three girls" due to having no acting experience). In the film, Sonya is devastated by the death of Johnny Cage, who is killed by Kahn after saving her life. She then grudgingly joins Raiden in locating Jax, whom she rescues from, and helps him fight off, an extermination squad led by Cyrax. However, they later come into conflict with one another due to her sustained grief over Cage's death and her refusal to fill Jax in on the details of the Earthrealmers' mission, and they temporarily split apart as a result. They ultimately reunite with Liu Kang and Kitana and succeed in stopping Kahn from bringing Earth to ruin. Sonya has two fight scenes in the film, first defeating Mileena by breaking her neck in a mud pit after splitting from Jax, then squaring off against Ermac at the climax, during which Noob Saibot spawns from his chest and they assault her with repeated attacks until Jax intervenes to defeat Noob Saibot, enabling Sonya to regain the upper hand and emerge victorious against Ermac. Hess hated the mud scene due to the freezing cold, and said her favourite was the Cyrax fight. In Brent V. Friedman and Bryce Zabel's screenplays for Annihilation, Sonya forcibly drowns Mileena in deep mud in the first draft and kills Mileena with her own sai in a revised script. Sonya was one of the lead characters in the 1996 animated TV series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, for which she was voiced by Olivia d'Abo. She is again Jax's partner and was given a signature catchphrase ("Kombat time!"). She is a wild and impulsive character who often has personality clashes with Raiden, while her impetuousness in combat sometimes yielded consequences for her teammates. Her vendetta against Kano was explained and was explored further in two separate episodes, in which Kano was shown to have killed her partner, Wexler, who was named after Threshold writer and producer Joshua Wexler. In storylines exclusive to the show, she worked with Kitana to retrieve a pair of magical swords and befriended Kabal after learning of his disability and the subsequent prejudice he experienced. The official character guide describes her as "completely unrestrained and volatile, a la Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon." Following the loss of her previous two partners, Sonya "has built a wall around herself to protect herself from getting hurt again and feel the guilt and