"Master, what do you want from me?"
The Ancient One slowly extended her hand. Resting in her palm was a gold bracelet, its surface engraved with a lifelike scorpion.
Garfield accepted it and examined it carefully.
At first glance, it looked ordinary, simple gold craftsmanship but beneath the surface lurked a trace of strange, unfamiliar power.
Not any known mystic artifact.
Garfield toyed with it for a moment before asking, "Master… what is this?"
The Ancient One replied calmly, "Something that belonged to Anubis."
Anubis.
The jackal-headed reaper of ancient Egypt.
Garfield nodded. "Him, huh."
Then he frowned. "But didn't the ancient Egyptian gods leave Earth long ago? Why do artifacts tied to him still exist?"
The Ancient One tapped the bracelet lightly. "This is one of the relics he left behind thousands of years ago."
"Someone touched it the day before yesterday. I am currently unable to leave Kamar-Taj, so I need you to deal with the aftermath."
She paused briefly before adding, "All remaining divine remnants of that era must be removed from the Earth."
"Oh."
Garfield thought for a second, then asked, "When do I leave?"
"Now." the Ancient One answered. "The bracelet has a guidance function, it will lead you to the source."
"And remember, do not touch suspicious individuals, and do not involve yourself unnecessarily."
…Weird.
This was not how Garfield remembered the Ancient One, the woman who could suppress Earth's gods with the Book of Vishanti in one hand and the Time Stone in the other.
Right now, she sounded more like a cautious politician avoiding trouble.
With lingering suspicion, Garfield left Kamar-Taj. Before departing, he opened a portal and informed his family on the other side that he would be away briefly.
Scorpion bracelet.
Ancient Egyptian gods.
Jackal-headed god of death.
Isn't this basically the plot of The Mummy Returns?
Could it be that The Mummy had somehow merged into the Marvel universe… or had they always been part of the same world?
Garfield refused to wear the bracelet outright. Instead, he cautiously injected a thread of mana into it.
The golden bracelet responded immediately.
A large projection unfolded in midair, extending toward the northwest.
Within the shimmering images, Garfield saw a train racing through the desert. On top of it stood a strange bandaged man, several corpses, and a young boy wearing a familiar bracelet.
"…Alex O'Connell."
Something was wrong.
By all logic, this event should have occurred in 1933. But now, it was already 1934.
Garfield waved his hand and cast a spatial spell, locking onto the train's coordinates. Once confirmed, he stepped forward and opened a teleportation gate.
The next instant, he appeared above the train, standing calmly on the roof of one of the carriages as the wind roared past him.
…
Inside the train, the resurrected Imhotep, former High Priest of ancient Egypt, suddenly frowned.
Even in his weakened state, he could still sense disturbances in higher-dimensional space.
A museum curator loyal to him trembled and asked, "High Priest… did you summon this?"
Imhotep lifted his gaze toward the sky. "No. Someone is coming. I do not yet know whether they are a guest… or an enemy."
The curator's face turned pale. "Then what should we—"
Imhotep raised a hand, silencing him.
"This is not something mortals can handle." He said coldly.
"The one approaching is an archmage, someone who stood at the peak of sorcery in their prime. I may need to borrow divine power to contend with him."
"Ar~archmage?!"
The curator's legs gave out. He clung to Imhotep's robes in terror. "High Priest! Are demon hunters coming for us?!"
Lock-Nah standing nearby, instinctively backed away, gripping his blade.
Imhotep kicked the curator aside in disgust. "Get up."
Then he sneered. "If he is an enemy, he will strike soon enough. And besides… don't we have allies?"
He gestured toward the desert beyond the train.
The curator swallowed hard. He knew exactly who Imhotep meant, the mysterious Asian man wandering the sands, dressed in a black windbreaker, shorts, bare-chested, wearing nothing but flip-flops.
The only thing that made the newcomer seem even remotely reliable was the fact that he was bald just like Imhotep.
His name was Wang… or maybe something similar. The curator couldn't quite remember
"High Priest… is that man really reliable?" Frowning, he asked in a doubtful tone.
Imhotep didn't even look at him.
"Try him." He said calmly. "Then you'll know."
As Imhotep spoke, Garfield had already entered the train.
Flying alongside a speeding train actually consumed a fair amount of energy, and as an orange cat who disliked exercise, Garfield felt that going inside to sit down was the correct life choice.
Besides, one extra orange cat wouldn't affect the train's horsepower in the slightest.
The place he chose was the train's storage compartment.
Food supplies.
Fresh water.
And humanity's most lethal thermal weapons, all neatly stacked together.
Garfield casually cast a constant-temperature spell, setting the environment to a comfortable twenty-six degrees Celsius.
He then pulled out a thick cotton pad, climbed onto it, and settled down.
To avoid unnecessary disturbances, he added a sound-insulation barrier and topped it off with a Muggle-Repelling Charm.
Only after everything was in place did Garfield relax and finally have time to recall the plot of The Mummy.
The story began in 1719 BC, in Thebes, Egypt.
Imhotep, the High Priest, had engaged in a forbidden affair with the Pharaoh's wife, Anck-su-namun.
When the relationship was exposed, chaos followed. Imhotep accidentally killed the Pharaoh, and Anck-su-namun took her own life.
As the Pharaoh was considered the earthly representative of the gods, Imhotep was subjected to the most severe punishment imaginable, the Curse of the Hom-Dai.
He was buried alive, devoured endlessly by insects, condemned to eternal suffering.
His tomb lay in Hamunaptra… the City of the Dead.
Hamunaptra was said to house the burial grounds of countless pharaohs and unimaginable treasures. Greedy men searched for it endlessly.
Some found it, but almost none returned alive.
Even those who did survive rarely met good ends.
Thus, Hamunaptra gained another name, the City of Death.
Years later, a librarian named Evelyn discovered a map leading to Hamunaptra.
She was ecstatic and immediately planned an expedition with her brother, Jonathan.
Speaking of Jonathan…
Garfield felt this man was the true protagonist of the entire trilogy. Every major event hinged on clues he obtained through absurd, almost supernatural luck.
Lucky people deserved respect. Garfield decided Jonathan was worth befriending.
As for what followed…
Evelyn accidentally freed Rick O'Connell from an Egyptian prison just moments before his execution.
The group then joined forces with a local authority and set out for Hamunaptra.
Along the way, they encountered a bearded descendant of the Pharaoh's ancient guards. After fighting him once, they became allies naturally.
The group eventually reached Hamunaptra, discovered Imhotep's sealed coffin, and unearthed the Black Book of the Dead, an artifact that recorded the power of Anubis.
Driven by her uncontrollable curiosity, Evelyn read from the Black Book late at night.
That single mistake resurrected Imhotep.
His return unleashed the Ten Plagues upon Egypt, nearly annihilating the land.
To resurrect his beloved Anck-su-namun, Imhotep kidnapped Evelyn and raised Hamunaptra from beneath the sands.
In the end, Evelyn, O'Connell, and the bearded warrior worked together, found the Book of Amun-Ra, and used its power to strip Imhotep of his immortality, banishing him back to the underworld.
A solid movie. Great pacing and great story.
It was a shame that the sequel relied a bit too heavily on spectacle.
By the time Garfield finished reminiscing, the train had slowed to a stop.
Footsteps approached.
Alex O'Connell walked into the compartment, and on his wrist gleamed the Death Bracelet.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream