"Everything's alright now", she sees the way his lips turn down at the corners for the briefest second, the way his bruised up face is pale and frightened, but he's fighting so hard to stay strong in the middle of this terrible nightmare. It's insane that he would say that— they just pulled him off of a bizarre contraption, and he just questioned his existence… Because she had foolishly attacked without thinking, and driven him off of the top of the train.

Noctis reaches up, her hands shaking slightly with all of the adrenaline and exhaustion and terror this place has forced through her body. He sucks in his breath, leans away, but he's too late because his cheeks are cold against her warm hands, and he gives in immediately to her. His eyes close. She sees that he's about to collapse before he probably even knows it, and she drops with him, holding him tight in her arms.

"I-I'm real- I'm real-", she holds tight to him, and she knows that they need to get going but she is not going to force him up when he needs this so badly.

"You're real", she whispers, and he nods rapidly against her collarbone but doesn't lift his head.

Sobs, painful enough that the sound of each trembling breath and airy whine and fast intake of breath are like weights dropping on her heart and forcing it down, down, down.

"You're Prompto", her voice has a catch, because she never expected something like this. Never thought that this hellishness, this place of darkness and daemons and twisted souls, could have so directly touched one of her people.

But her brightest man was born of this horror, and she can feel the ache down to her soul. She can't imagine what he must be feeling, no matter what he knew before all of this happened.

"You've always been Prompto and you always will be. Not a daemon, not an MT."

Luna eases down, doesn't reach out to touch, because even she knows that all the broken man wants is Noctis. He needed Noctis to confirm his existence, to confirm he was loved. But maybe she can help.

"Nothing in you feels tainted by the blight", the Oracle says, and Noctis can't thank her enough, because Prompto lifts his head the tiniest bit and shudders, like some fear has bled out of him. It's a truth that Noctis wouldn't have been able to give in such certainty, no matter how much she believed it. He grows quiet, and doesn't move for a long few minutes while her fingers ease through his hair, breaking up tangles and strands sealed together by blood.

"I love you", he whispers, like there are no secrets he can bear to keep from her after this has been revealed. His face is still hidden away.

"I love you too", Noctis whispers, and he squeezes her tight. His arms are wrapped around her desperately, his fingers clenching around the worn material of her leather jacket.

He flinches when he feels a hand much larger than hers settle in his hair, and finally lifts his head to see who it is. He's surprised to see Gladio's serious amber-brown eyes focused on him, and his eyes jump to the big tattooed arm that extends over his head, connected to the hand which gently ruffles his hair. Ignis is there too, with one hand on Noctis's shoulder, the other on the cold metal floor. His eyes, usually so hard and focused, have softened.

Noctis can feel Prompto hunch down, closer to her, like their care is too much for him to look at.

"You're gunna be okay, kid", Gladio says, and she could kiss him for the easiness of his voice, the love in his rumbling tone, and their whole relationship, all of their lives, are so complicated that she's starting to give up on trying to define it. She'll be Queen anyway— laws are hers to make, and there is nothing wrong with giving love and being loved, no matter how many people are involved.

Prompto gives a shaky laugh, and his hands finally loosen from her jacket so he can wipe his eyes and cheeks. Ignis's hand settles at the nape of her neck, and she leans back into his soothing touch, never too much, never pushing so far that she'll have to acknowledge that there's something more there except on that dark night from what feels like a long, long, time ago.

But there is, and she knows it, and she's known it since that night when she let him crawl out of her bed before dawn and slip away to pretend nothing ever happened.

"With all of us together, there is little we cannot do", Ignis said, and Prompto straightens a little more. "The dawn will shine for our Queen, and we three will stand before her as her knights, her shields, her advisors, her weapons."

"My heart", she adds softly, and rises. Prompto rises too, and so does Luna, who she knows has been trying to understand and now just might. As long as Noctis lives, they exist as one, as us, them and not as the three men and the woman.

They will always compete for her affection, but it will never be done in more than fun because they have it all.

Noctis turns and gazes down the long corridor of darkness and metal, and her fingers curl on her right hand to form a fist.

"Let's go."


He's becoming a daemon.

He can feel the sick crawl of the blight sweeping over him, delving into his veins and pumping through his heart. His eyes are clouded over with the filth, but he can still see her, her, the Chosen Queen.

His Queen, as she should have been, as he wishes she had been.

He was dead when she found him, when she held him in her arms to check his heartbeat, to search for life that wasn't there. He was dead when she whispered an apology, unwilling to leave him there on that metal but with no other options.

He was dead, and the Accursed One forced him into life as a twisted, dark monster. He resists with all that he is, the blood of Oracles racing desperately through him, resisting the transformation, but it still makes him step forward. The arm that reattached itself is feeding the infection, the source of the blight within him.

Please- Help us! King Regis!

He does not live in that life anymore. It is over, dead with him.

"Noc…tis… End… it…"

It is all he manages before the battle begins, but he sees Lunafreya weeping, her back against the chain metal fence of the elevator. He raises his sword with no will to fight, and the blows he deals are deadly, and every cut that lands on his demonic body is healed in a matter of seconds. He tries desperately not to hit Noctis, tries to make himself slow, and tries to wander away from his sister and the Amicitia standing before her, unable to fight. The fighting is— strange, though. Almost every blow lands on the blackness of the blight, when he knows Noctis is smart enough to strike what remains of his human body. It hurts to be struck at all, but the pain is nothing like the soul wrenching malice of the infection and he hardly registers what is happening until he hears Noctis shout for Lunafreya.

His sister throws herself forward at the same time that Noctis cuts the daemonic arm from his body, and he is engulfed in a golden light. His sword comes down over his sister, but the Shield is there, holding his massive blade with one hand, the tip dug into the metal to help him support its massive weight.

He drops his sword as his body burns, engulfed in a flame not unlike the might of the ring. But instead of burning away his human flesh, the light scorches the daemonic taint.

In a moment, it is over, and he drops hard onto the floor and gazes up with dazed eyes. He hears his sister sobbing her relief, and for the first time since Tenebrae burned he feels clearheaded. His second chance has finally come— but it was a second chance to live, not to scratch and tear his way to a mockery of life.

He meets Noctis's eyes after she had kicked the damnable arm away, and he meets her eyes. She was never his, likely never would have been. Not in the lives they have lived, not in this world, but he cherishes her unlike before, because this time he really was saved. He takes her hand as she helps him up, and he holds on to it for a long moment. Something is shared between them, a promise.

I will not leave you behind again.


Luna sees Noctis take the elevator, escaping the hordes of daemons filling the hanger to get the power of the crystal. The Oracle sees, and she knows, suddenly, that if she lets Noctis go— all the good that they have made in this horrible place will be dulled and will dwindle. She has no gift in prophecy, she cannot foretell the future, but as Noctis turns in the elevator and their eyes connect— Luna knows that she is not the one in danger. Noctis is.

"Wait! Noctis! Noctis STOP!"

But her friend goes on, walking the path that they have all pushed her towards, and it is killing Luna that she cannot get to her friend, her reflection on this earth. Gentiana blasts into the hanger like the ice Goddess she is, her form changing to reflect her true nature as she works swiftly to save them from the daemons at hand.

"Go to her!", it is the shortest sentence Gentiana has ever spoken in Luna's hearing, but she understands. The Knights of the Chosen Queen gather around Luna, all of them distressed, confused at the suddenness of her cries. Ravus turns and his eyes meet hers.

"Should the Chosen fall, that too is fate", he murmurs, and Luna nods, clawing at the metal grate, pounding on the button to summon the elevator. The drop down will break their legs if they jump, so they cannot jump, but waiting for the machine is allowing Noctis to sprint, to almost fly, across the hanger and towards the closing doors at the far end.

"NOCT!", Gladio's yell is full of anguish. He has just realized what this power means, and he grips the barricade with even his bad hand, looking almost like he will fling himself over, consequences be damned.

Heat bursts into being at their backs, and Luna snaps her head around to see an inferno raging against Gentiana's ice, a man appearing in the middle of it. Ifrit, she knows, and knows further that this is no place for mortals to stand.

The elevator arrives, but the doors are closed on the other side when they touch down, and it costs them precious seconds to get it opening again. They see her, standing far at the end of the path, so much distance between them and her. The light of the crystal drifts like smoke around her body, beautiful, radiant, but Luna's heart is shattering in her chest because they are too late. Ignis grabs hold of Noctis, and Noctis grips his arm tightly, fear in her eyes because the crystal is taking her from her friends, her home, and Luna is praying so desperately to a God who wishes to see this done for mercy.

She hears Ardyn's words, but she does not care for him. Gentiana has told her his story, and it is sad, but the suffering he brings about is so petty, so hateful, she cannot bear to look at him again. There is no pity left in her heart for him after what he has done to their world.

Ravus strikes at him, words are exchanged, but none of Noctis's Knights move from her side. Her tears are joined by theirs, and they lean forward as if to go with her, wherever the crystal is taking her, but it will not accept them.

She is gone, and they turn their rage and grief to Ardyn, but his darkness is one that even Luna cannot conquer.

Their Queen is gone, and Luna does not know what they will do as Ardyn walks away from wounds that should have killed him, and they are left with a darkened crystal.

Lunafreya does not know what to do.


Author's Note: Fear not, the end isn't yet here.