The air was dry, unbearably so. Even if it was certainly a hot day, anyone with the half of half a brain could tell that something was wrong. Perhaps not wrong, maybe it was just a especially dry and hot day, but things were not in the right track, Through all the tension, barely to be seen inbetween the heat waves that pierced the tired eyes of the people of Sparthens and made even walking feel like climbing the tallest of firey mountains, the day had remained quiet, the people living their daily lives with the happinness and confidence that comes with such lives. Up until the Collosseum erupted and all hell broke loose.

It could be felt in the air, it could be heard in the waters and it oculd be seen in the skies; the Guardian was loose in Sparthens. The clouds were black with smoke and ash; the rivers were dry with the heat. Claw marks scarred those buildings sturdy enough to resist the unstopping flames. Quickly, the townsguard, rather than fight off the mad beast, started evacuating the people on mass, from inside the walls, to the growing fields outside, hoping the scorching would not reach any. Still, even if the flames were somehow contained and died out in shame or anger, it was not a day to celebrate; the sickening smell of burning bodies was far too common for the people of Hellas. Sparthens being a land cursed with such knowledge becoming the norm; war after war and beast after beast, its old glory lay only in the broken pots and artifacts of old.. As the light of day shrunk against the fire of the beast, becoming almost shadow, another, smaller light hid from the carnage.

It was a star, sent from the heavens to warn of something, or perhaps to congratulate or give advice, be that to a lord or a simple farm boy. No one knew for sure. The people, most observant, had seen it flicker in the night and sleep next to the tall grass in the city's river canals. And yet, no matter how tender and joyous it seemed, it too was in danger from the beast. It could have been the people's prayers for help, any kind would suffice. A bit of snow or a rainstorm were more than enough to aid Sparthens. Even so, the people were growing desperate as they saw their home ravaged, and times grew desperate so. However, desperate times called for heros, as tell the legends, and a hero was exactly what Sparthens needed that day. And perhaps by divine providence, perhaps as an answer to the weeping and people of the people exiled from their homes, perhaps by pure luck, there came a hero.

As he fell down from the skies, he drew his weapon close to him. The streets were barren, the far away weeping echoing through them. He knew the beast. Evacuating was foolish, for its hunger never dried out; the only way out was through blood. He ran quickly and swiftly through broken pavements, burning fences and collapsed rooftoops, witnessing on his way the beast's mark on Sparthens. He saw a little girl, no older than six winters trapped beneath wooden rubble. He helped her out of it.

"Are you hurt?" he asked quietly The girl shook her head, only minor leg wounds, those which time could heal. "Go find somewhere to hide and don't come out." He then began to run again in search of his foe.

"Mister, the dog went that way! Where the men in armour fight!" she told the angel. "Will you kill it?"

"Yes." He answered as he hugged the poor little girl. "Yes I will."

"What is your name? The adults will want to know who it was who saved them. That way you'll get your own square, just like Viridi!" the girl said excitedly.

Viridi? Here? Thought the angel, but he scurried off such thoughts. "Name's Pit." He said as he began to run forward. "Just Pit." As he spoke, a light enveloped him and catapulted him through the skies of the city. The brown dirty streets and road were black like charcoal; the once white and royal buildings, prideful and immaculate, now were grey ruins. Reaching its massive colloseum, Pit's eyes fell on the beast: Twinbellows, the Guardian of the Underworld.

As he landed, the massive flaming wolf looked at him with its four eyes, two for each head. Its endless rows of teeth bickered at him like small swords, flame erupting from them like twisted ghosts. The beast bore its usual look of hunger and rage, putting souls to rest rather than guarding them from the entrance to the Underworld. As Pit looked at the destruction around it; the broken colloseum, the scattered armour and the burning pits, his anger grew, knowing fuly well who was responsible for such horror.

"Medusa!" He clamored to the goddess "You shall pay for this! The Underworld will bleed!" He waited for the goddess' face and body to appear in the darkened skies but no such answer came, which meant the time for battle neared. With his trusty bow, made from pure starlight of the heavens for which he fought, he loaded the bow with arrows and fury; for he was a hero, but an angry one, the beast would be slayed and the dead mourned.

As he charged forward, so did the beast, Twinbellows lunged at him with great might, its right claw coming close to Pit. The heat tingled every cell in Pit's body, and the smoke covered the horizon, but Pit rolled to the side at just the right moment. Twinbellows passed him by in his rampage, and Pit shot his gleaming arrows, striking the left head. As it turned around, scorching claw marks left unbedded in the pale rock of the Colloseum, Twinbellows used the rock to lunge itself forwards yet again. Using his divine gifts, Pit jumped high in the air, enough to land on the right head as the body of the beast passed him by. There, he shot and stabbed at it, the thick and fiery skin opposing to his bowblade's cut, but the divine metal pushed through Pit's foe, and tore one side down. Twinbellows' shaking threw him off the beast's back and into the centre of the arena, where a flaming laser took him by surprise, barely activating his shield orbitars. AS it threw him back with great speed, his back met the wall. Pain overcame him, but he was not to falter. Pit stood once more and ran at the beast again, shhoting arrows as he ran. Dodging another swipe from Twinbellows, he jumped onto the other part of the colloseum, off from the arena and onto the inner seats. He began to climb the seats, a plan having formed in the angel's mind. The beast tried to bite him twice with great anger to no avail, as the little winged man jumped around the clumsy beast's attacks.

Seeing no way to instantly end the battle, Pit took it to the streets. He sprinted through the ghostly wreckage of the city, and the beast followed suit, destroying further the city as a volcanic eruption wherever it ran to. A tiring race across the city ensued; Pit dodging gracefully the beasts many attacks, both meelee and ranged, while thinking of a strategy that would allow him to retain at least half his body. As he ran through the main street, a treck upwards to the top of the hill in which it sat upon, jumping the various stairs and ramps, he saw a guard tower, untouched by the vicious fight. Pit ducked into the nearby ruins of a house as soon as he heard Twinbellow's laser. Narrowly dodging the deadly fire, the beast seemed to lose him.

He went under many stones and pillars left over. From time to time, he could see through small cracks and crevices the wolf's hungry red eyes looking for him all over the place, his interest in the city gone for good, it seemed. As soon as he could, Pit braced himself and began running anew, an open way to the tower extending before him. He left the old would-be house and worked his legs like never before. His plan, to use his most powerful divine gift from afar, however, was quickly frustrated, as the beast eventually found him. Eyeing him from a top a building, hovering over Pit with its flames, saliva and deadly stare, it growled and then roared at him. He quickly climbed through all four sides of the rectangular tower, reaching the highest point of the roof. Twinbellows followed suit, not missing the chance to swipe and bite at Pit, who not by skill but by luck made it to the top unscathed. There, his plan took et another form.

Pit jumped high up into the air once more, towering over the Guardian. It too sensed something was wrong, and with flame and might lunged upwards into the air, both of its heads opening up to devour the angel. As Pit charged his gift, a great laser, sent directly by his goddess from the skies down into the earth, he saw the beast's fangs nearing him.

As he started to fall quicker and quicker, all his efforts went into concentrating enough energy to give power to the blast. He inched closer and closer to the beast's rush into the skies, and just as he was about to be devoured by a hellstorm of flame, energy pulsating like lightining crackled around him. His whole body shook both with excitement and force, as the laser came down from the skies and struck his foe with great might.

As a white light enveloped the area, the smoke and fire began to diminish. The embers in the air died out as the ash began to flow from the pace where mere moments ago, the Guardian of the Underworld laid. As a strange silence filled the air, Pit wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked at his sorroundings. The fight was won.

And yet they had lost.

He wondered what had called for such an attack. Innocent people had died. A town half destroyed, and all for nothing. He hated being a hero at times. And yet, he always felt the need to be one. What was his purpose then? To clean the Sky Kingdom's floors? No, he was born a fighter, and as a fighter he lived, as a fighter he had to live. As he began to take his leave, he tried talking to his guardian goddess, yet no answer seemed to come, no voice could be heard, which was quite the strange phenomenon. Moreso, even stranger was that no heeding came to him when, out of nowhere, the flames started to spin around themselves, and when Pit noticed it, it was far too late: the burning image of Twinbellows heads was about to strike him again, perhaps from Hades itself. Pit questioned many things in those moments, until he realized that his not-so-dead foe would strike him, and kill him.

The mysterious falmes inched closer, the heat almost melting the skin off his bone, as if they had somehow taking a stronger, more deadly and vile stance against him. It looked like Twinbellows, but they were completely different entities. He could even see a hint of black flame in the eyes and fangs, something he had never seen before. He feared and accepted his fate when a saving grace appeared from the sky; a great rock fell and crushed the flames dead, saving Pit from his surprising demise.

Pit looked up in search of his goddess, but found no one there. He wondered if that enourmous sword – as tall as him and much thicker – was some kind of volcanic remain from lands far away or something from beyond the skies, but saw nothing near him. Until his eyes wandered off to the top of the city's ruined wall that extended behind him.

"Up here, kid" rang a voice. At first, Pit was disoriented, but his eyes eventually settled on a masculine figure, ragged with spare armour parts and dark clothing, that of a traveller. He looked carefully at this new face in front of him, and at first Pit was dumbfounded; a true warrior stood atop him, a man with long raven hair, and scraggly beard, his face bearing scars all over as a probable testimony of his countless battles. His arms, tanned and strong as rock lay undiscovered, and were the ones responsible for such force when using the stone blade that had just killed Twinbellows a the second time over. As he jumped down, Pit got a better look at the man. He was a human of around 40 years of age, and yet, as one could tell, he remained exceptionally strong. "Never thought I'd see an angel this soon. Hope that doesn't mean I've kicked the bucket."

"Um…" began Pit, suddenly feeling all too small. He could face titanic beasts, but for some reason, the physical presence of such a man made him nervous. "Who-"

"Name's Magnus." Said the human, somehow lifting his mountainous blade once more. "And I believe thanks are in order."

"Y-yes, of course", Pit said hurriedly. He then bowed. "Thank thee for saving my life."

Magnus looked confused at Pit, but quickly began walking in the other direction. "I don't know who the Hades "thee" is, but sure. I just wanted to know what an angel could tell me about a certain place."

Pit quickened his pace as to remain at Magnus' side. "Which land? There's many out there…"

"Well… I don't really know its name… Honestly, I'm half guessing here. But I need to know the whereabouts of a… A man named Gaol." At the sound of that named, Pit tensed up.

"What for?" his expression undescifrable.

Magnus stayed quiet for a moment, and then spoke with most resolution, the vertainty of a man on a quest speaking wordlessly along him. "To kill him."

"Well" said Pit "in that case."

As the sun set down upon Sparthens, peace was finally back. The smoke had cleared into a coast of stars against a pitch black sea, and the light of torches and small lamps illuminated the would be white marble paths of the city, as they stood on the top of the agora's cliff, Pit sitting in its railing, Magnus laying on his back, so they had spoken that afternoon the hero and the warrior.

"So this Galghadar… How far is it?"

"It's on the other side of Hellas. Quite far away for a lone man, for a lone anyone, really. It lies at a bird's flight from Hyrule, separated by the great Gorge, which no bridge can cross. Mountains sorround it and its many fortresses from the free and good lands. The Reaper's Fotress peak threatens the land of, but the last time reapers have been spotted crossing the lands was… Well, there never was one. Not even those mindless death-servants wish to cross the Haraldrax."

"Quite the place, this Galghadar. I just need to get to Gaol's Castle. Can't ya take me there with those wings of yours?" spoke Magnus as he stood up and messed with Pit's wings most disrespectfully.

Pit laughed meekly. "Well… It would be of no good. I've seen the castle once from afar; a terrible and dark fortress on the edge of the Gorge itself, its central tower everlooming and filling the lands with shade. Hyrule is lucky, you see; the easiest pathway in and out of Galghadar is the longest way around; through the murky and infested swamps of the Airdyr's border, through miles and miles of shaded woods, with mist like poison and nights like Hades. There, sorrounded by the worst of the armies of the Underworld, lies Gaol's fortress."

The night stayed quiet. Pit and Magnus talked about their fights, each to their stories, finding common groud and the base for friendship. But the winter was gowing cold, and Pit felt for reasons beyond him that friendships wouldn't last in those times. Slowly but surely, voices could be heard, the people returning to their homes, or what little remained of them. As the night grew longer, chants could be heard. Songs of sorrow Pit thought, and right he was, and sorrow filled his heart.

"He took something from me, y'know?" Magnus spoke somberly, shad ecovering his dimly lit eyes. "Gaol. Him and those monsters from below."

"That is their way with anyone. A wicked and vile way, neverending."

"It still… Hurts…" he said, caressing softly his left arm's big scar. "Gods, it's been so long."

Pit touched Magnus' shoulder reassuringly, his angelic way of life taking control. "Those wounds that cannot be seen often hurt the deepest."

"This was no chance meeting, I feel." Magnus said, looking at the starry nightsky.

"None are." Replied the angel.

"You're a good kid. Erm… Angel. God?" the mercenary said half-jokingly.

Pit laughed. "Hero is fine. It's what I do."

As the night passed on, there came a time to bid farewell, and so Magnus of Cynthia marched away into the East, heading for the dark land of Galghadar. As Pit was left alone, he yearned for his very own home, and prepared for his departure homeward. He climbed to the top of the cliffside's railing and streched his wings.

Whenever you want, my Goddess.

And so Pit plunged into the abyss before him. However, the blinding light he once saw in his fight with the two-headed beast and which always carried him on and off the many battlefields he saw, never appeared. And so, he fell, and fear overtook him.

"LADY PALUTEN-" he cried as he unwillingly hurried downwards, but his lady never did seem to come. Suddenly, before he struck the sharp rocks at the outskirts of the city's high walls, another light, a different light, softened his fall, although it still dropped Pit into the mud from a horse's height.

As he recovered from yet another heart-attack-inducing experience, he heard a soft and shy laugh. He spoun as to look around himself, but found nothing. He then noticed a tiny glimmer from in between some small but thick bushes. He extended his arms and suddenly a small shining creature jumped towards him, hanging by his right arm. Pit yelped and tried to shake off the mysterious attacker, but it didn't give up. As Pit fell on his back, he came eye to eye with the sneaky creature.

"What the?" he managed to say "You're not Lady Palutena." Pit got up and shook the dirt off him. The shining creature gave him a curious look. "Then again, what on earth are you?"

The creature jumped around Pit, examining him. It went from his head all the way to his toes. Then, it jumped agian and sat on his head. Eyeing the creature carefully in a small puddle, Pit could see its figure resembled a star; a round form with small limbs, big eyes black and shiny, with a golden glow around itself resembling that of the sky above Pit's head. He could also see his own reflection, his brown-tree hair, his shimmering blue eyes, but most of all, his tired face. And yet, Pit felt more invigourated than ever; the fight had left little haste in him, but he longed now to go home. And yet, he couldn't…

The creature tapped his head and jumped down from his head. Pit caught it with his muddy and rough hands, and instinctively brought it up towards his face, staring intently at it, most confused. It then brought its hand forward and touched his forehead, and in a bright gleam, Pit's mind wandered somewhere unbeknownst.

He floated in air, and then in a field of stars. Around him a woman's voice spoke, although Pit would have believed it to be a Goddess, had he not talked to one such. It spoke, a voice smooth as silk, vibrant as a river's running, warm as a home's hearth.

"Hero… Answer the call…" Pit tried to speak up but could not find his voice, as if taken by a sorcery. "Hero…" the voice called again. "You sense it, do you not… The ages fade, and so does hope… And the gods… They are dying…"

Pit was struck by those words. He hurried forwards, but couldn't run. He thought he recognized the voice, as it morphed in and out of existence, but wasn't able to place his memories rightly. The stars around him shifted, forming a sky he had seen only once, in a land far south from Hellas and Sparthens. Then, a vision of sea sorrounded him, deep water up to his neck that threatened to drown him.

"A lost god lives in a lost city… The only hope for the realms beyond. You are such…" Pit saw then the creature floating own towards him. Then behind it, several more, of coulours azure, white and viridescent. One called to Pit, the golden one he had seen before; and said its name; Luma. The voice then rang again, and a faint image of a woman in starlight blue appeared in the distant sea. "Step into the light… And rise, hero!" And with that, Pit awoke.

It was raining as Pit travelled eastwards, hoping to see the sea. It had been two days since his fight with Twinbellows, and, in all honestly, he had grown fond of his new company. "Luma" it aclled itself, although any sense of word articulated had disappeared. Perhaps it could speak only in dreams, Pit didn't know, but enjoyed its quirky habits. It didn't eat, but slept heavily. It understood Pit's language, common tongue and hellarian tongue, but no others he knew. He often found himself wondering about its origin. Surely the lady from the stars had something to do with it; perhaps she had sent Luma, but as to why, remained unknown. What for? What for, if she could speak to him from wherever she roamed, it seemed? Why to him? Where no other heroes in Hespertia?

As he ate what little he could, questions rounded his conscience. Lady Palutena was silent. She had helped him during the fight with the Underworld's guardian, but nothing came form her ever since. Beyond that, Medusa never showed up to claim Twinbellow's action, neither had Hades. A silent mystery stood in front of Pit, and worst of all, one he didn't understand; he could not tell what was wrong, but knew things were off their paths.

That rainy eve, he approached a town, but found it desolate. Some of the buldings were ruined, others still burned. Curious as to what happened, he spotted two corpses, two or three days old as to what he could tell. They semed to have wounded each other to death, and had died mere metres apart.

"Such is the way of war." He told Luma, who shortly after fell asleep in Pit's shoulder. He took a look at the men's amrours. Classic hellerian: light chest armour, big helms, rounded large shields and heavy spears. That was the times the land lived; as the rest of the world grew, Hellas shrank into the past. When Hyrule dominated powder and fire, a land known for its lack of magic but strong science culture, Hellas' cities were stuck with olden technology, not comparable to the old technology of the sorrounding kingdoms. Hyrule had its musquets and pikers, the Mushroom Kingdom its riders and toads, Osternia had its magic and Bionis its steelwork; and Hellas its lances, more akin to toothpicks those days. It felt silly how the hellerian kingdoms squabbled against eachother, be that imperialist Vangellas or maritime Eeria, they all fell short against the shadows of the greater empires.

One man bore the crest of the island of Ryas on his chestplate, far away from the rest of the world. The people of the continent believed them savages, but Pit always felt they were merely different, choosing to spend their time with nature and wildlife rather than with civilization. In that sense, they were the favourites of a certain Nature Goddess… Or perhaps not, now that they had joined the Ylissian Empire, probably out of fear. The man from Ryas was brown skinned, and had died looking at the sky, laying against a crumbling wall. Pit could only hope his last moments had been happy, perhaps his last sight had been his family. The other soldier was a local; an old man from Vangellas. He was old, old as an oak tree. He had a long beard, and a tired look. He seemed out of place against the ruin of the village. Lance in his chest, he laid on his back, his blank eyes staring skyward. His helmet was cracked, and so was the rest of his armour. He didn't belong in a war. No man did.

Vangellas had long pushed the limits of its capabilities; warring against the rest of the lands of Hellas, they were not evil, for they brought peace and culture wherever they went, and not calamity and ruin like others. However, their efforts were mere imitations of the great empire they had once been and they were for naught. Pit decided to give the men proper burial, but became disheartened when he saw just how many soldiers had fallen in the fray, and decided to walk away and continue his journey.

On his third day on the road, he had reached the seas. Luma had been guiding him on and off, becoming angry when Pit lost his way, and sleeping soundly when he was on the right track. And so it had slept until the Silver Ocean could be seen just faintly over a green hill. It shined like silver even with the grey skies of that particular morning. More wreckage of the apparent war between Ryas and Vangellas could be seen, but Pit had grown accustomed to it. When the air tasted of salt and water and the fog rounded up like waves around the dark grey and dark green cliffs of the tempestous coasts, Luma awoke, and hurried to the bottom of the cliffs, falling clumsily through the rocks, but remaining unharmed. It yelped like a child yelped, and such innocent made Pit laugh. As he went down the cliffs far more skillfully, he followed his friend into a cave. For what seemed like hours he traversed the sheer and sharp rocks of the cave, with no light but that of Luma ahead of him. At one time, he swam and dived, barely making it with enough air on his lungs. He was cold, but decided whatever mission the lady of the stars, Luma's master, had given him was well worth the risk. Besides, his own lady of the stars could be in danger, as it was told to him, and, even when trying to keep such twised thought out of his head, he could not help but fear for his lady's life and fret for such ocurrence. The day seemed to pass into night, but it couold have been the cave's opressive darkness. He was disoriented but figured he would be deep beneath the ocean at that point.

He rested for a few hours, exhausted from his long journey, and when he woke up, he cotinued walking. Walking and swimming, he only did such. And as long as he did such, the landscape never changed. Once or twice every couple of hours, he would find bright blue rocks, shining like lamps incruste into the wall, both big and small. The inner parts of them seemed to be alive, as crashing waves could be seen and even heard. After a long while, Pit eventually found his steps feeling lighter and lighter. He realized then he was stepping on floors; man-made floors. Small and dull bricks of pavement could be seen forming circles and wave patterns along the now more even grounds of the cave. Before long, he started finding halves of pillar and arches scattered around destroyed tunnels, perhaps even homes and buildings. He found that very strange; no cities could be found in such lands, not as deep under the sea as he was. The Lost City he was sent to find, that must have been it. After a couple fo twists and turns, stepping over olden wreckage of rocks and bricks, he found an opening in the rock. As he turned a boulder over, its fall echoing through the dark and winding paths he had walked, he saw at the other side of it a set of well maintained stairs.

The air was old older than in any place he had ever been, and Pit was both marvelled and doubtful. Whatever that place was, it was thoroughly hidden, and, in Pit's experience, that only meant a single thing: danger. He silently crept down the surprisingly even stairs, much wider than the cave before allowed. There was no light save for yet again Luma's, who was equally worried.

He walked for a few silent and dreary moments and he reached the end of the stairs. In front of him, another tunnel, and beyond it, a blue light. As he walked forwards, maintaining the same care he had before, he brushed up against the tunnell's walls. When touching them, he felt ages of history, ages of tales untold and unheard by the common man. He felt dried up paint, dried up for a thousand years. Shards of would-be colourful stones contrasted with the smooth eroded wall. In the paint and mosaics, one could see dolphins, as well as sharks and whales, with the ocassional octopus and horse. They were laid in a long parade, as long as the tunnel itself. Some bore jewels, others brought forth carriages of silver and gold. Above them, many other fish, big, small, long, sharp, rounded, grey, green, gold, red and blue swan in every which way. Below the parade, there were other figures: some were homes, though with distinct arches and curves; others were men, and Pit was very confused by that notion. He knew nothing of men who lived in such caves, and even less of kingdoms that had tamed such animals as the ones depicted. He kept going until he reached the end of the tunnel. Luma still slept at his side. When he walked forward, the shining light blinded him for a second, and later mesmerized him.

Yet another pathway laid in front of him, but this one was different. It was made out of glass and steel, with silver glow around it. It was beneath the ocean, and the glass made way for the waves of light of the many waters above it. The same bright stones that illuminated every so often the cave he had dragged himself through now laid in hoard like small mountains of pure light. The floor was of the same pattern as the one in the tunnel, but this one shined, and was well kept for some reason. White marble columns supported the cristal roof above and plants like snakes twisted and turned around them. Worldless, Pit continued. For a moment, he forgot; he forgot about the war, about his visions, about his worry for Lady Palutena, and simply enjoyed such a view. The view of a lifetime, the view of many lifetimes. That of a miracle unseen and undisturbed. He kept walking, now more slowly, admiring the craftsmanship and effort of constructing such a beauty. The mysteries of that strange place now seemed irrelevant, and Pit cared more for never forgetting it; not that it would be hard.

Every step Pit took, the views only became merrier. At first, he could see an open door. Then, he saw further in the distance buildings, blue and white and grey, rounded in their arches and walls, some with towers, others with great porches and fountains. And then, a palace, greater than anything he had seen on land. The same cristal that held the ocean like skies extended all over the city like a bubble, perhaps a speck of light from the surface, but a city greater than any from up close, casted its everchanging lights into the structure. Three great metal columns extended downwards and upwards twisted into a spite of glass, whilst another building made of crystals pure as light stood in the centre below the top of steel. In a sudden rush, a memory befell Pit, that of that very place, ages ago, on a mission with her goddess.

The Seafloor Palace.

"Gods… I cannot believe it!" he exclaimed out loud, his words echoing in the great distance, his excitement growing.

But when his echoes faltered, another voice came through. Deep and old as the oceanfloor, menacing like a sea serpent's shadow, commanding as the waves. And it spoke, and filled Pit with fear. He was no hero then. He was a prey. And he was about to be hunted.