Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Now

Lights flickered, casting shadows that danced and played like demons in the fire. The air smelled like metal, blood and something dank and vaguely sour. Sam’s breath was heavy, and she strained to hear anything over the blood rushing in her ears. A sweaty finger twitched near the trigger of her pistol as the sound of something approached, heavy steps on the metal planks.

She held her breath, the creature casting a long shadow down the hallway. She couldn’t tell what it was, but she’d seen enough of the massacre in the cafeteria to know that she didn’t want to see it any closer.

It rounded the corner and Sam screamed, squeezing her eyes shut and opening fire as she waited for the inevitable disembowelment.

Hands grabbed the gun away from her and then one clamped over her mouth. “Sam! Quiet!”

Sam immediately went silent, opening her eyes to see brown ones looking back at her. Blood caked the right side of Lara’s head and a long cut ran past her left eye and down her cheek. She was wearing green armor, dented and slashed in places and there was more blood from wounds she couldn’t see. It was the single most beautiful sight that Sam had ever seen. She threw her arms around Lara and whispered loudly. “Lara! You’re alive! Oh my god, oh god. I almost shot you!”

“Keep your eyes open next time and you will.” Lara squeezed Sam tight, then quickly looked her over. There was a wound on Sam’s right leg, like something had tried to take a bite out of her, but she otherwise seemed unharmed. Terrified, but alive. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah. It hurts, but I can manage.”

“That’s good, I don’t think I can carry you and fight at the same time.”

Looking past Lara and into the hallway with it’s flickering shadows, Sam asked. “How bad is it?”

Lara’s expression was difficult to read, but there was a hardness in her eyes that Sam had never seen before. “It’s like a mouth to hell opened up.”

“I don’t believe in hell.” But Sam shivered as she thought about the things she’d seen while she’d been hiding.

“Yesterday, neither did I.” Lara helped Sam to her feet, supporting her until she got her bearings. “I’m getting you on a shuttle and we’re getting out of here. I promise.”

“Can we nuke the site from orbit?” Sam asked, hobbling after Lara. “I’d really like to nuke the site from orbit, just to be sure.”

Eighteen Hours Ago

Lara had been on Mars almost three months, and in that time she’d developed many questions about her contract and employer. The Union Aerospace Corporation’s morals were questionable at best, and Lara kept telling herself it was worth it for the discoveries she was making.

They’d unearthed something that could change humanity’s understanding of the origins of life on earth - and Lara was the one who was attempting to translate what they’d found. Artifacts. Structures. An entire civilization had once existed on Mars, and here she was, hamstrung by a non-disclosure agreement.

The whole thing put Lara on edge, but the discovery and the potential it had was enough to keep her from finding an out in her contract.

She looked up from her lunch when someone sat across from her. “Good morning, Alex.”

“Morning.” The computer tech grinned at her over his tray of UAC slop. Alex had become one of her few friends. He respected her abilities and had been warm and friendly from the get-go. He set the tray down on the stainless steel table and took a seat across from her.

The lights overhead flickered, and then went out. They came back a few moments later. Lara looked at the ceiling accusingly. “That’s been getting worse.”

“The lights I can handle,” Alex said. He frowned, resting his chin on a hand. “Tobias said he keeps seeing something in the shadows. But there’s nothing there. And he’s not the only one. Something has the whole base spooked.”

Lara chuckled. “Luckily, I’m not easily spooked. Do you have my PDA?”

“Right here.” He pulled it out of his labcoat and held it out for Lara to take. “Should be running really good now. I tweaked it a bit for you, too. You know. Some mood music, a couple of games, unrestricted access…”

“Alex!” Lara hissed, then lowered her voice. “We could both get in serious trouble!”

“Hey, you said you wanted to get a look at the Cube, didn’t you? Well here’s your chance.”

“Well yes, but that’s not quite what I meant…” Lara picked up the PDA and slipped it into her own coat. “I’ve almost cracked the glyphs. I just feel like there’s something I’m missing. I’m so close, Alex!”

“If anyone can do it, you can,” he said, putting his hand on her arm. “After all, who discovered Excalibur? Atlantis?”

Lara grinned back at him. “I suppose. You’re forgetting the Outback.”

“Of course I am. I’d be way less humble.” He shook his head. “I’d plaster the word “Atlantis” all over my resume.”

“Do I have to list the thirteen high security places you’ve hacked?”

“I’ll have you know UAC gives me full immunity.”

Lara shook her head at that. Another thing she remained conflicted about.

“Lara!”

She snapped her head in the direction of a very familiar voice, and stumbled awkwardly to her feet. “...Sam??”

A blur slammed into her, arms wrapping tightly around her body. Lara hugged back, trying to ignore the sudden butterflies in her stomach. She looked down at her friend. “Sam, what are you doing here?”

Samantha Nishimura stepped back, planting her hands on her hips. She was wearing a smart looking dress skirt and a white button up shirt, with a UAC lapel pin. “I came to document your work. Duh.”

Lara sucked on her lip for a brief second, then closed the distance between them again. She buttoned the top two buttons on Sam’s shirt, then discreetly tugged her skirt down a little, all the while glaring daggers at anyone who’d dare look at her. “How the hell did you convince your father to let you do that?”

“Uh, by telling him I was doing a documentary on the moon base and then switching to the Mars transport at the last minute?” Sam swatted at her hands. “Lara what are you doing?”

“She’s protecting your virtue from the eyes of the unworthy,” Alex joked. He held his arms out and Sam gave him a hug. “Some of the guys here are assholes.”

“Alex! How are you?”

After months of fairly glum and increasingly paranoid co-workers, Sam’s sunshine was almost exhausting. Lara was torn between being happy to see her, being concerned for her safety, and finding herself thrown for an emotional loop. She watched as Alex and Sam caught up, before speaking up. “Do you have a bunk assignment?”

Sam turned and grinned at Lara. The twinkle in her eyes gave it away before her friend opened her mouth. “We get to be roommates again!”

Lara folded her arms, her voice as dry as her expression. “How many strings did you pull for that one?”

Sidling up against Lara, Sam gave her her most innocent look. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Of course.” Lara just wasn’t looking forward to months of once again pretending she wasn’t attracted to Sam. Avoiding any awkward mistakes or confessions had been a full five percent of the reason she’d taken the Mars contract. Maybe even seven percent. “This is just a dangerous place, Sam. I’m worried about you.”

“I’ve got my big strong Lara and Alex to protect me.”

Lara rolled her eyes, but found herself smiling. “Lets get you settled, and then get down to the lab. I assume you have a cargo hold filled with camera equipment?”

“I’ve got enough to start with, the rest will get delivered to our bunk.”

An arm slipped around Lara’s waist. “Hello.”

Sam looked at Lara, then at the newcomer with an American accent. She was a blonde woman in a labcoat like Lara’s. She was wearing wire-rimmed glasses, and, as far as Sam was concerned, had a little too much up top. Though why she was concerned was a matter for internal debate. Sam shot a quick look at Lara. “Uh. Hi?”

Extricating herself from the blonde, Lara cleared her throat. “Sam, this is Doctor Amanda Evert. She works in the Delta Lab, researching some of the unusual energy that we’ve discovered here.”

“Don’t be so formal.” Amanda laughed, and held out her hand. “Lara’s told me a lot about you.”

Sam took it, a polite smile plastered to her face. “Nice to meet you, Doctor. Wish I could say the same.”

“It really seemed like she couldn’t stop talking about you when she got started.”

Lara cleared her throat. “I was just showing Sam to the lab. She’s a miracle worker with a camera and is here to document my work.”

“I need to get back to my lab too. We’ve got some exciting work later.” Amanda’s hand lingered too long on Lara’s shoulder. It made Sam vaguely uncomfortable, like something was wrong with this picture but she didn’t know what or why. Lara looked embarrassed as the blonde woman walked away.

“Well she seems friendly.”

“Not really,” Alex butted in. “She’s actually turned into kind of a asshole. But most of the people on this base are assholes. I don’t know what Lara sees in her. I mean I kind of do, just look at her, but-”

“Alex.”

Alex looked at the way Sam was gaping at Lara, and at the deadly look Lara was giving him. He held up a hand. “And I’m needed in the server room.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Lara moved past Sam, pulling out her PDA to give them access to the elevator to the lower levels. Like most of the base, it was built from steel and other metals. The sides were a thick wire mesh, and they could see the Martian rock through it. She could practically feel Sam’s eyes on the back of her head. She turned around, leaning against the wall as Sam stepped in after her.

“Sooo….Is there anything you want to tell me? Your best friend. That you write to like three times a week?”

“Amanda and I are friends.”

Sam raised her eyebrows.

“That’s all, Sam.”

“Alex doesn’t seem to think so.” Sam folded her arms, giving Lara a smug look. Her expression softened after a few moments. “I’m not going to judge, Lara, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Lara had been worried about that, even if she’d known it was an irrational worry. “... I may be a lot less straight than you are.”

Sam snorted. “I knew that like three years ago, Lara. I’ve just been waiting for you to figure that out. So are you dating? Is it love? She’s really hot. Not as hot as me, but you know. And I never said I was straight.”

“It was once or … thrice,” Lara responded. “It was… nice, but then one day she seemed to change. She wasn’t quite the same woman anymore. But I guess we were what we needed when we needed it.” Thankfully she was saved by the ding of the lift. She quickly stepped out before she could say something she regretted. Was Sam jealous? Did she want Sam to be jealous? The answer to that was yes but Lara had more important things to worry about.

Sam watched Lara leave the lift, and brought her thumb to her mouth and chewed lightly on her nail. She stopped herself when she caught herself doing that and pushed aside an annoying feeling of jealousy.

Chapter Text

Twelve Hours Ago

“Aliens,” Sam said. She leaned over the tablet, a little camera on a headband on her head. It was small and compact but took amazing video. “I still can’t believe it’s true. I mean I heard the rumors and everything, but they keep it so hush hush back on Earth. Not that it matters. When Lara Fucking Croft goes to Mars, people start to talk.” She sounded so proud of her friend.

“Radar and sonar indicate there are ruins underground all over the planet. Most of them seem to be concentrated along ancient shorelines. It’s like earth.” Lara’s voice sounded excited, and Sam panned her head to record her friend. “Population centers around water. Trade routes and drinking supplies. And here’s where it gets really exciting.”

Lara gestured for Sam to come closer as she pulled up photographs on an LED screen. “I’ll take you down to one of the sites tomorrow, but here are some pictures I’ve taken of the ruins.”

“You did some good work, I’ve taught you well my young padawan.”

Pointing at the screen, Lara lifted her PDA. “Compare this structure, with my discoveries on Earth.” The designs on the pillars had a striking resemblance to what Lara had found when she’d unearthed Atlantis. The Atlantean pillars were shaped much like monoliths, while the Martian pillars were more rounded, but the pattern carved into them had noticeable similarities.

“Holy shit.” Sam zoomed in, using a little control she had attached to a bracelet on her wrist. “But I thought Mars has been dead for like millions of years.” Sam turned her head towards Lara. “Making these ruins really old.”

“I believe Mars went through several periods of rapid decline. Most of the ruins under Mars City are tens of thousands of years old, but there are a few artifacts that are much, much older. My going theory is that as the Martian surface became uninhabitable, the people here went underground. At first, the other researchers thought they’d died out. But perhaps some evacuated to Earth.”

“Are you telling me I could be part Martian?” Sam leaned over the table. “Because that would be awesome.”

“Until someone finds something biological to test,” Lara replied. “I can only surmise that they influenced at least one culture. But all of our cultures far younger than the ruins of this city. Even Atlantis, which is twelve-thousand years old.”

“Did you ever figure out what destroyed it?” Sam flicked the camera off and sat in a chair next to Lara. “Atlantis. And isn’t this getting awfully close to that aliens built all of our cool stuff bullshit?”

Lara smiled, resting her hand on Sam’s head and absently playing with her hair. “No, I haven’t. It collapsed into a cavern, much of it underwater but there were still plenty of areas with air pockets. And if Martians somehow influenced people on Earth, it was so long ago that all that was left was a memory of that pattern on those pillars.”

The hand in her hair was nice. Distracting, but nice. Sam would be willing to stay like that all night but there was work to do. The camera light came back on. “How about the glyphs?”

Lara frowned. “The Martian glyphs share enough similarities with Atlantean writing to indicate a shared root. I’ve made some headway thanks to a few tablets we’ve found and my own records from the expedition. I’m so close to a breakthrough.”

“Can I record them?”

“Of course.” Lara grabbed the chair and pulled it, Sam and all, over to a case. “They’re in here.”

The lights flickered and went out again, and Lara sighed. She turned on a torch. “That’s getting annoying.

Sam peered in, turning on a light on the opposite side of her headband from her camera. “These are fucking cool.”

The tablets seemed to display a kind of scene, with figures approaching another figure on a raised object of some kind. Pieces were missing, but the glyphs along the edge reminded Sam of something. She had Lara show her the next one. “Lara. This is going to sound a little crazy. But a few months ago I was out in the Nevada desert. I was doing a project on the old nuclear waste dump. Outside the dump, carved into metal, were all these warnings. Like they weren’t just in all kinds of languages. They were pictograms. For people far in the future when our languages change.”

Lara leaned over next to Sam, then put an arm around her and squeezed her. She had to resist the urge to kiss her cheek. “Sam, that’s it! That’s what I was missing! I just needed a fresh set of eyes!”

“What? You think it’s a warning?”

“I think that’s exactly what it is.” Lara shined her torch into the case, trying to get a better look. “The question is, what is it warning us from? We’d have known if there was radiation. Perhaps a plague?”

Sam snapped her head back and flailed away. Lara rolled her eyes. “We haven’t even found so much as a bacteria, Sam. We’re safe from any plague.”

Light flickered back on, and Lara turned on the case light. “I really wish Amanda would tell me what the hell she’s doing that’s causing so many power surges.”

Sam watched Lara look over the tablets. It was a familiar sight to her, and one she’d missed. “You’re going to be at this all night, aren’t you. I’m going to go get us some lunch.”

“Sounds good.” Lara looked up, and smiled broadly at Sam. “I’m really glad your here. I’ve missed you.”

Sam kissed Lara on the cheek, then quickly left the lab. Lara stared after her, face turning red.

She rubbed the back of her neck, then picked up her PDA. She had a waiting message, so she opened it;

Lara, one of the workers discovered a new series of tablets. We’re bringing them up tomorrow, but they took pictures and I’ve attached them so you can get a head start. Good luck.

Grimaldi

“Grimm you beautiful old coot!” Immediately swiveling in her chair, Lara logged into a workstation and pulled up her mail. As promised, the pictures of the tablets were attached. The lighting was absymal and she quickly messaged Sam to hurry up and bring lunch and her camera-magic back to fix the lighting. But she could make out enough of the glyphs to get an idea of what they were saying.

Lara’s face twisted into disbelief. “Demons?”

Her comm beeped, and she flicked it on, not turning her gaze from the display. “Yes?”

Amanda’s face appeared in the corner of her screen. “Settling in with your girlfriend?”

“Funny. You almost sound jealous.”

She rolled her eyes, giving Lara a soft chuckle. “This isn’t a social call. I wanted to give you a heads up that we’re about to lose power for longer than usual. We’re firing up a large test in a few minutes.”

The tip of Lara’s tongue stuck out between her lips, then she sucked it in. “About that… You wouldn’t happen to be playing with teleportation, would you?”

“What? How did.. Alex.” Amanda’s expression soured. “He gave you access, didn’t he.”

“What? No, these tablets Amanda. We just found some new ones. They’re a warning to not play around with portals.” She finally looked at Amanda’s face. “Warning for what, exactly, I’m still trying to figure out. You really should stop those tests for now.”

“It’s just ancient superstition, Lara. We’ve been doing this for weeks, there’s nothing dangerous on the other side.”

“Amanda,” Lara warned.

The other woman cut her off. “Meet me for dinner after the test. Say nineteen hundred? Let me convince you this isn’t dangerous.”

“Is that all you’re trying to convince me of?” Lara’s lips curved up into a light smirk.

“You’ve never taken much convincing in the past, but we’ll just talk business. Just give me a chance to show you what I’m doing. Deal?”

“Deal.” Lara hung up the connection, and quickly printed out the pictures. She was folding them up to stow in her pack when the entire base shuddered violently. It was as though everything lifted up three feet and then dropped back down. It went completely dark, and Lara groped around for her torch to give her some light until the power or the emergency lights came on.

As soon as the light flashed on, she was startled by a ghoulish looking face. Lara stumbled back, but the apparition was gone. Heart pounding in her chest, she stood carefully. She grabbed her pack, and after a moment’s hesitation took a pistol out of the locker and stowed it in her belt.

Light flickered on and then back off, and that’s when she heard the screams. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. Men, women, and something unearthly, a shrieking straight out of humanity’s primal nightmares. Lara didn’t believe in demons or in ghosts, but the ancient Martians had left behind a warning for a reason.

She moved towards the door, the lights came on and she jumped but there was nothing there. “Jesus.” She had to find Sam, and Alex, and Amanda. And Grimm. Make sure they were all okay.

When the lights went dead again, only some of them came back on. It cast the hallway in shadows. Some of the lights swung back and forth, causing the shadows to dance. Lara put her hand on the palm of her gun. “I really should have listened to Roth and gone looking for Yamatai instead.”

Chapter Text

Six Hours Ago

Like the rest of the base, the restrooms were mostly metallic, though UAC had attempted to make them feel less sterile by installing tiles. Tiles that were now broken and cracked, slick with blood. A trail of blood led into one of the stalls, as though someone or something had been dragged into it. Lara could hear a snuffling sound, heavy breathing, and the whir-clack of a mechanical motor.

The breathing and whirring grew louder, and a large shadow moved along one wall. It was a hulking shape, accompanied by heavy footsteps and that incessant whir-clacking sound. The shape stopped, then turned towards her. In the dim light from a flickering lamp, she could make out mounds of pink muscle and a snout like a pig’s over a maw filled with deadly teeth.

Lara nearly dropped her gun. In the hours of searching the city, she’d only seen the aftermath. Bodies dangling from ceilings, blood smears on the floors, and sounds in the distance. Screaming or crying, and once, singing.

But this thing looked like a demonic, disfigured pig with mechanical hind legs. Blood stained it’s mouth and she thought she saw the fabric of a lab coat caught in it’s teeth. It was close, too close, and smelled like death and urine. Swallowing her panic, she aimed her gun and fired two shots into it’s head. It squealed, rearing up and then slamming back onto the ground, shattering tiles underneath its front hooves. She rolled out of the way, nearly slipping in blood as it smashed into a stall door. Lara climbed onto the sink, aimed again and kept firing until the creature stopped moving. She crouched, watching it for a full minute before she felt safe enough to climb back down to the floor.

“Demons,” She muttered, reaching into her pack and pulling out her tablet print outs. The creature resembled some of the carvings in the tablet. “Something dangerous, at least. No wonder they tried to warn us, but who’d believe it? Ancient superstitions...”

She was exhausted. She needed a break, or a rest. But she had to find Sam first. She’d heard no word from anyone since the whole thing started. She’d tried sending a mass message on her PDA, but no one had responded.

Lara refused to entertain the idea that her friends might be dead, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

Two Hours Ago

The Marines had been taken by surprise. Some of them were folded over like pieces of paper, others had been shredded. Few had been able to get to their weapons in time. Lara stepped gingerly over one woman, and opened the locker. She replenished her clips, threw a medical kit into her backpack and pulled out a change of clothing. She was soaked in blood, and gave the locker shower a brief, longing look. But Sam had made Lara watch enough horror movies to know that that was just an invitation to disaster.

She stripped quickly, settling with wiping herself down with a wet towel while keeping her back to the wall. The woman’s pants were a little loose and the military green tank top was a little snug, but Lara could live with that.

The real prize was the armory. Alex’s magic worked like a charm, giving her access to a variety of weapons and armor. She grabbed the armor first. Green, like most of the rest of the Marines’ gear, with lightweight, reinforced plates to protect her torso, legs and arms. For the first time since all hell broke lose, Lara felt a measure of protection. She set aside the helmet to sort through the weapons.

Lara strapped a grand total of six pistols to various parts of her body, slung an assault rifle across her shoulders and stored a shotgun against her back. It had always puzzled her how well armed the base was. She’d thought it was partly because the military funded so much of the UAC’s activities, but now she knew better.

UAC knew exactly what they were dealing with.

She was reaching for her helmet when something slammed into her. Her head collided with a security console and dazed, she fell to the ground. Lara got her hands up in time to push back against whatever was on her. Her vision was blurry, but it looked like a woman. One clawed hand cut through the floor to her right, and she kicked away, rising to her feet and getting the assault rifle into her hands.

The woman reared up, and then kept rearing up. Lara pushed blood away from her eyes as eight legs came into view, supporting a large, spider-like body. The “woman” shrieked at her, and Lara fired an assault rifle for the first time in her life. It sounded nothing like a movie, the sound like a rapid buzzing as bullets tore into the monster. Lara dodged to the left, only to find herself lifted into the air and thrown against the bulkhead.

The spider woman lifted her hands, and one of the weapons lockers was ripped from the wall and flung towards Lara. Lara fired blindly and dove underneath the creature. She crawled out into the locker room and bolted for the door. Claws cut through the air where her head was and she jerked back as one left a cut down her face, barely missing her left eye.

The claws belonged to a creature the size of a human, grey skinned and dessicated, with bony scales on it’s arm and ten small eyes in a large head. Lara recoiled back and the thing shrieked at her. It lobbed some kind of ball of fire that seared the bulkhead above her head. Lara tossed the now empty rifle aside and pulled out the shotgun. “Come and get me you piece of shit!”

Before she had the chance to fire, the spider burst through the reinforced window of the armory, shoving ten-eyes aside. The smaller creature leapt to its feet and flung fire at the spider.

While the two became occupied with a sudden turf war, Lara took the opportunity to escape. The pounding in her head came in waves and her face stung. Twisted pigs, something out of an arachnophobe’s nightmares, and now what ever that… imp thing was. Lara felt like she was trapped in some kind of horror movie.

She found a corner to sit down and get her bearings. There was a message waiting on her PDA. “Please be Sam…”

It was Alex, which was also a relief.

Lara, are you okay? I’m stuck in the computer lab. There’s some really freaky things stalking the corridors outside. If you get this, don’t come here, it’s too dangerous. I’m just going to wait for them to leave.

“The hell I’m not coming for you.”

She’d been headed in that direction anyway. She sent him a message to stay put, tried sending another to Sam, Amanda and Grimm, then shoved her PDA back inside her armor. If they got the message, they’d know to meet her back at her lab.

Between Lara and the computer lab was a long hallway with a few adjacent labs. If Alex was to be believed, there were more creatures in that hallway and labs. Lara wasn’t a praying woman, but she had a shotgun and her patience had run out.

The corridor was dark, and as she quietly approached it she could hear things moving in the shadows. Eyes glowed in some of the windows, and she crouched, moving low and out of sight. In the dim, unsteady light from one abandoned lab, she got a good look at the creatures between her and Alex. There was another one of those grey imp things, and three others. They looked like people. Walking. Dead. People. One woman was missing most of her jaw, the portly man near her had half of his face chewed off, and standing silent in the corner was a security officer. If it weren’t for the blood dripping from the inside of his mask and the pallor of his skin, Lara wouldn’t have suspected he wasn’t alive. No one was going to believe her if she survived all this.

Four against one, but Lara had a plan. She’d seen the way the imp and spider-woman had turned on each other, so she just needed to get them fighting each other and pick off the survivors. Lara drew her pistol and slowly took the safety off as she edged closer to the guard. She took aim, shooting the imp in the back, then rolled away as it turned and flung fire into the corner. The guard hissed, rushing forward and shooting blindly towards its attacker. In seconds, all three of the zombies were attacking the imp and each other in a free for all melee.

The first dead man caught fire, groaning and stumbling away. He hit a wall and fell over as the smell of burning flesh reached Lara’s nostrils. The imp tore apart the other zombie, before the guard put it down. Lara stepped up behind the guard and put two bullets into the back of his head. The barrel wavered in her hand, and she flicked the safety back on before holstering it. She hadn’t had this problem with the pink pig thing. “They’re not people, they’re not people.”

But they had been people once. Lara felt the bile rise up in her throat and before she could stop it she was doubled over, retching. The world felt very small and suffocating all of a sudden and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into a closet somewhere and never come out. But Sam… Sam was out there somewhere. Sam needed her. Alex needed her, too. Lara straightened, wiping her mouth. “Pull yourself together, Lara. It’s only going to get worse from here.”

The computer lab wasn’t much farther. The door didn’t respond to her PDA, and she peered into the window. She could see someone huddling inside, so she reluctantly rapped on the window.

The man turned, and she recognized Alex. He rushed to the window, and she could barely hear him through the reinforced glass. “Lara! I thought I told you to stay away!” A panicked look crossed his face as he placed his hands on the glass.

“I couldn’t leave you alone! I took care of the creatures outside. We need to get back to my lab. Have you heard from Sam or Amanda?”

He shook his head, and shuffled in place. “I… Lara. I’m sorry… Lara..”

“Alex…?”

“Lara...Run…” Alex stumbled back as the skin on his face started to shrivel inwards and he turned a deathly pale before Lara’s eyes. Fire seemed to ripple around his head before it exploded off of his body. Lara screamed, backpeddling as the disembodied head of her friend slammed repeatedly into the glass, each blow creating more and more cracks.

“Alex!” Her gun was in her hand on sheer instinct and she fired as it broke through. Two bullets, and the flying, burning head careened out of control and disappeared into the darkness.

Lara turned her gun sideways, staring at it, then in the direction of Alex’s body. She pulled the clip out and counted the bullets in it. She had plenty of other clips, but this clip she wanted to save. Six bullets. Three for any poor souls she found along the way, and one each for her, Sam and Amanda, if it came to that. The coldness of the thought should have disturbed her, but she stowed the gun inside her armor. She’d been too slow for Alex.

She couldn’t afford to make that mistake with Sam.

Chapter Text

Now

Hours and hours ago, Sam had been getting food for her and Lara. She’d been waiting in line, thinking about Lara, and Amanda and trying to understand the emotions that the whole scene had left her feeling. And then there was the alien thing.

And then there’d the power outage. People screaming, people turning into inhuman things. Sam had ran and in her panic she’d gotten lost.

But now Lara had her hand and was leading her through the facility like a genuine knight in kevlar armor. If Sam hadn’t been terrified for her life, she might have been a little turned on. She tugged at Lara’s hand. “Sweetie, slow down. My leg is killing me.”

Lara immediately stopped and looked at her, then she picked Sam up and carried her into a nearby room. Setting Sam down on a desk, she barricaded the door, then knelt in front of her. “We need to get your pants off. I’ve got a medical kit.”

“You’ll have to buy me dinner first.”

Lara looked up, meeting Sam’s eyes for too long of a moment. Then she looked back down towards Sam’s wound. “I’ll buy you a gourmet cheeseburger when we get back to earth, deal?”

“Sounds perfect,” Sam replied. She bit her lip, gripping the desk tightly as Lara used a knife to cut her pants leg off. The wound looked a lot worse than she thought it did and if Lara didn’t need her hands to help, she would have grabbed them both and held on tight.

Hissing through her teeth, Lara opened the medkit. “This is going to hurt, but I’m going to clean your wound. Lucky for you I still remember my first aide training.”

“My hero,” Sam rasped. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to scream.

It took Lara several minutes to clean the wound and then stitch it. She finished by wrapping a bandage around it. There was nothing she could use to wash her hands, but she did find another kit on the wall, which she added to her pack.

Dazed, Sam watched her move around while she imagined cutting her own leg off to make the pain stop. Which, objectively, would make the pain worse, but sometimes you just wanted to do anything to make it stop. “Lara…?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Have you found anyone else?”

With a hand still in her pack, Lara froze. She looked over at Sam, then sighed heavily. “I found Alex. I was too late to help him. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Sam absorbed that information, trying to imagine what Alex must have looked like. The thought made her nauseous. She slid off the desk, testing her weight on her right leg. It hurt, but she could walk. It was better to focus on that then on thinking about poor Alex.

“Lara, let me help.” She pulled Lara’s pack away from her. She kept her voice upbeat, deciding that a positive outlook would help their survival. “You’ve got all those weapons and your armor, I can carry this. Just pretend I’m a very sexy mule.”

After a moment’s thought, Lara helped Sam get the backpack on. She strapped a pistol to each side, but kept the shotgun for herself. “How does that feel?”

Sam smiled at her, still a little teary-eyed from the double blow of Alex and her leg. “Like hiking in the Andes.”

“What I wouldn’t give to be back there, right now.” Lara pulled Sam into a hug, and the two women leaned on each other.

Sam buried her face into the crook of Lara’s neck. It felt safe here, like this. “So what do we do, now?”

“Get you to the shuttle. Locate any other survivors if we can on the way. Radio for help.” Lara stroked her hand down Sam’s back. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her nose into the other woman’s hair. “You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”

“When did you get so badassed?” Sam pulled her head back, lifting her hand to Lara’s cheek and stroking it lightly. Her other hand rested against Lara’s breastplate.

“Necessity. Mother of invention and all.” Lara’s hand ran up to the back of Sam’s neck. It would be so easy to…

Something beeped inside her armor, and she looked down. Sam sighed and hobbled away while Lara pulled out her PDA. “Someone else is still alive.”

“They could have waited fifteen seconds,” Sam muttered.

“What was that?” Lara flicked the device on and tabbed to her messages.

“Nothing!”

Unsafe. Come to Delta.

Evert

It occurred to her that Amanda had been experimenting with some kind of teleporter or portals, and if those experiments had precipitated the invasion, going into the lab would be like entering ground zero. She tapped out a response.

Your lab was experimenting with teleportation. My tablets warned against that. Are you sure it’s secure?

L. Croft

Yes. Portals shut down.

Evert

“Amanda is alive She says my lab is unsafe and to come to the Delta Lab.” Lara stowed the device back inside her armor. “So we’re going to get you to the shuttle, then I’m going after her.”

“You’re not going alone.” Sam gripped the armor on Lara’s arm.

“Sam, I’m not losing you to-”

“You are not leaving me.”

Lara looked into Sam’s eyes. The fear, the determination there. Other emotions that they had no time to explore. The butterflies Sam always gave her returned, and she shooed them away. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Sam let go of Lara. “Then lets get going.”

Lara stared at Sam for a moment longer, then a smile crossed her face and she couldn’t hold back a small laugh.

“What?”

Still smiling, Lara reached for Sam’s hand. “Nothing. Lets go.”

The way to get to the Delta Lab required some amount of backtracking, until Lara and Sam found an access stairwell down into the depths of Mars City. Going farther into the base was risky, and it made Lara uneasy. She flashed her light down the stairs, then looked at Sam. “Stay close to me. We both need to stay quiet.”

Sam just nodded, and started down the stairs with Lara. She reached for her own pistol and held onto it tightly.

Lara became aware of a small red light on one side of Sam’s head. “Are you recording?”

“Yeah. I mean we want people to believe us, don’t we?”

“You’re right. But let me make you less of a target.” Lara drew a knife, carefully gripped the camera, and put out the recording light.

“I doubt the recording light is going to draw anyone that us moving around won’t alert.” Sam squeezed Lara’s shoulder. If it made her feel better, than she was going to go with it. Truthfully, the idea made Sam feel better, too.

Shadows danced in the stairwell, a combination of the light on Lara’s shoulder and the overhead lights that kept flashing ominously. Down and down they went, every step putting Sam on edge. She thought she heard whispering, and grabbed Lara’s arm. “Do you hear that?”

Lara froze, listening carefully. Something fluttered over head and faintly she could hear a child singing.

“And there she stood in mystery searching for the final ring, within a dream within a dream, dream within a dream. And with the ring, with the ring, she took her soul and she swallowed it whole.”

The fluttering and the singing seemed to be linked, both growing louder and louder until something whispered in Lara’s ear. "Where is my soul, what have you done with it?" The words were followed by a sound resembling a distorted baby’s babbling.

Lara twisted around, coming face to face with… a baby. His eyes were white on black and the four insect-like wings on his back fluttered rapidly. His arms had been replaced by monsterous pincers and instead of legs he had an insect’s abdomen. Not bothering to look twice at the demented cherub, Lara shoved Sam forward. "Run!"

The babbling grew louder, mixing with the singing until the stairwell was filled with the cacophony of demonic harmony. The twisted cherubs swooped around them. Pincers cut into Lara’s shoulder and slashed Sam’s cheek. Sam cried out, nearly tumbling down the stairs in an panicked attempted to escape.

Close behind her, Lara was operating completely on instinct and adrenaline. She hauled Sam into her arms and took the stairs three steps at a time. It was deafening in the stairwell as the singing and fluttering and burbling and gurgling reached a crescendo. Lara burst out of the stairwell just as a claw ripped into a gap in the side of her armor. Pain radiated from the gash and she fell, dropping her precious cargo. Lara turned quickly, slamming the stair door shut.

“Sam??” Lara stumbled back to Sam. “Are you all right?”

“Am I all right?” Hysterical laughter bubbled up Sam shook Lara’s shoulders, hyperventilating. “Am I all right?!”

Taking that as a yes, Lara slumped onto the floor and shone her torch to get a look at her wound. She was going to need to stitch that up after drowning it in antiseptic. She didn’t think they could afford the time it would take to properly clean it, and was actively considering just cauterizing it. “Sam, my kit. I need the med kit.”

Still breathing heavily, Sam crawled over. “Shit Lara, that looks bad.” She held out the kit. then rested a hand on Lara’s knee. “Sorry. I’m just. Freaked out.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I’m getting my tubes tied when we get back to Earth.”

“That also makes two of us.” Lara opened the kit, pulling out a bottle and inspecting it. She breathed a sigh of relief. “This should do. It’s better than the alternative. I’m going to need your help once I get the thread in.”

“Okay. You realize this is going to really hurt, right.” Sam shifted closer, craving some kind of contact after the madness in the stairwell.

Taking a deep breath, Lara nodded her head. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to do this.”

Chapter Text

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.”

Chapter Text

It felt like Lara’s heart was going to beat out of her chest. Twice now they’d had to lay low while one or more of hell’s creations shuffled past. The imps were paler, almost pink, with many of them having carved demonic symbols into their flesh. With no clothing and only her fists and some poor man’s femur, Lara didn’t like the odds if they were discovered. That wouldn’t stop her, but she didn’t have to like it. The caverns seemed to stretch on forever, like they were lost inside some living, breathing thing. The walls leaked blood, and paths sometimes ended in rivers or pools of fiery lava.

They crept around a corner, Lara first. She bumped into an imp. The creature recoiled, and Lara raised her makeshift weapon and swung it at its head. Blood splattered across Lara’s face and chest and it took two blows before going down. It had a partner, and Lara rolled under a swipe of claws. She jabbed her fist into its stomach, then swung the femur with all her might. It connected with the imp’s jaw and the demon landed on its back hard enough for the sound to echo. Lara didn’t wait for it to try to get back up, dropping her knee into its chest and driving the sharpened point of her weapon into its throat.

When she turned to check on Sam, the other woman was staring at her. “Sam?”

“Holy shit.”

“What is it, Sam”

“Holy shit!”

Lara stood and rushed over to her. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“What?” Sam chewed on her lip, her face coloring. “No, no I’m okay. We should keep moving. You know. In case something heard all that. The kicking their ass thing.” She was grateful when Lara stepped away to retrieve her weapon, but couldn’t tear her eyes away from her friend.

She didn’t snap out of it until Lara had grabbed her hand and was pulling her along, and then her eye was drawn to the Soul Cube that hovered at Lara’s waist. Setting aside the impossibility, she focused instead on the way it seemed to glow. “Lara, the cube is doing something weird. I think it started after you killed those guys.”

Lara stopped moving, and lifted the cube to inspect it. “According to the inscriptions we uncovered back on Mars, it was supposed to be powered by, well, souls.”

“I don’t know what’s freakier, that that thing uses soul-juice or that those things have enough of a soul to make it glow.”

“We don’t know what they are, really.” Lara squeezed Sam’s arm. “Maybe they’re why so many legends and myths speak of demons and monsters.”

“Lara, I’m pretty sure we’re literally in hell.”

“Sam, the Martians disappeared when humanity was still trying to survive an Ice Age.”

Sam shrugged. “So we have the same hell. You just said it yourself, maybe they’re why so many cultures have demonic myths. Maybe someone once opened a portal on Earth and they came through.”

“If so, they were stopped,” Lara pointed out. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. We’d have gone the way of the Martians.”

“Or maybe we’re descended from some unholy union of cro-magnon and demon,” Sam whispered.

Lara shot her a look, rolling her eyes when her friend stuck her tongue out. “For a moment I thought you were serious.”

“Considering some of the human monsters in our past, I’m not entirely sure I’m wrong.”

It was in its own way an appealing thought. Lay the blame for humanity’s darkest sins on extra-dimensional invaders, or demons or whatever they were. To think that the visions of herself that she’d seen, what she was capable of had an explanation beyond simply being a part of who she was. Yet, Lara thought that was a cop-out. That darkness buried deep in her heart was something uniquely human and part of her needed to cling to that fact. “No, you’re wrong.”

Taking Sam’s hand, Lara led them further into the depths of hell. As she predicted, the UAC had figured out how to transport gear. They found a staging area in what looked like an easily defensible cave. Stacks of crates filled with weapons, armor and ammunition were piled against the wall and the marines had set up barricades. The marines had set up camp. There were tents that had been shredded and the defenders were little more than smears of blood on the ground.

Lara silently nudged Sam before she could step on someone’s intestines. “Don’t look down. Walk this way. They must have been overrun.”

Sam started to protest, but the look Lara gave her was enough to make her close her mouth. She let Lara lead her to the crates. “Okay so...how the hell did they get this stuff here, but we lost all our shit?”

“Chances are, they had more control over the portal than we did.” Lara started to pull out duffel bags, hoping something might fit either of them. “Especially with that...thing… that possessed Amanda.”

“I guess that explains why she changed on you.” Sam knelt next to Lara, putting an arm around her. “I’m sorry.”

Lara shook her head. “I knew these people. This was Arlene Sanders’ Bravo squad.” She pushed a duffel towards Sam. “This was Kira’s, her gear should fit you.”’

Sam pulled out clothing, looking at it with a distasteful expression on her face. Her eyes moved from the unfashionable underwear to Lara, and she hesitated a minute before asking, “What were they like?”

“I didn’t know them as well as I knew Alex or Amanda.” Lara admitted. She gave a silent apology as she pulled one of the men’s shirts out of a duffel to try to get some of the blood off of them. “But Fly invited me to eat with them sometimes. Shy man, never said much, but kind. Kira was a bit of a joker. Always smiling and told great stories.”

“What about, uh…” Sam looked in a duffel. “Blazkowicz?”

“Don’t think I ever heard him talk once, but I’m pretty sure he and Grimm had a thing going.”

“Grimm?”

Lara didn’t have it in her to laugh, but she still managed a smile. “Not that Grimm. PFC John Grimm. Never saw him smile.”

“Name fits, then. Do you think he’s okay? Other Grimm, I mean.”

She didn’t respond until she’d pulled Arlene’s shirt over her head and started to adjust a belt. “I never got a response from him after the invasion. I’m going to go with no.”

Helping Sam into armor, Lara let her mind wander. It had been weeks since she’d seen the squad in the galley. She’d thought they’d been rotated home, but they’d been here. Fighting. Dying. How long had they known about this? Had she looked Arlene in the eyes while the marine had been hiding her knowledge of all of this from everyone? She snapped the last buckle in place and watched as Sam twirled around.

“You look like a soldier, Sam.”

“Did you just feel a chill?” Sam joked.

“Funny.”

“You smiled.”

She met Sam’s eyes. “You know, most people would be having a hysterical breakdown right now. I’m proud of you.”

Hands shaking, Sam pretended to dust off the armor on her chest. She wet her lips, and her jaw twitched. “Lara, we’re stuck in a literal hell. We were chased by demented babies. I’m wearing a dead woman’s clothing. If I spend more than three seconds thinking about it you’re going to be carrying me out of here comatose.”

“Oh Sam…” Lara finished armoring herself up, and tested the light on the armor. “I wish you weren’t here, but part of me is glad for it. I don’t know what I’d become if I lost you. Or how I’d make it out if I was alone.”

They were words that Sam didn’t know how to process, especially with Lara standing there in that armor, her eyes hyper focused. She couldn’t even meet Lara’s gaze, it was too intense. Sam didn’t think they had much more time before something found them or they had to move on, but she wrapped her arms around Lara anyway and rested her head on her shoulder. She felt chapped lips press into her forehead and closed her eyes to keep tears at bay. “Keep saying stuff like that and you really will make me fall apart.”

“Come on, love.” Lara’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Lets pick out some weapons to accessorize our armor.”

Sam’s laugh sounded choked. She pushed away from Lara. “Retail therapy. You know me so well.”

She looked Lara over. The woman, her hero stood next to a crate of weapons, a machinegun propped on her shoulder. The armor was better quality than what Lara had been wearing when she'd found Sam, and fit her well. The pants were dark green, with olive plates on her thighs, knees, hips and shins. Her arms had curved plates at her shoulders and more angular plates on the forearms. The chestplate was segmented front and back, fitting snuggly and providing both movement and protection. The helmet was shaped to direct blows away and and came with a visor that could be pushed open.

Sam rapped her knuckles on her own chest plate. Hers was more grey than green, but otherwise the same design.

"You look good, Sam."

A smile found it's way to her face. "Almost as hot as you."

Lara stared at her a moment, then turned towards the arsenal. “No BFG, but I’m not going to be caught without something bigger than a shotgun this time. And helmets. We’re wearing helmets.”

“BFG?” Sam looked at Lara, feeling an overwhelming urge to laugh again. She thought if she started this time, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“Takes less time than saying ‘big fucking gun,’” Lara replied. She winked at Sam as she handed her a submachine gun. It was small enough for Sam to hold but still packed enough of a wallop to be useful. “It felt apropos.”

Sam counted their steps as they continued through the hellish caverns. After two-thousand, they emerged into a landscape with sand red like blood, an ocean of fire in the distance, and a sky overcast with roiling orange clouds. It was suffocatingly hot. Yellow lightning flashed overhead, and it started to rain.

The droplets pinged on Sam’s armor, ringing in her ears. They splashed red on Lara’s, and Sam didn’t dare look up. “Lara. This isn’t water, is it.”

“No, it’s not.” Lara turned enough to push the visor down on Sam’s helmet before doing the same on her own. She tested the comm link. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

The sky opened up like an infected wound. It became nearly impossible to see, and there was no cover from the relentless red downpour. Things moved in the rain. Imps, and other vile things that Lara hadn’t seen before.

She tapped her visor, and a display sprang to life. The burning rivers of fire made infrared useless, but when she toggled the night vision she could see a lot more clearly, even through the rain. She saw Sam copy her, before lifting her machine gun and sighting down the barrel. “Sam, I need you to watch my back. Can you do that?”

With the safety on her submachine gun off and her back to Lara’s, Sam looked around. Some of the demons were starting to flank them. Her voice wavered. “I… Yes. Yes.”

“Good.” Lara squeezed the trigger, firing a burst into an imp’s head. She swiveled, firing at one of the new demons. She couldn’t make out its features, except it was human shaped, with skeletal face and large hands. Its head exploded just as easily as an imp.

“Sam, I’m going to start moving us forward, just try to keep pace.” Lara slowly started to advance, and except for a brief moment where she didn’t feel Sam’s presence at her back, the other woman kept up, pushing into Lara’s back as she shot bullets into enemies that Lara couldn’t see. But if they stayed put, they’d never make anywhere alive.

“Down!” Lara shoved Sam to the ground as one of the demons lobbed a bolt of plasma towards them. Sam felt her teeth rattle as her knees hit the ground. The ground was still shaking and her teeth was still rattling, and her ears rang as Lara continued to fire her gun. She looked up, and pounding towards them through the rain of blood was a big demon. The same kind that had nearly killed Lara in the portal room. “Hellknight!”

“Fuck!” Lara rolled over Sam. “Three imps to the left, a skeleton face to the right and another dead ahead.”

The chainsaw-like buzz of Lara’s gun punctuated her words as Sam turned in the direction Lara had been facing. “Oh fuck me!” She sprayed bullets into the rain until the clip ran empty. The panting of her breath was deafening, but all five of the demons were down. She made the mistake of looking behind her. The Hellknight was nearly on them. Its chest and face bled from dozens of wounds but if anything, it was moving faster. “Lara!”

“Run, run!” Lara shoved at Sam and the two bolted down a thin path between a river of boiling blood and a sea of fire. Lara dropped an empty clip, quickly reloading on the move. Twisting, she took a few shots, and the Hellknight finally started to slow down. It stopped, bellowing.

Something ahead of them bellowed back. Lara grabbed Sam’s shoulder and slowed them to a trot. “What the hell is that?”

It was bigger than the hellknight, taller by several feet and much, much broader. With the rain letting up, Lara turned off the night vision to get a better look at it. It was greyish red, with fists that looked more like the end of a medieval mace. Its hind legs reminded Lara of dinosaurs she'd seen in museums and it had a long tail with a similar mace at the end. There were two primal horns on either side of its head and it had a wide mouth, filled with numerous razor sharp teeth.

"That thing looks like the kind of thing that would give a T-Rex nightmares," Sam whispered.

"It kind of looks like one. It's between us and freedom. Like some guardian of hell."

"Good one."

"Thank you."

"But how do we kill it."

Good question, Lara thought, looking down at her gun. The Guardian roared. The sound cut through her, and for a brief moment she thought her legs would turn to jelly and her hands started to shake. But she swallowed her fear. "Sam?"

"I want you to sneak around it while I keep it busy."

"What about the Hellknight?" Sam glanced behind them, but the demon was gone. "...guess he's scared, too." The ground shuddered as the huge Guardian picked up speed.

"Go!" The machinegun buzzed and Sam charged between the demon's legs. She tripped, landing hard on her stomach, but she was clear. She turned to look back at Lara. To her horror, the demon shrugged off the bullets like they were dandelions. Scrambling to her feet, she looked through her weapons. Nothing had the kind of firepower that Lara needed, but she took a shotgun out of it’s straps and loaded it.

Aiming at a flesh part of its back, Sam fired a round. The recoil knocked her on the ass, but to her delight, she saw blood splurt. The Guardian shuddered, rearing up and bellowing. It turned around to swipe at her, but Lara fired at the same spot. Sam braced herself on the ground, shooting it in the back when it turned its attention to Lara. She pumped in another shell and scooted away to give herself a few more feet from its long tail. It was a smart decision. Seconds later the demon slammed its tail into the ground where she’d just been.

Three shots each, four, five. On the sixth, the Guardian stumbled, disappearing into the fire. The smell of burning flesh reached Sam’s nose and she nearly retched in her helmet.

Something bright glowed on Lara’s belt, and she fell to her knees, holding her head between her hands. Images and faces crossed her vision. The Martians. Fighting. Dying. Their hero turning the tide with the Soul Cube but too late to save his people. But the demons, this hell was still so much older. Great feathered beasts, monsters in their own right, fleeing in terror from thousands of Guardians. A hellish rock slamming into the Earth. Extinction. Extinction, always the order of the day.

“Lara? Lara!” Sam shook Lara’s shoulder. “Snap out of it!”

“I’d...forgotten about it.” Lara tried to clear her head, reaching for the Soul Cube on her belt. She looked down at it. “I think it’s fully charged. I think we’re going to need it. We have to find the source, and we have to make sure there’s no way for these things to make it back to Mars. Or worse, Earth.”

Sam chewed on her lip. “We might get stuck here.”

Lara nodded. “You still have that gun?”

“One bullet for Amanda, and one for each of us,” Sam promised. Her throat bobbed, and she pressed the visor of her helmet against Lara’s. “So much for that cheeseburger.”

“Sam, I’ve loved you for a very long time. I need you to know that.” Lara smiled tiredly at the other woman. Even though she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, she had to say it. Just in case. “I just wish I could have had the chance to show you properly.”

“You’re not the only one who’s been hiding things.” Sam let out a heavy sigh, closing her eyes. “I just… I guess I wanted to… I didn’t want to fuck us up.”

“We’re pretty fucked up now, aren’t we.” Lara nodded her head at Sam, then forced herself to stand. “Come on.” She held out her hand. “That’s the worse case. I’m not ready to give up and maybe there’s still a chance we can find a way back.”

“Some hope is better than no hope” Sam took Lara’s hand and let herself get pulled back up. “Besides, did you see how we kicked that thing’s ass? We are bad ass, Lara Croft!” She fell silent for a moment, not letting go of Lara’s hand. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

“We’ll fight to the end. Fight to get back, fight for each other.”

Lara smiled, squeezing Sam’s hand. “I promise.”

The twin seas of fire and blood gave way to a jagged canyon. Ledges and spikes of rock thrust out in every direction, many of them jagged or serrated. It really looked as though they were walking through the maw of a beast, with the canyon its belly. The sky continued its turmoil. If there was a sun, it could not peer through the orange clouds.

Sam was getting tired of orange and red. Orange clouds, orange light, red rocks, red demons. Nothing all that large. A pig demon barred their path at one point but Lara dispatched it without breaking her stride or a sweat.

“You’d think there’d be more of them, the deeper we go,” Sam observed. “But there’s been… fewer and fewer.”

“I’m not sure I like what that implies.” Lara exchanged a look with Sam, before crouching near a rock outcropping. She gestured for Sam to join her and pointed. A path led down to an altar. Hundreds of skulls lined the altar, and at the center swirled a pool of energy. A figure floated in the air on the near side. She had huge, bat-like wings. Her skin seemed to have rotted off in places and when she sensed them and turned towards them. The skin on her face had sunken in, making her look skeletal and there were large, curled horns on her head. Her legs, now digitigrade, carried a wide torso. Her skin had stretched wide, ribs pressed tightly and all the fat on her body had fallen away.

“...Amanda..?”

“No. Not anymore. She served her purpose.” Her voice sounded like a dozen women speaking at once, though rough as though speaking through gravel. “So eager. So idealistic. A lot like you, Lara Croft. She did not know she was letting me in, and when she did, she lacked the strength to stop me. Mourn for her, for there is nothing left of your friend.”

Quietly, Lara slipped the Soul Cube off of her belt and handed it to Sam. Then she peered down at the creature through the sights of her assault rifle. “Who are you then?” She swallowed hard, trying to not let the demon’s words get to her.

“Oh, I’ve many names.” Her wings beat heavily as she landed a few feet from them. “Abaddon to the Hebrews. Maledict, to some. Lucifer. O-Yama. T'an-mo. Sedit. I can't quite remember what the natives to this planet named me. It was so long ago, and they’re gone now. Something with a G." She twirled her hands, each finger tipped by a long, thin iron nail as she took several steps towards them on muscular legs. She touched her nails lightly to her own chest. "The Atlanteans called me Natla. I have spent a very long time preparing this invasion. And finally I have the last pieces I needed."

Lara’s finger pressed on the trigger, and in the instant between that action and the bullet leaving the barrel, Natla had closed the distance. She ripped the gun from Lara’s hands and tossed it aside. One wing lashed out, sending Sam sprawling, before Natla lifted Lara by the throat. Lara kicked out at her, but couldn’t break free. “The blood on your hands runs deep. Look into my eyes. See your soul reflected in them. Stained with the damned and the dead.” Gradually, Lara’s struggling slowed. Natla’s eyes were like endless oceans of blood and damnation, and her head throbbed. She couldn’t look away. She wasn’t sure she wanted to look away. “Look into my eyes. See yourself reflected a thousand times, drowning in the blood of armies. Look into my eyes, see yourself for what you are. My vanguard, my beautiful Queen of Blood.”

She let go, and Lara dropped to the ground. Lara landed, crouching in front of the demon. She stood slowly. Her breathing was erratic, and her motions jerky and strained. She looked up at Natla. The demoness stretched her left arm, pointing one finger towards where Sam lay. “The last sacrifice, my pet. With her blood and with her soul, we shall tear open the veil to Earth and cleanse it with fire.”

Murderer, killer, monster, demon. No better, no better, you’re no better. The words rang in Lara’s head as she stumbled towards Sam. Her hand drew a knife from her belt against her will, and she knelt, her knee pressing into Sam’s chest. Slit her throat. Its better this way.

Sam hadn’t moved the whole time. She was too afraid to, and instinct told her to keep the Cube out of sight. But as she looked into Lara’s eyes, Lara’s red, glowing eyes, something inside her snapped. She grabbed onto Lara’s wrist. “Lara, look at me, Lara. She did something to you. But you’re better than that, you’re better than her. Remember Alex! Grimm! Remember Arlene and her Bravo squad. Remember Amanda!. Think about all those people back on Earth who are going to die horribly! And you promised me, Lara! You promised me you’d fight!”

The light in Lara’s eyes faded, and she exhaled shakily. “I’m wounded. Doubting me like that.” Lara smiled at Sam, and took the Soul Cube from her. “For you, I’d abdicate the throne.”

She stood, turning back towards Natla and lifting the Soul Cube up. “You don’t have the months you need to work me like you did Amanda.”

Natla spread her wings to their full width, shrieking loud enough to make Lara’s ears ring. “Where did you get that?!”

Each of the orbs on the Cube glowed brightly, and a voice whispered in Lara’s mind. Use us.

It lifted from her hand, blades popping from hidden compartments. They started to whir, and the Cube shot straight for Natla. The demon became engulfed in white light. Lara felt a sudden rush of renewed energy flow through her. Her aches and her pains faded away, and she could feel her skin knitting itself back together. A rib realigned. She sank to her knees as the Cube returned to her. The light faded, and she could see Natla limping towards the portal.

“Shit, she’s still alive!” Lara scrambled to her feet. She felt better than she had since this whole thing had started. She heard Sam follow her, and almost at the same time they both opened fire. Natla twisted her wing to act as a shield. It had been shredded by the Soul Cube, but still provided ample cover.

She dove into the pool. Almost immediately, it started to twist violently, like waves in a storm.

Sam shouted as the ground rocked beneath them. “I thought she couldn’t go through there!”

“Run faster! The portal is collapsing!”

A whistling sound drew Lara’s attention. She grabbed Sam and yanked them both back as a rocket hit the ground nearby. Both women went flying, Lara landing on her shoulder and rolling to her feet.

Running towards them was a literal skyscraper of a demon. Towering fifty feet tall, it had one mechanical leg, and one of its arms had been replaced by some kind of rocket launcher. It vaguely resembled a horrifically twisted Minotaur. When it bellowed, it sounded like a tornado.

Lara checked the Soul Cube and decided there wasn’t enough of a charge. She grabbed for Sam. “Portal! Portal now!”

“But-”

“Trust me! It won’t be able to follow!”

Not asking why Lara was so certain of this, Sam sprinted towards the collapsing portal. She stopped short, turning to grab Lara’s hand, before they both jumped in. The cybernetic demon’s war cry faded away.

Swirling light assaulted Lara’s mind. She heard voices, whispering warnings. She saw herself still fighting, still bloody, picking off gunmen with a bow in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. She stood on the deck of a burning ship, rain pouring all around her. Natla was burning and Amanda was shouting. Lara blinked her eyes, and every time she did so she saw herself anew. Waist deep in a jungle river. Gunning down a Tyrannosaurus. In a gunfight in Tibet, back to back with Sam. She wasn’t just a survivor, or a killer. She had reasons to live. They weren’t always the same, but they always mattered. Something to kill for. Something to die for. She held tight to Sam’s hand.

When she opened her eyes, she lay on her back in a dark chamber. It was quiet, and a little chilly. Lara sat up and looked around. They were alone. “It couldn’t follow us. The portal collapsed. I think our Lady Lucifer hadn’t fully readied the portal yet. Her and us passing through brought it down.”

“Where are we?” Sam rubbed her arms. “At least we’re not naked this time.”

Lara didn’t let go of Sam’s hand as she flashed her light around. “Atlantis. But I don’t recognize this chamber.”

There was a fresco, with atlantean writing underneath it. Lara felt a chill run down her spine. She stood and walked over to it. “They discovered a portal. the demons swarmed the city and in order to close the portal they buried their whole city. She must have been making incursions every chance she could. Maybe most of the demons of our mythologies are based on her. She certainly has enough names for it.”

“More warnings,” Sam whispered. She looked around, then shone her light towards a large, broken door. “Lara.”

Lara turned. Her light illuminated a shattered stone door. Indistinguishable footprints marred the ancient dust. Lara’s hand started to shake. “Oh no. How?”

“We need to get out of here, Lara...”

Something in the darkness shrieked, and if Sam hadn’t started to run first, Lara would have picked her up and threw her over her shoulder. They ran through the ruined city until Lara found a path that looked familiar to her. A quick glance told her that something had smashed the barrier that had stopped her the last time she’d been in Atlantis.

“This way. The entrance is in a submerged cavern.” Lara moved with purpose, a nervous feeling gnawing into her gut.

“How are we going to get to the surface?” Sam asked.

“There’s some scuba gear stowed here, or there should be.” The cavern was large, and there were so many large footprints they’d all mashed together. Lara started digging through the gear she’d left behind the last time she’d come. She stopped partway through, burying her palms into her face. “Shit. Shit…. fuck! It’s all my fault!”

“What’s your fault? Nothing is your fault! So Natla got some demons through the portal, we could only have moved so fast! The army will take care of them.” Even as she said it, Sam didn’t sound quite so certain.

Lara lifted her head, staring at Sam with tired eyes. “They buried their people to stop an invasion. Hell has come to Earth, Sam, and I opened the path when I found this city.”