no i'm not leaving this to stagnant. i still do not own any traod characters nor the excerpt from spanish eyes. it's all going to pick up drastically around chapter four if you're waiting for some action. no not that kind!
Chapter 2: Beautiful Dreamer
In a tangle of their compulsory malice; wriggling limbs and raspy gusts of breath defile. Heart racing like thoughts that wish to soothe apprehensions. It seemed like a good ideal at the time. Suckered in by once in a blue moon eyes and wouldn't you like to know left unsaid in the corners of a crooked grin. Good ideal metamorphosed into a gun to his head avalanching from there to being found beneath the atrocious touch of mutant horrors. Needless complications called sentiments can turn into life threatening complications called you made a mistake trying to be somebody's hero. But, if life doesn't matter then what does?
Cold-blooded screams slice through hoarse throats. Looking up into beady eyes alive with fear but glossed with depravity. Jagged openings for mouths stretched full wide as they cry out to anything. They let go and draw back, back at an unseen incentive. Forming a wide circle. Watching as birds of prey. Blood lust restrained from it's fruition. She is left to lie with questioning thoughts and the echo of their torture ringing in her ears. Breath easy for a few minutes while it all dies down to an uncertain calm.
"Toss your weapons here." Gruff masculine voice hinting at anger. He had a gun. Didn't need to look back to know it. When she gets up and turns around it is true as foretold. Glock 37 .45 GAP. Her movement arrested by it's decidedly lethal aim. Past scenes flash back of the visage staring coldly. The man's eyes are small and direct. Tucked into a common face with straight features. Looked like he had just stepped off the front lines of some battle. Left, right, left are expected words from his rigid line of a mouth. A completely shaven head to finish off the tough guy look. Bluish-steel stubble goatee . Menacing in height, must be at least six feet tall. Exactly what you expect an ex-commando bodyguard/bouncer to look like.
"You again." Brusque and laced with poison.
"Now." Taut words nearly shouted. Her comment ignored. She blinks at him curiously but decides it best to comply. Can't exactly run with a gun aimed to shoot between your eyes.
Casually tosses the gun from it's holster to the ground before him while maintaining that characteristic spite in her out of place grin. Hopes he won't make her give up the small arsenal in her backpack. He grins at her with effort to curl up the stone carved mouth.
"The backpack." Damn! Such cruel satisfaction lurking in the shadows of his face. She does not play into the fear he feeds on. Just slides the straps off and throws it rather forcefully to him or at him. His lions paw of a hand catches it with deft precision. Never loses her gaze. The gun still pointed aggressively. Doesn't give her a mistake. He snaps it open with little effort and dumps the contents out, still searching for an aggrieved reaction in her. She doesn't give him one. We're playing a game.
"Hmmm…" Glancing down too quickly to be taken advantage of. "You don't have the key…"
"Key?" How curious.
"You've managed to make quite a nuisance of yourself Miss Croft." Casually spoken, casually answered.
"Is that all?"
"The name's Gunderson, Marten if you please. Karel would have liked to speak to you himself but he's what you would call indisposed right now." Façade of nonchalance.
"Not dead? Pity…" We're both playing charades. Trailing off with thought. It would have been too 'easy'. Of course he's still alive.
"Even with the Sleeper destroyed you didn't accomplish anything but slowing down our operation. And now, finally, we have the means to realize His vision." A thin square of metal is pulled from his pocket. Lots of little buttons dot it's surface. It appears to be some kind of handheld keypad. Glints fiercely for an inanimate thing.
"This is the wave of the future, if you will." There is admiration in his tone. A glow to his otherwise dull eyes.
"His vision? Wave of the future? What? A bloodbath? You're all demented." It's hard to keep from shouting. Brainwashed bunch of zealots. How could anyone sink so low as to betray their own kind? Well, that's the Cabal for you. Twisted fucks.
"Nice try Lara. For a second there you almost come off as high-minded. Almost, but you're a cold-blooded killer no different than one of us. Don't preach to me about a bloodbath. Those in glass houses, as they say." His mouth seemed to be held in a perpetual smirk. When he spoke it tainted his words to either condescension or sarcasm.
"It's kill or be killed. Not just for the sake of grandiose schemes. Don't compare me to your heinous agenda, His vision ,as you call it. I'd call it lunacy. The only people I kill are people are people like you."
Still keeping it unemotional. No hate or fear or any sign of anything just a sentence. Let's see who fumbles first. It's still a game, don't forget.
"Bravo again, but this…"Holding up the keypad. "… is the future and there is nothing your postulated morals can do to stop it." He plays well, but inferior nonetheless.
"Since you're so certain, what is the future? If you would be so kind as to divulge it's mechanics." Motioning to the device and biting her errant tongue. It would be unwise to anger him further. He's the one with the gun after all.
"This, my dear, is what we like to call a cerebral manipulation conduit. CMC." Said the big words slow like she couldn't understand it otherwise. Maybe it was for himself.
"Yes, but what does the CMC do?"
"With this and a chip strategically inserted into the mutants brains we can get them to do whatever we want. If that includes our heinous agenda then we just have to sit back, pull a few strings, and watch it unfold. There's one little thing though."
"Ah." Still has no clue as to the extents of their new agenda. Doesn't matter all that much. It's no good whatever it is.
"They die easy once they got the chip. It triggers some reaction in them that makes them extremely, well, killable. Your bullets bounced right off of them for the simple reason that it takes about a week for them to fizzle out and these ones are fresh out of the shop, you see."
"And where do I come into this seedy little picture you're painting, Mister Gunderson, is it?"
"Joachim knows how to make them stronger than before the chip, but yet another catch. This is where your second chance comes in. He's willing to forgive your prior infraction if you assist in the achievement of our goal. Says he likes the ones that play hard to get." That arrogant chuckles tails his words. The incessant rattling of "funny bones".
"You can tell him that he can take his offer and jump off the nearest balcony with it."
Anger nearly breaks through the crepe paper charade of calm and unconcerned. He devours her slip up and grows stronger.
"That's most unfortunate for your girlfriend." Teasing the expression.
"Oh?" Gathered back into her impervious shell. Vigilant for any opportunity to strike. The sole of his boot is set to rest on Kurtis's head. It doesn't matter, it does. He tests her with a raised eyebrow. She puts her quintessential smirk into play.
"Oh yes, the human leverage. There's nothing too sordid for your tactics now is there?"
Beginning with a pompous chortle. His revolting characteristic. Her gaze is set on his razor thin lips as they slice the silence scornfully in her direction.
"You see Lara, you can pretend like you don't care, but I know that somewhere buried deep in that murderous heart of yours this worthless son of a bitch a few ignorant people would call a man means something to you besides target practice. That's why you came back, that's why you're here, and that's why you're going to do what we want."
He borrows her coolness and adds some mean scowl she saw before on a dead mans face.
"Never." Simple, curt, just enough to be explicitly clear. Shedding the games constraints, he becomes someone else; irate and intolerant; intolerable.
"Well, then this shouldn't bother you at all." Laughing. Always laughing.
The oblivious subject of debate is thrown back onto his stomach with the force of a ruthless kick. Pathetic moan escaping the bloody heap. In it's soft grievance regret lingers. Betrayed by strategically asinine thoughts to actions. Blood of a bitch. Sets the colossal bastard ablaze with her smoldering glare.
"What's this? Anger? I'm truly surprised. Has this Lux Veritatis piece of shit been pulling on your heart strings? Never let sentiments get in the way of business. You of all people I would expect to know that. Quite rudimentary. But ,then again, you are just a woman." Had to add that last part. Now it's personal. Anything else, but those are fighting words. He'll rue the day.
"Resorting to petty insults are we? Quite rudimentary devices, but you are just a man. I will, under no circumstances or penalty, acquiesce." Spat out of a tight held mouth causing his eyes gleam with something other than friendly indifference. If looks could kill.
"Well, then I see no good reason to keep him alive." Twice in one day the kiss of death, that ice-cold caress of a gun pointed to kill instantly. Cast shadows suggest ethereal evil in his drawn face.
"Last chance, Lara. I'm not even close to kidding." The royal flush to win the game. Fork in the road. So much blood on an intangible word. Why? Yes, and I'm undone. No and those eyes…Ripped out of the safety of her shell. But, I am Lara Croft. I don't lose. Keep it together.
"Well?!" Filigree of subterfuge laces through her brain. Blood as arctic waters coursing through to establish a frightening alertness and heightened senses. No! Irresistible manipulation resurrected. See death; scream life, in a single moment of trigger teased in mid-squeeze. And in a moment so overwrought differences can be made. Temporal alterations. The blink of an eye is sufficient to avail herself of a gap in his game play. Eyes like a lynx to perceive the means necessary to win this hand. The gun lying in a pile of her dumped out belongings calls attention with hoary luster. Seven feet by estimate. Satisfactory. Shaking with adrenaline's sweet surge. Punch it and go!
She hurls her body in a frantic dive for the weapon and savior. Blood flow a frightening repetition in her ears. Nothing else. Closed eyes. Feel not see the embrace of the ground as she rolls. Painful yet gratifying. Clench that textured grip for dear life in the end of his. Gunshot nicks her boot but I'm too fast for you. Arise and stand. Her own shot with the gentle squeeze of a trigger sends him backward. Behemoth toppled from his surety. Drops the metallic square of servile technology. Minute metallic clatter of it's descent. Light catches the polished surface of the Glock as he aims one last time in mid-plunge. Her heart skips a beat seeing it's precise aim. But the strength is lacking to administer the blow. See his dull eyes scream. Expiring in a scarlet pool of bad karma. Just a man. Game over.
Breathing chaotically. She kneels to examine the bullet-burned edge of her boot. A neatly smoldered hole near the heel. Just smashing...Why couldn't he have just rolled over like a good little dog? Now I'll need a new pair Her items lay scattered. Clips, guns, medical aids, chocolate bars, I'm not hungry. Pieces of my life all over the ground. She gathers them quickly and shoves them into her backpack under the unnervingly sterile glare of the protos. They don't move; hardly breath. Silent jury. Pulls the Glock from still warm fingers and slides it into her left holster. Now, we're even. A strange man's gun is dangerous exhilarating, but I'm not smiling. The CMC. She scoops up the deceptively light instrument and places it in a safe pocket in her backpack where a disastrous accidental button pressing wouldn't occur. The familiar routine feels hollow.
But, what's to be done with you? Couldn't very well shoot him. Didn't seem right after what had happened. She turns him over once again with some effort. Hands tinctured by the shade of life and death. We're back were we started. Sitting there and looking on his sleeping face. Blood flecked dreamer. What do you see? All of them stand around and watch with their black marble eyes boring holes in the fabric of space. The incarnation of darkness in a perfect circle. Eerily watching and waiting to claim him as they know his passing hastens. Metaphorical vultures eyeing their prey. It doesn't mater anymore. Go ahead and watch. It doesn't matter. Her hand glides over his face to brush the tangle of bangs away. Viscid fluid smeared with the gentle sweeping motion. She clasps his hand and feels the bitter-cold touch of death creeping; up her arm to chill the bones. You're soon to fade but don't go. I don't know you stranger but not now. Not on my watch, but nothing to be done.
The thought to leave doesn't surface. She would stay until he left then…whatever. Find a way out. Do the whole Lara Croft save the world trip, again. It's wearing thin. Too much change and Egypt is a bad aftertaste. Something indistinct says don't worry. A far off echo. Her whole mind a cavernous echo of unfriendly concepts. It is surprising how so much had happened to think about but only vague apprehensions exist. We're waiting for something. That's what the silence says. Good or bad, as long as it's something it doesn't matter. The grip tightens about her hand. Only a little. Enough to know. Teetering on his edge. I know it's close and I'll wait for you. Closes her eyes to feel only. Sight obstructs. Hear the dead wake and whisper. It's so quiet hear their cry. I'm not scared. Hold on. Don't want to open my eyes to this dark sky, and we're not here right now if we close our eyes. I won't open them 'till your gone so we don't have to be here. I don't want to be here. Still holding on. I want to know why.
Too absorbed to hear them come, but they're quiet so it's okay. A faint whooshing sound of air displaced resulting in the small pricking sensation she feels on her upper arm. The drug takes effect instantly and she drifts away as though in peace. Collapsed onto him without a fight. Darkness made her own. Last thing is his blood on her face. It's cold, and we're not here.
--Blue Spanish eyes teardrops are falling from your Spanish
Eyes
Please please don't cry, this is just adios and not good-
Bye.--