With Lara's memories recovered, the air around her changed…

Previously, she was laid back and a bit rough around the edges, but now, she seemed tense and ready for battle…

The quick personality shifts startled Zil a bit…

Zil instinctively knew that she didn't stand a chance at beating this Lara…

"What was he like?" Zil inquired, the question burning in her mind since the moment she first learned about Zeel Crawford…

"He was…" Lara paused, allowing the fresh memories to settle "He was like a sweet dream that you would never want to awaken from… his body had this presence that drew you in, and disarmed all your barriers… but…"

"But it was an illusion?" Zil whispered, but was surprised when Lara shook her head in disagreement…

"No… it was not an illusion… everything he did was real…" Lara admitted, smiling faintly at the good memories "He will pick you up when you fall, and brush away your tears when you cry, but don't misunderstand his intentions… he would pick you up and send you ahead to check for traps… he would brush away your tears because it was a wasteful use of your body's liquids…"

Zil nodded profoundly "Sounds efficient…"

Lara sighed "I can see that you're his step-daughter…"

"Can you remember everything?" The Red Queen questioned, not sure how much of Lara's memories she could unlock with the limited technology available…

The moment she heard The Red Queen's voice, Lara's expression turned dire, and her body moved like a blur…

Her eyes became slitted as she tossed the phone in her hand against the wall…

However, even if The Red Queen was in her Core-Sentient form, she was not as defenseless as one would expect…

Just before the phone could collide with the wall, The Red Queen hopped out of the phone and dashed across the room, leaping into the Office Phone on Lara's desk…

Instantly, the Office Phone morphed into a watch…

While she was weaker without adequate technology to hold her Sentient Core, The Red Queen still had a few skills at her disposal…

Zil was quick to grab the watch and attach it to her wrist before Lara could make another attempt at The Red Queen…

After all, The Red Queen was the key to seeing her parents again, so there was no way she was about to let Lara ruin that for her…

Zil was prepared to kill if necessary…

"We need to leave…" The Red Queen warned, sensing several satellites scanning the area…

The Red Queen was shielding them from technological detection, but she could do little to hinder physical inspections…

Lara took a step towards Zil, and Zil prepared herself for the battle to come, but it seemed that Lara had calmed down from her earlier outburst…

Draconic Energy was difficult to control, especially since Lara had forgotten that it even existed in the first place…

"I'm fine…" Lara mentioned, gesturing for Zil to relax…

Zil was still cautious, so she made sure to keep some distance from Lara… when Lara stepped towards her desk, Zil maneuvered carefully across the room…

Lara didn't mind and continued ahead, only stopping when she arrived in front of her office desk…

Without any warning, she grabbed the desk, and tossed it against the nearby wall with such strength that the mahogany desk broke apart…

Beneath where the desk once was, Lara retrieved two custom-made Nighthawk pistols…

"Got any for me?" Zil questioned, finally relaxing a bit when she noticed Lara was preparing for the battle to come, and not to take The Red Queen's life…

Lara walk to the liquor cabinet, and pushed it out of the way… behind the liquor cabinet was an indent in the wall, filled with weapons galore…

Knives, daggers, machetes, katanas, pistols, grenades…

Anything that could kill was present, but there was only one of each…

Zil didn't even hesitate to grab a katana from the wall filled with weapons…

As a secondary weapon, Zil grabbed a mace and attached it to a strap on her back…

"Sword to a gunfight?" Lara questioned, switching from boxing attire to something more suitable for battle…

"Human to a Superhuman fight?" Zil replied nonchalantly, causing Lara to smile a little…

"Lara!" A voice shouted as footsteps ascended the stairs…

A couple of seconds later, a man entered the office…

Lara, who was previously tense, embarrassingly turned to Zil and explained "He is my boyfriend, Frank…"

However, with movement as quick as a bee, Zil accelerated and slashed forward with her katana, aiming to behead Frank…

At the last possible second, Frank pulled his neck backward, simultaneously using his hand to deflect the blow…

Such an action cost him an arm, but one arm was more than enough to draw the gun from his waist…

With a fluid motion, Frank drew the pistol from his waist, and aimed directly at Zil…

Just as Zil was about to send her body into overdrive, a knife streaked across the room, firmly embedding itself into Frank's leg, causing his aim to falter…

The bullet brushed past Zil's cheek, but this wasn't the first time someone had aimed a gun in her direction, and this definitely wouldn't be the last…

Zil didn't mind her brush with death; instead, she spun her body with the katana in hand, maneuvering into a neat slash that separated Frank's head from his body…

There was no splash of blood or flying head…

Zil's slash was so perfect that Frank's head dropped into his hands, and a couple of seconds later, his body slumped to the ground and bled a river…

"What the fuck!" Lara yelled angrily "You just killed my boyfriend…"

"Did you consummate the relationship?" Zil questioned nonchalantly, sheeting her blade carefully…

"I haven't even kissed the dude yet and you killed him!" Lara sighed, lamenting the fact that an eye candy like Frank could die so uselessly…

"Well…" The Red Queen projected a hologram above the watch on Zil's wrist "Now you never have to…"

Seeing that Lara was a bit sad, Zil glanced at the head of Frank "Well, he wasn't as handsome as my father anyway… you can do better…"

"Fuck…" Lara cursed, even the thought of Zeel bringing her endless headache "How did you know he was a fake anyway?"

"The boots…" Zil gestured at the corpse's feet "My mothers taught me to look at the feet… Military Men keep their boots shiny even when they are not on duty…"

"We are surrounded…" The Red Queen chimed, projecting several red dots entering the building "Several organizations are converging on this location… I am redirecting traffic signals to stall, but this will only buy us a couple of minutes…"

"Can't you just kill them?" Zil questioned, thinking that The Red Queen was as omnipotent as Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth…

The Red Queen's reply was blunt "I have secured an escape, but I cannot trigger a Mjump without an organic base to guide the process…"

Zil and Lara accepted The Red Queen's explanation as fact, even if they didn't know what she was talking about…

Just as they were about to leave the office, The Red Queen stopped Lara "Take that Centaur Sculpture with you…" she advised…

Recalling her gifts from Zeel, Lara retrieved the Centaur Sculpture along with the flowers that never withered…

The duo exited the office, and were instantly greeted by the sounds of disorderly footsteps ascending the stairs…

Lara dragged Zil back into the office, and tossed a flashbang into the corridor…

Groans could be heard as the grenade stunned the climbing soldiers… from the sounds of their voices, Lara could tell they were friends of Frank…

Actually, it should be fellow agents seeing that Frank was a spy…

Zil was the first to dash through the door, slashing her katana to behead the closest unfortunate soul…

Lara exited a second later, pulling the trigger twice, killing two soldiers with headshots…

'Fucking Gus and Tim…' Lara cursed internally as she recognized two of Frank's friends "Didn't like those fuckers anyway…"

---CHING---

Zil sliced through the walls, dismembering the soldiers hidden on the other side…

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

---BANG---

Suddenly, bullets tore through the entire second level of the building, forcing Zil and Lara to duck and roll back into the office…

"We can't escape that way…" Zil reasoned, but Lara rolled her eyes annoyingly, thinking that such a thing should have been obvious by now…

Lara glanced at the small window on the southern wall, but shook her head to dispel such thoughts…

There was no way to survive a thirty-foot fall…

However, where Lara saw the impossible, Zil saw another Tuesday…

---TING---

A grenade was tossed into the office, bouncing against the metal lining of a nearby sculpture…

Lara glanced at the grenade that settled next to her body, and then she raised her head to look at Zil, but there was no Zil…

Zil's body was halfway through the window…

Without a second to spare, Lara followed suit, blurring slightly as she leaped through the window…

---BBBOOOOOOOOOOMMMM---

The explosion sent both Zil and Lara spiraling out of control…

Luckily, both women had superhuman bodily control…

Zil spun her body mid-air, performing two tucks and landing firmly on her feet like a professional gymnast…

Lara tried to mimic Zil's actions, but before she could even perform one tuck, her back had kissed the hard surface of the streets…

"Ugh…" Lara groaned, both her pride and body were injured "Teach me how to do that later…" she pleaded at the smugly smiling Zil…