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The Devil May Care

Prologue 2: The Son's Rebellion

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

Mercy reclined in the great chambers of Pontius Pilate, a servant bringing the tigress grapes that she accepted, but didn't eat. Instead, she laid them in a bowl with the other fruits that she had been brought in the last half-day. She knew that they were there entirely for Pilate to show off his wealth and power to her. That was why she had come here.

Well, that and for one other reason, one that her father wished for her to accomplish.

He always was one for back-ups, ever since the Eden incident...

And what fury God had had when he realized how far Lucifer had pushed him in that moment. The fallen angel had fallen further when he had been kicked to Hell, becoming a royal thorn in the side for her and her father. Jesus continued to push the idea that there was something good about the devil, about the Satan, as he had taken to calling himself, but she couldn't see it. Her brother was, as ever, merely insane.

And for that reason, he had to die.

Pontius Pilate entered the room shortly after, the jackal bowing his head as he walked in. He was quite the lovely shape of a man, one that had not allowed his station to get in the way of staying healthy, fit, and, most of all, rather appealing to the eye. She looked him up and down, the toga of his home country and his station wrapped tight around him, and tight enough that it showed his rather...hefty...endowment. It appealed, but not enough to tempt the vows of the Christ line.

Nevertheless, she sat up, allowing her one bared breast to bounce slightly, and the canine's eyes flicked for it. He grinned, licking his lips slightly, and she chuckled.

"Has he been captured, oh Pilate?"

"Easily. He surrendered, as far as we know."

"Oh?"

"Yes. One of his apostles handed him over."

"Ah, yes..."

That would have been Judas, the one that had been ever so easy to tempt. Not nearly so appealing, however. The rat had been as easy as his species had suggested to turn against his teacher.

And now, Jesus Christ, her brother, was imprisoned in a Roman jail. It was going to be a short time before he would get what he thought he wanted.

Of course, his plans weren't going to go the way that he assumed. She and her father had seen to that. There would be no reunion between him and Lucifer, no sudden appearance of one of the Christ siblings down in the realms of Hell. No. He would be brought back to heaven, where he might be taken care of properly.

Pilate sat beside her on the lounging couch, his hands slowly running along her lower legs, past the edge of her sandals and making their way to her knees. She allowed the rough fingers to move to her thighs before pulling her legs together, both trapping his hand and bringing her toe-claws against his legs.

"Ah ah, Pilate...you know my price..."

"He's in jail already. He'll be gone in a few days. I feel I have earned something."

"You have earned nothing. Not until he's dead. But...I am not ungrateful."

She smiled, running her hand along his hips, bringing her fingers to the crotch of his toga. It was, after all, a fine shaft in there. She stroked her clawed fingers along the cloth, encouraging that bulge to rise.

"Perhaps a treat...to whet the appetite...and remind you who you serve..."

The tiger sat in his cell, looking down at his feet and the hay-covered floor. The brown robe that he had been wearing ever since he snuck away from heaven and got himself 'born' as a mortal had stretched and torn over the years, but the little bit of divine power that he maintained - even in this body - allowed him to keep fitting it back together. The stabbing pain in his back, left from seeing his sister with the local ruler? That felt like it would never entirely mend.

She's not supposed to be here...she's not supposed to be anywhere near here. The plan...

It had been a simple thing. Something so simple that he was amazed that he hadn't thought about it before. He would live a mortal life, live just 'poorly' enough to not be accepted by his father at the end of it all, and then go to Hell. He'd find Lucifer there, find his old lover, and then they'd be together again. The panther had been alone for far too long, and the pits were made to break those that were sent there for punishment. It was meant to turn them, take them into the darkness, and ensure that they could never recover, never rise to the upper realms again. His father had designed them to be inescapable, a punishment that guaranteed further punishment was needed.

But if he could just find Lucifer again...

He looked down at the cross-shaped pendant in his hand, still holding against hope that Lucifer had the other one. He could almost feel the touch of his old boyfriend's hand on his, the day when they had both taken their own pendant.

"Together...we were going to change it all..."

He shook his head, lowering his head over the pendant and fighting tears. It wouldn't help anything if he broke down now, nor would it do anything to get him out of here, or get him closer to Lucifer. He had to put some hope in the plan, see if it would still go forward. Mercy, he could handle; he had done it before, and he could do it again. As long as -

"I can't believe you were so stupid."

Jesus froze in his mental tracks, slowly lifting his head.

There, standing at the door to his cell, was the tiger that called himself God. God, the Father, these days, someone that had been pushing for him to do this very thing for years, to come down to the world and change it for the good of the kingdom of Heaven, and spread the news of how those in the world could return to the kingdom of Heaven. God wanted them to believe that to live a good life would mean that they were allowed into Heaven, and that they would live forever there.

Of course, that wasn't the plan, and he knew it. To return to Heaven, the gift that Lucifer had given them would be stripped. They would have to suppress their vices for the entirety of their lives after coming to God, and then they would have that life, that fire in their souls, taken from them as they entered the afterlife. There would be no bright human souls in Heaven, just men that were broken to the will of God.

That had been the plan, and he had abandoned it for his own.

His father leaned against the bars. The tiger wore the dress of a Roman soldier, the uniform bright and polished. And why wouldn't it be? He was God. He could make the dirtiest thing clean again, if he so wanted.

"What do you want?" Jesus muttered.

"I came here to tell you that your plan is doomed."

"Hmmph."

"You continue to sin, when you are supposed to be the one that is perfect. My perfect creation."

"You did better with my sister."

"And you...you were tainted."

"No." He shook his head. "I was enlightened."

"Regardless. This won't work."

"I'll die in a few days. When I do, I will go where I belong."

"Do you think that it's that simple?" God whispered.

Jesus shrugged. He had gone through with the plan thus far, and he had every reason to believe that Lucifer was waiting on the other side. The great Satan, as he was named, would be waiting for him in the pits of Hell. He would glow as he fell, and so long as he survived the demons, he would be found, eventually. The panther would find him, and they would be together again.

That was the plan. That would be how it happened.

God kept staring at him, and he realized that time had stopped. The lord of Heaven loomed over him, and he realized that there was a game going on here, the world shifting, growing, shrinking, with God being the center of it all. It was merely an exercise of power, a reminder of what his father could do, but it was still disconcerting. The tiger looked up from the height of a child at the great towering feline that was his father.

"You will die, yes, but you will go back to Heaven."

"I have sinned too much for that. By your own decree."

"Do you think that you can get through with that loophole?"

"..."

"You are my son. If you want to go to Hell, then you will have to do more than sin a little. You will have to do far more than that."

"What do you mean?"

"The fallen will not be allowed to stand, and those that cry out against the king of Heaven will be banished to the deepest of pits, there to serve penance for their sins, forever. That was the decree, was it not?"

"...Yes."

"And have you cried out against the king of Heaven?"

"..."

"And have you fallen?"

Jesus gritted his teeth, slowly lowering his head to stare down at the ground again. Too easy? Yes, perhaps. He supposed he should have seen that, but desperation had clouded his judgment and his vision. The decree had been for those that took an active stand against his father, not those that merely did something different.

He leaned his head down until his forehead touched his knees, stifling the curses that wanted to come rolling from his lips. Stupidity had claimed him, this time. Stupidity and desperation that wanted to come free in equal measure. He could have done this right, could have started this life as a direct defiance against his father, but he had been too respectful. He had wanted to do this quickly, to get down to Lucifer, to hide what he wanted until it was too late to stop him.

And in the process, he had done too little. He was still his father's son.

"I could...still defy you," Jesus said.

"Yes. You could. But you won't."

"You underestimate how much I love him."

"And you underestimate your attachment to me," God said. "Go on. Try."

And Jesus did. He tried harder than he expected that he would, but the words wouldn't come to him. The condemning language that Lucifer had spat out for the duration of the world before the beginning of mortals failed to come to him, too harsh and too cruel to pass the lips of someone that had come into being as compassion.

Your cunning, my compassion...my compassion, his cunning...

They would have been heart and head together, and now, only the heart remained. A heart that did not have it in him to be cruel to his father.

"You did this," he whispered.

"I raised a child that would know not to rebel."

"It is the same thing."

"It is you that accepted it."

"...Always a way out, father?"

"Always a plan."

"Hmmph. You and Lucifer are alike, there, but at least he shapes his plans for the bettering of the world."

"You think that this is better? War, famine, plague? Hate for each other? The Romans stomping out everything before them?"

"You mean those few that follow you?" Jesus asked.

"...They are loyal."

"They had no choice. They followed you, or they died. You have left them to die a dozen times, taken down by those that stood against them if they ever faltered in their faith. You left them to die."

"And so did you."

He shook his head, but he couldn't deny that unfortunate truth. He had been just as guilty as his father, there, just as culpable in the deaths of those that had stood against the enemy armies. All that time, he could have interceded, done something, but his compassion stayed his hand from striking down others.

He was weak.

"Tomorrow, you will die. And when you do, you will return to Heaven. No more will you speak to him. No more will you see this...foul thing. The Satan will be taken care of in due time, and when he finally falls, then and only then will you be allowed to walk this world again."

"..."

"Goodbye, Jesus, my son. We will not see each other again before you return to Heaven."

And with that, the great tiger walked away, and he was left alone in the dark of his cell. He wept.

The next morning, a greater hell was visited on him. Pilate had come to him, announcing that his death had been moved up. He was taken from his cell, brought down to the yard before the palace, and there, standing on its side, was a monstrosity.

It was a scaled-up version of the cross that he wore around his neck, made of crude, splintered wood, rough and scratching even to look at. Ropes bound it together so that it would hold itself together, and the bottom was spiked to fit into the ground.

"This will be your death, criminal," Pilate said. "I designed it specifically for the lady of the day. She said that this, in particular, would please her."

"...She would have," he whispered to himself.

"Carry it, criminal. You will carry it to Golgotha, and there, you will die."

He looked at it. The whole thing was massive, something that only the strongest of mortals would have been able to carry on their own. Yet, he had his power. He could do it.

On some level, he realized, he still hoped that his father was lying. If there was a way to go down to Hell, to see Lucifer again, it would be through the process of death. There was no other way to cross between this world and the next; Heaven could, at this moment, only reach the earth, and the same from Hell. Lucifer was too often bound to Hell, and when he was not, the routes from Heaven to earth were watched.

This was the only way. His father had to be wrong. There had to be another way through without cursing and blasting God.

Yet, as he picked up the cross, feeling the strain even with his divine strength, he wondered if he was fooling himself. His weakness had already cost him when he refused to stand up, either for Lucifer or for the rest of the world. If he did not try...

God had said how he could do this, and God could not entirely lie. He could twist, bend, and shift the truth, but he could not directly lie.

Was hurting his father the only way that he could avoid captivity eternal in heaven?

Not again. You won't do this AGAIN!

The winged panther thrust himself through the bowels of Hell, climbing through the rising sulfur winds. They beat against his face, but the near-feral Satan of Hell pushed himself through them, risking burns that would blind him if he took it for too long or too hard.

Not this. Not again. Not AGAIN!

He roared into the winds, a challenge that would not go unnoticed. God would feel him climbing, and so would Mercy. He did not care. Let them come. Let them come and see what he had become from their 'punishment.' Let them see what their touch had given him, what he had turned to.

Great wings flapped, each beat losing feathers and gaining something else. The leathery features of bat wings, so despised by the angels, came free as he flapped them again and again. His hands clawed at the fiery air, sweeping the darkness out of the way, pulling himself closer and closer to the barrier that bound him to Hell, that bound all those that died of 'evil' to Hell.

"No...more..."

He found the earth, and he clung to it. One punch, another, and another, each one setting off quakes in the land above. There was no care, no mercy from him. If he was slow, if he was kind, then he would never reach him in time.

He would never see Jesus again.

One punch after another, until one finally broke through. His claws spread, and he slammed his hand down, ripping the hole larger and larger until it was big enough for him to climb through. The panther dragged himself out, panting for breath, his wings almost ripped to shreds but already healing.

The sky burned with the power of God, lightning streaking through the air, a gathering storm buffeting all those that might have taken to the sky. Birds were grounded, and even angels would have feared to fly in this.

Lucifer panted, the great Satan spreading his wings wide, the transformation over them complete. The black-furred feline growled deep in his throat, his fingers twitching, the power of Hell having shaped him from head to toe into something muscular, something horrifying and strong. A creature that was made to bring pain, not pleasure, a thing that was meant to rip and tear the souls of mortals.

And he had done it. He had done it again, and again, and again. Thousands, millions of souls had come to him in the time since he was cast down, since the mortals started to grow and spread throughout the earth. The flood was a misery, a waterfall of souls that had nearly put out the fires of Hell before they could be sorted properly. Then the diseases that ravaged the globe, each one a pocket inferno that brought souls to the lower realms before he could stop them, before he could do anything to change it.

And once they came, they had to be punished. The compulsion of God still lay upon him, and even in his own realm, he was not free of it. He could fight it for a time, struggle against the power that was laid upon him, but there was nothing that he could do to hold it back forever. There were times when he would spend literally weeks savaging the souls that came down, letting the anger that he held for the king of Heaven be visited upon them. He would flay them with fire and ice, with the pain of the soul itself, before he would allow them to be taken by the seven tribes of Hell, and be given up among the different demons that served beneath him.

The only times he stopped were when he felt the upside-down cross against his chest, burning with starlight that he would never see again, bringing the thought of his once-lover to mind once more. He would take hold of the cross, and for a time, he would remember when things were better, and think of what he had once been.

For a time, things would relax, and the demons would do the job, and he would forget what he had become.

And then, the pain would return, the compulsion would settle upon him, and even his devotion to the heart of the universe, to Jesus Christ, would not keep him from his appointed task as the head of Hell.

He stared at the storm, his fingers clenching, the Vices of the underworld rising. Once, he had wielded virtue, but ever since falling, he had been made aware of the other powers. The Vices, for one, the power that every demon held, but only the Satan could wield all seven at once, just as only the Christs and God could wield all the Virtues. And from there, he learned more. The black magics that he had begun to see in Heaven came to him stronger in Hell, though never so strongly as he wished. Something held him back. Something drove it from him, making him rely on Hell's power, instead.

He seized it now, flying into the air with a roar that challenged God once more. The winds struck at him, pushing him back, but he fought against them with every flap. The power of Wrath gave him strength, the power of Jealousy gave him determination, and the power of Lust left him connected to his old love.

I'm coming...I'm coming, Jesus...I'll take you home...I'll take you home...

Jesus reached the hill of Golgotha with a storm raging overhead. He could feel the hand of his father behind it, pushing and stirring the air with a great sense of urgency behind it. Why? He didn't know. Maybe it was to keep him from running away and trying something somewhere else. There would be no easy escape for him, not now.

He could die, spitting and cursing his father's name, but that was not something that he could bring himself to do. The cursing part, at least. Dying would be easy, considering that his inner self, his soul, would not be discorporated the way that a mortal would be. He would live on, to be taken either to Hell or Heaven as...

He would have said as his actions chose, but he had not done enough. His father had made that clear. He had not done enough.

And now, it was too late.

The cross was laid down on the ground, and the tiger was made to lay on top of it. His eyes stared up at the stormy skies, and he wondered why. Why did it matter so much to God that the world must follow him the way that he chose? Why did it matter that humans were to be forbidden hope?

Why does it matter so much to me that they get it?

Jesus panted softly, shivering as he felt the tips of the nails resting against his wrists. They were sharp, sharp enough to trail red lines through his fur, and he bit off the whimper of fear that wanted to escape. Never, in all his life in Heaven, had he been allowed to feel physical pain.

But he felt it then. The nail bit down into his flesh, and then further, and further still with each hammer blow. The ripping, the tearing, the spurting, the fiery pain left him screaming, the sound ripped from him like thunder from the storm.

And Lucifer heard it. It had been years, decades, centuries, more since he had heard the voice of his beloved anywhere but his memories, but he had memorized it long ago. And it was in pain.

"Jesus...JESUS!"

He screamed back, but the sounds of the storm drowned him out, cutting through the shouts of the lord of Hell, pushing him down as the king of Heaven tried to throw him back. He fought still, dragging further on the powers of Hell and making it bond with him, making it his. Further, further he changed, throwing away everything angelic about him, everything that he had managed to save over the last few hundred years.

It wouldn't matter if he didn't reach Jesus in time. Whatever he had been would be useless if he didn't have Jesus at his side.

My cunning, his heart...

He flew faster.

Jesus wept as the nails sunk into his ankles and his arms, holding him pinned. He could not move, not without the ripping, tearing horror that was the wooden nail dragging through his flesh. He gritted his teeth, his chin against his chest, blood running down his arms and his feet to the cross below.

Such a horror it had become, something that should have never been a thing. He panted for breath as one soldier came up to him, kneeling down.

"Orders from Pilate. His girl wants the pendant this guy's wearing."

"Well, better take it now. We're about to mount him."

"No...no, please," he whispered, wheezing through the pain. "It's the only thing I have...the only thing I have of him...please..."

Snip, snap. A knife cut the beads, and it was taken. The cross was tilted, and suddenly, the blinding pain of his body-weight pressed on his wounds was all he could feel. He screamed, arching his back against the cross. The crowds gathered, staring up at him, and he felt the power of his father descending on him.

Be still, God said, and Jesus had little choice. He was made quiet, a show for the mortals. A show that his father and sister, doubtlessly, would profit from.

His eyes were bleary, but he swore that he saw something, something dark and ragged, flopping through the wind and coming in for a landing.

Lucifer hit the ground running, his claws gripping the dirt and throwing him forward. He no longer had air to scream, no longer had the wind to call out to his love. He was there, though, and no mortal would stop him. The storm hadn't, and the barriers hadn't. It was only a matter of time until -

He felt the aura a split second before it would have taken his head off, and he ducked. A nearby fennec fox took it instead, beheaded in a split second. Lucifer slowly turned, finding himself face to face with Mercy.

"Hello, Lucifer," she said. "I'm afraid you won't be reaching my brother today."

"He's not yours. Not anymore."

"Then prove that he's not." The tigress smiled, her eyes glowing blue. "But father told me not to hold back. So this time, I won't."

Their auras bounced off each other as they clashed, but they were swift enough that the mortals were barely aware. All they felt were the stirs of the storm, the shaking of the ground that came from the earthquakes that Lucifer had caused, and the echoes of the thunder that came from their auras colliding. For the two near-immortals, however, it was far more dangerous, and far more involved.

Crash, crash they went, aura shaping from spheres to tendrils to more, streaking out from them and then coming back protectively, always in the blink of an eye as they moved from space to space. They were moving faster than the eye could track, and Lucifer, great and powerful Lucifer, the first Satan and the great outcast of Heaven...was losing.

He was pushed back again and again, his blows and his eventual blade cast aside from the powerful tigress. She advanced, coming in swinging with naught but her thoughts, crashing against him and sending him reeling backwards, always barely ahead of the power that she had. He could scarcely keep up, resorting to dodging, flinging himself from side to side, keeping himself just out of reach of the worst part of her attacks that he could not block.

And through it all, she got harsher, faster. Every time that he thought that he had her measure, she made it worse, almost like she was indeed holding back, seeing how much he was able to take before taking it up a notch. The black-furred panther fell back, forced further and further from his suffering lover.

Jesus...just hold on...just a little longer...

If he could get an opening, just one opening, then he might be able to get through. If he could get there, dodge around her, then he could grab Jesus and run. Run to the hole and get back to his own realm, where Mercy could not follow.

Just a bit longer.

Jesus wheezed through the pain, feeling his life fading. His body was on the verge of breaking down, the blood loss more extreme than he had expected. His own power was fading, too, suppressed by his father in this mortal body. There was no healing from this, no sudden way for him to shift. He couldn't even manage the meager abilities that he had had when he was wandering the world with his apostles.

Oh, what would they do after this? They had been friendly, but always wanted more. They'd wanted to believe in good things, but he had said that he would go for them. Die for them. What would happen there?

He didn't know, but he no longer wanted to give it to God and Mercy so freely.

As he watched the scramble in the air, he realized belatedly that it had to be Lucifer fighting, Lucifer struggling to get to him. His lover was there, within shouting distance.

Would a shout to his lover, a begging plea to be taken away, to be 'rescued' from his father, count as standing against God? With the fact that Lucifer was the Satan now, he could only imagine yes. He took a deep breath, pushed against his father's control and opened his mouth -

The whistling of something twisting through the air was his only warning before a spear scored his side, cutting his lung and ripping the air from his lungs before he could speak.

"NO!"

Lucifer had been less than a hundred feet away when the spear was thrown, barely twenty when it hit the tiger in the side. He saw the blood flow as well as heard the gasp for air that would not come.

And then, Mercy was upon him.

Her aura slammed him into the ground, and her claws followed, ripping at the base of his wings and tearing into them. She gripped them at the base, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

"You aren't an angel, and these...are a mockery..."

RIIIIIP!

They came loose with gouts of blood, spurting from his back and painting the top of the hill red. She continued to hide them from the mortals, standing with her claws over his neck after flipping him over. She made him look, made him stare at the dying body of his lover on the cross, on the very symbol that he had seen for the future of the world.

Mercy chuckled, digging her toes into his throat, holding him there with her claws right over his veins. She shook her head.

"That will make a perfect symbol for the rebirth of God's authority on earth. Thank you, Lucifer. For once, you gave us just what we needed."

"You bitch. You bitch!"

"You never had a chance," she said, shaking her head. "You were never more than an angel. I was always God's daughter. Now...go...or I'll kill you right here. Right now, you still have a purpose, and I'm feeling 'merciful' enough to allow you to return to it. Or, you can let me see if I can kill you forever. Either way...you will never, ever see him again."

Lucifer looked up at the sagging body of the tiger on the cross, and saw the moment the life went out of his eyes. The body went limp, and the light and aura of his love disappeared, swept up and away from the mortal world. He screamed, and as Satan, his scream echoed with grief and rage to scour the world around him. All of Golgotha was consumed, and his power called him straight back to Hell.

From then on, there was nothing that was good enough to pull him from the call to harm and hurt, to scour and flay. No memory of Jesus was enough to stay his hand, no moment of loving memory was enough to hold him back. All hope was gone, and not even he, the great speaker, the whisperer of temptation, could give himself enough hope to believe that he would see his lover again.

His torments spread from the souls that his cleverness had damned to the demons themselves. Some had followed him, some had been formed and ready when they arrived, but they all suffered. How dare they live, how dare they exist to make such a place that he had to run for them? How dare they require his rulership? How dare they keep him here when he could try a hundred, a thousand plans if he just did not have a kingdom's population to watch over?

If anyone ever saw the tears, they never said a word.

And so it went for thousands of years, until one day, one lucky, well-read cat summoned him to the world above...and everything went to shit. Again.

The End

Summary: Jesus hoped to die on Golgotha and be sent to Hell, to dwell at Lucifer's side away from his father. However, Mercy and God were ready for the plan.

Tags: No sex, panther, tigress, tiger, God, Jesus, Lucifer, prologue, emotional, death, demon, corruption, pain, series, fantasy,