Chapter Text
"Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there were gods, and there men. The gods fought, as gods do, and the men suffered under the shattered skies of a war-torn Heaven.
"On one side, there was the Golden Temple. These were humanity's champions: the King of Life, the Smith Father, and Lady Architect (among others.) They were born of humanity's best traits, and they fought to protect the world from the darkness the other gods contained.
"Ah, but they were hypocrites! Because they represented humanity's ideals, not what humanity was actually made of-"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Lukey! It's rude to interrupt!"
"…Sorry, Mister Halo…"
"Oh, it's alright. But- ahem, the other side of the war was fought by the Defiled. There was Death, Misfortune, Slaughter, Strife-"
"And Trickery!"
"And Trickery! That's right! They were the real heroes. They wanted humanity to experience life to the fullest, not believing in the ideals the Golden Temple represented. What would life have been without the bad parts of it?"
"Boring."
"Exactly. So they fought the Golden Temple, and Death Himself fought against the King of Life and his huge, shining muscles…"
(Lukey makes a face.
Bad pretends not to see it; what could an eight-year-old boy know about aesthetic appreciation?)
"But what about the other gods? What about Trickery?"
"Trickery? Oh, well, uh… Trickery-"
"Trickery died!"
(Lukey screams as a blur of orange and green bolts out from under the sofa and tackles him to the floor.
Pangi cackles, sitting on Lukey's stomach with a smug look on his face.
Bad sighs and pinches his nose. Kids…)
"No way! Trickery's alive! Strife's the one who's dead!"
"Mn-mm. Tell him, Mister Bad!"
(Both kids look up at Bad expectantly.
Bad looks between them solemnly.)
"If the stories are to be believed, Trickery and Strife both perished at the end of the war. Death was left alone to fight, and He escaped and went into hiding in the mortal realm, where He has remained for one thousand years. To this day, He waits for His friends to come back, and then the war will begin again…"
"That's bullshit!"
"Yeah! Trickery isn't dea-"
"-Strife's alive, an-"
"-Death sucks, an-"
(The arguing continues, and the kids wrestle themselves so close to the fireplace that Lukey's hair catches fire and the orphanage master comes rushing in screaming for Bad to leave.
He never gets another storytime with the kids, but that's fine.
He can wait.)
One thousand years after the end of the Holy War, Lukey almost gets shot in the face by his dickhead neighbor.
"Watch out!" Pangi lazily calls, unconcerned, loading another bolt into his crossbow and aiming it right at Lukey's window.
Lukey ducks with a practiced ease as the second crossbow bolt flies into his apartment. He pulls his laundry down with him from where it was drying on the wire outside of his window, nose wrinkling in annoyance at the slight damp.
The bolt shatters the new statue of Trickery put up on the altar directly opposite the window and across the room.
Pangi groans, disappointed.
Lukey stands back up and flips him off, and he gets a crossbow aimed at his face in response.
Well used to this, Lukey rolls his eyes.
"Maybe you should ask your god for better aim," he sighs.
Then, smirking, he lightly says, "Oh, wait. You can't."
Pangi, the eternally-annoying last remaining follower of Strife, growls like a gods-damned animal.
"Take it back, Lukey," he warns.
Lukey, Trickery's only follower, taunts, “Or what, you’ll shoot me? You haven’t succeeded thus far, so excuse me for not being convinced that-”
He cuts himself off mid-sentence, grabbing onto his window shutters and slamming them shut just in time to avoid a bolt to the skull.
"Fuck!" Pangi swears.
Lukey opens his shutters again. “Again, actually succeed sometime and I might be intimidated.”
Pangi grumbles and flips him off, flipping his own shutters closed, just as he has every time they’ve done this song and dance over the past however-long.
(An hour later as Lukey is hanging more laundry out to dry, Pangi opens his shutters and pulls his crossbow out and calls out for Lukey's precious god to save him from Strife's wrath. And then he starts shouting when Lukey just closes his shutters and goes about his business, ignoring him.)
When Lukey was seven years old, his village was burned down by a tall man in a dark cloak holding a scythe. The man took Lukey by the hand and pulled him from the burning wreckage of his house, away from his dying mom and dad and sisters and brothers, and he pushed Lukey into the river and vanished in a cloud of teal-colored smoke.
Two weeks later, Lukey ended up in the Realm's most crowded orphanage. One month later, he met Pangi, and he was immediately doomed to never be adopted. Only one man ever really tried, and poor Bad was turned away for his religious beliefs.
Sometimes, Lukey gets lunch with Bad. It's never on purpose, but sometimes he'll leave work for his break and walk into a restaurant and see Bad at a table and get invited over, and how can he say no to the man who spent almost a decade trying to adopt him?
Bad is a criminal, Lukey's pretty sure. He never actually seems to have a job, but he does have money. He likes to give Lukey new timepieces or pieces of jewelry, and he loves to pay for lunch and complain about how poor Lukey is.
("It's not my fault I'm only part-time," Lukey tries, but Bad just shuts him down.
"I guess I can pay this time, but never again!")
Bad is a criminal, Lukey's pretty sure. He likes to try and slip poison into Lukey's soup and stuff daggers into the backs of Lukey's seats with the blade facing out. He trips Lukey down the stairs and spills boiling hot liquids all over him and only apologizes once he realizes Lukey is alive.
It's weird, but it's somehow the most functional relationship Lukey has ever had in his life outside of his childhood imaginary friend. He doesn't consider Bad family by any means, but at least he apologizes for his murder attempts.
Legend has it, Lady Architect convinced Trickery to kill Strife in the Arena of the Gods. She promised Them freedom after the War and a chance to join the Golden Temple, and Trickery foolishly believed Her. But, as soon as Strife fell from Trickery's blade, Trickery was struck down by Lady Architect Herself.
That, of course, isn't true, because Trickery isn't dead, but it sure is enough to make Lukey have a bit of a grudge against Lady Architect and Her obsessive followers. There's a big mural of Lady Architect putting Her spear through Trickery's skull, and that's a major vibe-killer.
He has to walk in front of Her main temple to get to work at the hospital, and he always finds himself getting the feeling of being watched as he does so.
One morning, he's trudging through the crowd with his head down and his hands in his pockets when he accidentally runs into a woman hurriedly walking the opposite way.
She falls to the ground with a surprised yelp.
Lukey reaches a hand down with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry," he says, "wasn't looking where I was going."
The woman laughs and shakes her head, accepting his hand with a, "No, no! It's quite alright, actually! It's my-"
She looks up at him, and her sentence fades into a horrified silence. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops and her faces pales so dramatically that she almost looks like she's made of snow.
She’s dressed in fine purple robes, a series of silken silver ribbons braided into her hair.
As she jerks her hand out of Lukey's and stands, she barely comes up to Lukey’s chest, but, even so, it’s obvious that her biceps are bigger than his.
Lady Architect's symbol is emblazoned on a golden medallion around her neck, and Lukey suddenly feels sick to his stomach.
The woman takes a step back like she's afraid, which is crazy. Lukey said he was sorry!
Lukey frowns a little, but, like, he has work.
So he nods politely, if not stiffly, and shuffles around her and gets back on his way.
By the time he gets to the hospital, the entire interaction is out of his head. (Gods, the Golden Temple's worshipers are freaks!)
“I heard there's a wanted poster with your face on it,” Pangi comments, leaning out his window and hanging his shirts to dry on the wire. "At Lady Architect's temple."
Lukey hums, pulling his own dry laundry into his apartment, neither confirming nor denying; Pangi’s known him long enough to know the truth no matter what he says.
“That’s kind of cool, not gonna lie,” Pangi continues. “They actually made you look hot, though. It's weird."
Lukey ignores that. "What's the poster for?"
"Blasphemy. I lowkey hope they arrest you, man, it would be kind of funny to see Owen try and bail you out of jail again."
“You just want to see me in handcuffs,” Lukey responds.
He laughs as Pangi, outraged, goes a bright red and slams his window shut.
The very first day Lukey met Pangi was the day Pangi was put into the orphanage. He ended up being put in the same room as Lukey, and, from the very beginning, he looked upset about it.
A whole year younger than Lukey and several inches shorter, he looked Lukey right in the eye and declared, with full confidence, “You look soooo stupid right now, I bet you’re an orphan!”
Lukey’s jaw dropped.
He put the book he was reading down in his lap and said, “So are you?”
(It took poor Pangi almost a year to accept that his own parents left him at that orphanage on purpose. The night he did accept it, he crawled into Lukey’s bed and cried and spent the entire next day following Lukey around like a pathetic little leach.)
He still calls Lukey’s face stupid after a full decade. Really, he needs to get a new insult (and a new god: Strife, really?)
But, by Lukey's 18th birthday, everyone but him and Pangi had been adopted. They were the last two in the orphanage, and it was officially shut down by the King of Life once Pangi aged out a year later.
It was by a twist of fate that they ended up living across from each other in the slums. A twist of fate that Lukey still isn't sure was good or bad.
As he finishes up his nighttime routine, Lukey settles in front of his altar and prays to his god.
Trickery was never a popular god. They were worshiped by crooks, thieves, and scammers. No one who wanted to be respected would worship the same god the Realm's criminals did.
But trickery isn't all about stealing and lying and cheating, it's also about causing problems and watching the chaos and being entertained. As such, Trickery also used to be worshiped by the Realm's various bards and jesters before the War's end.
Now, it's just Lukey. Just Lukey and the little statues he makes by hand every time Pangi breaks one, each one looking different because, really, how can you pin down a literal chaos god.
This time, the statue almost looks a little like Pangi, funnily enough. It's got the same stupid face and the same stupid hair, and it makes Lukey want to fucking strangle it, but.
"The King of Life is coming to the Realm tomorrow," Lukey murmurs, hands clasped in front of his chest. "Please let His carriage's wheels go flat, and let His horses get stuck in mud. Let me have a good day at work, and let Pangi get thrown in prison for blasphemy."
He doesn't hear anything back, but that's fine. It would be stupid to expect an answer from a god, even if he is said god's only remaining worshiper.
Public worship of the Defiled became illegal after the War's end upon the King of Life's decree. Over the one thousand years since, their cults have become extinct. Death has a few fanatics working in the Realm's graveyards, and Vermin has a few holdouts among the rat catchers in the Realm, but Trickery? Strife? Slaughter? If they weren't already dead, they would have died from lack of worship.
Lukey is probably the only thing keeping Trickery alive.
Pangi would be keeping Strife alive, too, if They weren't already one thousand years dead.
Once a year on the anniversary of the end of the war, the King of Life comes down from his golden castle to visit Lukey’s humble little city and do a PR tour.
He comes in a carriage made of solid gold and inlaid with emeralds, drawn by silver mechanical horses crafted by the Smith Father Himself, and he spends half of his tour tracking down every single shrine, monument, or idol to Death and destroying them with his own hands; the other half of his time is spent visiting orphanages and hospitals and collecting their taxes himself, waving his hand grandiosely and laughing kindly and calling in his guards when someone doesn’t have the money.
As someone who's been training to be a doctor for half his life, Lukey has certain… moral oppositions towards these visits. He remembers the King coming to his orphanage once when he was ten and Pangi was nine; the King took one look at them both and laughed and said, "Damn, these orphans look worse every year!", before turning to the orphanage master and holding a hand out for her money. He remembers the King coming to his hospital a few years ago and giving a sick child a piece of hard candy and ruffling her hair and then asking her mother for her taxes right then and there, and he remembers the look on the girl's face when her mother was dragged away by the guards in front of her.
So, every year when the King is set to come to town, Lukey gives a handful of coins from the till to every patient he sees, and he follows his god’s path and drains the fuel out of the King’s horses while he’s inside the apothecary badgering old women into giving him their jewelry.
Maybe it's stupid of him, but it's fun! It gives him something to channel his energy into besides stewing in his own hatred of the monarchy, and it's not like he's ever been caught.
This year is no different: Lukey empties the till, he sneaks out when the King comes in with his guards and his mechanic, and he slips his pocketknife out and creeps towards the horses.
Trickery isn’t all about stealing and lying, it’s also about causing as many problems as humanly possible- stirring the pot, as Lukey likes to say.
So he’s well used to the routine as he ducks next to the first horse and jabs his knife up through the horse’s thin metal underbelly. A trickle of golden oil comes out, and he pulls the knife along until oil is just gushing out of the damn thing.
He moves on to the second horse, and that’s when he sees him.
Lukey’s eyes narrow as they meet Pangi’s; he’s crouched next to the carriage holding an unfamiliar black sword, grim determination set upon his face.
His eyebrows raise as he sees Bad next to Pangi holding a crossbow loaded with- what are those, fireworks?
Bad waves cheerfully.
“Hi, Lukey!” he whispers.
“What are you doing here?!” Lukey hisses, scrambling to join them.
Pangi blinks a few times before slowly answering, “Killing the King, of course.”
(Since when does he want that? He's expressed his own personal dislike of the Golden Temple and the monarchy, but he works in a restaurant, for the gods' sakes, what is he doing here!?)
And that, of course, is when the King’s mechanic comes out of the apothecary and sees them.
“Oh,” he says, “hell no.”
Five years of sabotage ruined by freaking Pangi! Who else?
Lukey moves to stand and run, but Bad’s hand clamps down on his shoulder and holds him down- how strong is he, what the fuck?
With his other hand, Bad waves. “Sneeg, hello! How are you!”
The mechanic- Sneeg?- just crosses his arms. His muscles bulge, the veins on his biceps popping.
“Bad,” he flatly says, “don’t tell me you’re dragging innocent people into this now.”
“‘Innocent’?” Pangi exclaims, sounding mildly offended.
Lukey nods. Vehemently. “Innocent! That’s us!”
He smiles, reaching over and slinging an arm over Pangi’s shoulders and pulling him slightly closer.
“So,” Lukey continues, “we’ll just get out of here, shall we? Leave you two to it?”
Pangi’s ears are turning red. His grip on his sword is growing white.
Sneeg sighs, “Whatever, man, just-”
He cuts himself off as he finally looks at them and not Bad.
In an instant, his body language changes: his back stiffens, and his arms fall back to his sides. One of his hands flexes into a tense, angry fist.
His eyes narrow. “There’s no fuckin’ way…”
Bad is silent.
Lukey looks to Pangi in confusion; Pangi, meeting his gaze, just shrugs: Man, I dunno.
This, of course, is when the gods-damned King swaggers out of the apothecary tossing a bag of coins in his hand.
“Well, Sneeg, I think we’re about wrapping up here,” He crows. “Duty calls elsewhere, my friend!”
This, of course, is when Bad jumps to his feet and pulls the trigger.
The world explodes into chaos.
Pangi jerks out of Lukey’s grip and charges Sneeg, swinging his sword messily. He’s never used anything crazier than a stick, Lukey knows this, so what is he doing!?
The King takes the firework to the skull with an inhuman screech, jumping damn near ten feet in the air and dropping His (stolen) coins.
“You scumbag!” He screams, landing and pointing at a gleeful Bad. “Ooooh, I knew you’d be back!”
Sneeg, with just one hand, grabs Pangi by the throat and slams him into the ground. It cracks beneath his body, and it crumbles in on itself until a small pit is cradling a semi-conscious and groaning Pangi. His sword flies off somewhere into the screaming and panicking crowd.
Lukey’s heart stops.
Inexplicably, he hears himself snapping, “Where’s your stupid god now, huh?”
“And you brought backup?” the King exclaims. “Where’s that confidence of yours gone?”
“Oh,” calmly replies Bad, “I’m confident, alright.”
He cackles, and the King just… rolls His eyes, okay, and Lukey needs to-
But Pangi-
The hair on the back of Lukey’s neck rises as he locks eyes with a completely unphased Sneeg.
“I can’t believe I have to do this shit again,” he complains.
Leaving Pangi behind, he stalks towards a frozen, terrified Lukey with a flat look on his face. He almost looks resigned in a way, which is crazy! Lukey hasn’t-
Raising his hands placatingly, Lukey awkwardly laughs. “I haven’t got anything to do with this. Your honor, I’m innocent!”
Sneeg extends his arm straight above his head, taking a step closer for every step Lukey tries taking away.
He nods at Lukey’s knife.
“You fucked up my horses, dude,” he says. “Do you know how long it takes to make those every year?”
Bad disappears into the rampaging crowd, chasing the fleeing King.
“Fuuuuuck,” Pangi groans. (Useless idiot, where’s his precious God of Strife now!?)
Fuuuuuck, indeed, because the very sun itself reaches towards Sneeg’s open hand. The crowd gasps and ooo’s and aaah’s as a firey hammer the size of Lukey’s head forms in it. It burns hot enough for even the air surrounding it to burst into smoke and steam and open flame.
The clouds part above, casting a ray of golden light upon the Smith Father as He levels His holy weapon at Lukey’s poor innocent body.
Silence permeates the air, all those watching waiting for the execution to come.
“Uuuuuh, hold on a second,” says the Smith Father.
He pauses, face wrinkling in concentration as He pauses mid-step.
And then He farts.
And then He flies into the air with one single leap, both hands clutching His hammer.
Lukey runs too late, his body finally kicking into action.
He turns, takes one step, prays an apology to his god for failing this bit of mischief so miserably, and-
Something crashes against him, but it isn’t the sun.
Lukey yells as he’s shoved forward by the entire weight of a very familiar human being.
Pangi doesn’t even have a chance to speak before the sun is burning him alive.
Heat burning at his back, Lukey stumbles around just in time to watch Pangi crumple to the ground in a silent scream.
“You fucking missed!?” the King screeches. “What kind of smith daddy are you?”
Tears sting at Lukey’s eyes. He can’t even react as Bad swoops in from the side and starts pulling him away.
The King and the Smith Father start arguing over Pangi’s burning corpse. Fucking monsters.
“Come on, Lukey,” Bad mutters, hand firmly curled around Lukey’s bicep, “let’s wait somewhere quieter.”
But, little does Bad know, the world to Lukey is entirely, completely silent.
Legend has it that Strife died by Trickery’s hands, beheaded by an ax made of pure shadow.
But who even cares about that? The world is too quiet for such stories.
There’s no one to taunt with them.