[Name]'s POV
The engine of the jeep is the only thing that can be heard in the quiet twilight air. I adjust the sniper rifle on my back along with my desert eagles on my side, tugging the [F/C] scarf I have up around my nose and mouth.
"How were you able to get these guns, love?" Harry breaks the silence, and I smirk against the fabric.
"I have my contacts," I respond vaguely, and Nate looks back at me from his seat beside Elena.
"Do I want to know how you met these contacts?" he asks, and I chuckle and shake my head.
"I think that story is better left a mystery, plus- we're here." I point ahead at the fence that surrounds the airfield. I lean forward and hold out a silenced pistol, "Here, Elena."
"Man... I don't want to have to use this," she whispers while parking the car.
"I know, but we have to do this quietly. They catch us sneaking onto that plane- we're dead," Nate tells her while we get out of the jeep and look at the fence to the airfield.
"It looks like we can cut through the building over here," I announce while walking towards the building on my left, crouching down by the garage door.
I start to lift the door from the bottom, and Nate and Harry jog over and help me. Elena goes under first, and the two guys and I each take turns going under and holding the door for the other. Once we're inside, we quietly set down the door and look around the building.
I look around for a way to go before climbing on top of some crates and spotting an exit on the other side of the crates. "There looks to be an exit on the other side," I call down to my friends, before climbing through a spot where a crate would be.
I jump down and land on the floor below- Nate, Elena, and Harry joining me soon after. "We can get through that window," Elena points to an open window in the wall.
"But we need a way up," Nate says, and Harry walks over to a car and opens the door. He puts the car in neutral and I smirk and place my hands on the back of the vehicle.
"You steer, I'll push," I tell Flynn, and we work together to get the car up the ramp, right under the window. I look back at Nate, gesturing him over, "Climb up and go through the window."
Nate nods while climbing on top of the car and jumping for the open window. He grabs the edge and looks over his shoulder at us, "I'll find a way to get the door open."
Nate disappears through the window and Harry and I slowly let the vehicle move down the ramp, back onto flat ground. We join Elena by the closed door and I sigh, "Let's hope he can find a way to open the door."
Harry, Elena, and I exchange small talk when gunshots go off from the other side of the door. Our eyes widen and I pull out my pistols when the shooting stops. Footsteps approach the door we're behind and it opens to reveal Nate, "Sorry, there were two mercenaries and some locks on the door."
I lower my guns and shake my head while walking through the now open door, "It's fine, but what did I tell you about telling us you're on the other side of a door?"
"Warn you," Nate chuckles and I begin to holster my pistols, when a car drives into the area we're in. I quickly shoot the driver in the head, along with the mercenary in the passenger seat. Nate and Harry take out their pistols and shoot the men that come out from the back of the car, and I take out one more that was sitting in the back seat.
"Everyone okay?" Nate asks and we nod.
"We should get to that plane," Harry states, and we start to push the vehicle the mercenaries drove back towards the gate outside. The car slips from our grasp and it rolls back and crashes through the gate, undoubtedly catching the other mercenaries attention.
"That's really, really bad..." Nate trails off, and I grab a grenade off my belt and pull the pin.
I roll it towards the car all the mercenaries have ran to, and it blows up, making the car explode with it. "Well that's one way to take them out quickly," Harry chuckles, and we walk pass the exploded car and towards the large carts against a wall.
"Up here," I say while climbing on top of the carts and pulling myself through an open window.
I spot a mercenary walking out of the building, and my three friends join me. "Dammit. How many of them are there?" Elena asks nervously.
"Too many. We need to do this quietly, there's enough of us that we should be able to take them all down without guns, that's if we're quiet enough," I whisper, and the four of us split up and go from mercenary to mercenary, snapping their necks, or in my case- slitting their throat.
"[Name], you do realize how many of them you just took out, right?" Nate whisper-yells, and I shrug.
"Like five," I say, and Elena face-palms.
"Try ten or twelve," she sighs, and I remain impassive to the number.
"I'm good at stealth, so what?"
"We figured," Harry chuckles quietly.
"We should get going," Nate says with a grin.
"Agreed," the rest of us respond, and we jog over to another building and climb onto the roof. We jog across the roof and jump off, grabbing the ladder and climbing down it to the ground below.
"That is one huge plane," I murmur while looking at the aircraft on the other side of a fence.
"And it looks like they're finishing up and getting ready to go. We need to get going," Elena states while I grip the fence.
"All right, looks like it's a straight shot from here," Nate says, and I nudge his side and nod my head towards a jeep when Elena's not looking.
Nate figures out what I mean and nods, Harry catching on a second later. "We're going to climb to the top, then help you over," I lie to Elena, and she nods. 'I'm sorry Elena, but it's too dangerous for you to come with us' I mentally frown, feeling bad that I'm lying to my friend.
"All right, I'll keep you covered," she says, and the three of us climb over the fence, and land on the other side, turning and frowning at her. "Hey, what're you-"
"I'm sorry, Elena. It's too dangerous and if you got hurt or killed I would never forgive myself. The chance of the three of us making it out as it is, is slim to none... I'm not letting you have that chance. Take the jeep and get the hell out of here," I tell her, and she looks over her shoulder at the jeep, before looking back at me.
"If you die, I'll bring you back and kill you myself," she says with tears pricking her eyes. We hug each other through the fence and I pat her back.
"My sister for life, even if it's not by blood." I smile and she nods.
"Now go, you don't have much time," Elena tells us, and we break the hug. She looks at Harry and Nate and narrows her eyes, "You two take care of yourselves, but watch over [Name], too. She always watches over you guys."
"We will, Elena," Harry reassures her and she nods, before jogging over to the jeep.
"We should go, too," I tell the two guys, and the jets to the plane fire up, startling us, "quickly!"
We start to make our way towards the cargo door that's still open on the plane, when one of the mercenaries shouts, "Don't let them on the plane!"
Nate, Harry, and I start getting shot at, and we zigzag out of the line of fire. "We need to make a detour," Harry says, and we climb onto the rooftop of a building.
I shoot the men on top and we run across the roof, dropping down onto some shipping crates below. Nate, Harry, and I sprint across the shipping crates and we drop down onto the ground. I sprint ahead of them onto the runway of the airfield, and the plane starts to gain speed ahead of us.
"We won't be able to catch a moving jet!" I shout back to Harry and Nate, when a jeep pulls up beside me. I chuckle and shake my head, jumping into the back of the car, "I thought I told you to get outta here."
"I heard otherwise," Elena smiles and she slows down so Nate and Harry can jump in.
The two guys reach the Jeep and they jump in. "Get us up to the landing gear," Nate tells Elena, and she drives under the plane.
Once we're under the landing gear, Nate, Harry, and I jump onto it and the plane lifts off the ground. I wave to Elena before gripping onto the metal as the wheel is pulled into the plane. "We got on the plane," Harry mutters while opening a door. We climb into a tight area and sit against the wall illuminated with a red light.
"Well, we have some time to kill, so wake me up when its time to start moving," I yawn, and lay across my two friends laps, making them smile softly.
"Sweet dreams, love/[Name]," they both whisper as I drift off to sleep.
~
"It's time to get moving," Nate gently shakes me awake, and I open my eyes.
I sit up and stretch, before standing up and climbing into the vent in the wall. The guys follow behind me and I can feel their burning stare on my ass, making my eye twitch slightly. I shake my head and continue to climb through the floor vent, when the top is opened and I'm yanked out.
A bulky mercenary pins me to the wall and goes to punch me in the face, but I move my head out of the way. His fist collides with the wall and I knee him in the crotch, making him release me.
My eyes widen as he pulls the switch on the wall, and the cargo door lowers. Nate and Harry climb out of the vents and they pull the string on a parachute on a large crate. I jump out of the way as the parachute opens up and the crate is pulled out of the plane, taking the mercenary with it. All the other cargo starts tumbling out of the plane, and we get hit, falling out as well.
"This is not good!" I shout while grabbing the the yellow net that holds a truck dangling out of the plane.
I climb up it, and join Nate and Harry who fell out of the plane onto the truck. We shoot at the mercenaries that show up in the back of the cargo plane, before we make our way back onto the plane. We continue to shoot the mercenaries, when the aircraft catches on fire and a hole is blown into the side.
Nate, Harry, and I hold onto the floor, when the top of the plane blows off and we're sucked out. I yelp as we fall through the air, when we spot a crate with an unopened parachute attached to it. "We need to get over to it!" I shout, and we direct our fall towards the crate.
Once we're close enough, we grab the yellow net on it and Harry pulls the string on the parachute. The parachute opens up and the speed of the crate slows down, and we pant while looking down at the sand we're going to land in. "I'm glad that we're alive and all, but we are about to be lost in the world's largest continuous sand desert," I say, and my friends faces pale.
"Oh fuck," Nate whispers, and the crate lands in the sand.
"Let's head to the wreckage and see what we can find," Harry says, and I roll up the sleeves on my shirt.
We start to run through the sand, my clothes immediately starting to stick to my sweaty body. I unravel the scarf from around my face, tucking it away in my bag. The hot sun beats down on us and we slow our pace down to a walk so we don't overheat. Nate and Harry pick up some guns they find in the sand and I smirk.
"If you had good holsters, you wouldn't always lose your guns," I tell them while climbing up a sand dune to the wreckage of the plane.
We look around and frown, before making our way in the direction the plane was heading. The sun never lets up, making beads of sweat drip down my skin. We make our way over dozens of sand dunes, using our hands to block the sandy wind from getting into our eyes when the sand dunes flatten out.
"Hating the sand," Nate pants, and we start to stumble through the sand, when we spot a well.
We jog over to it with a hopeful look, only to be disappointed when we find it empty. "I had a feeling we should have brought water," I cry out while we sulk away from the well and back in the direction we were heading in.
Day slowly turns to night and the temperature drops, giving us a sense of relief. I look up at the stars in the sky, spotting the constellations, but my brain is too tired to even think about what I'm looking for. We continue to make our way forward, and Harry weakly shakes my shoulder.
"Is that Sullivan?" he whispers, his throat dry and raspy.
"It sure looks like him," Nate responds, and we force ourselves over to where we saw him.
"Is that water?" Harry asks and we start to make our way towards it when it disappears and we find the well we were at earlier.
"We've been doing circles!" I exclaim in frustration, and we start walking again, trying to find the right way to go.
An hour or so passes by when Marlowe's voice fills my head, "Go take cover under that rock, Ms. [L/Name]."
I stop walking, glancing at the red rock then at my friends, "Did you guys hear Marlowe?"
"It's in our heads," Nate says, and we walk over to the red rock.
"Let's just take a short break," I murmur, and we crawl under the rock, collapsing in the sand beneath it and passing out from exhaustion.
~
I wake up to the air being cool and the night sky covered by clouds. I crawl out from under the rock, taking a seat on top of it and closing my eyes. 'I can't let this get to me. I need to stay calm and collected and focus on getting out of here. The last thing I need is to lose my sanity out here' I tell myself, when Harry and Nate join me.
"We need to keep going," I whisper while hopping off the rock and trudging ahead of the other two.
"I'm so thirsty," Nate says weakly and Harry nods.
"And tired," Flynn adds, and the two guys collapse beside each other in the sand and pass out.
"Dammit," I whisper, before taking a seat beside them, and looking up at the night sky.
~
My eyes slowly open and I sit up, looking around my surroundings with a sigh. "When did I fall asleep?" I whisper, bringing my legs to my chest.
Nate and Harry get up a few minutes later and we share a look of hopelessness, before I lay down across their laps. "We should get going," Flynn pats my back.
"We need to find water," Nate says, and the three of us stand up and drag ourselves through the sand, up a sand dune where we spot a village below.
"A village. A fucking village," I cry out in joy, finding the last bit of my strength to sprint forward.
The guys follow behind me, and we run down the sand dunes towards the village, smiling when we find it's not a mirage. Our smiles quickly turn into frowns when we find it's a ghost town, but I shake my head and say, "We should still check it out."
I take a step off the sand dune, only to stumble and fall down. I roll through the sand and land on my back, staring up at the blue cloudless sky. Harry and Nate slide down the dune, and the two guys assist me onto my feet, before we help each other over to the village doors that don't budge when we try to open them.
"There's no way we're getting through this way," Nate says, and we jog over to a makeshift ladder that leads up to a platform.
We climb up it and over a broken wall, onto the roof of a stone building. The roof collapses from beneath us, and we fall to the ground below, scrambling onto our feet. Blood covers my skin and stains my shirt, but I ignore it, choosing to jog out of the room and go outside.
"Well, well, well, it's another well," Harry laughs dryly, and we drop down into it, just to find out it's dry.
"If we don't find water soon... we'll die," I whisper while squeezing through an opening in the wall.
The other side has some water at the bottom and I fall to my knees and scoop some into my mouth. My throat burns at the substance that seems foreign at this point and I cough, spitting it out. "It's undrinkable," I grunt while standing up.
"There has to be water somewhere around here," Nate says. and we climb up the ridges on the wall, pushing up a cover above us and climbing out of the hole.
The three of us scramble into a worn down building, and we break through a wooden door and fall outside to be met with mercenaries. "Oh shit! It's Drake, Flynn, and [L/Name]," they swear while tossing an empty plastic bottle of water to the side.
"They have water," I smirk, and we pull out our guns and take cover behind a wall.
We start to shoot the mercenaries and I frown, beginning to wonder why Marlowe's men are here. I shoot the last mercenary in the head, and we start to make our way through the village, killing all of Kate's men. My brain starts to go into a daze, but I continue to help my friends take down the men, when a mercenary shoots the beam holding the platform we're on. The beam crumbles and we fall into a pit, Harry shooting the man in the chest several times.
Nate shoots the beam holding up the other platform and it collapses, exposing an area on the wall that can be climbed. I smile faintly, and we climb up the wall and onto a staircase, shooting more of Marlowe's men. We climb over a crumbled wall, into the sandy streets of the village where many mercenaries await.
Nate, Harry, and I quickly wipe through the men, and I grab an RPG along with a few rockets, having a bad feeling I'll need it later. We collect ammo for our guns, before squeezing between two buildings and jumping over the railing of a landing, into the sand below.
We run along the path when a guy controlling a machine gun on top of a car starts shooting at us. "Let's hope a rocket will work," I whisper while pulling out the RPG. I fire a rocket at the car and it explodes, making the platform it was on, collapse and crush the mercenaries beneath it.
Nate and Harry take out a few stranglers, and I toss the RPG to the side and pull out my sniper rifle, shooting the men on rooftops. Another car with mercenaries in it drives through the wooden gate, and Nate picks up an RPG and shoots a rocket at it. The car explodes and the fighting comes to a close- much to our relief.
"It's so bloody hot," Harry wipes some sweat off his forehead; his normally styled hair, a mess and covered in sand.
"We need to find some drinkable water," Nate says, his condition the same as Flynn's.
We jog through the broken gate and over to a ladder. The three of us climb up, and drop down onto the other side, landing in what used to be some kind of room. We walk over to the crumbling wall, and Nate is grabbed by a mercenary and pulled over the wall.
"Go down after him, I'll cover," I tell Harry while pulling out my sniper rifle. I snipe the mercenaries on the rooftops and balconies, when some men come riding in on horses.
"English?" the guy wearing purple asks, and I drop down and join my two friends.
"What? English. We speak English," Nate tells him, and the guy aims his gun at us.
"Whoa! Calm down. We're no threat," I say, and we holster our guns to show it.
The guy nods and turns to his men, "Help the two men onto their horses. I've got her."
His horse comes over to me and I grab his hand, allowing him to help me onto his horse. The horses gallop off and Nate, Harry, and I protect the horses and men who saved us by shooting the agents that try to kill us. The man leading Nate's horse gets shot in the head, and Nate starts heading in a different direction since he has yet to gain control.
"Nathan!" I cry out, and we end up meeting back up with him a few minutes later.
"RPG!" the guy whose horse I'm on shouts and I grab it. "Shoot the gates!" he tells me, and I launch a rocket at the wooden gates in front of us, breaking it open.
The horses gallop, out and we are lead through the desert. Day turns to night and we arrive at a campsite, where they treat us with food, water, and medical supplies. We sit around a campfire when the guy who saved us takes a seat, "You three are far from home."
We nod and he sighs, "You do not belong out here. Any of you."
"You spared us. Why not just kill us along with the others?" I ask, and he looks down at me.
"That would have been impolite. You were in distress. Even an enemy must be fed and sheltered. Are you three my enemies?" he asks, and I sigh.
"Harry Flynn, Nathan Drake, and I'm [Name] [L/Name]."
"Salim. I am sheikh of this tribe."
"Bedouin, right?" I ask and he nods, "Trust me, I'm usually more prepared when I do journeys, especially since it's not my first time in this desert."
"Well, I don't mean to sound forward, Salim, but we need a horse. We don't have anything to offer in return-" Nate says, but gets cut off.
"You three plan to attack the English Caravan by yourselves?" Salim asks us with a raised eyebrow.
"You know about them, mate?" Harry asks quizzically.
"My scouts have been tracking them for two days. Why are you three here? Why do the English cross the Rub' al Khali?" Salim asks while poking the fire with a stick.
"They're looking for the lost city of Ubar," I say, and he frowns.
"Iram of the Pillars..." Salim whispers and I nod.
"They've taken our friend hostage. He's the only one who knows the way. Once they find Iram, he'll be worthless to them. They'll kill him," Nate explains, and Salim shakes his head.
"If they find Iram, we are all dead," he states, and we look at him as he adjusts his position to look at us, "Three thousand years ago, King Solomon commanded the power of the Djinn. Demons, born of smokeless fire until they rebelled. He imprisoned them in a vessel of brass, and cast it into the depths of the city.
"Iram became a place of evil, cursed by tormented spirits of the Djinn. The English must not reach the city. If they unleash the power of the Djinn..."
"We don't have much time, do we?" Harry asks him, and I frown.
"No- but they have the greater numbers. We cannot attack them in the open. Tonight, rest. Tomorrow they enter the canyons- we'll take them there," Salim tells us and pats our shoulders, before starting to walk off, "we ride at dawn."
"Can there be one treasure you go for that isn't cursed?" My eye twitches, and I send a sharp look at Nate.
"It's not like I knew," he raises his hands in defense.
"You have no luck at all with this stuff, mate," Harry sighs while we stand up.
"Let's just get some rest for tomorrow," I say, and we head off to some of the tents and lay down for some much needed sleep.
~
"To the convoy- follow me this way!" Salim announces while riding ahead of Nate, Harry, and I on his horse.
"Understood," I respond, and we follow closely behind him. We enter a narrow passage and when we make it out we spot the convoy right below us.
"Don't shoot until they're in range," Salim tells us, and leads us through a shortcut, "We're nearly there."
We catch up to the last two cars, and Salim and I take the men out in the back of the trucks. The four of us jump off our horses into the beds of the automobiles and I shoot Marlowe's men off the motorcycles in front of us, before the four of us get off our horses and ride up towards the next set of trucks.
"I'm going ahead to take out the trucks up there!" I shout over to the three guys.
"Stay safe!" Harry exclaims and I nod, before snapping the reigns of my horse and making my way up front.
I shoot at the mercenaries while passing by and the other three start to catch up since I'm clearing a path for them. "Sully should be in the lead car!" Nate shouts up to me and I nod.
"I'll go for him," I call back while racing ahead.
My horse starts to form a gap from the other trucks, and Nate takes out some trucks behind me with an RPG. I chuckle while looking over my shoulder, before riding into the canyon and catching up to the lead vehicle. "Sully better be up here," I murmur, when one of the smaller trucks pulls up beside the lead truck.
A guy opens the door of the car and aims his gun at me, but before I have the chance to shoot him, he's shoved out of the car. Sully appears and my eyes lighten up along with a smile adorning my face. "Sully!" I cry out and he jumps onto my horse.
"Nice seeing you, kid," he ruffles my hair, and I watch as Nate shoots out a wheel of the lead car, causing it to spin out of control.
"Shooting out a tire always seems to work," Nate laughs and our horses slow down to a stop, "Sully, you all right?"
We get off our horses and Sully nods, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. But- damn. I was sure they'd killed you, kids."
"Well, they tried, right?" Harry chuckles and Sully crosses his arms.
"So how the hell did you find me all the way up here?"
"We had some help," I gesture to Salim, and the two introduce themselves to each other.
"We haven't much time. We cannot allow them to reach the city," Salim says, and Nate sends him an unsure look.
"He's right, Nate. I've been trapped with those crazy bastards for days. I don't know what the hell it is Marlowe is after exactly- but it sure as hell ain't treasure. We've got to stop 'em," Sully says, and we get back onto our horses.
"Nate, you know we have to stop this," I say, and he nods and gets on his horse.
"Never a dull moment," Nate chuckles, and we ride off through the desert towards a sandstorm.
"Let's go," I say, and we end up getting separated from Salim and his scouts. Our horses stop moving forward, and we get off them and try to have them follow us, but they refuse.
"Animals have a good sense about things. The fact they don't want to go further tells me something bad is up ahead," I say, and we let them run off.
"The convoy is up ahead," Harry states, and we jog forward.
We stealthily take out the mercenaries and agents, before proceeding through the storm, taking out more enemies that await by the ruins. The four of us take out the last few mercenaries by exploding the trucks they're in, and I look through the sand to see some stairs going up to a door.
"We're here," I smile faintly. We go through the door and Sully pulls it closed behind us. "So what's the chance of us finding some demons?" I ask while we walk up the staircase ahead of us to a huge door that looks like a puzzle needs to be solved to open it.
"I hope none, but it's probably really high," Sully mutters, and I chuckle.
"This is amazing," Nate awes, and looks at the statues in the room.
"Oh hey, I managed to swipe your notebook back off Marlowe. Figured it might come in handy." Sully hands Nate the notebook while I look around the room.
"Harry, there's a switch on each wall," I say, and he nods.
We climb up the ladder on the side of the right wall and Harry holds down the switch, making the golden blocks on a conveyor belt move up. I jump onto one of them and vault onto the other side, before jumping- once I'm high enough- to the landing behind me. I jump off the landing to a platform beneath me, before climbing some stone blocks on the wall to a metal beam.
I pull myself up and balance, before walking to the end of the beam. I jump off to my left and grab the edge of the chandelier below me, sliding around it and jumping to the one behind me. I slide around that chandelier and jump over to the second landing with the other switch on it.
I push down the switch and the statues on the door move and pull it open, revealing the city of Ubar. "Good job, kids!" Sully calls up to Harry and I, and we make our way down to the ground.
"Shall we go?" Nate asks and we nod.
"Of course we should," I respond, and we file out of the building.
"Holy shit. It's true, it's really here," Nate murmurs and we walk down a set of stairs, past several statues that begin to move.
"Wow..." Harry awes and we make it to the landing of the staircase and look out at the city.
"Welcome to Ubar," I smile, before leading the three guys down the stairs on my right.
We enter a terrace on the right of the stairs, since the rest of the steps broke and we couldn't get down. "Incredible..." Sully trails off as we walk over to a fountain.
"This is how the city could thrive all the way out here," Nate says while lowering his hands into the water.
"The whole place must be fed by an underground spring," Harry says, and I dip my hand into the water and drink some of it.
"It's clean. I'm rather amazed it's still running after all these years," I smile and all of us, but Sully, drink some water and wipe the dirt and sand off our face.
I look down at the ground to see it slowly being covered with a shadow, and I walk around the fountain and look out to see the moon covering the sun. Sully walks in front of us and smirks. "Well that's a hell of a thing," he says and a gunshot goes off.
Harry's, Nate's, and my eyes widen as Sully's chest starts to bleed, and he falls forward into Nate's arms. "No," I whisper and Nate slowly lays Sully on the ground.
I see Marlowe and Talbot walking away, and I look down at the man who took Nate and I in and mentored us when we were young. I grit my teeth and glare out at Marlowe and Talbot who step on a metal circle on the floor. Harry, Nate, and I jump off the balcony and land on the ground and we start to run towards the circle when a metal gate closes around it.
"Bollocks!" Harry shouts, and we pull out our guns when some mercenaries start to shoot at us.
Our anger blinds us, and we show no mercy to the mercenaries. Men with flames surrounding their head show up and I realize that they're Djinn. We continue to shoot and kill the smoking demon creatures, and when we take down the last one we walk onto the metal circle that's gates are now open.
The gates close behind us and the circle moves down to a temple below. When the gates open, Talbot appears with a smirk and tosses a smoke bomb onto the circle. "Talbot! I'm going to kill you, you bastard!" I shout and take off after the man first.
I follow him into an alleyway, and when I reach a dead end- I look around. "Where did he go?!" I whisper and turn around only to see Talbot beside Nate and Harry's dead body. A shriek leaves from my mouth and tears fall from my eyes as I stare at their bodies on the ground.
Talbot chuckles and runs off and I run after him, only to see he's no longer there and I'm on the streets of Cartagena. "I haven't been here in years," I whisper and then my brain starts to piece things together, "This is impossible. There's no way this is real. I'm hallucinating."
My body suddenly changes to how it was when I was twelve and I chuckle, "There's only one way out of this."
I pick up a pistol off the ground checking the magazine to see one bullet. I cock the gun and put the barrel to my head and the world starts to become contorted. My finger touches the trigger and I take a deep breath, before pulling the trigger, making everything go black.
~
I wake up in a room where several decomposed bodies are. I slowly stand up and stare down to see Nate and Harry passed out on the floor, making me frown. I lean against the wall and a few minutes pass by when mumbling comes from the two men. They slowly come to their senses and I help them off the ground.
"It was all a hallucination?" Nate questions and I nod.
"Did Sully die for you guys in the beginning?" I ask and they nod.
"I think we experienced the same beginning hallucination," Harry adds on and I frown.
"Well, at least the hallucinations are over. Let's get to Talbot and Marlowe," I say, and we jog out of the room and make our way down a spiral staircase.
"There they are," Nate says and we look at the underground building with water all around it and coming out from the walls below it.
"This must be the spring," I say, and we pull out our pistols and walk onto the path.
I shoot the men on the path that branches off a tower, while Nate and Harry continue down the path we're on, taking out the mercenaries ahead. I shoot the men who use laser sight guns in the head, before walking up the stairs, on the path, and joining up with my two friends. We run across one of the walkways to the tower and I lead them onto another walkway.
We enter the room with our guns drawn and movement comes from around a metal pillar. "Is that you, kids?" Sully asks, and we stop walking.
Sully walks out from the other side and grins when he sees us. "Oh, thank God," he whispers and walks over to us, giving our backs a pat, "You three look like you've been through hell."
"We were hallucinating. I escaped by falling through a hole that was in water," Nate tells him with a small chuckle.
"Those bloody spiders got to me," Harry admits and the three guys look at me.
"I shot myself," I say with a nonchalant shrug, and their jaws drop while I chuckle nervously, "I figured out I was hallucinating while in the hallucination so I killed myself."
"Well, you three went nuts after drinking from the water. Thats what destroyed the city, not 'the Wrath of God.' The whole water supply is tainted with some sort of hallucinogenic agent. Must've driven everyone mad," Sully explains, and I rest my head on my hands.
"That's what Marlowe and Talbot are after," I rub my temples.
"Remember Cutter said, they controlled their enemies through fear. Those pricks aren't after the water, they're after that curse Salim told us about," Harry says and I nod.
"Come again," Sully cocks an eyebrow.
"Listen- Salim told us that Iram was cursed when Solomon imprisoned the evil spirits of the Djinn inside a vessel of brass, and then cast it into the depths of the city," Nate explains to him.
"A genie in a bottle," Sully rests his hands on his hips, while I start mentally singing the song.
"We know, it sounds bloody crazy," Harry murmurs and rubs the nape of his neck.
"So, You three reckon that's why Elizabeth and Dee sent Francis Drake out here in the first place."
"They were after power. Only once Drake realized what he'd been sent for, he abandoned the mission. He lied to the queen, told her he didn't find anything, and then hid all the traces of his voyage. Rewrote history," I explain.
Sully nods and sighs, "Well- who are we to argue with Sir Francis? Whaddya say we head down there and end this thing, once and for all?"
"Let's stop them," I smirk, and we walk across the walkway to the tower.
"Looks like we need to go down," Harry says, and Sully and Nate push the metal bars, making the floor we're on lower. The platform comes to a stop and we look at the archway.
"This is gonna get messy. You ready for this?" Sully asks, and we nod.
The four of us walk through the archway and down the path, dropping down to the ground below. "So this is how they moved the water to the surface," Nate states and we walk under a covered area, making our way to some stairs.
We walk up the stairs, and Nate and I push the switches by the door, making it open. The four of us run under the open door, before it closes behind us, and we drop down through a hole in the floor around the snake sculpture. I land on top of a mercenary and snap his neck when more start to come down some steps. I pull out my pistols and shoot them in the chest, before making my way up the steps.
Nate and Harry shoot the men who pop up from behind barriers, and we climb over the barriers and make our way past some cogs. We head to the back of the room and drop down onto a staircase, jogging down the steps and outside. We take cover by a large well when more mercenaries come out from the building ahead of us.
The four of us work together to take out Marlowe's men, and we push forward into the building across from us. We shoot the men on the walkway to a door and the ones on the walkway ahead of us. We continue running forward and make our way up some stairs, into a dark cave. A grenade is rolled in and I pick it up and toss it out, killing the mercenary who it belonged to when it explodes.
Sully shoots the last mercenary, and we walk over to a large case. "Let's see what they're up to," Sully says and opens the case, revealing two yellow oxygen tanks.
"Well, they're definitely going into the water," Nate says and I pick up a gun from the case.
"We'll probably need this later," I say, and we push the switches by the door down and run through it into a cistern.
"This is one large cistern," Harry says and we cross the bridge towards the center of the cistern. The four of us walk into a small room and press our backs against the wall when we hear Marlowe, "Careful! Lift it gently."
We watch as a chain starts to lift the brass vessel out of the water. "We've got to take that thing out. Any ideas?" Nate asks and I look around.
"Flanking them would be our best bet. We're outnumbered and our guns are almost out of ammo," I say, and the three guys nod in agreement.
Nate and I quietly jog out of the room to the left and we take cover behind a pillar and peek out. When Marlowe isn't looking, we move to the next pillar and press our backs to it. We peek out again and look at the room we were just in to not see Sully or Harry.
"Damn it. Where are they?" Nate asks and we peek out further to see Talbot pointing a gun at us.
Sully shoves Talbot's arm as he shoots so the bullet doesn't hit us, and the sadistic bastard hits Sully on the head with the butt of his gun. "Sully!" Nate and I shout, and Harry punches Talbot.
I dive into the water and pull out the gun I took from the case, aiming it up and shooting the machinery that was lifting the vessel out of the water. I swim up to the surface and get out of the water to see one of the towers crumbling.
"We need to get out of here," I say as the cistern starts to collapse along with the city above.
We shoot Marlowe's mercenaries while running across the bridge and into the tower where a platform is. "Over here!" I shout, and we run onto the platform.
Nate and I push the bars and the platform starts to rise up, coming to a stop once we're higher up in the tower. The four of us walk off the platform and shoot a few mercenaries, before climbing up a ladder, and jumping onto the gears. We ride them up, continuing to kill the mercenaries, and we climb up a couple ladders into an upper part of the tower.
Harry shoots the mercenary coming down the stairs, and we run up the steps and into the room with a spiral staircase out of the cistern. "You!" Marlowe scowls as her and Talbot run into the room. The latter aims his gun at us when the floor starts to collapse beneath us.
Sully doesn't fall into the quicksand, but the rest of us do. Nate, Harry, Talbot, and I are luckily right next to where the floor broke so we pull ourselves up, but Marlowe is stuck in the middle of the pit. "Marlowe! I can't reach," Talbot holds his hand out to her while she struggles.
Sully helps Nate and Harry onto the spiral staircase before reaching down to help me. "[Name]!" Marlowe says helplessly and I look over my shoulder at her. The sand is starting to rise quickly but most of her body is still above the sand. "Please..." she whispers and my heart gets the better of me.
I take off my empty sniper rifle and I hold it out for her to grab. She grips the barrel and I pull her towards me, before holding out my hand. She grabs it and I hesitate, hoping she doesn't pull me in the sand, but I take the chance and pull her out of the death trap.
"We need to get out of here!" I shout, and Talbot jumps across the sand towards us. I face him and Marlowe, sending them a sharp look, "If you make one move to kill us, I will murder you two in the blink of an eye."
They nod, and we run up the staircase and jump across the crumbling stone floor, before it collapses into the quicksand. We make it to a tower when the ground shakes and we fall onto a platform below. "Holt shit! You did this with a single bullet!" Harry shouts over to me, and we make our way across the path, when Salim comes with our horses.
"Not the first time I took out an entire city with a single bullet," I remind him, referring to our Shambhala journey.
"Hurry! Get on!" Salim shouts and I hop onto Harry's horse behind him, so Marlowe and Talbot can use my horse.
Our horses gallop out of the cistern and we take off through the desert, looking behind us to see Ubar sinking into the sand. "So much for immeasurable wealth," Nate says and I smirk, making him narrow his eyes, "[Name]... What the hell did you do?"
"You guys seem to forget that I'm good at grabbing things, especially when I'm hallucinating apparently," I chuckle and open my bag to show a plethora of golden coins and some golden knick-knacks, "It may not be 'immeasurable' but it's still something."
I can fee Harry chuckle due to my chest being pressed up against his back. "Yes, you are very good at stealing things, darling," he tells me.
I grin, before looking over my shoulder at Marlowe and Talbot, "And you two!" I snap, making them look at me, "You're lucky I had the heart to save your asses, especially after the shit you pulled earlier. You owe me for life, so ever try that again and I will kill you without so much of a second thought."
They quickly nod in understanding, before we continue to make our way through the desert.
~time skip~
Nate, Harry, Sully, and I wave goodbye to Marlowe and Talbot as they leave on a private jet. "I think you scared them enough to never pull a stunt like that again," Harry chuckles, and we pick up our bags and walk towards a plane.
"I better have," I state with a grin.
Sully suddenly stops walking and sighs from behind us, "Hold up a minute, [Name], Nate."
We turn around, and he places his bag on the ground. "You okay?" Nate asks him, and we look at Sully curiously.
"Yeah- yeah, I just got something that needs saying, that's all."
Nate and I exchange a glance, and we set our bags on the ground. "What is it?" I ask and Sully sighs.
"Look, I, uh... I had a lousy father. Lousy childhood. I hit forty, I figured I was never gonna have a kid of my own. Hell, I never wanted one. What the hell do I know about raising a kid?" he says then goes quiet, "Then you two came barreling into my life."
"Look, you don't have to," Nate says, but Sully cuts him off.
"No, listen, I do. I have made a lot of mistakes, kids. A lot. And, ah... well, I'm not a perfect man," he says and goes quiet before smiling, "but you kids were never one of those mistakes."
My eyes widen and I barrel forward and hug Sully. "Thank you, Sully. For everything," I whisper, and he hugs me back.
"No problem, kiddo," he chuckles, and I back out of the hug to let him and Nate hug.
Elena walks out of the airport and joins us, making me smile. "You coming along?" I ask and she nods.
"Then shall we get going?" Harry smirks, and we all nod and start to walk towards the plane when Sully stops us.
"Over this way," he says, and we grin when we see the plane Sully must of bought, "It's not as nice as the one that you three wrecked three years ago, but it'll do."
"You and Nate didn't tell me you crashed a plane, love." Harry raises an eyebrow and I smile sheepishly.
"Yeah... I'll tell you about that on the flight back..." I trail off and he laughs, and shakes his head. I turn to Sully and give him a leading look, "Please say this one has parachutes that don't have holes in them."
"Eh, It has parachutes," Sully shrugs, and we all playfully roll our eyes, before walking towards the plane with a smile.