Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - 'The Empire of the Amon'
Author's Note: Time for a little more fillage... and stuff...
Chapter Four: Flights of Fancy
The Amonic Empire's every move was predicted and plotted by the priests, the Uzubek. Their knowledge extended further than anyone. They were the ones who kept the faith and made the land prosperous. They were the ones who had forseen, many years before, that a King would appear from the sky and rule over the world's greatest empire. They travelled for many years, learning all they could until they could search no more, and still, they did not find their fallen King. Until one cold night, when they took shelter in a cave from a raging storm, they could hear the wails of a tiny child amidst the downpour. Looking out, they saw a baby wrapped up in rags hanging from a tree branch. Their Messiah had arrived. Returning to their homelands with the King, they taught him in the faith of the Sky Gods, and in turn, he created a people so advanced it was like nothing anyone could ever imagine. However, the Uzubek were limited to their power as the King insisted they helped only with the records and defending the provinces. In secret, many formed an alliance, the Buruka, the "Earth Gods". Using their knowledge and ability of foresight they planned the demise and upheaval of the country, but their plan was shattered by the few remaining faithful priests. These priests then locked away all knowledge in a Key, that would be invisible to everyone who wanted it for their own, or their master's use. Only those who were pure of heart and soul would ever find it. They cast away the Key, and the province fell to ruins. Mother Nature reigned again for many millennia. However, in this Key, the good priests had sealed away the perfect image of the Hraka-Amon, the temple city. The people died, the land disappeared forever apart from the glimpse of the once-godlike empire in the Key.

Squires was a mad man, and a rich one at that. However, for decades the puzzle of the Key baffled him. He had searched all the records, dug secretly wherever he could, and still no sign of the key. When he came across the last script made by the creators of the Key, he was infuriated, and devised a plan to get it. Whilst in his delving into archaeology and antiquities, he heard many tales of the high-risk, high-stakes archaeologists and historians, the "Tomb Raiders". The two most famous were Lady Lara Croft, daughter of the Illuminated Lord Richard Henshingly Croft, and the American historian Alexander West. He read of their adventures constantly, and within time found a weak spot. It was not hard to miss that West was infatuated with Lara. His plan? To entice West by pulling off a huge stunt, to dig up the wastelands of Russia. He knew this would draw Alex, who would instantaneously bring Lara right into his trap. Knowing that Lara's techie friend Bryce would come, he purposely set up files which would create interest, delaying any action to rescue Croft. And if she still refused to find the Key? Kill them all. Lara was so much alone already, this would have been the final blow. There would be no choice.

"So... how exactly... do we find this Key? Do we... know what it... looks like?" Alex asked, still recovering from the animal tranquilizer. "Well, technically, 'we' can't find the Key. It's invisible to everyone except Lara." Alex snorted distastefully in reply. Bryce was playing with a click- pen in the mobile unit. Lara was standing outside, solemn and still, the icy breeze whipping a few threads of hair about. Alex opened the door and leaned against the mobile unit next to her. "You okay, Lara?" She blinked and turned, a little dazed. "Oh... yes." He reached for her hand and put it in his own and gave her a grim weak smile. "There's no point hiding it, Lara. You're bothered by something." She tried to pull her hand free from out of Alex's. "Yes, you touching me," she sniped, snatching it back. Alex rolled his eyes and sighed angrily. "Okay. Fine. Don't tell me. Just don't come running to me when everything falls," he snapped, and stormed back into the mobile unit. Bryce was still playing with the click-pen. "Oo... lover's tiff," he squeaked, smiling slyly. He couldn't help it, but he genuinely loved it when Alex and Lara had an argument. There was just something so irritating about him... was it his accent? No, he knew a load of people with the same American accent. Came with the techie label. No, it was something else. Ah, yes, that's it, Bryce, mate. You don't admit it, though, do you? No... you're jealous of him, aren't you! Of course, it all makes sense now, doesn't it... Bryce was fighting against the voices in his head, crushing the pen in his grip and breaking it in two. He let go and picked the pieces of shattered plastic out of his hand, which stung more than he'd first realised. "Bugger. That was a decent pen, too." Alex was staring out the window at Lara, who was looking, unbliking, into the north. "D'you know what's up with her?" The dark haired man swung round in his chair to face the blonde. "That's just Lara. It's her way. When she gets upset she shuts the world out. Always has, probably always will. End of story." Alex sat against the wall and hugged his knees. "Okay, so why should she be upset?" Bryce happened to find another click-pen and began playing with that as he talked to West. "I dunno, mate. Maybe it's 'cause of the fact that she was tricked into coming here, and then she got beaten by Squires' men, and she's being forced to find the Key for him. Sounds bloody upsetting enough. And this is Lara. She hates being beaten. She hates weakness altogether, even though it's something she can't forget."

"How much d'you fancy Lara?" Bryce asked after about fifteen minutes of silence. "What?" Alex looked up, confused. "How much do you fancy Lara? Fess up, mate." Alex shook his head. "I don't think that's really for me to say." Bryce scoffed a laugh. "What's so funny?" Bryce smiled matter-of- factly. "You, you obsolete muffin! You're head over bloody heels for her. Why don't you tell her?" The blonde stared up at the younger man in the swivel chair. "What's the damn point? You said yourself, Lara shuts out everything when she gets upset. It just wouldn;t be a stable relationship. So... I guess I just take my chances when I can. Anyway, what about you? You looked pretty riled when you worked out the riddle." Bryce shrugged and closed his eyes, nonplussed, and was about to answer, when suddenly the mobile unit went into pitch darkness. "Bugger, the power's gone on the blink!" he cursed, and stood up to try and leave, ending up in a heap on the floor as he tripped over something. "Blimey... what the hell'd I trip on?" He staggered to his feet and picked up the object he had tripped over. Alex opened the door and squinted slightly into the sunlight. "Bloody hell..." He was holding thin air. "I'll get Lara," Alex blurted. Bryce sat down on the step of the mobile unit and put down whatever he was carrying on the sludgy ground. "Bloody hell, Bryce!" Lara knelt down in front of Bryce and traced over what appeared to be nothing. "And you can't see anything at all? You mean to say that the Key was in the mobile unit all along?" The Key appeared to be a stone tablet, several inches thick, and covered in ancient inscriptions and pictograms. "What's on it?" Alex asked dubiously, resting a hand on Lara's shoulder. "I don't know, I can't read any of it... but there's one character which appears to be repeated... hm..." She traced it out in the snow - it looked a little like a bird without wings. "God damnit, if only the power wasn't off, I could look at those files and see if there was a translation or something... bugger." Alex suddenly had a spark of inspiration. "What about the snow-bikes? Why not use the engines to power one of the computers?" Bryce grinned slyly and stretched his fingers, making them click slightly. "Alex West, that's the best idea you've ever had."

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What can I say? I wuv Bryce! Plus it's balancing out hurting him ^_^ And... I really need to get the story fillage done so I can get the action properly started... hehe, expect lotsa puzzles, some Lara/Alex action, a face-off between Squires and Bryce over a particularly tetchy subject, and the return of a friend... all heaven and hell's gonna break loose! Muha!