What's up? Yes, I live again. Actually, I thought, because of my holidays, it is common to bring out my updates much more often. I just couldn't do it. My new work and the rest of the exams stole more time than I thought. But I managed to keep writing a little bit each day until it finally worked out a new chapter. Without further speeches: here comes the new chapter, number 38!

"No!"
"But if you…"
"I said NO, Cage!" Cassie watched in disconcertion as Takeda stood up and walked out the door of his apartment.
"Now wait a minute, Tak!" She jumped up from the chair and ran after him, indifferent that she was barefoot and in a T-shirt and the snow was almost a meter high. "You did not even hear my plan!"
He did not even turn around. "Because this plan will have no end except sure death!"
"You stop now and listen to me!" Cassie scolded loudly.

"No," he said again and moved on. This wretched coward.
"Fuck off," she thought doggedly. Too obvious. "I heard that!" Cried the warrior behind her back. "Asshole!" She cursed back, turned around and stomped back into his apartment. With such fury, she slammed the door so that the entrance carpet was covered with a load of snow in no time at all. She did not care.
Mileena was standing in the kitchen, comfortably nibbling with her sai the slimy remnants of fish from the drain that she stuffed like gummy bears into her mouth. When the soldier silently passed her by, she looked up. "Oh, our soul missionary is back," she snapped. "And? Could you do good persuasion?"

"Oh, just shut up, Mileena." she growled, searching in the chaos for a snack that did not come from the sea, just not to have to talk to anyone. But Mileena did not plan to let go of her. "I told you right away, there's no idiot!" She blamed, sucking the leftovers off her blade. "Takeda is not an idiot," she snapped back. Before she knew what, she was doing, she had suddenly grabbed the handle of her weapon and pulled it out of her mouth. She threw him backward, but miscalculated the throw and thundered the Sai with the tip of the first in the ceiling beams above her.

For a moment she stared up in surprise, then back to Cassie.
"I'm sorry, darling, but that won't solve your problems." Mileena raised her right hand, which began to glow in a mysterious pink. Cassie heard a humming, then a hiss, as the Sai came flying from a height of 3 meters back into its owner's hand.
"I'm going to bed again," she said curtly, simply turning her back to Cassie and leaving. So now you too. But she did not give up.
"You can control him, right?" She froze, but didn't turn around. "You were his master when you made the rules as Empress of Outworld. Nobody knew Ermac better than you!"

"Until he turned against me!" she growled menacingly. "He became too strong, too unattached to consequently bow to my will. Probably because I wanted it that way, but disregarded the consequences. I transferred too many souls to the body my father created for him. I saw my reigns in danger by the Supreme Council, so my best warriors had to become even stronger. I saw his powers rise above average until his souls ... followed their own will. And gave him, Ermac, his own will." She turned to Cassie and her eyes darkened. "Nobody can beat him. Not a single soul." Only then she did seem to realize what she was saying.

"Why am I even talking to you?"
"Because you promised me that you would help me!"

"Suicide was not mentioned; you can do that all by yourself. "
"Hey!" It was a tough counterattack, but she tried not to respond. "You'll see, then I'll do it alone!" Mileena laughed hoarsely.
"Have fun, how do you plan your approach?" Cassie shrugged aimlessly.
"No idea, maybe I'll put a grenade in his ass, from somewhere the souls have to come out." She squinted. "Why am I even talking to you about it?"

Mileena snorted. "First, stop quoting me! Second, you don't achieve anything with that. Third, I won't let you run to certain death!"
"You could take savagely revenge in this way after the casino massacre."

"Vengeance tastes sweet only if it comes unexpectedly." She crossed her arms. "By the way, did you forget something in your master plan?"
"How I persuade Takeda to join in?"
She rolled her eyes. "That would be problem # 2. Did you forget that sending me back to Outworld wouldn't be a good idea?"
"No? Where's the problem?" Cassie continued to be unaware. It brought Mileena almost livid.
"I am officially dead, Cage! Already forgotten?"
The soldier couldn't help but pat her on the shoulder. "Congratulations. Then we are already two." Triumphantly she added. "A team tactic, however, would be the best medicine to solve such problems."

"There's no way to talk that out, right?" She sighed dejectedly.
"No way. You screwed me up." Cassie snapped.
"Why me?" She asked confused. Cassie nudged her with two fingers on the sternum, so Mileena lost balance and fell backwards over the sofa arm on her back.
"Quite simple, genius Longfang." she said proudly, pressing a pillow to her teeth. "Because I ended up on your stupid island."
"That's not my problem!" she mumbled into the pillow filling. Cassie let go of her.
"After you have not eaten me for breakfast and saved me from my suffering, I am your everlasting problem." Mileena looked at her already slightly sad. "To bad, kid. Then you have to tackle your problems differently."
She nodded headfirst to the door. "There's a problem waiting out there." Cassie nodded, too, if she didn't really know why.

"I have to go to Takeda." she mumbled. "Otherwise I'll go to hell."
"I'll come with you." Mileena rolled elegantly over the sofa. Cassie raised an eyebrow. "Is this a good idea?"
She was unimpressed. "You can still regret it later."
"Just as I regret running around in his underwear like a freak." Cassie sighed. "I'll try my luck again."
"That's fighting spirit."

The sun stood clear in the sky that morning, no cloud was visible. Still, her breath hung as a mist in the air, so cold it was.
The goose bumps stretched completely over her bare legs, but the scars remained numb. When she turned the face, or what it was before, to heaven, there was a strange tingling sensation. She narrowed her eyes, staring intently at the sun as the fine veins that had stayed with her began to fill with blood. She realized how long she hadn't looked in the mirror. Did she still look the same? A brief touch of her fingers over the roughened meat brought sobering certainty that no face in the world would regrow.

When she heard a rustle behind her (Mileena, who was fascinated by pushing all the piles of snow from the pedestals and railings), she gave herself a jolt. She had sworn not to look back on these massacres. Now, only the truth was important. And to find out, she would have to take on even more hurdles than a little soul journey. But not without Takeda.
The young warrior stood in front of a ledge, his back to her, meditating. She saw his fingers, which he had laid gently on the head, just as in the ship's cells. Almost she smirked as she slowly approached. A surprise attack wasn't necessary. He noticed her long ago.

"Better not get too close." he said, without turning around. "At this slope it goes down steep."
Her eyes twitched involuntarily. Cassie would have expected such a comment rather from someone like Kung Jin, but Takeda immediately went on the offensive.
"That was not my plan, Takeda." she said carefully, though she already felt the urge to kick him in the balls. "I'm sorry about earlier, which ... was not meant that way."
"Hm." he murmured, without directly accepting the apology.
"I know, that sounds just crazy, but ..." She bit her tongue several times as she put together the right words. "... this Ermac thing ..." Cassie saw Takeda flinch briefly. "I know that I have no right to dictate anything to you. But I am now an outcast. And I have nothing left except my friends."

Again, Takeda didn't react and she hated herself for making a begging sound that simply didn't fit into the scenario. "If my plan works, then it will ..." Will what? No matter how many times she turned the sentences in her mouth, it sounded ridiculous in every way.
"So you have a new plan, Cage?" He grumbled.
Just as Cassie could respond with relief, Mileena burst through the snow. "She wanted to put a grenade in his ..." Before she even thought to go on, Cassie had rammed her elbow into her stomach. She was right in one thing. She regretted it.
"Will you damn shut up?" Cassie yelled at the intrusive Half-Tarkatan, before turning back to Takeda. Meanwhile, he had silently turned to them and regarded the chaotic duo with disapproval.

"We have to get access to Ermac's souls. Only then can I find out if Black is right and his girlfriend really exists. In him. Mileena knows exactly how to ... "
"Wa..wa..wait! I don't know how to do that!" She interposed stressedly. "I have absolutely nothing to do with that!"
Takeda stared at her with narrowed eyes. "Your thoughts are not lying, Mileena." he said. "But it doesn't matter. I won't do it."
He spoke and turned away again to meditation. Cassie couldn't stand it. She went forward and pulled him hard on the shoulder.

"What are you so afraid of?" She snapped. When he didn't answer directly, she continued. "We fought side by side for Earthrealm. In Outworld! You're voluntary staying behind in the Sky Temple to take on Kitana, Sindel, Smoke, Liu Kang and Kung Lao! Where is your courage, Takeda? Where is this part in you that I have always admired? Your fearlessness?"
Her teammate suddenly stood up and turned to face her. The darkness in his eyes startled her.

"You have no idea, Cassie." he whispered. "You don't know what it's like to look death and its afterlife in the eye! The end in sight, no way out ... that's what I had in my mind when I looked him in the eye! Into his innermost. It almost killed me!" He swallowed. "I thought I could learn something for life. But it was the lesson of death, I can't turn away from!"
"You know that you've just quoted my own bad fate?" She said. "THIS is my fucking life with which I have to live!"

He jerked his head up. "Do you see that, Cass?" He pointed to a long scar under his chin. "That was the result of our last encounter when you almost killed me in your delusion! You fled paranoid from the base, away from home to prop yourself from a bridge to death!" Her nostrils rose and fell and her eyes burned. Not from the allegations, but because he was right.
"I'm not telling you this to humiliate you! I'm telling you that to protect you!"
"Protecting yourself from something?" She patted. "You are not my mother!"
"She would probably do the same!" He shook his head. "I'm not doing this for me! I'm doing this for you, understand? Because I am your friend. And what gives me the guarantee that you won't relapse again?"

Cassie was silent. There was no answer to that, at least not that would satisfy him.
"I'm giving you this guarantee, kid!" Both of them turned in surprise as Mileena spoke up unexpectedly. She walked towards Cassie with deadly elegance and stood in front of her in a protecting way.
"This little girl has been wandering around with me for weeks, and though I'm certainly not a pleasant travel companion, she has convinced me of her courage!" she growled. "No paranoid masters an Animality. No paranoid breaks undercover in one of the most heavily guarded casinos, and certainly not to search for one of the most dangerous followers of Kotal Kahn! Only someone who knows what his or her strengths are is traversing the largest mountain range in the world, in the company of a Half-Tarkatan, risking her life again, to ask her best friend for help! And only a coward would deny this friend that chance, what could change everything!"

Takeda's mouth was open now and Cassie was surprised by her sudden change of heart of the otherwise so vicious former Empress. She could feel it, the fear and worry they all shared. The fear of a telepath to face his last conqueror again. The fear of a murderer to return to her old home. Her own fear, which she overplayed as much as possible.
Even if Mileena didn't say so, she pursued the same goal. These mountains were not the end of their journey. They had to move on.

"You have my word, Takeda." she said as sincerely as possible. "Since you last saw me, a lot has happened. And I'm finally ready to face it! But I cannot do it without you. Will you join me in Outworld?" She shifted from one foot to the other to shake off the cold. "See as the command of your team leader. Or your chance to kick Ermac in the ass."

"You're crazy, completely crazy!" Takeda stared at the young woman in astonishment, as if he had been persuaded to dance naked in the dojo. After Cassie continued to stare at him innocently, he began to curse again. "Don't you understand? This is higher school! Maybe it can be done by people like my dad, but I ... my goodness, Cass! I've tried once, in my stupidity, to outsmart his senses. But he's too strong and that's too many souls." He sighed wearily. "I just cannot do it, I'm sorry."

He sat down on a rock and stared absently into the valley. Carefully, Cassie slid down beside him. "Maybe it can be done by the son of Kenshi, too." Takeda looked at her in surprise as she continued. "You're the best telepath I know, Tak! And I've never doubted you, because you're getting older, smarter, wiser and stronger! I just know that you can do it! Please." Takeda had to think for a long time until finally the air went out of him. "How do I know that you are serious?"
She laughed tiredly. "And that's a serious question? I'm a Cage, I always mean it." When Takeda raised an eyebrow, she tapped her forehead. "Convince yourself." His eyes pierced her head and she hoped sensually that she herself really meant it.

"All right then. We'll do it, though I cannot guarantee it will work." A wide smile crossed her face. "I don't know how to thank you, Tak!"
He grabbed her by the arm and said very forcefully, "I'm not just doing it because you're my best friend. I want this injustice to end, and if I can make a contribution this way, then I will! And you can pay it back to that asshole!"
"Takeda!" His enthusiasm left her speechless. "I'm serious Cassie! This is a monster! And a conspiracy that hardly anyone believes! Only you will be able to stop this!" He got up and beckoned to Cassie and Mileena. "Let us begin!"

Greetings go out to all my diligent readers and followers! Without you I would be far less motivated. This journey is far from over. It's just starting. Leave a comment if you like it. Bye for now ~ MasterFran :D