New story is finally done! This one will be longer, so buckle up ya'll! Note: I used google translate for all the Italian bits so I appologize for any mistranslation.


Present Day

I awoke with a groan, lifting a hand to clutch my throbbing head. Opening my eyes, I frowned in confusion. I was in a train that, after glancing around, appeared to be hanging off a cliff. Before I could investigate further, a groan next to me drew my attention.

"Nate!" I gasped, quickly but carefully shifting my position to examine him. He looked as bad as I felt. He had numerous cuts and scrapes covering his arms and face, thankfully nothing life threatening. He opened his eyes blearily, copying my action of clutching his head. His somewhat unfocused gaze met my concerned one.

"Alex? What's going on…?" Before I could answer, he let out a loud, pained groan, clutching at his side. I looked down and gasped in horror. The left side of his shirt was soaked with blood. Nate held up a blood covered hand, inspecting it briefly. "That's my blood… That's my blood, that's a lot of my blood…" He breathed, resting his head back against the seat. He looked out the window beside us, frowning as he spotted the snowy cliff our train car was dangling over so precariously. "What…?" He glanced back at me, but I shrugged, just as clueless as he was. We were both startled as a wooden crate smashed right next to us. "Oh God," he gasped as an oil drum followed the crate. The chair we were sitting on broke, forcing Nate and I to make a jump for it, grabbing the seat in front of us. With his blood covered hands, Nate couldn't keep his grip and slipped.

"Nate!" I cried, quickly snatching his hand, but the adjusted weight was too much for the seat to bear and it too broke, sending the two of us falling out the back of the train car. Luckily, we were both able to grab hold of the guard rail before we plummeted to our deaths.

"Oh, crap," Nate whimpered as we dangled hundreds of feet in the air.

"Come on, Nate," I urged. "We have to climb." He nodded and followed as I began to cautiously slide my way across the guard rail, doing my best to ignore the biting cold. We slowly made our way up the train's chassis. A boulder fell from the cliff, nearly knocking Nate loose. "You okay?" Nate nodded in response and kept climbing. I started my way up a pole, but unfortunately, it didn't take Nate's weight, breaking at a joint under me. He yelped as the pole bent and swung to the side, slamming into the side of the train. "Nate!"

"I'm okay," he assured me. "Keep going!" I continued my way up, assuming he was finding another way. Sure enough, as I neared the top of the train, he smashed through a window next to me, causing me to scream in surprise and very nearly lose my grip. "Sorry," he groaned in apology, climbing onto a pole under me. The train suddenly shifted, sliding a few feet further off the cliff. I reached the top just as the pole detached.

"Nate!" I crouched and held out my hand. Nate jumped and caught my hand and I hauled him up with a grunt. We climbed into the next car sitting on the edge of the cliff. The car shifted, and we glanced at each other. We bolted through the train car, jumping just as the car toppled over the side of the cliff. I pulled myself up then turned to pull Nate up. He rolled onto his side, breathing heavily and closing his eyes as he passed out. I knelt on the ground next to him, shaking him desperately. "Nate! Nathan!"

Flashback

Nate and I were at a beach bar, the ocean crashing onto the sand behind us. Nate took a swig from his beer as I swirled my soda around my glass. A man walked up and leaned on the bar next to Nate.

"Buy me a drink, sailor?" The man asked in a smooth British accent. Nate turned, his eyes widening in recognition.

"Harry Flynn?! Hey!" Nate grinned.

"Hey!" The two men embraced each other as I watched, taking a sip from my drink. The Brit turned to me. "And, Alex, still hanging around with this joker?"

I laughed. "Can't seem to get rid of him."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Nate inquired curiously.

"I'm looking for you two, mate," Flynn replied. I raised a brow in curiosity.

Nate chuckled. "Uh-oh. Should we be flattered, or worried?"

Flynn grinned. "Maybe a bit of both. C'mere -" He grabbed Nate's beer from the bar and set it on a nearby table. I followed the two men "I've got a job for us."

"Really?" Nate asked.

"A client is willing to part with a huge sum of cash if we 'acquire' a certain object for him." Nate and I exchanged glances. There was money involved and apparently a lot of it, sounded worth hearing out.

"All right, I'm listening."

"Now - you're not gonna like this." Flynn set a pamphlet for the Istanbul Palace Museum on the table. I glanced at the pamphlet and scoffed. This guy was out of his mind if he thought we were going there.

"Oh, no," Nate said, shoving the pamphlet away. "No, you're out of your mind."

Flynn held up a placating hand. "Yeah, just - hear me out for a sec -"

"Flynn, we both know two people who were killed trying to lift something outta this place."

"And one who made it out," Flynn added.

Nate scoffed. "Yeah, barely."

"I can't do this without you, Drake," Flynn pleaded. "You're the only one who's cracked it. And you know better than anyone, it's a two-person job."

"No, no, no - four-person actually," Nate corrected.

"Right, well we have a third here," Flynn said, gesturing to me. "And as for the fourth, speak of the devil - here she comes now." I glanced at Nate and found he mirrored my look of confusion. We both turned as another woman walked over and my expression hardened.

"Wh -?"

"Chloe Frazer," Chloe introduced, cutting Nate off and holding out her hand.

"Nate. Drake. Nathan Drake," Nate said, shaking her hand.

"Alex King," I said flatly, not bothering to shake her hand as I took another sip of my drink. Chloe didn't seem bothered by my cold tone as she walked around Flynn, lightly brushing a hand along his neck.

"Hello, Harry," she greeted in a flirtatious tone. I raised a brow at the display, but said nothing.

"Chloe here's one of the best drivers in the business - she'll take good care of us," Flynn assured us.

"I bet," I scoffed, eyeing her suspiciously. I had been hoping I had seen the last of her, but it looked like fate had other plans. Surprisingly, Flynn didn't seem to notice my sudden stiff attitude and continued explaining his plan.

"All right, look - I've got it all figured out." Flynn opened the pamphlet and pointed to a particular part. "We go in through the sewer -"

"Loving it so far," Nate quipped.

Flynn ignored him and continued. "That puts us in the courtyard. From there we scale up the wall, run across the rooftops, and just drop down into the exhibit hall. Bob's your uncle. And what is worth all this trouble, I hear you ask…?"

"I didn't, but go ahead." Flynn turned another page in the pamphlet and pointed to a jade colored lamp circled in red pen. Nate picked it up and inspected it. "That's it? An oil lamp?"

Flynn passed him a postcard with more information on the lamp. "Yeah."

"It's worthless. I don't get it." I reached forward and picked up the postcard.

"Neither do we," Chloe admitted. "That's why we tracked you down."

"Well, it sounds like you're working for a nutcase," Nate summarized and I had to agree. While it was a beautiful lamp, covered in what appeared to be Mongolian script, it was nowhere near worth the amount of effort it would take to acquire it. "Some collector who's got too much time and money on his hands. And by the way, this" -Nate took the postcard from me and tossed it back on the table- "is not work any of it." I shot him a glare.

Flynn grinned knowingly. "But there's more…" Nate paused curiously, beer halfway to his mouth. "How's your 13th-century Latin, mate?" He handed Nate another piece of paper with a paragraph written in Latin.

"Where'd you get this?" Nate asked as I leaned in for a closer look.

"Borrowed it from the files of the nutcase," Flynn answered, leaning back in his chair and smirking.

"In Trebizond we were set upon by thieves," Nate read. "Father, Maffeo, and I were robbed of our greatest treasures…" He stopped and looked up, an excited grin spreading across his face. "This was written by Marco Polo."

Chloe nodded, unimpressed. "Yes, that much we were able to work out."

"Unfortunately, the rest of it's nonsense," Flynn admitted.

"Wait, hold on… 'So that it should not fall into the wrong hands, I concealed my great sorrow in the unlikeliest place. The light of the Great Khan shelters the fate of the thirteen.'" Nate glanced at me, mirroring my growing excitement.

"No way," I whispered, grabbing the letter from Nate and re-reading it. "Non può essere." (It can't be.)

"See what I mean? It's just gibberish," Flynn said.

Chloe leaned forward in her seat, grinning excitedly. "He's talking about the lost fleet."

Nate nodded. "Yeah…"

Flynn looked between the three of us, clearly confused. "Hello, someone want to fill me in?"

"Marco Polo leaves China with 600 passengers and fourteen ships, loaded down with treasure from Kublai Khan," Nate explained. "Now, he lands in Persian a year and a half later with only one ship left, and only eighteen passengers. Now he recorded every detail of his journey but he never told what happened to all those ships, and the passengers."

"So - so, somewhere out there - there are thirteen ships, loaded with the emperor's treasure, waiting to be found," Chloe said, pointing to the map.

"Yeah, and that is what your client is after," Nate finished.

I picked up the postcard of the lamp and examined it further. "I bet you this was a gift from Kublai Khan. This is Mongolian script."

"The light of the Great Khan -" Flynn began.

"...shelters the fate of the thirteen," he and Chloe finished together.

"Marco Polo hid something inside this lamp," Nate said. "Something that pinpoints the site of the lost fleet." He leaned back in his chair with an air of finality.

"So… we're dicking this guy over, right?" Chloe inquired.

"Damn straight!"

"Absolutely!" Flynn agreed. He stood and Chloe followed suit. "You in, then?"

Nate smiled and stood. "What the hell. What could possibly go wrong?"

I chuckled and shook my head, standing as well. "Oh, I think I could think of a few things, but then again, what would be the fun if a job went exactly as planned?" We clinked our glasses and drank, looking forward to the job ahead.

Flashback End