The Plagues of Egypt: Reloaded!

I'm sorry. I tried to resist, I really did! I know I have other stuff I should be working on, but I like this idea and I want to do it, so I will. Nya! Jews and Old-Testament Christians may find this offensive…

I don't own Justice League. The Bible belongs to everyone.

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Katar Hol marched down the long marble corridor, stalked into the chamber he shared with his wife and threw his hammer so hard across the room that it hit a statue of Hathor in the corner and smashed the puzzled-looking cow goddess to smithereens.

"Something wrong, dear?" said his wife, not bothering to look up from the sheet of papyrus she was deciphering.

"I hate this planet and everyone on it," he growled in response, hurling his helmet behind him and breaking the statue of Bastet in half. The litter of kittens who had been hiding behind it fled the room yowling.

"It's not that bad," Chayera said, conspicuously moving in front of the room's last statue, the strange bird-headed Thoth. "Remember the Marvorkians? They were far worse than anything on this world."

Katar shuddered, remembering the look on the chief Marvorkian's face as he held the mysterious Groogerschien over his screaming prisoner's faces. That was one weird honeymoon… he shook off the memory, recalling the day's events.

"Even they weren't as annoying as these humans! Wait until you hear what happened today…"

Chayera sighed and lay back on the bed. As much as she loved her husband, he could be such a whiny little bitch sometimes.

"First, a bunch of Canaanites barged in begging for food again. For the seventh time this month! What a bunch of scroungers! Then Bashari told me some insurgents out in Goshen got their grubby little hands on some weapons, so I had to schedule a bunch of executions for tomorrow and I was planning on sleeping in tomorrow. And then some wild man turned up telling me to let his people go!"

"Right. Who are his people?" Chayera asked, sounding thoroughly bored.

"The Israelites, apparently. Though the way he looked they could be camels."

"What was his name?"

"Moe, I think."

…..

Plague no. 1: The river of blood

Chayera stood at the bank of the tide pool, staring into the water with a confused expression on her face. A stomping could be heard echoing through the halls and within minutes her husband was standing behind her, breathing heavily. Luckily she'd removed the statue of Thoth, sensing that this Moe person was going to be causing Katar an awful lot of trouble.

"What happened to the river?" she asked innocently.

He stood beside her, covered head to toe in red liquid. Under his mask she knew the little vein over his left eye was throbbing like crazy.

"Moe stopped by. He turned the river into blood. Then demanded I let his people go."

Suddenly Katar kicked the statue nearest him, which happened to be Sekhmet. As the lion goddess of war toppled over and broke, she looked just as angry as Katar did.

"Why don't you just let him take his people and chase him out of Egypt? You'd enjoy that," Chayera asked, poking the sad remains of the statue with her bare toe.

"The Israelites have been slaves for the last seven hundred years, Chayera! How do we even know which ones are pure blood? We have other slaves besides Israelites too."

"Don't forget the ones who married into Egyptian families."

"Yeah, those too."

He huffed, and wiped at his crimson face with a linen supplied by a helpful maid.

"I'll wait him out. He can't pull this kind of stunt every day."

…..

Plague no. 2: The Frogs

A loud, steady humming noise could be heard for miles around the city. The townspeople were emptying all their dishes and vessels into the street. Chayera sat on the bed in her chamber, watching the tiny green creatures hop around the room.

Katar burst into the room, kicking little bunches of frogs out of his way as he made his way towards the window. The windowsill was covered with the slimy amphibians. In his fury, he gathered them in his arms and chucked them out the window. They landed with a wet plop on the statue of Isis, knocking her onto a group of fleeing priests. Isis's calm, pretty face and the priests' ribs cracked noisily.

"Let me guess," Chayera said. "Moe came back?"

…..

Plague no. 3: The flies

The heavy drone and rather disgusting black masses congregating all over the palace didn't bother Chayera in the slightest. She had draped a linen sheet over the bed like a tent and was camping out under it with a goblet of wine and two opportunistic cats. The squelching sound from outside let her know that Katar had returned from the throne room.

"This Moe is really starting to get on my nerves, Chayera. You could at least act concerned!" he bellowed.

"Honesty is a virtue, dearest one," she replied, sipping her wine.

Katar growled and muttered something under his breath. He left the bedroom to the sound of breaking marble. Chayera risked a peek outside and saw the statue of Tawaret the hippo goddess in half-a-dozen pieces on the floor.

…..

Plague no. 4: The boils

The king, his advisors, everyone in the throne room and even poor General Bashari were scratching themselves like mad. The unfortunate populace had been cursed with an outbreak of festering boils. They weren't painful, just really, really annoying.

Moe, the wild man, stood in the centre of the room.

"Pharaoh," the scrawny man bellowed, "Let my people go!"

"No," growled Katar. "Get lost."

"Then I shall call down another plague upon the heads of Egypt!" the wild man roared.

The entire room groaned. Chayera, who was for some reason unaffected by the plague, was casually filing her nails.

"Just give him the damn Israelites and get him out of here," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Everyone looked hopeful and itchy. But Katar cruelly dashed their hopes even as he dashed to the ground the statue of Horus the falcon-headed god when he stood up.

"Keep them coming, Moe! We'll outlast you, or we'll die!"

Chayera sighed, wondering how she could escape tomorrow's plague. Ducking underwater until the screaming started surely wouldn't work a second time.

Plague no.5: The wild beasts

Two lions, an aardvark and a tapir trotted through the corridors with a very angry hawkman chasing them. The entire land was crawling with beasts, from huge African elephants to tiny spiny echidnas. Considering the rarity of echidnas anywhere besides the Australian Continent and the lack of a land bridge connecting the African coast to the land of odd marsupials, this was rather perplexing. Also perplexing was the palace's new duck-billed platypus population's fondness for following the queen around.

Said queen was still infuriatingly calm. She was perched in the support beams with a pitcher of wine and a group of platypus gathered underneath. Katar scowled at her. She was being most unhelpful.

"Well, I'm glad you're having fun!" he shouted up to her. His image as a tough guy was rather hindered by the bush baby clinging to his shoulder.

"This is your fault, you know," she shouted back, and the platypus bleated at him. "Just give him the Israelites, for God's sake!"

"No! This will be over soon, you'll see!"

He marched off. There were three more bush babies and a golden mole clinging to his back.

A herd of buffalo were chased out of the royal chambers a few minutes later, trampling a statue of Set under their hooves.

…..

Plague no. 6: The locusts

Katar sat on the lap of the statue of Osiris like a naughty child, sulking away. The droning echoed all through the marble palace and was like water torture to those inside. Not to mention all the crops they were losing to the damn locust plague.

Chayara was firmly ensconced in her bedchamber. He'd sent her there, along with her throng of platypus that didn't leave when the other animals did, when her relentless amusement at his predicament got on his nerves. He'd ordered General Bashari to make sure she didn't leave the room. He hadn't heard hide nor hair of either of them since. He made a mental note to give Bashari a raise.

A lone locust flew into the palace and snapped Katar out of his brooding. He yelped with surprise and his fist drove into Osiris' face, cracking it beyond repair. He sighed. Thank goodness those gods the Eygyptians believed in didn't really exist. Given the amount of statues he'd broken, they would have been mightily pissed.

…..