Few gods were as respected and despised as Anubis among the Egyptian Pantheon.

On one hand, his very existence is what kick-started the devastating feud that tore apart their family. Wepwawet never received the exact details—or rather, he only had conflicting accounts to rely on—but apparently his mother Nephthys had had a drunken one night stand with Set's brother Osiris at a party, which resulted in Anubis. Wepwawet hadn't been born yet, but the event had greatly strained his parents' marriage and eventually caused Set to take revenge on his brother in a most spectacular fashion. Nephthys had entrusted Anubis to her sister Isis during most of his childhood to keep him away from Set until she divorced the latter, and many blamed the child for the conflict that soon engulfed the entire Pantheon.

On the other hand, Anubis had proved himself to be a highly competent god since. He had graduated as a valedictorian with excellent grades after regularly volunteering against Titan Incursions, and the worlds he had overseen were considered among the most prosperous the Pantheon counted under its purview. He had become the youngest spokesperson of the Dead Gods Society, a smaller but still prestigious organization similar to the Storm Gods Alliance, and some said Chairman Yama was grooming him as his replacement.

All in all, Anubis was a divisive figure for most; but for Wepwawet, he was simply his beloved half-brother.

"Greetings, Wepy," Anubis said upon welcoming his sibling into his home. The jackal-headed god was almost a carbon copy of his younger half-brother besides the different animal traits, though his voice was deeper and more sophisticated. He liked to dress in dark suits to look professional and always smelled of embalming fluids. "It's been a while."

"It has been," Wepwawet replied as he looked around his half-brother's new home. "I love what you've done with the place."

Anubis had recently moved into his own pyramid after leaving Nephthys' own, so Wepwawet didn't have many occasions to see him when he visited his mother on her custody days. His half-brother's home was much smaller than Set's own, but much cozier with snake-shaped plushies on velvet sofas and a large set of furry-related video games.

"Those are my girlfriend's," Anubis said while clearing his throat. "I wouldn't play them if I were you. You will find looking at yourself in the mirror much more difficult if you do."

Wepwawet shuddered. He knew his half-brother had become something of an icon among certain mortal communities, but he didn't know that his girlfriend Anput was into that kind of stuff. Poor Anubis.

In any case, his brother offered him some barley beer and invited him to relax on the sofa for now.

"Horus should be arriving shortly," Anubis said. "I'm very proud of you both. Reaching the top three of any round in a class project is always a difficult task."

"It was easier for Horus than me," Wepwawet complained. "He started off with a flying island away from all the conflicts while I had to face three B&C battles in short succession, and yet our grades are almost identical."

"I am not too surprised. Athena and I have been pushing for an educational reform on the grading system to prevent such cases." Anubis let out a heavy sigh. "I wish those starting with a strong civilization wouldn't get such a noticeable advantage. The original idea was to encourage weaker players to cooperate in order to strengthen their mortal followers while those with a stronger starting hand volunteered to fight Titan Incursions until the rest caught up, but Pantheon factionalism causes too many worlds to devolve into free-for-alls."

Wepwawet never really thought about the grading system at length. He had always assumed that the Board of Education had happened upon the fairest one after eons of experimentation, even if their students couldn't see its wisdom until graduation. "Why keep this system in place if it's not working, then?"

"Because getting everyone in the Nexus to agree on a grading system at all was a difficult battle in itself," Anubis replied. "All Pantheons have a seat at the Board of Education, and many espouse very different cultural values. The Aztecs still think harsh competition encourages riskier and more daring plays young gods wouldn't make otherwise, the Norse believe that adversity builds character, and so on..."

Wepwawet guessed that made sense, especially since all Pantheons had different approaches on how to manage mortals and deal with the Titans. It probably took many eons to entrench any kind of incremental change.

"Nonetheless, I have analyzed Horus' grades and I can tell he works hard to develop his civilization in spite of its existing advantages," Anubis said with fondness. "I can count on one hand the cases where someone with a strong lead kept it all the way to the end. Too many advantages too early is a curse, in a way. It breeds complacency and arrogance."

"So there are upswings in fortune?" Wepwawet asked. He mostly thought about Artemis, who had begun with the most primitive civilization and now would have to fight off raids on top of existing structural issues.

"Almost always," Anubis replied. "Gods starting with weaker civilizations usually perform better in Titan Incursions compared to those with stronger starting hands, simply because they had to tinker a lot more with their limited resources rather than simply throwing wealth and manpower at a problem. Most early lead students end up kicked off their planets, suffer such devastating destruction that their grades tank in later Incursions, or alienate their mortal followers by treating them as disposable."

That sounded almost exactly like what happened to Pele. She started out with a well-developed civilization, ideally located, and with a powerful military whose only issue was that it had too much manpower for its limited territory. She could have easily become the top student by acting more wisely. Instead, she got cocky, threw her weight around, and ended up mismanaging Lavaland straight into disaster until it spiraled into a mutiny.

"I think I understand," Wepwawet said as he reviewed his own Titan Incursion. "Whiro had such a powerful deck that we had no hope of defeating him conventionally. We had to outfox him or turn his own strengths against him."

"Exactly. Titans only agreed to B&C battles because the format gave them the edge in brute strength, but it makes them so arrogant that teamwork or unexpected strategies born of necessity usually take them by surprise." Anubis chuckled to himself, perhaps because he remembered a funny anecdote of his own. "There are exceptions to every rule, but I would say you're both doing extremely well for now, Wepy. Your mortals trust you, and that is a great victory in itself."

Wepwawet blushed in embarrassment upon recalling how he had nearly fumbled his relationship with Victoire. "You're exaggerating…"

"Oh, believe me, Wepy. Faith, true faith, is the most precious asset of all in our fight with the Titans." Anubis smiled at his half-brother. "A god's work is done when our followers no longer need us to guide them. Remember that."

Wepwawet's sensitive ears heard footsteps coming from the pyramid's threshold, and sure enough, Horus finally walked inside. "Brother," he said upon seeing Anubis, though the respect in his voice turned to annoyance upon noticing Wepwawet. "Cousin."

"Love you too," Wepwawet deadpanned, before feeling a small shade of guilt. He recognized the expression on his cousin's face: that of someone who had been chewed out and scolded by his parents the way he had been himself.

"I assume our father Osiris did not take the news well?" Anubis guessed.

Horus grunted upon sitting by their side, as far away from Wepwawet as the sofa allowed. "I don't want to talk about it."

A codeword to say that, no, Osiris didn't take the blackmail picture well. Wepwawet recalled that both he and Horus' father had insisted on Birdface's transfer to the class. Horus' dad probably took the contest as seriously as Set himself did.

"Sorry," Wepwawet said. Part of him felt empathy for his cousin's plight—so similar to his own—though he stood by his decision to support his mortals in the Miracle contest. "I wish we could have caught the blackmailer before they went through with their threat."

"Same, but you were right not to give in to their threat," Horus replied. Wepwawet's head perked up upon realizing he had just received a compliment from him, which caused his cousin to grunt and look away. "I mean, compared to what I will have to deal with once I ascend to Grandpa Ra's throne, that kind of cheap shot is nothing. It'll toughen me up."

He might have had a point. On its own, the picture was more of an inconvenience than anything. Hurtful, but nowhere near as damaging for Horus' claim as Isis' sabotage of the Elphion System.

Anubis gave his half-brothers a long, sharp look. "So this shower scene did happen?"

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"NO!" Wepwawet shrieked at the same time Horus shouted, "Not like that!" They exchanged a glance as Anubis smiled at them, their faces flushing from embarrassment as they insisted both at once that, "It's not what it looks like!"

"I see," Anubis replied with bemusement. He didn't seem entirely convinced, but agreed to go along with it. "Have you identified the blackmailer yet?"

"It has to be either Ishtar or a member of Epona's alliance," Wepwawet said. "The former could have done it to push me and Epona on a collision course, and the latter had the most to gain in us stepping down from the Miracle contest for Lavaland."

"Or it could be a Titan stooge," Horus countered. "I've heard from Miss Athena that lunarian parasites capable of avoiding divine detection have infiltrated Epona's army and been told to stay on my guard."

"I stand by that," Wepwawet insisted. Even though he only had Filou's testimony to base that upon, he had faith in his Champion's judgment.

"Then Beelzebub and his allies clearly had a hand in those skirmishes," Horus replied.

"I doubt a Titan would stoop at something so…" Anubis stroked his chin as he searched for the right word, "childish as taking an unfortunate-looking shower picture."

"Yes, plus they would first have to catch us in the shower," Wepwawet said. "There's no way a Titan could infiltrate the Nexus for the sole purpose of taking embarrassing pictures."

Horus grumbled and crossed his arms. "Whatever, I'll keep investigating. Whoever did this will regret crossing me."

"Then you should join my team," Wepwawet said, though it killed him inside to ask for Horus' help. "The blackmailer is more likely than not one of Epona's allies. We'll have a better chance of neutralizing them by joining forces."

Horus scoffed in disdain. "Did you not listen to what I said last time? This war only plays into the Titans' hands."

Wepwawet gritted his teeth. "So you think I should let it go?"

"No, you're in your right to fight back against invaders, but there's nothing in it for my civilization besides taking pointless losses. Sun Wukong and Axomamma are right to stay neutral, and so shall I." Horus scoffed. "Besides, if I had to pick a side, I would probably attack you. Everyone will likely stop thinking we screwed if I screw you over."

"What kind of logic is that?!" Wepwawet protested.

"Mine!"

Anubis observed their argument with calm eyes, his serene voice cutting through their bickering. "This may sound counterintuitive, but in your circumstances I would indeed suggest that the two of you form a military alliance."

His words took both Horus and Wepwawet aback. "You think so?" the former asked.

Anubis nodded as he sipped his beer. "First of all, this would politically benefit you both. Everyone expects you to be at each other's throats and warring would only further the tensions in our Pantheon… but if you work together, then it will prove you are wise enough to set old grievances aside and to ignore outside pressure when necessity calls; a lesson which some of your parents have yet to learn."

Horus and Wepwawet exchanged a wary glance. True, neither had thought of that, but taking the high ground would indeed help them rise above their parents' feud. No one would expect an alliance between them either.

"Most importantly, since your opposition seems resolute in avoiding diplomacy, you should try to quickly force them into a ceasefire with overwhelming force for the good of everyone," Anubis said. "I assume that your classmates have decided to launch a war now because they do not expect the Second Incursion to hit Elphion until a few years pass, based on their Pantheons' advice. Under normal circumstances, they would be right."

"'Under normal circumstances'?" Horus squinted at his half-brother. "Not ours?"

"I have been given the task of reviewing your mother's backdoor and edits in Elphion's System to ensure the Titans can never use a similar method to infiltrate another world again, since I am familiar with Isis' spellcraft." Horus looked away in shame as Anubis spoke, with the latter taking pity on him. "We are not responsible for our parents' actions."

"But I still benefited from them," Horus grumbled back. "Even if I win the competition and become valedictorian, everyone will think I only won because my mother pulled strings."

"You're not going to be valedictorian so long as I'm around," Wepwawet replied with confidence.

His words immediately reignited Horus' competitive spirit. "I would like to see you try, wolf-face."

He's… not that bad, Wepwawet thought. Still a stuck-up prick, but the honorable kind.

"In any case," Horus said, changing the subject and turning back to face Anubis. "You think the Titans shortened the Incursion countdown?"

"Not directly, but there is a loophole we haven't been considering." Anubis set his beer aside. "Have you ever wondered why Incursions happen in sequences where the weakest Titan goes first and the strongest one last?"

"For balancing purposes," Wepwawet replied immediately. "Undeveloped civilizations would have no chance against the strongest Titans."

"Yes, but who determines which Titan is the weakest?" Anubis didn't wait for them to answer. "The truth is that each Titan who intends to attack a world must register their intention to do so into that planet's System, including the deck they will use. While we gods do not have access to information on enemy participants, the System does. It then ranks the Titans based on competitive history and other parameters, and then determines the order in which they'll be allowed to launch their Incursions. This also has the benefit of 'locking' Titans to a specific world until they get their turn or the planet is destroyed, sparing the rest of the cosmos from their depredations for a short while."

"Hence why only five Titans are attacking Elphion," Horus guessed. "The others are occupied, besieging other worlds."

Wepwawet's jaw clenched. The fact that the System calculated Whiro of all people to be their weakest opponent didn't bode well for the next Incursion.

"The System times Incursions according to specific parameters, from a world's number of defenders to their civilizations' advancement," Anubis explained. "The First Incursion is designed to happen early to compensate for the fact that students are pitted against the weakest Titan player. The Second Incursion triggers once the System assesses the world has reached a sufficient level of development, and so on."

Wepwawet immediately caught on to the ugly implications. "All of the world's development?"

"Now you're getting it." Anubis nodded sharply. "Most Systems revolve around sets of twelve gods maximum… yet there was a thirteenth civilization and god active on Elphion when you all incarnated. In spite of his true loyalties, the System considers Beelzebub to be a member of your class and thus nominally one of Elphion's defenders."

Wepwawet put two and two together, a horrible feeling sinking into his gut. Normal Systems balanced Incursions against twelve defenders, but Elphion had an extra one who was working to protect it… on paper.

"The Elphion System thinks the planet is being better defended than it actually is," Wepwawet guessed. "And the lunarian civilization is far more technologically advanced than the rest of the planet, which skews the System's judgment."

"Exactly," Anubis confirmed. "I fear the Elphion System will try to balance out this 'defender advantage' by shortening the time between Incursions."

"That… that might also explain why the Titans allowed banned cards into the Elphion System," Horus said, his body tenser than a bowstring. "Besides the fact that it will allow them to use a few of their own, the System will assume we have access to more firepower than we actually do."

All in all, this painted a pretty ugly picture for Wepwawet. He doubted from his experience with Beelzebub that the Lord of Flies had the patience and foresight for that kind of plot—since petty taunts had easily thrown him off balance—so there had to be a more cunning Titan pulling the strings behind him. The enemy had a long-term strategy.

"How much time do we have?" Horus asked Anubis.

"I cannot say," Anubis replied. "The System's decision algorithms are black boxed by design so neither side can exploit it too much. All we can do is make elaborate guesses. While Titan Incursions will likely hit sooner than expected, there is no guarantee that they will."

"And Epona's group is unlikely to listen," Wepwawet guessed. The fact that Sun Wukong intended to volunteer for the next Incursion probably emboldened them as well. The southern powers likely figured they could throw more troops and manpower at the war since they wouldn't have to keep them in reserve to deal with the Second Incursion. "Our best bet would be to end the war quickly with overwhelming force before attrition drains our resources."

"A leader's duty is more often than not to keep others in line, whether through words or force," Anubis said wisely. "Ra's inaction and indecision in our Pantheon's disputes let them fester. You would be wise not to fall into the same trap."

Wepwawet's gaze met that of Horus. His cousin held his own, clearly pondering Anubis' words and their implications.

They had reached a crossroads.

Wepwawet returned alone to Elphion after the meeting.

Horus said he needed a bit more time to think things through, and Wepwawet agreed to give him some space. While he would rather have his cousin in his corner than opposed to him, he had the intuition that being pushy would be counterproductive. Wepwawet considered the mere fact that he was considering a military alliance at all a small miracle in itself. Having flying pyramids would do wonders to counter Epona's superior air force.

Wepwawet wondered how his father would react to the news of an alliance with Horus on Elphion should it happen. He guessed his dad wouldn't take the news well, but part of him was sick of Set's interference in his school project. If allying with Horus was the best way to protect his mortal followers, then it was Wepwawet's duty as a god to do so.

I… I care more about Victoire and the others than my dad's opinion now, Wepwawet realized. That is so strange.

The time he had spent on Elphion was barely the blink of an eye for an immortal, yet he could feel it had changed him. Perhaps it was the fact he had spent enough time away from his father to think for himself or receiving a taste of a god's duty, but he felt somewhat… liberated. Lighter.

We should keep our Pantheon's disputes at the door and let our acts determine who inherits the throne of Ra, or settle it between us through diplomacy, Wepwawet thought. Sun Wukong is right; too many gods act without regard for the consequences. We should be better than this.

Anubis' warnings about the Incursions bothered him greatly as well. If the Second one was to hit Elphion far earlier than anyone expected, then he had to retake the Altars on Lavaland's border as soon as possible to secure his own territory, accumulate mana in preparation for that day, and ensure Epona and her allies wouldn't be able to threaten his Idol again.

Thankfully, the solution to that problem appeared on the horizon beyond Salamandra.

Wepwawet saw the flyers first, lanky and horrible winged gargoyles with dark grey skin, toothy mouths and clawed hands holding spears, and assisted by flocks of much smaller reptilian imps. Flags and banners showing three crowned demonic faces fluttered beneath them, carried by demonic knights in heavy metal armor. The infantry of the Zoramesh Empire was a sight to behold, with disciplined lines of horned fiends walking forward in organized regiments. They had very little cavalry—with the few riders among them mounting black bulls breathing fire—but kept hulking, red-skinned beasts on chains to unleash upon their foes. Wepwawet counted thousands of soldiers, and while these troops' appearance would have struck fear in the hearts of magmorians once, their presence ironically came as a relief today.

Ishtar's army had come to reinforce Lavaland's and retake the southeast.

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