Hi Everyone! It's been a busy workweek for me, so not much time to write new stuff, but I have some already finished stuff for ya! This part is taking on the "timeskip". The 10 year gap in game always made me mad-Ardyn doesn't deserve getting his way for that long, but a timeskip is still necessary to level up our heroes, so like my last story, I am compromising with a 3 year gap. Hope this doesn't bother anyone. I don't think the time gap length really matters for where the story goes, so if you want to imagine it's still 10 years to go with cannon, go for it. Anyway, here goes...
"Man, oh man," Prompto said in horrified awe, surveying the scene around them. The once teeming metropolis of Insomnia was completely empty. The buildings stood dark and silent, looming ominous shapes in the endless darkness.
"Goddamn them," Aranea snapped in anger, obviously referring to her former employers.
"I can't imagine what happened here," Ignis said in shocked horror.
"Stay sharp everyone," Gladio said. "We will probably run into daemons very soon."
"We'd better," Aranea said. "That's what we came for."
They were not disappointed. A few more steps and several imps appeared.
"Imps? Really," Gladio snarked at the weakest members of the daemon family.
"Ardyn's really got some quality subjects here," Aranea said, beginning to engage them.
Ardyn seemed to be leading his "army" with small fry. As soon as those were dispatched, another wave of slightly stronger daemons was unleashed.
After a few waves of increasingly stronger daemons, the party got Ardyn's idea. Strangely enough, it was Prompto who caught it first.
"He is playing a game with us," he said. "It's just like 'Kings Knight'. The monsters get harder the longer you fight them. You know, they 'level up'."
"That son of a bitch," Aranea responded angrily.
"The question is, how fast will they 'level up,' and how strong will they get," Ignis observed.
"We never said this would be easy," Gladio said. "Aren't we doing this to prove we aren't cowed by that asshole? I say bring on the strongest daemons. We are strong enough to take them. If we keep doing it, eventually he will get annoyed, which is the whole point."
"Yes. He will get bored eventually," Ignis said. "And if we can get him to lose focus it may give us an advantage. I say we return to Hammerhead and figure out a strategy. That is, unless you all think it is prudent to abandon this plan?"
"I've got nothing better to do," Aranea said. "I'm still game if you guys are."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Gladio said. "Let's do it."
Hammerhead had become a beacon in the endless darkness. The neon lights of the signs kept the daemons a safe distance, and barricades and fences kept them out. And the hunters who had always revered Hammerhead were not about to let their beloved haven get taken out. They patrolled regularly to keep Hammerhead safe.
Ignis, Gladio, Prompto, and Aranea were seated at one of the tables in the diner ironing out their strategy.
"What if the daemons get too strong for us," Prompto asked, never too shy to address the worst-case scenario.
"We cross that bridge when we come to it," Gladio responded repressively.
"Welp, if strength isn't doing it, then maybe we need some technology," Cindy cut in, sweeping into the diner and joining their conversation.
"Hey, Cindy," Prompto greeted with the awkwardness of a 15 year old asking out his crush.
After smiling a greeting to her dorky paramour, Cindy continued. "Remember those rootin tootin headlights I was talkin' about a while back? I've seen they keep the daemons away."
"Have you tested them to know for sure," Gladio asked warily.
"Well, yes. I, ah drove out a few nights in different conditions and verified it myself."
"You did," Prompto asked appalled. "You could have been hurt."
"But I wasn't. Don't tell Paw Paw I did that though. He'd be mad. Anyway, take my word for it: they work. Now, imagine if you put them up all over Insomnia."
"If we had enough of them, the daemons couldn't spawn," Gladio said, making the logical leap.
"And if there are no deamons, Ardyn is master of an empty kingdom," Ignis said with interest.
"Aw yeah I'd love to see that," Prompto said.
"That would really piss Ardyn off," Aranea chortled in glee. "For a man who has to be the center of attention to be utterly alone there—that would be the ultimate revenge! Well, other than just killing him, of course."
"However, the Crown City is quite large," Ignis said practically. "We would need quite a few of them."
"In my testing, I noticed the lights only work within a 70 foot radius. Sounds like a lot, but it is really the standard braking distance of a car going 40 mph or so," Cindy said.
"And Insomnia is more than 70 feet in area," Ignis said.
"Sounds to me like we would need a lot of them," Gladio said. "Would you be able to make that many?"
"I could, but I need the supplies, and the time to make them. It, might take me awhile," Cindy said regretfully.
"And Ardyn isn't stupid despite that act he puts on," Aranea said bitterly. "If he sees what we are doing here, he may decide to do something about it."
"So, we keep him distracted," Ignis said. "We continue our forays into Insomnia just as we were planning before, that is, unless you need us to get the supplies for you, Cindy?"
"Nah. Hunters can do that stuff for me. I reckon you are the only ones crazy enough to go into Insomnia these days. You want to keep doin' that, that's fine with me.
"Works for me," Prompto said excitedly. "Let's go."
Ignis, Prompto, Gladio, Cindy, and Aranea underestimated how long it would take to create the volume of lights needed to brighten up Insomnia, as well as Ardyn's patience. 3 years of building lights and daemon slaying was getting downright frustrating. 3 years of Ardyn having his way, "ruling" Insomnia, reveling in the endless darkness, unleashing his daemon pets at whoever he could.
The "daemon slayers" had set up shop in Hammerhead, using that as their forward base for guerilla-style raids on Insomnia. They would swoop in periodically, slay as many daemons as they could to prove a point, then rush back out when they ran out of potions. It was a Mobius strip to be sure, but it made them feel like they were doing something while they waited for Cindy to finish her lights, or for Noctis to return, whichever came first. And they didn't want Ardyn to sit the throne of Insomnia completely unopposed. Even if they were as ants before him, they had to try.
Still, after three years of increasingly tough daemons, they were holding their own. They returned to the night-shrouded city as usual, encountering the same daemons they had been encountering lately.
"I wonder if we've reached their 'level cap'," Prompto observed. "They haven't gotten stronger recently."
"Enough with the 'Kings Knight' references," Aranea riposted. "We should just count our blessings and move on."
Since they were used to these daemons, and could more easily strike them down, the team was able to encroach into the city farther than they had before, getting to the citadel itself.
"Look, it's lit up," Prompto observed.
"For wanting the world to sit in darkness, he still appreciates good old electric lighting like the rest of us," Aranea snarked derisively.
"If it weren't dangerous as hell, I'd be tempted to go in and say hello," Gladio muttered.
"That would not be advisable," Ignis said, only to stiffen in alarm.
There was a man promenading in the main courtyard in front of the building, his cloaks swaying in the breeze. It didn't take a genius to figure out it was Ardyn. It appeared Gladio was getting his wish after all.
Ardyn turned to them in feigned surprise. "Well if it isn't Noctis's lackeys," he greeted, as smug as always. "So good of you to call. Do you like what I've done with the place?"
Ignis was the first to regain his poise. "I've seen it looking a lot better," he said coldly.
Ardyn gave them an assessing glance. "I must say 3 years of darkness hasn't affected you too badly. You look as good now as you did 3 years ago. I guess waiting for Noct has kept you fresh. Not too much to do, huh," he mocked.
"Oh, we've done plenty," Aranea shot back. "I guess you didn't notice."
"Oh I noticed," Ardyn replied darkly. "You must be so proud of yourselves that you have made it this far into my kingdom. I imagine you think you can hold your own against anything I have to throw at you. Is that right," he asked, voice low, ominous.
"Come here big guy," Ardyn called, and waved his hand. They heard ominous thuds and groaning approaching from around the corner behind them.
"Since you are so strong now, maybe you'd like to pick on somebody your own size," he mocked, then turned on his heel and retreated into the citadel.
The party turned around to see what they were dealing with.
"What the hell is that thing," Aranea said in shock, as they took stock of their new foe.
"That looks like, a Behemoth King," Ignis said in horrified awe. "I heard legends of them from the last starscourge. I thought they were a myth."
"Did you happen to read how to take one down," Gladio asked.
"The legends were, vague, about that," he responded.
"Well, the fact that somebody saw one and survived to tell the 'legend' tells me there is a way," Aranea said, sweeping forward to engage.
The foe's response was immediate and terrifying. It leaped up into the air, then plummeted towards them, his sheer size making it as though a piano was falling on them. Gladio shoved Aranea to safety, oversetting them both, causing them to land hard on the concrete. Gladio took the brunt of it, causing Areana to fall on top of him, full length of her body pressed against his.
They stared at each other for a startled moment. "3 years, and we've finally gotten to this point," Gladio asked suggestively.
"I'm a slow starter," Areana riposted, standing up.
"All that means is, when you do, it will be spectacular," Gladio flirted back.
"Um, either get a room or help us," Prompto cut in. He and Ignis were doing their best to land hits on the beast, but their hits seemed to be doing nothing.
Before Gladio and Aranea could get into the fight, the Behemoth launched an ice spell. The gigantic ice ball engulfed everyone, leaving them frozen in ice, and completely at its mercy. Luckily Prompto's coat had some innate ice resistance, so he was able to break free and heal the others, not a moment too soon.
They ran for cover in a nearby alley, shivering from the aftermath.
"I, think we have finally met our match," Aranea said gravely.
"We should retreat and rethink our strategy," Ignis said.
They had no choice to return to Hammerhead, to lick their wounds and come to terms with the fact that they weren't strong enough to take on Ardyn's army anymore, or Ardyn himself.
She had spent 3 years in the crystal, Luna had been told. 3 years of meditation and focusing on the light. Her mother was teaching her all the skills as an Oracle she had tried so hard to learn all those years ago, but Luna was finding them difficult. It was just as bad as it was 15 years ago. It was bitterly ironic that she had mastered skills Ardyn had taught her, but couldn't master those from her own mother.
She and Noctis had been kept apart. Luna knew it was because they needed solitude to gain their respective powers. However, it still rankled. She wanted to feel Noctis's arms around her again. She wanted his lips on hers—she broke off ruefully. That was a perfectly good reason to keep them apart. There was no room for dalliance at this point. And if Luna could dream of a good time for it, well, that was far-fetched at this particular moment.
Luna was disturbed. She had been dreading the reaction of her daemons to the "purification", thinking they would fight tooth and nail against it. However, they had done nothing. She was under no illusions. They weren't gone, just hiding so deep in her consciousness that neither she nor the light could find them. It shouldn't have surprised her when they fought back.
She was back in the flower fields of Tenebrae. The skies were blue, just a shade paler from the flowers. Still, as gorgeous as the scene was, Luna was tense. She knew what happened when she dreamed of that field. As if on cue, the flowers turned black, and glowing eyes emerged from their stalks. Every flower in the field was becoming a daemon! Luna tried to stand her ground—but she felt, fear. A mindless panic around them that she had not felt in 15 years, since before she was tainted. She began to run, the daemon flowers grabbing at her skirts like she was a princess caught in a witch's forest in a fairy tale. Then she bumped into something—it was as though she had hit the edge of the world. The edge was invisible, until a hairline crack appeared, like a crack in a mirror, or a crystal…then a gigantic daemon grabbed her and pulled her through the glass into a dark abyss.
"Eat her, Behemoth King," the daemons cried out in unison as Luna fell away into oblivion.
Luna woke up screaming, as she had not in a decade.
"What's wrong, child," Queen Sylva asked, running over to see what was going on.
"It's the nightmares, again," Luna said plaintively.
Queen Sylva stroked her hand gently. "It's just a bad dream, nothing more. Don't worry. You are safe here," she said. "Go back to sleep. Oracles need their rest." Then her mother left the room.
Luna stared after her sadly. Her own mother did not understand her. She still tried to console her as if she were 5 years old, scared of monsters under her bed. Her mother didn't understand that she was a woman grown, plagued by endless nightmares from daemons she had been absorbing for almost half her life.
Her mother, the last true Oracle, did not know what it was like to be plagued by daemons. How could she train Luna to regain the powers of light if she didn't know what it was like to be buried in darkness?
It was not just a bad dream. Luna knew enough about how her dreams behaved by now. They were symbolizing a truth. "Behemoth King." Considered to be the most powerful daemon ever in existence. Only appearing when the world was so corrupt and so without hope, that its destructive presence was a sweet mercy. And it was outside the crystal world, in her world.
She looked around at the bright white space around her—even after all this time it was still hurting her eyes. She was looking at reality in the face. She could not help Noctis this way. She could not leverage the light the way the Astrals wanted her to. However, if she didn't, Noctis would…
But then, there was the world itself. It was suffering right now to the point where a Behemoth King could manifest. There were millions of people in terror and despair. That was one thing she could handle if she were there, while there was much less chance of her being to help Noctis from here. She knew what she had to do logically, but she railed against it. "I have to be here for Noct," she told herself. "I don't want to lose him again." And doing what she was thinking of doing was tantamount to that.
But she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she could not save Noctis this way. She could not be purified by the light. She was too far gone. So all that was left was fighting fire with fire. She had moved beyond her mother—her mother, whom she had always wished she had had to help her, could not do so. It would have to be as it always had been—she would have to figure things out herself. "Good bye, mother," she whispered sadly, leaving her sanctuary and making her way to the edge of the crystal world. Her sense of failure and isolation was pushing her forward. She didn't belong here. Her life, such as it was, was out there.
She placed her hand, tentatively against the crystal barrier, afraid that it would burn her or destroy her.
"If you leave, you won't be able to save Noctis," Bahamut mentioned gravely, stating the obvious.
She turned to face him. "Even if I stay here forever, I can't do it the way you need me to," she said regretfully.
"Powers such as these cannot be granted overnight," he cautioned her.
"How long do you need? Ten years? 2000 years?"
"Our concept of time is not a human's. Light and dark are almost infinite. So too can it be to gain their powers."
Luna was tired of all of this. Tired of metaphysical nonsense, mystical beings holding her to a higher standard.
She snapped. "All I've gotten from you all are unrealistic expectations and rejection! I've never seen you try to help me, or even Noctis for that matter. You just want him dead. You say it takes an eternity to gain the powers of light and darkness? It took me 12 years to gain the powers of darkness. I don't have an eternity to undo it all and gain light powers instead. This is the hand I'm dealt, and I'm playing it."
"That is the only way to save Noctis," Bahamut said after a moment of shocked silence.
"I don't think so. You misjudged Ardyn 2000 years ago, thinking him to be the savior of the land, and look what happened? You are fallible. Ardyn can leverage darkness and light. I can leverage darkness. Let Noctis leverage the light. Together we will stop Ardyn. And if you want to smite me after, then all I can say is that it would end my suffering once and for all."
"You do this, and you are no better than Ardyn Lucis Caelum," Bahamut exclaimed warningly.
Luna smiled bitterly. "You're right. But I will save Noctis and the world," she said boldly. The crystal under her hand shattered, giving her an exit. She strode out, back into the world of darkness, to do her duty. Even if it was her final one. But she couldn't keep the tears from falling as she thought about what could have been between her and Noctis.
"You're tellin' me Ardyn unleashed a Behemoth King," Cid asked the ragged quartet in surprise.
"Since you know of them, that tells me you know we have a problem," Ignis replied matter of factly.
"I'll say. Sounds like this Ardyn feller ain't playin' anymore."
"Oh, he is," Aranea responded bitterly. "He's basically telling us he could have done this all along, but chose not to."
"Well, he is now," Prompto said. "Does this mean we finally pissed him off?"
"Sounds to me like we are out of time," Ignis said. "I don't think we can hold off anymore. We need to leverage technology at this point."
"Not sure if I have enough lights built for that yet," Cindy said regretfully.
"Ignis is right," Aranea said. "I think we have to face facts. It has been 3 years. Noctis and Luna aren't coming back. We can't keep relying on them to save our asses. We have a plan, we should use it. We've stalled as long as we can."
"I agree with Aranea," Gladio said. "As much as I hate to say it, I don't think we can count on Noct at this point. I wish we could, but, we can't."
"Welp, I have plenty of lights to give you. However, the problem will be logistics. Not sure how we will transport and hang that many."
"How about the hunters," Prompto asked.
"They helped with gettin' the materials for me, but I'm not sure if they'd be down for driving to Insomnia to hang up lights."
"This would be the perfect role for Pretty Boy," Aranea said. "He could rally his disenfranchised people to join him in reclaiming the homeland and all that BS."
"If we had Noct, we wouldn't be in this mess," Gladio responded, stating the obvious.
"Maybe we can, recruit people," Prompto asked? "Surely there are other people out there fed up with all this who will be willing to join in."
"We can't be too overt about it, or else Izunia might figure out what we are planning," Ignis cautioned.
"Hmm. We could leverage the hunters as a communication network," Cindy said. "They can get word to Lestallum and Altissia as secretly as possible. They may be able to round up some folks for us. If we can get some fighters and drivers we might have somethin'."
"I can't come up with anything better," Aranea said. "I'm down with trying this. What do you say guys?"
Ignis was thoughtful for a moment. "I cannot come up with anything else, either. I think this is the best way to move forward."
So with the two strategists in agreement, the rest of the team moved forward with Operation Take Back Insomnia.
I know I took some liberties with the Behemoth King-he was kind of just another (tough) daemon in game, but since there was only one of him that I recall, he was really tough, and only showed up in the endless dark endgame, I thought he deserved an upgrade. Hope you don't think I jumped off the deep end with this one. Till next time!