Lady Palutena teleported us back to the temple, transported by a glowing, heavenly light. I squinted to see what was beyond, and was met by Lady Palutena, eager to hear about our adventures. "I was so busy doing Pit's job all afternoon. Checking in with all the centurions is harder than it seems."

"So, you weren't watching us in your office?" I recalled when I watched Phosphora and Pit battle from the floating screen with Lady Palutena who seemed to be controlling his movements.

"Not this time. I usually go helicopter parent on Pit when he's flying," Lady Palutena clarified. She was about to continue when Pit gave her a look, he thought I didn't notice.

Pit spoke up. "We found (Y/n)'s cat, Lady Palutena! Isn't he a cutie?"

"Yep, that's my cat!" I nodded as Pit continued to cuddle it in his arms. "Got him a few years ago with my friend Kari."

"How adorable!" Lady Palutena gushed. "What's its name again?"

I froze, forgetting the random name I gave the "cat I never had." Looking to the cat, I noted its blue patch of fur on its forehead once again. In a moment of unoriginality, I told her, "his name is Blue."

"Really?" Pit asked. "That's not very creative."

I bit my tongue, relieved he bought the lie. I wanted to rebuttal his remark with a comment about his own name, but I decided that picking on immortals would probably be the end for me. "I know, but my friend Kari named him."

When I said that, Deja Vu hit me in the gut, and the weight on my back started to weigh me down. The box at the bottom of my bag seemed heavier than before.

Lady Palutena's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. "I think Blue is a fitting name! Ooh, I need to order cat food then! Pit, give Blue to (Y/n)."

"Fiiiiiine. Here you go (Y/n)," he handed me the cat, looking sad as Lady Palutena forced him to part ways with Blue.

In spite of his pouting, I smiled. All his facial expressions were funny. Just by looking at him, you could tell what was going through the angel's head. "Hey, do you want to come hang out with him and me in my room?"

If I was being honest, I would have just ran off to go hide in my room to shake the weird aura hanging over me. But I just couldn't stand to see Pit that sad.

"Yes! Yes! Let's go!" his eyes lit up.

Then we went to my room, where I rushed to the bathroom to find something to tidy up the cat in his disheveled state. Pit found me staring over the edge of the bathtub filled with glowing water. "Pit, is this water going to kill me?"

"What? Of course not! Have you never heard of hot springs???" he asked, shocked. "They are the best things ever!"

"On earth, people die from soaking in water that hot. But sense you are immortal..." I said a bit abruptly and backed off when I realized that Pit was super confused.

"In the world of the gods, it actually replenishes health and gives us energy," Pit informed me.

And that's when the ground started to shake, with a calling card of a voice saying, "Oh, Palutena! I've come for your pet human!"

"Pit! Was that-"

"Viridi!?" He finished my sentence as Lady Palutena spoke to us through the laurel crowns.

"Pit, get out there! Researching for Blue's new diet will have to wait," she said before giving me orders as well. "(Y/n), come to my office. I can't let you out of my sight."

And so, we were off in different directions. I finally managed to find Lady Palutena's office when Pit took off. I was still holding Blue in my arms. With all the centurions running around getting to their posts for emergencies, I didn't need this poor cat getting lost in the chaos.

Lady Palutena spoke, "Viridi, I'm not handing her over! And she's not a pet."

"Palutena, Pit is practically your own golden retriever. Imagine the things he could do if you threw snacks at him every other command." I couldn't see the goddess of nature, but I could tell she was rolling her eyes. Not to betray the people protecting me, but she had a point.

"I'm not opposed to the food idea," added the angel.

"How do you propose to take something from inside my temple when you can't even get into Skyworld?" Palutena smirked. "You, of all people, should know that this place is protected by a barrier. Only angels can get in, but there is only one left!"

"Well," Pit drew out the word, hesitant to pop the bubble that was Lady Palutena's security system. "There is also-"

"Miss me Pit-stain?" an unfamiliar voice came out of nowhere.

"Don't interrupt me, Pittoo!!!" Pit shot back, frustrated with the new being that had flown into Palutena's screen view.

He had black hair, like a midnight without stars and red eyes so magenta, they could have been mistaken for pink. And he looked just like Pit. From head to toe. The only thing that helped me tell the difference was their color pallets.

Viridi laughed. "For an all-knowing goddess, you have made a fatal error. I would acquaint you, but my secret weapon doesn't need to be introduced."

"I'm not your anything!" the black-winged Pit hissed back. "I'm only fighting as a general in your army because I lost my power of flight!"

In a moment of absolute confusion, I spoke to the group without even realizing. "Lady Palutena, if we died the other Pit's hair, do you think we could tell them apart?"

"Pittoo" facepalmed as the goddesses started cracking up.

Pit spoke up, dread in his voice. "(Y/n), me and Pittoo aren't related."

"Stop calling me that!"

"Stop calling me Pit-Stain!"

"No! It's funny!"

"These two are always at each other's throats," Palutena turned to me. "I'll explain later."

"No, the human doesn't need to know anything! The human is as good as dead anyway," Viridi exclaimed. My existence in the world of the gods was infuriating her more by the minute.

"Viridi, what do you want with (Y/n), anyway!?" Pit asked, preparing his bow and arrows for a battle in front of the temple.

"If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to eradicate this useless race so the earth can go back to its former state. As long as the human is being guarded, that can't happen!" Viridi explained as Pit took a punch to the face from Dark Pit before taking out a bow of his own.

"Dark Pit?" I said quietly to myself, thinking if that was really the best he could do. "Dark? Pit?"

"I know, I know," Palutena patted me on the shoulder. "I'll explain him and Pandora and the labyrinth another time, but I need to focus on this."

The name rang in my ears and echoed through my skull like a megaphone in a ballroom. Pandora was the name engraved on the bottom of the box I found in the woods. I started to sweat at the thought of her being alive and figuring out that I had stolen her property. What if Lady Palutena already knew I had it? Had I put Skyworld in even more danger?

Since Dark Pit was his equal opposite, they weren't getting anywhere. Eventually, they both were out of strength, and the goddesses had to pull them out.

After dinner, I held my breath as I knocked on Lady Palutena's door. Ever since I had mentioned the monoeyes that attacked me, she had been living there. I heard her say, "Come in."

"Sorry if I'm bothering you," I told her, shutting the door behind me.

"Not at all," she said. "Could you open that door, actually? I need to air it out in here."

"Sure," I turned around and turned the handle.

"What can I help you with?" she smiled, adjusting her hair.

"I wanted to ask about the whole thing earlier with Dark Pit," I started the conversation with the elephant in the room to mask my real intentions. That being to find out about Pandora.

"Oh, yes. You poor thing, trying to get caught up with all the drama of the gods," she sighed. "What did you want to know?"

"Um, I was wondering how they look the same but aren't even related, and things like that," I suggested.

"How do I start?" she pondered to herself. Then, she dimmed the room in a snap and, with her power, conjured an illusion that swirled around the top of the room. And like a screen projector at the movies, a scene of pictures started to play as she spoke.

"Decades ago, Pit was on a mission to take down all of Medusa's commanders."

An image, like a stain glass window, displayed the goddess anointing an entity of darkness. But the entity formed into a woman with blue hair flowing like fire.

"Medusa, the goddess of darkness, worked under Hades, destroying cities and wreaking havoc."

Across the stardust-filled smoke appeared a picture of Medusa attacking humans by summoning lightning from the skies.

"To take down Medusa, Pit went on a mission into the labyrinth of deceit in hopes of weakening Medusa's army."

An image of Pit flying through a long hallway of monsters showed up.

"But upon entering the heart of the goddess of calamity, Pandora, got away. But there was a mirror standing in the middle of the room. It was being used to duplicate underworld monsters. Pit tried to smash it, but he created his own duplicate in the process."

A picture of Pit and Dark Pit facing each other vanished as quickly as it came. The smoke disappeared from the ceiling as well. Lady Palutena turned to me. "And that's all there was to it. We suspect it wasn't an exact copy because the mirror cracked as the copy was made."

"I see," I noted in my mind. I hadn't come for the full backstory, but I found myself getting invested, anyway. But I still needed answers about Pandora. "What's the labyrinth of deceit?"

"Its just a collection of pure chaos placed in one dimension. No one really knows how it came to be," she said, turning back to her screen to click through live security footage around the temple. "Pandora is crafty. I'll give her that."

"And Pandora created this place herself?" I confirmed.

"I know, right?" Palutena sighed. "Where did she find the time? How does she have the willpower to just let everything in her dimension run amuck."

"But there is a way to get there?" I asked, hoping it didn't sound too suspicious.

"Yeah, but that method has been lost to time. It wasn't even a method, per se," she said before closing the gap between her eye and the screen. "WHAT IS TAHT!?!?!??!"

"What is what?!" I freaked out, as she did.

"Oh, false alarm," she exhaled. "It's just Blue."

"I should get him," I used that as an opportunity to leave before she had too many thoughts about why I was asking so many questions.

I rushed out the door and only saw a glimpse of Pit disappearing around the corner.