ava sequel somehow moving and written just to find a use for a hero's last name was so brilliantly cringe making. What if there's a crazy revenge plot that spans the five movies with multiple final showdowns. How will our heroes survive. This would need to happen of course I just laid out a franchise for three paragraphs... a whole big franchise. My co worker gets some major props. She did give a great idea as a suggestion because a hero needs a last name of and I believe they are still in copyright though the Disney now owns them? Now the story can flow naturally without having any story telling issues because it was a real event. In fact the sequel is a time frame that can be altered to set up multiple new characters but this does mean we need to invent a bunch of stuff so you should all work really hard to make the whole thing happen. Hey this could be a really good team project if there is an angry boy with a similar last name is allowed to be our second hero and take over the movies. So can we now use the last name on the guy because we only have to add a bit more of his story because of what happens as it ties in well.
Maybe we can build up the other guy to be the one that all the adventures lead to then a boy and maybe a girl? She can't have last name, to keep the ownership thing in case it is still not yet a name. We want to pay her too but not more than two pay. They can both use the name once she buys them the rights and all of us writers. Maybe her and her team can sell it if there are all these credits with the actual names on it and give her and a few other teams some pay to use in the main books or television. Why, we can tie the story from beginning to end with all the stories and all the many things that need to happen and maybe a brand of sodas from the 30's and have all the fun and keep the money out the door and all the writers will earn. Well at least we can try as some guy needs to know the rights and someone on this team that gets me must know some people that can help us get this guy we don't even know to tell us who to ask to find a name I got into a habit of always looking up the guys with the last name. If you can't come with another name and don't think the way we're thinking here is you can make an email to your senator or representative and tell them to fix the law that has that family stopped from making anything using that name and character in film or television. Here's what happened is that guy wanted more money and never gave permission and all that sort of thing and the law was made like 35 years ago and still we can't pay them and make the deal. The guy is said to be rich and why the original guy would pass the deal was out of character, his grandson or someone got tired of being told no when he told his grandfather to see if he could be allowed to give us permission and sell a the rights but now because the old man was greedy and sad and evil the name cannot be used in a feature and we can't put it in a mugs or t-shirts. The name itself is locked in amber, frozen in legal stasis. What if we do it anyway? What if we write the story that cannot be told?
The name is Croft. Lara Croft. But we can't use that name. Not officially. So we create a shadow. A mirror. We craft a character who is everything she is, but has a different name. Let's call her... Anya. Anya Crofter.
The story begins with the end. The final showdown from movie five, a desperate battle in a collapsing temple in the Amazon. Anya Crofter, battered, bruised, bleeding from a wound in her side, faces her nemesis, a man whose own family was ruined by the Crofter legacy. He wields an artifact that could unravel reality itself. As they fight, the temple groans around them, stone cracking, dust raining from the ceiling.
"This is for my grandfather!" he screams, lunging.
Anya dodges, her movements economical, precise. "Your grandfather was a thief and a liar," she retorts, her voice tight with pain. "He stole what was never his."
"He was a hero!" the nemesis yells back. "And your family erased him from history!"
The fight continues, brutal and desperate. Anya is losing. The artifact in the nemesis's hands glows with an ominous light. She knows she has only one chance. She takes a deep breath, her eyes locked on his, and whispers the activation words of her own artifact, a small, unassuming device she's kept hidden all along.
"Tempus edax rerum," she says. Time, devourer of things.
The world dissolves in a flash of white light.
***
[ Title: The Echo of a Name ]
Chapter 1
London, 1929. The fog rolls in from the Thames, thick as wool, clinging to the cobblestones and muffling the sounds of the city. Inside the hallowed halls of the British Museum, a young woman stands before a display case, her reflection a ghost in the glass. Her name is Anya Crofter, and she is a junior archivist, a position she secured through a combination of stellar academic credentials and a distant familial connection to the museum's board of directors.
Her dark hair is pulled back in a severe bun, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She looks every bit the part of a dusty academic, but her eyes, a sharp, intelligent grey, miss nothing. They are the eyes of a hunter, a predator, and they are currently fixed on a small, intricately carved jade figurine of a hummingbird.
It's a beautiful piece, a masterpiece of Mesoamerican artistry. But to Anya, it's more than that. It's a key. A key to a past her family has tried to bury, a past that has a name, a name that cannot be spoken, a name that is locked in amber, frozen in legal stasis. A name that is not Crofter.
A cough behind her makes her turn. A man stands there, tall and broad-shouldered, with a face that is a mix of sharp angles and soft curves. He's dressed in a well-tailored suit, but there's an air of restless energy about him, a coiled tension that suggests he's more comfortable in a boxing ring than a museum.
"Anya Crofter?" he asks, his voice a low rumble. "My name is Alex Ryder. I believe you have something that belongs to my family."
Anya's posture didn't change, but her shoulders tightened imperceptibly beneath her plain wool jacket. She recognized the name. Ryder. A name whispered in the darkest corners of her family's history, a name linked to betrayal and a fortune lost. "Mr. Ryder," she said, her voice cool and even. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. The artifacts in this museum belong to the public. They're not for private claim."
Ryder took a step closer, the scent of expensive cologne and damp wool filling the space between them. He offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes, a practiced, charming expression that felt like a mask. "Let's not play games, Ms. Crofter. The hummingbird. It's not just jade. It's a map. A map to something that was taken from my family a long, long ago. Something your family has been trying to find for just as long."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "I know about the name. The one you can't use. The one that's locked in amber." He paused, letting the words hang in the air between them. "But names, like secrets, have a way of echoing through time. And I am here to claim my inheritance."
The air in the museum seemed to thin, the dust motes dancing in the slanted light from the high windows suddenly looking like ancient, agitated spirits. Anya's fingers, resting on the velvet rope of the barrier, curled into a fist. She didn't flinch, didn't step back, but her grey eyes locked onto his, a silent battle of wills in the quiet hall. "And what inheritance is that, Mr. Ryder? A collection of grievances? A birthright to a grudge?" Her tone was deceptively mild, but it carried the sharp edge of a shard of glass.
Ryder's charming facade finally cracked, a flicker of something raw and genuine—anger, perhaps, or long-nursed pain—in his eyes. "The Chronos Shard," he said, his voice now low and intense, devoid of its earlier charm. "A piece of a device that can manipulate causality itself. Your family stole it, broke it into pieces, and hid them across the globe. The hummingbird points to the next piece. And I will have it. With or without your help." He straightened up, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve, a casual movement that belied the tension radiating from him. "The question is, Ms. Crofter, are you going to be an obstacle, or a key?"
[ Location: British Museum ]
Anya Crofter's laugh was a quiet, sharp sound, like a key turning in a lock that hadn't been oiled in a century. "A key or an obstacle," she repeated, the words tasting of absurdity in her mouth. "You dramatize your family's petty squabbles, Mr. Ryder. This is a museum, not a stage for your revenge fantasy." She turned her back on him, her gaze returning to the jade hummingbird, her reflection in the glass a cool, unreadable mask. "The Chronos Shard is a myth, a boogeyman story academics tell each other over port to make their research seem more thrilling. You're chasing ghosts."
Behind her, she heard the soft scuff of a leather sole on the polished floor. Ryder didn't leave. Instead, he moved to stand beside her, close enough that she could feel the faint heat of his body. "Is it?" he murmured, his gaze following hers to the figurine. "Then why has your family spent the last century quietly buying up any artifact even remotely related to Central American pre-Columbian cosmology? Why is your father, the esteemed Lord Crofter, currently financing an excavation in a remote corner of Guatemala that no reputable archaeologist will touch?" He gestured towards the jade bird. "That's not just jade, Ms. Crofter. It's jadeite, of a specific quality only found in one region. The very region where my grandfather found the Shard, and where your great-grandfather 'acquired' it."
The word hung in the sterile air between them, a shard of ice. Anya didn't move, but her reflection in the glass seemed to still, her face becoming a pale, unreadable oval. The polite mask of the junior archivist dissolved, replaced by something older and harder. She slowly turned to face him, her movements deliberate, economical. The grey of her eyes was no longer the color of a winter morning, but of flint struck against steel, ready to spark.
"My name is Crofter," she said, her voice dangerously soft. "It has been for generations. We have a history. We have artifacts. We have a name we can use. That is what I have. That is my inheritance." She took a half-step closer, invading his space, her gaze locking with his. "You, on the other hand... you are an echo. A shadow. You chase a story because your own family's name has no substance left to it. You cling to this myth of a stolen legacy because the truth is that your grandfather was a grave robber who got caught."
Ryder's jaw tightened, the muscle leaping in his cheek. For a moment, the charming veneer was completely gone, leaving behind something raw and wounded. "My grandfather was a brilliant man who was betrayed," he shot back, his voice a low growl. "He discovered something that could have changed the world, and your family stole it, then used their influence to destroy his reputation. They didn't just take an artifact; they took a name. They took a history. And I am here to take it back."
He straightened up, reclaiming his composure, but the fire in his eyes remained. "This isn't about a name, Ms. Crofter. Not really. It's about the power that name represents. The power your family has hoarded for a century. And now," he said, a grim smile touching his lips, "a storm is coming. A storm that will wash away all these dusty archives and polite lies. The question is, will you be standing on solid ground when it hits, or will you be swept away with the rest of your family's secrets?"
[ Location: British Museum ]
Anya didn't flinch at his threat, but a flicker of something—amusement, perhaps, or grim recognition—passed through her eyes. "A storm," she mused, turning back to the hummingbird. "Every generation thinks they're the one facing the storm. They believe their conflict is the one that will finally break the world." Her finger traced a pattern on the velvet rope, a small, nervous gesture she quickly suppressed. "You speak of power, Mr. Ryder, but you're looking at a map, not the territory. You see an artifact, a prize to be won. You don't see what it's connected to. You don't see the web."
Ryder's gaze narrowed. "Web? What web?" He was leaning in again, drawn in despite himself, the predator catching a hint of a scent he couldn't quite place.
Anya looked at him then, her expression unreadable. "My family didn't just hide the pieces, Ryder. They buried the very concept of what the Chronos Shard represents. They spent decades not just acquiring artifacts, but systematically destroying texts, discrediting researchers, and creating false narratives to lead people like you down garden paths. You think you're chasing a treasure map, but you're really chasing a ghost they created for you. The hummingbird is real, yes. But the destination it points to? It's a trap. Designed for someone just like you." She paused, letting the weight of her words sink in. "The real map... the real key... it isn't something you can hold. It's a story. A story that's been locked away for over a hundred years. And it begins with a name you can't use."
[ Location: British Museum ]
A muscle feathered in Anya's jaw, the only outward sign of a seismic shift beneath her composed exterior. The story. The one her grandfather told her in hushed tones on winter nights, a secret inheritance heavier than any title or land. It wasn't a story of adventure, but of a curse, a schism that split a family in two and created a shadow name that could not be spoken. "You think this is about a device," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that seemed to absorb the ambient noise of the grand hall. "The Shard is not the prize, Mr. Ryder. It is the evidence. Its very existence proves the crime."
She turned away from him completely, her attention fixed on the colossal Rosetta Stone encased in glass just across the corridor. "Croft," she said, the name a mere breath of sound, so quiet it was almost lost in the cavernous space. "That was the name. The original one. Before my great-grandfather changed it, before the lawsuits, before the law that forbids its use in perpetuity. A name tied to an explorer who found a city that shouldn't exist and a device that could rewrite the moments that bind us all. Your grandfather wasn't his partner, Mr. Ryder. He was his insurance. A fall guy."