A/N: Seriously, I was THIS close to naming this chapter "The League of Extraordinary Corinthians".

The shadows were suffocating, looming thick with sinister intent as the five treasure hunters ventured deeper into the underground complex below Atlantis. An omnipresent sense of foreboding hung heavily in the air; every pool of darkness taunted them with the hint of concealed peril, and every unexpected noise teased the baleful appearance of the strange guardians encountered earlier. As another pedestal ignited and flooded the tunnel with light, Nate thought he saw something dart across the tunnel up ahead and immediately raised his gun to fire. A rat scurried away into the shadows.

Nate exhaled slowly and lowered his weapon. "It, uh," he swallowed. "It wasn't what I thought it was."

Cutter chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. "Good one, mate."

Sully sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as they started moving again. "Sheesh. Those guardian things have me feeling as jumpy as a Russian girl in a room full of Rasputins."

A beat passed in silence. "Wow," was all that Nate said.

"You always did know how to lighten the mood with a well-placed dirty joke, Sullivan," Molly said dryly.

"I'd chalk that up less to his social skills and more to his general state of mind," Chloe snarked.

"Hey!" said Sully defensively.

"Mate, you do know that whole thing with the Czarina was all propaganda, right?" Cutter said, ever ready to lecture on historical inaccuracies.

A few minutes passed more easily in the wake of the light-hearted exchange as they continued to descend further. Coming around a corner, they were met with a huge opening in the wall of the tunnel, like a massive arched window, the low edge of which came almost to the floor, and they peered through it. Nate was surprised to see a square shaft that reached multiple stories above and below them, with numerous other openings along its four walls on different levels. "Whoa!" he said, squinting as he leaned out of the window and craned his neck to look up. He saw patches of light shining through cracks in the stone far above. "It's a ventilation shaft," he said. "Must have gotten covered over during the volcanic eruption."

Chloe leaned out the window as well and flicked her flashlight on, shining it downward. Shimmering ripples of light reflected back at them. "Is that water down there?" she asked.

"Yeah," Nate said. "Looks like it."

Echoes of something like footsteps drifted up to them from one of the openings across from them and down a level, followed by the distant sounds of voices, and then the tunnel in question was suddenly illuminated with the flickering light from the mysterious bowls of fuel. "Someone's comin'!" Sully whisper-shouted.

"Must be Floki and Garnier," Molly hissed back.

The five treasure hunters plastered themselves to the wall out of sight on either side of the window, but Nate ventured to peek around as the voices came nearer and more distinct. Finally Garnier strutted arrogantly into sight, followed by Floki and a handful of goons, the two in the lead carrying some sort of wooden skid between them that had several small crates stacked on top. The goon at the front of the skid stumbled, nearly dropping it except that the one at the other end quickly lowered the pallet to compensate.

"Hlandbrenndu!" The latter thug berated the man who had stumbled. "Watch your step, you idiot, your going to get us all blown to bits!"

Nate chuckled softly and looked and looked at Molly standing beside him. "I don't know what that guy just said, but it did not sound very nice."

"Mmm. My knowledge of Icelandic is spotty," she whispered back, "but I think it was to the effect of 'may it burn when you pee'."

"Huh. that happened to me a couple weeks ago," Sully mumbled on the other side of her.

"The hell with it!" the stumbling goon growled back, setting his end of the skid down on the floor. "We've lugged this damn thing all the way here from the boat, and it's about time we got a break-"

"Silence!" Garnier commanded. He pointed in the direction of the window Nate and the others were looking out of. "There's fires lit," the slight Frenchman said in a lower tone. "Drake and the others are somewhere close. We must be cautious."

Floki looked where Garnier pointed, and Nate could almost see the veins bulging around his scarred eye as he glared across the dark void toward them. He shot a disdainful glance at his French partner, then stepped forward, shaking his fist as he screamed, "Drake! If you can hear me, Drake, know that when I find you, I will kill you- nice and slow- right in front of your worthless friends. You'll pay for everything you've done!"

The seething redhead lowered his fist, his chest still visibly heaving with rage, and spun on his heel to face his men. He opened his mouth to give an order, but was interrupted by Garnier, who asked in irritation, "Are you finished giving away our position with all of your mad rantings?"

Slowly, threateningly, Floki turned and faced his slight partner. "'Mad rantings'?" he repeated in a voice low enough that it just barely carried over to Nate and the others. "Is that what you call my words?" he asked, stepping closer to the Frenchman. "It comes to me to wonder if you're really just jealous. Jealous that you don't have the ability to back up your words with anything." He swatted lightly at Garnier's arm, where the rolled-up sleeves of his white button-down clinging to his damp skin revealed his rather unimpressive musculature beneath. "You're like Napoleon, but not as good at what you do. A sad, little man who tries to make up for his lack of strength with empty talk and fancy suits." He sneered down at him with contempt. "You, my friend, are pathetic."

Garnier glared back at him with fire in his eyes. "At least I'm not a brainless thug with the education of a five-year-old whose only route to success is strong-arming his way into everything," he ground out through gritted teeth. With a mirthless chuckle, he added, "That eye of yours- you probably did it yourself to make yourself look scari-"

His attempt at a dressing-down was cut short as Floki slammed his massive fist cruelly into his vulnerable stomach. The small Frenchman doubled over with a choking sound, and then was immediately shoved against the wall with Floki's bulging forearm across his neck. In a desperate defense maneuver, Garnier sank his teeth into the burly Icelander's bicep, drawing a shriek out of him for his efforts, and when Floki pulled away Nate could see blood streaming down his arm. In an instant three of the revolutionaries had pulled their guns on Garnier and pinned him down against the wall, while a fourth positioned himself in his commander's path as Floki stalked toward the Frenchman with vengeance written on his face.

"Move, you bastard!" Floki roared at his subordinate.

"Sir!" the man said before he was roughly pushed out of the way. "Sir!" he shouted, again forcing himself in between his leader and his quarry. "Is this really the time to be killing each other? We're so close to our goal- what if there's something between here and there we need the man's help with?" The man looked at Floki imploringly. "Please sir, once we get to the treasure we can all go our separate ways, and neither of you will have to see each other ever again!"

Floki, still seething with anger, regarded the man silently for a moment, then sharply gave a command in Icelandic. The three men with their guns trained on Garnier lowered them, and Floki turned to the French scientist with venom. "You had best hope, monsieur, that the next time you do something stupid like that my men are still around to save you, and that I'm feeling as generous as I am right now to let you live!" Looking to his men, the beefy commander added, "We've carried the explosives far enough. Leave them here. Something tells me we won't need them."

As Floki stormed off and his goons shuffled after him leaving the skid of explosives behind, Garnier hung back for a few moments and stared with hatred after them. Finally, the Frenchman also began walking, and soon there was no sign of the drama that had just taken place other than the abandoned crates on the floor.

"Wow," Chloe said, daring to raise her voice a little now that they were gone. "I never thought I'd say this, but good job to that one poor henchman who stood up to Floki like that. That took some real balls."

"Yeah," Nate said softly, still looking across at the now empty window. "Something tells me Garnier's going to keep pushing his luck though, and it's probably not going to turn out real pretty."

"Well, the guy's not the brightest bulb on the porch, despite what he might think," Sully said grimly.

A short time later the group of treasure hunters came upon a round, stone door that had been rolled most of the way closed, nearly blocking the tunnel."Ah, crap," Nate said, looking around. "Now what?" He began running his hands over the door and the surrounding wall, looking for some way to open it. "These doors look like they're made to keep out intruders. The lever must be on the inside, so the Atlanteans could lock themselves in in case of an invasion."

"Look," Chloe said, pointing to where a rock had gotten wedged under the ponderous disk, holding it back from entirely closing and leaving a small space at the bottom corner of the tunnel. "Someone really small could probably fit through that."

Four sets of eyes immediately turned to look at Molly, who stared back questioningly. "What? Why are you all looking at me?"

"Because, sweetheart," Chloe said, "you're the smallest one here."

"Me?" Molly asked, pointing at herself. "Why not you?"

"Well, darling," Chloe said patiently, "you have a smaller-" she leaned to one side and looked over Molly's shoulder, "...you know."

Molly looked skeptically at her. "Fiiine." She got down and slowly wriggled through the opening, grunting as she scraped between the rock wedged in the door and the stone floor tiles. "I hope you all... appreciate... this," she muttered, her words punctuated with the effort of maneuvering through the small gap. Her feet disappeared on the other side of the door, and they could hear her exhale with relief as she stood up. "Made it!"

"Great!" Nate called, standing close to the door. "Do you see any way to open this?"

Silence came in return. Finally, after an agonizing minute, Molly's voice drifted back, tinged with awe. "Hoooly... You guys should see this! It's incredible!"

Nate ironically shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "We, uh- we'd love to see it, Molly. Just, you know, need this big stone door open... whenever you get around to it."

"Yeah. No rush or anything," Chloe added sarcastically, folding her arms over her chest.

They heard a scuffle and a muttered, "Oh shit!", then there was a mechanical noise and the door rolled aside to reveal a sheepish looking Molly with her hand pushing a bronze button on the wall. "Sorry about that. I... got a little carried away."

But Nate barely heard her as his gaze moved through the door and he saw the vague silhouette of something big, something grand, and something incredible. "Sully, give us a light!" he said urgently, his eyes wide as he pointed towards a couple of pedestals a short distance away. Sully obliged without a word, seeming to also sense the historical gravity of what lay half-hidden in the murky darkness ahead, just waiting to be revealed when he touched his lighter to the fuel. The two bowls went ablaze with a hiss, sending up pillars of sparks and spitting, writhing flames that snaked upward, reaching heights of nearly twenty feet to reveal a rough-hewed ceiling rising yet another ten feet above that. In the primitive, elemental glow coming off the blaze, a stone bridge with low sides came into view, spanning a wide canal just beyond the pedestals. The canal flowed through a channel that entered and exited the chamber through the fanged, gaping mouths of enormous roaring dragon heads, one carved into the stone about fifty feet to their right, the other about fifty feet to their left. At the far end of the bridge were stone sphinxes laying one on each side of the path, and immediately beyond them was a colonnade that ran the length of the chamber, supporting a second-story arcade above it. Still obscured in the semi-darkness, Nate could also make out a large doorway in the shadow of the colonnade beyond the bridge.

"Who-oa!" Nate exclaimed. "This is amazing!"

"That could be the understatement of the year," Sully said.

Chloe shook her head with wonder. "This feels... old, Nate. Like, really old. Even older than the rest of this place."

"Yeah, look at those columns," Charlie said, pointing at the colonnade. "That detail- it's not Greek, it's more Egyptian in style."

"It could be," Molly said. "According to Plato's dialogues, the first records of Atlantis came from the Egyptians, translated by Solon."

"Look at this," Sully said. He was turned around and facing the wall, pointing up at rows upon rows of writing carved into its surface that stretched as far as they could see in both directions. "This place is like a friggin' Rosetta Stone. There's Chinese, Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and... some other language I don't recognize."

Nate studied the strange writing Sully was referring to, but he also couldn't discern what language it was. "It's almost like it takes elements of all the other forms of writing and combines them," he said. Looking to his right and left in awe, Nate continued, "It's like, over time, Atlantis became a hub- a reservoir of the knowledge and practices some of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient world! As each one discovered the city, they all left their mark on it, contributing to Atlantis' technology and understanding." Gesturing to the sprawling lines of script, he said, "If this could all be translated... who knows what kind of secrets we'd uncover!"

After a moment of silence as the weight of their discovery sank in, Chloe gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Nate," she said softly. "We'd better keep going."

Reluctantly, Nate tore his eyes away from the lines of script and looked her in the eye. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The small group crossed the bridge, lighting another two pedestals on the other side near the sphinxes, then approached the imposing set of double doors beyond. They were made of thick cedar planking bound at the edges with bronze and overlaid with gold, and around the awe-inspiring entryway the air seemed charged with anticipation, wonder, and the uncertainty of the ancient mysteries that lay beyond. "Sacred geometry," Nate said, pointing out the pattern of interlaced, gilded circles that graced the heavy timbers. "Common both in ancient Greek and Egyptian architecture." He looked at his friends with anticipation. "I've got a feeling that this is it. Are we all ready to find out what's behind door number one?"

Charlie grinned at him. "Ladies first."

Placing one hand on each door, Nate leaned into them and pushed inward, the ancient timbers groaning on timeless iron hinges as they moved. Stepping forward with resolute strides and squared shoulders, the five fortune hunters walked through the age-old portal and were once again brought to an awed standstill at the scene that now faced them.

If the previous chamber had been big, this room was immense, with the main area of the room set down several feet from a raised walkway around the perimeter, shallow stone stairs that ran between them, and numerous doors along the walls. The recessed center of the room was dominated by stone statues, six of which were fruit trees formed from white marble, full-sized, and in arranged in two rows of three, their limbs heavy with apples cast in solid gold. The rows of the "orchard" branched out from a jewel-encrusted shrine that dominated the wall adjacent to the one where the five adventurers stood, which shone floor to ceiling with sapphires as blue as the sea, rubies as red as blood, and gold as brilliant as the sun. Set into the wall in carefully laid patterns, the precious stones alternately formed ornate designs of sacred geometric symbols, or else appeared alongside images of fearsome, mythical creatures. At the bottom of this opulent display was a statue of a twisting, writhing dragon whose eyes stared challengingly between the two lines of trees. A silver orb about the size of a grapefruit was held in the creature's fangs, while water flowed around the strange sphere and poured out of its mouth into a semi-circular pool in front of it.

Normally, any one of these things would have held Nate's rapt attention, but he found his gaze being drawn to the figure in the center of the two lines of trees, that, in sheer size and gravitas, overshadowed everything else in the room. Nate's eyes settled on the familiar form of Atlas, the world-bearing Titan, kneeling down on one knee and hunched under the burden of an enormous, spherical, bronze astrolabe-identical to the smaller version they had used to open the gates of the city- which rested on his pale marble shoulders. The sight hearkened back to the little statue in the alcove at Delphi, that now seemed like an eternity ago when this adventure was starting and Nate had yet to put the last nail in the coffin of his and Elena's marriage. Nate's eyes glazed over and his stare became distant as he remembered how far he had then felt from the dire straits he now found himself in. Swallowing heavily, he closed his eyes for a moment and tried to banish the images of that day he had so enjoyed spending with his wife, blissfully ignorant of the storm brewing on the metaphorical horizon.

There was two things different about this Atlas from the small one in Delphi, Nate noted. First, this statue had to have been every bit of thirty feet tall, fifty if you included the sphere on top; and second, instead of the tortured, forlorn cry of anguish he had worn there by the Oracle, this time the Titan had an unflinching resolve in his stony eyes, and a square jaw that was clenched in determination. Maybe Atlas was finally reconciled to his awful task, he mused.

"Wow. I could get used to this..." Sully drawled.

Nate suddenly realized that the others had already gone down the steps and were wandering among the man-made orchard, getting closer to the shimmering shrine by the pool. Shaking his head as his focus snapped back to the present, he trotted down the stairs behind them and walked between two of the fruit trees, running his hand over the cool, smooth marble as he did. "Do you have any idea how much money is down here, mates?" Charlie was saying as he cradled one of the golden apples in hand and examined his reflection in its surface.

"We could all be set for life!" Sully answered enthusiastically.

"And then some," Chloe added casually.

Molly turned and looked, pointing at the two lines of trees. "Nate, are you getting this? This is-"

"Hera's garden," Nate said, finishing the thought. "The golden apples- the serpent Ladon," he added, pointing to the shrine. He nodded as his eyes continued to roam, and added thoughtfully, "Or, if you'd like, the garden of Eden, and that's the serpent that deceives."

"So where's the forbidden fruit?" Sully asked off-handedly.

Immediately, Nate's gaze flicked back to the dragon. "There-" he said, pointing at the orb in its mouth.

Chloe reached the shrine and leaned on the short wall surrounding the pool as she studied the statue. "Nate, do you know what that is?"

"The Philosopher's Stone," Cutter volunteered as he joined her at the pool's edge. Chloe met eyes with him.

"The one and only!" she said with excitement.

Nate and the others had also come to stand by them by this point, and Molly tentatively dipped the ends of her fingers into the water but immediately drew them back. "Brr!" she said. "That's ice cold! It must be spring fed."

"Mmm, maybe I'll take a dip in it here in a second," Sully said sarcastically. "It's so hot in here I'm breakin' a goddamn sweat just standing still!"

"Yeah, what's the deal with that?" Chloe asked. "Shouldn't it be a lot cooler this far underground?"

Cutter looked up and over Chloe's hunched form, then nodded his head toward something across the room. "That's the deal with it," he said. Every one of them turned and looked at the opposite wall, where lines of glowing red magma oozed from small cracks in the stone. "This whole thing must be literally right next to a magma chamber."

An ominous hush fell over the group as the stood mesmerized by the cherry-red liquid rock seeping through the fissures in the rock wall before dropping to the ground into piles of cooling basalt. Sully broke the silence with a heavy sigh. "Shoulda known something like that would be the case." He turned and put his hands on his hips while he examined some of the treasures laying on stone shelves near the pool. "I'm just gonna start filling my pockets now, knowing that sooner or later this whole place is probably gonna go up..."

The pieces were suddenly falling in place in Nate's mind. Looking from the blisteringly hot magma to the pool behind him, he quickly dipped his hand into the water, watching as the crystal-clear liquid drained from his skin. Molly was right- the water was frigid. "Mercury!" he declared, pointing at the silvery, gleaming orb in the dragon's mouth. "Quicksilver. Becomes liquid at room temperature. The only thing keeping it from being a puddle on the floor is all that cold water flowing over it. And I'll bet," he said, looking meaningfully at his comrades, "that mercury poisoning is responsible for making the soldiers the way they are. Remember that drawing on Xu Fu's ship? The water coming off the stone may grant eternal life, but it's not without a price. It's a tainted elixir!"

A sudden clamor behind them made the treasure hunters turn. "Ah boy. Here come the Marx brothers," Sully muttered.

Floki and his remaining handful of thugs stormed into the room through one of the other doors, their guns poised and ready to kill, while Garnier hung back at the rear of the group, his eyes shining, undimmed by his earlier scuffle with Floki. "Move away from the stone, if you know what's good for you!" the Frenchman commanded. "Unless you want your heads blown off your shoulders..."

"Bold words for a couple guys who have only been miserable failures so far," Chloe commented, but stepped back with the others regardless.

"Shut it!" Floki snarled, pointing his pistol at her face. "My patience is wearing as thin as my dead father's hairline, so I would suggest you don't try me."

Nate looked at him baffled. "Has anyone ever told you that you come up with the weirdest analogies?"

While the five adventurers stood with their hands raised at gunpoint, Garnier stepped forward and gazed longingly at the pool of transparent water in front of the dragon statue. When he spoke, his voice was slow and careful, weighing each word before it left his mouth. "Two opposing forces meet again... for a final conflict... at the waters of eternal life." He looked at Nate with a smile, obviously pleased at the thought. "There's something poetic about it, don't you agree?"

"Yeah," Nate scoffed. "When you put it like that, it's almost a haiku. I'll be sure to write it down later."

Garnier chuckled and rubbed his hands together, stepping closer to them. "A haiku? No, no. I was thinking more like an epic tragedy- the type of thing that really belongs in the Iliad. 'The self-deluding hero makes it to the very cusp of achieving his mission, only to die on glory's doorstep.'" With a sneer, the Frenchman added, "A pity, really. No, there will be no 'later' for you, or your friends, Mr. Drake. This is where your story ends." Speaking to Floki with an air of authority that would have seemed more fitting if he had not almost been killed by the man only a short time before, Garnier barked, "Eliminate them! All of them. The treasure is at hand!"

Floki stepped forward to carry out the order, but as he grinned at the group of treasure hunters, Nate could see lurking in his eyes the chill of the animosity he felt toward the scientist. "Time to deal with the pests!" Floki said in a gleeful growl. Despite the gun the Icelander was pointing in his face, Nate did not miss the subtle motion of Floki's other hand moving to undo the buckle on a knife that hung at his belt. "All of them," he added pointedly.

With a flash of cold steel that shimmered in the flickering firelight, the burly revolutionary whirled around and plunged the blade directly into Garnier's stomach. The scientist gasped and lurched forward, only for Floki to catch him on his shoulder, supporting his weight as he sunk the weapon deeper. With his face now mere inches from Garnier's, Floki spoke in a venomously low tone. "You really should have seen that coming, Mathis. It's what I should have done back in Reykjavik. All you've done this whole time is get in my way with your empty boasting and your sniveling attempts at leadership." Garnier grunted in pain and coughed up blood as Floki suddenly jerked up on the knife, and the motion caused a lock of the scientist's hair to fall over his horrified eyes. "If only you had come to me first instead of Drake, maybe we could have gotten along. Maybe. But as it is, you're just a pitiful little dick, always led by your need to seem bigger than you are, with just enough strength to make it almost, but not quite, to the finish line." He smiled devilishly at the smaller man that was leaning against him. "Must be why you've never landed yourself a woman." With a final twist of the knife that elicited another strangled groan from Garnier, Floki retracted the weapon and shoved the man backward. Garnier took a few staggering steps as he tried to keep his balance, his face blanched with pain and shock, and then Floki casually raised his foot and kicked the good doctor, sending him crumpling to the floor against the low wall that encircled the pool.

Floki turned back to face the party of treasure hunters. "Ahhhh!" he breathed in relief and fluttered his arms out to the sides, miming the effect of stress leaving his body. "I feel better, don't you?" he asked, grinning sadistically at Nate while still holding the blood-stained knife in one hand and his pistol in the other. Nate shifted uncomfortably as he looked at the fallen scientist over in the corner, still struggling in the throes of death. "He thinks this is a tragedy?" the burly redhead roared, throwing his arms up dramatically. "I think it's a comedy! It's freaking hilarious that any of you fools think you could have beaten me! Just look!" Without warning, Floki shot the nearest goon in the head, and the man sagged lifelessly to the ground. "I don't need any of you! Not a single one!" he crowed.

Cutter glanced around at the remaining thugs who, hearing Floki's lunatic ravings, were losing their focus on keeping their guns trained on the group of treasure hunters, and instead were warily shifting away from their leader. "You're bloody insane, mate!" he accused, glaring at the brute in front of him.

"Oh, no no no!" Floki corrected with a grin. "You want to see insane?" He leveled his gun at the Englishman. "Try this!"

"Charlie!" Chloe screamed.

A shot rang out, and Floki was forcibly spun to the side with the impact of the bullet. Then another shot came, and another, and another, each one making the Icelander's body convulse as multiple rounds of lead struck home in his back. With four bullets lodged in his body, the mighty Floki uttered a gasp of agony, dropping both weapons on the stone, then sank down to one knee, and with a final groan he fell dead on the floor. In confusion, Nate and the others turned from the body to see Garnier standing, pistol smoking, the front of his shirt and pants soaked with blood, and a jewel-encrusted goblet in his left hand. Nate stared, his heart sinking as he looked up at Garnier's face and noticed that, behind the wild-looking strands of hair hanging down, his eyes had a strange, dark look to them that had not been there before. "He drank the water," Nate said, his voice low.

Pitching the goblet carelessly aside, Garnier drug the back of his hand across his mouth and raised the gun at Nathan and his friends. "Now," he said, his voice labored and raspy. "for the rest of you!"

Floki's men whirled around to point their guns at him, but the scientist just laughed. "Shoot me, you idiots! See how far it gets you!"

No one had the chance though, for it was at that moment that a savage, animal-like growling filled the room, and everyone turned to see the guardians of Atlantis swarming through the doors. Sword edges flashed, spear points gleamed, bowstrings creaked, and the hideous guardians fanned out to begin advancing toward the small group of survivors. "Oh, not good!" Sully said, taking a step back. "It's those Greek guys again!"

"Not just them!" Molly shouted, pointing at some of the guardians that were smaller in stature and dressed in the shenyi of the Qin dynasty. "Look! It's Xu Fu's men, too!"

The few remaining thugs turned and opened fire on the new threat, but the guardians were advancing quickly while the bullets failed to stop them. "Time to break for it!" Nate shouted, then turned heel and ran. Garnier disappeared through one door while Nate and the gang ran through another, and behind them they could hear the sounds of carnage as the hapless thugs were quickly overpowered by the guardians, their screams soon falling silent along with the gunfire.

"Nate!" Sully roared as the path began to incline steeply. "What do we do now?"

"Whatever you do, don't stop running!" he shouted back as the hideous noises grew closer behind them.

A/N: Is a double-double cross a triple cross, or a quadruple cross?