Slouching Toward Bethlehem
A continuation of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.

Disclaimer:
I do not own any recognisable characters that appear in this piece of fiction. Lara Croft, Kurtis Trent and others are property of Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. The only thing I own is some OCs and the plot. This story was written for pleasure only. I am making no profit from this story.

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»Chapter Eleven: Stealth Tactics »

An eerie silence now lay over the Archives, broken only by Lara and Kurtis' soft, quick footfalls over the carpeted flooring. The corridor they now moved down was illuminated by overhead lighting, accentuating the blue walls and metallic tiled floor and ceiling. Everything was so sterile back here, whereas the Archives themselves were dusty, old, almost ghostly in their vastness.

Lara had not spoken a word since she ventured from the safety of the darkened room, but then again neither had Kurtis. Even as she moved further away from the soldiers who had been pursuing them earlier, she still found herself straining her ears, listening hard for any sign that they might be back.

They began to climb the stairs they had moments ago just run down. The door leading back into the Archives lay broken on the floor.

"Wait," Lara cautioned, grabbing Kurtis' arm and stopping him from stepping into the doorway, "The whole room is lit up like a Dutch brothel. Any soldiers waiting out there are gonna have a pretty clear target."

Kurtis nodded in agreement.

"I'm gonna have to scout ahead," he said.

Kurtis raised his arms before him, palms facing outwards and closed his eyes. Lara just watched with mild apprehension. Kurtis had told her the extent of his powers during his hospital visit, and she knew that using his farsee ability was going to drain a lot of his energy. The fact that he looked so fatigued to begin with only added to her worry.

After a few minutes Kurtis returned to his body, opening his eyes and sighing from the effort. He turned to Lara with a smile on his face.

"There's three soldiers in total, all guarding the main entrance. We should be able to deal with them easily."

"How?" Lara asked, "Like I said, we're hardly gonna be inconspicuous. It'd be like walking in there with a target painted on your head."

Kurtis was silent for a moment.

"We're just gonna have to improvise then,"he replied. Lara watched as he raised his Boran X, took aim and squeezed the trigger. One of the many lights lining the walls of the Archives shattered.

"Kurtis!" she whispered urgently, pushing his weapon down so that he could not fire again, "What are you doing?!"

"Sshh," he answered, putting a finger to his lips and indicating that she watch.

She did so, and noticed one of the three soldiers come into view, obviously investigating the shattered light. He was near enough to take aim at, but the noise was still going to attract the others. Lara was about to voice this worry when Kurtis reached into his back pocket and produced a circular piece of metal. He proceeded to screw this onto the barrel of his weapon, and Lara did not need to question any further. Silencer.

Once his weapon was equipped Kurtis then took aim at the nearby guard, who soon fell silently to the ground with a soft thud. The soldiers at the door never noticed their dying comrade.

Kurtis turned back to Lara, letting out a sigh of relief.

"I'm pretty sure they didn't hear that," he whispered, "Maybe I better check again…"

"No Kurtis," Lara told him, putting a hand on his arm, "You're gonna collapse if you use your farsee again. I'll check."

Kurtis was confused.

"But, Lara-"

"Sshh," was all she said, mimicking his earlier action of putting a finger to her lips. Silently she raised her Vector-R35 and pressed her back to the wall, so that she was standing right at the edge of the doorway. Then, with a speed that impressed Kurtis, she stepped out into the doorway, gun before her, quickly spun on the spot and ended up on the other side of the doorway.

She looked at Kurtis with a smile on her lips.

"All clear," she stated, "They're having a conversation about something. Neither one is even facing this doorway."

Kurtis nodded. "OK then Croft, lead the way."

Lara gave him one last look as if to say 'Trust me' before stepping into the Archives. Quickly she moved behind the cover of a nearby stack. Peering around the corner of this bookcase she checked on the soldiers once again. They were still talking.

A moment later Kurtis joined her behind the bookcase, thankfully without alerting the soldiers to their presence. They both moved down the outermost line of bookcases, sneaking up on the soldiers from the left-hand side of the room. Both moved as quickly and as quietly as possible, Kurtis now leading the way.

He's done this sort of thing before, Lara thought, watching the effortless way Kurtis peered around the corner and took out both of the guards.

"Come on!" Kurtis urged her, now that the doorway was clear. Lara did follow, slowly at first, since a few quite disturbing thoughts had entered her mind. She shook them off however, when she heard the distant, but growing sounds of the other soldiers, coming from the back of the Archives.

"Lara!" Kurtis called, already with the door ajar, showing a glimpse of night-time Prague. "We've got to go!"

Lara just nodded and raced after him out of the doorway, hit once again by the sheer cold of another snowy Prague night. A line of unmarked black vehicles were parked outside the entrance to the Archives. She left deep footprints in the snow as she followed Kurtis' lead, who was by now rounding a corner of the building into a narrow alley.

"Kurtis, where the hell are you going?" The words had barely left her mouth when she turned the corner after him and found his motorbike leaning against the alley wall, Kurtis already on it with the engine roaring.

"Get on, quickly!" he told her, and quickly was right, as the second Lara had got on the bike behind him and hooked an arm about his waist, the remaining soldiers burst forth from the Archives, hot on their trail. Kurtis slammed the throttle as high as it would go and the motorbike roared forwards with even greater speed. At first the soldiers attempted to shoot out Kurtis' tyres, but he had already encountered this problem yesterday, and simply weaved out of the line of fire. A rapid burst of machine gun fire soon ceased and Lara turned her head, braid whipping behind her to see the men whe piling into the black vehicles.

"They're coming after us," Lara said unhelpfully.

"Fuck it," Kurtis replied, snatching a quick glance back as he hunched low over the bike's handlebars, "And there isn't even any traffic at night."

There were racing towards a junction and she recognized the road, having traveled this way earlier today.

"Go right," she told him, having to practically shout the words over the roaring of the engine.

Kurtis did so, turning the bike and cutting a sharp right turn. They were traveling way too fast on already icy roads, but at the moment neither one of them were really concerned about road safety.

The road they were on continued onwards for some way, and Lara ordered Kurtis to keep going until he reached a pharmacy. At this particular building she instructed him to take a left and then another right afterwards. In this manner they reached the street on which Lara's hotel was situated.

"OK," Lara continued, "The hospital is only about two streets away. After that, my knowledge of Prague gets a little hazy."

They reached the hospital in less than two minutes, and at this point Kurtis had to slow down.

"Which way is the city limits?" he asked, looking concernedly over his shoulder again.

Lara craned her neck to read the road signs she knew were just opposite the hospital.

"Err, city limits are straight ahead," she answered.

Kurtis gunned the throttle and the motorbike raced off in that direction. They passed a number of traffic lights along the way, but did not even blink an eyelid at them. Kurtis was already wanted by the police in this city, so speeding wasn't exactly going to harm an otherwise spotless record.

"I think we lost them," Lara told him, squinting into the distance before turning back to Kurtis, "Or we've at least put a bit of distance between us and them."

Kurtis did not reply, and both were silent for a few moments.

"Kurtis?" Lara finally said.

"Yeah?"

"Does this mean we're going to Turkey?"

There was a pause. Kurtis turned his head slightly.

"Yeah."

Lara smiled.

"Fantastic," There was another pause, longer this time, before she added, "I knew you wouldn't stick to your guns on that running away scheme."

"Well," was the reply, "Let's keep that as a Plan B shall we?"

Lara simply nodded, her earlier thoughts forgotten, as she rested her head on Kurtis' shoulder and gripped his waist a bit tighter.

"Absolutely."

TBC...

Hmm, I wonder what these strange thoughts are that Lara is having? Do not fret, it will be addressed in the next chapter! :D Oh, and that cool move Lara did to check if the coast was clear is called a SWAT turn. It's a nifty little move that was inspired by Splinter Cell 2. Oh how I love it! Also the part where Kurtis shoots the light was taken from SC too... I wrote myself into a corner and thought, "What would Sam Fisher do in this situation?" So there you go! Computer games are educational! :)

lara-n-kurtis - Thank you for all your comments! :) I hope I updated this soon enough for you!

Acid-Rush - Thank you! Yes, I do love blowing things up in Tomb Raider, especially at the end of Bartoli's Hideout! :D