"Move, move, move!" Nate yelled as he ran behind Sully, Chloe, Charlie, and Molly through the labyrinth below Atlantis, followed closely by the savage noises of the guardians. The adventurers rounded a corner at breakneck speed and were immediately halted by a cave-in that blocked off the tunnel ahead.

"Oh, now we're dead!" said Sully.

"Look!" Chloe pointed at a small gap at the edge of the pile of rubble. "It looks like we can squeeze through there."

Leaning back to peer around the corner, Nate saw the advancing guardians just a few dozen yards away. "Chloe, a grenade!" She handed him one and he ripped the pin out before lobbing it towards the creatures. "That'll slow 'em down for a few seconds."

The resulting blast shook the tunnel, and the shrieks of the guardians could be heard in response as the shrapnel settled. Nate looked back to see Chloe and Charlie had already squeezed through the hole, and Molly was part way through. "Careful!" Chloe called, her voice muffled as it came through the rock. "It's one of those ventilation shafts, so don't fall when you get through. We can jump to the ledge on the other side, I think."

Sully disappeared out the other side, then Nate stooped and put his head and shoulders through the gap in the rubble, squirming as he maneuvered his large frame out onto the narrow ledge of the window that had been covered over by the collapse. He was about halfway through when he heard the guttural sounds of the guardians close behind him, and with a yelp Nate drew his legs in and leaped to his feet just as he heard the crash of a sword against stone. His sudden motion set him off balance and he nearly fell to his death in the shaft, except that Sully put his arm out to steady him. "Easy kid," he said gently.

"Thanks," Nate replied.

Standing in the window across the shaft along with Chloe and Molly, Cutter clapped his hands and motioned for them to follow. "C'mon, lads- 'aven't got all day."

Sully shook his head and scowled at the jump. "Well, you know what they say, 'One small step for man, one big-ass leap for an old guy like me'!"

Nate watched as his mentor threw himself across and grabbed the top edge of the knee wall on the other side. "That's... not how that went," he said, mostly to himself. Once Sully pulled himself safely up, Nate readied himself and launched into the air, stretching his arms out to catch the other side. His fingers closed on the stone and his arms caught the weight of his body, then there was a series of cracks as the wall unexpectedly crumbled beneath his grip and he lurched backward. A cry of shock came from his lips as he desperately reached for something to hold onto, and suddenly a hand closed around his. A millisecond later, Nate slammed against the rough-cut wall of the ventilation shaft, and he looked up to see Cutter holding him with both hands clasped tightly around his own.

"C'mon, mate," he said as he heaved Nate up. "I gotcha."

"Thanks!" Nate said as he set foot on the floor again and brushed himself off. Ruefully he noted that it was the second time in less than a minute he had been narrowly saved from falling to his doom.

"Hey, Nate!" Sully called from where he was looking through a hole in the wall a few yards down the tunnel. "Come have a look at this."

Nate trotted over and saw that the hole had been punched in the wall by a stone column that had fallen and was now sloping down from the tunnel where they were to another level about twenty feet below. Past the base of the column rose the regular, geometric forms of mud-brick buildings; some were whole, some were crumbling or covered with lava flow, and all were arranged around a grid-work of streets that ran between them. Here and there, statues of gods or other monuments were visible over the low roofs of the buildings, while a large crack in the ceiling high above let sunlight stream through into the ruined settlement below.

"Check it out," Nate muttered to himself as he carefully walked down the sloping column with a wary eye on the crack in it's middle section. Reaching the end, he jumped down to the ground and jogged into the town as the others made their way down behind him. "Looks like we found suburbia!" he called over his shoulder as he ventured down the main path through the town. Passing a loose collection of bronze wheels, a couple axles, and some rotting boards that marked the final resting place of what had once been a cart, he joked, "Was that the ice cream truck?"

As he passed by a house that was partially swallowed up by hardened lava, he stopped upon seeing a face and a pair of shoulders sticking out of the rock, the figure's mouth frozen in a scream. An involuntary shiver ran down his spine.

"God, I'm never gonna get used to that." Chloe's voice came from just behind him.

He briefly looked at her over his shoulder. "This little settlement must have been some kind of a refuge for the Atlanteans, for in case the above ground city fell under attack." He scanned his surroundings and added, "Looks like it got caught in the eruption, though. The lava must have come in from up there." He pointed to the split in the ceiling. After a moment's silence, he shook his head and said softly, "We'd better keep going. We need to make it back to the surface and find a way to close those guardians in here- once and for all."

Leading the way with long, deliberate strides, Nate quickly made his way down the street in search of a way out. Passing a fallen and broken statue, Nate turned down a side street and immediately had to climb over a mound of lava rock with several more entrapped Atlanteans. "There's gotta be a way outta here," he muttered to himself as he turned another corner and splashed through a large pool of standing water in the road. Calling out to the others, he shouted, "Let's split up, see if we can find some route to the gates."

The group fanned out through the settlement, searching the ruined city for an escape. "Anybody ever see that city planning department?" Sully asked wryly as he scrambled over a lava flow and its victims.

"There's some kind of stone oven over here," Chloe called from a distance.

"Oh, lovely," Cutter snarked from somewhere more close by. "Maybe we could throw in a quick pizza, I'm right starved."

Molly's voice drifted through the air in response. "Yeah, I'm feeling a bit peckish myself."

"Hey guys?" Nate called without looking back. "Let's stay focused, huh? If more of those things show up, we're gonna be screwed."

"Fortunately for us," Sully replied from wherever he was, "we'll probably hear them coming a long time before they get here. With all that armor, they're about as subtle as the 1812 overture."

Nate stuck his head inside a partially burned-out house and peered at the cracking mud-brick and wood construction. "Don't forget that one that sneaked up on us in that room with the statues. We should keep our eyes and ears out in case they don't just come kicking down the doors or something," he called back as he ducked back onto the street and ran between a line of buildings.

It was at that exact moment that a loud crash like a door being kicked open rang out across the room, followed by the metallic clanging of armor jostling from heavy movement. Nate vaguely heard Sully say flatly, "I rest my case."

"Crap!" Nate hissed, picking up the pace as he sprinted to the end of the line of houses. He pulled out his Para 9 and checked it for ammo. "Where did those things come from?" he shouted. Bursting out into the street, he was immediately assailed with arrows and covered his head with his arms while he skidded on the loose gravel, slid across the road and into another alley, and flattened himself to the wall right next to another stony victim of the volcano. "That was way too close!" he muttered as he peeked around the edge of the house and fired at the guardians. More gunfire joined his, and Nate saw Charlie a short distance away behind another building.

As the guardians continued to advance despite the barrage of bullets coming at them, one in particular raised a strange looking device shaped like a bronze tube with a pot on one end, a dragon's head on the other, and a trigger underneath it. As Nate watched in confusion, the ashen-skinned and armored guardian squeezed the trigger, and to Nate's shock the weapon belched a veritable inferno which rushed toward them with the roar of a gusting wind. He yelped and ducked back behind the cover of the wall as the blaze raged between the two lines of buildings. "What the hell is goin' on?" Sully roared over the din.

The wall of fire receded as the guardian released the trigger, but it left behind a smattering of flaming resin that coated the walls, the street, and even floated on top of a puddle, though the heat of the fire was rapidly evaporating the water. Nate stared, momentarily forgetting the line of zombie-like soldiers marching towards them. "Charlie!" he shouted over to the Englishman who was cautiously looking around the corner of the house he was hiding behind. "Do you realize that that's Greek Fi-"

"I know what it is!" Cutter snapped back. "But these chaps are coming your way to give you an up-close demonstration, so you might want to move your arse, mate!"

Snapped back to the present by Cutter's urging, Nate glanced back to see that the guardians were indeed nearly upon him. "Shit!" he hissed, and then turned and sprinted down the alley away from the road. His footsteps echoed off the mud structures on both sides of him and his feet pounded the ground as he turned out onto the road on the other side and was immediately stopped by another group of guardians. "Oh crap!"

The wall to Nate's left was half-collapsed and partially enveloped with a lava flow in which multiple people were partially submerged. As the guardians raised their weapons to fire, he leaped up onto the coarse stone and scrambled toward the roof of the house. "Give me a hand, pal?" he said as he used one of the eery appendages sticking out of the volcanic rock for purchase. He rolled onto the building as the blustery sound of the flamethrower filled the air once more, and Nate saw the resulting firestorm pass by as he came up on the opposite side of the roof. "Greek Fire!" he muttered to himself as he leaped across the alley to the next house. "Crazy... That explains what's been in those bowls!"

Charlie blind fired around the corner of the house at the mutated soldiers, while Sully did likewise from the alley across the street. "These guys are a real pain in the butt!" Sully roared over the sound of his revolver.

"Oi, you got that right!" Cutter replied. When there was a lull in the return fire he ventured a look around, only to be instantly driven back by a fierce volley of arrows. "Bollocks!" he muttered as he loaded a fresh clip in his gun. As the missiles continued to barrage the mud walls that were their cover, he glanced over at Sully and shouted, "Seems like this little town here has more in common with American suburbs than Nate realized!"

Sully managed to glare at him without ever letting up on his attack on the guardians. "I don't want to hear a goddamn thing about gun control from you, Double-Oh-Charlie!" he called back.

Cutter snickered to himself as he began unloading his gun on the enemies. A flash of olive and tan caught his attention, and he looked up to see Chloe leaping from the rooftop and across the alley he was holed up in, landing on the adjacent roof with a roll and a puff of dust. Moments later, Molly followed her.

"Care to join us, loves?" Chloe chirped as she casually tossed a grenade down into the street. Cutter and Sully both ducked back in their respective alleys and flattened themselves to the walls while the blast went off, temporarily subduing the Atlantean attackers.

"Thanks a billion, Chloe!" Sully yelled gratefully as he shoved his revolver into its holster and leaped up to grab the edge of the building. Cutter did likewise, and soon was on the roof with the two female members of their expedition.

"Let's go!" Chloe shouted, sweeping an arm to signal that Charlie should follow. He ran several steps until he reached the edge of the building, then threw himself to the next and landed heavily in a crouch as Chloe and Molly were already bounding over the alley ahead. He was just about to get up and keep running when an earthenware bulb, roughly the size and shape of a large onion, sailed overhead and then plummeted to the mud-topped roof. On striking the building, the clay sphere shattered and sprayed flaming liquid for several yards in all directions. "Shit!" Cutter shouted as he rolled to the edge of the building. Still curled up as small as his large frame allowed, he pressed himself up against the mud-brick parapet at the edge of the house, shielding his head and face with his arms as he watched the fire consume the roof just a couple feet away.

"Charlie!" Chloe called. He looked over to see her standing at the corner of the adjacent housetop, a brazenly open target as she rained vengeance on the Atlantean guards with a blazing pistol. One of the mutated soldiers raised another Greek Fire grenade to throw at Charlie, but a well-placed shot from Chloe shattered the weapon while it was still in his hand, showering both the guard holding it and those around him with the hellish substance within. Taking advantage of the momentary lapse in return fire that caused, she turned and looked directly at Charlie, her ink-black bangs falling over her wide eyes and giving her a look of desperation. "Charlie! Move!"

Cutter couldn't help but give the smallest of grins in return, despite the absurdity of everything. "Aye-aye!" he said as he stood and leaped from the parapet. Crossbow darts sailed past, missing by only the barest of margins as he flew through the air and landed solidly on the roof next to Chloe, who still put her arms out to catch him just for good measure. Up ahead, Nate was also traversing the city by rooftop, ducking every now and then as arrows shot close to him.

"We've spotted the door those things came through," Chloe said breathlessly. "Follow Nate- we need to get out of here, NOW!" She nearly pushed Cutter forward as she spoke, while simultaneously breaking in to a run herself. He took just a moment to look back, and saw that the guardians were beginning to try to scale the buildings themselves, and some of them were now actively aflame due to the foiled grenade, making for a sight that he was fairly certain was one of the most unsettling things he had ever seen in his life.

"Don't have to tell me twice," he muttered as he began running from the immortal soldiers.

Springing off the parapet of the housetop, Nate flailed through the air as he cleared a particularly wide roof gap and crashed down on the opposite side. He rolled to get back on his feet, then spun around to make sure that the others were still behind him. "Come on!" he shouted as he picked up the pace again. "The door's just over here!"

Immediately he spotted Chloe and Molly making quick progress across the tops of the settlement and Charlie not far behind, while behind him an entire house was in flames. Nate winced when he saw that a couple of the guardians that were in pursuit had apparently gotten some of the incendiary liquid on them and now resembled some sort of deranged, living voodoo effigies as they carried on despite the fire that clung to them. It was as he watched the grotesque figures scramble up the side of a half-burned out structure that it dawned on him that he hadn't seen Sully yet.

"Sully?" Nate called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Sully!"

Over the general commotion of the cavern, Nate heard the sound of his mentor's signature revolver firing repeatedly, and he spotted the older man crouched behind the crumbling parapet of a roof as he fired on a group of guardians that had surrounded him. "They've got me pinned down, kid!" he yelled. "I need backup!"

Just then, Nate saw one of the Chinese guardians with a flame thrower slung over his shoulder begin scaling the side of the building Sully was on. Nate's eyes went wide with horror, and he began pumping his legs as hard and fast as they would go to get to his surrogate father. "SULLY!" he screamed as he again launched over the alley.

The clay and mud masonry crumbled beneath his feet as he touched down and Nate fell forward, landing on his stomach with his top half on the roof while his legs dangled below him. The impact knocked the wind out of him, and he groaned as his stomach twisted in pain. "Come on, Nate, get up!" he chided himself as he staggered to his feet and forced his body back into a run despite the protests of his gut. Seeing Xu Fu's soldier make it to the rooftop and reach for his hellish weapon, Nate pulled out his Para 9 and paused on the parapet of the roof to take aim. Two clean shots connected with the soldier's chest, stunning him for a moment, and Nate jumped across the gap and kept running. "Almost there, Sully!" he called.

The older man turned to see what Nate had been firing at and immediately leaped to his feet when he saw the approaching guard. "Jesus Christ!" he yelled as he pointed his gun and fired.

Only two more buildings stood between Nate and Sully, but the Atlantean was quickly advancing on Sully despite his attacks. "Back the hell off, ya' dirty rascal!" Sully roared. The guardian gave an almost careless backhand, as if swatting at a pesky insect, and knocked the gun out of his hands. Sully took a step back, but in the next moment a kick to the chest sent him flying to the edge of the building. As he groaned in pain and the guardian lifted his flamethrower, Nate piled on every bit of steam he had and reached the edge of the final house between him and his mentor. With an angry cry, Nate was airborne and coming down on the Atlantean with such force that both of them tumbled over the far side of the roof and into the alley below. Screaming as he pushed the guard in front of him, Nate closed his eyes as they hit the side of the next building over and smashed through the crumbling mud and wood wall, landing inside the house on top of a pile of debris. "Glad that was your back and not mine!" Nate yelled as he rolled off of his opponent and grabbed him by his shenyi robe, then hauled him to his feet so he could deliver a brutal punch to the face. As the guardian staggered backward with the ferocity of Nate's attack, Nate grabbed the flamethrower from him and turned it around on its owner. He squeezed the primitive trigger mechanism and winced as it unleashed a storm of fire on the guardian.

"Sorry, pal," Nate said afterward as he climbed out the hole they had knocked in the wall, "but you guys do not make this easy!"

Outside, the group of Atlanteans were split between maintaining their attack on Sully and investigating the new threat that had just come crashing in. As the hideous soldiers turned their attention on him, Nate pulled the trigger on the flame thrower and swept it slowly back and forth, driving them back by the sheer intensity of the fire. "Sully!" he shouted over the roar, "get out of there!". When the guardians were sufficiently stunned and disoriented, Nate slung the bizarre torch over his shoulder and turned to run toward the door, while also keeping an eye on Sully who was above and just a little ways in front of him.

A crash and a snarl behind made him look back to see that the burning guardians were close behind him and taking aim with their crossbows. Nate cursed and willed his legs to move faster.

"Up here, kid!"

He looked up to see Sully crouched on the corner of a building and reaching down to him, ready to pull him up. Nate jumped, grabbed his hand, and was hauled onto the roof just as several darts ricocheted off the wall where he had been only milliseconds before. "Great timing!" Nate said breathlessly. "Thanks!"

"Not too bad yourself!" Sully returned the favor as they began sprinting along the tops of the houses, clearing gap after gap on their way to the exit. "You know, if someone woulda' warned me it'd be like this, I'd have brought some marshmallows!"

"Guess we'll have to stick with roasting wieners instead!" Nate yelled as he launched into another jump.

Reaching the end of the settlement, Nate and Sully bolted across the last stretch of open ground between them and the door in a half-crouch, as the other three who had already made it provided cover fire on the guardians that were quickly enclosing on them. "Hit the button!" Nate screamed at Sully, who had reached the exit first. The round stone that sealed the entrance against intruders began rolling shut as Nate raced with a smoldering guardian that was so close behind him he could nearly feel the creature's breath on his neck.

"Nate!" Chloe called frantically.

"Time to get skinny!" Nate shouted as he dove through the last remaining sliver of freedom just before the stone closed, crushing the guardian that was chasing him while it was halfway through, a Greek Fire grenade clutched and ready in its hand. "I'll be taking that," Nate said, grabbing the clay orb as he scrambled away. The entrapped, immortal being snarled and growled like a rabid dog, it's eyes positively venomous as it glared at them, unable to move. Knowing it was only seconds until the other Atlanteans pushed the button to open the way again, Nate turned and said, "Chloe! Would you do the honors?"

"Gladly!" she said, pulling the RPG off her back that she had snagged from Floki's goons as they were leaving the treasure chamber. "Step back, everyone." A rumble echoed through the chamber, heralding the door being opened again, and the entrapped guardian lunged forward while a single rocket streaked from the muzzle of the RPG and exploded. Striking the wall of the cave just above the door, the rocket's blast caused a cave-in that both buried the guardian and covered the entrance permanently. "Thank god for small favors!" Chloe noted blithely as the dust settled. "Though that was my only rocket-" she sighed and tossed the empty gun away. "It was fun while it lasted."

Cutter shook his head and rested his fists on his hips, still breathing heavily as he said, "Those things are right dangerous. We've got to keep them contained in here somehow!"

"Hear, hear!" chimed in Molly.

"He's right," Sully rumbled, turning to Nate. "We'd better quit messin' around down here and find a way to block that gate before these guys get out!"

Nate's countenance instantly fell, and he looked suddenly moody and sullen as he moved his gaze past Sully to a narrow stone bridge behind him. The bridge spanned a deep chasm which stretched desolately into the darkness in both directions, while on the other side, a small landing with a door lay waiting, beckoning to them to cross. "Yeah," he said somberly. "Let's go."

The rag-tag group of treasure hunters moved across the bridge in near-silence with Nate straggling at the back. Any noises they did make echoed forlornly through the craggy canyon like ghostly voices of Atlantis' sorrowful history, lending a chill to the air that wasn't just from the coolness of the cavern. When the group had nearly reached the opposite side, the now-familiar crash of stoneware breaking and the whoosh of fire igniting made them turn suddenly. Four pairs of eyes widened as they saw Nate standing on the opposite end of the bridge, with a veritable wall of flame between him and them.

"Nate!" Sully snapped, unable to keep the concern from his voice. "What the hell are you doin'?"

Grimly, Nate looked at them through the flames. "I'm making sure those guardians don't get out."

Chloe scoffed in disbelief. "And how exactly do you plan on doing that? You just going to go in there and ask them real nicely?"

Nate didn't reply right away, and instead turned slightly away from them so he could view the rock wall behind him where Chloe's RPG had opened a hole into another tunnel above. "The explosives Floki's men abandoned in the tunnels: if I set them off, it should trigger a volcanic eruption, maybe even a tsunami," he paused and looked directly at them, "and seal up Atlantis for good- the same way the gods did."

Molly's expression was a mixture of concern and confusion as she called to him, "You'll never have enough time to make it out once you activate those explosives!"

Turning to again fully face them, Nate said simply, "I know." The flickering firelight threw an ominous cast on him, accentuating his seriousness.

"Goddammit Nate!" Sully exploded, jabbing a finger at him. "Don't even think about going back down there! There's other ways we can do this!"

Nate only began backing away from them in response. "I'm sorry I dragged you all into this," he called, his voice strained.

"No one dragged us into this!" Sully shouted. "Nate, don't do this! Nate!" He lunged forward but had to stop a few paces away from the blistering heat of the fire. Nate turned and ran the other way, then threw himself onto the cavern wall. With all the agility befitting him, he quickly scampered up the rock face and disappeared into the opening of the tunnel, and just like that was lost to sight of the four standing helplessly on the bridge. "Sonuvva b-" Sully trailed off, his anger giving way to despair as his voice dropped with pain. "Goddamn it, kid, why do you have to do stuff like this?"

After a moment, Chloe put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Sully," she said softly, but urgently. "Maybe we can find another way through the tunnels and meet up with him." She met the older man's troubled face with earnestness in her eyes. "Either way, we've got to keep going! If these guardians get free, they could wreak havoc on the world." Swallowing as she tried to affect a confidence she didn't feel, Chloe added, "Nate- he's a legend, Sully, and he's been through a lot of crazy stuff. He'll think of something."

Charlie and Molly looked on with grim expressions while Chloe watched him searchingly, pleadingly as he stared after his protege. Finally, Sully tore his gaze away from the last spot he had seen Nate and turned back to the others. "You're right," he mumbled, his head hung dejectedly. He swallowed hard, lifted his chin, and heaved a heavy breath. With a hard-set jaw he said, "Let's go."

A/N: In case anyone's wondering, Greek fire is a real thing, but the first use of it wasn't until well after Aristotle's or Xu Fu's time. I used it anyway, 'cause I figured that Atlantis was supposed to be a technologically advanced empire, and this is a work of fiction, so why not? Maybe that's where the Byzantines got the recipe from, right?