#and I realised I'd forgotten a lot more of the mummy than I thought as well

[czigonas]

Alright. Hear me out. SoapGhost Mummy('99) fusion/AU with some WWI backstory (most of which is only implied in the films).

(This is entirely @appleciderp's fault because of both these two posts. Also my appreciation for OG Captain MacTavish's outfits.)

(Now, The Mummy is already not entirely historically accurate but I am also not a historian, so if I mess up some details about WWI, no I didn't. Most of this is just the plot of the movie but with the cod boys replacing a few people or just being added outright.)

Apple, here you go. (Also, this got really long, so it's under a cut.)

Captain John "Soap" MacTavish returns home to Scotland after serving in a unit attached to the EEF in WWI; a shadow of the man who went out to fight. While most of his company survived the brutal conditions of the Middle Eastern theatre where they were stationed, his trusted Lieutenant, Simon "Ghost" Riley, was one of those killed in the Battle of Megiddo just two months before the end of the war. His body was unable to be recovered.

In his attempts to drown his grief, Johnny loses track of most of the rest of his unit. All he has left is his younger sister Evelyn, as both of their parents died even before he was called to fight. To give themselves a new start - and both hope to curb his drinking and support his sister's blossoming career - they move to Egypt after donating a sizable chunk of their parents' estate to the library in the Cairo Museum, where it turns out the library curator is fellow ex-Captain, John Price.

(Going with Captain for Soap here because with the amount of money required to get Evelyn into her position, there's no way he wouldn't have had the money to purchase a commission. Don't worry, unlike Bey, Price won't die.)

Johnny steals reappropriates the map and box from O'Connell and, after Price tries to convince them Hamunaptra isn't real and they shouldn't pursue it, they negotiate to have O'Connell released from prison and get ready to head off down the river. The American company is lead by Dr. Shepherd and his cocky guide, Phillip Graves, who served with O'Connell in the French Foreign Legion during WWI.

When the Medjai attack the boat, Johnny gets briefly cornered by a fighter whose face is fully covered with cloth except for his eyes. While most of the Medjai are dressed similarly, this one's mask is unique and not easily pulled away from his face. The fighter hesitates to attack, however, letting Soap escape (but with a nagging feeling that he was somehow familiar).

Both groups reach the city at the same time and are again attacked by the Medjai. Johnny finds himself subtly shuffled out of danger by the same masked fighter that he encountered on the riverboat. While Ardeth gives his warning to Rick, Evelyn, and the Americans, Soap tries to ask where he and the fighter may have met before. He doesn't answer except to watch Johnny in return with what seems to Johnny to be somewhat frustrated puzzlement. The masked fighter leaves with the rest of the Medjai, though he seems reluctant to go.

While the Americans finally go to open the chest with the Book of the Dead, Graves decides to taunt O'Connell (and possibly attempt to flirt a bit with Soap) and so isn't present when the chest is opened and the curse activated. Evelyn steals reappropriates (like brother, like sister) the Book of the Dead from Shepherd's tent and reads the passage that resurrects Imhotep, which also sets off the plague of locusts.

Everyone flees into the city and, while Rick and Evelyn encounter Imhotep, Graves gets lost trying to find Soap, who has also wandered off a little. The masked fighter finds him first, however, and shuffles him back towards the rest of the party, leaving Graves to be found by the desiccated Imhotep after he's taken Burns' eyes and tongue.

(Torn between Graves being Jewish and saving himself the same way Beni does [prayers in Hebrew, which Imhotep recognises], having him enter the mummy's service some other way, having him die outright immediately, or even just him escaping somehow with or without Imhotep on his trail.)

Back in Cairo, Johnny realises he's being stalked by the masked Medjai, though he never manages to catch the guy to figure out why. He meets back up with Rick, Evelyn, Henderson, and Daniels in time to see Burns' drained body and Imhotep regenerate somewhat. After the mummy flees in fear of the cat, Rick sets Evelyn up in her room to be guarded by the Americans while he goes to warn Shepherd and Johnny goes to find the Medjai, hoping to finally get some answers (and maybe he's worried about the guy, nothing wrong with that).

He doesn't manage to find the masked fighter before Rick and Daniels catch up to him with the news that Shepherd is dead, however. They all rush back to Evelyn's room to scare off Imhotep with the cat again after Henderson gets eaten, and pack up to head towards the museum looking for answers.

And answers they find! Not only is Ardeth there with Price, but so is the masked fighter who's been stalking Johnny. Price and Ardeth lay out what's going on and while Rick, Evelyn, and Daniels ask the Medjai questions and start theorising about things, Price takes Soap to the side and reveals what he's kind of started to suspect: the masked fighter is Ghost, miraculously alive.

See, during the Battle of Megiddo, when Soap thought he saw Simon killed, he was actually just gravely injured. Because they were unable to reach him before the end of the battle - or even for a some time afterwards - he was picked up instead by the irregulars of the Hejaz and their allies who had also fought. While they were able to heal his physical wounds, Simon had also suffered significant memory loss and was unable to tell them which company he'd been attached to in order for them to help him get home.

Unfortunately, he was also somewhat mistrustful of those who had saved him, and slipped away sometime in the night to try and return to the only place that he had stuck in his head: Egypt, around Cairo, where his unit had been based out of. The Medjai had found him wandering the desert and took him in next, and he stayed because not only were they based in Egypt, which was familiar territory, but they were willing to teach him new ways to fight.

Price had recognised him once after Ardeth had brought him along to one of their regular meetings about the state of Hamunaptra, and had been trying to break through his memory loss ever since, with no luck. Soap was, essentially, their last hope on that front. Johnny declares that even if he can't manage to break through and Ghost never remembers, he won't leave Simon behind ever again.

He and Price (and Ghost who's approached them as they talked, focused entirely upon Johnny) rejoin the other four to escape the museum as the locals start to surround them. Poor Daniels gets dragged off and sucked dry along the way (not in a fun way), but the rest of them make it further until they're cornered. Evelyn agrees to go with Imhotep, now fully restored after eating the last American, demanding that the remaining four be spared if she does. Imhotep, of course, doesn't honour that agreement, but they're all four accomplished fighters and make their way into the sewers to escape.

They make their way to an airstrip where they find our boy Nikolai. (Nikolai had been fighting for the Russian Empire until the Revolution. He disagreed with the Bolshevik concessions to Germany as well as the general direction of the war, and ended up in Egypt, also fighting in the French Foreign Legion.) Nik and Price are well acquainted, and it takes no time to convince him they need to fly to Hamunaptra. Nikolai is an excellent pilot and, when Imhotep's sandstorm attempts to down them, he manages to execute an emergency landing with only injuries to himself and Price. Even though their injuries are relatively minor, Nik and Price are urged to stay behind at the crash site while everyone else continues on.

So Johnny, Rick, Simon, and Ardeth make their way in to Hamunaptra, determined to dig up the Book of Amun-Ra and save Evelyn. When they find themselves cornered by mummified priests, Soap and Ghost stay behind to fight them off while Rick and Ardeth confront Imhotep and save Evelyn.

Once the mummies are under Ardeth's command (as the one reading the inscription on the Book of Amun-Ra), Johnny and Simon finally manage to sit and have a bit of a talk and Simon takes off his mask. Turns out, he's been remembering more and more as he tries to figure out why Johnny is so familiar feeling. At this point, Ghost has almost all of his memories back, including the ones regarding how much he loved Soap. Johnny, of course, loves him back (and thinking he'd lost Simon, especially so close to the end of the war and them being free to be "good bachelor friends who live in a country house together", had been one of his major breaking points).

(I think if Graves was in Imhotep's service and survived this long, he definitely escapes the main temple with a bag of treasure, only to meet Soap and Ghost outside, still alive. He'd probably interrupt them kissing, tbh. He's that kind of cockblock. And then they'd either kill him for betraying them or leave him for the desert to kill.)

Rick, Evelyn, and Ardeth stumble out of the temple themselves, possibly after having deliberately set off a self-destruct booby trap. Ardeth takes the Book of Amun-Ra for safe keeping, much to Evelyn's disappointment. Ardeth and Ghost have a nice little chat where Ghost thanks the Medjai for taking care of him when he didn't know who he was. Ardeth denies the notion of any debt between them and wishes him well in the next chapter of his life.

The two couples gather up several of the camels, head back to the crash site to pick up Price and Nikolai, and then return to Cairo (and possibly everyone goes home to England, but possibly Price and Nik stay behind). Everyone splits the treasure they didn't realise had already been packed into the saddlebags.

(Gaz shows up in the next one, piloting the airship. Instead of being Rick's friend, he's Soap and Ghost's.)