paixaorpg | Into the Great Unknown [Complete]

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.

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Find this woman, Larxene had said, and shown them a picture, outside the city. Find her and hurt her. And so they were off, silently circling the domes like vultures, darting near but never entering the gates, as their orders had been to remain outside.

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.

The dusks continued on, heedless of her warnings as if they were incapable of hearing her at all. There was no hesitation at all; they had their orders, and that was what mattered. All at once the ones closest to Lara darted forward, stretching out to attack and tear apart.

Some creatures twisted to the sides and out of the way, but others were hit, crumpling and disappearing as if they had never been there at all. But the others in pursuit gave no sign of so much as noticing the deaths of their comrades, simply working to chase and attack as they were ordered.

The dusks drew back as one as more of their number fell, seeming to disappear for the moment. In truth, they were traveling around and ahead of her, preparing an ambush. If she kept going in the direction she was headed, they would spring up all around her. If she changed direction... Well, they would give chase.

As she drew closer, the dusks waited. Could they have felt, there would have been a collective anticipation, the thrill of the hunt. As it was, there was only a hollow sense of waiting and watching.

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.

One by one the creatures fell, though none hesitated in their attack even for a moment. Swarming almost desperately, the pack fell away as bullets tore through their bodies.

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.

To put it bluntly, Sonic had been flat bored in the city. After the flying rug, he hadn't seen anything too out of the ordinary, and a self-guided mapless tour of the city hadn't taken very long, even when he was going slow. With nothing else left to do, he'd decided to hold up his end of the bargain he made with that Doctor guy and go check out the church. It had slipped his mind that he'd never actually sealed that bargain with the Doctor, but he seemed like a nice enough guy and it gave Sonic something to do. He'd blown past the gate guard like it was nothing and was well on his way to the church when something caught his eye. It was a girl, and judging from the bandages, she looked like she was hurt.

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?"

"Yeah, this stuff is pretty weird. I don't think it's real." Sonic dug the tip of his shoe lazily into the white grass, wondering what exactly she'd meant by "creatures." "D'you think those things are gonna come back?" He was pretty sure he could handle anything that came up, but he wanted to get to the church first. Plus, there was no need for the girl to get hurt again.

"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?"

"Looks pretty fake to me," Sonic replied bluntly. He spent a good bit of time in the Green Zone, he knew what real vegetation looked like, and the stuff here sure wasn't it.

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."

"Someone with too much time on their hands," Sonic replied simply. He didn't see why people had to build huge buildings and make everything so complicated when he could just string his hammock between two trees and be happy. Some people, huh?

"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?"

Sonic thought over Lara's suggestions. Sure, he could understand something like that, but... "Yeah, but what's big enough to need a whole island?" Robotnik was big enough to need an airship (or two or half a dozen), but then again Robotnik was also nuts.

"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.

"Thanks." Sonic grinned and gave Lara a thumbs-up. "They don't call me the Fastest Thing Alive for nothing, y'know." Okay, so he was bragging now. It was true, though.

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!"

"S'why I run," Sonic answered distractedly as he peered into the church. It wasn't like he was scared or anything - nope, he just wanted to make sure he wasn't going to run into anything nasty in that church. It was pretty dark in there, after all. "'S much faster."

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.]

Sonic's question - how did she know there had been two people, anyways? - died in light of Lara's next statement. "Trouble, huh?" Well, now his guard was definitely up. He hadn't been in the city (or in the church) that long, and he sure didn't want trouble so soon...though it wasn't like he couldn't handle it.

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!"

Part of Sonic was wondering what it was that Lara had run into earlier that gave her trouble...but the rest of him really wanted to know what was up these stairs. He'd just ask her later.

"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!"

Sonic stepped aside to let Lara closer to the marks on the floor - she obviously knew more about this kind of thing than he did, and she'd probably have more answers than he could come up with.

...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."

"Wait, they disappear?" Lara had Sonic's full attention with that comment. It didn't make any sense - how could something alive just disappear "Weird..."

"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?"

Sonic let Lara go first - not something he'd normally do, but she could look at all the weird stuff while he kept an eye out for anything with a bad attitude that might be hanging around. It worked.

"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.

"Interesting, yeah, but it's pretty creepy too," Sonic replied. While creepy didn't bother him, it sure didn't help either, 'specially not around here. Lara wasn't the only one taking mental notes, at least - Sonic had promised the Doctor information, and he fully intended to deliver. Question is, what would the Doctor want to know about this place? Probably all the weird stuff they'd found, sure, but what else?

"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."

"'Course it isn't," Sonic grinned. Looked like Lara spoke his language. "No point in doin' something if it's too easy." What was the fun in doing something if there was no challenge? It was like jogging when you could really run.

"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.

"Heck, just gettin' here would take you forever if you're walkin'," Sonic commented lightly, pushing open the front door and heading out into the fading sun. That, of course, was why he rarely walked anywhere. He much preferred speed.

"So, wanna go back the same way we came?" he grinned up at Lara. He wasn't talking where - he was talking how.

"Cool." The grin on Sonic's face got wider at the prospect of a good run. He'd have to slow down to compensate for carrying Lara, but that was okay - a run was a run and he'd take it.

"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.

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