"Cassie!" Jin yelled.
He reacted immediately, snatching up his staff from the ground and pushing past Jacqui. He took off into the darkness, and the blackness of the cave closed around his back, instantly swallowing him up. "Cass, are you alright-?" he yelled, but even his cry cut off abruptly. Jacqui glanced at Takeda, wide-eyed and terrified, and he felt her fear flare around her energy before the two of them stepped into the cave. He ran with his arms out, waiting to crash into the wall in front of him, and when he did he turned the left that Cassie said. He could barely make out the dizzying strobe of the glowstick as the light was thrown around the cave, and Takeda prayed with all of him that Cassie wasn't thrown around with it.
They made a left and then a right, and Takeda saw the outline of a spider on the ground. The glowstick moved again, dashing the light around some more, and he saw Cassie pinned under its massive body, using her bare hands to brace its legs up above her. Jin coupled his own staff and Raiden's in his grip, moving to swing them like a club, but the spider angled its body and shot a dart of webbing at him with enough force to clip his shoulder. His arm was thrown back and he was spun around, and the spider shot another bundle into the small of his back, pushing him back into the sticky webs on the wall.
The spider kept trying to drag her closer to it with its legs, but Cassie deflected one after the other, grunting with the effort. She grabbed two of its legs and the spider pressed, forcing its weight down on her, and Cassie planted her feet under its belly, hoisting it up with her legs.
"S-someone get it!" she growled through her teeth. It writhed and twisted, and her knees threatened to buckle, but she strained and held it still. It lashed out at her, and the sharp barb on the tips of one of the limbs stabbed down deep into her left shoulder. Once, twice, jabbing at her. Her face twisted in pain and she cried out, and Jacqui ran forward.
She charged her gauntlets and reared her fist back, and with a long cry she punched her fist as hard as she could into the spider's hard body, snug between two of its legs. The force of it cracked and broke its skin and her fist punched into the soft tissue, with a splatter so heavy Takeda felt drops of it on his face. She shot her gauntlets, blowing the entire body of the spider into pieces, and it slumped immediately without even a cry of pain. She pushed the carcass off of Cassie, who moaned and clutched at her shoulder.
"Oooow, ow, ow," she hissed, rolling to her good side. She grabbed her own wrist to press it to her chest and keep her arm still.
"Stop! Don't move," Jacqui said. "Let me look, let me look-"
Takeda crowded around to look, but the light of the glowstick cast deep shadows over the two of them. He couldn't see the wound. He decided to let Jacqui take care of her while he checked on Jin again. He was stuck sprawled out against the wall, with his arms and legs tangled in webbing from his struggle. His staff, as well as Raiden's, was stuck just beyond his reach, and he had messes of dirty webs flecked with grime and blood clinging to every inch of him. Takeda grabbed his blade and walked over to him.
"Don't move," he said. "I'm cutting you free."
"Where's the kit?" Jacqui yelled. Takeda could hear in her tone that she was trying to remain calm, but there was a tense and frantic edge to it that would quickly overtake it if she said anything more.
"I put it back in Cassie's bag," he replied.
"I gotta roll her over. Come help me-"
Cassie sucked in a breath through her teeth. "I - I can roll mys-" She tried it, but even tensing any part of her shoulder caused her pain. She gasped, flopping back down. "Nope. Oh, god," she moaned.
"Takeda?" Jacqui said again. The tense edge was growing stronger.
"Hold on, Jin," Takeda said.
"I'll be here," he said sarcastically, trying to tear himself free.
Takeda crouched on Cassie's injured side and slid his arms under her back. He lifted her up out of the dirt and Jacqui grabbed the strap of her pack, then shook her head. "Wait, wait, wait," she said, and he gently lowered her back to the ground. Cassie growled, clutching her wrist tighter. "Her arm's around the bag. How should we do this?"
Takeda quickly traced a path with his eyes, imagining the best way to get the strap off her injured arm without aggravating it. "She can move her other arm. I'll lift her, and she can get her arm out of that loop. Then pass me the bag under her. All she has to do is straighten her arm and I can slide it off her shoulder."
"T-Tak, if you hurt me, I swear . . . "
She was too distracted to finish the threat. Takeda lifted Cassie up again, careful to keep her injury steady while she twisted her arm out of the pack's strap. Jacqui slid it across the dirt underneath her, and Takeda was able to gently lay her back down again. He took hold of her wrist and lowered her arm to the side, then shimmied the other strap down her arm until it was off. He tossed the bag to Jacqui, then stood and went back to Jin.
"Maybe we should leave you there," Takeda joked. "At least we know you wouldn't run off and try to use anybody else's weapon while we're gone."
"Ha-ha-ha," Jin barked dryly. "I said I was sorry."
"Yeah, I know. Just messing with you." He worked on sawing Jin free, careful not to touch the webs and get himself stuck. After a while Jin was able to pull himself away from the wall, and he shuddered, dusting himself off.
"Wanna hear something weird? The webs are, like, soft. Pillowy, almost."
"Wanna go back in?" Takeda asked, gesturing towards them. Jin stared at him, and Takeda backed away from the second joke. "Never mind."
Jin walked over to where Cassie had discarded the glowstick and walked back to them, kneeling down next to her to inspect the damage. Jacqui had torn her suit away from the hole in her skin to give herself room to work. It looked like a perfect cylinder had been carved out of her flesh before coming to a point. Takeda could see muscle and sinew shredded around the edges, and every time Jacqui swiped at the blood with some gauze, more welled up. Not at an alarming rate, but Takeda knew it had to hurt, and bad.
Jacqui pulled a bottle of clear liquid from the first aid kit and leaned over Cassie. "This is gonna hurt. Probably bad," Jacqui said, her concern marked on her face. Cassie's mouth pursed and her eyes hardened. She steeled herself, repositioning herself on the ground as much as she could before nodding.
Jacqui dumped the antiseptic into the wound and Cassie clamped her mouth and eyes shut. Her back arched against the ground and her entire body tensed, but she swallowed any more sounds of pain. Jacqui wiped at it again with gauze, and her mouth slumped into a frown. She leaned further over the hole, motioning for Jin to hold the glowstick closer. She wiped more blood and peered into the wound.
"There's something in there," she said. "The little . . . sharp tip of its leg broke off and is in there. I can see it glinting in the light."
"Great. Fucking sweet. You gotta dig it out."
"I don't think we should. Not here," Jin said. "It's really dark in here. If Jacqui can't get it out in one shot, we could do more damage. Plus, it's damp and wet down here, which could cause infection and other things in the long run."
"So, now what?" Jacqui said, staring down at Cassie. Beads of sweat started to appear on her forehead and brows, and her face was tight. Even without reading her, Takeda knew she was in a lot of pain, and would be in a lot of pain for a while. He still scanned her, reading for her thoughts on leaving the wound as it was.
" . . . gonna really fucking hurt. I want it stitched up, but we can't even do that yet with the piece still in there." An idea popped into her head, and she latched on to it for a moment. "We could retreat and head topside again, just to take care of it . . ." Her excitement deflated a second later. "That would waste a lot of time. They'll never get me back down here if we go up . . . "
"Cassie?" Jacqui asked again.
"I'm thinking," she snapped. "Help me up." She held out her good arm for someone to take and haul her to her feet.
"Not yet," Jacqui said. "I want to pack that and stem the bleeding."
"Just throw some temp stitches on it. We have those little strip things in the kit."
"I can't close the wound with that barb in there."
Cassie paused again, and Takeda read her again. Even though she didn't say it out loud or in her head, he could feel her subliminal resentment echoing in the depths of her subconsciousness. " . . . I knew we should've aborted the mission when we found Sub-Zero."
Takeda scoffed, tearing himself free of her mind. "Well, let's decide fast. I want to keep looking for everyone." He said it on purpose, staring pointedly at her, as a jab that they weren't abandoning this mission yet. Not on his watch. Cassie's eyes narrowed and a confused look crossed her face before she understood where his comment came from.
"Takeda, stay out of my head, first of all! Second of all-"
"Let's not fight," Jacqui said.
"No, no! You're not in the military so I wouldn't expect you to know this, but there's a protocol for everything, Literally, everything! A mission is aborted based on how viable it is, and if the conditions on the ground make success possible! I'll give you a list of every reason why-"
"Cass, just stop it," Jin said quietly. Unusually subdued for a fight about to break out. He crossed his arms, shifting his weight to the other foot.
"First of all, there are hostiles in unmeasured numbers. You don't go rushing into a place where you don't know how many enemies there are. Because you'll end up in a situation like this - overrun, and wounded. Second of all, we're in a cave right now! Visibility is low, meaning we can't see hostiles or targets. Third of all, now I'm fucking wounded! And also-"
Each word she said was like a fist on Takeda's emotions, beating them further and further into despair that they'd never find anybody, and a realistic melancholy that they'd never find anybody alive.
The worst part about it was that her concerns were realistic.
"Just shut up, Cassie-" he tried, but she verbally plowed right over him, even from her spot on the ground.
"Also, we have reason to believe that our targets are already dead. We've already found Master Hasashi's kunai, and Raiden's staff, which means that wherever those two are, they're weaponless! Their odds of escaping unharmed are really fucking low if they don't have weapons-"
Takeda turned to walk away from her, but when he peered into the blackness of the caves beyond, he knew that wasn't a smart decision. Not after what just happened to Cassie when she went off by herself. He resorted to rage, fists clenching at his side as he tried to remain calm.
"Accept it, Takeda. It's time to start thinking about abandoning this mission-"
"Hey!" Jacqui yelled. She packed some gauze into Cassie's wound just a little too hard, and Cassie cut off to wince. "You just don't understand what's at stake, here. You don't have a horse in this race. You don't have anybody you care about who may or may not be dead. It's different for you. I'm in the military, too. I know the protocol. I've already thought about everything you're telling Takeda, and you know what? I don't care. I'd complete this mission even if there was only one thing that would allow us to be successful. Because my father is down here in this shit hole, and I'll be damned if I don't try my hardest to try and get him out - alive, or dead!"
She ended it by stuffing a last piece of gauze into the wound, then looked around at all of them. "Anybody have anything I can use for a sling?"
Takeda knew his scarf was in his pocket, covering the ice ball. He went to offer it, but hesitated. He didn't feel particularly keen on offering Cassie anything at the moment. But, after a calmer thought, he knew it was right. Plus, Jacqui was the one asking for it. He could pretend she was the one that needed it.
He reached into his pocket and dug it out, and the parts that were touching the ice ball were frozen solid. "Here," he said, tossing it to Jacqui. "Warm it up a little first."
"Whoo! It is cold," she said. "I'll just put the cold parts closer to the wound to ice it and keep it cool. Cassie, keep your eye on it and tell me if it starts to feel weird, or smell weird, or anything like that."
While Jacqui wrapped his scarf around Cassie, Takeda decided to inch a little ways down the tunnel. Not too far, in case he got snatched like she did, but just far enough to give himself some distance. The further in he slowly went, the lower the webs hung, so he ducked down below them and tried to see what lay beyond in the darkness.
There was a skylight somewhere in the next section that he could make out. It lit up the left side of what looked to be a perfectly round clearing. There were other lights in there, of a yellow-ish tint, but they were extremely dim and he couldn't make out what they were coming from. He moved to the right to get a better view of the left side, and something caught his eye.
A glint of something. Something that looked metal, right under the skylight. He squinted, shifting again to try and catch it again.
"Hey, guys? I found something.