The Loyal God

Match One

The Day of the First Match

"The match to determine the king of Egypt will now take place. There will be a total of three matches, and the god that wins two or more of them shall be recognized as the rightful ruler of Egypt and controller of the god Neith," Maat announced.

Neith had been chained to the ground beside Maat, forced to kneel before the gods, for fear that she should try to run away whilst the matches were being carried out. She wouldn't, of course, for fear that they should punish her son in her stead should she escape. She didn't want to put him through the pain that she had gone through for a selfish reason. Chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles, crossing over her back and calves. Her neck was pulled down by a loop of rope, fastened to the ground, forcing her to fully prostrate herself in a twisted form of respect toward the gods who had betrayed her and her brother. The gods weren't even looking at her. other than Seth, who was giving her quick glances here and there, the worry in his eyes obscured by his headdress, and Sebek, who was holding back tears at the sight of his mother being disrespected in such a way, no one had even looked her way since she'd been dragged out to the platform.

"The event will be chosen...... by drawing lots from this vase right here," Maat explained, extending an arm to the vase.

The lid lifted off slowly, a scroll being revealed magically from within its depths. Maat grabbed the papyrus scroll and unfurled it to reveal the match event. Her eyes scanned the contents of the paper before reading it out loud, as if she were double checking its contents.

"The first event will be...... 'Underwater breath-holding'!" Maat read, her face confused.

"What?!" Isis screeched, outraged.

The other gods around her whispered to one another in disbelief. Isis was fuming. The only person who seemed anything other than angry or confused was Hathor. The god of love and beauty seemed worried, instead of outraged like the others. 

"Who came up with such a boring event?!" Tefnut demanded.

"Yeah!" her husband, Shu, parroted, even though he had been the one that had come up with the event.

"Man, sounds like fun!" Ra smiled.

Down in the arena, Horus' face remained impassive, whilst Seth grinned a malicious, confident grin. All of a sudden, the sand at Horus' feet began to swirl around his legs. Neith, from her prostrated position, could see the excess amounts of sand being gathered by the desert god, not as much as he truly would need to transport himself anywhere, plus theatrics had never really been his style when things got competitive. Which meant that he had a plan which banked on the other gods not knowing a single thing about him to work.

"What're you doing, Nephew?" Seth taunted, he himself having been lifted into the air by the sand under his command.

"Horus!!!" Isis and Hathor called out at the same time, worry lacing their both of their voices.

"The river's this way!!" Seth called, his arms crossed as if he'd already won the event.

"Come on and try your best to defeat me!" Seth crowed, allowing for the sand encasing his legs to fully engulf his body.

From the mass of sand emerged underneath him his war chariot, which he utilized to speed through the desert on patrols or looking for Neith in his golden days as Egypt's protector. Neith had been in that chariot many a time, it being almost as much hers as her own chariot had been. Seth only really used the chariot during battle in the desert or when looking for Neith, never for simple transport and certainly not for things that were a competition, preferring to show his true strength.

His famed winged sand crocodiles surged up from the ground to pull his chariot to the river at record speed.

"Giddy up!" he cried, spurring them on.

Horus, who had been momentarily stunned by the display, manipulated the winds to lift himself up off of the ground, flying after the god of the desert, catching up to him quickly.

"Horus!"

The two men both dropped into the water at the same time, creating large splashes in their wake as they sank.

Neith allowed herself a small grin. Her brother was the true war god. She knew he had this competition in the bag. He would win and everything would be okay again and she would get her real brother back.

"They're really uncontrollable," Maat sighed.

Ra burst out laughing, rolling around on her throne. Quite the strange display for the once-supreme ruler of Egypt.

"I love that guy!" she crowed.

"Ah..." Isis was able to murmur, utterly shocked at the display.

Hathor muttered a silent plea to Horus, that he be safe during the challenge, her eyes filled with worry.

After the water had settled, it moved no more, save for the typical currents from below that moved the surface in a lazy manner, juxtaposing the, essentially, life or death competition going on beneath its waters.

Under the surface, Seth used the sand he had taken in with him in the form of his chariot and crocodiles, and any grain that had seen fit to stick to his skin, to make giant snakes in the water. His smirk was one of assured victory, as if he knew for a fact that there was no way he was going to lose this event.

'He made the snakes out of the dirt he gathered earlier... There's a reason why he was being so flashy on the way over here,'  Horus thought, his teeth grit in frustration.

Seth stood, a smug grin on his face, on the head of a giant sand crocodile, surrounded by  enormous snakes made of the sand he had brought into the water with him.

'Is he implying he doesn't care what happens, as long as he doesn't get caught...?' Horus wondered.

Bubbles floated up to the surface from the movements of the sand animals and the men in the depths.

'This is quite the predicament...'