Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Lara Croft x Reader AU

Chapter 5: New Faces and Old

"Attention. Tonight's supper will be baked beans. Musical program to follow. Ugh who wrote this?"

Lara was barely listening to the announcements, more grateful for the fact that she was finally getting to her bed after the emotional rollercoaster she had been put on.

Happy to drop her bag from her shoulder she slipped easily into her bed on the bottom bunk and nestled herself down. Feeling herself fall asleep right there, getting quite the shock when a loud "CAREFUL!" was yelled from the bunk above her as she quickly shot back out from her bunk. A short angry looking man hurled himself from the bunk above hers and lifted up the mattress to reveal many a bottle of various types of alcohol stashed away.

Before she could even begin to stutter out a furious litany of questions regarding the hows and why's she soon recognised the irate Scotsman, mid-rant on what how he would survive if any of them had broken or been lost, "Grim?".

Any malice left on his face disappeared as he recognised the small English girl behind him. "Ah, there ye are Lara! With the submarine setting off an all an' me not seeing ya' I thought you got left behind."

"I thought this was the women's sleeping area?" Looking back to check the door which unmistakably showed a women's sign as she looked back for an explanation.

"Yes well that old bastard Whitman is running some sort of 'dry' expedition and 'asn't kept his eye off of me, so the best place to hide this would 'ave to be where he would least suspect." Letting out an almost exasperated sigh, albeit with a bemused expression Lara was relieved to finally see Sam come through.

"Sat in the whisky did you?" She asked, holding a similar expression as she gave an practised looking ritual of promising not to tell anyone about the stash or letting anyone sit on it as she managed to shoo Grim out from their room before turning back to Lara. "Tired already?"

"It's been a long day, and it's barely begun." She sighed as she pulled Sam in for a hug, transferring half her body weight to her before letting the other girl go and sitting back down."

"Don't even get me started, like believe me this is exiting, and I'm thankful you got me in but a doctor sweetie? That's what my parents wanted not me, you know that. I've had to test over like five hundred people." Lara gave a breathless laugh as she took in the sight of Sam in the undone white coat.

"I'm pretty sure it's only chemists that wear the coat, plus it was this or I smuggle you in."

"Doesn't matter, but, I did get a whole load of cool equipment, like see this?" She opened a bag and pulled out a large saw, much to Lara's horror. "The magazine said this could saw through a thigh bone in twenty-eight seconds but I think I could do it in fourteen, which reminds me," She set the saw down and picked up basically a wooden stirrer. "say ah."

Before she could properly protest the wooden stirrer held her tongue while Sam shined a light presumably checking for tonsillitis or anything contagious, or of that strain. "They are letting me be the photographer for the trip though which is cool, I just hope none of you do anything stupid enough to actually need medical help."

Trying to reply to anything in that kind of state was tough, as she found out giving unintelligible grunts and sounds while her friend spun around and seemingly out of no where managed to produce two large beakers. "Oh yeah sorry sweetie but I'll need you to fill up both of these."

She abruptly spat the stick out. "With what?!"

"Will Lara Croft please report to the bridge."

Saved by the bell. Giving a sigh of relief she gave Sam another hug before walking off. "Don't take it too seriously." She wasn't expecting anyone to need much medically, plus they had a whole team on the sub didn't they?

It took some time to find but once she did it was surreal. She heard Whitman and Helga call out orders but she was spending her time taking in the bridge, the amount of sea visible through the large glass visor was stunning, and the general hub of the crew just added to the atmosphere.

Nodding to Helga she went over to where the projector and screen were set up as she hooked her laptop up to the projector and got the file containing all her PowerPoints up and ready to go before giving another nod to Whitman as he gathered the crew.

"Alright everyone I want you to give Miss Croft your undivided attention."

Giving a nervous smile she leaned forward into the basic microphone setup she had. "Good afternoon, can everyone hear me ok?" She was met with blank stares as she went back to her computer. "Ok then let's get the PowerPoint up." Clicking on the first file she saw starting with At- she began her speech. "The first slide here is supposed to depict the creature so terrifying it was said to drive sailors mad just by merely looking at it-" Turning around she saw she clicked the file called 'At the beach' showing her six year old sled with her parents and orange armbands. "Sorry that's, not the correct, PowerPoint hang on." Quickly rushing to get the correct file named 'Atlantis- Leviathan'.

Composing herself to pretend that never happened as she heard some repressed laughter she carried on, this time with the correct slides showing. "This is an illustration of the Leviathan, the creature guarding the entrance to Atlantis. It's a mythical sea serpent. He's described in the Book of Job. The Bible says 'Out of his mouth go burning lights sparks of fire shoot out.' But it's more likely to be a carving or a sculpture to frighten the superstitious." Each slide she showed gave a depiction of a serpent destroying ships and creating storms in various cultures different art forms.

"So we find the carving then what?" Whitman asked from the side, then startled by Grim's hand slamming on the table.

"Then we dig obviously."

"Actually, we don't have to dig." She cut in, seeing Grim's face fall a bit, "You see, according to the Journal the path to Atlantis will take us down a tunnel at the bottom of the ocean, and we'll come up a curve into an air pocket right here" she pulled up a new slide showing an photocopied illustration from the journal of what she described, "where we'll find the remnants of an ancient highway that will lead us to Atlantis. Kind of like the grease trap in your sink."

"Cartographer, linguist, plumber, hard to believe she's still single." Helga snickered lowly to Whitman.

"Well I remember the doctor saying something about her swinging the other way." He replied sharing her light laugh. Interrupted by a crewman coming over.

"Captain, you'd better come look at this sir."

He gave a disgruntled sigh before giving out the commands. "OK, class dismissed. Give me exterior lights."

The light flooded the seabed as it exposed a whole graveyard of shipwrecks, changing the atmosphere very suddenly to on edge as everyone took in the old ships, covering the entire seabed.

"Look at that." Helga almost breathed out.

"There are ships here from every era." Lara noticed, unbeknownst to them, the leviathan stirred from behind.

//A/N: Wow I am so sorry this took so long. It's been a hectic few months and I'm not exactly out of the woods yet with A Level exams coming up. To explain everything would take too long but I'm just going to let youse know that this hasn't been proof read or edited too well A because this was by far the hardest chapter yet with the start and trying to fit each character in seamlessly and B because the majority of this was done today (St Patrick's Day) which coming from a heavily Irish family is always a big day in the year (as well as it sharing a birthday, and me having a friend's birthday and end of year dance the day before and other friends birthday two days after) but I wanted to get this done as soon as possible. (My biggest problems are trying to actually write descriptions without using 'quickly' or 'soon' too much and writing dialogue without using 'wee' and 'aye' every sentence) and it's almost midnight here in England but I think I managed. Once again I'm sorry this is so late but I'll try and have the other chapters on time! Your comments and feedback is what convinced me to keep this going so thank you!! And I'll try to keep on time from now on! Love y'all!!!