Alright, this was officially getting weird. Not that it hadn't been weird to begin with, it was just that now it was undeniably, indisputably weird. It had been bad enough waking up from what had very convincingly felt like death to the bright sunlight of Leide at what appeared to be the start of his original journey. For one brief moment he was almost able to convince himself that everything that had happened had just been one long, unnervingly detailed nightmare. The moment had been brief because he quickly felt a familiar ache emanating from his middle right finger and sure enough, there was the Ring of the Lucii. You couldn't get much more solid proof of time travel than that. His friends, however, did not seem to agree with him. In fact they'd been pretty stubbornly ignoring both the Ring and the general insanity of their position ever since Noctis had realised what had happened.
At first it had been a bit unnerving, seeing them all so cheery and hopeful in their Kingsglaive uniforms, those being still more things that had apparently crossed the temporal shift. He'd never actually worked out where they'd managed to get the aforementioned uniforms. It'd seemed like a fairly ridiculous thing to ask while the world was ending. So, how is everyone now? Iris is a demon-hunter you say? My friends have drifted apart in my absence? You unwittingly sold us out to Niflheim, accidentally instigating your grandfather's death and leaving you with a lifetime of guilt when you were seven? Well that's very interesting Talcott, but what I really want to know is where you got those sweet uniforms! It just felt a little tasteless, was the point he was trying to make. And while he was on the subject: where had they obtained his 'Kingly Raiment'? Why was he wearing it when he woke up when he definitely hadn't been wearing it when he was absorbed into the crystal? He'd actually been trying not to think too hard about that particular question, since there were two possible solutions: one, that one of his friends (almost certainly Ignis) had made the clothes and dressed him in them after the crystal released him but before he woke up. That solution was somewhat unsettling and distinctly off-putting, but also miles better than the other solution; which was that Ardyn had dressed him, and thinking about that for more than ten seconds honestly made him want to throw up.
Anyway, he'd gone off on a tangent again, the point he'd been trying to make was that no one had yet reacted to, or said anything about the very obvious time travel that had just occurred. Noctis had initially been willing to write off their collective delayed reaction as being a trauma-induced byproduct of their inability to cope with the situation. It was true he hadn't necessarily expected it from all of them, Gladio being a stand out example given how until fairly recently he'd been the first to point out unusual and unhelpful behaviour in the face of overwhelming trauma. He didn't seem to have a problem the current situation. Noctis considered that he was, perhaps, still a touch bitter about the fiasco. He quickly stopped considering it. If they weren't going to deal with their problems, then he didn't really feel like dealing with his. Still, it'd been going on for a while now, and just as he felt he had to say something or risk making the rest of...whatever this was, unbearable, it happened.
"I'm afraid you're out of luck."
Noctis had been able to deal with none of them wanting to acknowledge Luna's death, the fact all of this was ultimately leading to his death, and going through the motions of the trip for the sake of normalcy; he could understand that. What he could not understand, as he looked at the blank faces of his companions and the infuriating smug grin on the face of Ardyn, was acting as though they didn't know who he was. It was safe to say that by this point Noctis's feelings for Ardyn were nothing more nor less than pure and utter hatred. He'd managed to offer the man what little forgiveness he had left in his heart when he killed him, or thought he had anyway. That it was supposed to have been one of the last things he ever did didn't exactly hurt either. It had been fitting. Appropriate. The final send off for a broken and tormented man. Noctis had exactly no forgiveness for the man standing before him, knowing precisely what he was about to do over the course of the following months, and the long, long trail of corpses he would leave in his wake. Suffice to say he was pissed when not one of them, not even Prompto had any reaction to Ardyn's presence than vague confusion. Clearly he was going to have to take matters into his own hands.
He immediately summoned the Ultima Blade and took a pretty decent swing at Ardyn's head. He wasn't especially surprised when Ardyn was very suddenly no longer standing in front of him, and his blade sliced through empty air where his neck had been. The brief look of utter surprise on his face when Noctis swung at him was worth it though. On that note; for someone who wanted to die he'd put up a hell of a fight before his demise. If he really wanted death then he ought to have just stood still and let Noctis behead him. Still, better late than never, he thought, turning to see where Ardyn had warped to. Where he had warped to was behind his friends, and Noctis felt a surge of panic—what if he decided to skip the messing around and just kill them straight away? This panic quickly turned to frustration when he realised precisely what was going on. Namely, that they were shielding Ardyn (Ardyn) from him.
"Noctis calm down at once!" yelled Ignis, marching towards him. This was a bit more than Noctis was willing to take at that particular point in time. Between their aggravating refusal to acknowledge any of what had just happened, ignoring Ardyn and now even defending him, Noctis had had just about enough. "What are you doing?" hissed Ignis as soon as he was close enough to be heard.
"What am I doing?" growled Noctis, struggling to keep his voice level. "What are you doing? Why are you defending him?"
"Why am I—Noctis you just attacked a complete stranger! You're the one who needs to explain yourself. I know your engagement is troubling you but this—"
"Damn the engagement! This has nothing to do with the engagement! Drop the act already Ignis, this has gone on long enough. I can get how you wouldn't want to deal with everything else that's happened, it's weird, it's upsetting, I get it—but Ardyn? You're seriously going to act like this bastard's a total stranger? Even you Prompto?" he yelled, his anger building. "Even after what he did to you?"
Then he caught sight of Prompto's face and felt roughly as though someone punched him in the stomach. The confusion he saw there - the horror, even, that had to be genuine. He felt all his anger suddenly melt away. They seriously didn't know what happened. He felt a grim nausea begin to fill him as he took in their faces. Prompto just seemed confused and possibly a little horrified at his attempted murder. Gladio had taken up a defensive position in front of Ardyn, but was clearly extremely out of sorts, not used to having to protect others from Noctis rather than the other way around. Ignis had initially been angry, but that anger had quickly given way to concern as Noctis's outburst continued. But of all the faces he saw, the expression on Ardyn's was unquestionably the worst. He was watching him calculating scowl, clearly furious at his plan being ruined. Noctis didn't think he'd actually seen Ardyn scowling before. He usually did everything with such affable maliciousness he almost came off as harmless. Almost. But now he was angry, and worse than angry, unpredictable. Noctis hadn't quite grasped the full implications of attempting to kill Ardyn straight away until that exact moment. Now Ardyn knew he knew him, and that meant that things were going to change from here on out.
On the one hand, not knowing precisely what Ardyn was doing at any given time was a fairly terrifying situation in and of itself. On the other, it would be difficult for things to end up much more utterly screwed than they were the first time this happened. It was possible that this was actually a good thing. It was also possible he was deluding himself. It occurred to him that his time was probably better spent thinking about how to find a way out of the mess he'd just gotten himself in.
"Are you sure you're feeling quite well Noct?" asked Ignis, his voice now much more gentle, though there was a distinct note of I-think-you've-had-a-nervous-breakdown in there too which Noctis didn't particularly appreciate. He couldn't deny he wasn't exactly feeling great though. Seeing Ardyn, and being reminded of what happened to him last time was making him feel roughly as though the ground had been pulled out from under him, and was in no particular hurry to get back. His vision was also going alarmingly fuzzy around the edges. A familiar ringing began to sound in his eardrums. He was going to pass out, he just knew it. His last thought before lapsing into unconsciousness was that he hoped his friends had enough sense to keep Ardyn as far away from him as possible.