(Some Blood Omen 2 spoilers in here. What can I say? I just finished watching about two, maybe three hours of it played this weekend, so you knew it was going to come up in here.)
Lara flipped the cards over and set them on the ground. Both men groaned slightly as she smirked triumphantly and held her hand out saying, "Hand them over, boys." Both Kain and Raziel handed over their clan's tabard. Lara suppressed a smile as she set them down carefully on the pile she was collecting. There was a reason Bryce and Hillary didn't play strip poker with her anymore.
As she grabbed the cards up and started re-shuffling, Kain looked toward Raziel, inquiring, "Whose idea was it to play this bloody game?"
Both men glared accusingly at one another as Lara calmly continued to shuffle, then deal out. Either Nosgothian was down to the leather pants they both wore. The master vampire and the Soul Reaver grabbed their cards slowly and silence descended on the three as cards were moved, placed, and exchanged, each trying to outdo the other. Suddenly, Raziel chuckled softly and set down his hand. Lara glanced at it, an eyebrow raised.
'Wow. He actually won.'
"So?" Raziel asked softly. "Isn't this the point where you drop one of your pieces of clothing?"
"Nope," she responded, keeping her face very straight. "You get one of yours back."
"Now, wait a minute—"
"How long have you been on Earth?" Lara interrupted. Raziel's eyes narrowed, but she looked at him expectantly. "Well?"
"You know," he retorted. Her gaze turned to Kain who simply shrugged, still looking at his hand.
"Haven't had the pleasure of visiting."
"Exactly." Lara took up the cards and shuffled again, but Kain stood slowly with a sigh, stretching out after having been sitting for so long. Even a dead body had a tendency of getting stiff if one held still too long.
"As entertaining as this is, Lara, I'm afraid I'm going to have to resign, and you might want to think about heading back home. I do need to get to work on pulling together that group you wanted, and I'm sure you have some last minute ends to clean up at your home. Raziel," he turned to him, "I assume you will be going with Lara, correct?"
Raziel nodded silently and stood. Lara carefully slid the cards away, then followed suit. Kain nodded toward the chamber doors.
"I believe I'll come back with you. I'd like to see what state the portal is in right now as it stands. I had been wanting to earlier, but this will allow me to be able to get out there."
Raziel opened the door and bowed toward Lara in a very gentlemanly manner, indicating with a waved hand for her to step through first. Kain followed her, and Raziel shut the door softly after he had gone through. Kain took the lead, walking toward the huge double doors of the cathedral-like structure. Lara watched as vampires and humans on either side bowed deeply to Kain as he passed by, and she was accorded with much more interest on the way out than in. While a human woman travelling in the accompaniment of the Soul Reaver was strange but not particularly amazing, a human woman who had apparently gained both the Soul Reaver's and the master vampire Kain's confidence was worthy of note.
Kain stepped into the sun with no hesitation, a movement Lara filed away for future reference. It seemed if a vampire grew old enough, they grew a tolerance, perhaps even an immunity to the sun's light. He glanced around, memorizing the greenery of the place. The broken down and dying Nosogth was still a strong image in his mind's eye, and he enjoyed being reminded of the life of the planet. He moved into an easy pace, remembering from their travels nearly five years ago how fast Lara could move comfortably. That was one of the few things he found truly interesting about her: her lack of patience with a calm, easy pace. She often seemed to prefer the harder path to the easier one.
Forest passed by and after a few twists and turns of the path, the gothic cathedral was left behind, as well as the humans and vampires. The sun was nearing the horizon, the rays that slid through the trees no longer yellow, but a deep gold. They had gotten about three fourths of the way through, Lara estimated, when there came a deep his from around the twist of the path. Kain slowed, his eyes narrowed, but he stepped around. Lara and Raziel followed in time to note the widening of his eyes.
Standing before them were four very bizarre . . . creatures. Even in her travels, Lara had never seen anything of their like, and a quick glance at Raziel assured her he had the same sentiments. It seemed only Kain knew what they were. All four stood on their back legs and were roughly humanoid in shape. Two had multiple horns shooting off the top of their head in a horizontal line and wore blue, almost priest-like robes. Golden light collected around their claws. The other two didn't have any hands, but instead long blades for arms, which ended at the elbow in a wicked spike. They had a pair of spiraled horns coming off their head, and what looked like a loincloth. Even as they hissed and readied their weapons, Kain had lunged forward with deadly accuracy, targeting one of the "warriors." Neither feeling particularly like asking him, Raziel let the Reaver manifest and Lara pulled out her pistols. She took aim for one of the blue-robbed things and pulled both triggers. To her surprise, the thing grunted slightly, but took the pain extremely well, moving forward toward her. It was promptly slammed back by a Reaver bolt, giving Lara ample time to get out the bigger weaponry. Bored, she got out the grenade launcher. Fortunately or unfortunately, she didn't get a chance to use it.
Kain slammed his claws into the creature, feeling its skin tear underneath them. He continued with an upper slash, then a backhanded strike. The thing recoiled, then came forward with its own set of attacks. Kain moved into a defensive position, and negated all the attacks, drawing energy from the thing's anger. Lara and Raziel watched out of the corner of their eyes as Kain began to glow with red energy. He pulled back and threw his arms up, releasing the energy. The creature was lifted and held midair, a pillar of light surrounding it, then the energy exploded in flame, leaving the thing on the ground, dead and burning. He moved into the guard of the next blue-robbed creature and continued on the attack.
Mere moments and one Berserk* later, the last blue-robe lay on its back. Raziel quickly drew in their souls, and stepped back, surprised, as the first one raced into his mouth.
"Quite powerful."
Kain looked up after he finished feeding, and wiped his mouth. "Yes. These are the Hylden, Raziel, and I'm quite surprised to see them. They are very much out of their time here." He kicked one of the bodies disgustedly. "Here is the race that the Ancients fought so hard against."
"What are they doing here?"
"I don't know," he responded honestly. His eyebrows knit together. "This worries me greatly. I believe I'll have to look into this."
He stepped over them and continued down the way toward the Pillars. Raziel and Lara followed, exchanging a worried look. Things were never bad enough, it seemed. There was always something worse waiting around the corner.
At last the marble of the Pillars rose before them, and soon the wavering portal flickered into view. Kain took Lara's hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the top of it lightly.
"I wish you luck, Lady Croft." He released her hand and turned to Raziel. "And you, too. Good luck to both of you."
Lara nodded her thanks and stepped back into the portal. Raziel followed suit, appearing back in the afternoon light of England. Jials came out to meet them a mere minute later.
"Well, that didn't take long at all. How'd it go?"
"We got what we needed," Lara replied shortly. "Thank you, Jials, and I believe we will be heading home now."
"Good-bye," Jials wished them cheerily as Raziel looked down at Lara's back.
' "We"?'
*For those of you who've played Blood Omen 2, you know what this is. For those of you who don't, it's an ability that Kain gets in the game. The one he used before that was Immolate, by the by.
