"I can't believe I'm actually giving up my important time as a goddess for something as pointless and juvenile as this," Viridi complained, "And it's so profane! To be dating a mere angel like this. Someone else's angel, for that matter."

"I know," Pit sighed, "I'd much rather be back in Lady Palutena's company right now too."

Viridi gasped and gritted her teeth, hitting the angel promptly around the heat with the back of her hand. "Dummy! No wonder you never get any girls."

"Okay, okay, okay! Jeez!" Pit huffed, straightening the laurel crown that had been knocked off its perch on his head, "Fine, do you want me to act like Arlon instead?"

"If by that you mean like a civilised, eloquent and proper gentleman, then sure, go ahead."

Pit rolled his eyes, finding this just as ridiculous as anybody would, but at least he got to make fun of a former enemy in the process. He cleared his throat, bent at the waist and secured Viridi's hand gently in his own palm.

He looked up at the girl whose level he had lowered beyond, a sane look in his eyes, though still youthful and mischievous behind their glossy finish. "Should it be that the fair maiden would wish to accompany me on an evening stroll?" he asked, voice laced with a pompous exaggeration. Though by some miracle, Viridi didn't seem to take it as such. In fact, she seemed almost captivated by the façade. Pit inwardly gulped. Could it have been that she actually had a thing for Arlon?

"Y- yes," she said eventually, "It should be that way, indeed."

Pit found himself linking arms with her. It was an uncomfortable thing, not only due to their height difference when standing upright, but the fact that he felt like he was embodying someone else who Viridi would much rather have been with at that moment. It wasn't that Pit wanted that attention all to himself; it was the mere fact that he felt so bad for playing with Viridi and her feelings in this way; he would have felt the same if it was anybody else in the world.

All he could do to make himself feel better in that regard was imagine himself that Viridi was his own goddess in this moment. Then at least they would be even.

Pit closed his eyes momentarily, trying to conjure up the image of Palutena in his head. It was not a difficult thing to do. Palutena was usually there in his dreams at night regardless, so it was just natural for her image to appear behind closed eyes. Her smooth, endless locks of flowing grassy hair and her intricately detailed frock and armour; all of it flooded to him at once and he was lost in it.

Viridi quite harshly cleared her throat. Pit immediately snapped out of his idle reverie and secured his grip on Viridi's arm. The two walked then in near silence.

Pit liked the way the Overworld looked. He'd brought Viridi to the most open field he could find. He thought she'd appreciate the nature here. There were flowers of all kinds that wouldn't grow back in Skyworld. In fact, now that he saw so much colour in one place, he realised that Skyworld, while beautiful and pure in its own right, was actually pretty bland. It was very easy to get lost there, because everything looked so similar. Everything was white or grey or gold, but here, the grass was lush and green and the flowers were of all colours he could think of. The cities had giant neon signs that Pit supposed would say something interesting if he could only read them. And the sun looked so much smaller from here, so the clouds weren't drowned by its golden blaze.

"It's as if a Reset Bomb just dropped here," Viridi murmured, "It's like a little pocket of the world that no human has ever touched. It's perfect."

Pit scoffed. "No, if a Reset Bomb dropped here, then the weeds and branches would be all out of control and kill everything. This is way peaceful-er."

Viridi shot him a fierce glance. "I'm sorry, good sir, but I don't think I heard you correctly. Care to repeat that?"

Pit stiffened. "Oh, uh, I mean..." He cleared his throat once more. "Is the human influence really so destructive, Mistress Viridi?"

Viridi sighed. "Of course it is. I still haven't forgiven them, you know. I might not go after them with a whole factory of Reset Bombs again, but I will come back someday. I will return this world to nature. That's just my job."

Pit paused a moment. He hadn't really thought of it that way. He'd always been on the humans' side, so he'd never stopped to think about how it must have felt from the enemies' side. Viridi wasn't such a bad girl. He'd learnt that over time. But she still held her own values. Because that was just what she was created to do. If she didn't value nature above all else, then she wouldn't be the goddess of nature. And that would completely eradicate her reason for existing. It only took a moment of pondering for Pit to realise that if all the light and happiness was removed from the world, then his goddess, and he too, would no longer have a purpose. This was why power struggles occurred between the gods. Because all of them wanted to remain relevant and keep doing what they were created to do.

"But, Mistress Viridi," Pit continued, "Do you not think nature can exist in harmony with the humans?"

"Of course it can't. They were created by nature itself, I guess, but even within nature there are anomalies. Humans were created as a mistake. Sure, they were made to take care of every other living thing and develop the world into something more complex than it was in the beginning, but he fact that they strayed from doing that just proves to me that we need to start over again. And at least teach them to live their lives the way they were intended, if we can't just get rid of them and start with a new batch."

Pit furrowed his brow. "Forgive me," he said, "But that doesn't seem the most natural course of action either."

Viridi looked at Pit with a question in her eyes. Pit looked the other way shyly. He couldn't portray the way he felt, and what he had to say, if he was acting like this. Arlon would never say these things. He was as devoted to Viridi as he himself was to Palutena. Viridi needed to hear these things from him, not Arlon. He quietly broke the façade in his voice.

"Just look at all this, Viridi," he said, releasing the girl's arm. He bent at the knees and lowered to the level of the flowers, gently caressing the petals of that closest to him. "You say it's only this way because it hasn't been touched by humans. I don't know whether this place in particular has or hasn't, but I do know that nature this organised could never have occurred without help in a million years."

"What are you saying...?"

"I'm saying that even where humans do live, things like this can still happen. There are humans who love nature as much as you do, Viridi. Without humans, nature like this will whither and die. Nature on its own is chaotic and uncontrollable. Kind of like your Reset Bombs, I guess. But it happens everywhere, all the time. Think of bushes. They grow just fine without humans, because they've got the sun and the rain and that's all they need. But humans come by and give them a little trim here and there. Maybe for their own benefit, sure—to make them look a little prettier—but doesn't that help them to grow even better in the end?"

"But what if those bushes were meant to grow and expand at will?" Viridi retorted, "What if the flower fields were meant to spread far and wide and not fit into the specific patterns humans want for them? Can you imagine oppression like that? Being forced into a life you don't want to live because someone else has the power to force it?"

"But, Viridi," Pit said with a faint smile, "Isn't that what you want to do to the humans?"

Viridi paused for a moment, and turned her back. "I don't have to listen to this," she said, "I'm a goddess. I don't have to live by the same morals as any other living thing."

"That isn't setting a very good example, though, right?"

"What?"

"You're the goddess of nature. You're the mother of all living things. As a mother, it's your job to set an example to all your children, right? And if you don't live by any morals, is it really fair to expect that they will?"

Viridi didn't know what to say to him. She didn't understand how something as insignificant as a date had turned into something like this. She was being talked down to by an angel—someone else's angel—and she was standing for it. She was a million times more powerful than he could ever hope to be. She could feel her rage boiling with every word he said.

In an instant, she raised a hand to Pit and forced through her fingertips the power to make things grow through the air. A vine of thorns appeared, Pit quickly diving out of the way before it could hit him. Then Viridi let the vine drop. It coiled in on itself and then slowly faded away. Pit panted slightly, looking at Viridi from a slight distance with caution. He waited for her to speak.

"I think this date is over, Pit," she eventually murmured, "I don't want you to get hurt."

Pit looked between her and the ground, as if he was expecting a root to just spring up out of nowhere and impale him. But no such thing came.

"I said this is over," Viridi repeated, "I know you were just trying to make polite conversation, but your idea of polite is my idea of futile. Nobody has control over me. That is the natural way of life."

Pit didn't want to leave. Not on this note. But he couldn't say a thing, before Viridi activated the power of flight and sent him zooming up into the sky at full velocity. Viridi directed him towards Skyworld, and safely deposited him there before dropping her control over him. But she refused to keep contact with him after that, instead ignoring his attempts. She wanted time to think, alone.

She looked over the flower field. She lifted her hand. A ring of light slowly appeared in view, and closed in around the entire area. A force field. No human could ever break through. She'd prove that this little pocket of beautiful nature could survive without human intervention. She would prove Pit wrong.