http://livingalegend.livejournal.com/ (
livingalegend.livejournal.com) wrote in
paixaorpg2008-06-29 12:32 am
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Entry tags:
Into the Great Unknown [Complete]
Character(s): Lara Croft, Sonic the Hedgehog, Nobodies
Content: Lara goes in search of clues. Larxene, however, has other ideas...
Setting: Elysian Fields, St. Destino
Time: Late afternoon
Warnings: Violence, possible swearing
It would figure, of course, that Lara Croft would explore before finding a place to stay. She had wandered around the Muspelheim gate, and had noticed that everyone she had seen so far looked about the same - pale, with blond hair and blue eyes. Somehow, she had thought, it didn't seem natural. But what else could it be? Lost in thought, Lara decided to check the journal the guards had given her at the gates - she could have sworn one of them had said something about a map.
Sure enough, a few moments of poking around with the device and it was there - and the city looked quite large. Lara frowned, then noted the train that ran between four gates. Zooming out on the map, Lara quickly found the opposite gate of Muspelheim - Nifleheim, since Muspelheim hadn't really had much to offer - and decided to take the train. Once at the station, she was surprised to see that many people simply picked glittering leaves and the like off the ground to pay with. When in Rome, Lara thought amusedly, imitating them. Her tanned skin and dark eyes and hair got strange looks from the citizens, causing the Englishwoman to frown in slight confusion. That's odd; it's almost as if they've never seen anyone different. Still, she filed it away for later; she had a purpose of sorts right now.
A long-seeming train ride later, and Lara was at the Nifleheim gate. She strode quickly to the person that seemed to be watching the gate, pocketing the journal she had been toying with on the way. "Excuse me, please," she said politely, "I need to get through that gate." Immediately, the guard - a stocky looking man - looked at her as though she had suggested that the ground had just turned into sky and the air was made up of feathers. "You can't leave," the guard said shortly, looking at Lara suspiciously. "Perhaps I wasn't clear," Lara said, tone hardened slightly, "I believe I told you to move." She steeled herself for a possible fight, anger in her eyes, and the man stepped back. "Thank you," Lara chuckled, moving past the guard. He looked as though he might try to stop her for a moment, but a heated glare from Lara, and she was able to pass by without being bothered again - a good thing, since she really wasn't in the mood for violence at the moment.
Immediately outside the domed city, she heard static coming from her pocket, and took out the journal, looking at it quizzically. "Malfunctioning," Lara muttered, still walking, "that's strange."
For a few moments, she didn't even notice the almost luminous fields in front of her.
Content: Lara goes in search of clues. Larxene, however, has other ideas...
Setting: Elysian Fields, St. Destino
Time: Late afternoon
Warnings: Violence, possible swearing
It would figure, of course, that Lara Croft would explore before finding a place to stay. She had wandered around the Muspelheim gate, and had noticed that everyone she had seen so far looked about the same - pale, with blond hair and blue eyes. Somehow, she had thought, it didn't seem natural. But what else could it be? Lost in thought, Lara decided to check the journal the guards had given her at the gates - she could have sworn one of them had said something about a map.
Sure enough, a few moments of poking around with the device and it was there - and the city looked quite large. Lara frowned, then noted the train that ran between four gates. Zooming out on the map, Lara quickly found the opposite gate of Muspelheim - Nifleheim, since Muspelheim hadn't really had much to offer - and decided to take the train. Once at the station, she was surprised to see that many people simply picked glittering leaves and the like off the ground to pay with. When in Rome, Lara thought amusedly, imitating them. Her tanned skin and dark eyes and hair got strange looks from the citizens, causing the Englishwoman to frown in slight confusion. That's odd; it's almost as if they've never seen anyone different. Still, she filed it away for later; she had a purpose of sorts right now.
A long-seeming train ride later, and Lara was at the Nifleheim gate. She strode quickly to the person that seemed to be watching the gate, pocketing the journal she had been toying with on the way. "Excuse me, please," she said politely, "I need to get through that gate." Immediately, the guard - a stocky looking man - looked at her as though she had suggested that the ground had just turned into sky and the air was made up of feathers. "You can't leave," the guard said shortly, looking at Lara suspiciously. "Perhaps I wasn't clear," Lara said, tone hardened slightly, "I believe I told you to move." She steeled herself for a possible fight, anger in her eyes, and the man stepped back. "Thank you," Lara chuckled, moving past the guard. He looked as though he might try to stop her for a moment, but a heated glare from Lara, and she was able to pass by without being bothered again - a good thing, since she really wasn't in the mood for violence at the moment.
Immediately outside the domed city, she heard static coming from her pocket, and took out the journal, looking at it quizzically. "Malfunctioning," Lara muttered, still walking, "that's strange."
For a few moments, she didn't even notice the almost luminous fields in front of her.
no subject
So when the first dusk found her, there had been an exodus from the gate, much to the relief of the citizens manning it, to the field where she had been found. And with slinking, flowing movements they moved toward her, like puppets on invisible strings.
no subject
Natural. Lara frowned, drawing her guns and pointing them at the creatures. Somehow, they struck her as - what? Mindless? Malicious? She didn't know. What she did notice was that they seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
Still... "Stay where you are," she stated firmly, voice calm. She had enough ammo, it looked like, for some of them, but not all.
no subject
no subject
What was this place? In all of her travels, she had never come up against anything like this - or even seen it. Mummies, yes. Raptors, yes. But these strange being, which glided silently as shadows and moved surprisingly fast, were utterly alien to her.
no subject
no subject
Mentally going over the map Lara had studied in her journal during the train ride, Lara calculated her position and continued running. The church was a few more miles from here, if her memory was correct, and Lara frowned. She could, in theory, make it if she was able to stop running any time soon.
no subject
no subject
"Well," she muttered to herself, "that was certainly interesting." Reaching inside her bag, she pulled out more ammunition and reloaded her guns as she walked - no sense in being unprepared, after all.
Especially, Lara realized, half-grim after the unexpected attack, when she didn't know what could happen next.
no subject
And then, once she was close enough and they were all around and under her, they struck, leaping up at once and closing in and clawing and pounding.
no subject
She was angry now, and had no doubt that these creatures were, in some way, intelligent, so she continued firing resolutely at the beings.
They weren't going to keep her from her destination.
no subject
Soon there were none left, and nothing to show for the fight, as the bodies faded away as if there had never been anything there at all.
no subject
While she was walking, she took a look at her arm. It was bleeding as Lara suspected, the skin around the wounded area reddened and sore. Lara frowned and pulled off her backpack, rifling through it in order to pull out a first aid kit. Stopping for the moment, the woman sat down, eyes still glancing warily around her for any signs of danger, and pulled out disinfectant, ointment, and bandages.
Wincing a little, Lara began to clean and bandage the wound.
no subject
He changed direction in midstep, swinging around and skidding to a stop next to the girl. "Hey, what happened?" he asked, concerned. "Are you okay?"
no subject
"I'll be fine," she managed, keeping a polite tone to her voice, especially as this stranger seemed friendly enough. "These strange creatures attacked me here, though, and some might still be about. I came here to explore what's outside of the city, but all I can find so far is... well, this." With that, she waved a hand, indicating the glowing surroundings.
Then again, Lara reflected, she hadn't been here for long. She stood up, shouldering her pack, and smiled. "I'm being rather rude, aren't I, prattling on like that without so much as an introduction." She held out her hand after making sure the bandages were on correctly. "My name is Lara."
no subject
"Nah, not really," he grinned, taking her outstretched hand and shaking it. "Sonic's the name, speed's my game. Nice to meet'cha, Lara!" Already his mind was racing ahead to the next step, the reason he was out here in the first place. "Hey, there's some old church or something over that way," he gestured over his shoulder in the general direction of the church. "Wanna go check it out?"
no subject
"They might," Lara shrugged, shaking the - hedgehog's? - hand. The Englishwoman smiled. "It's lovely to meet you, Sonic." A look of interest came over her face at the mention of the church; what would a building like that be doing in a place like this? A grin came over Lara's face at the thought of exploring such a strange area further, and she nodded. "Let's. I've been looking for places of interest, anyway."
no subject
He blinked at Lara's assessment of the church. "Well, I dunno about interesting - I went by before, and it sure didn't look all that great, but there could be something cool inside..." At this point, he was simply thinking aloud. Waste of time. They should get going. He debated scooping Lara up and just running with her in his arms, but quickly shot down that idea. Everybody on Mobius might be used to that sort of thing from him, sure, but he was pretty sure Lara wasn't from Mobius, and he'd learned the hard way what happened when you ticked off a girl (Amy Rose had a huge hammer and an arm to go with it).
So instead, he turned and started walking, going much slower than his normal pace so Lara could keep up and pointing in front of him. "I'm pretty sure it's over this way."
no subject
"Well," she continued, looking at Sonic evenly, "it's certainly more interesting that standing around here, isn't it?" And waiting for those creatures to possibly come back, especially as Lara wasn't certain she had enough bullets to withstand another assault from those creatures, much less drive them off. She followed Sonic. "Good, because I really haven't the foggiest idea of what is around here." Aside from what was on her map, of course.
no subject
"The church is the only interesting thing out here I've seen," he said. "There's a ton of stuff inside the city, if you wanna look there next." Maybe she could read the map - it'd be nice to know where the nearest chili dog stand was without having to go hunt it down.
They hadn't been walking for more than a few minutes before Sonic (rather predictably) got impatient. "Hey, Lara, d'you mind if I speed things up a bit?"
no subject
"That would be nice," Lara agreed, "especially since I've only been on the train so far." She had been far too concerned with exploring outside the city to bother looking within it, but such was her nature. She raised an eyebrow, however, as Sonic's question. "Why not?" she said; she had a feeling it wouldn't be good if they were caught out here too late.
no subject
"Alright! Here we go!" With only that bit of warning, Sonic had scooped Lara into his arms and was off - two steps to find his balance, three more to get up to speed, and five to really start enjoying it. It wasn't long - no more than a few minutes - before the church came into sight, and only a few short minutes after that Sonic skidded to a stop right in front of the door. He set Lara gently on her feet, then grinned up at her. He wasn't going to brag. No, really, he wasn't.
...okay, he'd try not to.
no subject
Before Lara's thoughts could go any further, however, she was thrown off guard by being swept off her feet. She could barely catch her breath, her hair whipping around her face and tearing free of its ponytail. She couldn't breathe, or so she thought, and all she could think about was how fast they were going, wondering if they'd be able to stop... And then it was over, and the Englishwoman could only stand there for a few moments, stunned, her ears ringing.
"Quite impressive, I must say," she finally managed.
no subject
Thinking nothing more of it, he opened the door of the church, peering into the midafternoon gloom, then looking back to Lara with a mischievous grin. "C'mon, let's go!"
no subject
Lara checked her guns again (habit, naturally; there were many ways to die and Lara didn't want her own to be brought about by a malfunctioning weapon) and grinned again. "Absolutely, Sonic."
It already looked like she was finding the adventure she had always been driven to seek, yet again.
no subject
Not seeing anything sinister lurking in the shadows, he headed in the church, eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary - not that he knew what would be ordinary in this kind of place, but he figured he'd know it when he saw it. There were a lot of those benches, but he figured they were supposed to be there, along with the thick coat of dust that was on everything.
But sometimes the unexpected falls right in with the ordinary, and the footprints showing clearly in the layer of dust on the ground were no exception. Sonic crouched down to get a better look at one of them - it looked pretty recent - then looked back up at Lara. "Looks like someone beat us here already."
[Using this thread (http://community.livejournal.com/paixaorpg/312489.html) for reference. The door leading to the mantis room has a shiny new lock (which looks odd on an old door) and can't be opened or broken down. All damage done to the balcony is still there, to include Kenshin's skid marks in the dust and the claw gouges in the floor in front of the door.]
no subject
She half-knelt by the tracks, looking them over. "There were two people here, from the looks of it," Lara replied, "and they must have been quite cautious going in. They must have expected trouble of some kind." Had they, too, run into the strange creatures that Lara had? What was going on here, and why was this place so thoroughly abandoned? She followed the tracks, a book catching her eye, and flipped through it. "This is odd," Lara commented.
no subject
He missed Lara's comment on the book - the stairs at the back of the church had caught his eye. "Hey, Lara!" he called back to her, already heading up the stairs. "You seen this? There're stairs back here!"
no subject
"Yes, I see." She glanced around the room to make sure they weren't being followed. "Shall we, Sonic?"
no subject
"Sure." Already halfway up the stairs, Sonic stopped and waited for Lara to catch up before continuing on. She'd probably know more about whatever they found up there. Reaching the top of the steps, he headed towards the front of the balcony, stopping short once he got a good look at the floor.
Whatever had happened here, it'd gone past just footsteps - there was too much dust cleared off the floor for that. It looked like something had fallen or been dragged. Bending over to get a closer look, he gave a low whistle - man, what was going on in here? - then turned to look at Lara. "Get a load of this! You weren't kiddin' when you said there was trouble!"
no subject
She stopped short once she was next to her companion, frowning. "It does look like there was quite a bit of trouble here, doesn't it?" She knelt down, touching the clean floor. "It looks as though there was some sort of struggle here. I wonder if our predecessors didn't have company waiting for them when they came to this place?"
What if, in fact, they had run into the same creatures Lara had? But with hardly any evidence, and the trail on the floor being so disturbed, there weren't many guesses she could make.
no subject
...or just as many questions. "Yeah, well if they did, whatever they ran into either left or is real good at hiding." He hopped onto one of the benches, looking around just to make sure whatever it was that had made all these marks wasn't still in there, waiting for them.
He didn't see any creature, but his eye caught something shiny towards the back of the church - something new in what was obviously a very old building. Huh. "There's something weird back there," he informed Lara, jumping off the bench and heading towards the back. "I'm gonna go check it out."
no subject
"I'll go with you," she said. "It might not be the best of ideas to split up under the circumstances." Flashes of Paraiso played in Lara's mind, and she unconsciously grit her teeth, unwilling to let anything similar play out again - even with a perfect stranger.
The archaeologist turned off her flashlight to allow it to recharge, and reloaded her guns - she didn't have any ammo left at the moment but what she had just put in them.
no subject
"Yeah, sounds good." Sonic didn't want to leave Lara behind either - if those weird disappearing creatures she was talking about came back, he wanted to be there. He was pretty sure he could take 'em out, whatever they were.
He started forward, making sure she was staying with him and pointing at the shiny object he'd seen (he was still too far away to make out what exactly it was). "See? There shouldn't be something that shiny in a place this old, right?"
no subject
She turned on her light again, examining the object. "Obviously, visitors haven't been expected - this building has been abandoned for a long time, by the looks of it. But there's definitely something here." But what? Lara could feel her heart pounding, the archaeologist within her excited at the idea of new adventures and discoveries.
She stepped closer, her eyes catching what Sonic had gestured to - and then some. "Look at this," she murmured, her enthusiasm seeping into her tone, as she carefully ran her fingertips over the old wood of the door. "The doorknob's obviously new." She knelt in front of the door, running a hand over the gouge marks in the floor. "This place is definitely hiding something, but even though the door's old, it seems sturdy. I doubt we can break it down." Just what was in here?
no subject
"Yeah, that is weird," he agreed. "Why wouldn't you just get a whole new door?" It didn't make a whole lot of sense to him...and then Lara pointed out the marks in the floor. "Whoa," Sonic breathed. He'd seen marks kinda like this before, but those were all from gigantic machines Robotnik had built. Whatever had made these marks in the floor was huge.
"I can try," he replied, "but if whatever made those-" he pointed to the marks "-is in there-" he pointed to the door "-then I'm thinkin' maybe I shouldn't." Normally he wouldn't back down from this sort of thing, but he had one ring, no emeralds, no idea where he was or what was behind that door, and Lara to protect if things went wrong. Today was not the day to do this. Tomorrow, maybe.
no subject
Lara nodded, half to herself as she ran her hands over the floor again. "I'm afraid I haven't nearly enough ammunition for whatever might be lurking beyond that door, Sonic," she said at last, reluctantly. "Which is a pity, as I've begun to find this place entirely too interesting." She made a mental note of everything she had seen today; she might not be able to see everything in here today (and waiting, as Lara was somewhat fond of saying, was for the patient), but she would definitely come back here later, even if she had to come alone.
She was used to flying solo, as it were - but she didn't want to be inconsiderate of her new friend. "Perhaps we can come back later. There's definitely something here that's worth a look, and it may hold some of the answers as to why we are here - among other things."
no subject
"Yeah, sure we can." Sonic grinned at the prospect. Despite not wanting to face whatever was behind that door just yet, he sure wanted to know what it was. "We'll figure out some stuff in the city an' come back to take down that door." Remembering just why he was here in the first place, he added, "Oh, and there's this Doctor guy that wants to know about this place - maybe he'll want t' come too."
no subject
She stood, turning to look at Sonic with a grin. "Excellent. This ought to provide a fun distraction, wouldn't you agree?" She dusted herself off and holstered her guns; there wasn't much point to keeping them out, since they were about to leave. She cocked an eyebrow. "A doctor? That's interesting." Why would a doctor want to know about such a place? Unless, of course, this person wasn't a conventional doctor.
no subject
"I dunno if he's really a doctor," Sonic mused as he headed down the stairs, making sure Lara was with him. "He didn't sound like one, at least. That's just what he called himself. Dunno why." Yeah, that Doctor person was interesting, but he seemed like a pretty nice guy. Sonic wouldn't be out here if he didn't.
no subject
"Really?" Lara mused aloud, following Sonic and staying on her guard. "I wonder why, but if he's responsible for your coming, I'm rather grateful - this trip would have taken me hours, otherwise." Not that she minded, but without supplies, it would have been a long trip.
no subject
"So, wanna go back the same way we came?" he grinned up at Lara. He wasn't talking where - he was talking how.
no subject
She couldn't help but laugh at Sonic's question. "Why not? It's certainly faster than the conventional way," she replied. Besides, she was tired from her unexpected trip and wanted to check her wounds again. A hot bath wouldn't be amiss, either.
no subject
"Let's go!" He scooped Lara up into is arms and headed off towards the gates of the city without any more warning than those two words.