Hello guys, thanks for picking this as your story of choice for the moment. I really hope you like it, and I really hope you find my take on the story and characters to be interesting and entertaining. This story does not take place in any movie, it kind of has its own timeline. Also, there will be a great deal of modern day pop culture references since the story has a lot of focus on Larry's son Nicky and his friendship with the Pharaoh. Anyway, enjoy and please do review and follow for more silly antics and misadventures.
disclaimer: I do not own any part of Night at the Museum
"40-Love. Game point." a robotic female voice stated mater-of-factly through the surround sound speakers of an abandoned intern office. On screen, a bunch of very strange looking bowling pin shaped figures with large heads and hovering spears for arms hopped around on their non-existent legs in celebration. A clap track played in the background.
"Well this just doesn't make any sense, how do they expect a person to hit a ball when it doesn't actually exist!? And with a white stick thing covered in buttons none the less!" Teddy Roosevelt stood in shock and awe at the television screen before him. He remembered playing tennis every now and again with his family, but this "Wii" tennis thing made absolutely no sense to him. Nicky Daley had told him that it was a game so easy, even a cave man could do it. He said that all Teddy had to do was swing his arm around and try not to think too much about what he was actually doing. He said that the "Wii" thing was very easy to fool into thinking you were actually trying to do what you were suppose to. This much must have been true, for Theodore had actually had been beaten by a neanderthal. The president attributed this to his ever present habit of over thinking things. It seemed that these new "video games" especially the ones that fell under the "virtual reality" category really weren't his thing. They required too little thinking.
Standing next to Teddy, a very happy caveman was jumping up and down enthusiasticly. He was amazed by the white stick he could swing around in front of the "fire box" that made pictures. He didn't entirely understand what exactly it was thet he was doing but he could tell by his competitor's posture that he had some how managed to win whatever game they had been playing. It was officially the best day of his life.
With a heavy sigh Teddy slipped the safety strap off of his wrist before wandering over and helping his excited "before common era" friend do the same.
"Good game old sport." He congratulated his competitor, with a hardy slap on the back.
The cave man returned the favor, causing Teddy to jump forward slightly with the force. He rubbed his shoulder, and shot the ecstatic cave person a very dignified and presidential "death glare." Off in the corner of the room, Sacajawea attempted to hide her amusement behind her latest issue of "Gardening Weekly" which Larry had brought her earlier that evening as a surprise.
Teddy caught her amused smile just as she was pulling the magazine over her face. He smiled slyly to himself and shook his head wondering what it was that he did to deserve a woman who still managed to be so lovely, even while mocking him.
Nicky Daley stood in the rickety doorway of the old abandoned office/museum game room with his honorary big brother, Ahkmenrah, by his side. The look on his face was one of confusion and creeped-out-ness. He didn't completely understand love; He was too young and was the product of divorced parents. All he knew was that girls had cooties and marriage wasn't forever and ended in a lot of arguing. This being said, watching teddy stand there, Wii remote in hand, making goo-goo eyes at Sacajawea was making him sick.
Ahkmenrah, Fourth king of a Fourth king and ruler of the land of his people, chuckled quietly to himself. He remembered very clearly what he was like at Nicky's age and the look on his best friend's face was quite amusing. Romance hadn't been a common thing in the museum before Larry had arrived, especially not between two models from different exhibits (Gus and the other awful night guards hardly allowed romance between members of a single exhibits), so now that it had begun to blossom, Ahkmenrah was determined to make sure nothing stifled it. Furthermore, he was determined that his friend's childish comments about the supposed invisible parasites living on females. No, the "cooties" wouldn't be ruining anything for anyone as long as he was around to make sure that Nicky didn't inform anyone about that modern day scientific discovery. Now, if only he could interrupt the pair before Nicky did...
The Pharaoh cleared his throat, causing the 26th President of the United States to jump...nearly out of his skin. It wasn't what the Egyptian king had had in mind, but it had worked none the less.
"Ah, hello boys!" Teddy greeted, sounding a bit startled still, "How are you this evening?"
"I am well, thank you Theodore." Ahkmenrah replied with a slight bow before sliding his hand beneath his honorary brother's chin to shut his gaping mouth.
Nicky looked up at him stunned. Nothing that had just happened registered in his young mind.
The older boy stood a little taller, a mischievous look in his eye and a sly smile playing about the corners of his mouth.
"Nicky, I do believe the President has asked you how you fare this evening, it would be rather rude of you not to respond." He scolded gently in his best "Pharaoh" voice.
"Uh..." Nicky fumbled, "Oh, Um...I'm alright." He blushed a deep crimson.
"Very good." Replied Teddy with an amused look in his eye.
Sacajawea giggled behind her magazine as she rose from the couch in the corner of the room. With Teddy's look of amusement mirrored in her eyes, she crossed the room to take her gentleman's arm.
"Hello boys." She greeted them warmly.
Off to the side, the caveman grunted irritatedly before randomly sprinting out of the room, pushing past the two boys in the doorway. Nobody even blinked in surprise. Outbursts like this had become the norm for the cave people. However, the air in the room still hung heavy with the awkwardness of earlier events.
Sacajawea was the one who finally broke the silence.
"Well,Theodore we really must be off. Attila's horses have probably driven Texas to the brink and you did promise the boys they could play the white stick game when you were finished."
"Indeed I did." Replied Teddy, "Boys, I do hope you have a grand time, and my good Pharaoh" he turned to Ahkmenrah, "I hope the stick game makes more sense to you than it did to I."
The king smiled, "Thank you Theodore."
"Well, we must be off" The president tipped his hat to the two boys as he lead his lady from the room.
The King nodded politely to the pair as they passed, and Nicky gave an awkward wave. His eyes dropped to the floor as soon as the two love birds rounded the corner and out of sight. His cheeks still burned a deep crimson.
The Pharaoh, who had managed to keep himself composed throughout the entire extremely awkward ordeal, let out one very un-regal snort...that soon erupted into a poorly concealed snicker. He knew it was wrong, especially since he really did feel for his young friend, but he honestly couldn't help it. That and for some reason, Nicky took the regal right out of him. When the ten year old glared at him, he tried his best to put his "Pharaoh" face back on, but a smile couldn't help but play at the corner of his mouth as it had done before. Thankfully, Nicky gave in and let a smile overcome him as well.
"Shut up." He grumbled, gently slugging his friend in the arm, "Let's just move the couch back so we can play."
A few minutes later the boys had managed to put everything back where it belonged. What really (as Nicky would put it) "sucked" about having a game room in a small intern office was that in order to play games that required the whole body like "Wii sports" or "Dance Dance Revolution" was that the couches and end tables that were set up often had to be pushed off to the side and stacked on top of each other (especially the extra chairs). This became a great inconvenience whenever a different kind of sit-down game was to be played. Everything had to be put back in it's place and it took some time to do. So when everything was finally back together, the Egyptian King was more than happy to sink back into the soft cushions of the used, moth eaten, 1970s thrift store couch. Nicky however, was still full of energy.
"So Ahk, do you want to play 'Mario Cart 7' or 'Mario Party 8'?" He asked as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, buzzing with life and youth.
"What is the difference?"
"Well, Mario Cart is a racing game. You have a car that you can customize to look however you want, and drive however you want based on the items you unlock. The cars look different for every character as well. Mario party is a game with lots of little games inside. You can choose a bunch of different board games, and then when you roll the dice sometimes you have to go through little challenges called 'min-games'. It's really fun...well, actually they both are."
"Hmmm. So Mario's cart, is that like a chariot racing game?"
"Um, no. It's like remote controlled cars...like Jed and Octavius's."
"Oh, alright. I think I understand. So does this Mario own both of these games? Did you borrow them from him?"
"No. Mario is the main character of the game. He has a lot of games written about him and his little brother Luigi."
"Does he now?"
"Yeah. Mostly the games are about them trying to rescue their friend Princess Peach, but sometimes they make games about board games, or racing, or battling other game heroes...like 'Super Smash Brothers Brawl.'"
"He smashes and brawls with his brothers?"
"Well...kind of. That game is a little too complicated for you yet though...so let's just pick one of the two I mentioned before."
The Pharaoh nodded in understanding, "Alright. Well, I always did like chariot races. Why don't we play Mario's cart."
"Cool!" Nicky walked up to the Wii and popped the disk into the slot.
"So Nicky, how does Mario get his carts onto the white stick system?"
"Um...that's a complicated question. I don't really understand it myself. It has a lot to do with how the wires are arranged inside the system and how the laser reads the disk."
"Mario has his carts on a disk...like how George Lucas has his stories on disks...like DVDs?"
"Yeah! Like a DVD, but it can only work on the Wii."
"And the 'We' is...?"
"This white box." he placed his hand on the slender and sleek gaming system that glowed a bright blue as it came to life.
"And the white sticks?"
"Are the wireless controllers. The black bars on the front are the sensors. They allow the console to communicate with how you move while holding the controller."
"Oh, I see."
Nicky took out the two steering-wheel shaped, plastic holders for the Wii remotes that made them easier to use while playing Mario cart.
"And what are those?"
"Controller adapters...they make it easier to steer the carts."
"They look like the wheel inside Jed's Jeep."
Nicky giggled, "That's because they basically are."
Hours later, Ahkmanrah had finally gotten the hang of driving around the most basic track in 'Mario Cart' and he was pretty good to. In fact, on his last round, he beat Nicky last minute because by "the grace of Ra" he got a blue shell from one of the mystery boxes. Nicky was stopped dead in his tracks milliliters from the finish line, and stalled just long enough for the Pharaoh's chosen character, Bowser, to cross the finish line before his friend had a chance to properly recover. Although the young Daley was ever so slightly bummed by this experience, he couldn't help but relish in Ahkmenrah's victory. The two whooped and hollered like they had just won the Stanley Cup.
Larry Daley, Night Guard at the Museum of Natural History and Guardian of Brooklyn, now stood in the doorway watching his two sons (Ahkmenrah might be a 4000 year old Egyptian king who died at the age of 18, but he was still considered family none the less) carry on like two overly excited sports fanatics at the World Cup. It warmed his heart to see them this happy. It really was a shame that he was about to ruin their night completely.
"Hey guys," He called into the room as cheerfully as he could, "What's going on?"
"Oh. Sorry Guardian, were we being too loud? I'm terribly sorry for the disturbance, it's just that I have borrowed Mario's cart and I managed to find a blue, enchanted turtle that I threw at Nicolas and stalled his cart temporarily, causing me to leave the competition victorious."
Larry gave him a very confused look.
"We were playing 'Mario Cart' dad," Nicky explained, "And Ahk used a blue shell on me right as I was about to cross the finish line. He raced past me and won."
"Oh..."Larry understood perfectly, "Well done Ahkmenrah. Congrats on learning to play 'Mario Cart.'"
"Thank you Guardian." He beamed.
"Look guys," Larry continued nervously, "I hate to ruin your evening, but we need to talk."
"Is there something the matter Guardian?"
"Dad, what's wrong?"
"Well...you both should sit down."
They did as they were asked.
Larry scratched the back of his neck, not knowing how to continue. What he was about to say was going to ruin more than just their night. This news was probably about to ruin both of their lives.
"You see guys, the thing is..."
"Just spit it out dad!"
"Alright!...Look, McPhee asked me to pick up some reports off of his desk tonight to look over for the new security procedures that are going to be enacted in six months time, which I think is a little over-kill to give me that far in advance, but you know McPhee, and well after finding out what I did I'm glad he's so OCD, and..."
"You are babbling Guardian." Ahkmenrah was becoming impatient.
Larry took a deep breath and looked the Pharaoh right in the eyes. He knew the best way to go about this was to just say it.
"The museum has lost a lot of funding. They are selling your exhibit back to Egypt to make up for the loss."
There was a heavy moment of silence.
Nicky was the first to speak...or rather scream.
"WHAT!" he raged, "Do the others know about this!?"
"Well...not yet. I figured since Ahk was the one involved, he should be the first to know. Speaking of Ahk, are you alright."
The pharaoh sat rigid and pale on the edge of the couch, his world metophorically crashing around him. No, actually, his world was literally crashing down around him. The room was spinning and his vision was blacking out. He had to get out of there before he injured himself...or worse, his pride. He couldn't let his friends see him like that: weak and defenseless. He was a ruler and a strong, dignified ruler, not a weak and helpless peasant.
The young king jumped to his feet, and briskly walked out the game room door and into the vacant marble-floored hallway.
"Ahk! Where are you going?" Nicky called after him as he rose to chase after him.
Larry stopped him in the doorway.
"Nick, just let him deal with this on his own right now, okay?"
"No!" The child struggled against his father's restraint. He broke free just as the sound of metal clanking to the floor echoed through the hallway. Nicolas Daley burst into the corridor just in time to see the his best friend's unconscious head hit the floor, and his great crown slowly roll away from the young hand that had clearly tried to catch it as it's owner fell to the floor.
Disclaimer: I also do not own any part of Mario Cart or Nintendo