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shangsclaws · 3 years

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What's up! So apologies if this is a weird ask but can I get a platonic shang tsung x Young witch/sorceress reader who he takes in as an apprentice because he sees her potential? Sorry if this is an out of character ask but I'd like to see how you'd imagine it! Lots of love! 😊

lots of love to u too anon!! …but if u thought this was gonna be a fluffy father daughter thing…i’m v sorry but i wrote it MUCH differently 😭

warnings: none

“Careful,” the sorcerer cautioned, motioning his chin to the phylactery, “break that, and you’ll be here overnight.”

The young sorceress groaned, setting down the treasured container. “It was an accident. Technically, I wasn’t even the one who broke it.”

“Of course you weren’t,” Shang Tsung chuckled condescendingly.

The elder sorcerer paced around the dinner table, where, sat at the farthest end, his apprentice continued piecing the loose shards of a phylactery back together. Broken around midnight, the young sorcerer had woken Shang Tsung in a panic, horrified when they’d seen the souls siphon out of their broken container and shriek in pain.

“Why were you wandering in the weaponry so late? Did I not tell you to rest early for training tomorrow?” The sorcerer prodded, sounding much less disappointed than he did amused. “You are aware that the tournament is in less than a week, no?”

It was always about the tournament. That old sorcerer hadn’t shut up about it — the apprentice grumbled to herself — since the moment he’d laid eyes on her malnourished figure some months ago. While the food was delicious, her bed far softer than the hard stone of dark alleyways, the training was perhaps as brutal as fending for herself on the streets. And all she ever did in her waking hours, it seemed, was train.

“If you keep training me to unconsciousness,” the apprentice began in irritation, wiping off excess adhesive from the phylactery, “I’ll be dead before the tournament even begins.”

Shang Tsung chuckled in his throat, walking back from the far end of the table to see his repaired piece of expensive gear.

“And what makes you think I’m not prepared for that?” He grinned, and the apprentice couldn’t hear in his tone if he was serious or not.

“…because…uhm…you haven’t trained anyone else?” She muttered. Please let this be true.

There was silence, and then a hum of agreement.“Precisely.” The snake nodded, both at her statement and in approval of such great work she did fixing his phylactery. “If I’d found someone else to train, someone to replace you, I’d have done it by now, young one.”

Knowing him, the apprentice figured his words held the same weight as saying he would have let her rot to death. How she hated the indifference in his tone, how he grinned so patronizingly. Or, rather than hate, the poor girl was horrified, knowing all too well it was within his power to discard of her as he so pleased.

But, for being so young, there must have been a talent he would have hated to see go to waste. At least she hoped that was what had kept her alive all this time.

“I’ll meet you in the courtyard. We’ll begin sparring shortly,” said the sorcerer, picking up the phylactery and deftly tying it to his waist sash, “Shao Kahn will be here tomorrow to observe you.”

Crap.

“I’d hate to see him get upset,” the snake continued, sounding incredulous, “it’d be a shame to see all your hard work go to waste.”

With that he was gone, leaving little behind save for the empty pit in his apprentice’s stomach. Shang Tsung always did this.

But the young sorceress knew she was smart. Why else would that snake have decided to spend his precious time with her? Knowing all the tricks the sorcerer could pull, the spells he used to be as heinous as him, the old man had made a weapon out of her. Sooner or later — the young sorceress plotted, grinding her teeth as she watched her mentor disappear behind a large column — she’d have her way. And if that meant killing him, then so be it.

But she’d need to know as much as she could first.

“Wait for me!” The apprentice called from the study, and Shang Tsung paused in his paces to the courtyard to turn around.

“Why don’t you teach me something new today?” She asked.

#shang tsung? father figure? not buying it lol #mortal kombat #reader insert #x reader #shang tsung #shang tsung x reader #mortal kombat x reader

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