"These guys are persistent!" Nathan Drake complained, shaking dirt out of his hair. He sent a bitter glare in the direction of his traveling companion.
"I said I was sorry!" answered the young man, his voice cracking as he shrank away from another explosion.
"And I said it would be a good idea for you to wear a hat!" Drake spat back, still glaring at Jayden. They were in part of the Colchian Rainforest and he told the kid to pack so he would blend in. No such luck. Jayden's hair was a red, spiky eyesore. And not the typical washed out orange-red, but dark, blood red. To make matters worse, his shirt was vivid purple. At least his pants and boots were blending into the scenery.
"Christ!" the kid squeaked, bringing his arms up to cover his head.
Drake rolled his eyes as he leveled the pilfered rifle and picked off one of the morons with the grenade launchers.
Puffing out a sigh, Jayden ducked lower behind the hill they were using as cover. His hair still stuck above the grass.
"You're the one who wanted to tag along. You knew it could get dangerous."
"Yeah, but I figured the danger would come later rather than sooner."
"Just don't get in the way, don't get kidnapped, and don't get shot," Drake replied. He was only putting up with the kid because he was paying his a hundred grand and covering all expenses.
The familiar rapport of a shotgun echoed through the ringing in Drake's ears, sounding too far off to be useful. Jayden's yelp on the other hand, was right in his ear. He looked over and saw blood dribbling down his bicep.
"What the hell did I just say?" Drake demanded, returning fire.
"Sorry," Jayden mumbled through clenched teeth.
"You take a shot well for a rookie," Drake admitted, a little impressed as the kid pulled his blood-slick sleeve away from the wound. It was shallow, but Drake was familiar enough with bullet wounds to know they all hurt like hell.
"Not actually my first bullet wound," commented Jayden as he pulled a roll of gauze from one pocket of his cargo pants.
Drake's eyebrows shot up to greet his hairline. "Oh?"
"Can we maybe save the story for another time? Like when people aren't shooting at us?" Jayden asked, glancing around. He saw a place that would make better cover than the hill, did a sort of somersault roll forward, and pressed his back against the remnants of the stone wall that was at least a few hundred years past its prime.
Frowning, Drake turned his attention back to the bad guys. He was busy firing into the trees and didn't see that someone had lobbed a grenade in their direction until it was too late. He tried diving away from it, but it exploded, throwing his to the side with concussive force. If it had been any closer, he would have been hamburger.
"Crap," he cursed, rolling onto his back with a wheeze. His ears were ringing again and his eyes stung. When the stars finally cleared from his vision, he was looking up the business end of an M-16. "Crap," he repeated. The bad guys surrounded them and hauled them both to their feet.
"You aren't taking us to jail, are you? 'Cuz I've spent some time in a Turkish prison and it wasn't a whole lot of fun," Drake said as a huge, absurdly muscular man patted his down for weapons. "Whoa! Getting a little too friendly there, Tiny."
"Shut up!" the man with the M-16 slugged Drake.
"Ow," Drake grumbled, spitting out blood. His teeth had cut the inside of his cheek when the man's hand connected. "Just so you guys know, we haven't got anything you could possibly want."
"Hayden doesn't care," the man with the gun growled.
Jayden rolled his eyes and gave in as he was searched as well. "Great," he drawled.
Drake wasn't a fan of that tone. "So, who's Hayden?" he asked as Gunboy and Muscles gave them a shove to get them moving.
"That's the brother I've been telling you about."
"…Crap."
~One Week Earlier~
Drake tipped his beer to his lips, took a swig, and set it down again with a content sigh. All of his cuts and bruises had finally healed, he could get around without wincing, and his nagging headache was gone as well. He still didn't know why he had tagged along with Sully on that last outing. From the get-go he knew it was going to go horribly wrong, which it had. He was glad he had been there to keep an eye on his old friend though.
Shaking his head, his lips twitched into a smirk. The look on Sully's face when they had found that pile of gold and jewels had been priceless. He wished he'd had a camera.
Drake took another swig from the bottle.
"Excuse me, are you Nathan Drake?"
Glancing over his shoulder, Drake eyed the young man. His red hair was just as hard on the eyes as his canary yellow tee shirt. He looked immature and a little vacant, but the way he carried himself said something entirely different. He blinked at the kid. "Depends on who's askin'," he replied, turning his attention back to his beer. There was some shuffling behind him and a little piece of paper appeared in his peripheral vision.
"Jayden Risyn."
Scowling, Drake took the card and looked up at the kid. "Risyn? Why does that sound familiar?"
"My father runs a profitable antiquities business."
Drake sat up straight and gave the kid his full attention. "Michael Risyn is your dad? You poor bastard," he chuckled, extending a hand to the kid.
Jayden grinned as he shook Drake's hand. "He's not all bad."
"So what does the old man want me to find this time? The Holy Grail? Noah's Ark?" Drake leaned back in his chair again, propping an elbow on the table. He tried not to be too obvious about staring at the kid's hair.
Taking a seat across from Drake, Jayden folded his arms on the table and frowned. "Actually, I'm not here on his behalf. I want to hire you to find something. It's a personal job that dad doesn't know anything about."
Drake was curious. Michael Risyn knew about everything. And it was always business.
The kid glanced around nervously. "Do you think we could talk about this elsewhere? I don't want to take any chances on someone eavesdropping."
Shrugging, Drake finished his beer, got up and paid the bartender. He didn't have anything better to do today. "Anywhere in particular?"
"Actually I have a room at the hotel down the street. If you're worried I might have people waiting to ambush you, don't be. I'm working completely on my own."
"Oh, I'm not even a little concerned about that," Drake answered, shoving his hands into his pockets. This kid didn't look smart enough to plan ahead like that.
"And I don't swing that way, so you don't need to worry about that, either," Jayden joked with a grin.
"What? Now there's a thought that never even crossed my mind. What I was th—y'know what? Never mind. Lead the way." Drake waved his hand vaguely before him and followed the kid. He frowned at the scuffed toes of his sneakers as they walked to Jayden's hotel.
"Can I get you something to drink?" Jayden asked when they entered his suite.
Drake shook his head and sat down on one of the overstuffed white couches. "What makes you think someone didn't bug this place while you were out?" he asked, shaking his head at the high-class suite. Low profile was not in this kid's vocabulary.
"I took precautions."
"Smart kid. So, let's get to the point, shall we?"
"Sure." Bending down, Jayden rummaged through a duffle bag that was on the floor beside the other couch. After a few seconds, he pulled out a folder and an old, leather-bound book and sat down heavily. Placing the items on the low coffee table, he slid them across to Drake.
"This is the Risyn journal. It's more-or-less a log of the majority of the items we've recovered over the years. And here are some photos of a collection of treasures we're trying to recover. I'm looking for two specifically."
Flipping the folder open, Drake shuffled through the contents. A couple of photos were marked. One was a beautifully crafted statue of an Oriental style dragon carved from ruby and inlaid with gold. It was a stunning piece, but it didn't look like anything important to Drake.
Jayden noticed Drake had paused on the dragon and he leaned forward, tapping the picture. "That one I want purely for sentimental reasons. This is what both my Great Granddad and my Granddad thought the real treasure was," he said, shuffling the photos around on the table until he found what he was looking for.
Drake looked down at the picture and quirked a brow. He didn't know what he was supposed to be looking at, but it looked even less significant than the dragon. The item was a small, circular golden piece. It was no bigger than a dollar coin with faded engravings on both sides. Unfortunately, after years of wear, the engravings were impossible to make out.
"What's this?" Drake asked, glancing up at Jayden from under his eyebrows.
"I believe it is part of Brísingamen," Jayden answered, like that meant something to Drake.
One brow crept upward. "And that is?" The name sounded Norse, but that wasn't really his area of expertise.
Jayden smiled. "The Brísingamen was Freya's treasured necklace."
"Freya? As in wife of Odin?" The other eyebrow joined the first.
"Yup. If this little piece of gold is what I think, it's priceless." Jayden flipped through the old journal and pulled out a photo of a painting. "Here, this is Freya wearing the necklace."
Drake took the print and placed it next to the picture of the gold piece. He stared at each one for a few seconds. "I'm not convinced. Could be what you think, but it just looks like an old coin to me. What else ya got?" He slid the photos back across the table and looked up at Jayden.
The kid scowled as he flipped through the journal. "There are all sorts of things in this collection and I want that dragon, but maybe we have something else to motivate you," he sighed, tossing Drake more photos.
Drake flipped through the new stack, seeing a lot of run-of-the-mill treasures. Gold coins that looked a lot like the piece the kid was fussing over, jewels, old weapons and some art, but there wasn't really anything that was standing out to him. This was looking like it would be a boring recovery until one of the pictures caught his eye. It was a flat, elongated bowl with seven ridges. It was kind of plain, any luster worn off in the many, many years since its creation, but for some reason, it was speaking to him. He wanted to get his hands on this piece.
Letting out a breath, Drake tossed the photos back onto the table.
Jayden held up his hands, mistaking the expression on Drake's face for disinterest. "Before you turn me down, let me tell you how much I'm willing to pay for the recovery of the dragon."
Drake shrugged, letting the kid think what he wanted. "I'm not a cheap date."
"A hundred grand plus expenses."
Drake had bills to pay, just like everyone and that was as good an amount as any. He doubted the dragon was even worth that much. "Sounds good to me. But something tells me this isn't going to be as simple as it seems." He quirked a brow at Jayden.
"Well, that all depends on my brother. He wants the dragon too, and he's got more money and resources than I do. He's been selling off bits of the collection, lying to buyers about the true worth of the pieces. He's making an absurd amount of money from this stuff and he's got mercenaries on speed dial to help him," answered Jayden, looking down at the journal on the table.
"So what's the deal with this collection anyway? Kind of an odd assortment of objects," said Drake, fanning the photos out across the table.
"You've met my dad. Our whole family shares the same passion for old treasures whether they are worth anything or not. This was a personal collection, not for sale. When my granddad was moving to the states, the entire collection was stole and sold off. We've been recovering pieces over the years with the help of friends overseas and tips that come in," the kid explained, dragging a hand through his spiked hair.
Nodding, Drake leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He pointed at the picture of the bowl. "What about this one?"
"What? Why that one? There's nothing special about it…"
Drake shook his head. "If your brother is as money hungry as you say and knows his folklore, he'll be after this one."
"But it's a piece of junk!"
Smirking, Drake picked up the picture and held it out to Jayden. "Just because it isn't shiny, doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Ever watched The Last Crusade?"
Jayden gaped. "What the hell does this have to do with a movie?"
Drake flopped back on the couch and stifled a groan. "Do you want my help recovering the dragon, or not?"
Jayden's lip twitched into an almost-sneer. He stuffed the picture back into the journal. "Course I do. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to track you down if I didn't."
"Then we do things my way. I'll help you get that dragon, but only after I get this bowl and check it out. Do you have any information on it?"
Sighing heavily, Jayden pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. He put the phone to his ear and waited. When the person on the other end finally picked up, he spoke without so much as a greeting. "Yeah, I need to know about that ridged bowl." He fell silent for a moment, said okay a couple of times, gave his thanks, and then hung up. "Apparently an item fitting the description of the bowl was spotted at a shop in Hopa, Turkey."
"Hopa, hey?" Drake pushed himself to his feet and walked toward the door. "I hope your passport is up-to-date."
"Where are you going?" Jayden asked, standing as well.
"I need to make some calls," Drake replied with a shrug, shoving his hands into his pockets. He wanted to fill Sully in on what he may have found and he wanted to get some gear ready to go in Hopa, just in case.
"I'm leaving around dawn tomorrow. Meet me at this address," said Jayden, handing over a scrap of paper. It was the address of a private airstrip.
Drake nodded and slipped the paper into his back pocket. "Oh, and be sure you bring a hat or something."
"Why?"
Drake just looked up at Jayden's hair. He shook his head and let himself out of the suite. He walked back to the bar before hailing a cab in case someone was tailing him. He didn't notice anyone suspicious as he got into the cab, but it never hurt to be cautious.
Once he was in the cab, he gave the driver his destination, pulled out his own cell phone and called up Sully.