New Author's Notes (even though there wasn't an old author's notes for this chapter): Well here is the second chapter of the rewritten crossover of Halo/Tomb Raider The Lost Get Found.
Now unlike chapter one, I made quite a few add ons and changes to the chapter. I hope you spot them and enjoy them, and then leave a review about them in the end. In that particular order hopefully.
Disclaimer: I don't own Halo or Tomb Raider. Halo belongs to Bungie or 343 Industries now, Tomb Raider belongs to Crystal Dynamics
Chapter 2: Gazing at the stars
*In deep space…*
"Wake me, when you need me." The Master Chief's words repeated in the A.I's thoughts like an endless echo.
Cortana frowned in her mind as she monitored the hushed casket. It was the same little 'hobby' she had been doing to keep herself pre-occupied for the past ten months. Just staring at his massive armored body that remained frozen in suspension, not moving a single inch since the day he got in the cryo-tube. It was maddening, knowing she was wasting her very limited lifespan away at simply watching over her partner.
Sadly, she knew that it was going to be a very long time before they were going to get rescued. The emergency beacon had been active for almost a year now, but there was only dust and echoes. With the passive scanners online on what was left of the Forward Unto Dawn, the A.I. was limited in her options for detecting any UNSC signals, but she was not going to give up until they got home.
With nothing else to do, her vast intellect wandered back through every moment of her life, down to the finest detail and the smallest millisecond. She had experienced so much on her journey and led an interesting seven year lifespan, even by Smart A.I. standards. She had been created by a flash clone brain of one of the most brilliant scientists in human history; Dr Catherine Halsey. She first met John-117 when she was integrated in the Spartan's old MJLONIR Mark V armor. Though he reacted coldly to her at first, he eventually warmed up to her.
She blackmailed Colonel Ackerson after he put the Master Chief through some strenuous and nearly impossible tests, which would have killed any other person. All in attempt to prove that the Spartans were a waste of UNSC resources. But in the end Ackerson failed in his vendetta, and she got her personal revenge.
Cortana was escorted off of Reach by Noble Six and the other surviving members of Noble Team, when the planet fell to the Covenant. They had lost dear comrades during the campaign, but through their valiant sacrifice, they made a huge step in winning the Human-Covenant War; by discovering a Halo.
The A.I crash landed on Installation 04 with John-117 and Captain Keyes and prevented it from firing by the rampant Forerunner A.I. on the station; 343 Guilty Spark.
Cortana was there for the battle of New Mombasa, but not its end. She helped Chief assassinate a Prophet on Installation 05, and it was a major victory for the UNSC. She even survived the Gravemind and its tortures on the Flood infested High Charity.
She remembered about how close she had fallen to Rampancy, when she stayed behind on High Charity to delay the Gravemind. She had undergone extreme pain when the horrific leader of the Flood chased her throughout the entire Flood-controlled orbital, holy city of the Covenant. She tried her best to escape the deathly entice embrace of the Gravemind and was brought to the point of rampancy in doing so. Still she desperately held on as best she could to survive and help John. It nearly killed her when she sent the message to warn John of the Ark.
She would never forget those words, those words that made death so comforting, so exhilarating. She wanted to give herself to that sea of memories and knowledge. But they weren't her memories, they didn't belong to her. Had she given in, everything she stood for would be for nothing. And maybe in the grand scheme of things, everything is done for nothing. But she had made herself a vow, and if there was a place for her to go after her life was spent, she would look back on that moment proudly, knowing that her humanity was her anchor… and his.
Stowing away her thoughts, she fully focused on scanning the area and making sure that they were going to be somewhere that she would be able to recognize. There had to be a nearby UNSC Colony in the area, or even some ships or transports that would allow them to head back to Earth and see just what happened to the planet and to the human race. The two of them had risked everything to defend the planet, they had earned the right to gaze upon man's homeworld.
However, much to her surprise, she was quick to find a planet near them. But what really made her calculated mind boggle was that the planet matched Earth's specifications.
But something wasn't right.
"It can't be."
There was no scarring, no fields of tumbling derelict ships and their shattered husks… nothing.
They shouldn't be anywhere near Earth from the Slipspace jump they made from the Ark. Archaic readouts and signals came from orbiting satellite from the planet. Ark. Cortana noticed that around there were some rather primitive satellites orbiting the planet. Though the scanners on the Dawn were extremely damaged, Cortana was still capable of hacking into the nearby machines. Once the female A.I. hacked into the systems, she looked over the current events and history of the satellites and the world they orbited. It was then, that Cortana made a very shocking discovery about this 'Earth.'
She was worried over their current situation; it didn't seem possible that it could happen.
There was still time, but she felt a sense of urgency. Rerouting whatever power was available in the frigate, she flooded the network with commands to unseal the tube. The veins of ice running across the glass began to retreat. Biometrics began to pulse as the Chief's heart started to beat once more.
His head slowly moved and quickly snapping to attention, with his sights locking onto her avatar, he relaxed for a moment.
Freezer burn.
Wearing armor into the tube was never recommended. Crewmen always went to cryosleep naked. But the Spartans, they could handle the pain, to them, it was a small price to pay so that they could wake up and throw themselves into the fight.
White mist flowed out of the vents, popping the seals and allowing the hatch to slowly open. As he pulled himself up, the mist parted around him. The biometrics said he was fine save for some minor freezer burn. But she wouldn't believe it until he said something.
"You all right Chief?" Cortana was smiling. It was the first time she had spoken to the Spartan in ten months.
He simply nodded his head and asked,
"Why did you wake me?" The Spartan spoke in his usual tone, though she could tell that the slight resonance in his voice showed relief, and that he was happy to see her.
He examined the room before him to see if there was any impending danger. Nothing, nothing that could cause him or her harm was there. He turned his focus back to Cortana. With no gravity in the ship, he floated to the A.I's pedestal and held onto it to steady himself. To see that his trusted partner was alright, made him relax slightly.
"We have been drifting for ten months. But…" Cortana hesitated, "I… I think we're closing in on Earth, Chief."
The Spartan was a little confused for she usually knew all the answers to any predicament.
"How are you not sure?" he asked the A.I.
John-117 was a little surprised that they were near Earth after only drifting in space for ten months. It should have been much longer without a working Slipspace Drive. If they were so close to the planet, why hasn't the UNSC contacted them?
"The portal was unstable... the possibilities of what could have happened are endless. But from what I can detect and hack in the orbital satellites, this is not our Earth. There are no MAC platforms, no debris, no ships, and Africa looked like it was never glassed!"
The Master Chief couldn't wrap his head around Cortana's words; a whole another Earth? He had to see it for himself. He drifted out of the area and reached the torn off section of the 'Forward Unto Dawn' and spotted the planet that raised so many questions to the both of them. It was indeed Earth, but not their Earth. The planet looked like it did in the 21st century; it was green with luscious forests and blue with endless oceans, a beautiful sight indeed.
John looked at the world and was growing ever more convinced that something was completely off. He saw no signs of the UNSC Orbital Defense Platform Cairo, no sign of any ship wreckage, neither that of the Covenant forces nor the UNSC Home Defense Fleet. There were no debris from the Athens or Malta Orbital Defense Platforms either, or the others that were reported destroyed when the fleet under the command of the Prophet of Truth invaded. But the most telling of all was the fact that the half of Africa that had been glassed by Ship Master R'Tas Vadum and the Covenant Separatist Fleet. They came to their aid during the battle to keep the Flood in check, except now it was not glassed at all… in fact… it was the same as before in the 21st century, with yellow plains filled with wildlife.
"Something is not right here…"
Cortana herself nodded. She analysised the area below them while managing to hack into more nearby orbiting satellites. She had the device scan the surface of Africa.
"You're right, the city of New Mombasa or even the glassed areas... aren't there anymore. There's no trace of the glassing that we normally see in a Covenant use of plasma bombardment. Something is not right at all here, Chief." Cortana said, to which a solution then came to her mind.
"I am going to activate the thrusters, so we can land the Dawn in a safe place." she said as the ship's thrusters came to life. "Once we land we can try and get into contact with someone that can help us."
"Can we fly a pelican or a longsword down?" he questioned the A.I. when he floated back towards the cryo-room.
'Yes, but it will be hard to track the Dawn when it is so low on power. Just go back to cryo-sleep, I will make sure the landing will be safe." she said reassuringly.
The Master Chief wasn't entirely sure what to make of his situation, but he trusted Cortana with his life. The Spartan then climbed back into the cryo-tube and began to settle himself for another deep sleep. Before the door closed John spoke to her,
"Good luck."
Cortana smiled warmly at his concern. "I'm sure some of yours has rubbed off on me."
The super soldier nodded and the door closed automatically, which froze him in a cryo-slumber.
The Dawn plunged into the Earth's atmosphere. Any section of the hull stripped of ceramic plates began to glow red as it was boiled away. A tail of smoke and fire was formed in the wake of the plummeting ship as metal was ripped away from the frigate's superstructure.
Groaning from the tremendous pressure, the metal bulkheads began to screech as the ship shook violently.
Too much speed… no air breaks. Insufficient power.
They were coming in too fast. Cortana extended all flaps and drag fins; she diverted everything she had into whatever was left of the thrusters. But it wasn't enough. The ship's network was being severed by the intense heat. Sensors were being overwhelmed, rendering her deaf and blind to the outside world.
On the planet Earth
Up in the pitch black sky where the booming thunder roared and the powerful lightning flashed a blinding bright streak, a lone private jet tried to brave through a vigorous storm. In the cockpit were two pilots, and further in the plane was its owner Lady Amelia Croft, and young Lara, her benevolent daughter.
Sitting comfortable in her mother's lap, Lara was showing her drawings of the abominable snowmen. A childish book colored in crayon with white yeti playing with stick figure people, near a small gray castle.
"Just because you've never found one, doesn't mean they're not real." Lara said with a loving grin.
Her adventurous side always longed to finally see the mysterious creatures. It would no doubt impress her affectionate parents. The young British girl leaned back against her mother's shoulder, resting her burnette head.
"Perhaps that's true." Amelia quickly grabbed her pendant, before her child could lay her head on it. A lovely ancient gift given to her by her dearest husband, Lord Richard Croft. "But maybe they don't want to be found. I hear they're rather fierce."
"Yeti only look fierce. They probably don't like being so cold all the time. I shouldn't like it either."
Amelia beamed a warm smile and said,
"You never have to be cold, my Lara, if you don't want to be." Lady Croft then planted a gentle kiss on her only daughter's head.
Suddenly, Lara noticed a bright orange color coming from one of the plane's passenger windows.
"Look!" the young British girl shouted as she pointed her finger to the eerie light.
The plane suddenly shook violently, knocking Amelia and Lara off of their seats.
"Henry, what's happened?" Amelia asked with concern and worry to one of the head pilot.
The woman picked herself up on her knees, only to see the pilots flipping several switches like madmen.
"Lady Croft, please stay seated!" he replied.
The tension didn't ease when both Crofts heard the co-pilot radioed on the emergency line.
"Mayday, mayday! This is Bravo Tango Two Two niner! We've lost our portside engine! Trying to get crossfeeds open!"
Little Lara crawled up to the window and saw that the left wing had caught on fire. A fiery blaze had consumed the entire engine. She then felt a tug on her arm from behind. Her mother grabbed her wrist, and swung her into another seat.
Amelia wrapped the seatbelt around Lara's waist, buckling her in.
The jet shook again and caused Lady Croft to stumble, but she was still able to get into the seat across from her daughter.
"Are we going to crash?" Lara asked her mother, with concern that could easily be seen in her brown eyes.
Amelia buckled herself in and met her gaze with a loving stare to ease her anxiety.
"Not unless it's absolutely necessary," she replied reassuringly.
A brown suitcase came loose from the carry on, and shot towards Amelia. Lady Croft instantly ducked her head, narrowly avoiding a nasty injury. She didn't want to scare her child anymore during the distressing situation.
"Stabilizers jammed, losing altitude! We're going full nose down!" screamed the co-pilot who pulled on the controls with all of his might.
Young Lara's stomach turned when she felt the sudden descent. It was far scarier than any roller coaster that she rode on at amusement parks. She searched her mother's eyes for the next answer or even any hope of surviving.
"Close your eyes, darling," said Amelia, not wanting her treasured daughter to see whatever happened next.
"I don't want to close my eyes," replied Lara while shaking her head.
Amelia smiled at her daughter's bravery, something she inherited from her stubborn, adventurous father. The plane's terminal beeped loudly, showing that everything was getting worse by the second. The private jet went down with all four inside, and then nothing.
Hours Later
The plane had crashed into some unknown mountains. Neither pilots survived, but Lady Croft and her daughter, Lara safely made it out.
When they crawled out of the wreckage, they luckily discovered some old untouched ruins nearby. Truthfully, the innards of the site looked terrifying, greatly similar to ancient Viking ruins. Writings crudely carved in the stone walls. But it was all they had to take cover from the freezing blizzard outside. They daringly hoped that whenever the deadly storm stopped, they could attempt to make it back home and back to civilization.
After taking shelter in the ruins of a cryptic temple, the first thing the smart, shivering Amelia said was to build a fire. Both girls split up to track down some wood at a much faster rate.
While searching for firewood, the nine year old Lara discovered an ornate stone dais holding a sword. She marvelled in awe at the sight of the ancient scene in front of her. There were three rocks in a triangle position with green, glowing circular marks on them.
The young girl touched one of the rocks which separated and showed another glowing rock hidden inside of it. After a few seconds the rock formed itself together. They absolutely fascinated little Lara, it was far better than any magic trick performed by a mere magician.
Wanting to fill her hunger for more excitement, she strolled past the strange mystical rocks. Lara saw what looked like an old sword in a stone that had a dead body next to it. She paid no heed nor mind to the corpse as her focus was captured by the aging embedded weapon. The old weapon didn't look like the average blade for it was black as coal and it had the same glowing lines and marks on it just like the three rocks around her. A thought then ran through her head that if she touched it, something amazing would happen, just like the rocks.
"Lara have you found some wood for the fire?" she heard her mother ask to her, as the words echoed through the decrepit ruins.
Still mesmerized by the dark colored sword in the stone, Lara ignored her mother's question and lightly brushed the hilt of the crypted weapon with her small fingers.
At the mere touch from the young girl, she unwittingly activated the ancient artifact. A click rang out and the black blade dug itself deeper into the stone.
Hearing the commotion from afar, Amelia was able to find out what was going on. Acting on a parent's natural instinct, Lady Croft ran up to her and pulled her daughter from the strange mechanism.
"No! Get back!"
The ground shook slightly, and the platform that they once stood on, twisted in turn of a circle formation. A huge ring then rose up from the floor and in the middle of it, a green light appeared.
"Lara, what is it?!" Lady Croft yelled frantically.
With her curiosity getting the better of her, the young girl squinted at the strange thing before her. For a moment, she could've sworn she saw three dark silhouttes standing in the middle of it.
"There is something in the light." Lara pointed to the center of the ring.
Desperately wishing to protect her only child from harm, Lady Croft walked up to ring slowly, which emitted strange noises from it. It sounded like multiple people arguing all at once in a cave that echoed each word. The closer she got the louder the voices screamed.
"What? Who are you?" Amelia asked cautiously to the portal.
More sounds came from the ring, except this time they sounded more hectic.
"Dau... your... ther... your... daughter!"
"What? What about my daughter?" Lady Croft questioned the object with fear in her voice.
Both Crofts were completely confused by the frightening mechanism.
"You stay away from her! She meant no harm!" Amelia screamed at the ring.
The voices from the portal almost sounded like shouts and screams.
"What's happening mother?" Lara yelled, she very worried about her mother. "Who's there?"
The young girl almost thought she heard the light scream the words, 'pull the sword out!' But another voice sounded like it shouted, 'No, don't touch it!'
Suddenly, Lady Croft screamed,
"Oh, God, no!"
She then yanked the sword out of the stone and a bright, blinding green light emitted from the ring.
Lara covered her eyes with her arm. When the glow was gone, she looked to see what had happened. Her mother was gone, nowhere to be found. Along with the sword.
"Mother?" she walked up to where her beloved mother disappeared.
There was no sign of her, and her heart dropped to her stomach like a sack of bricks.
"Mother!" Her voice echoed through the ancient temple, but there was no answer.
She was all alone, a lost child.
A few minutes later, Lara was seen drawing in her book filled with pictures. She drew images of the objects around her with an angry face of what happened to her beloved mother. She drew the emblems she saw on the rocks with her blue crayon, the sword that was in the stone, and the ring that formed around the platform when the blade was removed. The young girl pressed the crayon against the book with as much pressure as she could, to keep the drawings in the book forever.
Little Lara then dropped her book and left her pictures that she drew, behind on the floor where her mother disappeared. She walked up the steps of the temple with her fist balled up in anger and sadness nearly trembling. She desperately hoped to leave the accursed place forever.
Lara Croft woke up with a gasp, breathing hard with her hand on her chest and sweat pouring from her skin.
"Another nightmare," She thought.
She had dreamt of the plane crash in the Himalayas where her mother disappeared, when she was just a little girl. That moment changed her life forever. When her mother disappeared in the temple, Lara survived on a solo ten-day trek across the Himalayan mountains, one of the most hostile environments on the planet. After a long journey, she arrived in Katmandu where she went to the nearest bar and made a polite telephone call to her father asking if it would be convenient for him to come and pick her up.
Lara's father quickly rushed to pick up his daughter from Katmandu. When Lara saw her dad, it was the first time she ever saw him cry. The tears were of both happiness and sadness, joyous that he finally found his daughter safe and well from surviving such a tragic event and through harsh environments. His heart was almost repaired when he finally hugged his young Lara. But his despair matched his bliss for he learned that his wife did not return with his daughter. It was from then on that Lord Richard Croft dedicated his life and wealth to finding his beloved wife.
For six years after the tragedy in the Himalayas, Lara rarely left her father's side, she travelled around the world from one archaeological dig site to another. During this period she was ostensibly given a standard education from private tutors, but she gained most of her knowledge from her father as she became his apprentice.
When Lara turned fifteen, her father went missing in Cambodia. Extensive searches by the authorities and Lara herself turned up human remains that couldn't definitively be identified. Since Lord Croft's body was not officially recovered, Lara could not directly inherit the Croft title and she was thrust into a bitter family feud over control of the Abbingdon estates with her uncle, Lord Errol Croft. She eventually won the legal battle, and took possession of her inheritance but at the cost of a deep rift in the Croft family that left her estranged from her living relatives.
Lara Croft had already eclipsed her father's career. With fifteen sites of international significance discovered, her contribution to archaeology was astronomical.
The sites were still yielding new and exciting insights to the past on an ongoing basis. No one could deny Lady Croft's incredible contribution to the field of archaeology, however she was not without her detractors. She gained an extensive amount of profit when she wrote about her discoveries, journeys, and puzzles she solved through them.
The now adult Lara Croft stepped out of her bed with her pajamas on and walked to the balcony. Her pajamas that she was wearing were of a tight nature, light blue gray color shirt that nicely emphasized her curves. The fine silk followed the tomb raider's thin wastes, and ended around her hips before disappearing under the waistband of her light blue silky trousers. Lycra was added with the silk as it kept her flexible in case of a dangerous situation arose while she was sleeping. The V-shape neck allowed a teasing view at her ample cleavage, but when she turned around all eyes went down to her shapely bottom accentuated by the light blue silk pants.
Once she was on the balcony during the night, Lara wrapped her arms around her chest and looked up to the stars.
"Oh mother, where are you?" Lara thought while she gazed at the bright lights up above her.
Tomorrow she was going to head to Bolivia. One of her friends, Anaya Imanu, had mentioned a stone dais located in the ruins of Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan civilization. The adventuress was hoping to finally solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance.
As the globetrotter gazed at the stars she noticed a rather large shooting star flying through the sky. The kid in her awakened and Lara made a wish upon the star.
"I wish I can find out what happened to mother."
Lara smiled at what she did and walked back to her bed to catch up on some much needed sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day for her, and she needed all the rest she could get.
Little did she know that the shooting star would grant her wish. If someone was to look through a telescope, one could see that the star was no star, but a burning wreckage of a ship. If one looked even closer, they could see letters on the ship that read, 'Forward Unto Dawn'.
New Author's Notes: Well there is the rewritten version of the second chapter of Halo/Tomb Raider crossover, The Lost Get Found. I added quite a lot of stuff to this chapter, despite it being a short chapter still. I fixed some grammar errors, added a few stuff and thoughts in the beginning where Chief and Cortana are looking over Earth. And I told a little history of Lara Croft. I thought that adding Lara's past was pretty important since not everyone might know everything about the Tomb Raider.
I remember when I first wrote this chapter, despite the errors, I was pretty proud of the chapter, mainly the end of it where Lara sees the 'Forward Unto Dawn' but thinks it is a shooting star. I was going for the hint of the crossover and kind of a teaser/trailer. It brings me excitiment like a teaser/trailer normally does and I hope it did the same for you.