by FiendishAtlantean
All Tomb Raider characters are ©Core Design and EIDOS
Interactive
This story is rated G, which means it can be read by
everyone regardless of the person's age.
Send your comments to fiendishatlantean@mad.scientist.com.
Any feedback is appreciated.
* * *
Three…
A new world. A new Earth,
free of treacherous human bastards, repopulated with second genesis. A single
Atlantean woman, sending the Creator to eternal unrest. Natla didn't have any
idea when did she come up with that, but that very moment, her life had begun.
And everything that had happened before it faded to darkness, never to be
recovered. Her vision of the world as it should be was the only thing she cared
about. Anything else didn't matter. Even her own life. Natla had made herself
immune to aging, but if her life ever came to an end, she'd simply say it was
game over. And die. Giving no damn about it. But while she was falling into a
hundred meters deep abyss, she didn't feel as she expected herself to feel when
facing the Grim Reaper. Maybe because she had expected the death to be a bit
more pleasant than painfully burning up in the hot molten lava that waited for
her at the bottom. For the very first time in a very long period of time, she
was afraid. What was only a few seconds of the free fall to the unevitable,
seemed like an eternity to her. If it would only end quickly!
Two…
I should have killed her,
Natla thought. I should have taken the damn gun and blasted her brains out of
her skull. Damn you, Lara Croft! But Natla had been so sure about her final
victory, and that had made her lenient. Which in end turned out to be her
demise. Well, next time I will dispose of anyone who gets in my way instantly,
by myself, she thought. And smiled bitterly. What damn next time you're
thinking about, Natla? There is no next time. Game over, pure and simple. A
cruel life have you lived, and a cruel death will you die. The world won't
regret it. You cared about nobody, and nobody will care if you die. You will
melt in lava, and everyone will forget about you. And it will be like you've
never existed. A regular bad girl's end. So accept the unevitable… Well, at
least her creatures - some of them - were able to complete themselves to
perfection and conquer the world. Too bad that she wouldn't be there as their
Goddess, but you can't have all, can you? Natla opened her eyes and looked
below her. The lava pool was closing in quickly.
A flapping sound of wings,
and all of a sudden, it stopped closing in. What the hell, Natla thought.
Somebody - or maybe something would be a better word - did care after
all. One of her flying creatures had accidentally found itself nearby, and
decided to drop in and save the day. As it carried her away from the lava
hazard, Natla started laughing. Laughing like a lunatic. She thought she was a
hundred procent goner, and then, she wasn't one after all. In mere seconds. And
if that wasn't destiny…wait, at which number exactly did the countdown stop?!?
One…
Oh no, Natla thought. Up
there at the Scion chamber, the stronger and stronger sparks of energy radiated
from the Scion. The evolution…change them, it will, but what if I happen to be
in physical contact with one of them at the time? The answer was simple - she
had no idea. But "nothing" was surely at the bottom of the possible
list. The sparks up there grew into an explosion which shook the Pyramid, and
Natla found herself inside an energy sphere. Together with the creature. Well, I
might be clueless about what's going to happen, but I'll find out soon, she
thought. She might guess it wouldn't be pleasant - the energy sphere exploded,
and Natla felt like being smacked around by a nuclear blast again. Seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing…but pain. Incredible pain, like she
was being torn apart. It lasted for a while (which again seemed like an
eternity to her), and then she was sent at high speed right into the lava.
The evolution process was
done, and except for Lara Croft who was in the middle of a fight against the
most horrible creature a diseased mind could invent and probably a source for a
long, long period of nightmares, everything was back to normal (or normal,
Atlantean style, that is). Natla felt she was alive, and that she was
definitively somewhere in the material world, probably inside the lava pool.
But she didn't feel quite like herself. Whatever had happened, it blasted a
good part of Natla out of her head. Where had once been cold intellect, was
burning rage. Thirst for blood. Killer instinct. Something that Natla, besides
all her villain qualities, lacked. There was also a new bond in her head - a
connection to her creatures' collective consciousness, allowing her to see
through the eyes of any of them. She had become one of them. The question was,
how far did it go? Natla smiled. That wasn't her usual smile, but something
more like a devilish grin. She didn't care how far did it go. It did change her
physically, because she was surrounded by lava and not burning. Even an idiot
would come up with the conclusion that what had once been a beautiful Atlantean
woman has now become a demon from the nightmare. But Natla didn't care. She had
lost herself, in body and mind, but like it mattered. She had a new purpose, a
new goal in life. And she felt truly unstoppable.
"YESSSSS!!!"-an otherwordly shriek echoed the Pyramid, and an explosion dissolved the lava pool around the hole. In its middle, stood Natla. She raised her hand, looking at it. It was skinless, taloned and definitively not human. Just as non-human as the pair of huge, blood-red wings that stretched from her back. Now I know what happened, she thought with a devilish grin. The evolution process mixed my genes with the ones of my creature. It merged us. That's why I'm not feeling so much Natla-a-like. "A new Natla is born!"-she said, in a voice that was part human and part horribly otherwordly. "And you can bet that you haven't seen the last of me, Lara Croft!". She turned her changed hand into a barrel, and lifted herself into the air. Flying, feeling the power within - true, wild, chaotic power - it just felt so good. Natla - or what was left from her in her changed body - knew that she would never, never wish to be back to her old self, after experiencing the power. And in her new form, that what was now a purpore of her existence - destroying Lara Croft, roasting her with fireballs - would undeniably be a far greater pleasure! She licked her lips, and her eyes flashed with fiendish bloodlust. It was about time for the hunt to start…