Chapter 48: Spring Showdown
Six figures trekked up the glowing blue staircase leading to the Rewind Spring. Six minds were anxious for the battle to come. These six were the three members of the Dark Triad, and Pit, Vinnia, and Zephynn. Aria's body rested in Dark Pit's arms still. The soul who had shown up with the rest of the Dark Triad, which claimed to be Magnus's long lost son (Pit remembered the story waaaaaaaaay back from when he and Palutena faced Gaol alongside Magnus), tagged along with them distantly.
Pit stared up the staircase intently. He had healed the injuries that he, Vinnia, and Zephynn had attained during the battle against Hextate, Norulus, and Charon with Ladon's healing power. He had almost forgotten about the powers for a long time, having been caught up in the mission for a long time. He had also been using the other weapons a lot; and speaking of those, Palutena, just as Dyntos had said, had given him a First Blade for luck. It too had gone into his tunic.
"I hope my mother's alright," said Zephynn out of nowhere.
"You saw Palutena and my mother," said Vinnia, "Your mother is a goddess as well. I'm sure she's fine."
"Hopefully…" Dark Pit mused, lost in thought.
"Is that all you're going to say?" Vinnia asked, beginning towards aggressiveness. Pit put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. She calmed down. Dark Pit didn't seem to notice the actions. Silence fell upon them again. They had passed the halfway mark about five minutes before. Silence remained for another couple of minutes. Then, to everyone's surprise, Ladon spoke up.
"Let's not let ourselves be knocked down so close to the finish line," he said.
"We're almost there," said Dark Pit before anyone else can respond.
"My point exactly," said Ladon. Nobody was listening. They were stepping onto the large floating platform that hosted the Rewind Spring. The crystal clear water of the spring seemed to glare at them menacingly.
Then, in front of them, a blue flame appeared and Pandora materialized out of cloak, revealing that the scars leaking blue flames were everywhere on her skin. Her rapier was in her hand.
"Welcome," she said cheerfully, "I see you've chosen to walk into your doom."
"No," Dark Pit said firmly, "Actually we've walked into your doom."
"Face it Pandora," said Pit, building off of his twin's comment, "There are six of us and one of you. I know you're a deity, but that's nothing compared to six trained warriors." Everyone got their weapons ready in agreement, except for Dark Pit, who was still holding Aria. Pandora simply laughed at them.
"Okay," she said, "But how do these odds sound. Four trained warriors enhanced by the power of a dark god and a deity against a team of six trained warriors." Four dark agents appeared on the spring from nowhere, weapons ready.
Dark Pit put Aria down on the ground evenly and readied his bow.
"Those odds sound ridiculously unfair to me," said Dark Pit, "Sucks to be you guys."
There was a charge. The angels took Pandora. Zephynn and Vinnia veered to the left and each took a dark agent. Gaol and Magnus went to the right. All of the dark agents met them with Pandora Claws. Vinnia was knocked to the ground almost immediately and slashed across the face. She shot up angrily and made several attempts to stab the dark agent she was facing. She blocked another slash and slashed her lance at him (or was it a her? She couldn't tell with what clothing they were wearing). She missed and hit the dark agent that Zephynn was facing. Her dark agent pushed her away from that fight.
Zephynn himself was put on the defensive after that slash at his opponent. He found himself on the receiving end of a barrage of claw swipes. He tried to come closer to his opponent so that he could slip around and stab them, but he couldn't get an opening. He backflipped so as to perhaps stun his opponent with a sword beam but when he looked forward again after the flip he was smacked down by a giant, red ball of flame with eyes and a mouth. The dark agent jumped on him and tried to slash him across the face. Zephynn barely managed to block the strike and blew them off with a blast of wind.
The dark agent happened to land right in the middle of Vinnia's battle. She almost stabbed him through the head, but her lance was grabbed by said dark agent. He pulled it from her grasp and threw it over the edge of the spring. She cursed under her breath and focused her powers, beginning to dodge away from the dark agents, who now tried to strike her together. Zephynn covered for her.
As she was pushed towards the edge of the spring, Zephynn ran at the dark agents and swung a sword beam at them. One of them caught it and threw it back, which shocked Zephynn so much he almost forgot to dodge out of the way. He ducked it at the last second and charged. He was met with a slash to the chest. He almost lost his balance, but he stood firm even as he fell backwards and fired another sword beam at his opponents, boosted by a gust of wind. It was blocked again and sent back. Zephynn swung his sword again as it came close to contact and it was thrown back even stronger. This game of dead man's volley continued for a few more seconds, but Zephynn was at a clear disadvantage; the dark agents were tag teaming after all.
Finally, the sword beam became too quick for him to block and he braced himself for a blow. Vinnia, however, happened to step in front of him just in time and blast the sword beam into the sky with her lance. The ribbons withdrew and they both charged the dark agents again.
The angels' charge was quickly interrupted as Pandora took down Pit with a single slash of her rapier. The angel was knocked back by the power of the blow onto his back, but he quickly jumped back to his feet and fired a charge shot. The charge shot happened to hit Pandora in the back, as Dark Pit had attacked Pandora in the millisecond that Pit was down. Pandora was hit by the shot, but vanished before Dark Pit could deal a serious blow. She reappeared behind Pit and knocked him to the ground again, this time on his face.
Pit felt a charge shot fly over his head. He jumped up, seeing that Pandora was nowhere in sight. Pit's eyes widened when he saw where she had gone.
"LOOK OUT!" he yelled. Dark Pit's head swiveled upwards and then sidestepped just barely in time. He was cut on his upper arm and she, being where he had been a second before, charged him. They began to parry back and forth with melee strikes. Pit charged into battle, activating the staff's melee power and ignoring the drain it brought. He brought the staff down on Pandora in a way that she had to turn away from Dark Pit so as not to be knocked back. Dark Pit used the opportunity to try to stab Pandora through the heart. However, the bow blade the dark angel was using only bounced off of her skin.
Pit pushed her back further towards the spring, in hopes of getting her to fall in and perhaps erase her from existence. Each melee strike cost Pandora a few inches. Dark Pit assisted by firing in when he could, costing Pandora even more space. At that very moment, a stray charge shot came from somewhere else on the spring and slammed into the ground next to Pit and Pandora. Pit managed to dodge out of the way. Pandora vanished, the opportunity to destroy her lost for the moment.
In the meantime, Zephynn and Vinnia had gone back to separate fights. Vinnia's stab-stab-stab strategy was earning her more injury than benefit. Zephynn was still on the defensive. He just couldn't dodge around the barrage of claw swipes that the Pandora Claws offered. And he couldn't fall back either, because of that creepy, red, sorry excuse for a charge shot, which he had found was actually quite a pain in the hands of an experienced wielder.
He tried to blow the dark agent away again, but the same trick wouldn't work twice. The dark agent fired the charge shot at him at close range. The winds bounced off of it and blew him to the edge of the spring. He tried to fire a sword beam but another charge shot blocked it. He charged the dark agent again, but he was met with the same barrage he had been facing for pretty much the whole time he was against these guys.
The other dark agent finally knocked Vinnia to the ground when she tried to slam him over the head. That had left her open to a punch to the face. She fell backwards and landed on her back. The dark agent proceeded to attempt to slash her across the face again, but she rolled out of the way and fired a shot at him. He blocked it with one hand and fired at her with the other. She was hit in the right arm, her lance arm. She gripped it in pain as the shot's effects began to spread up her arm. The dark agent left her lying there.
Zephynn, seeing Vinnia suffering on the ground, flinched suddenly and was punched in the face. The two dark agents nodded to each other and prepared to double shot Zephynn. At that moment, a scream ripped across the spring.
"GET AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS!" Before anyone could turn to see who had screamed, a huge pillar of water erupted from the spring and washed over the dark agents who had been terrorizing Vinnia and Zephynn. Water enveloped them and they screamed themselves. However, those screams were quickly silenced. When the water receded from them, there was nothing left.
Vinnia, knowing exactly who to expect standing over her in the next few seconds, called out, "Nice assist, Raven." Sure enough, Raven was standing over her in the next few seconds.
"I thought you weren't coming," said Vinnia with a smile.
"Well, you're all like family to me too," she said, "I can't leave you hanging." Vinnia remembered Raven's reason for staying behind as she used a little bit of water from the Rewind Spring to heal her arm; she wanted to make sure that her brother wasn't going to do anything stupid to be useful.
"Thanks," said Vinnia as Raven helped her up. As Zephynn joined them, she noticed that the dark agents facing Magnus and Gaol were gone as well. All eyes turned to the angels.
The angels, when the column of water had exploded from the spring, dodged out of the way of the water. The few drops that touched them refreshed them, and they avoided the rest. Pandora had vanished yet again. After the column receded, Pit saw Raven running over to Vinnia and Zephynn's side of the spring, and then began scanning the spring again for any sign of Pandora. He suddenly felt something from above and dodged out of the way, Pandora's rapier stuck in the ground behind him.
Dark Pit took a shot past Pit; a combined wind and fire shot to be exact. Pandora was forced away from her sword and vanished again. Pit swiveled around. That was met by a kick to his head. The world went blurry as he almost stumbled off of his feet. He held his head in pain and shook it as hard as he could. By the time he had regained his bearings and turned around, Dark Pit had fired a powerful charge shot from his bow. It struck Pandora and forced her to her knees.
Pit took his chance and fired his own charge shot. He followed up with several small bolts as he and Dark Pit bombarded her. More shots poured into the blow from the other heroes. Pandora fell even further. Blue flames leaked nonstop out of her scars. Pit came to a peak of power; he unleashed Ladon's laser. Pandora began flashing blue light. Pit let up the laser and charged. Dark Pit did the same. Pit opened up Ladon's melee power again as he came in close, readied the staff for a slice, and brought it down on her back. This happened in a matter of seconds.
The blows hit at the exact same time. The goddess was sandwiched between utter melee strength and powerful blades. Pit pushed through and saw Dark Pit do the same. There was a shrill scream from the goddess of calamity as both angel's weapons smashed into her. She flashed between blue and normal for a split second before her body was enveloped in blue light. Pit and Dark Pit ducked out of the way. The goddess of calamity then exploded into a spectacular blue flame.
A/N: We're nearing the end of these two stories. I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who has stuck along in reading this fanfiction and put up with the delays that it has brought. Though it was a joint effort, this is still personally the second-longest story I've ever written. Special thanks to all of the people who reviewed and gave us feedback, and a big thank you to my good friend Game777Guy for taking over the idea of the Dark Triad and turning it into something amazing. But as I said, we are only nearing the end. It's not quite over yet. We have a few more surprises in the two unwritten chapters to come. Stay tuned!
I say this every time I do Author's Notes. I don't own Kid Icarus, or anything else I write about on this site, except for my OCs and the like. All belongs to Nintendo.
