Sorry, this one's short again.
I don't own Tomb Raider. Owen and any other OCs belong to me and XFangHeartX.
Chapter 7: Attempted Rescue
Lara coughed before got back on her feet, then she heard someone call for help.
Looking up, she saw the plane's pilot coming down via parachute,
"The pilot...I have to get to him!"
She looked to her left and saw a banner that she could use as a trapeze, which she used to swing across to another hut, but when she landed, the hut couldn't handle the shock of her landing and began to collapse off the mountainside, so she had to run as fast as she could to make it out to the other side!
She jumped to the next platform, but it also couldn't handle the shock of her landing, so it began to fall off the mountainside.
In fact, almost every platform she jumped to collapsed!
Finally she made it to one that didn't collapse, and heard gunfire in the distance.
"What...what the hell? Go away!"
Another gunshot, followed by a scream of pain. Lara gasped, realizing it was the pilot, so she ran out and soon found him being attacked by one of the Solarii!
"Get-get off me!" the pilot cried before the man killed him with his machete!
"Lara, you there?" Roth's voice asked from the radio, giving Lara away.
She turned it off, drew her gun and shot the man with the machete.
She jumped to the next platform, when Owen's voice spoke from the radio,
"Lara?! What the hell happened?"
"This storm..." Lara said. "It came out of nowhere. These clouds, they just surrounded the plane!"
"Lara, listen," Roth's voice said. "We saw the crash from here, so you must be close to our position. Just get back here safe!"
"Alright..." Lara answered. "On my way."
On that, Lara began to make her way back to Roth and Owen...although she was still shaken from what happened.
She climbed a small flight of stone steps that curved.
When she got to the top, her foot got caught in a rope trap that hung her upside-down from a tree.
"Over here!" More men came towards her.
"There! We got her!"
Lara drew her gun, and even though she was upside-down; she aimed with perfect accuracy and shot them.
"Stay back!"
After she shot them one-by-one, she then shot the rope she was hanging from, causing her to drop to the ground and continue getting back to Roth and Owen. Along the way, she found some rope lying around, and she suddenly got an idea. She attached the rope to one of her arrows, then shot at a nearby lookout post where some of the Solarii were stationed, then she pulled on the rope, which ripped the beam from under them, causing them to collapse to their deaths!
She pulled out her rifle and shot more men who were standing on a higher platform.
One of them threw a Molotov cocktail, but she managed to avoid it and shot the guy who threw it.
Once she was sure the coast was clear, she got up.
Using the newly acquired rope for her arrows; she used it to pull a large wooden crate that had a lot of ropes tied around it, away from a rock-side.
Now it was close enough for her to jump to, and climb. Then she jumped to the nearly collapsed lookout post that was somehow still partially standing.
As she kept going, she found a path where a bridge had collapsed, but there was a gate over the other side with some rope tied around it. She shot an arrow onto the gate before she tied to the post, then began to make her way across. Once there, she found an old door that she tried to open, but she wasn't strong enough to open it by hand.
Since there was some rope, there, she used the arrows and pulled it open before she walked through the cavern, where she found Roth and Owen waiting for her.
"Lara!" Owen exclaimed as he ran to her side and hugged her, tightly.
"I'm really glad you both moved," Lara said.
Roth chuckled, "You and me both girl."
"I still can't understand it..." Owen said. "One minute, the plane was fine...then the next..."
"That storm just came out of nowhere," Lara continued. "No early signs that it was coming; it just...APPEARED."
"It's not your fault, Lara," Roth told her.
"I called them here, Roth," Lara argued.
Owen cupped her cheek and turned her face to look at her,
"Hey, we'll find another way."
That's when they heard the sound of the radio crackling.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is co-pilot Jessop of aircraft N177A!"
"Another pilot," Lara said as she pulled out her walkie-talkie. "Hello? Hello, can you hear me?!"
"Hey, can you hear us?!" asked Owen. "Hello!"
"I got badly hurt when I landed and need urgent aid!" Jessop's voice said. "Is anyone there?"
"Captain Jessop? Do you read?" Lara pleaded.
"I've deployed a smoke signal," Jessop said. "Please respond."
"Damn it, he can't hear me," Lara realized. She saw a blue smoke signal on a lower mountain. "I have to get to him."
"No," Roth told her.
"His signal's just over there," Lara argued.
"We've got our own people to worry about," Roth tried to reason with her. "We'll need to regroup as soon as they find Sam."
"I can't just leave him out there alone," Lara told him. "I need to get to him."
She was about to walk away, but Roth grabbed her arm,
"Sometimes, you've got to make sacrifices, Lara. You can't save everyone."
Lara pulled her arm out of his grip, "I know about sacrifices."
"No, you know about loss," Roth corrected her. "Sacrifice is a choice you make, loss is a choice made for you."
Lara shook her head, "I can't choose to let him die, Roth."
She turned to walk away, but Owen stopped her,
"Lara, wait-"
"Don't try to stop me, Owen," Lara glared at him.
"Well I am," Owen gave her a serious look. "You're not going alone."
Lara's eyes widened a bit, but she smiled,
"Thanks."
Owen smiled back, then turned to Roth,
"You gonna be okay by yourself?"
"Like you keep saying; I'm a tough old bastard," Roth told him.
Owen and Lara both chuckled, then headed down a hill.
From where they were standing, they could see a blue plume of smoke coming from a cliff.
"There," said Owen. "We gotta get over there, and fast!"
Lara nodded before she shot an arrow toward another gate, then tied the rope around another post.
"Whoa, where'd you get that from?" asked Owen.
"I have my sources," Lara smiled. "Now let's go!"
Soon, they both zip-lined down to the bottom.
Right when they landed, they heard voices,
"This hut looks clear."
Lara and Owen ducked behind some cover as three men came out of it.
"We ain't gonna find anyone up here," one of them said.
"You're probably right, but we got orders," another argued.
Lara aimed an arrow and shot one of them in the head.
Owen then shot the other two in the head.
They got out from behind cover and looked inside the hut. There was a chest, with a stone mortar and pestle.
"This was probably used to make medicinal herbs," Lara said.
"Most likely," Owen agreed.
Then Reyes's voice spoke from the radio,
"Anyone there? Roth?"
"I'm here, Reyes," Roth responded. "What's your situation?"
"We followed a group of men to some kind of...city," Reyes explained. "This place is insane, Roth. What the hell are they doing here?"
"I don't know, and I don't think I want to know," Roth said. "Any sign of Sam or Whitman?"
"Nothing yet," Reyes answered. "Are you with Lara and Owen?"
"Yes..." Roth said. "We'll be heading down the mountain soon to meet up with you."
"Okay, we'll try to get in a bit closer," Reyes said. "Keep this channel open."
"Reyes is gonna see we're not with Roth, sooner or later," Owen said. "We better hurry and keep moving."
"Right," Lara said as she shot another arrow at a gate at the other side of a gorge before she and Owen used the rope to zip line down, again. That's when they found the blue smoke, nearby.
"There's the signal!" Lara exclaimed.
The next cliff was up high, with a gate with a rope.
Lara connected a rope to it and a post next to them, then she and Owen climbed across.
They heard two men up ahead, so they stayed quiet.
While one had their back turned, Lara snuck up on him and choked him to death with her bow. Unfortunately, they got spotted, so they ended up having to take over. Owen shot down a couple with his gun before Lara finished the last of them with her bow.
The next cliff had another gate, so Lara connected a rope, then they climbed over.
The next obstacle to get past was a group of small mountains coming out of the ground.
There were some trees with ropes on some of them.
As they used the trees to attach ropes and zipline around the mountains, they managed to reach one closest to where the co-pilot's smoke signal was. That's when they found another journal.
"It is time for me to leave this accursed island. I have seen enough of Yamatai. I cannot explain the power the Sun Queen wields, but it is not of this earthly plane.
As I suspected, she knew my intent the moment I set foot on this island. She has manipulated me, toyed with me to see what information I would seek, but she always knew. If I am allowed to leave this place alive, I must warn my lord, warn him that we should avoid Yamatai at all costs. If we wish access to her seas, we should pay any tributes she requires, but we should never cross the Sun Queen. To do so would lead to our ruin.
Of the other things I have seen… those dark horrors, I can never speak of again."
"The ambassador who wrote this discovered some terrible secret and Yamatai," Lara surmised. "What did he find, and what happened to him?"
"Who knows?" Owen said, then he spotted something. "The smoke signals over there."
Lara turned to see he was right; at the next cliff was the blue smoke signal, and a parachute stuck to another gate.
Lara connected another rope and they climbed over.
Halfway across, the post the other end of the rope was attached to began to come out of the ground.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" Owen lamented.
"Go faster!" Lara cried as they began to climb across the rope, faster, only for the post to end up falling off due to the wind. Thankfully, Lara had her pickaxe to catch herself on a cliff, and even managed to catch Owen.
"...So...is it too late to ask for a last kiss?" Owen quipped.
"Owen," Lara chided. "Not the time."
"Just trying to lighten the mood," he smiled, then pulled out a climbing pick and stuck it in the rock wall.
They climbed up to the cliff, but the pilot was nowhere to be seen.
"Captain Jessop?!" Lara called out. "Where'd he go?"
"Well, he can't have gone far," Owen said, as they walked through the gate, then through a mountainside pass.
"Hey Lara, Owen," Alex's voice said from the radio. "Roth told us about the plane. Don't worry, there's gotta be another way off this rock, right?"
"I hope so," Lara said. "Any sign of Sam?"
"We've tracked her to some old Japanese palace," Alex said.
"I don't like the sound of that," Owen said.
"Hey, don't worry," Alex tried to reassure them. "She's probably...just...sightseeing."
"You're a terrible liar, Alex," Lara told him. "You HAVE to be careful in there. Good luck."
As they kept walking, Owen had something to confess,
"Hey, can you do me a favor, Lara?"
"What's that?" she asked.
"If we see Whitman again, hold me back," Owen said. "Cause I'm most likely gonna kill him."
"I'd actually like if you did," Lara muttered, causing Owen to chuckle. "Just save a good punch for me, at least."
"That, I can do," said Owen. "That moron."
Owen held Whitman partially responsible for Lara getting raped.
If he hadn't surrendered to those Russians...the very thought of it made him want to tear the cowardly doctor a new asshole.
They found another statue of Himiko, which led into a deep cave.
Inside was another campsite, so they took a moment to rest and upgrade their gear.
Lara used this opportunity to make her bow even stronger than before.
Once they were done, Lara lit a torch and led them down the left tunnel.
As they continued onward, they found that the tunnel was becoming more like that of some kind of temple instead of a cavern, with the walls covered with all kinds of statues.
"A pilgrimage," Lara whispered as she looked around and found yet another statue of Himiko. "A queen...Himiko?"
"Hey, Lara, come here! Look at this!" Owen called, and soon, Lara approached him and found that he was standing at the entrance of what looked like a huge castle.
"Incredible," Lara said in awe. "This must be that palace that Alex was taking about."
There were some fully assembled human skeletons lying around, and right on the steps that led inside was...
"Captain Jessop?!" Owen called out.
Jessop reached his hand out to them, making a choked gurgling sound, like he was choking on his own blood. His face was bleeding and it looked like he'd been stabbed multiple times.
"Oh my God!" Lara exclaimed.
"Jesus...!" Owen gasped.
Multiple red barrels fell from the second floor of the palace onto the bridge they were on, and the sounds they made indicated they were filled with oil.
A man stood on a second floor balcony, with a fire arrow aimed at the bridge.
"SHIT!" Owen yelled as he and Lara back to the other side, just before the man shot the arrow, blowing up the bridge.
"AAAAAAAAH!" Lara screamed as she and Owen were sent flying from the force of the explosion. As they landed on the other side, they looked up and gasped upon seeing Mathias.
"Mathias!" Owen shouted.
"For children, you two have caused me a great deal of trouble!" Mathias shouted.
"Give Sam back!" Lara yelled.
"But you're just as naïve and predictable," Mathias continued, ignoring Lara's demand. "Kill them!"
Before they had a chance to react, three men came up behind them and knocked them out.
As they were beginning to fade in and out of unconsciousness, they could hear the Solarii screaming about something.
"It's the Oni!"
"The Stormguard are here!"
They could hear the sound of screams of fear and pain, demonic voices speaking in Japanese...men getting skewered and bludgeoned to death, left and right...and finally...darkness.
I'll try to make the next few chapters longer.
Read and review please!
