I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
etc.
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.
Disclaimer, Thank-Yous and some other notes at the end of the story.
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part V: Broken Skies by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================
Chapter 3
Lara almost didn't expect anything to happen when she simply placed the last of the scriptures on the dais with a human-height statue of Horus. The statue seemed to be the only typical piece of temple decoration in the chamber - the rest was ill-coloured rock and water or a roughly carved island.
Admiring her work, Lara stepped back and took a look around.
Then a silent, thunder-like sound startled her. The ground shook ever so slightly, and all of a sudden another blue, heavenly light shone in the middle of the dais, illuminating the Horus statue.
Taking silent steps back to the dais, and dug out the chest piece of the heavy armour she had been carrying all the way from Alexandria.
Not sure how to attach the piece, Lara carefully brought the chest piece closer to the statue. For her amazement it worked like a magnet - the chest piece snapped into its place with no visible seams.
Arm and leg pieces followed - they clicked into their pieces. The arm pieces caused Lara quite a chagrin as they didn't seem to fit until she realized she was trying to fit the right one into the left arm. She finished the armour by clicking the amulet of Horus on the statue's chest. Before letting it attach itself, Lara spared another stray thought of Jean. The amulet had been his dream - his ultimate goal. Before setting off the trip to Egypt - Lara had thought that after she would have had revealed her recovery into the archaeological world, Jean would really have considered her a grave robber, and lost all interest in her. He hadn't. There was too much at stake. Thank God Jean understood it. And thank God he had not offered to come with her. She wouldn't have known how to decline without bringing out the old librarian joke again.
Lara's thoughts were interrupted by the ancient Egyptians again.
The light illuminating the Horus statue intensified. Its colour changed to an almost white - still with a hint of pale blue. Screeching screams approached the chamber and then, suddenly, something seemed to land on the statue. Just a sort of an apparition made of pure white light created a series of powerful explosions of light - none of them harming Lara, who was still standing nearby, watching the scene in speechless amazement.
The light crackled and exploded once again.
On the dais stood Horus. Not the statue. But Horus, one way or another.
But Lara wasn't given much time to admire the sight. The light changed. Narrow stripes of blood-red appeared in the white light. The sound of crickets filled the air, but the insects did not seem to enter the chamber.
The light exploded - but this time the pressure wave did not just pass Lara. It knocked her down violently, squeezing all air off her lungs.
The amulet of Horus was ripped of from Horus' chest, and, shining an innuendo-like red glow, flew away, sinking to the bottom of the waters surrounding the island.
Then all light was gone. Absolute darkness overcame the chamber. Lara was digging out a flare from her pocket, but paused, as a sudden explosion shook the scene. 'These Gods sure know their pyrotechnics,' Lara muttered to herself, her thoughts adrenaline-filled and bitter.
In a corner, red flames danced in a way that would have made Dante's Hell look like the local children's playground. They licked the pillars, whispered, raised their greedy fingers into the high chamber roof.
In the middle stood a figure twice the height of Lara, masked in gold and blue stone, its head that of a predator.
Set.
Lara stood up.
It took her awhile to realize the devil spoke to her. In English. Not stopping to wonder if it was, in one way or another, part von Croy, she listened. If you fight, fight fair.
MY WEAKER COUSIN IS ONCE AGAIN RETURNED TO THE STARS, AND IT IS I, WHO SHALL ONCE AGAIN RULE OVER THIS WORLD ONCE MORE. COME FORTH, AND YOU'LL BOW BEFORE YOUR GOD BEFORE HE EXTINGUISHES YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE.
Adrenaline filled Lara as she listened to this creature swearing his law on the world. She raised her crossbow.
"You are bloody welcome to try. I will not have you take all this away from me. From us. IT IS YOU, WHO ARE GOING BACK!"
With nothing more than primal fear, anger and overwhelming power filling every cell in her body, Lara unfastened the safety clip.
Her anger got the best of her - shooting wasn't going to do any good, she just needed the shot.
'Welcome to the dark side, Luke,' she thought as she pulled the trigger.
She had known shooting wasn't going to do any good. Except that it messed Set's concentration for the second Lara needed to perform a long swan dive to the water, and seek out the sunken amulet of Horus.
Outside, the skies continued their raging. Storm clouds twisted in a Stephen Kingesque manner, as a small group of drunken Danish tourists pointed out while pillaging through an empty bar in downtown Cairo. After a few minutes they were - simply said - eaten by locusts.
Strange things happened in Cairo. And in the world in general.
Every human being and animal knows the atmosphere in nature before rain by heart - even if one has never experienced it. Just a few of the bravest birds sing a sad melody - everywhere overcome a silence. Every atom in the world is waiting for something. And when the first drops of rain fall on the highest leaves of the highest tress, then nature sighs in relief, as if saying 'Good. Nothing more dangerous - just rain.'
It was, of course, slightly different in Egypt that time. It was raining heavy drops of blood.
Inside the temple, Lara delivered a strong kick to the bottom of the underground lake, and her head broke through to the surface. Gasping for air after her long dive, she forced her lungs to calm down and took another plunge. Trying to avoid Set's fireballs as well as she could, she quickly climbed up a low block and took a leap towards a nearby platform with a switch. Pulling it quickly, Lara heard the sound that had already become familiar - Set was blasting her again.
As Star Trekish as it seemed, Set was shooting out green and blue rays of light that struck and injured the wall like lasers. Lara, of course, didn't have much time to marvel at the sight as she was being used as a training target.
Her leap back across the water was a bit too short, leaving her dangling above the water from a rock on the island. Set was approaching. Lara tried to get a better hold of the rock. Set's heavy, dragging footsteps came closer. Then they stopped. Lara held her breath. The creature was standing just above her but couldn't see her. It seemed as if it couldn't bend its neck at all.
Lara let go of the rock with her right hand. Her left hand muscles started twitching from the strain as she quickly pulled her pistol and shot the god right in its neck. A lucky shot that was probably not going to do anything.
An explosion of light. Set was thrown onto its back, followed by another explosion of light. But nothing more. It quickly jumped up, graceful as a ballerina, and continued its hunt.
The few moments of chaos were all that Lara needed. When Set got to its feet she had already run to the other end of the island and jumped to a line of slanted blocks that lead to another switch.
She pulled it just in time before Set sent another of his blazing balls of light in her direction. Lara had to admit the creature's aim was impeccable.
Running forth on the short platform with the switch, she spotted a new block in the Southeast corner. It was like it had grown out of thin air.. Lara had seen those before. Several of them, in fact. And never had she stopped to wonder how someone had managed to create and build such a thing.
'It would be like a garbage truck driver trying to ponder quantum physics,' Lara thought as she got ready for a jump. She cursed silently as she almost fell off the block when dodging Set's fireball. If it hadn't been for those bolts of Set's, it would have been an easy job to flip the switches, climb the ledges, and go home.
Spotting a higher ledge, Lara jumped up and forward, grabbing a firm hold of the ledge. Aware that time was of the essence as hanging from a ledge for a long time was sure to get her toasted by Set's firebolts.
After that, a series or even higher ledges. A steady burning forming in her muscles, Lara continued her climb, occasionally doing leaps of faith and dodging quickly as Set was intensifying its fireballs.
A hiss and a locusty sound. Set leapt up and started hovering in mid-air. Shaking her head in a slight panic, Lara let her instincts take over.
An iron-sharp mind commanded an army of muscles, in a violent dance of escape. Letting out a scream, Lara strove again, and another ledge appeared under her boots.
A crawlspace followed next. The problem was that Set had flown closer and the crawlspace was two metres away from where she stood - in the middle of a slender wall. Twisting into a crawlspace with nothing to support your legs was going to leave her quite vulnerable to Set's bolts and consume a lot of energy. But it had to be done. Clenching her teeth together in determination; Lara ran.
And managed to grab hold of the crawlspace. Dangling from it by her fingers, she screamed. Not words but syllables: a primal scream that echoed all around the underground chamber, almost startling Set. And the scream seemed to give Lara enough confidence and adrenaline that she slowly did a chin-up and started pushing forward to the crawlspace.
As always - touch-wood - she pulled herself up quickly enough. She fell down to a walkway carved from stone. Lara ran quickly to the other side - realizing she was facing Set with nothing to protect her.
The shaft of light was to her right, closer top Set than she was now. Waiting for Set to load - or whatever it was the creature was doing - and the short break in its steady flow of fireballs was enough. Lara ran, leapt and grabbed hold of the climbable wall next to the shaft of light. She climbed upwards as quickly as she could, her shoulder muscles spasming in exhaustion. She continued, letting out a mixture of a groan and a scream every time she grabbed hold of another crevice and pulled herself up.
Arriving on a ledge, she stood for a mere second, and then continued climbing.
Her timing betrayed her. One of Set's lightning bolts hit her left leg as she tried to start climbing and caused her to let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain.
Her grip from the shaft disappeared and she fell hard on her back to the ledge below the shaft. After making sure Set couldn't reach her if she stayed in the middle of the ledge, she inspected the leg, grimacing.
For her surprise it was not burned at all. The bolt of light had been a sort of a pressure wave of hot air - an immense and powerful one. There was at least a sprained muscle, probably also a torn tendon. And numbing pain. An enormous and round reddish bruise that seemed to have a center deeper than its edges, slowly appeared in her leg.
There was no time for this. She had to move. Raising herself with her healthy leg, Lara bit her teeth together, and took another leap up towards the shaft. A firm hold, and she started climbing.
With only one fully functioning leg she was slow, but not slow enough for Set to hit her.
Crying tears of pain, she dragged herself up with her fingers and left leg.
Fortunately the climb was not very long. She arrived in a chamber she had noticed while climbing down before placing the scriptures - a small room with a strange mechanism in front of the opening that lead down the shaft.
Lara made sure she was high enough, then strode herself around backwards grabbing hold of a golden bar in the mechanism, and landed in the room, falling to her knees. Gasping from the exhaustion and excruciating pain in her leg, she lied there for a moment, eyes closed and mind focused on trying to numb herself. Below her, she heard furious sounds made by Set as he was firing his bolts into the walls in anger.
Sitting up slowly, Lara unstrapped her backpack, and dug out her medikit. Swallowing down a painkiller with a gulp of water, a delirious laugh escaped her lips. She had done it.
Putting her water bottle aside, she put her hand in her shorts pocket.
The amulet wasn't there.
A wave of panicky tears filling her eyes immediately, Lara nearly ripped open her other shorts pocket. She broke into near-hysterical laughter. The amulet was there.
Victorious, she placed the amulet in the mechanism. The metallic shaft hatch closed with a hollow rumble.
She truly had done it. But she hadn't steered her boat to still water yet. Turning her back to Set and the shaft, she walked to a now open door on the opposite side of the room, and began her escape as pillars crashed to the ground next to her.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.
siirma6@surfeu.fi
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.
Disclaimer, Thank-Yous and some other notes at the end of the story.
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part V: Broken Skies by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================
Chapter 3
Lara almost didn't expect anything to happen when she simply placed the last of the scriptures on the dais with a human-height statue of Horus. The statue seemed to be the only typical piece of temple decoration in the chamber - the rest was ill-coloured rock and water or a roughly carved island.
Admiring her work, Lara stepped back and took a look around.
Then a silent, thunder-like sound startled her. The ground shook ever so slightly, and all of a sudden another blue, heavenly light shone in the middle of the dais, illuminating the Horus statue.
Taking silent steps back to the dais, and dug out the chest piece of the heavy armour she had been carrying all the way from Alexandria.
Not sure how to attach the piece, Lara carefully brought the chest piece closer to the statue. For her amazement it worked like a magnet - the chest piece snapped into its place with no visible seams.
Arm and leg pieces followed - they clicked into their pieces. The arm pieces caused Lara quite a chagrin as they didn't seem to fit until she realized she was trying to fit the right one into the left arm. She finished the armour by clicking the amulet of Horus on the statue's chest. Before letting it attach itself, Lara spared another stray thought of Jean. The amulet had been his dream - his ultimate goal. Before setting off the trip to Egypt - Lara had thought that after she would have had revealed her recovery into the archaeological world, Jean would really have considered her a grave robber, and lost all interest in her. He hadn't. There was too much at stake. Thank God Jean understood it. And thank God he had not offered to come with her. She wouldn't have known how to decline without bringing out the old librarian joke again.
Lara's thoughts were interrupted by the ancient Egyptians again.
The light illuminating the Horus statue intensified. Its colour changed to an almost white - still with a hint of pale blue. Screeching screams approached the chamber and then, suddenly, something seemed to land on the statue. Just a sort of an apparition made of pure white light created a series of powerful explosions of light - none of them harming Lara, who was still standing nearby, watching the scene in speechless amazement.
The light crackled and exploded once again.
On the dais stood Horus. Not the statue. But Horus, one way or another.
But Lara wasn't given much time to admire the sight. The light changed. Narrow stripes of blood-red appeared in the white light. The sound of crickets filled the air, but the insects did not seem to enter the chamber.
The light exploded - but this time the pressure wave did not just pass Lara. It knocked her down violently, squeezing all air off her lungs.
The amulet of Horus was ripped of from Horus' chest, and, shining an innuendo-like red glow, flew away, sinking to the bottom of the waters surrounding the island.
Then all light was gone. Absolute darkness overcame the chamber. Lara was digging out a flare from her pocket, but paused, as a sudden explosion shook the scene. 'These Gods sure know their pyrotechnics,' Lara muttered to herself, her thoughts adrenaline-filled and bitter.
In a corner, red flames danced in a way that would have made Dante's Hell look like the local children's playground. They licked the pillars, whispered, raised their greedy fingers into the high chamber roof.
In the middle stood a figure twice the height of Lara, masked in gold and blue stone, its head that of a predator.
Set.
Lara stood up.
It took her awhile to realize the devil spoke to her. In English. Not stopping to wonder if it was, in one way or another, part von Croy, she listened. If you fight, fight fair.
MY WEAKER COUSIN IS ONCE AGAIN RETURNED TO THE STARS, AND IT IS I, WHO SHALL ONCE AGAIN RULE OVER THIS WORLD ONCE MORE. COME FORTH, AND YOU'LL BOW BEFORE YOUR GOD BEFORE HE EXTINGUISHES YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE.
Adrenaline filled Lara as she listened to this creature swearing his law on the world. She raised her crossbow.
"You are bloody welcome to try. I will not have you take all this away from me. From us. IT IS YOU, WHO ARE GOING BACK!"
With nothing more than primal fear, anger and overwhelming power filling every cell in her body, Lara unfastened the safety clip.
Her anger got the best of her - shooting wasn't going to do any good, she just needed the shot.
'Welcome to the dark side, Luke,' she thought as she pulled the trigger.
She had known shooting wasn't going to do any good. Except that it messed Set's concentration for the second Lara needed to perform a long swan dive to the water, and seek out the sunken amulet of Horus.
Outside, the skies continued their raging. Storm clouds twisted in a Stephen Kingesque manner, as a small group of drunken Danish tourists pointed out while pillaging through an empty bar in downtown Cairo. After a few minutes they were - simply said - eaten by locusts.
Strange things happened in Cairo. And in the world in general.
Every human being and animal knows the atmosphere in nature before rain by heart - even if one has never experienced it. Just a few of the bravest birds sing a sad melody - everywhere overcome a silence. Every atom in the world is waiting for something. And when the first drops of rain fall on the highest leaves of the highest tress, then nature sighs in relief, as if saying 'Good. Nothing more dangerous - just rain.'
It was, of course, slightly different in Egypt that time. It was raining heavy drops of blood.
Inside the temple, Lara delivered a strong kick to the bottom of the underground lake, and her head broke through to the surface. Gasping for air after her long dive, she forced her lungs to calm down and took another plunge. Trying to avoid Set's fireballs as well as she could, she quickly climbed up a low block and took a leap towards a nearby platform with a switch. Pulling it quickly, Lara heard the sound that had already become familiar - Set was blasting her again.
As Star Trekish as it seemed, Set was shooting out green and blue rays of light that struck and injured the wall like lasers. Lara, of course, didn't have much time to marvel at the sight as she was being used as a training target.
Her leap back across the water was a bit too short, leaving her dangling above the water from a rock on the island. Set was approaching. Lara tried to get a better hold of the rock. Set's heavy, dragging footsteps came closer. Then they stopped. Lara held her breath. The creature was standing just above her but couldn't see her. It seemed as if it couldn't bend its neck at all.
Lara let go of the rock with her right hand. Her left hand muscles started twitching from the strain as she quickly pulled her pistol and shot the god right in its neck. A lucky shot that was probably not going to do anything.
An explosion of light. Set was thrown onto its back, followed by another explosion of light. But nothing more. It quickly jumped up, graceful as a ballerina, and continued its hunt.
The few moments of chaos were all that Lara needed. When Set got to its feet she had already run to the other end of the island and jumped to a line of slanted blocks that lead to another switch.
She pulled it just in time before Set sent another of his blazing balls of light in her direction. Lara had to admit the creature's aim was impeccable.
Running forth on the short platform with the switch, she spotted a new block in the Southeast corner. It was like it had grown out of thin air.. Lara had seen those before. Several of them, in fact. And never had she stopped to wonder how someone had managed to create and build such a thing.
'It would be like a garbage truck driver trying to ponder quantum physics,' Lara thought as she got ready for a jump. She cursed silently as she almost fell off the block when dodging Set's fireball. If it hadn't been for those bolts of Set's, it would have been an easy job to flip the switches, climb the ledges, and go home.
Spotting a higher ledge, Lara jumped up and forward, grabbing a firm hold of the ledge. Aware that time was of the essence as hanging from a ledge for a long time was sure to get her toasted by Set's firebolts.
After that, a series or even higher ledges. A steady burning forming in her muscles, Lara continued her climb, occasionally doing leaps of faith and dodging quickly as Set was intensifying its fireballs.
A hiss and a locusty sound. Set leapt up and started hovering in mid-air. Shaking her head in a slight panic, Lara let her instincts take over.
An iron-sharp mind commanded an army of muscles, in a violent dance of escape. Letting out a scream, Lara strove again, and another ledge appeared under her boots.
A crawlspace followed next. The problem was that Set had flown closer and the crawlspace was two metres away from where she stood - in the middle of a slender wall. Twisting into a crawlspace with nothing to support your legs was going to leave her quite vulnerable to Set's bolts and consume a lot of energy. But it had to be done. Clenching her teeth together in determination; Lara ran.
And managed to grab hold of the crawlspace. Dangling from it by her fingers, she screamed. Not words but syllables: a primal scream that echoed all around the underground chamber, almost startling Set. And the scream seemed to give Lara enough confidence and adrenaline that she slowly did a chin-up and started pushing forward to the crawlspace.
As always - touch-wood - she pulled herself up quickly enough. She fell down to a walkway carved from stone. Lara ran quickly to the other side - realizing she was facing Set with nothing to protect her.
The shaft of light was to her right, closer top Set than she was now. Waiting for Set to load - or whatever it was the creature was doing - and the short break in its steady flow of fireballs was enough. Lara ran, leapt and grabbed hold of the climbable wall next to the shaft of light. She climbed upwards as quickly as she could, her shoulder muscles spasming in exhaustion. She continued, letting out a mixture of a groan and a scream every time she grabbed hold of another crevice and pulled herself up.
Arriving on a ledge, she stood for a mere second, and then continued climbing.
Her timing betrayed her. One of Set's lightning bolts hit her left leg as she tried to start climbing and caused her to let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain.
Her grip from the shaft disappeared and she fell hard on her back to the ledge below the shaft. After making sure Set couldn't reach her if she stayed in the middle of the ledge, she inspected the leg, grimacing.
For her surprise it was not burned at all. The bolt of light had been a sort of a pressure wave of hot air - an immense and powerful one. There was at least a sprained muscle, probably also a torn tendon. And numbing pain. An enormous and round reddish bruise that seemed to have a center deeper than its edges, slowly appeared in her leg.
There was no time for this. She had to move. Raising herself with her healthy leg, Lara bit her teeth together, and took another leap up towards the shaft. A firm hold, and she started climbing.
With only one fully functioning leg she was slow, but not slow enough for Set to hit her.
Crying tears of pain, she dragged herself up with her fingers and left leg.
Fortunately the climb was not very long. She arrived in a chamber she had noticed while climbing down before placing the scriptures - a small room with a strange mechanism in front of the opening that lead down the shaft.
Lara made sure she was high enough, then strode herself around backwards grabbing hold of a golden bar in the mechanism, and landed in the room, falling to her knees. Gasping from the exhaustion and excruciating pain in her leg, she lied there for a moment, eyes closed and mind focused on trying to numb herself. Below her, she heard furious sounds made by Set as he was firing his bolts into the walls in anger.
Sitting up slowly, Lara unstrapped her backpack, and dug out her medikit. Swallowing down a painkiller with a gulp of water, a delirious laugh escaped her lips. She had done it.
Putting her water bottle aside, she put her hand in her shorts pocket.
The amulet wasn't there.
A wave of panicky tears filling her eyes immediately, Lara nearly ripped open her other shorts pocket. She broke into near-hysterical laughter. The amulet was there.
Victorious, she placed the amulet in the mechanism. The metallic shaft hatch closed with a hollow rumble.
She truly had done it. But she hadn't steered her boat to still water yet. Turning her back to Set and the shaft, she walked to a now open door on the opposite side of the room, and began her escape as pillars crashed to the ground next to her.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.
siirma6@surfeu.fi