Open Up Your Eyes And Soon We're All Drop Dead Cynical

Hanzo had what he’d consider very love hate feelings for them. On one hand, they were a surprisingly resilient species, able to adapt to the harshest of conditions, using what little technology they had surprisingly efficiently. For example, how they’d managed to manufacture telecommunications without access to power gems or Netherrealm steel. They had managed to create cures for diseases using plants from their own planet alone. They had explored corners of Earth they had absolutely no right to be able to get to, let alone survive in.

And then on the other hand, they had a habit of doing some of the stupidest actions Hanzo had ever seen. The amount of times Hanzo had conversed with a human and they’d said something that made him want to bash his brain in was in the thousands. Sometimes they happily marched onward to their own deaths. He was honestly amazed they’d managed to make it this far.

It made his task all the more difficult to be honest. Lord Shinnok, Emperor of Netherrealm, was trying to expand his planetary reach. Earth had been on his radar for a while. Hanzo, and his commander Quan Chi, had been sent to do a recon mission, trying to gather information on how best to conquer the planet. Human resourcefulness could benefit the Empire greatly. Human stupidity could bring about its ruin.

Hanzo followed Quan Chi down the corridor of the police station. The pair of them had managed to infiltrate this law enforcement facility, using the position of power to observe and plan. Human morality was also something that confused him. It seemed all over the place, where one person killing another was bad in one context but seen as good in another. Some people committed crimes that humanity as a whole considered horrendous but barely got a slap on the wrist. Then some did things Hanzo would barely bat an eyelid at, but get thrown into prison for the rest of their lives.

He generally just went by what the majority thought in terms of things like that, at least to fit in amongst them and not rouse suspicion.

The case they were currently investigating was one of the bad killings, he supposed. Considered a murder, it was his and Quan Chi’s jobs as detectives to figure out the person who committed the act. But first, they had to figure out how the person died. And to do that, they had to visit the morgue.

As they entered, the man inside looked up at them, smiling as he greeted “good morning, detectives.”

Kuai Liang was a strange being, even for a human, but Hanzo couldn’t help but be slightly fond of him. He was constantly surrounded by death, something most humans seemed to consider unsavoury, yet he constantly seemed to be content. Hanzo did worry for his mental health however, especially given he’d walked in on the man talking to the corpses before.

“Good morning, Kuai Liang,” Hanzo returned, trying to keep neutral. He didn’t need Quan Chi making fun of him again for being soft for the little human. “What do you have for us?”

“Um. Bit of a baffling one, to be honest with you.” He waved the men over, and they shared a look before approaching the body. On the table was an elderly man, and Kuai Liang had clearly already performed a full autopsy, if the fact he was stitched back together was anything to go by. “So, as I was performing the autopsy, mostly everything looked normal for a man of his age… except…” Kuai reached behind him, bringing out two jars and placing them on the table. Both contained a human heart. “He had two hearts. Fully functioning and attached to his system if I’m not mistaken too.”

Wait. Shit. How many hearts do humans normally have? Clearly this was not the average considering Kuai Liang was flagging it as unusual.

“And that is abnormal?” Quan Chi questioned aloud, and honestly Hanzo was glad he’d said it so he didn’t have to.

Kuai looked at them much in the same way they looked at stupid humans before stating “yes? Last I checked the majority of humans only have one.”

Well, that answered that question. Also it probably explained why human life expectancy was so low, if they only had a single heart to fall back on.

“So, what exactly do you think is going on here?” Hanzo questioned, taking a closer look at the man on the table. He looked like a human, but that didn’t mean anything, given that both himself and Quan Chi currently looked human too.

“Well, either this guy is a medical marvel or he’s an alien,” Kuai causally sighed, tapping his finger against the glass of the jars. Hanzo shared a long look with Quan Chi, unsure how to react to that. If Kuai genuinely believed the man on the table was not from Earth, their entire operation could be in danger. Kuai coughed slightly, before muttering “guess that joke didn’t land then.”

“Oh,” Hanzo whispered in relief, letting out a nervous chuckle. “You were joking?”

Kuai Liang’s eyes glanced between Hanzo and Quan Chi before asking “are you two okay? I mean, you’re usually a little strange, but today you’re both acting weirder than normal.”

“Sorry, just, this case is a strange one,” Hanzo tried to excuse, although given Kuai’s reputation as being unusual for a human he had room to talk. Still, he supposed he couldn’t blame him. To a human their behaviour probably had come across as bizarre. “Have you learnt what killed him?”

“No, not exactly.” Kuai pursed his lips, looking the man over. “He had no injuries, external or internal, which led me to believe he may have been poisoned in some way, however his blood work and my other tests came up with nothing.” He turned around again, grabbing what looked like a bag of something. “However when I was performing the autopsy I felt something hard in his stomach, so I opened it up and found this.”

Kuai Liang held the bag up, and sitting inside it was a medium sized red gem. Hanzo’s eyes widened. That was a power gem. Something Earth did not have access to. It seemed more and more unlikely this man was human, but that led to question who the hell he was and what he was doing here? As far as Hanzo knew, only Quan Chi and him were on Earth.

Maybe we aren’t alone after all.

“Other than that, I was advised his ID was fake, so I tried to see if I could find any match for him. Nothing came back from blood tests, fingerprints or dental records.” Kuai sighed rather dramatically, and held the bag with the gem out to them. Quan Chi almost instantly snatched it out of his hand. “Honestly, given the whole two hearts thing, this guy should have been on the medical community's radar. He should have papers written about him, the fact we can’t find any trace of his existence is incredibly suspect.”

“Hanzo will look into it more,” Quan Chi agreed, placing the power gem in his pocket. “I’m going to see what can be found out about this gem. Thank you for your assistance, Kuai Liang.”

“No problem,” Kuai muttered watching as Quan Chi turned and left the room. Once they were alone, he looked at Hanzo with a frown, “are you sure everything is alright Detective? Ever since I showed you the two hearts it’s like you know something that I don’t, and you’re desperate to keep it a secret.”

Kuai Liang was far more perceptive than some of his other peers. Hanzo almost felt bad lying to him, but he couldn’t risk him knowing the truth.

“It’s nothing.” He wondered how much he could bait Kuai Liang by dangling little bits of info in front of him. “What if he really is an alien?”

“I won’t lie, I would love that,” Kuai cheerfully announced as he went to return the hearts to their proper place.

“You would?” Hanzo questioned with an eyebrow raised.

“I mean, the first documented case of an extraterrestrial, and I was the first person to examine him?” Kuai almost did a little happy jump as he spoke, and Hanzo couldn’t help but smile. He really was quite sweet, all things considered. “Talk about an alien autopsy.”

“What if I was an alien too?” Hanzo blurted out, absolutely regretting it. Kuai giggled though, clearly not taking him seriously. Thankfully. He decided he might as well lean into it as a joke. “Here to conquer the Earth in the name of my planet?”

“Oh, honey I am not opposed to being conquered by you,” Kuai purred, leaning to one side with a smirk on his face. Hanzo almost did a double take. He’d done some research into human mating rituals, and if he wasn’t reading Kuai’s actions wrong… he’d almost think he was initiating it with him.

“Are you…” He completely forgot what human’s called this. They had a name for it. Flinging? No. Flighting? No, but it definitely began with a f, he remembered that much.

“Flirting with you?” Kuai asked, with an eyebrow raised. Yes! That was the word he’d been searching for. Flirting. “I mean, I have been for months, but thanks for finally noticing.”

“Wait. What?” Hanzo was dumbfounded, had Kuai Liang really been trying to initiate a relationship with him for that long? How had he not noticed? The documentation he’d seen on such things made it seem like it’d be extremely obvious.

“I couldn’t tell if you hadn’t noticed or just weren’t interested.” Kuai crossed his arms and lent backwards. “Guess you’re just a little dense when it comes to stuff like this, huh?”

“I- I admittedly don’t have much experience,” Hanzo claimed. He’d had what humans would consider a wife at one point in time. Harumi had been his everything. But his method of courtship with her was far different than the methods humans used. “You are really interested in that? With me?”

“I mean, you’re a really weird guy, but to be honest so am I, so I kind of like that about you.” How funny that the thing that attracted Hanzo to Kuai Liang seemed to be the same the other way around.

“Oh.” He pursed his lips. He actually really wanted to attempt this. It would give him a lot of hands-on insight into the workings of humans. But more importantly, he actually liked Kuai Liang, and wanted to know more about him, specifically. From what he’d seen, going for a dinner together seemed an accepted first attempt at courtship between humans. “Would you like to go for dinner sometime? With me?”

Kuai smiled fondly and laughed, “I’d love to go to dinner sometime. With you.”

“Good. I’ll uh, set something up.” He wasn’t entirely sure how to do so. He needed to do research into what was appropriate. Or rather what Kuai Liang would like, he guessed. “Sorry, I should probably get back to work. Do you think you could give me a copy of his blood work and dental records?”

“Of course.” Kuai reached for a pile of papers on his desk, flicking through them and picking out certain pages before turning to hand Hanzo the paper he had left. “I think you’ll find that’s everything.”

“Thank you.” Hanzo took the papers and turned to leave. He paused at the door, looking over his shoulder to say “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured out dinner.”

“You’d better,” Kuai giggled, and Hanzo finally left the room.

He jumped when he realised Quan Chi was standing outside, a scowl on his face as if he’d been waiting for Hanzo. Whoops.

“What the hell have you been doing in there?” He hissed, holding up the bag with the power gem. “We have a problem.”

“I realise,” Hanzo muttered, before he held up the stack of papers himself. “These are the results of his blood and other tests. If I can study them, I might be able to at least figure out what planet this guy is from.”

Quan Chi stared at the papers, before huffing and putting the gem away again.

“Fine,” he spat, eyes narrowing. “But if that little human in there starts to genuinely suspect something is amiss we’re going to be in trouble.”

Hanzo clicked his tongue, knowing what Quan Chi was saying. If Kuai Liang figured out they really were aliens, then they’d have to eliminate him.

“I’ll keep a close eye on him,” Hanzo offered, deciding he’d leave out that he’d do that via his attempts at courting. Hopefully if Kuai ever realised what was really going on, Hanzo could find a way to use this courtship to save him. Kuai Liang felt worth that. “For now, we need to figure out who that corpse is, what planet he’s from and what he’s doing here.”

“Agreed.” Quan Chi’s tone sounded suspicious of something. Likely how Hanzo intended to keep an eye on Kuai Liang. Whatever. Hanzo would figure that out later. “Let’s go.”

Quan Chi stormed off down the corridor. Hanzo let out a sigh before taking a deep breath. He just needed to stay calm, and hope they could come to an answer on what was going on. He followed Quan Chi, trying to keep his mind on the case, but somehow, it kept wandering to Kuai Liang and the dinner he had to arrange.

I’ve seen him eating that sushi stuff before, maybe I can take him to a restaurant that specialises in it.

He smiled. At least he’d be getting something good out of this mission.

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