I'm so sorry this took so long. I don't what it was; writer's block, every crazy thing happening in real life right now...
But finally, the next chapter!
I don't own Tomb Raider. All OCs belong to me and Fang.
Chapter 13: Wrath of the Tomb Raider
The group rowed down a river in two boats: Lara, Owen and Tsume in one, Sam, Jonah and Tommy in the other. It was getting dark.
Lara held her mother's gold bracelet, sighing,
"All that for another riddle..."
Tommy agreed, "It's like what Jon Voight said in National Treasure. "That'll lead to another clue and that'll lead to ANOTHER clue!" It's crazy."
"Be serious, Tommy," said Owen.
"Sorry, couldn't help it," Tommy shrugged.
"What'd the riddle say?" Sam asked.
"The heart of the serpent is in the cup, near the many stone faces," Lara said.
"Well, it's better than nothing," Jonah said.
Lara shrugged, "I suppose. We need to find the Box and end this."
They kept rowing down the river, but then they heard something in the distance.
"That sounds like a chopper," Owen said.
Before anyone knew what was happening...a helicopter suddenly appeared from behind a mountain summit, its machine gun preparing to fire.
"SHIT!" Lara cursed.
"EVERYONE, DIVE!" Owen yelled before they all jumped off the boats, just as the helicopter opened fire. Even though Lara was underwater, she got grazed in her arm, causing her to grunt in pain as she surfaced for air, even while bullets rained down on her.
"OWEN!" she called. "JONAH! SAM! TOMMY!"
No answer came. Reluctantly, Lara dove back into the water and swam for her life...leaving a trail of blood behind her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Scene Change~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After swimming for what felt like hours, Lara finally resurfaced, gasping for air.
She crawled onto the mud, coughing and trying to regain her breath. Once she did, she winced and held her injured arm, then pulled out her radio,
"Owen?" No response, just static. "Sam? Jonah? Tommy?" Again, no response.
She scoffed in frustration, 'Please, give me a break!'
Suddenly, she heard footsteps approaching, and when she turned around, she gasped upon seeing one of Rourke's men.
"Well, look what I found," he said while he pointed his gun and shined his flashlight on her. "A pretty little thing."
Lara only glared at the soldier with near killer intent. Right now, she was feeling two things: frustration and rage...and they were beginning to build up inside her.
To put it simply...Lara was a ticking time-bomb now, and it was only a matter of time before she exploded.
"Don't try me..." She said coldly, only for the guy to hit her in the face with the butt of his rifle.
Lara went down, but she wasn't going down without a fight. When the man attempted to knock her out, she kicked his gun away, but not hard enough to knock it out of his hands, and before he could react, she kicked him right in the groin, knocking him down as he grunted in pain.
Lara got to her feet and lunged for the guy, holding a knife in her hand, but he smacked her to the side with his rifle before she could stab him. He attempted to get the drop on her, but she got back up on her feet and threw him into the mud. Before she could try and strike with her knife, the guy got up and tackled her, and they soon wrestled with each other on the riverbank.
Lara grunted as she managed to block the man's hits before she wrapped her leg around his left arm and then pushed his face up with her boot, causing a sickening crack. The guy screamed as he felt his arm break before Lara kicked him again, then pinned him down, holding his knife over his chest. He tried to fight back, even tried to choke her by putting his hand around her neck...but it was no use.
Lara plunged the knife right into his chest. She collapsed in the mud, trying to catch her breath.
"Check over there," A male voice ordered.
Lara got up, pulled her knife out of the dead guy's chest and hid against a wall of plants.
"I'm still not one hundred percent this Box even exists," One of the soldiers said.
Lara snuck over to a patch of mud and covered herself in it, then blended against a mud wall.
There were three soldiers nearby, looking around with the flashlights on their rifles, but one of them got close to where Lara was, she jumped out, grabbed him, and stabbed him in the chest with her knife, and for good measure, she covered his mouth so that no one could hear him scream, then she went to go find her next victim.
She snuck through some plants and grabbed a guy from behind, stabbing him in the head.
There were two guys left, both standing at a supply crate and under a light. Luckily, Owen had given Lara some different types of grenades. She threw a smoke grenade at the two guys, blinding them and making them cough so they never saw her coming. She quickly stabbed them under the guise of smoke.
She climbed up a ledge when she heard Rourke's voice on her radio,
"Forward Team, why the fuck are you still looking for that Box? You have hostiles in your area!"
"Well, Doctor Dominguez-" A soldier nearby tried to respond.
"I don't give a damn about Doctor Dominguez," Rourke interrupted. "Find Lara Croft, and kill her!"
As one soldier tried to look in some bushes, Lara got the drop on him first, jumping down from a cliff and plunging her knife in his neck, then dragging him into the vegetation so that no one would find his body.
Another soldier nearby scoffed, ""Find Lara Croft" how? We're spread out way too goddamn thin for that. This was a research operation!"
"Let's just spread out and make the best of it," His buddy told him. "I'll cover that area, you stay here."
Lara searched inside her pockets and managed to find her rebreather before she dove into a lake and swam away, avoiding the soldiers. When one got close to the water's edge, Lara jumped out and pulled him under, stabbing him under the water before she left him to float.
She then climbed up a tree, waiting for a nearby scout to get closer.
She had to be very careful, though, especially since there were two soldiers nearby. As soon as one got close enough, Lara drew her knife and jumped down, stabbing him in the back while the other two soldiers had their backs turned.
"First Dominguez tells us to look for the Box," said one of the soldiers. "Then Rourke tells us to look for Croft."
"Who are we supposed to listen to?" A second soldier asked.
"Well, Rourke is a military leader, and Dominguez' decisions are getting people killed," The first soldier responded. "So you better decide right now where your loyalties lie."
Lara covered herself in mud again and hid against large rock with dirty vegetation on it. She saw some bottles of alcohol nearby, so she grabbed one and made a Molotov cocktail. Then she threw it at the two soldiers, lighting them on fire!
She wiped off the mud and climbed up a ledge, hearing a helicopter flying in.
At that moment, the ground began to shake, signaling that another tremor was starting.
"Ah, shit..." Lara cursed as a cliff began to crumble away, but nonetheless she managed to use her grapple ax to swing to the other side and rappel up.
"All units, report status," Rourke's voice ordered.
"Cardinal Two, all clear. What's going on, Commander?"
"We got hit by a foreshock," Rourke answered. "Kappa Team?"
"All clear sir."
Lara used her pickaxes to climb up the rock wall. She jumped to hang from the overhead part of the wall and started climbing up it.
"This is Cardinal Two, I've got foreshock damage in Juliet Three," A soldier said through the radio. "A rockslide took out the tertiary platform. No fires."
A helicopter flew over Lara as she finally made it up the cliff, also finding a campsite.
"Fallen trees have completely blocked the access road to Kilo Two."
When she did, she found an opened journal entry, which she picked up and read.
"This is a record of a mercenary's assignments while working for Trinity," she realized as she looked through the page. "Mexico...Kenya...Siberia? 'I had my crosshairs on the younger ones, but Rourke had orders for me to leave them alone'." She gasped quietly. "This is the bastard who shot Ana!"
She wanted to stop to rest by the fire, but her instincts told her to keep moving, so she did.
"Hello Lara," Rourke's voice said from the radio.
"Who is this?" she questioned.
"I've suspected you've been monitoring my communications since Mexico," He said.
Lara scoffed, "Rourke..."
"Commander Rourke," He corrected. "You've been listening to me, and now I'm listening to you. Another foreshock; how does it feel, knowing you're responsible for all these cataclysms, all that suffering?"
"I know what I did," Lara bit back as she waded through some water.
"The look on yours and your husband's faces when Dominguez told you..." Rourke chuckled. "But you just had to have that dagger, didn't you?"
Lara scowled as she put her radio away before she continued to wade through the water, ducking underneath a fallen log before she reached a lake bank.
"Forward Outpost, Croft is moving into your area," Rourke's voice was heard. "Find her!"
As Lara hid in some bushes, she saw a couple of soldiers nearby.
"Croft slipped right through the guys at the beach," said one of them. "That can't happen, again."
At that moment, one soldier wearing body armor, a helmet, and goggles approached them.
"We'd better do a sweep," said another soldier before he looked to the armored one. "Anything new in that shipment?"
"Thermal goggles, gentlemen," his comrade answered. "I'll take point."
He approached some bushes, "I got something."
The bushes rustled as he and the two other soldiers got closer. The bushes rustled again as what was hiding revealed itself, a Howler Monkey, which climbed up a tree.
"Shit..." The armored soldier cursed. "False positive. Just some animal."
Lara sucked her teeth in frustration. She knew that she didn't have a chance against thermal vision, no matter how well she hid. She could use mud, but it wouldn't hide all of her body heat.
Perhaps if she got behind something solid, then she could avoid detection.
The two soldiers walked away from the armored one. His back was still to her, so Lara quietly hurried over and stabbed him in the back of the neck, then dragged his body into the vegetation.
"Hey, are we getting these lights up or what?" One of the soldiers asked.
"I'm never gonna get them working if you keep pestering me," The second soldier barked. "What's the damn hurry all of a sudden?"
"Rourke said Croft's coming through here," The first soldier said.
"Goddammit," cursed the other soldier. "All right, I'm hurrying."
As Lara snuck around the corner, she saw another armored soldier and two others, this time near a searchlight. After estimating for how far away the armored soldier was, she quickly snuck over before she covered his mouth and stabbed him in the back before dragging him into the shadows.
She went back in the other direction and stabbed one of the guys by the generator, then pulled him over to the plants.
She snuck around another big rock and saw the last two guys were standing next to each other in a large shed-like area made of large sticks.
She grabbed a bottle of alcohol from a crate, made a Molotov cocktail and threw it at their feet, burning them alive!
Once they were done screaming, she went inside and squeezed through a tight gap in the wall.
"Goddammit, people, use the goggles!" Rourke was heard shouting. "FIND HER!"
Lara ducked down in the shadows and managed to rub some mud on her. It could help her hide from the soldiers with thermal vision...at least just a bit.
Two soldiers greeted each other, "Evening Ralph."
"Evening Sam."
Lara kept herself from laughing, 'Oh God, if Owen was here, he'd reference that wolf and sheepdog from Looney Tunes.'
She snuck through some plants, stabbed one of the armored soldiers and pulled his body into the vegetation.
Then she snuck over to a rock wall, covered in plants.
"Do you see anyone?" asked one of the soldiers.
"If I did, I'd be shooting," answered another...right before Lara grabbed him from behind and stabbed him in the neck. Before the other one could react, she quickly stabbed that one in the chest.
She snuck over to one that was at a computer, kicked the back of his knee and stabbed him in the neck.
She moved past a generator and hid against a wall with mud and vines.
"God damned Lara Croft," A nearby soldier cursed. "We've got to stop her."
"Don't worry, we will," Another one said.
"Yeah? You that sure of the new equipment?"
"No, but I'm sure of Rourke."
As one of the soldiers walked away, the other that was closest to Lara decided to have a smoke break. While he had his back turned, Lara used her pickaxe to stab him in the chest before she pulled him into the shadows, then stabbed him in the back with her knife before she let him drop to the ground.
'That's why smoking is bad for you,' Lara thought.
She went back around the way she came and killed the other soldier as he came back over to where his buddy was.
She then killed the last two guys with another cocktail.
Lara climbed up a cliff, then felt everything shake! In the distance, she saw a refinery and a part of it exploded!
"Lara?" Owen's voice called out from the radio. "Are you okay? Was that the earthquake? Me and the others are near an oil refinery. Everything's blowing up!"
"No, Owen!" Lara cried. "Get off this channel!"
"What?" Owen questioned.
"They're listening," she told him.
"Shit," Owen cursed. "Okay."
"I'll find you guys," she promised.
As Lara rappelled down from the cliff, she stumbled upon an old Mayan statue with an old scroll on it and a wooden bow with pink feathering at the tips nearby.
"It's a recipe for a hallucinogen...sometimes used in war. If I use this on my arrows, it could be an advantage against Trinity."
She picked up the bow and tested its strength, which was good.
She moved on, going through a big hole in a wall of ruins.
"Tau Team, Croft is on a vector toward your position," Rourke's voice said. "I say again, Croft is coming to you."
Lara climbed up a tree and perched on one of the branches.
"Jesus Christ!" One of the soldiers cursed.
"Shh!" Another one told him. "We'll get her, Sir."
"Show me her corpse, and your entire team is next in line for Deacon Training. Rourke out."
"You heard the man," The second soldier announced. "Let's do this!"
'Time to put these arrows to work,' she thought as she took an arrow with the hallucinogen on the tip, then fired it at one of the soldiers. He cried in pain for a moment...but then he started to look around, looking like he was in a panic.
"Hey, you okay?" asked one of the other soldiers.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" the soldier that was shot yelled as he started firing all around him, hitting the other two before he finally died of a heart attack.
An armored soldier went over to check the guy, then Lara jumped down from her branch and stabbed the guy in the neck.
Lara soon moved on to another group of soldiers as she hid in the trees. She saw that one of them was wearing thermal goggles...now an easy target.
She soon shot him with a hallucinogenic arrow, causing him to gasp as he was hit, then he pulled out his gun, just as one of his friends came to check on him.
"Hey, you all right?" he asked.
"FUCK!" the armored soldier screamed as he soon shot him.
Lara shot a guy just below her with a rope arrow and pulled him, then climbed back on the branch. The guy with thermals shot a few more before he died.
Lara got down from the tree and moved around the ruins, making sure to hidden in the plants.
"Can you spell me a bit?" A nearby soldier asked. "I've gotta check in with Maltese."
"Sure, gives me something to do," Another soldier replied.
An armored soldier came close, so Lara grabbed him and stabbed him.
"Hey, do you know Maltese's access code?" The first soldier asked his buddy.
"Oh-one, oh-three, five-three, Mike," The other one told him.
While the soldier tried to type in the computer, Lara managed to take out another one from the bushes, but she ended up alerting the other two.
"We're taking casualties!" shouted one of the soldiers as they ran over to the dead body of their comrade. Lara had already fled before they could spot her.
She made her way over to where the last ones were, and shot one with an arrow dipped with hallucinogen.
"Hey, you alright?" One of the others asked.
"NO, STAY AWAY!" The poisoned soldier shouted before he shot his two companions. He fired wildly for a few more seconds before dying himself.
Lara moved on, seeing a big sphere from an oil rig,
"Owen? Owen, Sam, Jonah? Anyone, come in please!"
"They're not gonna answer, Lara," Rourke responded. "None of them are. Now you can add your husband, your friends, and that wolf to the list of people you've gotten killed."
Lara wanted to gasp in shock and horror, but she refused to give Rourke the pleasure of hearing her suffer.
"Oh, but don't worry," Rourke continued. "I won't hurt your daughter. I'll make sure she's taken care of, once she's all grown up."
She heard him lick his lips in a sick way. She breathed heavily through her clenched teeth, riddled with something beyond anger,
"You shouldn't have said that..."
Soon, she hung up and put the radio away as she approached an abandoned encampment as well as a bridge that led to the oil refinery. As she prepared to cross...a light shined down on her from above, and as she looked up, she saw the same helicopter from before!
"Cardinal Two, I have a lock on the target!" said the pilot, and just when Lara was getting ready to run, a tank came rolling up in front of her, blocking her path.
"Paladin Four in position. Opening fire."
Soon, the tank fired its guns at Lara, who gasped as she ducked behind some equipment, but it wouldn't be enough.
She had no choice. It was either run or die!
Luckily, she noticed a zipline and immediately jumped on it.
"Blow the tank!"
The APC fired at the gas tank connecting the zipline with the bridge, blowing it up!
"Shit!" Lara cursed as she fell down, but thankfully, she managed to land on the platform below her. Despite that, she wasn't out of the woods. She had to get out of there fast!
She ran and jumped to a metal tower that was barely still together, and grappled to it.
She climbed up the grating as the APC kept shooting at her, then some soldiers appeared on a platform to the left of the tower!
"There she is!"
"Shoot her!"
She moved along the grating and kept climbing, desperately trying to avoid getting shot!
'I'm a sitting duck here!'
As Lara climbed, the tower started to fall apart, bursting in flames from all the shooting.
"You're not gonna change anything! You know that, right?!" shouted one of the soldiers as he fired at Lara, who narrowly managed to avoid getting hit in the head by a bullet.
"Keep shooting!" shouted another soldier as Lara tried to cross on a beam, but she ultimately had to jump off when it started to fall!
She grabbed onto a wrecked walkway, which collapsed once she grabbed it. Luckily, it allowed her to swing over to another tower!
She shimmied over to an elevator and climbed up it just before it collapsed! She kept going up as that same helicopter showed up again.
"Oh, no...no, no!" Lara cried.
"Cardinal Two, you are clear to fire," said Rourke.
"Copy that," answered the pilot. "Missiles away!"
Lara gasped as she tried to climb higher...but it was too late. The helicopter soon fired its missiles and the tower buckled, collapsing into the water with Lara with it. She fell...and she sank beneath the surface, motionless, eyes closed as words began to fill her thoughts.
"Sometimes, I feel like I have to keep going, and if I don't, I'll let everybody down..."
"A tsunami is coming and this is just the first of many catastrophes. YOUR doing!"
"I may have even put Amelia's life in danger, my own daughter! She's still just a newborn, and I might lose her! I have to go. I'm the only one who can-"
"YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN WHAT?!"
"Now you can add your husband, your friends, and that wolf to the list of people you've gotten killed."
Suddenly, Lara's eyes opened...but they had a dark look in them. With a scowl, she swam up to the surface of the flaming water and slowly rose up from the depths. One soldier, who was injured in the fall, gasped upon seeing her.
Her face was covered in shadow...but he could tell, right then and there...that she had been pushed too far.
The man tried to crawl away, reaching for his assault rifle, but Lara stepped on his wrist and crushed his neck with her other foot. She then picked up the rifle, as well as a pair of Heckler & Koch USP Match pistols.
Two more soldiers noticed her, startled by her appearance. One of them tripped over himself and the other fired wildly. Before either of them could compose themselves, Lara shot both of them with her new pistols.
"Croft is here! She's attacking the base camp!"
"Hold tight!" Rourke shouted. "Cardinal Two is returning to your position!"
"...Where are you, Rourke?" Lara asked in a dark voice as she kept firing her guns at the soldiers, even blowing up oil barrels to set them on fire!
She ducked behind some cover, and one of the soldiers yelled, "She's empty!"
But she quenched that claim by shooting another barrel of oil, blowing up a walkway and killing two soldiers!
"You'll suffer a slow death, Rourke, for threatening my daughter," Lara said with cold hate.
She ran past the blown up pieces of scrap, then heard Rourke's voice on the radio again,
"This is Rourke, I've been called back to Kan. Winters - Croft is all yours."
"ROOOURKE!" Lara yelled in anger, knowing her prey was escaping.
As she ran into another part of the camp...the helicopter appeared.
"Base camp, this is Cardinal Two. Relocating to your position."
Lara seethed as she kept firing at the soldiers, even grabbing one of their machine guns before taking cover again.
She shot a couple of soldiers, then a large amount of oil barrels stacked on top of each other.
"Jesus Christ! We have to hold her off!"
Some more soldiers shot at her from several platforms above, but she quickly dealt with them with well-placed headshots.
The helicopter flew in, opening fire on the area, which unfortunately blew up some tanks!
"This is Cardinal Two: we've taken shrapnel, but we're stable."
Every ten seconds or so, more sections of the area started to blow up!
But Lara didn't care...she was determined to take out as many of these fuckers as possible...the helicopter included.
She shot another barrel, blowing two more soldiers away!
"Defensive position compromised!"
She shot another barrel, blowing up more of the area and killing more soldiers!
"SHIT! Cardinal Two, we can NOT take another hit like that!"
Lara holstered her pistols and got out her rifle, aiming carefully at the helicopter. Once she had the angle just right, she fired, hitting the mechanism below the propeller!
"SHIT! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! CARDINAL TWO GOING DOWN!"
The helicopter spun out of control and fell down, making almost everything else explode! The explosions blew Lara back, causing her to roll across the ground and knocking her out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Scene Change~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Lara started to wake up, she felt something wet and soft lick her face.
As she opened her eyes...she saw Tsume standing over her, wagging his tail and panting happily before he started barking.
"Hear that? I think he found her! LARA!"
Lara gasped as she heard that familiar voice.
As soon as she saw Owen, Tommy, Sam and Jonah; she broke down.
She sobbed uncontrollably, as she remembered the murderous rampage she went through.
Owen ran up to her and hugged her tight, kissing her cheek and wiping her tears.
"I...I thought I lost you...!" she whispered.
"Shh..." Owen shushed. "It's okay...I promise."
"Damn..." Tommy mused as he looked at all the damage. "I know you're a bad-ass, but...did you...?"
Lara hiccupped, "I completely lost it... I don't enjoy killing, but that time...I did."
"Jeez...I haven't seen you do this much damage since that time with the Solarii..." Sam muttered as she looked around.
"We can't stay here," Jonah said. "Where to next?"
"I don't know, Jonah!" Lara shouted/cried as she stood up.
Owen hugged her again, "The riddle was, "The heart of the serpent is in the cup, near the many stone faces"."
"What kind of cup we talkin' bout?" Tommy asked. "A chalice, maybe?"
"A chalice isn't very Mayan," Owen responded.
Lara calmed down and finally started thinking clearly, "Wait... it's not Mayan. The clue was left by a 17th century missionary, Andres Lopez, a Jesuit. The Serpent in the Chalice is the symbol of Saint John. We're looking for a Christian holy site."
"Like a Church of San Juan?" asked Jonah. "That's a pretty common name. Could be dozens."
"Not within trekking distance of Paititi," Lara answered, a small smile forming on her face. At last...there was some glimmer of hope.
"Come on, the road is this way," Owen said. "We'll get out of here, talk to some people..."
"Okay," Lara sighed in relief. "What would I do without you?"
"Probably self-destruct," Owen replied, pulling her into a hug.
Lara hit him playfully in the chest as she chuckled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Scene Change~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The adventurers had met back up with Abby, and were now in her Jeep as she drove to the destination.
The very small town of San Juan.
"This is it," said Abby as she parked in front of a church building, where the bell was heard ringing. "The Church of San Juan."
Soon, they all got out of the Jeep and headed into the rundown old town.
There were some people out and about. One man was repairing a hole in one of the building's roofs.
"Let's split up," Lara said. "Owen and I will look for signs of Lopez."
"Tommy and I will ask around," Jonah said.
"I'll go take some pics and Tsume can protect me," Sam said, holding her camera.
"My friend Sara's an archaeologist," Abby said. "She works near here. Want to go see if she knows anything about your riddle?"
"Sure, sounds good," Owen replied.
Soon, the group headed out into the streets to begin their investigation...and hopefully, they could still find some answers.
I'll try to get the next chapter done sooner, along with updating my other stories.
Read and review, please!