Chapter Text
Lightning cracks across the sky, splitting apart the clouds and punctuating the unrelenting rain soaking the god to his core. He shivers and bows his head, water spilling from the brim of his hat. This should be his element. Now, its power unnerves him. He is not who he once was.
He opens his palm to catch a spark of electricity that dances between his fingertips, studying it as it arcs and darts in tiny branches.
Abruptly, Raiden closes his fist, and the light shuts off.
He gazes into the mist of the distant mountains, radiant blue eyes flickering with sinister orange flashes. It takes all his power to control the corruption with him and to tame the poison threatening to consume his soul. Even now, it surges in flares of rage and pain that strike him to his core. He has finally shed his armored garb for a simpler outfit, woven white and blue cloth embroidered in gold, rather than the dark coat and sharp spikes he’s been wearing these past months. But he knows that renouncing his new warlike persona will not cure the vengeful fever within him, gnawing away at his true self and building up a shell of selfishness.
Much greater measures are required.
This is the consequence of his sacrifice. He did willingly perform that necessary act, to cleanse the earth’s life force of the corruption after the Shinnok incident. The jinsei mists must be preserved at all costs. Raiden knows this all too well. For a god to renounce their duty would be the greatest sin of all. He’d believed that he was strong enough to contain that evil essence, making a martyr of himself.
He was not. He was wrong. The world has nearly paid for it.
It took the intervention of the Special Forces to keep Raiden from declaring war outright on Outworld. He had been only a few steps away from the emperor’s dwelling, burning dangerous and bright, with lightning in his fists and the sickly orange glow of the corruption surrounding him like a toxic mist. General Blade, may she be thanked, had stopped him - a spectacular showdown that humiliated Earthrealm even while proving the might of its greatest warriors. Dragged back to his Sky Temple at long last with futile apologies to Outworld, Raiden had been subjected to the healing attempts of his allies, with no luck. Bo’ Rai Cho contributed moral support but little else before departing on his own journeys. Fujin’s healing capabilities were limited, despite his deep frustration. Thus, while Raiden struggles, his fellow god of wind has taken over the temple duties entirely, guarding him as he seeks a cure.
But he is elsewhere now, and Raiden is deeply, profoundly alone.
Hands folded behind his back, he paces back and forth at the edge of the courtyard. The weathered stone is slick with rain beneath his feet. He shuts his eyes for a moment of concentration, vanishes, and re-materializes in the air - arms outstretched, burning bright. Lightning courses through his body, silhouetting the god’s figure and arcing between his palms. His eyes flare sinister orange, then flicker back to blue, and back again to that cursed glow. Clenching his fists, he lets out his anger and pain in an ancient curse shouted to the vast empty sky. The wind carries away his scream. He may as well be silent.
He drops to the ground on hands and knees, wincing. The corruption has finally retreated again... for who knows how long. For a god, years mean nothing, but he feels as weary as an old mortal. He shakes the rain off and gets up, adjusting the brim of his hat. He can’t go on this way.
A petite shadowy figure watches from beneath the eaves. “Nice lightning show.”
Raiden greets her in a voice that cracks mid-sentence. “Cassandra Cage.”
“You sound bad.” The girl steps forward, hands in her pockets. She’s clad in sturdy pants and a leather jacket that says CAGE on the back in bold print - actually a vintage relic of her father’s past days of stardom, though she’d never, ever admit it. Twin holsters at her waist complete the stylish look. “Catch a cold out in the rain or something, Raiden?”
“What I have ‘caught’ cannot be reversed by time and rest, nor any normal means.” Raiden scoffs under his breath, shaking his head. “How I wish that it were so.”
“Yeah. About that… Mom wants a status report.” General Blade is known for her foresight, but not her patience. Usually, she sends Cassie as a military subordinate, but today, she is here to check on Raiden as a family friend above all. “Any idea what’s wrong?”
“Actually, yes.” Raiden approaches with measured steps, fixing her in his glowing gaze beneath the brim of his hat. He towers over her with godly stature, but her confident posture matches his own, hands on her hips, chin up to meet his eyes. Cassandra Cage has always been uniquely formidable. Raiden looks down at her kindly, stifling his own doubts and nerves. “Perhaps it is best if we discuss this inside the temple.”
Cassie gestures to the empty courtyard in disbelief. Caution is one thing, paranoia is another. “Really? Who’s gonna be out here eavesdropping?"
“That is not my concern. I would hate for you to catch cold.” Raiden rests a gentle hand on her shoulder, guiding her inside. “Go on, child. And… thank you for coming to see me.”
“Anytime. It’s nice to visit. Excuse for a vacation.” Cassie shakes the raindrops off her jacket upon stepping inside, but somehow there is still water pouring down on her, soaking her short hair with a heavy chill. She grimaces. “Temple roof spring a leak or something?”
Raiden pauses, with a moment of awareness, and closes his hand into a fist. The rain finally ceases. “My apologies.”
“Lots of gardeners would kill for that talent.” Cassie tosses her windbreaker onto an ornate but worn-down gilded hook inlaid into the wall. It’s probably thousands of years old. Well, her jacket isn’t about to wreck anything that’s lasted that long. She brushes a hand through her hair, styling the undercut into messy wet spikes. “So, you were saying….?”
“Listen closely.” Raiden paces down the corridor, strong jaw clenched. This is as difficult to explain as it is to admit. Selfishness is at the core of the corruption, and to admit his own weakness is to contradict the urges of this horrible infection. “I bear the traces of the dark magic that poisoned Shinnok.”
“Well, I could have told you that . I didn’t think you were glowing orange and dressing like Dracula just to get into the Halloween spirit.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Pop culture reference. Skip it. I’m listening.”
“He was nearly completely consumed by that force, but it did not originate with him.”
“Well, that’s interesting. So he’s not the father of all evil after all? Bet he’d be real disappointed.”
Raiden sighs. “Now is not the time for cracking wise, Miss Cage."
“You kidding? It’s always the time for that.”
There is no point in arguing about the matter. He continues, gripping his wrist with his other hand in an effort to steady himself as he speaks. “Shinnok... was not always what you know him to be. Deprived of worship, he came to Earth and spread heresy and chaos. For that, we chained him in the Netherrealm for several millennia. You know this.”
“Yeah, I heard about this one in my kindergarten history textbook."
“I doubt that very highly.”
“Just keep talking.” Cassie shoves her hands in her pockets, glancing around. “Huh. Looks different in here. Did you redecorate?”
“No. Actually, the opposite. My temple is linked to my soul. As I… decay, so does it.”
“Okay. So you should redecorate. Gotcha.”
He ignores this with gritted teeth. “Miss Cage, these are serious matters.”
Cassie puts her hands on her hips and steps right in front of the god, chewing a wad of bubblegum to try to calm her nerves. They both come to a halt in a respectful face-off. Raiden’s stoic resolve falters as Cassie speaks. “Okay. Listen. The only way I know how to handle life-and-death situations is ‘cracking wise.’ You want me to be able to deal with the fact that my mentor, a literal god , is dying? This is how.”
A wistful look crosses Raiden’s weary face. “You are so much like your father that I’m sometimes astonished. I understand.”
“Yeah, genetics works like that. Good thing I didn’t get Mom’s sense of humor. Okay, so you’re falling apart, what do we do?”
“That is not all.” Raiden steps over to the wall and sags against it, catching his breath. The lines of his face are deeply shadowed, making him look aged and weary. It takes so much of his power to suppress the corruption, and he can spend only limited time to heal himself in the jinsei. “I must cleanse this evil from within me. I believe that I know how. There is an ancient method… it has not been used in centuries.”
Cassie shifts her weight from one foot to the other, barely stifling a nervous twitch. She may be a Cage, but she’s not a General. If Raiden goes rogue again, she wouldn’t know what to do. Beating two Elder Gods is a lot to ask of anyone. “Well… now’s the time.”
“The corruption originates from the will of the One Being.”
She squints up at him, brow furrowed. “Ya lost me.”
“It is… too much to explain. In short, there is a force that seeks to unite all the realms, and in doing so, it would eliminate life as we know it. We have been aware of this threat since the beginning of time.”
“Huh. Wasn’t Shinnok spouting some stuff about ‘Death To All’?” Cassie adopts a dramatic tone. “Sounds sort of familiar.”
“Yes, and I have reason to believe the One Being fed on his soul while he was... in solitude, to implant those destructive desires into his heart. It would have offered him false hope, and a clear purpose, if he ever reached freedom… and made him a willing servant. Just as the revenants are now.”
Cassie fidgets with the strap on one of her holsters, ineffectively quieting her nervous energy. This is looking less like a fun afternoon visit to the Sky Temple, and more like an impromptu therapy session for Raiden. She’s not very good at this. “So - not to play devil’s advocate here, or anything - chaining him up in hell and not going to check in every once in a while might have been a bad idea?”
“Perhaps. At the time, the Elder Gods were concerned with the immediate threat, not the distant consequences.” Raiden pauses, clearing his thoughts. His face is impassive, but his mouth twitches with a barely stifled look of sorrow. Mistakes upon mistakes, accumulated over a god’s endless lifetime. It is an awful burden to live with.
“What does this have to do with me, or you? As far as I know, Shinnok’s a disembodied head down in the Netherrealm now.” Cassie scoffs, tossing her head. “That threat’s already neutralized. He’s not going to be doing much to help out this One Being anymore. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
“It is not that simple. In order to cleanse myself of this curse...” Raiden comes to a halt, standing statue-still. “First, you must know that when Shinnok was defeated, his soul was splintered. Furthermore, we are linked by the Jinsei. If he is not purified, I cannot be... and my efforts will be in vain.”
Cassie freezes. This one’s a pretty hard pill to swallow. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“No, Miss Cage. Would I joke about this? Do you truly think so little of me?” Raiden’s tone hardens, the faintest echo in his voice. For the briefest instant, his eyes burn with that sinister flame. He reaches out to grab her shoulder and Cassie raises a fist to knock his arm aside. “You dare to question me, child?”
Cassie leaps up and grabs him by the collar, shimmering fabric crumpling beneath one gloved fist. Her eyes are wide with shock. She’s swallowed her gum in panic, leaving a bad taste in her mouth. “Hey! Raiden!”
The god stops dead, shoulders slumping. Slowly, the corruption fades back into an invisible curse. The strength of his will is no longer enough to suppress this hellish impulse. If gods could dream, this would be a living nightmare. “You… see the urgency of this, now. This poison must be eradicated all the way to its core.”
“No kidding.” Cassie already has a pistol in hand behind her back, just in case, but she’s shaking with nerves, finger off the trigger. This is her mentor. She’s known him since she was a child, for fuck’s sake. In a crisis, she’s formidable, but kicking ass in special ops is nothing like this. This is as personal as it gets. “Talk fast. How does the purification work?”
“It involves the jinsei.”
“Of course it does.” Cassie manages to laugh under her breath with a tinge of bitterness. “Magic mist is the staple of every good fantasy story. Let’s go fuck around with Earth’s life force again. That can’t go wrong!”
“Please, for once, try to be respectful.” Raiden’s tone softens. “Listen to me, Cassandra. To be cured, one must allow oneself to be weakened and then rebuilt by the jinsei’s force. The spiritual toxin is extracted and drawn into a vessel, which is then locked away for all eternity. This ritual cannot be done alone… and crucially, it cannot be done if the individual is not conscious. Thus, I am grateful to your mother for… restoring me to my senses."
“She beat your ass in full view of Outworld when you went all evil overlord on us.”
“Must we relive that humiliation?”
“No.” Cassie sighs. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“Out of necessity, Shinnok must also be purified.”
“Uh, you ripped Shinnok’s head off. I don’t think you can do anything with him conscious. Or at all."
“Therein lies the problem… which we will--” Raiden stops, and tries again, voice low as a whisper-- “which we will... repair.”
“ No.” Cassie gulps and steps back, boots clicking on the stone floor. She’s already instinctively scanning the temple surroundings - exit door, platform for a jump attack, weapons to throw. Thinking fast, she points her pistol directly at Raiden’s chest. Her nerves are numb enough to barely feel the fear that’s swallowing her up. “You better not be telling me what I think you’re telling me.”
“I am indeed, young one.” Raiden doesn’t lift a hand to defend himself, but looks past her into the distance, overwhelmed by a torrent of regret. “I am so, so sorry. I should never have allowed myself to become corrupted so deeply. This drastic action is only to save myself. I do not want to force Earthrealm to fight its corrupted defender. It would be a travesty.”
Cassie swallows hard, resisting the desire to run, to yell at him, any way to let out her anguish at this situation. She needs to be reliable right now. She is the guardian, and Raiden is vulnerable. A true reversal of roles. “Not your fault.”
Raiden murmurs under his breath. “You are wrong, though I appreciate your thought.”
“So are you telling me I’m going to have to beat Shinnok’s ass again? Or yours?”
“Ideally, no.”
“But-- we have to…” She can’t make herself say it. “We have to bring that motherfucker back to life?”
Raiden frowns. “We do not discuss the lineage of the Elder Gods.”
“Uh, never mind. Not getting into it! Nope! Mythology’s weird enough already, I read those books too!”
“In reality, our origins are all uncertain. We were made before time; it does not matter. Just listen to me, very closely.” Raiden reaches up very carefully to adjust the brim of his hat, as Cassie lowers the pistol with trembling hands. “We simply need to…” The words are bitter on his tongue. He speaks them slowly. “...to restore Shinnok to full form. This -- this will reunite his soul for the purification. The curse must be destroyed this way. What happens to him after that is irrelevant.”
Cassie’s actually starting to get pissed off. What else can she even do? “This is unreal. If I wanted a no-win situation, I’d go play a fucking slot machine.” She sends a glare in his direction. “Seriously, what are you gonna do? Toss him into the Netherrealm again? Because that worked out so well last time! Absolute genius right there.”
“Actually... in order to prevent this curse from recurring in myself, he needs to be kept as far from the Netherrealm as possible.” He pauses, giving Cassie a moment to absorb this new revelation. “Trust me, young one, I am more than dismayed to discover the link between us.” Raiden is as understated as ever. “Shinnok and I have a long history of crimes and sorrows. Nevertheless, this runs deeper than any rivalry. This is life and death… not for me, perhaps, but for the innocent dwellers of all the realms.” It pains Raiden to admit how far he has fallen, but the only way to cure a festering wound is to lance it. “I have contemplated this in solitude, discussed it with my fellow gods, and grieved over the choice with all my heart. I have searched high and low to find an alternative. There is nothing .”
“Right. So you bring Mr. Gloom and Doom back to life, you’re all cured, but he decides to go off on a murderous rampage. What then?”
“After months spent as… merely a head… it is likely that he is no longer of sound mind. He can do nothing.”
“Uh, good job on that, I guess.”
“It pains me to think of the brutality that I was willing to commit..."
“Never mind.”
“So-- he will be quarantined here.”
“WHAT--” Cassie’s eyes go wide again. Her voice echoes through the vast hall, and she wishes for something, anything , to break the silence, but Raiden does not answer. “You-- you’re going to keep him near the jinsei? Uh, Raiden?”
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Are you listening?”
“Of course.”
“What the fuck are you thinking?!"
Raiden has no immediate answer to that. He purses his lips and sighs. “Just… cease, Cassandra, and heed my words.” He lifts a hand, electricity sparking along the length of his arm, but it fades just as quickly, diminishing into the folds of his sleeves. He clasps his hands behind his back, controlling himself carefully as his emotions surge. “If he crosses beyond the perimeters of this temple, others are free to take him and exact revenge upon him for his crimes. Remember what Mileena could do with his amulet… and think of what hostile forces could achieve with a demented god at their disposal.”
Cassie stutters. A quick retort is not immediately coming to mind. “Isn’t the point of this to…. un-dement him? Absolute fucking stupidest idea ever, by the way.”
“No. It is to cure me, child!” Raiden’s voice is suddenly unnerving, enhanced by an eerie hollow echo. His skin takes on a sickly hue, his eyes luminous with that wicked fire. “Shinnok is nothing more than collateral damage! Let him rot in the temple cellar if we must. Defending Earthrealm is my priority, and nothing else. Hardly the insignificant life of a traitor to the gods.”
Here we go again. Cassie clenches her jaw and aims the pistol lightning-quick, her fist clenched in a white-knuckled grip. This is a disaster in the making. “ Raiden! Stand down or I’ll put you down worse than Mom did, I swear to god.” She pauses. “Gods. What-fucking-ever.”
Something manages to cut through the curse - either good sense or the threat of force. Raiden is uncertain. He freezes stock-still, aware of his loss of control, and does not speak until the influence has finally faded. That time, he barely even noticed the sinister aura seizing hold of him, driving a stir of sharp agonizing rage like a thorn in his side. This terrifies him unlike anything he has endured. “The corruption is recurring more often. It surges and fights within me, like an explosive force. I... fear for us all.”
“Yeah, you and me both.”
“We must work quickly.”
“You can say that again."
“We m--” Raiden shakes his head. “You understand the difficulty of this situation, I am sure.”
“Yeah. I do. What now?”
“We go to the Netherrealm, immediately. The corruption will quicken in my veins when I am there, so we must work fast to find him.”
“Is a disembodied head an ‘it’ or a ‘him’?”
Raiden looks away. Best not to think about the question. “I need not mention that we should avoid capture by Liu Kang and Kitana.”
“Can’t say I’d be super thrilled about being revenant-ified by your former pals, nope.” Cassie slips her gun back into the holster. “You know, normally when I tell people to go to hell, it’s just a metaphor. You take it pretty literally.”
“If we are not careful, it will be hell for us all.”
“I’ve gathered. So, do I get to bring any friends, or is it just Sergeant Cassie and Uncle Raiden on a fun day trip?”
“If Jacqueline is willing to join us, I would suggest inviting her. If I… happen to lose my senses... her new gauntlets could stun me temporarily.” Raiden regards her solemnly, radiant blue eyes now dim with sorrow. Since the Outworld incident, several team members now carry technology capable of taking down a god. He paces across the room, collecting himself, and turns towards her again, regaining his composure. “I trust that she would not hesitate.”
“Well, that’s one hell of an idea. Sort of puts a new spin on self-control. Have somebody else do it for you. Kinda defeats the point, doesn’t it?” Cassie mutters under her breath, trailing off into a thoughtful silence as she leans against the wall. “Okay. Right. Let me just call Jacqui and tell her we’re going on a road trip to Demonville.”
Raiden doesn’t miss a beat. “You might have better luck informing her over text message.”
“Yeah, that’ll work.” Cassie adopts an even more sarcastic tone, looking at Raiden with a raised eyebrow. “‘Hey Jacqui, you got any time this afternoon? I have some free tickets to a really hot vacation spot! Smiley face emoji.’”
Raiden cracks a smile, the first in days, as if a ray of light has crossed his features. “All right. Tell her in whatever way you wish… but make haste. We have no time to lose.”
“Mind if I let Dad and Mom know where I’m going?”
“Go ahead and inform your father. His expertise in defeating Shinnok may be useful in a worst-case scenario.”
“What is that worst-case scenario?-- nope, never mind, not gonna ask. Same reason you don’t look down when you’re on a bridge.” Cassie grimaces, and swiftly types a message into her phone, keeping one eye on Raiden. “Can’t believe this one. Maybe I’ll get to take a couple selfies with a demon. Bet that’ll get me some likes.”
She laughs, a hollow short bark with no humor behind it.
“Actually, I don’t give a shit. I just wanna survive.”