The labs seemed to be abandoned. The only thing they found as they moved from room to room were bodies. Most were mutilated beyond recognition. Lara's heart sank deeper and deeper the further they moved into the lab. How had Amanda survived? Maybe this was some kind of trap.
Sam let out a shriek when one body grabbed her ankle. Lara whirled around, took aim with her pistol and shot the body until it let go of her friend. After that, they moved more slowly, and Lara started to put bullets into the heads of her former co-workers to keep them from being nasty surprises later. She tried not to think about how she'd known them. Some were passing acquaintances, others she'd shared conversations with. Lara was suddenly glad that she hadn't outright befriended too many people.
"Lara," Sam whispered, the first time she'd made a sound since being grabbed earlier. She tugged at Lara's arm. "There's something wrong about this room."
Lara flashed her torch around. The floor was covered in blood, but that wasn't the disturbing part. The walls seemed to pulsate, as though they were alive, or made from living things. She stepped closer, and pressed her hand against it. "It's warm. It looks like skin."
Like skin, with moving lumps of flesh and something vaguely resembling intestines running from floor to ceiling.
"Don't touch it! I'm gonna puke." Sam put her hand to her mouth.
There was no time to respond, as a round creature rose from the blood in the center of the room. It looks like a fleshy balloon with a single eye and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. A fiery light glowed in its mouth as it opened its maw. Lara shoved Sam to the side and then lept back as a ball of fire exploded against the wall between them.
Gunfire filled the bloody room as Sam shot at the thing in a panick. It twisted towards her. Lara unslung her shotgun and whistled sharply. It twisted back towards her and she squeezed the trigger. Once, then a second time, and then a third time. The third blast brought the demon down. It splashed to the ground, accompanied by a squeaking, hissing sound as it visibly deflated.
Sam couldn't help it. She started to laugh. Her laugh had a hysterical, exhausted tone to it that Lara heavily emphasized with. She pulled Sam into her arms, stroking her back until the fit passed and Sam fell silent. "Feel better?"
"Not really." Sam wiped at her eyes and looked into Lara's. "It just kind of went past scary and into ridiculous and now it's back into scary now."
"It was kind of funny?" Lara pushed some of Sam's hair out of her face. "Lets… find Amanda and get the hell off of this planet."
"I'm beginning to worry that we're not going to like what we find."
A short, shaky laugh escaped Lara's throat. "Let me have a few more minutes of denial."
The next room was similar to the first. The floor looked less like a pool of blood and more like someone had stretched a human's innards across the entire surface. The walls were more of the same. Even the mirror was partially covered over. Lara wiped some of the tissue off of the mirror and got a good look at herself. Battered and bloodied, with what would surely soon be an impressive scar over her eye and cheek. As she watched, she saw herself change. Horns grew out of her forehead, her skin became thin and stretched over her skull. Boils blistered and popped and her eyes sank into their sockets. A voice whispered in her ear give in, give up, let it happen, your suffering will stop let me in
And then it was over, and her reflection was normal. She wavered on her feet, her head suddenly pounding.
"Lara? What just happened? It feels like something just tried to burst out of my skull."
Lara turned to look at Sam. The documenter was doubled over, wiping her mouth after retching. Her eyes had become bloodshot, and blood trickled from her nose. Lara helped her straighten. "I don't know. Did you...did you hear a voice?"
Sam nodded her head. "It told me to give up." She smoothed back Lara's hair, her hands ghosting across the woman's face and body as if making sure Lara was all right too.
"But you didn't." Maybe they'd just narrowly avoided the fate of so many here. Turning into a demon or one of those dead people. The thought of Sam looking like a zombie turned Lara's stomach.
"I didn't want to. I'm not ready to give up, and besides, I don't know what you'd do without me."
Lara's laugh was a happy sound that didn't belong in this place, but it was welcome to hear. "My beautiful, stubborn Sam."
Sam leaned in, and it happened so fast that Lara didn't register the kiss until her friend had pulled away and turned around. It threatened to throw her off her game, but she gathered herself up and buried everything but the task at hand.
"Sorry. I just wanted..." Sam's shoulders sagged.
Lara put her hand on Sam's shoulder. "Trust me, you don't need to be sorry. But we'll talk about that later. Right now we have a lot more to worry about."
"By talking, I hope you mean making out," Sam joked. She flashed Lara a teasing smile, seeming to return to her old self. "After all, I seem to recall a really drunken confession the night before you left."
It was too dark to tell, but Lara could feel her cheeks burn. "Bugger. I'd hoped you'd been too wasted to remember." She distracted herself by checking her shotgun and reloading it. She wished she had more shells, and would have to make every future shot count. "Right then, lets move on."
They were now very deep into the Delta Labs. Each room was more demonic and disgusting than the last. Flesh and hellfire and arcane symbols, only now they came complete with more of those balloon things, imps and even a few possessed security guards. Dispatching them became almost routine. Lara discovered that if she got closer she only needed two shells to take down the rotund disasters of flesh, and the other creatures only needed one shotgun shell or a couple well placed pistol shots.
"Cacodemon," Sam said, after Lara had taken down a fourth one.
"I'm sorry?"
"It makes this kind of cackling sound when it attacks. So. Cacodemon."
Lara shook her head. "Really?"
"Hey, you call Mr. Grey an Imp, so I wanted to name one."
"Fair enough." Lara pumped her gun. "You're officially in charge of demon naming." She didn't like calling them demons. It brought up uncomfortable feelings, but the imagery they were facing was becoming more and more hellish.
Sam looked pleased by this, and Lara led her, finally, into the main lab. The fleshy structures were noticeably sparse, occupying only parts of the deck plating and bulkheads. On one wall stood two large circular structures.
"Oh Amanda, what have you done…"
"What have I done?" Standing at a console off to the side stood Amanda. She turned her head, then moved to fully face them. Her motions were awkward and stiff, and much of her hair had fallen out. Her skin was a pasty pink, and stretched too thin across her bones. Her labcoat was in tatters, most of the rest of her clothing having fallen off or been voluntarily shedded, and her body was bony and fragile looking. Vestigial wings protruded out from her back and red hellfire burned in her eyes.
Recoiling, Sam took a step back. "Oh my god."
The light faded and Amanda blinked her eyes in slight confusion. "Lara?" She lifted her hands, her fingers twisted, her nails like an animal's claws. "It wasn't supposed to be this way. Progress, we were making so much progress!" She twitched and shook. Her voice grew gravely and demonic and the hellfire returned to her eyes. "Lara, if only you'd seen what she had…"
Heat burst from the portals, burning light filling the lab. Lara shielded her eyes. The ground shook as something heavy stepped through each portal. She dropped her hand, and stared as two hulking behemoths stood between her and the portals.
Each stood twice as tall as Lara and Sam. Their skin was grey with a greenish tint to it. Thick muscles corded on their necks and arms and they walked on muscular, digitigrade legs. Scars and runes crisscrossed their bodies, and something that looked suspiciously like an upside-down pentagram glowed on their foreheads.
They roared and it sounded like a train hurtling towards Lara.
"Good bye, Lara Croft. The great day of her wrath is come and who shall be able to stand? Certainly not you. Enjoy my knights." Amanda, or whatever she was now, stepped behind the demons and disappeared into one of the portals.
Lara backpeddled, bringing her shotgun to her shoulder and aiming down the sights. "Get out of here!"
Sam didn't need to hear that twice. The pounding of heavy steps on metal plating filled her ears as she darted across the lab. The boom boom boom of Lara's shotgun filled the air. Sam dove into the adjoining lab, turning around to watch as one of the hellish knights charged into Lara. Lara hit the ground hard, rolling into the wall. She pulled herself to feet, then ducked beneath a swipe of massive, meaty fists.
Sam looked around, trying to spot something, anything that might help. In the corner, on a stand behind glass was a large weapon. It didn't resemble any gun Sam had seen before, but it looked dangerous. Sam picked up a chair and lobbed it into the case and the glass shattered. Sam picked the weapon up and ran back towards the portal room.
Lara was pretty sure a rib was broken, but that was the least of her concerns. The most she'd been able to do was partially blind one of the beasts, and she only had a few shells left. She didn't think any of her pistols would do damage at this point. "What I wouldn't give for that machine gun now."
"Lara, catch!" Sam stumbled through the door, and flung the gun towards the archaeologist. Lara barely had time to register that something big was flying at her head. She caught it, and in a single smooth motion turned it towards the approaching hellknights. She pressed the trigger.
An undulating, crackling ball of green energy shot out of the gun. When it impacted the hellknights, there was a blinding glow and the sound and smell of incinerating flesh. The light faded, and Lara and Sam were alone. The only thing that remained of the monsters were smoking ashes.
Lara laughed, joy and adrenaline rushing through her blood stream. It made her suddenly dizzy, but god it felt good to really laugh. She picked Sam up in her arms and very nearly kissed her. Instead, she rested her face against Sam's shoulder for a moment, then set her down. "I don't know what this thing is but I'm very glad you found it."
Resting her face against Lara's cheek, Sam smiled. "A big fucking gun for a big fucking hero."
This time, Lara didn't very nearly kiss Sam. This time, she kissed Sam, very muchly.
"What happened to talking about it?" Sam whispered, lips moving against Lara's
"Adrenaline," Lara tried to explain. "And we could … " Die.
Sam planted a kiss on Lara's nose. "So we have incentive to not…" Die.
"Right." Lara coughed and let go of Sam. She turned to look at the portals. "We need to shut those things down. The station is… probably lost. The last thing we want is for any of these demons to make it to Earth."
"Shut down the portals, blow up the city. Sounds easy." Sam eyed the portals, entirely unsure about how they were going to do that.
Any further discussion was curtailed when the portals flashed once, then twice and Lara was ripped off of her feet. She grabbed for Sam's hand just as they went through.
Red and orange light flashed around her as she tumbled through an abyss. Screams and whispers assaulted her ears. Some languages she recognized, others she did not, but they all seemed to be telling her the same thing.
Lara saw herself standing atop a pile of skulls. The vision shifted and she saw herself crouched next to a tree, bleeding and scarred, nocking an arrow to a bow. She shot a man off a cliff and slayed a goddess. In others, Alex's blood ran through her fingers. Sam lay limp in her arms. She left Amanda to drown, feeling as though she'd held her there with her own two hands.
Lara hunted men as easily as she hunted deer and put them down like dying dogs. She mowed down demons by the hundreds. Lara tore through everything in her path with single-minded determination, and one of the skulls floated before her. It didn't look human, its face elongated, with large, oval eyes. Killer, it told her. Murderer, it claimed. Monster, it called her.
Demon, it accused.
Survivor, she answered.
Sensation returned abruptly and Lara found herself lying on her back in a hot, damp cavern. The walls and ceiling pulsated as though they were made of living flesh, an unidentified fluid leaking from its pores. She sat up, looking around frantically. 'Sam!"
"Lara!" Sam's voice came from her left, and she stood carefully. Her weapons were gone. Everything was gone, even the clothing from her back. Lara's body was marked with bruises and scars, and several wounds, the nastiest of which was the one she'd had to cauterize. Lara was too tired to feel vain or embarrassed. Sam looked a lot better. Bruises and cuts, but nothing more serious than that bite in her leg. She helped Sam to her feet.
"Seriously?" Sam asked, once she took in their state. "That thing couldn't have let us keep our clothing?"
"I don't know enough to explain this."
"What's that?" Sam pointed to something in Lara's hand.
Lara looked down. She was holding a cube. It was grey and gold in color, with amber-colored crystal or glass and marked with Martian runes. It had an alien looking face on one side. She hadn't even noticed she was carrying it until Sam had seen it. She lifted it up to inspect it closer. "The soulcube...it's powered by souls and is a powerful weapon."
"And how do you know that?"
Lara frowned, lowering it and looking at Sam. "I just...do. I think it was on one of the tablets."
Sam hugged herself, looking around nervously. "So where do you think we are?"
"Where those demons came from." Lara took a few steps, then knelt down to pick up a discarded femur. She found a rock and started to sharpen one end of the bone. "The UAC has been sending people here for months. I guarantee you they found a way to transport armor and weapons through those portals. We'll find what they left behind."
"And then we find a way back, right?"
"Right."