As one, the team turned and sprinted back the way they came. Drake fired over his shoulder, hoping to slow the lion down some. All if did was deafen him. The monstrous lion roared, the sound rattling Drake's bones. The thing was either toying with them, or it was ill because it certainly wasn't chasing them at full speed. If it had been, whoever was at the back would have been lunch mean by now.

The tunnel felt a hundred times longer than it was with the lion on their heels. Even though they were running for their lives, Drake still slowed down to let Sully and Elena pass him. If any of them were getting eaten, he wouldn't let it happen to his friends.

He fired again, his bullet scoring a direct hit to the beast's right leg, smattering its pristine white fur with red. The animal howled, stumbling and tripping over its wounded paw. But it kept coming. Drake could feel hot breath on his back, could smell the blood and meat of its last meal. If he wasn't so concerned about keeping them alive, he may have commented on the stench.

"There's the opening!" Jayden shouted, managing a fresh burst of speed.

Drake put his hand to Elena's back, silently encouraging her to move faster. He had no idea what they would do once they were out of the pit, but he could think on the fly.

Behind him, the lion roared again, the sound right on Drake's heels. He didn't want to chance looking over his shoulder and tripping over his own feet in the process, but he could have sworn he felt drops of saliva hitting his neck now. The thing was getting closer, even with its wounded leg.

As they hit the incline, the lion swiped one massive paw at Drake, its claws mostly catching his clothes. He didn't have time to stop and see how badly it got him.

The four of them erupted through the formerly grated opening with every intention of heading for the door, except their path was blocked. A second lion stood in their path.

Drake was last out of the tunnel, but he didn't dare stop dead like Jayden had. He veered off to the left, calling out to the others. "The statues!" It was just their luck that the other tunnel also housed a living albino lion. It must have heard the other one howl and broke free of its cage. They were now faced with two creatures that shouldn't even exist in the first place, let alone still be alive.

He really hoped the other three got his drift as he ran in a wide arc around the room toward the rear of one lion statue. They needed to get out of reach of the beasts, and the only way to do that was to climb. If they could get up high enough, they could kill the lions without any more trouble.

Both of the lions roared, their booming voices echoing through the chamber. It sounded like there were dozens of lions in the room. Many different voices, different pitches and timbres and they seemed to carry on too long after the lions fell silent. No, they didn't seem to, they did.

"Hurry and get your asses to higher ground!" Drake shouted, hoisting himself up onto the tail of one statue. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see more white animals emerging from the tunnel. He had never in is life been happier to be able to climb almost anything. Sully, Elena and Jayden didn't quite share his skill set, however.

Jayden let out a yelp as one animal rushed past him and another swiped at his heels, missing by a hair's breadth. He tried to run in an arch toward the opposite statue, but three of the new lions—females, Drake noticed—were stalking him. The man let out a burst of fire from his rifle, downing one female. Another was heading toward him, muscles taught, ready to spring.

Drake half-watched as he climbed, but stopped short when what looked like a movie scene unfolded on the ground below. One lioness was primed to pounce and Jayden noticed, appearing to shift his own movements as well. If Drake had blinked, he would have missed the only thing Jayden had done to date to redeem his bad attitude. Just as the lioness sprang, he powerful muscles propelling her forward, Jayden bent backward. The redhead flattened himself to the ground, knees bent, with his heels under his butt. He slid on the ground under the lioness' belly, her fur briefly brushing his face. The oversized cat's paws hit the ground as Jayden straightened his legs and kept running. It was so fluid and perfect that Drake found himself stunned, mouth agape. He was even more surprised when the man practically ran up the paw and leg of the statue closest him.

Jayden was more or less home free. Elena and Sully were still playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie with the two male lions and remaining lionesses.

"Jayden!" Drake called across the room waving his arm as he tried to catch the redhead's attention. He caught the man's eye and shouted across the room for him to start picking the cats off. They needed to narrow the odds. It was amazing they were all still alive as it was. Elena and Sully couldn't last much longer at this rate, and they couldn't seem to get any closer to the statue without one or more of the lions intercepting them. All this running, it was clear they were getting tired. The lions were still toying with them, like a house cat does a mouse. Drake wasn't sure how they were so healthy, so spry after who knew how many years being locked up underground in cramped quarters. Albino lions didn't even exist, so these creatures either evolved this way. So they were some sort of mystical monster put here by Jamshid.

Drake took aim at the large male lion he had already put a bullet in and squeezed the trigger. And missed. But it spooked the cats away from Elena and Sully briefly. Even though it gave them some time, the missed shot seemed like a waste of their precious little ammo.

Across the way, Jayden had climbed up onto the opposite statue's head and was taking careful aim with his M16. His slow breathing was obvious even to Drake as far away as he was. The former Special Forces officer tracked a lioness that was getting too close to Elena. He was extremely focused when he squeezed the trigger. On the ground below, almost instantaneously, the side of the lioness' head exploded in a shower of blood.

Drake cringed. He really hated having to kill these beautiful animals, but he wasn't going to die in their place.

Jayden fired off another shot and killed another female. The boom of the singular shots made Drake's bones vibrate. Each time Jayden pulled the trigger, another lioness crumpled to the floor. The numbers were dwindling quickly thanks to Jayden's shooting skills. Elena was halfway up the same statue as the redhead now. Drake noticed her right pant leg was ribbons.

That just left Sully.

And the three lions stalking him.

Drake aimed his pistol, following the wounded with the sights for a few seconds before pulling the trigger. The round sliced through the lion's flank. The beast roared, throwing his head back and baring his perfect white fangs. Sully fired blindly over his shoulder, spraying bullets at the predator's paws. The other male took a couple rounds in its front paws and stumbled forward into the last remaining lioness. The two beasts went down in a flurry of fur, claws and noise as they snarled and slashed at each other.

"C'mon Sully!" Drake called down to his friend. "Take your chance while they're distracted."

"I'm tryin', Kid!" Sully called back.

"Well try harder!"

Another shot resounded through the chamber. The M16 round exploded through the lion's skull, spraying Sully's shirt with hot blood. The beast crumpled like a sack of potatoes but Sully didn't waste time looking at the lion. He bolted to the closest statue while the other two lions were fighting each other. Now Jayden, Sully and Elena were on the opposite side of the room from Drake and they were the ones who had to take out the two remaining lions. Elena had dropped her M32-Hammer at some point, but beside her Sully and Jayden levelled their rifles.

Drake didn't want to see the two remaining albino lions—a male and female—be wiped off the face of the Earth, so he started climbing back down before the two men pulled their triggers.

Carefully stepping around the pools of blood seeping from the corpses, Drake circled around to the middle of the room to wait for the others. He crossed his arms and watched Sully, Elena and Jayden descend the lion statue.

"That was impressive shooting," Drake said to Jayden.

"I tried to tell you I could use a gun," the redhead answered with a one-shouldered shrug.

"Before this turns into an argument, can we just go see what these lions were guarding?" Elena asked on a sigh.

"I'd like to see why we were almost lunch," Sully added.

"Door one or two first?" Drake turned away from the others but stopped short when Sully snorted and Elena snickered. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Jayden trying to hide his smirk and scowled. "What's so funny?"

"I think you may have gotten a little too close to one of those lions, Kid." Sully grinned at Drake and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Huh?" Drake tried to look behind him, but of course couldn't actually see anything, so he ran his hands over his waist and backside. His jeans were sliced across the pockets, as were parts of his boxers beneath. His ass was showing through the slits in the denim and cotton, but it wasn't as though he was completely exposed. "Hey, some people might find this stylish."

"Those people are generally younger and prettier than you, Nate," laughed Sully.

"Yeah, the look doesn't really suit you." Jayden smirked.

"Well, unfortunately I forgot to pack an extra pair of jeans for this little jaunt into the depths of the planet, so you'll just have to live with me showing a bit of skin for now," Drake answered with a shake of his head. He sighed to himself and continued what he was doing. Moving back into the tunnel, he kept his gun raised, just in case.

Chuckling, the others followed.

Together, they backtracked down the dark tunnel, Drake leading and Sully bringing up the rear. They were all a little nervous that there might be more predators down here, but it didn't stop them. They needed to see what the lions were protecting.

Drake rounded the bend in the tunnel first, entering what had been the den. The floor was covered in a thin layer of trampled straw, piles of old bones and cloth. The room was large and roughly circular, another tunnel branching off the other side. Other than the skeletons of people, there really wasn't anything interesting in the actual den, so they continued straight through to the next tunnel. This section of the underground passage wasn't as long as the last and it widened quickly into a natural cavern.

A blue green lake stretched off in one direction, a rocky shore bleeding into a forest of undiscovered flora. The heavy, humid air was filled with the rustle and chirps of insects and small nocturnal creatures. A diffused light filtered in from somewhere overhead, making the surface of the unnaturally still lake glitter.

"I bet the lions were surviving by eating whatever lives in the water," Jayden said as they headed away from the tunnel, toward the lake.

"Probably a good guess. So. Where should we look first?" Drake crossed his arms, scanning the cavern. Something small and furry scurried from under a bush nearby, ran across the toes of his shoes and disappeared into the shade of a large-leafed plant.

"What makes you so sure there's anything down here? Maybe those lions were just kept for sport and weren't guarding anything," said Jayden.

"It waits beneath the world and The Guardian Beneath the trees…lead me to believe there's something down here," Drake replied with a shrug. "Most of the time people don't write stuff like that just for fun."

"There's a lot of ground to cover, Nate," Elena said, glancing up at him and brushing a strand of hair off her face.

"Why don't we save you the trouble?"

Drake turned at the sound of the voice. "Crap." A few feet away stood Hayden, Lindsay and Percy as well as three other large men, all carrying large guns that were pointed at Drake, Sully, Elena and Jayden.

"Thanks for taking care of those bothersome lions, little brother," Hayden said, a smile that didn't reach his eyes curved his lips.

Drake's mouth twitched in a grimace. This wasn't going to go well…