I don't own Tomb Raider. All OCs belong to me and Fang.
Chapter 12: The Atlas & Jonah's Return
Lara and Owen squeezed through a narrow gap, finding a campfire and a window that showed the chamber where the Atlas was.
"Hello mama~!" Owen whistled.
"That's it!" Lara realized. "It has to be..."
"Well, Lara...looks like we're getting closer," said Owen.
She took a moment to rest by the campfire.
"...We're ahead of Ana, now," Lara said, "But I don't know what we've gotten ourselves into, here. Something else dwells in the darkness of this place...but we've got to continue. We've come too far, now."
"We'll have the upper hand as long as she continues to underestimate us," Owen added, then he noticed a mural on the wall. It showed a battle around a fortress, with raging fires.
"The Prophet's Deathless Army, armed with Greek Fire, they were unstoppable..."
Lara went down the next passage, with Owen not far behind.
They saw some smoke up ahead, both of them coughed and covered their noses at a wretched smell.
"Augh... that smell..." Lara groaned.
"Burning flesh..." Owen surmised.
It was soon revealed that he was right; a large group of Trinity soldiers were lying against the walls, piled on top of each other, hanging from branches, all burned alive. Their skin was red and raw. The walls of the passage were black, the whole place looked like the inside of a volcano, minus the lava.
As they kept moving, one burned soldier moved, startling them.
The soldier was dying, slowly, "Let me... please... let me go... let me go..."
He wanted them to end his suffering. Owen drew his pistol, aimed, and looked away before shooting him in the head.
"I hate having to do that."
"Me too," Lara said.
They went further down, finding less bodies, but plenty of burned heads.
"Jesus," Owen cringed. "How many times did Freddy and Jason have to fight?" Lara looked at him, confused. "Remember; at the end of Freddy Vs. Jason, Jason came out of the water carrying Freddy's head? So it seemed like Jason was the winner, but the camera did a close-up of Freddy's head, then his eyes looked at the camera and winked."
"Oh, right," Lara remembered, then shivered with creeps. "That was so freaky."
They reached the end of the passage, and heard some deep voice yelling in some kind of unknown dialect.
"What the hell is that?" Lara asked.
"I don't know," said Owen, "But I'm getting deja vu...and not the good kind."
There way out was blocked by red barrels.
"Those vessels are still full," Lara surmised.
"Let's hope we don't burn ourselves alive," Owen said.
He fired his pistol at the vessels, making them explode and burn away the blockage.
As they went on, Lara found another scroll.
"From the journals of Decius, first apostle to the Prophet, 972 A.D.
Some believe the Prophet to be God's son risen, but he makes no such claims. Some praise his actions as miracles, but he rejects such attributions. In his humility, his followers see the truth of his message. We see the change coming.
I have shed the trappings of my station and now devote myself fully to the Prophet. I spread his word, recruiting others of my station to the cause. But this has enraged the elite and brought the full attention of the Church in the West."
"The first Apostle abandoned the wealth of his birthright to follow the Prophet, even as the number of his enemies grew..." said Lara.
Moving on, they went into the chamber where the Atlas was and walked up to it.
A big hole in the roof of the cathedral showed the night sky, which boomed some thunder.
The Atlas itself was blackish-silver, shaped like a dodecahedron, each side was hexagon shaped. There were strange markings on each side and something inside it made the markings glow orange.
Owen gently took the Atlas off the pedestal,
"Incredible... I wonder what this is made of..."
"What's making it glow from the inside?" Lara wondered as well.
Before they could think about it, a grenade landed beside the pedestal.
"CRAP!" Owen shouted as he pulled Lara away from the grenade, just as it exploded. Thankfully, they weren't hurt, but they did hear voices up above.
"Trinity," Lara whispered. "They're here!"
That's when Owen spotted a familiar red dot on Lara's forehead.
"GET DOWN!" he shouted as he pulled Lara down, just as a shot was fire. "Of course they bring fucking sniper rifles!"
Both got out their assault rifles and fired back. There were more vessels of Greek Fire lying around the chamber, and practically every soldier was next to one.
Shooting the vessels, making them explode, which also killed most of the soldiers made dealing with them quicker.
More burst in from a door on the opposite end, a couple of them had armor.
Lara threw a smoke grenade, blinding them, then she and Owen finished them off.
They ran into the next area, where more soldiers came in through the ceiling. Luckily, the whole place was full of smoke, so they could barely see.
Owen threw a poison gas grenade at them, which killed them all.
But then the door at the far end was starting to get seared through. Lara prepared a couple grenade arrows, and fired was the door was busted down, killing the three soldiers that tried to attack.
They looted all of the soldiers, then headed out.
Soon, they headed down into a channel of water...where a familiar scent hit their noses.
"Oh, no...sulfur," said Lara. "This whole place could go up...we've got out of here, quick."
They began swim through the water, but heard voices above them.
"They've still got to be here. Cover the exits."
As they began to duck under a branch, they saw that the floor above them had a hole, and there was a soldier with a flamethrower standing above them.
"Here! I got 'em!" He yelled and fired at them, but they dove underwater as the flames spread.
As they hid underwater, they could still hear the soldiers talking.
"What about those things? Did we lose them?"
"I wouldn't count on it."
"Find the Atlas, double time, and let's get the hell outta here."
Soon, Lara and Owen began to swim through the water, but when they came up for air, someone threw another grenade at them, forcing them to dive underwater, again.
As they started swimming under the flaming water again, they heard the soldiers screaming like they were being attacked.
A severed arm fell into the water, right before an oil tank blew up, disorienting them, but they kept moving.
A dead soldier fell into the water in front of them, right before they came up for air.
They looked up and saw two guys with flamethrowers.
"Freeze! It's over! Hand over the At-"
Blades protruded from their chests, then they fell forward, into the water, landing on them.
Lara and Owen quickly pushed them off, then took the rebreathers from their masks and put them in their mouths. This would help them breath freely underwater.
They swam further, past a sunken passageway.
They swam through debris, tree roots, and old, broken blades until they emerged to get a look at their surroundings.
They were now in another giant chamber, with a huge statue of the Prophet in the middle. The place was partially flooded. Not far behind the statue was the way out.
"That's our exit," Lara said.
"The statue's still barely standing," Owen surmised. "If we use the Greek Fire, we can destroy the support beams to knock it down and make a bridge out of here."
Suddenly, they heard a scream, followed by a sickening crunching noise, causing them to look up, only to see a huge splatter on the wall.
They turned away and shot the vessels of Greek Fire, making them explode, spreading the fires all over the support beams, burning them away.
The statue tilted back till it hit the broken staircase that led to the exit.
They quickly climbed on to the statue, then heard someone yell in an unknown dialect.
They turned around to see men in middle-aged armor, aiming fire arrows at them.
"Whoa! What the hell are those?!" asked Owen.
"I don't know!" said Lara. "Just run!"
And run, they did, avoiding exploding barrels and fire arrows the whole way. They ran along wooden bridges and climbed up walls, and at one point, Lara almost slipped, but Owen managed to catch her.
Eventually, they made it to the top and were about to jump to the other side, but they underestimated the length of the jump and they ended up sliding down a pit.
Thankfully, it led into a cave, where they fell into the water.
"I know this isn't the best time, but..." Owen started. "Will you still marry me?"
Lara smiled at him as they got out of the water, "I never stopped wanting to."
"Me either," he said, before he kissed her, passionately.
She moaned into it, their tongues dancing together. Then they separated.
"For our honeymoon, I'm voting for Hawaii," Owen added. "Someplace warm without a single sign of snow anywhere."
"I'm pretty sure you just want to see me in a bikini every day, Mr. Taylor," Lara said, grinning.
Owen turned around so her back was facing him and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, "Oh no, Miss Croft. I intend on keeping you naked in bed for a while." He said huskily, which caused her to blush and her body to heat up.
"Oh, Owen...well, anyway, we better get going," said Lara.
"Right," Owen said as he and Lara walked through the caverns.
"Jacob?" Lara asked using the radio. "We made it. We're out."
"Lara, thank god you're all right!" Jacob exclaimed. "Bring the Atlas to me in our observatory in the mountains."
"We're on our way," said Lara. Soon, she and Owen jumped into another pool of water and began to swim their way through.
They found themselves in a cave as they kept swimming.
Eventually, they made it to another part of the temple, when an unexpected voice called from the radio...
"Lara?! Lara, are you up there?!" It was Jonah!
"Jonah, is that you?!" Lara asked, gasping.
Jonah laughed happily, "Little bird! You're alive, I knew it!"
"Hey pal!" Owen said.
"Owen?! No way!" Jonah exclaimed. "You actually came back! I had a feeling you would, but I wasn't too sure!"
"Couldn't leave Lara alone when she had her head mostly shoved up her ass," Owen replied.
Lara punched him playfully, "Jonah, where are you?"
"I'm up here in some kind of fortress," Jonah answered. "You can thank Jacob... His people picked me up half-dead out on the tundra."
"I can't believe you came after me," Lara sighed.
"Is that really so hard to believe?" Jonah asked. "Owen has me beat in that category!"
"We're on our way to you now," Lara said. "Don't go anywhere."
"Hadn't planned on it," Jonah replied. "Be careful out there."
"...Good to hear from Jonah again," said Owen. "Man, I missed him...how does he look, these days?"
"He grew his hair out," said Lara, "And he grew a beard."
"You're kidding," Owen said before they approached a rock wall and began to climb up.
Once they were at the top, they stepped out of the cave, finding themselves back in the Geothermal Valley.
They weren't far from the observatory, so they quickly made their way over.
When they got there, Jonah was standing at the steps to the entrance, waiting for them, along with Tsume.
"Jonah!" Lara ran over and hugged him.
"You look terrible," Jonah said. "Terrible, but happy."
"Maybe cause I'm back," Owen joked, clasping hands with Jonah and hugging.
"Glad you made it back," the Hawaiian man said.
Lara hugged Tsume next, who licked her face, "I was right Jonah! Dad was right, the Divine Source is real! I wish he could've been here."
"He'd be proud of you," Jonah said as Sofia walked over to them. "Sofia's told me what you've done for her people."
"I'm glad to see you two are safe," Sofia said.
"You too," Owen replied.
"Jacob is waiting for you in the observatory," Sofia said, gesturing up the steps.
Lara, Owen, Jonah, and Tsume all made it up the stairway and entered the observatory, where they found Jacob waiting for them.
He was standing in front of a chandelier-like mechanism in the middle of the room.
He turned to them as they walked over, and Lara held out the Atlas.
Jacob looked at it in awe, "You actually found it. The founders of Kitezh were skilled craftsmen. They used this place to view the Atlas."
In the middle of the chandelier was a space that was clearly made for the Atlas. Lara placed it, then Owen went over to the chains near one of the walls and started pulling.
As the Atlas grew higher, a beam of sunlight hit it, causing what looked like some sort of diagram to appear on the floor, which made Lara and Jacob step back.
"Incredible...!" Jonah said.
"They must have used this to plan the construction of the city," Lara surmised.
"Like ancient blueprints," said Jonah.
"Everything radiates out from this point," Lara said, walking over to one of diagrams in front of the largest one. "That puts the center of the city under the lake. ...But...something's not right..." Looking at the diagram's position. "The cathedral where the Atlas was; it's on the wrong side of the map. Baby, keep rotating it."
"Right," Owen pulled the chains, making the diagram rotate, until...
"Stop! That's it," Lara looked at it, and gasped. "Kitezh isn't under the lake, it's under the glacier!" She walked over to one of the windows to look at the mountain of ice. "The Divine Source must be there."
"How the hell are we going to get through all that ice?" Owen questioned. "We don't even have a cryo-drill."
Lara took a closer look, "Wait... this path here leads into the city."
"The cathedral is there... and the tower on the other side," Owen continued, noticing what his fiancée did.
"That means the entrance to Kitezh must be..." here," Lara finished, stepping into the middle of the room. "The entrance to Kitezh is here." She looked at Jacob, who didn't seem even a little surprised. "You knew."
Jacob smiled and nodded.
Suddenly, they heard an exploding sound, causing them to look up and see the mechanism drop down with the Atlas still in it. As the rubble fell, Lara ended up falling out of a window, hanging onto a chain for dear life as Trinity's soldiers came dropping in on ropes!
"Lara!" Owen cried as he ran to help her, and meanwhile, Jonah fought off the soldiers while holding the Atlas.
Tsume attacked a couple soldiers while Owen grabbed one that ran at him and threw him out the window where Lara was hanging on for dear life.
"Grab on!" Owen reached for her, and she climbed up the chain till she could reach his hand.
Right as he pulled her up, they heard Jonah screaming! They saw to their horror that he was being carried away by a soldier onto the helicopter! Even worse, he had the Atlas!
"Lara, Owen!" he yelled. "Don't come after me! Run!"
"Jonah!" Lara screamed. "Noo!"
All they could do was watch as the chopper flew away.
"Dammit!" Owen cursed.
"Ugh...Lara...!" Jacob groaned, causing Lara to gasp as she ran over to him.
"Jacob!" she said as she set him up against a pillar.
"You okay, man?" Owen asked.
Jacob had taken a shot to the chest, and his face was bruised, "We don't have much time. It won't be long till Trinity discovers the location of the Source."
"But, we have to save Jonah," Lara argued.
"Even if it means giving up the truth you came here to find?" Jacob asked.
Lara grabbed Owen's hand and pet Tsume, "These two, and Jonah, risked their lives to come here to help me. I almost lost them once, not again."
Jacob nodded, "Then go... do what you must."
Lara, Owen and Tsume stood up and left as some villagers came in to tend to Jacob's injuries.
Jonah's back, and now he's gone again!
Konstantin and Ana just keep digging their holes deeper!
But, Lara and Owen are still planning to get married~! X)
Read and review, please!