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The lights overhead were so blinding, the pain clawing through him so staggering, the terror still shaking through him so overwhelming, that Prompto’s immediate thought upon hearing Ignis’s voice was that it must be a hallucination.
Failing that, of course, it could be Ardyn. But Ardyn always seemed to prefer taking Noct’s form to torment him.
Deviation from that script, he’d learned, was always, always, always bad.
Only half-awake, and desperately wishing he hadn’t awoken at all, Prompto squeezed his eyes shut against the fluorescents, his limbs twitching restlessly in the restraints. The cot they were attached to rattled under him, a familiar noise at this point, and the gaping chasm which was his chest moaned in muted agony. His mouth twitched, lips twinging, as an involuntary noise rumbled up his throat and rattled around in his mouth. Trapped.
He wasn’t able to will himself back into unconsciousness quickly enough. Ignis’s voice came again—clearer, this time, though still muffled, still distant. “Enough with your games, Ardyn! Where is he?!”
Every hair on Prompto’s body seemed to stand on end, even before he heard Ardyn’s answering chuckle, a slithery sound that ran down his nape like a dribble of cold water.
That wasn’t a transformed Ardyn, then. Iggy was really here.
Gods, not yet—I’m not ready—
“Oh, of course. You’ll have to forgive my thoughtlessness; I’ve been quite preoccupied.” The sound of his footsteps, even through the closed door, made Prompto writhe fitfully, his skin crawling. Get away, get away, get away— “A rogue MagiTek trooper recently came into my possession, you see, and I’ve had such a difficult time trying to put it to rights.”
“We didn’t come to talk about a goddamn MT,” Gladio snarled in the distance, and Prompto made a noise in his chest that wanted to be a whimper. Can’t get away.
“Oh, but I think you’ll find this one to your liking. You’ve raised it with ever such care up until now, after all.”
The silence which followed fell over Prompto like a physical weight, constricting his lungs. Strangling the breath out of him inch by inch. What little sleep he’d managed had finally put an end to his pathetic trembling, but it began again now, shaking the cot alongside him. The soft cloth and gentle padding wrapped around his wrists and ankles gripped him like the fist of an iron giant. Inexorable.
Couldn’t run. Couldn’t hide.
Couldn’t restrain his flinch when Ignis’s voice came again, low and wary:
“What are you saying?”
His heart thudded. That wasn’t Iggy’s confused voice. That was his warning voice. His “I already know, but I hate the answer, so I’ll give you one last chance to prove me wrong” voice.
And, sure enough, Ardyn’s response was, “Don’t tell me you somehow missed all the presents I left for you? I went to great pains to prepare this stage for your arrival; I’ll be quite wounded if you simply ran through without paying them any mind.”
Shaking harder, Prompto squeezed his eyes shut again. Tried not to think about anything. Tried not to remember his failed attempt to escape from the long, winding halls of this place—the tubes of dead clones suspended in fluid, with barcodes on their wrists and his features on their faces; the files and tapes documenting the horrific process through which he’d been created. The creator of MagiTek, ranting and raving as he staggered forward in his all-too-familiar, Scourge-ridden body.
(He wondered if Gladio and Iggy had found the corpse where Prompto had left it. If they’d seen the hole in Besithia’s head and known that his own creation, one who had dared to call itself human for so long, had put it there.)
It didn’t matter. Either way, his last, desperate hope—that they wouldn’t believe Ardyn; that they’d assume this was all some trick and pay his truths no mind—faded to nothing. He could practically hear the pieces clicking into place, straight through the wall. Could hear his only friends left in all the world coming to the same conclusion Prompto had been forced to arrive at.
If it looks like an MT, walks like an MT, and quacks like an MT—
“Where is he,” Gladio growled, low, furious, dangerous.
A laugh met his unveiled threat. “Well, I’ve just finished making some sorely-needed adjustments, but I think I’ve realized the scope of this project is beyond my patience. You’re more than welcome to take it home with you, if you like.”
Prompto tried not to sob when the lock beeped and disengaged, when the door slid open with a shudder and a resounding clang.
“I think you’ll find it much improved.”
He wasn’t ready for this.
“Prompto!”
“Shit—”
“Gladiolus—!”
“Go! I’ll cover!”
Gladio and Ignis’s voice overlapped into one indecipherable, head-splitting cacophony. Despite his body’s attempts to leap from the cot, he slammed against the restraints and gained not an inch; the attempt only managed to transfigure his fearful noise into a pained one. It certainly didn’t get him any further from the heavy footsteps thundering towards him.
Even if it had, it wasn’t like he could outrun them. Not in this state. It was already too late.
No, I’m not ready, please, I’m not—
It seemed as if the whole world shook with the force of Ignis skidding into the cot, bracing both hands against it as he jerked to a halt. “Prompto,” he said again, more of a breath than a word, and the sight of his wide eyes surrounded by half-healed scars broke what remained of Prompto’s composure.
The gentle press of a gloved hand to his cheek certainly didn’t help.
Ignis—no, Ardyn, he had to remember, this wasn’t—wasn’t Ignis whose hand clamped viselike around Prompto’s chin, holding him still as the syringe inched closer—wasn’t Ignis who ignored the desperate noise welling up in Prompto’s throat—wasn’t Ignis who said, in Ignis’s mild voice, “Don’t squirm, now; you’ll only make things worse for yourself—”
“Thank goodness you’re alright,” Ignis said, and his hand left Prompto’s face, flying instead to the abysmally soft white cuffs attaching his wrists to the cot. “Let’s get you free—quickly, now; no time to waste—are you injured anywhere? Do you need any potions? Can you—?”
The flood of questions came to an abrupt halt when Ignis’s questing fingers could find no obvious latch on the restraints. Prompto’s hands writhed helplessly, fingers wriggling like the legs of pinned spiders. There was no latch for Iggy to find, he knew; he’d been awake when Ardyn sewed him into them.
“We need your touching reunion to play out perfectly, after all,” Noct said casually as Prompto tugged at the cuffs—they were made of cloth and padding, attached to the cot with only thin straps; surely he should be able to break free of them. But he couldn’t move; could only shy away as Noct’s fingers traced the curve of his cheek and Ardyn said, with all of Noct’s innocence, “We need to make sure they’ve ample time to realize just what you are. If you run, you’ll deprive them of their choice to kill or keep you.”
With a hissed curse, Ignis stooped low, grabbing one of Prompto’s hands and twisting it to the side so he could see the underside of the cuff. “Shiva—of course there’s no bloody release.” Then his fingers tightened around Prompto’s clammy palm—not just holding it, but holding it in place—and Prompto struggled to breathe when he heard the familiar hum of a weapon emerging from the Armiger.
Ignis’s other hand rose into view—clutching one of his daggers, its tip glinting beneath the harsh light—reality narrowed down to a single point—and Ignis squeezed Prompto’s hand, reassuring, restraining, as the dagger loomed nearer. “Hold still. I’ll have to cut you loose.”
“Make it quick.” Gladio’s voice barely penetrated the haze of panic stuffing Prompto’s ears full of wool. “We gotta—”
“I am aware, thank you,” Ignis snapped. “Prompto, just keep calm—”
The tip of his dagger pressed, with the utmost care, to the padding around Prompto’s wrist—
Right above the barcode, which lay stark and unguarded beneath the cuff, clear as day, identical to those on the degraded MTs Ardyn had scattered around this facility for Prompto and Ignis and Gladio to find—identical in every way, except for the much smaller number, marking him as an earlier model—
Every ounce of calm he’d managed to keep hoarded away in his chest evaporated, and Prompto seized like he’d been struck by lightning.
Instantly, Ignis jerked the dagger away, not letting its blade get anywhere near nicking him, but once he’d begun to writhe, the all-consuming panic thrumming through his body wouldn’t let him stop, so Prompto just kept wrenching his wrists against the restraints over and over, tiny noises he could neither swallow nor articulate shuddering up through his nostrils.
“Prompto, calm down!” Anticipating Ignis’s hands around his throat, he cringed with a sob at the sight of their approach—but they migrated back to his face instead, cupping both cheeks even as he tried to twist away. “It’s me—it’s only me!”
Prompto arched frantically against the restraints in response, desperate breaths whistling in and out through his nose.
“Your account name in King’s Knight is quicksilver, but with ones in place of both “I”s, and the “L” accidentally misplaced—reading quick sliver instead,” Ignis babbled somewhere above. “Your favorite snack is those disgusting wasabi-shrimp-flavored corn puffs. You purchase Noct a fish-themed novelty mug or shirt of some kind for his birthday every year. I swear to you, I am not one of Ardyn’s tricks.”
He wished. He wished. One of Ardyn’s tricks wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t mean the world was crashing down around his shoulders, wouldn’t look at his wrist and suddenly realize just what they’d allowed into their camp all this time—
please no, don’t look, don’t see, I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’ll never be—
“Iggy, he’s tearing something!” Gladio’s shout boomed like the report of a rifle, and Prompto cried out desperately into his sealed lips.
Don’t come don’t come here don’t—!
But Gladio’s heavy footsteps shook him to the bone, and then he, too, was looming over the cot, and Prompto still couldn’t move; couldn’t even try to explain himself; couldn’t squirm away quickly enough—because, the instant he arrived, Gladio’s hands flashed to the flimsy hospital gown Ardyn had left him in, now beginning to spot with blood, and he ripped it apart like so much tissue paper.
Ignis sucked in a sharp breath. “Shit,” Gladio said roughly.
Though he stood no chance of lifting his head enough to see, Prompto knew just what they were looking at.
Ardyn didn’t need Gladio’s bulk to keep him contained; he had cuffs and drugs and magic and an army of MTs on his side—but now he simply held Prompto’s wrists in one massive Gladio-shaped hand, and Prompto’s kicking didn’t matter; his other Gladio-hand dragged the tip of a permanent marker across his skin, making guidelines for the scalpel to follow. “Wuss,” he said in Gladio’s voice, almost fond, the same way he’d say it when Prompto dramatically whined about his sore legs, right before he dropped some ibuprofen into his hand—except now, there was no ibuprofen; now, he was jabbing an IV into Prompto’s bruised wrist, and whatever was inside put him out so fast he couldn’t even beg—couldn’t even say please, don’t, Gladio, please—
Ardyn had administered a frugal splash of elixir before the anesthetic had time to clear his system. From anyone else, it would’ve been a mercy. Sparing him the pain. From Ardyn, Prompto was convinced that it was just yet another mind game. He wasn’t even permitted to see what had been done to him. Whether Ardyn had actually done anything to him or simply scored a few Y-shaped lines into his chest and called it a day, he had no way of knowing.
What he did know was that it hurt. Everything from his shoulders down to his abdomen hurt. And now he knew one more thing—judging by the eerily calm look on Gladio’s face, it wasn’t pretty.
“How old are these?” Despite his calm facade, his voice was sharp; the pain that ignited beneath his fingers when he tested the skin around Prompto’s new scar, even sharper. Prompto fruitlessly tried to gasp through his mouth, writhing in the restraints, and Gladio’s fingers withdrew. “Shit. New? Fuck, sorry. Ignis—elixirs gonna do anything at this point?”
“Hard to say,” Ignis said, his voice so full of tension that it made Prompto’s shoulders hike up just from hearing it. “Ardyn must’ve administered some curatives already, but I can’t tell—Prompto, how long ago did he do this? Prompto?”
All he could do was shake his head, keening tiny muffled noises every time their hands drifted near. They had to know by now. They had to know. Why were they waiting? Why couldn’t they just get it over with? They’d seen the other MTs floating in their tubes. They’d seen his face plastered across dozens of MT corpses. Now they saw where Ardyn had cut him open—making sorely-needed adjustments to his new MT, just as he’d told them.
They weren’t stupid. They knew. They knew. Why were they trying to put him back together, trying to cut him loose, when they knew he deserved this, and worse? He hadn’t been stupid enough to believe Ardyn’s taunts—that they might “keep” him. They didn’t need a broken, half-formed MT. They didn’t even need him when they thought he was real. No way they actually planned on dragging him back with them. They’d put him in the ground.
But he’d thought they would at least get it over with quickly.
Yet again, he fought the restraints to no avail; yet again, when Ignis reached for him, he jerked away. If they saw his code, surely, it would kill whatever final hesitations they had. It was exactly what he wanted. He couldn’t bear to let it happen.
“Prompto,” Ignis practically begged, and his hand rose again, pressing tight to the side of Prompto’s face as if to force his quivering still. “Please, Prompto, I know you’re frightened, but you must speak to me—”
Something almost like a laugh, except more of a scream, slammed against Prompto’s lips, making his whole body heave.
Trapped.
That must’ve given the game away. Must’ve made his lips part a little more, or maybe just made the skin strain more noticeably. Suddenly, Ignis’s intent expression gave way to something almost nauseated, his complexion going waxy and his eyes wide.
“No,” he whispered.
Despite this denial, he didn’t hesitate to test his hypothesis. The very tip of his thumb pressed against Prompto’s mouth, then pulled gently at his lower lip, coaxing it back as far as it would go.
That wasn’t far. Stitch after stitch of thin, almost invisible surgical thread kept his lips glued together, raw flesh stretching and burning the longer Ignis tried to part them.
“Astrals,” Ignis breathed.
“You’re gonna wanna hold still,” Noct said in that same soft tone as always, ignoring the fact that Prompto lay paralyzed beneath him, the drugs turning his blood to sand and his bones to lead. He could only stare up with pleading eyes as Noct—Ardyn, Ardyn—Noct lifted the needle above his head playfully, like they were on the couch in his apartment and he was dangling the game controller just out of reach. “Wouldn’t want to mess me up and make us start all over.”
If he could move. If he could speak. If he could just do anything.
If he could beg.
He couldn’t. Ardyn straddled him, Noct’s weight settling onto his hips as if they were about to wrestle for the last bag of salt and vinegar, and he leaned in, and the needle came closer, closer, so close that Prompto couldn’t see it anymore, could only see Noct’s glimmering, cruel eyes and brace for the pain—
But no pain came; no burn, no sting, not even a tickle.
Prompto thought, for a moment, that Ardyn had been bluffing. That he was only planning on pantomiming the act he’d alluded to. Or maybe that he was drawing it out; making practice swings. Trying to make Prompto flinch.
Then Noct drew the needle back again—the thread now dark with blood—and Prompto realized with a crash of terror that it had already begun.
He was so helpless that he couldn’t even feel it.
“When I get my hands on that bastard,” Gladio growled somewhere above, and that was what made Prompto realize that the burning in his eyes wasn’t just the fluorescent lights, but brimming tears.
“We—we can’t—” Ignis’s voice was as unsteady as Prompto had ever heard it. “No curatives. They’ll—the stitches will be easier to remove if—”
“I know, Iggy.” There was a pause. Prompto frantically tried to beat back the tears before his nose could begin to run. If it got clogged—if he couldn’t breathe through it—he’d suffocate. He’d choke to death right here on this cot with Ignis and Gladio standing over him, looking down impassively, and—if he had to—he at least wanted one of them to be the ones to—
They’d make it quick—
Gladio said, more than he asked: “We’re gonna move him like this, then?”
“The Commodore can’t hold our exit forever,” Ignis replied grimly. Then, before Prompto could process that, Ignis’s face swam back into view. “Prompto. Nod or shake your head. Can you hold still to allow me to cut the restraints off of you?”
He didn’t stop to wonder why Ignis was even bothering to ask, as if he would ever agree to just leave Prompto behind. He didn’t stop to think at all. Barcodes and clones and the mangled remains of fallen MTs flashed behind Prompto’s eyes, and he shook his head so quickly that the world spun tipsily around him.
“Very well,” was all Ignis said.
Then he knelt on the ground—and, instead of bringing his dagger back towards the cuff around Prompto’s wrist, he sawed at the long strap trailing off the cuff and attaching it to the side of the cot.
Prompto didn’t even feel it snap free. One moment, he was twisting restlessly, eyes darting side to side as he struggled to put together Ignis’s game—then his wrist actually parted from the thin sheets, as easily as if it had never been tied down, and he lurched painfully into the railing on the other side, unprepared for his weight to actually shift.
“Easy,” Gladio rumbled, and Prompto fell still again, whipping back around to face him. Gladio, too, took a knee, settling in at the side of the cot as Ignis moved quickly on to Prompto’s foot. Seeing him so low to the ground was disorienting enough that Prompto forgot to be afraid for a moment. “Easy, Prompto. We’ve got you.”
A noise he didn’t care to describe trembled up into Prompto’s throat. Gladio’s steady expression wavered.
“Yeah, I know,” he said under his breath, and he placed a hand on the sheets near Prompto’s twitching fingers. Not touching. Just. Near.
In one quick circuit of the cot, Ignis broke the other three restraints at the ends with a few decisive cuts, leaving long trails of polyester dangling from the padded cloth cuffs around Prompto’s wrists.
“There’s no time,” he said in the same breath as he worked the last strap free. “Prompto—can you walk?”
“Don’t answer that,” Gladio said before Prompto could even consider replying. “You’re getting carried.”
Belying his brusque tone, he remained kneeling at the side of the cot, both his hands now placed side-by-side on the sheets, in full view. Letting Prompto know that they weren’t moving towards him—not yet.
“I’ve gotta pick you up. Nod when you’re ready.”
“Gladiolus,” Ignis said, harried, “we don’t have ti—”
“Nod when you’re ready,” Gladio spoke over him, solid as stone, and Ignis fell quiet without even an indignant huff.
This must’ve been a joke. A trick. Barcode or no, they’d been through the same facility that Prompto had; they’d been on the same end of Ardyn’s illuminating taunts. He’d heard Ardyn say “my new MT”, and Gladio respond, “Where is he.” They knew. They knew.
Even as Gladio knelt at his bedside, offering him a choice, giving him a chance to refuse aid, he must be—planning. He must have something in mind to do to Prompto. MTs had destroyed his home. Had killed his family. And Prompto had been lying to them all this time.
But he just looked at Prompto. Looked at him with those steely eyes, the same look he’d level Prompto with when they were almost done with a particularly grueling training session—the look that always seemed to say, If you really, really insist, then I’ll let you quit here—but I know you can keep going.
Some disgusting slurry of hope and dread curdled in the pit of Prompto’s stomach.
He’d been wrong. Somehow, Ardyn knew his friends better than he did.
They were going to keep him after all.
(Some tiny voice in the back of his head wondered if Ardyn’s improvement had anything to do with their decision.
“You make much better company without the chatter,” Noct had told him sweetly as he carded his fingers through Prompto’s stringy hair.)
If there had ever been a time, now was the moment to break down into tears. But if his nose got clogged, he’d suffocate. And then he’d never be able to do whatever Ignis and Gladio still thought he was useful for.
If they weren’t going to kill him, he could keep from crying himself to death. It was the least he owed them.
Prompto wrapped a trembling hand around the restraint still sewn shut around his wrist—hiding this last piece of his shame for as long as he could manage it—and jerked a nod.
After all Ardyn had done to him in the guise of his friends, he’d thought that the first touch of Gladio’s hands would send his heart thumping and his brain trembling. But Gladio’s touch was a balm to his fear, and Prompto found he had no trouble submitting to be cradled to his chest like a small, wounded animal.
“There you go,” Gladio muttered as he hefted him fully off the cot. “See? You’re fine. We gotcha.”
This time, he was able to stop himself from instinctively responding with some pathetic muffled noise. He stayed quiet and still.
He ought to stay awake—let them fill him in on whatever plan they were concocting that they needed him for. But Gladio’s arms were warm and familiar, and Ignis’s voice in his ears was a nostalgic tune, and he was always the second of them, after Noct, to doze off by the fire.
They didn’t make it two halls down before Prompto dropped into sleep like a stone.