Explosion MAAAAAARE!

“Explosion MAAAAAAARE!” somepony sang, then exploded, shaking plaster from the ceiling, shattering windows, and blowing brick, mortar, and wood across the street. Ponies screamed in terror and fled from the building. They spilled out into the street as the dust settled, staring back at the site of the attack where a hole was left in the façade of the old bank. Bodies of those unlucky enough to be near the mare when she exploded were unrecognizable. Most were only separate parts, having been literally blown to pieces by their proximity to the culprit.

Detective Curly Clue licked his hoof and adjusted his mane, correcting the fall of his forelick that had been blown out of place by the blast. Sirens were approaching from all sides, and the police were coming en masse. He had called them before the explosion, warning them of the event, but they hadn’t believed him. Nopony had.
As they cordoned off the area, Curly debated coming forward with his story, but knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Explosion MAAAAAARE! was dangerous, but not something that could be stopped by police. These weren’t acts of terrorism or calculated distractions to steal anything. They were just explosions, and that was what made them dangerous.
He had been following Explosion MAAAAAARE! for almost a year now. She was everywhere and nowhere, dangerous and harmless, but the main thing he had learned was that she wasn’t a single pony. That was the hard part. He didn’t know if she was a curse or what, but every pony that had exploded had been obliterated. There was no body left behind, and pictures taken of the ponies before they exploded showed that they weren’t the same pony. They were always different. That meant that these ponies were all either together in something, or Explosion MAAAAAARE! was something besides a physical being.



Curly Clue shook his head to clear out the stupid music that came along with it. Every time he thought of the name Explosion MAAAAAARE! the awful fanfare he had heard every time somepony exploded filled his head. The name was sung, even in his head, exactly like everypony who yelled it when they detonated.
That suggested the entire idea of Explosion MAAAAAARE might be memetic, and the ‘idea’ was what incited ponies to explode. He worried that he would be affected by it, but so far it was only mares that went batty and exploded. He didn’t know if that was just luck or something intended, and he hoped he never found out.
Curly returned to his hotel room. Cockroaches scurried underneath the furniture as he flipped on the lights and trotted to his desk. Manehatten was a nice place, but they had a serious vermin problem. It didn’t help that he wasn’t traveling on a lot of money and had to depend on cheap hotels wherever he went, but it would have been nice to sleep without worrying about swallowing an insect.
Curly picked up the phone and tried to call the number he had been given when this whole thing started. It rang, but there was no answer, just like the last eight times. He rubbed his face in frustration and leaned back in his seat. The chair creaked ominously. He was beginning to worry the poor mare had gone and exploded like everypony else involved in this mess.

He had been hired to investigate a rival group of researchers that had traveled to the San Palomino Desert. His client had been a young and very attractive mare who believed the rival archaeologists had been stealing artifacts from their sites and selling under the guise of performing research. Who would notice if an artifact or two went missing from a discovery site, after all? He had been asked to find out the truth, which, if true, would get their funding withdrawn.

During his initial investigation, he had discovered that the group had indeed been stealing artifacts and selling them. That was easy. They hadn’t been careful in their dealings, and he had the names and locations of the group that had been buying them. It was after he contacted his client letting her know that things had gone south. They’d probably bugged the phones, but she had disappeared. He hadn’t been able to contact any of her associates either, but that was when the first explosion happened.
It was in a small town west of Somnambula called Detonatia. The rival group had been digging in some pyramids out there when one of the workers stepped out of the pyramid, walked straight to the camp and yelled, “Explosion MAAAAAARE!” and exploded.
Curly couldn’t believe it. He’d been observing from afar, but it was completely nonsensical, and he had seen the mare who did it working happily with the group to sell the items. There was nothing in his file on her indicating she might be a turncoat, but there she had gone and decimated the entire camp.
From there it had been a sort of chain reaction. Curly had returned to Somnambula to contact his client, but had been interrupted when a mare, who had been dressed like a Somnabula native, sang out “Explosion MAAAAAARE!” and blown herself up in the middle of the marketplace. He’d barely survived that one. His ears had been ringing for a week afterward. Neither one of them had any sort of explosive devices on them, they had just blown up spontaneously after shouting Explosion MAAAAAARE!
After that, Explosion MAAAAAARE! had been detected all over Equestria. The explosions weren’t frequent, thankfully, but they were becoming a significant problem. Curly had been trying to follow them to see if there was a pattern, and was attempting to contact his client for assistance in returning to Detonatia. If it started from somewhere, that would be it.

As he was packing, he heard a knock on the door. He looked up.
Nopony should have known he was here. Not even his client should have known, and he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t been able to contact her to inform her of his plans to follow Explosion MAAAAAARE!
He pulled a knife out of his bag and held it ready in his magic, then slowly crept over to the door. He looked through the peephole, but couldn’t see anypony. That was the second red flag. He yelled through the door.
“Who is it?”
There was a quiet humming for ten seconds, and he turned away in panic when he recognized the tune, then somepony sang: “Explosion MAAAAAARE!”
Curly Clue dove for cover behind the bed as the wall splintered inward. Shards of glass slashed across his flesh and heat seared his back. He tumbled onto the other side of the bed as the shockwave blasted it and him into the wall. He was pinned, but alive. The building shook and swayed, and the floor tilted as rubble fell around him.
Curly waited until the dust had settled. He was alive, and that was more than could be said for many. Sirens could be heard approaching, and he knew he would have a lot of explaining to do, but maybe they would finally listen to him. After so many instances of Explosion MAAAAAARE! appearing in the fair city of Manehatten, they would admit he knew something of what he was talking about.

“So, detective.” They were outside the motel, the giant hole in the wall created by Explosion MAAAAAARE! behind them. “You’re saying this… ‘Explosion MAAAAAARE!’ is the one behind all this?” The officer made a face when mentioning her.
“Yes, sir. Explosion MAAAAAARE! is everywhere and yet nowhere all at once. She’s an idea more than anything, but I don’t know what triggers a mare to go off her rocker. I’m trying to contact my client, who knows more about this than I do, but she’s nowhere to be found. I fear the worst.”

“Well, if it will get Explosion MAAAAAARE! out of our hair, we’ll be happy to help you investigate. Forensics have no idea what might cause this. There’s never enough left of the bodies Explosion MAAAAAARE! uses for us to get a clue if there is a virus of bacteria that causes it.”
“That’s why I want to contact my client. Her and a rival group of archaeologists were quarreling over the spot. Just west of Somnambula in the San Palomino desert.”
“That’s where Explosion MAAAAAARE!—” the police chief stopped, bit his lower lip, and looked away. He looked like he was trying to compose himself. “—where Explosion MAAAAAARE!—” He clapped a hoof to his forehead, stamped, then tried again. “—where it all originated from?”
“Yes, sir. I was there when Explosion MAAAAAARE! made her first known appearance. One of the archaeologists just blew up right in the middle. *POW!*” Curly made an exploding motion with a hoof.
“And… just out of curiosity, why can’t I think of Explosion MAAAAAARE! or say it without that awful tune going through my head?”
Curly shrugged. “I wish I knew, Captain. I suspect it has to do with her memetic existence.”
The captain sighed. “This is so far beyond anything I wanted to deal with. We’ll get our best on finding your client, but what can we do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know, captain, but I’m heading back to Somnambula to find out!”
“Sunspeed to you, detective.”
Curly collected what was left of his luggage, and made his way down to the train station. He was wary of riding on the machine with Explosion MAAAAAARE! on the loose, but it was the quickest way to get back to the San Palomino desert. Walking would have taken too long, and he couldn’t afford to hire a pegasus carriage.

He was sleeping in his compartment on the train when he was awakened by the sound of somepony humming. It was quiet, but during the time he had been following reports of Explosion MAAAAAARE! he had come to recognize the tune.
The humming passed by his compartment’s door and continued on, heading toward the front of the train. He slid out of bed and cracked open his door to peek. There was a mare in the hall, humming the song, sashaying down the swaying hall. If she was headed to the engine, driven by the otherworldly force that was Explosion MAAAAAARE! then they were all in very big trouble.
He grabbed his knife and followed her. He might be the only thing standing between everypony else on the train and death by derailment, and he needed to be ready. He would only have a split second between when she started her yell, but he had to shut her up fast!
The train rocked as it went around a corner and he bumped into the door next to him. Somepony inside mumbled something and it opened to reveal a young mare with very big green eyes.
“Mmmyeah? What is it?” she asked blearily.
“Oh, nothing. Please go back to sleep, it was an accident.”
She noticed the knife he was holding and heard the humming from up ahead. “What… oh Celestia!”
“It’s not what it looks like, she’s—” Curly tried to stop himself, but Explosion MAAAAAARE! would not be denied. “—Explosion MAAAAAARE!” Curly sang at the top of his lungs.
“What? Explosion MAAAAAARE!?” the pony sang in confusion and alarm.
Curly braced for the explosion, but she didn’t detonate like the rest. Curly filed that tidbit away for later, but turned back to look at his quarry. She had taken off at a gallop down the train cars, but it confirmed his suspicions. She was headed for the engine!

Curly raced off after her, leaving the confused mare behind him.
“Who the hell is Explosion MAAAAAARE!?” she yelled as he left.
Curly would have loved to have been able to answer her question, but he didn’t fully know himself, and if this mare got to the engine before he could stop her, he would never know. They would all just become statistics in the queue of many before them who had died under mysterious circumstances along the Friendship Express.
The mare ahead of him weaved neatly through crowds of ponies as they ran. Her smaller frame gave her much more maneuverability than Curly. His years of working out to handle any larger ponies who gave him guff has made him stocky, and he couldn’t fit through smaller spaces. He wasn’t supposed to be the one giving chase, his muscles were for protection, not murder.
“Stop her! She’s heading for the engine! I’m a detective!” Curly brandished his identification like a weapon, excusing himself for having a knife out and chasing somepony.
Ponies didn’t usually question you when you waved a badge. They didn’t have time to think about it, and would just let you go about your business rather than risk stopping somepony who was in the middle of stopping another crime. In his case it was a tactic he used often, but he’d seen it used by ponies who weren’t detectives. Regular ponies didn’t worry about it too often.
Ponies cleared the way for him, and he and Explosion MAAAAAARE! continued their chase. They reached the dining car, and finally somepony helped him out. An earth pony waitress at the far end of the car tilted a table in front of Explosion MAAAAAARE! when she neared, tripping her. Explosion MAAAAAARE! tumbled to the floor in a heap and Curly was on her, holding her down with his greater weight.

Curly brought his knife up against her neck and bent down to her ears. “Alright, I will give you one sentence, and if it starts with ‘Explosion’, this knife is going in your throat.”
She said nothing, but the mare who had helped him shook her head and pointed at herself, then at the mare underneath him. Curly looked confused for a moment, and the mare beneath him took the opportunity to yell “Explosion— *GRK*”. The other mare had kicked her in the face.
“Explosion— *brff*”! she kicked her in the teeth again, bloodying her nose. She kept pointing to herself, then to Explosion MAAAAAARE! and then Curly. It was like she was trying to tell him something, but Curly couldn’t figure out what. She at least seemed interested in talking, but she wasn’t saying anything.
It was then Curly really looked at her. She looked familiar, but the huge scar on her face and neck wasn’t something he expected he would have forgotten. It looked fresh, the fur not fully grown back over the wound, and it crawled down her neck quite a distance, which was probably the reason she wasn’t saying anything.
At Curly’s obvious confusion, she sighed and pulled a pair of spectacles out of her vest and slipped them on her nose, then kicked Explosion MAAAAAARE! in the face again when the subdued mare mumbled something.
He goggled at the sight when he figured out it was his old client from the start of this whole mess. “Mina? Palomina Plains?”
She nodded vigorously, smiling.
Curly’s face broke into a smile. “Well I’ll be damned! No wonder you weren’t answering my calls. What the buck happened to you?”
Mina pointed at the mare on the ground, then at herself. She mimed an explosion and made a guttural explosion noise.
“Caught in an Explosion MAAAAAARE! explosion?”
She shook her head and pointed to the mare on the ground. “Explosion—*Uff*”! She kicked the mare again, then pointed to herself. She mouthed the words slowly: ‘Explosion MAAAAAARE!’

Curly furrowed his brow. “You weren’t caught in an explosion, you WERE Explosion MAAAAAARE!?”
She nodded and smiled, then pointed to her throat, then at his knife.
“Oh, shit! Luna’s ass, Mina, I’m so sorry. Let me get Explosion MAAAAAARE! subdued here, and then we can get you a pen and paper so we can properly talk.”
Curly got a towel from one of the waitstaff and gagged Explosion MAAAAAARE!, then he and Mina returned to his room. They caught up on everything the two had missed, with Mina writing down her own story about what had happened and why they had been separated for so long.
She had been caught in another Explosion MAAAAAARE! explosion, but nopony had been hurt by it. She had known it was coming and had heard the humming and evacuated everypony. The problem came from the memetic-seeming propagation of Explosion MAAAAAARE!. It seemed random, but when a mare starts humming the song, that is the first indicator. Curly had figured that part out, and that it only affected mares. What Curly didn’t know is that there is a short time when the mare can be protected from becoming a host. Curly had slashed her own vocal cords so that she could never finish humming the tune, and never be able to sing the trigger: Explosion MAAAAAARE!
“So, the purpose of the dig, then. You were trying to find Explosion MAAAAAARE! first?”
She nodded.
“Damn. The other group didn’t know what they were digging up, and you were trying to stop them. I was heading back there to try to fix this whole mess somehow. I’ve no idea what I’m looking for.”
Mina thumped herself on the chest and pumped her hoof.
“Glad we bumped into each other. You can find the thing and stop this, and I’ll make sure you get there.”
Mina nodded, smiling.

The rest of the trip to the San Palomino desert was quiet. Mina answered Curly’s question as best she could, scribbling down her answers. Unfortunately, her knowledge of Explosion MAAAAAARE! was limited. She just knew that it was dangerous, and that there should be something at the destination that could help them stop it from getting any further.
The closest they could get was Applewood. They hired a wagon from there to take them out to Somnambula, crossing the majority of the desert.
 Somnambula was in a state of panic when they arrived. Smoke rose from a building on the western side of town, billowing up from a distance. Upon arrival they could see the citizenry bunkered down, with civilians hiding in their homes and the small group of guards the town had set up on the western side, just next to the destroyed building.
Their wagon left them, heading away from the mess and back to Applewood, taking a few civilians with him to safety. Curly and Mina, suspecting this had something to do with their own quest, approached one of the guards to ask about it.
“What’s going on here? What’s attacking?”
“Mummies,” the guard said, not taking his eyes off the desert sands.
Curly squinted as he looked out over the pale expanse. “Mummies? As in preserved corpses?”
“Yeah, they appeared just last night out of the desert. They charge in and explode.”
“Explode?” Curly said in alarm. “Do they yell Explosion MAAAAAARE! first?”
“No, these ones don’t. I know what you’re talking about, though. Explosion MAAAAAARE! only affects living ponies.”
“Well, we have to stop it! Myself and Mina here are going back out to Detonatia to find the source of all this. Is there anypony here who can help us?”
The guard shook his head. “We have our hooves full stopping the mummies that come, and keeping the mares affected by Explosion MAAAAAARE! from exploding. You’re on your own, And I’d watch your friend carefully.”

“She can’t speak, so she’s unaffected. We’ll try our best to figure this out.”
“I think you’re on a suicide mission, but it’s better than any ideas I have. We sent a message to the princess for help, but if you can finish this, we would be grateful.” The guard passed his sword to Curly, who grabbed it with his magic.
“Thank you. Here’s hoping we see you again.”
The guard nodded and went back to staring out at the desert, and Curly and Mina walked out into the blazing-hot wastes. They kept an eye out for any of the mummies that the guard had warned them of, but they could see nothing out of the ordinary in every direction. There seemed to be nothing but sand ahead of them, sand beside, and sand behind, except for the swiftly diminishing Somnambula. The day wore on, the two of them walked, and the sun beat down.
When they finally reached a point where they could see the remains of the Detonatian pyramids, evening way falling. The darkness was creeping in, and their shadows were long. Mina stayed close to Curly, watching their sides, and Curly crept ahead. They reached the dusty remains of the camp that had been left behind by the other archaeologists. It hadn’t been touched since the very first explosion, and everything was still strewn about and half-buried in sand.
“Nothing has happened since then, it would seem. I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t been blown up yet.”
No sooner had Curly said that, then a moaning sound came from the sand around them. The two ponies went back-to-back and spun around in a slow circle, trying to see where the sound was coming from. Several dusty corpses burst from the sand, dessicated and thin, and shambled at the two.

Curly slashed the head off the closest one, then severed the legs of the second, but the third one got to him and grappled with him face-to-face. Mina obliterated the one attacking her with a powerful earth-pony buck, and came to help Curly, blasting its head off with a fore-kick. The remaining one on the ground, lacking only its legs, started to bulge and glow.
“Oh, shit!”
Curly grabbed Mina and dove behind an upturned table just as it exploded, showering them in dusty flesh and sand.
“I guess these are some of the mummies he was talking about.”
Mina just nodded.
Curly peeked over the table at the camp. It was still mostly intact, but the sword he had been given was nowhere to be seen. Curly grabbed a nearby saw from the abandoned camp, while Mina ripped a leg off the table to use as a club. She pointed at the saw with a frown and shook her head.
“What? They probably used it to saw off mummy limbs for sale or something. I’m going to do the same thing.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes.
Once they were equipped, they approached the entrance to the tomb. It was almost buried under sand again, but the entrance was visible. The doors were shut, but after a little digging, they could see the entrance to the tomb exposed before them, its yawning darkness lying in wait.
Curly lit his horn and cast the beam of light down into the tomb ahead, inside which he swore he could hear faint music. He held up his hoof to Mina and shushed her. “Shh! Do you hear that?”
She gave him an exasperated look and motioned to her throat.
“Right, right. Well I hear music, do you?”
She nodded, then made the explosion motion with her hooves.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s that infernal song. Best be careful. I don’t know how willing they might be to explode inside the pyramid, but I’m not going to bank on it being safe. Stay close.”
Curly flashed his light inside the entrance. There wasn’t anything except the hallway, and the floor was mostly clear of sand. He stepped inside, brandishing his saw. Nothing attacked them, and he stepped further in, motioning for Mina to follow him. She trotted behind him, keeping an eye on the entrance in case something followed them in.
As they made their way deeper, they found discarded tools and half-disassembled murals the archaeologists had been removing to sell. Mina glared at them and snorted derisively.
“I know. You wanted to study them instead of ripping them apart. You’ll hopefully get your chance once we clear up this mess. I don’t think the previous group is in any condition to stop you.”
Mina nodded in response.
The music got louder the further in they got, until they reached a large set of double doors. They were shut, but the music could easily be heard coming from inside. The front of the door was protected by a large stone seal, part of which had been removed and was sitting nearby.
The seal appeared to depict a pony in the center, from which was emanating fire, burning ponies nearby as they attempted to flee. The pony in the middle was unharmed by the flames, and even appeared to be smiling. It was depicted with curled ears, and a curved horn, similar to those unicorns from the east, unlike the other ponies in the picture, which had straight horns.
“An eastern unicorn given a tomb here? Either Explosion MAAAAAARE! was from the east or it’s just an artistic depiction. But we should be—”

“Somepony said my naaaaaame!” A voice from inside shouted. “Enter, and bathe in the light that emanates from the amazing, the talented: Explosion MAAAAAARE!”
The doors shook and the seal cracked. Curly stepped back but Mina ran forward. She picked up the broken chunk of the seal and tried to put it back in place. A burst of sound came from the room inside and widened the already damaged seal. The broken piece flew off and Mina was pushed to the ground.
“Oh, no you don’t! Anypony that rejects my gifts deserves nothing but contempt! I could have made you beautiful, my dear, but you wanted to be ugly. Live hard, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. And what is more beautiful than a single moment of bright light and explosive fanfare?” The music got louder still, and the seal shattered. The doors burst open and a bright light spilled out. “Enter, and bathe in the fiery radiance of Explosion MAAAAAARE!”
Powerful music came from the room ahead. Inside, Curly could see a crowd of mummified ponies facing the doors. They were standing on a stage set in front of a gaudy golden sarcophagus. The sarcophagus itself seemed to be the source of the light and the music, and the mummies were all stamping to the rhythm.
Curly stared in confusion. Mina seemed enraptured and took a step forward, but Curly kicked her in the side and she shook her head. She collected herself and flattened her ears back, then took up a defensive posture.
“Break that sarcophagus or whatever is inside it, and I think we’ll be fine. The seal was meant to keep it in check, but now its influence is free. We have to stop it here and now.”
“Stop me?” The sarcophagus glowed with each word. “I’m beauty and danger combined. I’m the best and worst of marehood. I am beautiful! Gaze upon me and despair!”

“Mostly just the worst. Most mares I know don’t explode. Or they shouldn’t.” Curly brandished his bonesaw and crouched low. “Let’s dance, punk.”
“Yes! Let us dance!”
The music got painfully loud. The mummies all danced forward, stamping their hooves in time as they approached Mina and Curly. They shifted and shuffled, dusty bodies swaying back and forth as they came closer. They had no expression on their dessicated faces. Their hollow eyes stared at nothing, only following the music until they got close. One of them shuffled forward and swung at Curly, who lashed out with his bonesaw, severing the leg.
It stumbled as it tried to keep time with its missing limb, and fell over, getting tramped by the rest as they moved forward, ignoring their fallen comrade. Mina took the initiative on her own side, clubbing one of the mummies upside the head. Its dusty cranium exploded into shards, but it kept moving, unwilling or unable to stop dancing.
“Attack the legs! They have to keep dancing, and they’ll die if they can’t!” Mina nodded and swept the legs out from another mummy. It dropped and was trampled by the rest, just like the last one. Curly reached out with his magic and sliced a foreleg off another one, who was subsequently ground to dust under the dancing crowd. Mina broke the legs of another, which fell and was stomped to death.
Despite the few victories they had, they were getting pushed back, out of the room. Curly couldn’t figure out why, but then the sarcophagus shouted: “Behold the glory and the fury of Explosion MAAAAAARE!” One of the mummies shuffled forward from the rest, and its torso began to bulge forward.
“Oh, shit!” Curly grabbed Mina in his magic and leaped straight into the crowd of mummies behind the foremost cadaver. When he did, the mummy’s chest exploded forward, blasting fire down the hallway, leaving the crowd of mummies undamaged.

They were alive, but were now surrounded on all sides by dessicated bodies groping and swiping at them. Curly felt the sandpaper skin of the mummies around him against his flesh as they lashed out, each one trying its best to be the one to bring him down. He felt slashes and strikes hit his body everywhere as he lashed out wildly with his bonesaw. Curly could see the crowded mummies nearby falling against each other as Mina bucked and swung her club about with reckless abandon. Blood stained her fur, but she was alive for the moment.
Curly blocked a hoof coming at his face, and pushed over the pony that had swung at him. It was a losing battle, as there appeared the be no end to the crowd. The ones they had brought down were crumpled in heaps on the floor, bones trampled to sand, but more were trickling in from doors nearby and crawling out of holes in the pyramid he had not noticed before. He and Mina would tire before the mummies did, and they would die, unable to stop the crazy, dancing, exploding crowd.
Curly saw a mummy’s chest expand, facing the crowd of them, and he used his magic to lift the pony up to face the ceiling. It burst and the heat washed over them. Bricks fell from the ceiling and dust trickled down onto them. Curly blocked another attack and severed a pony’s head from its dry body. It stumbled away to crumble.
“Mina! We need to get to the sarcophagus!”
Mina didn’t look at him. She was busy fighting mummies and the music coming from the golden monstrosity was too loud, drowning out his voice. Curly cursed inwardly and reeled as a hoof struck the side of his head. He fell into the grasping claws of some other mummies and received a deep gouge to his side.

“Aaaagh!” Curly screamed.
His cry of pain got Mina’s attention, thankfully. She bowled over the crowd of mummies between her and Curly and pulled him up, bucking away the crowd of bodies around them.
When he was up, Curly shouted at her. “We need to stop the sarcophagus! They just keep coming!”
Mina nodded, and punched a mummy approaching from Curly’s side. She pointed at the sarcophagus, the barreled through the crowd, her earth pony strength clearing a path through the emaciated husks with ease. Curly followed after, limping slightly from his new wound, but they pushed through the crowd, slashing and beating the mummies down until they stood at the base of the stage in front of the sarcophagus. Several mummies had climbed on the stage, looking down at the two with blank-eyed gazes.
The music got quieter for a moment, but the stamping of the mummies in time didn’t slow, and they didn’t stop attacking. “You’ll tire far sooner than my guards, will. You can’t dodge their attacks forever.”
A mummy on the stage stepped forward, its chest expanded, and Curly lifted it overhead before it blew up, blasting its fetid dust into the air above them. “And you will run out of mummies eventually. They’re not infinite, no matter what you’d have us believe. I also noticed you’re not making them explode the same way as outside. Afraid of damaging your home?”
The music got louder again, but there was no response to that. Unfortunately, the music also sped up, and the mummies redoubled their efforts to bring the two down. Curly was swiping left and right with his bonesaw, and withered limbs flew, but there were just too many. One of them prepared to explode, but Mina bucked it away before it could complete the explosion and it crumpled with a weak *pluff!*

But the mummies were gaining ground, and they were being pushed away from the sarcophagus slowly but surely. They needed to finish it off soon or they wouldn’t get a chance.
Curly saw another one of the mummies preparing to explode, and he lifted it up and tossed it wildly in the direction of the sarcophagus. It flew through the air, and when it finally burst, it set the sarcophagus rocking.
The music stopped.
Every mummy halted. The one grasping at Curly’s eyes with its cracked hoof stopped just shy of him, and the one trying to strangle Mina had its hooves torn off as she pulled away, gasping for air.
“Mina: Now!”
The sarcophagus rocked back and forth, the glow coming from it sporadic instead of the powerful beam from before. Mina got there first and grabbed it, attempting to spill it forward off the dais. Curly caught up soon after, and the two of them grabbed the sarcophagus and tilted it back and forth. Back and forth. It swayed farther each time, until finally, with a great creaking squeal and a squawk of indignation from inside, it fell off the dais and crashed to the floor. The lid slipped off, and a wrapped body fell out.
“No…” it cried weakly. “…my beautiful song… my… my lovely… fire. You can’t stop… Explosion… Explosion… maaaaaare…”
With a weak *puff* the body burst into sparkling dust, which floated up into the air, and dissipated. Curly’s nose tickled and he sneezed.
All around them the mummies fell over, their bodies littering the floor in a grisly display of limbs and bones. It was a sight, and gathering any information from the place would be difficult, but hopefully the defeat of the main mummy would halt any further explosions. He breathed a sigh of relief and looked to Mina.
“Finally over, I hope. That beat was infectious, though. Are you okay, Mina?”
Mina grinned at him and opened her mouth, and a heavy beat issued forth. The mummies stood back up and started stamping their hooves in time with the beat.
“No!” Curly screamed. Noooooo!”

The End.