I'm back!

This Oneshot is for a challenge that I made myself. Basically, I have to take a throw-away/gag/otherwise unimportant line from each chapter of Kid Icarus: Uprising and base a Oneshot off of it. Believe me when I say that it was /not/ difficult to find noteworthy lines in this game.

Level: "Chapter One- The Return of Palutena"
Line: "You have no idea how embarrassing it is to be an angel who can't even fly on his own."

A severe angst advisory is in effect up ahead, guys...

'Run. Run. Run.'

The brunette angel was a blur as he streaked along the somewhat-busy streets of Skyworld, his eyes fixed firmly ahead. He didn't dare glance back; he knew what he would see: the figures of several other angels older than he, slowly gaining on him. Only his tiny form allowed him to avoid being caught; he darted nimbly under the legs of older angels and through small gaps in the crowd while his pursuers were forced to skirt around the mob.

His destination was unclear to him, but he did know that he had to get away, and fast. He knew these older boys; they were part of the rather large group of people who seemed to dislike him strongly for whatever reason. He never knew what he did to provoke them, and he had a nagging suspicion that he hadn't done anything, but they still came after him without fail any time something was bothering them and they needed to relieve some stress. The older kids were the worst; they always hurt him the longest, even if they weren't as strong as some of the adults.

Suddenly, one of the boys swept in from above, grabbing Pit around the chest so that his arms were pinioned to his sides. Then his wheeling feet were no longer kicking up dust, and he squeezed his eyes shut and ceased struggling as the wind whooshed past him. 'Just take it,' he ordered himself. 'Better alive and wounded than a corpse on the ground.' He always told himself this, yet he was still always so petrified when the time came to lay still. No matter how much he tried to take himself away, to lose himself inside a pleasant memory, the threat of a deadly drop stretching out underneath him was always looming in his thoughts. The motionless white wings that spread between his shoulder blades indicated his status as an angel, but failed to keep him airborne for even a fraction of a second. No one could tell him why; they seemed to be in perfect condition, and his form was practically flawless.

The arms restraining him let go without warning and he yelped in surprise, only to quickly hit the ground and tumble along. Thinking quickly, he managed to wrap his wings around himself to protect them from getting too harmed, but not before his right shoulder collided painfully with a stone protruding from the soil and he hissed in pain. The instant he regained his senses, the brunette scrambled to his hands and knees to make a break for it. He knew he couldn't fight off these boys, and he knew he couldn't call for help; no one would come. His only option was to flee if he wanted to avoid a beating.

He'd learned he had to run away and live to run another day.

The older kids landed too soon for him to escape, even though their movements were stiff and unpracticed. One seized the boy by his scruffy locks and pulled, forcing him to stumble back with a cry of pain as the older angel's knee hit him in the small of the back. He was sent the ground, where the boys immediately circled around and began to kick him, eliciting small yelps and whimpers of pain each time a foot made contact with his malnourished body. He curled up into a ball, protecting his head with his arms, and trembled, anticipating each cruel blow before it fell.

Suddenly, a loud ringing sound pierced the air just before an arrow made of brightly glowing light tore through space to get to the four boys. It sped by right in front of them, so close that they all leaped backwards with cries of fear. In a flash, an older angel appeared over the boy protectively, brandishing his bisected bow. He opened his mouth to threaten them, but they were already gone, each one pushing the others out of the way in an attempt to make the hastiest possible escape.

It took the boy a moment to realize that the strange ringing had seemed to stop the blows. He hesitantly opened one eye and found the older angel to be crouching down over him. The man had messy blonde hair and bright green eyes, and the smile directed at him was so sincere that his guard went down despite himself. Instinct told him that this man could hurt him and therefore should be avoided, but his wounded heart desperately clung to the idea that this man could help. He could be the one flying angel in the village who respected him; who treated him as more than just scum.

The blonde gently wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped him stand. "Hi there," he greeted, his voice surprisingly free of patronizing squeakiness. "I'm Daedalus," he introduced, flicking a strand of hair out from his face. "What's your name, kid?"

He winced. Oh. That was it. This man didn't accept him... he just didn't yet know that he was the infamous flightless angel. According to the rumors that ran around Skyworld, his very soul was stripped of its wings due to its cowardliness. He didn't deserve to be in Skyworld, some argued. Such a sinful spirit didn't belong anywhere near the pure Lady Palutena. He cleared his throat, ready for the grip on his shoulders to become painfully strong. "Pit," he croaked quietly.

His eyes closed automatically when the man withdrew his hands and he flinched, preparing to be struck where he stood. "Please," he whispered pitifully under his breath, but the older angel still caught it. "Don't hurt me."

For a moment, there was silence. Then, a small, sad smile on his face, Daedalus wrapped an arm around Pit's shoulders and hooked another under his knees, hoisting the angel into his arms with relative ease. Shocked, Pit allowed his eyes to snap open, but quickly screwed them back shut. 'Don't look him in the eye,' he remembered belatedly, feeling dread well up. 'He was already mad at you, and now he'll be so enraged...' He began to tremble, a tiny mewl barely escaping his throat. 'Where is he taking me?' There was no reason to take him to a secluded place; they didn't get more secluded than this, so why...? Horror welled up in his mind. 'Oh, no, not to Lady Palutena. Please, not to Lady Palutena.'

He had never met the Goddess of Light before, and he had no doubt that she would not hurt him herself: she was too kind for that. But that didn't mean she didn't pass the final verdict on what happened to various felons. The only crimes committed in Skyworld tended to be light—things like getting drunk on human alcohol and doing something vaguely stupid—so she acted accordingly and only dished out groundings, which were sentences of time that had to be spent on the ground with no flying. But surely his crime—whatever his crime was—would be enough to warrant a death sentence. That was what all of the angels engraved into his mind forever with beatings.

His savior stopped, kneeling to the ground, and, for a moment, Pit could think of no other explanation than the presence of Lady Palutena herself. Then the grip on him loosened slightly and he was held out and lowered onto the ground—

—but this wasn't the ground. This was definitely not the ground. His bare feet were dipped into some warm liquid and he recoiled instinctively. Without waiting for a second sign, Daedalus pulled him out of the warmth. "Is it too hot?" he asked gently, as if... as if he actually cared about what Pit felt. "There's probably a cooler one we can find somewhere."

Pit only shook his head rapidly, confusion and panic swirling together in his chest. "No. No no no," he stammered out, his pulse quickening until his wrist and neck threatened to burst open. He shook; tried to stop himself from stuttering; whispered in a horrified voice, "It's warm."

Daedalus didn't seem to know what he was supposed to do with that information. Finally deciding upon a course of action, he once again lowered the emaciated child into the warmth. This time, he did not jerk away; only sobbed once as he practically melted into the water. It was so, so wonderfully warm; it was as if his body was healing itself. As if the water was chipping away the transgressions in his very soul. He could almost feel the bruises on his knees begin to fade. Taking his reaction to heart, Daedalus lay the boy down in the water so that only his head was above the surface, assuring that his wings didn't get trapped uncomfortably between his body and the rim of the tub. Slowly, checking that he wouldn't sink, he let Pit go, allowing the flightless angel to rest in the water.

"What...?" Pit whispered, his face utterly serene. "What is...?"

Placing a hand on the kid's head and grinning triumphantly when he didn't flinch, Daedalus answered, "A hot spring."

When Pit finally opened his eyes, no longer afraid, Daedalus was crouched across from him, giving him his space while assuring that they could see and talk to each other. The green-eyed man smiled softly, tilting his head to the side in inquiry. "Do you know who I am?"

Pit blinked rapidly, trying to think of the way he was supposed to respond. "Um... Daedalus?" he offered meekly, hoping against hope that he didn't insult the man who seemed so kind and warm.

But Daedalus didn't get angry at his less-than-satisfactory answer. He just laughed; not mockingly, Pit noticed with no shortage of relief, just happily. "Yes, that's my name," he chuckled, shaking his head lightly. "But that's not quite what I was going for." Leaning over with hunched shoulders, he held his hand beside his mouth and whispered conspiratorially, "I'm the Captain of Lady Palutena's Heavenly Guard."

Pit gasped, covering his mouth with one tiny hand as his already large eyes became almost impossibly huge. "Woah!" he whispered, almost not believing the man before noticing the golden laurel crown on his head. It was almost the same color as his hair, so he hadn't seen it until now, but it definitely marked him as no liar. The LPHG, also commonly called just "Palutena's Guard," was an extremely elite group home to only the finest of angel warriors along with an army of Centurions. Only one or two angels per year graduated from combat school, while the others became civilians like everyone else, only rising to fend off attackers to Skyworld. The captain of the LPHG was an entirely different matter. Was there any position more coveted than that of Lady Palutena's right hand man?

Daedalus laughed again at Pit's awed expression, and, unable to help himself, ruffled the brunette's already messy locks. " 'Woah,' indeed," he teased lightly, watching the boy yelp in surprise before blushing madly and directing his gaze to rest firmly on his submerged feet. When no further attempt to mock him was made and he saw it for the joke that it was, Pit peeked up shyly through his bangs.

There was no adversity that he couldn't spot a mile off, and he could tell that none were approaching. For once in his life, he felt at ease without a constant stream of animosity directed at him. Daedalus had no hatred in his eyes; only the wavering sparkle of humor backed by a shine of kindness. He was safe here. Taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the unfamiliar action, he again met the man's eyes through his dangling fringe and offered a timid smile.

Mere seconds later, through stifled giggles, he promised not to tell anyone about Daedalus's exceedingly unmanly squeal.

Pit knelt on the cold, hard ground and ghosted his fingers over the engravings that lay on the tombstone in front of him. It was an unfamiliar name that gazed back at him, etched into the stone eternally, but it still stood out to him. Fresh marble always looked out of place in any graveyard, after all—any graveyard except maybe this one. For this graveyard—this huge, gaping chasm of a graveyard that threatened to swallow him whole—was filled with nothing but immaculate white stone, not yet worn by weather or sullied by dirt.

These were the casualties of Medusa's war.

Slowly, he stood from his reverent but somber vigil, clutching a huge bundle of roses to his chest. They were red roses, mostly, save for one that had grown with an odd gold color, and he'd enlisted the help of several melancholy angels to purchase them from the humans that lived below. They hadn't asked what the purpose of so many roses was; he hadn't told. They were simply not in the mood to refuse his eyes overflowing with loss Now, plucking one from the bunch and ignoring the prick of briars in his fingertips, he lay it at the first grave, meant to represent the angel who'd lost his life first. "Percy," he read aloud, "a noble soul lost too soon."

Moving along with his usual awkward shuffle, Pit knelt by the next gravestone, scanning the name and offering a few key funeral prayers in a whisper. There would be no time to hold even a mass funeral for them all; Skyworld had fallen to ruin, even though not even a single marble column had toppled. So he, the lousy, flightless angel who had too much evil in his soul to be worthy of Skyworld, took it upon himself to shell out the meager amount of hearts he'd earned at his three jobs for some flowers and take a sick day to pass them out.

He couldn't tell how long he'd gone through the graves that way, offering prayers and a rose to each before reading off their gravestone, but it was entirely too short for his tastes. For, soon, he had reached the end, having been forced to travel back to the beginning and replenish his supply of roses a few times, and he now bore only one rose: the golden one. The only gravestone left stood at the head of the cemetery in a row of its own, as if it was keeping watch over the resting angels. This one carried not only a name, title, and description, but also an intricate engraving that depicted a laurel crown and two large, outspread wings.

DAEDALUS
CAPTAIN OF LADY PALUTENA'S HEAVENLY GUARD
A WARRIOR AND FRIEND WHO NEVER CEASED BEING KIND

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Blinking them away, Pit fell to one knee and looked down at his feet which still donned no sandals, unable to bear the sight of his honorary father's tombstone. This time, the prayers weren't mumbles; they rang out loud and clear, even if his voice remained quiet instinctively. When he finished the final passage, he slowly loosened his hold on the rose until it rested lightly on the ground. "Daedalus," he sniffed, his voice cracking, "Captain of Lady Palutena's Heavenly Guard. A warrior and frie—and friend—"

He couldn't go on.

Suddenly, a hand was placed on his shoulder and he stiffened. Had an angel finally grown tired of seeing him uninjured? Did he really look uninjured?

"Pit." The voice was soft and feminine. He felt his blood run cold as it sunk in just who that voice belonged to. "I see you've been busy," it noted sadly, sorrows almost tangible in its tone alone. "It's good that they'll all get funerals and flowers, at least."

Put whirled around, barely allotting himself time to take in the long alabaster-white dress before he bowed to the ground, not daring look up. "Lady Palutena," he breathed, almost afraid to twitch for fear of disaster. He had disobeyed direct orders in order to get the Three Sacred Treasures, after all; that combined with whatever else he'd done to make him unworthy of flight was surely worth execution.

Lady Palutena only smiled softly and knelt, taking Pit by the shoulders and guiding him back to his feet. "Pit," she began again, "I just came here about your place in the Guard. There's no need to bow like that."

He risked a glance at her face and saw only kindness and sincerity there, magnified by her warm green eyes. "In the Guard?" he choked out, hardly believing the shapes his mouth mimicked to produce those words. He'd expected punishment, not promotion. Even if he had graduated combat school with top marks (the teachers, at least, did not discriminate) and proven that, with the Pegasus Wings, he could fly almost flawlessly, that didn't warrant this kind of treatment. Wasn't his soul impure? A member of the Guard had to have more than just strength and smarts—he also needed kindness. His useless wings stood as testament to his lack of such qualities.

Palutena laughed quietly, brushing a few strands of disheveled hair out of the angel's flabbergasted face. "You didn't think I would just ignore the heroism, courage, and strength you've shown during the war, did you?" she asked rhetorically, feeling herself grow happier and happier as each speck of panic and distrust left his eyes individually. It was a slow process, but a rewarding one, eventually leaving the two without the gaping chasm that usually split the ground between their feet. "Even in the face of great adversity, you managed to obtain the Three Sacred Treasures and came to my aid as well as the aid of everyone. You are the hero of Skyworld, Pit." Her proud smile faded ever so slightly and her eyes turned down at the edges. "Daedalus would be proud of you."

If it wasn't possible for a warrior to look like a little kid on Christmas before, than it was definitely proven possible now. "Th-thank you, Lady Palutena," Pit managed to stammer out through his ecstasy, trying his very best not to appear as if he thought this absolved his sins. That would be preposterous. 'Wait.' His sins. His face fell, Palutena's quickly following suit as she scrambled to find what she'd said to make him become somber once again. "But... what about my..." Every instinct in him was screaming to let it go, to let her forget that his soul couldn't fly, but he fought them down. 'I don't deserve the position, and Lady Palutena deserves to know that.' "What about my... wings?" The question slipped out as tenderly as possible, trying to lessen the blow.

But Palutena didn't become disgusted. She didn't jerk her hand free of his shoulder and wipe her hand off on her cloak like so many before her had. She only looked... confused. "What about them?" she responded, biting her lip and furrowing her eyebrows. "I know you can't fly, if that's what you mean. Flight isn't a requirement of the position."

Didn't she understand that this wasn't just a wing injury? Didn't she get that it was his soul that had been wounded? "But kindness is," he muttered bashfully, directing his gaze back down to his feet. He couldn't bear to see the look in her face once realization hit her. "The reason I can't fly is spiritual, not physical. It's because of my soul."

He waited still for the hand to hurriedly remove itself, but that did not happen. There was only a silence that rivaled that of the depths of the Underworld. He wanted to shrink back, hoping to escape from her gaze, which he could feel rest upon him. But he didn't dare try to free himself of her hold. Of all the impudent things he could do, brushing off the Goddess of Light's hand when it so clearly wanted to stay in place must have been the worst. Still no words were spoken. He fidgeted, but she remained still. He looked down; she looked him in the face. If any other angels had stumbled upon the scene, they would think that he was about to be punished for whatever heinous acts he had committed, and he thought just the same.

Then he was warm—so much warmer than he'd ever been before; warmer than when he worked long hours outside with the sun beating down on him until he turned red as a cooked lobster—and it took him at least ten seconds to comprehend that she had wrapped her arms around him. Not tightly; not to cause pain or keep him in place. Just a gentle embrace; one that he'd heard other kids call a...hug.

"You can't fly," Palutena whispered, "because you got sick as a baby. And you haven't done anything that has shown me that you aren't worthy of the position." The grip tightened only slightly in a protective manner. "Pit, you are nothing if not kind. And there's nobody in Skyworld that I'd rather have in the Guard."

Pit wasn't sure what it was that made him hug her back. Maybe it was because he just wanted her words to be true. Maybe it was the conviction in her voice that swayed him. Most likely, though, it was that she'd used the same tone—the same pricelessly caring tone—that Daedalus had used long ago when he'd given his first smile.

But did it really matter?

And that's that.

...what?

I did warn you about the angst...