Daydreams and Disasters

Scarabs, Centurions, and Catastrophe, Oh My!

Akhenaten didn't expect the magic to leap from his hands in slashing arcs, didn't expect it to do any more than bend to his imperious whims. He had meant to return the museum items to their home lands, force the Scarab to do the heavy lifting. Instead Flavius was shouting at him to "Shut it off, turn it off!" and Spectre's face had turned a ghastly green as the poisonous color leaped into the dusty museum shadows. She raced towards him, dodging crackling arcs, her usually cheerful face set in concentration as she slid under a display case and popped up in front of him, the glowing scarab in his hand refusing to stop channeling its ancient might.

The firing of her spectral pistols blended in with the howl of the magic, as what felt like the world's angriest sandstorm took up residence in the Capital Center for Uncategorized Archeological Work.

He cannot tell who is in control of his body at this exact moment, the possession of Akhenaten and the will of the Scarab of the Two Kingdoms pushing Julius Mohammed even further back into the recesses of his own mind, but he can feel everything. The air is electric and tastes of the dust of long dead pharaohs, for a moment he catches the scent of river and loam, as if he is standing on the Nile, and his vision is obscured by flashes of violent light. It is invigorating and terrifying and gratifying and altogether too much, his senses overloading like the electrical grid of the surrounding neighborhoods had the moment he activated the Scarab.

The Scarab of the Two Kingdoms senses that she is danger, a raspy voice hisses in his mind that Anubis' Priestess must not touch us! and he knows that he is not in control when the command spills from his lips, shouted with a power that shakes the building and knocks boxes from metal shelves. Flavius' look of stunned horror is matched only by the dull thud of Spectre hitting the ground two feet in front of him, the wide beam of magic having hit her square in the chest. There is silence, broken only by the ping of cooling metal all around them, and he feels his own emotions finally wrest control of his body, roaring back with regret and terror.

The violet cape is all that is left, a curiously small lump beneath, and Flavius darts forward only to breathe a "My God, what have you done." The cape is pulled back before he can respond that he didn't do anything, Akhenaten had promised the Scarab was theirs to control not the other way around, and he wasn't trying to kill her, he would never.

Any words he could have said died on his lips as the form of a child, dressed in a miniature version of their heroine's costume lay there, nestled in the overly large cape, sleeping the sleep of innocents, as if magic hadn't just ripped her apart and rearranged her.

"Accelerate is going to kill us."