Skyworld as Seen Through a Child's Mind

by Giddysky

A collection of short stories all connected in some way or another! Starring two trouble-making Angel twin brothers and various other prominent characters, who I would add to the character list if I could! Anyways, who knows what'll happen next! I do!

11. There is a Festival (Side B)

In which there is a Festival and a Puppet's strings are pulled

---

-viridi plays someone like a fiddle-

"-and that is why Mistress Viridi, you absolutely and under no circumstances cannot simply 'see what's going on' at the Lunar Sanctum!"

Viridi tapped her fingers in a monotonous rhythm as Arlon continued to ramble about the dangers of visiting the construction site of the - ̗̀ NEW ̖́- Lunar Sanctum. "Yeah, yeah..." whatever valid points Arlon was raising about safety or whatnot continued to be lost to Viridi as her impatience towards him grew.

She knew Arlon was a reserved guy. He tended to keep to himself much more than any other member of her Forces of Nature. Even Phosphora checked in more often than Arlon did. More often than not, Viridi had to the initiative herself to call up Arlon and ask him what he was up to, instead of him reporting it himself.

Like he was SUPPOSED to do.

Viridi pushed herself off her throne, finally fed up at listening at Arlon drone on. "Arlon, I know why I can't go. I just want to know when I can go!" from what Viridi could see of the Lunar Sanctum from where she was it looked very near completion. The Lunar Sanctum sure looked like a second moon whenever Arlon took off the cloaking device so she could take a peek at it.

After seven years or so Viridi hoped there would be at least SOME progress. At least enough progress for Viridi to go and inspect it for herself.

But nooooo, according to Arlon, or whatever, if she went and visited, she would get hurt or whatever. Like she wasnt a Goddess. Or whatever...

"Mistress Viridi, I believe even Goddesses must respect the safety guidelines put upon us by the construction industry."

Viridi waved off his concerns, "Arlon please, I think I'm strong enough to sense if few moon rocks are about to fall on my head." she paused to think, "...I don't think Phosphora would be though. Hmm..."

"Which is precisely why you cannot visit!"

"Wha-?! Hey! I'm the one coming, not Phosphora! Besides, she can just wear a stupid helmet or something. I'm sure she won't mind."

From her All-Seeing waterfall Viridi saw Arlon sigh and adjust his monocle. He was so serious about Viridi not even getting a single little peek at the under construction Lunar Sanctum he always darkened his surroundings to the point where only he was visible. It was something Viridi always got on his case about whenever she checked up on him and always lead to her asking on the reconstruction process.

Arlon cleared his throat, "I am quite sure Miss Phosphora would mind. Nevertheless, that does not change the fact that the Lunar Sanctum is just not ready to take any visitors at the moment." Viridi let out a loud groan, no matter how much she pushed there was no budging Arlon from his stance on things.

Surely, she was a strong enough Goddess to survive a few hours or so on a halfway (hopefully more, given how many years it had been) reconstructed facsimile of a moon. Or did Arlon think she was too weak? Now that really ticked her off.

While Arlon continued listing off a checklist of recent reparations on the Lunar Sanctum, Viridi tried to think of a plan.

Outright convincing Arlon was impossible, after seven years or so of trying there was probably no way a year or more of begging was going to work. Arlon was just too strong in that regard.

Unbeknownst to Arlon, Viridi swung her staff right through the waterfall. She grit her teeth, no matter what she did or what she tried Viridi could never win against Arlon. Either he was too smart or just too dumb! Viridi was a smart Goddess, a smart enough Goddess that she knew at this point she couldn't actually care less about seeing the Lunar Sanctum. She just wanted Arlon to actually, for once in his life be direct with her. Especially since the last time he kept a secret from her that resulted in-

"Hey Arlon!"

There was a point in the last few paragraphs or so when Arlon noticed a clearly disgruntled Viridi hack at the screen with her scythe. He decided to wait until she spoke to him again to continue talking with her. "Yes, Mistress Viridi? Do you require anything else from me?" secretly Arlon was very much hoping the answer would be 'No Arlon, buzz off.' He still had plenty of duties to tend around the Lunar Sanctum for the day. Especially if Viridi continued to insist on visiting it.

"Arlon?"

"Yes?"

"Any chance you remember the Chaos Kin?"

For the first time since she could remember, Viridi heard Arlon stutter. "I c-can't say I don't, Mistress Viridi. That certainly was an...eventful chapter in our lives."

"Nope! Not yours! You don't get to say anything about because you weren't there!"

"I was overseeing repairs to the Lunar Sanctum!"

"Do you know what happened because of the Chaos Kin's escape?! Huh? Do you?!"

"It did not escape. It was released when Young Master Pit-"

"-blew up the Lunar Sanctum! Yeah, I know! Which would have never happened if you told me it was in there in the first place!"

Arlon's secretive nature never bothered Viridi. If he wanted to keep to himself, then he could keep to himself. If Phosphora wanted to fly around and never visit, then she could. If Cragalanche wanted to hang around a volcano and swim in lava, then Viridi would be confused at first but it would be fine.

She couldn't have cared less what her forces got up to in their free time as long as they were there when she needed them.

But after the Chaos kin, all bets were off. Especially for Arlon.

"I can't have anything like that happen ever again." Viridi looked up Arlon with surprisingly vulnerable eyes, something that was very unnatural for her. Arlon always took note that whenever Viridi spoke with others she made sure she was somehow on equal or higher eye level as who she was speaking with. For her to choose to place herself underneath someone meant that either she had no control over the situation, or she was very serious about what she was asking for.

"Mistress Viridi I-"

"Having a being run around who's sole purpose is to cause chaos is...dangerous. I-I mean back then it went for Palutena, but what was stopping it from coming after me or any one of us? Not to mention-"

"You are worried about Young Master Pit?"

"I AM NOT!"

Arlon chuckled, his moustache twitching up with his slight smile. Of course, Viridi cared about Pit and his twin as well, not that she would ever admit it. But her continued support of them both spoke volumes on how she felt about them.

Every member of the Forces of Nature knew that.

And they all took every opportunity to remind her of it.

"This isn't all about Pit or Dark Pit!-"

"I don't believe I ever mentioned Young Master Dark Pit's name, now did I?" Arlon quickly added.

Viridi growled, tempted to take another swipe at the waterfall again. "The point is-! Arlon I've had it up to here-" Viridi held up her staff high above her head, "-with secret keeping! If I can't know how fortified the new Lunar Sanctum is in case of emergencies, I might lose sleep! Or even worse!"

"Even worse?"

"You might lose sleep! With how guilty you'd feel over having me worry about these things! Can you imagine that Arlon?! Imagine how much less work you would get done if you couldn't sleep! I'm sure the sheer thought of it would keep you up at night!"

"...Quite." Viridi could scream at Arlon all day, but his stance on this issue was clear and immovable. There would be no way that Viridi would ever get Arlon give her the go ahead to visit, not at this rate.

Which meant it was time for Viridi's last resort. The final trick up her one sleeve...

"You know what Arlon, fine. You can go back to working on the Lunar Sanctum and you can just, call me when its finished."

"Hmm?" Arlon raised his eyebrow in absolute shock "How odd. Usually you and I stand here for hours in comical back in forth until you grow so frustrated you end the call all together. I must say Mistress Viridi I'm rather impressed at the level of maturity that you are displaying today."

"Yeah, yeah whatever." Viridi said waving Arlon's compliment away. "Just. Answer me one thing? One quick question?"

"Why, of course! My vast library of knowledge is at your disposal. Please ask away." Arlon gave a quick bow, low enough to not notice the smirk Viridi was covering with her hand.

"Thesuckerwhosgoingtoletmeandeveryonevisitthelunarsantumsayswhat?!"

"What."

A couple of celestial fireworks went off in Viridi's throne room as she cheered and even threw her staff up in the air to celebrate. Before Arlon could ask if something happened, and to remind Viridi to be careful with her staff, she turned to laugh at his face. "Ahahaha! You hear that?! You just agreed to let me and everyone go to the Lunar Sanctum!"

"Excuse me?! I believe I said no such thing!"

Viridi waggled her finger and shook her head, "Oh Arlon, Arlon, Arlon...Maybe check the subtitles and you'll see otherwise."

"Hmph." Arlon choose to humor the small Goddess and took a look down at their chat log, located for Arlon conveniently under his newly installed Lunar Sanctum communications screen. Viridi's smirk grew into a full-blown grin when she saw Arlon's monocle free eye widen, no doubt because of the sentence he'd just read and the pieces he put together.

After adjusting his monocle and reading the quick sentence over and over again, Arlon finally looked up, now much less composed than usual. "M-Mistress Viridi-! Such tricks are not becoming of a Goddess such as-"

"Oh, I think they are. Just admit Arlon, you're mad I tricked you!"

"That was no trick! It was merely a...a...an unfunny joke!"

"Riiiight. But you still agreed to let me go visit, and who would I be to deny the request of one of my most loyal members of the Forces of Nature?" Viridi smiled from ear to ear and blinked quickly as if her generosity couldn't appear even more fake.

Viridi had won, it didn't matter what Arlon said.

Arlon sighed and took another bow, "I couldn't agree more, Mistress Viridi. I'll ready the Lunar Sanctum for your visit." he hoped that Viridi wouldn't stay too long, repairs were complicated enough already. Having Viridi or anyone else around would most likely slow things down to a crawl if things went the way Arlon predicted they would.

And with the luck they'd been having lately, it was more than a possibility.

"Great!" Viridi was ecstatic to finally be able to visit the Lunar Sanctum, but even happier that she got her way. After years of things going wrong for her, other more important things were finally starting to look up! While she would never be able to rebuild her reset bomb factory but having the Lunar Sanctum back was sure to put the Forces of Nature back on the map!

"We'll be there in a few hours. Make sure to have some snacks ready for all of us."

---

-please let this be a normal fieldtrip-

Viridi stared at her watchless wrist and tapped her foot impatiently. "Where are those slackers?! I called them forever ago! And I even called them again after that! They should be here by now!" She looked up at Cragalanche who was very busy putting all his strength into carrying the luggage of all the Forces of Nature that were going to visit the moon today.

Which turned out to be one whole suitcase belonging to Dark Pit who insisted he needed to bring his Silver Bow for no reason he felt like talking about.

"Whatever. I'm glad at least somebody is on time." Viridi tapped Cragalanche's arm affectionally and Cragalanche let out what can be as accurately described as a 'happy rock noise.'

"If it were up to me, I'd just leave without them! But...I can't do that to them. We're a team and honestly I don't know what I would do without-"

Viridi paused, remembering Cragalanche was still next to her.

"I-I honestly don't know what I would do if they didn't show up on time! Is what I was going to say! Obviously!" Viridi looked up at Cragalanche. His unmoving expression stared back at her. "Okay fine! You got me! That's not what I was going to say but you know what, now I'm not even going to say it!"

The (now awkward) silence between the two was almost overwhelming, as Viridi continued to tap her foot waiting for the missing two members to show up.

"Come on! I've called them at least five times already! What could possibly be taking them so long?!" after the fifth reminder Viridi would have figured they have gotten the message by now. The message being that they needed to get their butts in gear and report to the throne room like she explicitly ordered them to do.

To make things worse, the last time she talked to Phosphora and Dark Pit they both assured her they were 'on their way' and yet there was no sign of them anywhere! "What do they think we have all day?! I told them as clearly as I could that we had to go now, but nooooo! Can you believe the amount of disrespect they're showing me?"

Cragalanche nodded as best he could. By using his entire body. He agreed with whatever Viridi said in the past few seconds because he'd honestly tuned out thinking about moon rocks.

"Thanks, Cragalanche."

Before another complaint could escape Viridi's mouth the doors to the throne room swung open. Like all doors in Viridi's temple they inexplicably opened towards the exit. Everyone suspected it was because Viridi liked how much more dramatic her entrances looked like if she swung the doors open towards her. And that fact rang true when everyone decided to do it too.

"Ha ha!" Dark Pit swung open the doors, the breeze from the force of the doors opening made his scarf and wings flutter in the wind. He stood there for a good while before finally deciding to run in, Phosphora flying in right behind him.

"Ha! I told you I could beat you if I used Lightweight!"

Phosphora crossed her arms and floated away from him, "Pfft, okay fine. That still doesn't mean you can beat me without it. Face it, if you weren't using that power, I would have flown to the throne room and back while you were still getting out of your room."

"You would have not! You're exaggerating!"

"Ah-hem!"

The bickering pair looked back at the small Goddess who cleared her throat as a call to attention.

She looked straight at her forces, straightened up and put her hands on her hips. "You're late." Viridi said, her voice as stern as she could make it sound. "You're late! And because of that now we're all late!" she yelled switching between pointing her staff at Phosphora and Dark Pit, "Even Cragalanche got here faster than the two of you! And he was a whole continent away playing in mud!"

Phosphora stood frozen as Viridi continued to yell out her frustrations at them, looking at Cragalanche for any sign of support from him but all he did was silently look back at her. 'Gee, thanks a lot.' was this really the thanks she got for getting him free from that puddle of quicksand once? Phosphora really should have just let him sink.

She turned her attention from Cragalanche to her partner in crime for the day. Unlike her Dark Pit was staring Viridi down with his usual inpatient glare he gave to everyone who happened to get on his nerves. "Uh oh." this was a mess just waiting to begin and Phosphora could tell that whatever was going to happen when Dark Pit decided to open his mouth to talk wasn't going to be pretty.

Better to brace for impact than try to stop the inevitable.

The inevitable came quickly when Dark Pit decided to yell back. "What are you yelling at us for?! You called for us and we came!"

"I called for you at least five times in the last fifteen minutes!" Viridi immediately yelled back, as if she was already well prepared for Dark Pit to yell back at her.

Which she was.

As it turned out living with a rowdy teenage Angel prepared you for these sorta things.

"It was six actually. But we told you we were coming!"

"Oh, whatever! What matters is where were you?! I've been waiting here forever!"

Phosphora took a seat on top of Cragalanche and looked back and forth between the bickering Goddess and Angel, "Wow. Hey, Cragalanche? What do you think happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable wall?" Cragalanche moved slightly, confused at why Phosphora would ask such a specific question at this moment in time. "Oh, no reason." she sighed and blew a loose strand of her hair off her face, "Just asking."

"I told you we came as fast as we could!" Phosphora heard Dark Pit yell, "I even asked Palutena if I could use Lightweight so I could get here faster!" whatever the reason he and Pit got tired so easily after running only a few feet was something the Angels were working on.

"He just wanted to beat me in a race." Phosphora gleefully added. Dark Pit crossed his arms and smiled smugly, "And I did!" I won! Not you."

Phosphora successfully ignored Dark Pit's boast which also successfully ticked him off. Switching his focus from Viridi back to Phosphora, which Viridi quickly took notice of.

"Ugh..." Viridi was seriously going to have to ask Palutena how she dealt with raising an Angel for so long by herself. That was at least one aspect Viridi was sure Palutena knew more than she did. Palutena was the one who explained to Viridi that Angels were the bridge between the heavens and humanity. That was how Viridi found out she was essentially living with a human teenager running around her temple.

Even Phosphora and Cragalanche weren't ever this much trouble.

"Answer me one thing before we go." Viridi grabbed her staff and prepared to warp them all to the Lunar Sanctum. She was warping three other people and herself at once so it would take a while to get ready. "What were you guys doing that was soooo important that you kept me and Cragalanche waiting for you?"

"We were playing a video game." Dark Pit explained bluntly, behind him Phosphora nodded confirming his statement.

"Why didn't you just pause it?"

"Uh, we were playing online?!"

"And?!"

"What do you mean 'and?!' You can't pause an online game! Or does the 'all-powerful' Goddess of Nature not know how video games work?" even worse Viridi was the one who gifted him the Wii U, when Dark Pit clearly asked for a Nintendo Switch for his birthday.

Phosphora shook her head and closed her eyes in disappointment, backing up Dark Pit in his utter disbelief of Viridi's statement.

"Of course I know how they work! You're looking at a top chart Brain Age speedrunner!"

While Dark Pit tried to wrap his head around how someone could speedrun Brain Age, Phosphora picked up where he left off. "Um Mistress Viridi, online games are different. You can't exactly pause those until the match you're in is over." or at least that's how Splatoon worked, "And let me tell you, playing turf war isn't exactly easy when you kept calling for us like every minute." Not to mention Dark Pit's incessant backseating. It was almost enough to make Phosphora throw the match if she wasn't also letting down her teammates in the process.

"Alright, alright I get it." Viridi left out a huff, sure she didn't have the free time to play the video games she wanted to but Phosphora had no reason to rub it in. "Its not my fault being the Goddess of Nature has condemned me to an eternity of handheld video games."

"And that's why we need a Nintendo Switch! Now only 299 plus tax. Available at all retail stores today!"

"Phosphora."

"I kid, but really Mistress Viridi even handhelds have online no-"

"Can we talk about this later?! You know, once we're on the Lunar Sanctum?" Viridi held her staff up high and using it she gently pushed a still deep in thought Dark Pit to the center of the throne room where Cragalanche and Phosphora were waiting. "I bet Arlon knows you can't pause during online." Phosphora muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing."

As light and leaves scattered near the group Dark Pit suddenly gasped loudly. "Wait! You can't speed run Brain Age! Doing that only means you're smart!" the words that Dark Pit said didn't register until it was too late, "Wait no-"

Viridi scoffed, "Well, someone has to have the brains around here."

"Didn't you just think you could pause an online game? Even Pittoo knows you can't." Phosphora happily added.

Dark Pit put a pause on his annoyance at Viridi to be surprised at her, "Wait did she really not know-?" he put a hand on his mouth to hide his grin, though he wasn't really trying to at all.

Before Viridi could embarrass herself any further she decided it was finally time to go. "Next stop! The Lunar Sanctum!" she put her trust in Arlon that the place she picked to warp to was fully built and ready to welcome them. With a full swing of her staff the light around the group enveloped the throne room and faded out of existence, leaving behind scattered leaves and flowers around the room.

Which some poor Flages armed with only a dustpan would have to clean up.

---

-welcome to the lunar sanctum...3!-

Meanwhile, a couple of thousand miles away, Arlon stood alone in the middle of the New! Lunar Sanctum's control center.

Besides the gold walls and floors of the control center being a tad bit shiner than the old version not much of the New! control center was changed from the old version.

The orb that powered the Lunar Sanctum still sat in the center of the room, unprotected as per the norm. Arlon thought having any sort of visual protection around it would mess with the aesthetic of the room and this time Arlon was sure the defense system would be enough to stop any intruder.

This time there were two energy shots that would shoot out.

Arlon chuckled to himself, sure that this time Viridi wouldn't call his defenses a relic of the past. Along with him.

Thinking of the Goddess of Nature brought his attention to the clock on the wall.

He received word from Viridi she would arrive with the others around an hour ago and there was still no sign of her. Just like most everything, Arlon accounted for this and made sure that the snacks he prepared were still ready to eat no matter how much time had passed.

Secretly he was grateful Viridi was taking so long, it granted him more time to check over any slight error he may overlooked.

"Hmm. Perhaps I should double check if the elevators are in working order?" he asked himself.

Arlon wouldn't get the chance however, because right as he considered testing the elevators call button there was a flash of orange light in front of him. "Ah, right on time." Arlon checked the clock on the wall once more, "...Just about a few hours late."

A few stray leaves scattered all over the floor control center. Arlon paid them little mind, but he would be lying to himself if said he didn't consider that the leaves just now ruined his expert cleaning and decorating job.

As the light slowly faded away the silhouettes of four people slowly came into view.

Until at last, Viridi and her forces were finally at the Lunar Sanctum. "Aahhh finally! Warping is always way too slow, if you ask me." Phosphora stretched her arms out and kicked her legs in the air just to make sure they hadn't fallen asleep on the trip here.

"Well no one asked you" Dark Pit pointed out. During the warp he somehow wound up being on top of Cragalanche. Not that there was anything wrong with that, with his new vantage point he was considerably taller than most of the Forces of Nature. He was even able to grab ahold of his piece of luggage, which held his precious Silver Bow inside.

Phosphora was quick to fly at his side and flick a spark onto his nose.

"Hey!" Dark Pit's hand flew to cover his nose, despite being far too late to protect himself from Phosphora's deadly wrath. "What was that for?!"

"That was for talking back to me!"

"How do you know I was talking to you? Huh!?"

Viridi sighed, "We've been here for a whole five seconds and you two are already fighting?! Just give me a break!" Dark Pit and Phosphora stopped their bickering to look at Viridi and then back at each other. "Right, sorry Mistress Viridi. You know how warping always gets Cragalanche worked up." Phosphora innocently twirled her scarf in the air.

"Yeah, pretty surprised how he just started yelling like that" Dark Pit continued, throwing Cragalanche under the metaphorical bus.

Cragalanche responded to these accusations by taking a large swipe at Phosphora and missing. Phosphora carefreely floated right above where she knew Cragalanche wouldn't be able to reach her. "See? See!? So grumpy."

"I think someone needs a time out."

Dark Pit and Phosphora nodded agreeing with each other. Cragalanche screamed as loud as a rock could.

Viridi sighed much louder than the first time, "Fine whatever. Just don't go killing each other while I'm not looking." she turned her back to the loud bickering between two teens and a rock, and instead turned her attention to Arlon. Who'd been patiently standing and waiting for anyone in the room to acknowledge him.

Arlon took a large bow, "It is my pleasure to welcome Mistress Viridi and her guests to the new and very much improved Lunar Sanctum!" a few Amoebas appeared out of thin air and threw confetti in the air, celebrating Viridi's arrival alongside Arlon. Viridi and the others starred, mesmerized by the falling confetti and the party hat that was now placed on Arlon's head. The Amoebas clapped loudly until Arlon gave them the signal that they could go back to their scouting jobs.

"Is all this really necessary?" Viridi asked, breaking the awkward silenced left behind by the sudden rain of confetti. Arlon adjusted the string holding up his party hat and looked down at the small Goddess who was slowly taking in her surroundings along with her guests.

"I thought your first visit should be something to celebrate, Mistress Viridi."

"Well, I agree, but..." Viridi looked up to see some paper streamers lined up around the roof, she could see Phosphora curiously tug at them while Dark Pit yelled from the ground to 'Stop showing off.'

"You really went all out, huh?"

"I suppose you could say that."

Viridi had another question all set to go, this time about the balloons decorating both exits of the doors but she was stopped when Dark Pit decided his question was more important.

"Why are we back here again?" the word 'here' was dripping with disdain. From the sound of it one would get the impression Dark Pit had a vendetta against this room specifically. Viridi knew he'd been to the Lunar Sanctum before they properly meet. She could vividly recall a confident Arlon calling her in the middle of the night reassuring her that Palutena's Forces were no match for him and his 'secret weapon.'

Of course, that proved to be far from the case.

A faint shaking behind her caused Viridi to look back to see Dark Pit now sitting on Cragalanche's shoulder, who walked closer to the Viridi and Arlon once Dark Pit asked him nicely to. It looked like whatever feud the two of them, including Phosphora, had gotten into was now resolved. She frowned, she would never understand how the three of them, and even Pit sometimes, could act like bitter rivals one minute and then inseparable friends the next.

It was more like she didn't want to understand.

"I've had enough of this place for one lifetime, thanks." Dark Pit crossed his arms and swung one leg on top of the other, "I spent hours standing here preparing myself and for what...?" Viridi heard him mumble.

"I thought it would be-" Arlon looked up at Dark Pit. Dark Pit puffed up his wings at him. "...thematic." Arlon gave his party blower a tiny toot.

"You're thematic!" Dark Pit shot back, kicking his legs angrily.

"Quite."

Above them all Phosphora continued to fly around in circles, laying on her back without a care in the world. "Woah Pittoo! I'm surprised at you! You know you shouldn't call people mean names. Tsk tsk!" she flew down low and patted Dark Pit's head, flying back up before he could do anything about it.

It didn't take long for Phosphora's teasing to distract both Dark Pit and Cragalanche again, this time by Dark Pit insisting Cragalanche take to the air so he could easily fight Phosphora in flight.

Viridi decided a better way to spend her time was to go back to looking at the overly decorated control room. She already took note of the paper streamers and balloons, but she also noticed that there were some lanterns placed along the walls of the room all lit up in a different color. The room also looked very recently cleaned. Arlon must have gotten someone to mop the room, if he wasn't meticulous enough to just do it himself.

"Yeesh, all that's missing is some giant sign that says 'Welcome!' and a big buffet or something."

Arlon coughed and adjusted his monocle, "Yes...About that."

"You're kidding me." Viridi looked around everywhere for a huge sign that would say something like 'Welcome Viridi! and guests' written down in Arlon's fanciest handwriting. She wasn't going to laugh at him about it. Rather, seeing something like that would have only worked to boost Viridi's ego about tenfold.

She was a big deal enough for a big sign after all.

Arlon took a big step to the side and revealed a normal sized buffet behind him. "I took the liberty of preparing a lunch for you and our esteemed guests. I do so hope it is to your liking." The 'Buffet' in question looked more like a normal sized dinner back at Fortress of Nature. There was a large table with a few large plates that were filled with all sorts of different food and snacks. Next to those plates were another whole stack of empty plates so anyone could walk up and grab whatever they liked.

"Huh." Viridi wasn't disappointed by any means. She'd skipped lunch earlier so the timing was perfect, but a buffet just didn't carry the same amount of weight to it as say, a huge sign with her name on it.

Behind her she heard the excited cries from both Phosphora and Dark Pit as they noticed the vast array of food that was on display. "Dibs on the pizza!" Dark Pit yelled running past Viridi, Phosphora trailing just behind him. Viridi could tell she wasn't going as fast as she actually could. Was she holding back to let Dark Pit win? Viridi shook her head disappointingly, if Dark Pit found out Phosphora was holding back he would be miffed.

Just as both Dark Pit and Phosphora were about to reach out to grab their first snack, Arlon stepped in between them and the food. "I'm afraid I must stop you right there Young Master Pittoo and Miss Phosphora." with a wave of his hand a purple barrier appeared behind him, fully blocking the way to the buffet. "H-Hey! What the heck?!" Dark Pit skidded to a stop just a few steps from running into the barrier. Unfortunately, Phosphora did not have the luck or luxury of being able to stop quickly enough and wound up bumping her head against Arlon's barrier.

"Ow!" Phosphora shook her head, because of her slow speed the impact didn't hurt much, but her pride had taken a severe blow.

"Are you okay...?" Dark Pit asked, reaching his hand up to her. Unsure of what to do next or even if she should do anything at all.

"I'm fine. No thanks to this jerk!" Phosphora shoot Arlon a mean look and crossed her arms at him. She flew down lower to the ground so she could float closer to Dark Pit, who changed quickly from being concerned for Phosphora to angry at Arlon. He was so concentrated on starring angrily at him and puffing his feathers out that he didn't notice the genuine smile Phosphora was giving him.

"What do you know..." Viridi whispered behind them.

---

-three heads are better than one-

After relentlessly pounding, and kicking in Dark Pit's case, on Arlon's magical barrier proved to ineffective Phosphora and Dark Pit spiced up their current tactics by getting Cragalanche to punch the wall alongside them.

When even that proved to be worthless the three of them decided to humor Viridi's suggestion.

"Why not just ask Arlon to let you idiots through?"

The three murmured amongst themselves asking why they didn't think to think of that.

Viridi smirked, "Pfft...morons." If there was anything Viridi knew about Arlon after years of knowing him is that when he said you couldn't do something, he meant it. No matter what you said or what you did there was no changing his mind.

For a nonspecific example, a certain someone could yell for hours on how they wanted to crash the moon into the earth and even then, Arlon would not budge a single centimeter.

Viridi laughed to herself, "This should be good." a bag of popcorn appearing in her hands.

---

-munch munch not time for lunch :(-

"Let us through!" Dark Pit yelled, kicking the invisible barrier.

"No."

"Why not?" Phosphora asked. She decided to lend her help in the form of pushing against the barrier.

Though neither Dark Pit's kicks or Phosphora's pushing seemed to be getting them any closer to the prize on the other side. Dark Pit stopped kicking to sadly push his face against the barrier and look at the delicious chocolate cake just standing in the middle of the table. Taunting him.

Phosphora quickly zipped up to Arlon who was now standing beside them watching the entire mess go down, "Come on Arlon! Look at Dark Pit!" Phosphora gestured down to the young Angel whose face was currently pressed against a magical barrier. Phosphora flew closer and grabbed Arlon by the edges of his coat "You can't tell me you don't have some compassion in your heart for a poor little Angel who just wants a slice of pizza?" she gestured down at Dark Pit who was trying to do his best impression of what he'd seen of Pit's puppy dog eyes.

It was working surprisingly well before Dark Pit interrupted himself. "Wait a minute, I want the cake!"

"Shhhut up! I'm trying to get us in you dolt!"

Arlon slowly stepped back, leaving a bewildered Phosphora floating in place. "I'm afraid I cannot let any of you pass, for you see this food is for much later." Arlon took a few more steps back, right past his barrier which earned him an earful from both Dark Pit and Phosphora which he was happy to ignore.

Arlon laid a single hand on the table and continued to explain, "As I've already stated this food is for a much later point in time. Once I have finished showing Mistress Viridi the Lunar Sanctum then we can all partake in this meal together." Arlon cracked a rare smile, his smile only grew when he heard Viridi gasp and drop the kernel of popcorn she was holding.

"Hmph. Sounds like you got pretty excited for a guy who told me I couldn't set foot here for the past seven years." Viridi smugly stated.

Arlon looked to be ready to answer her right away, but then stopped to think for a second. "I suppose, after the initial shock of your imminent arrival wore off, I found myself giddy with excitement at the thought of...spending time with you all."

"Aww! I guess there is a heart in that bean pole of a body after all!" Phosphora laughed, backing off from intimidating Arlon. Only physically though, mentally she still wanted to tear him apart for denying her a slice of cheese pizza.

Arlon took this opportunity of being free from Phosphora's metaphorical grip to float towards the elevator doors he planned on testing just seconds before Viridi and the others showed up.

A snap of his fingers is all it took for the table and the food on top of it to disappear into thin air.

Viridi gasped, it didn't take very long though for her to remember Arlon had a knack for trickery and illusions, so this was all probably just another trick. In front of her Phosphora went into a panic over the missing food. Dark Pit seemed to be too entranced in Arlon's magic trick to be mad. He stared with wide eyes at where the tables were once set and was even slowly clapping. That is before he remembered he wanted some of that food then joined Phosphora in being furious. Cragalanche stood there, also mad.

"Arlon must be having the time of his life." Viridi shook her head. Usually the only person Arlon messed around with, aside from the occasional enemy force, was her, and all of that usually amounted to card tricks and disappearing acts. It was nice to see other people get messed with. Especially if those people were Phosphora and Dark Pit. And of course, Cragalanche.

"What are you playing at Arlon?" Phosphora balled up her hands into a pair of fists and crackled electricity though them, "You having fun messing with us or something?!"

"I've never seen such underhanded tactics." Dark Pit added.

Arlon did not bother to defend himself against the accusations made against him and simply handed a small picnic basket into Phosphora's open hands. Phosphora looked at the basket then back to Arlon, confused at why there was now a basket in her hands. "Huh?" Phosphora held the basket by its handle and swung it from side to side, "Okay Arlon, I give. What do you want?" she let out one last groan.

Arlon let out a soft chuckle, "It is as I said, Miss Phosphora. I planned a picnic for all of us." He pointed a finger to the basket, the eyes of everyone in the room followed to where he pointed. "Inside that small basket is all the food that was previously on the table you-"

"Oh, sweet." that much easier than Phosphora thought. Who would have guessed Arlon would just hand it to her? Phosphora lifted up the flap of the basket.

"I would not do that if I were you." Arlon quietly added. The munching of Viridi's popcorn grew louder.

Then just as Phosphora thought the basket was fully open, the flap quickly clamped down on her hand once and then let go. That didn't mean it didn't hurt any less. "Ow!" Phosphora yelled, grabbing her hand and dropping the basket.

Arlon planned to catch the basket himself, but just as he was, he was surprised to see Dark Pit spring to action much faster than him. After catching the picnic basket Dark Pit held it far away from himself with one hand, as to avoid a repeat incident but with himself this time.

"What the heck was that?!" he asked, eyeing the basket with a suspicious glare similar to how Arlon recalled Pit looked at some of the Forces of Nature troops.

"I think I'd like to know to!" Phosphora rubbed her hand and looked it over for any injuries. Cragalanche walked over next to her also concerned for her well-being. Though there was not much he could do for her, Phosphora silently appreciated the concern.

Viridi let out a loud groan, loud enough for everyone to turn their attention to her. "Its a booby trap, duh." she explained.

She hoped that her troops would be smart enough to spy an obvious trap when they saw one but maybe that was her own fault for never getting Arlon to help with training.

Dark Pit looked at the basket he held in his hand even more suspiciously than before. If this basket was some sort of trap he would rather have anyone other than him handling it. Cragalanche was a big contender for handling it since surely a rock wouldn't be hurt by finger trap, right?

Meanwhile Phosphora let out a snort before being pelted by a bag of popcorn.

Viridi dusted her hands off before continuing, "Right, anyway." Viridi looked to Arlon, who had been watching the whole debacle unfold with an obvious smile on his face. Viridi could tell from a mile away when he was smiling, his moustache always just curled a certain way when he was.

"What's the deal with the basket Arlon? Don't tell me you're just having fun tricking them?"

"Why, far from it Mistress Viridi!" with another wave of his hand, a large noise echoed throughout the Lunar Sanctum catching the attention of everyone and interrupting Dark Pit in the process of trying to throw the cursed picnic basket on top of Cragalanche. "I hope you'll forgive the ruckus. I haven't quite had the time to...work on the lift as much as I have wanted to." Arlon explained. He choose to ignore the suspicious looks Viridi gave him.

Viridi was really hoping she wouldn't have to ride something that made that much noise.

"As I was saying-" Arlon quickly took back the basket from Dark Pit, arguably the least responsible of the five of them standing in the room. A quick "Hey!" was all the resistance Dark Pit gave after having the basket snatched from him, in truth he was a little relieved he didn't have to deal with something Arlon might have riddled with traps.

It only took a second more for him to get mad all over again because he remembered there was a cake in there.

Arlon noticed Dark Pit's change in disposition and quickly began to explain before he was subject to his small wrath. "It is as I have explained before...In a way. I planned to show Mistress Viridi around the Lunar Sanctum and the changes I have enforced to make sure that-" Arlon stopped himself from continuing after noticing Viridi's visible discomfort. Her face was mostly devoid of any sort of proof she was nervous but the way her eyes darted from Dark Pit to Phosphora and how tight she was gripping her staff was enough proof for Arlon to quickly change his already planned speech.

Just like in all other aspects of his character, Arlon was graceful in improvising as well. Though his sudden stutter did not go unnoticed by Phosphora who simply just tilted her head in confusion nut pressed no further. "...Sure...T-That the Lunar Sanctum will not be so easily destroyed by just one little Angel as before." Arlon looked over at Dark Pit who switched over from being mad about the food to now being called a 'little Angel' despite the change in motivation he still looked about the same amount of miffed. "What's that supposed to mean?!" Dark Pit asked, "Don't think me and Pit can take down this place again?"

"Wasn't it just Pit that beat Arlon?" Phosphora corrected him. Sure, she may not have been paying attention during all those old emergency meetings, but she would never forget a chance to rub in her victory over the undefeatable Angel.

...If she had won.

"I believe Young Master Pittoo may have missed more than half the shots aimed at his brother. As a result, he ended up hitting the Lunar Sanctum's control mechanism. So, unfortunately he is correct."

"How was I not supposed to hit it?! It was huge!"

"Regardless..." Arlon knew in his gut and brain that if he didn't move the conversation soon he and the rest of the Forces of Nature would be standing here listening to Dark Pit and Phosphora arguing amongst themselves while occasionally pulling Arlon into their fight. It was better to avoid that entierly. "Since I have no doubt the three of you would be ever so bored during my illustrious tour of the New Lunar Sanctum-"

"Well you're right about something, that does sound boring." Dark Pit added. Walking around and hearing Arlon talking sounded like it was about the worst thing someone could do on a Lunar base. Behind him Phosphora cracked a nervous smile and Cragalanche very quickly nodded, indicating that they, for the most part, agreed with Dark Pit.

Unlike what Phosphora feared, Arlon wasn't insulted by this, not in the slightest. He planned for this very occasion. "Yes, well. I see you are all in agreement. That is why I have put aside a special activity for the three of you to participate in while Mistress Viridi and I are occupied."

"Is it safe?" Viridi couldn't help but ask.

"Safe?"

"As in, I won't have to rush in and save Dark Pit's butt if he gets in trouble?" Viridi decided to get straight to the point, ignoring the feeling of Dark Pit staring daggers right into her.

He could stare angrily all he wanted to, but that didn't change the reality that Viridi worried about him.

Arlon chuckled at another one of Viridi's acrobatic feats to avoid having people know she was capable of feeling the emotion of 'care.'

"I assure you there is nothing dangerous about exploring the Lunar Sanctum's surface, in fact it is the 57th percent safest place in the Lunar Sanctum!" Arlon beamed with pride. No one else in the room seemed to share his excitement in safety procedures.

"If anyone is wondering we are standing in the 88th percent safest place in the Lunar Sanctum."

"Uh-huh. That's great." Dark Pit waved off Arlon's fun fact and walked up to him with another question, "What are we even supposed to do on the 'lunar surface?' From what Pit told me its just full of dirt, big holes, and a lot of enemies that hit you!" Dark Pit paused to think, "And I think he mentioned an Exo Tank or two?" Exo Tanks were fun but if Dark Pit had to fight a wave of enemies to get to one it wasn't worth it.

Then again, he could just get Cragalanche and Phosphora to do it instead.

"Oh, Young Master Pittoo, you'll find there are many things to do on this lunar surface."

"Like?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Arlon hummed a small tune and smiled, "I simply thought that perhaps you would like to see stars outside. The view of them is much more majestic than back on earth." Arlon took note of Dark Pit's unimpressed face, but continued nonetheless, "Not to mention that later in the tour I will have to demonstrate to Mistress Viridi that the new anti-gravity on the lunar surface works, and who better to test if that works then-"

Arlon was cut off by the loud sound of running footsteps.

The rest of the Forces of Nature who were still standing (or in Phosphora's case still floating) by Arlon turned their heads to see the now not-so-grumpy Angel furiously trying to figure out how calling an elevator worked. "Someones excited." Viridi dryly said, "You planned this whole thing out didn't you Arlon?"

"I must say that the running start was not planned. I would rather not tell him that elevator is notoriously slow."

"Eh, you don't have to. Phosphora can tell him the bad news."

At the sound of her name and a new responsibly under her belt, Phosphora flinched. "What?! You can't possibly expect me to have to watch over him again do you?!" last mission was enough bonding time with a hint of danger and foreboding for one immortal lifetime. In response to her ludicrous question Viridi simply shook her head, "I would never ask you to do that Phosphora!"

"Here comes the catch."

"You're watching Pittoo and Cragalanche!"

"There it is." Phosphora slowly made her way to where Dark Pit was still struggling with the elevator, hopefully being told that the elevator was coming but it was just slow would calm him down. Phosphora thought about it for a while, then slowed down her floating when she realized it would just make him even more inpatient.

Cragalanche meanwhile, decided to be even slower than Phosphora in the 'getting out of there' department by not moving at all. He certainly didn't like the idea of having Phosphora of all people watch over him, no one needed anyone to watch over him at all. He was a fairly old rock, he'd seen civilizations rise and fall and yet here was Viridi insisting he needed a babysitter? It was embarrassing.

"Psst! Cragalanche!" he heard Viridi whisper under him. He turned his body down to face her, eyeing her curiously. Viridi looked like she was about to say something before stopping to lean past Cragalanche, making sure Pittoo and Phosphora weren't listening. "Make sure Phosphora and Pittoo don't get into any trouble alright? Especially with that Silver Bow." Viridi pointed to the piece of luggage still balanced on Cragalanche's head.

Confused, Cragalanche looked at her because this contradicted what she told Phosphora.

"Look, I know I asked Phosphora to look after you, but if I told her you were going to watch her she would never shut up about it! So, do me a favor and make sure they don't die, or something? Okay big guy?"

Cragalanche looked over to Phosphora and Dark Pit, who were now in the middle of a cheer to make the elevator arrive faster.

"And hey, don't think just cause you're on watching duty that doesn't mean you can't have fun! I bet there's tons of room on the moon to jump around." the next thing Viridi knew Cragalanche had joined in the cheer to call the elevator faster with the others, adding in his own flair in the form of some foot stomping.

Which hopefully wouldn't break the floor.

"How long until that stupid elevator shows up anyway?" Viridi asked.

Arlon, busy making preparations for the upcoming tour hadn't been putting much thought into how long they've all been waiting since the elevator was first called, nor did he know if Dark Pit even pressed the right button. "Oh dear." he said to himself.

Fortunately for everyone involved the elevator finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. Arlon was beginning to get nervous that Cragalanche's stomping would scratch the floor. A loud hurrah erupted from the trio, glad to know they could finally stop cheering and start their journey up to the lunar surface.

Cragalanche and Dark Pit wasted no time running into the elevator with Phosphora still floating behind them.

"Have fun with your boring tour you two!" she waved back. Still waving Phosphora floated backwards into the elevator before she was stopped by a strange foreboding feeling. It almost as if she'd forgotten something.

"Indeed, you have Miss Phosphora."

The sound of Arlon's voice right behind her caused Phosphora to whip back around and raise her hands in a manner similar as if she were going to shoot out a bolt of lightning. Only stopping when she saw Arlon standing right in front of her, along with a very inpatient looking Viridi standing by the exit of the room. Phosphora guessed that they were seconds away from leaving themselves before Arlon stopped to speak with her.

"W-What's up?"

"You will have to forgive me. It would seem in all this excitement I've forgotten something of crucial importance."

"You? Forget something? What's tha-?" before Phosphora knew it a picnic basket was now hanging off her arm, along with a decorative party hat now adorning her head. Phosphora eyed the basket suspiciously then turned her glare to Arlon instead, who only laughed in response.

"I do so hope you'll keep that lunch safe until we can all partake. I am counting on you, and the others of course."

Phosphora said nothing in response and silently watched as Arlon took one final bow and in the blink of an eye was back at Viridi's side. From how Viridi jumped back slightly in surprise to his sudden reappearance she wasn't quite used to his tricks either.

Phosphora looked on with abject uncaringness as Viridi and Arlon walked out of the control room with the doors closing behind them, 'Sure its boring but at least Viridi doesn't have to carry around a portable finger trap and keep it safe from-'

"Ah!" Phosphora yelled in shock, she'd completely forgotten about Dark Pit and Cragalanche! Even the elevator!

Phosphora turned around, expecting the worse but receiving the best when she saw that the elevator was still right where it was before. All thanks to Cragalanche who stood right in between the doors to make sure Phosphora wouldn't be left behind.

"...Thanks, Cragalanche." at least one of them was smart. Even if it was the rock, and not her. Happy to help, Cragalanche happily gave her a thumbs up. Phosphora floated into the elevator, grabbing the party hat on her head and throwing it to the ground.

Meanwhile, inside of the elevator Dark Pit looked out of the elevators large window, unintentionally staring down a reflection of himself. 'Ha...A reflection of a reflection...' he briefly thought before the sight of space took his attention and his breath away. It was a good thing he wasn't carrying the food because he more than likely would have dropped it in shock.

He walked closer to the window and slowly put his hands on the glass. There was no doubt in his mind anything would happen but something in him was still afraid. he'd never seen anything like this ever before. The stars were shining so bright, brighter than they did back in Viridi's temple. Among the stars the Earth was in clear view.

In an act that could only be described as 'weirdly cute' by a now cheered up Phosphora, Dark Pit waved back at the earth. Since Pit and Palutena were more than likely still on there.

Still staring out the window, Dark Pit didn't even hear the doors close behind him or feel the elevator starting to move.

---

-listen i know the elevator with the window isn't till later in the level but I just wanted to have that past scene can you grant me this one request please im begging you PLEAS-

As Dark Pit mentally counted the floor they went past (they were on the 11th floor now!) he was more sure than ever that he was doing an excellent job at hiding just how excited he was to see the surface of the moon. Or at least, the surface of a fake moon. He bet a million hearts neither Phosphora or Cragalanche could see the smile on his face.

Not when was turned away from them!

He could have sworn he heard a slight snort from Phosphora, but Dark Pit quickly chalked that up to something Cragalanche must have done. After all, he super stealthy had his back turned to them so they couldn't see him at all. He snickered, the plan was perfect and neither of them had any idea they were playing right into his hands.

'Ha ha! Suckers.'

While Dark Pit laughed very loudly into his hands Phosphora used the time the elevator was taking to reach the surface of the moon to talk to Cragalanche, "Its kinda cute how he thinks he's being sneaky isn't it?" While Cragalanche wasn't much of a conversation partner he did occasionally answer back in his own unique way. Like answering Phosphora's question by looking over at Dark Pit and nodding. "I mean who would be that excited to play on the moon? Only a little kid would be excited over something like that!"

Cragalanche narrowed his eyes at Phosphora.

"Wha-? Hey! What's with that look? You think I'M just as excited as him? Give me a break."

Cragalanche turned away from Phosphora, deciding to face the descending wall instead of her.

"You can't just ignore what I'm saying! Look, Cragalanche I've never been to the moon but if its where Arlon spends all his time it can't be all that grea-" Phosphora paused to think for second, and to look behind her where Dark Pit was now excitedly flapping his wings and looking out the window. Seemingly daydreaming all about what Arlon told them. He looked very excited for someone who wasn't excited at all.

"That tracks."

Then Phosphora looked to Cragalanche, who was also facing away from her now. Unlike Dark Pit, he wasn't making any sort of obvious noise but Phosphora could tell from how he swung from side to side that he was excited about something.

"I guess that means I'm stuck on babysitting duty. Again."

A little bit after Phosphora's stunning realization the elevator came to a stop. Which she only noticed happen because Dark Pit lost his balance for a few seconds, his head darting around for anything out of the ordinary before realizing that it was the elevator that made him trip up. "Have you ever been on an elevator Pittoo?" Phosphora couldn't resist asking.

Dark Pit looked at up at her, with a face that looked like he was intending to answer her but changed his mind at the last second and instead looked to be thinking over what to say.

"Y-Yeah? Of course I have!"

"So that's a no."

"Shut up."

---

-and I KNOW the elevator from the control room doesn't lead exactly to the moon part of the level but please have merCY-

As soon as the elevator doors flew open Phosphora expected Dark Pit to be the first one out of the three of them to run outside.

Instead she found herself surprised that he was still standing in the same spot where she last saw him. The only difference was that now he was just staring outside at the Lunar Sanctum's fake moon surface.

Phosphora looked at him curiously, wondering when he would decide to take his first steps out of the elevator. She keenly noticed his wings give a slight twitch, 'He couldn't be nervous, could he?' Phosphora thought to herself. Dark Pit appeared beyond excited to reach the top just a moments ago. What could have changed? If anything.

Before Phosphora could ask if anything was up, a loud stomping sound drew both her and Dark Pit's attention away from whatever was preoccupying their busy minds. Cragalanche, impatient with the lack of movement from the other two, decided to take the initiative and forge on ahead.

Phosphora stared, the picnic basket tight in her hands, as Cragalanche took his first steps onto the Lunar Sanctum's surface. Cragalanche moved his arms and adjusted his footing, as if he were getting used to standing on the surface.

"Hmph!" Dark Pit decided he was not about to be outdone by a stupid rock and took off right behind him. "Hey! Wait up you dumb-!" he yelled out to Cragalanche, only to be stopped in his tracks by surprising himself with a cloud of lunar dust he kicked up. Himself. This caused him to almost fall over, thankfully Phosphora acted fast and quickly caught him. "Woah! Hold your horses! The zero gravity isn't on yet so don't go trying to fly around!" Phosphora teased, gently pushing him back up to his feet. Dark Pit looked at her and then back to her empty hands.

"Where did you put the picnic basket?"

"...Is that really all you're going to say? No 'Oh gee, thanks for catching me Phosphora and saving me from being embarrassed!' Nothing like that?"

"I was going to ask that next!" Dark Pit yelled. Phosphora took note of how upset he was over her statement, which could only have meant he was telling the truth. "Besides-!" he continued, "I was worried about the basket because...Arlon worked so hard on...it." his voice grew softer with every passing word. So much so that Phosphora struggled to fully understand what he'd really said.

"Don't worry your little head about the basket!" Phosphora gestured behind herself, pointing to a nearby rock that the basket was now resting on. Dark Pit gave her a skeptical look, "You really trust me enough to not walk over and steal a snack?"

"Hmm...No. But I think you're smart enough to not fall for Arlon's stupid trap."

Dark Pit narrowed his eyes and looked straight at the basket, remembering how it snapped at Phosphora's hand. Arlon was a sneaky guy and Dark Pit knew that if he stuck traps into the basket he wouldn't just stop at something that bites down. Arlon would surely add more things like an alarm, a shock system, and maybe even

Dark Pit quickly excused himself, still thinking about the possibility of Mimicutie legs sprouting from the bottom of the basket.

and their painful. painful kicks.

Instead he decided to waste his time elsewhere, like taking in his new surroundings.

For even though he'd been to the Lunar Sanctum once already, his one and only trip was quick and entierly focused on fighting Pit. There was no time to sightsee while getting there or even after retreating from the Lunar Sanctum before Pit inevitably blew it up.

Dark Pit never knew that the Lunar Sanctum was so big.

He stared in awe at the massive set piece in front of him, trying to take in everything around him. Honestly there wasnt much to look at. There were a few mountains and chasms here and there, it wasn't much different then looking at a mountain range back on earth.

But there was just something off about it. Something that made looking and just being here seem, for lack of a better term, out of this world.

Dark Pit took a couple of more steps onto the moon, looking down at every step he made. Every small cloud of lunar dust he made was occupied by a small gasp too quiet for anyone to hear. Dark Pit was so engrossed he didn't notice Phosphora staring him down.

Ready to strike just in case he made a misstep and fell.

The elevator behind them finally descended back down.

---

-stargazing-

After watching Dark Pit step around the moon for a few minutes Phosphora was fairly certain he wasn't going to trip over himself and get himself hurt.

She rolled her eyes, Viridi entrusted her to take care of Dark Pit (fully knowing that Cragalanche could take care of himself) and while Phosphora was fine with making sure he didn't hurt himself, it did take away precious time that she could have used to have fun herself.

Or maybe it would have, if she weren't stuck on the most uninteresting place imaginable.

Phosphora flew as low as she could and grabbed some dust off the ground. It felt just like touching regular dirt on the earth! She pouted, what made the Lunar Sanctum, and by extension the moon, so special if it was just a big ball of dirt like the earth? The moon might have been even boringer than the moon because instead of luscious forests, lakes, and fields of flowers the moon looked to be just dirt. And holes.

"Wow. This was not worth the trip. What do you guys thi-?"

She turned around expecting Dark Pit and Cragalanche to be sharing her distaste for the moon alongside her, but instead she was meet with the most excited versions of the two Phosphora had ever seen before.

Cragalanche was bouncing around the surface of the moon, literally bouncing up and then landing with a hard CRASH! before taking off again. With each landing a cloud of moon dust exploded near their feet and then slowly disappeared. Phosphora's eyes trailed Cragalanche as he took off bouncing so far away from her that he slowly faded away from sight. The sounds of his crashes were still plenty prominent .

It wasn't a surprise that Cragalanche was capable of such a feat. It was well known in the Forces of Nature that Cragalanche was far faster than he appeared to be. With that in mind, he was still a giant rock creature that looked to be as heavy as a house. Seeing him jumping so high caught Phosphora very off guard.

So yes, she was still weirded out by this very canon fact that Cragalanche could fly. Float. Whatever.

Surprisingly Phosphora never noticed either Dark Pit or Pit call attention to this. 'Maybe they're just too dumb to notice?' she wouldn't put it past them.

and speaking of Dark Pit...

After another one of Cragalanche's loud crashes in the distance, behind her Phosphora heard a quiet almost deliberately whisper.

"Woah..."

Checking up on the whisper she heard, Phosphora saw that Dark Pit was standing not too far away from where they exited the elevator together. He was looking up at the sky with his eyes and mouth wide open. Phosphora looked at him, confused at what he could be looking at, and so she looked up at the sky alongside him.

Above them were what she expected. It was the night sky, or just the sky in this case, decorated with a sea of stars. Swimming alongside the solitary stars were groups of stars forming all sorts of different constellations. Phosphora didn't have them all memorized but from the ones she could recognized she could tell the constellations were from the summer group of constellations.

"...Is there summer on the moon?" she asked herself.

Suddenly she felt a strong tug on her scarf. It wasn't strong enough to choke her, but it was strong enough to pull her back. And to annoy her. She looked down and locked eyes with the only person that could have committed the deed.

Dark Pit.

Not only because he was the only person next to her, but because Phosphora knew that he and Pit developed of habit of tugging on her scarf when they wanted her attention.

"How many times have I told you and Pit not to do that?" Phosphora pulled her scarf away from the Angel and threw it behind her again. "To tell you the truth, if Pit didn't exist I wouldn't think you were capable of listening to orders."

Dark Pit seemed to not have heard whatever Phosphora said or made the decision to ignore her for his own agenda. He looked up to the sky again and pointed his finger at something. "I found something!"

Phosphora's eyes followed to where he was pointing and saw that Dark Pit was pointing to a constellation that was floating right above them. Give or take a few million light years.

"The stars are making a shape!" Dark Pit's tone sounded more excited than Phosphora (or anyone) had ever heard it be. He almost sounded like his twin. Almost.

Using his finger Dark Pit traced invisible lines that connected the stars with each other, "I know they're called constellations but I can't figure out what shape its supposed to be!" Phosphora silently watched Dark Pit's finger fly around and create all sorts of nonsensical shapes.

One line went one way, then he decided to connect another star to another far away star, then connect that star to another star that was much closer than the first star was, and then so on.

By the time Phosphora deciphered any sort of pattern to Dark Pit's connections there were another ten lines drawn by him.

"Woah okay! Let's slow down." Phosphora flew up, placing herself between Dark Pit and the starry sky. Dark Pit gave a big pout and brought his hand down, "What? You gonna tell me you're some sort of constellation expert?" Dark Pit knew Phosphora was a lot of things. She was annoying, kinda strong, annoying, and old. There was no way on top of all that she was some sort of star expert too!

Lightning didn't even have to do anything with stars!

Phosphora leaned back and looked up at the stars, "No, but even I can tell there's no way you're connecting those stars right." the closest thing to a shape Phosphora had seen Dark Pit make was something akin to an 'oddly shaped bucked full of apples' before she completely lost track of what he was making.

"Then what am I supposed to be seeing?" Dark Pit asked, his voice practically overflowing with skepticism.

Phosphora looked up and stared up at one of the first stars she saw Dark Pit point to. Constellations were a tricky thing to decipher, sometimes there were stars missing, other times they were upside down and some other times they were just plain ridiculous. A certain Goddess of Light constellation happened to fall into all three of those categories. Phosphora hoped that the constellation they were looking at wasn't that one.

Luckily, as stated before the constellations were on their summer season and good ol' Palutena was a winter constellation.

Dark Pit walked around Phosphora as she turned in all sorts of directions, all while tracing the stars with her own finger. Dark Pit tilted his head along with Phosphora's as she traced the same three stars over and over until-

"Ah-hah! Got it!" she yelled triumphantly, returning back to her upright position.

"This'll be good."

Phosphora flew down beside Dark Pit and directed him towards a small group of three or so stars that were grouped near each other. "Hey, can I...?" she gestured to his arm and then held her hands up, almost like she was holding something in them. Dark Pit put two and two together and sighed, "Fine." He held his arm up and Phosphora swiftly took it, directing it to the stars above them.

"Look up here! See that star? Can you point at it?"

Dark Pit tried very hard to guess which specific star Phosphora was talking about. Eventually he gave up trying to guess and pointed at the first star that caught his attention. A star that gave out a faint blue glow. "Um...This one?" Dark Pit said pointing at his chosen star.

When he heard a giggle from Phosphora he realized he made a mistake.

"You're a little off but we can work with it!" Phosphora looked down at him, noticing his sullen stare Phosphora decided to quickly lighten the situation.

"Heeyyy don't look so embarrassed! People make mistakes all the time!"

"Uh-huh..."

While Dark Pit didn't sound any happier than before Phosphora was confident that finding a constellation or two would lift his mood.

"Okay!" Phosphora yelled out loud despite floating right next to Dark Pit. He jumped at the sound of Phosphora's sudden yell, he looked up at her confused on what he was supposed to do next.

"Do you see those stars a little bit next to that one?"

Dark Pit leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the stars. His eye caught the slight yellow glow of a star a little bit above the first. That must be the star Phosphora was talking about! Confident in his decision he confidently pointed to it, "That one?" Dark Pit still felt compelled to ask for her approval however. Weird.

Phosphora let go of Dark Pit's arm and gave him a small round of applause along with some genuine fake audience cheering. "Congrats Pittoo! You just traced your first constellation good job!" it was truly a tremendous occasion which Phosphora hoped she was getting across. "You know it took me months to find my first constellation!"

"Phosphora."

"Of course I found my first one all by myself. Arlon offered to help but i told him to buzz off-"

"Phosphora."

"Did you know, sometimes Viridi uses constellations to tell fortunes. That's why I was so excited when-"

"Phosphora!"

"What?!" Phosphora looked back at Dark Pit, an annoyed look on her face for having her congratulatory speech interrupted. Dark Pit shot back with an equally annoyed look and looked back at the two stars he just connected, "I thought constellations were supposed to be this whole amazing picture in the sky, but I just connected two stars! I just made a line!"

"Actually its a line a little slanted to the left."

"That's still a line! Not a constellation!" Dark Pit yelled back. In his head constellations were amazing works of art that covered the night sky, all connected with lines that made the pictures pop out and visible to even the most faraway people. Now that he was up on the Lunar Sanctum those lines should have been more obvious than ever, so he was far more than disappointed to walk out onto the surface and be greeted by the same sort of stars he could see back in Viridi's temple.

His disappointment hit the floor with a loud bang when connecting the two stars did nothing.

He was also surprised to see Phosphora not share his same sentiment, instead she was just. confused. "What...What were you expecting would happen?" she asked, genuinely puzzled at what Dark Pit was so upset about.

"...What constellation is it?"

"Huh?"

"What constellation did I find?" Dark Pit's arms were crossed, showing that he meant business.

Phosphora sighed and looked up at the constellation Dark Pit found. She knew it was a weapon constellation. Though which one it was exactly was still vague to her, but one look at the yellow star on top was all it took to decipher the mystery. "You found the Ore Club! See? You can tell from the star on top! It looks kind of like the Ore Club's weird eye...Thing." Phosphora would likely never forget the look of that Club after being clobbered by it. All curtesy of one Angel named Pit.

Dark Pit looked back up at the constellation he 'supposedly' found. With the image of an Ore Club fresh in his mind he looked at it over and over, but no matter how much he stared there was nothing there. "That looks nothing like an Ore Club! Its just a line!" Dark Pit loudly complained, his yelling even threatened to be louder than Cragalanche's incoming stomps.

At that moment everything finally clicked into place for Phosphora. Dark Pit was just being a kid.

A kid who probably only heard of constellations from Palutena or Viridi. Or probably even from Pit's memories or something. Phosphora lazily rested her hand on her cheek, ready to explain the boring part of constellations every poor kid had to learn.

"You have to use your imagination."

"I am! And my imagination says that looks nothing like an Ore Club!"

"Pittoo...Constellations don't just make pictures in the sky! Some star God...or Gods..." Phosphora's voice trailed off, she never did quite remember who exactly was in charge of creating the constellations. "Ah!" Phosphora snapped her fingers, a cue to herself to get back to more pressing matters at hand, "Star god, Gods, whatever! The Gods in charge of the Constellations see something or someone they want to make a constellation of . Then they find some stars and make some vague shape from them!"

"Why do they do that?! That's false advertising!"

"What do you expect them to do? Make new stars to make a more cohesive constellation?"

"Yes! They're GODS! I doubt they have anything better to do." what did star Gods even have going on? Star gazing? Making sure that planets didn't run into each other? Whatever they were doing, or in this case not doing, it probably wouldn't hurt for them to draw some actual cool constellations in the sky.

"Pittoo, constellations aren't like a connect the dots puzzle."

Phosphora looked back up to the sky and found a particular constellation that she knew Dark Pit would get a kick out of, if the last constellation was anything to go by. "Do me a favor and follow my hand okay?"

"Is this gonna be another dumb constellation?"

"No, no you'll love this one. Trust me!" to Phosphora's delight Dark Pit walked up closer to her and looked up to the sky again, ready for the inevitable disappointment that would surely follow.

Once Phosphora knew he was paying attention she pointed at a plain white star, hoping that Dark Pit could keep up from his perspective. When she was sure he was paying attention she pointed to a glowing red star right above the first and then to a fainter red star almost right next to it, finally her hand flew to another larger star quite a ways away from the group of three stars Phosphora stared at.

"Wanna take a guess?"

"No." Dark Pit answered immediately. He knew a losing battle when he saw one.

Phosphora smiled, the kind of smile Dark Pit knew well and the kind of smile he'd quickly grown to hate. It was the sort of smirk Phosphora always made right before she knew she was about to say something that would annoy both Angels very very much.

"Its Phos and Lux with the Lighting Chariot!" Phosphora happily proclaimed, flashing up two peace signs before flying away from Dark Pit's view before he could say anything to her about it.

Not that Phosphora leaving stopped Dark Pit from yelling about it.

"That's just four stars! That doesn't look anything like them! I've seen Phos and Lux and the Lighting Chariot! I've even ridden the thing way better than Pitstain by the way!" he looked back up to the constellation just for good measure, and yup, it still looked nothing like Phos and Lux even with some of his imagination. "What do they think they're playing at?! "

And just like that, Dark Pit added yet another bullet point on his ever-growing list of why he dislikes Gods.

---

-lets get down to business-

Viridi tapped her foot on the invisible floor under her. "I can barely see my shadow..."

Despite Arlon working her for hundreds of years now, she was still surprised when she ran into a few of his tricks she'd never seen before. "How did Pit make it past there?" she asked. Viridi knew the limits of Pit's intelligence first hand after having to guide him on a handful of missions, and there was no way Pit 'let me try running towards the deadly mines on the floor' Kid Icarus was the type of Angel who would figure this out for himself.

Arlon floated by her, Viridi could tell by his lack of a faint shadow that he was floating over the chasm instead. "I believe Lady Palutena aided Young Master Pit through this puzzle."

"Of course she did!" Viridi threw her hands up into the air in defeat, "You know, I'm starting to think Pittoo is right, Palutena has to be controlling him like a puppet if she does that much for him!"

"Or perhaps, Lady Palutena was just making sure that Young Master Pit did not meet an early end?"

"Yeah. Sure, Arlon. I'm pretty sure Pit is nothing but a loyal servant to her. You've seen the way she treats him, haven't you?"

"The way Lady Palutena and Young Master Pit seem to share a mutual respect, with Young Master Pit always giving his all in fighting for his Goddess' name and how Lady Palutena returns the favor by providing him with her protection. All the while making sure no harm befalls Young Master Pit to the point one might even compare her to be his mother, complete with the usual teasing one expects from a motherly figure?"

"Exactly!" Viridi stomped her foot on the invisible floor under her, "She thinks she's so much better than the rest of us just because she's obvious in about caring about-"

Viridi looked to see Arlon floating exactly where he was floating before. She sighed, for an incredibly long time. Up to the point where Arlon felt the need to ask if she needed to take a breath. "Never mind! Forget I said anything!" they were getting off track anyway.

Viridi asked to come to the Lunar Sanctum to learn one thing and one thing only. And judging from how Arlon was acting, down to the party and picnic planning to make her feel happy despite most of those things only working on her when she was younger, he knew exactly what Viridi wanted to know.

"Alright what are we waiting for?!" Viridi looked down and carefully stepped on another part of the invisible floor, "...Right! Arlon take me to the heart of this operation!"

"Ah, you mean the cafeteria."

"Yeah the cafete-!" Viridi frowned, "No! Not the cafeteria you dolt! You know what I mean don't make me spit it out!"

Arlon floated a bit farther away from the Goddess to avoid being smacked by her staff. "Yes, of course, but Mistress Viridi, I must say it would be much easier if you came out and said these things." Arlon knew the Goddess tended to keep her share of secrets most on how she felt emotionally and what she thought of people, but he hoped that after everything they'd been through Viridi would learn to open up more.

"You're one to talk."

Arlon looked down to the Goddess to see her still staring right up at him with a large scowl on her face. "My apologies Mistress Viridi, I believe the room you want to see is right here. If you'll follow me, I will gladly take you to the control room of the lunar sanctum." Arlon floated right past the room of invisible floors and past the corner into a hallway.

"H-Hey! Wait up Arlon! Wait for me you jerk!" Viridi took her staff and tapped the invisible floor in front of her to make sure she wasnt going to fall down into the abyss under her. Naturally she could just. fly over it, but if Pit made it through this room in one piece then she was going to too.

It didn't take long before Viridi turned the same corner as Arlon did, though she was still a little embarrassed by how long it did take her.

Around the corner was Arlon, still waiting for her in front of a door that was built into the wall to hide it from intruders.

Viridi guessed that Arlon must have had some sort of illusion covering it before he walked up to it, just like the invisible floors. "If there is anything I am proud of from the last Lunar Sanctum is that neither Lady Palutena or Young Master Pit discovered the location of its secret control room. Now if you'll follow me Mistress Viridi." he bowed and gestured towards the door, waiting for Viridi to enter first.

She did just that and braced herself for whatever kind of other weird room she would enter now,

As it turned out, there was no need to brace herself.

The room Arlon lead Viridi to was nothing special in her eyes. The walls and floors were the same bright gold color as the rest of the Lunar Sanctum, apart from a large window in front of them that had a clear view of the Earth and space. "

Viridi tapped the window with her staff, testing its strength. she took a close look to see if the staff left a mark on the glass, but it was spotless. "Well I guess that should have been obvious." There was no way Arlon was going to make a window that lead outside that easy to break.

Maybe she should hit it harder?

"Mistress Viridi, if I may direct your attention here?"

"Hmm?" Viridi turned around to where she heard Arlon speak. On the wall behind her and almost next to the door where they both came in from was some sort of large device littered with dozens of screens.

Viridi walked closer and her eyes trailed to the screens in front of her, it looked like they were all showing a different view of the new Lunar Sanctum. There was one that showed the not-secret control center, another screen showed an area that was obviously still under construction with dozens of holes littering the area, and there was even one that showed the elevator Phosphora, Dark Pit and Cragalanche rode to the Lunar Sanctum's surface.

"Do you really need that many cameras?"

"If you can believe it, the old Lunar Sanctum had many more monitors than this."

"What?!"

"Unfortunately, it seems I was so focused on having my eye on everything back then I may have overloaded myself. I was my own downfall in the end...Its quite tragic if you think about it."

"You're kidding. Pit only won because you needed to look in too many places?" Viridi looked at Arlon, his face didn't look like he was joking. Then again, it rarely ever did.

Her head whipped back to look at the monitors and the large machine in front of her. There were already so many screens in front of her, she couldn't imagine how hard it would be to keep track of an Angel as fast and unpredictable as Pit was on these screens, let alone the more that Arlon swore he had at the time.

Deciding to take her mind off of Pit, she decided to inspect the rest of the large computer in front of her while Arlon walked over to the corner to fumble with something. She secretly counted her blessings that she was just tall enough to see the several buttons, levers and switches that adorned what Viridi realized was some sort of control panel. The control panel also came with a label for each button and lever and switch. Most of the buttons controlled something simple, like moving a camera or opening and closing a door somewhere.

The much bigger levers and buttons were the more interesting ones. 'Zero gravity control' and 'Lunar Sanctum laser' were the ones that caught Viridi's attention the most.

In all her years of having Arlon work under her she'd never seen the Lunar Sanctum fire its laser. Not even once! Even when it supposedly did fire Viridi was too busy napping that night after assessing the damage to the Reset Bomb Factory. All the funding she provided Arlon was enough of a reason to let her fire the laser at least once, right?

Viridi's hand hovered over to the button. "Wait." she stopped herself and looked back to the corner where Arlon was busy with something on the floor. Maybe he spilled something? "Does the stupid laser even work Arlon?"

Arlon looked up at her, a genuinely surprised look on his face. "Why, Mistress Viridi. Don't tell me you actually considered firing the Lunar Sanctum's laser, did you?"

"Uh, yeah? I wanna see it shoot something!"

"Then I'm afraid you are going to have to wait a while to see it fire. You see, while the laser is operational with the current state of the Lunar Sanctum...I'm afraid to even use it would require a bit of work and time for it to fully charge up"

Viridi let out a bored groan, leaning on her staff for support. "Then why are we even here?! So I could see your neat camera set up?"

"Well, that is one reason the other is...Ah." there was a popping sound and then in front of Arlon a large trap door almost covering the entire room opened, revealing a set of stairs that lead down to somewhere unknown. "You'll have to forgive me for the wait, you see the mechanism has been getting stuck lately. I hoped it would work just this once, but alas."

The stairs extended all the way to where Viridi stood in front of the control panel, she narrowly avoided falling down the set of stairs by stepping back. "What the?! Arlon what are these?!"

Arlon appeared to not have heard Viridi's question and instead began floating down the set of stairs disappearing into the floor, "If you'll be so kind to follow me." As soon as Arlon completely disappeared down the set of stairs Viridi circled around to where the stairs began and carefully took her first step. Making sure the steps were real and not an illusion was priority number one, from what she saw of the previous room and knew of Arlon. In the case that they were Viridi could still fly her way down there, but she didn't want to embarrass herself falling even if there was no one around to watch.

She stomped on the first and second steps a little longer than she cared to admit before following Arlon down into the floor under the control room.

"Why can't you be normal and have a straightforward way to get to a room for once." to Arlon's credit, a hidden staircase made more sense in getting to a room then grind railing to one. Though that would have been way more fun.

At the bottom of the staircase there was another room that was much larger in size as the room above them. It was also still predictably covered in gold from the walls to the floors. "He's consistent I'll give him that." Viridi walked a few more steps forward, curious to where Arlon lead her.

There were no clues on the walls, or anywhere really that could tell her where she was. The only thing that really stood out was Arlon floating by...something and waiting for her by the looks of it.

Viridi quickened her pace to meet him and have him hopefully explain more on what was going on in the room they were in.

Because for some reason or another, Viridi couldn't shake off a feeling of foreboding clinging to her ever since she stepped onto the staircase. Something about this room felt awful to her, Call it a Goddess' instinct but Viridi just knew something was off with this room.

"From that look on your face I suspect you have an odd feeling about this room?"

Hearing Arlon confirm her suspicions just made her feel worse, but at the same time it was nice that she wasn't alone in feeling like this. At the same time, she was disappointed in herself for being so easy to read, "Is it that easy to tell?" Viridi set her staff to lean against a wall and used both of her hands to rub her arms. The room was eerily cold, there was definitely something off about this room.

"Quite frankly I'm not surprised to see a Goddess as intune with nature have an adverse reaction to this room." Arlon moved his hand in front of him and the illusion that'd been surrounding him and Viridi began to crumble.

The golden walls around them faded away, instead showing walls that were still gold but had obviously faded away with age. There were holes in the walls of various sizes as if each of them were made by something different. The holes extended to the floor under them, thankfully there was some sort of material under the floors keeping them from being sucked into the vacuum of space.

"Arlon is this..." Viridi knew what she wanted to ask, but she struggled to say the answer.

"Yes, you are correct Mistress Viridi." as always Arlon took an educated guess to what she was thinking. and as usual he was more or less right. "The very room we are standing in is where the Chaos Kin was once imprisoned."

"Oh." that would explain an awful lot.

"I believe this is where you wished for me to take you, is it not?"

Viridi slowly nodded, "Yeah. this exactly what I meant. Hey, way to go Arlon you got that right. Now I have another question." this question had been burning in Viridi's mind for years now. Ever since she first heard why and how Palutena and Pit turned on humanity, she wanted to take Arlon and ask him this question.

If she'd done it back then however there was no way she would be able to keep her cool.

Not until today.

Viridi took in a deep breath and looked up at Arlon. He must have already known what was coming because he looked away from the Goddess' judging stare.

"Arlon, why didn't you tell me about the Chaos Kin? Why didn't you tell anyone about the Chaos Kin?!" Viridi felt herself start to get heated and had to restrain herself to not get more worked up about the secret that could have almost killed a God and created another in their place.

"Arlon..." she continued, "Why didn't you tell anyone...?"

Arlon sighed but offered no insight into Viridi's question. The Goddess of Nature wasn't surprised by this outcome, out of all of her forces Arlon was always the most secretive. Always keeping the most secrets about his origins and about what he was doing not including the direct orders and assignments Viridi sent him on.

"Fine. Don't tell me." the reason why the Chaos Kin was a secret mattered anymore anyway. Pit attacked the Lunar Sanctum and it escaped, the reason why it was here and why she didn't know about it didn't matter anymore.

Instead what Viridi was more worried about was about the possibility of it someday returning.

Being alone in carrying the burden of knowing and seeing the Chaos Kin's ashes retreat deep into the Chaos Vortex while Palutena held a dying Pit in her arms was eating away at her more than she would have expected.

When she first called Arlon back during the first days of construction of the new Lunar Sanctum she made sure to remind him to include a prison for the Chaos Kin that would ensure it never escaped, even if the new Lunar Sanctum exploded like the old one. The sudden request surprised him at first but, Arlon was never one to turn down her orders. No matter how much they didn't make sense.

'Oh sure, he'll follow orders, but secret keeping is where he draws the line? That makes sense.' Viridi looked around at the rest of the room. There wasn't much to it that Arlon hadn't explained earlier. If he was telling the truth, then the walls around it were reinforced to the point that if the Lunar Sanctum were to fall apart again the prison would remain intact. Even if it did look like it was seconds from falling apart.

"How's that supposed to work anyway?"

Arlon was shocked out of his deep contemplations. Viridi didn't think that whatever he was thinking about could have been important anyway, "P-Pardon?" he asked with a slight stutter.

"The prison. This room. I asked you...if the Lunar Sanctum gets attacked whatever's locked in here will stay in here, how's that work?" she looked up at Arlon with clear worry in her face. No matter how much she tried to hide it, there was no hiding it from the one person who knew her the best.

Arlon made his way next to her and playfully tapped the top of Viridi's head. He really should have known something was off when she didn't say anything about him doing that. "I'm afraid, Mistress Viridi you are going to have to trust me in that regard. I can't go out and divulge my secrets to everyone, now can I?"

"Again with the secret keeping?!" if Arlon couldn't trust her, who in the world was he going to trust?

"Fine. You know what? Keep your stupid secrets! Its not like the lives of the people I care about are on the line!" Viridi stomped away, making sure to grab her staff before making her way back to the staircase. She paused, before turning back to look at Arlon again, "That includes you too by the way!"

"Mistress Viridi! I first found the Chaos Kin 34 years ago when it attacked me directly."

Viridi froze before she could take her first step on the staircase. Her head whipped around to look at Arlon so fast her ponytail almost threatened to hit her back in the face. "...Y-Yeah? Go on."

Arlon took a rare deep breath and continued his story, "During its attack I managed to fool it using my illusions to trap it. After a bit more research on my mysterious invader I found out it was none other than the Chaos Kin. It wasn't something that I particularly wanted around me but as I learned more about it counted myself lucky I was able to escape unharmed, let alone trap it."

Viridi nodded, she was glad nothing happened to Arlon too.

"It was during my research I also learned of its danger and how many unsavory Gods out there were eyeing it for their own personal use. However if you ask me none of them truly understood the danger of the Chaos Kin. Why, if any of them even tried to work with the Chaos Kin the results would no doubt be disastrous for-"

"Arlon."

"...As I was saying." Arlon made his way closer to Viridi and the staircase, the aura of the room was starting to unnerve him as well, "Once I found out that many Gods held grudges or even wanted to acquire the Chaos Kin I decided to keep it a secret from everyone possible, and I'm afraid that meant you as well Mistress Viridi."

"But why...?"

"It was simply because I was afraid, afraid that in the other Gods pursuit for revenge or power they would target not only me, but you as well. Nay, the entire Forces of Nature would be attacked, and I could not in good conscience risk that happening!"

"Oh."

"As a result of this, I knew I needed to make sure it never escaped as well. That is how the Lunar Sanctum came to be."

There was a heavy pause between the two.

"...Though, I suppose I could have mentioned it in secret to you. Therefore, please accept my humblest apologies for the trouble I caused Mistress Viridi. " Arlon took a bow, standing so close to Viridi and not noticing his size caused Viridi to jump back onto the staircase to avoid being headbutted.

She couldn't help but let out a laugh, "Its alright, you're forgiven! Yeesh!" no matter what Arlon said she would have forgiven him anyway. Even if his excuse was as bad as he simply forgot, Viridi would have forgiven him on the spot.

"Lets just make sure it doesn't happen again got it?! No more secrets! At least not any secrets this big. You can still keep your little white lies, like telling Pittoo and Pit the tooth fairy was real."

It was always funny to see Dark Pit and his twin squirm whenever someone told them a fairy would steal their teeth.

Arlon stood up straight again and let out a soft laugh alongside viridi. "On your orders, Mistress Viridi." Arlon looked at the Goddess warm smile and felt his own mouth curl up in a smile. It was rare for the Goddess to look so happy when around others.

And speaking of others...

"My word! I'm afraid we've overstayed our welcome!"

"What? Don't tell me we're on a timer or something?"

"Only a timer of my own invention. I'm afraid if we don't hurry we'll keep the others waiting for much longer than I intended to." Arlon groaned and rubbed at the temples of his head, "And I need not remind you how inpatient Miss Phosphora and Young Master Dark Pit get when you leave them waiting for longer than a few minutes." Phosphora was bad enough to deal with in the early days, but with Dark Pit on the team now it was like a younger Phosphora all over again Especially when the actual Phosphora egged him on.

Viridi frowned heavily and nodded agreeing with Arlon, "Don't remind me! Come on then, let's go."

"Right behind you Mistress Viridi." Arlon took hold of the stairs railing and ducked down slightly to climb up the stairs behind Viridi. Climbing back up was always his least favorite part.

He was stopped in his tracks when Viridi froze on the steps in front of him. Still bent down slightly he was only a little annoyed when she did, it wasn't in Arlon's character to be too annoyed by this. "Mistress Viridi? Is there something wrong? I do not want to be the one to remind you but the ceiling is rather low here and I'm afraid with my height-"

"How are you sure it won't happen again?"

"Pardon me?"

"The Chaos Kin. Its still alive. If it comes back how do you know it won't escape from the Lunar Sanctum again." if they could even capture it again.

Even from behind, Arlon knew Viridi was struggling to keep her voice steady and not show any signs of fear. She knew that wouldn't help anyone

Arlon struggled to find the right words he knew would provide Viridi with the support she needed at the moment. There was a lot Viridi wasn't going to disclose to him, not even in private. Showing any sort of weakness was not the Goddess 'style nor was it something she did often.

"I...

"I know you work with complicated stuff. You don't have to tell me the details just...tell me, let me know that if the Chaos Kin ever comes back." Viridi grabbed her staff with both hands and stood as still as a statue, taking in a slow breath.

"Promise me that we can deal with it."

Arlon set his hand on Viridi's shoulder, gently as to not startle her. "That room is part of a new system that if the Lunar Sanctum is ever attacked again will guarantee a hypothetically imprisoned Chaos Kin will not be able to escape. I assure you and I will also save you the 'complicated details' that bore you into napping as always." he smiled when he heard Viridi laugh at his unfunny joke.

"Thanks Arlon, but never try to be funny again." she wiped at her eyes, hoping that Arlon wouldn't notice her doing so. Arlon choose to tactfully ignore her doing so and instead simply thanked her, "Now, don't you think we've kept the others waiting long enough?"

---

-a lunch break-

"Okay Cragalanche can you move a little to the left?"

After hearing Dark Pit's polite request Cragalanche took a couple of steps to his left to give the young Angel standing on top of him a better vantage point. "Thanks." Dark Pit readied his Silver Bow to take another shot at a roaming asteroid. Aiming from the ground proved to be difficult so he was happy Cragalanche didn't mind if he stood on top of him for a while. Cragalanche lightly shuffled side to side, as a way of saying 'You're welcome.' Not only for moving to the left, but for taking care of Dark Pit's Silver Bow since they left.

Dark Pit took in a breath then let an arrow fly from his Silver Bow. Only to exhale when the arrow hit his target dead on, breaking the small asteroid into little pieces. The smaller pieces weren't as fun to blow up so Dark Pit let them continue their journey around the Lunar Sanctum.

Instead he pointed his mild aggression towards Phosphora "What is taking them so long?!" It was about the fifth he asked in the last three minutes.

Phosphora let out a long sigh before answering his question, "Like I said, I don't know, Pittoo. I tried calling Viridi and Arlon but neither of them are picking up!" she honestly was just as frustrated as he was, but Phosphora had no desire to act out like Dark Pit was currently doing.

Dark Pit rolled his eyes and let out a loud groan before going back to looking at the sky for anything else to practice his shooting on.

After exhausting themselves playing on the moon the three members of the Forces of Nature decided to look for the perfect location for the lunch they could have on the moon. After careful deliberation, and Cragalanche losing a two to one vote, the perfect location was deemed to be sort of open area near where the elevator was. All because neither Phosphora or Dark Pit felt like looking any further than that.

Now all the three of them had to do was wait for Arlon and Viridi to come back from whatever it was they were busy doing.

Unfortunately for Cragalanche and the now jaded Phosphora, Dark Pit wasn't the type to sit around and wait patiently. Instead he took to kicking around moon rocks as far as he could and shooting at passing by asteroids with his Bow. Phosphora took notice at how good of a shot he was. Not that she would ever admit that to his face, she would mention it to Viridi or Arlon, but Dark Pit would never shut up about it if she told him directly.

"How long are they planning to make us wait anyway?" Dark Pit asked. It looked like he finally grew bored of practicing his Bow skills. Carefully, he began his descent from Cragalanche and back onto solid ground. Cragalanche quickly caught on and helped the Angel by offering his hand as something for him to easily stand on. "T-Thanks Cragalanche." there was a sense that Dark Pit was surprised to hear himself say that, but neither Cragalanche or Phosphora seemed phased.

Dark Pit leaped off Cragalanche's handy hand and threw his Silver Bow to the ground, in a way where it stabbed into the ground itself. That was always a neat trick to pull off. "I've been keeping count since we left and if you ask me, we've been waiting for too long."

Phosphora eyes widened with curiosity. There was a part of her that genuinely did believe Dark Pit would be petty enough to keep track of something like that just for the sake of being able to complain, but then again Phosphora doubted Dark Pit could concentrate on something enough to actually keep count. "Really? Okay then smarty pants, how long have we been waiting?"

"A long time!"

Phosphora nodded in agreement, "You're right about that, kid." unbeknownst to him, Phosphora actually was the exact kind of petty to keep track exactly of how much time they'd been waiting. Even now and during Dark Pit's target practice she was still counting down, for the chance to complain to Viridi and Arlon all about how much they made all three of them wait.

Then all of a sudden, there was a ding from the elevator and Phosphora's internal timer stopped. Dark Pit let out a loud groan with Cragalanche attempting to mirror him, "Ugh! Finally! I was starting to think they left us here!" Cragalanche waved his arms up in the air in support of Dark Pit's worries.

As the three of them looked at the elevator doors in anticipation it didn't take very long for them to notice that, the doors were not opening.

"You think they're stuck in there or something?" Phosphora brought up. She recalled the noise the elevator made own their own ascend up and wondered if maybe Arlon was still working out some glitches on the elevator. Though if Arlon and Viridi really were stuck in there surely Viridi would be yelling at them to get a crowbar to bust them out.

"Hey! Are you guys stuck in there?! Don't expect me to bail you out!" Dark Pit yelled out to the elevator doors. He did come to the same conclusion as Phosphora, but if Viridi wanted help she was going to at least ask nicely in his case.

Just as Cragalanche began to eye the perfect rock to throw at the elevator to break open the doors, the elevator doors slid open and Arlon and Viridi stepped out.

"Hope you guys didn't get into too much trouble." Viridi put her hands on her hips and smiled, she looked so proud almost as if she were expecting to be meet with thunderous applause once she stepped out of the elevator. Sadly, that was not the case and instead she was greeted with a grumpy Angel, a bored whatever Phosphora is, and a sentient rock. "You two took your sweet time! I know the Lunar Sanctum isn't that big why did you take so long?!" Dark Pit looked almost ready to start up another fight. It was too bad Pit wasn't here.

Viridi gasped and looked even more ready to throw hands with a 13-year old. She stomped her way over to Dark Pit ignoring Arlon's concerned request for her to stop. "I'll have you know it takes a while to inspect an entire Lunar Base! Pit. Too."

"We've been waiting forever!"

Viridi rolled her eyes, "Oh, you have not been waiting forever. Don't be dramatic."

Phosphora lit up, going from boredly floating by to absolutely ecstatic. "Actually! We've been waiting out here in the cold for an hour and twenty-five minutes with fourteen seconds! Just so you know."

"Phosphora. We're you keeping track of the time just to rub it in my face?" Viridi looked at Phosphora as she grinned from ear to ear, ultimately proving her suspicion right. Her only solace was getting to watch Dark Pit try and count how much an hour was on his fingers.

"Mistress Viridi! Why, I would never do that! I'm just simply being methodical! Just like Arlon over there!" Phosphora pointed at Arlon who was keeping himself busy with inspecting the picnic area that the three of them had chosen. Phosphora hoped he wouldn't come up with too many complaints about the spot.

Or about they way they 'set up.' By hastily throwing the basket onto the ground and leaving it there.

"Sure, Phosphora." Viridi said, giving up. This went unheard by Phosphora who was too busy looking at the picnic area nervously hoping Arlon would be happy with the spot they choose.

Her heart almost stopped when Arlon picked up the basket and looked straight at her. Only to give her a silent thumbs up. "Phew..." Phosphora wiped the non-existent sweat from her forehead and went right back to what she was doing.

But by then it was too late, the moment had passed and Viridi was already striking up a conversation with Cragalanche about space rocks.

"Aw, dang it."

Then Phosphora felt a tug on her scarf, looking down Dark Pit was holding up five fingers on his other hand. "Is this how long an hour is?" he showed off the fingers on his hand and then pulled his hand back, looking at them angrily. "...You know, I hate not knowing things sometimes..."

Phosphora gave him a small smile before floating down lower to his level and grabbing his other hand, lifting up only his pointer finger. "You're not very close...but in a weird way you kinda are? See?" she pointed to his hands and then she added her fist next to it. "An hour is 60 minutes! Your hands are making a six and mine making a zero, with that you get 60!"

"Oh." Dark Pit briefly wondered why he knew how long an hour felt, but not how long one was exactly. Deep down, he knew this was Pit's fault.

He made a promise to himself to pass on Phosphora's knowledge to him when he got back.

---

-i haven't eaten lunch while writing this and i made myself hungry-

After a precisely 14 more minutes of waiting (Source: Phosphora saying 'Dude, trust me.') for Arlon to finish the lunch's finishing touches, Arlon happily announced that the picnic was ready to begin.

"About time! I'm starving!" Dark Pit announced to everyone. This time everyone agreed with him, even Arlon found himself famished. "I could not agree more Young Master Pittoo. I say, then its about time to begin then, shall we?" Arlon's eye shined mischievously, and Dark Pit felt himself tense up.

With a quick flick of his wrist Arlon lifted the basket's flap. After a couple of tense seconds, a bright flash of light emanated from the basket and surrounded the area.

Dark pit blinked over and over again trying to get rid of the sudden bubbles of colors that were now obscuring his vision. From how often Palutena and now Arlon used flashes of light for their tricks he was seriously starting to consider starting to wear sunglasses.

Unsatisfied with how slow blinking was at getting rid of the splotches of colors he decided to rub them out instead. Just like before that worked much quicker. Doing that also let him see that the other members of the Forces of Nature, not including Arlon of course, were also in a temporary daze thanks to his sudden light show.

"What is with you and stupid magic tricks?!" Phosphora yelled, sure she wasn't innocent of sudden flashes of light, that kind of thing was practically impossible to avoid with her powers. But hers were practical and had some reason to exist, unlike Arlon's incredibly bright picnic basket.

"I'm going to have to agree with Phosphora here, that was kind of unnecessary Arlon." Viridi added, blinking her eyes over and over. Once the light was gone from her eyes she was surprised to see that Arlon wasn't standing in front of her anymore. Most of the Forces of Nature were surprised to see that actually.

"Oh great. He exploded." Dark Pit flatly stated, "What are we going to eat now?!"

Before anyone could question Dark Pit on where his priorities lied, the small ding of a bell caught everyone's attention. Arlon had not exploded like everyone else thought but were to embarrassed to admit. He was just fine and holding a small bell in his hand, looking quite proud of himself.

"I believe you will all be pleased to know that lunch is served.

Arlon took a large step aside and lifted the illusion that was hiding his weeklong work.

Where before there used to be nothing but dirt, instead now there were a number of picnic blankets laid out on the ground. Each of the blankets was covered with different sorts of dishes. All the food and more that was sitting on the table in the control center was on display, ranging from full pasta bowls to a huge bowl of pudding that Dark Pit was seconds from digging into.

There were even a few drinks scattered about. Phosphora was very impressed how Arlon managed to set those up without spilling.

Satisfied with his display and his showboating Arlon straightened up, seeing the bewildered faces of the Forces of Nature he let out a light cough to bring them back to reality.

"As I said, lunch is served. Please feel free to begin eating whenever-

A gust of air blew right past Arlon and before he even knew it Viridi was halfway through the honey barbeque wings he prepared just the night before.

"Woah Arlon! These are delicious! You really outdid yourself!" Arlon choose to take Viridi's compliment and held off on reminding her that talking with her mouth full was considered rude.

Right next to Viridi was Dark Pit and just as he promised one of the first thing he dug into was the cake Arlon almost burnt down his kitchen baking. It was a rather embarrassing story he decided to spare the others from hearing. "You know, I don't like agreeing with Viridi..." Dark Pit said to Arlon's surprise after swallowing and wiping his mouth with a conveniently provided napkin, "This is really good cake. Ha! I bet Pit is gonna be jealous I got to eat a whole picnic."

Two blankets away Phosphora tossed a marshmallow at Dark Pit's head to catch his attention, and from the way he was tempted to throw his cake at her before reconsidering, her plan worked. Phosphora giggled, "Can't you the two of you make something NOT a competition for once?"

"Can you mind your own business for once?!"

"Can you two please not fight for five minutes?" Viridi tiredly asked.

Phosphora and Dark Pit looked at each other and shortly burst into laughter. This was enough to stop Viridi's eating from the sheer confusion she felt. Just a few seconds ago Phosphora and Dark Pit looked like they were just about to be at each other's throats in another fight, but now they were having fun laughing and eating for with each other. Even Cragalanche decided to join in on the fun letting Dark Pit climb on top of him so he could be tall enough to threaten phosphora with a face full of cake. Phosphora simply laughed off his threats, and while Viridi expected Dark Pit to get even madder from her waving aside his threats he actually seemed to be having fun. Hopelessly waving his arm around to reach Phosphora.

Viridi even swore she could hear some laughter coming from Cragalanche. Somehow.

"Mistress Viridi I believe this is what they call, 'bonding.'"

"Arlon!?" even without the zero gravity Viridi managed to jump a significant amount into the air, thanks to Arlon once again scaring her with his presence. "What did I say about sneaking up on me?!" Viridi was sure she mentioned something about him stopping that, it was really getting old to her and only her.

Arlon let out a small chuckle, picking up a chocolate bar to unwrap it, "You'll have to forgive me Mistress Viridi, sometimes even I forget just how quiet i am..." he posed dramatically and sorrowfully, holding the back of his hand to his forehead and leaning back.

Viridi sighed and rolled her eyes, she didn't buy his excuse no matter how cheap he was selling it, "Whatever. Anyway, what do you mean "bonding?"

"Ah well..." Arlon continued to float alongside Viridi because if he decided to sit down that would prove to be a nightmare to describe how Arlon, with the length of legs that he has, would begin to sit down in the first place.

Nevertheless, even from his position Arlon could still explain the phenomena Viridi was witnessing. "As I've said before, you could call it bonding. Specifically, in a strange sense where two individuals as..."

Arlon trailed off while talking to see Dark Pit and Phosphora competing with each other over who could balance to most scones on a tower on top of Cragalanche, who was wasn't making it any easier for the two with his constant moving. That seemed to be totally on purpose.

"...Where three individuals as high energy and troublemaking as such our teammates over there, can bond and create meaningful relationships, akin to friendships or perhaps even sibling like relationships based all on the fact that they enjoy spending time with one another."

"You're saying they like fighting because they can do it together?"

"Well, take Young Masters Pit and Pittoo for example. You have seen how they act around each other, yes? How one tends to tease the other and then the other teases the other back in a fun game of back and forth." back when Arlon got a front row seat at Pit and Dark Pit's back and forth however, it seemed more malice focused then the relationship he'd seen the two of them have recently. Arlon wondered when something changed, if anything at all.

"Your point?"

"I am saying that sometimes it is fun to 'mess around' with other individuals. Compare it to you and I."

Viridi grew more skeptical than she already was, "What do you mean?"

"If you were to ask me, I greatly enjoy our little talks even during our nonsensical arguments. For example, the very one that resulted in you coming here. In a way I'm glad you bested me in such a silly and undignified manner."

Viridi sprung to her feet, ready to engage in another argument with Arlon. "AH-AH! But I still won Arlon! In your...Ooh!" Viridi slowly sat back down on the picnic blanket, mulling over all her other conversations with Arlon. "I guess it is kind of fun to mess with you...I'm not too mean to you though, am I?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"Of course not Mistress Viridi! Far from it, but I am proud that you understand that sometimes things can go too far." Arlon tapped at his chin in deep thought, "Although, I have not seen many cases of that around our dear friends have you? Perhaps they know when too much is too much."

"You're giving them too much credit." Viridi couldn't begin to count the amount of times both Pit and Dark Pit came crying to her about how Phosphora was being mean to them and how she needed to send Phosphora to a cold and vacant part of the world so she would leave them alone.

"If you ask me, I think only Pit and Dark Pit know when enough is enough."

"Oh my. Is that a rare compliment towards the Angels I hear?"

Viridi sneered, "Don't make me send you to the artic, Arlon."

Arlon stifled in a laugh, not very well since Viridi still heard him even with the commotion still happening behind them.

Viridi gave a quick look back to make sure they weren't taking things too far.

Now however, it looked like Dark Pit and Phosphora were talking about favorite ice cream flavors. Which was a bit weird since Viridi didn't spot any ice cream in the food Arlon set up.

Oh well, she took another bite out of her food and looked up at the sky above her.

---

-based on a true story-

Phosphora watched as Dark Pit ate his fifth cupcake, and then his sixth which was soon followed by his seventh. If no one put a stop to his cupcake eating crimes there would be none left for the rest of them!

As soon as Dark Pit reached for another cupcake Phosphora quickly snatched it away and held it high above her head.

"Hey!" Dark Pit yelled, jumping up and stretching out his arms to try and get his delicious snack back. It was no use however, Phosphora was just too tall and she wasn't putting in much effort to float off the ground. All that was holding back Dark Pit was his height and the hand Phosphora had once his face to push him back.

"Don't you think you've eaten enough?!" after five slices of cake, three sandwiches, two sodas and now seven cupcakes Phosphora was certain that out of all of them Dark Pit was the one that had eaten the most.

No, she took that back. he was STILL eating the most out of all of them and at the rate he was going he was going to eat everything!

"What are you talking about?!" Dark Pit said back to her, his voice was slightly muffled. He tried his absolute best to push past Phosphora's hand on his face but no matter how much he pushed or flapped his arms around it was no use. His coveted chocolate cupcake was just a little out of reach and it was killing him.

Dark Pit growled and pushed harder against Phosphora, who was slowly starting to lose the battle. Phosphora looked around for anyone that could help her. She felt a wave of relief when she spotted Viridi just finishing up a plate of pasta.

Phosphora smirked and took her hand off Dark Pit's face, and because the poor Angel was still pushing at the time he ended up pushing himself face first into the ground. "Ow!" after eating a face full of moon dust Dark Pit looked up to see Phosphora looming over Viridi, the cupcake still in her hand.

"Don't you dare!" Dark Pit pushed and kicked himself up, running past Arlon and hitting him full on with another cloud of moon dust. The butler reacted by simply wiping down his dirty monocle. At his old age he'd simply seen too much for anything to faze him anymore.

And most of the things he'd seen were mostly from the moment he meet Dark Pit.

Speaking of Dark Pit, he was now back in the same place he only escaped from just a few moments ago. Pushing himself against Phosphora's hand to get a cupcake that was now more trouble than it was worth, but to Dark Pit it was the principal of getting it now instead of actually eating the thing.

Meanwhile, Phosphora was still determined to make sure Dark Pit was going to play fair and follow the same rules she and the other Forces of Nature had been following for as long as she could remember.

To share and make sure everyone had enough to eat. Viridi was awfully strict on that rule whenever Phosphora snuck in a few extra snacks when she was younger, even going so far as to ground Phosphora when Viridi found out she snuck in a few extra servings.

The plan was foolproof.

By now Viridi noticed the obvious commotion that was happening right next to her. "What the heck are you two doing? Don't make me get Cragalanche to break up another one of your petty fights." Viridi took in a deep breath and stabbed a ravioli with her fork before continuing, "AGAIN."

Viridi heard about how teenagers fought all the time, but at this point it was getting ridiculous. The worst part was that there was no one she could ask advice from. As if Palutena would know anything about dealing with them, considering how Pit acted.

Phosphora and Dark Pit exchanged glances for a second before going right back to fighting. "Viridi!" Phosphora pushed back Dark Pit as far as her arm could stretch and held the cupcake up for her to see, "Tell Pittoo he's eaten too many cupcakes!"

"How many has he eaten?" Viridi wasted no time in asking.

"I counted seven!"

"Liar!" Dark Pit objected. He'd actually eaten about ten, but he was smart enough to know that telling the truth was not going to help his case in this instance.

Viridi gave a heavy sigh and took the cupcake from Phosphora's hand.

Before Phosphora got the chance to say anything or to act smug about winning Viridi handed the cupcake to Dark Pit, who was too shocked to actually grab it from her.

"Just let him have the stupid cupcake Phosphora."

"What?!"

Once the initial shock wore off Dark Pit happily took the chocolate cupcake from Viridi and took a bite out of it. He turned to run back to the dessert blanket, but not before turning back around and sticking his tongue out to Phosphora.

That's when Phosphora learned a brutal and valuable lesson. The longer time goes on the less important made up rules truly mattered in the long scale of things.

...Which also meant-

"Hey Phosphora, don't take any more garlic bread. Leave some for the rest of us."

Life was truly unfair.

---

-turf war-

Once all was said and done all and everyone had eaten all they were going to eat all that was really left to do to was press a button to activate the zero gravity on the moon. Which would give Dark Pit (and Viridi but that's a secret) the funnest afternoon they'd ever have.

That simple button press that was exactly one elevator ride away.

"Oh come on!" Dark Pit loudly complained. It was one thing to have to ride a slow elevator, but it was a whole other thing to wait for somehow to ride a slow elevator. As the long wait before Viridi and Arlon showed up proved. Either the suspense or his boredom would kill him first and at that point he welcomed them both.

Frustrated and bored, a bad combination in a growing Angel, Dark Pit took a seat on a picnic blanket Arlon left out having such an occasion in mind. "I can't believe they just left us here again?! Can you believe this Cragalanche?!" not only did Arlon leave but Viridi had as well. Dark Pit couldn't think of a good reason for them to both leave, so either they were both tired of hanging out with the rest of them or they were both just tired of being with him. There was probably no other reason they both left, no way.

Cragalanche taking note of how mad Dark Pit looked offered him an understanding nod, but said nothing else.

Phosphora, who'd been freely floating by the two, also took slight pity on Dark Pit. She knew well of both Angel's dreams to be able to soar through the sky on their own. Sometimes when they were together it was something they could spend an entire afternoon talking about. Phosphora recalled hearing both brothers once talk about what the first place they would fly to if they could fly on their own. Neither of them could come up with a concrete answer, but they both agreed that wherever they would go it would be somewhere with a nice hot spring.

"You know..." Phosphora said, cutting through the silence, "I wonder how high you're going to jump once the zero gravity is on." she hoped Dark Pit wouldn't jump too high where he would hurt himself, but she assured herself that both Angels had probably fallen from higher and gotten out just fine.

Dark Pit looked surprised to hear Phosphora ask that question and then he looked as if he were in deep though, because he was. "Uh...I don't know..." Dark Pit knew that jumping in zero gravity was nowhere near flying, but maybe if he could jump high enough it would feel like he were flying on his own again. Though how high that was supposed to be was something he never accounted for.

"...I guess I would jump pretty high." he wondered out loud.

"Right, just make sure not to hurt yourself doing that."

If Dark Pit was still paying any attention to Phosphora he probably would have answered something along the lines of, 'Stop worrying about me. I can take care of myself!' but as stated before he was too busy imagining just how high into the sky he would be able to jump.

Maybe...he could jump high enough to touch a star! Pit would freak out if Dark Pit told him that he got to high five a star! "Yeah! I'm gonna jump up and touch a star!" Dark Pit's eyes sparkled with determination and the excitement of potentially getting to show off to Pit more.

Maybe if he was lucky, he could even take a star home with him.

Phosphora was speechless, she didn't know where to start. Either she could crush Dark Pit's dreams of jumping that high first or she could break it to him that touching a star was also physically impossible.

He would have more luck trying to touch one of the roaming pieces of space junk from the first Lunar Sanctum that occasionally floated by.

Though maybe she could lie and tell him that it was a fragment of some star.

Unfortunately, for more Dark Pit than anyone else, he would never get the chance to try and even reach for the stars.

"Everyone! I don't want to alarm you, but we've got a problem!" Viridi's voice boomed through the Lunar Sanctum, through loudspeakers for all to hear. The three Forces of Nature hastily looked around, wondering what Viridi was talking about. It didn't take very long to see the problem Viridi was talking about.

Right in front of them, floating in the emptiness of space was what looked to be a ship and surrounding it was all sort of strange enemies that only Viridi knew well enough to know they weren't supposed to be there.

The strange technologic look of the enemies surrounding them could only belong to the Aurum. The deep space group of aliens that once tried to ransack the planet.

"Arlon, this place is built enough to handle this sort of attack, right?" Viridi asked. Even though Arlon's tour and pep talk was enough to reassure her that anything imprisoned here would never be able to escape, she never asked and Arlon never cared to explain if the new Lunar Sanctum was safe from an attack from the outside.

Viridi mentally berated herself for not asking. The attack from Pit and Palutena was the reason the Chaos Kin escaped in the first place! That should have been her first priority.

"Mistress Viridi, there will be plenty of time to feel sorry for oneself later! I am feeling rather guilty as well but there are more pressing matters at hand."

Viridi nodded in agreement and both of them made their way to the secret control room. The very same room they both visited earlier.

In the control room Arlon looked at the cameras that were pointed outside and Viridi ran towards the large window. They both had a clear view of the oncoming invaders and of her troops still on the lunar surface where she left them.

Phosphora was zipping around and trying to size up the enemy, Cragalanche was looking at Phosphora do that, and Dark Pit, ever the go getter was jumping up and down his Silver Bow in his hand. "If we're under attack we can handle them! I'll have them taken care of before you can say 'Nice work Dark Pit.'"

Viridi knew he was right, if Pit could handle the Aurum back then, then it was likely his twin would have no problem with them either. Then again, it looked like this time he would be fighting a space pirate ship and a bunch of Aurum troops too.

"H-How are the Aurum even back...?" that was the problem Viridi was most concerned about, if she remembered right when Pit defeated Pyrrhon he pushed the Aurum into deep space never to come back again. Unless they did come back, but if that was the case then Viridi was positive that Pyrrhon, even under the influence of the Aurum would no doubt be talking up a storm to all of them in his weird number language.

"Mistress Viridi! I know there is a lot on your mind but I believe the first priority is to defend the Lunar Sanctum!" once again it was like Arlon read her trouble filled mind, Viridi knew he couldn't do that but as one of the oldest members of the Forces of Nature he knew what she looked like when she was worried. Today more than any other day proved that to be the case.

Viridi let out a reluctant sigh, eyeing the simple button that just a few seconds before, was going to activate the Lunar Sanctum's zero gravity. These stupid space pirates and pesky Aurum just had to show up and ruin everything! The nerve of them. Viridi was almost red in anger, "Okay team! I don't know what these useless heaps of yesterday's garbage want with us, but we cannot let them ruin our perfect day and just get away with it! So are you with me to get some sweet sweet payback!?" Viridi cried out telepathically to all the troops on the Lunar Sanctum.

"Yes!" Dark Pit cheered raising his Silver Bow in the air, caught up in the excitement.

"Fine by me, I always wanted to fight space pirates." Phosphora stretched out her arms and legs, getting ready to fight what she always assumed to be nothing more than an overblown space myth.

And Cragalanche lightly bounced as light as a giant rock creature could.

In the middle of an array of different cheers from several of her troops assigned to help Arlon around the Sanctum, Arlon raised his concerns once again, "If I may be so bold Mistress Viridi, may I offer a plan to deal with these miscreants?"

A plan! Viridi knew she was forgetting something. All she was going to do was let Phosphora, Cragalanche, and Dark Pit loose, but having a plan would probably work better in the long run. "Okay, you're right. Lets hear it."

Arlon bowed, thanking Viridi for allowing him to propose a plan. He turned to the large set of monitors behind them, it displayed all sorts of information about the Lunar Sanctum. Information that only made sense to him, "I propose we send Miss Phosphora and Master Cragalanche to take care of the large space pirate ship. Master Cragalanche is quite a hard hitter and I am sure Miss Phosphora will be able to back him up with her abilities."

"What about Pittoo?"

"I was just getting to that Mistress Viridi, you must have patience!"

Viridi pulled at the strands at the hair hanging on the side of her head, "Arlon we're being invaded by aliens there's no time for patience!" she gestured to the large window and Arlon made note at how much closer the ship was getting.

He coughed, "Q-Quite so, as I was quickly saying I suggest we send Young Master Pittoo to deal with the Aurum troops. I'm sure with his skills he will be able to hold them off until I can charge the Lunar Sanctum's defenses."

"Alright let me just tell them the plan and-" Viridi froze, "...What do you MEAN THE DEFENSES AREN'T ONLINE?!"

Arlon chuckled, clearly embarrassed about something. Viridi was about to yell at him that there was also no time to be embarrassed before he decided to explain himself. "Ah, truth be told...I have not tested the defenses as of recently. As a result, they are not quite ready to go."

"Why not?!"

"Well, there is not much that happens in space as of lately. Please accept my humblest apologies." he prepared to take another bow only to be stopped when Viridi pushed him back to the control panel. "I-I say-?!"

"Less talky and more defenses Arlon! Leave the counterattack to me while you get busy charging up...whatever you're charging up, got it?!"

Deciding not to wait for a clear answer from Arlon, viridi turned her attention to the three still waiting on the lunar surface. "You guys still alive out there?" she asked, she couldn't deny that there was a small part of her that was worried they somehow had gotten hurt while she wasn't looking. Viridi could never forgive herself if something like that happened.

Thankfully the worst thing that happened was that Dark Pit had grown more inpatient and kind of nervous by the tone of his voice and the position of his wings.

"Okay, I'm gonna assume you guys heard the plan! Are you all ready to go?"

Phosphora looked at Dark Pit, hoping that he would somehow have an answer to Viridi's question, but all she got was another just as confused stare back at her. Even Cragalanche was confused at what they were going to be doing. "Its official, we're all going to die." Dark Pit's biggest regret was that he never got to beat Pit at a game of Ro-sham-bo. It was tragic really.

Viridi groaned, "Pittoo, just hold on tight to your Bow and stop complaining okay?!"

"What are you talking about-?" before Dark Pit knew it, he felt a surge of energy in his wings, "H-Huh?!" the Power of Flight was activated, and that could only mean about two things. And Dark Pit was pretty sure Viridi wasn't sending him on a nice flight through the town to cat sightsee.

"Okay, I'll explain the plan on the way. Just get ready for air battle you three!" how hard could commanding three troops while helping one of them fly be anyway?

---

-scattered stars-

"Hey, Does anyone feel like explaining what-" Dark Pit cut himself off when he flew to the left, narrowly dodging a shot from a strange triangle shaped enemy that'd been hot on his tail since the start of their counterattack.

He made sure to at least give Viridi a quiet thank you for giving him the space to not get hit. He shot back with his Silver Bow, his arrow flying right through the triangle, rendering it to pieces.

With a little more breathing room than before Dark Pit decided to try and ask his question again, as Viridi directed him to another group of strange enemies. "As I was saying-Would anyone mind explaining what exactly we're all fighting?!"

"I think I'd like to know to! If its not too much trouble?!" Phosphora yelled as well. Using her speed she was making quick work of the pirate ship that was slowly getting closer to the Lunar Sanctum. Phosphora was glad she was handling the counterattack as well as she was, but she always appreciated being briefed on who she was going to fight that day. Even if she only regained half of that information most of the time.

Viridi quickly waved her staff to make sure Dark Pit moved out of the way of an upcoming projectile before answering his and Phosphora's question. She had a feeling that even Cragalanche was curious about who's ship he was currently punching holes into.

"I don't know that much about them, but I can tell you that the weird unearthly enemies are called the Aurum. They're aliens from outer space that Pit was SUPPOSED to have gotten rid of!" but clearly that wasn't the case if they were being attacked by a countless number of them.

The only bright side to this was that Pyrrhon didn't seem to be around. That was good, Viridi knew she wouldn't be able to stand another second listening to him talk before screaming.

"Pit fought aliens?!" Dark Pit yelled, briefly stopping his attack on another attacking triangle, "He never told me he fought aliens!"

"He probably doesn't tell you a lot of things!" Phosphora added.

"Ugh! Just wait I'm not gonna tell him about this either!" that would show him! Viridi shook her head at the display of empty rebellion, though knowing Pit he would probably be heartbroken if he found out his twin was keeping a secret from him. "I'm sure Pit didn't mean to keep it a secret you bonehead. He probably just blanked out and forgot to tell you." Viridi said coming to Pit's defense. Something she hoped no one else would notice that she did.

And to her surprise, no one did. They all must have been too busy in the heat of battle to give her any heat over having feelings.

"How could Pitstain forget to tell me about this!" Dark Pit gestured to the huge UFO looking thing that was looming closer to the Lunar Sanctum. Even if Pit was somehow trying to protect Dark Pit from some untold secret that was too much for him to handle, Dark Pit wouldn't understand because he thought he made it clear throughout the years that he would support Pit through anything.

But this? This was just aliens and Dark Pit would have loved to hear about his adventures fighting aliens. Why couldn't the stupid idol toss machine spit out one of them and have Pit spill about them instead of hearing Pit talk about an hour and a half on how cute Souflees were?

Dark Pit grit his teeth and shot down a weird squiggly thing. "I'm gonna kill him if I make it back home." or at least he would sit Pit down and ask him what else he fought while Dark Pit was off busy doing...something.

Viridi was seconds away from telling Dark Pit to get his head back into the game before a loud bang caught both her and Dark Pit's attention.

The noise came from the strange ship, "Nice job Cragalanche!" Phosphora yelled out. A closer look at the ship showed that it now had a very large and distinct Cragalanche sized hole coming out from the side.

Even the Aurum themselves seemed to be distracted by the 'sinking' ship, as most of the remaining Aurum were frozen in place. Arlon looked away from a monitor showing the current status of the Lunar Sanctum and took notice of the Aurum's strange behavior as well.

"Hmm, I believe I know what's going on."

Viridi jumped a little when Arlon spoke but quickly recovered. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

Arlon pointed at the space pirate ship, which was now spilling over with pirates trying to jump ship to safety, only to be shortly vaporized by a lightning fast Phosphora. "I believe our space pirate intruders are connected to the Aurum invaders. And moreover..." Arlon's hand moved over to point at the frozen Aurum next to Dark Pit, who lightly kicked at a weird squiggly thing, wondering what it was doing just floating by him. "From what I quickly researched about the Aurum they are a species with no free will of their own and operate secretly as a sort of hive mind, taking orders from a leader."

"Where are you going with this?" Viridi asked, inpatient for Arlon to get to his point already.

"Where I am going is proposing that somehow the space pirates have, or had a way to control these particular Aurum troops."

"What?! But that's insane how did they do that?!"

"I believe there will be plenty of time to think of how, once we make sure the Aurum and the space pirates don't harm our friends or destroy the Lunar Sanctum."

Viridi reluctantly agreed and moved her staff once again to bring Dark Pit farther away from the stationary Aurum and closer to the Lunar Sanctum. The Power of Flight was still counting down after all.

Dark Pit let out a small "Woah!" when he flew backwards with no warning. "Okay, Pittoo here's what we're gonna do! Take out the Aurum you got left and then you're coming back here!" Viridi ordered, to her pleasant surprise Dark Pit nodded in agreement to her orders.

"That should be easy since they're not really fighting back. It almost makes me feel sorry for them."

"Oh believe me, you really shouldn't. Once Pit or anyone tells you the full story you'll be glad these pests are gone. They're like...flies...but if flies could shoot you and had weird mechanical parts."

"I don't believe the Aurum are made out of any earthly materials, Mistress Viridi." Arlon corrected her. Viridi let out an annoyed huff while Dark Pit laughed through the laurel crown. "Which is even more of a reason to get rid of them if you ask me." stealing and plundering the earth was one thing but doing it while not even using what they were stealing was worse.

"H-Hey guys I don't think we should be joking right now!" Phosphora's voice filled with panic suddenly cut through the lighthearted atmosphere.

Viridi focused her sights on where Phosphora and Cragalanche were. The space pirate ship was now almost completely destroyed, thanks to Cragalanche's efforts.

"It looks like a piece of swiss cheese now." Dark Pit tactfully added. Viridi wanted to smack him with her staff but unfortunately he was currently outside floating in space, it would have to wait till later she supposed. Turning her attention back to Phosphora, Viridi flew Dark Pit closer to the pirate ship just in case he would have to provide back up against something. "What's going on out there Phosphora? Something wrong?"

"O-Oh? Nothing I can't handle!" Phosphora said brushing off Viridi's concerns. Cragalanche punched another hole through the ship, casually throwing a space pirate he grabbed out into the outskirts of space. Suffice to say he agreed with Phosphora that they were fine.

Viridi wasn't convinced, "Then do you mind telling me why you sounded so panicked just a few seconds ago?" Viridi was almost looking forward to hearing what kind of out-there excuse that Phosphora would say to her. There were a few tense seconds of silence before a strange screaming sound sounded through the area which is strange since sound is not supposed to travel thought space.

Discrepancies of space, aside the noise caught Dark Pit's attention as soon as he got near the ship. Looking up it wasn't hard to miss floating fleet of weird triangle things floating above him. A quick explanation by Viridi gave them the name 'Tribytes.' "Do they usually have a guy standing on top of them?" Dark Pit asked, pointing at the space pirate standing tall on the Tribytes riding them akin to how someone would ride a surfboard.

"No. No, that's not supposed to be there."

"Great, I'm not the only one confused that's nice."

Phosphora groaned and shot off another bolt of electricity that just grazed past one of the Tribytes. "Fine I admit it, me and Cragalanche took care of the pirates but the captain got away. There I admit it!" Phosphora couldn't come up with any instances the space pirate captain could have escaped their sights, especially with her speed and Cragalanche's hawk like eyes.

"I guess you were too slow, but don't worry I'll take care of your unfinished work." Dark Pit said with a smug smile on his face. That was one more point for him.

"Oh no you don't!" Phosphora flew in front of him and stopped him in his tracks, "You're stopping the Aurum and I got the space pirates, don't forgot Viridi's orders!"

"They're riding a bunch of Aurum though."

"Wha-? But that's not!"

Suddenly the same loud noise from earlier came from the space pirate captain. He was blowing into a strange sort of trumpet looking thing. It was adorned with the same strange green glow that covered the Aurum. As soon as he finished blowing into it the Aurum that had frozen earlier started to move again back towards the Lunar Sanctum and without Dark Pit there to stop them, they were getting closer than before.

Arlon looked out the window alongside Viridi and a bead of sweat trickled down his face, "I believe it is impertinent to get someone to deal with these troops posthaste!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!" before bringing back Dark Pit for round two Viridi took a quick look at the countdown of the Power of Flight, located conveniently in a timer on the side of her staff. According to it they only had a minute and a half left. "Hey Pittoo? Do you think you can take down a bunch of Aurum in a minute?" he technically had more time than a minute, but Viridi still had to account for the unexpected.

"I can take them all down in half that time." Dark Pit boasted.

Viridi would have called him out on his ego, but she knew both Angels were capable of probably more surpassing things than that and right now she needed Dark Pit's strength more than ever.

Dark Pit quickly flew back to where he was before, he gripped his Silver Bow wondering if it would be a better decision to keep it as is or to split it into two blades. "Good luck!" he heard Phosphora yell behind him as he flew away. He looked back to see how they were both faring. Phosphora was still trying to get rid of the captain, but it looked like the Tribytes were getting in the way of every single shot, no matter where she shot from. And Cragalanche was still having the time of his life wrecking the space pirate ship.

Dark Pit sighed, he was just glad they weren't in any real danger. In fact, the one in the most danger was probably him. Given the whole timed flight and wings bursting into flames thing.

Finally making it back to just in front of the Lunar Sanctum Dark Pit split his bow in two and slashed away at one of the squiggly things Viridi still hadn't decided to give him the name of.

"Excellent work Young Master Pittoo!" Arlon complimented him, "With skills such as yours we will be sure to have the Aurum and the space pirates defeated before dinner!"

Dark Pit stopped midway through putting his bow back together to ask about what Arlon said, "We're having dinner too?!"

"Why of course! I've prepared a full course dinner for all of us as well. You didn't think I would just prepare a lunch for Mistress Viridi's visit, did you?"

Dark Pit's mouth drooled while he shot down another Tribyte, thinking of what other desserts he might get to taste.

Viridi's voice soon knocked him out of his daydream about chocolate cake and blueberry muffins. "Hey dipstick stop dreaming about food and look out right next to you!" Viridi sounded oddly serious about whatever was next to Dark Pit so he acted accordingly and quickly looked to see what was attacking him now. A, what Viridi quickly called out as a 'Dohz', suddenly appeared to his right.

At least Dark Pit didn't have to call it a UFO looking thing anymore.

Dark Pit heard Viridi whisper something under hear breath. He couldn't quite catch what she said, but he was certain that it wasn't good news. He was still surrounded at all sides by a group of incoming Tribytes and everybody that could provide backup was occupied with their own battle.

Dark pit was on his own.

"You're not on your own pipsqueak! I'm here, remember?!" Viridi hastily reminded him. Her voice was still a little shaky with panic, but she managed to calm herself down enough to sound like her old boasty self again. Dark Pit felt somewhat comforted by the familiarity.

Dark Pit paused. It felt too familiar, but he quickly brushed the feeling aside. There was no time to think of anything else than his own survival for now. He took aim at one of the squiggly things surrounding him, which Viridi called a 'Quoil' this time. It only took one arrow to defeat it. Seeing how easy it was to defeat them boosted Dark Pit's confidence by a million percent. Sure he was surrounded, but if the enemies went down that easily it would be a piece of cake to get himself out of his current predicament.

Then with all the squiggly Quiols gone he could focus on the Dohz.

"Okay, I've got a plan."

"This'll be good."

Dark Pit, for his own sake, ignored Viridi's sass. "I shoot the Quiols and you fly me around and try to not get me killed. How's that sound?"

"It sounds like something Pit would come up with."

"Does it? By the way do you mind telling me about the time you beat Pit in a battle?"

Viridi responded to Dark Pit's rude comment by quickly flying him back with no warning so he could have a better shot at fighting the incoming Quoils. "H-Hey!" Dark Pit adjusted his laurel crown that had gotten crooked from the jostling Viridi gave him, "How about a warning next time?!"

Viridi stuck out her tongue at him, but when she realized Dark Pit couldn't see her she quickly adjusted her strategy. "Less talking, more shooting!"

"Whatever..." he grumbled, raising his Silver Bow again.

The Quoils were moving in a completely random pattern. Dark Pit figured that Phosphora must have been finally getting to the pirate captain and disrupting his orders. It didn't look like they were aiming for him at all, more like just heading for the closest thing they happened to hit.

Unfortunately, that thing was still Dar Pit and his allies, so they had to be taken care of regardless.

In his head Dark Pit kept count of the Quiols he shot down. Well, it was more like 'completely broke down into little pieces' but who was keeping track of that? What mattered is how many he could take down, then he could rub that in everyone's faces and prove his worth on the team.

But mostly he could get to show off and win.

Dark Pit grinned from ear to ear once he counted down the 15th Quoil finished off. Surely, he was miles ahead of the others by now.

"Get out of here and leave us alone you monster!"

Dark Pit blinked, an unfamiliar voice cut right through his concentration causing him to miss his target. "Hey!" Dark Pit yelled out to whoever yelled out to him. They had to be yelling at him. Who else could they be yelling at?

The stars in front of him twisted and warped themselves into unfamiliar familiar shapes. Dark Pit's breathing slowed down to a crawl to the point where he didn't know if he was breathing at all. "Wha-what...?" he stepped back from the crowd of stars staring right at him.

Dark Pit felt himself hit solid ground. He couldn't even feel the Power of Flight in his wings anymore. He stood perfectly still in what he could only describe as a hazy field of stars and people shaped silhouettes. If Dark Pit wanted to assume to worst, he would have guessed he were standing right in the center of a group people.

'I-Is this some sort of Aurum trick?' he asked Viridi. There was no answer back from her.

Dark Pit brought his hand to his chest. His heart was beating fast, too fast. His Silver Bow was nowhere to be found and his hands were shaking violently. There was something just 'off ' about how he felt. He held out one of his shaking hand to see a lone flower petal lying on his palm

Suddenly, Dark Pit felt something grab at his entire being. He heard himself gasp. Something was pulling him, pulling him back.

Dark Pit stepped forward as hard as he could, whatever it was that had a hold on him pulled him back even harder. "Let me go!" he cried out. Wherever he was now, whatever was happening now didn't matter. All Dark Pit knew was that he didn't want to be here anymore.

And he could feel whatever it was that was pulling him back felt the same way.

'Please...Take me with you!' the demand rung in his head. Whatever had a grasp on him wanted to come back with him from whatever odd place he found himself in.

Dark Pit didn't humor the odd presence and kept pushing his way forward and away from the mysterious pull that was keeping him in place. Whatever it even was, he knew it wasn't good from the way his body was reacting to it.

Whether this was some sort of Aurum trick Viridi never warned him about or something else entierly he was going to fight his way through and get back to where he belonged. He was sure that his sudden disappearance would worry everyone, even Viridi.

'She's probably never going to let me hear the end of it...'

A wave of relief washed over his body as the familiar sight of space began to slowly appear around him again. The ground at his feet collapsed under him as well and the pull grew weaker and weaker.

But not before whoever was pulling him back gave one last try.

'Please let me be you!'

Dark Pit took in a sharp breath, his eye widened. he recognized that voice.

'Pit...?'

Before 'Pit' could answer him back a blizzard of flower petals blew all around Dark Pit, obscuring his view. The voice of his twin's demand still rang in his head, freezing him in place. He never even saw the ambush of Tribytes before it was too late.

All it took was a single well aimed shot directly to the eye and it was over.

Dark Pit screamed, before his entire world disappeared.

---

-a split second decision-

"Pittoo?!" Viridi cried out, there was something wrong with Dark Pit but no matter how much she called out to him he wouldn't answer her. It almost looked like he'd frozen in fear. "Pittoo! Fight back!" Viridi yelled trying one final time to reach him.

Viridi moved her staff to forcibly fly him away from the Aurum, but it was too late. Dark Pit let out a scream, being pushed backwards by the power an attack.

Viridi heard Arlon say something to her but it couldnt have mattered any more than needing to get rid of the Aurum. Now.

The worry Viridi felt for the Angel was soon replaced by raw anger towards the space pirate captain and the Aurum. "How dare you?!" there was nothing much the Goddess could do but feel angry at the aurum, most of her energy was still going into keeping Dark Pit flying with the Power of Flight. Even if the Angel was unconscious, Viridi could still keep him up in the air.

She knew that Dark Pit needed to get out of the fray as soon as possible, but there was still the issue of him being surrounded by Aurum.

"Okay, let's get you out of there! This time I'll do it right..." Viridi raised her staff and activated the miracle of hasty retreat to bring Dark Pit into the same room as her. But aside from a fancy light and some leaves circling him nothing else happened and he was still definitely floating in space. "What the-?!" her powers had yet to fail her once, could her staff have been broken or something?

Then Viridi remembered something similar to Palutena happened when the Aurum first attacked. Back then Pyrrhon boasted that it was because of his degree in telepathic interference. But if that were the case, it didn't make sense that the interference was still around without him.

"Perhaps there is some sort of residue interference on the Aurum that is causing this?"

Viridi didn't bother to ask Arlon how he knew what she was thinking or how Arlon knew about Pyrrhon's interference, the only thing she cared about was the possibility that he was probably right and Dark Pit was in big danger.

She waved her staff and Dark Pit successfully dodged a shot from another Tribyte. After moving him Viridi heard a groan from the Angel, "Pittoo?" she froze and so did Dark Pit. Viridi grew afraid that moving Dark Pit around was doing more harm than good, but at this point there was no choice. Not until backup arrived and could get rid of the Aurum.

Viridi grit her teeth, moving Dark Pit away from another Aurum attack while earning another pained groan from him. She knew that any sort of back up would take its time to arrive and judging from how quiet Arlon was at the moment Viridi was sure that he was putting all of his brain power into activating the defenses.

Which were still not active, which made Viridi second guess how much Arlon was trying before Dark Pit got knocked out.

She shook her head, of course Arlon was giving 100 percent. Viridi knew him well enough to know that. In truth, Arlon was probably doping a worse job now than before because of the added stress.

Another Tribyte tried its hand at taking out Dark Pit and Viridi tried to teleport him away again on a whim, hoping that maybe this time it would work.

When it didn't work Viridi's stomach sank when she realized Dark Pit was flying right on target of the Tribyte's aim. "Dark Pit look out!" she hopelessly yelled out. Viridi asked herself why she was yelling if she was the one controlling his flight pattern. What good did yelling do? She had to do something, she was a Goddess for goodness' sake! The Power of Flight only had 20 seconds left!

Why couldnt she do anything?!

Viridi shut her eyes and prepared for the worst. Anything else that followed after this she would deserve, especially from Palutena.

Then, out of nearly nowhere, there was a loud clap and a flash of light.

The light was so bright that even through her closed eyes Viridi could nearly see it. Viridi opened her eyes to see Phosphora floating where Dark Pit once stood alone. She was easily carrying him on her back and holding out one of her hands which crackled with electricity. "Back off!" behind Phosphora stood Cragalanche, ready to back her up if she needed any.

"Phosphora?! Cragalanche?!" Viridi almost dropped her staff in surprise, but she quickly tightened her grip on it. If it had dropped it wouldn't have made much of a difference considering Dark Pit was being carried by Phosphora now but Viridi was paranoid at this point. Taking quick note of that, Viridi quietly shut off the Power of Flight. "What are you doing here?! Aren't you two supposed to be dealing with the space pirate captain and his Aurum troops!?" surely they wouldn't just abandon their assignments to save Dark Pit? Would they? That wasn't like Phosphora or Cragalanche at all! Or was it?

"Oh, him? I'm sure we'll take care of him once he catches up." Phosphora said, carefreely waving her free hand around. "You mean they're still alive?!" Viridi would have pounded on the window in anger if her hands weren't already sore gripping onto her staff, "What made you think leading him here would be a good idea?!" Dark Pit was in enough trouble already, but adding a space captain and another almost literal wave of Tribytes was overkill!

Phosphora struggled for a hot second to come up with an answer, even turning to Cragalanche for advice of which he had none to offer. "Well...We got worried." Phosphora spat out, before shooting at another Aurum troop. In front of her Cragalanche punched away at most of them to give Phosphora more breathing room.

Viridi stayed silent, letting Phosphora finish explaining. "We heard Dark Pit scream and we both knew we had to get over here." Phosphora hoped they would make it in time before anything bad happened, but by the looks of things they were far too late.

Phosphora looked back to look at the hurt Angel on her back, she visibly winced when she got a good look at the injury he'd taken to his eye.

Viridi noticed her strange behavior and while still somewhat upset with Phosphora, Viridi worriedly asked her if something was wrong with Dark Pit. "N-No! I mean..." Phosphora couldn't explain it, there was just something off about Dark Pit's injury.

It didn't look like it was done by a sort of laser, like the kind the Aurum shot. No, it looked like something solid had hit him, and hard.

"It doesn't look right." Phosphora whispered to herself.

"What doesn't look right?!"

Before Phosphora could clarify on what she meant a loud horn noise coming from a horn sounded around the area. The space pirate finally caught up and he was very upset at being left behind with his burning ship. Phosphora scowled and raised her hand, ready to strike him down with a blast of lightning.

On the other hand Cragalanche had a faster idea, and also had enough.

With one swift and powerful punch Cragalanche punted the space pirate captain off of his hoard of Tribytes and back into the mysterious deep reaches of space.

The space pirate captain let out one final blow from his horn as he flew away, taking the sound of the horn along with him. Though no one in the Forces of Nature was fluent in the language of horn it was pretty clear that he was yelling for help. Most of the Aurum were quick to pick up on his last orders and blasted away after him. Unfortunately while only a handful of them remained the Dohz was among them, along with three other Tribytes.

"Nice job Cragalanche, but we're not out of the woods yet!" Viridi hoped there would be time for a proper congratulations after this mini invasion was all said and done with, but for now she needed everyone to keep their guard up.

Cragalanche was ready to rev up another punch. there wasn't any earth or dirt he could manipulate, but he was ready to show the enemy he was still plenty powerful without it.

With Dark Pit still on her back Phosphora considered her options.

She could make a retreat and fly back to the Lunar Sanctum to drop off Dark Pit. Then she could get back to helping Cragalanche, but she was sure that carrying Dark Pit would make her an even bigger target then Cragalanche's weak point. not to mention her speed was severely limited with Dark Pit on her back.

"H-Hey Phosphora?"

Phosphora froze, that was Dark Pit's voice. "Pittoo its gonna be okay! Don't worry Cragalanche is going to take care of everything. Did you know he's way tougher than he looks! And he already looks tough, you can't imagine how tough he is when no one hits his weak sp-" Phosphora knew she was rambling but there was an honest belief in her heart that Cragalanche would take care of everything. He 'd already taken out two of the three Tribytes, now there was only one and the Dohz to take care of.

Phosphora felt Dark Pit take in a shaky breath, "...I'm scared."

Phosphora opened her mouth to say something, anything that would make him feel better, but there was nothing she could spit out. She decided to answer back in the best way possible, by getting her and Dark Pit back to safety.

The knowledge of Dark Pit being semi-conscious gave Phosphora a slight advantage to her retreat. It let her warn him to hang on tight. "Pittoo, if you're still with me hold on and don't let go. okay?" Phosphora waited a bit before feeling a weak hand grip her scarf.

Phosphora smiled and a slight jolt of electricity crackled around her. She wouldn't be at her full power and speed, but if anyone could handle an escort mission it was her. And with the Aurum occupied with Cragalanche this gave her the perfect window of opportunity to fly her way back to the surface of the Lunar Sanctum. Phosphora hoped that being out in the open wouldn't be too dangerous, considering she didn't know her way around the Sanctum well enough to know any inward entrances.

A thundering boom announced the start of her and Dark Pit's retreat.

Cragalanche, hearing this boom a few seconds after Phosphora took off was startled enough to turn around to see if it was any Aurum enemies. In doing so, his weak point was fully exposed, and he ended up taking a point blank shot to it.

Phosphora heard Viridi cry out to him, complaining that he really should have gotten that fixed by now. Phosphora just winced, she was positive that Cragalanche would be fine after one blow, but there was no telling how long he was going to last if the Aurum caught on that was his weak point.

As Phosphora winded around the Lunar Sanctum to try and find any place to land she was constantly looking behind herself to see if she was being followed. The possibility of any Aurum following her and Dark Pit might have been around zero percent, but she still felt the need to absolutely make sure they were in the clear.

Almost everywhere Phosphora flew was covered in a gold sheen that looked to be still under construction, but she knew if she didn't land soon the possibility of the Aurum turning her attention to her instead of Cragalanche would grow. "Okay. Hard landing it is." she internally yelled at Arlon for not completing more of the Lunar Sanctum before their visit.

It was only after landing feet first on hopefully solid ground did Phosphora remember Arlon might have heard her earlier insult. "Oh well, he can take it."

Phosphora tapped her foot on unfamiliar ground under her feet, making sure it was stable enough to land on.

Around them were a number of odd construction pieces and scaffoldings that Phosphora could only figure were being used to build the walls surrounding them. The place was still obviously under construction and Phosphora knew Arlon's tendency for illusions well. There was still a chance some were still active without him knowing she was going to land here. Once Phosphora felt confident enough that where she was standing was solid, she gently set Dark Pit down.

"...Wait. How am I gonna put him down?!" with her one free hand Phosphora slapped her forehead. How could she have been so stupid to forget that part of the plan? Behind her Phosphora heard a soft and sort of hazy laughter coming from Dark Pit. "At least one of us finds this funny." never mind that Phosphora was starting to realize how heavy Dark Pit was.

"Stop complaining Phosphora, we got your back!" Viridi said to her. "Viridi?! Aren't you supposed to be helping Cragalanche?!" then on cue Cragalanche landed beside Phosphora, creating a huge crater and trapping themselves in said huge crater.

Cragalanche locked down at the huge hole they were now stuck in and then at Phosphora, as if she was supposed to help. "You're on your own big guy." with her hands full with Dark Pit, Phosphora couldn't help even if she wanted to.

"Wait! If Cragalanche is here-stuck in a hole. Then what about the Aurum?!" they couldn't have followed him here, could they? Phosphora looked around the sky above them but the Dohz and the Tribyte didn't seem to be following.

The sound of Viridi's loud laughter echoed in her head, and apparently Dark Pit's too since Phosphora heard his familiar annoyed groan. "You don't have to worry about that. Because guess who just got the Lunar Sanctum's defense systems working?"

Phosphora looked at Cragalanche to see if he had the answer, he shrugged at her. "Um...? Was it Cragalanche?"

"Craga-? No! It was me and Arlon! Duh!" Viridi didn't even know how Phosphora came to that conclusion and quite frankly she didn't want to know.

"Mistress Viridi, its not polite for a Goddess to lie. I did most of the work, while you yourself simply stood by the window and yelled several obscenities at the enemy."

"You don't have to tell them that! Tell them about the final counterattack instead!"

"Final counterattack?" now Phosphora's interest was piqued. Whatever Viridi and Arlon had up their sleeves was going to have to be big if it was going to take out a Dohz and...well anything could probably take out a Tribyte unless Cragalanche took it out already.

"Yup!" Viridi beamed with pride, it was easy to tell she was doing so even through telepathic communication. "Its kind of a shame we're wasting such a cool attack on like, two enemies but I think we're gonna get the message across pretty well if you ask me."

The ground under Cragalanche and Phosphora began to shake. It got so bad Phosphora was forced to take to the air again. She didn't want to, since she was sure Dark Pit was in more danger of falling off while she was flying then if she was standing still no matter how much she hated to be grounded.

The scaffoldings around them shook along with the ground. Several of recently built walls and structures looked like they were about to collapse, several tools still left over on the scaffoldings fell down and hit the ground. One scaffolding near Phosphora and Cragalanche dropped a hammer and a few bricks, narrowly missing Phosphora when she moved away from it just in time.

"Yikes. That would have really messed me up." especially since she wasn't wearing a helmet.

"You will have to accept my apologies Miss Phosphora and Master Cragalanche, I have not had the chance to adjust that particular area with shock absorbers. Thus, there might be slightly more shaking than usual."

"Slightly?!" Phosphora adjusted Dark Pit on her back, making sure he was still there, "I think we were safer back up in space."

She heard a combination of Arlon and Viridi laughing together, never a good sign for the people they were laughing at. "Oh no, we still really needed you guys to get out of the way for this."

From Viridi's point of view, the remaining Dohz was floating right where they wanted it. In front of the Lunar Sanctum's newly activated laser.

"Would you like to do the honors, Mistress Viridi?" Arlon directed Viridi to a very large red button on the control panel. It was almost comedically large but considering the thing it was designed to do, it was almost fitting. Viridi dramatically gasped and gestured towards herself, also dramatically, "Meee?! Why Arlon, I never thought you'd ask!"

Through Phosphora's confused yells and Cragalanche's loud complaining that he was still stuck in a hole Viridi confidently walked up to the button, visualizing the Aurum and space pirates that dared to invade on their special day off. A picnic and good time ruined all because of them. She was livid, filled with rage, and just very upset. Then to injure Dark Pit like they did and try and hurt Phosphora and Cragalanche too...

That was the final straw. It was payback time.

Viridi slammed down on the button as hard as she could even through her sore palms. Behind her she heard Arlon lightly clap, "Mistress Viridi, I believe you will not want to miss this."

The Goddess bolted to the window that showed a clear view of the Lunar Sanctum's lunar laser and the Dohz floating in front of it. It was still following its last orders to invade the Lunar Sanctum and was floating closer and closer to the space laser. It was almost too perfect, but that just made it even better to Viridi.

On the surface, Phosphora and Cragalanche noticed a slight green glow on the horizon and immediately knew what was going on. Some thanks went to Viridi for shouting at them to close their eyes and apologizing to them for having to miss something so cool. Phosphora took her warning to heart and floated to hide behind Cragalanche, to protect her and Dark Pit from the oncoming attack.

Viridi curled her fingers into a fist and smiled, as the laser finally finished its short charge.

"Don't you dare mess with the Forces of Nature again!"

With another loud shake, the laser finally fired.

Viridi and Arlon sighed, watching the Dohz and the remaining Tribyte disintegrate into pieces, those pieces becoming nothing but space particles.

And just like that, space was quiet again.

Save for the several questions Viridi started to ask about Dark Pit.

---

-the party comes to an end-

Dark Pit looked up to the ceiling of the hot springs he was soaking in. The steam covered most of it, but he could somewhat make out the star covered ceiling. All sorts of what Arlon called 'galaxies' covered the space above him, shining just bright enough to make it past the steam. Though he noticed some of them weren't shining as much as their neighbors.

Sick with looking at broken stars Dark Pit sunk himself lower into the hot spring and let the healing water continue to do its job.

At this point there wasn't much that the hot spring could heal. His injury from before was already healed after Dark Pit took a quick dive into the spring. Instead Dark Pit was hoping that the hot spring could heal away the anxious feeling he was still felt.

He was sure Pit called out to him for help.

Help for something that was out of his control.

Whatever danger Pit was in, Dark Pit was sure Palutena was there to help him. That might have explained why he was still around and kicking. Pit was fine, Dark Pit was fine.

Dark Pit sunk even lower into the water, making sure that its restorative properties did its job and fully healed him of whatever injury he might have taken after he was supposedly knocked out.

Well, it wasnt that he was supposedly knocked out. If suddenly going from floating in the middle of space to waking up half submerged in hot water and being so surprised by that he almost knocked Phosphora out proved anything, it proved that he had been unconscious.

But he sure didn't remember being knocked out. 'You're asleep while you're unconscious, Pittoo! That's why you can't remember anything!' Dark Pit could hear Pit happily explaining. Dark Pit frowned, of course Pit would know all about that but he never thought the same thing would happen to him.

On instinct Dark Pit flapped his wings behind him. The action splashed a little water around, but he was sure Arlon wouldn't mind. Too much.

Dark Pit still remembered just how wrong it felt to look at Pit after he burned his wings off. How still and lifeless he looked. How no matter how much or how loud Dark Pit called out to him, Pit would not wake up.

He started to worry, did he look that helpless to the Forces of Nature while he was knocked out? The last thing Dark Pit wanted was to look weak to others, the second to last thing he wanted to do was have other people worry about him.

Yet, he knew that on the other side of the hot spring doors were the rest of the Forces of Nature just waiting for him to come out and tell them that he was okay. Dark Pit was more than happy to do just that, he also needed to apologize for waking up and freaking out and almost attacking them with a swift kick.

But he couldn't just lie to them all like that, not after everything they'd done.

Just as Dark Pit thought about taking another dive under the hot springs his left eye was filled with another wave of sharp pain. Dark Pit let out a quiet gasp, hoping that no one outside could hear him.

He looked down at his own reflection on the hot spring's water. Just like the first couple of times there was no injury to speak of where Dark Pit felt the pain coming from. He knew it was his eye that was cause of the pain, not because he could tell from the pain but something in him just knew that that was where he was hurt.

Not 'him' him of course, the other side of him.

The other side of the coin.

A knock at the door cut off Dark Pit's unconscious attempts to try and connect to his twin. "Wha-? What is it?!" Dark Pit asked. He was glad whoever knocked was polite enough to do so, but he really wished there was an easier way to let him know someone wanted his attention without scaring him half to death. Again.

There was a few seconds of hushed murmuring behind the door before Dark Pit got an answer to his question. "You alive in there Pittoo?" Dark Pit heard Viridi yell out, immediately he heard the whispering of her voice again asking herself why she worded her question like that. Fortunately for Viridi, Dark Pit neither had the time or energy to call her out on it so he settled for answering her question in the most straightforward manner he could think of.

He got out of the hot spring and opened the door.

"Watch it!" Viridi jumped back, narrowly missing being hit by the door. Once the scare wore off her anger melted away back into concern. Behind her were the other members of the Forces of Nature, looking just as worried as Viridi was now. They were glad that Dark Pit's injury was healed but there was no telling how he would react after all of that happened to him. Arlon had made it a point that Dark Pit might be a little more sensitive because of it, but Viridi waved off his concerns and insisted that Dark Pit was tougher than he looked.

Dark Pit was only a little unnerved at how everyone was staring at him.

"Uh...What are you staring at?" he asked, breaking the tension.

Phosphora was the first to speak up, "We're staring at you! Are you okay? You took a pretty big hit back there!" none of them actually managed to see what it was that hit Dark Pit but they had their guesses of it either being an Aurum or some space pirate that somehow survived being launched out into space by Cragalanche.

It didn't take very long to figure out why those were their only two guesses but either way they were still worried.

"I'm fine. I mean, it only hurts a little now soooo thanks, I guess." Dark Pit looked away, embarrassed. He was tempted to full on run back into the hot springs when he heard Viridi laugh. "You don't need to thank us you bonehead! You would have..." she paused and quickly realized she was still surrounded by the other members of the Forces of Nature, "...youuuu would have been sad to lose a valuable member of my army!" Viridi proudly corrected herself, looking up to the roof proudly.

"I believe what Mistress Viridi meant to say was, I'm sure you would have done the same for any of us."

"Don't listen to Arlon! That's not what I meant!" Viridi yelled, but no one seemed to pay any attention to her.

"Yeah, I don't think I could." Dark Pit flapped his wings, a few drops from the hot spring splashed around the room. "Can't fly. Remember?"

"I think its the thought that counts." Phosphora added. Cragalanche nodded alongside her, agreeing with Phosphora's opinion on the matter.

"Whatever you say..." there was no point arguing when he knew they were right.

---

-pack it up folks-

After a small reunion everyone decided to go back to the Lunar Sanctum control room and wait while Arlon did a quick scan of the area for any stray Aurum or pirates.

Viridi decided it was time for the majority of them to head back home. "I've had my fill of excitement for the month. The faster we get back to my temple the better!" for the first time in years all of Viridi's troops were in absolutely full agreement with her.

"Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong this was fun, but it was way funner when we our lives weren't, you know? In danger." Phosphora got enough of fighting for her life whenever Viridi sent her on missions, she never thought a simple trip would result in something that almost got one of them killed.

In retrospect however, she really should have.

Dark Pit looked around the room, everyone looked tired and it was obvious why. It was because of him. He was the reason why everyone felt this way. If he hadn't gotten hit so easily the space pirates and the Aurum would have been easily dealt with and they could have gotten to-

"Hold it! I know that look on your face!" Viridi pointed straight at Dark Pit. Dark Pit stepped back and looked at her, confused, "W-What are you talking about?! What face?!" obviously it was his own face she was talking about, but there was no way Viridi was reading his mind or could read his emotions. As far as he knew only Pit and sometimes Palutena were capable of doing that.

"Don't try and hide it!" Viridi walked up to him stopping just short of stepping on his toes, "You're making that same stupid expression you always make when you feel guilty about something!"

"What? I am not! And I never feel guilty!" Dark Pit put his hands on his hips and looked away, half in anger and half to make sure Viridi couldn't see his face anymore, "Never!" he said making sure everyone understood.

Viridi let out a loud "HA!" and continued to laugh after it. "Oh, please Pittoo. If I had a quarter for every time I saw you looking that down I would have at least enough to buy a candy bar!"

"...What's a quarter?"

"That doesn't matter!" Viridi yelled out, not ready to explain the existence of other forms of monetary goods to Dark Pit of all people.

Now a little more confused than upset Dark Pit flinched when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. before he could stop himself, he instinctually turned around and hovered his hand over the Silver Bow hanging off his back. Viridi's surprised and then worried looking face didn't make him feel any better, especially when he remembered she was the reason he still had his Bow. If Viridi hadn't noticed it missing, the Silver Bow would probably have joined the very same space junk it was shooting at earlier.

Dark Pit was tempted to look away again or even run out of the room before Viridi started speaking again. "Look, Pittoo. I don't know what's running through that weird and small little head of yours. But I hope you know that the whole thing that happened today wasn't your fault."

"She's right! I mean it would have been cool if we got rid of the aliens and got to jump around the room, but hey easy come-easy go, yeah?" Phosphora helpfully explained, "I thought you would be madder at the alien pirates cause they didn't let you bounce around the moon?"

Phosphora was right, Dark Pit was furious at them for taking away his chance of getting to float around. He knew it wouldn't be anywhere near close to flying but, if Arlon was to be believed it was the closest thing he was ever going to get to it, without the help of Viridi or Palutena.

However, even if they were right about him being upset about that, they were wrong about it being the only thing upsetting him. There was also the matter on how Dark Pit clearly felt his twin cry out for help in the strangest way he'd ever heard. From what Dark Pit heard of Pit, he sounded desperate, almost mad at him even. Of course, Dark Pit didn't think Pit was incapable of those emotions, he just never thought they would manifest like that.

Whatever was happening with Pit, Dark Pit needed to find out right away. And by himself.

It was unlikely anyone else would understand what was going on, and maybe once he did find out what was happening he could ask the others for help but he felt that was just wishful thinking. "Okay, I am!" he yelled loudly, "I guess...I'm just mad I got hit that easily." if he needed to admit something else to keep that hidden from them then that was fine. It wasn't lying, it was easy to convince himself it wasn't. Dark Pit hated lying coming from anyone.

Viridi looked to be thinking over his words while Phosphora immediately accepted his response. "Come on, you don't think all of us win all the time, right? I'm glad you were on our side otherwise I'm not sure we could have taken them." to say that Dark Pit (and Pit) were the strongest among them would be an understatement. Phosphora was even starting to wonder if both twins could rival the power some Gods.

Viridi sighed and looked at Dark Pit again. She noticed that his body language was still tense, and his wings were twitching. Obvious signs that he was still hiding something from them. But if there was anything Viridi learned after living with Dark Pit was that Angels were a lot more complicated to deal with than Gods or even Demigods. Maybe, it would be better to have Dark Pit tell her what was bugging him when he felt like it.

As little sense as that made to her, something in Viridi's gut told her that was the right call to make.

"Alright, well just know that you did a good job out there Pittoo." for a second after her compliment to him she saw his eyes sparkle. He was more starved for compliments than Viridi thought.

A few minutes later Arlon made his grand return. Everyone in the room, except for Arlon held their breaths in hope of some good news. "Mistress Viridi, I can happily and safely report there are no signs of Aurum or space pirates in the general area."

A sigh of relief swept over everyone, especially Dark Pit.

"And, if I may be so bold, I believe Master Cragalanche is growing impatient with the wait."

True to Arlon's word Cragalanche was currently tapping at his arm as if he were wearing some sort of giant wristwatch on his wrist. "Ugh! You know just because I said we're leaving soon doesn't mean we're leaving so soon! Patience is a virtue Cragalanche, I thought you of all people would know that!" Viridi's words cut straight through him like a river rapid, and Cragalanche was subdued into moping by Phosphora.

"There, there big guy. We'll be home soon and then you can lay around all you want." Phosphora patted his head, then turned her attention to Dark Pit, "And hey little guy, don't stand there moping too. I can deal with one party pooper but I draw the line at two! So, cheer up!"

While Viridi walked to Arlon to say her goodbyes, Dark Pit made his way over to Phosphora and Cragalanche. He didn't even bother to look at them. Cragalanche, now out of their short-lived funk, made a small noise of concern and lightly bumped Dark Pit on the arm. Even a light bump was enough to hurt and Dark Pit rubbed his arm in pain and pouted at him. Cragalanche apologized profusely in his own special way and Dark Pit was quick to forgive him, but he didn't look any happier after.

Phosphora took notice of this and decided to try her hand at cheering Dark Pit up. "This was sure a big day, huh? I bet Pit is gonna flip when he hears about this."

Dark Pit grabbed his own arms and took in a sharp breath, Phosphora didn't notice this and continued.

"-you told me he's got all this crazy stories and look at you now! You have one too! Hey, mind if I tag along when you tell him about today? I wanna see the look on his face, I bet its gonna be priceless!"

Dark Pit said nothing back, and once Phosphora read the room she knew it was time to shut up. That left only Cragalanche to do all the talking.

Which as you can imagine, did not go well.

Still with Arlon, Viridi looked at the three with worry. "Arlon, do you think I can handle this?" she knew deep inside she would have no problem dealing with a moody Angel or whatever secrets he was hiding, but it never hurt to have some extra encouragement.

Viridi wondered for a moment if this was how Dark Pit felt.

"I think you'll do a fine job Mistress Viridi. None of our comrades are easy to deal with, I myself exempt of course."

"You?! Exempt?!"

Arlon continued as if Viridi's words were nothing more than dust in the wind, "-but I have hope that you'll make it through this little ordeal just as you believe in my ability to rebuild Lunar Sanctum!"

"You really believe in me that much?" Viridi asked, wide eyed.

Arlon chuckled at her question. "Why Mistress Viridi, do you really believe in me that much?"

"Of course I do you idiot!" Viridi's outburst was loud enough to grab the attention of the other three Forces of Nature, if only for a second before they went back to thinking about more important things.

Viridi however, was far from quiet. "You showed me everything you did to make sure nothing like the...you know what ever happens again! You made me feel better and safer that the new Lunar Sanctum is going to be fine! How am I not supposed to believe in you?!" Viridi panted and sighed, out of breath.

Arlon said nothing. Then a small smile crossed his face, "It is just as you said Mistress Viridi, I showed you proof of my achievements and I reassured you of your worries about the safety of the Lunar Sanctum. Just as you have showed me that I have nothing to worry about with you and my other Forces of Nature comrades."

"I-? I did what?" Viridi stepped back and was already going red in the face with embarrassment.

"I am happy to say that this visit allowed me to see you interacting with everyone present and I am delighted to see you conversing with them more. Especially Young Master Dark Pit. Dare I say, the two of you might even be close friends. Not to mention, I am quite surprised to see you being considerate of other people's feelings. It almost brings a tear to my eye."

"Arlon, stop talking." Viridi looked down at the ground when she felt something wet stream down her face, "Please."

"Why of course Mistress Viridi, I would not want to keep you here all night, would I?"

Viridi wasted no time in running back to where everyone was waiting for her, but not before jumping up and giving Arlon the biggest hug she could muster. "Thanks, Arlon." a hushed voice said, it was Viridi's voice, but it was barely noticeable over Phosphora's shock filled gasp and Dark Pit's silent surprise.

It took a couple of seconds, but after being taken by surprise Arlon hugged Viridi back. Offering a just as quiet "You're welcome, Mistress Viridi."

The hug was over as soon as it happened and then before Dark Pit, Phosphora and Cragalanche knew it, Viridi was standing in front of them. Just then a bright orange light started to surround them. "I-Viridi...You...?" Phosphora struggled to say, a part of her kind of wanted to ask for a hug too, but she mostly was curious about what she and Arlon talked about that could have led up to that.

Phosphora looked over to Arlon for any sort of clue, but all she saw was him happily waving goodbye. As the familiar orange light overtook him he faded away along with the Lunar Sanctum.

Among the sounds of chirping birds and a rustling wind all three Forces of Nature could still clearly hear Viridi's voice as the Fortress of Nature slowly came back into view.

"Tell anyone about that and you're fired."

---

-i had a dream where everyone disappeared-

Alone in his room, Dark Pit watched as the dark curtains of his room silently fluttered in the night breeze. The terrible feeling he felt at the very core of his soul grew with each gust of wind.

"Pit...What happened to you?"

---

sorry to keep you waiting? this chapter was only a little hard to write , it was the next one that i ended up getting sick three times writing which took a WHILE so thank you for waiting and i hope this chapter wasnt too much of a mess since i edited with a hazy brain ;w;