I knew my girls had seen my panic at seeing the news article about Yamatai, but none of them had apparently played the Tomb Raider game. Then again, it had been 2011 on Earth Bet and the Tomb Raider reboot had been made in 2013. Plus, Earth Bet might not ever make the rebooted Tomb Raider games since they start in a supernatural version of Japan and Earth Bet’s Japan had been devastated when Leviathan sank Kyushu. Not ideal to remind people already on the edge about that.
On the other hand, it made sense that not all media across the multiverse would be created at the same time. I would have to pay more attention to that in the future.
However, this revelation did explain a few things, as Lockhart had several artifacts that weren’t mentioned in the Harry Potter universe. It also opened up a lot of questions and dangers. The Sorting Hat’s joke that Merlin had been half incubus seemed a lot less funny now as demons, angels, jinn and even the Fae which were referenced quite often in the Tomb Raider games. We were going to need to pay way more attention to the potential dangers in this world.
The next problem was this world and how bloody it was. I had only played the first game and heard about the rest, but it started bloody and it apparently only got more so. It was possible that Lara was only going to have to kill a few people in her quest to get her friend back, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t that lucky.
Yeah, we had killed people before, but not since I had broken free of my compulsion. Arguably, I had done worse than killing them by tearing their souls apart for momentary power, but I hadn’t been in full control and we had been pretty firm in targeting the worst of the worst. Rapists and murderers. The only people my girls had killed directly were the Slaughterhouse 9.
Were we really ready to get involved with the plot of Tomb Raider? It might have been exaggerated because it was a game, but Lara Croft guns down hundreds of people on that island. Was I ready to wade that deep into killing?
I thought about it. What would happen if we didn’t do anything. Sam would nearly have her soul destroyed, body stolen. Lara would suffer, suffer tremendously. And if they failed… well if they failed, a lot more people would suffer and die either being sacrificed or killed as they ended up shiprecked on the island or a new Dark Lady would rise in Japan. Then even more people would suffer and die.
The question was, did we need to get involved? Theoretically we could point Dumbledore at the problem, but would he really get involved on vague potential warnings for Muggles? The British Ministry of Magic certainly wouldn’t.
I wanted to help. In the end, my girls would also probably want to help as they would think back to their own struggles. I wanted to help people… if I could… so I would just leave it to my girls. If they wanted to help, and if the trio wanted to help. I would support let them.
I shook my head free of my thoughts and tried to smile. However, even I knew I wasn’t doing a very good job trying to disguise my moment of surprise then panicked thinking just now. How long had I been standing here anyway?
So, as should have been obvious, none of my girls believed me when I tried to tell everyone that nothing was wrong. However, apparently Holly and Hermione had been around me enough to ignore my deflections as well and refused to leave until I explained.
Glancing at Luna who had pointed out the newspaper in the first place, I asked. “I think you know a little of what is about to happen. Should we get involved, and should we bring the others into it as well?”
Luna blinked and looked at the Grangers and then Holly before she nodded slowly. “The Humdingers agree that the Grangers don’t have many Nargles. Plus, they are unlikely to inform the Heliopaths if we try to help. The rotfang conspiracy won’t get involved until later unless we are too noisy.”
I paused and tried to engage my Luna interpreter. After a moment of thought I turned to the Grangers who looked exceptionally confused. “Well, it seems Luna thinks you are all good people and aren’t likely to tell the ministry on us. I am not sure what conspiracy is out there, but let's keep our heads down for now.”
That didn’t really seem to clarify anything for the Grangers, but I looked around before I waved them to lean forward while Ahri cast a subtle anti-eavesdropping spell. Thankfully, everyone including my girls leaned forward without making a scene.
I took a deep breath before I looked around, face serious. “I have some… knowledge… that suggests that for just about everyone on this expedition… well, it will go very, very badly. Nearly everyone dead, kind of badly.” Seeing their widening eyes I looked at the Grangers. “You all three know about the more fantastical side of the world. The possible future we have seen is that the expedition is going to run face-first into one of the more extreme examples of it and well…” I trailed off as I looked around the group.
It was Taylor and Amy who spoke up among my girls. “We are helping.”
I sighed and looked at Holly plus the Grangers.
It was Mr Granger that spoke up. “What do you mean, young man?”
Seeing their worry, I sighed. “The specific future I know about is one where Lara Croft and the entire expedition on the Endurance is going to be shipwrecked after a freak storm. Lara is going to step up and save as many as she can, but it is not going to be easy and a lot of people are going to die.” I saw the flinch and I realized that Lara was probably the neighbor they had been talking about.
Holly was already looking determined and I thought about confronting her about her saving people thing, but before I could, Hermione interrupted me. “How are we getting there then?”
I winced and looked at her parents who predictably didn’t look pleased with their daughter’s declaration, but to my surprise they didn’t stop her.
I bit my lip for a second, considering if it might be better to exclude Hermione and Holly, but ultimately I didn’t think I had the right to make that decision for them. Especially with Hermione’s parents right there. Really, protecting them from the world around them is a nice thought if it wasn’t for the fact she was arguably around as strong as us and this was her friend we were talking about.
We couldn’t even play the minor card as Holly was two months shy of turning 17 while Hermione was only 4 months from being 18.
Maybe that is why her parents, who still seemed quite invested in their daughter’s well-being, were going along with it. Then again, a lot of stories had Hermione’s parents as somewhat absentee or overly permissive parental figures. Erasing their memories did imply something. If removing their memories was the only option, then maybe they were completely dismissive of her warnings or that her parents were either actively neglectful or abusive, in which case she wanted to be rid of them.
Otherwise, she was too smart to not have done something better and less drastic. Maybe like having them moved into hiding in France and erasing her own memories of where they were. She could then know that they were safe even if no one knew where they were. They could then just wait for the all clear from England before returning.
I shook my head and focused on the present. I could look into Hermione’s living situation later.
As I noticed the Dursleys getting annoyed at our delay, I realized I needed to end this quickly, and gestured towards the red-faced Vernon waddling towards us. “We don’t have much time.” I glanced at the newspaper which said the team had flown to Japan and their chartered expedition two days ago. “We might only have a day or two to get ready, but we are going to be going. We will contact you both the day after tomorrow if you really want to go.”
Hermione looked firm as she stared into my eyes and declared, “I am not going to leave Lara all alone when I can help.”
But I shook my head. “You don’t understand. This isn’t going to be easy. We might have to kill a lot of people along with an ancient female dark lord in order to save the expedition.”
There was a moment of silence as Vernon finally got close enough to yell at Holly. “Come on, girl. Get your freaky things and get in the car.”
I looked at Holly who winced and I smiled a little. “We will contact you soon so…” I swallowed then continued. “Think about if you really want to join us for this. Until then, keep this on your person. We can communicate with it soon.” I said, handing her a fairly nice fountain pen with a new tiny portal on the clip.
I had refused to use quills for writing when the modern world had already invented pens. Predictably, the professors had grumbled as it apparently wasn’t traditional and magic didn’t flow through them, but there wasn’t a rule against it so I got to keep using them.
Holly nodded and placed the pen in the pocket on her blazer.
Turning, I handed another pen to Hermione who looked at it and then nodded, emphatically.
Returning to the magical side of the platform we took the floo back to the three broomsticks in Hogsmeade. I didn’t know what condition everyone would be in when we arrived as the game didn’t really give me a good timeline of events, especially at the beginning, so we needed to prepare.
The good news was we had money. In the last week, after the confrontation in the chamber of secrets, I had opened another portal into the chamber and let a rooster crow for nearly thirty minutes before checking it myself.
Again, I wasn’t sure what wards the chamber was using, but I was absolutely going to be studying them. Even with my ROB given powers, the chamber was exceptionally difficult to enter and I wanted that for our home defenses outside a defendable entrance way.
The start to the previously mentioned good news was that I was able to confirm the Basilisk was dead, crushed to death in the rubble. The girls and I had spent nearly an entire day digging the stupid giant snake out, but it was going to be worth it.
However, the process of selling the basilisk to the goblins wasn’t actually as lucrative as I had hoped. Apparently the wizards here were marginally smarter than I thought they were. Basilisk was an important ingredient in potions, so small ones were grown in captivity and blinded at birth.
That meant that Slytherin’s monster wasn’t worth the millions of British pounds I had hoped for. However, it still netted us a cool six hundred thousand. Mostly because of the amount and potency of the venom along with the eyes which were still huge and mostly intact. We obviously kept a bottle of venom for ourselves.
My plan was to split the pay evenly, with half for our entire Family, and the remaining half split evenly between the trio.
That left our family with a solid 300 thousand British pounds, or just shy of 6 thousand Galleons. The trio were then left with about 100 thousand British pounds, or about 2 thousand Galleons each.
I knew that Holly had some money left from her parents, but the books didn’t specify exactly how much. Because of the lack of surprise at her distinctly average clothes at school (probably because Holly was a girl and thus couldn’t wear Dudley’s old clothes) I suspected this wasn’t one of the stories where she had a giant fortune waiting for her when she turned 17. Some of those were a little silly, with the Potters secretly owning half of magical Britain.
Hermione, daughter of two successful dentists, was also obviously upper middle class as well. Especially if the Grangers were neighbors with Lara Croft who lived in a small family manor according to the games.
So while not enough to retire on, it was still enough money to get those two started in their lives if they didn’t join us. It was Ginny that would probably benefit the most from the money, and I had to admit that I had really hoped it would help her, and to a lesser extent, her family.
The Weasleys were usually good people, discounting all the stories where Molly tries to love potion Hermione or Harry into marrying into their family for money, control, or whatever.
Then again, the Weasleys did seem to discriminate pretty heavily against Slytherins. Then, despite Mr. Weasley’s job, the family didn’t seem to understand or respect Muggles at all. Plus, they were also almost actively stupid with money management. Ron had reportedly been using a broken, old family wand for all of second year, implying they were basically destitute. Using a broken wand was incredibly dangerous, after all. Then they won a lot of money and apparently immediately spent all of it on a trip to Egypt instead of saving or investing it.
I sighed, I guess I would need to pay attention to them as well. However, for now it was probably best to give Ginny the money, making sure that she knew she should keep at least some of it to take care of herself.
Focusing on the girls I tried to call a council about if we should move to help, but before I could even explain Amy and Taylor confirmed that we were helping and that was that.
The first thing we did was start preparing. Buying massive amounts of various healing potions was the first step. Yes Amy could heal, but she was still limited to healing one person at a time and we didn’t know what would happen.
The second step was buying a lot of food. With magic we could finally store the food under preservation spells. No more worrying about having fresh fruits and veggies going bad while we traveled.
The third thing we did was purchase magical tents. We were hoping we didn’t need to use them in view of Muggles but it was better than showing them my pocket home.
The fourth thing we did was look for mundane weapons and ammo. Heading towards a sports equipment store on the Muggle side, and we tried to purchase hunting bows and firearms.
That did not go well. Not only did we not get anything, but they blacklisted us from the entire chain of stores when we said we were looking for the ammo for a AK47. It probably would have been smarter to focus on sporting rifle ammo, but I had wanted to be able to use the more powerful guns we had stolen from the gangs back on Earth Bet. We would keep our eyes open, but we might need to steal it from the people there, like Lara did.
Another sporting goods shop did allow us to purchase a dozen small hand held radios in case we needed them, even if I planned on keeping portal communication when possible.
Going back to the magical side, we then focused on getting armor. That went better than the ammo.
Using the shed skin from the chamber large supply of material allowed us to get long armored trench coat style jackets for everyone, designed by Sabah with a little help from Madam Malkin on how to process the skin. Said clothing store owner had obviously been surprised by the request, but had been happy to help after we offered her a jacket of her own.
Finally, we looked around for some sort of protection against bullets or arrows in the magical shops and I was surprised to find very little. Apparently the wizards still didn’t understand the risk bullets posed. Or maybe it was because they never left a country that heavily regulated their ownership. It made me wonder if the wizards in America had better options.
The best thing we could find in Britain to protect against bullets was something like modified quidditch armor. Apparently, quidditch armor placed a minor shield to ward away blows to the head and softened blows against the body.
After testing, it turned out my own attempts at creating enchanted runic protections against bullets were more effective than Britain’s mediocre offerings. I had taken the idea of modern armor by creating momentary tiny, angled shields that deflected bullets away from our head. It wasn’t perfect, and a particularly high-powered shot might still break through. However, it did mange to block two direct shots from one of the three AK47s we had before failing. Not great, but better than nothing.
The enchantment basically activated whenever something flew towards the rune work faster than the speed of sound, which was apparently magically significant. That left us vulnerable to arrows, slings, or melee weapons, but it was a start.
I might have even felt proud, except I knew we were likely to run into those more primitive weapons almost immediately, so it felt like we were still under-prepared.
Still, as much as I wanted to keep working on it, we didn’t have time. Instead, while the girls prepared our pocket home to move, Luna and I created headbands out of bronze. We focused on making sure we had one for each of our girls, plus Hermione and Holly. Apparently, bronze was nearly as good at conducting magic as gold, while silver repelled it. The ability to negate magic while still being incredibly strong was why goblin silver was so prized.
Caving to gender stereotypes, rather than get a headband to hold back my moderately short hair like the girls, I decided that I would go get a hat and put the metal band around the brim. As we were in England, I decided a traditional newsboy cap in black seemed appropriate.
It was then that Taylor and Amy asked me to open up the portal to the forbidden forest. I watched, a little nervous, as forty tiny acromantula were then walked into transfigured fish tanks in our basement. Worse yet, I saw Amy begin to poke them, obviously making changes as those two prepared for their own form of battle.
It was yet another reminder of how I never wanted to get any of my girls mad at me.
The final problem we needed to solve was how to get there.
We could theoretically get on a plane and fly to Japan to start pushing my portal out to look. Flights in the 1990s were much more relaxed about security than the mid 2000s after all.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
However, even with those relaxed requirements, it would be difficult as we didn’t have any Muggle identification at all. We could probably get it relatively easily since forging Muggle identification was something the Magical world would have to deal with moderately regularly, but I doubted it could be done in a single day, maybe not even a single week.
Conversely, I could push my portal to the other side of the world directly from here. The problem was I was still limited to about 100 miles per hour. And just like we had realized previously, that was fast, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough when we wanted to travel long distances.
The earth was almost 25 thousand miles around, and Japan was nearly exactly on the other side of the earth. That meant I would need to push my portal about 12 thousand miles, which would take about 120 hours. Five days delay, five entire days without sleep as I pushed the portal onwards.
Finally, we could travel to Japan the magical way via several Portkeys which would only take a day or so, but then we would be monitored pretty heavily by whatever the Japanese Ministry of Magic equivalent was.
Sighing, I laid out my options to the girls, and unsurprisingly it was Taylor who found the loophole. “Why don’t we travel to Japan via Porkey and see the sights for a day, maybe purchase a few books, and leave one of your portals there before returning home? That way the Japanese ministry would see us arrive and then leave, but your portal would almost be to Yamatai island already.”
That suggestion was so obvious in hindsight that I had to slap my forehead in frustration. I also promised to rock her world as a reward tonight. Obviously, she went red, but also was clearly a little happy about the attention. Amy even gave a little wolf whistle as we then took our little break upstairs after dinner.
After working through the night preparing everything, Sabah reminded me that it was time to call Holly and Hermione and discuss the plan.
As I opened the portal to each of the fountain pens a little bit and allowed sound to pass through, I called out softly. “Hermione, Holly. We need to plan.”
The two girls seemed to have been waiting for me, as they responded almost instantly.
However, it was Hermione who surprised me. “I have Ginny as here as well. When I owled her, she said she needed to be here to support her best friends.”
Ginny scoffed from Hermione’s pen. “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily, Alcott.”
I was glad the portal was sound only as I rolled my eyes. “That is fine, but what about your family trip?”
Ginny scoffed. “We aren’t even leaving for two weeks. Plus, my parents seem to think we are all children, they aren’t even planning on letting us see anything exciting.”
Holly spoke up next. “Dobby has been a huge help. Thank you.”
I waived it away. “We don’t have enough work for him to be happy. Don’t worry about it.”
I cleared my throat, but decided that I might as well get on with it. With my girls listening in our living room, I tried to explain what I could about what I remembered of the Tomb Raider reboot.
“Lara Croft and her expedition is looking for Yamatai Island. It is the mythical center of an ancient and mythical Japanese city state. It was partially formed around a cult who worshiped a woman named Himiko who could control the weather and was proclaimed to be a sun goddess. She apparently had the ability to pass her powers to a worthy successor, thus keeping her people safe.”
I let that sink in for a second, then continued. “Personally, I think she was probably just a particularly powerful witch. However, my future knowledge showed she wasn’t actually transferring her powers, but her actual soul into another body in order to prolong her life.”
Internally, I realized that Himiko was apparently a soul mage like me, except her secondary power was weather control instead of dimensional portals. I then paused for a moment when I realized that Himiko might actually be using Horcruxes as well to keep herself alive.
Damn it. We might be dealing with someone who was a mix of Tom and myself.
Shaking my head I decided to skip over the finer details of Horcruxes for now. I would need to explain it soon, but it wasn’t important right this second, so I glossed over it. “She might also have artifacts she uses to contain her power, which will need to be broken if we want to actually defeat her. However, our first priority should be just saving the expedition.”
Everyone murmured their agreement, so I continued my summary. “Lara Croft is going to be captured, threatened, hurt, captured again… ” I paused, then had to chuckle incredulously. “Ok, actually she is going to be captured and escape only to be captured again… like, a lot. Over and over again, in fact. Her captors aren’t apparently very good at their job.”
I saw Amy roll her eyes at me and scoff as she leaned against Sabah who was trying to take notes.
I decided to roll my eyes back before I continued. “The important things are first that Himiko traps anyone who lands on her island with a perpetual storm. Second, the island is probably magically hidden in some way, but obviously not strongly enough to completely keep people from finding it. Finally, there are two groups beside the expedition on the island we need to watch out for. The first group are her Samurai warriors, who are probably undead minions. The second group are cultists who worship Himiko and will ritually sacrifice anyone who lands on the island in the hopes that her and her undead army will leave them alone.”
There was a moment of silence as everyone thought over what I had just said. It was Taylor who asked. “We aren’t going to be able to convince anyone to stand down and just let us get the expedition and leave, are we?”
I shook my head, despite the trio being unable to see me. “If it is anything like the future I was told about, then no. They seem to rape any women who land on the island before ritually sacrificing them. All that sacrificing is to see if they are worthy to be brought to Himiko for the supposed Right of Ascension when the undead queen takes over their body. On the other hand, all the men that land on the island who don’t immediately join their cult are either tortured and killed… or just killed.”
I could hear Hermione’s seething anger as she bit out. “I am not going to let them get Lara.”
I paused, but had to ask. “How do you know her anyway?”
Hermione paused but finally answered. “She was my babysitter for most of the time I was growing up. She was the only one who didn’t make fun of me for wanting to read all the time. She even showed me her research as she was starting on her master’s degree in archaeology.”
There was a moment of silence before I sighed. “From what I saw of both her and the people on the island, I agree. We really do need to do this.”
It was then that we got to explain our plan with the Portkeys. The trio weren’t thrilled that it would probably take a few days before we could have the portal arrive at Yamatai, but they didn’t have any suggestions on speeding things up.
Instead, they agreed to prepare, albeit with a lot of grumbling from Hermione when she realized we were going to be able to purchase spell books in Japan without her.
It was then when I explained what we had done with the money from the Basilisk that the questions arose. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Ginny who was the most vocal about not taking the money, but Holly. She whispered-yelled “You don’t need to share it with me. You saved my life after all.” The only reason it wasn’t louder was probably because she didn’t want to attract the Dursley’s attention to our conversation.
I shook my head again and after a moment I even opened the portals up so I could look them in the face. “No, you three deserve it. I even thought about giving you all a larger percentage. Yeah there are seven of us and only three of you, but you each earned it. Just promise me that you will spend at least most of it on yourselves, you risked your lives to protect the school this year, not to mention what happened your first year, and deserve to treat yourselves at least a little.”
Handing Ginny another pen through Hermione’s portal along with a key to each of their new vaults before I closed everything down again so we could head to the ministry and start booking our trip to Japan.
Apparently, a direct portkey to Japan wasn’t possible, or at least not one without a wizard more powerful than the common ministry official. Instead, we ended up going through France, Hungry, then Greece where we stopped for an early Lunch. After that we stopped through Egypt, Qatar, India, Thailand, Taiwan, then finally to Japan.
I was so sick of portkeys by Lunch that I actually paid the semi-exorbitant 20 galleons to have a more powerful set of portkeys that would take us to Hawaii, Las Vegas, New York, then back to England as just four jumps back the day after tomorrow.
My girls all agreed with me as we ate in silence before finding a room at the local inn in Tokyo.
The next day we were all feeling a little better and we momentarily searched around for information on Lara’s expedition.
That was when we realized that the translation spells we were using weren’t actually necessary. Again, I was intensely curious why we could speak all the languages we came across after spending some time around people who spoke said language. Was it some aspect of our world hopping nature? I didn’t know, but it wasn’t something we had time to investigate quite yet.
It took most of the morning but with the help from Dinah, we found the information on where the expedition was headed and their overall size. It confirmed the rough predictions that Dinah and Luna gave so we agreed it was a good estimate of where Yamatai was.
The rest of the day we tried to spend in the most famous Japanese market which was apparently called the Mahō no Shōtengai or literally magical covered market. Apparently it had started as a small market that had been operating in the old capital of Japan, Kyoto.
However, while we were happy to find non-humans weren’t as discriminated against in Japan, foreigners of all types were still heavily mistrusted.
We ended up trying the smaller and newer magical districts in Osaka and Tokyo where we got a slightly warmer welcome. I was extremely curious what the Japanese people would have said if we had shown Ahri off as a nine-tailed fox, but I didn’t want to kick that proverbial bee’s nest when we were only planning on being here for a few more hours.
Still, I was thrilled to get some books on the Japanese talismans, called Ofuda, which were usually done on paper and were often stronger than western enchantments. They were created by essentially casting the spell into the ink as it was being written. They differed from western enchantments as the spell was always released all at once even if the effect lasted for years. It was interesting, even if it made them inherently single use only. No matter how good a condition the paper was in, it couldn’t be removed and placed somewhere else.
I wanted to spend more time researching these Ofuda, but I had to keep at least a little focus on moving my portal around looking for Yamatai.
We stayed one last night, where we probably scandalized the Muggle hot springs bath owner when I had all four of my older girls join me in the private bath, before we returned to England.
Upon returning, we let the trio know we were still looking, but we hadn’t found Yamatai yet. Instead, I had time to attempt to inspect the American versions of bullet wards while Taylor focused heavily on making everyone acromantula silk shirts and pants. Said clothes might not fully protect against a sword, but would hopefully stop any knives. I didn’t, however, make much progress working on understanding what the Americans had done for their bullet wards, especially as I had to keep an eye on the portals. Apparently they had used different types of runes while the British were pretty set into the norse and celtic.
Honestly it was a bit disheartening as I had spent hundreds of hours diving into runes and was probably approaching fourth year material. I had been theory crafting how to make bullet wards for months now. Yet I didn’t even recognize some of these symbols or modifiers.
It was on the fourth day when I saw the storm around what must have been Yamatai. Unfortunately, that meant it had been nearly two weeks since the Endurance had set out. I didn’t know when they might have shipwrecked, and I had been growing more and more worried about what we would find.
Our first sight of the island did not help said worry. The entire island seemed steeped in despair and pain.
Still, we had decided that if the trio wanted to get involved, then it was their right to try to help.
A part of me once again wondered if it would be better for me to bind the trio’s souls to their own gems to ensure they didn’t die here. The problem was I didn’t know what would happen to Holly if I tried to pull her soul out right now. Not between her mother’s magic and Tom’s soul leech.
I would just have to encourage them to be extremely careful and have Amy on standby.
After ensuring they were alone and then opening a portal to our Hogsmeade home, I asked the trio one more time if they were sure they wanted to go with us before inviting them into our staging point in our cottage.
It was Hermione who looked at me and answered for the group. “I am going, I can’t stand by while one of my best friends is in danger.”
Ginny shrugged, “Neither can we,” looking at Hermione while Holly just nodded.
I sighed. “Ok, it is time we really get serious then. I am going to explain my plan and I want everyone to suggest improvements. We are also going to be explaining quite a few more of our abilities, so after we get back we want you three to really focus on learning Occlumency to protect your minds.”
Pointing towards the golden trio I continued, “You three are going to be our center force. You are the most versatile and powerful casters. However, while you now have the armor we gave you, you don’t have some of the protections we have so we want at least one of you always on shield duty.”
The trio gave me short nods. So I pointed to Taylor. “Taylor will be leading us when we are together, but will be focused on scouting, flanking, and if needed, ranged lethal force. We don’t want to let them know to start burning the bugs so I don’t want massed direct attacks, but picking people off with the sleeping wasps would be a good idea. Go lethal if you need to. Just don’t let them get even close to the edge of your range. We don’t want to have to worry about them attacking innocents somewhere else.”
Taylor grimaced, but nodded as she spoke up. “Should I tell people where to go?”
I nodded back. “Yes, I want you telling each group to go where they need to go. Maybe have a group of fireflies blink in unison in the direction they should move if we need to keep silent.”
Taylor bit her lip focusing for a moment focusing on the edge of the forest we were arriving at. “Yes, there are enough fireflies for that.”
I turned to Luna, Sabah, and Ahri. “You three are our scouting and direct assault force. With Arhi’s illusions, Luna’s spellfire and shields plus insight, and Sabah’s spellfire with possible close range gun jamming, I expect you can get into and out of fights the easiest. Remember how effective a small rock to the eye is, Sabah”
Again there was a chorus of nods.
I turned to Dinah, “Dinah, You and me will be on overwatch. You focus on risks to us and I will bring our one sniper rifle. I am not a perfect shot, but I shouldn’t have any problems hitting things when I can shorten the distance through small portals for any difficult or long shots.”
I turned to Amy. “Amy, you and Taylor will be a team as you can cover her if needed, but expect to be moved via portal if someone gets hit.”
Everyone nodded so I sighed. “Last thing. It is a little difficult to make portals here. I suspect it is the undead queen’s doing. So while we could theoretically get everyone out, it is going to take time and I don’t want anyone to know about my abilities until we get to that point.”
It was then that I noticed a rescue plane begin to approach the island and I nearly cursed. “Ah, Damn It! I had hoped we could prevent this!”
We watched as the plane was struck multiple times by lightning before it burst into fire and partially exploded. As I moved my portal forward, we saw one crew member jump from the plane only to be caught in a secondary explosion and plummet to the ground burning all the way to the sea.
Turning back to the girls I winced as I saw their horrified faces. I thought about asking them again if they wanted to come with us now that they saw the death and destruction we were up against, but I knew them better than that. They weren’t going to stop now
I had to think now. Where was Lara at this point? My memories of the game weren’t the best, but I was pretty sure Lara was still around the communications tower at this point, so I sent the portal forward up the mountain. Yet when we arrived, I didn’t see her. Instead, I found a rope hanging from the tower as she apparently repelled down. I had to admit that I was glad she had done something to make climbing safer. That part of the game climbing up a rusty radio tower without equipment had been ridiculous.
We approached the back of the communications building and found footprints heading towards some ancient Japanese houses on the side of the mountain. Sighing, I walked through the portal and was instantly unsettled by the shock due to the drop in temperature up here on the mountain. The rest of the girls followed me out also scowling.
The problem was I lost the tracks quickly. I tried to remember exactly what happened before speaking. “I think I remember her going after one of the crew members from the rescue plane who parachuted out. I don’t remember where he landed, but the cult members are going to kill him before Lara could rescue him.”
Everyone grimaced before Taylor pointed. “I found a dozen or so people about a mile that way. I can’t tell who is who from here, but they all seem to be moving in the same direction.”
At that moment we heard the sharp crack of gunfire before multiple guns seemed to open up in retaliation.
I winced. “I suspect that might be Lara. She has already had to kill a few times and I suspect she is in a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ mood, after her first two times being captured.”
We all started jogging forward as I tried to keep up while also scouting ahead via portal.
It was only a few moments later that Taylor held up her hand for us to wait. Holding out her gun she fired twice. “Tripwire.”
My eyes widened. “Shit!”
Everyone seemed to agree, as there was a chorus of “Bloody Hell” and “Damn it”, from the group.
It was then that I spotted through my portal a woman, maybe mid-to-late twenties, covered in blood and mud climbing the outside of one of the homes. She was wearing a torn and ripped leather jacket, a torn blouse, and thick denim jeans. In the back of her pants I spotted a pistol while she carried a bow strung around her torso and a crude sack of arrows hanging made from a torn off sweater sleeve. Her other side held her iconic ice pick.
I had to admit that even covered in dirt she was kinda hot with definite feminine curves, albeit not as ridiculous as the F cups or whatever she had in the old-school pixelated versions of her games. Her wavy brown hair would have fallen just past her shoulders if it hadn’t been in a ponytail and I could already see her striking hazel eyes scanning the environment for threats.
It was then that I saw her stiffen as she noticed my portal, and we both froze. I suspected she didn’t know what she was looking at and so was trying to figure out if it was a threat, but I froze because she had spotted a portal the size of a quarter from nearly 50 meters away through the clutter of the trees and houses.
I pulled my face away from the portal before she could decide to try to shoot me through it, but I kept the portal moving forward. Instead, I opened a smaller portal to the side to judge the distance.
Yet even as my first portal approached, once again defying belief, she swiveled to point her gun at my new portal. I ducked away again in case she decided to pull the trigger. I wasn’t sure if she would actually shoot as the area was apparently crawling with enemies and she wouldn’t want to give her position away, but it did make me incredibly curious how she was doing that. This one was nearly 80 meters out and was only the size of a dime. How the hell did she spot me?
Gesturing to Hermione, I didn’t stop my voice from going through the portal, as I wanted Lara to understand my intentions from the beginning. “Hermione, tell Lara not to shoot us. We are just here to help.”
Hermione swallowed but nodded, but didn’t come out from behind the edge of the portal. “Lara, hey Lara, it is me, Hermione. Don’t shoot, please. We are here to help.”
There was a momentary pause before we heard something shift and I peeked through the portal further away. “She isn’t aiming the gun at us anymore, Hermione, why don’t you step forward. I will make the portal bigger so she can see your face.”
As I watched from the smaller portal, I saw Lara, looking incredibly confused, holding her pistol but pointing it at the ground as Hermione’s face became visible through the original portal.
Lara looked like she was too tired to fully understand what was going on and I tried to think of a way to get her to believe it was actually us when Luna spoke up. “Hermione, tell Lara something that only the two of you would know.”
Lara blinked at the sound of another voice coming through the hole in space, but Hermione spoke next. “Lara. You comforted me in the third grade when Mandy pushed me down after school and said I was a teacher’s pet and a bookworm. You told me that the same thing happened to you by a girl named Susie. You said we shouldn’t be embarrassed. How it proved we were just smart.”
Lara didn’t do anything stupid like drop the gun or run forward, but I could see the tension literally fall from her shoulders as she realized she wasn’t alone. That was of course until she realized that Hermione was now stuck on this island with her, and she visibly paled at the implications. She was still quiet, but we could hear the stress in her voice. “Hermione, how the hell did you get here? Why the hell would you be here?”
I opened the portal a little wider and backed it away from Hermione. “Before we talk about that, we need to rescue that crewman you saw land around here. He has no idea what is going on.”
That seemed to instantly galvanize Lara as her eyes hardened and she nodded.
I walked through and held my hand out to shake wherein she hesitantly shook before introducing the names of each of my girls. Hermione obviously hugged her when it was her turn and Holly and Ginny shook as well.
I gestured towards Taylor who spoke up. “I have got my knockout bugs in position for three of the seven men surrounding the crewman hiding in the house down there.” She pointed and then pointed to the position of each man she had covered. “The four others seem to have some sort of natural bug spray that I would need to force the wasps through last second, and it might not be subtle.”
Hermione frowned but nodded. “We will stun the rest.”
I nodded, but I noticed that Lara frowned. She didn’t seem to want to be merciful. If her experience was anything like the games, I couldn’t really blame her either. Still, I would have to deal with this soon, but I didn’t want to force the issue right now. Plus, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go around killing willy nilly either.
Deciding that I would postpone it for now I gestured to Amy. “We need intel, and Amy here should be able to force them to tell the truth.” I considered for a moment before I sighed. “After we get the crewman we will retreat to a safe location, I saw some caves up the hill I think might be empty. However, I want him unconscious while we use our abilities or magic. We can get everyone else up to date afterward.”
I knew the mention of magic would have thrown Lara for a loop, but to my surprise she shook her head and pulled out her bow before stalking forward towards the last man surrounding the crewman.
I let Taylor give the count down. “Three, two, one…”
At that moment Lara let the arrow fly piercing the neck of the man carrying two machetes Holly, Hermione, and Ginny cast stunners at three others masked by Ahri’s illusions and Taylor presumably injected the remaining three. I didn’t see the bugs, but the one man I could see in question cried out softly before he just swayed and slumped to the ground.
Opening up a portal behind the crewman, Amy reached forward and poked him unconscious before Luna and her dragged him through.
Meanwhile Taylor and I dragged one of the cultists through another portal while Ahri and Sabah grabbed a second.
Lara seemed surprised at how well that had gone, but Taylor shook her head. “There are still eleven men that way, and one of them seems to have seen or heard someone fall here, so they are headed back.”
We all grimaced before I opened up a portal to the caves further up. Taylor immediately scouted the region, but her check came up clear. I hadn’t seen any way of getting to these caves from the main road, but it was good to check.
Hermione sat down next to Lara who slumped to the side in exhaustion. I tried to pull some food from our Hogsmeade cottage, but it was hard. Apparently, between Himiko’s wards and the distance I shouldn’t plan on going back to Scotland for every little thing. Frowning, instead I pulled some food and water from our pocket home. That was much easier.
So while I wanted to keep what exactly the home was and what it represented a secret, it was probably where we would need to station our supplies while we were here. Luckily, about half our supplies were already in the pocket home and the other half could be moved over moderately easy in one big portal dump.
First I passed around the water and some disinfectant wipes. Everyone was pretty happy with those but Lara looked like she might cry. Then I started handing out ham sandwiches, which made Lara actually tear up slightly. The silence continued for several long minutes as we ate, before Lara sat up and asked, obviously not willing to wait any longer. “Ok, what the hell is going on?”
This time, just about all of us groaned, as we all knew this was going to be one hell of an explanation.
Interlude Dinah:
Dinah frowned as she sat in the cave.
The Family was in danger again, but she had to admit the idea of getting another kick-ass older sister was pretty exciting.
Yeah, she hadn’t said anything, but she was pretty sure that Luna was hoping for it as well based on how she was staring at the woman.
Plus her abilities seemed to tell her the chances that Lara would join were fairly good.
Yeah, she had to admit that picking up another girl wasn’t pleasant in the normal sense, but that was what she had seen when she looked into her own future. It wasn’t going to be easy or straightforward, but she would be happy.
She looked up at the sky as it started to drizzle. What was the chance it would stop raining soon.
‘unlikely’
She sighed.
She missed her numbers, but she had gotten a little more used to the more vague answers over the last year.
Looking back at Lara eating she frowned a little. Max had mentioned that Lara’s friend had been captured in the game and her power had confirmed it. They needed to get to her soon.
The problem was if they were going to be able to stop Himiko if they were forced to confront her.
Her ability had been giving her wildly different answers each time she asked. Sometimes it was almost certain, while others it seemed nearly impossible.
It was bad enough that she had almost put her foot down and tried to stop the expedition.
Yet, Lara wouldn’t give up. So Hermione wouldn’t give up. So the Family wouldn’t give up unless they were in true, soul-destroying danger.
They really needed to figure out their limits.
They also were going to have to deal with when they killed people.
Dinah sighed again, this was going to be a long, hard talk.