The night had always been his ally. It leant him silence and hid him in its embrace. It locked away his secrets and buried his victims. Tonight was different. Tonight he did not belong.

He was noiseless as he passed by the bristling fingers of snow scuffed pines, but the shadows rejected him. They lurked with a density of their own that bore no relation to the sentinel stems of the forest, or the unblinking stars above. From the corner of his eyes the shadows seemed to shift with a consistency of their own, with otherworldly properties and a presence that whispered of sentience. He shivered despite never feeling the cold. The cold belonged to him. These shadows did not.

As he drew closer to the appointed place, he felt unfamiliar prickles sit at the back of his throat. The ghosts of anxiety, nervousness, and old, worn fears reared heads he thought had long been crushed. He was no longer a student or a child. He had only confidence, self-assurance and purpose in all his actions. He knew his abilities and his limitations; he knew the strength of patience and power of discipline. He could assess a task from a remote distance and know precisely how to act and how to succeed. He had become a master in all that he did, and was peerless in his vocation. And yet the concerns that the boy in him had felt years ago, surfaced just now. Each step forward in the soft powder snow seemed to take him further back in time. Old self-doubts, confusions, and insecurities chiselled away at him until he looked down to check that he was not the small child he felt he had reverted to. The glacier blue of his uniform was almost black under the cover of night. His fully gauntleted arms were thick, muscled and ready. He swallowed and tried to take strength from that.

He realised he had stopped. The slight wayward fall of snowflakes turned meandering on the still, chill air. His breath came out in wreathed clouds through the vents in his mask. He frowned in frustration at his weakness and berated himself for feeling it now of all places. He took a moment to ready himself and pushed on.

The glade was well beyond the grounds of his temple. It was a nowhere in particular that he was surprised his contact even remembered. The first thing he noticed when he stepped out into its silence was the bright face of the half moon that became visible in the clearing. The second thing he noticed was that no moonlight fell upon the glade. Despite lying open to the eyes of the stars and moon, only shadows collected in this place. Visceral shadows. He saw them clearly bending and moving now. He willed himself not to back away from the unnatural spectacle. This was meant to unnerve him. This was all deliberate. The owner of shadows would only take amusement to see his discomfort.

The shadows lifted liquid from the earth and formed with a controlled lethargy into the shape of a figure. Against the night, the figure stood inkier than the darkness. A heavy cowl over its features could not mask the bright ethereal glow of its white eyes.

"I am surprised you had the courage to come." The spectral figure spoke with the echo darker places, almost obscuring the voice he knew so intimately.

"I am surprised you had the humility to ask."

The white eyes narrowed with displeasure and the figure took a menacing step forward.

He kept himself from backing off, but decided against baiting the wraith further.

"If it's true that you've acquired a fraction of skill and discipline in my absence, then you may yet be of use to me, Kuai Liang."

Kuai's insides did a combined churning that married frustrated anger to a repressed urge to impress and be needed by the creature before him.

"Why have you asked me here? Why now of all times have you decided to renew ties with me, brother?"

"Make no mistake!" The wraith hissed so vehemently that Kuai Liang flinched, "You are no brother of mine. This changes nothing. You are not an ally, you are not even an asset. You are merely a tool to me. I care nothing for your reasons for being here. Leave now if you expect anything more than to be treated as timely convenience to my ambition."

That cut deep. It always cut deep, but he did not let the hurt show on his face. He kept a ready, even, serenity in his expression. He let the quiet gather between them for a moment to make extra sure that his voice was cool and emotionless when he spoke.

"As I said before in my letter, I am happy to help you in any plan to destabilise the Netherrealm, so long as it in no way harms anyone in, or the chances of, Earthrealm." He sighed. Sometimes communicating with his older brother felt like treating with a trying, testy student, albeit a particularly lethal one with a reserve pool of emotional leverage over him. "I ask one thing in return of you-"

"Forget it." The wraith the snapped.

"You don't know what I was going to ask!" That slipped out plaintively before he could school his responses again.

"If you think I'm going give up any of the power I've gained from my current condition-"

"I want to talk." That shut his brother up, "I want the opportunity to sit down and talk with you. At no risk to myself. Just a single conversation."

"You think that will do any good?" The wraith sneered.

Kuai Liang's heart fell. The driving motivation behind agreeing to do this was a faint clinging hope that it might give him a chance to save his brother, to somehow undo whatever had sped him down this path to damnation. They both knew this, of course, and he knew his brother meant to use this to his own advantage, preying on Kuai Liang's hope an desperation to further the wraith's own ends.

"A conversation. May I have it? Is it so much to ask in exchange for my services?"

Empty white eyes bored into him. He held their gaze evenly though his insides chilled under their scrutiny.

"Very well. You shall have your conversation. In exchange you will follow my lead and orders to an absolute. Is this understood?"

Kuai hesitated. All his common sense and instincts screamed that this was not a good idea. The responsibilities he left behind, the dangers ahead and not to mention the extremely untrustworthy company that had made abundantly clear on previous occasions that Kuai's life was deemed expendable if it hindered advancement... all this gnawed at him. Only his heart, wild and desperate, pushed him forward. He had spent all his life disciplining himself to make decisions like this in the most cold and rational way possible. His brother knew this. They both knew it. And again, they both knew that this opportunity weighed on Kuai Liang at all the right pressure points.

"I understand." He said quietly. "What is it you would have me do?"

The wraith relaxed, and for the first time Kuai noticed something in his posture that reminded him of the man he had been long ago. He was comforted by this, and a small, distant part of him, relished in the prospect of abandoning his weighty responsibility as Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei, and for a moment becoming again the eager student ready to follow through on the most dangerous missions set before him.

"Take off your clothes."

Kuai stared at him. It was late autumn in the foothills of the Himalayas. Even a cryomancer would be foolish to test those temperatures. The wraith was already turned away with his attention to the shadows. His hands worked like a puppetmaster forcing shapes to unfold from the darkness. When he turned back he had in his arms a folded black garb with dark greaves and gauntlets set on top. His eyes flashed when he saw Kuai had not moved. Kuai noted the anger, and before it could be voiced began to pull off his Lin Kuei tunic and uniform. The wraith dumped the clothing before him.

"Change into this." He commanded. He again returned his attention to the shadows. He bent down to the earth and produce one last item. He stood and tossed it onto the greaves. It was a high bridged black half mask, exactly like the wraith's own. Kuai looked up when he saw it, finally catching on to what was going on.

"I'm pretending to be you?"

"Nothing new there then."

Kuai allowed that, under the circumstances, that was quite amusing. He reached for the mask quickly to hide what was becoming burning embarrassment on his cheeks.

"For the record," Kuai said as he put on the full black padded clothes and mask, all a perfect imitation of the wraith's own, "I was not trying to be you. I thought only to honour you by taking your name. I meant to avenge you and-"

"How did that work out for you?" The question was cold and already aware of the answer it summoned. Kuai blinked at the unfairness. He had defeated his brother's killer and fully intended to finish the culprit off. An unforeseen and painful reunion with his clan had seen Kuai dragged from the scene before his vengeance was complete. It was not worth relating. The matter would be seen as an unfinished failure by his brother anyway – he had always dealt in perfection and absolutes.

As he knelt one knee in the snow and finished dressing, Kuai glimpsed another figure moving in the shadows behind his brother. The two seemed to finish each others movements, working in a perfect tandem. The second figure seemed suddenly to look Kuai straight in the eye. The wraith turned and looked down at him. Kuai glanced away, feeling somehow embarrassed.

"Stand."

Kuai stood.

"Meet Saibot. You're going to be working very closely with my shadow, Kuai Liang. I trust that's not too unfamiliar a task for you."

Kuai was glad for the heavy hood and high mask as his face involuntarily burned with indignation. He kept his temper however and sullenly regarded the figure behind his brother as it stepped forward. Its shape lingered somewhere between two dimensions and three. It glistened with a semi-liquid consistency. Kuai's skin crawled as it surveyed him with eyes that were a pale mockery of the wraith's blinding white ones. The shade turned abruptly from Kuai. It walked forward and stepped into the same space his brother occupied, vanishing. Kuai retracted.

"No need to be alarmed." The wraith sounded amused. He rattled a tinny bottle that he brought out from the folds of his sleeves. Kuai watched him warily. "Mask off."

Kuai obeyed. The wraith stepped closer. Kuai felt suddenly naked without the mask to shield his expressions. He closed his eyes just in time as his brother sprayed paint across the top half of his face. He spluttered in the fumes, and turned away quickly, blinking watering eyes as the chemicals swarmed his tearducts.

"Bastard." He swore softly, and he thought he heard a chuckle in response.

"Come." The wraith said. Kuai heard him begin to walk.

"Wait." He said, trying to sound every bit as authoritative as he didn't feel. His burning eyes would not stop flooding with water as he blinked blindly. The forest was only dim shapes half formed behind the blur in his vision, and he heard his brother move further away. "Wait! Bi-Han, I can't see-"

Before he could even think he felt a tight grip on the front of his new cowl. He instinctively writhed to get free and brought his arms in to defend himself, but was slammed hard against a tree. His head hit the trunk with force and his hands went immediately to the tight grip around his throat. He blinked sightlessly, then his instincts kicked in. He slammed his arms down on his attackers forearms to free the grip at his neck then brought them up quickly towards his opponents face. He caught his attacker with fist to the chin, but as he did so received a swift punch to the face, then a second, then a third.

"Enough!"

Kuai instantly obeyed, though his body remained tense and his arms curled up before his face. He blinked again, dizzy from the hard jabs to his jaw. Shapes before him slowly started to come into sharper view. He became bitterly embarrassed that the sting of the paint made it look like tears were running down his face. In defensive fury, he spat,

"First you blind me, then you attack me? If this is your idea of collaboration, then I am finished with-"

"Do not ever call me that name again."

Kuai paused. He blinked the last of the pain away and saw clearly the sharp relief of his brother's mask, lit by the glare of his undead eyes. The wraith released him.

"Now hurry up."

Kuai ran his tongue over the place where his lip had split and swallowed down his anger and impatience. He cursed himself for the first, but not the last time, for undertaking this venture. As he fixed on the new mask he hesitantly followed the wraith, gingerly avoiding the shadow that stretched long and visceral behind him.

"What... what should I call you?" He said as he caught up to him. The wraith did not turn to him, and at first he thought he had again earned its ire.

"You do not need to call me anything. Your part here is not to speak, only to obey." After a moment he spoke again though, "If you must, you will address me as Noob Saibot."

Kuai hesitated. The name sounded strangely meaningless to him. It hid the things he knew about this man behind another curtain of obscurity.

"As you wish."

Kuai followed in silence. It was easier not to be in his line of sight. It merited less unwanted attention. He was already feeling more emotionally rattled and drained than he had in years. It's the one area I always needed more discipline in, he told himself. This is an exercise. It's all an exercise in self-control. I need to confront this. I need to confront him, and not just force his spectre to the back of my mind. Even if I can't help him, I need to do this for me. I need to become stronger. I am Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei, the greatest clan of assassins in all the world. I defeated Scorpion of the Netherrealm. I defied the Cyber Initiative. I brought down Sektor and all those he corrupted. I survived the Mortal Kombat tournament, the invasion of Outworld, and reformed the Lin Kuei. I can survive whatever he throws at me. It was not the dangers of whatever task lay before them that concerned him however. He had faith in his own martial prowess and command over stealth. His dread was the inevitable, biting interaction that he knew would shred him in the worse ways possible. Somehow Bi-Han had always known what was going on in his head, and knew just the right words to say to tip Kuai into self-doubt, confusion, and shame at somehow failing to live up to an expectation.

"This will do." They had stopped at another innocuous glade. Kuai Liang patiently waited. His brother turned to face him. Kuai watched him warily, ready should there be another attack. He started as the wraith's shadow separated from him and stood to one side, arms folded, and watching. Kuai tore his attention from it to regard his brother.

"Copy my movements."

They stood before one another as reflections in a mirror. Kuai immediately bent himself to replicating his brother's movements simultaneously with him. Small open hand gestures were subtle and difficult to imitate in the dim light. He followed the lines of the wraith's kata, trying to read the way he directed his energy and dropped his weight. His style had changed much since Kuai had last trained with him. All he had to go on were the old giveaways he recalled from the way his brother moved. He had spent so many hours trying to keep up with Bi-Han that those tell-tale signs had become a language in themselves. They spoke to him of weight distribution, of a stance about to drop, of taught energy wound up, ready to explode forth. He could not tell if this was a full form or a seemingly random series of moves. If it was a form it was not one the Lin Kuei taught, nor one that he was able to completely comprehend in its purposes. He knew he followed exceptionally well given that he had never seen the movements before, but felt himself choke up at the inevitable shortfall in perfection he knew was expected from him. He could read that distant disappointment in the loose swing of Bi-Han's limbs as he finished the exercise.

"If you let me go over this again I can get it right." He said quickly and defensively, "Only its very different from before and-" Excuses. Bi-Han never had any time for them. "Just once more?" He looked up hopefully.

"You will have practice soon enough. My shadow has a sentience of its own and you will be acting in its place – I have already calculated your imperfections into my plan. It is not important that you are exact, you need only fool a casual observer. Most of Netherrealm's inhabitants are lacking in perception anyway."

The brief relief he felt at not being reprimanded for his shortcomings was crushed by the knowledge that they had been anticipated and planned for.

"We are ready to go to the portal. And remember, no ice."

Kuai stopped suddenly,

"What?"

"You heard me."

Now he was worried. A plan that involved him entering the Netherrealm and not using his ability to summon ice... He had worked to bring his command of the element so seamlessly into his fighting style that to move without it was almost inconceivable. He could barely separate out his powers conceptually from the rest of his movements. This coupled with everything else dealt him a significant blow in confidence. Something dangerously close to panic curled inside him. This was only exacerbated by his desperate attempt to conceal it.

He breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm himself and think of his own meditative techniques. In the old thick stone walls of the Lin Kuei Temple he walked as a bastion of self-control and calm, extending it gently to his students whenever they struggled with a move, a difficulty, a confusion, or frustration. How could such confidence be ripped like a rug from under him so quickly?

"You asked for my aid." Kuai drew himself up, "I can do little that will be helpful to you if you hinder my skill set in such a way." He kept his voice monotone.

"You will be even less helpful to me if everyone can see you are obviously an Earthrealm cryomancer. You will also, incidentally, be dead very quickly."

Kuai Liang tried to keep his gaze steady,

"This will severely handicap my ability to fight. If you do not wish me for that purpose, then why am I here, B-?" He stopped himself. The two of them locked eyes. Kuai could not bring himself to say that alien sounding name. Instead he dropped his gaze and fell silent.

"It is my hope that travelling through the Netherrealm will not be too arduous. As I reach the appointed place and begin the ritual for opening a portal to the Chaosrealm however, it may well be that Quan Chi will have caught wind of my betrayal – Netherrealm is filled with those that would sell anything and everything to him in a moment if it bought them some momentary reprieve. Even having become a master of multitasking of late..." Both he and his shadow folded their arms in amusement at this, "I doubt I will be able to hold off what is sent at me whilst trying to complete the ritual. At that moment you are free to use any ability in all hell. Do I make myself clear?"

Kuai Liang nodded slowly,

"And..." Kuai hesitated, "Will you allow me safe escort back to an Earthrealm portal?"

"I can hardly say," The wraith said dismissively, "If the both of us still live, so to speak," He added dryly, "then we will live to see the hoards of chaos run rampant through the Netherrealm. That in itself is likely to be a predicament to work around."

"But you will try? Will you not? I have responsibilities here-"

"To the Lin Kuei. Yes..." He said, clearly entertained, "I know."

Kuai searched his eyes earnestly,

"If you d-"

"You will have your escort back to Earthrealm."

Kuai indicated his acceptance. This entire affair was sounding more and more absurd the deeper in he got. He kept those reservations guarded close though, and said nothing of them.

Author Note: This is a one-shot story, unrelated to my last MK one, Katharsis. It is 6 chapters long with a short epilogue at the end. This is an unapologetically haphazard amalgamation of previous and current MK timeline events to create a new story. It takes place after Kuai Liang has reformed the Lin Kuei. Inspiration to write a story like this came after reading nivet's great fic 'Afraid of My Own Shadow' which I highly recommend.