Angels of Darkness and ones of Light
Part 1:
Hunt goes on deep in the night
It was dark and bleak, as every other evening in Abington.
The cold hardly ever bothered Lara. The young woman was used to the lowest of temperatures and the worst of freezing, unwelcoming places, it usually wasn't a big deal to her even if she was wearing the sheerest piece of clothing there was in her dressing room.
But right now she was shivering like a leaf exposed to the wind and struggled to run in the heavy rain hitting the alleyways in her hometown.
Two mercenaries were after her and if she was in a good condition it would have been absolutely no problem for the raider to deal with them while fixing her ponytail at the same time.
But now it was different.
They had no irises and pupils in their eyes whatsoever, which was probably a deed of Amanda's wraith stone or Natla, and were faster than any human being was. On top of all, the young woman had absolutely no weapons with her and was physically and emotionally drained after her manor was destroyed by the doppelganger just a few days ago. A question popped in her head.
"Why didn't they send the doppelganger after me instead of these guys?"
A loud sound from behind her pulled her away from her thoughts.
"Dammit." Lara hissed as she heard the odd, heavy footsteps not far from her and had to change the direction to an even darker back street, praying to every God she could think of it wouldn't be a dead end.
That it was, despite her prayers… Or so she thought at first.
Reaching a wall covered in graffiti, which was too tall for her to get over, and spotting no churns she could climb on to manage the jump, the raider sensed her heart beating dangerously fast despite herself, and her legs started shaking against her will.
Lara wanted to scream. She wanted to let out a blood curling, heart wrenching, loud yell that would wake the whole neighborhood.
That caused her to slap herself mentally.
"Pull yourself back together, Croft, you've survived a plane crash in Nepal at the age of nine, you sure as hell can live through two mercenaries chasing you."
Just a bit after thinking that, the woman noticed a small gap, badly hidden behind a piece of wood.
"Oh God, please…"
Lara hastily approached it and removed the said piece, seeing a hole on the edge, big enough for her to crawl through it.
"Yes!"
As the raider quickly made her way inside of the gap, loud footsteps approached this exact area. She covered the hole with the wood, better than it was hidden before that, and started making her way through the tiny tunnel.
Lara found herself in a huge room that hadn't been taken care of for at least a couple of years. It was even colder than the air outside was, the windows were dusty and broken and the walls had started to turn into ruins.
"What a lovely place to call a shelter." The woman chimed sarcastically and sighed heavily before sliding down the wall next to the gap and taking a look at the broken tables and scattered chairs.
The interior was a painful reminder of the Sanitarium in Prague, the place Kurtisinvaded a few years back. He had trapped her in an airlock then, in order to protect her, she figured later, after taking it out him for doing so, of course. But the raider did enter the said area in a way that was unintended and that place, God, that place terrified her.
The Bio-Research facility, Prague, 11th of January, 2003
Lara and Kurtis were looking at the map she had just gotten out of her backpack.
"Okay. Eckhardt guards the Shard in his own alchemy lab in the lower regions. I can find my way there." The demon hunter stated, drawing even closer to his new teammate. The raider noticed that, but said nothing, enjoying the warmth that his body produced. Her skin was absolutely freezing.
"The Engraving shows the Painting hidden in something called the Vault of Trophies. Here." Lara spoke confidentially, noticing the man glancing at her, then back at the map.
"The entrance in underwater." She added before smirking and placing her fingertips under his chin, turning Kurtis to face her and looked right into his eyes. "No problem." And with that, the young woman turned around and walked away from him, swaying her hips, knowing his eyes were fixed on her back. After a few seconds, she heard footsteps in the opposite direction.
All of sudden Lara felt very light-headed, a bit after she exited the airlock. It must have been the fact that she hadn't slept for nights and hadn't eaten for hours. The raider shook her head before taking the backpack off her shoulders and getting a chocolate bar out of it. She quickly ate it and immediately felt better. Not entirely well, but better.
The young woman looked around, suddenly unaware of where the Aquatic-Research area (the place leading to the Vault of Trophies) was, all the gateways looked the same to her. She took out the map and glanced at it for a few seconds before heading toward the middle entrance. Lara walked through it regardless of the small text under the button that opened it.
"The Sanitarium."