Paragons: Rise of the Dark Scions

Prologue, Part 1: A Gathering Of Gods

-2022-

-United Pantheon's Domain-

The United Pantheon is a massive collective outfit of gods and deities from across all founded religions throughout the universe. Every single god and every single deity from every single religion and culture was present within the Pantheon, from Christianity to Islam to Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythologies, amongst so many others.....even made-up ones from this universe. Many of them---with the exception of one---lived in harmony with each other; after all, the people of Earth never needed to argue with each other about whose religion was "better" or whether or not theirs was "real", because all of them existed.

The gods lived on a different domain far apart from ours, unreachable to all but their kind, and held great hesitancy when it came to interfering with mortals and their affairs. However, they all still had many devout followers and worshippers on Earth, and were able to hear their words whenever they would pray to them. The gods from each mythology typically kept to themselves, with each and every one of them giving their corresponding religious followers the time, care, and attention they needed. One of them, though—The Ascendant—was almost never present within the domain despite being considered one of the gods; instead, he was mostly concerned solely with the well-being of his creations, the Mage Aspects.

However, at the moment, the Egyptian gods were currently being stigmatized by the other religions due to the actions of one of their own. Anubis, the Egyptian god of death, had concocted a nefarious scheme to use one of his followers, Jerry "The Ibis" Gigliotti, as his avatar, and attempted to use Gigliotti's business, the Avian Wing brothel---combined with the extent of his own powers---to eradicate the Earth and reduce its populace to nothing more than his eternal sustenance.

Thankfully, that was three years ago, back in 2019.

His efforts were ultimately thwarted by the Paragon Powerhouse and his allies, including Anubis's nemesis, Apis, the Egyptian god of strength and fertility, who had taken Powerhouse as his own avatar. Following Anubis and Gigliotti's failed campaign, which also resulted in Gigliotti's death, Apis left Powerhouse's side, took Anubis into custody, and returned him to the United Pantheon's domain. He imprisoned the Egyptian god of death in a power-stripping chamber for his actions, and kept a close eye on him ever since then. Since Anubis's defeat, Apis had visited him in person at almost irregular intervals, to keep himself unpredictable and to prevent Anubis from engineering any escape attempts.

Today's visit, though, would prove to be rather foreboding indeed.

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Anubis, the once-mighty Egyptian god of death, could do nothing but lean tiredly against the cushioned wall of his cell, with absolutely nothing to entertain himself besides his useless rod and two small pebbles nearby. Three of the four surrounding "walls"---as well as the floor---were laced with said cushions, with the fourth "wall" consisting of nothing but a huge glass pane that gave Anubis his only glance at the rest of the Pantheon's domain.

Anubis's body was, for the most part, structured like a typical toned humanoid, though he had the black head of a jackal, darkened skin, a black- and yellow-striped headdress with an accompanying neck collar, and two pairs of black and gold bracers: one pair on each of his wrists, and another pair directly under each of his shoulders. He had a gold- and dark blue-colored cloth around his waist, and wielded his rod in his left hand.....though it did nothing now thanks to his current state.