Author's Notes: I bought Brawl a couple of days ago, and I'm probably as addicted as the rest of the world is. I'm still working my way through, but it's fun as hell and I don't plan on putting it down.
Some things to say about this story: for one thing, I am not entirely familiar with the characters in this setting. But I decided to try my hand at writing them because it's good speculation. I love trying new things and this is a type of scene that allows me to see how well I can work as a writer with characters I've never seen before.
And I love Pit. Absolutely love Pit. He is my favorite character to play by far.
I'm hoping that I haven't done a terrible job with these two...I think I have a very different perspective of Pit than I've seen in other fics here. Tell me what you think of my spin on things, and enjoy!
Ike was beginning to grow a little irritated.
He had fought many different opponents over the course of his life, and had seen to the end of many struggles. He had quite a prestigious reputation under his belt, both as a warrior and as a person in general. When Ike received word of the "Smash Brothers Brawl" tournament, and that he had been chosen as a contestant, Ike's curiosity compelled him to accept the invitation. He was curious to test his skills and wondered what sort of characters would be in such a tournament.
Characters, indeed! Ike had never seen anything of the sort in this lot before arriving. Little pink puffballs that ate everything in sight (including him, of all things!), thick-armored women blasting him with a surreal type of arm cannon, sentient mechanical creatures, and the animals—Ike was quite certain he would never trust another animal again in his life. The animals here…they dressed like humans, talked like humans, walked like humans. They carried weapons, they ran blue circles around him, they made a mockery out of his skills when he struggled to adapt. It was a wild ride, surviving from one round to the next, and the lack of expectation of his next opponent was plucking Ike's nerves like a tight-stringed harp. He meditated regularly and tried to study the multitude of creatures in this tournament, but everyone seemed to have a trick up their sleeve. The best Ike could do was wait, train, fight, train, fight, fight, fight.
Sometimes Ike was blessed and his opponents were relatively normal; at least by his standards. He made new friends in-between the rounds, particularly with a somewhat odd pointy-eared young man in green. Shortly after meeting Link, Ike had the pleasure of speaking with Princess Zelda (who later, as it turned out, wiped the floor with him as a disguised Sheikah warrior), and then Princess Peach. The moments of calm before each round gave Ike the time to really know his opponents as people (or animal creatures, as a few of them were not as terrible as his nerves led him to believe) and helped him to relax, to prepare for the next Brawl.
There was one contestant who stuck out in Ike's mind rather sharply.
Ike met him somewhere along the line during the main tournament as his next opponent. The stage was set high in the sky, where sunlight kissed Ike's skin and clouds floated lazily by in thick puffs like cotton candy. It seemed like a temple of some sort, some type of storybook setting. He could remember the very first impression he had of the boy. He was young, spirited, dressed in all white with minimal armor and mythological dress. He looked like an angel—probably because, in all actuality, Pit was an angel.
"Some strange wings you have there, on your back," Ike remarked, not quite used to seeing wings on a human in the first place.
Pit's blue eyes sparkled and his lips stretched in a sweet smile. "They're real," he assured him.
Ike lifted a brow. "I never said that they weren't."
The boy hummed. "Everyone else questions it," he mused, gripping his own weapon a bit tighter. It was a magnificent weapon, Ike remembered thinking. Blades of pure gold engraved with azure and sapphire in intricate patterns. "I'm happy that you don't," Pit added, catching his attention again with that smile. "Surprise is in high supply, it would appear."
"So it would seem," Ike agreed. "But I have seen enough strange things in this tournament to last me to my grave—I think I've lost the ability to be surprised."
Pit laughed, his cherubic face pulling into a picture of happiness. Ike's uneasiness spiked a few levels. He tried not to let his previous experiences get in the way of the now. He just looks like a boy, his mind told him, how much harm could he possibly do…? …Ike had to remind himself several times that if Pit had come this far in the tournament, he was surely no easy trifle to be brushed aside.
But he just looked so sweet.
Ike was reminded of the little puffball Kirby and shuddered.
When the announcer declared the start of the fight, Ike readied his weapon and Pit readied his. They were like that for a while, circling each other, staring each other down, trying to read one another's moves.
"Aren't you going to attack?" Pit finally asked him.
"Aren't you?" Ike replied.
Pit laughed again. "You first," he invited.
Ike took the invitation.
He smiled when he saw the surprise on Pit's face as he swung his weapon forward with only one hand—Pit wasn't the first to be startled by his strength. The angel handled himself well, dodging quickly and countering with a spin of his own weapon. Ike parried it easily enough. They went back and forth, exchanging blows, each finding new revelations in one another, each sustaining some blows and recovering whenever the crowd threw food and helpful items at them.
Pit was an impressive warrior in ways that Ike had not expected. He fought hard and adapted in ways that turned Ike green with envy—clearly, not the innocent boy he'd taken him to be. But Pit's weapon…that caught Ike off-guard the most. For the first part of the fight, Ike did quite well, all things considered. He had the upper hand of things, and even though Pit had the power of flight, Ike could easily ground him from the clouds and bring him back down to earth with his Aether skill. Pit fought with a combination of martial skills and his pole-arm weapon, and as the minutes passed and Ike studied his movements, he began to formulate a strategy for Pit's fighting style.
But then Pit threw him for a loop when a blazing blue arrow came out of nowhere and caught Ike in the shoulder.
"How…?!"
Pit only smiled at him. "I have many talents, Ike," he boasted.
Ike clenched his teeth, lifting his sword. "Cheeky. Are angels supposed to be cheeky?"
"I don't know," answered Pit, shrugging and saying enigmatically, "Is the sky blue?"
"Are you saying all angels are like you?" Ike questioned.
Pit grinned. "No. Just me."
And as the fight went on, Ike now had to calculate the arrows into his strategy, which threw his entire first plan out the window. Especially since, he discovered to his dismay, the arrows didn't necessarily fire in a straight line. They could curve. Quite frustrating, but adaptable—keep Pit from firing projectiles, when possible—but that meant getting close to him, and that meant dealing with the bite of his pole-arm.
Ike finally managed to fix his strategy, and was proud of himself, able to defend relatively well against both pole-arm and arrows.
Then when he was blocking the pole-arm it split. Twin swords bit at his arms and Ike reeled.
A double-ended weapon, a bow, and now two swords…! How many more tricks could he possibly have?!
The exasperation apparently showed, because Pit was flashing another grin at him, flapping his swan-like wings cheerily. "Impressed?"
No, annoyed, Ike thought, rubbing his bicep tenderly before getting ready to continue on. "You couldn't begin to imagine." He wondered what benefit there was for Pit in fishing for compliments in the middle of a tournament fight; still, it wasn't worth questioning. There was a precious win at stake here.
"You're not hiding anything else, are you?" asked Ike as they circled each other again.
Pit chuckled, "If I told you, then I wouldn't be hiding it, would I?"
Ike sighed. "Cheeky," he echoed. And the fight went on.
He had to change his strategy again in light of the newfound third use for Pit's weapon. Unfortunately, it was quite late in the fight, and Ike was beginning to tire. There were many factors in why Ike began to tire—his weapon was heavier than Pit's, and therefore he exerted more energy with each blow than the cherub, and with no thanks to Pit's strategic throws at him, Ike had sustained significantly more damage. He'd been forced to scrap his strategy twice now and was cornered to go on the defensive while he tried to think up a new pattern, but Pit swapped styles on him constantly and Ike was having trouble keeping up with the vast new number of skills at his opponent's disposal with that triple-changing weapon.
But Ike did his best, and his best was barely good enough. Unfortunately, when he fell outside of the ring, all of that trouble was for naught. He was exchanging blows with Pit, going back and forth, defending when he had to and attacking when the opportunity struck him. They were nowhere near the edge of the platform—that wasn't it. The problem was that the structure, apparently, was having some complaints about sustaining their long and arduous battle. Ike planted his feet for another blow, only to become suddenly aware of solid stone crumbling beneath him. He plummeted.
Ike screamed, however briefly, arms and legs flailing as the stage of his fight grew further and further away from him. Panic seized his weary mind because he didn't know if there were any safety measures included for a battle on a decrepit old structure, and he was thousands of feet high in the air, and if there were a ground waiting for him, surely he would die. Certainly they wouldn't allow tournament contestants to die! Had they counted on the fact that the stages might fall apart like this? Perhaps not—none of the other scenes Ike had been sent to were so prone to crumbling like this…
"Game set!"
A hand grasped one of his own and Ike's body jerked as he was pulled. Instead of falling down, he now floated up.
Pit's wings flapped furiously to account for the added weight, his entire form giving off an aura as he pulled Ike in and held him by the shoulders. Ike's spine was pressed rigidly against that triple-changing weapon that he'd hated only moments before.
"You should be more careful," said the cherub.
Ike blinked, not at all embarrassed about clutching to the winged boy for the sake of his own life.
"I fell," he said.
"Of course," replied Pit. Ike couldn't tell if it was sincere or merely a joke at his expense. It didn't really matter. When his feet touched ground, he was just glad nobody would have to scrape him off the dirt and bury him somewhere.
A sigh of relief escaped Pit as they landed again on (solid) ground. He smiled up at Ike while they were suddenly surrounded by light, and Ike's stomach did flops on him as they were warped back to the standard Brawl stadium, circled by cheering spectators. Ike lifted his eyes, looking around while he breathed deeply, and then glanced at Pit.
"I suppose I lost."
"You had a ring-out," Pit corrected. Ike frowned at him and Pit turned his head. "Losing is such a negative term," groused the cherub, turning his wings a bit.
Ike smiled, chuckling. "True enough," he conceded. He extended a hand to Pit, who stared at it curiously. "You…fought well. I admit I underestimated you."
The winged boy took Ike's hand and they shook, congratulating one another. "I was impressed by you, as well," he said. "I've never seen anyone fight like you, Ike."
"Thank you." Ike paused, and then he added, "Congratulations."
"You, too," agreed Pit, who grinned wide again, wings extending to their full span. He let go of Ike's hand to cross his arm over his chest in a sort of salute. "I hope we meet again."