The First Night: Alive
The still night blanketed the world.
And with it, the halls containing the accumulated stores of human history set into the darkness. Its previous guardians gone, only one man is left to watch over invaluable relics of ages past.
At the very least, that was all Lawrence "Larry" Daley could do to keep his mind from wandering, either straight off the highway of consciousness and crashing into the deep deep canyon of drowsiness in a spectacular explosion of sweet sweet shut-eye, or… Everything else.
For the first time that week, for Larry was alone, he allowed himself a deep sigh.
Despite his efforts, reality found its way back to his company with no other soul to bother.
His life was one many could say to have many ups and downs, always have been, but recent events have been one very persistent streak of the down variety.
Or if he was bothering with the details, horizontally, not the least between him and Nicky, his son.
He was not the most observant man you could meet, he was not calculative or book smart, and he certainly did not have the mind for the analytical sort, much for him to openly admit. But he can tell the sign, read between the lines; There's a gap there, between him and Nicky, ever slowly but surely the one precious person he has left around him is putting distance from him.
The damning thing was that he had no one but himself to blame.
One thing leads to another, and so here he was: The so-called fallback. Night-shift security work at the Museum of Natural History, an… apparently failing revenue Museum of Natural History, and all that...
He was not a man to take prayers lightly, but internally Larry still then decided to give this one for the Big Man. Larry really hoped, needed this to work out.
No immediate answer came to the mortal man that is he, of course, but the flutter of old scraggly paper followed by a hard flop was a good, loud contrast against the white noise.
!
Spooked from the distraction - he was certainly and definitely was not, - but perhaps a little thankful for it, the greenhorn nightguard swayed forward from his seat at the reception desk and reached down for the well-worn notebook of surprising heft sprawled on the cold, hard floor.
An instruction manual, as Cecil - his senior and now former night guard - called it, one Larry personally labeled as an unholy amalgamate of notes added and moved all-around by the joint effort of three, very different people.
Now in his hands, a close inspection did nothing to alleviate his first impression.
Beyond the plain gray cover adorned with a single word, "Manual" in bold letters. The notebook became a damn good impression of a musical score from how well he can read the handwriting, with some pages torn from age, some torn pages from not age, and… teeth marks?
That last one did raise an eyebrow or two from Larry, but decidedly, the newcomer security guard didn't think further about it.
A quick filter through the pages lead him back to the beginning of the manual, a surprisingly new page was added there, seemingly as an afterthought. It read: "To-do list!"
"Numero uno…A tyrannosaurus's vision is not based on movement." For the sake of breaking the monotony, he read it out loud, but as for the actual content.
"What?"
Some of the checks down the line seemed normal enough, essentials like locking down the exhibits and making a patrol to check on some of the more valuable objects, the dino fun fact of the night was not entirely unappreciated, but odd all the same.
Actually, scratch that, with how Cecil has been at it, he was not surprised that the old man was making a tease out of him again. Not that Larry can hold it against the elder.
From how old this book must've been, the three of them have been doing this for very long haven't they? Leaving it all now, this must have been their idea of a parting gift, getting the newbie invested in the job.
He did, admittedly, let it slip past his mind for a good majority of its acquisition; A tiny part of him recalled his own solo performance on the speaker system, another noted it should've been more appreciated in his humble and impartial opinion, tough crowd.
Well, the night's still young, but a little patrolling wouldn't hurt at least.
What would, however, is holding it out longer than necessary, a stinging pain that should never be ignored told him.
If he didn't need to go before, Larry definitely needed to go now.
As it turned out, patrolling will have to wait.
Lumbering back to the main hall looking like the Tyrannosaurus rex with arms soaked and shaking in the chilly winter air because the dryer decided to not work, Larry was the furthest from prepared to the sight that caught him.
Nothing greeted him.
Absolutely nothing, on the concrete pedestal that once stood all 40 feet of lizard bones and metal wires. The proud museum centerpiece that should've been smack-dab in the middle of the main lobby, just gone.
That shouldn't have just happened, couldn't have just happened. Despite no small part of him fearing for the worst-case scenario of a heist, rationality argued that no one is that fast.
Unless...
"Cecil?" He took a stab, no response. "Very funny, Cecil." Didn't stop him from trying though.
"What's this, some kind of David Copperfield thing?" He watched the shows, Larry knew the things people can pull with just smoke and mirrors, and he reasoned a giant skeleton can't be too difficult compared to the Statue of Liberty… Right?
Tentatively, Larry leaned over the pedestal and took a swipe, whatever he expected to hit he didn't know, but empty air was not that encouraging result he hoped for.
"Well, this is weird." He muttered out what is possibly the understatement of the week.
Just what the hell is happening?
Larry didn't know the answer, and even if he didn't want to admit it, whatever that old man was setting up from the start is genuinely freaking him out.
Yet despite his mulling, a sound filtered through, a steady trickle of water perfectly audible in the absence of everything else, and unless he was mistaken, it was the drinking fountain down the left hall.
"Cecil?" Strike three and you're out, no response came to him still. But there was a lead, and lead meant a possible answer.
So with that, the new initiate to the Museum walked slowly, deliberate steps down its dimly lit hall, armed with his plastic torch, and looking for a way out of the enigma.
What the light shined on made him dearly wish he didn't.
From within the darkness, inhumanly thick muscles - many as thick as Larry's own torso - coiled around a frame so tall it barely avoided grinding on the ceiling, hardened with scales that looked more like metal plates was repeatedly hammered into equally durable flesh until steel was the one that gave into shape.
The monstrous, unbelievably tall reptilian behemoth bore a vaguely familiar shape to that of a T-rex if someone told a greek sculptor to make a replica of one out of pure granite that is. Under no other circumstances should it be called alive, much less an animal. Merely looking as its tail slice through the air was more akin to watching an avalanche in motion.
Yet, impossibly, and completely, utterly, absurdly. Even the part of him that has seen hours of natural documentary, knew It was too real.
It was too flawed.
Small but noticeable white scars littered its deep russet skin, miniscule but in-numerous chips and scratches and cracks on its armor that scattered light even from a distance. Wounds that didn't heal right and marks that were simply from birth. Like those on any other animal on this planet, the marks told that it too was alive.
Like everyone else, Larry read stories, but even his most vivid imagination wasn't capable of this, nothing he could ever even think of would approach this level of horrible clarity and detail. There were always some shortcuts, some realism taken for granted.
For those monsters he knew were not real.
This monster was very real.
It was real, and it was drinking from the damn fountain!
Absurdly; That was the straw that broke poor old Larry Dalon's back, bewilderment somehow won out in the battle against the pure, undilated instinctual fear to lock up every muscle in his body, and delivered one last kick while it was down.
His flashlight dropped from his clammy hand, three continuous clatter as loud as sirens in his head. His response was something that can be best described as "Horror throat sounds"
It noticed that, too.
The delicate pressure its massive claw had on the pedal barely shifted, but the stream of water trickled to a stop and spilled from its drooling maw nonetheless.
In one smooth motion akin to how someone would wipe their mouth, its jaw flexed into place with a tremor that can be felt in the air. And all the while, both of its bright amber eyes lazily swiveled straight into his.
Larry didn't stay to appreciate how it can rear up to be even taller than before. He did the perfectly sensible thing that he should always do in that situation.
"Aaaaaaaa!" He screamed and ran for it.
In the whooping twelve hours that he has known it, the hallway was never so long, but perhaps precisely because of that Larry was able to get one sprint out of him fitting for the Olympics. He hung for the pillar to make a sharp 90-degree skid-turn straight for the main lobby.
For a split second, he at least hoped to make it to the revolving entrance, that something that big would have the bare decency to follow the laws of physics and fumble the turn.
Then he hit a huge shape and fell flat on his arse and everything became very bad and- Teeth!
"Oh, God! No God please no! No!" Comprehension swung straight into horror, like how he quickly but feebly tried to scurry back, putting distance until he simply could no more.
The thing, the blasted 40 feet tall dinosaur was. Right. In. Front of him. Despite every possible law he was bothered to name right there, he realized that the blocky, toothy chomper of the beast was right up his face.
The only thing the horrible realization told him was that it circled the entire hall to intercept him. It got him, could've got him from the very start but decided to toy with him.
Now, the literal jaws of death were encroaching, and he knew for a fact that It would be his final moments, the end of Lawrence Daley, Rest In Peace for he was made dino chow on the first day of work.
Just when life couldn't have thrown him down further, just when he was making the effort to fix everything. He was forced to leave behind nothing but regret and failures.
No nonono...
"Please!" He pleaded, to whom would go forever unsaid because, in the end, he didn't even have the courage to look death in the face.
So... Imagine his surprise when it actually listened.
Somehow, the steady approach of the tyrant lizard stopped, and the heavy footfall he thought for his racing heart became nothing but silence.
The terror was there, oh it was there, just as the steamy breath still blowing onto him like the exhaust of a monster truck. But for just a moment, the lul allowed Larry to crack open his sealed eyelids and look beyond his shaking hands.
Blazing, slitted orbs the size of softballs bore down onto him and almost forced the terror back into him. But strangely, he saw no malice.
A madman's observation in any other situation, many a cat has shredded some poor mice for less by merely being in its grasp, much less to say about him, being inches away from its teeth the size of kitchen knives.
But looking at it, that analytical gaze it gave him was all too familiar, too humanly recognizable, too intelligent. Too freaking much for an animal, no matter how big.
A seeming eternity passed in the shadow of its grand scale.
"What the hell are you..." It was a question, another one for the long list of tonight.
The scaly lids around its eyes suddenly crinkled, ever so slightly into a terrifyingly human gesture of amusement… Or hostility, for his own sake, Larry hoped it was the former, though either would undeniably confirm the whole new sinking feeling in his guts.
By the virtue that he's not being a bloody smoothie right now, this lizard understood him.
This… this isn't something that happens, it's something crazy, so completely and ridiculously out of the pale that he was paid nowhere near enough to even begin to comprehend it. It's literally and metaphorically, a huge deal.
Just then, as if to remind him of just how huge, the lizard reared back, once again exposing his small, downed form to the true scope of its size. The fear returned in Larry but soon was blown away like everything else when it did the impossible.
It spoke.
"YOU... fReSHliNg, NOT rEAdY."
Ok, a wee bit of an exaggeration, more like screamed bloody murder at him at a conversational pace, if that is even possible. A deafening blast of air literally blew away the majority of senses from Larry, and among the chaos, somehow, someway, the countless growls and deep crocodilian bellows came together to form the vaguest form of inflection Larry has ever had the displeasure of hearing.
But it was there, the sound more deserving of a pack of animals making calls in a similar pitch to humans, but it was there, the damn bloody dinosaur that somehow came to life from bones that can Bloody talk.
Larry, understandably, was hyperventilating.
Both from the pressure of a discount rock concert descending onto his chest and the shock finally worming out of wherever he has been locking it in. He was breathing hard and eyes wide, as the towering monstrosity continued to pin him down with its critical stare.
"W-wuh?" What, Where, Why, when, HOW? Was all he was packing in that extremely intelligent response. Naturally, it became lost in translations.
"YOu GivE MAny QUeSTionS."
Or perhaps not, how considerate that the saurian titan of death and destruction can conveniently read his goddamn mind too.
"I DO nOt, yOU SAY MAny QuEstiOnS."
Well, what a nice way to say that he was blurting out his mind in the face of abject shock and terror. Though that bit of sass was thankfully kept for his own coping purposes, recent events showed that he still loved life.
Then, just as quickly as it has come, it went - and by that, he meant the dinosaur, not the anxiety - the Rex rose to full height and turned away, almost casual in the disregard of the puny human it had under its grasp the moment before.
The question as to why again came to him, but for tonight, Larry was very tired of questions. He wanted answers.
"H-hey!" He shouted to catch its attention, but the look it gave him forced him to consider his volume.
"What is going on?" Mindful this time so it came out level, he settled on the most basic. Larry fully expected it to give him very little, considering how stellar of a conversationalist it has been thus far.
The look of pure confusion that it gave him, however, was not expected.
"TheY hAvE NoT tOLd you?"
"If by "them" you mean Cecil and the boys, then no, not quite." He answered, trying to stand on his own two feet once again, with a marginal amount of success.
Some hints made a scary amount of sense in hindsight, but they never told him, something to talk about, but later.
The Rex, meanwhile, was as still as he first saw it. Seemingly in deep contemplation, before finally answering.
"TheN yoU WilL lEarn."
That's… not even what he was hoping for. But before he let that sink in, Larry noticed that it was seemingly ignoring him again.
The massive frame turned to the main lobby, like a tank turret, and began stomping away.
"Hey! Bud, that's not going to cut it." Fear temporarily forgotten - for it looked like the dinosaur was more intent on ignoring him than killing him - Larry ran after its increasingly long strides.
"US WHo HAVE PASsEd ArE nOt for the lIVIng WOrLd, yOu aRE tO keeP It."
"Us?! There's more of you?" He exclaimed, loudly. The thought of more of these things sent him into a stumble of instinctual fear, which Rex used to make an impossible distance between him.
"manY, fOR NOW, YoU WilL LIkEly NeED heLP, awARE, tHe daRk IS LONg."
"Just wait, none of what you're saying is…" He managed to wheeze out but by then the chance of any human to outpace it has been reduced to zilch. ".. making sense!"
Larry was alone again, and just as it said, the night is still young.
"This was so not worth the pay..." Instead of bothering himself more with that nonsense, he took a knee at the receptionist's desk. Leaning heavily on it with a slightly forceful slam.
The hyperventilation hasn't stopped, never did, but it did start to reduce in the peace and quiet.
And with it, came the time for decisions. Lawrence decided on a very sound one.
...
"Name please?" The impassive voice of the operator asked.
"I need to contact Cecil, Cecil Fredricks."
"Ah yes, Larry how can I help you?" Cecil Fredricks answered, by doing so having to distance himself just a little from the festivities.
While the timing was rather inconvenient, the surprisingly well-aged and now-former night guard did anticipate Larry to make the call at some point through the night. Having been in the same position once long ago, Cecil can at least understand.
"THE DINOSAUR IS ALIVE!"
Or maybe not, even with the din of his and the boy's Retirement Party, the surprisingly strong lungs on that youngster still made him reel back a bit.
"Ah, so I see you've met Prince." After a beat, Cecil answered. Hell of a first impression, but as long as he didn't mention the J-word, Larry should be fine.
"Prince? You named that thing?!"
"Yes, and for your sake, you should do well to remember it." He cautioned. "Prince may not look the sort, but he's a real softie inside, take care of him will ya?" Recalling those memories brought a small, fond smile to his aged lips.
"That's not- You know what, I need answers, Cecil. This is by no means normal-"
"Tequila!" Someone called from the back to the cheer of the crowd. Looks like the special of tonight is finally on.
"Tequila!" Adding his own voice to the chorus, Cecil then turned to address the phone in his grasp "Well, gotta go now, see you tomorrow Larry."
"Wait, you can't. I Don't even know what to do!"
"Relax, Larry, just read the manual and you'll be perfectly fine," Fredricks assured, then, like an afterthought he added. "And say hi to Attila for me." Might as well throw him a bone just in case.
"Don't you hang up on me Ce-"
Cecil hung up on him.
"-cil…"
The empty whine of the electronic device was all that answered him, and for the second time of that week, Larry allowed himself a sigh.
At the very least, it was not completely unhelpful.
"Read the manual huh?" It was just where he left it, so it wasn't really a search. But the real question would be how it could even help him. "Only one way to find out."
The first page came back to greet him, but this time more armed and prepared, Larry immediately took note of the second To-do thingamajig.
Number two: Lock up the African mammals.
As if on cue, a cacophony of sounds echoed down the stairs, and permeated across the building proper, chief amongst them one of the most recognizable roars of the big cats.
The notebook clapped shut in his tense hands, it didn't take a genius to know what's coming next.
The lizard, Prince, did say there were many.
"Oh."
Like a switch has been flipped right that instant, motions and sounds spilled into spaces that were previously silent.
Fluttering of real pinioned wings above, earth shaking-bellows somewhere on the second floor, fabrics and fur and jewelry of every color, sounds of an indecipherable amount of tongues. Even the lights on the ceiling seemed to burn in a new light, and the winter's chill vanished without a trace.
The entire museum was, quite literally, alive.
"Oh no."
To Larry, that was when things blended into a blur, he only remembered legging for what he could only assume was the Hall of African Mammals.
At least, he tried to.
Any point of reference he previously had were literally walking around as they pleased, leaping to life left and right because defying the laws of life and death is a casual occurrence now apparently.
All around, actual people that were minutes ago statues, wearing all sorts of anachronistic outfits all engaged in their own circle, giving him a wide berth and the occasional side glance. Larry felt like a lone kid in the world's most bizarre carnival.
It took him passing a pair of some jade lion creatures three times for them to take offense, and by then Larry already knew he was lost.
He would have continued fumbling around like a headless chicken, but as luck would have it, he finally hit a wall, literally.
"Oof!"
Larry thought it was a wall anyway, and the ache in his body certainly agreed. Though the sudden firm grasp on his shoulder that helped him from stumbling all the way to the floor didn't.
"Easy there now." A deep baritone called, Larry followed it to the source, and had to look up.
Ashen pale hair as if aged before their time, bespectacled eyes, and a cordial smile on the frame of a bodybuilder. Yet despite his already impressive build, he somehow looked, and felt, much larger than that still.
He was also the first person to speak English, the first person here to talk to him even.
"Ah, yes. Thank you.." Not one to forget courtesy, Larry relaxed and offered genuinely, this was perhaps the most encouraging thing he encountered tonight. Although…
"You can, uh, let go now." He not so discreetly looked at the large, thickly gloved hand still on his shoulder.
Awkwardness flickered in the stranger's eye for a split second, but he dispelled it with a good-natured laugh. "Ah, apologies for that, you just looked like you need a hand, a little shaken there."
Withdrawing his arm, the man changed it into an offering handshake.
"No problem, and sorry for, y' know, bumping into you earlier." Larry apologized even as he went for the motion, though perhaps a bit redundantly for decency's sake.
Also, the guy's got a heck of a grip, enough to not just shake up Larry's entire arm, but the daunting assortment of items he had on his person. Trinkets, rolls of parchment, pouches that jingled ever so slightly, and a whole sheathed blade of some kind under his huge cloak. He looked fit to take on an entire continent, much less an underpaid security guard.
"Think nothing of it, my friend. Who am I to fault you?" Again, he laughed lightly, brushing aside his concerns. "After all… This is your fight night on the job, isn't it." At this, his smile became a knowing grin.
"Well, yeah." Larry didn't expect it to be anyway hard to figure out, but it was nice, finding someone who knew. "The name's Larry, Larry Daley, what's yours?" He introduced himself.
Strangely, that got a bad reaction out of the taller man, his smile was very briefly replaced by a wince that went away moments later, but the smile he wore the second time was ever so slightly forced.
"Ah, I am sorry, but I'm afraid my name is a rather sensitive subject of mine." He paused for a moment as if looking for the right word. "It has quite a bit of history."
"I am so sorry about that, I didn't know-"
"It's quite alright." He interrupted, though not without his hands raised in a placating gesture. "While I am sure it will not be a problem, I think we should leave it at that...
"I think you are going to have your own business to handle now."
Realization dawned on Larry's face, quite hilariously but also rather concerning.
"Oh, crud."
"The African Mammal exhibit is in that direction way by the way." He gestured, sending his cloak fluttering and silver chains rattling in the direction adjacent to him. "The straight route is crowded at this hour, so you're better off going past the talking head."
"Right thanks a lot.." Larry picked up his pace, but the pause in his sentence was obvious.
"For now, call me Rider."
"Thanks, Rider." And he's off, jogging off the corner and out of sight.
Which left Rider to his own devices, though without much fanfare, the mysterious man shrugged and went his own way.
Yet be as it may…
Rider adjusted his glasses, he met a new acquaintance tonight.
Thankfully, Larry didn't have to look far to find himself the aptly named talking head, not the least thanks to the easter island statue being the 13 ft tall monolith of stone that it was.
In the same vein, it could also be said that it found him, too.
"Wouldn't go there if I were you."
Despite his urgency, Larry did in fact stop at those words, his shoes skidding on the polished tile floor on the second floor until he came to a graceless halt in front of the solemn, shadowed visage of the giant disembodied sentinel.
"Huh?" Despite seeing it in all of its immenseness once before, having a conversation with something that literally stood a head above him was very different, and he had to crane up a fair bit to even look it in - what he hoped was - its eyes.
Despite being carved from solid rock, it managed to pull two impressive feats at once.
The first of which raising its eyebrow without even making a crack in the material that made up its entirety, in a very intriguing but eye-hurting display of likeness to skin and muscles.
The second is using raised eyebrows to form a really judging stare that transcends human comprehension, in fact, the mere existence of it made Larry feel more and more conscious about his education by the second.
"Are you dum-dum? Do dum-dum not listen?"
It took several seconds for Larry to realize he was being taunted by a literal statue. It took several seconds more for him to realize that he didn't care, after all the nonsense well on their way to bother him tonight.
"Hey! It's Larry for you! And what's the big idea?"
"No, you are dum-dum."
"No, you're the dum-dum. Dum, dum!" Despite what some may say, Larry did have his pride as a man, and in times like these, it was enough to bypass the fact that he's arguing with something that shares ancestry with a brick wall.
"No, you are."
"No, you."
The firefight continued for a solid few moments, enough to draw some attention and pity from some bystanders, mostly pity.
Larry, intellectually, knew that it was a legendary standoff straight out of preschool, but for the life of him, that dimmed to mere ember compared to how pissed he was.
"No u."
Larry almost physically reeled at the words it resorted to hurling at him, the absolute audacity of this oversized cinder block.
"Now list-"
"This is getting banal, better stop while you can Dum-dum." The words of wisdom it oh so conveniently chose to say right there might as well be a physical force because it slapped him silly with the realization.
"You…" Larry seethed. "This isn't finished." He stated, and while his accusing finger looked as if he's pointing to a balcony due to the height difference, it carried the point nevertheless, he hoped.
"Heh" Contrary to how it should feel, the brick actually had the audacity to give him a smirk, a very, literal stony-faced smirk. "At least you're funny, Dum-dum."
"Flattered..." He now plain tired man drawled sarcastically, it was clear that whatever he got from that can only be generously called a waste of time. So he turned around, and with little regard began marching away again.
He definitely did not stomp, gave absolute no more force than necessary in his steps.
"...Consider this a favor, Dum-dum, I quite like you." It declared suddenly, Larry didn't particularly want to hear any more of it, but it was hard not to when it was as loud as it is big. "You have no idea what you're walking into."
Geez, that wasn't worrying at all, but on the other hand.
"And you do?" He didn't need to look back, Larry paid attention to make his eye-roll audible.
"You bet, Dum-dum." It chortled very slightly, even to his ears, as if aware of a joke that only it can catch. "There's about to be a real party soon, tonight's bunch is getting rowdier now that there's no one to lock them in."
It's going to be a wild ride."
"Yeah, yeah…" Larry drawled lazily, at this point it was a wonder he's still in earshot with how much power-walking distance was between them. But apparently, the big head has a better ear than what he gave it credit for.
Even as the newly hired security officer rounded the corner and disappeared from direct sight, Larry can still very faintly hear its parting words.
"Good luck, Dum-dum, you're going to need it..."
"Yeah right..." He murmured, Larry already met the tyrant lizard king face to snout tonight, whatever that can happen to top that needs to try pretty damn hard.
Speaking of it, Larry has seen neither scale nor teeth of Prince anywhere, he entertained himself with the thought that the lizard was helping him somehow, somewhere and not against him for accidentally locking up his friends or something.
Larry did not want something like that hunting him down to thank you very much.
At the very least, as if noticing his mood, the world gave Larry a break under the form of a sign pointing straight towards his destination. Perfect, looks like the winding corridor was finally starting to end.
Or perhaps not.
Unlike his encounter with Rider, this time Larry was on the receiving end of a hard shove against his shoulder which almost sent him tumbling like a bowling pin, almost.
"Oi!"
The perpetrator, one guy dressed in a Victorian-Esque get-up that looked entirely too posh for Larry to describe beyond fancy Hat n' Cane, sent a quick stream of remarks in response. Before all too eagerly skedaddling to the opposite direction.
He didn't even catch half of it, but Larry didn't need it to know he wasn't sorry. Not that he had the time to think anyway.
"Oof!"
Another one, but unlike the last one, the couple in heavily furred clothing didn't even bother for chit chat, they just rushed past him and into the mishmash of a crowd.
A crowd, which Larry realized with dawning understanding and no small part alarm, that was running away from where he was heading.
In any situation like this, the responsible thing would be to join them, screaming and flailing if possible. Common sense dictates that something a crowd can't handle would by no means be resolved by a single hardheaded idiot barging headfirst into it.
Running was the right choice, it would let him plan and reconcile later. It would, above all, keep him safe, safe from all the commotions and the chaos and the nonsense.
Running, Larry repeated, was the right choice. It was the choice he made when he saw the Big Lizard, it should be the choice to take now.
And yet…
And yet, despite everything telling him that it was The baddest idea. Larry found it somewhere in him to advance.
Like a pillar standing amidst a rampant river, the people and heck even some entities of unusual morphology parted around him.
Lawrence felt number than if he was standing on legs that were put under a massive weight for too long, keeping himself ramrod still despite feeling none of the strength fueling that action. A strength that held even when he buckled under some forceful bumps from retreating bystanders.
Despite all that, however, when the trickle came to a stop and all that was left was him. Larry felt something that broke his trance.
It was a venerable wall of noises, an absolute riot of sounds that advanced on him with palpable force. Shrill shrieks, booming roars, deep bellows, echoing cries. All sounds of countless different animals meld together to become ten times the rowdiest crowd Larry has ever seen.
It sounded like a whole entire zoo just broke loose.
"Oh hell." His mouth was moving to exclaim, but way before that, his legs were taking him, beyond the halls, beyond the occasional metal gates that barred entry to certain regions.
It was not until he came across one or two gates that were lying horizontally to what it should've been that he knew, it was way worse than that.
Way, way worse.
Something! Blasted from the wall right in front of the distraught night worker from absolutely nowhere and scared the crap out of him.
Just for that once, Larry felt no shame in yelping. It was a manly yelp and completely warranted.
He didn't need to finish, even. As something stirred in the cloud of concrete dust it just created, coughing and wheezing like a still-living creature like what it did wasn't lethal. A dark fuzzy shadow uncurled and splayed out in four spindly limbs with an almost animalistic quiver.
Heavy emphasis on Almost.
Leaning forward on almost-all-four like a prowling animal, the man that stood before Larry was unmistakably human. Covered in more animal fur and his own body hair than actual skin, but the extremely rough yet ultimately human visage was impossible to not recognize.
Morden and Ancient man met eye to eye, just for a moment. But it lasted as long as the fur-clad human digging into the rubble to pull out a monstrous long spear, as jagged and sharp as any metal.
The time of communication was not now, and he took a squat before launching through the opening he made himself. Dust trailing after the huge lug like the vacuum of a cannonball.
Larry, shockingly, agreed, he looked towards where his visitor had suddenly left. Where the dust has yet to settle and obscured whatever was happening behind it just as well as the wall once did. Yet now, the heavy thump of fists, concrete, and something else incredibly large can filter through.
Larry was feeling unusually bold somehow, but he wasn't that bold. He swallowed his saliva and opted to take the round way instead.
Things didn't sound like they were improving, but he at least hoped the walls were safer than the open.
What on Earth?! What on Earth?! What on Earth?!
The question beat against his skull constantly, but for his own sake, he ignored it to move forward, to where he did not know, for why he cannot fathom.
But slowly and surely, muddled sounds gained clarity, and finally gave way to sight. It was… not a pretty sight, but it was better than nothing.
All around a large circular space obstructed only by tall pillars reaching all to the ceiling, animals, wild beasts of all shapes and sizes were side by side, lions, gazelle, zebra and elephants, rhinoceroses, hyenas, and everything else he did not bother to put a name to. Hell, he saw an Elk that was several sizes too large among the crowd, hollering its cries alongside a pack of huge wolves like predation was a social construct.
It was without question the literal wildest scene he could've had the chance to witness. Display cases and pedestals that some of these things may have stood on moments before now lay broken beneath them, scattered, torn to pieces, or plain trampled under the sheer mass of rabid bodies.
As a person who had seen many a sport events, it was painfully hard to not equate their vigor to a cheering crowd.
And at the focal point of all this chaos, three hairy men stared heatedly at a giant mammoth.
That's… the only way Larry can even possibly describe it, though it was wholly inadequate, the Dino was big, but some certain things can only be truly appreciated by sheer volume alongside mass, the mammoth was all of this and more.
The display model simply couldn't have given it the sense of scale it even now subconsciously projects with its posture. Now alive, it felt more like a solid, megalithic boulder covered thickly in dirty, graying vegetation.
Every time its head moved, a pair of gargantuan tusks scythed through the air with the slightest twists like with the grace of giant yet blunt bladed instruments, which hummed ever so slightly when it seemed to bypass the tiles underneath entirely and scraped against the concrete foundation.
There was absolutely no doubt in him that the "animal" that he was looking at had passed that threshold at one point a long time ago. Now it carries itself like a fighter, even the seemingly idle sweeping of its tusk carried more power than he could comfortably put to words.
It was an absolute monster, the second one Larry has already seen tonight, yet unlike him, three actual honest to goodness cavemen stood opposed to it. Surrounded by the deafening cries of the wildlife. Like some sort of twisted imitation of a colosseum.
The absolutely crazy thing was that they somehow made it bleed, over its forehead, just below the tuft of hair that congregated around the crown of its head. A long horizontal cut sprawled, spilling blood over one of its hateful, glaring eyes.
Right here, right now, one of humanity's oldest conflicts came to life. A clash that has waged since the dawn of time, and perhaps ever since.
Under the same roof, brought together across time through means unknown, Man once again came to blows with Nature.
End of the first night.
Author notes:
Welp, a new story, after all this time, that's fun. Yep.
I'M SORRYYYYY!
If you, any of you even recognize me now, you can tell that I've been gone... for quite a while. Things have happened, mostly terrible things to me and my life, I lost many things, many things I couldn't have back, and that was before 2020 awoken from its slumber like an eldritch god.
I know it may seem redundant to some, but I do not know what to do other than feel guilty, truly. I was never actually "Inactive" just increasingly awkward on posting.
So, I thought this was a good course of action. Finally writing a story I have been sitting on for a long time. Of course, this can only signal one thing: The other stories are also getting updated, soonish. No schedule for me now because I am still rather busy, but something that is there to grow later on, just like hope.
I have also improved some lots over the times, so I hope it brings good results here now.
Onto the story itself though.
This premise is simultaneously very hard and very ez to explain depending if you even know what Night at the Museum is. But the basic gist of is that the Tablet, instead of merely reanimating objects with the intelligence of what it most likely resemble. It summons Heroic Spirits, or just Phantoms in a close approximation of a Class. It's a good premise to have simple fun with, but not mindlessly so.
It was quite obvious in hindsight.
Night at the Museum was a dear memory of mine, so this was quite special, even. One of the best fun movie to me.
Also, every detail that comes with the Tablet plotline is pretty internal to the plot, and will be explained later chapters - Yes this is not a one-shot - which every two chapters hopefully covering a full night.
Speaking of which, there will be at least 6 nights in total, double the amount of the original. That is because there will be a lot more cast, and a slightly more serious story at play here. Though of course I don't want to bloat it with action, so I hope the levity I've thrown there was good enough to balance. Some chapters will be calm, while others would be more serious.
And that is all I have to say now, so until next time.
Yours sincerely, The Indominator.
...
And may you be at peace Robin Williams and Mickey Rooney, they were great people, whose work will always be remembered.
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CHARACTER BIO BELOW, POTENTIAL SPOILERS
Lawrence Daley, son of Milton:
A bog-standard human being who has a penchant for inventing. Though he often does not succeed, he is a man of drive and a good heart.
Alignment: Lawful Good
True Name: Prince - {▄▄▅▅■■}
-Statistics-
Class: Beast Ø?
Strength: A++
Agility: B+
Luck: D
Endurance: A+
Mana: EX
Noble Phantasm: A
-Class Skills-
Primal Authority: A (Substitutes Authority of The Beast)
Gaia's Children: B (Substitutes Independent Manifestation)
March of Life: A (Substitutes Self-Modification)
-Personal Skills-
Instincts: EX
Monstrous Strength: A
Intimidation: C
Inheritor: EX
A saurian monstrosity with a mysterious legacy that he alone can carry in silence. Statistically the oldest exhibit in the museum, and unmatched in terms of raw power. The concentration of Mystery he possesses from the sheer weight of his history is enough to rival that of a High-Ranking Dragon or lower Divine Beasts.
Approximately 66 million years ago when life on Earth met the scorching flame of the alien star, Prince was among the last creatures still standing after the cataclysmic event.
Height/Weight: 1,300cm・14,000 kg
Source: Earth's natural history
Region: North America
Alignment: Lawful・Neutral
Gender: Male
Originally without the ability to vocalize in the human tongue, he spent time practicing in a gesture of goodwill, with marginal results.
True Name: 🗿
-Statistics-
Class: N/A
Strength: Rock
Agility: Bruh
Luck: A
Endurance: Rock
Mana: EX
Noble Phantasm: N/A
Gigantic sculptures most found on Easter Island, he is one of the many figures of deified ancestors of the people of Rapa Nui. Which, to this may still watch over their homeland.
This didn't seem to be hindered by the fact that he's very far away from home.
Height/Weight: 800cm・10,000 kg
Source: Rapa Nui Cultures and Mythology
Region: Eastern Polynesia
Alignment: True・Neutral
While possessing no Class, his Clavoirance is almost top class, and connection to the natural world (Leylines) grants him access to nigh-unlimited Mana.