“You’re not going to do that, Lara.”
“What? Point this at your head and shoot you?” Lara smirked, why was everyone she had to face so melodramatic. BANG. Lara walked over to Eleanor’s now still body and took the ancient axe from her hands, but blue sparks raced up the artefact causing her to drop it through shock.
“What happened?” Zip’s voice crackled through the headset.
A frown darting across her face Lara said the three words she hated most: “I don’t know.”
“According to the legend the axe can only be touched by those worthy. And, its definition of worthy is; “having defeated the previous owner in clear battle”” quoted Alistair.
“I shot her. If that isn’t victory, what is?” Lara dusted the floor of the tomb a little with her hand and sat down. “Maybe, its something to do with there not being any guns back then.”
“That makes sense. Try finding a blade and stabbing her.”
Lara stood up again and took out her binoculars, deftly flicking them into RAD mode. In the far corner of the tomb, quite high up, she could see a carving of a warrior man inlaid into the wall, complete with rusty sword. Walking over to the wall she took out her grapple gun and fired it towards the bent arms of the man so that the hook looped round securely. 10 seconds later she was back on the floor with the rusty sword.
Lara plunged the blade into Eleanor’s body, threw the sword aside and then bent to pick up the axe again. “Ouch!”
“Still no good?” asked Zip.
“No, apparently not.” Lara, looked down on Eleanor’s face trying to work out what was wrong, then she noticed something odd. “That’s odd. Can you boys see that? Around her eyes are… Two eyelids.”
“No, too small. Try peeling the top eyelid back.” said Zip. So Lara carefully grabbed hold of the top eyelid and pulled, stunned as the entire face came away.
“It was a mask, this isn’t Eleanor at all. But how come this person was holding the axe?” Lara looked down at the white rubber gloves on the fake Eleanor’s hands. “Clever… She wasn’t.” And so Lara picked up the axe again, this time pulling her sleeves down over her hands and threw it into her backpack. “Mission accomplished.”
Back at Croft manor, Zip, Alistair, Lara, and Winston, all looked down on the axe. As the legend went, this was apparently the axe that Cuchulain used to chop off Uath the Stranger’s head, in Irish Mythology.
“Its nice… But what’s the point if no one can touch it? And Eleanor’s still out there somewhere, possibly wondering where her axe is.” Said Alistair.
“Sounds like we need to increase the manor’s security,” replied Zip “What about gun turrets outside the main doors? I know how much you love them Lara.”
“Quite. But no.”
“How come?”
“If I’m going to get this axe, properly that is, I need to kill Eleanor, and what better way to do that than to lure her here.”
Winston didn’t look convinced. “Much as your adversaries often end up here for one reason or another I really don’t like the idea of purposely luring them here, Lady Croft. This is an ancient building that has been passed down the Croft family for years and it needs to be preserved, not destroyed in some gunfight, or blown up by someone seeking to kill you.”
“Hmm.” Lara pondered. “Good point. I would never let this house be destroyed by my enemies, never mind by my own plans. That would be just plain awful. Ok, Zip, go as crazy as you like on the security, we could do with an upgrade. And Alistair, see if you can find out any more about this axe, meanwhile I’ll try to track Eleanor down.”
Lara was in Dublin, specifically, she was on top of it having just thrown herself out of a helicopter and paraglided down to the roof of Dublin’s tallest building. She was wearing a sleek black jumpsuit complete with yellow flashes.
Eleanor came from an old Irish family and her father owned a large office block across the street, but on top of this office block was Eleanor’s penthouse apartment. So Lara needed to get there quickly, preferably without passing through the offices, no point in disturbing them from their work. Having decided that the elevator was too slow for her, Lara hopped off the roof into a window cleaner’s platform and shot the rope so the platform went plummeting downwards. When she got about half way down she threw her magnetic grapple out to a metal frame on top of Eleanor’s office block and swung across the gap shooting the penthouse window as she flew so she went crashing through it. Having reached the penthouse Lara rolled to break her fall, then stood up, with both pistols out.
“Eleanor!” Lara called out, knowing that she was in there somewhere.
“You know I’m going to have to send a bill for that window.” Said Eleanor, as she stepped out from an adjoining room. She looked distastefully towards the broken window and drew a pair of pistols from her own belt.
“A small price to pay for the axe.” Lara fired, but Eleanor dived behind a sofa, and then leant around to shoot back. Lara dodged the bullets whilst continuing to fire at the sofa, sending fluff and springs everywhere. The arm broke off and Lara had a clear shot, finally killing Eleanor.
“Lets hope it’s the real one this time.” Said Zip.
Lara bent down and pulled the skin clean off. “Another fake. While ever we attack Eleanor on her own territory she can organise doppelgangers. Looks like we’ll have to lure her to the manor.”
“How about bringing her to the summerhouse?” suggested Alistair. “That’s well protected enough to not seem odd, and it’ll divert attention away from the manor.”
“Excellent. We’ll try that then.”
The Croft summerhouse was no pretty little wooden structure at the bottom of the garden; in fact it was a cast iron prefabricated bunker with meter thick walls. That said; it was at the bottom of the garden. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a summerhouse, now would it? But as if walls thick enough to stand gunfire, grenades, bombs and stray fireworks (everyone loves bonfire night even Lady Croft) weren’t enough around it was a large trench filled with spikes and Lara’s pet anaconda with a bad attitude. It would be an understatement to say that the summerhouse was well guarded.
Inside the summerhouse were some of Lara’s less treasured finds or those that were too dangerous to keep inside the manor, and now, it also contained the dagger, Lara’s sleeping bag, and a shotgun… And Lara, dressed in baggy, camouflage combats, a brown crop top and a sturdy pair of black boots. After three days of stakeout she was thoroughly bored but thankfully, as evening fell on the third day, Lara’s persistence was rewarded with the sounds of a man being bitten by an anaconda with a bad attitude. Smiling, Lara loaded her shotgun and dived under the table, ready.
She could hear shouting outside. “Its in here, I think!”
“Figures… Open the door then.”
“Its locked, I’m gonna blow it open, everyone get back.”
BOOM. The entire bunker shook with the force of several bombs all going off at once but the door was made of stronger stuff than that, so, to save time, Lara unlocked the door then stood back as the testosterone pumped mercenary kicked open the door. Taking the open opportunity Lara immediately shot the mercenary in the head.
Standing in the open doorway she called out across the garden. “Anyone else want the axe?”
“Lara, how wonderful to meet you at last… I hope my doubles didn’t cause you too much trouble?” Stood next to an apple tree was Eleanor, looking strangely wraith-like dressed in a fully armoured red dress, and holding an Aztec shield. She had long, black hair all trussed up and backcombed into a crazy bun. Her pale hand held onto the tree and on her fingers were many rings, mainly black gemstones, but most stunning of them all was a red gem with black streaks that appeared to move around.
“Of course not”
“Excellent, now be a good girl and give me the axe.”
“I don’t think so – its mine now.”
“Kill her.”
Wishing she’d brought something that fired a little faster Lara ran out of the summerhouse whilst firing the shotgun at the nearest enemies. One of them ran behind her so Lara rolled forward at twisted round at the last moment to face him, shooting him in the chest. Twisting back round again whilst reloading, Lara prepared to face the next wave of adversaries. Five shots later, all that was left was her and Eleanor.
“I hope you don’t plan on shooting me with that thing.” Eleanor said as she took an SMG from the straps across her back, and aimed it at Lara.
“Why certainly.” Firing her gun at Eleanor she flipped back, a moving target is harder to hit, but the bullet just bounced off Eleanor’s armour, hardly causing a dint. “Ah”
Eleanor fired her SMG at Lara, but Lara dived down to the floor and took another shot at Eleanor. Again, the bullet didn’t hit Eleanor but this time Lara wasn’t aiming for her. A large tree branch fell down trapping Eleanor beneath it. Lara took another shot, this time aiming for the gap in the armour above the neck but missed.
“Iessa mul artreth serpenthia!” Eleanor muttered, though her words seemed to echo with power.
Eleanor’s ring began to glow and the black streaks started to rise up from the ring getting bigger and bigger whilst writhing from side to side, gradually forming into little black snakes with red eyes. The snakes continued to grow until they were each 20 foot long and as thick as an old oak. “Whoah” gasped Lara.
“Give me the axe Lara and I won’t tell them to kill you.” Lara put her hand in her pocket and counted the shells. There were three left and two still in the shotgun. Not enough, but in her other pocket was a grenade.
“Never.” She grabbed the grenade pulled the pin out and lobbed it towards the snakes blowing them all to smithereens. Bits of snake flew across the garden, splattering the manor walls, poisoning the water fountains, and getting stuck in both Lara’s and Eleanor’s hair. Lara grabbed her shotgun and took aim at Eleanor’s neck again. This time the bullet struck true killing Eleanor instantly. Just to make sure, Lara closely inspected Eleanor’s face, tugging at the skin a little. “Looks like this one’s real.” She took the ring off Eleanor’s finger, the stone now perfectly red, and pocketed it. Finally, she walked back to the summerhouse, picked up the axe and swung it in victory. “Mine now.”