Croft Manor, England
"Listen up ladies and gentlemen," Bank said as everyone lined up in Lara's room. Bank spoke in an odd robotic and flat way to his teammates. Kinda like Eugene from The Walking Dead. "I was just recently informed that our superior officer Jankovic and company are currently stationed in Turkey. Sources from the Boss indicate that our desired WMD is much farther out than we originally thought. I was contemplating on whether reinforcements would be necessary, but my specific instructions from our superior contracting that however. I believe it would be best if we maintain our positions here in Croft Manor ad infinitum unless given new orders. Anyone wants to speak, than by ginger you are allowed to speak. No one, good. Let's make our superior proud. We don't require another FUBAR situation like back in Africa. I will admit, I do find Megalodons amusing and I am proud I got to see one up close. My only regret is I within reach of the predator's mouth." He got the scars on his forearm as a permanent reminder.
Tomb of the Crown of Immortality
Jankovic felt Lara's fist collide with his teeth, but that was all he felt. The pain in his mouth was all but non-existent. Jankovic laughed hysterically as Oktan and Kazim forced Lara back. "Lara, I really do mean it. I am sorry for what happened to your father and it did break my heart," Jankovic said sincerely. "I meant every word I said." He inadvertently provoked Lara once more.
She went in to throw another punch, only he saw it coming this time. He caught her fist and began squeezing. "Stop it you stupid little meagre woman. You seem so dependant on using your fists to attack me. How about this?" He twists her arm, forcing her to turn her back to him and jamming her arm upwards, causing her a great deal of pain. "Like I said, I do not wish any harm to be brought upon you, but that does not mean I am not going to use it?" He turns to Nadia, who stays where she was with her hands raised. "Nadia, you are going to solve this puzzle, or else I will have Ben shot in the leg and then I will torture Lara here in front of you. You won't be harmed, but you will be forced to watch as I torture Lara brutally, and you won't be able to do anything about it."
Lara tried assaulting him but he would always shrug off the pain or dodge her attack. "Don't listen to him! Don't listen to this bastard!"
Jankovic twisted her arm, causing her even more pain before whispering into her ear. "Zatknis," he said forcefully. "I have two men who would like to have some fun with Nadia. I won't let them harm you, but I will allow them to harm Nadia both physically and emotionally if you force me to." His face was so close to her that she could feel the warmthness of his breath and actually feel his voice as he spoke. "Understood?"
Lara refused to do anything this villain did, but the decision was not hers, it was Nadia's.
"Look, I will solve this puzzle as long as you do not hurt either Ben or Lara. Okay, I promise, as a matter a fact, I will get right to it." Nadia turned to the bricks on the pedestal and began working.
Nadia's hands were shaking, just like in Siberia. If she made one wrong move, then it would be the end for both her and Lara. The pressure was starting to get to her head and she knew she had to do something. She was beginning to panic as she read the Hebrew in her head.
"Someone appears to be panicking under pressure," Jankovic states.
"I'm not panicking. I'm just very busy." Nadia remembered: Throne of God and then Name of God. "The Throne of God: nothing Hebrew Bible mentions about the Throne of God, but Hebrew is often associated with Judaism or Jewish. So that means...Araboth!" She rotates the brick so they create an illusion of a throne with the words ערבות across. "The next one is the Name of God and in Judaism, it is YHWH." She turns the second brick so the Hebrew word for YHWH appeared.
The first and second golden spears creaked. A mechanical clink was heard and the spears descended into the floor. Nadia watched in amazement before being barked at by Jankovic to continue. All that was left was the back spear.
The illusion was obviously meant to represent something. To Nadia, it appeared to look like nothing more than God sitting on a throne, well since God had no physical appearance, a throne with God's name written above.
"What now Lara?"
"What is the third brick? What is it supposed to represent?" Lara asked while at the same time answering.
"It looks to me to be God sitting on a throne." Then something clicked in her mind. "The third test is faith," she says proudly at her deduction. "A leap of faith," she said to Lara. "The third test is a leap of faith!"
"If you put your hand on the pedestal, that spear could stab you or some other trap could be set off," Lara warns. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"What's the matter Lara? You think you're the only who can unlock a tomb?" Jankovic asked. "Give Miss 'Caron' here a chance."
Lara narrowed her eyes at him, Nadia Caron is her full name?
Nadia sighs nervously as she faces the flat top of the pedestal, the back spear ready to strike like a snake. She raises her left hand, the one hand she does not like using and hovers it just three inches above the flat top of the pedestal. "At least my unfavorite hand will be gone." She closes her eyes tightly, her heart pounding before she slaps her hand down on the pedestal. The spear launches forward and aims to impale Nadia's hand to the pedestal...except it stopped only four inches from her hand.
Just hearing the noise the spear made as it lunged made Nadia cringe. Nadia shot her eyes open to see the spear retreat backwards and a hole opening up on the flat pedestal.
"Rad," Jankovic says. "Epic bro," he says to Lara mockingly. "Nadia, would you be a sweetie and grab whatever is inside that pedestal? Or else Lara here will have to wear a sling around her arm; possibly both."
"Shut up Jankovic!" Lara shouted, and was then kneed in the small of her back. Ben rushed Jankovic, but the mercenaries trained their guns on him and threatened him.
"You have your own Eddie Chase it appears. Don't you agree Nina Wilde?" Jankovic said as he jammed Lara's arm again. "And Nadia can be Sophia."
"Don't hurt Lara! I'll grab what's inside." She wasted no time to look inside the pedestal and saw something spectacular. A transparent golden cube about the size of a baseball. Was this the Crown of Immortality? She'll find out when she looked to see for herself. She reaches inside and grabs the cube and lifts it up. A rumble shook the ground and shook Nadia nearly off her balance. "What was that?"
The ground shook again. The ground shook violently this time. The ground shook even harder and everyone fell to the ground. Nadia landed headfirst into the ground, the cube falling out of her hand and rolling away and towards Jankovic.
The Trinity commander reaches for it and the ground cracked.
"Earthquake!" a soldier shouted.
"Come on, let's go?" a female mercenary shouted as they climbed through the hole.
Lara kicked the cube out of Jankovic's reach, but before she could react, Jankovic kicked Lara in the face as hard as he could. The blow was as equal to Mohammed Ali's punch to the face.
Lara gurgled before she fell flat on her back and out cold. Ben had noticed and fury took over. He jumped back to his feet and sprinted towards Jankovic. He kicks Jankovic, unsuccessfully. The Trinity commander was much more experienced in hand-to-hand combat and much faster than Ben. He deflected Ben's blow and punching him in the gut. The blow made Ben fold and allowed Jankovic to uppercut the young man, knocking him out cold.
Nadia crawled towards the cube after observing Jankovic knock both Lara and Ben out cold. She snatches the cube from the ground and manges to get up to her knees before Jankovic grabbed Nadia by the throat and hurled her towards the entrance.
Jankovic could have easily have left Lara and Ben behind. He had no care for Ben, but Lara was different. Although they may seem completely different, but when Jankovic used to watch little Lara with her father just brought him a tear just thinking about. He felt like ever since Richard Croft died, then he had some sort of obligation to Richard to make sure that Lara lived. Had he not joined Trinity, then he would have raised Lara himself and then maybe she could have been a born Trinity soldier. No, a Trinity tomb raider.
Jankovic just barely managed to save both Lara and Ben just as the floor in the room collapsed. He reminded himself that even if he didn't know Lara, he would still bring her in alive for Trinity's sake.
Jankovic carried the beautiful cube in his pocket with an unconscious Lara over his shoulder. Kazim and Oktan carried the unconscious Ben out while Nadia walked with a gun jammed into her back shoulder blade.
The second rumble shook Ivan even more, but when things got pretty violent, Ivan fell down to the ground and hard on his stomach. He groans in pain as a response to feeling a large rock get jammed into his left side. And then he felt something spill on his right shoulder blade from above. He was shocked and terrified to discover that it was the gorilla-like glue resin. The shaking not only disturbed the ground, but disturbed the hardened resin on the stalactites above him. He swatted the resin off of him like swatting a fly, but only more seemed to fall on him. He made the biggest mistake of his life by looking up at the stalactites just as the resin fell. Not on his shoulder blade, but on his face. His eyes, nose and mouth were tattooed to the resin basically and Ivan was unable to breath.
He kicked and thrashed, desperate to get the resin off of his face so he could breath. It breathing was so painful to the point where it felt like his lungs were on fire. They felt like they were going to explode within him.
"What the hell was that?" Zima asked after feeling the ground shake below him. "Was that an earthquake or something?"
"I guess we came down this hole on the wrong day of the year," Kovak answered. "I'll call Jankovic, radio check him in?"
"Don't!" Slavik shouted. "Are you really concerned for Jankovic's fate? We just declared war on him. If you radio him and he answers, then that means that he survived the earthquake. We want to kill Jankovic, but as discreetly as possible. Plus, we could simply ambush him, but that is not discreet though."
"You're right. If Jankovic is indeed alive, then I'll say I tried to contact him and make up some believable make-believe story."
When Jankovic stumbled upon Ivan's corpse, he was saddened. Ivan was a good soldier and he was loyal. He was even more loyal than Zima and he never missed an opportunity to let Ivan know that.
"You," he points to two mercenaires. "You carry Ivan's body. No Trinity evidence left behind. Plus, he is a good person." And he had a wire on him that only I know about. Jankovic then turned his thoughts to Lara. He knew exactly what he was going to do to her, and he was going to regret it. He knows that torture is necessary, but that did not mean he liked it. He was going to regret forcefully brainwash Lara Croft into joining Trinity.