"Remember, Lara," Jials was saying. "I’m not pushing you into this."
        "I know, I know," she replied, annoyed. "I’m choosing to do this, Jials. Get over it. I know what I’m doing."
        "I pray that you do, Lara. None of the others we sent in came back. I want you to stay alive."
        "Which I will do, Jials," she responded, fighting to keep a smile back. Jials could be a worry-wort at times. "You know, the way you’re going at it, I almost think you don’t want me to go."
        "No, no, no," he protested. "It’s not that. I just want you to come back alive, all right?"
        "I’ll do my best."
        "If you’ll do your best, I can rest assured." Jials picked up her pack and handed it to her. She swung it over her shoulder to rest comfortably.
        "I can’t believe you pulled that off a dead man," Jials grumbled.
        "There was only a skeleton left," she answered as she swung the pack off and looked through it to make sure she had everything. "I was sixteen and out on my first adventure being trained by the best in the field. I had need of it. The body did not."
        "I’ll never understand you," Jials sighed. "Don’t you have any respect for the dead?"
        "Of course," she responded, surprised he asked. "But what good was it doing him? It would do me better. If I thought bodies should keep what they’ll never need again, I wouldn’t be an effective tomb raider, now would I?"
        She turned to the portal after sliding the pack back on.
        "Well, I’ll see you around." She jumped into the portal, drawing out her pistols to expect the unexpected.

        She came out of the portal in front of the nine pillars. They looked exactly like they had in her world with only one difference. They seemed . . . broken. The pillars in her world had hummed widely in energy. These ones hummed, but not as strongly. They did not pulse their living essence as the others did.
        A quick look around told her that she was in a secluded niche of greenery. There were some birds gazing at her curiously, and that was all. No vampires roamed in front of the portal. No dangerous creature waited to pounce on her.
        ‘Interesting,’ she thought emotionlessly, but did not put away her guns. Instead, she started down the path. The trip was uneventful unlike her other adventures. Then she had run into everything short of a man-eating kitchen sink. Here it was peaceful and quiet. She wondered how such a hushed world could hold such terrors.
        After a little while longer, she suddenly came to a fork in the path. She had originally decided to follow the path to its end, but this divergence ended at a ruined tomb. She stopped at the fork and looked between the path and the tomb. And back.
        ‘Ultimate motive,’ she thought, looking at the path, ‘or fun?’ She turned to gaze at the tomb.
        ‘Ultimate motive, or fun? Simple. Fun.’
        She headed toward the broken-down tomb. She had no idea how long she was going to end up staying here, and after all, there might be something that could prove of use in it.
        The tomb ended up being quite easy to get into. The what had once been great doors lay off their hinges and no longer moved, rust rooting them to their place. The hall looked open and inviting, often meaning there were hidden dangers in its depths. Just as she liked it. She found body parts here and there, most of them pretty old, but the further in she went, the fresher the parts. She saw they looked like they had been ripped apart by claws. There were other markings made by an unknown weapon that looked like scorch marks.
        ‘Looks like these adventures ran into a grumpy being,’ she thought blandly. ‘I wonder if I’ll meet it.’
        Suddenly, a metallic shriek rang in the air. She raced down a hallway and stopped before getting to a open area. She peeked around the corner. In the courtyard were two figures; one obviously human, the other looking like a dark shadow dashing around with incredible speed. The human was male and was fighting the creature with quite some skill. He lashed forward with a sword, and the shadow almost seemed to disintegrate. He looked around, pleased with himself. Suddenly, with no warning, a green energy condensed on a spot behind the man and became the shadow. It pulled its arm back and a blue energy flowed down it to create an almost ethereal blade on his arm.
        ‘Well, that answers what the unknown weapon was,’ Lara commented to herself. The entity lunged forward, impaling the human. The human made a sick noise before slumping and the creature dropped it. Lara stepped out, guns pointed toward it, and called out, "Who are you?"
        The creature twisted toward her, focusing blazing solid blue-white eyes on her. It began to lunge toward her and she let off a couple of rounds into the thing. It jumped back, obviously surprised and pulled back behind a column. She stopped shooting, cocked her head slightly to the side, and let an eyebrow raise. A head popped out from around the pillar as it looked at her.
        ‘Well,’ she thought. ‘It’s obviously intelligent. But what is it?’
        The creature suddenly let out a growl and raced across the space between them fast; very fast. She pumped the thing full of bullets until it was about ten feet away. Then she brought the aim up to its head. The creature exploded again as the matter of its body seemed to fall away. Expecting this, considering she had just seen it done, she turned just as the entity formed again behind her. Without taking a second to think, she shot. On a human, it would have hit an organ, perhaps the intestines. On this thing, which apparently didn’t have such organs, it passed through air. From the ribs down to the hip was nothing except some flesh encircling the spine.
        Ignoring the failed shot, the creature grabbed her with a three-clawed hand, two serving to grab on either side of her neck just under the chin. The third was a thumb. Each finger’s claw was dangerously sharp. Lara found herself looking into blue-white eyes with no pupils, a humanoid face with blue skin, a slightly long forehead and raven black hair. She could tell from the build of the face the creature was male, and a pair of pointed ears emerged from either side of his head through the hair. A cloth with an intricate symbol covered his lower face from nose down. His eyes narrowed after he had stared at her for a long moment. He abruptly released her.
        "Not a Sarafan," he growled. "Leave, human. This is of no business to you."
        She righted herself in a smooth move.
        "Everything on this world is my business until I discover the connection between it and my world. Then, and only then, will that become my only business."
        The creature hesitated as it looked at her for a moment.
        "You are not of this world?"
        "No, thank you very much, I’m not." She looked at him a moment. "What are you?"
        "I am an Angel of Death."
        He let a silence extend between the two for a few moments before breaking it again, saying, "Speak quickly, woman. What are you doing here?"
        "I’m trying to shut a portal between your and my world and figure out why nine pillars suddenly grew on my world."
        "Nine pillars?" he repeated softly. He turned and walked away with a fast pace.
        "Come with me, woman. This is not a safe place to speak."
        Lara, privately annoyed with his use of ‘woman’ as her name, but keeping a detached outer self, followed the blue-skinned creature as he headed deeper into the tomb. He passed several halls until he came to a large courtyard. She saw pictures, murals, really, on the walls around the courtyard. The names above each picture was heavily scratched out, looking like the rock had been ripped by a three clawed hand. There were various depictions, all of men, but all had been nearly destroyed. Only one remained recognizable, a man of approximately her age with raven black hair cut off to his ears. Where the other names had been, there was just gash after gash on this one. She couldn’t even tell there was a name there anymore. Her companion stopped and stared at it for a moment, then in a blurry of movement, jumped up and slashed three long, deep gouges in the rock over the face.
        "Who was that?" she asked out of curiosity.
        "That was a . . . corruption," he replied shortly.
        "Too bad. He was cute."
        There was silence for a long moment, then the sound of knuckles cracking. Lara looked over at him, an eyebrow raised. She wondered what she had said to make him mad. Was this man an old enemy who won over him something? Or was it something deeper?
        Before she could ask any more questions, he was off again. He continued down several halls before opening a pair of doors and ushering her in. He shut them as she looked around. The room was large and spacious, with more murals on the walls. These ones depicted noble men and women in various poses with what looked like monsters about to attack them. Another held an image of one of these ‘monsters’ having his heart torn out. At the end of the room was a pair of double doors with a crystal above them. They crystal was destroyed, the doors broken and immovable.
        "What is this place?" she asked.
        "This is a time chamber," the male replied, almost involuntarily. "This place is unstable, and as such, the Time Streamer cannot watch us."
        "Time Streamer?"
        "Later," he told her. "First of all, who are you, woman?"
        "First of all, man," she replied, twisting the word as he had been doing to her gender and adding a mocking tone to it, "my name is Lara Croft. And you?"
        "I told you," he retorted. "I am the Angel of Death."
        "No deal, pretty eyes," she replied. "Your name."
        "My name means nothing," he spat. "Why are you here?"
        With an inward sigh, Lara quickly related the story as far as she knew it. The Angel of Death never once interrupted, allowing her to tell her story. He nodded at bits and pieces, almost as if he understood something about it that she did not. When she was done, he was silent for a bit, then began chuckling.
        "Interesting, interesting," he murmured. "And did you see this one coming, Moebius? I doubt you did. What have you in store for us?" He stood in a fluid motion. "Come, human woman. We have much to do."
        "We?" she questioned.
        "Yes, we. I have been waiting for a chance like this and finally, after years of waiting, it drops into my lap. Good things come to those who wait." He began walking out of the room and Lara followed, becoming annoyed with the complacent place behind him. But, she had to admit to herself, he knew where he was going. She did not.
        "Where are we going?"
        "We are going to the Pillars of Nosgoth," he replied. "I want to see this portal of yours."
        It didn’t take very long to return to the pillars, and Lara approached them with a mixture of excitement and foreboding. Her companion stopped at the portal and looked at it for a moment.
        "What is the point of these things?" she inquired. "Why are they here? What purpose do they serve?"
        He didn’t spare her a glance as he replied, "They are the representation of the divine’s connection to Nosgoth. How they look shows how the land is. Each pillar has a Guardian, a person to look after it." He turned and pointed to the one which had a symbol of the brain. "Starting here and working around the circle is the Pillar of the Mind, the Pillar of Dimensions, the Pillar of Conflict, the Pillar of Nature, the Pillar of Energy, the Pillar of Time, the Pillar of States, and the Pillar of Death. The ninth in the middle is the Pillar of Balance."
        "Balance," she murmured to herself as she gently touched the middle column. The feeling changed slightly. Unlike the one on her planet, she didn’t get a feeling of a bid to rest, but she did get a feeling of something close to a welcomed remembrance, a kind of respect. It was the kind of a feeling that one person gave to another who is the best friend of a kindred spirit. She wasn’t fully accepted, but she was free to stay and rest for a time if she needed to.
        She suddenly noticed her companion had stopped inspecting the portal and was instead scrutinizing her. She met his gaze and he cocked his head to the side slightly, and an eyebrow seemed to rise.
        "What, pretty eyes?" she demanded. He sighed, exasperated.
        "Would you stop calling me that?"
        "What else should I call you?" she retorted. "I’m not going to go around calling you ‘Angel of Death’."
        He growled. "My name is Raziel."
        "Raziel," she repeated slowly. "I like pretty eyes better, but since it apparently annoys you, I will call you Raziel."
        "How generous of you," he rumbled sarcastically. He turned back toward the portal, then looked at the pillars. One pillar had a different tone from the rest. The Pillar of Time resonated a higher frequency, like it was getting more power.
        "Ariel!" Raziel suddenly shouted. "Come out, spectre! Your spirit is bound to the Pillars. I know you are here. Show yourself!"
        There was a long moment of silence, then a kind of cold chill raced down Lara’s spine. An eyebrow raised as a humanoid figure emerged from the ninth pillar. The woman had no legs, her body ending in a trailing gown. Her blonde hair was pulled back, and Lara could only see the left side of her face.
        "Well, it seems the little soul returns to torment me. Why do you return here, Raziel?"
        "What is it that Moebius is doing?" he demanded. "Why is that the only pillar which shows some health? What new plan has the Time Streamer lit upon?"
        Ariel looked down and away. "The Time Streamer was never one to willingly submit to the laws of fate, and his position allows him to see these laws and avoid, even break them. He has begun to create more pillars on different worlds, to send a summons out for more Guardians. However, he keeps himself as the Guardian of the Pillar of Time, and continues to grow more powerful while the rest of us weaker." She sighed softly. "He may even be able to become powerful enough to avoid his fate with Kain, Raziel. He may be able to avoid death, and if that happens, not only this world, but also every world is in danger. Killing him is something you may not be able to do. But to shut this portal which now holds the other Pillars from stopping him will be able to slow, if not stop him. You must shut this gate, Raziel. Shut the gate to this new, horrendous world. The world’s fate once again rides on your shoulders."
        She glanced at the woman standing at the edge of the dais suddenly. "Hm. But apparently you aren’t alone this time." Ariel turned to look at Lara fully, and Lara was surprised to see only half her face was pretty. The other was that of a skull, its eye missing. She couldn’t help it; an expression of surprise and shock crossed her face for a split second, then was gone. The ghost floated down to where she stood and looked her eye to eyes.
        "And who are you, dear girl?"
        "I am Lara Croft, and I’m from that ‘horrendous world’," Lara replied, and pointed toward the portal. Ariel looked taken aback.
        "Oh. Forgive me, child. I mean no disrespect to your world. It is only a step in Moebius’ plan to take the worlds by storm."
        "Who is this . . . Moebius?"
        "Moebius is the Time Streamer, the Guardian of the Pillar of Time. His position allows him to see into the future and sometimes manipulate it."
        "Hm . . ." Lara let her thoughts trail off, then she looked up abruptly to find Ariel closer. The ghost looked into her eyes.
        "Ah. An interesting choice for a Guardian," she murmured.
        "Guardian?" two voices demanded, Lara’s in confusion, Raziel’s in shock. Ariel turned to Raziel.
        "Yes, little soul. Protect her as well as the world, Raziel, for she is her world’s Balance Guardian. She will be the one to tip your case one way or the other. Now, be gone!" The ghost faded into the pillar again.
        "Come, woman," Raziel stated as he walked past her. "We have someone to go meet."
        "On one condition," she answered, not moving. He stopped and looked back at her.
        "You’re hardly in a position to demand conditions, woman," he snarled.
        "You seem to be very interested in having me go with you," she shot back. He was silent for a long moment.
        "What is it?"
        "You can call me a woman, fine. But don’t make the name a twisted mockery. Don’t put your dripping hatred in it. If you want to try and kill me, all right, but I suggest we do it after this is done."
        "Fine," he hissed. "Come along, woman." This time there was no mockery in the name, just a simple statement of fact.
        "You know, you could call me by my name," she told him, getting up.
        "I could," he replied over his shoulder, then started moving, "but I won’t."
        Lara looked after him for a moment, then sighed.
        ‘It’s going to be a long trip,’ she thought. ‘Oh well. I wanted an adventure. And so far, it seems to be the beginning of one!’