Disclaimer: Kid Icarus and all related to it are property of Nintendo, not me.

Author's Note: This story is a novelization of Kid Icarus. I tried to keep all the details mentioned in the game present, but did take quite a few "artistic liberties" when it came to explaining parts of the story that didn't make sense, including the addition of about a zillion (translation: nine) OCs. All of them are supporting characters, however; this story is about Pit. The first few chapters are mostly elaborate backstory, based loosely on the one provided in the original manual. This is the first fanfiction I took fairly seriously, so meaningful reviews and critique are always appreciated!

The sun was hot, but it was cool in the shadows and that is where they lurked. Toad-skin prickled softly; breaths came slow; anticipation was fierce. No mortal eye or otherwise could yet spy them from their careful veil in the overworld foliage, and though the day was long they knew the end was approaching fast. They could feel it.

There was a strange calm about the meadow today. Livy watched his breaths move the leaves of the olive tree and strained his ears to hear anything over his brother and sister bickering not far off. Secunda and Furianus were their names. Secunda was the middle child, and Livy was the youngest, although he also considered himself the least stupid, for truth or for falsehood. His own basket of olives was nearly full, but he hadn't seen Furianus pick a single one so far, and Secunda was trying to whack him in the head with her basket so he assumed she didn't have many either.

"Furianus! Knock it off!" Her voice was like hot rocks and she swung again, nearly losing her perch in the olive tree. Furianus just ducked and kept laughing; Livy squinted over at him to see the tail of a squirming mouse pinched in his fingers. The sun was getting low in the sky, orange and saucy, and Livy felt his entrails begin to knot.

"We gotta leave soon," he warbled at them, plucking another handful of olives so he wouldn't have to look at the sky, but it did little to calm him. "Guys!"

Secunda had finally wised up and gotten herself a handful of hard, unripe olives and flung them all at Furianus's head, and from the impressive rattle it made, she had had some successful hits. Furianus yelled and covered himself; the little mouse slipped out of his fingers and scampered away before it could be aimlessly tormented by some other towering monster. Secunda hastily began grabbing fistfuls of olives and throwing them into her basket. "Did you say something, Livy?"

"We gotta leave soon!" he cried again, too afraid to feel shame for how it showed in his voice. Distracting himself was no longer possible; he clung to the nearest branch, not wanting to look away, and definitely not wanting to pry his white hands from its steady familiarity.

His sister glanced at the sky and began to pick faster. Furianus had finally shaken off the smarts left by Secunda's unripe olives and started jumping and lunging at the branches that hung closest to the ground. Livy was motionless. He prayed, under his breath, to the gods and the goddesses and anyone who would listen that the two of them would get done quickly and that nothing would happen…

Secunda paused and examined her half-full basket, much of which was comprised of rotten berries and twigs, then decided she was content that that would be enough to keep her out of trouble and then barked at Furianus for him to hurry up. He dropped his latest olives into his basket, barely full enough to mask the bottom, and for a moment he looked regretful, but then walked over and stole a few handfuls from Livy. And Livy was so happy that they were finally leaving that he didn't say a thing to him.

Night fell fast, but the walk back was boisterous. Furianus may have lost his mouse, but that didn't stop him from finding other ways to annoy his sister.

"Half of these are rotten!" He was pawing through her basket, so she tried bucking it at him, but that only kept him back for a few minutes. "I think you just, like, threw half the damn tree in here, didn't you? This is a leaf!" He flourished it at her respectively. Secunda was impassive.

"Good boy," she said dryly, "That's a tricky one, isn't it?" And she bucked the basket at him again, this time smacking him in the nose.

The gravel path was blue with the darkness. The world around them was reduced to silhouettes. Livy saw his brother and sister only in puckered crescents where there was still illumination yet to show their highlights. He slunk up to Secunda and tightened his hand around her wrist. She looked down at him and smiled; he couldn't see it but he knew she was.

"It's dark," he whispered, "We stayed out too late."

"Oh, it's just a few minutes after sunset." She chided him, swung her arm back and forth casually, but there was a faint hint of unease in her voice. "We'll be back to the village soon enough, you'll see."

That was more than enough for Furianus, however. He stopped trying to rub the hurt from the red dink on the bridge of his nose and turned to them, smirking nefariously. "I wouldn't be quite so sure about that. You do know the stories, don't you?" He tiptoed around Secunda and put his face down to Livy's. "Night is when all the evil things crawl out of the underworld and stomp through the dark places up here where we live. They lie in wait, in places wet and cold, flexing their slimy, knobby fingers, wanting just to grab some foolish mortal and drag him wailing back to hell, where they snip the flesh off his body and feed it to clicking hoards of beetles. Because that's all the underworld is; pain and screaming of dead mortal's souls; but that's all those monsters do it for, anyway. They wanna see us in agony, and all the while they'll be laughing their massive banshee shrieks and drowning out every hopeful memory you might have taken there with you…"

Furianus had maybe been about to continue, but Secunda whacked him in the head again and he backed away, grumbling like a struck dog. "Palutena!" she swore, "and you wonder why you still have to go pick olives like a child!"

"They make you pick olives, too…" he grumbled in a stuffy way, both hands holding his nose.

"I choose to," Secunda said powerfully, "I like picking olives. You're a bully. You're—" but then she stopped abruptly and froze in the center of the walkway, and for a moment Livy's heart caught in his throat, and he searched the road ahead furiously, already knowing full well in the pit that was hardening in his stomach, but praying with everything he had in him anyway…

His eyes touched it, and a long scream of terror nearly rose from his throat but he bit its head off. Something was crouching on the pathway; massive, dark, a great knotted ball of wasted flesh and rotting skin that hung off of it in draping folds. The creature began to right itself, moving silently, so silently, and rolling out its gangly, twisted body. Nearly human but grotesquely misshapen limbs were unfurled, gnarled muscles in them working fervently. And then the creature rose its head, its broad, toad-like head with the mouth cut corner-to-corner in a jagged line across it, filled with yellow, curving, needle-teeth. It rolled its bulging eyes in its sockets and back around, and then, with a look that was clearly insane, it stared straight through Livy.

That was when he began to hear it, breathing with a metallic echo, its rheumy orange eyes never parting from the eyes of Livy. And for nearly a minute the three of them stood paralyzed, watching it, their chests tying themselves in knots. The orange eyes flickered in the darkness and bobbed back and forth as the creature crept forward on silent footsteps.

"It's getting closer!" Secunda finally choked out hoarsely, and her brothers' necks snapped over as they stared in her direction. She screamed, "Run!"

Livy never loosened his grip on Secunda's wrist as they tore back over the trail. He heard only the thunderous footfalls of his sister and his brother. At one point he stumbled and if not for the momentum he already had he would have tumbled down in a heap. Secunda's grip kept him righted, and he ran so fast only his tiptoes hit the ground. They stopped abruptly, he felt Furianus roughly grab him under the arms and hoist him upwards. Then there was a familiar strength under him and he realized they were in a tree. There was a breath in his ear, but it was only Secunda.

"What if that thing can climb trees?" Her voice was cracking with panic.

"We'll kill it, we'll kill that sonofabitch," but Furianus's voice was twisting as well, and on his last promise it broke entirely and he collapsed on his tree branch with his arms wrapped as tight around as they could go.

Livy had his eyes slammed shut, but it was so quiet, after awhile he opened them, glanced down at the trail and saw nothing. His pulse began to relax, and he leaned out over the branch, searching. Perhaps Furianus's story telling had only summoned a demon from their imaginations.

"Do you hear it?" he whispered, and Secunda whimpered and gripped his shoulder, shushing him desperately.

The orange eyes lashed open at the base of the tree and Secunda screamed. Livy stared down at it in horror and disbelief—the thing could move so silently! The wicked yellow cheshire-grin broadened across its evil face, and it crouched down before lunging up at them.

Something whizzed softly in the air, and a glowing bullet hit the demon broadside. The beast folded back on itself and fell out of the air, hissing like thin sheets of metal being rasped together. It hit the ground heavy; drought-dust rose into the air like smoke, twisting and dancing and obscuring the moon. Livy never looked away from the black veil where the demon struck the earth. He kept his eyes wide open, and they were thirsty in the darkness. The forest was silent again, and no shadows lurched along the floor, but they did not relax.

When Livy began to hear the sound again, he tried to convince himself that he was only imagining it, but when it did not diminish his hope began to dwindle. The metallic, rasping breaths of the demon, they were faster now. They grew louder by the moment, but still they couldn't see it. Furianus had crawled out as far along his branch as he could without it beginning to buckle under his weight; Secunda had both arms wrapped as well as she could around Livy and was whimpering all manner of pleas and prayers in a frantic and incoherent voice. The monster's voice was a deafening screech now. The tree rattled violently and Livy suddenly felt hot, rancid breath at his legs. His blood ran cold.

The creature opened its glowing cat eyes and for one moment Livy stared six inches into its face, with the bristle teeth just parting as it widened its mouth and stared at him with a wild, primal desire that was more chilling than any hatred. And then it was gone. Another glowing missile had knocked it from the tree, furious and hissing, and this time Livy could see it, an arrow, stuck clearly in the monster's flesh. There was a sound like hailfall and the demon screeched and reeled. Dully glowing arrows covered it like fish spines. A final angry hiss crawled out of its throat before it leapt away into the shadows, only this time, Livy felt, it would be gone for good.

For a long and stunned moment the three of them remained clinging to their tree. A part of Livy wanted to jump down and run for the village as fast as he could, but another part of him had already vowed never to set foot on that trail ever again. But eventually the decision was made for them.

"Hey guess what? Turns out they can climb trees!" A mischievous voice rang out in the darkness and they jumped and looked around, but the speaker sauntered over to the base of the tree and glanced up in a sort of self-satisfied way. "So you gonna come down now, or not?"

Furianus said what the other two were thinking; this was one of the few traits that made it worth having him around: "Who the hell are you?"

The tails of the glowing arrows poked out of a quiver thrown over his shoulder, and that helped to illuminate him a little. The first thing they noticed about him was that he was short; Secunda was probably taller than he was, if only by a few inches. The second thing they noticed was that he was a little strange looking. He was bent and squirrelly with messy auburn hair, but had a round, befreckled face like a kid and looked on the whole gangly and awkward, although that was offset in a strange way by his proud and confident swagger. The third thing they noticed, and they felt a little silly afterwards for noticing this last, was that he had wings.

He seemed a little miffed by Furianus's comment, stiffening his back and fluffing out the dowdy gray feathers on his massive wings. "Pit," he spat, "but that's Captain Pit to you, heathen! Now get out of that tree!"

Furianus was still scared, and now angry, and, more than likely, a little embarrassed that he had to have been rescued by the likes of a scrawny, sass-mouthed angel. "No!"

Pit crossed his arms and looked up at him quizzically. "Why not?"

"How do we know you're not with them?"

Pit just stared at him dumbly for a moment. "Palutena!" he swore, exasperated, and he stomped over to the base of the tree and scrutinized it, fingertips working themselves over the rough tip of his bow. Then suddenly he wheeled it back behind himself and began striking the trunk with what looked like everything he had in him. "Get…out…of…that…tree!"

Apparently, he had quite a bit in him. Their tree shook, rattled and swayed more than any of them thought was possible for one of its girth. Livy clung to it for as long as he could, but eventually the rough bark was loosed from his grip. His chest was seized with the horror of falling, and he let slip a little cry of surprise, but the landing wasn't as rough as he'd expected. He opened his eyes. Pit had caught him on his shoulder, and done the same for Secunda, but hadn't, it seemed, thought to extend such hospitality to Furianus.

"Finally!" he cried in mock-relief (or maybe true relief) and sat Livy and Secunda down as Furianus tried to cough up some of the dust he'd inhaled. "Your village is only about half a mile from here. You'll be home in less than ten minutes." Pit nodded at them, then took a step back and spread his wings like he was going to fly away.

"Wait!" cried Livy, and he surprised himself nearly as much as the rest of them. He got up but only stumbled forward, and Pit chuckled at him.

"Listen, if you're worried about demons, don't be. They'll all be too scared now to come anywhere near this trail, at the very least for the rest of the night."

"It-it's not that," Livy continued, and the grin slipped away from Pit. For the first time, he regarded him with something like interest. That was too disconcerting for Livy though, and he couldn't look him in the eye. "Thank you for saving us," he whispered.

Pit's eyebrows rose, and for a long time he just regarded him quietly. "Well," he said at last, a little awkwardly, "Of course, you're very welcome."

Secunda seemed less rattled now that she'd seen Livy was brave enough to speak. "So you're one of Palutena's guard?"

He stood a little straighter and crossed his arms proudly. "A Captain!"

"You said that already," Furianus grumbled, rubbing at a raspberry on his elbow, but Pit ignored him.

"Palutena's good to the angels, isn't she? It's just, she watches out for us mortals, and whenever I heard the stories, I always hoped—"

"She is!" Pit nodded energetically, and behind that fluster of energy that danced through his face and body they watched as he carefully folded those great gray wings behind himself. "She's very dear to us! We love her more than…more than…" and he stopped then for a moment and just thought. After awhile he said, "Well, I guess you couldn't understand it, really."

As unsatisfying as this answer was, Secunda did not pursue that question any further. In fact, it seemed as though she had hardly listened, and all the while Pit had been talking she seemed to have been chewing on her tongue. "And her sister?" Secunda spat out at last, and a strange hush fell on Pit then. When the tense silence continued for a few moments she egged him on. "Her sister Medusa? I mean," and Secunda swallowed as she realized, too late, how tender a subject this was, "They tell us that she's a little…. But-but, she's not really, though, is she? Those are just stories, right?"

Their angelic companion was silent for a very long time, and when at last he spoke again his voice was subdued and he did not look them in the eyes. "She is…not the same as her sister."

The quiet drug out after that. Secunda shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

"No, don't be!" he said quickly and his eyes snapped up towards them. "You mortals don't ask enough questions. And really, you ought to, because you don't know half of anything." A small smile cracked his face then. Livy thought at first that he was making fun of them again, but it wasn't a mirthful smile so much as it was just a slightly sad one.

"Oh," Pit said tiredly, unfurling his wings again and looking carefully up at the sky. The light of the stars glimmered on his wide eyes. "I really do gotta get out of here. Any longer and I'll be in big trouble..."

Livy asked, "Will you come back and see us again?"

"Of course," he snorted at him with such matter-of-fact calm conviction that between the three of them they couldn't muster a speck of doubt against it.