0 comments/ 10436 views/ 11 favorites Lara Croft: Eye of the Devil By: justtheone Inspired by the art of DeTomasso 1. This time we find her running across the roof of a speeding train, leaping from car to car. Just like in the old Western movies. Tonight, for the moment, she's the Train Raider instead of the Tomb Raider. But she isn't properly outfitted for this sort of thing. That night she had dressed fancy, for a party, although a museum opening hardly counts as one. Terribly formal, deadly dull. She only intended to put in a brief appearance. Very brief. Nonetheless it was important to her that it was a memorable one, and thanks to the dress she had picked, she was quite certain it had been. She had only dropped by because she hadn't been invited. And she was certain that was no oversight. The official, hidebound archaeological community still frowned upon her, despite all her accomplishments. Or more likely, because of them. If she'd got an invitation from the wankers, as was her due, she wouldn't have gone. She would have thanked them politely and declined and forgot all about it. But she wouldn't stand for another deliberate snub, when they had obviously intended to wound her. So she'd crash their little shindig, in a fabulous dress, just to show she could. Childish, really—but she had no other engagements for the evening. When she showed up at the door, she was certain no one would have the stones to dare deny her entry. Not with paparazzi on hand. She was too high profile. It would raise a stink. 2. Possibly she'd gone a little overboard. Wouldn't be the first time ... The dress was really something. But smashing as it looked, it was rather dangerously unstable. Her intention was to embarrass the daft fussy old men and their daft fussy old institution, not herself. Problem was, the front of the dress had a tendency to slip downward—and in the interests of ostentatious provocation, that front had been cut as low as any dress on Earth can get away with, without yielding to gravity altogether. It left one absolutely no margin for error. Not a hairsbreadth. It needed shoulder straps, but it didn't have any. It was just supposed to grip you tight enough to hold itself up. But it squeezed too much upward on her body, instead of inward. It didn't cover enough surface area for a secure containing hold. Felt like she'd loaded her gazonga's into a couple of slingshots. A constant sensation of spring-loaded tension, beneath them. They wanted to burst out into the air like those worms-in-a-can. Literal booby-traps, har har. Twice now, when she gave herself a check in a mirror—just before leaving the house, and then again twenty minutes later when they reached the museum, and she was about to step out of her limo—she discovered that one of her nipples was half-showing. She tucked it down safe again, but there was no way to ensure it wouldn't soon slip right back up into the open. Only a matter of time. Too much pressure. The cups of the damnable dress barely obscured them, even when they were properly positioned. Their triangular rims had been deliberately shaped to match dead in line with the top edges of her aureoles. And it didn't accommodate the hardening of her nipples ... A nice vicious circle, that was. Her nipples had naturally stiffened in reaction to potential exposure, which the stiffening exacerbated by pushing against the dinky cups even more. Wardrobe malfunction, the magazines called it, when this sort of trouble afflicted other celebrities. Happened all the time when the ladies let their designers get carried away. Just as Lara herself had done, it seemed. Fuck. Lara Croft was proud of her breasts, of course, and enjoyed displaying them—or she wouldn't have put on a dress this wild in the first place. But there was limit, all the same. You didn't want to let every stupid sonofabitch see everything. There was a world of difference between showing off a lot and showing off all you had. Every time she went somewhere all dolled up like this—and it wasn't something she indulged in very often—it never turned out as nice as she hoped it would. It always reinforced how much she preferred her ordinary no-nonsense working clothes. Fancy dresses and fancy shoes always ended up turning into an irritating hassle, one way or another, every single damn time. No exceptions. She had also found she was a little out of practice in high heels. The shoes she'd chosen that evening were stilettos—it was supposed to be like riding a bicycle, but Lara still felt more wobbly than she would have liked. In fact she thought she'd never worn a pair of heels this high. That was undoubtedly the source of the difficulty, the extra inch or whatever it was throwing off her stride. Yes, they did what they were supposed to do, enhancing her backside. And this pair showed off her feet quite nicely, as well. Like her dress, they had been fashioned to cover as little as possible. Besides the nasty spikes to keep her propped up on her tiptoes, there wasn't much to the things besides the straps holding them on. Five minutes after she put them on, she couldn't wait to take them back off ... It was going to feel really nice when she threw the evil fuckers back in her closet. They might never come out of there again. That was the usual fate of shoes like this, when she bought some. Should have stuck with her usual boots. They would have gone with this filthy dress just as well as the stupid torturous heels. But then there was one moment—one woman, actually—at the party that made all of it worthwhile ... just the way she looked at Lara, across the room. An expression of unrestrained awe, seasoned with a dash of envy. It was exactly the way you want other women to look at you, when you've put this much trouble into your appearance. The other women all just looked shocked or looked away, except for a few that openly sneered at her—but that was to be expected. She didn't really mind. The men ogled, as men do—little different than men did all the time, regardless where she was or what she happened to be wearing. So Lara had expected that, too. Half of them, as they ogled, looked stupefied. The other half ogled with expressions of dark calculation. Again, this was all entirely typical. That one woman, though ... She was with a bloke called Laughton, a handsome but grim piece of work in a blood-red suit. She was surprised to see him in here. Knowing his reputation, it was very possible he was no more legitimately welcome in this institution than she herself was. He might have shown up just as she had, to make the same point. The woman with him didn't appear to be a date. It was the way she was dressed, and the fact she stood behind his shoulder. More like a personal assistant, or possibly even a minder. Though she looked too little and lightweight for that sort of thing. But it's unwise to judge by appearances. She wore a cream-colored suit and tie, with alligator-skin cowboy boots, off all things, and she had spectacles with circular lenses. Her hair was an unruly mop of blonde curls. Lara wondered if she was queer. Fair odds she was, perhaps, although the look she'd given Lara hadn't exactly been lusty, in her estimation. It had been admiring in the sense of wanting to be like her, rather than wanting to have it off with her. Unless Lara had misread it, but she didn't think she had. And when she saw the way the girl looked at Laughton, when he said something to her offhand over his shoulder—the way her eyes lit up, it was clear she adored the chap. A father-figure thing, was the vibe Lara got. Silly young bitch. Well, good luck to her. The man was almost definitely the girl's employer. So, little chance that relationship would end nice. Someone spoke at Lara's elbow, startling her. She almost spilled her drink. "Have you heard what he's done, Croft?" It was old Dr. Wakefield. One of her few true friends in academia. She looked ill. "What are you talking about? Do you mean that man Laughton or the chap he's talking with?" "I mean that bastard Laughton. He's got hold of the Devil's Eye!" "When? Where did he find it?" "Exactly where we thought it would be. You were right, Lara. I shouldn't have stopped you." Together they'd worked out the Eye's most likely location in northern China earlier in the year. Lara would have gone and dug up the item immediately afterward, by herself, but her friend had talked her out of that. Wakefield wanted to do it all by the book, slow as that process always was—obtaining proper authorization for the expedition, from the Chinese government. But she hadn't succeeded. Laughton somehow got himself the authorization instead. Basic bribery, no doubt. "If I'd just let you do what you do, you'd have put the Eye into my hands months ago." "Yes," Lara agreed. "Sorry to rub it in, but you're right. I would have. The Chinese bureaucrats wouldn't have minded, because they would never have known a thing about it. I did my best to convince you." "Laughton was just dangling it in front of my nose. Fifteen years of my life, down the drain. He's keeping it himself, you know. He's taking it to his estate this very night. He won't even lend it to us, to examine. Not even for a few hours. I practically begged the man. I warned him how dangerous it might be, if the legends have any germs of truth in them. And then he told me that's exactly why he's keeping it—because of the risk. He told me, straight to my face, that he didn't believe at my age I could be trusted with such a responsibility. The audacity of the man! Impudent jackanapes! I should have slapped his beastly face!" Lara chuckled. "I would have enjoyed seeing that myself." "Look, he's going now, with that funny little pet of his. Doesn't want to miss his train. He only came here to gloat. He's got the damn thing in his pocket right now. Do you know, he didn't even bother wrapping it up in a handkerchief or anything. Can you believe it?" "Which train is he taking, did he happen to say?" "What does it matter? We're right next to the station, remember—it'll be whichever one's about to leave." "Ah. Then I must dash. I'll see you tomorrow, Dr. Wakefield. You'll be in your office at the usual hour?" "What? Yes, of course but—where are you going?" "To fetch the Eye for you, of course." "But how? You can't just rob the man!" "Can't I?" "Lara, wait! You'll never pull it off! Lara! Stop!" Fat chance of that, right? 3. They made it slightly easier for her than it seemed like it was going to be at first. Slightly. Maybe. Lara was watching them though a pair of opera glasses she kept in her handbag. Just before they got on the train, Laughton passed the Eye to that curious girl of his. He only did so because she insisted on it, on the station platform—physically restraining him, before he could step up into the train, by grabbing his arm. He gave her the kind of look you give a dog when it's jumping up on your legs when you're wearing expensive clothes. But he didn't reprimand her. He produced the Eye from his pocket and tossed it to her, and she immediately crouched down to put the thing inside a shiny silver briefcase. Lara could see it was like a guncase—all foam in there with a cut-out part for the Eye to fit snug. Laughton didn't wait on the girl, and neither did the train. For a second, Lara thought he might be leaving the Eye behind him here, for some reason. But no, the girl did finally get on the train, once she had satisfied herself the case was latched properly or something. It must have given her a little trouble, but the fiddly latches on cases like that were often a pain, Lara well knew ... The girl had to run a little bit and jump, to make it in the door. Almost didn't manage it before the end of the platform. Lara herself, of course, had no time to board—not in the usual way. And in any case the ticket seller's display screen said the train was already full, though it didn't look crowded through the windows. She wondered if Laughton had bought up all the remaining seats. It was the kind of bullshit men like him did. Completely unnecessary. She knew he had his own private car. He travelled everywhere that way, transferring the car to whatever train suited his needs. He'd been known to have it stuck on the back of freight lines or coal trains, when nothing else was available. Hardly practical or efficient, all the same, but of course it wasn't meant to be. "A rich prick's anachronistic affectation." His own words. Actually, to be fair, that was the one thing Lara admired about the man. As far as ridiculously wasteful luxury indulgences go, one had to grant that his was rather cool, wasn't it? She especially liked that it was just the one car, rather than an entire train. If he had his own entire train, that would have sickened her. But having just the one car implied a measure of restraint (comparatively speaking) as well as adaptability, in his willingness to stick the thing on any train at hand, so long as it was heading the right direction. Supposedly it was a personal rule of his never to redirect or disrupt existing schedules, because he considered that to be unsporting. Lara remained skeptical about that. She'd had no time to properly plan, or to better equip herself for this operation, if she dared dignify it with such a term. Consciously or not, she had trapped herself into immediate action with her boastful promise to Wakefield. But that was why this was going to be so much fun—the sheer recklessness and whimsy of the whole business. When she left the museum, she didn't follow Laughton straight into the station. Instead she had hurried to the bridge she knew was just beyond it. Laughton's train would pass under it, about thirty seconds after it left the platform ... It turned out not to be much of a bridge. In fact it was actually just some thick pipes suspended in a metal framework. It wasn't made for walking on. You could, though. You just had to be careful. Lara decided it was a bridge-ish, rather than a bridge. But this didn't stop her climbing out across the top of the damn thing. So it was from the middle of that "bridge-ish" that Lara had been spying on Laughton and his girl outside their train, through her little opera glasses. And then it was from that same perch that Lara leaped down on the roof of the train, as it sped beneath her ... It was most definitively not the most graceful stunt she'd ever performed. It wasn't much distance—she'd done plenty of bigger jumps, with a laugh. But this one she didn't land very nice. Lara decided to blame her dress. Not that this particular dress hindered her flexibility much. But she decided it would have to take the blame anyway. And though she wobbled around with her arms windmilling, she didn't break her legs, knock herself unconscious, or bounce over the side of the train either—so there. Grace is good and important, but it's not the main thing. Of course she'd needed to shed her heels. Feminine footwear of that sort was only a liability, when you needed to climb scaffolds or leap atop racing trains. Pricey as they'd been, she abandoned them in a waste can on the sidewalk, right after she exited she museum. She disposed of them without the slightest pang, in fact. And vowed never to buy ridiculous impractical agonizing sexist shoes like that ever again. Of course this was a vow she had made and broken many dozens of times before. But c'est la vie, as the frogs put it. She still had a little black handbag with her. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? For our fearless saucy Tomb Raider to still be carrying a tiny fashionable purse with her that matches her dress as she's running barefoot across the top of this speeding train, lithe and elegant as a jungle panther, each time she crouches and springs from car to car ... She is holding it one handed, tucked against her right forearm like a football (the American variety, that is), not using its shoulder strap. It was necessary, retaining that bag. And not only as a matter of not wanting to discard it, like she'd done with those evil shoes. The bag had things in it she was going to need. (Her dress has no pockets. No room for such practicalities, of course. Zero.) Her lockpicks, for one—those will be most important, thinking ahead. Also in the bottom of the bag is a small gun. In case of emergencies. And yes, admittedly, it also contains some basic means to repair her makeup, once this affair has successfully concluded, and a hairbrush, as well. Plus the bag was a nice little bag, and pricey. Just as those shoes had been, except this bag had never offended or hurt her, like the evil nasty shoes did. It was a good well-behaved little bag, as handbags go. A good companion, worth every penny. While definitely upmarket and high-minded, it was not ostentatious about its elitist pedigree. Not insufferably snooty like most similar handbags in this price range. And it was always reliable, not only in how it looked but how it functioned, even though that particular matter, the matter of functionality, is entirely beside the point when a bag like this gets designed ... So Lara wouldn't throw it away tonight, if she could help it. Very rear of the train, the arse end of Laughton's private car, he had a kind of old-fashioned observation platform there. A little back porch or balcony area, open to the elements. Where he could stand and smoke cigars and look thoughtful when he wanted, watching the world recede behind him. It reminded Lara of old pictures and news reels of presidential candidates ... when all those fuckers used to give speeches from the arses of trains like that, before TV. Laughton liked to imagine himself that same sort of man, on that same level of historical importance. Somehow she knew she'd find him standing out there by himself, when she finally made it all the way down to the tail of the train. Just the way things like this work out. His presence there was by no means disastrous, yet still definitely inconvenient to her, so it was inevitable that's where he'd chosen to place himself. She wouldn't call it irony; that didn't feel like the right name. She hunkered low at the extreme jutting edge of the roof, over his head. Like a gargoyle, almost, the way she was perched. His back was to her; Laughton had no idea he was being observed. It would have been the work of a mere moment to spring down on top of him like a pouncing panther. Could have kicked him over the rail before he knew what was happening. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezie. She wasn't going to do that, though. That wasn't the kind of way she wanted to pull off this job. She'd come for the Eye, not to clobber the fucker, out of the blue. Not so long as it didn't become an absolute necessity. Then the door behind him slid open. Lara couldn't see it from this angle, only the light from inside the car that was let out. And she heard the whoosh-and-thunk it made, even over all the other racket of the speeding train. It was a hefty mechanical door, and very much a Star Trek door, opening itself. Laughton didn't turn around. His girl popped out next to him, still holding the shiny case. And also a phone in her other hand. "Sir," she announced, "They're asking for you. They're asking if they can come in now. Shall I let them?" "No. I don't want to talk to them all in here. Too big a crowd. Don't say that, of course. Tell them I'll meet them in the dining car in a few minutes. I'm hungry, all the sudden." "Very good, sir. Do you want me to accompany you, or wait for you here?" He shrugged. "May as well join me, Malice. Have yourself a drink. Just leave the fucking case in my room. It'll be all right." Her name was Malice? Interesting. "I would prefer to keep it with me, sir." "I know you would. I'd prefer you relax. No one's going to break in and snatch it while the train's moving. This isn't the Wild West, more's the pity. Go and put it on my bed now. Then put it out of your mind, all right? After that, go on ahead of me to the dining car; keep those fidgeting fools occupied as best you can while I finish my cigar in peace." Lara Croft: Eye of the Devil "As you wish, sir." She sounded sullen, though. Laughton ignored her tone. "Thank you, Malice." She clomped back inside the car and the scifi door closed itself. Whoosh-thunk. Well now ... this was quite a handy turn of events. Lara had no notion who Laughton might be about to go meet, or what it could be about. Didn't matter a jot. All that concerned her was he'd just simplified her task immensely. In fact finishing this business had suddenly become almost too easy, once he got that cigar done and fucked off. She was a tiny bit disappointed, believe it or not. She'd probably be in and out of there in two minutes, tops. 4. The doorlock didn't give her any trouble, fancy and high tech as it was; it had a keypad, and those are ridiculously easy to hornswoggle once somebody shows you how it's done. You just gotta swap some connections around, essentially. The much cruder locks on the silver case itself turned out far trickier to beat. She could have just grabbed it off his bed and took off right away, of course, and not worried about actually opening the damn case 'til she was home safe. Only Lara decided she didn't want it to be like that. She preferred the idea of Laughton opening it himself hours later, without the slightest suspicion of anything being amiss, and finding it empty. She liked imagining the bafflement taking over his patrician face. He'd shit the proverbial brick, and inevitably blame his girl Friday before anything else. Little Miss Malice wouldn't know what to say. Lara wondered which was more likely: would she burst into tears, or haul off and punch her boss across the yapper for not listening to her advice when it counted? Lara couldn't let go of these notions; it was too amusing a scene. Very wicked of her, and juvenile too, yes. Fuck it. Just spiriting away the entire case wouldn't be as mysterious or cool. Soon as they returned to the car and saw it was missing, they'd know somebody swiped it. No enigma at all. They'd be pissed, but not gobsmacked. Thus Lara cheerfully accepted the added risk, hunkered down with the tiny tools from her handbag and put in the required time and concentration to force the case's locks without wrecking them. Took a good little while, and quite a bit of persistence. In the end, she triumphed. The lid popped open, and with a grin and a chortle, she seized the jewel from within and held it aloft against the ceiling lamp. At first sight, it sure wasn't the most dazzling ancient artifact she'd ever got her hands on. Just like a slightly larger than average red glass marble. God, she'd played with dozens just like it when she was a little sprout. Couldn't tell what it was made of. Maybe plain glass after all. Wouldn't that be a laugh, if it turned out not even to be a real gem? Of course the age of it and the cultural significance it had, or used to have to the people that made it or found it, ensured its great value in the present era, whatever the damn dinky thingamjig actually was. Like that scene in the Indiana Jones movie, where the bad guy talks about burying his pocketwatch, turning it into a treasure men will kill for in a thousand years ... That scene always resonated powerfully with her. How could it not, the kind of life she'd chosen? But hold on now, what was this? The tiny ball was heating up, it seemed, and starting to vibrate. She could feel it through her fingers, and she could hear it too, starting to hum. How on earth was it doing that, and why? Did it react that way when Laughton picked it up? There hadn't been any mention of this sort of behavior in the legends about it. Very curious indeed. "Put it down! Now! Thief!" Shit. The girl Malice had reappeared behind her with a gun. Lara shouldn't have allowed herself to get snuck up on like that. Bad show. Why hadn't she heard the other door open? She must have let the Eye distract her, when it started acting up. "Tell me," Lara said, "did it get warm and vibrate like this when you held it?" "Just put it back in its case or I'm going to shoot you. I won't tell you again, Miss Croft." "It's Professor, actually, if you don't mind. Or, if you insist on using formal titles, Lady Croft would also be correct. Too much? Just call me Lara, then. Anything but Miss." Then she flung the Eye at Malice's face. Beaned her right on the nose, though it did her no lasting injury there. Just stunned her crosseyed for an instant. The gun went off, but of course Lara had made sure to get out of its way. Then she lashed out with her bare foot at Malice's wrist, to get her to let go of the weapon. To give the girl credit, she didn't let her disarming faze her very much. She only said, "All right, bitch," and shifted into a nice karate stance. Well, maybe it wasn't karate. Judo, kung-fu, God knows. One of those, take your pick. It looked pretty flash, whatever it was, if a little too theatrical. Hollywood posturing. Lara had quite a decent range of martial arts skills herself—hers were a nameless, mixed, personalized variety. Followed Bruce Lee's example, never immersing too much in any one school or style. For a lark, Lara mirrored the girl's attack pose perfectly, and also the fierce expression on Malice's face—which flushed crimson in reaction to this mocking mimicry. "Consider this fair warning," Malice declared, "I'm about to give you the thrashing of your life, you spoiled limey snot." Lara snorted and shook her head. "You Yanks," she said, "Bless." And with that, they flung themselves at each other. 5. Inevitably, Lara was disadvantaged by her dress. Though this had been true since the beginning of her evening, we must pause a moment to give the poor unhappy garment its fair due. It had stood up surprisingly well to the rigors of "train-raiding", and all the jumps and stretches and scrambles such a business entailed. Altogether an excessively strenuous series of tests to its physical integrity far beyond the normal call of duty, for a costume of its breed. This dress was never meant for a life of adventure, yet even so, it had accounted itself up to this stage with admirable tenacity, a credit to both its designers and its makers. But now that Lara had engaged in a bout of hand-to-hand combat, the dress, alas, didn't fare nearly as effectively. This battle was to prove its undoing. Its Waterloo. Yes, the front gave out completely. An absolute and irrecoverable collapse, this time. And pop! Swish-swoosh-swack! Out flew Lara's famous tits, every which way. And as they did, they soon ended up taking more than a couple stinging blows each from Malice's lightning-fast fists and feet. Lara could not keep both of them shielded, or hold them in under close control. Not without essentially rendering herself one-armed, which left other vital parts of her person, such as her face or her stomach or her crotch or her knees, too open to further assaults. Only other thing she might have done was retreat altogether in disgrace; this was an option she refused outright to consider. Malice crowed each time she scored another strike upon them. "Ha! Take that! Take this too! And this! How's this feel? You like that?" Lara just about had a conniption. Felt like her head was gonna explode. The noise she made—it was a literal roar, like a lion. An enraged lion. No kidding. Hard to believe a sound like that could come out of her throat. Foolish to react that strongly. Stupid to let it make her lose her temper. What had just happened was bound to, wasn't it? An inescapable inevitability, soon as this little scrap started up. Why was she shocked? Why hadn't she seen it coming? The stupid dress wouldn't stay on properly when she was only just casually ambling around back in the museum ... How could she expect it to behave any better during a brutal martial arts fight? No fucking chance. The girl's hands had helped things along, but how much difference had she really made? None. Let's be fair. Lara's tits were gonna fly out of the goddamn dress no matter what. If the girl hadn't made it happen right that moment, they just would've done it by themselves ten seconds later anyways. Or sooner, probably. At least it didn't slip even further down her legs around her knees or her ankles and trip her. Despite the ripped front, the lower half clung snug enough to her hips and arse for it to still stay put around her waist, more or less. At least so long as she kept her legs fairly spaced apart. If she forgot and didn't keep doing that, it might give out after all and drop off her the rest of the way. Not instantly, maybe, but it would shimmy loose pretty easy. Fucking thing. Kicking helped, she found. High kicks. Each one she did made the dress bunch up around her tummy, scooching itself back higher another inch or so, after it started slipping down ... So Lara kept doing big kicks like that over and over, as much as she could. Trying to nail her opponent in the throat, or between the eyes. Bust her goddamn nose or knock her front teeth out. The girl was too good at fending them off, though. Especially since Lara kept attacking the same way. Making it too easy. Her feet never scored any decent hits. Deflection after deflection. Infuriating. And then to twist the knife further, the girl gave her a bright smile. "Gonna tire yourself all out pretty soon with this Rockettes routine. Can't wait to see the boss's expression when he comes back from dinner and finds you waiting for him. All tied up on that leather couch over there on your left." "Never gonna happen, darling." "Picture it, Miss Croft. Excuse me, My Lady Professor, I meant. Imagine how it's gonna be. Prepare yourself. You're gonna be stark naked, when he sees you. I'm gonna make sure of that. You practically are already, aren't you? And I think I'll tie your wrists to your ankles, once you're down for the count. Think you can handle that pose? It'll be painful, I'm not gonna lie. Have you ever been hogtied before, in the nude? Personally, I think the humiliation alone would kill me, if that sort of thing happened to me. And you know, to finish off, how about this? A bit of punctuation. I'm gonna stuff your panties in your mouth. What do you think of that?" "I think you're pretty fucked up, girlfriend." "I bet the boss craps his pants, when he sees you like that. 'Look what I caught,' I'll say. It's gonna feel like Christmas. Wonder what he'll wanna do with his present. It should turn out interesting, whatever he decides. And you only have yourself to blame, Miss Croft. You were the aggressor this evening, not us. I'm just protecting my employer's property from a filthy arrogant shameless trespassing thief. But at least after tonight you won't be shameless anymore, after we're finished teaching you. You're gonna finally learn what shame means. That's a promise." "We'll just see about that. Maybe it's you that needs to learn a few things, and perhaps I'll be the one that teaches them to you." Right after she said this, Lara succeeded in tearing open her opponent's shirt, and the bra beneath it. Then Malice tackled her and they both tumbled to the carpet, rolling over and over, back and forth. Malice was now trying to drag Lara's bunched-up dress from her waist down around her knees, to trap her legs and feet together so she couldn't kick, or at least not as accurately ... Lara, in turn, did her best to depants Malice at the exact same time. She also grabbed the elastic of her undies, but rather than jerk them downward, she pulled up, giving Malice a vicious wedgie and making her squeal. Until they tore apart. Hard to say when exactly things shifted. Or why. It wasn't a conscious change, for either of them. Or if it was, neither would ever have admitted that fact. Not even to themselves. No way, never. It never stopped being a fight or a duel between them. An all-out grim-and-gritty no-holds-barred smackdown. It didn't suddenly out of nowhere turn into something else prettier and pleasant. They didn't start kissing and snuggling ... The violence and the hate never let up for a single second. Not the tiniest bit. Only the struggle acquired a different character, now that they'd both got each other just about completely undressed on the floor of the train car. That new character was still nasty—the fundamental quality of nastiness was retained, over all of it, to the bitter conclusion. What changed was the specific goal of the fight, the way they each wanted to win. The nature of the victory they were both striving for. That was chiefly what got redefined. Now they weren't just trying to beat each other down or pin each other. A physical takedown wasn't good enough no more to settle this thing. It was no longer enough for either of them just to get their opponent helpless and immobilized. Now they each wanted to take much, much more from the other. A far greater and darker degree of subjugation. It turned into a fuck-fight. A race to see which of them could make the other come first, against her will. "Bitch! I'm gonna break you! I swear I'm gonna break you! Bitch!" Malice almost got the upper hand for a minute, by pulling on Lara's braid until she couldn't see straight. Then rolling her over flat and pinning her on her belly—but with her legs forced wide apart. 'Cause she was straddling one leg and also holding the other by Lara's ankle, making her bend that one up backward behind her, while Malice at the same time had her skinny sharp left knee mashed deep down in between Lara's thighs, and kept grinding it brutally against Lara's cunt with all her strength in tight tiny circles. It hurt real bad. Even so, in the frenzied bestial state they'd both worked each other's bodies into, that jabbing grinding intrusion on her pussy would still have forced Lara to orgasm, after another minute or two. Only Lara caught a lucky break ... Clawing at the carpet for leverage, her hand stumbled upon the Eye of the Devil, where it must have landed after bouncing off Malice's nose. And the second she gripped it tight, it started vibrating again, and heated back up. Somehow, thrashing and twisting and straining with the last of her power, Lara got that hand behind herself and, more crucially, behind Malice on top of her. Behind her clenched white bottom. And then, despite how tight those fit, toned cheeks were squeezed together, Lara managed to dig her fingertips between them. Malice's perspiration helped. And then finally Lara succeeded in jamming that buzzing hot glass marble straight up Malice's arsehole, and pushed the Eye of the Devil as deep up her chute as she could shove it. Malice screeched and leapt off Lara's back like the proverbial scalded cat. Then, on her all fours, on the other side of the train car, as far as she was able to crawl, her whole body erupted into a fit of shuddering all over like she was being electrocuted. Anyone could see from watching her expression and from her motions that the she was trying to expel the torturous artifact from her bowels, straining at it in her guts and groaning. She pounded her fists on the carpet, and her toes curled tight in her white socks—the only bits of clothing she still had on (Lara had nothing left at all). It was, taken altogether at a distance, a pitiful, even heart-wrenching spectacle, and Lara "maliciously" delighted in it. Malice couldn't force out the marble—it was stuck in her like a cork. She dug for it with her own fingers and only succeeded in pressing it further. "Oh God. Oh God. It's—it's—I can feel it—what is it doing? Oh my God what is it going to do? It's burning inside me! It's burning! It's—It's—Lara help me! I can't get it out! I gotta get it out! I can't stand the burning! It's too deep! It's too—It's—Oh God! Please! Lara! Please! LarAAHHHAAHH!" Then her eyes rolled back and she slumped flat on her face, nose in the carpet, gasping and whimpering, limp as a noodle ... except every few seconds, various parts of her body would twitch violently. Her shoulder, then a foot, then a hip, then an arm ... Lara fished the narrow leather belt from the loops of Malice's torn slacks, and the necktie from the collar of her dress shirt. She used these items to bind the girl's wrists and ankles. Malice still resisted, but very feebly. Weeping. After she was bound good and tight, with her own things, Lara peeled off both the girl's socks, so now they were both equally nude. "No!" Malice whined, "Not my socks too! You don't have to take my socks!" "Yes I know," Lara said, "But I'm doing it anyway. There." Malice's toenails were painted white, and she had a tattoo of a cute little sleek lizard on top her right foot. "Cute tattoo," Lara said, stroking it with her fingertip. Malice shrieked. "Leave me alone! Don't touch it! Don't touch me like that!" "What are you afraid of, are you ticklish? I bet you are." "No. No, please. Don't. Don't do that. Please." Lara didn't. Other fish to fry. She just clucked her tongue and said "Now then." Fitting her arms under the girl's body, she lifted Malice from the floor and moved the girl to the sofa, dumping her there on her side. "You're heavier than you look, my girl." "Get off! Get the hell off me! Get off! Get fucking off!" And she just kept hollering that, again and again and again ... "Get off! Get off! Get the fuck off!" Needle stuck in the grove (if that old expression has any meaning anymore, in the age of MP3's). "Get off! Get off!" Lara couldn't help herself. "You first," she said. Well hell, the girl just laid it out there for her, didn't she? You couldn't pass up a line like that when it was set up so completely perfect. Then, seated over her prisoner on the edge of the sofa, she deftly fingered Malice's defenseless pussy until the girl climaxed again. Lara didn't rush the process; nonetheless, it didn't take long to bring her off. And when it hit, it was explosive. "Ah no! Ahuuh God! God! You bitch! Please stop! Stoppit! Don't make me! Please don't make me! Not again, not so soon! Please! Ahhuuhhahh! My Gaawwd!" When it took her that second time, with her juices splashing out noisily all over Lara's fingers and her own clenching belly, she also expelled the artifact in the course of her kicks and spasms. It just burst out of her ass with an echoing pop. (Nothing else visible emerged with it, thankfully.) The glistening red ball bounced once off the floor and then the opposite wall, and then Lara caught it on the rebound in her hand, with a laugh. "Well now, that was convenient. Wondered how I was going to recover the damn thing. Thanks, Malice. You just saved us both a lot of additional aggravation." Malice didn't answer, only glaring daggers at her and panting like a dog, with her tongue half hanging out, and her face as red as a strawberry. Lara found her handbag and zipped the artifact inside it (after polishing it off for a moment on one of the silky window drapes). Then she gathered up Malice's scattered, tattered clothing, to dress herself. The items would fit too tight on her, and they were torn in several places and missing buttons, but they would serve well enough. While her own poor dress was not at all salvageable. She would leave the remains here. Lara picked up the white clothes, but then found herself hesitating before she started to put them on. She looked over at Malice again with her eyebrows raised, frowning, and Malice looked back at her, looking scared and beseeching, and quite young. "Oh heck," said Lara, dropping the clothes to the floor again, "May as well. I'm too keyed-up just to split." Malice cringed and moaned, shaking her head wildly in useless protest and denial. "No. Not again." "Aren't you adorable," Lara told her, as she crawled on top of Malice on the sofa, straddling her face, holding her head by the hair. Malice didn't have to be told what to do. Lara Croft: Eye of the Devil "Good girl," said Lara, with a contented sigh, and leaned forward to reach across and hook her finger's again into the girl's pussy. She made Malice yelp, but the girl didn't stop licking. And Lara said: "Good. Yes. Yes. Very good indeed. Just ... like ... that." ***** Was vital to me that Lara wins this one, for a change. I don't let her win enough in these damnable stories. A few times she has, but not enough. She was supposed to come out on top in the Jungle Girl one, only then it didn't play out that way. Nothing I could do about it, seriously.