Chapter 48: Battle Against Pandora
Stairs, why does it have to be stiars? Dark Pit thought to himself. He had been wondering how they would make it up to the rewind spring ever since the idea was suggested. After all, the thing was suspended high in the sky. That problem resolved itself very shortly. There was a staircase made of…Dark Pit had no idea what kind of matter comprised the stairs, but they led all the way to the top of the spring.
They were about halfway up the staircase at that moment. That would have been welcoming to Dark Pit, except that the stairs were a mile long. They still had a half a mile to go to reach the Rewind Spring. He shifted Aria's weight once again. If not for his feelings for the girl, he would have passed her off to someone else a long time before. His calves were practically barking at him with the extra weight. But he felt that he had a personal responsibility to see Aria to the top.
Whatever Pit had done with the staff, it had helped with Aria's wound. It hadn't healed her, but she now had some more time before death would be knocking on her doors. Dark Pit cringed at the thought of Aria dying in the Underworld. Where would her soul go to? Dark Pit shut such thoughts out of his head. Aria is going to live, he promised himself.
"It's going to be okay," he whispered to the unconscious Aria. In his heart, despite his doubts, he firmly believed these words to be true.
"I hope my mother's all right," Zephynn blurted out of nowhere.
"You saw Palutena and my mother," Vinnia responde. "Your mother is a goddess as well. I'm sure she's fine."
"Hopefully," Dark Pit muttered, not intending anyone to hear it.
"Is that all you're going to say?" Vinnia asked him sharply. Pit put a hand on Vinnia's shoulder and shook his head.
Dark Pit went back to concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. He had to make up those stairs. No one spoke as Dark Pit headed the procession, followed closely by Pit.
"Let's not let ourselves be knocked down so close to the finish line," Ladon said, breaking the awkward silence that had set in. Dark Pit had forgotten how wise Ladon was. For once, he actually felt encouraged.
Dark Pit looked up. During the silences and brief conversations, the edge of the spring had come much closer.
"We're almost there," the dark angel stated.
"My point exactly," the staff threw in.
It was with great apprehension that Dark Pit ascended the final steps. Dark Pit was kind of surprised to see the spring empty. There was literally nobody on the sky blue platform. The spring sparkled in the middle, inviting him into its shimmering waters. Dark Pit ignored that impulse, as spending too long in the spring would have…adverse effects.
Blue flames appeared out of nowhere, on the teams' side of the spring. From these flames came the lithe form of the goddess of calamity. She had totally thrown the cloak aside in favor of the skimpy Amazon Pandora outfit. Through this outfit, Dark Pit could see the flame leaking scars all over her body. She was carrying the same odd, two pronged sword that she had wielded on their last meeting.
"Welcome," the goddess said cheerfully. "I see you've chosen to walk into your doom."
"No," Dark Pit started. "Actually, we've walked into your doom."
"Face it Pandora, there are six of us and one of you," Pit added in.
Dark Pit did a head count to confirm this. There was Magnus, Gaol, Pit, Zephynn, Vinnia and himself. The others had obviously not followed them.
"I know you're a deity," Pit continued, "but that's nothing compared to six trained warriors."
Pandora let out a hearty laugh. "Okay," she stated. "But how do these odds sound? Four trained warriors, enhanced by the power of a dark god, and deity against a team of six trained warriors?"
As she said this, four dark agents materialized out of blue flames.
Dark Pit gently set Aria down as he drew his bow. "Those odds sound ridiculously unfair to me. Sucks to be you guys," Dark Pit put in with a smirk.
Magnus hefted his blade, and charged towards the dark agents. Each of them had a set of Pandora Claws. Magnus could guess that the weapons were super-amped up specifically to take down the team that had assembled against the evil.
Magnus targeted the agent on the far right. He was dimly aware of Gaol targeting the next one down and Vinnia and Zephynn challenging the left two. The battle divided into a three-way. Magnus and Gaol chased their targets as they peeled off towards the right side of the spring. Zephynn and Vinnia chased their targets in the opposite direction. Pandora remained behind to challenge the angels.
Magnus dodged the lightning fast fire blasts that were directed at him. He was aware of Gaol having a similar problem. Magnus, despite his bruised and battered body, charged ever closer towards the evading agent.
Magnus finally came within striking range, and swung his massive sword. The agent ducked the attack and somehow managed to get behind Magnus. Magnus swung his sword in a massive semi-circle, intending to knock the agent's head off. The annoying bugger ducked and jumped backwards, shooting a charged blast that Magnus was barely able to evade.
He was about to charge forward again when Gaol collided with him from the side, sending them both sprawling onto the ground. Magnus saw the agents closing from opposite sides, and had an instinctive moment with Gaol.
The two of them got up at the last possible second and dodged out of the way, away from the spring. The agents almost collided. When they turned, they saw that Gaol had pumped Magnus's blade full of energy, and Magnus drove the sword into the ground. The energy wave nearly forced the two into the spring, but they worked together to avoid that.
As the agents charged Magnus and Gaol once again, Magnus had a plan come into his mind.
Meanwhile, in the area where the stairs met the spring, the two angels were battling Pandora.
The two angels charged at Pandora simultaneously. Pandora charged right back, her strange sword gleaming in the strange light of the spring. Suddenly, Pandora's course angled towards Pit, and the angel was knocked onto his back.
Dark Pit shot at Pandora, getting her attention. The goddess was just about to charge when a charged shot from Pit exploded on her back. Pandora vanished in flames, appearing behind Pit just as quickly. Pit was kicked onto his face. Dark Pit, as soon as Pit went down, launched a forward-dash charged shot at Pandora. Another disappearing trick caused the attack to miss.
Dark Pit set his head to swivel, searching for where the chaos goddess went.
"LOOK OUT!" came Pit's voice.
Instinctively, Dark Pit took a step to the side. Pandora came crashing down from the air, giving him a light cut on his bicep. The stab which was intended to cleave his skull in two had landed on the ground. Pandora quickly drew the sword out of the ground and attacked Dark Pit. Dark Pit expertly parried the blow, and engaged in a brief exchange of melee attacks.
Pit was now charging in with Ladon's special melee attack. Pandora turned and expertly blocked the strike, but left her back open to Dark Pit. Dark Pit stabbed at where her heart would have been, and was surprised when his bow clanged off of her skin as if it was metal.
When Pandora turned to face Dark Pit, she was hit by another strike from Pit. Pit continued using the strike relentlessly, driving Pandora towards the spring. Dark Pit caught onto the idea and started shooting through any opening he could get.
Pandora was on the edge of the spring when the worst happened. Dark Pit was standing next to Pit as they were going to drive Pandora into the spring with one final push. Suddenly, a charged shot from nowhere came speeding at them. With the speed of their angelic reflexes, the dodged the attack, but Pandora was given the opening she needed to escape.
When Dark Pit looked at where Pandora should have been, all that was there was the last remnants of a blue flame. The slippery goddess had avoided her death.
Magnus found that his plan was very hard to implement. The agents were slippery buggers who always escaped the reach of his sword in one way or another. He now had several burns to show for his lapse in defense. Gaol's armor was also covered in scorch marks, and the aura surrounding it was dangerously dim.
He blocked a claw slash from the agent on the flat of his sword. With a push, he knocked the agent backwards.
Come on, just a little further, he thought. He needed to push the agents into the water. The Rewind Spring rewound people's bodies. If they were in it for more than a few seconds, their existences would be unmade. Magnus was counting on being able to push them into the water. Gaol had caught onto his plan sometime earlier and was helping to bring it to completion.
Unfortunately, the agents seemed to have caught on as well. They made every effort to get Magnus and Gaol between them and the spring. Magnus found several times that he was the one being maneuvered towards the springs, rather than doing the maneuvering. At these points he would collaborate with Gaol to subtly turn the tables. The agents would then do the same thing. The process would constantly repeat itself over and over again.
Magnus needed a way to break the stalemate. Unless these agents tripped over their own feet, he had a feeling that the battle would just keep going on. That would not do, as the injuries Magnus had accumulated on this visit to the Underworld were starting to trip him up. Burns and gashes covered very large amounts of his skin, and more were coming every time they went through the battle cycle.
"GET AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS!" tore through the air. Magnus realized that that was Raven's voice.
From nowhere, a massive column of water exploded from the spring, targeted towards the other battle with dark agents. Magnus and Gaol recovered from the distraction before the dark agents did. Together, they planted their feet in the backs of the dark agents and kicked them into the spring. Within five seconds, the two of them had de-aged to nothingness, leaving only their black robes and inactive weapons behind.
Dark Pit ducked as the column of water exploded from the spring. He maneuvered himself very carefully so as to avoid getting any water on himself. Given his insanely short life span, so much as a bucket-full could probably wipe him from existence. However, the few drops that did get on him revitalized him, rather than turning him into solid nothingness.
The dark angel stood up, ignoring whatever conversation was going with Raven and Vinnia, and looked for Pandora. The slippery chaos goddess had once again disappeared. He had all of his senses on high alert as he approached Pit's position.
When Pandora appeared, she came crashing down towards Pit. The angel was able to dodge out of the way, leaving Pandora with her blade stuck in the ground. Dark Pit combined the fire and wind powers into his bow and fired the shot. The resulting fire ball hit Pandora at a blinding speed, knocking her back before she could dislodge her sword from the ground. The goddess vanished once again.
The reappearance came with a kick to Pit's head, dazing him. Dark Pit took over, using energy from the Gaol Blade and Lancer Staff he had absorbed. The shot was diamond bolt dripping with green energy. Pandora stumbled backwards, reeling from the blow. This was followed by a charged shot from the recovered Pit.
The two angels didn't give Pandora any room to breathe. They pelted her with shots from their respective weapons. Soon the others, having finished the dark agents, joined the barrage on Pandora. At some point, Pit had switched from normal fire to a massive beam.
Pandora looked like she was approaching her limit. Blue flames were leaping out of the scars from all over her body. Dark Pit and Pit split off from the conglomeration to finish the job. Dark Pit peeled left while Pit peeled right. Dark Pit split his bow into the two miniature blades. He swung them at Pandora's stomach. At the same time, Pit hit Pandora in the back with the Somewhat Staff. Given what had happened earlier, Dark Pit was surprised to feel Pandora's skin give way. Both of the angel's weapons passed through, finishing the goddess.
"AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHHH!" Pandora screamed. Blue light began pouring from the goddess. Reading the writing on the wall, Dark Pit ducked out. When he looked back, the light was almost blinding. With a final scream, the goddess of chaos exploded in massive display of blue flames.
A/N HOLY FREAKING CRAP! THIS FANFICTION IS ALMOST DONE! This project has been amazing to work on. It's been in development for almost a year now, and I'm super happy with how it came out. As far as the future of this fic, two more chapters and an epilogue will conclude it. I will make an editing run after the completion to tighten up some loose ends, but it'll otherwise be done. Enjoy and please review. Leave it with a guest name if you have to, but please review.
