This story was written to go with the picture above, by Franubis, featuring Sentri.
The stranger lowered his hood and strode confidently into the great hall of the national museum. The hard part was done, and he had exactly five minutes and thirty-seven seconds to complete the mission he’d been preparing his whole life for.
Plenty of time.
For the first time all day — after deactivating the security systems, wiping the closed-circuit cameras, and silently and efficiently knocking out each and every one of the guards — he allowed himself to relax. The mission was going exactly as he’d planned. It was flawless.
The museum’s great hall held countless priceless artifacts. He’d have wealth for life if he pilfered even one of the small, glittering artifacts adorning the outer walls of the chamber. But that’s not what he was here for.
No, the pièces de résistance stood in the center of the room, each rising more than four stories, nearly tall enough to brush the great hall’s high ceiling: Two enormous statues of well-muscled, anthropomorphic birds — presumably gods an ancient civilization worshipped, carefully sculpted to show each feather and each piece of elaborate jewelry in fine detail.
The stranger chuckled. Well, everyone thought they were statues. He knew better.
The statues had been stolen from his homeland several thousands years ago. His civilization had long-since been wiped off the map… almost. A small, secret society still remained, passing down stories from generation to generation. Because of this, the stranger knew that the birds towering over him weren’t statues at all, but the gods themselves, sealed away in stone thousands of years ago in a fit of impudence — one that would prove to be their downfall several years later, when the gods were nowhere to help them against these invaders.
But the stranger wasn’t after the statues. He didn’t need them. What he needed was the small relic between them — one that, several months ago, the museum foolishly decided to begin displaying in public, between the statues with which it was found.
Clearly, none of the museum curators left on staff were familiar with the history of that artifact, the stranger snickered. But he was. And with all of the security in the museum disabled, all it took were a few final steps before the stranger held it in his hands. He took a moment to gaze at it in wonderment — the weight, the finely crafted contours… the power that such a simple object held, about which none of the fools running the museum had any idea.
He gazed up at the stone birds flanking him on either side. It was almost as if their expressions had changed — as if he could sense them telling him to bring his plan to completion.
He took a step back and hurled the relic onto the ground, smashing it into thousands of pieces. Almost immediately, an alarm began to blare throughout the room. The security system must’ve rebooted. It didn’t matter — the deed was already done. The hooded figure slipped back into his namesake strangers and retreated to watch the show.
The museum began to shake, small tremors at first that quickly became as strong as high-magnitude earthquakes. Precious artifacts around the room topped off their pedestals, crashing to the ground in a dazzling display.
But the shaking was most pronounced around the two statues. Chunks of rock began to explode off of them, and the stranger gasped as he realized that they were beginning to grow even taller than their previous 50-foot height. Within moments, all the rock had burst off the statues, unable to contain the growing birds inside. The stranger finally beheld the deities he’d plotted all his life to release.
On the left, a huge bald eagle, with blue head feathers giving way to a magnificent, fluffy gray mane encircling his neck. Below that was a thick, muscular black body and blue and gold tail feathers.
On the right, an enormous Steller’s sea eagle, this one purple and white, with a gorgeous crest and an equally bulky body. “Foolish mortals!” he roared. “Finally, we are free, and you will pay for your arrogance!”
The two eagles stretched and flexed, proudly examining their bodies for the first time in ages. Their heads pressed up against the crumbling ceiling of the museum and quickly burst through it, surging upwards in size. The ornate jewelry covering their bodies grew with them; their loincloths did not, each snapping off after a brief, futile struggle to contain the massive packages of both birds.
Each deity’s shaft quickly rose to full mast, the tips throbbing powerfully at the tops of their chests. The ancient texts had understated just how well-endowed the bird gods were — then again, some impressive morning wood was to be expected after slumbering in stone for thousands of years.
The two birds gripped their shafts as they looked down at the carnage they were causing, clearly reveling in it as they grew ever-taller to exact their long-awaited vengeance.
Security guards flocked into the room as they regained consciousness, only to turn around and flee in terror as they saw the towering eagle gods. Some became pinned under the massive soles of the birds as they casually took their first steps in millennia, each powerful tread causing earthquakes and untold amounts of damage to the museum and the surrounding area.
From a safe distance, the stranger casually rubbed his own bulge, which had been hardening under his cloak as he watched the virile bird gods breathe again at long last. He smirked, relishing in the destruction they were already beginning to cause.
Oh yes, he thought. The old gods were finally back.