- Caught In A Trap

Lara awoke from the vision and not only did she see Kurtis who still had his eyes closed, but someone else was there...

'AYESHA!' How long have we been unconscious for!?'

Ayesha was hurriedly searching through Kurtis's belongings on his unconscious person until she found what she wanted. Seeing Lara now fully wide awake Ayesha reacted and fled the area as quick as she could with the third artefact in hand.

'No...Eric Copper is here!' A dreaded thought ran through Lara's mind. She hastily went over to Kurtis and forcefully shook him to wake him up. He soon opened his eyes and straight away looked over to Lara's direction. She pointed out to him that the third artefact had been taken from his possession and she then indicated that Ayesha was the one who took it. Just when Kurtis got the gist of what Lara was trying to explain to him, he then noticed that they were running very low on oxygen in their air canisters. It was already too late to chase after Ayesha, so they decided to go back to their speedboat on the double.

"What happened back there!? How long had we been unconscious for!?" Kurtis questioned angrily.

"I don't know. Ayesha took the artefact, I saw her just as I was waking up and when she realised that I had woken up she immediately swam away and that's when I tried to wake you up."

"Hmmm, this doesn't bode to well. With Ayesha here, that means Eric Copper is here too. How did he find out the whereabouts of the third artefact?"

"Perhaps he used the two artefacts to find the third one? Anyway let's follow Ayesha's trail, she couldn't have got too far away."

"Okay, but we must be prepared for anything we could come across on the way."

With the knowledge of Eric Copper's presence nearby, Lara and Kurtis took a turn each changing from their wetsuits into the attires they had brought along in the speedboat's cabin. Lara armed herself with her signature dual pistols, while Kurtis still had his Boran X pistol and Chirugai equipped. Knowing that they were going to cross paths with Eric Copper, Kurtis and Lara departed from the site, their weapons at the ready for whatever may transpire.

A huge vessel was now in sight stationary upon the water, and there was no doubt it had belonged to Eric Copper. Kurtis looked over to Lara who was holding the hilt of her pistols in their holsters.

"You all set for this? There's no going back if we carry on course." Kurtis asked her, making sure she was alright with what they were about to do.

"Yeah let's go." Lara confidently replied.

Kurtis pulled alongside the bigger vessel. Right on cue ten of Eric Copper's employed armed guards came out and aimed their guns at the newly arrived duo. Silence had fallen and everyone didn't dare move a muscle, up until Eric Copper came out and directly spoke to Lara and Kurtis.

"Well, well, what a coincidence seeing you here. Lovely weather for a spot of scuba diving I see. Now put down your weapons please, we don't want to cause a scene and you're outnumbered."

Kurtis and Lara glanced and nodded at each other, then proceeded to lower their guns.

"Seize them and bring them on-board!" Eric ordered two of his personal bodyguards whilst pointing to the duo. They were soon brought on Eric's grand boat and with hands tied to their backs Lara and Kurtis were forced to kneel down on their knees.

"Shall we kill them boss?" One of the bodyguards suggested, and it was clear to see Eric had put that idea into consideration until a few moments later he brushed that notion aside.

"Hmmm, no not yet...I want them to see and experience the emotion of failure and disappointment when I use the combined power of the three relics, I want to see it in their eyes, body language and facial expressions." Eric smugly smiled.

"Okay boss." The guard responded, obviously not wanting to cause a disagreement with his employer.

Ayesha now came onto the scene and stood beside Eric with the third artefact in her palms.

"Haha, even though I dismissed you earlier from this adventure Lara, you still managed to get the third artefact for me." He took the artefact from Ayesha and held up the relic straight in front of Kurtis's and Lara's eyes.

"Once again I must thank you and I will be forever grateful to you, for you both have helped my dreams and plans for this world come to fruition and reality." Eric sneered at them.

"How did you find out the third artefact was here?"

"I used the two artefacts of course. Unbeknownst to you we managed to follow your little trail to here, and using the influence of the relics we managed to conceal ourselves from you."

"So, what are these plans you have come up with in that crazy warped mind of yours?" Kurtis sarcastically asked him.

"Humph I don't like that insult, but I shall ignore it and tell you. As you'll probably already know the three artefacts are parts of a creature that was split up long ago. This was an almighty being with powers stretching beyond imagination. Tonight I will bond with this creature to create a new life-form and use it for my own purposes. With the immense amount of power I shall obtain I will essentially dominate the world. I am fed up of being forced to follow rules and regulations set by others, I want to be free to do I what I want! This time everyone will fall in line and obey me and me alone. I will be in complete control of the whole economy and decide for myself how the masses of humans will live out their lives. It will be my legacy and every single living being will be forced to remember it. But just ruling the world is such a limited ambition and certainly isn't enough for me. No...I want to spread and expand my influence to the galaxy and then to the whole universe. I crave to discover what exists outside of the Earth, to see if there is any other lifeforms out there, to have another planet or star within the reach of my fingertips. This is what my grand plan is, it's brilliant don't you think?" Eric explained.

"But you won't be able to control this monster, not even with the size of your ego. If what little we know about this dangerous creature, surely it would have an agenda of it's own." Lara warned him, but he was taking no notice of it at all.

"Ha, we shall see...I am going to test the creature to see if my sheer will alone would be able overcome it...should I fail well I will be glad to see the world destroyed anyway by the monster I personally unleashed!"

"That's utter madness!"

"Haha, it's what I want, otherwise I have failed myself and my dreams!"

"Where do you plan to do this?"

"We're going to hold an event where an audience will witness my rise to power with the three artefacts. The special event will be televised, be on the radio and streamed on the Internet, so it should be readily available for anyone to view around the world. The people will applaud and cheer at their downfall. Of course you both will be there to watch as humanity and life on Earth will kneel before me."

"I definitely don't think so, there will be a huge revolution against you and your devious plans!" Kurtis argued, but Eric hastily disagreed with him with his answer to it.

"I will squash any kind of resistance against me. Haha, no one will be able to stop me!"

"We'll see..."