Warping to the city was tricky; a metropolis such as New York required teleporting to a location with open but somewhat unpopulated spaces like Central Park or the helicopter pad of a skyscraper, but each had its own risks.
There was always the possibility of warping inside of something or someone which would result in death for both parties. Then there was the risk of warping just a few feet away from the edge of a tall building resulting in plummeting to your death.
However they arrived safely outside of the museum on the steps. A beautiful sunny morning peaked through the skyscrapers surrounding Central Park's relatively flat landscape.
Sheptilah marveled at the buildings, noting they were like giant bricks stood on end.
"Some are taller than the ziggurat but certainly much slimmer!" She remarked. "What keeps them from falling over?"
"There's underground parts to the structure that keep it rooted in place." Eggman said. "We got a few hours before the presentation starts. Let's get Shadow a ticket and peruse the museum."
Her staff was glamoured into the shape of a simple water bottle so that she would not be stopped by security.
They started chronologically, which meant bouncing around the museum. Soon they came to the Egyptian mummies on display under glass cases.
Sheptilah looked down at the sarcophagi with disdain, her lip curled into a slight snarl. "These shouldn't be on display."
"Why not?" Eggman asked innocently. He leaned on the glass a bit but when he noticed Sheptilah's glare he stood straight up.
"Burials are sacred and everything here should be returned to where it came from. Is everything here stolen?" She turned her head briskly, bobbed hair hitting her face.
"Honestly? Most of the objects in this section have been taken," Shadow shrugged, "The only difference between grave robbing and archeology is the amount of time that passes and whether it's funded or not."
"Pretty much." Ivo chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Tilly. If the spirit is angry they will make it known. They have before; King Tut was certainly pissed about being unearthed. Almost everyone involved in that expedition died in very weird ways."
"I suppose." Tilly frowned. "Ivo, what would you have done if you found me in the crystal but I wasn't released from it?"
"Hmm," he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Honestly? I probably would've tried to get you out with brute force or hook you up to something to use as a form of power generation."
"I'm imagining you trying to get her out with a hammer and chisel," Shadow gestured like he was chipping away at something, "Slowly and painfully."
Sheptilah smiled uneasily.
"I would use a jackhammer; you know this." Ivo joked, "Or if I couldn't get her out I'd use her as a lawn sculpture."
The witch frowned.
Ivo noticed, or maybe felt, the melancholy and cleared his throat. "Sheptilah… we've learned a lot by studying the mummies obtained from their tombs. Even the discovery of the Rosetta stone helped scientists and archaeologists learn the dead languages and all about the vibrant cultures long gone. We learned that they had keys for locks, complex surgeries and invented the sundial."
"Somebody loved these people enough to preserve their remains and bury them with everything they thought they'd need in the next life." Shadow pointed to the fragile-looking chair and bed also on display, "Unearthing these things and removing them from the burial site would make it harder for that person to enjoy their afterlife, right?"
"You can't take it with you," Sheptilah muttered, "But yes, it's a matter of respect."
"I promise I wouldn't actually put you on my lawn… I was joking." Ivo rubbed her shoulder gently.
"Let's move on," she rolled her shoulder to knock his hand off, "I want to see the Kemetic Books of the Dead they have on display."
Abdullah Moers stood proudly at the podium, the only expert in his field. Eggman, Shadow and Sheptilah sat in the darkened auditorium eager to see what he'd get right and get wrong.
Moers himself was a very old man, freckles scattered across his brown skin and his hair white as snow. His voice was deep and melodic, his accent a pleasure to listen to.
"Everything we know about the Nannae is second-hand, seeing as they disappeared suddenly about five thousand years prior." On the screen was an illustration of the ziggurat ruins next to an artist's depiction of what it may have looked like: the hanging gardens of Babylon.
"The people were racially diverse Mobians and Overlanders. What unified them was a round gemstone affixed to the chest passed down from parent to child. It is rumored there was crossbreeding between Overlanders and Mobians but there are no definitive records proving or disproving this theory."
The audience murmured a bit at this taboo revelation. Moers waited patiently for them to focus their attention back on him before continuing.
"It's unknown if the Nannae had carved the stones themselves or were born with them. All we do know for sure is that they were fiercely protective of them and it may have been a status symbol."
He pressed a button on his remote to bring up a photo of the ziggurat taken in 1932.
"It's said they disappeared after a bright white beam came from the ziggurat, pictured here. They all vanished at once as if they all ascended without true death. According to some papyrus scrolls recently translated an Egyptian pharaoh known as Zoser of the third dynasty became deathly ill he had sent some militia to go and collect a Nannae witch to heal him. They finally arrived only to find the ziggurat totally abandoned with no bodies present, half-dead farm animals wandering about and crops ruined from going unwatered."
Sheptilah exhaled slowly and silently. She barely remembered that day in complete moments; everything she could recall was in the form of snapshots and concepts like pools of blood and dead familiars. They certainly would have left corpses behind and didn't just vanish; it's just that the final battle was away from the ziggurat so as to protect the royal grimoire.
Moers droned on about the ancient people, constantly reminding the listeners that the information was all hearsay and the cuneiform tablets in Nannaeic have not yet been deciphered. When he flashed an image of one of the tablets Sheptilah had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing.
The tablet itself was akin to a modern sext and was certainly not something you would show in mixed company. The next photo was that of a bronze cylinder that was intended to be rolled across wet clay bricks before firing so that a prayer could be perfectly embossed infinitely.
The concept was to build a home with that prayer brick in the foundation to bless the building.
The last and most interesting tablet was a fragment of a larger one detailing a lovely list of one merchant's boasting of his corn crop and how it was better than his neighbor's.
I told you my shit would fertilize better than your shit! It read in bold print.
"Their familiars were somewhat like slaves according to the ancient Chu Nan perspective. One scribe from Dongxiang, Gansu is recorded as saying the following;" He brought up the next slide showing a very worn out piece of scroll with an English translation under the text.
It is barbaric to share your energy like so and one's magic should be one's own. The Nannay (sic) seem to find comfort in this but it is truly grotesque to abuse this bond for anything other than helping your cosmic sibling. It is theft at its core.
After the two hours long presentation Moers met with some of the academics in the audience. Sheptilah herself was tempted to meet with him and correct the misinformation but decided against it.
"Maybe another time," she told Shadow, "I'll never be able to leave if he gets a hold of me."
"We should contact him later and find out more about the white light he described," Eggman nodded to himself. "I want to know more about your magic staff."
"I'm pretty sure all he knows about the weapon can fit in a pistachio nutshell," she shook the water bottle, "A very small one."
Eggman Nega had blueprints of the Dubai Jewel Museum spread out on a table. Scourge sat with his feet up on top of the prints and arms crossed.
"I don't need any damned instructions. I know how to do this stuff." He spat through sharp teeth.
Nega knocked Scourge's feet off the table and glared at the defiant green hedgehog. "I know most of what is going to happen, seeing as how I am from two hundred years into the future. You need to pay attention to the plan so you can get in and out without being spotted."
High heels clicked from down the hallway. Katella entered the room beside the white MARI with a cup of coffee in hand.
"Hey, babe." Scourge smiled.
"Don't call me pet names, you Ogórki-looking jackass." Katella sipped her drink. "So we get the last three Chaos Emeralds and then what? Capture the witch?"
"More or less," Nega stroked his mustache, "Hee hee hee! We only have three Emeralds left and because I know exactly where the last three are because, again, I am from the future, so stick to the plans I laid out so you three avoid gaining attention."
"I live for attention," Scourge yawned widely, "But I know how to be sneaky, too. Have some faith."
"We have faith that you will be a liability." The white MARI spoke monotone.
"Which is why you're going to Madagascar to pick up the easiest to locate Emerald." Nega smiled.
"Ain't they got roaches as big as me?" The green hedgehog scoffed.
"Yes." Katella rolled her eyes.
"Cool, maybe I'll take one home as a pet. Name it Romeo and give him a matching jacket." Scourge smirked.
"Do not bring back insects. Only the Chaos Emerald." The white MARI beeped.
"Katella, you are in charge of retrieving the Emerald from Dubai. Do not take anything else and leave the fake behind." Nega showed her the blueprints.
"Aw, no goodies for me?" She pouted cutely.
"You'll have lots of goodies once we have the witch and the Emeralds." He grinned. "MARI will stay with me as I retrieve the last one. When you are geared up my transporters below deck will warp you close to your destinations."
"Can I please get some decent help around here?!" Thunderbolt jumped up and down on the table. "Lord Eggman's favorite color is yellow! Do these balloons look yellow to you?!" She pointed to them. "I want jonquil! You've presented me with chartreuse! It's too green!"
The chinchilla fumed. Her Mobian underlings were shaking and profusely sweating under their helmets, grateful she couldn't see their terrified faces.
"Yes, ma'am!" A pink cobra saluted and ran off with the other two, a dog and a cat.
"And bring me gold paper!" She howled. Thunderbolt jumped off the table and called for the chef to make sure the feast would be perfect.
"Yes, ma'am! The cake is six feet tall and each layer is a different flavor Lord Eggman loves!" The rabbit Mobian stood straight up. "I've prepared four kinds of meat dishes to start and made sure there were no vegetables, just like you requested."
"And no fruit, either! Nothing that isn't soaked in meat juices!" Thunderbolt grinned, flashing her sharp teeth. "I want the witch to starve."
"What witch?" The chef asked.
"Exactly!" Thunderbolt's tail stood straight up. "And eggs! Lots of eggs! Devilled, scrambled, over-easy! Everything! I want an egg buffet!"
"Yes, ma'am!" The rabbit saluted. "I'll get the chef bots to work on it immediately."
"I'm very fond of rococo," Sheptilah stared longingly at the paintings, "Everything is so lush and bright. Looks soft enough to touch. It seems people also had a lot of pet dogs. Our style of painting was ugly."
"No wonder you had no idea what you looked like until recently..." Eggman teased.
"You saw those wacky Mesopotamian sculptures with the giant eyeballs! That's basically what our art looked like, too!" Sheptilah shuddered. "Ooh, the stuff of nightmares."
"I wonder how much this museum has gotten wrong in their translations and studies," Shadow mused, looking over the fine details of the paintings. "Given how Moers was off about your culture."
"Modern anthropologists get still-living cultures wrong," Eggman shrugged. "Hell, if the Rosetta Stone wasn't a thing where would we be? Thank goodness that thousands of years ago some guy went I'm gonna write the same edict in our two common languages and three different alphabets."
"So most of the ancient knowledge in this museum is based on luck," the woman smirked, "Almost as if destiny mote it be. I'd love to see this stone in person."
"It's in Britain," the hedgehog ran his fingers through his spikes, "But Egypt wants it back."
"I'd give it back." Tilly shrugged. "Speaking of, we should probably head back to Seaside. I have a present for you, Shadow."
"Oh boy," he raised an eyebrow, "I hope it's not a sweater that matches the Merry Grumpmas one Rouge got me. It's so itchy."
"It's nothing of the sort." She smiled.
"I actually have something for you, too, but I had no chance to wrap it or make it presentable as I lost track of time." Eggman rubbed the back of his head nervously.
"Why would you give me anything?" Shadow sneered a bit at the Overlander.
Sheptilah turned to Eggman knowingly and then back to Shadow.
"Why is it that every time I try to do something nice you damned furries have to be all suspicious?" He furrowed his brow then promptly shot it up. "Don't answer that."
"It's because you're family, Shadow." The woman nodded, white hair swishing against her chin with the motion. "Ur-um. Familia. The universe deemed it so."
"I'm going to remain skeptical." Shadow sagely replied.
"Whatever you need to do to feel macho." Ivo huffed.
