I don't own any of this other than the plot and original characters. Thanks!
A/N: So... a quicker upload than usual because I randomly got inspired to write at like 1 AM last night LOL. Hope you guys enjoy, you're all awesome!
"Okay, I think we have to admit we were pretty spotty in our story session," Nate whispered. He peeked out from the tree again to check on the situation before he looked back to Lara. "But they were treasure hunting stories, so we focused on the treasure hunting parts, yeah?"
Lara wasn't amused by his reasoning. She tried to think on what they could do in order to get to the entrance of whatever the cave was. She figured the best way would be to sneak around the soldiers. "We'll have to get around them," she told Nate.
The other nodded in response, sighing before he tried to think on that. There were some bushes around for them to hide in, but he felt as if that were their only shot. "Okay," he replied, quickly scattering to one of the bushes he had seen. Lara watched him and then did the same, going to a bush on her side of the tree. When they had gotten into their respective hiding spots, the two were caught up in their own thoughts over how to handle the situation.
If I manage to take down some of the soldiers quietly then that can give us an open spot, Lara thought, trying to think of a plan that involved less shooting. She suddenly wished she had her bow and arrow, considering it was a silent killer. However, she realized she would have to work with what she had.
Alright, kill some guys. Be sneaky. Got it, Nate thought. His mind was set on a similar plan as Lara's, only simplified and not as planned out. Regardless, he knew getting noticed would be a bad idea for either of them, so he would try his best to remain hidden. When he had noticed one of the soldiers walking dangerously close to his hiding spot, he gritted his teeth and tried to see if any of the others were looking that way. He decided that he was safe, and he quickly grasped the soldier and pulled him down, managing to snap his neck in the process. With the body hidden from the others, Nate was quite proud of his work.
Lara had made progress on her end as well, killing a soldier and hiding him in the bush. She moved on to another nearby bush and made sure to snap a twig so someone would check it out. Upon hearing the twig's snap, a soldier looked in the direction Lara was hiding.
"I'll go check it out," he reassured the others, grasping his gun tightly and walking over. He stopped at the bush looked around, figuring it was most likely just an animal. "We're clear," he waved off the soldiers, and the others tended back to their work. He went to walk off, though was stopped when Lara had grabbed on to his gun from behind and brought it up to his neck. She had managed to kill him as well, hiding his body in the bush she was hiding in.
She sighed softly. If they were really going to be able to pull off this plan, the other soldiers might start noticing the lack of their coworkers. She had noticed that Nate took down another guy, and she quickly moved on to another bush. This one was much closer to the cluster of soldiers than the other ones had been.
"Shit," a soldier said, throwing a cigarette onto the ground and stomping it out. "Why the hell is it taking them so long down in that thing?"
"Don't know," another replied.
"If there really is anything down there to do with the fountain, you really think it's gonna be anything like they say in the movies?" the soldier from before asked, starting to pace around. Lara listened in on their conversation rather intently suddenly. She wondered if the would maybe say something about what was going on here.
The soldier's friend laughed. "Man, all I know is that I'm excited for our cut. The money's gotta be huge," he said, shaking his head with a smile. The two agreed on that, and they patted each other's backs in unison.
Meanwhile, Nate had managed to scurry over to a bush that was closer to the cluster as well. He had heard a conversation similar to that of what Lara had heard. The soldiers were in the dark just as much as Nate and Lara was about what could possibly be down in the cave.
Nate shifted his weight somewhat, the squatting position he took starting to become uncomfortable. He wondered if Lara had any idea where this was going. At that point, he hadn't seen her move much, and he wondered if she was doing that on purpose. He decided to follow her lead and stay put.
"We found something!" a female called out, running out of the cave. Her voice seemed to have a weary feeling to it though. That worried both Lara and Nate.
"Well? What is it?" a soldier called out, though he stopped, suddenly feeling the ground rumble. "Where the hell is our soldiers?"
The woman turned around to look, and a few of the soldiers had managed to run out. A soldier at the end of the line was holding something. When he had reached the exit, he and a few others were soon buried in rubble. Luckily, the soldier had lost grip of the item and dropped it, in which it rolled over to the woman's feet. The woman quickly grabbed it and gave a heavy breath, "I think we need to leave."
The ground kept rumbling. At the entrance of the cave-in, it looked like the ground was starting to slowly split apart. Lara looked out of the bush and her eyes widened. She realized they would have to get out of hiding in order to not get themselves hurt. She shot out of her bush and started to stumble away from where the ground was splitting.
Nate had noticed Lara and got out of his hiding spot. He ran over to Lara and grabbed onto her arm, "What's happening?"
"I- I don't know," she murmured, considering it felt odd and abrupt for such a thing to happen. Considering the soldiers had just came out of the cave with something in their possession, she figured it had something to do with that.
A soldier turned around, catching himself from falling. He looked up to see the two. "Who the hell are they?!" he pointed over at them and the remaining soldiers caught sight of the pair. "Get them and get into the trucks, now!"
Nate and Lara looked at each other before they had went to run off. They had no time to be shooting at the soldiers, considering they were worrying about the split in the ground coming closer to them. It seemed the soldiers didn't have time for shooting either. A group ran after the pair, others quickly loading up into trucks as told.
"Shit!" Nate called out.
Lara looked behind them as they ran into the woods, "They're right on us."
He looked back and agreed. They kept running since they had no other choice. The soldiers weren't going to give up, the two knew that very well from past experiences. When Nate had finally focused his attention back to the track ahead of him, he realized it was too late when he slammed into a tree. He fell back and his hands went to his nose, cursing as he groaned in pain. Lara stopped in her tracks and saw what the other had done. Without hesitation, she turned back for him. She was too kind hearted to just leave him there to deal with the soldiers by himself.
She kneeled by him and grabbed his hand, "Come on, Nate. We have to go. Now."
"My face hurts."
"Nate-" she was cut off when a soldier had snatched onto her arm. She tried to wiggle herself free but her lame attempts were futile. She huffed and stopped with her trying. Two other soldiers had grabbed Nate on either side and picked him, making him get to his feet.
"We got them!" the soldier holding Lara called out. They began to quickly go back to their original post, walking the pair into a truck. The soldier who had Lara threw her onto the bench and growled before he himself had gotten in as well. Nate was thrown in after her, and he stumbled onto his feet to sit down next to the woman. The other soldiers climbed in, and the one who had Lara walked to the front of the truck bed. He grabbed a rope and came back to the prisoners, tying them up to make sure they wouldn't do anything. He snatched their weapons from them as well. "You won't be needing these."
Nate groaned and leaned his head back. Not only was his nose bleeding, but now he had to deal with being held hostage. He definitely didn't think he would have to deal with that today.
By the time the truck had started moving, the situation with the ground had managed to solve itself. It was no longer rumbling nor was it splitting. Lara looked around the soldiers and tried to figure out what to do. When nothing came to her, she sighed and fell limp against the wall.
Lara and Nate woke up with bags over their heads. There was a vague memory of being knocked out when the truck had stopped, so the pair were now hopeless in knowing where they were. Nate gave a heavy breath, slowly lifting his head in hopes that someone would take off the sacks that sat upon their heads.
In the distance, he heard a door creak open. Then, the sound of footsteps approaching. When the sounds had stopped, the bags were snatched off the man and woman's heads. Nate squinted at the bright light of the room. Lara squeezed her eyes shut.
"Hello, sleepy heads," an Australian accent rang out. It was a man, but both of their visions were too blurry to see him yet. Their eyes were still trying to adjust to the light. "Now, this is something I never thought I would see: Lara Croft being a team player."
Lara blinked quickly, trying to clear her vision up. She scrunched her face when the man had gripped her chin, making her look at him. She squinted since he had made her eyes see the bright lights on the ceiling, though she quickly blinked again. Eventually, she found herself being able to see the new man clearer.
His right eye was covered by a bandage. He was clean shaven and had slicked back hair. He had scars on his face. He wasn't anybody she recognized.
"Isn't that something, Ross?" the man asked, looking over to another.
Nate's vision had managed to clear up as well. He looked over to the other person that accompanied the man and his eyes widened in seeing her. Though he shouldn't have been surprised due to seeing her men, he still found himself in shock. "Nadine?"
"Shut it, Drake," she growled at him, grabbing a handful of his hair and making him look at her. She narrowed her eyes. "You were half the reason most of my men died last time. Remember that?" She laughed a little bit and shook her head. "How do you think I felt when you managed to come back into my grasp like this?"
"Who the hell are you?" Lara spat out, shaking her head out of the Australian's hand. Nadine let go of Nate's hair and backed off. She crossed her arms and decided to let the other speak for the both of them.
"Right. You wouldn't know me, would you?" the man laughed. "Leo White. And this is my partner, Nadine Ross." He paused, pursing his lips before he had put his hands on his hips. He seemed to act dignified in his mannerisms. "I'm the leader of Trinity, Ms. Croft. Ross controls Shoreline, our partnering organization at the moment."
Lara made a face. She was confused as to how he was the leader. "But I killed-"
"Did you really think Trinity would be over after you killed Dominquez?" Leo smirked, finding her logic quite amusing and almost innocent. "Oh, Lara. We've been operating since before Christ. Did you not think we had precautionary measures put into place?" Lara remained silent, as did Nate. Neither of them knew what to say. Leo decided to break the silence again. "I was Dominquez's successor."
Nadine looked between Nate and Lara then, raising a brow. "Now, tell us why you two were working together," she demanded. Nadine had only heard of Lara through what Trinity had told her. She was still very much seen as a threat. She somewhat expected for Lara to pop up if she did, but not Nate. She thought Nate had finally stopped this business, but even then, it wasn't like she exactly kept up with him.
Nate gritted his teeth but decided he would speak for the two of them. "What do you think?" he asked sarcastically. Nadine growled, a sign for the other to give a proper answer. Nate sighed, "Me and Lara met a while ago on another find."
"And?" Nadine glared.
"And we had a lead on the fountain. Not hard to figure out."
Leo snatched a paper out of his pocket then and smirked, holding it up for the two of them to see. It was the same paper Nate had in his own pocket earlier. "Familiar?"
Nate furrowed his brows, "Crap."
Leo nodded and let the paper fall to the ground. "Now, how on God's green earth did you manage to get that? I know Victor didn't just hand it to you," the man said, walking in front of Nate. He bent down and raised a brow, "Of course, I'm not very familiar with your methods as much as I am with Croft's, but I'm interested to hear the story."
"The long one or the short one?"
Leo stood up straight, looking at his watch. He grumbled, stepping back over next to Nadine. "Let's keep it short," he told him.
"Okay. Long story short, Victor got shot up by his own men and I got the paper. Happy?"
Nadine nodded, though she gave somewhat of an amused smile. Nate suddenly grew confused. She placed a hand on her hip, "Adds up. Except Victor wasn't shot by his own men."
Nate squinted, "I saw it happen."
"Those were our soldiers undercover. Looks can be deceiving," Nadine said. She started to put her hair up as she spoke, pacing around. "Victor was going to run off and try and get the fountain himself. We couldn't let that happen. On the bright side, we got any research he did," she let out, finishing up with her hair.
Lara looked to Nate before she glanced back over to the others. "And the research was… Melbourne?" Lara asked.
"Correct," Leo replied. He walked back over to Lara and smirked, poking her nose playfully. "You are such a smart woman, you know that? Oh, I could just eat you up." Nadine watched the interaction and scrunched her face up. "But yes, all Victor had going was Melbourne. But for once, we're a step ahead. We found something leading us to Polynesia. Now," he bent down in front of the woman, similar to how he had done with Nate, but this time closer to her face. "You and loverboy are going to stay here and my men will sort you out."
Lara kept her lips from trembling. She thought Trinity was finally over. She thought she wouldn't have to deal with the torture anymore. She narrowed her eyes and suddenly her feelings overcame her, spitting in his face. Leo closed his eyes and pursed his lips. He cackled and stood back up, wiping off her salvia. "Fuck you. And Trinity," she breathed out.
Leo hummed in return. He turned around and waved for Nadine to follow him out of the room. "Trinity is making history, Lara. Trinity is appeasing God!" he laughed, closing the door behind him when the pair had finally left.
Nate looked to his feet, letting his head dip down. That little statement Leo had said made him confused, though he shook it off. "Lara, we have a lot of explaining to do," he joked, giving her a weak laugh. "God, my head hurts."
"Later, Nate," she sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. She was trying to comprehend everything that had just happened. She was lost and confused. All she knew was that they needed to escape now. She tilted her head back and groaned in irritation. She was frustrated, but she tried to push down her feelings about Trinity until later. "We need to get out of here," she told him.
"How do you expect to do that?"
"God, I don't know," she grumbled. She looked over to him and narrowed her eyes. "I just know we need to go after Trinity. We can't let them get the fountain. We have to get out of here," she snapped at him. Nate gave her a look and furrowed his brows. He frowned at being snapped at, tensing up.
He cleared his throat, "Right. Wish I knew why Trinity was so important."
"Don't act like you told me about Shoreline."
"Don't be a bi-" he started, though he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He sighed and realized he shouldn't be nasty towards her. If she had snapped, then it was probably for good reason. He shook his head, "Listen, let's just try and figure something out, okay?" His voice became much more gentle then.
Lara parted her lips, realizing what exactly had happened. "Sorry," she murmured. She gulped and looked forward, "When we get out of here, I'll tell you about Trinity. But we need to leave now."
Nate's eyes scanned the room. He noticed the table to the side of them, which had differing tools and weapons. "Well… I'm gonna assume that's our torture devices," he told her with a laugh, shaking his head. He gave her a small smile, "Maybe we can get one of them… saw these ropes off." He didn't know any other ideas. He figured it was their best bet.
The woman nodded in agreement of the plan. "It's worth a try," she replied.