"Hey! Are those prisoners being properly imprisoned?" Mulan demanded.
"Yes, of course, Mistress." A short, fat man elbowed a taller, thin man who wasn't facing the Mighty Huntress.
This other man turned around quickly. "Ah, the prisoners, yes."
Mulan sharply scrutinized the two of them. "Where's the scribe?"
The two men glanced at each other and the shorter one replied, "He's...um...gone."
"Gone?" she questioned dangerously. "What about the DUCK?!"
"Y'know, I was on my lunch break...I just got back...Huy can tell you all about it."
He pushed the tall man, Huy, forward. Smiling nervously, Huy informed her, "Your father, Mistress. He...opened the cell doors."
"My father? Why would he do a thing like that?"
"Boredom?" the short man mumbled.
"Quiet, Hotep!" Huy hissed.
"Did I tell you you could speak?!" she demanded shrilly.
Huy hastily bowed. "No, Mistress."
"Forgive us," Hotep added.
She stalked up to Huy. "You took the licorice."
"No, I...I didn't." He thought quickly. "It was the scribe. I saw him put it in his pocket."
"I can see right through your lie," she growled. Suddenly, her entire demeanor changed and she twirled Huy's beard around her finger. "It's a good thing you're so cute," she said seductively. "Or I'd have to punish you. Maybe I will anyway..." She stroked his chest suggestively.
Hotep looked infuriated (almost as if he was being...CHEATED on), and Huy just looked incredibly uncomfortable.
She suddenly clasped her hands violently around Huy's neck and began to shake him. "So where are they?!"
Hotep tried to pull Mulan away. "Your Excellency, Huy and I VOLUNTEER to find the prisoners for you."
"How do I know you won't run away? Hmmm?"
"We won't!" Huy rubbed his sore neck.
"Good." Her voice deepened as she shouted, "NOW GET TO WORK!!"
Huy and Hotep hurried out of the room.
"Nice going, Hotep," Huy muttered. "Now we actually have to do WORK."
"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, maybe I should've just let her strangle you," the other priest said sarcastically.
"Okay, so you've got a point there."
The two of them stopped in front of a vending machine (as they were rather hungry) and dug around in their robes for some change.
As they searched for their money, a dark figure crouched behind the vending machine.
"Many nights I've prayed," sang the woman, "with no proof anyone could hear; in my heart, a hopeful I song I barely understood; now I am not afraid; now I am not afraid; although I know there's much to fear; I was moving mountains long before I knew I could... There can be--"
"There she is!" Huy shouted.
The woman started and began to flee, and the thinner priest raced after her. Hotep waddled behind him.
"Mulan may have eaten my people, but she will not eat me! And YOU will not aid her!" the woman yelled.
Her running was in vain, though. Soon, Hotep and Huy cornered her.
"Ah, Miriam, daughter of Yocheved," a wheezing Hotep cooed. "And where's your brother, Aaron?"
Miriam turned away, tears silently streaming down her face. Then, she turned back to them, her hair blowing across her face as she sang, "Hush now, my baby--"
"Oh, shutup!" Huy interrupted.
"You can't silence me!" she cried vehemently. She felt the tears stream down her face again. "You'll never silence any of us!"
"There aren't any of you left," Hotep laughed cruelly.
Miriam stood up straight and her eyes hardened. "Don't you have any honor? Any PRIDE? Mulan is less than the fungus growing your rooms! She doesn't care about you at all! She'd betray you in a second!"
Hotep and Huy glanced at each other. A seed of doubt had been planted.
"I would hold my tongue if I were you," Huy warned.
She glared at them. "I JUST SAID you'll never silence me! Is that so hard to understand?"
Hotep grabbed her arm roughly and towed her out of the corner of her cornering. "Now you'll pay."
Miriam struggled, but it was to no avail. The priests had successfully captured her, and she knew now that she would die. She did not want to die, but truly, she knew it to be her fate. All she could do now was hope and pray that her brother, Aaron, would escape.
"In this time of fear;" she sang, "when prayers so often proved in vain; hope seemed like the summer birds too swiftly flown away--"
"Be quiet!" Hotep and Huy chorused.
She shut her mouth tightly and clenched her fists at her sides, digging her heels into the ground so it would be as difficult as she could possibly make it for the priests to drag her back to the dungeon.
"You--are being--DIFFICULT," Hotep grunted through gritted teeth.
"Too bad. It's DIFFICULT for me to stomach what you're doing! LET ME GO!"
"No!"
Unfortunately, the priests were too strong for her, and they dragged her away despite her struggles.
"Again, where's your brother Aaron?" Hotep asked nastily.
"I'll die before I tell you anything!" she cried.
"Then, so be it!" declared Huy.
"Wait! We don't actually want to KILL her," Hotep said.
"Oh, right. Forgot."
This brief moment of negligence was enough for Miriam to escape, and she ran like the wind away from her captors. Oddly enough, after she'd run for about five minutes, she came to the Red Sea. It had been parted, and she continued running until she came to the exact middle of the seafloor.
Miriam was exhausted. She needed water, and lots of it. So, she thrust her entire arm into the edge of the sea, closing her eyes and hoping nothing catastrophic would happen. When she pulled her hand out, she found that the water did not come crashing down, and it also had a fresh, lemony scent. And when she drank it, she noted its delicious, salty taste.
"Delicious," she sighed happily.
When she had had her fill of the life-threatening water, Miriam called out, "Aaron! Aaron, where are you?"
After calling his name sixty-seven times, she had decided she was hungry. By now she had made a friend. It was a little crab.
"You know, crab," she began, "I used to tell stories to my little brother when we were younger. He quite enjoyed it."
The crab, NOT wanting to hear her sappy stories of love, war, and hatred, skittered off.
"I still do love to hear them, Miriam," came a voice.
"Aaron?" She looked up, tears shining in her eyes. She looked frantically around the dark sea corridor. "Aaron, is that you?"
Lightening flashed. Thunder boomed.
She stood up in the roaring wind, holding her arms up to shield her eyes from the salty sea spray. "Who are you?" she called, peeking out from behind her arms as smoke rose from the ground.
"I," it said, "am your worst nightmare."
She held her breath, trying not to cry out as the smoke cleared away.
For there, in the middle of the swirling, whirling, madly twirling smoke, stood Hotep and Huy. Quite suddenly, the walls of water vanished, and she was standing, once again, in the Castle of Darkness.
"What?!" she gasped, falling to the floor.
The priests grinned sinister smiles and approached her, pulling her back to her feet. "Haven't you learned by now you can't escape us?" Huy hissed in a similarly sinister tone of voice.
Miriam started to struggle, and Hotep struck her sharply. "Stand still!" he ordered.
Suddenly, someone said, "I am the terror...that flaps in the night! I...am the--"
"Darkwing, shutup!" a voice screeched.
A puff of smoke appeared and abruptly cleared, leaving a fairly large huddle of people standing there. Since the two of you reading are so smart (and really bored), I bet you've already figured out that it was Ling, Spooky, Crutchy, the good Mulan, Pixie, Dixie, Vitani, Boots, and, of course, Darkwing.
The priests looked at each other. "Huy..." Hotep began.
"Hm? Oh, I'm on it."
The thin man reached into his sleeves and clutched his hands around something. While our huddle of heroes was busy trying to make Darkwing be quiet, he crept from their direct lines of sight.
"Hey, what's that guy doing over there?!" Pixie and Dixie exclaimed simultaneously.
They all turned, but it was too late. Huy had already thrown down what he'd been holding--a fine powder that exploded into a huge, breath-choking cloud of smoke. Ling, Vitani, Boots, Crutchy, the good Mulan, Spooky, Pixie, and Dixie began coughing and tried to run, but they soon found that a large enclosure had sprung up between them and freedom.
Miriam gasped. She wept. She felt the tears stream down her face. And then she whispered sorrowfully, "No." For she knew that the aforementioned group had done nothing wrong. Yet now they were being imprisoned by Mulan! It wasn't fair! "May God have mercy on your souls," she said through gritted teeth to the priests.
"Sweetie," Huy remarked none too sweetly, "we're Egyptian, if you haven't noticed. We don't like or believe in your monotheistic society. We have over two thousand gods and goddesses, you know!"
"And they've all got names," Hotep added snidely.
"Yes, but--"
Huy put his fingers in his ears. "I don't want to hear it! I don't want to discuss it!"
"Just be quiet and come along," Hotep said.
Miriam looked back and forth between the priests. There was no escape. Not now. And not ever.
"Okay," Quackerjack whispered loudly, "This is it. We shall now burst into the dungeon and rescue out captured comrade."
Francisco and Mr. Banana Brain rolled their eyes, and Snipes just hopped up and down.
"On the count of three," the duck said, putting his hand on the doorknob. "One...two..."
"THREE!" Snipes screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing himself against the door. It apparently wasn't of very good make, because it cracked down the center and toppled over in a cloud of dust.
"Subtle," Francisco said dryly. "VERY subtle."
"Hee hee hee," Snipes giggled maniacally.
"Shutup," Mr. Banana Brain commanded--
--right before his head got shot off.
Quackerjack stared in shock at the puppet's lifeless carcass that was now lying still in his hands. "No," he whispered, tears streaming down his face.
Francisco opened his mouth to comfort the grieving jester in this moment of pain and mental anguish, but an evil, sinister voice began instead in an incredibly sarcastic tone, "Oh, I'm SO SORRY, Quackerjack, I didn't mean to 'HURT' your stupid little puppet."
The dust cleared. Finally. Much to the trio's shock and horror, Negaduck was standing there. Two large guns were in his hands, and they were pointed at Francisco, Quackerjack, and Snipes.
"I think," Francisco murmured, "That the most appropriate plan of action would be to turn around...and run."
The three of them whirled around, but before they could run, an extra set of doors slammed shut--courtesy of those evil, uppity priests, Hotep and Huy.
Evil, booming laughter filled the chamber. Surprisingly, it was NOT Negaduck. A strong, whipping wind started up, blowing Negaduck's semi-automatic firearms into a hole in the opposite wall.
"What's going on?" the duck growled.
When he looked at the priests, they only gave each other nervous looks and shrugged helplessly.
"It's Vannecut," Francisco informed everyone idly.
"WHAT?!" Negaduck shouted lividly. "What the hell does he think he's DOING?! Whose side is he on?!"
"Mulan's. You just fell for a double-cross."
Quackerjack's eyes widened in glee at this. "Ooh, Negaduck, a double-cross..."
"SHUTUP!!!!"
There was a sudden crackle and then Mulan's voice, albeit with a slight tinny quality, said, "You fool, Negaduck. Did you actually think I WOULDN'T betray you?"
His eyes darted around until they fell on an intercom apparatus. "If you want to use the Machine, think again, Mulan. You don't know the first thing about operating it."
"Ha! So you think, duck!" she shouted menacingly. "For when I throw...THE SWITCH, the world will be MINE!!" Mulan laughed hysterically and rather evilly (which was getting tiring--after all, Francisco, Quackerjack, and Mr. Banana Brain had spent their fair share of time around evil maniacs).
Then the intercom was silent again.
"Hey, boss, what's she gonna do about the Machine?" Quackerjack asked.
"The Switch isn't in here, you knob," Negaduck said.
"Where is it, then?" Huy questioned timidly.
"In a secret room," Negaduck replied in a frustrated tone. "Even I don't know where it is."
"Well, that's not much help," Quackerjack complained.
"Shutup, knob, I'm thinking." Negaduck thought for about five seconds, then said, "Wait, why am I thinking about this? That's YOUR jobs!" He pointed at the priests and Francisco.
The priests gave each other another nervous look. "Ah!" Hotep cried.
Taking his cue, Huy added, "Rest assured...um...sir."
"Hey Fran," Quackerjack whispered, elbowing the scribe, "maybe you should help them out."
"Why? We're trapped in here," he muttered.
Suddenly, the lights flickered and died. Thunder crashed outside, and the floor began to vibrate.
"What's going on?" Negaduck growled.
"Stop saying that!" Snipes yelled. He wasn't being particularly courageous, it's just that he'd lost his mind somewhere along the lines. "La la la!" He giggled. "He-llo. La-la!"
Hotep and Huy glanced at each other. "I think he's right," Huy said hesitantly.
"Who, the kid?" Quackerjack inquired. "If you ask me, he's a little nutty."
"Look who's talking," Negaduck said sarcastically.
"No, he meant Francisco," Hotep informed the duck. The vibration of the floor grew more violent and abruptly, the mechanical grinding and screeching of gears was audible from overhead.
Negaduck, Quackerjack, Hotep, Huy, and Francisco craned their necks upwards and watched as the roof separated into two hatches and opened, allowing the rain to pour into the chamber.
"We're doomed!" Quackerjack lamented. "Doomed to...um...uh...die, I guess. Do you guys know if it'll be painful? Because I never did have a very high tolerance for pain. I don't want this to be a bad experience..."
"You moron! You're gonna be dead!" Negaduck raged. "It's GOING to be a bad experience, because you're going to DIE! But you aren't going to remember it--"
"Because I'll be dead?" Quackerjack guessed.
"Knob," the duck muttered.
A wailing began to fill the chamber then, and the quintuplet covered their ears against the high pitched whine.
"She's powered the Machine!" Francisco shouted.
No one really heard him, but they'd pretty much figured out what was going on when the gargantuan mechanical monster began rising towards the now open roof.
"This is the end," Huy murmured, just as a blinding light filled the room.
