Board & Conquest 138: Roll of Fate

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In theory, Armageddon Arrow was a relatively fair and balanced card for its mana price.

It was certainly destructive, but no less so than something like Wepwawet’s own Dragonstar Fire, and it remained a physical object that could be jammed, intercepted, or stopped. It also had to travel in a straight line from the launching point, so it usually had to hit a nearby target or risked hitting a roadblock and detonating early. 

In practice, stopping a hypersonic ballistic missile fired from a ship flying miles above the ground was all but impossible, and certainly beyond Wepwawet’s power. He had no Prophecies on the field, and no card in his hand capable of stopping it. Victoire and his Ultimate Zmey might theoretically be capable of intercepting it in midflight with an attack, but the timing would be so impossibly short even with Wepwawet’s Providence helping them. 

The chances that they could save Artemis were slim to none, and from the look on her face, she was equally desperate. 

“Time to put you in your place, my grandfailed abortion!” Kronos taunted her. “Laun–”

“I activate my set Prophecy, Fate Roulette!” Ganesha shouted, coming in clutch. 

The ballistic missile floated above the fortress Lemures and began to spin like a needle, much to Kronos’ shock. However, not even Ganesha’s allies relaxed, for they knew what the Miracle did. 

“I can use this Prophecy when someone activates a Miracle with a set target,” Ganesha explained. “It changes the target at random, so long as they’re in the same category!”

In short, if a god used a Miracle targeting a Champion, Fate Roulette would change the target to any Champion within reach of the god’s Influence. Ganesha’s Providence would let him try his fate twice, but in this case… in this case, the odds didn’t favor them one bit even when hedged. 

“Since you picked Arty’s Idol, all of our Idols are now on the target list, yours included!” Ganesha said. “If I win, your own missile will blow up in your Lemures’ face!”

“That still gives you three in four chances of hitting either yourself or an ally,” Kronos replied with a grunt. “Your stupid elephant luck is bound to run out!”

Time had slowed for Champions on the board as the missile continued to spin, with every god present clutching the cards in their hands as tension rose. Kronos’ jaw clenched so tightly that Wepwawet could hear his bones grind from where he was, and he felt a droplet of sweaty divine ichor dripping down his forehead.

The missile slowed down and soon stopped to point at its new target…

Which proved to be the exact same as before. 

Kronos exploded in laughter at this outcome. “All this mess, and it still picks my granddaughter’s Idol!” 

“Not yet!” Ganesha said. “I use my Providence to spin the wheel one more time!”

The missile needle began to spin and slow down again. Artemis let out a small gasp when it passed her Idol, Kronos froze in a brief flash of fear before it passed him over… and then Wepwawet’s hopes crumbled to dust.

The missile pointed at Ganesha’s city. 

“Uh…” Ganesha complained. “My luck always runs out at the worst times…”

“No…” Artemis muttered while Kronos’ laughter rang ever louder. “Ganesha, don’t–”

“It’s not a choice at all, Arty,” The elephant god sighed in both resignation and resolve. “I pick my Idol.” 

Having expected this the moment the missile stopped on Ganesha, Wepwawet acted immediately, using his Providence to calculate the missile’s exact trajectory down to a millimeter. 

“Victoire, dragons!” He ordered Victoire and his Ultimate Zmey—the only Champions close enough—to intercept the missile as it launched across the sky. “Open fire at ten degrees to your left?!”

“What’s a degree?” Insupportable asked. “Some kind of foo–”

“NOW!” Wepwawet shouted in their minds. 

So what happens when a trio of merged, unruly dragons and their human handler try to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile moving faster than almost anything they have ever seen, using only their elemental breaths, their spear, and their hopes that things will somehow turn out all right? 

They missed. 

Victoire threw her spear, and her dragons fired three elemental breaths—all of them off-target—but the missile had flown past them before their muscles could even tense fast enough to move their arms and necks. It crossed the heavens like a streak of light and struck Ganesha’s capital with cataclysmic power. 

Ganesha’s city was a colossal megalopolis fit for giants, full of thick walls strong enough to resist cannonballs and withstand earthquakes, and it probably had a few enchantments to help in its defense. It made no difference. The missile hit Ganesha’s Idol in its center at immense speed and then detonated in a massive fireball. Although nowhere near as cataclysmic as Wepwawet’s Dragonstar Fire or most advanced civilizations’ nuclear weapons, the blast was still enough to pulverize Ganesha’s Idol and the city center, sending waves of debris flying in all directions around a rushing mushroom of radioactive dust. 

“No!” Artemis and Wepwawet both shouted at once as a massive pulse of mana coursed through the Board, shattering all of Ganesha’s Altars and stripping his followers of their god’s guidance.

“Demolish him!” Ganesha shouted back with a big thumbs up. “I know you can do it, guys! Save my asshole followers–”

Ganesha, Lord of Fortune’s Idol has been destroyed! Ganesha has lost the battle!

Penalty: Ganesha, Lord of Fortune, will be permanently expelled from Elphion!

Ganesha was ejected from the match, and from Elphion along with it. 

Wepwawet stared at the empty spot his best friend used to occupy for a second that seemed to stretch into eternity. Ganesha, his oldest companion in the Nexus and his inseparable ally, was gone; their promise of graduating together unfulfilled. Artemis was just at a loss for words.

He had taken a bullet for her, literally. 

The first thing that crossed both Wepwawet’s and Artemis’ minds was grief at his defeat, then the resolve to fulfill his last request to win this battle, for both of their followers’ souls and his own. He had trusted them to win, and they wouldn’t disappoint him.

But there was one emotion that trumped all others; a holy power which mortals had come to revere and fear in equal measure. 

Unyielding, divine wrath!

“As youngsters say, the Chad Kronos wins again!” Kronos boasted cruelly, before rubbing some more salt in their wounds. “Maybe I’ll loot his tusks from the ruins when I’m done with the rest of you!”

“That’s it!” Artemis growled when her turn came, her mana surges granting her a total of eight mana. Her eyes were red with black fury more terrible than her father’s thunderstorms. “You won’t get another turn!”

“You wish!” Kronos taunted her smugly. “Once my turn comes up again, I’ll use Divine Avatar and wipe–”

“Grandpa, are you deaf? I said there won’t be a next turn for you!” Artemis revealed the Miracle in her hand. “I activate the Rank 7 Miracle Impossible Ambush! It lets me teleport one of my Champions to the location of any other on the board!”

All color left Kronos’ face when he realized how screwed he was, and Artemis’ words were only the final nail in the coffin. 

“I pick my Mesozoic Emperor, and I drop him on your Lemures!”

—----

Victoire had seen many stupid and wonderful things since the gods began to walk the earth.

A giant dinosaur dropping down on a flying starship was a new low, but hardly unexpected at this point. 

She and her tricephal mount had been locked in a long-distance duel with the enormous flying fortress Lemures, slowly gaining ground while pulverizing projectiles sent their way, when Lady Artemis’ giant kaiju monster teleported out of nowhere on top of the starship. It landed on its deck with such violence that the metal bent beneath its feet and its legs crashed through multiple decks until it was knee-deep in the fortress, facing its mechanical centaur robot torso. The Mesozoic Emperor roared angrily and began to claw and bite at the machine, which retaliated by punching it with iron fists bigger than houses. Their clashes sent shockwaves across the sky. 

That’s a small miracle for us, Victoire thought as she looked over her shoulder. Whatever impossibly quick projectile her god had asked her to intercept earlier had flown past her across miles and hit a target in the distance, but all she could see from here was a light on the horizon. Lord Ganesha’s disappearance from the heavens above didn’t bode well either. He must have lost his Idol. 

She had seen a goddess fall before during the battle with Whiro, and it was just as terrifying then as it was now. Their number of defenders was dwindling with each Incursion. 

Thankfully, reinforcements were pouring in. The mimicship fleet, led by the Expensive, had begun trading fire with Lemures, exchanging beams and blasts and cannonfire that set the sky ablaze. 

On the ground, Ganesha’s remaining Champions had cornered Kronos’ Dreadnought with some help from the Sultana. That ship was forced to keep them at bay with its massive cannons rather than support Lemures.  

This might be their only chance to take down that infernal machine once and for all. 

“Victoire, I am using my Providence to pinpoint the enemy Idol’s exact location,” Lord Wepwawet said, the calm in his voice belying an undercurrent of rage. “It’s right beneath the robot torso, in the hull. Destroy it immediately.”

This was no request, but a determined general’s order to win at all costs. “Is Lord Ganesha–”

“Yes,” Wepwawet cut in, interrupting Victoire before she could complete her thought, “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Focus on the battle.”

Victoire winced but obeyed the order. Her god would pour his heart out to her once they had defeated the titan. “The Idol is in the hull beneath the torso!” she thundered at her mount as explosions rocked the sky. “Move closer and let us blast it apart!”

“But mistress, the evil titan will age you to death if we approach any further,” Soumis’ head protested. 

“I don’t care!” Victoire replied sternly. “Too many lives are at stake if we lose here! Lord Wepwawet can bring us back if we perish here, but millions will pay the price of our failure! I would rather rot away than cower!”

“So princessly…” Soumis muttered in admiration. 

“But we can’t let her die again!” Insupportable argued. “There has to be another, more monarcho-sustainable solution!

“Wait, I have a genius idea!” Glatisant proposed. “What if instead of each firing our breath independently… we combined them?!” 

Her two other heads gasped as if this were a revolutionary idea, much to Victoire’s annoyance. “Such a daring proposal…” Insupportable muttered in awe. “Only a dragon could come up with it!” 

“I know,” Glatisant said with a small, smug smile.

The urge to end this battle and rid herself of her mount encouraged Victoire to go along with the plot. “Very well!” she shouted, raising her spear and pointing at Lemures. “Fire in that direction and blow a hole in the hull!”

The three heads each took a breath, power gathering in their lungs. Fire, ice, and lightning built up in their necks and maws, ready to be unleashed. 

“Ultimate!” Glatisant began.

“Threesome!” Soumis continued. 

“Breath!” Insupportable concluded, before his ally’s word reached his brain. 

They unleashed their breaths together in a triangular fashion, the elemental streams crossing at the point Victoire pointed at. Victoire expected the dragons’ combined attacks to simply blow a hole in the hull large enough for allies to target.

Instead, they combined into a terrifying beam of searing light. 

The sheer recoil nearly threw Victoire off her mount’s back and outright blew a few unlucky mimicships off course. Ice, fire, and lightning merged into a burst stream of pure destruction, a ray of bright white light that pulverized its way through Lemures’ hull and insides, melting everything it touched until it reached the stony face of Kronos’ Idol… 

And then it continued!

The blast annihilated the Idol’s face and punctured the ship on the other side, tearing it in half in a massive explosion. The Mesozoic Emperor tackled a now uprooted metal torso, and the two fell from miles on high alongside the collapsing fortress.

“Dragons,” Glatisant boasted.

“Accept…” Soumis muttered. 

“No substitutes!” Insupportable concluded happily. 

And the dragons roared in triumph while the gods watched from on high. 

—---

Wepwawet watched a titan fall for the third time in a row. 

A massive pulse of mana shook the board as Kronos’ Idol crashed along with its starship onto the earth below, the resulting explosion nearly matching the atomic destruction that tore Ganesha’s capital asunder. 

Time froze on the board as a notification appeared in front of a dumbfounded Kronos. 

Titan Kronos has lost his Idol! Titan Kronos has lost the battle!

Penalty: Titan Kronos is permanently banished from Elphion, and you may each pick any card from Kronos’ deck!

“That’s not…” Kronos coughed in disbelief. “I… I cannot… not to…”

“That’s right, you were beaten by a girl,” Artemis said venomously, before further rubbing the humiliation in his face. “And dragons.”

Wepwawet didn’t know which part was worse for that old prick, but it infuriated Kronos all the same. This event would remain a mark of shame for the rest of his career. 

“You cheated!” he snarled at them like the sore loser he was. “Fusing dragons is illegal! Illegal!”

“Cheat? We didn’t send an infiltrator to wreck you before the game even started,” Wepwawet replied with utter disdain. “The truth is that you were beaten by newbies in spite of stacking the deck in your favor. You’ve lost your touch, old man.”

“Don’t you dare mock your elders!”

“We can and we will!” Artemis snapped back. “My ace boyfriend and I are going to live happily after now, I’ll wear shorts for the rest of my days, and there’s nothing you can do about it anymore!” 

The old titan’s eyes gleamed with hatred. “I’ll come back, I swear it! I’ll take back Olympus one day, and when I do–”

“I don’t want to hear your rambling anymore,” Artemis cut in dismissively. “Give us our cards and fade back into irrelevance, old geezer.” 

“You may have scraped out a win, but Apep is next!” Kronos said, glaring at Wepwawet. “And you’re no Set!”

Once, Wepwawet would have taken that as an insult, but his girlfriend quickly came to his defense. “And that’s good,” Artemis replied. “Because he’s better.”

“You heard my beautiful ace girlfriend,” Wepwawet said, stressing the last word to remind Kronos that neither of them cared for his opinion. “Your deck.”

Kronos clearly would rather have left without surrendering anything, but the System compelled him to show them his deck. True to his showing, it was full of rare and powerful metagame cards. 

Unfortunately for Wepwawet, most were geared towards supporting an Artificial-type army or made heavy use of artifacts. The Armageddon Arrow and Tri-Ship Alliance were extremely good, as was that horrifying virus Miracle Kronos unleashed against his troops.

But if I were Apep, I would have reviewed the decks of everyone going ahead of me and analyzed them to ensure I could counter any dangerous card they picked, Wepwawet thought. He will probably field more than one unit type to counter the virus, and anti-artificial Miracles. 

Artemis picked Armageddon Arrow, as Wepwawet knew she would—they had other ways to unlock Divine Avatar thanks to Ishtar’s knowledge—so he turned his gaze at the very card which had allowed his victory. 

Emergency Fusion

Rank 3 Prophecy

Can be activated when you have more than two Champions available. You can fuse two or more compatible Champions into a unique creature stronger than the sum of its parts, but the fusion will split back into its original components after thirty minutes have passed. The selected Champions must share at least one common Type. 

Thank the Nexus that the effect was temporary. Dealing with three dragon egos in one overarrogant package would have been horrifying. 

I hate to admit it, but the possibility of summoning Ultimate Elemental Zmey again is too good to pass on, Wepwawet thought as he picked that card. It’s very flexible too, so I could try different combinations depending on the situation. 

Kronos stormed out with a roar of impotent rage, leaving Wepwawet and Artemis alone to bring the board back to Elphion. 

“Is your Mesozoic Emperor okay?” Wepwawet asked his girlfriend with concern.

“Yeah,” she replied. “He’s a tough one.”

Tough enough to survive a miles-high fall? Kaijus were overpowered. However, Wepwawet only had to take a look at the souls of his dead Champions and the ruins on the board to realize Artemis’ lizard was the lucky one. Elphion’s defenders would return home decimated, and he lacked the necessary Miracles.

With only one Incursion left and Beelzebub knocked out of the game, it was perhaps time to take on a project long delayed. 

“We need to build an afterlife,” Wepwawet declared. 

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A/N: hope you've enjoyed this Incursion.

A small warning, I'll be taking a temporary hiatus off this story after next week's chapter. The reason is that we'll be entering the final arc, and that I'm feeling some fatigue I need to deal with. Peace.