Illuminations

Sequel to Shadows. Pit knew that he wouldn't always be able to hide his friend from Lady Palutena, but he never thought she would find out like this.

I forgot to mention this, but this story and Shadows take place a bit before Medusa's first attack on Skyworld, so Pit is pretty much a young kid. I forgot to mention that in Shadows! D:

Kid Icarus does not belong to me. This idea was not inspired by anything outside of the game itself other than my own imagination. I apologize in advance if this resembles any previously posted work from another source, and any such similarities are purely accidental or coincidental.

...

Pit knew that he wouldn't always be able to hide his friend from Lady Palutena. Though, he never thought she would find out like this. He never expected to be the one to finally rat out the Shadow in the Goddess of Light's temple.

It had all started that morning. Pit woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and almost leapt out of bed, but he hadn't, because his Shadow liked to sleep in. Pit liked to sleep in also, but Lady Palutena always told him that a good angel should get up early so they can be ready for the day. Pit got up early because early was when breakfast was best, and he loved breakfast.

Pit crawled out from underneath the bed sheets and tried to wake up his Shadow, nudging him repeatedly. The dark-winged boy under the covers didn't respond. Pit frowned and poked his head, and this made him shift a little with a mumble. That was weird; his Shadow usually turned into that black smoke when Pit did this, so he couldn't be poked.

Concerned, the young angel pulled back the covers a bit to reveal the Shadow's face, and Pit could tell that something wasn't right. The night-winged angel's breaths sounded funny, and he sounded a bit sniffly, and his forehead was all warm. Did he have a fever? Pit worriedly asked his Shadow how he was feeling, and the boy told him that he felt a bad, hurty feeling inside him, and then coughed a few times. With a quick reassurance, Pit tucked the other boy back under the covers before sneaking down the hallway to get a box of tissues. He also got a bucket, just in case the hurty feeling was a bellyache.

He returned to his room quickly and gave his Shadow a tissue before asking him if he felt better. The dark angel just said the same thing: he felt hurt inside. Pit hoped that this was nothing serious. He could help his Shadow get through a cold, but he didn't know much about medicine or germs. He was young, he wasn't expected to know these things. Besides, if his Shadow was sick, he would have a harder time staying hidden. But, if Pit had to pretend to be the sick one to hide his Shadow, he'd do it.

Pit had been thinking about faking it when the other little angel made a noise and went into a bad coughing fit. Pit gave him a tissue to cough into, but it came back speckled with red. The Shadow whimpered and curled up under the covers.

It was then that Pit knew that his Shadow's illness was far more serious than he had originally thought. There was no way he could make his Shadow better on his own; he needed help.

...

Lady Palutena had been in the kitchen preparing breakfast for herself and her little angel, when suddenly Pit raced in, frantic and begging for her help. Immediately concerned upon seeing him so worked up, the goddess kneeled and pulled him into a hug, trying to comfort him and ask what in Skyworld had him so upset. Though, what had her most concerned was that Pit acted as if his own goddess' involvement would only worsen his problem.

She managed to calm him just enough for him to hear her question, and her dear little angel looked right into her eyes and told her that he had a Shadow.

Of course she was immediately concerned. She wanted to hold him tight and protect him from anything that would dare bring harm to him, but he insisted that the Shadow was the one in need of help, not him. But Pit was innocent and naïve, he trusted too easily and he misunderstood; Shadows are dangerous. She tried to tell him this, but he only seemed more distressed. He insisted, the Shadow needed help. The Goddess of Light only wondered how a being of darkness had managed to evade her for so long. She told him that, as soon as she found it, she would get rid of it and that would be the end of the problem. Pit panicked and pleaded with her not to, showing concerning determination to keep that thing alive. She hated having to use force with him, but he was past the point of gentle convincing. She grabbed his arm and told him, firmly, that the Shadow needed to be destroyed because Shadows are dangerous.

"He's not dangerous!"

They both stopped.

Pit never raised his voice at his own Goddess.

There were moments of silence, before Pit hugged Lady Palutena, and he told her everything. He told her about how he smashed the mirror, about how the little Shadow looked around for the first time and seemed scared and unsure, about how he let the Shadow follow him home, about how he risked punishment for hiding the Shadow in his room for the past month. He pulled a piece of paper from his toga and showed her the picture that the Shadow drew. He told her that, just this morning, his Shadow had fallen sick with something too serious for one young angel to handle alone.

Pit gave her little choice other than to at least give him a chance. The goddess let her little angel lead the way.

Lady Palutena didn't know what she'd been expecting to find in Pit's room, but it definitely wasn't the sickly little boy hiding under the covers of Pit's bed.

Normal Shadows couldn't stand being near the Goddess of Light for very long. Her light hurt their darkness. The creatures would hiss and shriek and try to get away as the light chipped away at their forms. The little boy didn't even respond to her presence, not even when she gently felt his forehead to find that his fever was dangerously high. Pit has been right to seek help.

Lady Palutena gave Pit orders to run to the hospital in the temple and to tell the nurses to prepare a bed for the little Shadow. If they had any complaints, they could go directly to Lady Palutena, but this little boy was getting the treatment he deserved whether he nurses liked it or not.

Pit looked at her in surprise before a huge grin split his features. He happily saluted his goddess before running down the hall to the temple hospital as fast as his little legs could carry him.

Lady Palutena leaned down and gently lifted the dark version of Pit from the bed, cradling him in her arms as she would any other young child. The poor Shadow was warm, and his breaths were shallow. The Goddess of Light had a fairly good idea about what was happening to him. Judging from Pit's story, he had been caring for his Shadow for about a month now. Shadows were only meant to last about a month. Once their time was up, they would suddenly dissolve into black sand and smoke and cease to exist. It was quick because they were nothing more than evil energy in the form of whoever had been reflected in the mirror. Pit's Shadow was a living being just like anyone else, with hair and skin and blood. His body was probably beginning to fall apart from the inside, slowly and painfully.

The goddess had hoped that sending Pit ahead of her would buy her a bit of time to think about a possible cure for the Shadow. A Drink of the Gods would heal him briefly, but if he was to live, he would need a powerful, permanent fix. Nothing like this had ever happened before, though. Lady Palutena was at a loss for a solution, and she didn't have time to meticulously search her enormous library for advice that probably didn't exist. She needed something that would buy her a lot of time to do the digging necessary, but she couldn't just give him a Drink of he Gods every hour; those were costly to create and she did not have the resources to keep up.

When she was just about to her destination, an idea struck her: a twin connection. If she could somehow prolong the typical 'Shadow needs the original to exist' relationship, the dark angel would be fine until she could find a better solution. The easiest way to do that was a twin connection. The Shadow would draw upon energy from Pit's soul to survive until Lady Palutena could locate that old book on souls. It was the one she used to create Pit's soul, so she could use it to give the dark Pit a soul of his own.

...Dark Pit.

Well, it was a start. She could think of a better name when he was in a stable condition.

The moment she entered the hospital, Pit was by her side, bombarding her with concerns about his Shadow. Lady Palutena reassured her angel that, yes, Dark Pit was fine, before laying him down in he bed the nurses had prepared for him. She asked Pit to gently wake up his Shadow, and she instructed the nurses to give Dark Pit a Drink of the Gods as she located the spell she needed. This Shadow would not die today.

...

Creating the twin connection between the two angels had left all three feeling tired. It was a powerful spell, so it was expected. But it was worth the effort, because Dark Pit was in a stable condition now. The nurses had sent word down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for all three (Lady Palutena's original breakfast plans had been forgotten at this point), and they each had eggs and toast with a bowl of fruit and a glass of milk.

Lady Palutena had honestly expected the two angels to rest for at least a little while longer, but they were children and they had boundless energy, which a good breakfast had only fueled. So, as Lady Palutena quietly looked through a few books in her library, they had the run of the temple. At the moment, the two angels were playing Hide-And-Go-Seek-Tag, judging from the way Dark Pit had dashed in a few minutes ago to hide in the shadow of a bookshelf, only to scream and take off again when Pit found him. Lady Palutena just hoped that they didn't break anything in their escapades. She wanted to save her energy to convert Pit's bed into a bunk bed for them.

That was only the first step of integrating Dark Pit into daily life in Skyworld. She had already notified the Centurions and anyone else within Skyworld that there was a friendly Shadow that would be staying with them in the temple as of now, and that he would be treated as an equal to Pit. Though, she could only hope that they followed through and accepted Dark Pit. She had already made up her mind that, once they were old enough to receive an education, they would be instructed together. But for now, they could continue to be kids. Pit alone was hard to keep out of trouble, and Lady Palutena was certain that keeping Pit and Dark Pit out of trouble would be near impossible, but she didn't mind. Dark Pit was here to stay, and she wouldn't have it any other way.