"Jonathan?!" I called out to see if he was here or not.
Not receiving any answers and Rick and Ardeth getting pretty worried since we didn't see him when we dropped down, we called out his name.
I'm 100% certain that I didn't leave him up there and literally saw him jump down.
"Jonathan!" "Hey Jon!" Ardeth and Rick called out.
With them calling out his name, I faintly heard some chuckling and a vague squeaking noise.
Following the noise that was around a corner to a dead end, I saw Jonathan hunched and kneeling over giggling to himself.
Getting closer to him, I found out why he wasn't answering our calls.
He was playing around with a little rat he found down here.
"There you are. Is this a little family reunion or something?" I smugly asked as I tapped on his shoulder.
From the sudden touch, he jumped and screamed and scared off the little rodent.
"Oh, c'mon. Deimos, you scared it off." Jonathan said as I've seemed to ruin his little fun.
"Don't sweat it. I'm sure there are better options than a simple sewer rat." I said as I dragged him back to our group.
"Where the hell were you?" Rick said as he lightly punched Jonathan's shoulder.
"I met a friend but Deimos here scared it off." Jonathan said as he pointed at me.
"Guilty as charged. Might as well been doing you a favor by the way. Don't know where the little thing's been." I said, trying to defend myself.
"Anyways, you guys know if they might disperse soon? I know that you said we could wait for dawn, but it's pretty icky down here." I asked Rick.
"We must stay for the time being. Imhotep's slaves are probably still looking for us." Ardeth said as he got himself comfortable. "That being said, the water here is not for the sewage but for the fountain in the main square. If anything, the water here has no major filth."
"Oh you don't say? Let's stay until morning then." Rick says.
"Alright, fine." I said.
-MORNING-
I didn't really sleep at all.
Considering that we didn't know for sure if they would peek down the grate to try and look for us, I took watch all night.
Since I'm basically an enhanced human, having a little bit of sleep deprivation doesn't really affect my physical performance. Though I would have to sleep soon since I do feel mentally exhausted.
After seeing a few rays of sunshine going through the grate, I climbed the maintenance ladder up and took a peek.
Not seeing anyone around, I quickly told everyone to wake up and soon we were all standing outside.
Boy was it a mess outside.
Lots of stalls were totaled as it was evident with the path of destruction of Jonathan's convertible.
Speaking of his convertible, it seems like it still works fine despite Jonathan crashing it last night.
"Oh, my baby!" Jonathan said as he was already sitting in the driver's seat and being all excited like a child who received a present they wanted.
"Alright, you guys get to the city entrance. I'll meet you guys there since I gotta take care of some stuff." I told them quickly and before I could get a response, I immediately took off running.
By taking care of some stuff, I meant that I had to quickly take care of the last part of the daily quest.
Though I had nothing to do but stay awake and keep watch, I just decided to do the normal exercises in that confined area.
"Eve, bring up the daily quest." I said as I kept running around.
{You got it!}
[Daily Quest: 300 push-ups ✓, 300 squats ✓, 300 sit-ups ✓, 30 kilometer run. ]
I should run around the entire city at full speed.
Shouldn't take too long, since I'm a LOT faster than before, the city itself is pretty huge and it's early morning so not a lot of people would be out at this time.
Since I decided that, I mentally closed up the tab and outputted even more power into my legs and ran like hell.
-CITY ENTRANCE-
"Where the hell is the bloke?" Jonathan said to Rick and Ardeth to which both just gave a shrug.
"I don't know but he said to meet him here so let's just wait a bit more." Rick said.
Just then, a sudden thumping in the distance could be heard and felt that was coming from within the city.
"You guys feel that right?" Jonathan asked while trying to keep himself still.
"You don't think…Imhotep's back?" Ardeth asked.
"No way. He must've already left." Rick said.
"Then what the hell is this noise and shaking!? It seems to be approaching us as well." Jonathan said as he has already fallen down due to the increase in tremors.
After a few more tremors, a figure appeared from around a corner in the city.
It was Deimos.
While looking at his running figure, they noticed that whenever Deimos took a step forward as he ran towards them, a tremor could be heard and felt from that step.
"No way it's coming from him." Jonathan asked, completely appalled.
"He is not human. No human has that much power." Ardeth said as he finally understood why everyone in the museum agreed with Deimos' comment about him winning a 1 on 1 with Imhotep.
"Apparently he blames it on the juice he drinks." Rick said with a smirk on his face.
"Must be some juice." Jonathan said, still on the ground.
As Deimos approached them, he slowed down his pace as he got closer.
"You guys wait long?" he said with one of his signature smiles that would make any woman swoon and every man envious.
-DEIMOS POV-
As we started to approach the airfield with Jonathan's bashed in convertible, a large sign that said 'HIS MAJESTY'S ROYAL AIR CORP' came into view.
A few moments later, we came to a stop and all got out of the car to see a single WW1 biplane with R.A.F. insignias sitting on the sandy runway.
The place wasn't completely abandoned as we saw a little kid shepherding a group of goats, a couple people walking around going about their day and some small tents.
After looking around for a few minutes, we found Winston chilling on a chair in the distance sipping on some tea.
Boy was he living in luxury in this time of crisis.
We walked towards him and Rick initiated talking first.
"Morning, Winston. A word?"
Rick proceeded to tell him about our current predicament and that we needed his plane to get to Hamunaptra as soon as possible.
"So what's your little problem got to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Corps?" Winston asked Rick as he continued to sip on his tea while listening to an old record player right next to him.
"Not a damn thing." Rick calmly said.
That seemed to have piqued Winston's attention as he nearly dropped his cup of tea and a hint of excitement flashed through his eyes.
"Is it dangerous?" he asked, setting aside his tea.
"Yeah, well…you probably won't live through it." Rick answered.
"By Jove, do you really think so?" Winston asked not believing it.
"Well, everyone else we bumped into has died. Why not you?" Jonathan said.
Winston got up from his leisure and stretched out his old body, "What's the uh…What's the challenge, then?"
"Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world. Ya'know, the works." I told him basically the truth.
Winston looked completely interested now and laughed in a very old man-like British way, "Winston Havlock at your service, sir!" He said as he gave us a snappy salute.
As we now have Winston's services, we approached his biplane.
Now there remains one slight problem.
"Alright so…who's sitting where?" I said as I just noticed there's only two seats on Winston's biplane.
"Obviously I'm sitting in the pilot's seat since I don't think you guys have received the proper training." Winston said.
"I call gun." Rick said as he ran right into the gun's nest of the plane which was faced backwards behind the pilot's seat.
"Pshhh, fine. Jonathan and Ardeth, think you guys can handle gripping on to the wings? Just don't let go." I asked them both.
"It is fine with me." Ardeth said, feeling a little excited.
"Uhh, can I not go?" Jonathan said with shock and fear on his face.
"This is your sister Jon. Also we didn't find the treasure room, did we?" I asked him with a knowing grin on my face.
"I don't mind the wing seat at all now." Jonathan said as he had a complete 180 in his attitude.
-FEW MOMENTS LATER-
The wind was whipping at Winston in the cockpit of his plane while Rick sat back in the gunner's compartment.
Both Jonathan and Ardeth were strapped to either sides of the plane while I was completely unfazed and enjoying the wind at the top.
Rick whistled at both Ardeth and Jonathan to ask if they were alright.
Ardeth was having a complete blast as he just smiled widely.
Jonathan was another story as he just stared daggers at Rick through the goggles and yelled back at him, "DO I BLOODY LOOK ALRIGHT?!"
As we kept flying, we were slowly about to pass a large dust devil that also seemed to be going in the same direction as us.
It's Imhotep in his sand form.
"See that?! I've never seen one that big before!" Winston said as he pointed at it.
As we neared our destination of Hamunaptra, Rick noticed a humongous sandstorm right on our tail.
"Oh. My. God." He turned and quickly told Winston to 'PEDAL FASTER'.
In the rear-view mirror of the plane, Winston saw the storm flying quickly towards us.
"Hang on, men!"
As he said that, he did a complete nosedive.
Both Ardeth and Jonathan held on for dear life while I just tightened my grip.
As we got a burst of speed from that, I noticed that the sandstorm was right up against the back of the plane, slowly reaching us.
A huge face made of sand appeared inside the sandstorm. It's Imhotep grinning at us.
Rick used the attached machine gun and started to fire bullets into the face to no avail.
Imhotep's face begins to show signs of laughter, then his jaw unhinges and his mouth opens wide.
As he was about to swallow the plane whole, I had a sudden idea appear in my head.
Not knowing if it would work, I hoped for the best.
I quickly steadied myself and cocked my arm, readying a punch.
Except this time, I was about to use full force and with Adamantine and Flame kata in one.
Maybe, just maybe, it would make this dissipate.
-IMHOTEP'S VIEW-
Imhotep had returned to his human form and immediately after summoned a gigantic sandstorm from the ground up.
He transferred consciousness to the sandstorm and made a face appear that he took control of in the sandstorm.
As Imhotep was about to swallow up the plane whole in his this form, a strange occurrence took place.
Since he could see the faces of each individual on the plane, he saw the face of his self-proclaimed nemesis, Deimos.
Seeing his face irked him and a flash of fear donned his face for just a moment.
Not wanting to feel this fear again, he quickly tried to eat up the plane, but he was met with something else.
Before he even realized it, he saw Deimos slowly standing up on top of the plane and preparing a punch.
Thinking it was a futile effort, Imhotep ignored it and got closer and closer until the sandstorm covered the plane up and his face was about to eat them up.
That is before he could even do that, a colossal blast of wind slammed into his face and dissipated all the sand.
Because Imhotep's face had dissipated, he was forced back into his original body and was also quite severely hurt from the backlash of him losing connection so abruptly.
Both Evelyn and Beni who stood behind him were completely surprised and saw what had happened.
A large gust of wind had appeared from the plane and wiped the giant face that was chasing them away.
Right after they saw Imhotep collapse onto the floor in pain.
As Imhotep was hunched over, Evelyn smiled at the plane and quietly whispered to herself, "Thank you."
Though that little victory was short lived as the plane was now having some difficulty in controlling itself in midair.
-BACK TO DEIMOS-
"HOLY CRAP THAT WORKED?!" I was utterly and completely surprised at myself.
Though before I could celebrate it, a little problem occurred.
The plane we were all on was now currently losing speed and losing altitude.
"Hey what's wrong?!" I yelled at Winston.
"The engine caught on fire from overheating!" Winston said as he brought the plane down.
"You boys better brace yourselves!" Winston said as he laughing his heart out as he hadn't had this much fun in ages.
As Jonathan, Ardeth and Rick were screaming, they all braced for impact.
The biplane smashes over a dune, rolls over, and crashes upside-down into another dune.
Though I did have my entire body enhanced with Adamantine kate right before we crashed, the pressure was still pretty hard to dissipate.
It felt like I was hit all over the body with a mallet but without any pain.
Weird sensation really.
When the plane came to a complete stop, I jumped down from the wing and helped everyone get unstrapped.
Ardeth was chilling as he still had the smile plastered on his face.
This guy really enjoys the adrenaline rush.
Jonathan however was hanging upside-down and was calling for help.
"Excuse me…a little help would be useful…IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE!!" he said as he felt completely terrified with what had happened.
Jonathan got out of the gunner's compartment as Ardeth stumbled over and tore the machine gun from the compartment.
After I got Jonathan out of his current predicament, I went over to Winston to make sure he was alright.
"Hey Winston, that was some nice flying. Want some help?" I asked as I got closer to him as he was just sitting in the cockpit.
No answer.
"Hey c'mon buddy, you did great. It's time to go!" I said as I started to shake him.
Still no answer.
"Damn it." I said now realizing the gravity of what had happened.
"Winston! Hey, Winston!" Rick said as he walked and stood next to me and wanted to get his attention.
Still no response from him as we saw Winston's smiling face that looked like he was still asleep.
Rick touched Winston's neck to make sure and sure enough, he had passed away.
Just before I was about to take his body out of the plane, the plane itself started to sink.
"Quicksand! Get back, it's quicksand!" Rick said as he yanked me away.
As we got back a safe distance away from the plane, we saw it slowly sinking into the dune.
The plane sank slowly into the swirling sand along with Winston's body.
There was nothing we could do to save him as he had already died. Perhaps the shock killed him so I did what I felt right at this moment.
I stood tall and gave Winston a proper salute to which Ardeth, Rick and Jonathan followed suit.
It was the only thing we could do for him at this point.
-HAMUNAPTRA STAIRWAY-
Carrying torches that we found, we made our way down a long, winding and narrow staircase. Heading into the bowels of the necropolis. A passageway to hell.
As we neared a slightly collapsed doorway, Rick, Ardeth and I proceeded to dig it out.
"I'd take those bigger stones first." Jonathan said as he was just basically backseat gaming.
"Take them from the top, otherwise the whole will cave in on us. C'mon put your backs into it." Jonathan said this time which irked both Rick and Ardeth.
They looked back at Jonathan ready to beat him up.
This seemed to quiet him down as he looked timid and said, "Yeah well…you've got the idea. Chop, chop."
As we kept digging it out, Jonathan noticed an amethyst-like scarab on the far wall of the hallway we were in.
"I say, look at that. Say gents, come and have a look at this." Jonathan said as he observed the scarab in his hand.
Just then we heard screaming from Jonathan.
"AUGHH!!"
"What?!" Rick said as he took a break from digging and looked at Jonathan who was now freaking out.
"My arm! It's my arm!" Jonathan said, trying to keep the scarab from crawling too deeply.
I immediately ripped open his shirt and saw a huge lump of something crawling around right underneath his skin.
"Woah!" Rick and Ardeth said at the same time.
"Do something!" Jonathan yelled out.
"Hold him!" Rick said as I held Jonathan without moving a muscle.
Rick whipped out a butterfly knife he had on him and grabbed Jonathan's arm.
"Do something! Do something! Not that! Not that!" Jonathan yelled and struggled as much as he could to no avail as soon as he saw what Rick was about to do.
Rick dug the knife into Jonathan's skin and flicked out the scarab that was burrowing itself deeper into his arm.
The scarab hit the floor and immediately tried to scurry itself back towards Jonathan, trying to finish its job.
Just before it could reach him, I let go of Jonathan and stomped on the scarab.
A large tremor reverberated throughout the tomb because of that.
Feeling the disgusting squelch underneath my shoes, I scurried away while my whole body and face felt cringe.
It's absolutely vile to kill insects. So disgusting.
As we tended to Jonathan's wound, Rick commanded Jonathan, "From now on, don't touch anything! Not a damn thing! Keep your hands off the furniture, got it?"
Jonathan simply swallowed hard and nodded vigorously.
After we headed into the room after digging out enough for us to go through, we saw a small crevice on one of the walls that led to another room.
Thinking that's where we should go, Rick volunteered to be the first to squeeze through.
We crawled in after him and stood there in the darkness.
Though we did see some sunlight peeking through, I noticed those mirror disks that reflected light and shot it with one of my guns.
The bullet strikes the disk's pedestal, spinning the mirror into the shaft of light that peeked through and then-
WHAM
The shaft of light reflected to another disk until eventually the whole room was lit up.
It's an ENORMOUS treasure chamber. Filled to overflowing.
Everything was sparkling and shining. The wealth of Egypt.
Everyone was completely speechless, including me who saw this scene in the movie. It's a completely different scene in front of your very eyes.
We walked down the small stairway in front of us to see the treasure closer and inspected the statues and pieces of jewelry that were scattered about the site.
It's all made up entirely of gold.
"Can you see-" Jonathan was about to say but was interrupted by Rick.
"Yeah."
"Can you believe-" he was interrupted again by Rick.
"Yeah."
"Can we just-" Jonathan was about to ask but was again interrupted by Rick who realized what he was going to ask.
"No."
"Maybe later." I said to Jonathan since I kinda was getting a little greedy too with this scene.
Just then, we heard some slight grunts and saw a hand pierce through the ground.
A mummified priest climbed up and soon after 8 of them had climbed their way from the ground and approached us.
"Apparently they wanna kill us." I said as I walked towards one and punched hard with Flame kata.
Its head and upper body exploded and were completely wiped out.
"They're also pretty easy to kill," I told them.
Rick and Ardeth immediately start shooting at the rest of the mummified priests.
Soon enough, the mummies that we had already killed came back to life, albeit more mangled than they had previously been and even more appeared from corridors and from beneath us.
We were soon swarmed in and had no choice but to run back into a room that was mummy free.
We raced around a corner after escaping from the treasure room with the mummies still hot on our trail.
Soon we reached a chamber room that housed the lower half of another Egyptian God.
It was Horus.
"There he is!" Jonathan exclaimed.
Rick reached into his gunny-sack and pulled out a stick of dynamite.
To light it up, he slid the dynamite string roughly on Ardeth's stubbly face and it instantly caught fire.
Rick then threw it down the corridor of the entrance to the Horus room and we all hit the deck.
The dynamite EXPLODED and ripped apart the mummies and caused a cave-in which sealed the passage-way with sand and rocks.
Now there was only one way out of the room: another dark and creepy looking passageway.
END CHAPTER 15