Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

THREE MONTHS

"We don't know how long the darkness will last," Ignis says again, hoping that by repetition he can finally impress the seriousness of the point. "As a result, it is urgent that we gather as much of the harvest now as possible, before it is befouled by daemons and blighted by the lack of sun."

“We can’t give up our hunters!” the man – an important merchant-man of some variety from one of the towns, unaccustomed to not being listened to even now as a refugee – argues.

Ignis feels bad for him, uprooted from his home, forced to take everything he owned and put it in a carriage, fleeing the daemons, fleeing the night, heading to the only place that was still known to have light.

Lestallum.

Lestallum might not have the Titan crouched beneath its meteor any longer, the dread Archaean who once was sleeping and now is dead, but the power plant still works, and their city has light.

Light, the final barrier against the daemons that prowl freely through the forests and the hills.

With the sun gone, what do they have to fear?

Nothing. Only humans have fear, now, fear from the daemons that hunts them for sport, fear from the Astrals that abandoned them, fear from the Starscourge that still sweeps through the countryside and changes men into daemons – a fate worse than death.

Fear of starvation, as the far-sighted look into the future and realize that no new harvests would grow as long as the sun was gone. You could only hide in a Haven for so long, after all, until someone stronger or more desperate came and pushed you out, or until hunger itself drove you forth, and then the daemons would find you.

Hunters do what they can to hold off the daemons, but only light – clear, consistent light – can hold them off for good, long enough to rest and recover.

And the only place with that sort of light is Lestallum.

And so people come from all over, come to the temporary gates that the Lestallum hunters so painstakingly constructed around the city, the gates they watch every day, with endless patrols; the gates that are protected by hunters going out daemon-hunting, meat-hunting, hunting – hunting – hunting –

And, sometimes, doing other things.

"—with the proliferation of daemons attacking –" the man is continuing to argue.

"The decision is final," Ignis says firmly. "The hunters accompanying your caravan will be reassigned from guarding your belongings to ferrying in crops from the nearby fields; the farmers have arranged several shipments, but require assistance in defending the transport from daemon attack."

"Should’ve expected it. Of course Lestallum prefers to rescue its own – always favoring the farmers –"

"I am not a resident of Lestallum," Ignis says, very slowly and glacially calm. "I am a citizen of Insomnia, as it happens, so I can sympathize with your feelings as a city resident. That does not make them appropriate now. Our origins are irrelevant. We are all citizens of the world now, common in our humanity, and we must work together to do what we can to hold back the darkness.”

The man is still grumbling, still unsatisfied, still displeased. Ignis can’t really blame him – those hunters would have represented the only hope of safety he and his family have had for weeks now, and they arrived at a refuge only to have them taken away. Ignis wouldn’t have particularly appreciated it, either.

“You have been assigned to a housing unit. The information will be posted on the posting board in the center of the town within several hours,” Ignis says, moving on to other business. “When you leave this office, you can pick up your daily ration ticket which you will be able to turn in for a meal –”

Ignis had ordered them to go down to two meals a day, a morning and an evening one. The part of Ignis that is still a chef aches at the thought of the meals they are mostly able to provide.

They aren’t great, but they're nutritious enough.

At the very least, it is all free. All food has to be given to the central administrator and set aside for redistribution, with the focus of each daily meal on the food that is on the verge of expiration or, if they are lucky, whatever amount of the meat that was brought in by the hunters that couldn’t be smoked or preserved or frozen. This applies to everyone: Lestallum no longer discriminates by wealth, no matter how many times the rich men who come to their city in search of shelter try to bribe their way to extra food or additional benefits.

They usually try it on Ignis, which is – less than successful.

To say the least.

“Why’s a blind man making these sort of decisions, anyway?” the man challenges Ignis.

Ignis doesn’t even grind his teeth at the slight. This isn’t the first time this has happened, either. He understands that angry, scared, tired people have the urge to lash out and use any weakness they can against someone they perceive to be taking away their food and their protection, even though he doesn’t appreciate it happening to him. It doesn’t matter, in the end.

The only thing that matters now is keeping the order and the peace of the city.

“I speak now not for myself,” Ignis says clearly and calmly. “But as a representative of King Noctis."

That gets the grumpy merchant to shut up, but it starts up whispers from elsewhere in the room, mostly whispers about the King in Exile, as they've taken to calling Noctis.

In exile, because that's easier: easier to think that Noctis is just far away, gathering more resources, physical and technological and magical. Easier to think that Noctis left his people to the guidance of his lieutenants, purposefully installed to govern them in his absence, while he was on his journeys, than to think that they had been abandoned, that all of them had been abandoned, because of a trap no one could predict. Easier to think that Noctis is only unavailable because of the distance, than it is to think of him trapped away in a glowing treacherous rock filled with magic, a rock that took away all their hope at the very moment that they thought they had won.

The King In Exile, they call him, because while no one wants to give up hope, most people don't really believe the story about the Crystal.

Ignis scarcely believes it himself some days, and he'd all but witnessed it.

Not with his own eyes, of course – the blindness from Altissia remains as stubbornly incurable as ever, and Ignis isn't willing to continue to uselessly waste increasingly precious potions on a wound that seems unlikely to heal.

At any rate, it doesn't matter. He’s found his own ways around it.

Ignis feels the pad beneath his hands with its upraised series of bumps and dashes – a language designed for the convenience of the blind, Cor explained in one of his brief visits between daemon hunts; he brought several of the pads, which functioned as translators for the paperwork Ignis had to review, and two typewriters that could conveniently type simultaneously in both common and the physical-language.

Ignis immediately gave one to Cindy and Cid, with the request that they supply Lestallum's central office with as many of duplicates as possible to make with the machine parts they had to spare, and installed the other in his office at once. Honestly, given the utility of communicating by text in the dark, he's thinking of insisting that everyone learn to read the blind-language. Hunters are already picking it up at speed, following Cor’s example; he loudly announced his intention to learn the language alongside Ignis in order to ensure that messages could be passed secretly between hunters when trying to sneak through the darkened towns outside Lestallum, but with the engineers warning that even the power plant would need to go through occasional black-out periods for maintenance and repairs, it isn’t necessarily a bad idea to suggest something like that universally.

No time for that now, though; Ignis has enough to worry about already without adding in concerns about universal education, no matter how useful. His assistants have all learned how to read the language – that's good enough for him.

Between the typewriters and the pads that let him read, albeit in a slow and clunkly fashion, handwritten documents, Ignis feels almost like his old self again.

Almost.

Noct...

The sharp pang of his friend and prince's absence stings as bitterly as the day he disappeared. It's been two months – no, nearly three months, now.

Three months of loss, of grief, of pain.

Of loneliness.

Noctis' absence had shattered not only their hearts, but their unity.

Gladio buries himself in hunter work, barely coming back to Lestallum long enough to shower and pick up a new assignment and supplies. Ignis speaks to him at times when Gladio has something new to report that he’d found in his hunts, but that's not often; the only thing out there are daemons, daemons and more daemons. Ignis doesn’t hold it against him: the sight – or sound, in Ignis’ case – of each other simply causes too much pain.

Prompto acts as a messenger to Hammerhead, flitting to and fro whenever possible, flirting with almost savage desperation with Cindy as if she could ever fill the hole left in his heart. He doesn't even notice that he's unsuccessful, but that isn't the point of it. The point is to forget. Instead of returning his flirtations, Cindy is using the time Prompto spent at Hammerhead to teach him how to fix cars, and possibly also weapons. At least, that’s what Ignis thinks is the case; he’s not sure. Prompto usually only comes to see him when he has a message for Lestallum from Hammerhead, or if he’s planning on heading out and wants to see if Ignis has any messages for Hammerhead.

Ignis himself stays in Lestallum. He intended to continue helping with daemon hunts at first, his vow to stay until the end still thick on his tongue, but Gladio and Prompto didn't want him around, and the town did. They needed him. He helped the town come together to reactivate the power plant and, when that was done, began working with engineers to help set up outpostings of light to try to guard against daemons, and, after that, the gates they built around the city to aid in patrolling. It worked to start with, but as more and more refugees arrive, Ignis is starting to worry about how long they'll be able to keep this up.

At least there were some hunters in this group. Ignis will be able to assign them to assist the farmers, who have come to Ignis with frantic complaints about food starting to rot in the fields. Food that wouldn’t come back, next harvest. The fall is here, and the harvest, and when the spring comes there will be no new growth without the sun.

No new food, if they don’t harvest and carefully ration what's left.

Ignis would say he doesn't know why they came to him with their requests, but he does. He's the closest thing Lestallum has to a government right now – Six, the closest thing they have to any type of authority, what with all the refugees. The Long Night, as people are calling it already, does not discriminate between rich and poor, meek and powerful, healthy and sick.

It kills everyone.

At the start, Lestallum was wracked with chaos. There wasn’t been any order or anything: everyone giving contrary orders, imposing conflicting priorities, confusing everything. Everyone wanted desperately to preserve what mattered most to them, family and property and safety, and no one was giving any thought to the long term, to the needs of the community at large. They were all too scared, and those who were not scared were often merely selfish. The old authorities were ignored, and a new authority was needed: an authority that could decide what they needed to do now and what could wait for later. An authority that could convert the scrambled individuals of Lestallum into a unified force, bent on preserving life.

Ignis stepped in because there was no one else to do it, and he used Noctis' name in vain to accomplish it.

Gladio didn't like that.

Cor accepted it without words, merely placing a hand on Ignis' shoulder in what Ignis liked to interpret as approval.

Prompto – Prompto, Ignis wasn't sure even noticed what Ignis was doing. Prompto was hollowed out by Noctis' disappearance, hit as hard if not harder than the rest, blaming himself –

They all blamed themselves.

Ignis has reviewed the events leading up to it, but it never changes. Their goal had always been to retrieve the Crystal. Whether or not it was in Gralea, whether or not it was at Ardyn Izunia's taunting, it mattered not. They would have obtained the symbols of Noctis' kingship, the Royal Arms; they would have obtained the Ring; and they would have sought out the Crystal.

The logic is straightforward and clear.

The logic doesn't help.

Ignis finishes signing off on the transfer order and holds it up. One of his assistants (he's not sure which one – they keep dropping out to become hunters) takes it and hands it to the hunters, who mumble agreement and thanks before going out.

Ignis only hopes they'll actually follow the directions he's given them. Sometimes they don't. A blind man with no authority but the name of a missing prince...

Well. There's nothing he can do about it now.

He turns back to reviewing the reports on his desk, clearly dismissing the merchants; they walk out grumbling, but at least they walk out.

Ignis is too busy to care.

The reports –

This isn't working.

This. Lestallum. The Long Night. Any of it.

They're taking in too many refugees. The hunters that focus on food can't bring back enough meat. The vegetables are running low, as is the rice, and grain, and –

They have too many people, not enough food, and not enough light – and more people are arriving by the day.

They're going to have to start turning people away.

Ignis shudders at the thought, true as it might be. There's nowhere for people turned away to go to. Hammerhead can only hold so many, and most of the other main cities are too far away to even check in on, much less send people.

No, Ignis can't lie to himself. Anyone they turn away will be left alone, in the dark, for the daemons and the Scourge.

They will die – if they're lucky.

And how to pick who to turn away? the traitorously practical part of Ignis' mind hisses, the horrifying logic already going to its reasonable conclusion. We need hunters, skilled and trained. We need farmers. We need engineers. But who's left? Women and children? Unskilled laborers? Are they to be cast aside to die? Is it first come first serve? What about the sick? The wounded? Who gets chosen to die? And who makes the choice?

Ignis bites his lip. He doesn't want to think that way. He doesn't want to have to make that decision.

But there's no one to do it but him.

He bends back over the reports, searching desperately for a way to divide their food and housing yet again so that they can squeeze in just a few more refugees.

Just a few more...

Gladio's not expecting to find anything in the shabby sparse room he claimed for himself in Lestallum – it's not like he really has anything of his own there, maybe a few of Prompto's old pictures of sunny days, a few novels he'd been carrying around with him.

He's not expecting to open the door with a grunt and find a family of eight staring at him, wide-eyed and terrified, from where they're all huddled together around the few Cup Noodles that Gladio'd stashed behind the desk.

Their knuckles are white around the cups and there are guilty looks on their faces. They know they shouldn't be eating them. They know they weren't theirs.

Four of the eight are under the age of thirteen, and one more barely over.

"You can keep 'em," Gladio grunts, uncomfortable, and he backs out of the room, closing the door in front of him. That room is fit for a bachelor like him; he has no idea what on Eos Ignis is thinking, renting it out to so many people.

"Your clothing's been moved," a calm voice says from behind him.

Gladio jumps a bit, but turns with a smile. "Marshal," he says. "Shoulda known. You're the only one who can sneak up on me nowadays."

Cor doesn't really smile, but his face softens a bit. He's happy to see Gladio too. "That's for the best," he says. "Given your current choice of profession."

Gladio shrugs. He was born and raised a Shield – and what's a Shield without a King? Nothing, that's what. All those years, focusing all his time, all his skills, everything that he is, all devoted to the singular purpose of defending his King, and he fucked it up within months.

What's left for him now, other than hunting? What else is someone like him, a self-made weapon good for nothing but destroying things, destroying threats, going to do? What else is he possibly useful for, now that there's nothing left but the fight?

Gladio swallows those poisonous thoughts back down. He's not useless, not as long as he has his strong right hand and his swords.

And anyway, he doesn't want to go spilling this poison in Cor's ears, burdening the older man with all of Gladio's fears and worries and grief. Cor – the only one who understands. The only one in the same position.

Both of them weapons needing use, and no one left to use them.

"What're you doing here?" Gladio asks instead. "Would've thought you'd still be out hunting."

Cor goes further and farther than any of them, now. His eyes are shadowed by the same emptiness and grief as Gladio's, but for all that Gladio mastered Gilgamesh's challenge where Cor didn't – and Gladio's increasingly less sure that Cor didn't master the challenge, in his own way; Gilgamesh, the Blademaster, seems to know the best way to temper steel, and Cor even by his own account emerged stronger and more cautious than ever, letting him survive the battles he did, the battles against overwhelming odds that no one could have survived, earning himself the name of the Immortal – Cor has the skills to go alone where others don't dare go.

Gladio missed him, these last few weeks. Barely any time at all.

In the Long Night, a few weeks without word is an eternity. If the unthinkable happened, if Cor fell – if Cor died, they would mourn. If Cor became a daemon, well, they were all fucked. Might as well turn in their swords then and there and go straight for ritual suicide.

But the Immortal still stands.

"I returned," Cor answers vaguely. His brow is furrowed.

"Something wrong?"

"I'm not sure," Cor says. "Just a hunch."

"Your hunches are as good as Bahamut's prophecies to me," Gladio says with a shrug. He knows it's blasphemous to say, but he doesn't much care anymore. Not like the Astrals would get off their asses and do anything about it. They never do.

Cor's lips twitch in amusement. "I'll show you where your stuff is," he says. "The old corner store has been converted to hunter's barracks."

"Great," Gladio says, images of hunters sleeping on metal racks meant to hold supplies drifting before his eyes. "What's Ignis thinking, putting that many kids into a small room like that?"

"He's thinking that they'd rather be shoved in together in the light with running water than left out in the dark," Cor says, amusement gone. "You haven't seen the tents."

Gladio frowns. "The tents?"

"You'll see it on the way to the barracks."

He does. The old parking lots have been cleared, and in their place, on the hard asphalt, a virtual sea of tents has popped up. Tents of every color, every quality, pitched claustrophobically close together, and in each tent there are people. People still covered in the dust of the road, sleeping or eating or just sitting there, staring into nothingness, the shock of everything that has happened to them setting in.

And outside of the sea of tents, there are lines. Lines to use the showers, lines to get a bowl of stew spooned out by a tired-looking cook in a ragged old apron, lines for everything.

"What the Six," Gladio says. "Where'd they all come from?"

Cor shrugs. "Everywhere," he says, answering Gladio's question even though he knows it was rhetorical. "Not a lot of places still have light enough to keep the daemons back."

Gladio knows that, in his brain, but he's still having a hard time wrapping his skull around it. It's like the entire population of Insomnia tried to all move into Lestallum.

Except it isn't just Insomnia, is it? It's Galdin Quay, it's Hammerhead, it's everywhere. All of Lucis is coming to the light.

All of Lucis is coming here and dumping their problems into Ignis' lap.

"Shit," Gladio says. He feels bad about his uncharitable thoughts from earlier. He almost feels bad for not being here to help, but it's not like he can do anything to help. He's no administrative wiz like Ignis is. He just hits things.

Once, he thought his greatest fear was not having the strength to be the Shield Noctis deserved.

How naïve he was. There's so much else to fear, here in the Long Night.

They just have to hold out until Noctis comes back, though. Noctis will come back – he has to come back.

Gladio doesn't know what they'll do if he doesn't come back.

They waited next to the Crystal that first day, shivering. Then, when nothing happened, they took it back with them, guarding it closely with their lives, but nothing happened after the first week, either.

They split apart after that, unable to look at each other, unable to do anything more than bury themselves in different types of work – Ignis throwing himself into the power plant, Gladio with his hunts, Prompto going to learn car maintenance from a patient and pitying Cindy.

They all came together at the end of the first month, standing there, hoping – praying –

But there was nothing.

"Vector points," Gladio said dully at the time. "This is the Astral's design: it works like a fairy tale. One day, one week, one month – one year. Next time he might come out is one year."

"Three months," Ignis replied, his mouth tight. "It might be three months. Or six. The Astrals have always appreciated the number six."

"Or the number thirteen," Prompto snapped bitterly. "Thirteen royal arms, right? It could be three months, six months, a year – and what about after that? Three years? Six years? Ten years? Forever?! How long do we have to wait before we just give up?"

"We can't lose faith," Ignis said.

"We've lost Noctis," Prompto raged, his eyes overflowing with tears. "What else is there to lose?"

No one answered his question. There was nothing to say.

The three month mark –

It's soon.

Tonight.

It's why Gladio's back.

Maybe that's what Cor felt, with his hunch. But no, he was concerned, not pleased.

Besides, the Astrals favor the numbers one, six, and ten. Three is half of six, but it isn't a special number.

Doesn't stop them from having hope.

Gladio follows Cor to the hunter's barracks, split roughly down the middle for men and women – hunters don't much care about gender, or in fact about propriety, but it seems reasonable enough a split – and Gladio gets his shower and change of clothing, which is all he really wanted. His novels are still there.

Iris is there, too. She insisted on becoming a daemon hunter herself. Gladio fought it at first, but he was just so tired after losing Noctis that he couldn't sustain it, so he instead made her promise to start with coeruls and sabertusks instead of going straight to daemons.

Looks like she kept her promise. She has a dozen yellow stripes down the arm of her leather jacket – achievements marking a dozen successful meat hunts – and only a single red stripe, for a dozen daemons downed.

She waves, but doesn't come close.

Still sore about that fight they had last time, Gladio guesses. He doesn't even really remember what he said, just that he knew it was below the belt when he said it, and that Iris needed time away from him after that. They said their 'I love you's by rote at the end of the encounter – they never parted without it, nowadays - but she was still stewing.

Just another thing Gladio managed to destroy.

Great.

Cor leaves off to go patrol after that, leaving Gladio nothing for it but to go to the administrative center to see Ignis, who'll know where the Crystal has been hidden this week. They agreed it should be moved around after the first few attempts to steal it.

Prompto is already lurking at the steps.

He's trying to grow a goatee. It doesn't suit him.

"I'm good at hunting daemons," Gladio announces in lieu of a greeting.

Prompto blinks owlishly at him. "Um," he says. "Yeah, you are..?"

The ending is less a question and more a request that Gladio explain what exactly he's on about.

"I could take care of the one you've got clinging to your chin for you," Gladio clarifies. "No problem. Won't even charge you."

"My chin –" Prompto raises a hand, then realizes. "Hey! Gimme a break, I’m still growing it!"

But he's smiling, just the littlest bit; Gladio can see that the smile is coming despite Prompto's best efforts, but it's there. A little lightness, amid all this darkness.

Prompto smiled the most out of all of them, before.

"Just saying," Gladio says gruffly. He shakes his head. "How's Cindy?"

He doesn't ask how Prompto's doing. He knows the answer – he feels gutted and empty and numb. Just like Gladio does.

"She's tough as nails," Prompto says, his voice fond. Gladio doesn't comment on how that fondness sounds more like the way he talks about Iris than it does the way it sounded a few months back, when he was still dorkily crushing on her. "Nothing gets her down."

"Not even having to wear long pants to keep back the chill?" Gladio teases.

"Hah! You think a little bit of chill is going to stop Cindy?"

"Goosebumps aren't attractive."

"Cindy makes everything attractive," Prompto says firmly. His best attribute has always been his loyalty.

Loyalty –

Like his loyalty to Noctis.

Oh, Noct.

As if his ghost were summoned by the thought, Gladio and Prompto move apart from each other, unable to look at each other.

"Three months, huh," Prompto says, trying and failing to keep his voice light.

"Probably no chance of it," Gladio warns.

"Still worth a shot," Prompto says with a shrug. "Don't want him coming out of it alone."

Ignis appears at the door then. He has his cane, and he's found a visor to protect his still-useless eyes. "Gladio," he says. "Prompto."

"Ignis," Gladio says, his voice rough. Ignis is too thin, the work and the loneliness taking its toll on him. He was their chef and their snappiest dresser; now his fancy clothing hangs loose on him and the tightness of his cheeks suggests that he hasn't been eating right.

Gladio knows that he should stay here in Lestallum, offering his strong right arm and his eyes and his company to help ease Ignis' burden as Ignis does the work that should have fallen by birthright to Noctis. But he can't. He's just a Shield without a King. He can't help.

"Let us go," Ignis says.

The Crystal is in a sub-basement of the building. It was in a cave, last time.

They wait.

There are a few stilted attempts at conversation that quickly die – what do they have to talk about? Ignis knows everything about Gladio's recent hunt from the report Gladio turned in at the gate when he arrived, and the sea of tents says everything about Ignis' activities, and Prompto's attempts to fix cars in Hammerhead are the same as they've always been – and they wait in silence.

It's midnight (or at least the hour that used to mark midnight, before it was all night) before Ignis stirs with a sigh and rises with a creak to his back. He's too young for his bones to be groaning like that.

He states what's obvious to all of them, but which none of them wanted to say.

"He's not coming back today."

"He might," Prompto says stubbornly, his eyes fixed on the Crystal.

"He won't," Gladio says, bitter despair coloring his voice. "He's left us here, alone. He's not coming back."

He doesn't add the 'today' that Ignis does.

Prompto's cheeks flush red. "You always were the first one to give up on him."

Gladio's hands curl into fists. Gladio's never given up on Noctis, not once, not ever; he was angry at him, but it was always for Noctis' own good, to help push him forward. Gladio gave everything to Noctis, everything he had, from the second he was born, from before Noctis had even been conceived; he'd always known his duty, and knowing Noctis himself had turned that duty into a pleasure. Prompto has no idea what he's talking about, with his cars and his girl and his machine repairs, the insipid little –

"That was uncalled for, Prompto," Ignis says, his voice chilly. "Your pain is no greater than our own, and you know it."

Prompto ducks his head, ashamed, conceding the point.

"It doesn't change the facts," Ignis says. "Tonight isn't the night. We should go."

"You go, then," Prompto says. "I want to –"

They never find out what Prompto wanted, though, because the door opens and it's Cor.

"There's a disturbance outside the gate," he says. "You should come see this."

"Daemons?" Gladio asks, his fingers already flexing for the grip of his sword.

"No," Cor says, and his eyes are dark. "Magitek soldiers."

"I thought they were all disabled," Prompto says, gnawing at his lower lip. "The MTs, I mean."

He still doesn't like talking about them, about the MTs, about –

Well. It's not like they don't all know about him now, about his past, about where he's from, about what he was meant for. That moment of acceptance, from all of them, from Noct, is still one of the most precious memories he has, one that he pulls out in the darkest moments of the night and replays time and time again. He's not letting that memory fade, not ever.

"We thought so, too. Guess we were wrong," Cor says, his face lined with concern as he looks out of their ring of light to the troop of MT troopers standing a reasonable distance away. Far enough away that a sword strike would be difficult, and, in the dark, a gun shot would have only limited accuracy. Prompto could probably get one – he really is that good, and he knows it – but that wouldn't help against the whole troop.

Noct could've warped the distance, no problem.

But Noct's not here. He's not coming back today.

He's not coming back –

No. He is. He has to.

But right now, they have a different problem, and the problem is the rows of dark silhouettes with glowing red eyes, standing at attention in the dark. They don't move forward, but they're clearly watching the camp.

"What do they want?" Prompto asks. He's taking a leap here, assuming that MTs actually want something, but they're here, and they weren't here before, and that has to mean something, right? Most likely it just means that someone is commanding them, but that person has to want something.

"Excellent question," Ignis says. He can't see them, of course, but they've described the scene to him.

Well, sort of.

Cor gave a brief report, numbers and approximate placement, as well as a quick overview of the terrain and the fighting advantages and disadvantages (positive: lots of hunters; negative: lots of civilians).

Prompto described the atmosphere – the words 'creepy' and 'spooky red eyes' and 'like statutes but homicidal' came up.

Gladio rolled his eyes at both of them and described it in a way that actually explained what they were seeing (dark silhouettes, glowing red eyes, surrounding some sort of box, one standing somewhat ahead of the rest).

He's always been best at it.

"We should just attack already," Gladio grumbles, but it's clear he doesn't mean it. "The longer we wait, the closer they'll get; the more civilians might get hurt."

"They're not doing anything," Ignis points out, sounding thoughtful.

"They're MTs," Gladio says flatly. "Robots."

Prompto doesn't feel the usual sting he does when MTs get discussed in harsh terms; it helps that Gladio knows, and still stays the same tactless ass he’s always been. It shows that he doesn't think about Prompto that way, not even in the back of his mind.

"They came here," Cor says. "That means they want something, or, rather, someone with access to them wants something. We need to figure out what that something is."

"We should approach them," Ignis says abruptly.

Everyone looks at him.

"We have no other means of obtaining information. Cor, call for some of the hunters and set them up on the perimeter to cover us, and to keep watch and make sure this isn't some sort of distraction –"

"Already done," Cor says.

"And we'll go ourselves," Ignis continues. His face is set. "Between the four of us, we can defeat a group this small. Even if there's a greater ambush out there, we have enough power together to keep it back to cover our retreat. We should be able to question them without difficulty."

Nods all around.

"I am the local authority," Ignis adds, forestalling the objections to his presence that no one actually raised. "I need to approve any agreement, or even the opening of negotiations on behalf of Lestallum."

"We'll protect you," Gladio says. Cor murmurs an agreement.

Ignis relaxes infinitesimally; his fears of being left behind are as strong as ever. Prompto can sympathize.

After all, Prompto –

Well, they don't really need Prompto, do they?

"I'll hang up a pan on the gate," Cor says. "Prompto shooting it down will be the signal that the gate should be closed and not opened to anyone, even us."

Everyone looks at Cor.

"In the event they have a biological weapon," he clarifies. “And we don’t want to come back.”

Get turned into daemons, he means.

"Prompto's always been the best shot," Gladio agrees. "And we'd need something that precise to convince them here."

"Then we're agreed; we all go," Ignis says.

Prompto's throat is tight. He doesn't want to deal with MTs, not really, but the feeling of being needed, of being part of the team again, of being useful –

He wouldn't give that up for anything.

"You can count on me," he says.

They make the last few arrangements and they head out into the dark.

The MTs watch them approach.

As they (and their lights) get closer, more details become clear. It's a group of riflemen, tall and dangerous but not as giant as the axemen, and standing some few steps out in front of their perfect formation is a single MT, his armor slightly more fancy than the others. A unit commander, maybe; Prompto doesn't remember seeing that distinction, but it's a reasonable one. At some point, the Empire had more MT squads than captains to lead them, and an MT commander made sense. Robots (not-quite-robots, Prompto's mind reminds him, as you know best of all) commanding robots.

Why are they here?

They don’t move for a long while, just watching the group approach, their red eyes glowing above those fixed, metal smiles.

It’s only when they’re standing less than fifteen feet away that the commander moves with that jerky, inhuman motion characteristic of a puppet with badly pulled strings, or an MT out of battle. Same thing, really.

He (it?) raises a hand, and the MTs who were standing around what is now recognizably a large box all stir to life.

Cor, Gladio, and Prompto all tense for an attack, Ignis tensing when he feels them all brace themselves, but nothing happens.

Instead, the MTs just peel apart, perfect formation reforming several steps behind the box, the commander still out in front.

Gladio’s voice is a quiet murmur, letting Ignis know what happened.

Prompto glances at Cor, whose face is calm and serious as ever.

The MT commander gestures at the box, his metal palm open and welcoming, and then returns his hand to his side and stills again.

“He wants us to see what’s inside the box,” Prompto surmises.

“I don’t see anyone else,” Cor says, scanning the horizon, his hand still on the hilt of his blade

Prompto gulps. That means – could the MTs be doing this themselves? After all, they were human, once. But they were reduced to mindless, obedient robots…

Well.

They’re not going to find out anything just standing here.

“I’m going to open the box,” Prompto says, and holds his hands up before Gladio or Cor can volunteer to go in his stead.

He knows he’s the least useful one here. Gladio and Cor destroy daemons; Ignis runs Lestallum; and what does Prompto do? Run messages back and forth between Lestallum and Hammerhead, like a child, and sometimes fix cars?

No, he’s the right one for the job.

He moves forward slowly, carefully, knowing Gladio and Cor are at his back, watching him, ready to leap in at a moment’s notice, knowing that Ignis has his sharp ears and sharper mind bent on the situation, ready to call out instructions.

But nothing happens.

He gets to the box.

The MT commander is standing only a few steps away, but he’s as still as a statute.

Prompto looks down at the large box – big enough that it would take four men to carry it, easy.

Only one way to see what’s inside.

He opens the box, and then freezes, staring inside.

“What is it?” Ignis asks, breaking the quiet.

“It’s – it’s a – it’s a generator,” Prompto exclaims, rocking back on his heels. “Guys, it’s a generator!”

Generators are worth more than gold, more than diamonds, more than hunters – they mean more light, and more light means more space that can be protected from daemons, and that means more people, more safety. This one is disconnected, too, and it isn’t reliant on the power plant for power, and that means it could maybe be sent to Hammerhead, to help them maintain their boundaries – it means they could hold out longer –

This is great.

“What do they want for it?” Ignis asks, and Prompto stops, abashed.

The MTs didn’t just bring this as a gift, of course. That isn’t exactly characteristic of them.

They’ve correctly identified the thing Lestallum wants most, and they brought it here, in the dark.

Prompto looks at the commander. “What do you want for it?” he asks, unable to keep from addressing the MT directly. He knows it’s probably just a person using a transmitter or something – not sure why they’d send the MTs in that case – but he was very nearly one of these creatures, and maybe, a long time ago, they looked like him, or like someone else.

The commander stays standing still for a few more moments, almost considering, and then he very slowly reaches for his sword.

“Prompto, be careful,” Gladio calls, his voice tense.

“No,” Prompto says, watching the painfully slow process by which the MT commander draws the sword. “I think it’s okay.”

Sure enough, once the sword is fully drawn, the MT commander puts it on the ground, hilt facing towards Prompto.

Prompto’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean.

“It’s an offer of truce,” Cor says. “They want to negotiate.”

Oh. Okay. That makes sense.

“We can negotiate,” Ignis says. “Not here, though. We need light.”

“We can’t let them into Lestallum!” Gladio protests.

“Not all of them, and we’ll be in front of the gate,” Ignis says patiently. “In front of dozens of hunters. It’ll be fine. Negotiations take time; we need a place to sit while we do it.”

The MT commander nods creakily and raises his hand again.

Four MT troopers step forward and come to the box, lifting the heavy weight easily.

“They can carry the generator forward,” Ignis says a moment later, after Gladio has narrated their actions. “But then they return here. The negotiation will be between you and me.”

The MT commander shakes his head.

“No? What do you want, then?”

The MT commander raises a hand and points, first at Ignis and then –

At Prompto.

“Me?” Prompto asks, surprised.

“You want Prompto involved in the negotiations?” Ignis asks.

The MT commander nods.

“Why?” Prompto asks, entirely befuddled. He’s no negotiator!

“It doesn’t matter why,” Cor says. “You’ll agree to come alone to negotiate with Ignis and Prompto?”

The MT commander nods.

“Let’s get this moving, then,” Gladio says. He sounds worried.

Prompto can’t blame him.

They come back slowly towards the gate, the four of them, the four MTs and the MT commander.

The MTs put the generator – the top open and the contents clearly visible – down next to the gate and retreat.

There’s lots of excited whispering from the giant crowd of people who have gathered – Prompto sees Monica, Talcott, and Vyv among them. Another generator could mean opening another field for people to live in – more space to live, more space to breathe.

The MTs retreat, marching in perfect two-by-two order, leaving the MT commander alone before the gate. Not entirely alone, of course; Prompto can see well enough in the dark that he knows that the MTs back at the meeting point have drawn their rifles, though they’re still pointing them down at the ground to signify their lack of threat.

It’s clearly a defensive gesture, meant to show that they will act if they need to.

Whoever is running these MTs is very smart.

Six, Prompto hopes it’s not some leftover remnant of Verstael Besithia.

You killed him, Prompto reminds himself. He’s gone.

He hopes.

The MT commander is looking at the crowd and then, suddenly, moves forward, heading towards the crowd.

“What are you doing?” Gladio growls, his sword half-drawn. He’s not the only one; half the hunters in the crowd have drawn weapons. “Get away from there!”

The MT commander stops in front of some of the crowd. It reaches out a hand towards – Talcott?

Talcott stares up at him. He’s clutching his little two-way radio, which he uses to call Cindy and some of the truckers on the road; he likes to talk to them as they go down the empty roads, keeping them company in his own small way.

The MT commander’s hand remands extended. He does not move.

“Do you want my radio?” Talcott asks shyly.

The MT commander nods.

“Um. Okay?” Talcott says, and offers it.

The MT commander takes the radio and turns back to where some of Ignis’ assistants have brought out a table and three chairs, as well as notepads and typewriters to keep a record of the negotiations.

Ignis sits in his seat, with Gladio standing close by his side to act as narrator and not-so-secret bodyguard, but the MT commander doesn’t seem to object. Ignis gestures for Prompto to sit at the other chair.

Prompto gulps. “You sure this is a good idea?” he hisses to Ignis.

“They want you in the negotiation,” Ignis points out. “It’s an easy concession on our part.”

“But why?” Prompto asks. “Do you think it’s because I…?”

“I don’t know how they’d know,” Ignis says gently. “We can ask once we’ve gotten started.”

The MT commander is doing something to the radio while walking slowly and stiffly back towards the table, fingers moving quickly over the machinery as he takes pieces apart and puts other pieces back together, changing the configuration of wires and gears inside.

Prompto makes a mental note to ask Cindy for a spare radio for Talcott. He has a feeling that what Talcott gets back isn’t going to resemble what he gave away.

Suddenly, a horrible mechanical screeching comes out of the radio.

Everyone flinches, but the sound moderates itself quickly, resolving into crackling static which, in turn, dies down a soft hum. The MT commander is holding the radio in both hands now.

“Did you get what you wanted from the radio?” Prompto asks, curious.

The radio crackles with static again for a second and then, almost unbelievably, a voice comes out.

“Affirmative,” it says.

For a second there, Prompto thinks it’s one of Talcott’s trucker friends with a terrible sense of timing, but Ignis straightening up in surprise next to him leads him to put two and two together.

It’s not a trucker.

It’s the MT commander.

The MT commander is speaking.

Growing up, Ignis was part of a number of high-level, high-risk negotiations – first as an observer and then, later, as a participant.

This is by far the strangest.

He didn’t even know MTs possessed the ability to speak.

Though, to be fair, it doesn’t look like they do – after all, the MT commander is using the radio to speak through.

That’s a horrifying thought – that they have the capability of speech, but not the ability; the brains but not the mouths.

“You can sit, you know,” he hears Prompto say, followed by a few moments of pause and then, very slowly, the sound of metal contorting as the MT commander gingerly lowers himself down to the chair.

Ignis folds his hands in front of him. He wants to take a deep breath to steady himself, but he won’t; that would be revealing weakness, and he’s not going to do that.

This is no different than any other negotiation, he reminds himself. You need to figure out what the other side wants, what they can get you, and how to come to a compromise between the two without exposing your side to betrayal.

That last part is a new addition, added following Insomnia’s fall.

“The people of Lucis –” Ignis is going to go with Lucis, rather than Lestallum as he typically does, both because it sounds better and because he might as well be representing them as anyone else. “– thank you for the generator.”

The MT commander crackles static for a moment. “Offer to open negotiations,” it finally says. “Negotiations can now proceed.”

It takes a second to puzzle through that, but it makes sense: the generator was used to entice them to open the current negotiations, which they would never have entered into without the offer of the generator, but the MT commander seems to think that that was its sole use and there is no further need to discuss it.

Cutting straight to the chase, as it were.

Not quite what Ignis is used to in negotiations, but he can adapt.

He’s good at adapting.

“Of course,” he says smoothly. “You wanted negotiations; you have them. What can we do for you?”

The MT commander makes that creaking sound that Ignis has figured out is a nod. “We have offer. We have desire. We will reach agreement.”

A fairly mechanical description of negotiating, yes, but not too different than what Ignis had just thought. Good to know they are on the same page – albeit a slow page determined to go through each step of the negotiating process. Negotiation by machine…

“Who are you working on behalf of?” Gladio asks, even though he’s supposed to just be there as narrator. Ignis kicks him under the table.

“Unclear query. Please resubmit.”

“Um, what he means,” Prompto says, sounding uncertain, “is – are you answering to anyone? Who’s running the MTs now?”

The MT commander is silent for a long moment.

Finally, it speaks. “Superior orders have ceased,” it says.

“What does that mean?” Ignis asks, though he’s starting to have a distinct suspicion.

“Superior orders have ceased,” the MT commander repeats.

“You’re on your own,” Prompto breathes. “You don’t have orders – you’re doing this yourself!”

Another long pause and then, reluctantly, the MT commander answers, “Affirmative.”

Ignis tries very hard not to think of all the MTs he has killed over the years, thinking of them as nothing more than empty robots. They were the enemy, and they were attacking; it was nothing more than self-defense.

MTs thinking for themselves.

They really have reached the end of the world.

“So you represent the MTs?” Ignis asks, instead of focusing on that.

“Affirmative.”

“And the MTs wanted – to negotiate with us?” Ignis can’t help but ask.

“Affirmative.”

“Very well,” Ignis says, struggling to regain his footing a bit. “Do you accept myself and Prompto as adequate representatives to negotiate with?”

“Affirmative.”

“What do you want, then?” Ignis asks. “What do the MTs want?”

“Repairs,” the MT commander says.

“I thought MTs were self-repairing,” Prompto says.

“Affirmative.”

“Then why do you need repairs?”

“Finished units require location to complete self-repairs. Unfinished units require additional repair,” the MT commander says.

“And you want our help to repair them?” Prompto asks, sounding dubious.

“Affirmative.”

“I see,” Ignis says. “And what would you be offering in exchange for our provision of these repairs?”

“Assistance,” the MT commander says promptly. “Scouting and transportation through regions without light. Assistance in removal of obstacles.”

“Obstacles?”

“Physical or biological.”

“You mean daemons,” Prompto says.

“Biological obstacles,” the MT commander agrees.

“We already have hunters,” Ignis points out.

“Limited in number,” the MT commander points out in return. “MT units are more efficient.”

“I’d argue that,” Gladio mutters.

The MT commander crackles static for a few seconds. “Contrary to hunter units, MT units operate at peak efficiency in darkness,” it finally says. “MT units do not face biological obstacles, which will enable swifter activity.”

“Daemons don’t bother you,” Prompto interprets, which is good, because Ignis was starting to get confused. “Why not?”

“MT units are not recognized by biological obstacles as a source of sustenance or opposition.”

“They recognize you as fellow daemons,” Ignis says, feeling nauseous. “And they don’t bother you. So you can go quicker – that’s what you mean?”

“Affirmative.”

Ignis is negotiating with daemons. Oh, they may have been human once upon a time, as Prompto’s story made clear, but they were so infected – deliberately infected – by the Starscourge that they transitioned into daemonic machines. Machines designed to be obedient and mindless, but here they are anyway, negotiating on their own behalf.

Ignis doesn’t know what to do with that.

“MT units can provide additional support in protection of light-given areas,” the MT commander says again. It must be concerned that it’s losing their interest. “Additionally, MT units have located additional generators.”

That gets Ignis’ attention. “How many more?”

“Greater than four,” the MT commander says, clearly opting for its own version of vague.

“Four,” Prompto whispers. “Four – Ignis, you know what we could do with four more?!”

“Where did you find the generators?” Ignis asks.

“Cities,” the MT commander says. “Forts.”

“Were there people left in the cities?” Ignis asks.

The MT commander crackles in static. “Affirmative,” it says, though it sounds confused as to why Ignis would care. “Hiding inside.”

The MTs had made it into the cities.

Ignis clenches his fists under the table, a small nervous twitch he’s picked up ever since he stopped being able to close or roll his eyes.

No one, not even Cor, has managed to make it into the larger, further cities. There are too many daemons encircling them, tearing at the bodies of dead humans; no one dares to make it through.

This is the first confirmation they have that there are refugees left in the cities proper.

“Were the people left in the cities infected by the Starscourge?” he asks.

The MT commander crackles again, in what Ignis is starting to recognize as a thinking sound – much like a human might hum thoughtfully. This time it goes on for some time.

It occurs to Ignis that he’s posed a difficult question for a machine (I don’t know if it’s a machine) to answer, as some of the people were undoubtedly infected and others were not.

But just as Ignis opens his mouth to clarify, the MT commander speaks first.

“No extensive survey was conducted,” it says. “But of humans identified during initial walkthrough, estimated that 80% living humans are currently free from pathogen infection.”

Eighty percent!

Eighty percent of the living, mind you, which could mean 8 people out of 10 total, but it could also mean 80. It could also mean 800. It could mean –

So many people.

We don’t have space for them.

But if they had additional generators – if they were able to properly cannibalize the machine parts from the cities – if they had a few dozen MTs to help bring in the harvest in the dark of the night, untroubled by daemons, they could feed so many more people.

They could rescue so many more people.

“Do you represent the small squad you arrived with?” Ignis asks abruptly. There are only dozen of them. “Or are there more?”

The MT commander is silent for a while. “There are more.”

“And in return for your services as protectors and transportation and scouting on our behalf, all you want is a place to conduct your repairs, and assistance in repairing unfinished units?”

The MT commander hesitates. “Additional desire,” it says.

“What?”

“Orders.”

Ignis blinks. That was not what he expected from an additional request.

“MTs are made for service,” the MT commander explains.

“Wait,” Prompto says. “Are you saying you guys are bored?”

“Negative,” the MT commander says. “MTs do not get ‘bored’.”

“But you want something to do? Someone to give you orders?”

“Affirmative.”

“And you came here?” Gladio asks, clearly skeptical. “There are plenty of other places you could have gone – some of which still have soldiers from the Empire, no less. There were fortresses, scientific laboratories, administrative outposts – Six, even if you weren’t looking for military, you could’ve gone anywhere in Niflheim and found someone who would give you orders. And you came to Lestallum?”

“Affirmative.”

“Why?” Ignis asks.

The MT commander is silent.

“I’m afraid we will need to know why,” Ignis says. “It’s non-negotiable. We must be assured of your good faith, and for that, we need to know your motives.”

The MT commander’s neck creaks.

“Um,” Prompto says. “Why are you looking at me?”

Ignis’ eyebrows go up. They had demanded that Prompto be part of the negotiations…

“Why are you interested in Prompto?” he asks. “What does he have to do with your decision to offer Lestallum your services?”

The MT commander hesitates, static crackling.

Ignis hears Prompto swallow. “Is it because of this?” he asks, and Ignis can’t see what he does, but he can hear a hand be placed on the table. Palm up, if he had to guess; Prompto, one of the bravest souls Ignis has ever met, offering up his barcode for the MT commander to see. “Is this why?”

A moment of quiet, and then – “Affirmative.”

“Why?” Prompto asks. “You know I’m not – I am not an MT. I’m not. I was stolen as a baby, and raised in Lucis.”

“Unit NH-00O6-O204-1987 was never finished,” the MT commander agrees. “MT units have observed over time that Lestallum Base has reacted positively to the present of Unit NH-00O6-O204-1987.”

“Reacted positively – you came here because we’re nice to Prompto?” Gladio exclaims, getting the answer before either Prompto or Ignis do.

“Affirmative. No contingent of Niflheim has demonstrated similar tolerance. Unit NH-00O6-O204-1987 has been given repeated missions selected to his preferences and has been repaired regularly when damaged.”

“Don’t call me that,” Prompto says automatically. “My name is Prompto, not Unit…whatever. Also, are you referring to the fact that they heal me when I get hurt? That’s – that’s not getting damaged. I’m a person, not a machine.”

“Unit NH-00O6-O204-1987 was never finished,” the MT commander says again, clearly agreeing.

A terrible realization strikes Ignis.

“Wait,” Prompto says, and Ignis can hear that same realization in his voice. “You said – you said earlier, that you needed assistance repairing unfinished units. Are the unfinished units – are they like me? They’re people, not machines?”

“Negative,” the MT commander says. “Unfinished units are unfinished. Unit NH-00O6-O204-1987 was never finished. Unit NH-00O6-O204-1987 underwent a different process of development, resulting in person designated as ‘Prompto’.”

Ignis doesn’t care if it’s a gesture of weakness. He presses the back of his hand to his lips until it’s white from the pressure, as if that will keep the bile crawling up the back of his throat back.

“Children,” Prompto says blankly. “You mean you have children. Children that were supposed to grow up into MTs.”

“Affirmative,” the MT commander says, its mechanical radio-voice as emotionless as always. “Unfinished units require non-MT units to provide repairs, or they begin to become dysfunctional.”

“Do you even feed them?” Gladio demands, horror seeping through his words. “Do you even know that you need to touch them? Have the babies started dying?”

“Touching is necessary?” the MT commander asks, sounding surprised.

“Oh, Six. You have to bring them here, right away,” Gladio says. “Babies die if no one holds them.”

“Non-MT units can provide necessary repairs,” the MT commander says. It almost sounds relieved.

“You bet we can,” Gladio says. “We can do our best, anyway.”

“Negotiations are agreed?” the MT commander asks.

“Ignis?”

“No,” Ignis says, putting his hand down.

“Ignis!” both Gladio and Prompto exclaim.

“I’m not saying we’re not agreeing,” Ignis says sternly. “I just want to work out some additional terms with – I’m terribly sorry, I just realized I never asked. What should I address you as?”

The MT commander seems equally taken aback by the question.

“Designation Commander Unit NH-00TX-U514-1553,” it offers after a moment.

“That’s a bit of a mouthful,” Prompto says. “How about just, uh, ‘U5’ for now?”

“Acceptable,” U5 says warily.

“Okay, then,” Prompto says. “Ignis, what are the remaining terms you want to work out?”

“The children,” Ignis says. The concern had occurred to him while they were talking. “What happens after we, uh, ‘repair’ them? Are they going to become MTs?”

“Affirmative.”

“Uh, no,” Prompto says. “Not okay.”

“Query – why not?”

“What if they don’t want to be MTs?” Prompto asks. “What if they want to be more like me?”

“They are MTs,” U5 says.

“You’re making decisions for yourself now,” Prompto says savagely. “Why not give them the same chance?”

Ignis doesn’t interrupt. It’s not his place.

U5 is silent for a moment.

“Acceptable,” it finally says. “Unfinished units will be advanced to the finalization stage, but prior to finishing, will be permitted to select preferred development path of MT unit or Prompto unit.”

“Prompto unit?” Prompto squawks.

“That sounds fine to me,” Ignis intervenes. “When the children are old enough, they decide for themselves. We’re agreed. Dustin, do you have a final version of the terms?”

“Yes, sir,” Dustin, who had been taking notes, says. “The MTs will get us generators and provide help with necessary services, including but not limited to transportation through the dark, fighting daemons, and scouting and retrieval from cities. In return, we provide them with a place to, uh, repair themselves, and we help them raise their children, which will get an option as to whether they turn into MTs or not. And we give them orders.”

“Does that sound acceptable?” Ignis asks U5.

“Acceptable with one revision,” U5 says. “Orders will be delivered through Prompto unit.”

“Wait, what?” Prompto yelps.

“Prompto unit will promote the interests of the MTs,” U5 says firmly. “Prompto unit will ensure that MT units are repaired and not discarded. Correct?”

Prompto says nothing.

Ignis suspects he’s probably gaping.

“Prompto, are you comfortable taking a leadership role in relation to the MTs?” Ignis asks. “I understand that it might remind you of things you don’t want to think of, but they seem to trust you more than anyone else here. Can you do it?”

“Yeah,” Prompto says faintly. “I mean…yeah, I guess.”

“Then we have an agreement,” U5 says.

“Good,” Ignis says. “First things first – what do you know about harvesting vegetables? And how many generators does ‘more than four’ mean, exactly?”

Gladio did not expect to end today by attempting to explain how Cup Noodles work to a bunch of MTs.

They seem bizarrely intrigued by it, if by intrigued you mean ‘red eyes creepily watching Gladio bring noodles from cup to mouth in repetitive motions’, and Gladio has to start explaining or else he would have to punch someone just to make the awkwardness stop.

And that’s not nice to do to allies.

He’s in the back of the truck the MTs used to get close to Lestallum, while Prompto rides in the front with the MT commander – U5, Gladio reminds himself, we’re calling him U5 – and Cor, who insisted on coming along to scout out the size of the MT group.

This left no seats in the front, which meant Gladio got to sit in the back with the MTs.

Who are watching him eat.

Original best case scenario for today: Noct comes back, Gladio thinks wryly. Updated best case scenario: MTs turn out not to have accidentally let the babies die.

Gladio really hopes the MTs don't actually have babies in their care. He doesn't have much experience with babies, just hanging around a lot when Iris was small, but the thought of Iris when she was small and wrinkled and red and helpless, trapped in some sort of test tube...

That would be intolerable.

The MTs are definitely still watching him eat.

They're not moving their heads or anything as obvious as that, but he can feel himself being watched. By the Six, he still has that secondary alarm ringing in his head, the one that warns him of nearby MTs because MTs mean danger, the alarm that saved their lives (Noct's life) a hundred times over.

Except now, they're allies, and that means Gladio has to be nice to them.

“You should definitely pick these up when you’re in cities,” Gladio tells the MTs encouragingly, and really only mildly sarcastic. “They have different flavor varieties.”

“Gladio, stop recruiting MTs to satisfy your Cup Noodle habit,” Prompto calls from the front of the truck, his voice somewhat muffled. “I’m the one who gives them orders, remember?”

“I’m just saying, if they happen to see a few packs –”

“Generators first!”

“Fine, fine,” Gladio says, but he’s smiling, just a little bit.

He’s smiling. At MTs.

What the fuck is he doing.

The smile goes away.

Prompto goes back to talking with U5 in the front seat about generators.

Apparently, U5's little "more than four" wasn't deliberately vague so much as his best attempt at an answer he didn't know. Several MT squads apparently reacted to the total stop of orders from the top by joining up together to try to figure out what to do – a most un-MT-like behavior, born of desperation – and decided to take several actions at once: U5 to go negotiate with Lestallum for repairs and orders with one of the four generators in their possession, and several other squads to go out to obtain more generators in the event that the negotiations were successful.

U5 assumed that said other squads were successful, but could not, without reporting to his base, confirm how many generators were obtained.

Thus the current trip.

Prompto's asking about the attrition rate of the squads sent out on mission, because he's trying to deal with his newfound role as 'leader of the allied MT units' with responsibility.

He's a better man than Gladio, if he can learn to care about the wellbeing of a bunch of MT troopers – especially given his own traumatic experience with them.

Well, Gladio's always known in his heart of hearts that Prompto's better than he is.

Not a better fighter, of course – Gladio's trained his whole life, where Prompto started in his early teens. But that's just it – he came and he did the same thing Gladio did, try to protect Noct with his life, and he did it without any family duty, without any outside impetus, without training, with nothing but friendship. And where Gladio willingly abandoned Noct's side in his quest to assuage his own fears of not being enough, Prompto had to be thrown off a train before he would leave.

All things considered, Gladio doesn't mind helping Prompto through a few panic attacks (he'd had two before they set out on this trip, and he's still talking a bit too fast). It's quite literally the least he can do.

And the MTs are still watching him eat.

Six, they're creepy.

Gladio supposes they can’t help it; they’re MTs, after all. They’re born (made?) creepy.

Yeah, Gladio doesn’t want to think about this one too hard.

It doesn’t help that only U5 has a radio, so none of them can talk.

Though –

Damnit, Gladio's job has always been people. Ignis, for all his strategy and cleverness, preferred math and administration to diplomacy, even if he was better at the formal push-pull of negotiations. It was always Gladio who went out and befriended people, charmed them with a smile and a discussion of things that interested them.

Gladio's the one who bridges the gaps between stranger and friend.

And right now, he's letting his prejudice against MTs stop him from doing that. Six, the MTs are probably not watching him eat out of interest, but out of fear – a dozen MT troopers like this would be nothing for him to take out. He could probably wipe them out with a few swipes of his sword.

He's done it plenty of times before, after all.

Six, he’s being an ass. Worse, he’s being an ass who isn’t doing his job.

Okay, Gladio. Can't change what you've done. Just do better.

Gladio finishes his Cup Noodles and tosses it aside, then turns to look at the MTs, which are still staring at him.

“So, how do you communicate?” he asks one of them.

It blinks at him from behind its mask.

“I know you guys do. I just don’t know how,” Gladio says reasonably. “I’m willing to learn.”

He doesn't actually get a response from any of them, which he supposes is fair. He hasn't exactly been trying to make conversation so far.

"Information exchange is important for any well-trained group of soldiers," Gladio continues. "You must've seen – or at least heard of – the way my team yells at each other mid-battle –"

At least, the way they used to, when they still had Noct – shouting compliments and friendly insults with the same breath.

Now isn't the time to think of that.

"— but that's because we weren't trained together, not until late. You guys were. But you can't react so well to new input – and I know you do – without communicating about it. I've always been curious as to how you do it," Gladio lies. He'd always assumed there was some controller back on the drop ship, playing a video game but with soldiers; it would explain the slowness of their response time.

But he's trying to make friends, not insult them.

No response.

Red eyes blink at him from behind frozen metal faces.

Gladio shrugs. He tried. "Think on it," he advises. "I don't blame you if you don't want me to know, but if we're going to be allies, then, well, I figure we may as well get to know each other."

The MTs are clearly considering his question, from the way they're squinting, and some of them even turn their heads away from Gladio to look at each other in silent consultation.

Gladio feels pretty good about that. It's progress. It’s something.

Of course, that's when the truck shudders to a stop.

"We're here," Prompto announces unnecessarily. His voice is kinda breathy and high-pitched.

He hates MT laboratories; just hearing that they were going to one had triggered his second panic attack. Reasonable, given that he'd been captured and kept captive in them twice. The first time, after the train, he’d had to fight for his life to escape and barely made it out. The second time, he'd been literally strung up to a rack and left there as a gift to lure Noct to the trap that waited on the other end.

Not great memories.

The first panic attack had been about being the envoy to the MTs, which Gladio honestly couldn't blame him for, either. Even if it'd been only the dozen MTs in this squad, rather than some uncertain number more (Gladio does wonder how many survived – a few dozen more? A hundred more? Two hundred more?), Prompto's understandably tender about his past, and having actual MTs seize on it...

Yeah, Gladio can't even imagine.

Especially if what Prompto haltingly reported about MT units being clones – in at least one factory he knew of, clones of him – is true.

"Gotta run," Gladio tells the MTs, and slips out of the back of the truck and around the front.

Cor has his hand on Prompto's shoulder, grounding him, but they both seem relieved to see Gladio.

Gladio nods his thanks at Cor and nudges Prompto with his shoulder. "So, tell me," he says.

"About what?" Prompto asks, doing his absolute best to breathe evenly and not descend into a third panic attack.

"What's wrong with this architecture? I mean, I know it's ugly, but –"

Prompto snorts an involuntary laugh.

Good, he's distracted. A bit more of that, and he'll start to calm down.

Gladio clowns around for a few more minutes – Prompto always did find Gladio saying the words 'flying buttresses' really funny, and this time is no different, even though the laboratory (of which they can really only see the top, since most of it is underground) definitely doesn't have any – until Prompto is back to his usual color.

"Okay," Prompto says. "Let's go."

The MTs are already in formation, waiting patiently, U5 in the front.

They go inside.

The laboratory is, well. All jokes about architecture aside, Gladio really can only describe the place as ‘classic Niflheim creepy’ – lots of shapeless, colorless walls, industrial ceilings, soulless straight lines built entirely for utility and not even a little bit for aesthetics. Even basic human comfort wasn’t a factor considered in building these walls.

Gladio thinks he heard someone refer to it as ‘Brutalist’, meaning ‘brutally grabbed a handful of walls and put it up without any concern for appearance’, and he thinks the term fits.

Not that they don’t have a certain vibe to them, what with the aura of evil practically dripping from the dirty blood-speckled walls.

The majority of the laboratory is underground, meaning that the unobtrusive looking building hiding in the mountain is actually the entrance to a giant complex.

At least it has light. If they had to explore this place with nothing but their flashlights, Gladio’s pretty sure Prompto would have another panic attack.

“The unfinished units are on level three,” U5 says.

“Children,” Prompto says. “They’re called children.”

“Negative. ‘Children’ units are on level four,” U5 says.

Gladio frowns. “What’s the difference? The age?”

“Negative. Unfinished units are designated for processing into MT units. ‘Children’ units are designated for processing into researchers.”

Gladio glances at one of the rooms they pass by, in which the ripped-apart bodies of researchers are quietly decomposing. “The kids of the researchers, huh? They still, uh, alive?”

“All ventilation aimed at levels three and four automatically seals to prevent contamination of units,” U5 says. “Strict quarantine procedures have been maintained and there have been no signs of contamination of the remaining ‘children’ units.”

“Remaining?”

“Several of the researchers attempted to retrieve their ‘children’ units prior to shut-down. Their status is unknown.”

Dead or refugee, in other words.

They go down in a large elevator.

“Working power,” Cor murmurs thoughtfully.

Gladio nods. That means there’s some form of generator here, too; presumably a massive one if it’s lighting a facility this extensive. If they evacuate this facility, they’ll be able (hopefully) to take it with them.

Maybe they can use the Empire’s portable fortresses to build additional refugee homes. Gladio’d almost forgotten about those things, in all the mess, but surely one of the MTs would know how it was done, or could direct them to some paperwork detailing it…

The elevator doors open, and Gladio stops thinking.

Children.

There are so many children.

They’re on level three, which means ‘unfinished units’, and Gladio can tell, too. The kids have all been let out of their tubes, thank the Six, and they’re of all ages – everything from red-faced babies just lying out there on the floor to blank-eyed teenagers.

“Wow,” Prompto says. “Those are…definitely children.”

Only child, Gladio reminds himself.

He glances at Prompto, who’s gone wide-eyed and vaguely terrified, and at Cor, who, amusingly enough, has a better hidden but otherwise fairly similar expression on his face.

Only child and perpetual bachelor, Gladio amends. Is he really the only one here with experience with children?

Not that these are normal children.

They’re all eerily quiet, waiting for instructions. The older ones have the tell-tale red eyes of the MT units, along with pale skin and what almost look like tear-tracks of black blood dripping slowly down their faces. The younger ones look more normal, albeit still terribly pale – Gladio doubts they ever saw the sun, even before it went away.

They don’t look like Prompto, which is some small relief.

They do look like each other, particularly ones in the same age group. Just at a glance, there seem to have been three distinct ‘types’ for each age group, and about a dozen or so of each ‘type’.

It’s awful.

“Clones,” Cor confirms, crouching before some brunette children, about six years old, that stare up at him. He frowns at them, his brow furrowing. They frown back, similar furrows appearing in their chubby little faces.

It’s…creepily similar actually.

“Are those miniature versions of you?” Gladio asks, mildly horrified.

“Just similar, I think,” Cor says, though he looks disturbed. “Though I wouldn’t put it past the empire to try to harvest our blood to try to create clones of us…”

“Never say that again,” Gladio tells him. Even if it’s true, he doesn’t want to think about it.

Six, there have to be at least a hundred kids in this room.

“Why are the babies on the ground?” Gladio asks, already wading in that direction.

“It was necessary to uncork the unfinished units prematurely,” U5 says, and isn’t that a horrifying way to describe the process. “It was unclear what to do with them once they’d hatched from the pods.”

“So you put them on the ground?”

“It was unclear what to do with the unfinished units once they had hatched from the pods,” U5 repeats, and even though his voice is emotionless, Gladio would swear that there is a tremor of uncertainty and confusion in there.

The MT units had no idea what to do with kids, and all the researchers had either died, turned into daemons, or fled.

Six, what a mess.

Gladio sits down next to the babies and picks one up.

It makes a little choked-up sound and immediately tries to curl up to Gladio as much as possible.

Touch-starved, just like he thought.

“Let’s check out level four,” Gladio hears Cor tell Prompto. “The children of researchers may know more about the facility.”

Gladio doesn’t really pay attention to them going (or, more correctly, fleeing the prospect of having to deal with all the kids). He has other business to attend to.

“I need people to pick up the babies,” he instructs.

Several of the older teenagers come and mimic what he’s doing.

Surprisingly enough, so do some of the MT units that accompanied him.

One of them kneels next to Gladio, holding something out.

“Yeah?” Gladio asks, twisting to look at it, then flinches.

It’s an empty MT helmet.

“I don’t want that,” he says.

The MT just keeps holding it out.

“I’m not an MT, you know that, right?”

The MT doesn’t move.

Gladio looks around, but U5 has gone with Cor and Prompto, so there’s no one to explain what’s going on.

At least the people are picking up the babies, who are sighing with relief – babies gone so long without touch that they don’t even cry anymore, that are probably about to die from lack of attention, babies –

Babies that probably never saw anything other than MTs and researchers, and Gladio does not want them to think he’s a researcher.

Not with the barcodes already seared onto the babies’ flesh, and the ports buried under their skin.

“Fine,” Gladio says. “I’ll put on the damn helmet.”

The MT moves before Gladio can, gently positioning the helmet over Gladio’s head and bringing it down.

It’s absolutely terrifying, even though Gladio knows, rationally, that the MTs probably can’t be created just by adding a helmet.

Looking down at the baby through the mask, though, the baby does seem more comfortable. More relaxed.

Certainly the kids around him are relaxing. Visibly relaxing.

Yeah, they definitely thought he was a researcher.

“Ding! Gladiolus advances to MT Wrangling Level 2,” Gladio mutters.

“What’s a Gladiolus?” a voice crackles into his ear.

Crackles, as though transmitted by radio.

Gladio looks up.

The MT unit next to him is looking at him. “Your unit designation is Gladio, correct?” it asks.

The voice is female.

Gladio would never have known.

“Gladio is a shortened designation for Gladiolus,” another voice chimes in. Male, this time. “All units are assigned shortened designations.”

“But that’s because it takes 8.3 seconds to state a full unit designation and only 1.4 seconds to state the shortened designation,” the female objects. “The time advantage between Gladio and Gladiolus is minimal. Is one used in more formal situations?”

“Yeah,” Gladio says, after swallowing down his shock a few times. “Gladio’s what my friends call me.” He hesitates for only a moment. “You can all call me Gladio.”

Suddenly, he has a feeling of surprise and pleasure.

It’s not his feeling.

In fact, it feels like it’s coming from multiple other people.

“Is that you?” he asks. “You – you guys communicate through your helmets? With feelings as well as words?”

“Affirmative,” several voices chorus.

“MT units have implanted devices which use an equivalent of radio waves to interface with the mind,” the female MT says. “The helmets act as a back-up method in the event the device is broken. It permits conveyance of reports, as well as emotional output for additional context. Is this permitted?”

“Permitted?”

“The researchers did not permit exchange of emotional output,” the male one says. “Emotional output can be suppressed for the link, if Unit Gladio prefers.”

“Uh, no! No need. Emotions are fine. Good. Emotions are good.”

Sensations of relief.

They weren't sure.

“You can all do this?” he asks, thinking of all the MT soldiers he’s slaughtered. They were enemies, so he doesn’t feel bad about it – self-defense in the time of war – but it’s still disturbing. “All the time?”

“Negative,” one of them responds. “Only within link-groups. Link-groups can be modified.”

“Modified?”

“Small squad link-group, twelve units. Large squad link-group, one hundred units. Link-groups are designed to more efficiently create unified movement.”

Marching together without any of the whole ‘training’ business, Gladio interprets.

He looks at the kids, who remain silent.

“Is there a reason they’re not talking?” he asks.

“Unfinished units are not permitted to speak aloud,” the female MT says. “We can broaden the link-group to include them.”

“Uh, yeah. Let’s – let’s do that.”

Suddenly, he can hear them.

Children, whispering to each other, wondering what’s going to become of them; toddlers, babbling happily now that they’re being held because the MTs seem to be assuming ‘baby’ is anything under the age of 5; teenagers discussing –

Okay, there’s three teenage girls actively talking about the size of Gladio’s biceps, absolutely shamelessly.

By the Six, they’re really kids.

Mute kids, traumatized kids, but kids.

A six year old – too old to be held, by the totally arbitrary division imposed that Gladio’s really going to have to fix, given the jealous looks the babies are getting from all the other kids – toddles over and tugs on Gladio’s sleeve. He’s one of the ones that look a bit like Cor.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Unit Gladio will be responsible for future maintenance of unfinished units?” he asks shyly. He doesn’t move his mouth, but Gladio’s getting a bit better at placing the voices that come out through his helmet with the individuals transmitting the signal.

Gladio opens his mouth to deny it – he’s a hunter now, not a babysitter; he only came on this trip to protect Prompto and make sure there wouldn’t be any trouble – but the kids are all looking at him with big wide eyes that, regardless of color or shape or age, remind him of Iris.

“For now,” he temporizes.

They all look deeply relieved.

Gladio comforts himself that ‘for now’ really only extends until they get back to Lestallum and set up an appropriate place for all of them to stay. Then people who actually know what they’re doing can be assigned to take care of them.

Gladio is definitely not one of those people. He’s leaving to go back on hunting missions the second they get back to Lestallum and the kids are no longer his responsibility.

Though he will have to make sure that none of the people assigned to take care of them end up being prejudiced just because they’re Niflheim, or MTs…and are willing to wear the helmet to communicate with them, at least at first…and take special care to make sure that the older kids get some serious touching therapy, not just the babies…

Okay, maybe Gladio will have to stick around a bit.

Just until the kids are settled.

“Hey, Gladio!”

Gladio looks up.

Prompto, Cor and U5 are back. Prompto has a weird look on his face. Cor is trying very hard to look like he’s carved out of stone.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells the MTs. “Do me a favor and try to make sure that everyone in this room has some physical contact, whether it’s the teenagers holding the babies or kids hugging each other, okay?”

“Order received, Unit Gladio!”

Gladio will deal with that later.

He hands his baby to the male MT and jogs back to Prompto and Cor.

“Nice headgear,” Prompto says.

Gladio is confused for a second, then realizes he’s still wearing the MT helmet. He pulls it off, but doesn’t discard it. “They use it for communication,” he explains.

“You were permitted into speaking link-group,” U5 observes. He sounds – surprised?

“Is that weird?”

“Unusual. Researchers only very rarely accessed link-group.”

“Even under orders?” Cor asks.

“Link-groups in which researcher access was permitted rarely involved speaking beyond reports,” U5 tells him.

Gladio feels – complimented? Is that the feeling?

Well, it’s a nice feeling, anyway.

“What’s up?” he asks Prompto, whose weird expression hasn’t gone away.

“U5 says there’s more MTs than just in the complex,” Prompto replies. “He says there’s more laboratories out there, too. With, uh, unfinished units.”

“There’s more kids?”

“Yeah. And more MTs. Apparently they’re camped in the back or something?”

“Why not in the building?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Cor says.

U5 leads them to balcony that seems to look into some sort of underground cavern. Gladio says seems to, because the light is only on inside the building, not in the cavern; everything more than a few feet beyond the balcony is pitch black.

“They’re there?” he asks, marginally suspicious. He sees why Cor and Prompto wanted him there. If there’s a lot of MTs there – or worse, daemons, hiding in the dark – that’s a good ambush point.

“Affirmative,” U5 says.

“Can we get some light?”

“Affirmative.”

U5 goes over to a giant wall of control panels and begins pressing buttons.

After a few minutes, the lights in the cavern start flickering on. Weak lights, reddish in color – clearly back-up lights that drain the generators, but enough to see by.

Enough to see the frankly gigantic cavern.

Enough to see the army of MT units there. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, all standing in perfect formation. All of them looking up at the balcony, awaiting orders.

Gladio tries to count by units, but quickly loses track. There have to be three thousand of them, at least.

U5 steps forward to the balcony. “Lestallum Base has agreed to terms,” he announces. His voice isn’t any louder than usual; Gladio suspects the message is being heard through the helmets of each and every MT unit perfectly well regardless. U5 is only speaking through the radio for their convenience. “MT units are now in the service of Lestallum Base. Units must register change in chain of command.”

The crowd ripples as each MT nods once, sharply, confirming the receipt of orders.

“Amended command hierarchy will retain MT unit classifications and squad orderings until alternative groups are imposed,” U5 continues. “Ultimate superior is to be registered as NH-00O6-O204-1987, designated ‘Prompto Unit’. Acknowledge.”

And the armies of MTs all move at once, faces swinging around to focus on Prompto, and their arms rise up in merciless, perfect unity in the traditional Niflheim salute, swearing loyalty.

To Prompto.

Oh, shit, Prompto thinks in the frozen second spent staring at the saluting legions before him, right before he faints dead away from shock. What in the Six have I gotten myself into?

Chapter Text

SIX MONTHS

Prompto insisted on seeing the devastation for himself, instead of staying where it was safe like certain other people thought he should. Certain other people who seem to sometimes forget that Prompto is a Six-accursed hero-of-the-nation level fighter that even Cor the Immortal once said "did well".

He won the argument, of course, and he felt good about that, right up until he was standing in the center of what used to be Galdin Quay.

After that, he didn't feel good about much.

The Quay is – it's all but gone.

Oh, there aren't daemons roaming the streets anymore – they were largely cleared out before Prompto got the idea in his head that he needed to look around – but the damage they wrought is still there.

Buildings broken into like shells cracked open for the juicy meat inside. Whole structures demolished. Claw marks – daemon and human both – on the bloodied walls, visible only in the large spotlights set up to illuminate the town (mostly for Prompto’s benefit, he suspects). The waters filled with the broken carcasses of boats. Skittering creatures hiding in alleyways. Bodies in the streets...

"Don’t we have a detail clearing the bodies?" Prompto asks.

"Yes, General," one of Prompto's assistants says. She's an MT, though she's one of the few which took advantage of Cindy's workshop in Hammerhead to customize her metallic face-mask a little. Her shortened designation – Prompto insisted on them – is T4, though recently Gladio's "this is what a name is" educational programs seem to be having an impact, because she's started slurring the syllables the way humans generally do, ending up with the name "Tifor".

It's a pretty name, feminine and almost delicate sounding, which is a bit funny when applied to a six-foot-something axewoman.

She is totally a bodyguard as well as an assistant.

Eufiv – U5, the original negotiator they worked with, who mostly stays back in Lestallum HQ or Hammerhead with several other commander units to assist Ignis with coordinating with the MT armies – calls her and her colleague, Jiten (formerly G10, a sniper unit), Prompto's aides-de-camp, which is apparently what you call secretary-slash-bodyguards for generals.

Because Prompto's a general now.

Sometimes, his mind still gibbers helplessly about that. (A general! With aides-de-camp! Prompto! What is wrong with the world?! Other than the usual whole daemon-infested Long Night end-of-the-world stuff, anyway). He totally freaked out at first, when the job he accepted – a job that originally sounded like being a messenger between Ignis at Lestallum and Eufiv with the MTs, passing along orders, just like he did for Hammerhead – turned out to be a lot less 'messenger' and a lot more...army.

A lot more 'General of the MT Army', because the MTs desperately wanted a general to give them orders. Which they mostly wanted because all the independent thinking had been crushed out of most of them ages ago.

And the General they picked, the first major collective decision they made – picking a General they thought would actually care about them – was Prompto.

Cor and Gladio and Ignis all explained at length why it would be both psychologically and politically damaging if Prompto refused the post, which Prompto got, but Six damn it all, Prompto is not exactly General material.

He’s barely even accepted that he was Lucis material.

This is definitely not anywhere he saw his life going, let's put it that way.

Honestly, Prompto never really gave much thought about what he was going to do 'when he grew up', so to speak. He'd worked his ass off to join the Crownsguard, but that'd been inspired by his desire to protect Noct (and look at the awful job of it you did of it, too, some part of his mind whispers, but he quashes that thought ruthlessly because there’s time for despair and there’s time to be a general, and right now he has to be a general) rather than an actual desire to spend his life mindlessly patrolling in an endless circuit around the Citadel.

Compared to being a General, a mindless, endless circuit around the Citadel sounds positively delightful.

It's not that he minds the power involved – being able to do things like point at a dead body and say "we should bury them" and have it get done – but rather...

"It's in my paperwork pile, isn't it," Prompto says, not really asking a question.

"Yes, General," Jiten says. "The squad designated for body collection has photographed and buried – or burned, if they were infected by Starscourge – a large number of bodies so far, but they are running out of room in the area designated 'Graveyard'. They’ve requisitioned additional space, but they’re running up against the restriction you imposed of not letting the Graveyard get too close to where we’re housing the refugees, so they’re waiting for you to give an order."

Given that Prompto gave them two entire fields to use to bury people in, that's minorly horrifying. Maybe not surprising, but horrifying.

"Great," Prompto says. "Logistics. My favorite. I love it so much, I may die if I ever see another piece of paper about logistics ever again." After a second, he adds, "Sarcasm."

He's started sometimes adding an automatic clarification at the end of his sentences. His aides-de-camp are pretty prone to misinterpreting him and getting fussy if he doesn't.

Of course, that's because they're MTs, and therefore sometimes have difficulties with the nuance of human emotion.

"I can set up a digital projector if it makes you feel better," Tifor says. "Sarcasm. We don't have one."

Sometimes. Tifor's definitely picking it up.

All the more impressive, actually, since she's still using a radio to communicate. It turns out most of the MTs have vocal cords, they're just atrophied from lack of use over the years – though some of the units had apparently had them surgically removed entirely, which, uh, gross – and they don’t know how to use them. Instead, they’ve built radios out of spare MT parts, which luckily they have lots of, and started wearing them around their necks as chokers, letting the sound come from there.

Yes, they still have their helmet-based (brain-device-based?) methods of communication, but Prompto just isn't willing to wear the helmet like Gladio does, sometimes; he's tried it, but it was too confusing and claustrophobic for him.

Too many bad memories involved.

Father-son reunion, his ass. Prompto’s Lucian, not Niflheim, and he’s not an MT.

He’s just, you know, their general.

At any rate, he avoided the issue for a few days, then pushed it off entirely by ordering Eufiv to work with Cindy come up with a better solution, which Eufiv is working on. Eufiv might not be the most creative person, but he's really good at getting MTs to think of stuff, and Cindy is, of course, a genius with a wrench.

Besides, Eufiv – most eloquent of the MT commander units, which is why he’d been assigned the all-important duty of negotiating with Lestallum – actually stumbles and stutters every time he has to deal with Cindy.

No one knows how to deal with Cindy; that’s just a fact of life.

Prompto both sympathizes and thinks it's hilarious, so he assigns Eufiv jobs that involve Hammerhead as often as possible.

In fairness, Prompto’s pretty sure Eufiv assigned Prompto aides-de-camp in secret retribution.

Prompto only gave in because Eufiv was so stubborn about it, but he's secretly grateful. If he had to do all of the paperwork himself, he really would die.

“No, no, I’ll get to it,” Prompto says, but he can’t help but look around some more. His memory isn’t photographic – that’s why he has a camera – but he can’t help but compare places he took pictures of (pictures with Noct, who’s gone now) with the current devastation.

It was been different, then. Galdin Quay wasn’t a total mess, for one thing; there weren’t bodies in the streets and dirt in the air, but that isn’t really what Prompto is thinking of.

He's thinking of memories.

Gladio trying the super spicy stew and turning bright red while insisting that he was ‘fine’.

Ignis declaring that he was going to learn to cook with Galdian flavors.

Noct –

Noct liked this place. They came back here a few times, during their travels. He liked fishing in the calm blue of the bay, sometimes for hours. He even joined Prompto in nagging Ignis to let them stay at the fancy hotel.

The bay isn’t blue anymore. There aren’t that many colors in the dark.

It’s just black.

“Is there a difficulty, General?” Tifor asks. She’s more talkative – relatively speaking – than Jiten, and also better at logistics and mathematical calculations. She was an axewoman unit, officially, tall and built like a truck, but she'd been assigned to an artillery squad, which meant that she had needed to know how to operate (and calculate) trajectories. She’s Prompto’s go-to person for logistical questions, like “where to put people” and “how to get the army from point A to point B”, which means that Jiten mostly gets left with all of what Ignis euphemistically calls "resource management" - which Prompto has discovered is a fancy word for "reads all the mail and decides what Prompto needs to care about".

Technically, both aides-de-camp do that, but since Prompto is mostly dealing with logistical questions nowadays, Jiten gets stuck with the bulk of the paperwork. He doesn't complain, but Prompto feels bad anyway.

Ignis swears that in the long run, filling out these forms will be for everyone's benefit. Prompto already discovered the use of it three days ago, when Jiten managed to produce a file dealing with a certain daemon's strengths and weaknesses that someone in the East Wing had filed last week, and which the West Wing was able to take full advantage of.

Some daemons attack other daemons for fun, who knew?

Certainly not Prompto.

Prompto sighs. “No, no difficulty,” he says. “Just, you know. We came here a bunch of times and it, uh, was – it didn’t look like this.”

“Would the General like to engage in reconstructive activities immediately?” Jiten asks, his quiet voice neutral. He wouldn’t argue against the stupidity of the idea until Prompto actually accepted the stupid suggestion.

“No, we don’t have time,” Prompto says. “How many refugees do we have?”

Jiten gives him the numbers. They’ve set up some of the Empire’s old portable fortresses – fairly flimsy defense-wise, but that doesn’t matter when it's surrounded by regular MT patrols – outside of town and they're taking anyone they discover hiding in their houses or, in one particularly interesting twist, in the sewers, there to recover.

The Graveyard is supposed to be some distance away, but apparently is starting to get close. Prompto set up priorities: first refugee rescue, then supply rescue, then daemon elimination (as necessary), and only then could they engage in body clean-up.

They’ve already sent several shipments of non-perishable goods from the warehouses back to Lestallum. Ignis pressed into Prompto’s head the importance of using up anything with an expiration date first and only then shifting over to the stuff that would last.

Prompto doesn’t like that line of thought. That line of thought assumes the Long Night will go on for a long time – past the quickly approaching winter – and that in turn means that Ignis doesn’t expect to see Noctis back in two weeks, when the six month period hits, but, well, just because Prompto doesn’t like it doesn’t mean he can’t see the value in thinking that way.

“We have enough food for them, right? And medicines?”

“The warehouses are still only half-empty,” Tifor assures him. “Squad 13 discovered an almost wholly intact storage unit filled with elixirs yesterday.”

“Really? Cool. Give that squad a commendation or something.”

His aides nod.

“Okay, so other than the Graveyard thing, is there anything we need to think about?”

Prompto’s being flippant. There’s always something to think about.

Like what they’re going to do with their refugees, for instance. There’s no light here but what the few generators Ignis was able to spare them can manage, so the refugee holding point is only defended by a constantly rotating set of MT guards rather than by light. Lestallum has light, but Lestallum’s already full to bursting, so they can’t send the refugees there.

Hammerhead’s not much better.

Ignis has floated (yes, he made that pun) some ideas about setting up a permanent base in Galdin Quay in order to get access to regular seafood – that’s one of the reasons it's a priority to salvage – but Prompto’s not sure that’s possible. The refugees are still people. They still need light.

He vaguely recalls someone mentioning something about a vitamin that your body only produces when there’s light. Vitamin D, for daylight? He doesn’t remember.

Ignis said something about fish containing the relevant necessary vitamin. Thus the urgency of securing the Quay.

Maybe Ignis could be prevailed upon to give up some more of the precious generators…

“We’ve only uncovered approximately 38% of the Quay,” Tifor says. “Progress has been slower than expected, given the larger than expected number of refugees.”

“Galdian tenacity at its finest,” Prompto agrees. Sure, there was less than a 60% survival rate, but it was still larger than expected. “Suggestions?”

“We should bring East Wing here,” Tifor says promptly, meaning that she’s been thinking about it for a while. “They’re the closest wing. They’ve finished canvassing the area around Hammerhead –”

Okay, so maybe Prompto was a bit biased with where he initially set out assignments.

A bit.

Maybe.

Nah.

Hey, Hammerhead is certified daemon free right now!

Sure, neither Callanegh Steps nor Snulhend Pass are, but whatever; it's the road between Lestallum and Hammerhead that's important, and they’ve set up checkpoints practically every two miles on that. That means there can be more regular communication and shipments between Hammerhead and Lestallum, and that, in turn, means there's a place for Ignis to ship the more adventurous refugees to help deal with his overcrowding problem.

“ – and East Wing’s presence here would accelerate the clearing of the Quay considerably.”

“I can see that,” Prompto concedes, and at any rate Hammerhead has enough hunters to protect itself right now. “But doesn’t that involve marching them all here?”

“There is no valid alternative,” Tifor says confidently. “North Wing is finally starting to make a dent in the harvest in the mountainside by Lestallum, and South Wing is either guarding the Lestallum-Hammerhead Highway or mining the Disc for additional medical supplies. Any deviation from those forces would involve retraining. Moreover, additional city canvassing experience would be beneficial to East Wing, which has been primarily focused on daemon-slaying for now. Moreover, a faster conclusion to the survey of the Quay will permit additional rotations back to Lestallum for off-duty time.”

Tifor still sounds a bit dubious about the whole notion of going off-duty, the way most MTs are, but the MTs who are based around Lestallum regularly send back glowing reviews on the subject, so the MTs directly under Prompto are - to put it nicely - interested in trying it out. Prompto wouldn't mind some off-duty time himself, actually.

“Agreed,” Prompto says, conceding to Tifor's logic - as excellent and implacable as ever. “So that means we have either to use up power for a drop ship to get them here, or we need to feed them as they march.”

“Correct.”

“Ignis isn’t going to be happy about losing more of his generators for the drop ship, but he’s also not going to be happy about losing food for the march. And no one suggest that they just go without food, okay? That's not going to happen.” MTs are way too eager to suggest hurting themselves to try to make things more efficient. They need less food than non-MTs, but they also need daemon blood to preserve their MT-ness – luckily, daemons are the one thing the world is not in any short supply of. And daemon blood couldn't replace food entirely, anyway. “What are you thinking?”

“We propose a trade,” Tifor says. “Commander Ignis provides us with additional generators for the drop ship to bring East Wing here, which will require several round trips, and on each journey back, the return journey will be filled with another shipment.”

“What, refugees? Ignis doesn’t want more of those; he’s got all the ones he can handle.”

“I was thinking fish.”

The thought of fish brings thoughts of Noct, standing peacefully on the edge of a quay that no longer exists, fishing pole in hand.

The thought hurts, as it always does.

Noct needs to come back soon, or else –

Actually, Prompto’s usual way of finishing that thought is to think that he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Noct doesn’t come back soon. But he guesses that’s not true anymore, is it? He’s got an army to look after.

An army of MTs who look to him to lead them, and probably would even after Noct came back. After all, Noct is just a king; they never swore any oaths to him. They swore one to Prompto.

Ugh, all the responsibility is going to crush him.

But in the meantime: fish.

"Fish might do it," Prompto says, gnawing at his lower lip thoughtfully. They'll need to find a way to get the fish to survive the trip to Hammerhead, and from Hammerhead to Lestallum, but Ignis will be delighted to give the people of Lestallum a treat while also preserving their supply of canned goods a little longer. "Maybe shrimp."

"One of the refugees suggested scallops," Jiten says. “While they may not contain the necessary vitamins in as large amounts, there is still some benefit. As they are still in their shells, they could be shipped fresh and preserved during the journey.”

“Good idea,” Prompto says, turning the idea over in his mind. “We will need figure out what we’re doing with the refugees eventually, though – send a message to Ignis to ask about how construction is going in Lestallum. Or Hammerhead. We can’t just keep them in camps here; we either have to commit to rebuilding the Quay or bring them back with us."

Now that’s something he’s not looking forward to. The clearing of the road between Lestallum and Hammerhead was bad enough – marching and marching and more marching, and it didn’t matter that he was riding in a car himself, Prompto still felt bad about all those poor legs, and he figures he’ll feel even worse if it’s refugees doing the marching instead of trained soldiers.

"If he wants to commit to rebuilding," Prompto adds, "we're definitely going to need the extra bodies, possibly even starting to integrate regular soldiers into the army sooner than expected.”

That's not a particularly cheerful alternative either. Prompto very distinctly remembers how kindly people took to non-Insomnia citizens joining the armed forces; he doesn't think people will be all that pleased with the notion of being the newbies in a fully MT army.

“I will compose a message for your approval,” Jiten says.

“Great,” Prompto says, already reviewing his to-do list for the rest of the day. It’s extensive, and there’s several lists beyond that that he needs to worry about. Who knew Generals did so much work? But before he forgets – “Who’s the refugee who suggested scallops? I want to thank him.”

“He’s in the main facility,” Tifor says. “His designation is ‘Dino’, sub-designation ‘Ghiranze’.”

“Wait,” Prompto says. “Dino’s still around?”

Gladio doesn't know how it happened.

Really.

It's not like the MT kids were his responsibility or anything, even though he did feel a bit bad when he dropped the kids off back at Lestallum.

So, when he came back from an oddly unsatisfying hunt – it all felt like pointless grinding nowadays, given that there were always more daemons – he figured there was no harm in checking in on how they were doing.

Little did he know.

Really, it's after that point that things started getting hazy.

One minute he's come back from a hunt and swinging by the MTs to see how they're adapting (answer: they weren't, at all, it was horrifying – they didn't even understand the concept of beds), the next minute he's up in someone's face yelling about how the MTs need to be taught the basics of humanity because they can't just neglect them the way Niflheim always had, the minute after that the fateful words "well if no one else is available, I'll do it" are coming out of his mouth...

Well, long story short, Gladio's now in charge of a school.

Not just an MTs school, either. He meant for it to be for MTs, who desperately needed lessons in things like "eating" and "sleeping" and "fun", but the second someone – Gladio doesn't know who, but he's going to find them and hurt them – mentioned the word 'school', a few dozen men and women showed up with their kids and determined expressions.

Gladio's protestations that he wasn't teaching anything appropriately scholastic were met with implacable statements of "don't care as long as they're kept busy a few hours during the day, now take them".

Which – well.

What was he supposed to with that?

He's a Shield. His job is supposed to be to protect people, in the end, and besides, tired, overstressed refugee mothers determined to drop their kids off at school are a lot scarier than daemons anyway.

That left him with a bunch of off-duty MTs (they didn't really understand the concept of being off-duty, but Ignis, via Prompto, had imposed requirements that all squads take some staggered time off anyway), unfinished MTs, and a bunch of regular kids.

Gladio panicked.

Luckily for him, it turned out the regular kids, mostly elementary or kindergarten age, had already been to school and had very firm ideas of what it consisted of.

This apparently involved things like "building with blocks", "finger painting" and "nap time". Some of the older kids even got really into explaining basic concepts (mostly incorrectly, but whatever) and enforcing order because they decided that they were self-dubbed 'teacher's assistants'.

The MTs were instantly entranced.

Gladio breathed a sigh of relief.

A sigh of relief that came much too soon, because apparently once word got around that Gladio was running a school that kept kids busy during the day, there was a massive influx of sign ups.

So many kids.

So many kids.

Gladio went to beg Ignis for help.

Ignis – after laughing himself sick for something like ten minutes straight – authorized him to hire additional teachers. Gladio was apparently paying them in nicer quarters for their families, since gil weren't really useful anymore.

Some of them had actual teaching experience, thank the Six.

Gladio somehow thought that'd be the end of it, the teachers would take over and he could go back to hunting.

But no.

In the first week or so, Gladio had – in sheer desperation and lack of experience – decided that instead of actual classes, he'd just gather everyone together and just ramble on about something. It'd worked out pretty well – it didn't matter if he was talking about the importance of regular sleep cycles or trying to explain the concept of personal agency, or explaining the concepts of "names" as opposed to "designations", everyone was really into it. Kids, MTs, everyone. The kids liked to volunteer suggestions, and the MTs – speaking through their helmets – were slowly getting used to the idea of asking stupid questions.

Technically, the classes were meant as rehabilitation for the adult MTs. Practically, everyone attended, and he does mean everyone. Even bored adults sometimes showed up.

Gladio's still suspicious that at some point they were going to start heckling, but no, the Gladio Talks About Something show was everyone's favorite show in town, apparently.

And when he hired the teachers to, you know, actually put all the kids into groups and teach them real things, there was a near riot at the suggestion that the show was going to stop.

Gladio's more popular than chocobo plushes.

He didn't even know that was possible.

Gladio started to run out of subjects to talk about. And then, in a fit of desperation, he'd lasso'd Cor into giving a talk about "why not to fight everything you see, up to and including minor deities".

Cor had given him a Look when he’d announced the subject.

Gladio has to deal with kids now. Cor's Looks are nothing.

Cor's talk turned out to be insanely popular. Not so much a surprise – half the camp wanted to hear the Immortal talk, especially with Gladio there to act as a minor buffer between him and the kids – they kept suggesting things for him to say to Cor, mostly via notes, presumably because they were too shy to ask any questions of Cor directly. Cor mostly glared at the audience and escaped the second he thought he could.

Gladio thought it was a success.

Sure, Cor nearly killed Gladio when it was all over, but the respite was worth it.

In fact, it gave Gladio an idea.

He posted a list asking for suggested topics and speakers to talk about them, figuring that as long as he was there, it still counted as a Gladio talk for the kids. He expected to have to burn favors to get a hunter or two to talk, but in fact the list filled up remarkably quickly.

Lots of people had stuff they wanted to talk about. Who knew?

Yesterday's talk was about the life cycle of frogs.

Normally, Gladio’s pretty sure that Sania wouldn't have gotten such an enthusiastic reception for a talk about frogs, but it turns out that no one ever explained to MTs that regular people get born, not made in tubes, and so the whole thing turned into the world's most embarrassing multi-person birds and the bees talk ever.

Gladio's too busy thanking the Six that he wasn't the one giving it.

He wonders, idly, if he can get Prompto to give them all a lecture on photography. The kids would love that.

And if it’s Prompto, the MTs would love it too.

He winces when he gets a mental image of Prompto lecturing his gigantic armies.

Well, that would probably be funny, but that would almost certainly start a mania for photography that they couldn’t handle, if only because they'd never find enough cameras. The MTs idolize Prompto to a probably unhealthy degree.

Might incentivize them to find more cameras, though...

Gladio will have to double check with Ignis. Apparently, after the whole sex talk thing, he's supposed to run his ideas by the camp's Supreme Commander.

A Supreme Commander who can't keep a straight face for more than five seconds when the subject is discussed. Gladio's counted.

Honestly, Gladio doesn't mind. It's good to see Ignis laughing again.

Prompto, too; he's looking better than he was before. His eyes are sharp again, his smiles have come back – mostly when he's relaying the more bizarre antics of his newfound army -- and responsibility suits him better than anyone might have thought.

If anything, Prompto thrives under the weight of generalship. For all his childhood shyness, he's always liked people, liked being around people who liked him, and now the number of people he called his own numbers in the thousands.

Cindy, on one of her visits to Lestallum for an exchange of supplies, looked both fond and slightly relieved.

Huh. That's definitely someone he should get to give a talk. Car repair, maybe?

Besides, with the advent of the portable fortresses and the start of actual construction, he has a place to put his 'school', a bunch of teachers to teach classes before each afternoon's Gladio Talk (he'd punch whoever named it that, but he has the sinking suspicion it was him), a schedule in place for the next two weeks of speakers, and, well, he's starting to feel like he's getting the hang of this whole thing.

It's working.

"Hey, Gladio," a familiar voice says from behind him.

Gladio turns with a grin. He can always finish his morning workout later. "Hey, Iris," he says. "Or should it be Iris the Daemon Slayer?"

Iris blushes. "Oh, shut up. It's not like that."

"It's totally like that," Gladio says gleefully. "You took out a whole nest by yourself. Not too shabby."

He yelled at her for being stupid at the time, but since she was fine, he's let it turn into glowing pride.

She rolls her eyes. "It was a small nest, and I had backup," she says dismissively, but Gladio can see the flush of pleasure on her face. She likes her new nickname.

As long as it doesn't encourage her to do more stupid stuff, he likes it too.

It's a big brother's duty to tease, after all.

"So, Great Daemon Slayer, what have I done to earn the honor of your presence?"

"Shut up!"

"First you come interrupt my workout, then you tell me to shut up," Gladio says mournfully, shaking his head. "I guess that's what they mean about women being changeable..."

Iris shoves him. He shoves back.

They're wrestling on the ground a minute later, both laughing their heads off. It's not even proper sparring, just the old fashioned wrassling they used to do when they were small. The only thing missing are some pillows to smack each other with.

Iris fights dirty, but Gladio's her big brother. Pinning her and sitting on her until she cries mercy is a matter of honor.

"Fine! Fine! You win! Get off of me, you big lunk! You're crushing me!"

"I don't know –" he says, pretending to have to think about it. "You haven't said please –"

"Gladio!"

Laughing, Gladio rolls off of Iris and offers her a hand up. She takes it and sticks her tongue out at him.

"Very mature," he tells her, grinning. He wonders if he can invite her to recreate it at one of his talks – the MTs need a proper introduction to the concept of 'siblings' that's a little less rosy tinted than in, say, books...

"You're one to talk," she sniffs. "Besides, if it'd been swords, I would've won."

"In your dreams," Gladio laughs, grabbing a towel and slinging it over his shoulders.

"No, really," Iris persists, following behind him. "How long has it been since you've been on a hunt?"

Gladio shrugs. He's not actually sure. Since before he started the school, that's for sure.

"Doesn't matter," he says. "I can still beat you with one hand tied behind my back."

"Maybe you should try," Iris says.

Gladio frowns at her. "Why're you being so persistent about this?" he asks. "You trying to hurt my feelings or something?"

They aren't hurt, for the record. He brought down a behemoth and a bandersnatch and a whatever Ignis had named that thing in the swamp. He's fought Astals and MTs and Ardyn fucking Izunia. He passed Gilgamesh's trial. It'd take a lot more than a several month break (has it really been that long?) to make him doubt himself.

What he does wonder about is why Iris is so fixated on it.

"No, nothing like that," Iris says quickly.

"Then what's up?"

"It's just – I just – you're a Shield!" she finally bursts out. "You're a warrior! You're more than just some – some – some schoolteacher!"

Gladio's eyebrows go up. This is more serious than he realized.

He catches Iris by the shoulder and hustles her over to the side of the gym, where they can at least pretend to have some privacy.

"Iris," he says, but he's lost the momentum of the conversation; Iris' face is flushed red and she's on a tear

"I don't know why Ignis assigned this to you, but it's wrong! You're the bravest, strongest guy I know, the best warrior we have left – yes, I’m including Cor – but instead of going out and fighting, you haven't left Lestallum in weeks; you've just been trapped in here, doing paperwork and taking care of kids and I just don't want you to be unhappy, Gladio!"

"I'm not," Gladio says, and is so stupefied by his own statement that he loses the next few minutes of Iris' ranting.

He's not unhappy. He's not happy, the way he used to define happiness – the open, gaping wound that is Noct's disappearance still lingers, unable to be closed by the final knowledge that he's gone for good or back for good, and of course it's probably a bit crass to be happy, really happy, during the Long Night.

Six, as long as there are no operative Cup Noodles factories and they're on strict rations, he can't imagine being happy.

But –

He isn't unhappy, either. Not the desperate, sticking, painful sort of unhappiness, lingering and bleak, like trudging through an endless, pointless marsh with nothing but his failure (what use is a Shield who's lost his King?) to keep him company. Not like the way it used to be, when he buried himself in the endless repetition of daemon hunt after daemon hunt.

He likes hunting, it's not that he doesn't. He fully expects to give a talk to his school at some point about it – how to track, and how to fight, and how to ambush; how to carve meat off a carcass and pick wild vegetables, assuming any remain. Maybe do some sort of field trip, if that were manageable. If they only had more food, he'd like to bring Ignis in to give cooking demos, see if any of the kids like that. Maybe bake cookies or something. He bets none of the MTs have ever had sugar.

And it's not like daemon-hunting isn't fulfilling in its own way, either; he likes the knowledge that he's helping people, protecting them, destroying evil one daemon at a time. That's what it felt like, when he was with Noctis.

What it was like before.

But there's always more daemons, now, during the Long Night. They're never going to run out of them. And somewhere along the way, daemon hunts started feeling like nothing more than endless grinding.

More and more destruction, because that's all a failure like him could do.

Somewhere along the line, Gladio forgot why he hunts. It isn't to get stronger, or to mark down a list of accomplishments; it's to protect people. It's to make their lives better.

Better, like the way his school's made things better.

He's seen the change in Lestallum ever since the school opened – not consciously, not really, but it's there. People aren't just sitting in their tents with nothing to do, caring for kids that have no future. The're talking, for the first time since the Long Night covered Eos, about the future.

Sure, it's little things they're looking forward to, inconsequential things – next week's ‘Talk By Cor The Immortal Part II, This Time With Questions’, for instance, that's a big one. People are already planning to show up early to reserve seats.

Not all of it's the school, Gladio's the first to admit that. Ignis has been working miracles – the Empire's old portable fortresses set up in ever-increasing concentric rings, designed both for defense and easy navigation, transformed into places for people to live that isn't a tent or the ground or a single room apartment with no space. Sure, the process of setting up each fortress takes time, but no one's upset at having to wait, now that they have hope – Ignis' waiting list for rooming arrangements is a mile long, and the list of volunteer floor supervisors nearly as long.

The MT armies, too, they've helped – sure, people were scared at first, all of those metal figures marching in formation, but it's hard to be scared after you've seen them all asking very serious questions about how you differentiate red and blue, and who came up with these silly color names anyway.

Man, the MTs are going to flip when Gladio introduces them to chocobos, assuming he can find some. No one's going to be scared of an MT after that.

Sure, there are food shortages, and they're going to have to worry about medicines, but – there's light, and there's safety, and there's something to look forward to every day.

Hope.

They have hope.

And he's part of it, part of building that hope, in a way he never imagined he could be.

He can help build Noct's kingdom into something he can be proud to come back to, and not just by killing things.

"Iris," Gladio interrupts her.

Iris takes a deep breath and looks at him.

"Ignis didn't assign this to me," he tells her. "I volunteered."

"But why?"

Gladio's not sure he can explain it to her, his heart too full with revelation. This is for him, he knows, not for her; she would hate it in a way he definitely doesn't. He's not sure how to tell her that he sees her face in every kid's, feels that same twinge in his chest that he'd first felt when his dad had told him that he was a big brother now. He's not sure it'll convey properly.

"Dunno," he finally says. "Guess I just enjoy suffering?"

She smacks his arm.

"Seriously, Iris," Gladio says, catching her hand and pulling her into a hug. "Don't worry about me, okay? Maybe what I'm doing would be boring to you, but it's good for me right now."

"You're sure?" she asks, laying her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he says. Then he grins. "But I'm glad to know that you'll take over for me in case I really need a break."

"Wait, what?! I didn't agree to anything like that!"

"It was implied!"

"It was not!"

Someone ends up calling Ignis on the two maniacs chasing each other while waving swords about the length of their bodies around in the air like sticks, but it's totally worth every minute of Ignis' surprisingly effective "I'm disappointed in you for your juvenile behavior in the middle of my city" look and accompanying speech.

(The only thing that would make it more effective is if he stopped looking like he's about to laugh the whole time. Luckily only someone who knows him as well as Gladio does can tell.)

No, Gladio reflects, things are going pretty damn well.

Things are going terribly.

Ignis knew, didn't he, that accepting all the refugees would be a problem. More people, more problems – compounded old problems, new problems, problems he hadn’t even conceived of yet.

But he couldn’t turn them away.

It wasn’t what Noct would have done.

However diminished, this is still the kingdom of Lucis. Noctis’ kingdom, and it's Ignis’ duty to carry that forward in both rule and spirit, as long as possible.

The day will come, he knows with grim certainty, when he will be forced to choose between the people of the kingdom and its soul, but every day he can forestall that fate, he will.

Forestalling every problem, expected or unexpected, that he can along the way.

He’s been doing that since the beginning.

Ignis remembers the first days, when they lugged the Crystal back from Niflheim, that horribly long journey by thankfully still working train. He remembers how they hoped, how they were disappointed, how they wept, how they spoke in low, despairing voices.

He remembers Prompto all but tearing out his hair when the sun didn’t rise – “Is the sun actually gone? Are we all going to freeze?” he shrieked. “Are we going to spin off into space?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Water will freeze! Animals and plants will die! The weather – Six, Ignis, what’s going to happen to the weather –”

“If the sun was fully gone, we’d be dead within about seven minutes,” Ignis said calmly. “It’s been several days. The sun is not gone.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the sun is definitely not rising.”

“Maybe it’s covered up?” Gladio suggested.

“Drastic cool down!” Prompto shouted. “Followed, very shortly, by a horrific increase in the greenhouse gas effect, resulting in us all boiling! Before we freeze! What’s left of us!”

“There’s no particulate matter in the air,” Ignis said in his best reasonable tone. “Clearly that has also not occurred.”

“Maybe we’re stuck on the dark side of the Earth!” Prompto exclaimed.

“I feel like we’d notice if the Earth’s rotation had stopped…” Ignis started.

“Has anybody got a compass?” Gladio asked morbidly.

“You’re not helping, Gladio,” Ignis said.

“Prompto, if we were stuck on the dark side of the Earth, we would have all the same problems that we’ve already discussed,” Gladio said. “It’s clearly a magic curse blocking us from receiving sunlight, but since it hasn’t gotten noticeably colder –”

“It’s freezing!”

“We’re in Niflheim!” Ignis exclaimed. “In the last part of winter! The Glacian’s body is less than three miles away! It’s always freezing here!”

Prompto and Gladio, entirely unaccustomed to Ignis shouting, turned to him, probably, if he had to guess, with wide eyes. He can hear their bootheels scraping the floor as they make the turn.

Ignis cleared his throat, somewhat embarrassed. “As I was saying,” he said sternly. “Gladio is undoubtedly correct – this is a work of magic, and therefore it is by its very nature artificial. The sun is still there, we simply cannot see it. As we leave Niflheim, the weather will likely maintain its regular patterns, including the next winter, which we must prepare for. The crops will die without access to the sun, but we will not be freezing or boiling or – any of it. We must focus on surviving – and ensuring the survival of the kingdom – until Noctis’ return.”

“Uh, yeah,” Prompto mutters.

“Right,” Gladio agrees.

They both sound vaguely overwhelmed.

“And besides,” Ignis continued, “if we die, it’ll be in a few months when our bodies run out of Vitamin D. We will develop rickets, followed, eventually, by death. You can worry about that instead.”

“Ignis!”

They had not, in fact, developed rickets.

Mostly due to the large supply of Vitamin D enriched milk concentrate they apparently have because someone decided to lay in a large warehouse of stock pre-Night, Ignis suspects. Ignis has no idea why someone decided to stock up on that, but honestly he doesn’t care what the reason is. The milk will last them until Galdin Quay can be fully secured, especially if their diets are supplemented with fish and an endless supply of night-thriving mushrooms, which also provides the Vitamin D they are all sorely lacking.

Instead, of course, they developed a brand new set of problems.

Item 1: Food.

As the farmers suspected and Ignis grimly agreed, vegetable life was largely beginning to rot on the vine.

The recent infusion of the MT soldiers was both good and bad in this respect: good, because they were able to effectively scout the cities for more nonperishable foods and their extra hands to work the fields were invaluable, especially when guided by experienced farmers or non-experienced but imaginative volunteers, and when the non-MTs were working the fields the MTs patrolled as guards.

Bad, because they represented additional mouths to feed. Ignis hated to do it – and Prompto wasn't any happier about it – but he'd ordered the MTs to remain on those awful protein bar rations while on active duty for the time being, and authorized them to continue harvesting daemons for their regular injections of daemon blood, which enabled them to eat significantly less.

It appears as though daemons conduct their own bizarre form of photosynthesis during nighttime hours, which is both horrifying (they attack humans not because they needed to eat, but rather for the pure pleasure of killing) and extremely convenient (humanity is unlikely to collectively die as a result of the plants no longer converting carbon dioxide to oxygen).

Not ideal, but Ignis can't have thousands of people going through withdrawal in the middle of a crisis, but it doesn't make him feel any better about ordering it. Nor does it make him feel less like he and the other citizens of Lucis are benefiting from the suffering of others, even if those others knew nothing other than suffering.

Especially if they knew nothing other than suffering.

Still, it's nothing more than a preservation of the status quo, and if things ever stabilize, Ignis fully intends to start some sort of rehabilitation program for them; the good intention will have to do for the time being.

At least, by rotating their off-duty shifts, they're able to attend Gladio's school and start to learn more about what it means to be human.

No matter.

Ignis conscripted every able-bodied adult he could, hunter or refugee or MT, to harvest the fields, and they've gotten in everything they could, but that was it.

Barring what Prompto's army could collect from the cities they'd been sent to clean up – Galdin Quay being the first, with its access to the seaside and hopefully a steady supply of seafood – they're now officially limited to what vegetables they have collected, and what prepackaged versions of them they can find.

Ignis has imposed strict rationing, and he thinks they can make it to years' end before they need to cut it again. But what if Noct doesn't come back at the six month mark? What if he doesn't come back at the year mark?

What if the Long Night continues?

Ignis huddled together with some of the surviving mathematicians (rather a lot of those – an indoor species for the most part, they seemed just fine with the lack of outdoor light when they even noticed) and they did the grim math.

Six months – they’re fine.

Noct returns in a year – still minimal casualties.

Three years – 25% attrition rate due to starvation.

Six years – 40%.

More...

He doesn't want to calculate more.

Worse, that calculation only includes the matter of food.

They have far worse to deal with.

Item 2: Disease.

Six, Ignis had very nearly forgotten about disease.

That’s not a mistake he’s ever going to make again.

Overcrowding – shoving all those people side by side into tents – led inevitably to disease, and not just the usual bouts of colds and coughs that always happened when people from different places met after some time separated and began to breathe each other’s air.

Their alliance with the MTs came barely in time – the MTs were able to provide at least a few portable fortresses, and the bodies to raise and protect them, the very same week that Ignis received the first reports of true sickness.

Cholera, the city dweller's disease.

Too many people in one place. There were lines to use the limited number of restrooms, the sewers were backing up, and far too many caravans flouted Ignis' rules about not fouling up any water that could be potable.

The fortresses took time to set up, for all that it was less time than actually building something, and more and more people began to fall ill.

Those that were already weak, first: the elderly, the sick, pregnant women, children. But soon enough they'd have an epidemic.

While the first fortresses were being set up, Ignis seriously considered imposing martial law over misuse of bathrooms. What has his life come to?

But then they built the fortresses, and they expanded the sewer lines to connect to them, and they finally had enough room.

For now.

Of course, the fortresses are out in the darkness, so people are wary of them and of the MTs that guard them. Luckily there are enough adventurous souls – or at least claustrophobic ones – to ease the pressure on the city.

The fact that the MTs don't mind sewage duty helped. Of course, Prompto rightfully yelled at Ignis that 'not complaining' didn't mean 'fine with'; Ignis recruited more refugees to help after that, but it's working, at least for now.

They treated the first few cases with elixirs, potions, curatives, all watered down to barely nothing to make them last longer. Prompto sends potions back whenever he could, and has assigned a wing of his army to the Disc of Cauthess to mine some meteorite dust to try to make more, but they would run out of those, too.

They're managing for now.

Managing, but not thriving.

More diseases as the population swells. Increasingly less food, fewer vitamins, which means people’s natural resistance would be weakened. And as people died, their corpses would immediately become centers of contagion and would have to be dealt with.

At least the rivers mean that water is plentiful, even if they do have to carefully filter it after discovering daemons trying to intentionally pollute it, as well as the accidental or purely stupid pollution of overcrowding.

They're managing – but for how long?

At least the spread of the Starscourge seems limited – Ignis would think that perhaps what remains of the Six had opted to have mercy, deciding that daemons infecting bodies in the refugee zones deliberately is enough of a problem, but he knows it's more likely because the daemons were too busy running free in the wild to effectively spread the scourge to the cities. Lestallum is spared for now, but only because there were still enough bodies outside of Lestallum for the daemons to target.

It's hardly what he would call mercy.

Item 3: Civil Unrest.

Overcrowding doesn’t just mean less food and more disease. It means less space, which means sharper tempers. Less light, which means more of the fears that come in the darkness, a darkness that makes people feel free to whisper to each other things they would normally disdain to say during the day.

Moreover, people are unnaturally idle, and Ignis – as someone who thrives on work – knows well that idle hands are unhappy hands.

Too many people, not enough food, sickness and boredom, and all the anxiety of having lost everything – all enough to drive anyone to unhappiness, and all that unhappiness is aimed at whoever they can think of to blame. And, unfortunately, the obvious choice for most of them is to lay the blame at the feet of the local government.

As the man currently representing the local government, Ignis can both sympathize with the people's plight and also very sincerely want them not to do anything about it.

Luckily, most people seem to understand that Ignis really is trying his best.

Most.

There are enough agitators that Ignis has had to reposition hunters away from useful tasks, like hunting meat or killing daemons, and put them on patrolling the camp. He doesn't like it – especially the part where the hunters report to him on any unrest they find, it makes him feel like he's spying on his people – but he doesn't have a choice.

They have to enforce order.

The hunters, at least, seem to understand for the most part; led by Cor and following his example, they don't judge him for receiving the reports on identified troublemakers, for ordering that anyone found assaulting another refugee be immediately cast out – theft, Ignis can understand as desperation, but he can't afford to let any violence go unchecked – or even for his request that they do their best to encourage patience, his own little propaganda machine.

The system works imperfectly. There are a handful of individuals who have started spreading rumors – rumors from all angles, no less. Rumors that Noct yet lives, and that Ignis, Gladio and Prompto have conspired against him and imprisoned him somewhere so that they might rule. Rumors that the MTs, with the daemon blood, are carriers of Starscourge and that Ignis has sold them all out to the daemons by allying with them. Rumors that the Astals have promised to bring back the sun once all the daemons (MTs included) were dead. Rumors...

Well, Ignis has heard a lot of rumors.

He credits Gladio's school with the fact that no open rebellion or riot had yet broken out.

In truth, Ignis would not have expected Gladio to be the one to take initiative to start reforming the social order – Gladio, whom Ignis loves but whose interests lie primarily in fighting, bad books, and Cup Noodles – but somehow, when faced with an endless darkness and despair, he grew strong enough to take upon his shoulders that most slippery of challenges.

Ignis isn't even sure Gladio entirely realizes the magnitude of what he's taken on, much like Prompto and his MTs and his newfound generalship. But it's true.

Ignis, they call the Supreme Commander, following the MTs in their need for structured order; he represents the government that makes them wait in line, that sends their hunters out on dangerous tasks, that knows things they dp not. They respect him and thank him, but he is both good and bad.

Prompto is their General, leader of their armies, savior of the refugees and source of much of the food they have – Ignis has heard the reports of Prompto's efficiency, his care for life, and the devotion of his troops, and he knows that even the hunters have started agitating to join his squads on the front lines, MTs or no MTs. It is only a matter of time (and of preparing Prompto) before Ignis transfers all external martial matters into the hands of the least militant of their original quartet. He has only refrained from doing so already because doing so would inevitably result in losing Cor, their most experienced military leader, to his proper place as Prompto's advisor, and the sight of the Immortal is one of the biggest morale boosters they have.

At least Cor seems to recognise the issue and is very obviously training (and selling) Iris as his successor in leadership of the hunters. Iris Amicitia, the Daemon Slayer – people are already whispering that the second child of the King's Shields, unusual in a line that typically matches the Caelum line's tradition of a single heir, was born for this, the defense – the Shield – of her people against the dark.

And Ignis only started half a dozen of those whispers himself.

The Commander, the General, the Immortal Marshal, the Daemon Slayer - these are figures that are respected, honored, saluted. They are the political mind and military arm of Lucis, the might of the much diminished kingdom – insofar as it still is Lucis, with its population swollen with strangers from all over. But they represent the government, and like any form of government, no matter how beneficent, the people see them as what they really are: still armed, dangerous, best to have, but to have at a safe distance.

Gladio, though; Gladio the people love. Every person in the camp, from the straightest laced noble to the least human MT, calls him Gladio with fondness: Gladio, whose rambling lectures are the highlight of everyone's day whether or not they attend; Gladio, who gave everyone something to gossip about and to look forward to; Gladio, who welcomes anyone to his podium, no matter what class or rank or how dull they might think they are; Gladio, who as often as not gives away portions of his rations to children who look a little pale; Gladio, on whose solid strength they all rely.

If Gladio thinks things are going well, the people say with satisfaction, then surely it must be true.

Gladio, who taught the MTs to want the names Prompto gave them.

Gladio, who makes the children laugh.

Gladio, who brought an engineer who had been injured to his school to give a speech on the values of learning mathematics for engineering, and ended up leading a very nearly camp-wide discussion on the best way to expand the use of the generators and to create additional light for everyone.

Ignis received three dozen workable proposals within a week of that talk, and the mood of the camp shifted from a fearful mass huddling at the base of the power plant to a cheerful crowd greedily looking out at the dark, speaking confidently of the expansion sure to come once there was more light. People who had begged Ignis not to send them out beyond the line of the darkness now spoke loudly of the homes they planned to build once there was time for new construction.

Ignis, who had scarcely even thought of new construction, ended up assigning one of the loudest speakers to run a request for proposals for building new homes, given their limited light and resources.

In fact, the very same engineer who gave the talk came by Ignis’ office just yesterday and suggested, very quietly, that they consider – when they had time, of course, time and energy and manpower – sending for the General to create a cleared walkway to the Callatenn’s Plunge the way he had created a safe route to Hammerhead.

“Callatenn’s Plunge?” Ignis said blankly, when this was suggested. “Why? We’re not short of water around here yet.”

Callatenn’s Plunge was near a large lake – perhaps they could set up a fishery there, as well as in the more reliable but distant Quay; Ignis had considered it but thought it not worth the manpower until the cities were cleared. But why would an engineer care?

“Not for the water,” the engineer – Holly? Ignis vaguely recalls her voice – replied. “For the waterfall.”

“The waterfall?”

There is a secret passage behind the waterfall, as Ignis well remembers; frozen and icy, but again, if the purpose isn’t for water, then –

“Again, this is only when we have time,” Holly said quickly, apologetically. “But I was thinking we could build a dam.”

“A dam.”

“Yes. To – generate electricity?”

Hydroelectric power.

A second power plant.

The possibilities are – pardon his pun – electrifying.

“I want you to get me a workable plan,” Ignis informed Holly, who he could hear straightening up with pride. “Let me know what would be needed: manpower, supplies, everything. I want the bottom line in terms of what is needed and a range of options in terms of timelines. Assume you’d be able to get whatever volunteers you need.”

“Yes, Commander!” Holly chirped, and she went off, head held high, smile broad.

And she thanked Gladio for inspiring her, too.

Gladio will need a title eventually, Ignis muses. But perhaps it's best that he doesn’t have one yet.

Item 4: Daemons.

They have many hunters and many fighters in camp, all the ones they could find, but their numbers are dwindling. Some have been lost to injury, others lost entirely, and not every dangerous job can be trusted to the MTs, who are just as susceptible as hunters since the daemons realized that they were being attacked.

They need more.

They need –

“Ignis?” a familiar voice comes from the door, interrupting Ignis’ thoughts.

Prompto feels the absurd urge to wave hello to Ignis, despite the fact that the man is, well, still blind, and without much hope of getting not-blind.

It’s kind of weird being here again, even though he spent three months here before his three months with the MTs. It’s different.

Not a bad different, just different.

Prompto loves Ignis dearly, but something about being here, standing across the desk from Ignis, makes Prompto feel more like the stupid kid always just a little bit behind the rest he felt like growing up. Never quite good enough, never quite fitting in – never the perfect intellect like Ignis, never the perfect warrior like Gladio –

He’s stopped feeling that way among the MTs, actually, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s finally among what were once his own people (Six, he hopes that’s not it) or because of the respect they all have for him, the pressure he feels to demonstrate good human traits for them. And good human traits, in Prompto’s mind, include confidence.

He’s been faking it pretty well, even though he’s still totally convinced they’re all going to figure out what an imposter he is and all turn on him.

Imposter syndrome, Gladio called it in one of his letters, and told Prompto not to let it worry him.

Easier said than done.

Here, though, he has no one to impress, and that feeling – that questioning feeling, the feeling like he shouldn’t be here, because he was only ever part of the group because Noct wanted him to be part of the group – Noct, who isn’t here, who’s gone, who –

Ignis smiles abruptly. “General Prompto,” he says, and his voice is warm.

Also –

“Don’t call me that, Iggy,” Prompto says, flushing. “It’s just for the MTs.”

“Oh, no,” Ignis says, his smile widening even more. “If I have to go by ‘Supreme Commander’, then by the Six, you’re going to go by General, General.”

And suddenly the ice is broken, and Prompto remembers that Iggy does actually like him as a person, not just as Noct’s useless shadow.

“Just for that, I’m going to find some extra titles for you,” he threatens, grinning and coming over to hop onto the title. “How do you feel about, hmmm, ‘the Great and Glorious’?”

“Don’t you dare,” Ignis says primly. “Besides, do you know they haven’t thought of one for Gladio yet?”

“We have to fix this.”

“Certainly.”

“What’s the dumbest military-related name you can think of?” Prompto asks. “Maybe, hmmm, Brigadier?”

Ignis snorts. “I’ve been threatening him with ‘Headmaster’, actually, what with his school.”

“Nooooo, you can’t do that, he’ll just make a ton of jokes about –”

“He already has,” Ignis sighs dramatically. “But enough of that – you’re here! How have you been?”

“Pretty good,” Prompto says with a grin. “We’re making progress on the Quay – I brought you fish.”

“And for my fish, you’ll be taking away one of my generators for a few more round trips in one of the drop ships,” Ignis says dryly. “Yes, I got your message. Tell me, do you still have that terrible goatee?”

Prompto rolls his eyes. “No, Iggy,” he says patiently. “I shaved it off. The MTs thought I was crazy for having it in the first place.”

“Don’t be modest, Prompto,” Ignis replies. “We all thought you were crazy for thinking it was a good idea.”

Prompto laughs.

“I assume you’re here for the six month mark?” Ignis asks. “You’re a day early.”

“Well, yeah,” Prompto says, unable to keep from smiling. Typical Iggy. He’s forgotten.

Iggy, who never forgets anything, always forgot –

“Supreme Commander Ignis,” Eufiv says, coming in through the door, closely followed by Dustin and Monica, Ignis’ closest aides. “General Prompto. It is good to see you.”

Eufiv still says ‘good to see you’ in his scratchy radio monotone MT voice, like he’s not sure why it’s necessary to say it, but human is as human does, as far as Prompto’s concerned.

“Good to see you too, Eufiv,” he says. “Dustin, Monica.”

“You’re holding something,” Ignis says, frowning. They are, in fact, holding a large box between them. “What is it?”

“How do you always know?” Dustin asks.

“The floorboard in front of the door is creaky,” Ignis says dryly. “The volume of the creak varies by the weight of the person entering. If I know it’s you, but the noise is louder than usual, it means you’re carrying something heavy.”

“Man, you’re good,” Prompto says admiringly.

Ignis does his best to look unmoved, but he preens just the slightest bit.

“Gladio informed us that he would be running late and that we should get started without him,” Eufiv announces.

“Huh,” Prompto says. “Iggy, you’re right. We need to get him a title right away. It’s not fair that he just gets ‘Gladio’.”

“I did tell you,” Ignis says. “Get started on what? Did we have a meeting planned?”

“Sort of,” Monica says, and she and Dustin put the box in front of Iggy and unveil it. “Ta-da!”

Ignis reaches out with his hands and runs them over the structure.

“It’s…what is this?”

“A model,” Monica says, very smug.

You made me a model,” Ignis says blankly. He’s clearly touched by the gesture, while simultaneously very visibly thinking, “…a model? Made of what? And who had the time to sit around and make one?”

And apparently saying it aloud now, too.

Prompto dissolves into sniggers.

“We all chipped in,” Dustin says cheerfully. “Whole team.”

“Technically, models, plural,” Monica corrects. “The first one is a three-dimensional depiction of what the expanded refugee housing units and our administrative center will look like. The second one is an in-progress model, tracking the building progress.”

“It’s currently a hole in the ground,” Dustin adds. “It’ll be more interesting as we start building, though – the current plan is to update it twice a week, and then accelerate to three times a week as construction proceeds.”

Prompto grins when he sees Ignis visibly affected by his team’s efforts. A visual model, so he could ‘see’ how construction was going, since he couldn’t actually go out and ‘see’ the real construction – Prompto told them that Ignis would like it. Twice, even.

“I see,” Ignis says, clearing his throat a few times. “We’ve cleared enough space to start proper permanent construction? I thought we were still a few weeks away from that.”

“All squads worked double shifts to ensure completion,” Eufiv says. “Human and MT both. The prospect of completion was very encouraging and morale increased steadily once completion was in sight. Additional encouragement was put in place to ensure completion by the present date.”

“Additional encouragement? Did we promise them something?”

“Not supplies,” Monica says, chuckling. “We just pointed out that it’d be nice to finish by today.”

“Today..?”

Prompto laughs. He can’t help it. “Happy birthday, Iggy.”

“Happy birthday, boss,” everyone else (including a somewhat confused but game-sounding Eufiv) choruses.

Ignis looks positively dumbfounded.

"I –" he says blankly. "I – oh. Oh. Thank you."

"I thought you indicated that Commander Ignis would respond positively to the 'birthday'," Eufiv says. "Is this a positive reaction?"

"Very positive," Prompto assures him. "He's speechless. That almost never happens. Usually we're trying to get him to shut up."

"Yes," Ignis says. "I – very positive, thank you, Eufiv. I must admit I had forgotten."

"You always forget," Prompto says. He doesn't mean to call up memories, though they're always hovering so close it's impossible not to think of it – years and years of Noct conspiring to present Ignis with a present and sometimes a cake, the shocked expression on Ignis' face when he realizes he's forgotten again (only sometimes faked), the many times they were all together, back when Noct was with them, back when Ignis could see...

But Ignis is still smiling helplessly, running his hands over his model, shaking his head. "Thank you," he says. "Thank you all. Walk me through the model, please."

"It's a staggered structure," Monica says, beaming. "Based on the system we've put in place with the portable fortresses already. We're still using the portable fortresses as the baseline, but we're creating 'streets' that go through them, with regular center squares for congregation – parties and such like – while avoiding excess crowding –"

"Our streets will be a minimum of twelve people wide," Dustin chimes in. "We wanted to avoid people feeling claustrophobic, but at the same time we wanted to ensure that we had adequate defenses if we got attacked -"

"There will be barriers between the residence structures," Eufiv says, reaching forward and demonstrating. "Essentially a horizontal portcullis, but at multiple points rather than just at the city gates. It will enable the 'streets' to become locked down –"

"— but to avoid people being trapped, we've also created internal tunnels through the buildings themselves –"

"And the administrative center is in the middle, of course; we're planning on expanding it significantly as soon as the tents are all cleared out –"

"What about new refugee groups?" Ignis asks.

"We're thinking that they should get a separate zone until they're assigned permanent housing," Monica says. "That way, they can assimilate before being allowed in, and we can avoid any more MT incidents."

"MT incidents?" Prompto interrupts sharply. "What MT incidents? Was I told about these?"

They blink at him, except for Eufiv, who doesn't say anything but assumes that perfect 'at ease' stance that Prompto has learned, via several months' experience, signifies smugness and ‘I told you so’ in an MT.

"Prompto is to be informed of all MT related incidents, Monica, Dustin," Ignis says mildly. "I've already alerted you to that."

"Ah," Monica says. "Yes, of course. I just didn't think it was relevant, it being an internal issue..."

"It's an MT issue, and that means it's relevant," Prompto snaps. "I'm responsible for them, and to them, and I can't do my job if people aren't telling me things! What happened?"

"Nothing serious," Ignis says. "Or I would have had you informed regardless. There was some unfortunate language directed at some MTs, with threats of escalation to violence."

"You call that not serious?!"

"No," Ignis says patiently. "Because they were foolish enough to say it within earshot of Gladio."

Prompto can imagine Gladio's reaction. He's very nearly as defensive of his adult students as he is the children.

"Oh," he says, deflating a little. What was he thinking, shouting like that? Of course Ignis had it under control.

"You were correct, however," Ignis says. "The MTs are your responsibility, and you need information. Monica, going forward, all information relating to MTs is to be copied to Prompto."

"Will do," Monica says. "Sorry, Prompto. It won't happen again."

She seems serious about it, too, even though he just ripped her a new one.

"It's good to see you asserting yourself," Ignis says to Prompto, quietly. "You're too often reserved on matters when you're undeniably correct, which is just as bad as being too aggressive."

Huh. Yeah, Prompto can see that, he guesses.

And, well, the MTs are his responsibility.

Prompto always did find it easier to defend others than himself…

Ignis clears his voice. "What's the purpose behind the expansion of the administrative center? Are the lines too long?"

"No, but we'll need room for the departments," Dustin says, clearly relieved to be switching subjects.

"The departments?"

"You've authorized quite a few individuals to pursue projects in the last few months," Monica says. "We took the liberty of organizing everything into departments. Sanitation, Energy, Food, Defense, Registration..."

"That does sound more efficient," Ignis says, looking interested. "How have they been organized?"

Monica produces a thick file, all typed in that dual-language – typed text and raised indentations – that all the documents in Ignis' office has. "I figured I'd leave that to you," she says gleefully. "Here are the first set of reports."

"They've all been transcribed into the raised alphabet?"

"No need," Eufiv says. "The first shipment of upgraded typewriters recently arrived from Hammerhead. Cid and Cindy said to wish you a happy birthday."

Ignis is surprised into another smile.

"And how is Cindy doing?" Prompto asks Eufiv wickedly, earning a splutter of static in response. It's nice not to be on the receiving end of that teasing.

"Leave him be, Prompto," Ignis says. "It wasn't that long ago you were taking a photo of Hammerhead for your, ah, Goddess of the Gears, was it?"

"Shut up," Prompto says, grinning. He's not even embarrassed about it anymore.

Okay, maybe a little. But that was ages ago! At least seven, eight months!

Wait, really? That little?

It feels like it’s been forever.

"Speaking of which, Prompto, you never said what you got me," Ignis says pointedly. He likes presents as much as the next person, and it makes him absolutely shameless. Prompto enjoys that tremendously.

"Present, me?" Prompto says, batting his eyelashes.

"I assure you, your mere presence is present enough," Ignis says. "Now stop playing around."

Prompto laughs. "Okay, okay! Here's part one."

He pulls a wrapped bundle and hands it to Ignis, who accepts it and quickly pulls free the cloth around it.

"Glasses?" he says, frowning.

"Goggles, really, but stylish - like a visor," Prompto corrects, bouncing on his heels. "Try them on."

Ignis frowns at him, but puts them on. They fit well, as Prompto had hoped – thick yellowed glass, with a black border, a broad strap designed to keep them in place.

"It's better balanced," Ignis says slowly, a little confused. "It'll stay in place better – provide eye protection –"

The glasses activate.

Designed with the same coding as the MT helmet, the glasses are designed to interface with surrounding MT units in the same way the MTs could – via the brain directly, rather than through potentially deteriorated physical facilities.

It can't provide vision – the Empire's scientists which created the system had never seen that as necessary – but it can provide something.

Heat signatures, for one thing.

Eufiv is in the room, which means he's at all times aware of the others not only on the visual spectrum he can see with his eyes, but as glowing infrared signals, with some information included, transmitted directly.

Ignis' jaw drops over and his head turns, very slowly, to focus first on Eufiv, then Monica, Dustin, and finally Prompto.

"Prompto," he whispers.

"It's very vague, I know," Prompto says, plucking at the brand new wristband and earring combo that gives him similar input into the MT conversation stream; Eufiv had given him the first models when he'd arrived in camp, and he's still getting used to it. Based on that, he knows what Ignis is 'seeing', the red-and-black map of the room - he obviously doesn't need the infrared in the same way Ignis does, but he can access it if he wants. "But we finally got it properly compatible with non-MTs, so, y'know, I thought – you might enjoy not having to rely on listening to creaky floorboards all the time just to know if someone's sneaking up on you."

It isn't vision – Ignis is definitely still blind – but knowing about heat signatures would be invaluable defense to a man sitting alone, relying only on his hearing to alert him to potentially violent intruders.

"It's wonderful," Ignis says. His voice is shaking a little. "I – it distinguishes between human and MT?"

"Human, MT and daemon," Prompto confirms. "We designed it so you could expand or contract the link – we'll set up a series of transmitter nodes where you might need personal defense, and a larger set of nodes around the city so that you can coordinate our strategic response in a crisis - sort of like a giant map showing you where the various people are - without having someone narrate." He pauses. "Well, with less narration, anyway. It's, uh, it's not really perfect."

"It's more than I ever expected," Ignis says.

"You need to ease into it, though," Prompto warns. "It takes some time to adjust to. No more than a half-hour a day at first, then steadily more as your brain adjusts."

Ignis nods and removes them, putting his regular glasses on not quite fast enough to hide the fact that his closed lashes and blind eyes are a little wet. "Thank you," he says quietly. "To you and to the MTs both, Prompto."

Prompto ducks his head a little. "Yeah, well," he says. "You know. Happy birthday."

"And you said this was the first present?" Ignis asks, sounding disbelieving.

"Figured I'd start off with a bang," Prompto says with a grin. "Second one is where we got those glasses."

"That is an excellent question," Ignis says, wrinkle starting to appear in his brow. "Your soldiers wouldn't have had time for experimentation – they found it? But it works with MT technology..."

"It was received from Out Wing," Eufiv says calmly, because of course he knew, the dickhead. The MTs have a bad way of assuming that Prompto knows everything.

"Out Wing?" Ignis asks. "I thought we'd designated the four wings with the cardinal directions – north, south, east, west."

"Yeah, we did," Prompto says wryly. "Four wings, consisting of all the MTs we had, that is. Apparently, we've been miscounting."

"How so?"

"The MT units in the four wings represent the MT presence in Lucis," Eufiv says, as if it should be obvious. "There remain other units which were not deployed."

"Not – you mean back in Niflheim? In Accordo, Tenebrae, in –"

Ignis' voice fades as the realization sinks in. The MTs represented the the Empire's vast legions, and were used for everything from patrolling existing cities and guarding high end magistrates to invading new territory.

"Yep," Prompto says. "They've been in production for generations; there's a lot of them. Don't worry, Iggy, they're mostly staying where they are, because they've obtained shelter and food, but we've worked out an agreement with them – they don't automatically recognize me as boss, obviously, just ignore Eufiv calling them Out Wing, that's, like, MT passive-aggressiveness – and we're going to trade things. Including tech like that."

"And what are we giving them?" Ignis asks.

"Radio access to Gladio's school, mostly," Prompto says with a grin. "The MTs around Lestallum told them that it rocks."

Ignis smiles. "Have you told Gladio?"

"Nah," Prompto says cheerfully. "Why put extra pressure on him?"

"The pressure would exist regardless, would it not?" Eufiv asks. "What difference does it make when he knows?"

"He can't feel pressure if he doesn't know about it," Monica tells him.

Eufiv looks suspicious, but nods.

It occurs to Prompto that he's getting really good at identifying MT emotions, at least when they're not in full on linked-up emotionless marching formation.

He's not sure what to do with that.

"So, what you're telling me," Ignis says, "is that we have a trade agreement with the MTs of Niflheim?"

"Exactly," Prompto says. "And they have something we don't."

Ignis arches his eyebrows.

"Factories," Prompto says with satisfaction, watching both understanding and avid interest light up Ignis' face. "The Empire split off a bunch of them to work in mechanical jobs creating 'useful devices'."

"Which means –"

"Guns," Prompto says with relish. "Bullets. And – you're gonna love this – Niflheim's portable fortresses. They can build them to spec."

Ignis grins. He does love it. "And suddenly I see why we all abruptly became so ambitious in our building plans."

"Exactly," Monica crows.

"This is fantastic," Ignis says. "We will need to have a meeting to discuss this - where is Gladio? And Cor? Iris? I would've imagined they'd be here."

"Cor and Iris are out," Monica says. "They were planning on being here, but there was a crisis out by the mushroom grove and the mycologists asked for help –"

"I imagine their request for help didn't leave mushroom for interpretation," Ignis says.

"I sometimes hate you," Monica informs him. "Anyway, they send their best and told me to let you know that they expect – when they return – that Iris will be able to take full leadership of the hunters, and that Cor intends to join forces with Gladio in the teaching field, except he'll be training up a new Crownsguard. Or, well, really most of them will be trained as hunters, but also in city policing, patrolling, defense..."

"That's excellent news! I hadn't realized they thought Iris was ready."

"The hunters all accept her, despite her age," Dustin confirms. "There was a vote – if they couldn't have Cor, they wanted Iris, with Dave as her second."

"Gladio's gift is going to have to be very impressive to compete," Ignis says.

"No kidding," Prompto says. "I don't even know what it is – he was fretting about not having a gift as soon as last week, then suddenly about two days ago, total radio silence."

"Perhaps he didn't think of one, and is embarrassed?" Ignis asks, frowning. "I hope not. He knows I would appreciate his presence, gift or no gift."

"Gladio has stated that he has in fact located the perfect gift," Eufiv volunteers. "He is collecting the final information now from certain MTs."

"Information? From MTs?" Prompto asks. "What is it?"

"Unclear," Eufiv says, sounding vaguely bewildered. "I am only aware that it came up in a lesson, or possibly in the MT-specific practice sessions afterwards."

MTs get extra practice sessions where they focus on boring stuff like "think of yourself as I" or "name your favorite color" for hours, to the point even kids don't want to participate.

"I wonder what it is," Ignis says, looking equally lost, but quite curious.

"Gladio's present had better be epic," Prompto says loudly, seeing the door open with a familiar silhouette. "Super epic, that's all I'm saying."

"Oh, it is," Gladio announces from the door, beaming so hard it looks like it hurts. "I have the best present."

"Better than mine?" Prompto teases.

Gladio smirks. "You bet."

"Just tell me it isn't Cup Noodles," Ignis says.

“Iggy, this is going to blow your mind more than that case of Ebony we got you for the party,” Gladio promises.

“Now that,” Ignis says, face lighting up as Prompto rolls his eyes at Gladio for giving away the surprise, “is going to be a hard measure to beat.”

“Oh, I’m going to beat it,” Gladio crows.

“Now I’m curious,” Prompto says, twisting to look at Gladio. “Stop stalling and get to it already. What is it?”

“I was talking with a couple of our MTs,” Gladio says. “After-school session, we were working favorite foods.”

“The Empire barely gave the MTs anything to eat other than that awful protein stuff,” Prompto points out. He’s still sore about how they haven’t been able to authorize them to move off of it entirely, even though Eufiv, Tifor and Jiten all assure him that the MTs don’t mind waiting, and have even taken to anticipating their once-a-week not-protein-muck supplement (often Cup Noodles) with glee.

“Yeah, it was tough going,” Gladio says. “Except one of them said they liked fresh tomatoes.”

“How would an MT know about tomatoes, much less fresh ones?” Ignis asks. “We haven’t had enough fresh vegetables to be able to distribute them to the MTs as well as the regular populace.” He looks guilty about that, which is the only reason that Prompto forgives him for having no choice but to order it. Thanks to the daemon blood injects, MTs don’t need vitamins the same way non-MTs did.

“One of the researchers gave them to her,” Gladio says. “Just scraps, but Sixen – that’s her name – still remembered it as a high point.”

“Okay,” Ignis says. “I’m following, but I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

“Sixen’s originally from the imperial lab down in the Ghorovas Rift,” Gladio says triumphantly.

“But Ghorovas Rift is stuck in a perpetual blizzard,” Ignis objects.

“The lab is located underground to avoid the snow,” Eufiv says.

“That’s not the point,” Ignis says. “How do you grow tomatoes…” His voice trails off.

Prompto’s jaw drops as his mind completes the sentence Ignis started.

How do you grow tomatoes – when there’s no sunlight?

“They developed a method of growing vegetables without sunlight,” Ignis says, his voice soft in amazement.

“They were growing them under high intensity lights, using hydroponics,” Gladio confirms. “Lucis has some very limited experience with it, actually; I’ve been talking with the few agricultural specialists we have left, but they said there was never much interested in pursuing it – after all, what’s the point when we had all the sun and soil and good growing conditions we could hope for?”

“What type of equipment?” Prompto says urgently. “We have the factories in Niflheim now –”

“One of the fortresses could be converted –” Ignis adds.

“There’s plenty of seeds in storage,” Monica says, glancing at Dustin, who nods furiously.

“I have a list of everything we’ll need,” Gladio assures them all. “But it’s actually not that complicated – mostly high-dispersion light sources. Honestly, half of the trouble they were having was trying to work with no good soil, which I imagine will be useful with the daemons polluting it all over the place, but if we do use regular soil? It’s a cinch.” Gladio’s smile somehow, impossibly, grows. “In fact, I’ve already set one up, using some garlic, and I’ve already got green shoots.”

“Awesome!” Prompto cheers. He never thought he’d be so excited about vegetables.

“High-dispersion light sources,” Ignis says. “I don’t suppose those would work on humans, would it? For vitamin purposes?”

“Don’t think they’ve tested it out,” Gladio says cheerfully. “But I don’t see why not.”

“I wanna see the garlic,” Prompto whines. “And Ignis can feel it. Show us!”

“Fine, fine, you big baby,” Gladio laughs. “Come this way.”

The next night, sitting around a table filled with papers and plans and ideas, the Crystal wedged in the back of the room in case Noctis decides to make an unexpected appearance, Ignis takes a moment to sit back and think to himself, I have the finest of friends.

And also –

We might survive this after all.

Chapter Text

ONE YEAR

"I was starting to think you'd lost your touch, big brother," Iris taunts, laughing as her sword slices through another Snaga.

Gladio parries the Red Giant's next strike with his shield and slices at the daemon's leg. "Sure," he says. "That why you're going after Snagas instead?"

"I'm keeping them off your back!"

The Red Giant abruptly makes a creaking sound, its head detaching from its body as it tumbles forward with a loud crash. Cor lands, as light-footed as ever, on the other side. "You both need to focus on fighting," he tells them. "Not clowning around."

Gladio shrugs and toes the corpse in front of him. "Remember when they used to disappear when you killed them?" he says wistfully. Sure, they've come up with plenty of different approaches since then, and at any rate the daemon corpses are handy for the MTs, but he can't help but sigh at the realization that the battle might be over but there's still lots of work to be done.

"That was then," Cor says. "This is now."

"Oh, lighten up, sourpuss," Iris says, already cleaning her sword. "You're as happy as I am to have Gladdy back in the field and not, like, growing more tomatoes."

"And yet I manage to keep my joy restrained to moments when we're not in direct combat," Cor replies dryly. "Look at that."

“Also, those tomatoes kept the whole city fed,” Gladio points out, because he thinks that’s worth mentioning. It wasn’t his fault that his innovation had resulted in Ignis recruiting virtually every able-bodied person available to go lay out as many harvests as humanly possible.

Or that the first round was mostly tomatoes.

And yes, they were all sick of tomatoes right now…but not as much as they were sick of mushrooms.

Iris snorts. "Yeah, yeah," she says. "You just want to gossip about your precious schools. Go ahead and scout the next rise; I'll drain and burn the bodies."

"Keep a flare on you in case –"

"— of trouble, and we're linked up on the MT network in case I need you," Iris completes the sentence, rolling her eyes. "I've led the hunters of Hammerhead all but solo for six months, Cor, and I've fought as a hunter since the Long Night started a year ago. I know how to do this!"

Cor and Gladio exchange long-suffering looks.

"I saw that!"

"Let's go scout ahead," Gladio says hastily. He doesn't want to incur Iris' actual wrath; that way lie pranks and suffering.

Cor – who fears nothing, and who Iris is way too respectful of to ever properly prank – snorts, but nods and follows Gladio forward.

"What do you think Aranea wants us for?" Gladio asks, determined to hold off at least ten minutes before bringing up his school. Just to show Iris.

He hopes Aranea has a good reason, if only because last week marked the extremely disappointing turn of the first year in which Noct still did not return.

"She was unclear," Cor says. "As ever. She may just want us to clear the grounds."

Cor does not particularly like Aranea, and the feeling is decidedly mutual. Ignis says that it comes from the fact that Aranea – who runs the transportation between Niflheim, Accordo, and Lucis – tends to act like she's the one in charge, no matter the situation, and Cor is far too accustomed to ignoring the person nominally in charge in favor of taking actual charge himself, so on their first joint mission, he suborned half of her lieutenants and took care of the mission in his own way without her permission. She blew up about it, which led him to not-so-subtly question her competence, which in turn led to her trying to ban him from her parts of the world – impossible, of course, but enough to sincerely irritate Cor.

Not that her little ban lasted long. Cor the Immortal is still their greatest morale booster, and – much to Aranea's displeasure – he lives up to his reputation, which means they have to deal with each other sometimes.

Gladio personally suspects that it might have more to do with the fact that Aranea is a very attractive woman, wearing very little, and as a result she is accustomed to having slightly more sway than normal over men, and therefore overreacted when Cor treated her in the same indifferent way he treated any new commander, and by the time she calmed down, Cor had already developed a dislike for her and she couldn't back down without admitting she was mistaken.

Ignis says that theory is ridiculous.

Prompto agrees with Gladio, and points out that as a mercenary of Niflheim, she wouldn't have been aware of Cor's rather infamous disinterest in any form of romance or sexual attraction, whether male or female.

(Gladio still remembers the arguments about it when he was a kid – his mom was certain that she just needed to set Cor up with the right someone, and his dad let it continue as a joke on Cor; it went right up until Cor convinced a whole bunch of would-be suitors to wait for him, naked, in Gladio's dad's office, at which point even Gladio's mom officially gave up. The king then yelled at them them both – Gladio's parents, that is, not Cor – about the exact meaning of the term 'aromantic' and 'asexual' for about an hour, which Gladio suspects helped. Admittedly, Cor has never actually adopted the terms, preferring to say that he’s in an exclusive polyamorous relationships with his many swords, but that’s because his sense of humor is warped.)

Either way, Gladio plans to advise Aranea to just apologize already, because while Cor would never jeopardize a mission, any mission, simply because he disliked a commander, he also doesn't really believe in the concept of 'forgive and forget'.

Certainly not after Drautos.

"She wanted us to come to a lab," Gladio points out. "That's not really her specialty. So it's gotta be something impressive."

Cor snorts, but doesn't disagree.

"I'm more interested in why she didn't come meet us," Gladio says. "You'd think the Minister of Transportation would be a bit better at – transporting."

Cor just gives Gladio a look that clearly says that he's aware that Gladio’s aware of his dislike of Aranea and he's not so young that he can be cheered up by someone playing on it.

"Oh, fine," Gladio says. "We'll see when we get there. I just wish we'd regained cell service this far out."

"We've gotten most of the northern part of Lucis back to stability," Cor says, and this time he does sound pleased – rightly so, since it was the first set of Crownsguard graduates that took on the project of restoring the cell towers after the daemons had demolished them back when the Long Night had first started. The first class had been primarily composed of hunters, of course, and people who already had fighting experience, but Cor took them from individuals who were pretty good and turned them into a frankly impressive fighting unit. And then he’d divided the class between those who joined Prompto’s armies and those who stayed in the new Crownsguard that defended Lestallum and its outposts.

Gladio can’t wait until Cor’s second set of graduates is ready to go out – maybe Prompto will stop asking about them in every letter.

"We've got access as far down as the Quay," Gladio reminds him. “If you recall.”

"That's still spotty; it doesn’t count," Cor replies dismissively, but he can't help the slight curve of his mouth. "You just want to know when your radio broadcasts can start going out more frequently."

"I still can't believe that's as popular as it is," Gladio complains. He really, really can’t.

"People literally have nothing better to do than to listen to you," Cor points out.

"Ouch."

"And Cindy's been giving away mini-radios tuned to your station for free."

"Double ouch. And what do you mean 'my station'? I'm the only station out there."

"Exactly," Cor says dryly.

"Keep insulting me, and I'm signing you up to speak at my school again."

"Running the Crownsguard now," Cor says laconically. "Way too busy."

"I'm sure I can get Ignis to give you an afternoon off," Gladio says sweetly. “Especially if I brought a few of the kids and had them sound all soft and vulnerable about how much they’d really love it if their childhood hero could just spare them a few hours.”

Cor considers his chances and wisely decides not to say anything more.

He really hates giving those speeches.

Or maybe it was all those children staring at him that bothered him...

Speaking of children -

"The Corlings are doing well," Gladio offers, keeping his tone neutral. He knows it's something of a sensitive subject for Cor, sometimes.

Gladio can't blame him. If he ever found out that one unfortunate battle, years before, resulted in the enemy obtaining some of his blood, with plans to use it to obtain his genetic material in order to create horrific cyborg-daemon hybrids specifically designed to kill him...

The Empire even named them "Immortal Killers".

If Gladio's happy about anything in this Long Night, it's the fact that the twisted minds behind those projects are dead as doornails.

Luckily for Cor, there are only three of them – genetic material degrades quickly through the cloning process, apparently, and the Empire only managed to obtain a small amount in the first place. Horrifyingly, they were planning on pitting them against each other, leaving only one Immortal Killer to go after Cor once they reached their accelerated adulthood.

Now, divorced from their purpose and from the growth hormone injections that forced them into too-rapid aging, they are just – children.

Children with Cor's eyes, and face, and –

Well, they don't all have his hair, not since Immie decided she wanted to be a girl when she grew up and grew it long, anyway.

Tal and Kille thought she was nuts at first for providing such a handhold, but she proved quite vicious about it, and Cor took her side, so they're all over it now.

Cor took them in, of course; Gladio suspects that's the real reason he agreed to take on the role of Marshal and trainer of the Crownsguard again. Misplaced guilt about his inability to prevent the inevitable destruction of Insomnia was nothing against the longing stares of a set of seven year olds who desperately needed a father.

Cor loves them to distraction, even if he’s uncomfortable discussing them with people who know their origins.

Indeed, even now, heading into Niflheim with all its memories, Cor looks pleased at Gladio's comment on the Corlings.

(Technically they all have the last name Leonis, but somehow everyone called them the Corlings instead.)

"That's good to hear," Cor says. "They said something about mathematics...?"

"Kille submitted a proof for a prize," Gladio confirms, taking care to pronounce it the way Prompto suggested – Ki-ye – all those months ago when the MTs explained the Corlings' origin. "He was waiting to see if he won before telling you, so act surprised when we get back."

"He won?"

"Highest score in his class."

Cor actually smiles at that. "I was never good at math," he confesses. He's always most pleased – they all are – when the MTs do something that showcases how profoundly different and unique they are despite their cloned origins.

Gladio smiles back, happy on Cor's behalf – and on his own, since he's been demoted (in his own school!) to teaching math to the younger kids. Kille is just old enough to be in Gladio's group, so Gladio is totally taking some of the credit.

"Immie's taken up art," Cor adds, smile widening and eyes going distant for a moment. "And I'm pretty sure Tal is too young to be stalking Cindy for any of the obvious reasons, so I'm hoping he's taking an interest in mechanics."

Gladio's about to make a joke about Corlings being precocious when, right in the middle of that pleasant moment of nostalgia, Aranea shows up.

"What're you two talking about?" she asks.

Cor's smile is gone as if it never was. His face looks like it's been carved out of stone. "Captain Aranea."

Aranea scowls at him. "I was a Commander in Niflheim's army, Marshal; I'm sure I've mentioned that to you."

"Have you?" Cor inquires politely, not giving an inch.

Yeah, this is going about as well as Gladio expected.

"Hey, Aranea –" Gladio starts, hoping to head any trouble off at the pass.

He's too late.

"At times I think that the cost of allying with you lot isn't worth the benefit," Aranea sneers at Cor. "Given that you constantly disrespect us and focus on your own needs –"

"You called, we came," Cor says. "You're welcome to ask the daemons to help instead."

He looks like he's seriously considering turning to go.

"Cor –" Gladio starts.

"Since when are you a peacemaker, big guy?" Aranea taunts.

Cor bristles in Gladio's defense, which is totally unnecessary. "If you don't want us here, then –" he starts.

"Hi, Aranea!" Iris chirps, coming out of the shadows. "Wow, you look tired – what happened?"

Gladio looks at Aranea a little closer. She does look tired, either like she hasn't slept or because something has been seriously bothering her – or both.

Aranea opens her mouth to snap something defensive, but ends up exhaling in a long drawn out breath.

"Did something go wrong?" Cor asks, hostility fading rapidly to be replaced with professional concern. "Are your people safe?"

"We had a pretty bad attack," Aranea concedes. "A week or two back, though; nothing to do about it now."

"And your people?" Cor presses.

"Mostly fine," she says, and runs a hand over her face – a very uncharacteristic act of vulnerability for her. "Biggs took a bad hit."

"Your right hand man," Gladio says. He was one of the two that drove the train that took the three of them and Noct to Gralea, and who brought the three of them and the Crystal – useless hunk of rock that it is – back. Gladio can't say he has fond memories of the man, the pain of losing Noct was still too raw and overshadowing all else, but he knows how important he is to Aranea. "I'm sorry to hear that. Nothing that could be helped by elixirs or potions?" He hesitates. "A phoenix down?"

Phoenix downs have become increasingly rare, even more so than before; Ignis hoards them like a miser and keeps them among their most precious of medicines, behind shielded doors and a vigilant guard.

Gladio knows all too well that he doesn't have the authority to give one out, but he'd be willing to argue the case for one – if one could even help after a few weeks. They really are more useful within a few hours, or a day at most.

Aranea shoots him a half-smile of thanks. "No, but thanks for the offer," she says, reining in her emotions. "But we haven't given up on him yet. That's actually why I wanted you to come."

"Us?" Iris asks. "What can we do? We're hunters, not doctors."

"Doctors wouldn't help," Aranea says. "What I need are soldiers, to give a soldier's opinion. I don't trust myself."

Cor is frowning. "You have an ethical dilemma?"

"Something like that," she says. "It's easier if I show you. Follow me."

They follow her. She came to the rendezvous point in a drop ship, which was an almost unheard-of luxury, for all of Cindy and Cid's promises about developing an updated generator that could be distributed without having to take away from their current lighting supply – she must really want their opinion.

The trip to the lab is much faster after that. Iris tries a few times to start a conversation, but Aranea isn't interested and her solemn mood is infectious.

They mostly sit in silence.

The lab is a pretty typical example of the Niflheim style, which is to say, bland, dark, and incredibly creepy, designed as if mere efficiency was not enough and they needed to be soul-draining, too.

It was an MT lab.

Gladio makes a face at the signs of the sleeping pods, the mechanical devices called 'threshers' that are used to extract daemon blood, and all the other signs that declare the place's vile purpose.

Former purpose.

Except when Aranea leads them down, deep inside, it hasn't been gutted like most of the others in Lucis and Accordo have been. It's still clean and pristine and the computer banks that line the wall still hum with life.

"What's going on?" Gladio asks, officially uncomfortable. They're only a month or so into the first MT rehabilitation efforts – weaning them off the daemon blood, reaccustoming them to light (what light they have), detaching the armor and masks that had been welded onto their flesh. It's going pretty well, by which Gladio means that it's absolutely horrific – invasive surgeries and devastating withdrawal symptoms, screams as light burns tender flesh and vomiting as they breathe unfiltered air for the first time in years – but that the first few who had volunteered for the process are starting to settle into something that resembles human bodies.

They all still need a lot of physical therapy, not to mention continued access to the mental health services which have been made available to all MTs. Moreover, the rehabilitated MTs' skin is largely still a pasty chalk white that only vaguely resembles human, with the barest echoes of what color it was before the process took hold; their eyes are still a spectrum of shades of red, from pale pink to deep burgundy, rather than any normal shade; and the tallest of them, the axe-men and -women, still tower over even tall men like Gladio.

But they are clearly human, with uncovered faces and uncovered hands, with hair they can grow or color or style, and they are overwhelmed with relief.

Not all the MTs thought the process was a good idea, of course, with some of them preferring their hardy armor and photophobic skin with the ability to supplement their diets with the nighttime photosynthesis the daemons used. Gladio's pretty sure someone's coined a more appropriate scientific word, but he doesn't know it – he just knows that he's moderated a lot of debates on the subject, and people on all sides have very strong feelings.

Gladio is personally in favor of each MT getting a fair choice, just like the MT kids (theoretically) have the options to choose to graduate to MT once they're fully grown, though thankfully none have yet grown old enough to make that choice.

The fact that the MTs have that option available to them, though –

Perhaps that's why the lab is still functional.

Gladio hopes that's why the lab is still functional.

"It's a conversion center," Cor says before Aranea can answer, his mind clearly having gone down a similar path as Gladio's. "For the final MT process. Why are we here?"

"Because I need your opinion," Aranea says, her voice solemn, and then she leads them into the operating chamber.

Biggs is lying on the table. His injuries are bad – Aranea wasn't exaggerating. Just based on what Gladio can see, he already knows there's no way Biggs is walking off of that table again, and Biggs' skin shines with that characteristic glisten that speaks of too many potions and elixirs, and the fact that none of them have made a dent.

Or worse, that they have, and that this is all they've managed to accomplish.

Biggs is also connected to several devices that Gladio doesn't recognize, large boxes with no symbols on them, but which blink with lights signifying their activity.

There are several people in labcoats, and several MTs, one of which has the pale naked features of the rehabilitated.

"I'm sorry about Biggs," Gladio tells Aranea again. She nods.

"So you've brought us all this way. Now tell us, what's the question?" Iris asks. Her hand is resting casually in her belt, but that's only a few inches away from her sword.

"Istherius," Aranea says. "Explain to them what you told me."

One of the men in labcoats nods. "Biggs is in a coma," he says crisply. "Given the scope of his injuries, he is clearly unlikely to recover. As a result, it will not be possible to request his consent as to an experimental medical procedure that may preserve his life."

"What procedure?" Cor asks.

"As you are well aware, MTs can survive significantly more severe injuries than humans," Istherius says delicately.

"You're suggesting converting him to an MT," Iris says flatly.

"Not a complete conversion," Istherius says. "Nor are we even discussing a permanent one, necessarily. Our research has demonstrated that the MT conversion by necessity includes a moment in which consciousness is terminated –"

"Death," Gladio translates. "They all die when they become MTs?"

"Only for the briefest moment, then they're immediately resuscitated with the MT activation process," Istherius says. "Essentially, the interface on the helmets, which as you know is wired into brain activity, acts as a sort of back-up device to help kick-start the brain – and, we hope, the mind. It mimics the functionality of a phoenix down, but in a drastically different manner that does not rely on the efficiency of magic and the whims of the Six. This technology is 100% manmade."

"Interesting," Cor says. "The Empire couldn't get phoenix down to work, since that relies on a minor summoning of the power of the Six to revive people and the Empire was – shall we say – not favored by the Six, so they came up with their own workaround."

"Precisely," Istherius says.

"An interesting way to avoid prophecy," Cor says dryly. "If you don't like the will of the Astrals, you can just bypass it and impose your own instead. Classic Empire thinking. Why wasn't this more widespread?"

"At the time of the Empire's destruction, it was still classified as experimental despite having been in regular practice as part of the MT conversion process," Istherius says. "They couldn't figure out how to adapt it to non-MTs – individuals who hadn't been raised with a slow onset of daemon blood injections designed to enhance their natural antibodies resistant to the scourge – without infecting the subject with the scourge and thus converting them not into MTs, but into daemons."

Gladio assumes they found this out by trying it out on people. Six, he's happy the Empire's gone.

"So why are we here?" Iris asks.

"Isn't it obvious?" Cor asks. "They think they've figured out a way to get around that problem, but Commander Highwind won't authorize the procedure until we assure her that if this is successful, Biggs won't hate her forever for robbing him of an honorable death."

Aranea doesn't even comment about him using her actual title. That means Cor is right.

"Shit," Gladio says, heartfelt. "How sure are you about the procedure?"

Istherius winces. "It works reliably on mice, and the principles are transferable."

"But you haven't tried it on humans at all."

"Biggs would be the first one," Istherius confirms. "We were unwilling to experiment on anyone without consent, and Commander Aranea refused to risk any of her soldiers. It's only the extremity of the situation that led her to consider it – Biggs is the first person we've recovered that is still alive even after such a drastic injury."

Cor, Gladio and Iris exchange solemn looks.

"What about the larger consequences of this?" Iris asks. "Even assuming we do think Biggs would accept it – let's say it works. What then?"

"What do you mean?" Aranea asks.

"MTs are part machine, and machine parts last longer than human parts," Iris says. "Do they live longer? Are we going to have a sudden influx of people demanding to be converted to MTs in order to try to live forever?"

Istherius looks surprised by the question, and also lost for words.

The rehabilitated MT – a former sniper, judging by the patch on his jacket, and his features are typical of dark-skinned islanders like Wesker, though his skin retains the artificial albinism of the MTs – steps forward, then.

"Very few MTs have been able to live out a typical lifespan," he says, his voice soft and still raspy from years of deterioration to his vocal cords from the preventative voice box blocker placed on most MTs. "However, there was once a test group devoted to testing that idea, using artificial growth hormones to mimic the aging process. The end result showed that the average lifespan of an MT is not noticeably longer than a regular human – the averages were about the same in the control group – but that MTs retained functionality to a later age. But once they reached a certain age, they died of what is called natural causes – heart failure, stroke, or simply inexplicable cessation of life. While certain more elderly individuals – or those with significantly deteriorated standards of living, such as quadriplegics – might view the process as worthwhile, it is unlikely to be beneficial in most instances given the disadvantages of being an MT and the discomfort of the process."

By 'discomfort', he meas 'horrifying pain beyond your wildest dreams'.

"So no ethical question of overuse. That means we're back to square one," Iris says. "Whether Biggs would want it."

"Aranea, you knew him best," Cor says. "Why ask us? Iris and I never even met him."

"I don't know if he'd want it," Aranea says, her voice tight. "I don't know if it's just me, wanting him back, wanting not to have to tell Wedge his partner's gone. I'm too close. I can't make the call. That's why I wanted you three. You're good, loyal soldiers, like him; you're the closest I can get to asking him."

"If your procedure doesn't work, he becomes infected with the scourge, right?" Gladio asks Istherius.

"Yes," Istherius says. "We have several monitors that will let us know if he begins to transform; we will of course begin euthanization procedures if that occurs."

"Most hunters would rather die than risk becoming a daemon," Iris says. "What procedure are you using that you think will keep him safe?"

"We will be performing a transfusion of Xtoh's blood at the same time," Istherius says, nodding at the rehabilitated MT. "We've done tests and we believe that the resistance to the scourge that still remains in his blood will be enough to keep the scourge at bay for the limited period we need to attach the mask."

"And he'll be metallic after this?" Gladio asks.

"He will have an MT mask," Istherius confirms. "And several armor pieces. However, we believe that we will be able to remove it a few weeks via the typical rehabilitation process. It would be attempted after the original conversion process is complete, to allow for recovery."

"You believe, but you're not certain,” Iris says, frowning. “He could be stuck like that forever."

"Nothing is certain with this procedure," Istherius says. "But I personally believe it's worth the risk."

"Do it," Cor says.

They all look at him.

"The utility of a process like this can't be understated," Cor says. "Even if it does require temporary or even permanent conversion into an MT. A manmade process could allow us to rescue individuals that the Six have abandoned, including those already severely infected by the scourge. Right now, all we can do for them is let them say goodbye to their families and then put them out of their misery. This is another option, one that could help us eliminate the spread of the scourge."

"What does that have to do with whether Biggs would want it?" Aranea demands.

"You asked for a loyal soldier's opinion," Cor says. "Believe me when I tell you that to a loyal soldier, there is no greater honor than to risk your life in the service of humanity. If he's the soldier you say he is, he would be the first to volunteer himself to shoulder the burden."

"Biggs took us into Gralea," Gladio says, very quietly. "He drove the train through the Glacian's curse and a scouring of daemons. He and his partner fought back to back for hours to keep the train free so that we would have a way back home when we were done. And he did it all without even the slightest hint of complaint or hesitation. Cor's right, Aranea. If this works, we can save lives. He'd think the risk – even the risk of becoming a daemon – is worth it."

Aranea looks at Iris, who licks her lips.

"I can't tell you what a soldier would do," Iris says. "I'm not one. For all of my childhood training, I never fought in war, and I was never meant to. I'm a hunter, and hunters hate daemons more than anyone. But – Gladdy and Cor are right. The Long Night has shown us all that there's bigger things at stake than in war, where it's side against side for the ambitions of the powerful. What's at stake now is humanity. Us against the daemons. That's why we're so cautious in the field – if you die fighting, all you're doing is robbing humanity of another shield. You have to live to fight. If someone told me that I could live to fight another day, then whatever the risk, I would take it. It would be my duty to take it. I wouldn’t think twice."

Aranea exhales, long and hard. "Okay," she says. "Istherius. You may proceed."

He nods.

"There's a waiting room outside," Aranea says. "You don't have to –"

"We're staying," Cor says.

The wait takes hours – all night, by the clocks, though that phrase has lost its meaning with the disappearance of the Sun.

And then –

"You can come in now," Istherius says.

Aranea stands slowly. "Is he..?"

"See for yourself, Commander."

Inside the room, lying on the bed, is a man haphazardly dressed in MT armor over all the places that were previously gaping wounds, his face the familiar fixed green smile of the MT masks.

He's sitting up.

"Oi, Commander," Biggs says from under the helmet. Gladio's almost expecting the customary MT crackle of static, or at least the raspy tones of the rehabilitated, but Biggs' vocal cords were never damaged – he sounds just as he always did. "One of these days you'll have to give me my orders before I jump in, yeah?"

"Biggs," Aranea says. Her voice is shaky.

"Now, now," he says. "No emotion, now; it makes me queasy."

Aranea laughs, still shaky, but far more genuine. "It always did. Awful presumptuous of you, Biggs, thinking this has anything to do with you."

"Now that's the Commander I'm used to," Biggs says approvingly. "Don't you go fretting about me. I'm fine."

"You realize that the conversion process could be permanent, right?" Iris asks. "You might be an MT forever."

"Some of my best friends nowadays are MTs," Biggs says, waving a dismissive hand. "Wot with this brand new world we're living in. Some of 'em even prefer it. And if they can see the benefits, well, I don't see why can't I."

"We need to tell Ignis about this right away," Cor tells Aranea.

"Of course," she says. "I'll order you a drop ship. And – thanks."

Cor looks at her steadily for a long second. "It's nothing," he says firmly, and turns to go. Then, over his shoulder, he adds, "Be seeing you, Captain Highwind."

Aranea's jaw drops as Cor walks out of the room. "Oh, that man –" she starts.

Gladio lets out an involuntary bark of laughter, and then flees the room before Aranea kills him.

Those two are never going to get along.

THIRD YEAR

"Home sweet home," Prompto says.

"And here I thought only MTs lived in pods," Tifor says.

Prompto snorts. "It's not that bad!"

Tifor doesn't say anything.

"It's a bit small, yes –"

"General, if I'd known that you were satisfied by such small living quarters, I wouldn't have bothered offering you a tent," Tifor says. "A spare backpack, perhaps."

"You're getting snarkier by the day, Tif," Prompto informs her.

"I'm glad you've noticed," she replies dryly. She opted for rehabilitation a year back; her face – pretty, like the rest of her, if your type was six foot six tall women who could bench press you and had the muscular build to prove it, which, honestly, whose wasn't? – is visible, now, and that means Prompto can see her smirk fade to puzzlement. "Was this actually where you used to live?"

"Yeah," Prompto says. "Honestly, I think the only reason it's still intact is how far away from city center it was. I used to have to ride the bus for nearly an hour to get to school, much less go visit –" Noct, I miss you!, the voice in his head still wails. But it's been three years, and while Prompto's pretty sure the wound of his absence will never heal, even once Noct comes back – because he will come back – he can't let his feelings get in the way of his actions. He's a General now. "— go visit Noctis."

"The King in Exile," Tifor agrees. "Is he the fourth young man in your photos?"

"Photos? How did you get a look at my photos?" Prompto asks, puzzled. He hid away all his old albums.

Tifor nods inside Prompto's old apartment, and Prompto sees them, near a collapsed wall.

Photos of him and Noct, back from their schooldays and after. Pictures of the four of them, just like he used to take. Pictures of just Noct, fast asleep on Prompto's shitty couch, because that man could sleep anywhere.

Prompto bets that Noct is napping inside that Crystal. That's why it's taking so long for him to come back out, all those naps.

"Yeah," he says, and smiles. "Yeah. That's him. Have someone collect those for me, will you?"

Tifor nods, tapping the wristband that functions as her helmet transmittor – via his own, Prompto can hear her silently passing the message to Jiten, who is back at camp. Unlike Tifor, Jiten never opted to go for rehabilitation, preferring what he calls the efficency of his cybertronic form. Prompto respects his decision. It does mean that he would be staying back more during this particular mission.

Crown City is as shadowed as the rest of the world, but the mighty generators of the Citael still cause the streetlights to shine bright.

Sure, MT armor is designed to resist it, but Prompto isn't willing to risk Jiten enduring a break.

After all, someone needs to run the mail department, and no one is as good as Jiten.

(Prompto's gone from having a secretary to having a department of secretaries. He's starting to see why Regis and Clarus always spoke of power as a burden and a pest instead of a good thing.)

He shakes his head and heads back out to the streets, where his MT squads are very slowly canvassing. After nearly three years, they know what they're looking for and how to look out for themselves, but Prompto can't help the burst of anxiety that comes from knowing that they're in Insomnia proper.

There's a reason they put off coming here, again and again and again until Ignis made the final call to go in, saying that if they left it too long it would develop an aura of terror that they couldn't permit.

Personally, Prompto thinks it's a bit late for that, and that feeling has everything to do with the person who's taken up residence in the Citadel.

Ardyn Izunia.

Bastard in chief, and architect of the Long Night.

Honestly, if he wasn't such an immortal asshole, killer of Lunafreya, trapper of Noct, overall dick, Prompto would be kinda pleased that he exists, if only for the benefit it's been to the MTs.

The MTs have been incredibly useful, both in Prompto’s armies and in helping with the farming and the harvesting that was now a part of everyone’s lives, but they haven't necessarily had the easiest time integrating. The people of Lucis have learned to hate the Empire and their endless MT armies, and that hate is both entirely understandable and totally irrational in the depths of the Long Night.

Prompto heard someone the other day call it the World of Ruin, which seems a bit much. Sure, the world has gone the same way as the Inferian after his wars, but they're building what they can out of the ruins. And part of what they're building is a society in which humans and MTs walk freely with each other, MTs relearning what it means to be human again by socializing with others of their kind, undoing the Empire's greatest cruelty.

It's been a hard slog. In the beginning, there wasn't enough food, and people suffered, and suffering led to a near riot – a near pogrom, if Prompto wants to be accurate about it, with large sections of the refugee camp blaming the Empire for the Long Night and the MTs for serving the Empire. It was only forestalled because Gladio, Iris and Cor came out, swords drawn, and announced that they'd attack the first person still holding a weapon after a count to fifteen.
No one wanted to test them.

Gladio's school did most of the groundwork, introducing the kid MTs to everyone and making clear that the adult versions were just grown up versions of the kids, and that helped people see some distance past the unchanging masks.

Ignis took the next step, telling the story of Ardyn Izunia, and creating an adequate target for the hatred of the community – one that they all could hate, when Aranea turned up with documentary evidence that Ardyn helped the Empire develop the MT program in the first place, decades back.

Prompto’s even moderately sure they weren’t forged, not that he would put it past either Aranea or Ignis.

It was Prompto's job to finish the work, and he did his best: his MT forces are integrating with Cor's Crownsguard, now, encouraging people to rely on each other as fellow-soldiers, but in what media they have, it's still his MTs who bring back treats from the cities and powder to make elixirs from the mines, his MTs that do heroic deeds on scales that hunters couldn't imagine, his MTs establishing the settlements at the Quay and elsewhere – the ones who build the homes people live in, and guard the routes of travel.

Prompto makes sure all MTs have plenty of vacation time, and gives them instructions to mingle and be friendly, and little by little, people are getting used to seeing them.

It isn't quite so weird anymore, regular humans and MTs standing together.

Prompto's proud of that, if nothing else.

Well, he's also proud of his chocobos.

He'd been sure – sick-to-his-stomach sure – that they were all gone, devoured by daemons and murdered by starving raiders (a new and most unwelcome development), but then one of the MT squads came back with reports of "unusually large ground-based birds in a multitude of colors" and Prompto just knew.

Sure, they'd all gone wild again, but it wasn't that hard to retrain them with offers of feed, treats (Ignis had nearly strangled Prompto at first for requisitioning some lamps and farmland and manpower to be used to grow chocobo treats) and memories of comfortable beds.

Prompto helps run a chocobo farm now. This is all of his childhood dreams come true.

The MTs tend to be split between the ones who are devoted to them, like Prompto, and the ones who think they're gigantic pests.

Still, there are enough of the first category for them to have mounted cavalry units now.

Man, sometimes Prompto loves being a general, and being able to order a chocobo cavalry charge? Definitely one of the times.

Their cavalry is currently patrolling the outskirts of the city to make sure they aren't going to be attacked from behind – even the fiercest daemon thinks twice when there's a screamingly mad chocobo charging headlong at it, a fully armored MT on its back carrying a rifile, sword, or axe – but they aren't really that maneuverable in the city.

"Stop pining for your birds," Tifor advises him.

"How do you always know?" Prompto asks. Yes, he's whining. No, he doesn't care.

He has to be professional sometimes, sure, but when the local government consists of your best friends (but one) and your armies consist of people who think of you as the ideal human (literally) no matter what you do, he doesn't need to try all that hard.

"You make the same face. Every time. Are you satisfied with this district?"

"I'm not seeing anything anyone's missing," Prompto agrees. "But I'm still feeling like something's off."

Tifor frowns at him, clearly not getting the same sense, but nods and starts issuing silent orders to double up on patrols and to be extra thorough.

Prompto really appreciates how efficiently Tifor picked up the apparently universal tendency of sergeants to think their superiors are crazy idiots but to fulfil their orders in the best way anyway.

"It's not that they're missing something," he tells her. "It's, like, this growing sense of menace. Something evil this way lurks, y'know?"

"Certainly, General," Tifor says. Her tone is less respectful than her words.

"Seriously, Tif; there's practically a crescendo of spooky ominous music going on –"

"I will find the MT responsible and have them shot."

"Tif!"

"Disciplined?"

"It's not an MT, by the Six," Prompto says, rolling his eyes at her. "I know the difference between a helmet-transmitted earworm and actual music already – and also? The music was a metaphor."

"I see. Shall we proceed toward the interior and see if your – music – gets louder?"

"More ominous," Prompto corrects. "It'll get more ominous. Have I ever told you about the time with the Marlboro? And its babies?"

"Never," Tifor says. "Certainly not in excruciating detail, with play-by-play recreations using salt shakers over a dinner table instead of actually eating using them."

"...right, I've done it a few times, then?"

"Yes, General."

"Gotcha."

Lightly bickering, but keeping their ears peeled for trouble, they head further into the city.

There are a lot of daemons in Insomnia – Prompto's had to do some serious daemon-slaying personally, and the MTs that comprise his bodyguard (always lurking in the background so as not to disturb him, but there) usually prefer to kill the daemons before they get anywhere close.

The bodyguards are fairly new. Ever since the raiders started getting more organized and started with the traps and assassination attempts, anyway; Prompto insisted on bodyguards for Ignis after he was nearly taken out by a sniper hiding in the crowd during one of his bimonthly in-person Q&A sessions, and Gladio after the idiot literally threw himself, unarmed, on a daemon that popped out of a box near the school.

Like, Prompto doesn't blame him. He would've done the same if there’d been a daemon anywhere near all those kids.

But things like that showed that the two of them definitely need bodyguards. Prompto totally concedes that they can take care of themselves, they're awesome and badass and all of those adjectives – and they can totally kick Prompto's ass – but they have duties that keep them distracted, and some asshole just needs one good moment to get them.

Of course, Ignis and Gladio then turned that same logic back on Prompto, and now they all have bodyguards and no one is happy about it – except everyone else in the camp, which greeted Ignis' begrudging announcement with cheers and "it's about time!"s.

Everyone’s equally miserable. Ignis says that’s the sign of a perfect compromise, really.

"I think I do know the music you refer to," Tifor says abruptly. "But it is at the Citadel, not here."

Prompto definitely agrees about the Citadel being full on haunted, but – "I still think there's something here. Daemon, maybe – underground? There are subway tunnels – or maybe something else. Something watching."

Tifor is oddly quiet.

"What, no mockery?" Prompto asks.

"No, sir," Tifor says. "Your feeling was correct. Please activate your chatter."

Prompto links in with the local MTs.

The scouts have located a dark figure, barely visible, watching them from a shadow. It has teeth, and a hat .

Apparently, between Ignis' announcements, Prompto's reinactments, and Gladio's narratives, the MTs have managed to get a startlingly accurate idea of what Ardyn looks like, or at least his hat, and have identified him accordingly.

They're currently pretending like they can't see him.

Keep up the good work, Prompto says, doing his best not to move his lips when he works the link. He's no natural at silent speech through the chatter, not like the MTs raised to it are, or even Ignis, and he's currently regretting not having put in more practice.

Based on his movements, we believe he wishes to speak to you, General, one of the scouts reports.

Prompto doesn't even need to calculate the odds – absurdly powerful possibly-daemonic immortal asshole who might also be a Lucis Caelum, with all the magic that entails versus a very competent but sadly mortal MT army – to reach the necessary conclusion.

Let him. Split and regroup, but make it seem orderly. We don't know if he knows about my role. Stay on silent.

They haven't seen hide nor hair of Ardyn since Gralea, other than the obvious signs of his presence in the Citadel. It isn't clear how much he knows, if anything.

Tifor disapproving but following close behind, Prompto makes his way to a fountain and sits down right in the middle of the square.

Sure enough, it's only a few minutes before he feels that ominous music feeling of being watched, followed only a minute later by, "Decided to accept your true heritage, I see?"

"I was born to be an MT," Prompto says steadily. "I've accepted that. You accept being born to lose?"

Ardyn snorts and materializes out of the darkness. "I did always like you best out of dear Noct's retainers," he drawls. "You still had spirit."

Prompto tries to think about a world in which Gladio and Ignis could be characterized as not having spirit and comes up totally blank.

He decides not to engage on that subject.

Prompto crosses his arms. "What do you want?" he demands instead. "Are you here to finish the job you started on the train?"

Ardyn laughs. "Don't be absurd!" he says, his lilting tone mocking and condescending as always. "You have to survive until our dear Noct's return – it wouldn't be nearly so satisfying to destroy him if he didn't have that little glimmer of hope first. And don’t forget - I did tell him I would keep an eye on you for him."

"Funny," Prompto says. "Haven't seen much of you."

"You've hardly been in any real danger," Ardyn points out in return. "But come now, we're being rude. Why don't you introduce me to the fine specimen you have accompanying you? I must say, I haven't seen such unique features before."

Ardyn doesn't seem to know about the rehabilitation process; that's something.

"I am from the east," Tifor says. "And am afflicted with albinism."

"Hardly afflicted, my dear lady! You are a positive jewel," Ardyn exclaims. Prompto would think that he means his compliments - Tifor is extremely striking – but his tone remains bland and condesencding and somehow offensive despite the nice words. "You should keep better company. One never knows about the quality."

"You intend to kill me to teach a lesson to Prompto while honoring your promise to the King," Tifor says. She sounds bored. "It's just as you predicted, Prompto."

Ardyn's eyes narrow just enough that Prompto sees that Tifor's shot in the dark hit true.

Prompto heaves a sigh. "Do you think he'll use a knife?" he asks her, sounding equally bored. "To remind us of Lunafreya?"

"You described him as 'excessively melodramatic', so that seems appropriate," Tifor agrees.

"Do you intend to keep us waiting long?" Prompto asks Ardyn. "I have better things to do, so get on with it if you insist on making whatever point you think you're making."

"You've grown quite cold, my dear Prompto," Ardyn says, insincere smile spreading over his face. "And quite cruel, to think I mean you ill! I will do no harm to your lady here. Though I must say, I had thought your affections were elsewhere - in Hammerhead, perhaps?"

"Been there, done that," Prompto sneers, mostly because this seems to be actually working, what the fuck. He hopes Cindy never finds out about this. "Do you have anything new, or are you bothering me for no reason?"

"I found myself curious as to your presence in Insomnia," Ardyn says. "Reasonable enough – especially with all the MTs about."

"I've 'embraced my true heritage'," Prompto says. "What business do you have here?"

"A spider need not explain itself to the fly," Ardyn says. "But it seems to me, perhaps, that you have started to weave a few webs yourself." A pause. "I would not have expected it of you."

Oh, thank the Six. Prompto actually recognizes what this is. He's been stuck sitting next to Ignis often enough to know it when he sees it.

This is a negotiation.

"I've learned a lot since the last time we spoke," Prompto says. "Including the necessity of being – circumspect."

Ardyn looks pleased, in that existentially bored snakeoil salesman way that he has . "That is indeed a virtue," he drawls. "One I feared your little group would never learn."

"We're loosely affiliated," Prompto says. "Or have you seen me anywhere near Lestallum these last few months?"

It's a bluff, and a weak one at that, but Ardyn seems to accept it as a polite fiction. Or possibly a clever feint.

Prompto's going to go with 'clever feint' and not 'desperately trying to remember how this part goes'.

"So you've outgrown your fellows," Ardyn says. "And gathered yourself a little group of MTs and mercenaries – how splendid. You move so slowly through the capital, one might think you were looking for something."

"One might," Prompto agrees. "Of course, if I was looking for something, I wouldn't be so stupid as to tell you about it – I've seen the price of your help."

He waits until Ardyn has appropriately rearranged his face into an expression of hurt – it takes a few minutes, like the darkness has brought out the least human aspects of Ardyn to simmer beneath the surface, and he’s unable to pretend to be normal as well as he used to – and then Prompto adds, "Though I might be inclined to consider your word – with appropriate reassurances."

He has no idea what that means, but Ignis uses the phase often to great effect.

Ardyn looks delighted. "Oh, well done, my dear," he says. "Webs indeed; we have a budding spider. But come now, I'm sure you have other ways to spend the evening –" He smirks at Tifor. "- and I will cut to the chase. Is what you seek in the Citadel?"

Prompto considers him, but Ardyn seems in earnest, or as much as he can be.

"No," he says. "It's not. Or at least – it wouldn't be so difficult to forget to search that building, or to do it so shoddily that we would be gone before an hour's out."

"A touch of forgetfulness is often a balm between friends, and aids much in recovery," Ardyn replies. "Wouldn't you say?"

He really could've just said 'I prefer the first one', but no, he has to go with the most pretentious possible way.

"I say that I'm tired of speaking in riddles," Prompto says, and stands. "I have mercenaries to return to, and to which I am accountable. I will order no search of the Citadel, but you will refrain from interfering with my soldiers."

"Of course," Ardyn says. "It's only right between old friends such as us. Mind you, if we're joined by any other old friends –"

"Obviously if Noct comes back, all bets are off," Prompto agrees. "Deal?"

"Deal," Ardyn says. "Don't go away too soon, Prompto; you've grown wiser than I thought. I might even learn to enjoy your company."

“Sorry that it’s not mutual,” Prompto says. “But I’m sure you understand.”

With that, Prompto stands, Tifor echoing his movement, and walks away. He leaves his back open.

Ardyn does nothing but fade into the darkness.

I kicked his ass, Prompto says gleefully. I totally won that negotiation!

Yes, General, Tifor says, smile in her mental voice. You did indeed. But a better question is – why does he care about the Citadel?

It's the final boss battle, Prompto says.

What?

In video games – which, to be fair, you guys aren't familiar with because we haven't moved the hydroelectric plant into full operation yet and therefore we can't use electricity for such 'spontaneous' purposes. But basically, when the hero and the villain meet at the end, they have a battle – a larger battle than all the rest.

Why would Ardyn care?

Because that's the whole point of all of this, Prompto says, covering his mouth with his hand so he can send with greater ease, his lips forming the words under his palm. He was helping us the whole way because fighting Noct before Noct obtained the power of the Crystal wouldn't be satisfying to him. So he's setting up for that.

You mean that he's tilting the battlefield to be advantageous to him?

Not any real advantage, I don’t think. He just wants to use the grounds as a psychological advantage. Our job will be not to let him.

How?

Prompto sighs. That part is going to be mostly Noct, he says. The Citadel used to be his home, after all – and I suspect the old king, his father, may not have been finally buried –

He will do well, an unfamiliar voice says, hissing with static characteristic to regular-born MTs. He's the King, after all.

There are murmurs of agreement.

Prompto can't help but grin.

Looks like the MTs have finally picked up on patriotism.

There’s also some murmurs about ‘mercenaries’ that aren’t particularly friendly – probably the hunters, but Prompto’s sure that the annoyance is going to spread into the rest of the ranks soon enough. That’ll get them even more pumped up to fight against Ardyn, should it ever come to that.

In the meantime, though –

Tifor, Jiten, Lieutenants, I want the squads to keep their eyes peeled – and I do mean peeled, I want eyes on everything – for the next few days. If it looks like Ardyn's retreat to the Citadel is correct, I want to rotate the squads in and out to make it look like there are fewer squads – no need to let Ardyn know the size of our army – and I want to strip as much of this place as I can.

Understood, his subordinate links all chorus.

"There's only one question I have," Tifor says aloud.

"What's that?"

Tifor looks at Prompto, very seriously. "General, when you were negotiating with him – how did the background music sound?"

"Tif!"

"Orchestral, maybe? Wailing strings? Mournful off-beat tuba sounds?"

"Oh, shut up."

"Maybe a large choir all singing in falsetto..."

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, I was right this time!"

"And what about all the other times?"

"Shut up !"

SIXTH YEAR

"Commander Ignis," Curvo says. "Your schedule –"

"I told you, I'll get to it," Ignis says, running his fingers over the latest farmland report at the same time as he listens to Monica detail all the latest complaints from the Laborers' Guild. Best idea he's ever had, putting Dustin in charge of a single entity through which all the different working groups – farm workers, service workers, department workers, construction workers, and so forth – communicated their thoughts because it means that all of these complaints have to go through a rigorous process before they ever reach Ignis' ears.

On the other hand, it means he has to actually listen whenever said complaints do reach his level.

"But Commander!" Curvo says again, which is somewhat unusual. A good-natured boy, very good with detailed tasks and very bad with people and eye-contact, Curvo is the newest employee in The Office, as people call Ignis' administrative center; he's been working as Ignis' primary scheduler for the last three months and it's been going very well. Admittedly, anything would be an improvement over the last few schedulers Ignis was assigned – they didn't really enjoy the fast pace Ignis set for things, or the way his manner could become brusque when he was in the middle of something, which was often.

Curvo enjoys puzzles and doesn't even notice the occasional snapping, but he rarely interrupts, and never twice.

"Yes, Curvo?" Ignis asks, holding up a hand to forestall Monica's recitation. "What is it?"

"We have only three days before Sixth Year," Curvo says. "You said to remind you, above all else. I can't fit in anything to your schedule because it's already blocked out."

"Ah," Ignis says. "Yes."

He very nearly forgot. At the beginning, the nexus points were near to each other – one day, one week, one month, six months, a year. But when the year mark passed without any sign of Noctis, they had to move on, and then it was two years until the third anniversary – two extremely busy years – and when even that didn’t result in anything…

It’s been three more years.

Where did the time go?

"Keep my schedule free," Ignis instructs. "Everything can wait until afterwards, or be delegated if it's urgent."

Curvo nods and turns back to his work. He never much bothers with social niceties, which Ignis appreciates.

"I'll come back later," Monica says, which isn't necessary, but Ignis still finds himself watching her go, bemused.

Six years, he thinks. Marvels. How can it be six years already?

They were so disappointed the first few times, waiting, and after Ardyn attempted to steal the Crystal a few months after his division of Insomnia with Prompto – Prompto had figured out the madman's game quite well, and had warned Ignis in time – they ended up moving it far away. And then moving it again, and again, and again, as Ardyn rallied the daemons to search for the now-inert rock.

Eventually, Cor suggested somewhere so obscure even the daemons hadn't gone there.

Angelgard.

"You want to risk Noct returning in a prison?" Ignis asked, aghast.

"Better than at Ardyn's side," Cor replied, and that was the end of that.

They left Umbra there, with plenty to eat and a note suggesting that Noct meet them in Hammerhead. Umbra seemed pleased by the arrangement, as much as a not-entirely-corporeal dog-messenger of the Astrals, or at least of the Oracle, could be.

Prompto asked why not Lestallum, when Ignis first wrote the note.

Hammerhead was familiar, Ignis reasoned, and Noct would need familiar.

Lestallum no longer looks familiar.

It's grown, for one thing – as the refugees had stream in, they imported more and more building materials from the laboratories and factories of Niflheim, and as their city grew, they attracted more refugees in a seemingly never-ending cycle. And, of course, more refugees meant they needed more food, and more food meant more lamps and farmland, and more farmland meant more manpower needed to grow and harvest.

They started building the second power plant as soon as they'd thought about it, the hydroelectric dam by the Plunge, and by now it had been completed, giving them a massive new source of power. Lestallum now stretches all the way down there, a giant urban center the size of old Insomnia, all the roads in the narrow areas peppered throughout with regular check-in stops manned by the new Crownsguard – now enlisting both regular and MT volunteers, anyone who doesn't want to sign up for the Hunter Division or the Army of Night.

Ignis is still mildly annoyed at Gladio every time he has to hear about the "Army of Night", which had originally been the much more formal "Army of King Noctis" until Gladio explained to a small child on one of his broadcasted talks that Noctis meant night, and, in fact, that Caelum meant sky and Lucis, of course, meant light.

Said small child asked if the legions of the army of the night were like the stars in the night sky, and now the army is officially called the Army of Night and each squad is named after a different constellation, and there is a whole theme going on that Prompto and Gladio are ridiculously into.

The old army was the Army of Lucis, or Light, and honestly Ignis still thinks that's more appropriate because "Army of Night" sounds like some sort of bad book supervillain's forces, right beside the armies of darkness and whanot. But no, everyone went in with almost a macabre sort of glee at the idea of being the Army of Night.

The Long Night has inspired a lot of dark humor.

Ignis honestly cracks himself up sometimes.

Prompto likes the new name, of course, but he likes anything that seems to honor Noctis in particular, rather than simply the royal family or the empty title of King in Exile.

Ignis wonders what Noct would make of all of this.

But no, he can't let himself think of that; he's learned over the years that dwelling too much on what Noctis might approve or disapprove or question is not only useless but ultimately destructive and paralyzing.

Ignis lets his head fall into his hands.

Would Noct approve of the way the food distribution has remained collective, despite the standardization of the agricultural division into day and night shifts? The communal dinners with their shifting schedule are extremely popular, yes, and Ignis firmly believes that they are in large part to thank for the continued peace between the regulars, MTs, and rehabilitateds, but the diminuation in the rights of private property that had once been enshrined in Lucis’ constitution – he doesn't know.

Or the hospitals – basic first-aid competence is now mandatory for all citizens, with regular training courses alongside the mandatory weapons lessons, but the hospitals are located near the outskirts of the city for the simple, if ruthless reason that dead bodies are immediately taken for burial. They can't afford to risk infection by permitting traditional funerals. They now conduct funerals seperately from burials, mostly ceremonies held in memorium; they hold them, when possible, in the town center.

Jobs are assigned primarily where people have skills – Cindy runs engineering at Hammerhead, where they send all of their engineers for on-the-job training before they're qualified to help with repairs outside the city; service workers and farmers and anyone who's ever so much as successfully raised a plant manage the food; they have people for sewage work, hospital work, defense. Academics help out with Gladio's school, while office workers or anyone with government experience works in one of the numerous government branches. There's even an informal barter system for service work – trading extra food for chores to be done, child care for pretty but useless toys, things like that. Ignis is hoping for formalize it soon, possibly with a centralized link platform through the now ubiquitous MT helmet-links. Luckily those no longer need a full helmet to be effective once people had adjusted to the original helmet-link, or else Lestallum would look even more different than it already did.

But how would Noctis view it?

Ignis doesn't know.

He wishes he did.

Ignis sighs. No. It's time to stop thinking about it, because –

"Heeeeeey, Iggy!" Prompto chirps, rapping at the door. "It's time to go to Angelsgard!"

"We've already packed your bags!" Gladio bellows. "Aranea's here with a drop ship and we've forced your staff to tell us that they'd alerted you!"

Yes, that.

The two of them seem convinced that Ignis works too hard, which is of course absurd. Everyone works hard. It isn’t just him.

Ignis sighs again and goes to the door.

"I have to finish up a few loose ends –" he starts.

"Nope! They can handle it!" they chorus, and hustle him to the drop ship so they can go to Angelgard.

By the time they arrive at Angelgard, Ignis has been reduced to making faces at Prompto and Gladio. Don't they understand that he has duties, some even more expansive than their own?

Don't they understand that if Noctis is coming back tomorrow, Ignis needs to be ready to explain everything he's done?

"I don't think it'll be this time, anyway," Gladio says gloomily.

"That's just because you're a dope that bet on it being ten years," Prompto says dismissively. "Iggy, your staff can handle running things for a week, and Noct will think everything you've done is awesome. Stop worrying!"

"He says as we travel to Angelgard, the most depressing place on Eos."

"I'm pretty sure some of the garula that currently live in Wix's old outpost instead of Chocobos disagree with you," Prompto points out.

"You own a successful Chocobo farm," Gladio says. "How are you still this bitter?"

"That place is – was – Chocobo heaven!"

"You. Run. A. Farm. Don't they get massaged on a daily basis?"

"It helps their constitutions."

"Constitutions my ass. It'd help my constitution to get daily massages, and I do a lot more than they do; why don't I get some?"

"Grow some feathers first, dumbass."

“Chocobo butt.”

“Why you little –”

Ignis rolls his eyes and unsuccessfully tries to hide a smile as they bicker cheerfully onwards.

It certainly does relieve the tedium of the journey.

Travel to Angelgard is about a day’s travel no matter which way you go, by boat and road or by air; by drop ship (more of a jump ship, really – a small pod seating no more than six, typically used to travel to and from drop ships, since they didn’t want to spare a larger ship when it was just the three of them), it is at least not unpleasant.

Angelgard is, however, an absolutely desolate place.

In the days of Kings Mors and Regis, it was a prison, located on an island on a rock in the middle of the sea; few guards were needed, because even if the prisoners got out, it was impossible to make it back to shore without a boat.

There is a boat there now, in case Noctis comes back unexpectedly, but that's fine – there hasn’t been an actual prisoner in that stone jail for years now. Regis disapproved of it on moral grounds, and at any rate Insomnia didn’t want to spare the soldiers for such a distant locale.

But no humans meant no daemons, and Angelgard was an invention of King Mors’ father; as a result, it's likely unknown to Ardyn, and thus a safe place for the Crystal.

If nothing else.

Stone ruins on a rocky offshoot surrounded by ice-cold water, with dead grass still lying shriveled everywhere - not even mushrooms found this a worthwhile place to grow, and mushrooms are very nearly everywhere nowadays.

Ignis has grown very creative with incorporating mushrooms into dishes.

"I'll set up camp," Ignis says, stepping into the remaining structure of the prison – the Crystal is hidden in a chamber below, but this will do perfectly well as a shelter – and feeling around with his cane to make sure nothing else is on the floor that will trip him up. His glasses are helpful in identifying heat signatures and magical emissions, but he prefers to keep in practice of not using them. Technology, he has learned to his great regret, has a tendency to fail when it's needed most.

The Daemon Invasion of Year Four, for instance, when the main power plant went down for needed renovations and the backup generators failed right in the midst of a massive daemon attack. The daemons were ultimately repelled, of course, and Lestallum’s perimeter maintained, but it was a much closer call than Ignis would have liked.

"I'll take the Eastern patrol," Gladio says, reaching down and scratching Umbra under the chin. The dog came to visit them every time they came by, and (according to Gladio) looks as hale and hearty and not a single gray whisker older than he looked all those years ago. "Prompto – the West? And get us some seafood?"

"Sounds good," Prompto agrees. They don't work together often, the three of them; their duties rarely permit them the time. But they enjoy it immensely whenever they do, and they have developed a set approach: when they're near water, Gladio takes the longer patrol and Prompto the shorter, with Prompto casting nets for some dinner; when they're inland, Prompto takes the longer patrol and Gladio the shorter one with diversions to track down some meat for them. Ignis invariably prepares the camp and the first night's dinner, which is typically made from existing provisions with any catch being prepared for the next night's meal.

Ignis doesn't object to this arrangement – he's done enough hunting on his own to be quite steady in his self-esteem, being more accustomed to the dark than either of the other two, and he has the satisfaction of knowing that Gladio and Prompto are not acting out of pity.

Honestly, if Ignis wasn't blind, they would have seized on another reason to avoid being the one responsible for setting up camp, the lazy bastards.

He tracks their departure on his infrared, noting the small shape that represents Umbra following the two of them out of the prison.

Angelgard isn't large, but it is rocky and treacherous to scout, so Ignis can expect a few hours of blissful solitude.

If only Gladio hadn't hidden his paperwork..!

Ignis has set up a fire and a circle of warding marks their scholars have recorded from the Havens – the latter less certain in their efficacy, but hunters are a superstitious lot, willing to try anything, and Ignis might be an administrator but he's also a hunter.

Unfortunately, Ignis is far too accustomed to setting up camp efficiently. It's only been a half-hour in and Ignis has already reached the point of boredom – he's set everything up, checked it twice, and put the stew to simmer (he's dragged out the chopping and butchering process as long as possible, using the fanciest and most elaborate recipe he knows, but eventually human interaction must bow out in favor of the flame), and, worst of all, he still can't find his paperwork.

Blissful solitude is all well and good, but he's found in recent years that he's developed less and less of a tolerance for it.

He's just starting to wish he'd brought a book to read – Curvo had several of the typists working on transcribing fiction into blind-lettering, which was widely appreciated by all those in camp with difficulty seeing or a desire to reduce their late night light usage – when there's a noise at the entrance-way to the prison.

Ignis expands his infrared and sees a cluster of figures – definitely more than two, and that means it’s not Prompto and Gladio back early.

Ignis lets one hand fall to his belt where he keeps his daggers, and the other brace itself casually on his blind man's cane, which looks innocuous but contains three tiny vials of spell-casts in the handle.

If these are raiders, they will not find him the easy target they might expect.

"Prudens, you old fart, what do you know?" one of them, a middle-aged man by the sound of it, is saying.

"More than you, Militus," another one, sounding older, shoots back.

"Pah, I'll wager Angelgard didn't even exist back in the eldest days, old man –"

"It didn't," a third one, younger and with a strange curl to his voice, says. "It was formed by a movement of the lands which caused an eruption of rock from the seas; it was a cataclysm of some note."

"You always have to know everything, Peregrinus," a female voice teases, warm and pleasant. "My curious friend."

"My attention is fleeting," the third one – Peregrinus – replies. "Much like yours, my dear Furs."

Furs laughs.

"At least Furs and Peregrinus don't pretend to wisdom, eh, Prudens?" Militus says. "Say, Callidus, what do you think?"

"That I'm too smart to enter into an argument this foolish," another man's voice, with an accent not unlike Ignis', says dryly.

"The precise formation of Angelgard aside," Prudens says, "it is still possible to compare it to other isles of the same sort, and thus conclude that –"

"Oh, come off it," a new voice says. "It's hardly worth arguing about; the place is here, and that is enough."

"Shut up, Pius," the others chorus.

Pius snorts, clearly not offended.

"You ought to listen to Pius," another man says.

"Magus, you always take his side," another one complains. This one sounds like a big man, his voice deep and carrying. "You, Pius, and Aspicio, always together, always nattering on about the will of the Six –"

"Longus, that is uncalled for," another female voice says, this one as cool and unemotional as the first one was warm. "Be fair –"

"I'll leave fairness to you, Aequitas, my dear," Longus says. "I'll be gross and biased, just like Ferus."

"Don't get me involved in this," a new voice, another man, raspy like a veteran with a smoke-damaged throat, says, but the tone is amused. "Supero, what do you think?"

"I think we have been beaten here by company," a man with clipped tones says. "And that we are being most rude by continuing to natter on like gnats without greeting him."

"You're right," the second voice, Prudens, says. "Friend and fellow-traveler, well-met and easy journeys. May we approach your fire?"

Ignis hasn't heard that greeting before, but he has his manners. "You are welcome," he says politely. "Provided, of course, that you come in peace."

Several of the company burst into gales of laughter. Ignis has counted twelve names so far, though he has detected thirteen heat-signatures: Prudens, Supero, Callidus, Peregrinus, Magus, Aspicio, Furs, Longus, Aequitas, Ferus, Pius, Militus, and one who has yet to speak his name.

"Certainly we come in peace," the one called Magus says. "We will not disturb you for long – we have a ways yet to go, to-night."

"Besides, it would be contrary to the rules of hospitality," Pius says.

"Hospitality is all well and good," Militus says. "And rather useless when someone is inclined to break them. Let the boy be cautious! I think it wise of him."

"When one is travelling, it is often wise to be cautious," Peregrinus agrees.

"You never know what lingers in the shadows," Furs adds. "Particularly in this darkness."

"I think our new friend's darkness is more complete than ours," a new voice says. This must be either Aspicio or the nameless ones, neither of whom had yet spoken. It's a curiously neutral voice, neither male nor female. "You are blind, are you not?"

"I am," Ignis says honestly.

"I am Aspicio," the new voice says. "And we are thirteen in number – Supero has seated himself by your fire without invitation, as is his wont; Callidus has joined beside him. Prudens stands to my left, Peregrinus to my right, and the mountain standing behind me is Longus –"

"Hey," Longus protests mildly.

"Militus, Feus, and Aequitas now stand beyond your fire," Aspicio continues, "Furs is – where did she go?"

"I'm right here," Furs chuckles. Ignis stiffens; she's standing right behind him.

"Stop playing games," Aspicio says. "Magus and Pius stand further beyond, accompanied by the latest member of our company, Atavus; he has yet to speak."

"Nor will he, I suspect," Prudens says. "He suffers still from an old and grievous blow, which has yet to cease bleeding."

"He's injured?" Ignis asks, already conducting inventory of what palliatives and potions they brought with them. "We have medicines..."

"Only in his heart," Pius says. "But you are a good host to think to offer."

"My name is Ignis," Ignis says, realizing he has failed to introduce himself. "And since you come in peace, you are welcome; would you like something to eat?"

"We won't take what little you've made for you and your friends," Supero says.

"We still have a ways to go," Pereginus says.

"Where are you going, that you stop at Angelgard?" Ignis asks, unable to keep his curiosity at bay. "It's not exactly a main route."

It occurs to him a second later that these might be pirates, which would explain the strange accents and the travel to an remote island. But they have not demonstrated any inclination to attack him, and Ignis will be a good host until they do. Pirates or not, there is room around his fire for people who come in peace, which is of utmost importance in the Long Night.

"We travel a strange road," Magus says. "But it is a long one, and a harsh one, and we are glad to warm ourselves by a fire."

They clearly aren't planning on sharing more than that, which Ignis can understand: he wouldn't trust a stranger with all the information at once, either, for all that they vastly outnumber him.

"What were you discussing?" he asks instead. "About Angelgard?"

"The qualities of the ore that might be found around here," Furs says. She's on the other side of the fire, now; Ignis didn't hear her move, and he has very good hearing. She must be remarkably light-footed. "There is the question of whether an island raised by the sea would have any star-metal, which can be found from above or below."

"Star-metal?" Ignis asks.

"From falling stars," Magus says.

"From meteorites," Ferus corrects. "Six, but you're a pretentious lot; that's all it means, star-metal. Meteorites have it, and the inside of the earth, too – volcanoes and deep caves and such like that. Since Angelgard was formed during an eruption from the earth –"

"Out of an earthquake," Peregrinus says. "Not a volcano. Eruption might not be the word I'd use."

"Since Angelgard was formed in some way or another from the mantle, you pedantic ass, the question arose as to whether it would have a store of that ore."

"Are you searching for star-metal, then?" Ignis asks.

"Hardly," Supero says dryly. "We have more than enough of it; the question is entirely theoretical."

"Not quite theoretical," Prudens objects. "If there is more, that speaks well of the future."

"Regardless of whether or not there is more ore, all will be as the Six wish it to be," Pius says.

"Not all," Aspicio says, and says no more.

"The theoretical aspect of this conversation," Callidus says, clearly directing his voice to Ignis, "arises as a matter of superstition. You see, the royal arms of Lucis are each forged from star-metal."

"I hadn't known that," Ignis says, surprised; he'd known they were of some mystical material, light yet exceedingly strong, and of course capable of being wielded by the Kings of Lucis in their Armiger. "How did you learn that?"

"We've traveled very far," Peregrinus says.

"We read a lot of books, he means," Militus says. "In countries far beyond the borders of Lucis, where such information is not so secret."

"Regardless, the main issue of discussion isn't really about the ore," Aequitas says. "It is about the future. The Chosen King fights the darkness, bearing with him the royal arms, but the Accursed bears such arms as well and will match him on the field of battle."

Ignis nods. That is a matter to which he has given some serious concern – he would be surprised by their knowledge of such matters, but they are clearly well-traveled, and it is no secret in Lestallum that Noctis, the Chosen King, the King in Exile, will return to fight the Accused Ardyn. Nor is Ardyn's own history secret – Ignis considered it, but Gladio refused, making clear that he wouldn't risk even a single person falling for Ardyn's tricks and treachery because they didn't know who or what he was.

"What does the ore have to do with that?" Ignis asks.

"There are those of us who think that the Chosen King is notable enough to bear his own arm," Aspicio says. "And if there is ore, then why not?"

"His own – a royal arm for Noctis?" Ignis asks, entirely taken aback. "You mean, make a new royal arm?"

"Why not?" Militus says. "Every royal arm was once just a weapon."

"What makes them royal is being wielded by royalty," Ferus says. "The Chosen King is as royal as those who came before him."

"That might help balance the scales indeed," Ignis says, his mind already abuzz. An arm, made just for Noctis – Ignis knows Noct's preferences, of course; long after it was far from the strongest weapon he bore, he favored a short sword he had taken from Insomnia to protect them on their travels. If that sword were remade in star-metal, with proper designs drawn from the scholars' reports, then perhaps it could become a royal arm in truth, and tip the balance against Ardyn in the final battle. "We can hardly turn down any advantage – I thank you for the idea."

"Send us thanks once you've found the star-metal," Prudens says dryly. "It's rarer than mythril."

"Without the idea, we wouldn't have even looked," Ignis points out.

"The storm rises," Longus says, his voice a little distant. "We must be on our way."

"Thank you for your fire, friend," Magus says.

"You have kept us good company indeed," Furs says.

"I'm pleased," Ignis says, somewhat bewildered by such a short visit. "Fare well, and good luck on your journey."

"And you with yours," they say, and file out of the prison. Their steps are heavy, all but Furs'; they are clad in heavy armor.

Ignis' glasses tells him that they are all gone, all but one – the silent one, Atavus, who is still bleeding from the heart, and has not moved from where he sits by the door.

Ignis clears his throat. "Atavus," he says to that last remaining heat signature. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Atavus rises – a tall man, from the sound of him, listing to the left; he has a weak knee that causes him to stoop and limp, his feet heavy and dragging.

And then he speaks.

"Do not help me," he says, and his voice is like a crack of lightning lighting up a dark night, a sharp, sudden shock of recognition. "Help my son, as you have always done, and I will be satisfied."

And then he is gone.

King Regis, dead and unburied in his Citadel these six years and longer, is gone.

Gladio and Prompto come running into the prison a minute later. "Ignis!" Prompto cries. "We couldn't get in – we tried, but the way was blocked; it was glowing –"

"You're okay!" Gladio exclaims, sounding equally relieved. "We were afraid something had happened – what did happen?"

Thirteen, Ignis thinks, his mind fuzzy with shock; there were thirteen of them.

"I think," he says, very slowly, suddenly aware of the inhuman chill of the air around him – drained of life by his spectral guests, though his own warmth remained untouched, "that I just met the Thirteen."

"The Thirteen?"

"The Great Kings and Queens of Lucis," Ignis says. "The Thirteen. Those who bore the royal arms of Lucis, the ones whose tombs we visited by Noctis’ side."

"Holy crap, Ignis" Prompto says. "You mean you saw ghosts?!"

"Heard," Ignis corrects. He suspects that his blindness was a great aid to him here – he doubts they were entirely corporeal, his guests.

"Heard, saw, whatever!" Prompto says. "Ghosts!"

"When we came up to the door, we saw a bunch of blue lights flying out," Gladio says, confirming Ignis’s suspicions that his guests were likely corporeal only as avatars of blue flame. "Like will-o-wisps, but not evil. That must have been them – what were they like?"

"They bickered a lot?" Ignis says helplessly, still rather in shock.

He should have guessed, he thinks – Prudens, meaning Wise; Supero, meaning Conqueror; Callidus the Clever; Peregrinus the Wanderer; Magus, meaning magic, the Mystic; Aspicio, the far-sighted Oracle; Furs, the thief or, more correctly, the Rogue; Longus the Tall; Aequitas the Just; Ferus the Fierce; Pius the Pious, Militus the Warrior...

Atavus, meaning ancestor.

King Regis, who bore the Sword of the Father.

"They must have been here for a reason," Gladio says. "What did they say?"

"Did they say Noct was coming back tomorrow?" Prompto asks eagerly.

"They were arguing," Ignis says, "about an ore – Gladio, Prompto; I don't think Noct is coming back tomorrow, but I know what we need to do."

"You do?" Prompto asks.

"We need to make a sword," Ignis says. "For Noctis. But to do that, we're going to need to find a substance called star-metal."

"I think you'd better explain," Gladio says.

"Of course," Ignis says, already trying to calculate how long a break he can take from his work as Commander before Lestallum needs him desperately again. He wants to be involved in the hunt for this ore – and aren't Gladio and Prompto always on his back that he ought to take a vacation?

They can go and find the ore together, the three of them, just like they used to.

For Noctis, they can do anything.

TENTH YEAR

The entire Council of Lestallum gets the emergency alert, directed only to them and used only in the direst need; a signal sent via the MT link network directly to the minds of the Council members, it can travel faster than the quickest message, whether by phone or otherwise.

It has no words at first, merely a sense of unbearable excitement.

It’s Talcott.

Newly of age, finally able to join the truckers he loved to follow on his radio – why is he signaling?

And then the message comes.

Shock.

Disbelief.

Slowly, a growing belief, a hope, a feeling, excitement, joy, hope –

Ignis’ phone rings, and he answers, his lower lip already bitten in suspense.

“You’ll never guess who I have here, sir,” Talcott says, the joy in his voice spilling over. “It’s King Noctis. I’m bringing him to Hammerhead.”

“What does he have to say for himself?” Ignis asks, already rebroadcasting the conversation to Prompto and Gladio.

“He says he’ll tell you in person.”

At last.

Chapter Text

After Hammerhead, everything happens, it seems, all at once.

They almost don’t know how to act, seeing Noctis – older, of course, but still Noctis, Noct, their friend, their king, who they had begun to fear they might not live to see again. He’s older, the way they are, and strangely calmer, more serene, more centered, but he’s there.

They fall into old patterns almost immediately, looking to him for the way forward, and the way forward lies to Insomnia and the Citadel and Ardyn.

Noctis asks about armor.

Prompto finds him the old Crownsguard armor that belonged to King Regis, once upon a time, and then stored in a Hammerhead closet by Cid, and with it the golden leg brace that Noctis takes with a sigh of relief.

They wear Crownsguard uniforms themselves, heavy fabric forming protective coats, uniforms they wore in his honor during the Long Night and gladly wear now, the symbols of their roles as royal retainers.

And yet –

Something more.

Ignis’ coat is studded, a feature of dual usage: the studs hook together a tough leather underlayer for additional protection, while the studs themselves form formulae and weaknesses of various daemons written out in the blind-language in the event he would like to double-check a reference.

Gladio’s coat is dark, but not dark enough to fully hide the checkered effect given by the writing – hundreds, thousands of signatures, all his students adult and child, signing their names or designations in a massive effort to wish him good luck and safety on his journeys.

And Prompto –

His coat is the simple black of the Crownsguard. Only on the breast does it differ from the traditional: an intricately embroidered design in reflective light, mimicking the glittering stars of the constellations that form the insignias of the Army of Night. But Prompto, their beloved General, favors no squad or wing and bears upon his chest no constellation but rather a face, a breastplate in the fashion of the dreaded Medusa, and the face picked out in stars is the traditional helmet-mask of the MTs.

Prompto marches, head held high, and where he goes his army marches with him.

They are excited, and they are hopeful, and they are happy.

Noctis does not tell them about the blood price until they sit in the camp, just like they used to, the night before they go to Insomnia, and the Citadel, and Ardyn.

The blood price that means that they will lose Noctis almost as soon as they’ve gotten him back.

The Chosen King can defeat the darkness, but only at the cost of a life – his own.

“Wait, what?!” Prompto exclaims. “That’s bullshit!”

They all missed Noctis like a wound in the side, but none more than Prompto; he would rage at the injustice of it, they all would, they're primed for it, fit to burst, but Noctis holds up a hand, seeking peace.

"It's the will of the Six. But let's not waste the night speaking of that," he says. "Let's talk of good times, the past, instead."

They don’t want to – they’ve missed Noctis so much, and the thought of losing him again is intolerable – but it’s what he wants, and they want to see him happy more than anything else.

So they do.

And in the morning, they go to the Citadel.

Ardyn knows, somehow, that Noct is coming, and he has summoned all the daemons he can, surrounding the Citadel.

The areas around have been cleared by Prompto's armies in the ensuing years, but the area that remains Ardyn's is still a mess, rubble on the ground, cars destroyed, nothing human remaining.

"Looks like we're going to have a fight," Noctis says, standing at the barrier between the city proper and the neighborhood of the Citadel, and summons a sword.

"Noct," Ignis says. "Before we go in –"

Noctis looks at him.

Ignis removes from his pack a sword. It glitters silver even in the darkness, and matches the sword in Noctis' hand precisely but for the wings and stars that decorate the one Ignis holds.

Noctis' eyes widen, the first thing that has surprised him since his return.

"Ignis," he breathes. "It's beautiful."

"It's made just like yours," Gladio says. "The first one, the one you brought with you from the Citadel, the first one you summon, every time, even though it's too weak for you to use now."

Noctis looks at the sword he summoned as if seeing it for the first time.

"We found a special metal," Prompto says, beaming. "It's as light as your original, but much stronger – we had to use a special flame to forge it, and diamonds to carve the designs into it once it was done."

"It's for you," Ignis says, and holds it out.

"Thank you," Noctis breathes. "My friends, thank you all."

Ignis hesitates, as if to say something more, but decides against it. "It's nothing," he says. "We would do far more for you, our king and our friend."

After that, they focus on fighting – first the daemons that stand in their path and then Ifrit himself, the Infernian, the last of the Six that they need to defeat to win for Noctis their power.

Gladio delivers his blows a touch too gleefully, and Prompto aims his shots where they would hurt any male most, and Ignis empties what could have been stretched to a half-year's worth of potions and elixirs keeping them alive and curing their burns.

It’s worth it.

And then they fight on, up to the tower at the highest point of the Citadel, the throne room, standing by Noctis' side only long enough to be swatted away by the Accursed's magic like flies.

They can do nothing but watch as Noctis faces Ardyn alone.

But he is not entirely alone: when he wields his Armiger, Ardyn's own corrupted version shining red, there shines an extra point of light in Noctis' circle.

"What arm is that?" Ardyn sneers, surprised: Noctis spins fourteen arms around him, not thirteen.

Noctis appears equally surprised, but stands tall. "Mine," he says, and charges once more into the fray.

He wins, and Ardyn lies dead upon the ground.

His soul has fled, but his body remains intact: the work is not yet done. The Accursed cannot be killed so easily.

They meet Noctis at the steps to the throne room.

"I know what I must do," he says, and he is noble and tragic and beautiful – and far, far too young – all at once. "I leave it in your hands, my friends."

And he goes as they turn to fight the wave of daemons that rise up behind them in a last-ditch effort to stop the Chosen King.

"You know what," Prompto says, watching them form.

His fellows glance at him, eyebrows raised.

"This is bullshit," Prompto says, and he crosses his arms. "The Six created the Accursed, and they gave Noctis all their signs of favor and blessing – fighting him the whole damn way, wrecking the Disc and Altissia and Niflheim and everything while they did it – and then even after that they steal him away from us, damning us to ten years of darkness and unanswered prayers, and even then, that's not enough? They have to kill him, too?"

"The Astrals are cruel," Ignis says; he has said such things many times before, in the Long Night.

"Too cruel, too selfish," Gladio agrees, his usually cheerful countenance twisted into a scowl. "I'm with Prompto. This is bullshit."

"It's the will of the Six," Ignis tells them. “You heard Noctis.”

The two say nothing. They only look at him, their Supreme Commander during the darkness, and wait for his word.

Ignis tilts his head to the side in thought, considering the unspoken proposal, their unspoken suggestion, even as the daemons mass before them.

"Fuck the Six," he decides. "Prompto?"

"With pleasure," Prompto says, and makes a gesture.

Squadron Orion – named for the constellation called after the very first daemon Hunter, enshrined within the stars themselves for his service – fought very hard for the honor of escorting the royal party, and has hung back only on the strength of their orders and discipline, and now, given freedom, their snipers unleash wave after wave of fire, raining down from the rooftops where they have been watching.

The daemons fall helplessly beneath them.

"Let's go," Ignis commands, and they run up, hoping – none of them is sure what they are hoping for. Not to be too late, perhaps.

They find Noctis upon the throne, his father’s sword through his heart, and the magic in the room fading fast.

The air feels lighter.

“Is the curse gone?” Gladio asks, glancing out of the windows.

“It’s 3AM,” Ignis says, consulting his visor. “We’ll find out in a few hours. Noctis?”

“On the throne,” Prompto says, his voice dull. “He’s been stabbed.”

“Well, unstab him, and check to see if there’s any sign of life,” Ignis snaps.

Prompto and Gladio rush ahead, with Ignis making his way up a little slower, but no less anxious.

“Nothing,” Gladio says, his hands on Noctis’ neck, his hands red with Noctis’ blood from where he removed the sword and cast it aside. “He’s gone.”

Ignis presses a phoenix down into the wound, but nothing happens. “Nothing,” he says bleakly. “The Six do not wish for him to live.”

“He’s still warm,” Prompto says. “And like you said, Iggy; fuck the Six.”

He reaches to his breast and tears at it, the beautiful embroidery shredding under his grasping hands, and beneath his clothing there is the ever-smiling mask of the MT.

“You brought one?” Gladio exclaims.

“One what?” Ignis asks.

“A converter! You guys finally got it small enough to carry!”

“Just one,” Prompto says, already fitting the now-familiar smiling green mask over Noctis’ all-too-pale face. “We’ve only been able to get one down small enough; the power requirements are insane, and the army sort of unanimously agreed that I would carry it and that we wouldn’t tell anyone until we figured out a way to make more. Iggy, will this work?”

“The MT process is man-made,” Ignis says, and his voice strengthens with hope. “It owes nothing to the Six.”

“Will he still be Noctis?” Gladio demands.

“The brain can survive up to eight to twelve hours after death,” Ignis says. “But between three to ten minutes is best for full functionality - under three, if we hope to avoid brain damage entirely.”

“Gladio?” Prompto demands.

“I felt the last of his pulse slip away myself,” Gladio says. “We’re at a minute twenty-five seconds and counting. How long will this take?”

“Fifty-five seconds if I’m lucky,” Prompto says, moving as fast as he can to begin the process. “I've never done this before, just practice. Fuck –”

“Minute thirty,” Gladio says. “Prompto –”

“I’m working on it.”

“Keep up the count,” Ignis orders. “Prompto, can I assist?”

“We need the body to start to heal once it's revived, or at least not be actively trying to die as much,” Prompto says. “Anything non-magical would be best, but potions’ll do in a pinch.”

"Gladio, swap with me," Ignis says. "First aid kit is in my pack. Minute forty."

Ignis puts his hands at Noct's pulse-points. Nothing there.

Gladio grabs the first aid kit. "I have a high powered potion," he reports. "Phoenix down, in case that helps once he's revived. Non-magic items include a local, a surgical staple gun, transfusions, and a shit ton of bandages. Prompto, let me know when you need me."

Prompto nods, putting the nodes into place.

"Minute fifty," Ignis says.

"First start," Prompto says. "Five second count –"

"Minute fifty five."

"Now!"

The mask's eyes glow red, activating, and Noct's body heaves upwards, reacting to the strong electric charge of activation.

"Still no pulse," Ignis reports, hands steady and voice calm. "Two minutes."

"To be expected," Prompto says, too focused for any emotion, not even the desperate scrabbling hope-against-hope they all feel. "Setting up second start."

"Two minutes, ten."

Prompto says nothing, even though it’s clear he’s now running behind.

"Two minutes, fifteen."

"Second start," Prompto says. "Now!"

Noctis' body heaves again, and the sides of the mask begin glowing as processing power begins to churn. The first start creates the connection between mask and existing brainwaves; the second activates the mask's sub-tier control systems.

The ones that assist with involuntary impulses.

"I have a pulse," Ignis reports. "Two minutes, twenty – Gladio, we need healing or he'll bleed out entirely now that his heart's beating again."

Gladio moves quickly. His jaw sets as he reports, "Nothing from the phoenix down, and the potion is doing nothing. The Six want him."

"The Six aren't going to get him," Ignis says harshly. "First aid kid, now. Two minutes, thirty. Prompto, remember, more than three minutes risks brain damage."

“I know,” Prompto snaps.

Gladio reaches for the kit. There's no time to apply the local anesthetic first, but if they don't stop the bleeding, it'll be a moot point. He goes for the surgical staple gun.

Man-made technology.

"Wound is closed," Gladio says, drawing a line of adhesive to keep the lines of it further together. "He's lost a lot of blood - setting up transfusion now."

"Niflheim transfuse unit?" Prompto asks, already working on setting up stage three.

"Only the best," Gladio replies. In developing the MTs, as cruel and horrific a process as it was, Niflheim had developed transfusion devices far more powerful than anything Lucis had ever seen. Usually, of course, it's used for daemon blood, but Ignis packed plenty of regular packets with each of their blood types – Gladio and Noctis share the same, so there is plenty to spare.

"Two minutes forty-five," Ignis says, and the tension shows in his voice. "Gladio?"

"Transfuse unit set up, onto bandaging. It's as good as we're going to get. Prompto, go for it."

"Third start," Prompto says. "Activating – now."

Noctis heaves under their hands one more time, shaking and shuddering and finally still once more.

The mask shines with the light of an activated computer.

All the lights are green.

"Ignis?" Prompto asks.

"His pulse is steady," Ignis says, and checks Noctis' mouth. "And he's breathing. But we won't know for sure until we wake him up."

"I've applied the local anesthetic," Gladio says. "I've got plenty of the stronger stuff here, too, if he wakes up in pain - if he wakes up at all. Let's do a check and then put him back out."

"Ignis?" Prompto asks. He doesn't bother laying out the dangers of waking someone so injured and recently revived; Ignis knows them all.

"I think we need to take the risk of waking him now," Ignis says after a moment of consideration. "We must return to Lestallum triumphantly, with a corpse or with a man; we cannot let their hope linger in between only to die slowly."

Prompto nods. "Voice directed remote activation," he says, and his forcefully calm voice doesn't conceal the tears streaming down his face, or the way his hands clench and unclench spasmodically. "User: Prompto Argentum. Access code: star light, star bright."

The mask flickers confirmation.

"Direction: activate unit. Now."

The mask's lights flicker.

They all wait. The mask's sub-tier commands are responding, stimulating the parts of the brain responsible for awareness. The Empire used the function to regulate sleep; they use it, now, as a pick-me-up wake-up call. Or, in cases like this, to get answers they dearly need.

Noctis groans.

They all tense, staring at him.

"Five more minutes," he grumbles.

"He's alive," Prompto chokes, and covers his face. “He’s him.”

"Gladio," Ignis says, and finds he can say no more.

Gladio moves, applying both anesthetic and sedative, to let Noctis sleep in full before the local wears off and he begins to feel the results of the hole in his chest.

Noctis slips back into sleep without difficulty, the lines on his face fading as he relaxes.

Gladio tests another potion, one of the good ones from before the Long Night. "Still nothing," he reports, and his teeth are clenched.

Ignis reaches for one of his spare potions, one that post-dates the Night, one of the ones they made themselves from mining the remnants of the Disc of Cauthess. Less efficient, they've found, than the old ones made with the magic of the Kings of Lucis behind them, but perhaps...

Gladio takes it from him. His exhale of relief reveals the result even before he reports, "It took. He's healing."

Ignis' shoulders slump. "He's alive," he says, his voice blank with sheer shocked relief.

"He's alive," Prompto echoes.

"I'm really glad most of the Six are dead," Gladio says conversationally, his hands still busily bandaging. "Because I'm pretty sure we just said fuck you to the Revelation of Bahamut."

Ignis snorts, comforted, as always, by Gladio's special mix of a fiery temper and down-to-earth practicality. "The Six have had their Night with Noctis ," he says, ignoring Prompto and Gladio's groans at the pun. "Now it's our turn to have the day."

"Today the dies does not die," Prompto immediately jokes, using the archaic word for 'day'.

"What did I do in a past life to get stuck with the two of you?" Gladio grumbles good-naturedly. "C'mon, let's get Orion to bring in a stretcher. I want Noctis under proper hospital watch as soon as possible."

"Agreed," Ignis says, rising to his feet. He can feel the blood that covers him; he suspects it's covering the other two as well. "Another transfusion unit, perhaps."

"I'm already using everything you had on you," Gladio says wryly. "At this rate, Noctis won't have any blood of his own left in there."

"Given that this whole shitshow started with the blood of the kings of Lucis, maybe that's not such a bad thing," Prompto says, standing as well and calling to the Army squadron outside the doors.

"Indeed," Ignis says thoughtfully. "Perhaps not."

"Doesn't matter," Gladio says. "We're heading to Lestallum. It's time to bring the King in Exile home."

Noctis feels warm and fuzzy, mostly. Like maybe his reward for giving his life to his people was to be reborn as a puppy like Umbra – honestly, that would explain a lot.

Unfortunately, the feeling is only 'mostly'.

The rest of him feels like something died in his mouth.

"Uuuuuugh," he says, and someone lifts up his head and puts a cup of water to his lips.

The feeling is familiar enough – from his childhood, right after the accident – that he forces his eyes open.

He's not sure what he expects to see – Luna, maybe? During his time in the Crystal, he'd seen a quick flash of their wedding and his coronation, a true king of Lucis at last, and he'd vaguely gotten the idea that he would get that after he died as some sort of consolation prize for not being alive anymore. Not that anything was actually consolation for finding out your whole life was good for nothing but being set up as a sacrificial lamb, and that his dad and Luna had known about it the whole time.

Noctis had some not-fully-formed plans to have a word with both of them once he had a chance.

It's not Luna, though.

It's Ignis.

That by itself would've been fine, actually – what heaven is heaven without your friends? – but Ignis is still blind, the scars and the blankness and the visor he'd adopted, and he also looks vaguely distracted, like he's listening to a phone call.

That's distinctly not what Noctis would consider heavenly.

It's even less heavenly when Ignis suddenly says, "Prompto, we agreed to take shifts. He's just drinking water; if he actually wakes up, I'll tell you. You can stop calling every five minutes."

Heh. That sounds like Prompto.

"Gladio!" Ignis abruptly yelps. "What are – You're supposed to be asleep – what do you mean, you 'had a good feeling'? Go back to sleep this instant!"

Poor Ignis. Even death doesn't keep him from being bossy.

Noctis can't see the phone, but he figures Ignis is using some sort of radio, maybe connected to his glasses-goggles-visor thing.

"Say hi for me," he croaks.

Ignis very satisfyingly drops the glass – it bounces, luckily, instead of breaking – and exclaims, "He's awake!"

"Yeah," Noctis says, wondering why it's such a big deal. If he's dead, he's dead, right?

Unless he's gone back in time or something – man, he hopes he hasn't gone back in time. That'd been enough of a trip when he'd done it with Umbra; if he has to relive sacrificing himself again, he doesn't know what he's done to deserve it – he's done everything the Six wanted from him –

He tries to get up.

"No, don't –" Ignis says, but it's too late.

There's an awful pain and Noctis finds himself on his back again. "Ouch," he says, staring at the ceiling. He hurts. Why does he hurt?

"Because you got stabbed with a giant sword," Ignis says. "Try to avoid that in the future, perhaps?"

Stabbed with a –

Wait.

"I'm alive?!" Noctis exclaims, then clutches at his chest. No more yelling.

"Yes," Ignis says. "We revived you after we found you on the throne."

"Phoenix down shouldn't have been able to work," Noctis protests. He'd suggested it to Bahamut, in the Crystal, but Bahamut had been pretty damn clear that it was a no go. "The blood price –"

"The Chosen King defeated the Accursed at the price of a life, his own," Ignis says. "You willingly gave up your life and were definitely, fully, one hundred percent dead for two minutes, fifty seconds. We were counting."

Noctis chews on that for a few minutes. "But – how? The phoenix down…?"

"Phoenix down didn't work," Ignis confirms. "The magic that powers it is from the Six originally; we think that's the issue. We used man-made tech."

"Huh," Noctis says. That sounds - disturbing plausible, actually.

But what about –

"Is the Sun back? The Scourge, is it gone? What about the daemons?"

If all that had all been for nothing...

"The Sun has risen," Ignis says. "Those afflicted with the Scourge have been tested, and their blood is clean. The daemons – well, they're still around, but they've gone back to fleeing sunlight, so defeating them is going to be a lot easier going forward, and we have plenty of very enthusiastic hunters."

It's done.

It's done, it's done, it's done – and Noctis is somehow improbably, impossibly alive.

"What do I do now?" he asks. His whole life, he was meant to be a sacrificial lamb. The lamb has been sacrificed, and he still lives.

"Well," Ignis says dryly. "I know it can be very convenient to have a script that says you bow out dramatically at the end of the final battle and can therefore avoid all the messy rebuilding business that we've been working on, but you are the King of Lucis, so I'm sure we can think of something for you to do."

"Never change, Iggy," Noctis says, and means it, and that's when Prompto and Gladio burst into the room, shouting gleefully.

Noctis holds out his hands and feels nothing but happiness.

Except for that taste in his mouth.

Ick.

Noctis spent ten years in the Crystal, but it didn't feel like it. He'd thought, before he saw Talcott, that it had been a month or two. A year, at most.

Not ten.

Even when he'd gotten out of Angelgard and sailed to the ruined dock – the ferry port by Galdin Quay, because he hadn't been able to face up to seeing the real city further inland and what was left of it – he hadn't really believed it. Sure, there were lots of dead plants rotting in the fields, but he hadn't really been paying attention. It'd been dark, after all.

And then there was Hammerhead, and his friends, and that wasn't so different, either. The garage was the same, and the diner – sure, he noticed that there was a much larger settlement beyond, but Talcott said that it was a base for hunters. It made sense that it'd be bigger, powered by generators and what power could be spared from Lestallum. Talcott said most people went to Lestallum.

And still, Noctis didn't think too much about it.

The Citadel was surrounded by daemons – he expected that. Perhaps he should've thought about how they'd managed to get so far into the city before seeing one, but no; he would've simply assumed that Ardyn had pulled them back to the Citadel.

It's only now that he really starts to notice that things are...different.

Very different.

Ten years, and Noctis hadn't realized how much would change.

The first change he actually notices is the freaking MT coming into his hospital room and saying – saying! – in a static-y robot voice, "Orion Squadron casualty reports are in, General; less than a quarter of the unit."

"Good," Prompto replies, turning to look at the MT. "Give 'em a moon."

"They refuse the commendation," the MT replies, as if what Prompto said made any sense. "They request, instead, the privilege of Orion being named first unit."

Prompto smiles. "Granted." He glances at Ignis. "Unless you have any objections?"

"None," Ignis replies. "They deserve it."

"Orion?" Noctis asks. He's gotten several glasses of water now, and he's feeling much better now that he's been taken off the strongest drugs. Sure, his chest hurts, but three potions in ('new' potions, Ignis called them, though he hasn't explained what the difference is), Noctis is feeling almost up to conversation.

"The Army squadron that escorted us into the city," Ignis explains, like that makes any sense. "They kept us from being shot in the back, and they escorted us back out. They've requested the honor of being named the first unit – that is, the first unit in the assembly order. It means that they stand in the front during parades, and also that they're the first ones assigned in warfare – "

"I know what a first unit is," Noctis interrupts. "I – we have an army?"

He thought most of it had been destroyed in the attack on Insomnia.

Also. Why is there an MT here? Weren't all the MTs trying to kill them, at least before Niflheim had self-destructed?

"Sure," Prompto says eagerly. "It's mixed now, all units. We didn't want to permit any ideas about segregation settling in." He grins. "We call it the Army of Night."

"You didn't," Noctis says, distracted by sheer horror, but Prompto's shit-eating grin suggests that they did, in fact, call it that. That's Noctis' life in a nutshell; doomed to always have night-themed birthday parties and now, apparently, an army along the same lines. Also - "Mixed?"

"Yeah, regs and MTs," Prompto says. "We made sure every squadron has a pretty decent mix of both." He jabs a thumb at the MT. "Jiten here did most of the heavy lifting organization-wise."

MTs have names? Since when?

"I, uh," Noctis says, then hesitates, but no one jumps in to fill the gap. "Hi," he finally says to the MT. "Nice to meet you."

The MT salutes. "It is an honor to serve, Your Majesty," it says.

"Uh," Noctis says. "I'm...glad?"

"Oh, crap," Gladio says. "Noct, do you even know about the MTs?"

The other two look at him.

"Integration first took place during the Long Night," Gladio points out. "He wouldn't have –"

"—known, of course," Ignis finishes. "Noctis, forgive us. Approximately three months after the Long Night began – that is, three months after you disappeared into the Crystal, and the Sun stopped coming up – the MTs that had been deployed in Lucis, which had been left without any guidance from Niflheim, came to Lestallum under offer of parley and offered their assistance in a joint effort to survive the Long Night."

"They've been really helpful," Prompto adds, nodding at Jiten, who quickly retreats out of the room. "They could go out in the dark without worrying about daemons, which helped a lot in collection efforts, rebuilding, farming – refugee evac –"

"Prompto is their General," Gladio says.

Noctis smiles and waits for them to laugh.

They don't.

"Really?" he asks. "Good for you, Prompto!"

Prompto beams. "It's not that impressive," he says, a touch of that old childhood shyness coming back. "Tifor and Jiten – my aides-de-camp – they do a lot of the heavy lifting."

"Don't belittle your accomplishments, Prompto," Ignis says before Noctis can say the same. Prompto! A General! Of MTs! Noctis wouldn't have called that in a million years, but he can't help but be deeply glad that his friend finally has a position that gives him the respect he deserves. Noctis has always known Prompto was great, but he'd secretly feared that Crownsguard appointment or not, no one else would see the true worth behind the bright smiles and self-esteem issues.

But a General – well, that isn't too shabby.

That isn't too shabby at all.

"You'll have to tell me all about it," Noctis tells Prompto, who shoots him a thumbs-up. "How does the Army work, exactly? You and Gladio are Generals? What about Cor? He's still around, right?"

"Prompto is the General," Ignis says, sounding amused. "Singular; we don't really have enough manpower for more at the moment, though I suppose our Wing Commanders would likely be the next in line for promotion."

"You take away my Wing Commanders, I will tell your secretary on you next time you try to go hunting to avoid a meeting with the Laborers' Union," Prompto says immediately, with something of the cadence of an often-repeated argument. "We can worry about generals when – well, I guess Noct is back now, but he's only just woken up! It can wait!"

"Prompto's pretty protective," Gladio tells Noctis in a stage whisper. "I think he just doesn't want to have to do the paperwork necessary."

"You bet I don't," Prompto says. "And no one, not even our dear Supreme Commander, is gonna make me do it."

"Supreme Commander?" Noctis asks. He hopes that's not him. Being 'King' is enough of a title.

"Ignis," Gladio says with a smirk, even as Ignis sighs. "He handles administration – basically, he runs Lucis."

"Mostly Lestallum," Ignis says. "And the few outposts we constructed, such as the one in Galdin Quay."

"So, basically, everything left in Lucis," Prompto says. "He also manages our trade relationships with the MTs in Niflheim – and the remaining people there, though they took a pretty nasty hit – and takes care of our further outposts in Accordo and Tenebrae, though we figure they'll want some independence now that the sun's up again."

Noctis nods. That sounds – well, he supposes it doesn't sound too weird, given that the world was dropped into darkness and all of humanity had to unite to fight the daemon threat. He could see them reaching out to each other, and he knows better than anyone that there's no better administrator than Ignis.

"Technically, I only oversee our relationships with Accordo and Tenebrae," Ignis says mildly. "They've sent delegations here to be incorporated into our Office, but they run their own countries."

"They report to you," Gladio shoots back.

"What do you do?" Noctis asks Gladio. If Prompto's the sole General, then what job did his warlike Shield take up? Leading the Hunters, maybe? Protecting Lestallum with a home guard? Training new fighters?

"Gladio runs the school system," Ignis says.

Noctis blinks. "Really?"

He can't even add anything like he did with the shock of finding out Prompto's role. This is just too weird.

"I'm just as surprised as you," Gladio assures him, taking no offense. "It's just – you know. Someone needed to do it, and no one was doing it, so I just kinda fell into it. Iris runs the Hunters, so the Amicitias are still plenty represented."

"Don't let Gladio mislead you," Prompto says. "He's the most popular guy in all of Lestallum. He could run a coup any day he wanted."

"Luckily for all of you, I don't want!"

"Awww, is widdle Gladio afraid of some paperwork?" Prompto teases.

"I do more than you do, General," Gladio shoots back, but he's grinning.

Noctis chuckles.

"They haven't changed that much," Ignis murmurs to him.

"Yeah," Noctis says, taking another sip of water. "I'm glad."

"Cor runs the Crownsguard," Ignis continues. "Both the training grounds – he and Gladio share responsibility there, with Gladio responsible for the basics that we've required every citizen to know and Cor responsible for further refinement until the trainees are deemed ready to join either the Crownsguard or the Army – and the actual Crownsguard, which functions as our internal police force and external defense of Lestallum proper."

Noctis nods, then remembers a second later to add aloud, "Got it."

"Cindy runs the Hammerhead garage," Ignis says. "Which is to say, she trains our Engineering Corps and makes them field-ready, and then they join up with the Army or the Crownguard and keep our tech working. Cid helps supervise all the repairs in Lestallum."

"Talcott said he retired," Noctis says.

"Talcott is seventeen," Ignis says. "And an idiot."

Noctis chokes a little.

"That's not nice," Gladio says from where he’s wrestled Prompto in a headlock. "The kid's just naive, that's all."

"Cid keeps loudly proclaiming that he's retired and that all he has to look forward to is sitting on his ass and eating Ignis' occasional foray into gourmet seafood," Prompto agrees, not appearing even slightly ruffled by his current position. "And somehow he still gets up every day at 6AM and finds enough to repair in Lestallum's walls, apartments, and streets to keep him busy."

"He's on the Council, too," Ignis says. "Gladio, let Prompto go." Gladio complies, ruffling Prompto's hair. "The Council represents those of us involved in leadership positions. The three of us, Cor, Cid, Cindy, Eufiv – he's an MT, the first one we made contact with – Rissa, from Accordo, Trajan, from Tenebrae, and Aranea -"

"Aranea?"

"Minister of Transportation," Gladio says. "She and Cor can't stand each other; it's hilarious."

"And Rissa? Trajan?"

"Rissa's the Secretary's niece, representing her aunt and Accordo. The Secretary insisted on having a seat at the council, and Tenebrae didn't have a lot of people left but they insisted on sending one anyway because they weren't going to let Accordo get one up on them," Ignis says. "It's been interesting. The other members of the council are Dustin, Holly, and Hatu, the representatives of the Laborer's Guild – Hatu's MT, and I think you know the others – and Zanib and Dethri, who represent our farmers, both regular and MT."

Noctis nods.

"There's probably going to be another Council meeting soon to discuss the whole Sun rising again thing," Prompto grumbles. "You'd think they'd accept it as a good thing, not whine about it."

"Be fair, Prompto," Ignis says. "This has changed a lot. We no longer have to worry about Vitamin D deficiencies, and we can grow our crops using natural cycles instead of artificial lamps."

"Isn't that a positive?"

"Yes," Ignis says patiently, "but a number of our crops were on an accelerated growth schedule that depended on using the lamps to create faster 'days', which will no longer be possible unless we cover those fields - and that seems a bit counterintuitive."

Noctis never much thought about crops. He picked peppers and onions and other wild vegetables as they traveled so that Ignis would have more to cook, but that wasn't enough to feed a city – and they wouldn't have been an option anyway, with no sun.

Crap.

No sun.

Noctis tries to think of all the things the sun is useful for, and the list grows longer and longer and longer –

"How didn't you all freeze?" he asks.

"Hah! That's what I asked!" Prompto exclaims. “And they call called me crazy!”

"Not crazy," Gladio says. "Just hysterical. Which you were."

"We've generally ascribed the effect to ‘just magic’," Ignis tells Noctis. "Our scientists can get you a more complete answer, if you care to learn more -"

"Just magic is good enough," Noctis says hastily. "Just – wow. You guys did a lot. I mean. I know it's been ten years, but – wow. I just. It's a lot."

"You'll have time to adjust," Prompto assures him.

"Only so much," Ignis says. "People are already flooding the area around the hospital, hoping for a glimpse of him. My apologies, Noct; it was rather inevitable."

"I know how to do public appearances," Noctis says, and he does; he has the distinct suspicion that Lestallum is a lot larger than it used to be, but he's used to the annual parades in Insomnia, which he's sure were even bigger. "I can handle that."

"You shouldn't have to," Prompto protests.

"It's his duty," Gladio says firmly. "The King in Exile has returned; people have been having a non-stop party for the last three days. They need to see him long enough to be satisfied and then Cor can kick all their asses and send them home – speaking of which, you wanna see Cor, Noct? He's right outside."

"Absolutely," Noctis says fervently, only realizing a minute later that he would absolutely freak out if Cor the Immortal had grown old over the last ten years.

Luckily, Cor looks the same – maybe a little more salt than there used to be in his hair, but strong and able as ever, thank the Six.

"Good to see that I only have to count two and a half dead Lucis kings on my list," is the first thing he says. "Do me a favor and try to not make it three."

"It's good to see you too, Cor," Noctis says, because it really, really is.

"I've worked out an honor guard," Cor says. "You ready to go say hello to your people?"

"No more than a few minutes," Ignis warns. "He's still healing."

Cor rolls his eyes. "I'm not new at this. Ten minutes, max, and the entire crowd will be able to take a picture, and then he'll be transferred, safely, to the official residence."

"Official residence?" Noctis asks. "Please tell me it's not for me."

"It's not for you," Ignis assures him. "It's for everyone who works at the Office - that is, the administrative center. Thus, 'official residence'."

"We all hate it, too," Prompto says, rolling his eyes. "Ignis and his puns. But the name stuck."

Noctis smiles and puts his hand to his face, planning on making a snarky comment about Ignis' fondness for puns, but then he notices – "My beard's gone!"

"What, you mean the fuzz?" Gladio asks, badly hiding his laughter. "Had to go, sorry. Doc's orders."

"It's the only thing that made me look older than twelve!"

"No one will care," Ignis says.

"I don't care if no one cares!" Noctis yelps. "I care!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Chosen King of Lucis," Cor sighs.

It's been the busiest three months of Noctis' life – and oh, he's alive! He's alive! That's never getting old, unlike him, because he's alive! – and honestly, he still doesn't actually know what exactly he's supposed to do.

Oh, he's definitely a morale booster. No argument there. People have literally fainted in excitement upon hearing that he's coming to visit their area. He can see the way an entire area brightens with excitement when he's around, and the way that excitement remains afterwards. He shakes a lot of hands, to the point that Ignis literally dumps an entire case of hand purifier in front of Noctis one morning as a not-so-subtle pointed comment on the subject.

Noctis doesn't mind it the way he used to before everything, though, back when he was a spoiled prince who whined about how no one seemed to care about who he really was inside. He's moved beyond that. He finds that he likes talking to people, now, hearing about their lives, what they went through during the Long Night; he likes looking them in the eyes and saying, "You did well," and seeing the multitudes of little guilts and worries and regrets just fall off their shoulders.

He likes learning about what they do, now, and how their days are arranged – all so different from how it was before.

He even gets to spend at least one day every week going fishing in a new spot with a new group of fishermen showing him the best places.

But he's the King. His father always spoke of burden, and duty, and responsibility, and he wasn't always just trying to prepare Noctis for what the Six had planned for him – some of it was about the role of King itself.

Noctis is pretty sure he's meant to do something a lot less, well, fun with his time.

Ignis keeps assuring him that it’s fine, that he can take it slow, that it'll be a good while before anyone expects him to be conversant with the issues of the day, much less authoritative on them. That makes sense, since practically every day there's something new he's discovering.

It's not just the big things, like how there's a full on informal economy bartering things like chores or child-care or even what lunch or dinner shift you're on, or how everyone takes at least one shift working in the fields no matter who you are, or how people seem to forget about their nationalities and immigration and all of those earlier concerns that seemed insurmountable, Accordo and Tenebrae and Lucis and Niflheim all merging to an amorphous mass and re-formed instead into supporters of sports teams representing various animals instead of states.

(Noctis has been informed by Gladio and Prompto that he supports the Dualhorns. Ignis says that the King shouldn't play favorites, but that only led to cheerful accusations that Ignis secretly supports the Behemoths.)

Sometimes it's also the small things.

Like language.

A whole new set of slang has popped up, mostly developed by the younger generation – some who are reaching their preteens without ever having memory of the sun, which is so horrifying that Noctis needs to stop thinking about it right away – and it's absolutely fascinating to Noctis.

His favorite development originated with Prompto's army. Apparently, once they settled on the Army of Night theme (thanks, guys) and assigned squadrons based on constellations and legions based on directions, they began to use moon-shaped medals as commendations, leading to the colloquial use of the word "moon" to refer to getting a good thing.

That, in turn, got translated into the civilian population, and someone, somewhere down the line, thought the moon reference was meant to be to Lady Lunafreya.

And that's how it came about that children compliment things they think are awesome by saying "that's really luna!"

Noctis couldn't stop smiling for two days after he worked out what happened and what the term meant. He thinks that Luna would be happy, deeply happy, to have that be her legacy, not the mournful tragic princess figure she'd been remembered as following the disasters at Insomnia and Altissia.

But language issues aside, Noctis is slowly starting to adjust.

He's getting used to seeing MTs everywhere, both the pale rehabilitated and fully armored MTs of various levels, or even people in the middle of transitioning – in both directions!

Noctis himself spent some time as a partial MT, apparently, as a means to save his life. He still has his mask – Prompto gave it to him after he went from the hospital to the Official Residence (Ignis why), saying that since it was coded to Noctis' brainwaves, it wasn't really useful for anyone else, and also in case Noctis wants to use it again.

Noctis felt really weird about it for a month or so, then realized he was (even if only in private) being a bit of a judgy asshole about the whole thing, so he tried on the mask a few times. It's a strange feeling, having it on – almost like he has an extra wing to his brain, like a phone that he can used to store information to pull up later except with his brain. It's pretty cool, actually, and using it in public once – he forgot everybody's names at a Very Important Meeting – actually ended up helping quiet down some people who'd been trying to start some anti-MT stuff. So there's that.

Said Very Important Meeting was actually about how Noctis doesn't seem to have brought back any magic with him when he got revived – the Crystal is a dead rock (they checked) and Noctis got to tell the story of how the ring of the Kings of Lucis had been used to finally destroy Ardyn's spirit and then dissolved, and how he himself had been on the brink of dissolving when his friends had revived him.

A couple of people asked if he felt upset about it, which Noctis supposes is fair – he did his duty to the Six, he ought to get some heavenly reward – but honestly? He's alive. He can get whatever reward the Six want to give him later; right now, he's just enjoying seeing the sun rise every day.

Okay, not every day. More like once in a blue moon. He likes to sleep in, okay?

If anything, though, Noctis is super relieved that no one seems angry about the whole no magic thing – he can still do some basic stuff, like warping or summoning weapons, but that's it. No magic sharing, no Wall, no more super-powerful potions or flasks of fire or lighting, nothing. Some people did seem a bit regretful about it, but basically everyone took it pretty well.

Noctis supposes that they're not upset because they've been without for ten years, working on alternatives (Iris' new 'stun gun' is basically like a strike of lightning, and wow is Noctis happy that the MT squads he went up against didn't have the new souped-up portable flamethrowers Cindy designed, because ouch), so it's not so much a loss as it is a perk they ended up not getting.

The Sun is more than enough for them.

For the earth, too – everything has started growing like it's trying to win a race, bursting out of years-long dormancy, painting the world green.

Noctis heard a kid once say, in a tone of wonder, that the green in the trees really does look just like it did in the old picture books, and it broke his heart.

So, yeah. He brought back the Sun but not magic, everyone's cool with that.

Still doesn't solve the question of what Noctis is actually supposed to do all day beyond talking with people.

Ignis tries to integrate Noctis into politics, and Noctis knows he should but he kinda doesn't really want to? Besides, everyone instinctively looks to Ignis for answers, and Noctis is no exception, so it seems ridiculous to make Noctis the middleman. Like, sure, Noctis can put on some fancy clothing and be all regal when they need to sign official trade agreements or open up new grounds – he got to cut the ribbon on a whole giant set of new fields to be used for growing, and on a brand new plot for a new research facility – and he's totally happy to take on figurehead duties, but there isn't really that much of it yet.

Nor is he really useful the way his father was, the Commander in Chief of the armies of Lucis. Prompto's actually a really great general, managing his army and making sure they're all taken care of just as they take care of their expansive duties - mostly working with the Hunter Division to clear the countryside of daemons, since there isn't an ongoing war.

Nor is there likely to be, what with Ignis commanding the loyalty of delegates from all over Eos.

Besides, the army loves Noctis in the same impersonal way they love their country, or Lestallum, but they're deeply protective of Prompto. Any attempt to take powers from him would be met with what Noctis has already learned is classic MT-style resistance tactics: obedience, yes, but the least efficient, most time-wasting type of obedience possible.

So that's out, especially since Prompto finally agreed to give his Wing Commanders general-level duties, though they'd all, to a man (or woman), refused to actually be promoted to the rank of General, preferring that that be reserved for Prompto.

Prompto turned bright pink with pleasure when they did that. It was a good look on him: pride in respect well-deserved.

After his forays with the Army hadn't really gone anywhere, Noctis wandered over to the Crownsguard instead, wondering if there was anything he could do there. Which there really, really wasn't. Cor was great, but Noctis barely escaped without being conscripted for fighting lessons because Cor still thinks he's fifteen.

No, not fifteen, because Cor's kids are fifteen and them, Cor respects.

No lie, Noctis does too. Who in the Empire thought having three mini-Cors was a good idea?!

Not that they're all that similar to Cor. Maybe Immie, the girl; she's the most warlike of the lot of them.

So yeah, Noctis is staying away from the Crownsguard for anything other than a friendly hello and a morale-boosting time to talk.

One place he has been able to do some stuff is in Gladio's schools – now plural, dividing the youngest kids from the oldest and both of them from the middle set. Noctis' talks are crazy popular, even when he's just talking about fishing or something like that.

Mostly, though, he shares stories.

The most popular are the stories about Gladio, and Ignis, and Prompto, of course, the sillier the better, but even with their entire childhood to mine, Noctis can't talk about them forever. So he starts talking about the things he sees – the fishermen he meets, the farmers, the scientists, the laborers. He shares their stories, the ones they tell him, and everyone loves it, kids and adults and even the people who told them to him.

Noctis hadn't understood the last – it's their story, he's just retelling it – but Cid clapped a hand on his shoulder and told him, "It's different when it comes from you. For us, it's just our lives; but you? You're the King. It doesn't matter if it was yesterday's boring old routine; when you say it, it sounds like a fairy tale."

Noctis has a standing weekly speech at the schools, a different part each week.

Still, it doesn't feel like enough.

The Hunter Division is always happy to have him, but Iris still has that crush on him (Six, why?) and it can be a little awkward.

So Noctis ends up spending his time touring, talking, and talking some more. He gets in practice with his brand new favorite sword – his own Royal Arm! only the best gift ever! even if some asshole did nickname it the Short Sword of Night and the name stuck and if Noctis hears even one more joke about being short he is going to find that person and do something distinctly un-kingly to them – and he gets to hang out with everyone. His people.

"When do I start really working?" he asks Ignis.

Ignis blinks at him. "You already have, Noct," he says. "You can't even imagine how happy you make people."

Well, yeah.

But it still feels like there should be something more.

And then, one day, there is.

It starts off with something small, something so subtle that Noctis almost misses it.

He's touring one of the student fields – not one of the ones that bring in the majority of the vegetables that feed Lestallum with wheat and potatoes and rice and sprouts, not to mention a truly unholy number of mushrooms that had blossomed during the darkness, but one of the experimental gardens staffed primarily by enthusiasts and students. This one's new, actually – it's just growing peppers, a particularly hardy but still excruciatingly spicy breed bred by one of the local transplants from Galdin Quay – but it's being grown in the ground by the younger kids to teach them how this whole cycle of life thing works when the Sun is involved.

Noctis is being led around by a particularly authoritative nine year old, indulgently oohing and aahing over every pepper she points out, when he notices a glimmer of metal out of the corner of his eyes. Used to scouting out threats, Noctis turns to look, but it's not a threat.

It's a shrine.

Looks like a shrine to Ramah, but Noctis can't tell; it's gotten grown over and dusty from years of sitting in darkness, which is fair enough. There are two buckets on the altar.

"No one's had time to clean it up yet?" Noctis asks, nodding at it.

The nine year old – Ferris – blinks at him. "Clean what up?"

Noctis points.

"Why would we clean up the shelf?" she asks, bewildered. "It's not like we keep fruit on it; it's just fertilizer."

Noctis' eyebrows shoot up. "You guys gave Ramah fertilizer?"

"Ramah?" Ferris asks. "Oh, the one with the pictures. No, it's not for him; if he wants some fertilizer, he can get his own. It's just a convenient place to put it, that's all."

"You store fertilizer on the Fulgarian's altar?" Noctis says, still taken aback.

"Why not?" Ferris asks with a shrug. "He's not going to notice."

"I suppose," Noctis says, frowning a little. It still seems bizarre to him. "The altar is usually used to give him offerings, you know."

Ferris shrugs again, interest clearly lost and eyes already fixed on the next row of peppers. "Whatever," she says. "I don't know why we'd give him anything when he doesn't give anything to us. Come look here – I think we've got shoots!"

Noctis doesn't say anything about it that day, but after, he keeps an eye out.

There are a lot of overgrown shrines and altars.

Noctis could understand why the Fulgarian's forest shines might be left unattended, being as there was rarely a way to tell where a lightning-struck tree could be found without light to see by and the dark eaves of the forest were ripe for daemon attacks.

But the local shrines to the Glacian, located at every crossroads, almost universally lack the traditional bowl of milk – the one shrine he found that had one, it had a cat's name on the side and seemed to be in use as someone's front yard.

He looks in the windows of the first out-ward facing house at each village and doesn't see a remembrance-candle for the Inferian.

He doesn't even see the handful of dirt traditionally poured on door-steps in the name of the Archaean – not even on newly broken ground.

"Is there a well around here?" he asks Ignis. "Or a river?"

"Certainly," Ignis replies absently. "Would you like a glass of water?"

"No, just wondering – hey, maybe you'd know. Do the laundresses still pour a glass of water out for the Hydrean before they start cleaning?"

"I doubt it," Ignis says, attention still primarily focused on the report in front of him. "Noct, would you be able to go out on a hunt tomorrow? I think it would be very beneficial to morale in Hammerhead; there have apparently been some disturbances there. The King’s personal presence would be most useful in calming their tempers."

"Sure," Noctis says. "Want me to head out tonight?"

"I'd appreciate that. Prompto will meet you with a guard."

Noct really needs to practice keeping the communication link open at all times; he keeps missing some conversations that he’s pretty sure he should be in on.

"Is a guard really necessary?" he asks instead.

"You're the King, Noct," Ignis says. "Pomp and circumstance is part and parcel with it, I'm afraid."

Prompto isn't able to accompany him, to their mutual regret; they've gotten back into the habit of hanging out every free evening they can. One of the MT squadrons even found an old console and a positively ancient copy of King's Knight for them to play. But Prompto’s duties as General come first, and his presence has been especially requested to clear out a particularly bad daemon nest in Niflheim, so he has to go.

"I'll send Orion with you," Prompto says, holding out his arms as his newest aide-de-camp – Fugit, who's a regular soldier rather than an MT, one worked his way up to the position of aide-de-camp on the strength of sheer enthusiasm alone – clasps armor around him. "You know those guys pretty well by now, and they're used to your antics – you'll hardly notice them."

"Yeah," Noctis says, distracted as he watches the thick metal armor. "Hey, Prompto."

"Yeah?"

"Do you give offerings to the Draconian? Since he's the patron of armored soldiers and all that."

"No," Prompto says. "The MTs don't worship the Six, and neither does anyone else anymore. Pass me the helmet?"

Noctis passes him the helmet. "What do you mean?" he asks. "I noticed the shrines are empty, but...I mean, people still reference the Six in conversation."

"Habit," Prompto says with a shrug. "I mean, some people still do it, but it's not as widespread anymore. After the Oracle died and the Long Night started, and none of the Six were answering anyone for anything, it just sort of...faded, y'know?"

Noctis did not know.

The Orion squad are familiar to him now, and Noctis would even call them friends of a sort, so when they're on the road to Hammerhead, he asks them, "Do you guys give offerings to the Six at all?"

"No," Ifiv, the squad leader says. "I don't know anyone who does."

"What, even regs?"

"Some old people, maybe," Twelf says, but he sounds doubtful. "I think your return was the last straw, honestly."

Noctis frowns. "What do you mean?"

"The Six abandoned mankind long ago," Twelf says. "And set us up for failure and despair. The Oracle gave up her life, and the Six didn't care. The King disappeared, and the Six did nothing but urge it along. The Accursed roamed the land freely, and the Six looked to mankind to fix it instead of doing shit about it themselves. And when you finally returned to clean up their mess, they demanded a blood price to fix what they themselves had wrought. Who’d worship gods like that? And why?"

Noctis stares. "That's blasphemy," he says blankly. "Aren't you all worried about Solheim happening all over again?"

"Solheim's the land that got destroyed by the first Astral war," Vernum, a reg, tells the MTs in the group. "And no, your Majesty, not really. All the stories say that the Inferian turned against Solheim because they actively betrayed him somehow; we're not offending them. We're just choosing not to worship anymore."

"Besides, most of them are dead," Ifiv says. "The Glacian in Niflheim, the Archean in the stone, the Hydrean in Altissia, the Inferian on the steps of the Citadel – whatever's left of them can either be actively helpful, or they can be obsolete, and they've chosen the later." He shrugs. "So fuck 'em. Begging your Majesty's pardon for the language."

"It's fine," Noctis says, his mind awhirl. "And – people agree with you?"

"The Long Night was hard," Vernum says. "The people who thought that praying to the Six would save them tended not to have made it, if you get my gist. The faith’s been dying for ten years now. Though I do think more people would've stuck with it if the leaders hadn't taken a stand against it."

"A stand?"

"The Six wanted you dead," Twelf says. "That's why the phoenix down and the old-style potions didn't work; that's why the magic went away. The Six intended to end the line of Lucis, and fuck whatever people lived in hope for your return. You dying like you were supposed to would've crushed the Triad, you know – Commander Ignis, General Prompto, and Headmaster Gladio, that is. That's when they lost the last bits of faith they had in the Six, and with them everyone else's."

"It's okay," Vernum says encouragingly, slapping Noctis on the shoulder. "We'd rather have you than the Six anyday, your Majesty."

"Oh," Noctis says, because what else is he supposed to say to that? "Thanks."

Less than a week later, the first of the dreams comes to him.

Noctis is standing in that vast emptiness that constituted the center of the Crystal – floating, really, since there's no ground. And before him is the massive form of Bahamut.

Noctis is aware that he's dreaming; he often is, nowadays. He's so distinctly aware of the feeling of being alive, of being where and when he is, that dreams have an immediately detectable difference.

He tries to change the dream – another time, another place.

He fails.

This isn't a regular dream.

“Well-met, Chosen King,” Bahamut rumbles.

Noctis crosses his arms. “Really,” he says flatly. “That’s what you’re going with.”

Bahamut is silent, a moment’s hesitation. He wasn’t expecting that response.

“Now I know why Iggy, Gladio and Prompto gave me such shit for saying ‘Hi’ after being gone for ten years,” Noctis says. “Well, what is it? What do you want now?”

“The present situation is unprecedented,” Bahamut says. His voice is deep and echoing; Noctis thought it was intimidating the first time they met. Now it just feels like a voice ringing in a hollowed out set of armor. “Revelation has been disrupted.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Noctis says. “I am, in fact, alive. Something you might’ve noticed in the last three months.”

He’s angry, he suddenly realizes. He’s actually angry – it’s been so long since he’s been angry at anything, truly angry, enraged. Not even when he was fighting Ardyn – his time in the Crystal filled him with power and with a deadened sort of calm that let him do what he needed to do. The same way a sedative helps you lead a sheep to slaughter, but he supposes that voluntary martyrdom is easier when you’ve had ten years of divine peace poured into your head.

Well, that power – that peace – left him when he died, and he’s back to being just plain old Noctis.

And Noctis, he remembers now, gets angry.

He got angry at Niflheim for doing what it did to his father. He got angry at his father for not telling him the truth. He got angry –

And then he acted.

“The people have foresaken the true ways,” Bahamut says, clearly opting to move on with the conversation. “They no longer call upon the Six. They no longer give forth of the fruits of their labors. The traditional honors due to the Six have fallen to the wayside, and humanity continues on heedless. And so it falls upon you, Chosen King, to –”

“No,” Noctis interrupts.

Bahamut pauses.

“Yes, you heard me,” Noctis says. “No. I did what you wanted me to do – you chose me when I was a little kid, when I was born, you made it so that everyone around me knew I was destined to die –”

His dad. Clarus. Luna. Noctis was just lucky that no one had ever bothered letting Ignis, Gladio and Prompto in on the secret, and Cor had been deliberately sent out of the city, denied the chance to help defend his people, because he was the only one who knew enough of what Noctis needed to do but not everything – because Cor would’ve told Noctis if he’d known. Cor told Noctis as much, and Noctis knew his dad well enough that he agreed with Cor’s conclusion; his dad would’ve lied to spare Cor as much as anyone else.

But the others – every time they looked at him, they knew. They saw someone doomed to die, and it colored every interaction they had with him. His father, who loved him, lived his life with the knowledge that his blood meant Noctis’ death. Luna, who could have been his, knew for years that they would never be together in life; was it ever truly real, the possibility of love between them? Could it ever have been more, tainted with pity and foreknowledge as it was?

That was the true revelation of Bahamut.“– and I did it. I did everything you wanted. I destroyed the Accursed. I returned the light to Eos. I banished the Starscourge. It’s been done. And that’s it. No more.”

“Your duty –”

“What duty?” Noctis demands. “The people losing faith isn’t because of me, it’s because of you. It’s because of your indifference to their pleas for help during the Long Night, because the Six only care about the Oracle and the Kings. We’re the only ones who can summon you, after all. The only ones you give power to – a power with a terrible price. And in the end, all of that was to fulfill your Revelation. All of it was so that I could die to bring light back to the world. Well, I did. I died.”

Bahamut is silent.

“If it was up to you, I’d still be dead. I’d be dead right now and unable to help you – what would you do then?”

Bahamut is silent.

“The Oracle’s line is extinguished,” Noctis says. “The line of Kings died with me upon the throne. Those were the two ways by which the Astrals communicated with mankind – or were you just planning on picking someone else out of a hat?”

Bahamut is silent, still, and his eyes – the only part of him that looks alive – are focused intently on Noctis.

Noctis looks back and does not waver.

He won’t let himself be intimidated. Not this time. Not again.

Never again.

“I was raised with the stories of the Astrals,” he says. “From my father. From Luna, who was your Oracle, and who you let die – no. Who you killed, as part of the price of the covenant, and never mind that Ardyn was the hand that wielded the knife. In all the stories, it’s the same: you are great beings, powerful beyond our knowledge, but you do not claim to be gods. It’s humanity that chose to worship you; that’s what all the stories said. You never demanded it, we just did it anyway. Well, humanity’s made a difference choice now.”

“You will turn against the Six?” Bahamut asks.

“I’m not turning against anyone,” Noctis says. “The Six may do as they please. Humanity will do what it pleases. There is no need for our paths to cross.”

“There are yet threats –”

“If there’s something we should worry about, we appreciate a head’s up,” Noctis interrupts. “But I played your game until the end. I’m done. And judging from what I’ve see, we’re done. Humanity’s done. You helped me, the Six of you, but it was in your interests. My friends? My people? You left them in darkness, and now it’s their turn to leave you in darkness. It’s too late now to think about how much you enjoyed being worshipped and receiving offerings.”

Bahamut stares at him.

“The revelation of Bahamut has been completed,” Noctis says, his voice fierce and unyielding even as his soul shakes within him. “We are finished.”

And then he wakes up with a force of will, eats breakfast while watching the sunrise, and feels –

Pretty damn pleased with himself.

Of course, it’s never that easy.

It’s three days until the next dream.

Three days well spent, in Noctis’ mind. The job’s bigger than Ignis described: nests, multiple nests, of daemons hiding beneath the ground, stalking ever closer to the safety of Hammerhead. They’d been planning an assault for a while, using raider’s hideaways, and the Sun coming up had disrupted but not derailed their plans.

Noctis hunts each day until he’s sore but cheerful, and when the Sun begins to set he does not rest but rather goes among his people. He sees at once the issue that has Ignis concerned: there are those in Hammerhead, hunters and some of the former rich men of Lucis, that are not particularly pleased, and they speak together too often for Noctis’ comfort. The rich men dream of their old positions, the ease and luxury and power they once commanded and feel they ought to command again, greed and ambition lighting their eyes at the thought of all the empty land that could be harnessed for the endless increase of their own wealth, and they speak to the hunters in terms meant to appeal to them. The hunters see their careers, raised during the Long Night to the pinnacle of Lestallum’s defense alongside its Army and its Crownsguard, falling back to the old ways: respected, yes, but a difficult life, a lonely life, and one not compensated by the adulation of the people every time they brought home markers of their progress.

The wiser hunters welcome it. The younger ones – the foolish ones, the ones who follow Iris only in technicality, the ones who think of themselves as a freer, finer breed than those who chose to join the other arms of Lestallum’s defense – grumble, and listen to words they shouldn’t.

Noctis walks through the campfires at night, smiling and shaking hands and talking and listening; the hunters’ complaints fade away at the sight of their King, who hears them speak and asks them what they would think of the installment of a Hunters’ Brigade, separate to the Army and the Crownsguard, designed specifically for long-range missions requiring independent operation.

Ignis hasn’t approved any such thing, but Noctis thinks it’s a good idea – even the hunters who are content with their ways look interested, and Iris is practically overflowing with pleasure. And, hey, in the end, he is the King; he’s allowed to have some ideas himself.

The rich men, though, remain a problem. What use is wealth without power, and what use is power without access to the King? But they don’t like Noctis; they watch him, frowning when they think he’s not looking, and Noctis isn’t sure what to do with them.

He’s still thinking of it when he falls asleep on the third night, and that’s when he dreams.

She comes to him as Gentiana.

“You do know I know you’re Shiva, right?” Noctis asks. He finds himself sitting on a picnic blanket in a field, filled with blue flowers that still strike a pang in his heart: the fields of Tenebrae, where he and Luna went as children, having tea parties and pretending to be so much older than they were.

“You prefer this form, Chosen King,” Gentiana responds, her eyes closed as they always are. “I have seen it in your mind.”

“Well, yeah,” Noctis says wryly, figuring that since she can apparently read his mind, there's no harm in being honest. “Not only is it less associated with terrible memories, it also has the advantage that I don’t constantly feel like no matter where I put my eyes, I’m about to get punched. Or kicked in the balls, and deservedly.”

Gentiana smiles with a touch of wickedness.

“I knew you did it on purpose!” Noctis crows.

“There are advantages to be found in the prudery of mankind,” Gentiana says. She sits next to Noctis. “Do you remember this place?”

“Of course I do,” Noctis says. “Tenebrae. But the fields lie dead after the Long Night.”

“They do not remain so. The Night ends, and the Spring comes, and they grow once more, full and flourishing.”

“Is that supposed to be a metaphor?” Noctis asks, pulling his knees up to his chest and dropping his chin onto them – he doesn’t care if the pose makes him look like a child; Gentiana was there, years ago, when he was a child. “Something about the worship of the Six? Did Bahamut send you?”

“I have always loved humanity best,” Gentiana says, not answering Noctis’ question. He takes that as a yes. “I have always been its defender, and I – I alone – took up arms against the Empire in its might to protect the people of Lucis.”

“There is no more Empire,” Noctis says. “Just people, now. All of Eos has come together to fight the darkness, and that includes Niflheim.”

“You do not blame them for what they wrought?”

“Most of the people who did the, uh, wrought-ing are dead,” Noctis points out. “Many gruesomely. Those who remain disavow the works of their former leaders. I’m not going to hold it against them, especially if they’re not going to be dicks about it. Iggy and the others have done a really good job integrating everyone.”

“You forgive easily, Chosen King,” Gentiana says. “Even in the face of the memory of your father and your people, crushed beneath the Empire’s heel.”

“Are you trying to get me angry or something?” Noctis asks. “I was gone for ten years. Was it easy to swallow, the first time I understood? No. But I wasn’t here. I didn’t do the hard work; I didn’t make the hard choices. And I’m not going to question those that did. We have peace, Shiva - real peace, the sort of peace my father would have barely been able to even dream of. That’s worth a lot.”

“It is,” she conceedes, and the mask of Gentiana fades into the bright blue skin of the goddess – no, of the Astral – beneath. The temperature drops and Noctis feels his skin prickle as the icy winds of the winter begin to blow around them. They sit now picnicking upon a snowy field, the flowers covered, the trees dusted in frost. “And none of that would have happened without the Night. Why then do you turn your anger upon the Six?”

“The fact that good things happened out of a disaster doesn’t actually excuse you for your failure to do anything about it,” Noctis says, ignoring the changes. “Tell Bahamut that he’s not getting out of his own prophecy this time. The story is over. The book is closed.”

“And what of me, Chosen King, beloved of the Oracle?” Shiva asks, her eyes glowing. “Am I to be forgotten too, for all of my love of mankind?”

“You lived and died for humanity,” Noctis tells her, but his voice is gentler now, less angry than when he spoke to Bahamut. “Stories of your grace will be told forever. But your love of humanity has never been contingent on worship – or was Luna wrong to trust in you?”

A moment’s stillness, with no sound but the winter winds.

“The Oracle was not wrong,” Shiva says, and her voice is quiet. “I loved her dearly.”

“I know you did,” Noctis says. He’s always known. “You know, back when I thought my destiny involved marrying Luna, I thought to myself that it was good that you’d be there.”

Shiva looks up, eyes wide and surprised.

“We’d marry in Altissia, then come back to Insomnia,” Noctis says. “Luna’s duties as the Oracle would continue, while I would step up into my role as King-to-be, taking on more and more of the burdens of power. It’s a hard life to lead, being the Queen, and that on top of being the Oracle, far away from her home? I worried that I wouldn’t be able to help her. I worried that she’d be unhappy. And then I thought – no. She won’t be unhappy. She won’t be alone. She’ll have Gentiana, whom she loves.”

Shiva’s eyes close. Her eyelashes are white with frost, but Noctis suspects that if he brushed them now, the snowflakes that would fall would be made of salt.

“Luna believed in you,” Noctis says gently. “What would she think, now?”

“She always wanted to follow in your footsteps, Noctis of Lucis,” Shiva whispers, and Noctis thinks that may be the first time she’s ever seen him as a human being instead of a pawn on Bahamut’s divine chessboard. “Lunafreya was always humanity’s finest champion; you honor her with your actions now.”

And Shiva rises, color filling in her skin until she looks like Gentiana again.

“I will not stand in your path,” she says in her low, sweet voice. “You are right. My love for humanity must be unconditional, lest it be tainted.”

She reaches out and places a finger on Noctis’ lips.

“Go well.”

He wakes up.

In the third dream, he is in a forest.

It starts off like a normal dream, with shifts and changes and strange plots, but then a distinct sense of unreality filters through the dream and it changes. The lines of the trees grow stark and vivid, the bark and each blade of grass suddenly defined so clearly it almost hurts to look at them. Noctis inhales and his lungs fill with the scent of pine and maple and oak, the smell of rotting wood and the faint hints of ash, the comforting petrichor that follows a warm rain.

The sky, which was clear, is covered in clouds, dark and ominous, crawling from each side of the horizon until there's no more blue to be seen. There are flickers of lightning hiding within the clouds, but not a single sound, the dreamland utterly mute in anticipation.

Noctis knows who has come to visit him this time.

"Ramah," he says.

And the ground shifts beneath him, until Noctis finds himself standing on a mountain, looking out at the rolling, endless forests below, and upon the side of the mountain rests the gigantic silent figure of the Fulgarian.

Noctis looks up at him and squints. It’s hard to have a conversation with someone so large. It’s even harder to even think of how to start such a conversation.

“So,” Noctis says after some time has passed without Ramah saying anything. “Hi?”

Ramah says nothing, but Noctis thinks he might be amused, just a little.

Micro-expressions take on a whole new meaning when dealing with the Six.

“I assume you’re also here to demand that humanity worship you again?” Noctis asks.

Ramah shifts, and speaks, his voice as deep and rolling as the thunder.

“The storm comes,” says he. “The storm goes. It cares not for those in its path, but nor does it demand recognition from them.”

Noctis blinks.

That doesn’t sound like an appeal for worship.

“Bahamut sent me,” Ramah says, and his great forehead wrinkles. “He is the leader of the Six. But no one commands the storm.”

“I don’t understand,” Noctis says helplessly.

Ramah’s great face turns to look at him.

“My temples are the trees struck by lightning, that the lost traveler may seek shelter,” he says, and the sound of his voice is louder, now, the rushing of the wind through the trees, the crack of thunder, the inexorable floodwaters rising. “I need no sacrifices. I need no offerings. The Storm has been set in motion from the earliest of days, and the Storm will be there at the end of days, and though it may not be constant, it is everlasting.”

Noctis has to close his eyes briefly to protect himself from the rising wind and rain. “So,” he coughs out. “Does that mean you’re okay with this?”

Ramah rises to his feet.

“Let humanity do as it likes,” he declares, and his eyes are fixed on a point in the horizon. Noctis has the distinct feeling that the Fulgarian is no longer talking to him. “Ramah will not foresake his duties, not even in the face of the Dragon.”

And then he is gone.

“What the fuck just happened?” Noctis asks the air.

It doesn’t respond, and instead leads him down a pathway to a place where the deer have gathered to have tea, while the bears armor up for a daemon hunt.

Typical dream logic.

Noctis finishes the hunt – two weeks of work, all together, and he still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the plotters, because they are plotters. Schemers. He thinks they might actually be considering a coup, based on some easily dismissed hints they’ve dropped around him.

They’re fools if they think they can turn him against Ignis and Prompto and Gladio and Iris and Cor, of course, but he has the feeling that they might still give it a try.

He goes to visit Cindy before he heads back to Lestallum.

Cindy’s taste in clothing hasn’t changed much, and her physical, uh, presence remains just as, uh, striking as ever.

Okay, yes, fine, Noctis still spends a minute sneaking glances at her breasts. He might be a grown man, but those are impressive. He does stop it as soon as he realizes what he’s doing; that’s got to count for something.

He swears he can hear Shiva’s sniggering in his ear.

“You take care now,” she tells him. “Them boys missed you something awful, and the rest of us did too.”

“Thanks, Cindy,” Noctis says with a smile. “How are things going in Hammerhead?”

“Oh, just swell,” Cindy says, beaming. “The Engineering Corps are real fine, don’t you worry – you know, I never did think I’d become a teacher, but then again I don’t reckon anyone thought that of ol’ Gladio neither, so it works. Me and Eufiv, we swap off teaching with the real garage work.” She puts a hand on Eufiv’s shoulder – an old-style MT who looks at her with adoring eyes, and, well, Noctis isn’t going to hold that against him. Cindy has that effect on a lot of people. “I can’t bear to think of not having the old girl running.”

“The garage will outlive us both,” Eufiv says to her, and then, turning his head to Noctis, adds, “We have apprentices.”

“Real ones,” Cindy chimes in. “Ones that care about the work for the sake of the work – the garage work, that is, not the stuff the Engineering Corps needs to take care of. I didn’t think we’d ever get a chance to train people up in cars and engines, what with the need for other stuff, but, well, the Sun’s back up, and here we are.”

She punches Noctis on the arm lightly. “You keep up the good work, you hear me?”

Noctis smiles.

She insists he stay for dinner, which he does, so he only ends up coming into Lestallum when the Sun has long since gone down and everyone’s asleep.

Figuring he can make his report to Ignis in the morning – Iggy hates it when Noctis calls it that, because he’s kind of an idiot about protocol and goes on and on about how he should be making reports to Noctis not vice versa even though Noctis has explained to him that he’s cool with Ignis running everything and also maybe-kinda-sorta being Lucis’ chief spymaster as a hobby – Noctis crawls into his bed in the Official Residence.

He doesn’t even bother changing out of his clothes.

That’s a good thing, he thinks to himself, as he wakes up in the ruins of Altissia still wearing a layer or two of armor, the Leviathan rising above him in all of her terrible splendor.

No – not Altissia, he realizes, looking at it. Ruins, yes, but the columns and the statutary are of a different style, old and crumbled by the sea: copper gone green with exposure, stone faces slicked off by the currents, moss curling up the sides of buildings.

This is not Altissia.

This is –

“Atlantioi,” Noctis says, realizing. “The fallen city, the city beneath the waves.”

Existing in the time of the great Empire of Solheim, Atlantioi had been an island city-state, subordinate to the Empire but run independently. It had been particularly beloved of the Archean, Titan, who had helped build it alongside its citizenry; its destruction by Leviathan had resulted in a terrible feud between the two Astrals.

“A sign of what my wrath can do, pathetic morsel,” Leviathan spits, her wings fanning out, her serpentine body coiling with rage. “I granted you my power, and you turn it against us! You turn humanity against the Six!”

“I thought you wanted to eat all of humanity, Tidemother,” Noctis says, dodging one of her water-bursts. “Wasn’t that what you threatened in Altissia? The Feeding? Are we to think that you care so much about us now?”

“Insignificant pawn,” she hisses. “Lamb to the slaughter; you won over my power for Bahamut’s prophecy, and should have ended then!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Noctis says. “Aren’t you dead already?”

“Humanity has forgotten its place. First to demand power from a goddess, then to cast her aside!”

“You destroyed people,” Noctis says. She spits water at him, guiding it, and he has to run to dodge. He doesn’t think he can die in his dreams, but he’d really rather not find out for sure. “You destroyed Altissia, which was built in your honor! You let the Oracle fall because you were too busy whining about how humanity dared need you! Why should anyone honor you?”

She screams with fury, and lunges at him, massive jaws agape.

Noctis summons a sword – his favorite, the one Ignis and Prompto and Gladio had given him – and tries to parry her, even knowing that the task is likely hopeless.

The sword touches her scales, just barely, and suddenly Leviathan is throwing her head back, recoiling, flinching. The place where the sword hit her is colored sickly silver.

“What have you?” she shrieks. “A royal arm, created without the Six’s blessing? How?!”

Noctis glances at the sword, surprised. He remembers using it in the final battle against Ardyn – fourteen to thirteen – and he’s used it since then, for hunts and other things; it’s his favorite sword, remade in royal glory by his friends, but he hasn’t really thought much of it beyond that.

He sometimes uses it to cut his dinner when he’s feeling particularly lazy, and also because it makes Gladio fall off his chair laughing.

It occurs to him that maybe he should’ve been treating it with more respect, if it can do such damage.

But no, the sword is warm in his hand; he can feel it, suddenly. Warm, loyal and true, a little light-hearted, a little melancholy – it’s him in there, in the sword, his own personality reflected back at him.

It was made just for him. He’s been wearing the sword for months now; it knows him. It is him.

Noctis’ own Royal Arm.

He holds it up before him as the Hydrean thrashses before him, caught in her own ruinous rage.

“It is impossible,” she cries, the moaning of the sea in every harsh word. “The secret of the Arms has long been lost, but for those given by the blessing of the Six.”

Like the one his father had, Noctis remembers suddenly – his father had not had the sword forged for himself, but rather had received it from the Six as a gift upon his completing his own trial, washing up to his feet from the depths of a river, still shining with beauteous light.

A gift from the Six, as if they could make up for the torment they would impose upon him or the knowledge that his son would be doomed to die from the very beginning.

As a child, he’d always wondered why his father had not been more proud to be one of the bearers of the Thirteen; now he knows what his father did, that the gifts of the Six came with burdens and hidden strings attached.

“This sword was not a gift from the Six,” he shouts into the churning waves. “This sword was made by human hands, following the old ways, and if you attack me again, I will use it on you!”

“You cannot defeat me!” she shrieks.

“I’ve done it once already!”

“With the aid of the Six –”

“With the aid of the Empire,” Noctis shouts, pointing his sword at her. “It was the Empire that killed you, in the end! Humans defeated you! And if we need to, we’ll do it again!”

“I am the Hydrean,” she hisses. “The Tidemother. The Leviathan, as endless and enduring as the sea itself!”

“But you’re not the sea,” Noctis says, frustrated. “The sea will be worshiped by sailors, always, but you’re no sea goddess, beneficent and guiding. You gave that up years ago, succumbing to your endless wrath. All you are now is a sea monster, wrecking ships in your path for no cause but fury, and if humanity ever sees you again, so will you be treated!”

She screams again, but this scream is different from the others.

It’s not just rage.

It’s sorrow.

She acknowledges what he’s saying. She knows he’s right.

But she can’t stop being angry, not after so long.

“Go back beneath the waves!” Noctis calls to her. “Go back to being a story to delight children and to make sailors smile! Let them remember the Tidemother that was, long ago – return to the ruins of Atlantioi which you destroyed, and leave us be!”

Large hands reach out from beneath the waves.

Noctis remembers this part.

At Altissia, the Titan rose up to aid him from beneath the waves, and he cast his powers against the Leviathan, huge blocks rising from the deep to slam into her.

Here he does not do anything so gaudy.

His hands wrap around the Leviathan’s snake-like body in a terrible embrace, and he sinks back beneath the waves, slowly, inexorably: the fall of Atlantioi recreated once more, the Titan’s land drowning as the Leviathan screams in fury, but this time it is with the Astrals themselves.

They sink beneath the waves without another word.

And the world begins to disintegrate around Noctis, the ruins falling down and dissolving into dust, and he runs to escape it, but there’s nowhere to go, no land, no –

He wakes up, panting and covered in sweat.

It’s nearly dawn.

Noctis gets up on shaky automatic.

Ifrit's dead, he's pretty sure for good this time, so that's all of the Six that'll come haunting his dreams. They're all dead, actually, for all that they can't seem to accept it.

All but Ramah, who declared his neutrality, and Bahamut, who has not.

What is he doing?

What does he think he can accomplish?

Noctis goes outside. There's a hill just outside Lestallum that he likes to watch the sunrise from, in the instances where he's awake enough for it; he goes there. He still feels cold – colder than he did when the Glacian visited.

It's still dark out, but he's still dressed and has his sword, and anyway there aren't any daemons this close to Lestallum anymore.

He sits on the top of the hill and watches the stars fade out of the sky, wondering if he's insane to do what he's pretty sure he's been doing these last few nights. The Six want him to restore their worship, and as King he probably could do it, too, if he led by example. He's a legend in his own time, the Chosen King of the Six, the King in Exile of Lucis – and of the two he far prefers the latter. But he's refusing the Six's request, spurning them, rejecting them. On humanity's behalf, on his people's behalf – but isn't that the height of arrogance, thinking that he can speak for them against their own former gods?

And even if he's right to do it, that doesn't mean he has any hope of succeeding. Why does he think he can do this – hasn't history shown time and time again that those who go up against the Six ultimately falter?

"Technically false," a voice not dissimilar to Ignis' says from beside him. "The Empire of Niflheim defeated the Glacian, and you yourself defeated the Titan and the Leviathan, not to mention the shadow of Ifrit."

"I meant more long-term," Noctis says dryly, looking to his left. "Callidus."

The King once known as the Clever shrugs. "Your friends seem to be doing all right."

"As much as I hate to agree with the young whippersnapper, he has a point," Prudens, the Wise, says, settling his old ghost on Noctis' right. "The Kings have gone up against the Six before, you know, and sometimes they've been right to do so. The Six are powerful, but they're neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and you do your people a disservice if you think so."

"I suspect the Mystic and the Pious might disagree with you," Noctis says.

"Your suspicions are unfounded," Pius says. He's sitting on the hillside a ways down. "I revered the Six, and honored them at their temples, but I was called the Pious because I built the first of the royal tombs to honor my forefathers."

"You agree with what I'm doing, then?"

"If we didn't, we wouldn't have told your friends the secret of forging a royal arm," Aequitas the Just says. "It is not our place to interfere with the present."

"You knew what I would do?"

"No one may know the future for certain," Aspicio says, the Oracle Queen who is most likely to know the truth of that statement. "But we hoped."

"I kept us hidden from the sight of the Six," Furs, the Rogue, Queen of the Shadows, puts in. "And the others did the rest."

“But why didn’t it happen before?”

"The prophecy of Bahamut was given to the Kings of Lucis alongside the ring and the Crystal," Magus, the Mystic, says, his voice heavy. "By accepting one, we accepted the others; they cannot be separated."

“The prophecy had to be fulfilled,” Supero the Conqueror agrees. “And so it was, through generation upon generation, until at last it came to be fulfilled in you. But being fulfilled, the bindings of the prophecy fall away.”

"Each man's life should be his own," Peregrinus the Wanderer says.

"Not the Six's," Militus the Warrior agrees.

"Yeah," Ferus the Fierce grunts. "Fuck 'em."

"Ferus!" Supero snaps, but Longus the Tall just laughs.

“We’re with you,” Longus tells Noctis, his voice still amused. “We were Kings once, too –”

“And Queens,” Aequitas says mildly.

“Kings and Queens,” Longus amends. “Our duty is to the people first, above all else. You did what the Six wanted because it was the right thing to do, eliminating the Scourge, and when it was done you were saved though the inventions of your people.”

“It is your people now that cast off the Six,” Militus says. “You protect their decisions, as you ought.”

“So, you know,” Callidus says. “Fuck ‘em.”

Pius sighs.

Noctis laughs a little, but the laugh dies in his throat and he swallows before turning his eyes to the last of the figures, standing just down the hill.

Atavus, the others called him; the ancestors. He who bore the Sword of the Father, and that really should’ve given Noctis a heads up that his destiny was something different than what he’d dreamt of as a kid, shouldn’t he? The Father, which meant that he, Noctis, was the Son…

Atavaus, Regis, the Father, is smiling at him.

“You approve?” Noctis asks, and his voice is small. This is his father; the man he idolized as a child, loved as an adult, and the man Noctis convinced to stab him in the heart with his sword so that the Accursed could finally be destroyed and the Scourge ended.

“Always,” his father says. “No matter what path you chose, I would approve; I would be proud. You have always made me proud.”

Noctis smiles.

“And what do you really think?” he jokes.

His father laughs, a side-splitting bellow. “You are my son,” he says. “My Noctis. You can do anything you want, Six or no Six; that’s how I raised you. Go forth and stand tall.”

Noctis closes his eyes and smiles as the first rays of dawn fall upon his face.

“Noctis!”

He opens his eyes.

Prompto is coming up the hill, waving.

The ghosts of the Kings are gone.

“Hi, Prompto,” Noctis says, smiling.

“Want some company?” Prompto asks. “You’ve got some.”

He nods behind him.

Noctis looks, and smiles to see Gladio and Ignis strolling up the hill. Ignis isn’t even using his cane.

“Hey, guys,” he says.

“How did the hunt in Hammerhead go?” Ignis asks. “And please, save the full report for a more human hour. A summary will do.”

Noctis laughs. “I think I’ve got an idea on how to solve the hunter problem,” he says. “But there’s some assholes who spent a lot of their lives being rich and powerful that aren’t too pleased at the idea of having to share that wealth and power with everyone else, and I’m not too sure about what to do about them. Oh, and we got all the daemons, too.”

“Good job,” Gladio says.

“Knew you’d get the hang of the whole King thing eventually,” Prompto jokes, sitting down next to Noctis – right where Callidus had been sitting, actually.

Ignis settles in on Noctis’ left, where Prudens had been sitting. “In fact, Noctis has been doing an exemplary job,” he says. “Particularly in terms of unifying the scattered people of Eos into a single country once again, which I assume is the aim of your planned trips next month to Accordo and Tenebrae and Niflheim?”

“Hey, if we have an opportunity to put aside old feuds, I don’t see what’s wrong with taking advantage of it,” Noctis says, smiling. “People have moved forward a lot during the last ten years. There’s a chance to do what nobody’s done since Solheim, a truly united Eos, and without all the violence Emperor Ieldolas was using to do it, too.”

“It’d be a shame not to try,” Gladio agrees. “So if everything’s going well, what’s got you up here at the crack of dawn? It’s not exactly like you.”

Trust Gladio to notice.

Noctis takes a deep breath and tells them all about it: what he’d noticed, the dreams, the ghosts, everything.

“I agree with them,” Prompto says. “The ghosts, I mean. Fuck the Six; isn’t that right, Ignis?”

“I regret using a profanity,” Ignis says, long-suffering. “If only because you will never let me forget it.”

“It was reasonable under the circumstances,” Gladio says peaceably. “If you want my vote, Noct, you’re doing the right thing.”

Noctis nods slowly. “I think so too,” he confesses. “And I think – I think this is what I want to do.”

“What do you mean?” Prompto asks.

“Refusing to worship the Six does seem like a fairly passive role,” Ignis says.

Noctis rolls his eyes. “No, I mean – I like what I’m doing now, talking with people, going around, trying to make peace and unity. I don’t mind being mostly a figurehead, with Ignis and the Council working out most of the rules – yes, Ignis, I read your proposal about being the executive branch and using the Council as a legislature, but I really do think you’d be better at it than me.”

“If we kept the Council as the executive, and started up a wider body as a legislative, complete with voting, that could deal with the problem you mentioned earlier,” Gladio says. “The rich men who feel like they were robbed. Let them get all their energy out trying to get elected to office.”

“It’s worth considering,” Ignis says. “But I’m more interested in finding out what Noct proposes that he’ll be doing in a mostly figurehead monarchy.”

“Bahamut’s still alive,” Noctis says. “The only one of the Six that’s still alive and has an interest in getting humanity back to the way things were.”

“Hiding away in the Crystal the entire time helps with that,” Prompto says, rolling his eyes. “I guess. So what?”

“He wants humanity’s worship,” Noctis says. “We don’t want to give it to him. He might be content with sending me dreams for the moment, but after a while, he’s going to get impatient. And when he does, he’s going to use all of that power to try to force us back. And I don’t intend to let him.”

“How?” Gladio asks, practical as ever.

“Four of the Six are dead,” Noctis says. He puts his hand on his sword. “If Bahamut starts something, I guess it’s time to slay the dragon.”

“Going up against the Draconian,” Ignis muses. “And uniting all of Eos. You don’t think small, do you?”

“Afraid not,” Noctis says, and sitting there in the light of the dawn of the Sun he rescued, with his friends at his side, it feels right. The questions he’s been having, the concerns, they all fade away, and he feels warm. “You with me?”

“Always,” Ignis says.

“We’ll be by your side the whole way there,” Gladio says.

“You better not leave us behind for another ten years this time,” Prompto says. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“I promise,” Noctis says. “This time, we go together.”

He looks back away from the wilderness, down at the ever-growing metropolis of Lestallum. They have plans to re-enter Insomnia soon and then to expand the pathways between the cities – maybe a nation-wide public transporation system, even, with care taken to protect and prepare each area in case the Long Night and the daemons came back again.

They’re looking at a brand new chapter in human history.

“All of us,” he says, thinking of them: his people. Humanity. “This time, we all go together.”