Chapter 34: Fog is Lifted

I don't own anything. Resident Evil belongs to Capcom and Tomb Raider belongs to Core Design, Crystal Dynamics, and I think Square Enix. The only thing I own is the changes made to the stories of the Tomb Raider games/comics and Resident Evil games/comics/CG movies, the Government branch S.P.E.L.L., the person that has taken over Kathrine Warren's life, and Rose Warren. This story also will be bloody, violent, and have cursing. It's rated T for Teen.

Country: Russia, State: Siberia, City: Siberian Wilderness, Place: Near Kitezh, Area: Outside the Wicked Vale, Month: November, Day: Wednesday 29th, Year: 2000, Time: 09:52 KRAT…

They stood by the crack in the wall. Their hands pulled bottles of antidote/vaccine from their packs.

"How much do we um, drink?" Leon asked as he uncapped his bottle, smelling the sweet metallic scent that made him turn his head away sharply.

"A mouth full. We each have enough for two doses." Lara sighed opening hers. "We have to make them count."

Kat swallowed. "Just try to treat it like a shot. Hopefully you won't taste it much." She advised as she opened her bottle.

"Cheers." Leon joked without humor.

They clinked the bottles. Then brought the bottles to their lips and tossed back the first dose they had. Their brows pinched at the taste that still hit their tongues. A sickly-sweet metallic taste of plants, chemicals, and blood. They lowered their heads pulling the bottles away, a bit of red left on their upper lips. Leon hissed and whipped his mouth on his sleeve. Kat did the same and shook herself at the taste in the back of her throat. Lara wiped her mouth with a sigh and looked to the crack, capping her bottle with its final dose.

"Ready to see if this works?" Lara asked as Kat and Leon capped their bottles and put them away.

"Yeah." Kat sighed.

"We can slip back out if we start being effected, right?" Leon asked as Lara walked up to the crack, seeing it had always been lined with the strange flower vines.

"Let's hope we can." Kat nodded.

Lara slipped into the Vale first. She took a slow breath in the small tunnel that was covered in the flower vines. She could feel the pollen enter her body, but after a sneeze and small headache, nothing else happened. No color distortion. No strange voice taunting. No loss of equilibrium. The walls remained still.

"It worked." She looked to Kat and Leon. "Nothing's happening."

Leon grabbed Kat's shoulder. "I'll go next."

She looked at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He then slipped through.

The pollen made him sneeze too and felt his head pound a bit. But nothing else happened, just like Lara said. "Geez, Lara, coulda warned a guy about the headache." He shook his head and looked back to Kat and gave her a nod.

Kat slipped through and rubbed her nose as it started to ich as Lara pulled her radio.

"It's working." Lara told Nadia. "Everything looks…" She looked around them as Kat sneezed. "Normal is the wrong word, but…nothing like last time."

They started walking down the tunnel together. The rocks unmoving, roots just being roots.

"Good." Nadia said sounding relieved, like she'd been holding her breath and had her finger's crossed. "I've made my own antidote and have enough for grandpa…if we find him." She said sounding hopeful. "I'm on my way to meet you guys now."

They put their radios away and slowed as they came to the corner where they'd seen the undead vampires, skeletons, and Drauger. Rounding the corner their eyes widened in shock and relief. They were nothing but creepy scarecrows of animal bone and wood.

"Scarecrows?" Leon asked leaning close to one of them, as if inspecting it.

"Of course." Lara realized. "We were seeing something, hearing something, feeling something real, but our minds misinterpreted it."

"Making it something we feared." Kat sighed as she looked from one animal skull to the next.

Walking out of the tunnel and into the woods, they were shocked to find it had a lot more pathways than what they'd experienced. There were also scarecrows nearly everywhere. Spaced out enough to make sure they acted as unexpected scares.

"It's a Halloween maze." Leon voiced as they retraced their steps.

"We were lost in here. There was fog wasn't there?" Lara sighed shaking her head. "The trees tighter."

They walked more. Finding that the ground wasn't nearly as snowy as they thought. Then they found Kat's spear. It was imbedded in a scarecrow and had it pinned to a tree.

"Eira, sorry." Kat muttered and pulled on her spear.

Wood cracked and bone snapped as her spear pulled free. She checked the blade as Leon and Lara looked over the scarecrow. No chips or blunting. Her blade would still kill and cut. No need to take a whetstone to it.

"Was…this the monster that jumped at us?" Leon asked. "I mean I'm assuming you two saw a monster of horns and hellfire."

Lara nodded. "Yeah. I think this was it."

"Probably, but it doesn't look like it could move, and I was pushed and knocked over after my throw." Kat pointed out.

"That…might've been me." Leon cringed. "I fell over from it scaring me."

"Oh, geez." Kat cringed.

"Yeah, now that I see what it really was, I feel stupid that I fell over." Leon scratched the back of his head, shaking his hair side to side. "Is Eira okay?"

"Not even a scratch to her." Kat smiled with Nordic glee. "She was made by the Dwarves of Nidavellir. Best metals and craftsmanship. Built to last centuries."

"Sounds old." Lara voiced as Kat put her spear to its holster on her back rig. "And are you here?"

Kat sighed as she rubbed her temple and nodded. "Yeah. That was something I do remember after holding her again." She voiced. "Norse words and objects trigger the accent now I think."

They continued walking. Finding that what had been office things, tables and battlefield things had really been those military crates from Trinty. Likely this missing Bravo unit, that in all likely hood, was either dead or insane. On one of the crates was a tape player. Lara picked it up and hit the play button. There was a bit of background noise and some panicked sounds along with a shaky chilled voice.

"It's all wrong.

Lost the old man entering the Vale. Lost Fisher. Lost Parker. Just...Gone. No trace. Can't trust the eyes. Seeing things. Corpses. Worse. Things that walk, so huge they hide the stars.

Can't tell what's real. Not sure there is a real. Is it the eyes?

The eyes have to go. My hands are steady now. Billings goes first.

Stop. Hold still."

"Oh gods…" Kat sighed shaking her head as Lara and Leon stared at the tape player. "We're going to find an eyeless corpse."

Lara nodded. "This is…horrific. I'm glad none of us thought that way."

"It's…like something out of a horror movie." Leon swallowed.

"I…I don't think we need that." Kat voiced. "I hate eye torture…freaks me out."

"No, I get it…" Leon shuttered.

They looked to the crack in the stones. It was thinly iced over, but the crack was still open for them to slip through. Once through they saw that they were in the forest by the ruins. Lara pulled her radio as they took in again how sparse the trees really were.

"Nadia, what do you know of the ruins out here?" Lara asked.

"Even before the witch made her home there, our people avoided the Vale." Nadia informed them. "The founders built a shrine out there, but something happened to them…" She took a breath as the three walked through the trees, seeing the ruins made up some of the path that the hut had walked in their hallucinations. "None of us have been in there in generations. Be careful. Even if your visons weren't real, that place is still deadly."

They looked to the old path they'd gone down and saw the ruins clearly. It was semi built into the cliff mountain side. To Kat, it looked like she was looking at the Dwarven architecture of the Lonely Mountain from the Hobbit. There was some connecting wood and metal scaffolding on some of the windows and doorways. It looked old and crumbling. There was hanging lanterns that were very big and cast a bright orange glow in the darker recesses.

Kat nodded to one of the lanterns. "I bet that was the fire I was seeing. Did you guys see flames leap at you?"

Leon nodded. "That and the orange glow. Must have walked or stumbled into one of them."

Lara nodded as well but kept moving forward.

Once they got to the broken wooden bridge, they looked down at the ground below. Two dead wolf corpses. So only two of the wolves had been real. They looked up and to the left. The cavern was real, but the fire glow had been a hanging lantern from an old Soviet crane.

"All of it was fake. Just our insecurities, doubts, and fears." Lara hissed annoyed as she kicked the wood they stood on.

Leon kneeled and nodded. "There's no burn marks either. I don't think she was really throwing fire if she was really present."

"And the wolves. There was only two of them." Kat voiced as she looked to her ripped coat sleeve, remembering that there was at least five or six that she saw.

They slowly climbed down to the ground and found where the wolves had really come from and who killed which wolf. Leon killed the one closest to the broken spikes that acted as a fence to the river. Lara had killed the other wolf. Kat had only injured the wolf Leon had killed.

Lara kneeled at a puddle and turned her head side to side. "Oil. She was throwing fire, but it had the oil as fuel."

"Why do I get the feeling she wasn't trying to kill us." Leon voiced.

"Since we haven't found any bodies of Trinity's people, I'm guessing she's a shepherdess. Luring and leading people into traps. Where she wants them to be when they die." Kat sighed as she looked to the pebbled stone side of the ruins. "We'll find more answers up top."

They walked to the rock wall. With their axes they climbed up to the top. They found pullies and pillars. Gears made of wood, ropes. It looked like someone had made some form of workshop in the shell of a temple.

"We're up on the first of the ruins, now." Lara voiced into the radio to Nadia. "This…doesn't look like a shrine." She voiced.

"It looks more on the functional side." Kat voiced. "There's ropes, wooden gears…"

"The founders-built lifts elsewhere in the valley, to move people or supplies between the peaks, but they've all fallen apart now." Nadia explained to them. "That has got to be what it is!" She said sounding exited. "See if you can make your way up to the top. I'll be right there. I'm in the canyon now. I'll let you know when I've arrived."

Country: Russia, State: Siberia, City: Siberian Wilderness, Place: Near Kitezh, Area: Wicked Vale, Month: November, Day: Wednesday 29th, Year: 2000, Time: 10:06 KRAT…

Leon picked up another type player after they maneuvered around as they clambered over the old bits of elevators. He hit play and they heard a sad yet accepting voice.

"It's dark. The others are out there. Can hear them panting. Moment of clarity, but it's slipping. Coming less frequently. We're sick. Poisoned. Something. Doesn't matter.

Forgot why we came here. Forgot where we were before. Barely remember who I am.

Someone else here. Walking amongst us as we grovel and weep. A spirit. A goddess. A demon.

She is whispering. We listen.

Listen."

"They've gone mad." Lara sighed as she put the tape down.

Kat nodded as she pulled her radio. "We're at the top, Nadia."

"I'm almost there, just behind you." Nadia sighed. "Don't go anywhere without me!"

Leon nodded as he looked at a lever. "What's this do?"

"I don't know…" Kat shrugged.

"Should we pull it?" Leon asked looking at Lara and Kat.

Lara looked it over. "It's not trapped…but it could show us how some of what we were seeing worked. Pull it."

Leon nodded and pulled it. It took a small bit of effort. But the crack of something made them look to the cave the hut had come from in their visons. Creaking back and forth, on a line, was a house that looked old and falling apart in places and sturdy in others. On its underside was wooden pointy bits that looked vaguely like what remained of legs.

"So…that's what we were really seeing." Leon shook his head as Nadia joined them.

"Look at that!" She gasped as the house came to them on this upper ledge. "The witch has kept the lift running all this time…" She eyed the legs and shrugged. "Looks like she even made a few improvements, but…I don't think those ropes will survive many more trips."

"It only needs to make one with the four of us." Kat voiced.

"Two." Nadia remined. "I'd like to come back down. Eventually." She said as the house came to a stop and she hopped on.

Lara hoped on after her making the thing sway a bit at the weight of two women on it. Kat was next and hoped on, turning around to look at Leon. He hoped on then looked around.

"Um…where's the lever on this thing?" He asked.

"Maybe the lever on the platform?" Nadia recommended.

Kat drew an arrow and added a rope to it. She armed at the lever and loosed. The arrow hit the lever and anchored the rope to it. With a sharp yank of the rope, she pulled the lever and got the gondola house to start moving.

"Your 'witch' is cleaver." Lara informed Nadia carefully. "Everything in the valley is arranged to perpetuate the myth of Baba Yaga."

"The pollen dose the rest of the leg work to the minds of those exposed to it." Leon added seeing that Lara was clearly trying to segway into telling Nadia about her grandmother.

"This gondola house, looked exactly like Baba Yaga's hut in the hallucination." Kat explained as she looked at the path they appeared to be going up on. "Yet, outside the pollen's influence?" She gestured around them. "It's just this decorated gondola."

Nadia sighed looking down. There was a mix of sad disappointment in her body language. "I'm sorry. I was so sure of Grandpa's story…"

"The woman who's doing all this, she knows the myth well." Leon explained as he looked to Kat as the gondola started rising on the line. "She's likely Russian born."

The three shared a look of uncertainty. Should they out right tell her, spoon feed the information to Nadia, or just give her clues to figure out on her own. On the one hand, they could just out right tell her. But all three knew how people react to that, denial is the first instinct. They could spoon feed it to her, but again, most people don't respond well to it. They feel like they're being treated like a four-year-old, it's very belittling. So that left them with the best option and hope Nadia was able to connect the dots.

"Nadia," Lara began as she looked to the young woman. "It's possible that your grandfather will know who she is…"

"You said he was a prisoner here in the Gulag." Kat voiced, wondering if Nadia knew the truth of what her grandfather was.

"I didn't say that, not exactly." Nadia said frowning. "Grandpa was a guard. My grandmother was a prisoner. She was a brilliant scientist," She said making both Leon and Kat cringe, both had had their fill of hearing 'Brilliant Scientist' for a lifetime, but both knew it wasn't gonna stop being said. "And they brought her out to the Vale to help study something in the ruins…" Nadia sighed and shook her head. "But then the Witch came. Grandpa never forgave himself…"

"Killing the witch won't bring back the dead." Leon pointed out. "It won't bring your grandmother back."

"I get what he's feeling." Kat voiced and, in that moment, she and Leon both looked at each other. One name in mind. Irons.

"Let's just hope we can reach him in time." Lara told her as their ride turned a bend.

After a slow journey they reached a docking point. Once there, Lara jumped off the gondola and walked up some of the snow-covered stones and wooden supports. It was like they'd come to yet another part of the spooky hideout. Kat and Leon jumped off next and helped Nadia as she was still injured. Just then Lara spotted a slumped figure by some doors and a fire. He looked elderly.

"Nadia!" Lara called out and started running over to the old man. "Come quick!"

The man seemed to come awake and frowned. "No…" He breathed as the young woman came running over and kneeled before her grandfather. "Nadia…how?" He seemed confused.

"It's the pollen…" Nadia said as Leon and Kat joined them. "Here, let me." She pulled her bottle of antidote/vaccine. "Grandpa, can you hear me?" She asked as she brought her bottle to his lips, getting him to drink it.

He did and shook his head, seemingly immune to the taste. "I tried…" He said saddened and guilt ridden. "I couldn't save her…I tried…" His voice broke into a choked sob.

"Shush, it's okay now. " Nadia soothed as she put the bottle away, she looked to Lara, Leon, and Kat. "I'll stay with him. It's time." She looked to the entrance to the fake Baba Yaga's layer that they were looking at. "You guys only have one dose left each. Make it count."

"We know." Kat nodded as she took her pack off. "Here." She pulsed a bundle from her pack. "Cook this for him. We don't know when the last time he ate was."

Nadia nodded appreciatively. "Thank you."

With that, Kat followed Leon and Lara to the steps. The cave entrance was tall and looked like it was natural then widened by man. They paused a moment at the top. All the torches and wood around them looked like an evil bog witch's lair.

"She has to be inside." Lara said looking to Leon and Kat. "This is it."

Leon drew his handgun. "Let's go in armed."

Kat nodded pulling her bow and noching an arrow. "I feel better about that."

Lara led the way in, holding her rifle. In this first room, that had a metal spotlight, there were old crates and a mix of old and new supplies. But slumped on the floor by a doorway was a dead body of one of Trinity's men.

"Well…we found Bravo Team." Leon shook his head.

"So, they all got here." Lara nodded. "She was luring them."

"Just like she tried with us." Kat voiced. "For me, she said my sisters were waiting for me."

"Officers." Leon added.

"My father." Lara nodded as she picked up a tape player from the table.

"It's her. Always been her. At the margins, in the dark, always there. She... She is what we came here for, we just didn't know it until now.

She is the center of the world. She can make the fog swirl and choke our minds. She can give us clarity. She spoke her name, Baba Yaga, and our wounds healed. With another word, she split us open again.

We are nothing and we are hers.

We will do as she commands. We were made for this."

"Oh god…" Lara breathed. "What has she done to them?"

"Did she brainwash them?" Leon asked and both looked to Kat.

Kat nodded. "Won't be the first time any of us face that kind of thing. Magical, Chemical, viral…parasite." She muttered the last word as Lara looked away.

Leon was closer to Kat and heard that last bit and saw the small twinge of fear. "Kat…what was that last bit?"

"Future mission for you…maybe me, but I doubt it." Kat told him. "It's one I might be able to prevent, and I hope I can."

"No secrets?" Leon asked.

Kat nodded. "After we've got Nadia's Grandmother."

He nodded. "I'll remind you."

"I hope you do. I will not be like…" Kat tightened her hold on her bow's handle. "I'll never lie or dance around serious shit."

Leon nodded, but he wondered who it was Kat didn't want to be like.