A/N: Hi all… sorry for the delay in updating, I've been on a FFX kick. I solemnly promise to actually finish this one, instead of leaving people hanging… I just can't promise to update quickly, at least not until I've finished sitting on the PS2 fiddling with Lulu… :ahem:
Revised 01/10/05
Lara waited, every muscle tense, for Karel to strike, for sharp steel prongs to plunge through her flesh. Subtly, she moved her weight off her arms, ready to make a grab for the solid weapon in the insubstantial being's grip, but the attack never came. Instead, the trident shook, and Lara could guess what caused Karel's concentration to falter. Thanks, Kurtis, she said silently as she seized the weapon and wrenched it away, vaulting to her feet and backing off, holding the trident in a defensive posture.
Recovering, Karel wrenched the huge fork's twin from its place on the wall, and faced his nemesis. Lara set herself into her staff-fighting stance and waited for the onslaught, teeth gritted in determination.
"Lara, you okay? Hold on – Kurtis is trying to get back in!" Bryce encouraged anxiously through the headset she wore.
So now I'm a damsel in distress, Lara thought wryly, conveniently pushing aside the knowledge that she was, in fact, in need of rescue.
Ah, well. What needed to be done, needed to be done. Grunting acknowledgement to Bryce, Lara swung the trident at Karel's head, not at all surprised when it passed straight through, as her bullets had done. Karel didn't even bother to block, and she had barely recovered when he countered with a forceful blow that she only just managed to hold off in time. As she strained to hold the makeshift staff back from her body with all her strength, her arms screamed in protest, painful lactic acid building up at an accelerated rate due to the lack of blood flow.
When he finally relented for some unknown reason, Lara decided to learn the valuable lesson the experience had presented: offensive manoeuvres were useless. She stuck to blocking and trying to hook his weapon from his grasp with the prongs of her own. Minutes of this gruelling work passed, and by this stage Lara was functioning on adrenaline alone, and not much of that. She gasped for breath; however, the Angel exhibited no signs of strain. "Bryce… I can't keep this up," she managed to get out, ducking a particularly vicious blow.
For the first time since the beginning of the battle, Karel spoke, drowning out Bryce's frantic response. "Ah, an opponent with common sense. What a novelty."
"Somehow, some way, I'm going to send you back where you belong," the tomb raider promised, kicking a foot into the trident and almost succeeding in dislodging it from his grip. Why doesn't he just drop the thing and fry me with magic? she wondered briefly, and then discarded the thought as the answer dawned on her – Karel was on an autopilot of sorts, chiefly concerned with fending off Kurtis' mental attacks.
It was time to be Distracto-Girl.
"You know," she said thoughtfully, hopping out of range, "I always found you – the real you, I mean – kind of sexy…" Not, she added mentally, as Bryce choked in her ear.
Karel lunged – and stopped short millimetres from her face. Lara hoped and prayed her suspicions were correct as to the reason why, and sighed her relief when the Angel backed off, letting the trident drop.
"Kurtis?" she queried, for confirmation.
"It's me," the familiar voice replied shortly, as the Angel surveyed the carnage and sent a long, sightless gaze her way. Lara guessed he was checking for wounds, but in that body, how could she be sure of anything? With deep unease, she recalled Karel's ability to mimic different faces and voices.
"How can I tell you're not Karel, pretending to be Kurtis?" She kept her distance, noting the distance between herself and the nearest doorway in the event that she needed to dive for cover.
He sighed, and the irritation in the sound was almost enough to convince her in itself. "Thirty-four D, twenty-four, thirty-five." It took her a second to recognise her own measurements, which she'd relayed to him so flippantly a few days before.
"You fucking memorised that," she muttered, refusing to admit her amusement. "What happened?"
"Just lost it for a second." He was still pissed off for some reason. Because I called Karel sexy? She dismissed the fleeting thought before the urge to retch began to manifest. His next words made it all clear. "Why the hell are you here and not there with them?"
"Worried about me, muffin?" Lara sniped back sarcastically, incensed by his tone, as she snapped a fresh clip into her Uzi.
"There's nothing for you to do here. Nothing you can fight."
"I'm not staying up there. No way. I don't sit around on guard duty when the fate of the world's at stake!"
It was strange to see an angel shrug, but this one managed to convey every drop of dismissal Kurtis had in him. "Whatever."
They started down the corridor again, silent. Lara seethed at the realisation she was forced to face – Kurtis was right. She was in the way. But what Kurtis would never understand was that, in the way or not, she had to be here. She was as much a part of this as he was. There had to be some place in the scheme for her.
Kurtis broke the tense quiet as Lara clattered down a wrought-iron staircase, the vessel for his mind drifting alongside noiselessly. "I don't want you killed."
Was that tenderness in his voice? Lara dismissed the notion as quickly as it had arrived, and a flash of inspiration replaced it. "André's foreseen this. If I was meant to be up there, he would have said so."
"Fair enough." It was clear he was still unhappy about her presence, but they both knew too much was in the balance to risk bickering.
Lara followed Kurtis' lead, her thoughts reaching back to the double-page diagram they had discovered, showing a single street of the Nephilim city. How many Nephilim had remained there throughout the centuries, waiting, biding their time until the occasion was theirs to strike? And how many will I be able to hold off before one gets to me?
An exclamation brought her sharply back to the present.
"Forty-thousand thieves on the way! Backup requested right now," Bryce said tightly in her ear. "André's got them held off with a magic barrier thing for now, but it'll collapse any second…"
Lara and Angel-Kurtis traded glances, cut short by a wince from the hovering being as Karel made another attempt at takeover. "Go back and help them," Kurtis said distantly as he recovered.
"Bryce, enough for me to handle alone, or do you need us both?" She had a nasty feeling it was more than mere mortals could handle, but it was way too risky to take the Angel all the way back – Karel could take over at any second.
"Ten seconds ago, I would have said one extra gun. Now…" Bryce seemed horrified by what he saw. "I'd say two extra guns, a Chirugai, and a SWAT team, on the double…"
"If I go back into my body, Karel will get the Angel."
"If you don't, you won't have a body to go back into, and you might lose grip on the Angel anyway," Lara argued. "I'll go back to the others and help get rid of the rabble from behind them. You get back into your body and kill the ones in front. I seriously think being out of yourself for so long's not doing you any good."
Kurtis was silent – she knew it was the closest she would get to agreement. "I'm on my way, Bryce," she informed her microphone, and turned to leave, aware of the horrible risk they were taking and fearing for the lives of those she held dear.
"Watch your back," Kurtis advised, behind her.
Lara hesitated. This could be the last thing she ever said to him. If you don't say it, and he dies, it'll nag you for the rest of your life, her inner sap warned. I don't have time for this! another voice screamed back. On your head be it, the first replied with a mental shrug.
The tomb raider shook her head and looked back at the expressionless Angel. "I love you," she told Kurtis, her voice barely audible. It was easier to say to a see-through, horned thing with no features, but only marginally. Angel-Kurtis shifted, but a voice interrupted his reply.
"This is lovely," Bryce cut in, tone a little frantic, "but if you don't get your arses back here soon, it'll be like a Shakespearian tragedy!"
Reminded of their purpose, Lara shot one last look at the Angel, which flickered as Kurtis prepared to leave it, and then began to sprint back the way they had come. She had barely gone two steps when she felt a violent movement at her back, a cross between a jerk and some kind of suction, then a splitting headache followed by unnerving anaesthesia, complete numbness in every part of her. Her vision flashed white, and then cleared.
"What the hell…?" In disorientated disbelief, Lara stared at her own body, which lay a few feet away, sprawled face-down on the ground. She was deathly pale, her lips almost blue. Some kind of out-of-body experience? she wondered briefly. But when she looked down at familiar translucent limbs, the truth hit her, hard. How is this possible?
"Lara?" she heard a tinny voice say clearly. In amazement, the tomb raider realised she was hearing the emanating sound waves from her own earpiece, still in her body's ear, as if it were in the Angel's – if it had ears anywhere.
Hesitantly, she moved towards her body, and the microphone attached to her shirt, observing the difference in movement between her own, human limbs and these foreign objects. Reaching the headset, she asked shakily, in her own voice, "Kurtis?"
Amidst gunfire, shouts and cries of pain, Kurtis yelled, "Where are you?"
"You're not going to believe this… but the Angel sucked me in."
"What!" Bryce and Kurtis asked simultaneously, equally incredulous.
"Just hang on, Lara. As soon as I can, I'll come and push you out. If Karel tries anything, the way to resist him is t–" Abruptly, Kurtis' voice cut off, and the numbness and brightness returned to Lara's world. Karel Shit! With no clear idea of what she was doing, she visualised herself grabbing onto the brightness around her, fashioning handholds for herself. The numbness receded, replaced by an excruciating pain that would have sent Lara screaming into oblivion if she had had the luxury of control over her vocal chords. Grimly, she held on, weakly clawing out better handholds as the agony, impossibly, intensified tenfold. I am never giving birth… she decided, before her brain became incapable of forming thoughts. The bright white of her vision took on a pinkish tinge, like blood seeping into water, but abruptly darkened to crimson, maroon, jet black.
What's going to happen next? Damned if I know… grin Let me know what you think!