KID ICARUS: THE BATTLE FOR SKYWORLD

By Great Red Spot

CHAPTER 1 version 1.0

The Underworld is the land of the mortal dead. Gods are immortal and cannot be truly killed, only destroyed. The true ruler of the Underworld is Hades, and uber-powerful deity who drew his power from consuming the souls of the dead. Initially inheriting the Underworld to be the caretaker of the dead after the Olympians defeated the older generation of ruling gods, Hades instead abused his power and that power drove him mad, resulting in his psychopathic, megalomaniacal, unpredictable and unbalanced nature. These were the side effects of eating souls. The Underworld eventually became a safe haven for evil beings. And that was when the Underworld invaded the land of the living in Hades's lust for the absolute power.

Hades continued his onslaught from behind the scenes, using very dangerous beings to do his bidding. He was incredibly conniving, cunning and devious, but he made a serious error of judgment in revealing himself to his greatest enemies, the Goddess Palutena and her angelic captain of the guard, Pit. After a long battle of attrition, Pit defeated Hades with the Great Sacred Treasure, and reduced him to a powerless weak spirit incapable of taking physical form. The menace of Hades had been abated, for now. But not for long...

Two of his most trusted lieutenants, Thanatos and Pandora, survived. And by cannibalising millions upon millions of souls to reengineer his corporeal body with the help of the God of Death, Hades once again lived, albeit in a depleted state. To restore his power to its former glory, he was going to need a lot more souls. Millions more people had to die.

'Getting a new body is just like getting a new car.' Hades said. 'You've got to actually take care of this thing, but you get your guilty pleasures out of it, such as destroying stuff, and certain other things, am I right? But I'm a little rusty, I haven't been behind the wheel for quite some time. My first act with this fantastic new vessel is to visit the bog. I won't be right back.'

As time elapsed to the point what seemed like beyond eternity, Hades returned from his new bathroom, the Rewind Spring.

'Ah, that was breathtaking. There's nothing quite like dropping the kids off at the pool with a brand new butt,' he said. 'Word of warning, the Rewind Spring is now off-limits. The stench alone would wipe out half of all life off the face of the Earth, y'know. The denizens of the City of Souls will have have to enter at their own risk. Pity that Pitty won't be using it for a while, I can assure you.'

'Whilst we're on that subject, those brainless dolts thought it would be a good idea to leave me for dead at the Rewind Spring!' Amazon Pandora retorted. 'You couldn't make it up, I mean, who does that! Is it too much to ask for competent foes? Through their stupidity, I survived. And I never looked better!'

'And we don't need to know how you survived, do we, Thanny-poo-poo face?' Hades asked.

'Nope, I'm peachier than a giant peach, hamazing Hades!' Thanatos sycophantically replied.

'Isn't that just lovely jubbly?' Hades said. "Minions, we have a homecoming party to attend to, and everybody is invited! Let's paint the Earth red, my lovely lackeys, with human blood.'

'And also look incredible whilst doing it!' Amazon Pandora replied.

'Oh, it's so exciting being a baddy!' Thanatos added.

Hades stopped and paused for a moment, and thought about his future machinations.

'We need a new Queen of the Underworld, hopefully one that doesn't want me dead.' Hades said, talking to the dear readers of this piece of prose. 'But I already got my eye on a certain Goddess, boys and girls! No not that one, guess again. No, not that one either, don't any of you twerps study your Greek mythology? Anyway, I digress.'

With Thanatos in one hand, and Pandora in the other, Hades clasped his fists and then took off faster than the speed of sound, and made a beeline to the nearest heavily populated human city. As tremors shook the city, the citixzens panicked as the God of the Underworld emerged from beneath the ground. They all gathered round and gazed upon him in fear.

'Greetings, my little petty pretties.' He said, his voice drowning out everything else. 'Welcome to the final tear sobbing shuddering climax! Despite the musings of the fake news media, I'm actually a straight sorta guy. Let's play a little game of hide-and-seek-and-destroy! So human scum, let's see how good you are at surviving. The rules are dead simple. I am going to count one to ten. You run, and I hunt you. If you die, you lose. If you live, well you still lose, what can I say? One... Two... TEN! Ready or not here I come!'

The humans stampeded and clambered all over each other like frightened insects, whilst Hades mowed them all down ferociously, levelling the city into rubble.

Hades, Pandora and Thanatos gathered round for a group hug and a drawn out, hammy, over-top evil cackle until they were out of breath. The tinpot tyrant of the Underworld had been planning his comeback for a long time. A return that would forever live in history, one that he felt could make his nemesis Pit proud. He always wanted to impress Pit and be one step ahead of him. Even though he wanted to get the better of Pit, he had no idea what to do once he was gone. He wanted to outdo everyone in his evilness, and he wanted absolute power. He wanted to be the most powerful villain of all time. Only the angel Pit and the goddess Palutena can stop him. But they will soon discover, to their dismay, that he is the least of their problems.