Read or Dare!

Chapter 16

Drake Anderson piloted the helicopter as they raced to the island. The blond haired man was frowning intently, taking in the luxury boats fleeing.

"Like rats fleeing from a sinking ship," Lara Croft noted casually, the brown haired woman taking in the sights.

"I can drop you off somewhere," Drake said. Mind you, the gas on his copter was VERY low, but he could maybe touch down on a tanker or something.

"Are you kidding? This sounds wild," Lara grinned. "And I heard an associate of mine, Keaton is on the island. It would be nice to meet up again."

Drake felt obligated to try again, "This could be very bad, ma'am..."

"Trust me, a zombie infestation is not the strangest thing I've seen," Lara said to him dryly.

The copter managed to land on the edge of the islands, and the two disembarked. Drake hauled out his backpack, provided Lara with a bag of gear, and the two advanced through the woods.

"Conserve your ammo," Drake warned her, hefting a machine gun and firing in short bursts.

Lara used a pistol in each hand, and calmly fired, delivering headshots startling easily. She reloaded gracefully, keeping an eye out on attacking revenants.

"They're not... zombies, are they?" Drake wondered as he shot a snarling humanoid.

"No," Lara agreed grimly.

As they advanced the numbers of attackers fell off, and eventually they reached the town itself.

"Is that a MECHA?" Lara blurted as the humanoid machine stromped up to them.

"Looks like it," Drake admitted, amused to see something fluster the infamous 'Tomb Raider'.

The hatch popped open, revealing a young woman. "I thought we had rounded up most of the survivors?" she muttered, "Koyomi Kishro, Mech Pilot."

"We dropped in via copter, I'm looking for Yomiko Readman, Nancy Mukahari or Shane Llewellyn?" Drake asked.

"Shane-sensei?" Koyomi brightened. "He's sort of running the camp, they're based out of the main Library."

"Why does him using the Library not surprise me?" Drake muttered.

"Friend of yours?" Lara asked mildly.

"I sort of field-trained him. Long story," Drake waved it off.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So you're functionally immortal?" Nancy asked as she and her employer were catching up after surviving the first wave of attackers.

"And you can walk through walls," Rin Asogi pointed out, "why aren't you the world's best thief, or something?"

"You'd get hunted down and never spend any of it," Mimi noted.

"Exactly," Nancy agreed.

The three women were on watch duty, perched in a clock tower on one side of the campus. From up there they could see if any more of the creatures were getting near enough to attack and sound an alarm.

"And your pals are Paper Masters?" Mimi noted. "I haven't seen those since we ran into a bunch in China."

"I guess if you've lived long enough you'll have seen it all," Nancy mused.

"A lot. I still get surprised... I haven't seen this particular style of monster," Rin admitted. "Undead, yes. Zombies and such..."

"You realize that WE are going to get roped in when they go hunting the source, right?" Mimi sighed to Rin.

"Ugh," Rin agreed, "not another bug hunt."

"You've seen the film Aliens?" Nancy blinked.

"We watch movies! We're not total sticks in the mud," Rin pouted.

Nancy just chuckled.

"Nancy!" a voice called from below, "I've brought tea!"

"Yomiko," Nancy smiled fondly as the other woman brought a thermos of tea up to them.

"Thanks," Rin smiled at her, then casually took a flask from under her shirt and poured vodka into her cup.

"Er...," Yomiko blinked.

"It doesn't really effect us much," Mimi noted, also spiking her drink.

"Anything new come up?" Nancy asked Yomiko, then blinked as new figures walked into the compound. "That's Drake!"

"I'll go see what's going on," Yomiko promised, leaving them the thermos and then hurrying downstairs.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"You're telling me you guys were undercover on the islands looking for a lost LIBRARY?" Revy blurted.

Balalaika, Revy, Rock and Shane were talking over coffee in one of the library meeting rooms. Shane, after the first attack, had managed to phone Joker and get permission to blow their cover. Not that it hadn't already been blown by his and Yomiko using their powers in public...

"Well, yes," Shane admitted, "among other things."

"Fuck," Revy muttered.

"It's not that crazy," Balalaika surprised Revy by saying, "there's a similar Russian agency. I was military escort, on one of their jobs."

"Seriously," Revy blinked.

"There is some very weird stuff out in the world," Balalaika shrugged.

Rock addressed Shane, "So you were in the tunnels looking for the lost books?"

"Correct," Shane nodded, "we had checked out most of the abandoned facilities on the surface."

"Huh," Revy muttered.

Shane turned to Balalaika, "As a side note, there is a LOT of odd 'stuff' out there in the woods and such. I'll pass on what we found, once all this is over."

Balalaika made a face, "I am wondering if I was conned, taking over this place..."

Everyone ignored that. "Do you have any information on the tunnels that we don't have, yet?" Rock checked.

"No," Shane shook his head, "Our bosses are looking into the tech in the labs there, but haven't found anything."

"Other than it resembling the 'Ijin' event," Balalaika added.

"Okay, how the HELL did that all get covered up?" Revy had to ask, her and Rock having not heard of any of it.

"Money and political power," Shane shrugged.

"Especially with how the USA embarrassed themselves," Balalaika added, amused.

There was a brisk knock on the door. "There's a Drake Anderson and Lady Croft here...?" a voice called.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Lara Croft watched the survivors with amusement as she reloaded her pistols and readied new clips. Talking Anderson into taking her along was a huge opportunity, she felt.

One might wonder WHY she was happy being on an island infested by biological monsters. But sadly, Lara's greatest enemy now was simple boredom. She had gone to most of the hard to reach sites, had broken into the deepest , darkest ruins, and she had ran out of things to DO. This, on the other hand, sounded fun.

"Croft," a voice sounded disapproving.

Lara turned and smiled cooly. Recognizing Prof Keaton she smiled, "Been awhile. You tried to shoot me when I was recovering that statue."

"Stealing, not recovering," Taichi Hiraga-Keaton noted flatly.

"You say toMAto, I say Tomato," Lara quipped.

"What are you doing here?" Keaton wondered.

"I was out on an expedition with Mr Anderson," Lara answered mildly, "as soon as I heard about the emergency I knew we had to help."

Keaton looked at her dubiously, "Oh really?"

Lara smiled calmly, "Of course." She put her pistols into her holsters as she asked, "Do they have a plan to deal with this?"

Keaton warily said, "Yes, they are organizing a expedition into the tunnels. We aren't sure who they are taking in."

"Hmm, interesting," Lara noted mildly.

"Attention, everyone," Balalaika emerged from the meeting room.

'Here we go,' Lara thought eagerly.

To be continued...

Notes: It should be noted that while I have nothing against Tomb Raider, she's probably considered a shitty archaeologist. I'm also writing her as kind of 'bored idle rich' though admittedly that's just MY take and may not be canon.