Drunken Man Loses Balance On “O” Street, Liu Kang Finishes Him

Story by Logan Thompson 

| Published Oct 6, 2009

A Lincoln man died unexpectedly on “O” Street Saturday night when a popular video game character bit him in half at the waist.

Ben Chosek, 21, was walking out of Brothers Bar & Grill at about 12:30 a.m. after celebrating his friend’s 21st birthday, sources said. Witnesses said Chosek had been drinking and just lost his balance. When he started wobbling, Mortal Kombat’s Liu Kang bicycle-kicked into view, morphed into a green dragon and violently devoured Chosek torso-first.

“I just can't make sense of it,” said Chosek’s best friend, Ryan Quinn, who was visibly shaken. “I mean, first it’s a regular fatality, then, in MK3, they’re calling it an ‘animality,’ and then it's back to a fatality again.”

Other Mortal Kombat fighters said they were surprised at the event, agreeing that incidents like the one Saturday night rarely occur.

“It’s not our policy to randomly attack people on the street,” said Goro, a 2,017-year-old half-human dragon. Goro is the official leader of the group, coming to power in 1992, when all the fighters voted by a show of hands for whom they would answer to. Each person voted for himself, and with his four arms, Goro had twice the votes of anybody else.

“We train our fighters to maul and destroy whatever is put in front of them,” Goro said. “But the second part of that training is discipline. Unfortunately, Liu Kang didn’t show that and will have to be dealt with accordingly.”

As punishment, Goro explained, Kang will be forced to fight all the other Mortal Kombat contenders in rapid succession, each one increasing in difficulty. The last fighter will be Goro himself.

To show its support, the Mortal Kombat team will allow Chosek’s family, as well as Quinn, to watch the fights play out.

“Oh, man, I want to see somebody get knocked off the bridge onto some spikes,” said Chosek’s brother Kyle, 10. "Who's Ben? Is that Jax's real name?"

This is the second time in Mortal Kombat history that an incident like this has occurred. The last time a nonfighter was killed by a member of the group was in 2001. The victim was one of the fighter's own dogs. Scorpion was walking his dog, Spider, in the local dog park, when the cocker spaniel saw a rabbit.

“He broke the leash and just took off,” Scorpion said. “Without thinking, I yelled, ‘Get over here!’ It took the veterinarian about an hour to get that kunai blade out of the little guy's chest.”

Chosek's family is unsure when they will hold funeral services for him but said it probably will be "sometime after this totally badass bloodbath — if we have time."