| GCB Fanfics: The Fanfiction Project |
Unofficial - July 29th, 2003Lara Croft stood atop a cliff 50 feet below was a small lake with a stream of water collapsing down into from right beside where Lara stood. She took a deep breath and then leaped off the cliff. With perfect form, she arched her back, straightened her legs and spread her arms out. It felt so good feeling the wind blowing by her, she was on an adventure again, where she belonged. She flattened her body and it slipped into the water maybe causing a ripple or two. She emerged from the water and began to dry off, she thought of how the information of this temple had fallen into her hands. The Hero's Haunt had gotten all the more popular as the tournament had progressed. Even with the fewer and fewer contestants that were in the tournament more and more of the remaining contestants had began to come there. The Star Pilot Fox McCloud had the information. He had come into the Haunt covered in dirt, scars all over his body, come strait to the bar and asked, no, demanded a bottle of whiskey. He had quickly took the bottle taken a large swig, and then pulled up his shirt and poured the remaining on a large open wound on his stomach, his face contorting with pain as it happened. Lara Croft had been sitting at the bar talking to Yuna about gun techniques when it had happened. "We do have a medical center." Lara pointed out to him. Fox winced as the last of the whiskey came out of the bottle, "I was more concerened with getting the wound disinfected then sitting in a waiting room for 20 minutes." "Yeah, but now you looked like you pissed your pants," said Vercetti who then turned to the bar tender asked for a refill and walked back to his table. Fox looked down at his pants and groaned. No doubt embarrassed, but not showing it, he sat down at the bar and ordered a club soda. "What happened, Sir McCloud." Yuna asked politely. "Firstly, Sir McCloud doesn't sound right, just call me Fox. Secondly that....." he looked over at the two ladies, "scoundrel, Bowser got me lost in the forest by rearranging the trail I had left when I went out into the forest for training." "Really, how long were you lost out there?" Yuna continued. "Just four or five hours, I really don't need the trail to find my way back but I followed it anyway until it stopped and I realized it wasn't the right place. So, I got my bearings and started heading back on the most direct course, and BAM there's this temple right in the middle of no where." Lara spit her coffee right into the bartenders face, who without complaint wiped it off and got back to his duties, "A TEMPLE!!!!!!" she yelled. Yuna and Fox looked at her with some curiosity and then Fox said, "Yeah, a temple and there were all these wolves who just jumped me and.......blah blah blah." Lara had stopped listening. A temple!!! she thought. I wonder whats inside. Fox was still talking, "and then this giant rhino comes out of left field and...." he was interrupted by Lara. "Were is it?!?!?!" demanded Lara, seizing Fox by the shirt. "uh....put me down..." Fox said, Lara complied and apologized so he continued, "Yeah, its about 14 miles due southwest of here." Lara didn't say anything else she had just rushed back to her hotel to get prepared. ---- She finished drying herself off and removed her twin pistols. Desert Eagle .44 Magnums, not guns you'd want to be on the wrong side of, especially in her hands. The crescent moon illuminated her path as she ran, Fox had warned her that there were a cadry of mean animals in this area of the forest. The trees seemed to be getting closer together, the bush more out of control, the vines thicker and harder to break. Then finally she found a small clearing. Wolves were pacing side to side, in a clearing of no more than 900 square feet there must have been 15 wolves, but there was the temple. It had clearly been there for ages, vines had creeped their way to totally immerse the temple in their dried yellow color. The temple was in a pyramidic form similar to the Egyptian style, but not nearly on that scale, and there was a large door about half way up the temple. The real temple must lie underground Lara thought to herself. Hmmm...this might be better practice then I'd originally intended. without a second though she rushed into the clearing. The wolves noticed her presence instantly, but attempted to ward her off with some hardcore snarling. Lara had been threatened by much worse things then these wolves without being intimidated so they had fairly little chance. She ran up to the first wolf in her path and kicked it in the face, it rolled over and ran off whimpering. She then rushed over to kick a second one but it dodged back. The wolves began to circle her. Suddenly 3 attacked from each side at the same time. What!!! thought Lara, There's no way the wolves could have coordinated a three sided attack without some sort of howling or barking. She rolled forward and lit a small fire in front of the muzzle of her pistols. The three wolves missed there mark as Lara Croft rolled. The two wolves that she had rolled toward tried there luck. The first one caught a bullet to the skull and dropped, but the second one managed to dodge her bullets, Did that wolf just predict my move??? thought Lara as she got up to her feet and flipped over the oncoming wolf, putting several bullets in its back as it went under. What's going on here. The three wolves that had originally attacked her looked at their two fallen comrades, and seemed to grow angrier. They rushed forward along with two others. She ran away from the wolves firing backward as she went. She managed to get one wolf in its front leg which stopped and limped off into the forest. That still left four wolves on her tail. She whirled around and kicked one in the head, knocking it unconcious. She dove back and started firing. She managed to shoot one wolf in the chest and another in the throat. Those two wolves fell down, but the last one kept coming. ****, Lara thought to herself as the wolf penetrated her guard and chomped down onto her left forearm. Lara cringed in pain as she leaned back planted her two feet on the stomach of the wolf and kicked it into a nearby tree. She got back up and pointed her pistols at the remaining wolves, begging them for a reason to pump them full of lead. They declined the invintation and slunk off into the shadows with their tails between their legs. Lara quickly pulled out some medical tape and tended her wound. Those were no ordinary wolves, thats for sure. She put her guns away and ran into the temple. It was a strait corridor, strait down. "I don't like this," she said aloud and then thought, that never stopped me before. She jumped up in the air and went strait down the shaft. She stuck her legs out in the splits, the hard steel toes and heels of her boots grinding down the side of the shaft. She shone her flashlight downward and saw the ground quickly approaching. She jumped off of the side of the wall and hit the ground hard, she tranfered the energy into a roll and landed in the entrance to a grand hall. A square wooden plank with iron spikes slammed into the ground were she would've been sans roll. She looked back at the plank and shrugged, and then returned to her inspection of the grand hall. The hall was huge 100 feet tall and 3 times as long and wide. She looked around there appeared to be 7 statues all configured be pointing at the center. She went over to inspect. She stayed on her toes, ready for arrows to come out of the wall or the ceiling to collapse or something but nothing happened. "Well this is a pointless room," she said aloud. Still nothing. Then she realized there was no exit. She went to the wall and began inspecting it inch by inch, there was some ancient writing there, but nothing she could decipher, since this wasn't her dimension there was no guarantee she would speak every language as she did in her own. However, about half way around the room pretty much directly across from the entrance she found a small keyhole. Damn, when was I supposed to get that key she took out her lock picking device but as usual in ancient temples it was of little use. She looked around No doubt it has something to do with the statues. She looked at the ground in the center of the room, there appeared to be 28 brightly colored gems lying in a circular pattern. Hmmm....28 divided by 7 is four, I must have to put color coordinate each of these gems with their appropriate statues. She went over to the statue directly to her left. It was clearly a small figure it had two gigantic fists blocking its face so she couldn't really make out the face. She moved on to the entrance of the hall. On each side of the door there was a similar figure. Each one was technically the same, they were the same size the same shape but one appeared to be running while the other appeared to be levitating. She couldn't make either of them out and moved on. The next appeared to be a full size girl, her back was turned and her long hair covered most of her body. Still the makings of the end of a blade were obvious. Nothing was coming to mind yet. The next one was a slightly smaller girl she had a staff that covered her face, but it was obvious that her garments were traditional. This one rang a bell, but she still didn't have anything to go on. She figured that no doubt the wrong combination would set off a trap of some sort. She got to the next statue, which was clearly a question mark, that was of no help whatsoever. Then she got to the last one. She looked at it for a moment and then stepped back in awe. It was quite abstract, but there was no doubt; two pistols, arms crossed in front of her chest, legs that go all the way up, yes....it was her. But that means....she whirled around looking at the statue with the fists, thats Knuckles, and She looked over at the statue with the staff and formal clothing. That's Yuna. And those two by the entrance are Sonic and Shadow. Wait.....but that means.... she moved over to the statue of the woman with long hair, Oh no....thats not a woman thats...... She didn't finish her thought process, as she rushed over to the center. Quickly she put the red stones in the base of Knuckle's statue, the purple stones in the base of Yuna's statue, the silver stones in the base of the long haired statue, the green stones in the base of Shadow's statue, the light blue stones at the base of Sonic's statue. That left her with two sets of stones, dark blue and yellow, and two statues, her own and the mystery stone. I'm glad I spent that time figuring out which emeralds Sonic's crew had otherwise I'd be in real trouble. Well it's clear the stones go to whichever person finds them. Since I'm clearly about to find one, my statue has already appeared. This one is a question mark, because no ones found it yet. So its just a guess, which ones which. After some intensive thinking she decided on the yellow for her own statue. She placed the yellow stones at the bottom of her statue, and with a prayer she put the blue stones below the question mark. The ground began to rumble, "Oh no," muttered Lara as she dashed for the entrance. But just as she got there, a laser shot out of each statue. She turned around as the lasers met at the center of the room. Slowly another pillar rose out of the center and then the rumbling stopped. Slowly Lara approached the raised pillar in the center of the room, on the other side there was a small carved out area with a golden key in the center. She reached in and pulled out the key, the pillar slowly sank back into the ground. She walked cautiously over to the hole in the wall and inserted the key. With a twist, the key disappeared into the wall. Lara took a few steps back. The wall began to turn, certainly not very quickly but the huge 100 ft wall was turning like it was all part of a wheel. Soon a whole in the wall became visible. As the wall completed its 180 degree rotation, the whole in the rotating wall, matched up with a hole in the back wall, Lara peered into the passage way, and walked in. She walked into the next room. It was similar to the last except there was an ascending staircase to a pedestal at the far end of the room, with a yellow crystal covered in dust at the top. There has to be a trap in this room she thought quickly. Cautiously she began ascending the staircase. Nothing. She reached the top all the more suspicious and slowly began reaching for the jewel. She quickly snatched it and began running down the stairs, expecting the worst but nothing. She got up shrugged and began to walk off. "Iiiiiiii'm gonna have to ask you to put that back," said a voice from behind her. She whirled around to see a mummy standing on top of the pedestal. She didn't say anything. "Would you please put it back, ma'am?" the mummy asked graciously. "And if I refuse?" asked Lara raising one eyebrow and reaching for her guns. "Well then I'd have to kill you," said the mummy nodding it's head. "Let's see you try!!!!" yelled Lara whipping out her guns and firing at the mummy, but the mummy wasn't there anymore. A voice from behind her said, "Wait.....what were you aiming at." The mummy was looking over Lara's shoulder as if trying to figure out where the sights on the guns were pointed. "You're fast." Lara said, not moving. "I need to be, I'm the guardian of the Golden Chaos Emerald. And you won't be leaving with that jewel." "Hmmm...lets find out." she said spinning around firing bullets. The mummy dashed back, it was simply a blur, it must have been moving backward as fast as the bullets moved forward, suddenly it split off to the side and came right back to in front of Lara Croft. "Ugghhh...nobody else needed to go through this for their jewel." "Nobody likes a whiner." the mummy retorted. Damn.... thought Lara He's just as fast if not faster than Sonic. How do I beat him? "Oh, you don't," chimed in the mummy, ".......I must've forgot to mention I can also read your thoughts." "Cheater." "Loser." She continued her strafe fire tactics but the mummy dodged them with ease, he even made a point of doing graceful acrobatics while dodging them. Soon the mummy had her backed up against a wall. "Give up?" asked the mummy, "I don't think its necessary to kill you, just put the emerald back and I'll let you go." Lara was getting furious, she was looking around for something she could use against him. She suddenly had a brilliant urge and reached up to grab one of the torches illuminating the room. The mummy ducked back as she swung the torch at him. "Don't like fire, huh?" said Lara grinning. The mummy glared at her and then darted right in front of her, the gust of wind that trailed behind him, put out the torch completely. "Nope, I don't." said the mummy matter-of-factly. She went for another torch, but the mummy got there much sooner and put out the torch with another drag gust. She got an idea, the mummy groaned knowingly and she started firing at all the torches in the room. The mummy didn't try to stop him. While he no doubt had the speed to stop the bullets his body was quite frail and couldn't withstand an impact from a bullet. Soon there was no light in the room. "Well, what now," said the mummy, "You've managed to put yourself at more of a disadvantage. Now you can't use your weapon. And I can still read your thoughts." "You may be able to read my thoughts but you can't see me, and thats all the advantage I'll need.." She fired a shot to where the mummy's voice had come from the sudden flash of light revealed the mummy already dashing to the right. Hmmmm.... thought Lara, so he always dashes to the right, eh? This time I'll aim my shot right so it'll hit him when he dodges. The mummy chuckled to himself, does she still not realize I know what she's thinking. He heard the sound of a gun shot and took off to her left, his right. He read her thoughts to try and hear what she had to say about his next move, but was horrified to hear the thought. On second thought, I think I'll shoot left. He felt the bullet tear through his frail leg, ripping it off completely. "I know the sound of a torn off limb hitting the ground, I got your leg didn't I?" Lara said aloud, the mummy didn't respond. She pulled out her lighter and flicked it on. A dim glow filled the room, she walked over to where the mummy was lying. "Well, I guess I'll be leaving with this jewel afterall, won't I?" she laughed as she walked out of the room. She crossed the grand hall, in no hurry and began climbing up the rope left by the spike trap. She got out of the temple and looked up at the waxing moon and said, "Well, that was fun." She clasped the Gold Chaos Emerald in her hand and walked back to the hotel. She was tired. Back |