"Crowe, take Reina inside! Gladiolus, keep Noctis safe!" Regis had to shout to be heard over the din that was a panicking crowd.
His councilors and staff had surged around him, awaiting instructions. Even as his children were pulled away and Sylva sent her own after them, the journalists and news crew scrambled to rearrange themselves for whatever new show was to be put on before them—they had front row tickets this time and they were unlikely to relinquish them unless forced. No need. Let them film what they would.
The audience had turned into a mass of ants, scattering at the first drops of rain. Regis gritted his teeth. How many would be trampled in the stampede? This was precisely the panic he had hoped to avoid.
"Captain Ulric!" Regis swiveled to find the captain of the Kingsglaive not far away, gathering his people to him. "Crowd control. As well as you can. Your duty is to Lucis' people."
And, before Ulric could respond, he turned to find Sylva. "Can I engage her?"
"Yes, I think so," Sylva said. She shut her eyes, her face twisting in focus. "She is physically present. Show yourself to Her and you should be recognized without my intervention."
"Sire. Where would you have us?" Aldebrand was at his elbow.
"Wherever you are needed. If waves hit the city, Insomnia must be prepared. See Clarus—he will have details."
"Regis?"
He had all but forgotten that Crea was present until she said his name. So used to he was having her tucked safely away somewhere. But no longer.
"I must face the Hydraean," Regis said. "But you are needed here. Reina and Noctis—and the Citadel itself—will all cry out for guidance."
Her face was pale and drawn with fear. Despite that, she nodded. "Be careful."
"And you." He granted himself just enough time to steal a kiss from her. Then he turned away.
He reached for the Armiger and felt the welling of power within him, near overflowing at his call. Power burst around him, his own adding percussion to the constant harmony that was Leviathan's steady roll. Several onlookers cried out as his feet lifted from the ground. As he ascended, cameras followed. But his sights were set elsewhere.
From the Citadel drive, the northern coast of Insomnia was blocked by the tri towers. But as he gained altitude and left the shelter of the royal grounds, he caught sight of what he already knew was waiting. North of the city, beyond the rocky cliffs, which dropped steeply off to the sea, a serpent rose from the waters: her blue-grey scales glistened like gemstones in the afternoon sun. And her roars rattled windows all across the city.
Even as he gained in altitude, Regis could see the water pulling away from Insomnia's coasts. The sheer drop off the cliffs grew deeper and deeper, as if the Hydraean was swallowing up the ocean. Yet it was not the disappearance of the water that concerned him, but its inevitable return.
He was of a height with the Wall and heading north. Skyscrapers had faded to mere block towers, cars had become toys, and people were scarcely visible at all. And still Leviathan towered, now airborne, as the entirety of the ocean pulled away and left Insomnia behind—a scab of an island jutting up from the rocky earth below.
She would wash them away and drag the whole city out to sea.
Could he reach her in time? If he did, would it matter? How long would it take to convince her to lay down her might and leave Lucis standing? Could she even stop this now, if she wished?
It hardly mattered.
The building power broke. The waves that she had drawn back were released.
And the water returned.
In a panicked moment, Regis did the only thing he could think to do. The only thing left to him. He gathered up his mana and flung it into the Wall, fortifying it as if for some great siege by a Magitek force—and then more. The Wall was not often knit tightly enough to block out water and rain passed through easily, but it could be. In theory.
It wouldn't be enough. Not while he sustained the Armiger—which he needed unless he desired to go plummeting hundreds of feet to the streets below—and not if he wished still to address the Hydraean on the other side of this wave.
He reached without thinking, first for Reina, then for Noctis. Once more I need your aid, dear ones.
Not for Lucis—though he could scarcely deny that Insomnia would fall beneath this onslaught—but for their own sake. He could not protect them unless they protected themselves. The irony did not escape him.
Reina took his grasping hand willingly. Already she was bound to Noctis and through them came the welling of mana he required.
We hold the wall against the force of the wave, he told them as they poured strength into the skeleton of the Wall, As tightly as we can.
More tightly than ever before.
They worked as rapidly as they could—though with half-trained and inexperienced minds, it was far from fast enough. The sea had returned.
Leviathan roared. The wave—towering higher even than the Hydraean herself—crashed over Insomnia and shattered upon the Wall. Regis winced, held aloft still by the power of the Armiger. The waters pounded, a rapid building of pressure all across the entire dome and quite unlike anything Regis had ever held against before. This was no Magitek siege. This was no cannon fire or focused weaponry. This was the might of the entire sea, mustering to break his will.
Even with three minds clustered together to patch cracks and push back against the pressure, it wasn't enough.
The first cracks formed, webbing outward from overhead as the sea swallowed them up and gave the impression that Insomnia had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Regis struggled against them, sweat dripping now in beads down his face, coming to collect in his beard and collar. He could not hold both the Wall and the Armiger. Perhaps he could not hold the Wall at all. But on one point he was certain: dropping from this height would mean death.
Hold tight, dear ones.
The Wall shattered.
Under the pressure of the ocean, under the might of the Hydraean, it gave way, collapsing inward from the center and falling—glittering—down to allow the water in. Regis braced himself. He could only hope that they had sheltered the city from the brunt of impact. Though dropping an ocean atop the city was a small improvement, anything was likely to help.
He hoped.
The waters crashed over him first. Held aloft as he was, he had to struggle to maintain the height he had gained. But they only attempted to drag him to the ground without throwing him backwards. And when he emerged out the top—coughing and spitting and soaked through to his socks—the skies were clear.
Save for the Hydraean.
"Leviathan!" Regis gathered up his voice and threw it in a roar he hoped would match hers. It sounded insignificant in comparison to her world-shattering sounds, but despite all, she swivelled her head and fixed yellow reptilian eyes on him. "Hear me, Hydraean! Before you bring greater devastation on the whims of another, think first of all the suffering you have already caused."
Leviathan swayed in the air, like a snake—whether entranced or preparing to strike, he could only guess. He hoped for the former and pressed on.
"Where last has The Draconian's bidding led you? A darkness shrouds this world and it is of your making! Now, upon our own legs, mortals stand against the scourge and oppose that you claim to abhor, and for our temerity you seek to strike us down! Have you no shame for what you have done?"
"Thy defiance credits thee not, O King. The Hydraean hast heard of thy misdeeds. And for thy missteps, She comes to wash clean thy lands." Her voice pounded inside his brain—like Ramuh's, her voice formed no words in any language he knew, but their meaning rang out in his mind nevertheless. "Even if thou should remain standing at the finish, others will follow after. The Archaean will lay low thy lands before thou can reachest him to stay his hand."
An ominous warning, and one he preferred not to think too deeply on. When this threat was dealt with and he was no longer hanging hundreds of feet above the city, looking something like a drowned rat, with his suit and cape hanging damply about his shoulders, he could think on other threats. But for now his mind was here.
"As before the Fulgarian did, before you," Regis called. Even now he could feel the faint thrumming of Ramuh's bond to him—the Fulgarian's only remaining tie to Eos. If not for that, He would have been flung off into oblivion and gone forever from Eos. Indeed, had Regis been so inclined he might have cut the bond and forced the matter. But no. He needed the Astrals still. To stand with him against their brother. "Yet now he hangs by a thread, prepared at a moment to drop into endless sleep. To make a true stand against the darkness he took part in creating. Can you truly claim you are in opposition to the Starscourge, if you are unwilling to do the same?"
What was it Ramuh had instructed him to say to her?
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the words were streaming from his lips, as if placed there by another. And perhaps they had been.
"Let the storm and sea rest forevermore beyond the reaches of churning darkness."
Leviathan's head swung back and forth, as if to inspect him with one eye first, then the other. Each eye was as large as his head, but Regis held his ground.
"Forevermore…" Her voice held now a mournful note, as if of longing. "Free from the burdens of guilt and doubt."
"If you were willing to do as Ramuh has done, Eos would remember you as blameless. The solution. Not the cause."
For the first time her yellow eyes shut, cutting off the piercing stare and allowing his chest to expand fully.
"The solution…"
Her eyes snapped open. "Let the sea swell with the storm. Let the darkness thus be purged from our souls. And yours."
And with that, the world snapped.
Where once he had hovered before the great and hulking form of an enormous sea serpent, instead there was merely a splash of water—glittering droplets hanging in the air as faint as mist for but a split second before those, too, faded. Something great that had once been tied up to the heart of Eos was gone. Dug up as if it had never been present at all.
And in its place hung a single thread, bound instead to Regis.
