had told her to text Sonya.
Seconds before Elspeth had texted, asking Sonya to please help.
Sonya had literally walked out of a production meeting without a word and helped Rosie out of her predicament and promised the offending prankster she would make use of the dungeon if they didn't lay off. Johnny had gotten there just in time for Sonya to ask Rosie what her intentions towards Elspeth were.
He had about fallen over when Rosie had defiantly looked Sonya right in the eye. "I'm going to marry that girl someday. You'll see."
Sonya had nodded, just as deadly serious. "Good enough for me. She wants forever."
Rosie had laughed. "Ugh. She's such a romantic that way. Sappy girl. By the way, you do know you just like, intimidated a girl in a wheelchair like she was dating your kid sister of whatever."
Sonya hadn't blinked. "You being in a wheelchair has nothing to do with how you treat my friends. You're good to her, so we're good. That changes, we're not. Her family won't say it, so I will."
(Johnny and Sonya had learned Elspeth's family had removed her from their presence as soon as she turned eighteen, and everything she was doing in her life was on her own dime. He was going to fix that, very quietly, very soon. And then he was going to make a speech, somewhere public, about LGBTQ youth and homelessness.)
Rosie had rolled right up to Sonya. "Thank you. For having her back. And for treating me like you would anyone else."
Elspeth had been mortified to find out Sonya had done that, but also - touched. After the third time the two girls had ended up in their trailer for dinner, Johnny had given up on keeping enough food for everyone stocked, getting laid in the evenings, and on Sonya not getting attached.
Now, they were racing through a castle looking for someone he and Sonya had claimed as one of their people. This was not going to go well when they found out what happened.
Because if it was a prank gone wrong, Sonya's retribution would be legendary. And Johnny would help, enable, and then make sure she got away with it. If it had been a more malicious attack, Johnny would be right next to Sonya, holding her coat while she dealt with it.
He hit a section of wall that echoed. He paused and hit it again. Another echo - and this time a faint voice yelling.
"I think I found her! I can't find a door, damn it!" He thumped the wall and bellowed. "Elspeth!"
To his right, he heard Sonya turning around and running back up.
He heard a clattering to his left and he turned, seeing Rosie carefully - but quickly - rolling her chair down the incline, getting near the top of the section with the stairs. As far down as she could safely go.
"Johnny! I found her phone! It's fully charged! I don't think she sent the text! Someone is - " Her voice was cut off and she was suddenly careening down the stairs.
But Sonya had put together her impromptu rescue team. One of the stuntwomen, with fast reflexes, snapped her hand out and caught the handle of Rosie's wheelchair, grunting as she held the weight on her own, in one hand for a heartbeat.
Then another hand had the other handle and she was motionless on the stairs.
Johnny heard the faint voice yell again - and voice. A voice he hadn't heard in person in several weeks.
"She's stuck, unless you can find the mechanism. Little bitch ruined me, now she can live here in this castle until I let her out."
Johnny grit his teeth and looked up to see Audra standing - in full Princess costume - at the top of the hall. Her dyed red hair was done up in a very fancy set of braids wrapping around her head, and she was smiling coldly down at him.
"I found that little room looking for a place we could fuck without your blonde bimbo catching us, but you weren't down to play, Cage. Or should I say Carlton? Now you get the blame for her wasting away in there because you can't get her out."
Johnny waved at the stuntwomen to bring Rosie down - he pointed at a point beyond him. There was no way he was having her moved back up towards Audra.
"I really hope you didn't hurt Sophia to steal the costume." His voice was calm. Behind her, Greg was standing with a cell phone, obviously on - possibly live. Possibly not.
"Oh, she'll be fine. What's a concussion between colleagues?"
Johnny winced. Fuck.
Sonya walked up beside him. She was silent. Each step was a whisper too soft to echo - her shoulders were loose and her hands were relaxed. There was a small half-smile on her face, and her head was held high.
Johnny Cage felt like he'd just been doused by a bucket of ice water. Sonya was well past angry, far beyond furious, and well past the point where 'proportional response' was even in her vocabulary. The look on her face was one he'd seen a dozen or so times before. Usually right before a fight with Kano or Shang Tsung's minions.
When someone was standing between Sonya and a goal she had no choice but to reach. She was at the 'acceptance' point of whatever she had to do.
Johnny knew she had a lot of options. They knew where Elspeth was. They could easily get tools up to them, or maintenance people or even the castle's staff to come help them get Elspeth out. It was only a matter of time.
But in Sonya's mind, this was no longer an on-set problem. Her people had been attacked as a proxy for her, and they had no idea what condition Elspeth was in. (And if Johnny were pressed, he would agree - waiting might not be the best plan.)
If Johnny Cage's besetting sins were vanity and pride, Sonya's were impatience and a complete disdain for 'subtle.'
She smiled and gestured at Greg. Her voice was still Kano-killing calm. "Greg recording this?"
Audra snickered. "Oh, GI Jane, we are live and on Facebook, Insta, YouTube, anywhere else I could get a feed. This is going all over the world, and you are the star! Our very own badass barbie in her first horror film. I want the world to watch you fail."
Rosie had somehow turned her chair around and was starting to roll up the stairs. "Bitch, then I will beat you with my cane live on the internet."
Sonya held up her hand, holding Rosie back through sheer force of will and personality. "One chance, Audra. Run. You get a head start while we get Elspeth out of there. But don't worry. I'll catch up."
Sonya tapped Johnny on the shoulder and their eyes met.
He studied her face, and anyone watching would have seen only her iron determination. The simmering anger. The calm acceptance of the situation. He saw the fear there. The guilt. The burning need to get her new friend out of whatever prison Audra had crafted for her. To make sure she was okay before she handled Audra.
"Read me in?" His voice was as soft as hers.
"The wall comes down." Her voice was steel over silk, the razor-edge of decision already long past. "We can."
We. That was the word that did it. She wasn't asking. She wasn't demanding. She wasn't questioning. She wasn't even assuming. She was stating what she knew as a fact: together, they were going to break the wall down.
There were things neither of them did in front of other people. There weren't rules about it - not really. Because those things weren't real to most people. Those things couldn't be adjudicated or legislated. Even the military barely acknowledged people like him and Sonya and Liu existed.
Because they weren't supposed to.
"The wall comes down."
They turned as one and faced the wall and took up identical stances. He had taught her some of the traditional forms he'd grown up steeped in and she'd taught him the modern martial science she had used to turn herself into a living weapon.
Somewhere along the line, they had modified and created a stance they both used in moments like this. Moments that took focus and discipline and tandem strength.
Breathe in.
They didn't tense so much as gather themselves. His first sensei, Master Boyd, had taught him the body had energy science could measure and had power discipline could harness but there was a place beyond that, where energy and power and execution created something with devastating effect.
Breathe out.
And strike. As one, with simultaneous exhale, they stepped. Fists snapped out and into the wall with controlled, focused force. Logic said they couldn't so much as rattle a rock. Science said their bones should break.
There was a place where logic and science stopped and their lives began.
The wall shook. Stone rattled. Dust exploded under their fists, blasting away chucks of modern concrete designed to look and feel like ancient stone. Cracks ran out from each impact zone, radiating outwards in a spider-web of impossibility.
Greg's mouth dropped open. "What - "
Breath in.
Shift in stance; gathering themselves as they moved together, as if they were one body controlled by one mind, flowing through the motions that built, gathered - created - energy. The movements they'd practiced ten thousand times together, learning what each other could do.
Teaching each other what warriors like Liu and Kenshi and Kung Lao had grown up with.
Retraining their minds to accept that which was beyond belief.
"- the - "
Breathe out.
The second strike was harder than the first and their punches echoed. Their strikes rang out like the roar of thunder as more than just flesh and bone struck stone.
When Sonya hit the stone rippling rings of red light radiated outward from her hand, flowing one after another after another into the wall as a flash of green light the hallway like a cheap special effect.
The wall crumbled. It didn't explode or fall or even break. The energy hit the stone and it crumbled, reduced to dust by the energy. It was purposeful; they both knew the risks of sending debris in at Elspeth, and they both knew the risks of breaking too much of the wall with sheer blunt force could bring the ceiling in.
But at their core, Johnny and Sonya - despite every difference they had - were the same. For every flaw everyone around them wanted to exploit and expound upon, they were both driven by the same desire for perfection, hiding the same unbreakable and unwavering discipline and commitment.
There were dozens of people who had tried to kill them both who could attest to it. At least, the few still alive.
" - fuck?!"
Sonya was the first through the hole, ducking with the smooth ease of someone who gone through tighter and worse entrances.
"Call the medics. She looks okay, but - "
"On it!" One of the stunt people called out.
"Yeah!" Sonya yelled out from the room. "Medic! She took a fall!"
Johnny was in a step behind her. He saw the door hinges as he stepped onto a narrow ledge. They had broken the wall about a foot to the left of the door - which looked overly complicated. There were stairs down to what looked like a camp bed and a small table, and a power strip. There was a singly lightbulb in the ceiling, which was about ten feet high.
Elspeth had dragged herself to the bed and was sitting on it. The right side of her face was heavily bruised. Her lip was split, and she had blood on her chin - her eye was swollen shut and she was groaning softly.
Sonya was sitting next to her and arm around her shoulder as the girl cried softly, clinging to Sonya like her life depended on it. Her words were slurred, but Johnny could hear them.
"You came!"
Sonya slid her other arm around Elspeth and let her cry. Johnny jumped down and looked over his shoulder at Greg staring at Sonya, his camera still held high.
~ * ~
"Hello, Audra."
Sonya's voice cut through the din of the train station as she sauntered through the crowd. People got out of her way.
She'd made Johnny stay home for this part. He didn't need to have any part of it. Rosie rolled along behind her, Elspeth's phone held high.
Audra Watson turned around, her eyes wide. Her face was pale, and her hands were shaking. Sonya didn't think it was from fear or anger.
"What? Come to gloat, supergirl? Going to beat me down right here in the train station? You get everything - Johnny Cage, the internet, the people and I get to be a laughingstock, so you're going to slap me around to top it all off?"
Her expression was still haughty as she clung to the remnants of her dignity, even if her bloodshot eyes were started to show the first evidence of tears.
Sonya's gave Audra the same small half-smile she had back in the hallway of the castle. "I don't need to do a damn thing to you, Audra. You did it all yourself. But I keep my promises. I told you I would give you a head start and then find you. I'm just not the only one chasing you. Or the one you have to be afraid of. But since you started this on the internet, I wanted to finish it there."
Audra huffed. "Gloating. Of course you couldn't resist."
Sonya shrugged. "But it's not about gloating. It's about keeping my promise. I found you and I wanted to show you that you can't hide. You can't win by drinking your problems away and hurting people. Not people I care about. He would have helped you, you know. He would have helped you get sober and he would have helped you get your career back on track. Elspeth would have helped. Hell, I would have helped."
Sonya took another step forward. "Going after me? Whatever. Better than you have tried worse. Go after my people and none of them are going to help you anymore. That's your fault, not mine. Not ours. Not the internet's. I'm not here to gloat, Audra. I'm not here to rub your face in it. You know I keep my promises now, so I'm here to tell you - end it here. Don't come for us again."
Sonya turned around and Rosie turned off the phone. Sonya didn't know if Elspeth would post any or all of that, and she didn't care.
Her people were handling that.