Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Lara pulled herself up the edge of the cliff, executing a graceful hand-stand in the process. "Welcome to Kalipalu," she told her support team over the radio. "She's a lovely example of an uncharted island that hasn't been inhabited in centuries; just the way I like them."
Lara heard a pair of boots behind her and turned to see Doppelganger standing there. She smiled. "What took you so long?"
"I took the scenic route," Doppelganger said with her own smile. "They should learn to make cliffs more accessible for new visitors."
"It's not their fault you insist on making everything as challenging as possible for you," Zip said over the radio. Zip eventually came back to the manor and had developed a grudging acceptance for Doppelganger since she had come to live with and work alongside Lara.
Bantering aside, Lara was thankful to have Doppelganger with her on this latest expedition to the Pacific island of Kalipalu. Not long after coming to live with Lara, she had decided to take Doppelganger with her on an expedition to Egypt. Ever since then, they went all of Lara's adventures together.
They made a perfect team. Doppelganger's shadow powers made her stronger and faster than almost any foe they could ever expect to face. Lara's experience, archaeological and anthropological knowledge, and natural cunning made sure that they bypassed most of the deadly traps and solved the tricky puzzles they encountered in the tombs.
"A jaunt to paradise; why don't we get to take vacations like this?" Zip griped as he observed the lush, tropical fauna over the camera.
"Perhaps when you've finally built up that vacation pay I'll let you," Lara replied with a good-natured smile.
"This isn't some vacation, Zip," Amanda Evert coolly reminded him as her voice over the radio. "This island may be key to understanding the Maori expansion throughout the Pacific Rim." Amanda had joined Lara's support team shortly after Doppelganger had come to live with Lara, filling Alistair's role as a sort of penance for both herself and Lara. Amanda was still very much into the ancient mysticism behind archeology, but Lara nonetheless valued her for her encyclopedic knowledge and unconventional view; if there was anything Lara had learned from tomb raiding, it was that even ancient mysticism held a fair deal of truth. Amanda had had some reservations about being anywhere near Doppelganger as first, but quickly got over them.
"Good to hear back from you, Amanda. Were you able to find out anything else about the temple?" Lara asked.
"A few things, thanks to your friend Nishamura. In 1943, the Japanese Imperial Army stumbled upon the Maori temple on this island and the Emperor himself sent a team of archaeologists to uncover any mysteries the temple might have. They didn't find anything of great value and project was abandoned shortly before the Japanese surrendered the Allies."
"How fitting that we should finish what they started," Doppelganger remarked.
"You said it," Zip said.
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After a quarter-mile, Lara and Doppelganger came to the temple. The entrance looked like any Maori temple that could be found in New Zealand with its white walls and red ridgepoles; the rest was built into the side of the mountain.
As Lara and Doppelganger entered the temple, they looked around. The walls showed some evidence of excavation, but nothing recent. There were still some tools and crates with Japanese characters scattered about and a threadbare Empire of the Rising Sun flag hanging on the wall.
Lara stepped up to the walls and examined them. "This is as far as the Japanese archaeologists came."
"Be careful, Lara," Amanda Evert said over the radio-link. "I've been reviewing these Maori texts more closely here and, if I'm reading these correctly, they left four guardians to protect the treasure."
"Right, Amanda. Thanks." Lara looked around the room; there was something she was missing here but she didn't what yet.
As Lara walked across the floor, she felt something strange about the floor. She crouched down and ran her hands over the section of the floor; it was different from the rest of the floor, as though it had been patched over at some point. She smiled. "I see; the archaeologists spent all their time studying the wall of the temple, but they never thought to study the floor."
With a single, powerful punch Doppelganger smashed open the floor section, revealing a passage way downwards into the mountain. Both explorers smiled and climbed down.
They soon came to a long corridor with the walls and floor covered with moss. Lara instinctively knew there was a trap here; she motioned for Doppelganger to hang back a moment while she examined the corridor. She picked up a large rock and rolled it across the moss-covered floor. Almost instantly, overlapping rows of spears shot out of the walls and floor, ready to impale anyone unlucky enough to be standing there. One poor fool had already been impaled, his skull stuck on one spear while the rest of his bones were held together by mere wisps of flesh. After a moment the rows of spears retracted.
Lara examined the corridor again; as far as she could tell, there were no lips in the wall, no loose stones to climb, nothing they could use to avoid the spears.
"Any ideas?" Doppelganger asked.
"None that don't involve being skewered," Lara answered dryly.
Doppelganger grinned. "Then it's my cue."
Doppelganger became a blur as she activated her shadow powers and ran across the mossy floor. The spears began to shoot out again but she was ready for them. The first row came out of the floor, which she destroyed with a single blow. The next two came out of the walls and were scattered by two spinning kicks. Another row came out the floor and Doppelganger simply ran through it. The last rows came out of the walls and, with a final punch to each row, they were destroyed as well.
"Show-off," Lara said as she looked at the broken spears all about the room. Doppelganger smirked.
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A minute after the spear room, they came to a massive chamber. The room was circular with a domed roof supported by four massive wooden ridgepole pillars. The massive room was divided up into four quadrants symbolizing the sky, the sea, and the land and rivers of New Zealand. In each quadrant stood a huge statue facing inward. In the center of the room was a stone pedestal with something on it.
Doppelganger walked around the statue in the sky quadrant. "These must be the guardians Amanda mentioned," she observed. The guardian statue appeared to be some kind of bird-like demon creature with stone wings spread wide.
Lara nodded as she studied the other guardian statues. The sea guardian resembled a giant shark with legs, the land guardian a massive tuatara lizard, and the river guardian a enormous demonic catfish with legs.
Lara and Doppelganger walked up to the pedestal in the center of the room. There was a stack of carved wooden tablets with ancient Maori script on them. "This is it," Lara said. "A complete history of the ancient Maori people."
Before Lara could stop her, Doppelganger grabbed the tablets. A low groaning sound began to come from the statues. Lara sighed in exasperation and looked at Doppelganger who shrugged.
The statues' eyes glowed as they began to come to life around them, each shaking off ages of dust and advanced hungrily on the adventurers. Unfortunately for the statues, they had been created to deal with ordinary grave robbers; both Lara and Doppelganger were far from anything ordinary.
Lara and Doppelganger climbed up on the pedestal and stood back-to-back, their pistols drawn.
"What do you think? You take two and I'll take two?" Doppelganger asked.
"Seems fair enough." Lara replied. With that, both adventurers leapt off the pedestal to face their attackers.
The sky guardian came at Doppelganger with a swipe of one of its stone wings, but Doppelganger wasn't there anymore. Her shadow-speed kicked in, Doppelganger was behind the sky-guardian in an instant and knocked off one of the wings with a spinning air kick. The stone golem cried out and wheeled around but Doppelganger was behind it again, knocking off the other wing. The creature fell to its knees and Doppelganger finished it off with a solid blow to its head, turning it to dust and rubble.
The shark guardian snapped at her with its giant stone teeth. Doppelganger poured her pistol ammo into it but it just kept coming. Finally, Doppelganger found her mark as a round hit the creature in one of its eyes. As the golem staggered in sudden confusion from its diminished sight, Doppelganger put another round in its other eye. It howled in agony and blindly ran into a wall and was knocked to the ground, and Doppelganger finished it off with a powerful kick.
Meanwhile, Lara was busy with the other two guardians. She ran and rolled, avoiding the lizard and the catfish. The stone lizard whipped its tail at her but Lara was too quick and avoided its lashings. Fortunately, Lara was able to get between the two guardians and just as the catfish charged her and the lizard whipped its tail at her, Lara leaped out the way and the tail shattered the catfish.
Half of the golem's tail was also destroyed and the guardian roared in pain and fury. In its rage, it charged Lara as she fired her pistols at it but it kept coming. Lara jumped out of the way and the creature charged right into one of the ridgepole pillars which smashed it to dust and cracked the pillar in half.
There was a sudden rumbling as the roof and walls began to shake because of the broken pillar. Both adventurers knew it was time to leave and sprinted out of the chamber.
They ran down the passageway, through the broken spear room, and could see the light when suddenly a chunk of debris and dirt fell on Lara and buried her.
For the first time her life, the Doppelganger felt pure, genuine fear. Her template, the woman whom she had come to love and respect as a best friend and surrogate big sister, might be dead. She could hear Zip and Amanda yelling in her ear over the head-set, but she had mentally tuned them out; she had something more important to focus on.
Doppelganger's shadow powers kicked in stronger than ever before. She ran to the fallen debris and began frantically throwing chunks of rubble off to the side. She quickly found Lara and cradled her in her arms. Doppelganger ran out of the tunnel, into the temple, and then out into the sun where she lay Lara down on the grass and knelt down to examine her injuries.
Lara was alright. She had minor cuts and bruises but nothing serious. The bright ocean sun made her blink her eyes open and she looked up at her rescuer.
"Lara?! Lara?! Are you alright?!" Zip called over the headset, watching the images from the cameras.
"I'm fine, Zip. I just need a moment." And with that she switched off her headset radio and camera as well as by Doppelganger's.
They stared deeply into each other's eyes. Lara couldn't help but be mesmerized by Doppelganger's amber eyes which seemed so beautiful just now; Doppelganger felt like she was falling into Lara's lovely chestnut brown eyes.
"I'd thought I had lost you there," Lara said.
"So did I." With that, acting purely on instinct, Doppelganger leaned down and gently kissed Lara.
As Lara felt Doppelganger's lips grace her own, she realized something: she didn't just love Doppelganger like a friend; she was in love with Doppelganger. She no longer saw Doppelganger as some kind of demon, but now as an angel; her angel.
Doppelganger had similar thoughts. She had been unable to stop thinking and dreaming all day and night about her template since she came to live with her, and now she finally understood why: she was in love with Lara.
"I love you, Doppie. I love you more than anything."
"I love you too, Lara. I will never stop loving you." And Doppelganger leaned down to kiss Lara again.
For the two women on a mountainside on an island in the middle of Pacific Ocean, time and space suddenly had no meaning.
I don't know if Kalipalu is a real place. Also, you may remember Nishamura as the Lara's contact and friend from the Tokyo level of "Tomb Raider Legend". And if there are any raised eyebrows about the catfish, just remember that they're carnivorous and can be vicious fuckers!
Also, "Tomb Raider" is a product of Core Development, Crystal Dynamics, and Eidos Interactive. I don't own any part of the franchise or the characters (but it would be totally cool if I did).
Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess. It's your take on Lara, and it's fanfiction so not necessarily canon, so it's your perogative where Lara and Doppie swings. Assuming I do a similar story, my take on this chapter's ending and onward would probably a bit different:
Lara will most likely be straight in this for one thing [whether she's with Kurtis or someone else I have no idea yet, just a guy she's involved with in the canon Legends games], and the ending would be more Doppie being shocked at her own learning that she had some degree of concern for her template's well being. It would be initially implied that she had no concept of having even camaraderie, much less any sort of love until then due to her status as effectively a biological assassination weapon, and is struggling with these emotions. Lara for her part will understand, and decided to try and help her on the subject matter, also deciding that moment to forgive Doppie completely for what happened earlier during their first meeting. Everything else before then would pretty much be the exact same as your renditions (though the ending of Chapter 3 would probably be downplayed a bit).
Chapter 5 probably will have the same general events occur, though in that case, Lara would simply have a talk with Doppie about what the latter was feeling that time, explain that what she felt was love, and also explain there's varying versions of love. As far as why she gave her staff three days off with pay, it would be more because Lara felt this was something she herself needed to do for Doppie, largely because she's effectively the reason Doppie's undergoing complications over her feelings. I envision due to her more knowledgeable background via archaeology that she'd probably help her understand via using the Greek terms for each concept. They eventually settle on the term Doppie was feeling as Storge, or at least the closest thing to it, with Lara fully acknowledging Doppie as in effect being her adopted sister. Lara will also allude to how she herself is in a relationship with a guy, planning to get married in fact, with Doppie also ultimately wanting to learn how to experience that kind of love for herself.
After that talk, the two decide to go for a swim. They'll still skinnydip at night, though the actual rationale was different: In particular, when Lara mentions wanting to go put on her swimsuit, Doppie looks at her confused and asks what a swimsuit is (it would be heavily implied that her "mother" never educated her on even the concept of swimwear, and that before then, she swam as-is, either naked or even just wearing her BDU. If the latter, it would be implied that her skinnydipping is probably the first time she even saw her own bare body for herself as she was never really given a chance to take off the BDU before then.). Lara then realized she and the others never even taught her about it, and decided to give her a lesson on it. She then takes her upstairs to her room to help her try on swimwear (as Doppie technically has the same build as her, Lara's wardrobe fits Doppie to a T), also having her wear some swimwear herself to give her a sense of what it is like. Doppie tries them on, but doesn't truly feel comfortable wearing them. Eventually, they ultimately settle on skinnydipping because of that (it would be implied Lara herself occasionally dabbles in the activity herself during times she's NOT doing archaeology missions, hence why she's somewhat open to the idea, and it being nighttime by that time was because that's how long it took for them to even try on various swimwear). Doppie runs ahead of her, and the sequence of her discovering Doppie's clothes in the hallway is retained, though Lara privately notes to herself with a bit of bemusement that Doppie's going to need to learn to be a bit more discreet in her preparations for such an activity while privately expressing relief that Winston and the others weren't there due to it requiring quite a bit of uneasy explanations if they were.
The skinnydipping itself pretty much is the same as in your chapter, up until the gazing on their bodies bit. In that particular bit, Doppie will admit this isn't the first time she saw Lara naked unlike Doppie with Lara, and admit she saw her showering earlier. Lara then admits she had her suspicions that she peeked in while joking that she'll let it slide, and Doppie then asks for Lara to teach her the functions of her body, admitting she barely even knows what her various feminine functions are mostly because of her background as being a weapon forged to assassinate her template. Lara then proceeds to give a bit of a lesson to her, also allowing Doppie to touch her as a way to further learn about the concepts (that's the most suggestive that my take will allow). She explains that the breasts, one of the key differences between them and men, essentially act as milk factories in the event that they have a baby. She then mentions that the netheregions are where the baby is held when they get pregnant when sleeping with a man. She also makes clear that men have their reproductive organs on the outside. And the overall hips and waist are designed in such a way to ensure carrying a baby to term. Lara and Doppie then undo their hair like the immediate ending, mostly so they'd get a good idea as to what their hair looks like to each other.
I was thinking this would be around the time Lara's fiance walks in on them and starts getting the wrong ideas about Lara, starts having doubts about their future marriage due to thinking she was really a lesbian (this would be the first time he actually meets Doppie, BTW). Doppie then apologizes and feared she did something wrong before running out (as Lara didn't get a chance to explain what towels were, Doppie ends up streaking the mansion as a result). Lara then explains to her fiance the situation, and she was more giving Doppie an anatomy lesson due to her not understanding her own body thanks to her background, also filling him in on how Doppie's actually a clone of her that had a more complicated experience with her regarding being made to kill her. He then becomes a bit more understanding of the situation, and decides to go upstairs with Lara in tow to interact with Doppie and apologize to her in turn for the mistaken first impression, who is still in her bedroom (obviously, Doppie would still be naked that time). I'm considering having Lara go up as is and not bother getting dressed or even wearing a towel, the latter mostly out of practicality due to her realizing Doppie doesn't know about towels yet, though she did bring her clothes upstairs so she can change back into them once they've officially settled the misunderstanding. As far as why the fiance is tolerant of her being naked with him during this time besides the circumstances, let's just say this wasn't the first time he's seen Lara naked, with her knowledge at that (though they haven't actually had sex yet. I was thinking Winston insisted she refrain until marriage to do that.).
Long story short, I moreorless envision the idea of Lara and Doppie as being more like adopted siblings than actual lovers, with Lara being more of a quasi-big sis to Doppie due to her technically being older than her. Also giving them a more Roselli and Isles-style dynamic (BFFs in other words, or heterosexual life partners). Lara would be straight, while Doppie's more asexual initially (let's face it, when your entire existence until then was essentially a living weapon, it's not likely she'd have any opportunities to really understand sex or sexual feelings) before eventually evolving to be straight.