Another short one. I felt I needed to return to these two ASAP. Don't Worry, Trinity isn't done with Lara - not by a long shot. I just needed to demonstrate Caesar's growing discontent with his lot.

The ship was massive: five hundred feet of private, floating, oppulance, named after the daughter it's owner intended to leave it, and his fortune to.

'The Madeline' was Rene Duponts private yacht, and seafaring fortress. It had room for three hundered crew, and fifty-three guests; a private casino; sports bar; massive reception space; and well over four-hundered sixty thousand cases of automatic rifles, heavy machine guns, assorted small arms, and specialty ammunition below decks: outside of finding his daughter, this, till now, had been his primary interest.

Rene Dupont was a shrewd arms dealer for the first, second, and third worlds. But tonight, he was a proud father to an unofficially adopted daughter - Lara Croft - A daughter who was as uncertain of what this inheritence entailed, as she was with her choice of dress for the evening... luckily Evan was there to lend his two cents.

"You look amazing... and dress is ok too," his fingers danced down her naked back to where her skin disapeaered under the silk, "and it will look especialy good," he sighed as he kissed her softly, "mmmm..."

She broke the kiss, "If you say something as sophmoric," she sighed, kissing his nose, his neck, then suckling on his ear, "as '...on the floor later tonight'," she bit his earloab, "you will be sleeping in a dingy."

He laughed, "I wouldn't dream of it," he whispered, "Besides, I much prefer hearing YOU say it."

She grinned happily as he sucked her neck, his fingers slidng into the lowneck of her dress, caressing her breasts, her abdomen, her hips, then suddenly stopping.

"I'm going to shoot you...," she joked.

He opened the dress to expose her abdomen to her left hip. "Love," he gasped, "I know the sort of things we've been up to are supposed to be good for the heart, and our relationship... but not the healing of permanent wounds." He turned her to the wall-sized mirror, and exposed her left hip. Her cauterized wound was diminished in size.

She studied the wound, then gazed in the mirror at her wounded shoulder, now little more than a scratch. "How?"

He looked her over, astonished at her almost blemishless skin, then noticed it - the ruby talismen, hanging between her breasts, "'L'," he whispered, "Have you been wearing THAT all this time?"

She caressed the jewel, "I... I don't recall putting it on. I must have been wearing it. I'm amazed you didn't notice... before."

"I was a little preoccupied by other things." He gazed in her eyes.

She blushed.

"It's been a while since I thought of what we do as just 'stress release' I'm not sorry to admit."

"Ditto," she sighed.

The ruby glowed bright pink as the two lovers kissed one another in a genuine expression of love; and not mere lust.

Evan gasped, "OW! Hey, no pinching, you sadistic dominatrix."

Lara glared at him... then giggled, "I didn't pinch it, I 'squeezed' your bum; get your terminology right 007."

"No, not my arse, my bullet wound, the fifty cal, remember?" He pulled his tux shirt out of his pants and revealed his own hip, clear to his ribs: his wounds had also faded... and still were as the two watched.

"Ok," Lara whispered, "THAT is extrordinary. I'm not at all certain what I think of that. Mind you I'm glad we're all healed up lover... but at what cost?"

"Intense emotions," Rene said as he stood in the open doorway of the suite, "I haven't seen a jewel like that in thirty years of searching. Not to own it, but to lock it away forever. I fear the price I paid for keeping the other I found was my Madeline's life; and perhapse your parents lives as well Lara, seeing as your father was the one to kill it's former owner - the reason I believe you about all you say Lara. It's time you found out what your father knew, what you now know: that the legends - perhapse regretably - are all too real. It is time to take possession of your TRUE inheritence, what your father and mother could never bring home to you. Come, see what it truly means... to be a Croft."

...

He sat in the dark, his latest victim at his feet: the throat cut deep, and clean; it had been quick, painless - as always - and the face had been carefully removed with all the art and precision he should be known for... not for HER. The Emperor Caligula - JACK THE RIPPER - pulled the freshly removed flesh to his own face and waited as the diamond in his watch did it's God given magic, and adhered the dead man at his feet face, and identity, to him. Caesar was lying - he knew it, felt it - HE wanted the Croft girl dead; wanted her removed from her cares of this world, what must be her feelings of guilt... poor girl. How wonderful to be given the task of relieving her pain, and suffering - forever.

Once, when he was younger, before he led his 'victorious' campain to England all those centuries ago, he wanted to be a god. Now, he just wanted to serve the true God, and his benevolent will.

He was blessed, they all were, to so gloriously serve the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this divine cause to rid this earth of it's corruption. Shame Caesar was so weak. Good he was not.

He pulled th passport from the dead man's pocket before dumping the body in the acid bath he had prepared. Caesar would not be able to track, or stop him from carrying out his anointed task... Praise God.