A/N: Not too sure about having Ahkmenrah's POV. If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to write similarly to Rick Riordan's style, albeit less comedic, because I'm not trying to imitate it. So that includes the P.O.V changes. I might just keep it as Cleo's though, and only use Ahkmenrah's if it's necessary, which might be not at all. Honestly I just feel like Ahkmenrah's POV should be in 3rd person but I don't want it to be confusing with all the changes… ugh. I might just keep it as Cleo's pov. IDK, I'd like to hear my reader's opinion of it, if you wouldn't mind.

Also, I worry that I'm getting my Greek Mythology mixed up with my Egyptian mythology… there's an Underworld as well as the Afterlife in Egyptian mythology, right? Well, if it's in the Night at the Museum films, it's not that big of a deal if it's not, I guess.

Chapter 3

Cleo

We Plan a Trip to the Underworld

"I told you to never come back here." Ahkmenrah stated dangerously.

The knight had a hand resting on his sword, ready to pull it out of its scabbard should the need arise. He had taken off his helmet, and was observing us for any signs of an attack.

Even in the armor, I could tell that he was muscular. He looked like a model, with long, shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes and tanned skin and a well-groomed beard.

Ahkmenrah gazed at us all, studying us. I watched him do a double-take when he saw Sadie's blue hair.

"Please, let us explain." Carter said quickly. His hands were raised, with his palms facing outwards, a signal of peace.

"Why should I?" Ahkmenrah asked. "You come here and attempt to steal my Tablet, and now you are here again so soon."

"Just hear what we have to say." He said. "After that, come to whatever decision you want to make, but please hear us out first."

The knight narrowed his eyes. "And how do we know that this isn't a trap or a distraction so you can steal the Tablet?" He accused.

"Well, I guess you don't, but if it is, feel free to chop off our hands or whatever it is you guys do to thieves." Sadie said, giving the impression that she couldn't be bothered arguing about this.

"Tempting," He muttered under his breath.

"If we wanted to steal the Tablet, we wouldn't have done it right when you're literally holding it." Sadie said impatiently. She wanted to get this over with just as much as I did.

Ahkmenrah sighed, probably deciding, it would be easier to get us out of his of my sight quicker if we could explain ourselves. He waved his hand. "Go ahead."

Carter looked vaguely startled, as if he wasn't expecting to speak without a verbal battle.

He composed himself. "Right, well, see there's this guy who actually wants to steal your Tablet and bring someone back to life. Two years ago, he fought on the side of Apophis when he tried to eat the sun and destroy the world."

Ahkmenrah frowned. "Apophis broke free of his prison? This is a lie."

"It's not. Me and my sister-"Ahkmenrah's eyes flickered to mine. I supposed he assumed me to be Carter's sister judging from my skin colour, but his eyes settled to Sadie's when Carter indicated to her. "- we revived Ra, but he was senile. Apophis swallowed Ra, but Sadie and I performed and execration spell on Apophis. Ra survived and Apophis was destroyed."

Lancelot turned towards Ahkmenrah. "What are they talking about? I don't understand just about half of the words they just said." He said quietly.

"I do, but I can't be sure if they're telling the truth or not." Ahkmenrah said darkly. He looked at Carter coldly. "I don't see what this has to do with the Tablet."

"I was getting to that." Carter said curtly. "There is a magician who was on Apophis' side. His name is Petrovich and he wants to use the Tablet to bring someone to life. At first we thought that he wanted to revive Apophis, so that's why we tried to take the Tablet yesterday to stop him from getting a hold of it," -Carter hesitated- "We decided that taking the Tablet wasn't the best way to go about it, so we decided to guard it while it was here, so we came again in the morning, but we were ambushed by Petrovich's rebels, and the Tablet opened up a portal and two of our friends got sucked into the Underworld, as well as the rebels. But now we have new information. It's not Apophis who he wants to revive."

"Who, then?" He asked.

"Your brother. Kahmunrah." Carter said bluntly.

To my surprise, he laughed. "My brother is in the Underworld. Larry Daley put him there himself."

"Who's Larry-?" Felix started, but I interrupted him. Whoever Larry Daley was, he wasn't important right now. What was important was getting Ahkmenrah to listen. I could tell he didn't like magicians, and whatever his problem with us was, he had to get over it.

"He isn't. He is at Brooklyn Museum, just waiting for Petrovich to get the Tablet and awaken him. I saw his sarcophagus."

He stared at me. I tried to keep the staring competition going, but I had to get him to understand. He opened his mouth, probably to accuse us of lying again, but I cut in.

"Look. We're not going to steal the Tablet, you understand? We just think that the Tablet needs protecting during the day. If you want the Tablet to be stolen, then fine. Go ahead and leave it without any protection. Be it on your own head." Somehow, I was becoming angry. We came all this way to London about a very real danger, and he was just about to turn us away? "We lost two of our friends trying to ensure that this lunatic Petrovich doesn't get the Tablet, and now we have got no idea how to get to them, and if you're just going to stand around doing nothing on the off chance that we could be lying about this well I don't know what to tell you, but if you think we're going to back down without a fight, then you're are dead wrong."

"Cleo…" Carter started to say.

I could feel everybody's eyes on me, and I knew why. I wasn't usually one to lose my temper. I was cool, calm and collected. But I was losing my patience. My breath was shaky and my hands were trembling slightly.

"Aha! So it is a fight you want?" Exclaimed the knight, completely misreading the situation. He drew out his sword.

"Lancelot, stop." Ahkmenrah ordered. Lancelot?

Carter's eyes flickered towards the gleaming metal of Lancelot's sword, ready to draw his khopesh out of the Duat should the need arise, but thankfully, it didn't.

Reluctantly, Lancelot shoved his sword back in its sheath, although he was glowering at me.

"So, just say I do believe you, what would you propose me to do?" Ahkmenrah asked.

I let out a sigh of relief. I hadn't jeopardized the situation with my outburst, and if I could read his body language correctly, he was on his way to coming around.

Carter spoke up this time. "We need to cast protection spells so that Petrovich won't be able to get a hold of the Tablet, so that it can repel enemies. Then we need to get a way to get into the Underworld to save our friends."

Ahkmenrah nodded slowly, weighing his options. "I can allow you to do the protection spells, but unless I know I can trust you, I cannot allow you entrance into the Underworld."

There was a cry of anguish from Felix. "That's ridiculous! If you need to give permission or whatever, then how come Alyssa and Jaz opened the portal?"

Ahkmenrah frowned. "It is not permission I need to give, it is a code. And that is exactly why I do not trust you. I wouldn't put it past you if you were Kahmunrah's allies yourself, and waiting for me to open the portal to the underworld so you could push me in."

My throat went dry. He was accusing us of being traitors now? I took a deep breath, trying not to lose my temper again. "The portal opened by itself. I don't know why and I don't know how, but my friends are gone. If you don't help us, we are just going to find another way, but we don't know how long that might take, and time travels differently in magical places, so for all we know they could be dead already."

Ahkmenrah's expression was unreadable. "You remind me of someone I used to know." He paused a moment. "There is a code you must use to open the Tablet.

"A code…?" Carter asked.

Ahkmenrah nodded. "I may enter the code under one condition."

"What's that?" I asked hesitantly.

"If you find my brother in the Underworld, bring him back."

"Um. Why?" I asked.

"If my brother is at the Brooklyn museum, then the Kahmunrah that Larry fought was possibly a statue created in his figure. If this Kahmunrah is trapped in the Underworld and is still alive, then the parts of his soul would be missing in his proper form, and the Kahmunrah in the Underworld would be only a primitive figure of my brother. If this Petrovich, as you say, does want to awaken Kahumunrah, he would not be functioning as a human being. Kahmunrah is whole in the Underworld and he won't be able to form properly if his soul is in the wrong body."

I nodded. I understood, pieces clicking together. The Tablet brought back the five parts of the soul into the figure, but they were inhabiting Kahmunrah's body in the Underworld, if we could keep them in the body in the Underworld, we could stop the real Kahmunrah from awakening.

"I see." Sadie said. "But if we bring him back, what's to stop Petrovich from getting hold of this Kahmunrah and just killing him, or something?"

"We'll make sure that Petrovich doesn't know, then." I said. "If he thinks that there is only one Kahmunrah, he'll won't know what's going on, and hopefully leave it be."

Sadie frowned. "I can see a lot of things going wrong with this."

"So can I." Carter agreed. "Look, we can't risk it. If we just leave him in the Underworld, then it'll be fine, right? There's no point bringing him back here just to create some more needless risks."

Ahkmenrah frowned. "But I need to see him. I need to- to talk to him."

"Is it so important that you have to put our lives at stake? No. If you want to talk to him so much, go down to the Underworld yourself." Carter said harshly.

I was shocked at how authoritarian Carter had become. He was usually a strict, rule-abiding guy, which was a good quality to have in a pharaoh, but in the past few years since he had become pharaoh, he had become a lot grimmer. His callousness towards Ahkmenrah surprised me, even though he was right in his viewpoint.

Ahkmenrah frowned. He was silent for a moment. I could tell he wasn't used to being spoken to so harshly, probably because he had once been royalty. "Maybe I will, then."

"Will, what?" Carter asked frigidly.

"Go to the Underworld, like you said."

I looked, wide-eyed, towards Sadie like, is this guy serious? She shared the same look.

Who would voluntarily go to the underworld?

Apparently the knight standing beside Ahkmenrah had the same idea. "You cannot be serious, man! I have heard many tales of the Underworld in my youth, none of them pleasant and you cannot be going there on the advice from these… adolescents! It is inadvertently a trap!"

I resisted the urge to mention that I was probably the same age as Ahkmenrah. My skin crawled when he mentioned that we could have been leading them into a trap, but I didn't say anything. I wanted Ahkmenrah to stay where he was just as much as the knight did.

"We don't have time for this. Just open the portal, so we can get going." Carter interrupted.

"No, I am going to the underworld whether it is a trap or not. I need to see my brother. You do not understand, I am his only chance of redemption." Ahkmenrah said with finality.

I didn't know what he was talking about. All I knew was that now he had the idea in his head that he had to get to the Underworld, there would be no talking him out of it.

"Fine," I said, before Carter could object. "You can come, whatever."

Ahkmenrah's eyes narrowed, wondering if I was lying.

Carter looked towards me, and I glared at him. I was tired of him thinking that he was the only one who could make decisions about things that concerned all of us, as well as the lives of my two best friends.

"Open the portal." I said, shooting my gaze back to Ahkmenrah.

"Wait," Sadie interrupted. "We should do the protection spells before we do anything else."

"And we need a plan as well." Felix said. "We all can't go to the Underworld while Petrovich is going to try and resurrect Kahmunrah."

"You're both right. Let's do the protection spells. Then think of a plan." Carter said.

Sadie's hand reached forward, her hand disappearing into thin air. Lancelot jumped backwards in surprise. She withdrew her hand, holding a curved ivory stick with hieroglyphs written on it, and four statuettes with head of different animals. A wand and the Four Sons of Horus.

"Witchcraft!" Shouted Lancelot.

"Everything is magic here, Lancelot. How many times do I have to tell you?" Ahkmenrah said impatiently.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Of course it is."

Ignoring them, Sadie handed one statuette to Carter, Felix and I, keeping one for herself.

"You know what to do." She said.

We moved off to different directions to place the figures at the four cardinal points. I muttered a few words in Ancient Egyptian, to trigger the spell when Sadie cast the spell to protect the Tablet to repel enemies.

We arrived back to the center of the exhibit.

"Make sure to leave the Horus figures where they are. They should be disguised to mortal eyes, so there is no need to worry about that." Sadie said.

"It's all set?" Felix asked

"Yep." Sadie said. "Now, who, apart from Ahkmenrah, is going to venture into the underworld?"

A part of me wanted to go, to go and find Alyssa and Jaz, but I knew that I didn't have enough experience. Sadie and Carter did, they had been to the underworld before, and they had saved the world before.

"If I may, it would be my duty to accompany Ahkmenrah into the Underworld." The knight said.

"Lancelot, I can't allow you to do that." Ahkmenrah said. "There are creatures that can kill you, things that even I do not know of."

"As a knight, I must do everything I can to serve you." He retorted. "I am coming even if you forbid me to it."

I frowned, pharaohs and English knights were from two completely different eras. These two appeared to be close friends, with a long history between them. I wondered how many other beings here had interacted with something or somebody else from a time and culture not their own and formed a friendship between them.

I looked around at the exhibit, where it was empty except for us. All the mummies that had been here yesterday were gone, elsewhere in the museum.

"Well, I see there's no backing you out of it then." Ahkmenrah sighed. He faced me. "You must come too."

My eyes widened. "Me?" I questioned.

"Yes, you need to help your friends as well, do you not?"

"Yeah, but… I've never been on a quest before." Honestly, he would be better suited picking Carter or Sadie. Or even little Felix, who was better at practical things than I could ever hope to be.

"You should go, Cleo." Sadie said gently. "It's your time."

My time? "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Did Sadie know something I didn't?

"Just trust me," Sadie said.

I looked towards Carter who had an encouraging look on his face. Felix was smiling slightly, they were all urging me to go with these people, to save my friends.

"Well, if you want to get rid of me that easily…" I joked. A part of me wanted to stay here, and do what I always did, to help from the background, finding the location of artefacts, and other kinds of knowledge. But the other part of me, wanted to go. I had to prove myself, to show that I was more than just someone who stood in the shadows while everyone else was risking their lives without me.

"So it is settled then?" Lancelot asked.

"I suppose so." I said.

"Great." Sadie rubbed her hands together. "I should send a message to Walt now. Anubis would probably know more about the Underworld than any of us, anyway. He could give you directions, or something."

As soon as Sadie said the name Anubis, I watched as Ahkmenrah paused for a moment, processing what she had said. His eyes slowly trailed towards Sadie. "Anubis? He speaks to you?"

Sadie hesitated. "Yes. Sort of."

I pursed my lips. Sadie was preparing herself for the question of her relationship to Anubis. She had plenty of time to come to terms of her romance with herself, Walt and Anubis, that even though it was two physical bodies, it was a relationship with three different people, she knew that other people were confused about her relationship.

"The god, Anubis?"

"The very same." She confirmed. "Why?"

"I didn't think the god's usually communicated with mortals face-to-face."

"Well, it's not exactly face to face anyway. It's complicated." She said quickly.

"Do you all speak to the gods?" Ahkmenrah asked.

"Sometimes. Not so much as often now as it was two years ago." Carter interrupted, hoping to detract Ahkmenrah's attention from Sadie. "Having Horus's voice in my head was not fun."

"You mean you follow the path of the gods?" Ahkmenrah asked, frowning.

"Yes. It had been inactive for several millennia until me and my brother started it back up again and recruited other magicians." Sadie explained.

For a moment, Ahkmenrah's face hardened, then almost immediately it smoothed out to one of polite interest.

"So you all follow the god's path?" He asked. "I'm guessing yours is Horus, then." He said to Carter.

Carter nodded. "Combat magic is my specialty. Sadie's is Isis."

"What about yours?" He asked me

"Thoth." I said simply, I didn't like the expression he had before.

He nodded, unsurprised.

"And you?" He asked Felix, who was looking down at his feet.

"I don't know yet." He mumbled. "I like snow though."

"Ah. Well, you'll figure it out one day."

Felix looked up, his face red from embarrassment.

"We're wasting time." I said suddenly. "Open the portal, please."

Ahkmenrah looked at me, then down to the Tablet in his hands. He tapped a series of patterns on it. Then suddenly, a great whirling vortex of black erupted into the floor, projected from the Tablet.

"I'll contact you when we find Alyssa and Jaz." I said. "Make sure you tell us when anything from your side happens as well."

"We will." Carter said. "Good luck."

I smiled at the magicians, and taking a deep breath, leapt into the portal beneath us, with Lancelot and Ahkmenrah following behind.

I landed on my feet, years of travelling through portals allowing me to regain balance while landing. Ahkmenrah and Lancelot, who had not had this practice, landed sprawled on their backside.

Ahkmenrah and Lancelot hasted to get up. I ignored them and looked around where we were. Some open clearing, though it was very dim and hard to see. Hard rock was beneath our feet, and the sky above us of void of any stars, moon or clouds. I couldn't see any source of light at all. I didn't know how I could be seeing anything at all.

Ahkmenrah helped Lancelot up, who was hindered by his armor, they both came to stand beside me.

"This is no realm of the dead." Ahkmenrah stated.

"No, but it is in the Duat." I agreed. "If we came out here, then everyone else must have as well. And there were monsters in here too. We should get a start on looking for everybody before they find us."

There was a sound of metal against metal, Lancelot had drawn his sword. "Who finds us?" He asked. His face looked green, as if he was going to be sick. I supposed portal travelling didn't agree with him.

"Monsters. Demons. Things like that." I said. "Not to mention Petrovich's minions."

"And Horus warriors." Added Ahkmenrah.

"Horus warriors?" I asked.

"Well, I suppose they're just a lot of Horus look-a-likes, but only used to do a magicians bidding. Kahmunrah summoned them out of the underworld when he was trying to take over the world before, but Larry fought Kahmunrah off and sent him and his Horus warriors here."

"I never heard of Horus warriors before." I said. "Was your brother a magician?"

"He was. He followed the path of Horus, just like your friend Carter." He said tersely. "Look, we should start searching for them now. Like you said. We shouldn't waste time."

I nodded, sensing that there was definitely something about magicians that he didn't like. I didn't want to press him any further about it, but I was curious. He would tell me when he was ready, hopefully.

Lancelot settled beside me, who, finding no use for it had sheathed his sword. I assumed him to be the actual Lancelot from the Arthurian legends, even though he was apparently fictional.

"So, we haven't formally introduced ourselves." He said throatily, turning towards me. "I am Lancelot, at your service." He extended his hand out to me and I took his hand to shake it, but he raised my hand and pressed his lips to it instead. I smiled awkwardly, and let my hand fall limply to my side.

"Cleo." I said.

"Your accent is strange. Where are you from?" He asked.

"I'm from Rio de Janeiro." I said shortly.

"You are Egyptian too?" He asked.

"No, I'm fully Brazilian. I just have Egyptian magic."

"Oh," He said.

We fell into silence after that. I was surveying the scenery, getting nervous. There was nothing here. Only the rocky floor and the sky of nothing. I wanted to call out for Alyssa and Jaz, but I knew better than doing that. There was undoubtedly some formidable enemy who would come charging for us if we made any kind of loud noise.

In fact, I kind of found it suspicious that we weren't being attacked right this very moment. I ran through the list of Divine Words I had memorized, preparing to speak them if need be.

"What's that?" Ahkmenrah asked, pointing ahead.

I looked up, squinting to where he was pointing at. I couldn't see it at first, but the longer I looked it seemed to form into a long, smoky winding river that ran ahead of us. I was ecstatic to see something, other than just an endless tunnel, and quickened my pace to get to it faster.

I stopped when I smelt the burning. It was not a river of water, but a river of fire. I knew this was enchanted water. We wouldn't be able to put it out, or climb over it.

I vaguely wondered if Alyssa and Jaz had managed to get through it, and how? I didn't want to consider the other option: that they didn't get through it.

But, when I looked across the river, I knew that they had gotten past it, because I could see them. Like looking through a glass wall, was Jaz and Alyssa, though they had their backs turned to me, I knew it was them. They were running away from something.

We had to figure out a way to cross this fiery pit. I had to save my friends.

A/N: I'd like to see what my readers think in terms of relationships. I already have one minor relationship that I'm not gonna say because spoilers, but I'm torn between Lancelot/Ahkmenrah and Ahkmenrah/Cleo. But I'm also really feeling asexual aromantic Cleo. We'll see where the story takes me, but I'd like to see what my readers think!