The northeastern Irish coast: Three thousand three hundred years ago.

A mist had formed just as the war-drums could be heard pounding out the rhythm of the oars aboard the approaching warships... it was no comfort as it seemed to arrive with them. Whispers in the ranks, the gods are angry.

"Smoke and sound! Have you nothing else you bald, bloated, dead leopard skin wearing murderous hypocrites?!" The queen shouted.

It did little to lift the spirits of her kin.

They could feel them coming, heard the war-horns, the sweeping of the oars, the lowering of the assault barges; and finally, the drawing of the bows on the deck. Fate had arrived, and destiny was just unfolding.

Lara - or whoever she was - raised a thick leather, bronze and wooden shield, and knelt in the sand, waiting for the fates to decide on her life.

Thirty-three arrows landed on the sand and surf, by her sandled feet. A valorous death it may well be. Three more volleys, standard practice, giving the foot soldiers a chance to reach the shore; but they were firing blind, trying to stay far away enough from shore so as to avoid the shore and the defender's arrows... the fog was not their friend either. Joyous laughter... one man, on the deck.

"Ahhh!" the queen shouted as if struck with dismay and horror, "So many... slain!?"

Not one arrow had hit a single mark. She was bluffing. Clever.

Half the frontline lay upon the sand, arrows held to them. Wailing as if wounded.

"Retreat!" The queen commanded. The shore archers readied their own volley as the fog thickened.

The infantry was nearing the shoreline; the military had it's habits, and they were attacking the offspring of the men who gave them to them... not too smart.

None of it would be of any matter...

The fog lifted as genuine shrieks of terror and anguish filled the air; the screams almost deafened the defenders.

The assassins were carving off their own skins, clawing at the open wounds viscously; putting out their own eyes as if trying to get something out of their heads. Madness.

They were screaming, "GET THEM OFF OF ME! THIS PLACE IS CURSED!" Even from the lead ship.

... all but HIM... the grinning man: he was joyous, gesturing to the other ships to approach, and as they neared the shore... neared HIM... MADNESS.

Soon the remainder of the ships fled, leaving the wounded and dying to wryth in madness and terror till death released them...

...If it did.

One of the dying clawed at the pendant around her/his neck, "kill me," he pleaded, "I renounce the false gods who condemned me to this... PLEASE don't let them EAT me alive! Free my soul! Let me see my family again in the netherworld... PLEASE ! I cannot take my own life. DO IT HERETIC! Show me your god's mercy!"

"Nothing is eating you," she responded with a compassion she found hard to explain.

He lunged at her, pulling her dagger into himself as she instinctively raised it.

"I think your heart will not be heavy, " he gasped, "when you arrive in the golden sea of reeds, I will call you friend... thank... "

He pulled her pendant off as he fell.

Before she could retrieve it, a great cry went out... from the grinning man. Scotia had been thrown from her mount as it responded to the inhuman screams with panic.

The bearded man, dressed in long flowing white linen robes, lept from the ships deck, uninjured, and ran to her, "NO! It cannot end this way!"

They cleared his way, believing him mad.

The queen lay dying, laughing, "Too late priest... take him... away, cast him out."

They dragged him away, him shouting how he served her, betrayed the priests.

As he was taken out of earshot, Scotia summoned her physician, "SHE wants... out. Let me see my only daughter's face, let me name her, tell her how WE avenged her father... my brave Greek outcast... he awaits. Tell our sons to remember family above all."

Lara closed her eyes in exhaustion and grief... till the baby cried.

"My beautiful, strong girl... the light of the one, shines in your eyes... like... the... sun... La...ra."

She opened her eyes. The two people in the Rolls with her stared at her, one with a grin.

"So," Himiko sighed, "met your mummy did you? Ready to believe? Oh, and guess who is decended of one of her six sons? Along with ten million other people? Natla."

"Who?"

"EVAN ?" Rene asked.

"Doppy is safe," Sam reasured him, "too much out of family breeding since then, thankfully. I However need to get out here. Can't get too close to old wet and otherworldly. Good luck... not that you'll need it... I hope." Sam climbed from the car, just in view of the Loch.

"Well, " Lara quiped, "I'm just brimming with confidence."

...

"Come out, come out wherever you are!" A blue eyed, blonde haired, brown skinned Trinity agent shouted, "oh come on... be your best friend." he and three other agents moved through the ruin of the pub, gun barrels pointed up, relaxed.

"Come now boys," another added, "if we wanted you dead, we'd have blown up the mansion. You don't have to die... EVER. We need people like you, to keep our divine, annointed work going."

"Sorry," Carter cried out from... somewhere, "we don't speak lunatic here, try somewhere else."

"I was like you Evan, " blue eyes said, "only my father was a morish assassin, and my mother was a rebellious dukes daughter who betrayed her father for love. My life was of a pointless hatred pressed upon me by people who saw my father as a beast, and devil, and my mother as a whore. I killed these animals happily, sometimes for money."

"Fascinating story; sorry you had a bad go of it, but teaming with Jack the Ripper, Hitler..."

"HITLER? WE SET HIM UP. Got all of em killed, and marked their imbicile kind FOREVER."

"All for the low price of how many tens of millions of innocent lives?" Serge asked.

"Asks the arms dealer's pet." blue eyes responded.

"As far as Jack... kill four slowly dying reviled innocents quickly... if horribly... and save a city from it's soulless disregard for the poor."

"Mary Kelly, " Jean stated bluntly.

"We...," blue eyes said with... hesitation? REMORSE? "He went too far. But YOU could have stopped him from that mistake , had you been there. Could you see yourself being the hand stopping his? You can be... Jean."

"Himiko alread did that," Evan chimmed in, "She 'Thanos snapped' him into urn filler."

"Strengthened Volcanus," blue eyes finished for him, "by giving it it's toy. Now we are made stronger, let's show you... just a little taste of what we offer... so to speak."

"Stop us if you've heard this one before... Evan. This will make finding you much easier." They all closed their eyes, and began laughing as their uniforms stretched, and tore, then their eyes opened: shiny blood red being covered by thick fur.

"We're fucked, " Jean said, "I left my can of dog repelant at home."