Author's Note: Spoilers for Episode Prompto

Moments
Part I: The Journey

Third Time's a Charm
by Philippe de la Matraque


Prompto was too tired to complain about being tired. They had walked, ran, and fought for miles. His feet felt like lead. His muscles ached from fight to fight. But he looked at Gladio, soldiering on, and at Ignis, doing his best to keep up. Prompto couldn't imagine trying to do this without seeing where he was going, what was in front of him, or who might be trying to kill him at any given moment. Most of the time, Ignis acted like it didn't bother him at all. But they knew now that it did. Of course, it did.

He also knew how much Ignis had helped Noctis, and, by association, Prompto. It only seemed right to help Ignis now. They couldn't just leave him behind. He'd put up a good fight, but alone and blind, Ignis would wander and get lost or get overwhelmed by daemons. He would die, and Prompto and Gladio didn't want that any more than he did.

But Ignis was a proud man, more accomplished at twenty-two than Prompto thought he ever would be himself, even if he lived to be a hundred. It was hard for Ignis to ask for help, and so Prompto tried to not to help when he wasn't needed and to be very low-key about it when he felt it was. Ignis had lost a lot. He didn't need to lose his dignity along with everything else.

Each night was longer and darker and there were more and more daemons to deal with. And the pace they were keeping was punishing. Prompto wanted to get to Lestallum sooner rather than later, but he wasn't sure his shoes or feet would make it along with the rest of him.

When they reached the next opportunity for rest, they were excited to find an RV waiting there. They didn't even bother with a campfire.

"Two steps up," Prompto told Ignis. He took Ignis's arm and helped him up and into one of the chairs before collapsing on the sofa. "You two can haggle over the bed. I'm not moving from this spot ever again."

"We can't keep up this pace, Gladio," Ignis said. "Exhaustion will not serve us in a fight. And we have limited potions."

"We have enough," Gladio countered, though it didn't sound like his heart was in it.

"How much farther until we reach Lestallum?" Prompto asked.

Gladio sighed. "I get it. It's gonna take weeks on foot. Months, maybe. I wanna get there tomorrow, but we won't get there at all if we're too tired to lift a sword."

"Or if we use up all the potions," Prompto added. "So what's the right pace? And even if we find that, does it guarantee we'll find a haven every night? These things have been few and far between so far."

There was rare frustration in Iggy's voice when he spoke, "I wish I could look at the damn map!"

Gladio unfolded the map on the table. "And I wish I could read it to you in some way you could make sense of it. But how does anyone read a map out loud?"

"What did they call this in school?" Prompto asked, still not sitting up. "Paradox shift or something."

"Paradigm?" Ignis offered.

"Yeah," Prompto said. "First you losing your sight. It changed everything for you, but also how we do things, or try to. You handled all the logistics. Noct could lead and we could follow because we could trust you had covered all the details. Then we lost Noct to the Crystal. He was the glue that brought all of us together."

"Yes," Ignis agreed. "Paradigm shifts. The world going dark is another. Everyone everywhere is going to have to find a new way to survive."

"So we need a new way of doing things," Gladio said. He slapped the map. "What about GPS?"

"Oh man!" Prompto exclaimed. "Why didn't we think of that sooner?"

"GPS will drain our batteries," Ignis cautioned. "Though if we take turns, we could switch phones when one dies, extend our range."

"And we can charge them if we find an RV like this," Gladio added. "Give me your phones. I'll get them charging. Do we want to eat or sleep?"

"Sleep!" Prompto voted. He had closed his eyes halfway through this conversation.

Ignis didn't exactly argue. "I believe you owe us a story."

"I do," Prompto admitted. Gladio thumped his shoulder and Prompto fished out his phone. "Can I postpone 'til morning? Or whatever time we're calling morning?"

"We'll leave at first light," Gladio said. "Less daemons when the sun is out. Hopefully, we'll find another rest stop by nightfall."

"What time is the sun coming up these days?" Ignis asked.

"Not until almost ten," Gladio supplied. "Gets dark again by five in the afternoon."

"Seven hours is still a lot," Ignis surmised, "but we'll have a long night to rest."

"Maybe we'll get really lucky," Prompto offered, "and find some chocobos."

"Think you can train at eight, Iggy?" Gladio asked.

"I do," Ignis replied, "but only if I rest now."

"You can have the bed in the back, Iggy," Gladio said as he moved to the front. "I'll recline one of these chairs."

"And the back is which way?"

"Past me," Prompto offered. "Bed is straight back. You'll run right into it." Ignis brushed past him, touching the walls and cabinets as he walked.

Prompto closed his eyes again and rolled over to lay on his side. He was asleep in minutes. Eight hours later, he woke with a jolt of anxiety. Had he overslept? He sat up and found it still dark outside the window behind him. He looked to the bed in the back and the seats in the front. No Iggy and no Gladio. He felt a moment's panic that they had left him but dismissed it quickly. They wouldn't. It was just his insecurity talking, and he'd learned not to listen to it after his sojourn in Gralea.

He heard a grunt and moved to a window on the other side. There was a fire going and Gladio was attacking Ignis with his great sword. Iggy, though, deftly dodged it. It seemed the rest had been good for him.

Prompto's stomach growled and he moved to the tiny kitchen in the RV. He checked the cabinets and fridge and was happy to find milk, two eggs, and three strips of bacon in there. He wasn't as good as Ignis, but he could manage scrambled eggs and bacon.

The bacon snapped his fingers but browned quickly, leaving enough grease to cook the eggs. He'd already beaten them lightly with a little milk. The door opened as he poured them into the pan. Gladio stepped in before turning to help Ignis.

"That smells good," Ignis stated.

"It's not gourmet," Prompto said, "and it could probably use some salt, but bacon and eggs for breakfast sounded good to me. There's not much of it, mind you, but it's better than chili for breakfast."

"Hey!" Gladio exclaimed, in mock offense.

"I'm certain it will be fine," Ignis said.

Gladio got serious. "Food is gonna be scarce, I think, before we get to Lestallum."

"Perhaps we can find something other than daemons to fight out there," Ignis suggested.

"Travelling during daylight," Prompto added hopefully, "maybe we will." He placed a plate and fork in front of Ignis. "Bacon to the right and eggs to the left." He returned to the stove and retrieved the other two plates. He gave one to Gladio and then sat down with the other. He tried to eat slowly, just to savor it, to make it feel like more.

But it didn't take long to finish off one piece of bacon and a few bites of scrambled eggs. "So I owe you a story," he said. "Fortunately, mine has a happy ending."

"Yes, it does." Ignis agreed.

Gladio just nodded so Prompto started. "It was seriously cold when I landed in the snow. The train was gone as soon as I got up, and I couldn't figure out why Noctis had attacked me. Still, I started walking. I knew where we were headed. I walked for days. I can't remember how many. It was just so cold and the snow was deep. It was hard and I finally fell and couldn't get back up. I woke up in a large metal room. I didnt know what or where it was. But I noticed my wrist was bare. Then this computer voice recognized me. It called me a number and said I was a 'compromised unit.' Then Ardyn showed up."

"Of course," Ignis interrupted, "he orchestrated it."

"Yeah," Prompto agreed. "He went on about the computer remembering me and how I should remember the place. He said it was the first Magitek Production Facility and called it my 'home sweet home.' But he did give me my gun back. Actually, there were guns everywhere: sniper rifles, machine guns, bazookas. The computer sent MTs after me to terminate the 'compromised unit,' and I tried to find my way out. I'd find documents and voice recorders that explained the place. This guy, Verstael Besithia, decided that humans would make better MTs, but he couldn't get volunteers and some had psychological problems. So he thought injecting babies would be better. He cloned himself to make infants. I came across pods with people in them. They had my face."

"That had to be creepy," Gladio commented.

Prompto's eyes raised as his eyes widened. "Very! I mean, I knew I was adopted and I knew I came from Niflheim. I spent my whole life terrified someone would find out and not like me anymore. I was so sure no one would want to be my friend, that I ended up not having any. Until Noctis. Then you guys. Then I was so determined not to mess it up.

"I felt like my nightmare was coming to life. I wasn't just from Niflheim. I had this code print, just like the MTs. The MTs had my face. The code print opened doors, even though I was the 'compromised unit.' One of the voice recorders talked of a Lucian spy who stole one of the infants. Was that me? I ended up just outside the lab where they were 'decommissioning' units, destroying people, people like me. This old man was there. And Ardyn. Ardyn called the old man my father.

"It's hard to describe how I felt. I was kind of frozen. He was coming toward me. He said he was turning and that I could turn, too, or remain a failure. I shot him. I killed him. Or I thought I had. But I was just kind of stuck there, trying to make sense of it all, wanting to make it not true. I wanted to still be me, a Lucian, and Noct's friend."

Ignis put a hand on his shoulder and Prompto was glad of the support. "Then Aranea showed up and kicked my ass into gear. We fought our way through the facilities, MTs, and daemons. But she put me on a snowmobile and gave me a map. She said to go to this spot and she's meet me later.

"I found a haven and heated a can of ravioli and tried to tell myself it was as good as you used to make, Iggy. But it didn't work. Then I thought about the code print. I thought about burning it off. But Aranea turned up again told me that was a stupid idea and wouldn't work anyway. She said you guys were worried sick about me and that Noctis had asked her to come find me."

"We were very worried," Ignis confirmed.

"But I don't think," Gladio said, "that Noctis asked her. We left her and went into Tenebrae together."

"Perhaps Ardyn sent her," Ignis suggested. "But why? He spends half the time trying to kill us and the other half helping."

"At least with us," Gladio agreed. "With Noct, his motives are less confusing."

Ignis nodded. "Yes, it appears he wants revenge against all the kings of Lucis. And that can only be when Noctis emerges from the Crystal."

"Anyway," Prompto tried to bring them back to his story, "I was thinking you guys wouldn't want me around anymore if you knew. Or that I'd screw everything up even if you did. It was a full on pity party. Aranea wasn't having it. She tough-loved me, ya know. Told me to think about what I wanted and to stop worrying about what everyone else wanted. She said she was going after the Nif new model in the morning, but I needed to figure out what I wanted.

"I had the trippiest dream that night. I found an MT on the ground, but when I got closer, it was me. Then Noct was there and he was trying to kill me. I had to run from him, but I was still an MT. I couldn't even tell him it was me. Finally, I was me again, and Pryna was there. I followed her and found I wasn't in the snow anymore. I was at the Citadel in Insomnia. It was me, but a kid again, sad and chubby with no friends. I sat on the steps and Pryna gave me a letter. Luna's letter to me after I helped Pryna before. That letter made me seek out Noctis, after I lost the weight and felt confident enough. In the letter this time, there were pictures, my photos of all of us together. Then I was the older me again and I woke up.

"I made my decision. I went with Aranea. Before we could get to the new model, we had to go through an older one. Some giant ape with machine parts grafted on. But again, there were gun racks on the walls so I just kept shooting at it. Aranea used her lance, and it eventually went down. Then this thing called Immortalis ripped through the building. It talked, thanking Ardyn. It was Besithia. He'd somehow transferred his soul into this giant snake-like machine. Its head had six drills spinning around a central drilling core. Aranea found a snowmobile with a mounted turret. She drove and I fired. Immortalis dove into the ground, emerging somewhere else, and it kept taunting us. We killed it once but it got back up. It glowed and the outer drills spread out like giant fingers." He spread his hand out to demonstrate. "They glowed brighter then shot beams at us. So I concentrated on taking those out before they could shoot. Once I got all of them, I went for the core. Finally, it died for good. Aranea pointed me in the direction of Gralea and I took off." He paused for effect.

"But we found you in Zegnautus Keep," Ignis said.

"Yeah, Ardyn caught me again. I woke up in that frame. I couldn't move my arms or legs to get free. It seemed like days but it could have been less. I just hoped and hoped you guys would come for me. And then you did! Like I said, happy ending!"

The first hint of light peeked in from the window.

"It must have been difficult facing your worst fears alone," Ignis stated.

"It was," Prompto agreed. But he really kind of felt good about it now. "But it's like a ton of weight is off my shoulders now, ya know?"

Ignis nodded. "Indeed."

"Sun's up," Gladio pronounced. "Time to get moving. My phone's first. I pointed it to the nearest haven along our path. Hopefully, we'll reach it before it gets too dark."