"Fuck!" Cassie yelled, turning back and waiting for the horde of spiders to descend upon them. She put her one uninjured fist up slowly, swallowing hard and roving her eyes across the entrance.

The three spiders that were leading the way turned the corner first and bore down on Takeda. Cassie immediately ran towards them but they blew past her, even taking a punch or two on their way to him. He lashed his whips and Master Hasashi's kunai, dashing them across the spiders' faces and eyes and in front of their legs. They hissed and snapped at his threat, fanning out on all sides of him.

"Uuuuh, cover me," Jin said to his right, then turned his back to them. He ran to the edge behind them and gripped Raiden's staff with both hands, closing his eyes.

"C-cover you?! What the fuck do you mean, cover you?!" Takeda yelled, then was forced to face the spiders as one boldly lunged towards him with its legs. He circled his whips wide overhead and cracked the blades down. They scratched uselessly off the exoskeleton but the spider still retreated. Jacqui ran forward and threw a few punches while Cassie shot at all three indiscriminately.

They only worked to keep them at bay before the wave spilled into their enclosure. They crawled on the ceilings, across the walls, on the floor, and Takeda's heart dropped into his stomach as he realized all of them were going to come after him. There was a moment of absolute, terrifying dread where he considered jumping off the cliff. It would have been more dignified than being eaten alive. He pictured the scorpion wearing his hollowed out corpse next, and shuddered.

Jin broke his trance, suddenly snatching his bag from him. He retreated to the furthest part of their ledge and the spiders changed direction, heading for him instead. He dug around in Takeda's bag, cursing softly through his teeth before grabbing the gem and dragging it free. He tossed Takeda's pack back to him, whirled around, and grunted as he hurled the gem across the gap. Takeda watched it arc and glint through the air, then heard the distant tink! tink! tink tinktinktink skrchhhh! as it slid across the floor on the other side of the crevice.

It was like a switch had been flipped off. The wave of spiders in front of them froze in their tracks, and Takeda immediately heard the sounds of the waterfall disperse from around the corner as the spiders moved to return to their regular duties. The three closest to them that had engaged them stayed to try and finish the job, and Cassie and Jacqui squared off with their own while Takeda faced the one that had originally attacked him.

He spun around, whips whirling through the air after him. He crouched low and went after the spider's legs, loosing enough length to catch all eight. They swept underneath it, and the spider collapsed down onto its belly as all eight took a slash. Takeda retracted the whips and ran up to it, throwing two punches at its face. His fists barely did any damage, so he grabbed a small kunai from his belt and instead stabbed and punched at its eyes, bracing his other hand on its pincers to keep them away. He roundhouse kicked the spider, but his heel cracked against its body and did little else. Still, it backed away from his onslaught, swiping at its eyes with its front legs like windshield wipers.

Takeda moved in to finish the job but before he could he heard Jacqui scream in pain. He turned and saw her gauntlets steaming, and she desperately shook them off of her arms to the ground. She backpedaled furiously, curling protectively over her arms with her face twisted up in pain. Takeda couldn't see the injury. The spider moved towards her, lifting itself up on its back legs. Takeda ran in to help her, but the spider he had abandoned landed on his back, sending them both to the ground. Its pincers scratched and gnawed at his neck like a cat grabbing its kitten's scruff, and Takeda rolled onto his back with his hands up, ready to block. He kicked at its face and scrabbled backwards but the spider stayed with him, straddling him on the ground. His kicks glanced harmlessly off its exoskeleton, and by the time he had the chance to grab one of his plasma blades, the spider snatched him. It scooped its front four legs under him and balanced on the back four like a grotesque circus animal. It wrapped itself around his chest, pinning his arms to the side, and the other two wrapped around his waist to hold him in place. He writhed and struggled but its hold was too strong. The slimy, coarse hairs tickled him through the fabric of his body suit and needled into his skin. Takeda tried one last time to lash his whips at it. With his arms at his sides they scratched lamely off the ground.

The spider tossed its head back and squealed - no, roared - a tinny, whiny sound that set his teeth on edge. The realization that he was officially screwed registered in his mind, and with it, a cold chill that spread down his back. His eyes scanned for some way - any way out before locking on the back of Cassie's blonde head right as she cooly emptied the last of a clip into one of the spider's friends. He focused his power and sent one thought straight at her mind with all of his might.

"CASSIE!" The force of it staggered her, and she dropped her gun to press her fingers into her temple and shake her head.

"WHAT THE FUCK, TAK!" she screamed out loud, turning towards him.

"LITTLE HELP HERE!"

Her angry sneer fell and she grabbed her guns from the ground. "Shit!"

Stalling for time while she reloaded the clips, he fought as hard as he could, and it struggled to hold him. Snapping his leg out, he roughly kicked the side of one of its knees and it staggered back, dropping him. It spun around and bared its stinger, stabbing down at him. He barely shielded his face, using his forearm to block. The stinger scratched into his suit and tore skin, but glanced away.

He felt a burning, acidic pain flare through the fleshy part of his forearm before it ebbed away, and hot blood soaked into his suit. He pushed the spider away and Cassie finally was able to shoot it dead. She turned and helped Jacqui finish off hers, and as the sounds of the spiders faded, Jacqui's heavy breaths and groans of pain filled the space.

"You guys alright?" Jin asked.

"Yeah," Jacqui grumbled, shaking out her hands. She held them up and Takeda could see red, irritated patches of burnt flesh, blistering alongside scrapes and bruises. "Misfire. It happens. I need the burn kit." She turned and sat down on the ground with her back to a high pile of rocks.

"Got it," Cassie said.

"Takeda, you good?" Jin asked.

"Yeah," he said, standing up and dusting himself off. He twisted his arm to take a look at the slight scratch on his forearm. It wasn't bleeding terribly, though it hurt worse than it looked. "I'm good. Just a scratch. Where the hell were you?"

"Doing this," Jin said, and he moved to the very edge of the pillar. He gripped Raiden's staff with both hands and Cassie and Jacqui shared an annoyed glance. He breathed twice, the kind of deep breathing Takeda used for meditation, and Raiden's staff pulsed and charged with energy. Suddenly, the pressure in the cave dropped. The hairs on Takeda's neck and arms stood on edge, and Jin was lifted off the ground. Bolts of lightning jumped and leapt to the ceiling and walls, grounding themselves.

There was a crack of lightning, a blinding flash, and when Takeda's eyes readjusted to the dark, Jin was gone.

"Jin?!" Jacqui asked, bolting up. "Jin!"

"I'm over here!" he yelled, and Takeda looked across the ravine to see Jin waving. "YES!" he cheered. "See? I told you guys I could use it!"

"You better stay over there, cuz I'm gonna kill you if you come back over here!" Cassie yelled, rolling her eyes and turning her attention back to Jacqui. Takeda thought that was a little unfair of her. Jin did his fair share of stupid things, but this was something that would be genuinely helpful, and it would allow them another opportunity to escape unfavorable situations. He knew better than to tell Cassie that, however, knowing it would only start a fight he didn't have the energy to participate in.

Cassie rummaged through the first aid kit until she found spray-on skin and a roll of fresh bandages. "We don't have actual burn ointment, for some reason. Will this work?"

"I think so-" Takeda said. There was another thunder crack, and Jin appeared where he left a second before, sending a wave of mini charges out from under his feet.

"What do you think? Isn't that cool?"

" . . . Yeah, that's actually pretty cool," he admitted, watching Cassie for her reaction. "Nice job, Jin. Sorry I doubted you."

"Eh, I get it," he said, waving him off. "I know I'm kinda impulsive sometimes."

Cassie made a noise that sounded like an incredulous snort, but she cut it off. Jin heard it, sneering at her back.

Takeda went over to Jacqui and rubbed small circles in her back. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Hurts, but I'll live," she said, and she smiled up at him though it was obviously strained. He knew how badly burns could hurt, and she was probably in more pain than that. "Like I said, it happens. The charges in my gloves overheated, and rather than shoot outwards like they're supposed to, they exploded instead. Right up my arms. Not the first time." She held her arms out while Cassie shook the can, then sprayed a generous amount over every inch of Jacqui's arms. Jacqui sighed. "That already feels better."

"Yeah, it says it's for burns, so I'm guessing there's probably some ointment in it or something."

"I probably shouldn't be punching things for a while." She shrugged her pack off her shoulder and brushed it towards Takeda with her shoulder. "I've got a pistol in there, and a clip. Can you get them for me?"

"Sure, but I don't know how to load it," he told her honestly.

"That's ok. I got it."

He dug into her pack until he found them, then handed them over to her. She winced as as she loaded it, brushing her hands on the bottom of the hand grip. "Won't it hurt you?"

"Yeah, but better than another misfire from my gloves," she said. Cassie bandaged her up, wrapping them all the way to her elbows, then helped her to her feet. She started to pack up the kit, but Takeda stopped her.

"Hold on. I got cut. Just toss me some antiseptic."

She shuffled through and tossed him an antibiotic wipe. He tore it open and dug it into the sleeve of his suit, wincing against the intense burning that ripped through the wound. He scoured it several times before discarding the wipe, noting how red and angry it already looked. He took a few deep breaths to calm his trembling hands and wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. "Any bandages?" he asked.

"Bandages, or bandaids?" Cassie asked. "I've got both."

"Bandaid should be fine. Just make it big. It's kind of a big cut."

She obliged, and he was able to cover it completely. It started to throb under the bandaid, but it was more of an ache than a real pain. When they were ready, Jin beckoned them to the edge of the ravine. "Okay. Who's first?"

"I guess me," Jacqui said, and she stood next to Jin. He looped his arm in hers, taking care to hold the upper part of her arm to avoid her injuries. He closed his eyes and focused his power, and in a blink he and Jacqui were across the canal. Takeda let Cassie go next, and finally Jin ferried him across.

They walked for the next part of the tunnels when Takeda saw the red glint of the gem glittering in the torchlight ahead. "Hold on," he said. "What are we gonna do about that?"

"They're leaving us alone now, which means they don't like when somebody has it in their possession," Jin said. "Which means we should just leave it here. That sucks. It's a huge gem and would probably fetch a huge price. I was kinda hoping it could be a treasure or a spoil or something."

"If we find literally anything else in this fucking cave then you can have it," Cassie said. "But I ain't about to have a literal tidal wave of spiders chase after us over this stupid thing." She wound her leg back like she was going to kick it over the edge and into the ravine, but Takeda stopped her.

"Wait! Just leave it! What if it shatters or something, and they don't like that either? Then we're still in deep shit."

She considered his rationale, then shrugged. "Yeah. I guess. It sounds, like, weird when you say it like that, but you're probably right."

They walked past the gem and the torch, and immediately the caves changed. Looming overhead and illuminated by the torch was a perfectly circular archway carved out of the rock and lined with stone bricks. Two decorative black stone pieces lined either side of the archway and curved upwards like two horns. It looked smooth and had light accents over it, looking like black marble. They all stopped to inspect it, and Jin touched the stone, wiping it for dust. A thick layer came off on his fingers, and he rubbed it away.

"Who the hell would build this here?" he asked. "This is . . . Osh-Tekk architecture, from the Tizok era of their civilization. I forget the dates of the era, but Tizok is . . . old. Really old. I've never seen a single record of the Osh-Tekk settling in the Netherrealm."

"How do you know it's Osh-Tekk?" Takeda asked.

"See these 'rib' looking things, or like, these 'horns' that outline the archway? Dead giveaway. Either the spiders haven't always been here and have taken over, or the Osh-Tekk cultures who lived here cohabitated with them."

"Are they still alive now?" Takeda asked, as an itch sparked in the cut on his arm. He used the sleeve of his suit to scratch at it over the bandaid, shooting fiery pain into his fingertips. When he took another look at it, he was surprise to find that he smeared fresh blood that already bled through the bandaid across his arm. It was strange that a cut so small would be bleeding that heavily, and that it hurt so badly, but he shrugged it off, thinking it would stop soon. "Like, what I mean is, are we gonna run into any Underground Osh-Tekk?"

"I . . . I don't know," Jin said. "I didn't even think there'd be anything of Outworld this far out in the Netherrealm. Unless this particular Osh-Tekk clan was a product of the Great Extinction."

"What's that, Encyclopedia Jin?" Cassie asked.

"There was a disaster of some kind that swept across the entire realm of Outworld long ago - millions and millions of years ago, when Earthrealm was nearly new. Big enough to destroy the boundaries with spiritual plains. Billions died in the actual event, which is recorded as 'a cataclysm of blue fire'. Nobody knows what actually happened because nobody alive today lived through it, but after the event, demons and creatures from the different spiritual realms spilled into Outworld and preyed on the survivors. Peoples got sent to other realms, other realms' creatures got sent to outworld, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe this Osh-Tekk clan got sent here in the schism and just began to live here."

" . . . With the spiders?" Cassie questioned, mirroring Jin's earlier thoughts. "Would they do that?"

"We'll find out," Jin said. "If we see spider carcasses and things like that, we'll know if they were hunted. If we find Osh-Tekk bodies, we'll know they were overrun. If we only find spiders, we'll know they took over after the Osh-Tekk died off."

He led the way under the archway, and even the floor was smoother stone, worn down with age and use. They ended up in a hand-carved, perfectly cylindrical tunnel that sported the marble 'ribs' along the entire length of it, bracing the weight of the rocks away. It curled in both directions, and to their immediate left was a sconce. The actual bowl that held the flames was set on a square pedestal, with real tinder feeding the flames rather than a hastily put together torch. It had the decorative black marble 'horns' carved out of the stone to give it decoration.

Jin reached back and handed Takeda the glowstick and he put it away, tucking it into a loop in his clothes. Jin started walking to the left, and as they passed the torch, he realized how hot it was growing the further they went underground. He wiped more sweat from his forehead, but winced as it felt like all the blood in his fingertips rushed towards the wound. He clenched his fist, working out the pins and needles sensation.

The tunnel turned a sharp right, and a beam of natural light shone down from somewhere in the ceiling. The light combined with all the torches provided plenty of light, and Takeda felt like it was a weight off his chest. He felt like he could breathe easier and that they could relax a bit now that they weren't in total darkness. Wondering if the others felt the same, he quickly sent out a burst of power, reading their auras rather than their thoughts. If there was any tension, then auras vibrated slightly as though trembling - to him, anway. He asked Kenshi about it at one point and Kenshi told him that tension looked like a black circle, pressing down and stifling the person's natural aura. Though all of their auras trembled, it was less intense than he felt before.

Speaking of trembling, he thought, looking down at his hands. He could feel the beginnings of exhaustion creep in on him as though they hadn't rested only a little bit ago. Though, he thought, he did take watch and didn't get to sleep. He scratched at another itch on his arm, following after the others as they paraded down the hallway. Cassie kept her eyes up, watching the ceiling and the walls when she suddenly stopped, throwing her arm out. She slapped her hand against Jin's chest.

"Hey, hey, hey, look," she said, and she pointed at one of the smooth stone walls. They crowded around where she pointed to see a massive blood stain that nearly painted a few square feet of wall. It glinted in the torchlight and against the natural light, wet and fresh. As they watched, a thick bead separated from the rest of the stain and made its own trail down the wall. She turned away from the stain and moved further down the tunnel, and as she did, it opened up on her left into a small inlet. There was more blood, spilling from cracks in the walls.

"This is way too much blood to come from one person," she said. There was a body hanging in the corner of the recess and a shiny white skeleton curled up underneath it, but Cassie ignored them to stare at the blood on the wall. "Right? That's a lot of blood."

"The Osh-Tekk are blood warriors, and they use blood sacrifices. They think drinking their enemy's blood makes them stronger, and immune to whatever that enemy has to offer. It wouldn't surprise me if they used it for aesthetics too. Painting the walls, blood fountains, stuff like that. I think that's what this is. See how it's bubbling out of the rock? It's being supplied to the walls. Like a sprinkler system, almost."

Cassie's lip curled up in disgust and she spun on her heels to continue down the cave. As they came up on a corner that turned to the right, Takeda saw a thick arm of webs that was attached to the sconce there. It led up towards the ceiling, and Takeda followed it up to see blankets of webs along the ceiling. There were small spiders that scuttled here and there, but they were nowhere near the size of the ones at the mouth of the cave. They were few and far between, and he was oddly not threatened by them. They looked less volatile and like they couldn't do as bad of damage as their friends.

Either he was being desensitized, which was a scary thought, or he genuinely didn't find them a threat.

They turned the corner and halfway down the next hallway, the path split again to the left. Jin moved to turn. "It's like a whole city down here-"

Cassie grabbed his collar and stopped him. "Hold on there. Let's stay on this path. I have a feeling like it wraps back around to where we came from, like a big square."

"Yeah, and what's the time?" Takeda said. "I'm getting kinda tired."

Jin pulled the stopwatch out and checked it, then gave Takeda a strange look. "We've only been going for an hour and forty five minutes."

"Yeah, but I took watch." A wave of heat crashed over him, seeming to originate from the cut on his arm and radiate outwards. He winced, feeling more sweat bead up on his body and under his suit. He gently rubbed at his arm over his sleeve.

"Is your arm bugging you?" Jacqui asked.

"Yeah, but it's fine. It just hurts a lot."

"That tiny scratch?" Jacqui asked. "Let me see."

He pulled back the edges of the tear in his suit, showing her the already soaked-through bandaid. Blood was beginning to leak out the sides of the adhesive, and Jacqui's eyebrows came together with concern. "That's a bad sign," she said. "Heavy bleeding like that."

"Bad sign of what?" Takeda asked.

"Most likely infection."

"Infection doesn't set in that quickly," Cassie said. "I learned about that in Field Medicine. Did you put pressure on it?"

"Not really."

"Oh! Well, there you go. Just put pressure on it, and it should stop right away."

Takeda squeezed down on his forearm with his other hand, and after the remaining blood was squeezed out of the bandaid, he noticed that no new beads formed and leaked down the tracks already made. "Yeah, it's letting up."

"There you go."

"I'm good to keep going," Takeda said. "I was just asking for the time because I'm getting a little tired but that's it."

"Well make sure you keep an eye on that," Jacqui said. She lifted her arms as though to stroke his arm, but remembered her own wounds and lowered them sheepishly to her side. He couldn't help but smile, and offered her a quick wink in return.

"I saw that," he sent to her, and her shoulders slumped. Her lips curled up into an embarrassed smile, and she dropped her chin to her chest to hide it.

"Let's find the end of the path," Jacqui said when she recovered. "And after that, if we find a good stopping point, we'll stop. How's that sound?"

"That's fine," Takeda said. "Like I said, I'm good to keep going."

" . . . I think we should keep going to the three hour mark," Jin said. "We're flying kind of blind here without the time, and sticking to the schedule will help us keep track. General Blade said we had exactly a week before we go M.I.A., then another whole week before we go K.I.A."

"But if we need to rest, and we want to rest," Jacqui said, "then we should. I've got an injury here that needs monitored, and so does Cassie. Takeda's hurts, and he's tired. I don't want us to tire ourselves out so bad we can't even defend ourselves later."

"If we set a schedule, then we're supposed to stick to it," Cassie said. "But I also see Jacqui's point. We gotta remember to eat and drink and sleep when we need it, or we won't last very long."

"So, what do you want to do?" Jin asked.

"I think . . . " she said, and she trailed off. Her eyes flicked quickly between Jacqui and Jin, and Takeda saw that flair of insecurity and indecision flash in her eyes he hadn't seen since they were captured by the Lin Kuei during the training exercise. The fear that she could make a wrong decision, or the fear that she would be responsible for people she cared about getting injured. Cassie knew she had a legacy to live up to and though she had more than proven herself by then, she still sometimes harbored feeling of inadequacy, and they forced into bouts of indecision. She felt that each step she took had to be infallible just as she thought her parents' steps were.

"I think we should . . . keep going. And then . . . stop if we find a place. I think it's fine if we for once don't follow the schedule, especially if we're tired. Now that I think about it, I don't think we've followed the three hour thing once. We rested early after the wolves, we took a short rest before we went down here, we actually went overtime last time, and now this. We'll be fine, I think."

To ditch the situation, she turned and led them further down the tunnel, away from the path to the left. Just as Cassie suspected, the cave made another sharp right, then another that led them past the way they came, out where Jin teleported them across the crevice.

They retraced their steps back into the Osh-Tekk tunnels, and made their way to the split in the path, taking the path to the left. Every step was like a slightly larger weight was being thrown on Takeda, weighing down his legs and especially his arm, which twinged and burned with increasing ferocity. As they ducked under another archway, it opened up into a massive square room. The natural light illuminated most of it, and they could see two ribs at each corner of the room, keeping its shape. There were tiny candles placed randomly around the room and the ever-present webs dangling from the ceiling like curtains, but there were no spiders in sight in the room. There was one egg sac hanging suspended in the far left corner, but the boils were black and long dead. The floor was made of slabs of stone, complete with grout and diamond reliefs between them. It was clearly man-made and probably was once meant to be a gathering place of sorts. Waterfalls of blood spurted from different places along the walls, but what struck Takeda was a particular bloodstain on the floor.

It didn't look deliberate in its placement.

It was thin and patchy, but there was a clear path that it made as whatever belonged to it was dragged across the floor - and recently. The stain wove to the right, and as he followed it with his eyes past piles of pure white bones and entire skeletons, it disappeared around another archway carved into the wall.

Almost immediately his heart started to race, and thoughts of who the blood belonged to flashed through his mind. His arm throbbed painfully, and a particularly bad flair of pain erupted through his arm as though it was aware of his panic. He clenched his fist, wiping more sweat from his face and neck, though despite the heat he felt distinctly cold. He resisted the urge to shiver and his breaths felt heavy.

"H-hey," he said, and his voice sounded small. "Check this out. This doesn't belong here." He left it, walking to a different part of the room to let one of the others analyze it. He didn't want to think about Hanzo or Kenshi. He didn't want to think about finding them on the other side of the archway like they found Sub-Zero. The thoughts brought his breaths in faster, and he nearly brought himself to lightheadedness.

" . . . This is . . . a good place to stop," Cassie said.

"What?" Jin said. "Don't you think we should keep going and investigate this?"

A wave of nausea crept up on Takeda. He was having a very bad reaction to the blood, and he wasn't sure why it was so bad. He could feel panic setting in. A deep-rooted panic that for some reason was manfesting itself now. "I . . . I wanna stop. I'm sorry. This is making me really anxious. I'm cold, and I'm tired, and my arm hurts, and - and -" There was something very wrong with the blood, with his arm, with his reaction to it all.

"Hey," Jacqui soothed softly. "Hey, hey. It's gonna be okay, alright? We can rest here. Right?"

He couldn't look Cassie or Jin or Jacqui in the face. But when Cassie shrugged her pack off her uninjured shoulder and said, "Yeah, we can stop here." Takeda nearly collapsed where he was next to some bones. He went to work to remove the skin-tight suit away from his body, unzipping it as far down his back as he could reach. He pulled his arms through, careful to keep his arm from chafing, and shrugged the suit down to his waist so he was only in his Under Armor. The whips and their wheels weighed the fabric down, and with his hands shaking as badly as they were he struggled. He focused on his breathing as much as he could, resting his head in his hands and attempting to calm himself.

Jacqui sat next to him and gently placed on hand on his knee, and he used it to try and ground himself. When he finally felt the panic abate his heart still felt clenched and tight, but he was okay enough to take care of his arm. He peeled the bandaid off and found Cassie's pack on shaking, weak knees to get another one. As he leaned over his red, bleeding arm another sensation of nausea rolled his stomach, but he blamed it on the panic. He cleaned it once again with more antiseptic, though as he scoured the wound again the pain was intense. He had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out as the antiseptic burn mixed with the heat of the wound.

After he took care of his wound he helped Jacqui with another round of spray on skin, determined to have something else to do than let his mind wander while Jin and Cassie set up their camping supplies. Nobody spoke, and as Takeda's panic morphed into the final dregs of fatigue, he clamored into his sleeping bag, not bothering to find out who was taking watch. He still felt freezing cold, and curled up until the top layer of sleeping bag was under his chin.

He was grateful that he was out before he could panic again.

What up, friends?

COVID-19 Quarantine Day ? for me near Pittsburgh, PA. I hope all of you are staying safe during the pandemic!