Disclaimer: Hey, a girl can wish, can't she?
-Full- Summary: Things are not well at the museum when a new exhibit arrives. With a new artifact comes new curses, new magic, and new friends. At first, things are great, and the museum is more popular then ever! But suddenly things take a turn for the worst when three all-powerful ancient Egyptian gods get involved, wanting revenge on mankind.
Now it's up to Larry and the gang to stop these misfit deities from taking out everything and everyone in their path, all before sunrise!
A/n: Hey guys. Remember when I said that this was gonna be epic? Well, it was epic in my mind, but now that I tried to write it, it basically sucks. So I need you guys to please please forgive me for this terrible chapter, and use your imaginations.
Run baby run
Don't ever look back
They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance
Don't sell your heart, don't say we're not meant to be
Run baby run, forever will be
You and me
-We The Kings, Check Yes Juliet
Viola had never exactly been scared of snakes. That was Bonnie. Once, when they were smaller, they were playing in their backyard and Bonnie had found a snake. She got scared and swore that it was poisonous loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Viola was the one who ended up getting their gardener to take it away. Only then did Bonnie stop screaming bloody murder.
However, upon being confronted by a purple snake as big—if not bigger—as a train with huge fangs, she of course was scared.
It may have not been the best idea, but she turned on her heel and ran, tearing her headphones out of her ears in the process.
Adrenaline pushed her feet forward; she could hear her heart beating widely in her ears, her blood rushing through her veins…
Cars honked when Viola ran across the street, angry people yelling…Didn't they see it? Didn't they see it?
She could hear it; hissing, snapping and tearing up ground behind her, gaining on her, it would catch up to her any second…
As if on impulse, Viola ran towards the museum, taking the steps two at a time, surprised that she hadn't tripped yet. She burst through the revolving doors, pausing for half a second.
The snake didn't follow her.
"Thank Heaven," she breathed, attempting to catch her breath. However, her relief didn't last long. The snake crashed through the doors, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Its cat-eyes locked on Viola, and she screamed again before turning and running once more.
"No! Don't run; it only makes it worse!" Viola heard someone shout behind her, but she didn't dare look to see who had.
"Dammit!" a second voice shouted. "How did he get out?"
Get out?
Viola skidded to the right into a hallway, pushing past newly re-animated figures of history. None of them were screaming or panicking like she was.
DIDN'T THEY SEE IT?
Her mind was racing, her feet were slapping against the ground, adrenaline rushing. Viola turned into another hallway, not exactly caring where she was going as long as she was going to get away from that thing—
It shouldn't fit through these narrow halls. It shouldn't be as big as it was. It shouldn't have fangs like that. Hell, it shouldn't exist!
But it did. And she heard it crash into a wall as it turned to follow her, it was breaking through the tile in the museum floor. It was behind her, any second it was going to tear her apart—
Viola turned another corner and skidded to a halt.
A dead end.
No! Shit!
Viola whirled around, watching with wide eyes as the snake came slowly slithering into the hall, as if knowing that it had her caught, as if knowing that she was going to die any second—
She backed up until her back hit the wall. She was shaking, which was probably why she slid down the wall into a sitting position. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she struggled to breath, trying to make sense of anything that was happening…
The snake rose up, baring its fangs, ready to strike. Viola shut her eyes and put her hands over her face. When she died, she didn't want to see it kill her. But before she shut her eyes, she thought she saw a flash of black come out of no where and kick the snake in the jaw. But she didn't open her eyes, knowing that she probably imagined it.
Any second it was going to kill her, any second she was going to die and go to Heaven or Hell or wherever people that got chased by giant purple snakes went to in the afterlife.
But she never did. She never felt pain. Instead, she heard a loud cry, a curse, a hiss, and felt a cold blast of wind against her face, causing her loose hair to rearrange itself, then—
Then—
Then…nothing.
"Viola?" This voice she knew. Ahkmenrah. But shouldn't he be running? And why hadn't she been eaten or mauled yet? "Viola? Are you alright?"
"I think she's in shock," said the voice that she had heard earlier—the one telling her not to run.
"Gee, you think?" snapped the second voice. She felt a pair of hands gently take her own and they tried to pry them off her face, but she shrunk back. The hands moved down and pulled at her wrists, successfully taking her hands off her face, but she kept her eyes shut. One hand moved away from her wrists and landed on her cheek.
"Viola? Can you look at me?" asked Ahkmenrah. She heard the concern and urgency in his voice and obeyed, slowly opening one eye after another. Her breath caught in her throat; he was closer then she thought he was, kneeling down next to her. And he was the one holding her wrists. On some level, that made her feel a bit better, but not enough for her to completely calm down.
"Ahk, wh-what happened?" she breathed. Ahkmenrah opened his mouth, but the second voice cut him off.
"She's getting hysterical," the second voice said again. "Maybe you should slap her."
Ahkmenrah threw an icy glare at someone, and Viola followed his eyes and nearly jumped back up in surprise.
There were two men standing there; one no older then sixteen, the other about thirty.
The teenager had a pale complexion, tussled jet black hair, and long limbs. He was wearing hiking boots like Loki's, dark blue jeans and a baggy black shirt. His ears stuck out a bit. His eyes were extremely dark, and for some reason they almost looked...red. He had dark rims underneath his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in weeks.
The second man looked a bit more normal. He was about a head taller then the teenager, and he had black hair as well, only his wasn't as dark, and it was pulled up into a small pony tail. He had round, thick glasses (Viola wondered for a wild second if he had stolen them from Harry Potter), his nose was long, and his eyes were a shade of blue that Viola didn't even know that existed. He was dressed more professionally; khakis and a black turtleneck.
Both men could make Adonis look like Medusa.
But it wasn't the fact that they were both beautiful or odd looking that had scared Viola. It was because both of their images were hazy; as if she was looking at them through a TV with bad reception. There were two other images that seemed to be fighting against their appearance. The teenager's was a shirtless man with the head of a jackal, the eyes soulless, and the jaws snarling viciously. The man's with glasses was like the teenager's, only instead of a jackal head he had a ibis, face expressionless, weary eyes looking down on her like she was a tiny minnow fish in a huge ocean. Both of them looked like something out of a horror movie, but then the image flickered again and they were human again.
Viola must have screamed (at this point, she really didn't know), because Ahkmenrah tightened his grip on her wrists and said, "It's alright. They won't hurt you."
The man with glasses grinned. "The ability to see Apep and the gods in both human form and original? Fascinating!" He looked like he was a three year old and had just got a puppy on Christmas.
Viola stared at him blankly, finally feeling her heartbeat slow. "…What?"
The teenager elbowed the man in the ribs, and gave him a pointed look.
"What? She's going to find out soon enough!"
Viola's eyebrow furrowed, and she suddenly remembered. "Wait, wait! You're gonna think I'm crazy, but there was this…huge snake…thing—I swear, I'm not making it up, and it was chasing me and—and—"
"Viola," Ahkmenrah said, using his hand to turn her head towards him. "Do you remember last night when I said my family was mad at me?"
Viola nodded, not sure what this had to do with anything. "Yeah…," she said slowly.
"Well…there really isn't an easy way to put this…but this is them. And they just got rid of Apep."
Viola's mind raced as she tried to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Her wide eyes shot back and forth between the Pharaoh and the two men briefly.
"Apep? Your family? What?" Apep was a snake in the Underworld that tried to eat the sun, that much Viola remembered. But then—She froze.
"How did he get out?"
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Her imagination was going crazy again. She probably wasn't even at the museum; she was probably at home, asleep, dreaming about all this. Yeah, none of it was really real.
Viola abruptly tore her wrists out of Ahkmenrah's grip and stood up. Her legs were more shaky then she would have liked. She had to put one hand on the wall in order to keep her balance. Ahkmenrah stood up as well, but he moved slower and more careful, as if ready to catch her if she fell.
"Ok," Viola said to the two men, "what. The hell. Just happened?"
The taller one opened his mouth, but the teenager cut him off.
"To shorten it, you got chased by Apep and saved by us—the gods. And we're not his great, great, great, great cousins second removed. Now can we please go?" He directed the last part to the taller man.
Viola stared blankly at him for a moment. "There are so many things wrong with what you just said," she said, her eyes narrowing. "First of all; how does someone get chased by...'Apep', or whatever the hell it is? How did you 'save me'? And the 'gods' aren't real! Even so, he would have to be related to them, which would make him a 'god', which is just crazy!" Viola said, using air quotes and pointing over her shoulder at Ahkmenrah.
Both men exchanged glances before the taller of the two answered her. "To answer your questions (in order): Apep rarely attacks mortals anymore—it happens once every eon or so, but still. He should be fighting Ra; plus, he's a demon, so unless someone lets him out of the Underworld, he literally cannot get out. So to answer your next question, we basically just banished him back. And we are real, it is just that the mortals have forgotten over the years about us. (Of course, only the Romans seem generally disturbed by that fact, but they complain about so many modern things it's hard to keep track of things.) And technically speaking, he's only a Half-Blood, not a full-on god."
There was a moment of silence as Viola desperately tried to make sense of what he said. Ahkmenrah put a hand on her shoulder.
"Viola, this is my Uncle, Thoth,"—he gestured to the tall man—"and this is my brother, Anubis," he said, now motioning to the teenager.
"So let me get this straight," Viola said. "You two are gods," she pointed to each of them. "And you are related to them," she turned to Ahkmenrah. He nodded.
He really would have wanted to tell her later, and definitely not in this situation. Viola was pale, and she looked like she was going to faint at any second. As if she wasn't fragile enough already.
And for a moment he actually thought that she believed it. However, she threw up her hands, crying, "That's it! I give up! You win universe*, my sanity has officially left the building!" And with that, she stalked out of the hallway.
"Viola!" Ahkmenrah went hurrying after her, forgetting about his brother and uncle. She didn't stop, even when he fell into step with her.
"You're a jerk, you know that?" Viola said, not looking at him.
"May I ask how so?"
"Apparently, you're related to the gods. My imagination isn't as good as it used to be, so tell me Ahkmenrah, how? How are you related, hmm? Oh I got it—it's your sister."
He raised an eyebrow. What was she talking about? Her imagination? "My mother, actually."
"Damn. That was my second guess."
They were near the Hall of American History, nearly empty except for Lewis and Clark, who were explaining a theory to a inquiring group of tourists.
"You don't believe this?" Ahkmenrah asked. Viola stopped and turned to face him. Her expression was cool, collective, and almost blank.
"What do you think?" she asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. Ahk almost winced; Sully had always used a similar tactic whenever she was serious.
CRACK!
"Well, I would suggest playing it safe, considering the fact that Apep is known for attacking more then once." Viola jerked backwards—Anubis was suddenly standing right next to Ahk. He just appeared out of thin air. Almost like Loki, minus the smoke. "So good luck with that."
CRACK!
Viola jerked again—now it was Thoth who had appeared out of the air. He had grabbed the back of Anubis's shirt collar, as if to keep him from walking off.
"No, no. You're staying. The mortals can't handle Apep. They can rarely even see him when he is among them. We can. And because Ahkmenrah feels so strongly about this, I suggest that we comply, unless you want a repeat of what happened with...," his voice trailed off.
Viola vaguely wondered if they could read each others minds, because it seemed that way. Thoth let go of Anubis's shirt and the shorter of the two glared him.
"Fine," he snapped. "But when this backfires, you have to explain it to Mother and Osiris."
"Wait, when what backfires?" Viola asked.
"I suppose we'll just have to watch her during the day as long as she comes here every night," Thoth mused. "But of course, Horus's spell was broken, so even then—"
"'Watch me'?" Viola repeated. "What are you talking about?"
Anubis turned to Viola, annoyance etched across his pale features.
"It's really simple; do you want that snake to come back and kill you?"
"No," Viola said.
"Then you're going to have to stay near one of us, so that when he comes back, you don't die. Now I'm leaving, and I suggest you do the same Thoth, because the second Osiris notices that we're gone, then we might as well let Apep have both of them."
Anubis disappeared with a loud CRACK, making Viola jump once more. Thoth rolled his eyes before vanishing the exact same way. (Before he did, Viola thought she saw him wink, but he was gone so fast that she probably just imagined it.)
Viola looked at Ahkmenrah, shook her head, and walked out.
The gods weren't supposed to exist! Ahkmenrah wasn't supposed to be related to the gods! Apep wasn't supposed to be real!
And yet, as these accusations buzzed through Viola's head, she realized something that almost caused her to bolt from the museum.
If the gods were real, then everything that Loki had said was true. Doomsday and all.
A/n: Wow this chapter sucks. Majorly. But hey, I had to get Anubis and Thoth in there somehow. I think the next chapter will be more of a back story-ish type of thing. And I absolutely love playing with the character's banter; lol it's so much fun!
*About the 'Universe' line: Ok, have you guys ever seen that Penguins of Madagascar episode when the guys basically curse the universe throughout the entire episode? Lol well this is sort of a tip-o-the-hat to that. ^^ I laugh so hard when that comes on.
Alrighty, I'll shut up. Please review!