Author's Note: I am warning you right now, there are spoilers for Underworld, as well as many other Tomb Raider games. Please do not complain to me if you read and find out. You have been warned. Also, this is my first fanfic, with no beta, so please be nice! =]
Disclaimer: I do not own Tomb Raider, or Lara Croft. That honor belongs to Eidos and Crystal Dynamics.
From the Ashes
Soundtrack: "Funhouse" by P!nk
"…Make sure Natla suffers," she muttered, holding the artifact emblazoned with the command word. The sound of running feet echoed in the underground cavern, evidence that her double had left her alone to her thoughts.
"You're letting her go?! She killed Alister!" yelled Zip into her ear.
"And now she is the instrument of his revenge," she answered simply. She seemed a mask of cool on the outside, but on the inside, she was yelling at herself. The logical side of her mind agreed that it was a perfect plan, using her own double created by Natla, to kill Natla. Her enemy would never see it coming. The emotional side was raging in bitter anger to make the doppelganger commit suicide or let Lara kill her in exchange for killing Alister. An eye for an eye. But it wasn't the copy's fault that she killed Alister. She had been ordered to by Natla. Score a point for Lara's logical side.
"In any case, it's too late to call her back, now." Her logic proclaimed over her emotions' protests. It was true; Lara did not hear the footstep of the doppelganger any longer.
She turned back, beginning her trek back to the surface where her ruined home resided, lost in her thoughts. The doppelganger seemed much more knowledgeable than just some created servant she was supposed to be. Her words rang through Lara's mind, still bitingly sharp in her memory.
"Obsession and compulsion are much the same. Either way, neither of us are our own masters."
Lara pondered this statement. She knew that when she had a goal in mind-particularly a powerful artifact that could save or destroy the world-she could become obsessive in getting it, stopping at nothing to reach her prize.
Evidence of that was in the now-destroyed fragment of Atlantis, where Larson, Kid, and Kold had died by her hand. Her first human kills were the hardest at the time. Lara recalled when she came home, satisfied the Scion was not going to be rejoined, and she had broken down in her room as soon as she was alone. All her life she had been taught how sacred human life was and she willingly snuffed out three lives for an artifact. An inanimate object. This made Lara pause. No, this was more than just some golden Idol in a trap-laden temple. This "inanimate object" could have started massive warfare and the "Seventh Age"… whatever that was.
Because of the circumstances, Lara felt justified in taking human life if and only if the world was in danger of some madhouse bringing it to its knees with an artifact (or artifacs) of massive power. Her adventure for the Dagger of Xian was much easier, she believed, when she made this rule for herself. People everywhere were trying to kill her then, and she was able to get by just fine, mentally. That is, until the dragon who used to be Marco Bartoli almost killed her. Again, she escaped an exploding structure barely with her life intact. Lara survived only to have Bartoli's gang show up at her home.
She began seeing a pattern in her life. Find out about an artifact, fight numerous traps and evils to gain possession of it, lose possession of it to some Madman, Madman uses it to mutate themselves somehow into something impossibly powerful, she kills Madman and retrieves-or destroys-artifact, thus saving the rest of the world. Lara didn't mind the adventure, as detrimental to her health as it was. It was better than stuffy tea parties and socials at a stuffy nobleman's home in the British countryside, full of etiquette, manners, and facades of false-interest in mundane matters. She just wasn't cut out for that kind of life. Not wishing to ponder nobility life, Lara turned back to her conversation with the double.
"…either way, neither of us are our own masters." Lara thought this was absurd until she realized that if she hadn't destroyed the Scion, Natla would have her "Seventh Age". If she hadn't taken the Dagger of Xian, Marco Bartoli would be rampaging about, killing loads of people in his dragonish form. If she hadn't gotten all of the meteorite shards, Dr. Willard-or whatever he had become-would be… well… Lara wasn't sure what he'd be doing. But if she hadn't gotten a hold of the Amulet of Horus, and locked Set up in the pyramid, the world would be in the middle of an Apocalypse. The same result with the Obscura paintings and The Sleeper. It seemed that the world practically depended on Lara to keep them from supernatural harm.
Lara was brought from her thoughts as she pulled herself out of the crevasse she had found near the crypt main room. Now, all she wanted was a warm cup of tea and some relaxation. She would have to relocate to one of her other estates until the repairs to her wrecked Manor were complete. Just the thought of her lovely childhood home destroyed brought her to anger. Where she was born, raised, and lived all destroyed at the whim of a madwoman who loathed her.
News of Croft Manor's destruction swept the land quickly. The Media had gotten nothing in response to the ruined house except for an official statement from Lara's public solicitor. The official story was that a large gas leak over time had made a large flammable pocket under the Manor, which was set off when Lara fired her guns indoors at new shooting targets recently installed.
The police and fire brigade had been well-paid to uphold this story and put it down in their records as true. But Lara's estranged family had used this tragedy to tell stories to the press about Lara's supposed "mental instability". Her Uncle Errol had particularly been nasty about this affair, telling all who would listen of Lara's incapability to take care of her father's wealth, and that he should have been the one entrusted to it. He supposed aloud to the press that Lara had intentionally set Croft Manor on fire, in some intense psychotic fit. This earned a general eye-roll from Lara, who had been scorned by the rest of her living family too long to care what they thought of her.
While the initial blast had taken out a lot of the beautiful masonry, the main foundation was still intact. Lara had artisans working around the clock on rebuilding the Manor, exactly how it was, brick-for-brick… with the exception of a few more hidden tunnels and passageways, of course. The biggest loss was the painting of Lara's parents that hung above the Main Hall's fireplace. Her mother's likeness had gotten hit by shrapnel and had a great black mark of soot right across her face, while her father had been singed by leaping flames. Ash from the fire had also muddied up the picture, making it smudged and even more unrecognizable. Seeing her parent's portrait ruined had been a big blow to Lara, and she immediately had a renowned artist come from Austria to begin repairs on the picture.
The decimation of the tech room had also been a big loss. "Thousands of dollars! Just… poof! Well, more like 'boom'." Zip had lamented. Lara had given him free reign to buy all new equipment and software to go with it, with the exception of a quite large budget, though. She smiled to herself a little. She had been meaning to get him all-new upgrades for Christmas. Optimistically, he had his new computers now instead of waiting four more months. He had been somewhat ecstatic when he got the ok to dive into technical catalogues.
But all of these losses could be repaired. The one loss that couldn't be was Alister. Lara hated thinking of the subject. Not because she disliked Alister, but because she blamed herself for his death. He had died because she hesitated to engage the doppelganger. If she had opened the door and run out quickly to attack, Alister wouldn't have caught her double's attention and gotten shot. Getting her arse kicked by the double didn't help either. It delayed her so she couldn't reach him in time to administer any truly beneficial first-aid. And, she just couldn't get his last words out of her mind.
"I'll see you in Avalon." Lara wondered if he was just trying to reassure her and calm her down while he died, or if he really believed he was headed toward Avalon. He always seemed quite skeptical of all the mysticism she had been around since her escapade for Excalibur. Then, while they had examined the mythical sword in the library-not long after Lara's battle with Amanda in Bolivia-he again expressed his skepticism over the existence of Avalon and the "Underworld". For as long as Lara had known the research assistant, he had been quite logical and left-brained about such matters. She supposed this had lent a hand in her suspicions of his honesty. But, then she remembered something she'd been told once by Von Croy.
"Lara, my dear, being an inch from death can change anyone's lifetime perspective on faith and belief systems." He had said to her during a serious talk with her a few days after his men dug her out of the pyramid collapse of Set's making. Lara hadn't given his words much thought. She was too busy amazed that she was still alive and well, and drowning in self-misery. Now that she thought of it, she had taken Von Croy a bit for granted. He shouldn't have died the way he did. He was a great friend despite the time he was inhabited by Set, and the way he treated her when he mentored her at sixteen.
"So many people I care about die around me. Alister, Von Croy, Kurtis…" her emotional side unintentionally brought up. She hadn't thought of Kurtis Trent in a long time. He must have gotten out of that place and escaped, since there was no body to be found. Lara almost wished she had found a body. That would make one less witness to her period of bitchiness. Around that time of her life had been rough. She had been moody, bitter, and ill-tempered since Egypt, and she didn't want people to think she'd been suffering any side-effects from her almost-death. So she had put on the "give me what I want or I'll kill you" front as a cover up as she slowly mended from her previous adventure.
After the ordeal with Eckheart and Karel, she lightened up dramatically. Her mood shifted from constantly brooding and easily angered, to lighthearted and more joking. She hired Zip for technical support not even a year after Paris. Even though she didn't admit it, she was still scared of falling somewhere and not being able to get out, with no one knowing where she was or that she needed help. Zip and his camera/communicator headset he brought for her eased her mind dramatically. Now, she had more fun on her adventures, the solitude wasn't as unbearable as it used to be after Egypt. Though, she did miss her time alone with her thoughts. Even as she began to ponder this, Zip's voice drifted from the earpiece.
"Hey Lara, how are you doing there?" he asked, as if checking up on her. She didn't even realize she had emerged from the crypt and was now wandering around the wrecked main hall. She laid a hand on a blackened support column.
"Fine. Just fine," she replied, dragging her hand along the sooty stone and pulling it back to examine how much had gathered on her fingertips and palm. "We're going to need an army of maids to scrub this place." He laughed.
"It's nice to hear you joke again." She smiled to herself at his response, glad that he couldn't see her.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lara wiped her dirty hand on her brown shorts, not really caring if they got filthy because of it.
"Well, I know you kinda have a reason to be, since your house and Alister and all, but you've been a bit mopey lately," Zip said, delicately treading around the grounds of Croft Manor and Alister's death. "I mean, you gotta do what that priest-guy said. 'Keep your high spirits about you; he's with us in spirit'." This was said with a poor imitation of a gruff cockney accent that the pastor at Alister's funeral had possessed. Lara winced at the memory of the man. He hadn't been very good at his job of consoling the friends and family.
"Well, I hope to believe that Alister isn't with us, he's in Avalon… like he promised." Lara looked around the main hall, suddenly acutely aware of her morbidly strange desire to explore her own home like she would the old ruins of a temple.
"Avalon. If only we could find a real way to get to the place." Zip sighed. "Alister was a good guy. Wherever he is, I bet he's having a bunch of fun digging through book-heaven or something." Despite the gravity of the subject, Lara was able to let out a little laugh at that.
"Let's hope he is happy," Lara answered. "Though I wish he was still here," was the unspoken ending thought that was caught by both of them.
"Of course he is, Lara." She could practically feel his smile though the headset. "I bet that guy didn't even try to steal cookies out of the cookie jar when he was a kid. That's how squeaky-clean he is."
"Or perhaps he was just so good at acting, that he didn't seem that way. Maybe he was the kid that was able to frame other kids for his bad deeds."
"Alister? Are you sure we're talking 'bout the same guy here?" Zip said incredulously. Lara laughed. It felt good to be lightheartedly joking again.
"Maybe, just maybe," thought Lara, "I'm beginning to mend."
Chapter Notes: Well, there's From the Ashes. I hope you liked it! I'm not a person that begs for reviews or rating, but it would be nice if you did. ;] It's kind of short, for a person like me who likes to write in big story chunks. Hopefully I'll be making more stories. This is kind of a small sketch; an appetizer if you will. =]