Left
AN: Hey, hey. Thanks for not going out and killing someone because of the drop (yes, that means you crazymartianfighter) :-)
Lara switched her LED light on as she came to another end of a vent, sighing as she found what she had been coming to all along. An option to go left or ahead, "Left." Zip said. Lara sighed, "What's ahead?"
"Left." he said again. "Go left, Lara." he ordered.
"Say it nicely." she smiled.
"Fine, please go left." he sighed. Lara smiled to herself, "Forward it is, then." She got back down onto her hands and knees, breathing heavier as she crawled further into the vent, her breaths visible as cold frost from her mouth. She kept herself moving, even when her body willed her to stop, the cold and the test against her muscles having an obvious effect on her. She stopped as she came to a 'T' option. The options were either left, right or behind. "Which way?" she knelt up, rubbing her hands together and blowing hot air onto them, trying to keep herself somewhat warm. "Up." he laughed. Lara looked up, seeing another alcove that she would be able to fit into. She crawled over to where the space was bigger, reaching her hands up and standing up, pulling herself into the alcove. She squatted back down on her hands and knees, pulling herself along until she came to an opening – a vent cover in front of her. "Do you know where this leads to?" she asked. "Hang on...to a staff room. Be careful, ice covers everything. There's a few wires that have mixed with melted water, so watch out for them too."
"Thank-you." she pulled her pistol out of her holster, attaching a silencer in her backpack to it. She trained it at eye level, aiming at the crate and firing three shots, knocking half the crate off. She leaned back, holstering her weapon and kicking the rest of the crate off. She peered over the edge of the vent, checking if it was safe for her to enter and when the place appeared safe, she slipped down, dusting her hands off as she landed.
She looked around the room, gazing down the lockers of the staff room. She walked over and pulled one open, shaking her hands after they stung from the sheer force she had to use to open them. Nothing interesting. She continued threw the rest of the six lockers, not finding anything that was of any relevance. She turned around and pulled herself back into the shaft, "Nothing interesting." she sighed. "Looks like we're going down."
"Yes, down and to the left." she heard Zip chuckle on the other end. "To the left." she smirked.
She pulled herself down, feet first and landed in a crouched position. "Lara, there's some interference over -"
"Zip? Zip?!" she tapped into her headset but quickly pulled it out of her ear when the only reply was a loud buzzing noise. She sighed, lifting it back to her ear before carrying on, without any idea of where she was going.
Half an hour later, Lara was on a road to...well, nowhere. She had no idea where she was heading, what room she was looking for and it seemed like she was going in circles. She was now leant against a wall, only herself for company, freezing her ass off, just sitting. An open space was in front of her, which would lead into a hall, but she didn't have the hope or energy to get there. Her mind was focused on other things. Like Kurtis. She could have sworn she had a firm grip on his hand, but he just...fell. Or had he let go? She rushed to get to him, God knows she did, but his larger frame was too heavy to hold onto. He just....let go. But she didn't feel like he was gone. There was this...connection between them, and that felt the same. If he was dead, she would have felt it.
She closed her eyes, hugging her jacket close to her body, trying to find some warmth. They snapped open as she heard something near and stealthed over to the opening. Alarm bells rang in her head as she recognised the familiar sound of mercenary codes. She gripped the handles of her pistols and breathed slowly as she waited for them to move on, not finding anything. When she was sure she was alone again, she crept out of the vent, standing up and stretching her legs as she came out. She looked around, finding herself in a power room. The owners of the voices came back and she ducked around a corner, hugging the wall. She strained her ears, trying to do what she wanted on exact timing; if she didn't, it wouldn't work.
Two men passed her and she took a deep breath, hitting one mercenary over the head with the butt of her gun, making the other man turn around. Before he could fully face her, she wrapped a hand around his throat, putting the other one just below his temple. Quickly and cleanly, she twisted his head to the left, snapping his neck before releasing her grip, letting the body drop to the ground, unmoving. She looked around the room again, making her way over to a boiler. She ran her hand along it until she felt a lever on it's side and she pulled it down, stepping back as it lit up, powering other objects in the room.
The room almost instantly heated up, making her shiver before her face lit up with colour, it being pale before. She smiled to herself, turning around to face a mercenary. Her smile dropped as he brought his gun up, but she quickly took her own gun from it's holster, firing a bullet in between the assassin's eyes. She ducked down under the vent, keeping stealth in mind as her silencer had not been attached to her gun. She felt a force coming towards her and looked up to see that she had switched the air conditioning on, the fans in the vents twisting around to cool the air. Not that it needed cooling.
She stood up as she crawled back to the first vertical alcove, sighing with relief as a voice began to play over the headset. "Lara? Lara?!" That wasn't Zip's voice. "Lara, it's me." Kurtis.
"Kurtis?! Where the hell have you been?!" she screamed, quiet enough so no-one could hear her, but enough so he could get her point. "Is it my fault that it takes some time to recover from free falling to your near death? Where are you?"
"In the ventilation shaft."
"Still?"
Ignoring his comment, Lara crawled to the end of the shaft, seeing that it led to a drop, where an elevator should have been. She snapped her head up as she heard gunshots on the other end of the headset. "Shit! Lara, we've got company! They're going up to the vents, Lara. Get -" the line went dead. "Kurtis?! Kurtis!" she tapped into the headset, but a screeching noise was her only reply.
She sat against the wall, rubbing her temple with her hand. "Lara, you OK?" Zip was back.
She thumped her head against the wall, sighing again. "If I've lost him again-" she turned around as bullets whizzed past her ears, close enough to cut a strand of hair from her head. She stood up, seeing two mercenaries holding their guns to her head and then swiftly turned on her heels, sprinting forward before leaping off of the vent, quickly grabbing the elevator ropes, only to let go again as the ice on the ropes burned her hands. She quickly wrapped her gloved hands around them. A bullet embedded itself in her shoulder, and she cringed against the pain, but didn't let her grip slacken. She grabbed her pistol and fired bullets at her opponents, smiling when they finally fell. "Climb up a bit and then there's a vent that can lead to an office."
Lara grunted as she began to pull herself along the rope quickly. Looking around her, she saw an opening just ahead and she quickly swung on the rope, jumping off as she got close enough to it. She landed with a grunt and found that there was enough space for her to stand up. Doing so, she found an open grate on her left hand side and looked as a pair of legs covered her exit. They were so close, that if she wanted to, she could stick her finger out and poke the calf's of the legs. Taking in a deep breath, she struck her legs out, startling the owner of the legs, but not knocking them to the ground. She quickly ducked under the opening, forcing a powerful kick to her opponent, with her eyes closed, making them fall to the ground. She opened her eyes and gasped as she saw who she had attacked. She quickly knelt down, lifting Kurtis up, dusting the frost off his back. "Is that the new way we say hello to each other?" he asked sarcastically, rubbing the back of his head. He brushed her off him, but she wouldn't let go as she found a bullet hole in his thigh. "What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing much. You think this is bad, you should see him." he laughed.
Lara shook her head, starting to walk in the direction of a glass door. Threw it, she could see a wooden desk, pictures here and there and a filing cabinet, all of them looking like they hadn't been touched in years. Voices came from behind them and Kurtis frantically searched for a way to get into the office. Sighing, he took a few steps back before throwing his hands out in front of him, knocking the glass doors off their hinges. He sprinted into the office, dragging Lara in by the arm and ducked behind a wall, waiting for the voices to pass. Once he was sure they were safe, he let go of her arm, walking over to the desk.
He opened the drawer to his left and quickly looked threw it, "Any idea what we're looking for?" he asked Lara. She opened a filing cabinet, flicking threw the files that it held. "A sword fragment. Probably about a third the size of the shield." she sighed, closing the file and opening a second one. "Lara, you've got about five minuets in there before your buddies find you." Zip warned.
Lara sighed in frustration, slamming the door shut before moving onto the next one. Kurtis ran a hand threw his messy hair, quickly pulling out the contents of the drawer. He thumbed at the pieces of paper in his hand and stopped as one heading caught his eye, "Lara, we better get the sword, and fast." he threw the papers back down, searching frantically threw the drawers. "Why?" Lara didn't look up as she stopped looking threw the filing cabinets. "Karel had some business here before, he knows where it is." he threw the papers down on the table, walking over to the nearby bookcase and throwing the white sheet off that covered it. He smiled to himself when he saw that the content of the bookcase wasn't a book, but a small black box. He opened it up after lifting it off the shelf and his smile grew as he found a sword fragment, about a 1/5 bigger than his hand. He turned around and waved it in the air and began to walk out the door, Lara's smile equally big, following after him. They walked along the hall, starting to run as they heard footsteps. Lara looked behind her as she overtook Kurtis, her face growing pale as she saw mercenaries trying to catch up to them, beginning to aim their guns at them. Lara turned back, taking in a deep breath as she saw a group of unstable platforms in front of her, scattered across an empty pit, which would most likely lead to falling to her death if she misplaced one foot.
She sprinted towards the drop, throwing herself into the air and flipping before she landed. She continued to jog to the edge of the platform, stopping as she looked down and in front of her. She looked back to see that both Kurtis and the mercenaries were catching up and took a few steps back, bouncing on her toes before sprinting forwards, jumping into the air and moving her arms and legs in the air, making it look as if she was still running. She grabbed the edge of the platform, pulling herself into a handstand before placing her feet down on the platform, looking over her shoulder and walking forward as Kurtis joined her. She looked forward, closing her eyes. She moved backwards, shoving Kurtis out of the way and then ran forward, moving into a swan dive as she jumped into the air.
Quickly, she opened her eyes and grabbed her grapple hook, throwing it into the air, it twisting around a pillar that was on the other end of the gap. She quickly tugged on the rope, making it pull her up and she swung forward, releasing the grapple and landing on the last platform. She turned around and smiled to Kurtis as he stared at her with a look that said, 'And I'm meant to so that, how?' She smiled to him and turned her attention to the guards at the other end of the room, taking her machine gun off of her back and aiming it at eye level, releasing the safety off it before opening fire. Kurtis jumped over to her, having to use his physic abilities to boost him farther. She strapped the gun onto her back and grabbed her pistols, firing at the other mercenaries gathered about the first two. She walked backwards, slowly at first, but then holstered her weapons, following Kurtis out of the building.
Lara quickly threw her wet jacket onto the chair as she joined Kurtis and Mason in her bedroom, Kurtis giving Mason the sword fragment. "It's smaller than I expected." Alister mused over the webcam of the laptop. "There's three pieces, remember." Kurtis said as he walked over to one of the beds, sitting down on it. "Which makes me ask, any idea where they other pieces are?" Lara asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "I've found one in Portugal, I'm not sure where the others are. You should enjoy this, Lara. A lovely tomb on the coast of a 'haunted' beach. Right up your alley." he laughed.
"I think we should get going in a few days. If Karel doesn't know where the second sword is, then we have nothing to worry about." Mason said.
"And if he does know?" Kurtis asked, standing up, "I don't think we should be wasting time. We can fly over to Portugal and rest for a few days there."
Lara shook her head, "No, I agree with Mason. We need a break altogether. We can go back to France, rest at Mason's house and then drive down to Portugal early the next morning."
"Drive down to Portugal?" Morgan asked, just coming out of the bathroom, in her pyjamas.
"We're less likely to get detected by Karel that way. Chances are is that he'll have men swarming every airport available, so it's safer if we drive." Kurtis said. "Looks like we're doing it your way."
"Now that that's sorted out, do any of you know how it's so easy for Karel to track us down?" Alister asked, joining into the conversation again.
Kurtis ran a hand threw his hair, "No idea, but I don't want to stick around to find out."
"Would you like us to send a chopper for you, Lara?"
"That would be lovely." she smiled.
AN: Yeahh, sorry for the lack of content in my chapters, but I'm having to juggle revising for tests that can make or break me when I'm in 3rd year and writing my chapters. It doesn't help that my charger is broken again and that I have to share with my sister...soooo....I don't have a lot of time to write, but the October holidays are here, so I'll have more time!!!
See you Wednesday! XD