SPOILERS THROUGH THE END OF THE GAME.
I'm definitely (desperately) of the opinion that the Chocobros survived their final battle, but then I had a feeling about this scene happening and now we have angst. I'm so sorry, maybe I'll write fluff someday...
Warnings for (semi-canonical) major character death and general end-of-a-Final-Fantasy-game angst.
This never-ending night in Insomnia, facing down dozens of daemons with only two others by his side, is the most desperate battle Ignis has ever experienced.
They need to hold them off until Noct truly destroys Ardyn. They just need to survive and hold the entrance until the dawn comes. That should be possible, he thinks, despite the ringing in his ears and the wounds covering his body. They will live to see the dawn, despite their utterly depleted supply of potions and phoenix downs—despite the way Prompto's and Gladio's shouts are becoming more desperate, more feral as time goes on.
Their restoratives are gone and the daemons are legion and Ignis has no idea of how much longer they need to hold on. For all they know (except that it simply cannot be true), Noctis is dead by Ardyn's hand; for all they know, the night will never end, and they are fighting for nothing.
For all they know, they have failed in every possible way. Ignis refuses to believe it.
Gladio's behind the Red Giant now looming over Ignis, audibly snarling as he swipes at the backs of its knees. Ignis leaps out of the way as it falls before descending on its head with his daggers, hoping for a miracle, hoping for—
Gladio's shout comes a moment too late, and Ignis does not dodge the daemon's wild sword in time. Prompto's gun fires several times in quick succession as Ignis goes flying through the air, his side in agony from this fresh wound, and he screams as he hits the ground several feet away. "Iggy!" Prompto yells, his voice high, and Ignis tries to regain his feet on the uneven ground. His knees give out, his abdomen curling on instinct around the wound as he hits the ground again.
He realizes in horror that he can hear several—too many—goblins cackling as they move toward him. He grasps uselessly for his daggers (knocked away in the fall, and he has no hope of retrieving them), and in desperation reaches through Noctis' Armiger for his rarely-used lance. Unwieldly, and difficult to use with its range, now that he cannot so easily tell whom he may be hitting, but it will have to do. After all, they ran out of elemental flasks long ago.
He plants it in the blood-soaked ground and attempts again to stand, and realizes almost immediately that it is futile. He's upright, it is true, but he will never manage it on his own; blood is soaking the once-smart uniform he wears, gushing from his side and compounding the pain he feels from his other injuries. A lance used as a crutch is less than useless, and the goblins are nearly upon him; he can hear their chattering, can nearly smell them as they surround him, and he grimaces, digging briefly through empty pockets for a forgotten flask of magic.
There is none. He is surrounded, dying and blind and useless as they converge on him, and he hears Gladio roaring, clearly attempting to cut his way through the goblins as the heat of the Red Giant looms far too close.
Ignis buckles as the daemons pile upon him, their claws digging into his skin and tearing at his clothes as he is all but powerless to stop them. Prompto's gun fires again and again and again, but Ignis' head knocks sharply against the ground and then—
.
.
He's surprised when he wakes, surprised that he is yet alive and able to move about when he should be buried under goblins, torn apart by their monstrous hands. He is surprised to be alive and more surprised still when he realizes that the grounds before the palace are silent. The giants' stomping feet, the goblins' high, eerie voices are gone, and the only thing Ignis hears is his own rattling breaths.
He's injured, he knows, probably beyond repair—the wound in his side (he reaches to inspect it gingerly and feels blood yet sluggishly pooling beneath him, the gash wide and ugly under his probing fingers) consumes his senses and nearly prevents him from moving at all. Their potions are gone; the few phoenix downs Hammerhead could spare were used fighting the daemons outside the palace walls, and what was left they gave to Noct, to ensure he survived long enough to—
Long enough to die, and Ignis chokes on a wet, humorless laugh as he wills himself to roll to his good side, attempting to at least rise to his knees. But the grounds are quiet, which means the daemons are dead or banished—and he does not know which to hope for as he gropes about. He's not sure what he's looking for, exactly, but even one of his daggers would be a blessing in this uncertainty.
When he reaches for the Armiger he feels nothing, and he does not want to think about the implications of this as his hands pass over wet, jagged rubble—until it lands on something smooth and warm. Something like flesh, like an arm outstretched toward him.
His heart racing, he follows the arm to its owner and finds a uniform of the Kingsglaive—hair soaked through with blood and cut short, not tied back, and so this must be—
This must be Prompto, lying prone scarce feet from him, one arm outstretched toward his friend—and Ignis swallows back a desperate sob as his shaking fingers reach for a throat, a wrist, a pulse to tell him that his friend is still—
Prompto shifts beneath his fingers and Ignis does sob, then—his hand falls instead to grip Prompto's shoulder. He moves, rolls slowly to his side to face Ignis, and is silent for several moments before—"Ignis? You're alive?"
His voice is thick and ruined, like every word takes effort to speak, but Ignis is so glad, in this moment, not to be alone. "Yes," he says even though he thinks it will be a lie before long. He has been injured before (gods, has he been injured) and he has thought he was dying, but none of that compares to what he feels now. He imagines Prompto can see this, can see the gash in his side even in the dim light, can see the way his face is pale with blood loss and the way his grip on his shoulder trembles.
Prompto sits slowly, obviously favoring wounds of his own, and Ignis wonders whether his friend has fared any better than he. "I'm afraid it may not be for long," he admits, because he's sure Prompto can see this, and he has never been one to mince words. Prompto makes a small noise in his throat and is silent for a moment, his ragged breathing joining Ignis' own, before he admits—
"I think we're in the same boat, then," he says quietly, and Ignis' heart sinks as he cannot force himself to check his friend over for injuries. "There's—a lot of blood, you know? And I don't feel too good."
"You drove off the daemons," Ignis says, trying for comfort or at least pride and hearing it come out more as a prayer. "They've gone, haven't they?"
"They're all gone," Prompto says, incredulity in his voice, and Ignis' heart leaps at what this must mean. "There's—even the bodies, they're gone, and when I got hit..." He trails off, unsure, and seems to catch his breath before continuing, "That's good, right? That means Noct...?"
"So I would assume," Ignis says, and closes his eyes for a moment in remembrance of their friend. Though, he supposes, perhaps they will be reunited before long, after all. "Is Gladio well, at least?"
Of the three of them, Gladio is far and away the best fighter, and he thinks it is not too much to hope that their friend has survived. But he is not here—he is not offering comfort (harsh words, because he has never really known the meaning of comfort) to the two of them, unable to help in any way that would matter. This speaks volumes, he thinks, and he only hopes he is wrong.
Prompto is silent for several seconds, likely scanning the battlefield for their friend, before his breath catches; he doesn't answer. "Prompto?" he asks, some urgency slipping into his voice though the energy is quickly leaving him. "Is Gladio well?"
"No," Prompto chokes, and he shifts under Ignis' hand, turning away from the field. "He's...he's really not."
Ignis wants to see—wants to understand, because Prompto offers no more information but is shaking beneath Ignis' failing grip, and he does not wish to pain his friend more. Gladio—he is dead, his dear friend is dead to the daemons he swore to protect Noctis from, but the daemons have gone away and so—and so—
And so Noct is dead anyway, is dead to save them all and bring the dawn, and Ignis knows he is dying and so he has failed his King even in this. But at the least—at the very least—he needs to stay awake for the dawn, to see the world his friend died to bring about.
Prompto's breathing is ragged and pained beside him as he cries, and he grips his friend's shoulder more firmly, wishing he could do more. They are dying, and their two dearest friends are dead—truly, what comfort can he offer the photographer who was never asked to join them? He joined this journey simply because Noctis was his friend—jumped at the opportunity to travel half the world to attend his wedding—and after everything went to hell, well.
Prompto never turned his back on them, and now he is dying, and Ignis wishes there were anything he could do to ease their passing as the seconds tick by.
"Which way is east?" he asks after several moments, and Prompto's sobs quiet as he looks up, glancing to the horizon before he gasps.
"To your right," he says, very quietly, his voice broken—but Ignis realizes what's happened even as he turns.
The world is still dark to his ruined eyes; his right barely gives the smallest semblance of vision, even after so many years. He can see light and dark but nothing else, not even movement, not even the shape of his friend beside him. He cannot see the dawn and worries for one awful moment that he will not, but Prompto says quietly, "It's dark, still, but—it's coming."
They sit there for long minutes; Prompto's weight has shifted, and grows heavy on Ignis' shoulder, though he's clearly doing his best to stay aware. "Perhaps we should lie down," Ignis suggests, for both their benefit, because while he is hunched over and stabilizing their combined weight with both hands, his wounds scream like fury, and vertigo like he has not felt since he first lost his eyes is making him feel worse.
Prompto grunts something that might be assent, and shifts. "Lean against this," he says, and there is a slur to his voice that there was not minutes ago. He pats something metal and solid and Ignis moves toward the noise, leaning some undamaged part of his back against what's likely rubble of this beautiful palace. It's relief and agony anew and he needs to catch his breath for a moment—but he eventually quiets, leaning a bit so that his elbow knocks Prompto's.
He thinks maybe it's his mind playing awful tricks on him but he also thinks his world has grown brighter, just a bit. That the dawn is coming, and he will live to see it—that Iris and Cindy and all the others will survive and thrive in Noctis' beautiful new world.
(Iris, and Cindy, and Cid, and Aranea and Cor and everyone else—and he fumbles in his pocket for a moment before realizing that his phone has surely been destroyed in the battle. He reaches for it anyway, one thumb tracing across the screen in familiar patterns, and he feels the cracked screen and feels his heart sink. "Call Iris Amicitia," he tells it, and it says nothing in reply. Prompto makes a small noise of dissent, and Ignis sighs and tosses his phone away.)
(They'll have to realize what's happened, when none of them return from Insomnia. They will come looking for Noctis, at least, and will look for him in the palace—and so will find the three of them, as well.)
Perhaps it is his mind playing tricks on him but his vision is brighter than it has been in years—brighter than the emergency lights running on shifts in Lestallum, brighter than those Cindy rigged up at Hammerhead. His body is growing heavy and numb and his ears are ringing, but he hears Prompto's quiet breaths beside him, and hears him when he says, "Can you see it?"
There is wonder and love and grief heavy in his voice, even as he is so close to the end. "Yes," he breathes, and it is for the pain and the awe and his fading consciousness that he reaches out to grasp Prompto's hand. His friend's fingers are slick with blood and both their grips are weak, but Prompto's fingers twitch against his own, and Ignis looks to him for a moment before turning his face again toward the sun.