"Wait! I think he's coming around!"
"Regis? Can you hear me?"
He was sitting—no, laying—on the ground. Fairly soft ground, thankfully, and cushioned by grass or moss of some sort.
"Rather too well," Regis said. Despite the absence of any cut or mark between his eyes where Bahamut's blade had rested, his head still pounded.
"He's awake!" Weskham's voice said nearby. The next moment a phone pressed against Regis' ear. "Say something."
"Something," Regis said.
"Regis? Are you alright?" Crea's voice issued from the speaker.
Before he could respond, Reina's followed. "F-father? You're gone from my chest."
She sounded five years old again. That alone was enough to force him fully back to wakefulness. He struggled upright, taking his phone from Weskham.
"I'm alright," he said. Gone from her chest? What did that mean?
The magic.
He was tied to her via his own magic, which stemmed from the crystal. Indeed, she was tied to the crystal only via his magic, and so she, too, was cut off once more. At least this was not a new sensation for her. Regis, meanwhile, sat in a too-flat world, blinking and wondering if it had always been so few dimensions.
He reached for the In Between, reached for his sword, and found—not that he could not reach it, not that he was blocked from it, but simply that he had no arms.
"My magic, however, is gone. I am sorry you had to experience that, my dear." He glanced around, taking in his surroundings for the first time. They sat in a wooded clearing off the road, somewhere in Duscae. Gentiana was nowhere to be seen, but Sylva sat nearby and his retinue was gathered around, near enough to listen in. They, too, would have felt the severing of his connection to the crystal.
The Kingsglaive!
Every Kingsglaive in Lucis had just lost his or her magic. Inexplicably. And while they stood in the midst of a panicking city. He could think of worse times, but not many.
"Regis, what's going on?" Crea asked.
He told them, in as short order as he could manage, what had occurred. When he finished there was silence. For a time.
"So you have no magic to speak of?" Clarus asked at length.
"Not precisely. I have no magic of my own, but I still possess the Ring. And the ties that bind two of the Six to me. While all I have shared magic with are now bereft of it, I am not left defenseless," Regis said.
Which was just as well, given that they intended to march into the Arcaean's realm and demand that he sacrifice his life for the greater good. When phrased in that way, it sounded ironically familiar.
"Pleased to hear it," Weskham said. "The rest of us, however, are left without weapons."
Regis struggled to his feet. Clarus took pity on him and hauled him upright.
"Reina, you can share with Noctis. I believe you have learned enough that, between the two of you, you should be able to work out how the bond is formed." In fact, it would have been astounding if they didn't know already. There was some connection between the twins that wasn't quite a magic bond, but wasn't anything else Regis knew of, either.
"Crea, I shall need you to send word to Captain Ulric. Let him know that it is expected for all his Glaives to be bereft of their magic, and that a solution is underway.
"As for the rest of you," he said. "I believe I know some kings who may be sympathetic to our cause."
With any luck.
Orders delivered and assurances given, Regis ended the phone call and ushered his retinue, Sylva and Gentiana—who had reappeared with no word on her absence—back to the cars. He was loath to waste any more time on their way to visit the Archaean. He could only hope that addressing the Lucii would take little time in the physical world.
Once they were all seated and back on the road, Regis shut his eyes and focused his attention in and down, pulling on the power of the Ring as he did so. Bahamut might have severed his connection to the crystal, but he could not altogether keep Regis from the In Between. Just as Reina had never been locked out by her lack of magic.
He called to the Lucii and they came, manifest—as they always were—as great suits of armor wreathed in blue flame. However, that was where the similarities ended. Ever when he called upon them, he was on a level with them. A king among kings, even if he had not yet ascended to the ranks of the spectral Lucii. Now he stood below, towered over and made to feel insignificant. Furthermore, though The Mystic stood always at the forefront to address him, today that position was given over to The Fierce.
"Regis Lucis Caelum," King Tonitrus' voice was low and booming, more a rumble than a clear sound. "You have been deposed. A king no longer, your crown falls instead to Noctis Lucis Caelum."
So Bahamut had said. Or attempted to. And yet the idea that some distant figure on high—some being who knew nothing of what Regis had sacrificed for Lucis, who knew nothing of the world at all, and who, no less, had created the very darkness they all sought to destroy—could point a finger and decide who did or did not rule a kingdom was preposterous.
And yet, it was precisely what he had done to Ardyn, was it not?
Was this why Somnus stood in the back, a subdued figure amongst his brethren? He could not face down Regis, knowing he stood in the wrong, knowing that Regis knew all his missteps and transgressions.
"Noctis is not even twelve years old," Regis said. "Even if I were prepared to accept the Draconian's judgement on who should rule Lucis, this would be a step too far."
"He may have a regent, but the throne is rightly his. Your connection to the light has been severed," Tonitrus said. "You can wield neither the crystal nor the ring."
"Is that truly the judgement you wish to pass? Before you cast me out, open yours minds to mine—and if my memories are insufficient truth, note now that two Astrals have taken bonds to stand beside me and against Bahamut. Would you truly leave Lucis in the hands of a twelve year old at the whim of the very same being who inflicted the Starscourge upon us?"
A silence followed his words. Though the towering icons in their spectral armor held little in common with their human selves, a shifting ran through their ranks. They seemed almost to look aside to each of their neighbors, as if wishing to see what everyone else would do before making their own choice. When had the Kings of Lucis become thus indecisive and incapable of seeing truth and justice? Each of them had once stood in his very place. Had death stripped from them the memories of a kingdom and a family? The true reason they strove against the darkness?
"And you, King Somnus?" Regis called into the silence. "Would you once more make the same mistake? The mistake you regret so deeply, which has made mockery of your very existence and that of every one of us thereafter? Will you turn aside from your flesh and blood and instead take the word of the Draconian?"
The silence that followed seemed, if possible, thicker and deeper than that before. This time, the Lucii turned to look toward their founding father, who stood in the back ranks, head bowed in the most human pose a massive suit of armor could assume.
And finally, he spoke.
"Would you grant me this second chance to prove my worth, despite all I have done?"
"I would," Regis said. "I must. If you are incapable of redemption, what must that mean for all who have followed you?"
The form of The Mystic shrank. The armor receded, as if banished from the human form it had rested upon, and the next moment Regis stood face to face with a very young King Somnus while the remaining Lucii towered above them, monoliths of no consequence.
The body he took for himself was so painfully young. Was this, perhaps, the age at which he had come into the crown? The age that he had been trapped in ever since while he relived his greatest failure and his greatest regret?
"I do not know if anything I do hereafter will be sufficient to redeem my past," he said. "But know this, King Regis: all of my failures are being undone under your reign. Every choice I was too much of a coward to make, every path I was too blind to see, you have taken. And so I say—whatever becomes of me, you have redeemed the Caelum bloodline. You are the true King of Lucis. However it came to pass."
While his words were still sinking in, Somnus turned abruptly to face the Lucii. "My sons. Let this be the day when the Lucii cast off our pasts and take hold of our own destiny. Let us no longer allow rule to fall where another claims it should. The king who stands before you has given as much and more than any of us. The Draconian claims he is no longer fit to be king, yet I see no evidence of this. Instead I suggest that Bahamut is unfit to be God. "
In the silence that followed, Regis felt more than heard the slow agreement as it passed through their ranks. A hundred kings turning aside from the Draconian to stand united with their brethren.
Somnus turned back to Regis and held out his hand. "The Lucii stand with you, King Regis. Lead and we shall follow."
Regis took the outstretched hand. In that instant of contact, a bond leapt between them. From beyond the grave, magic came flooding back to him. He could feel the depth of the world once more, sense the pulsing power of Eos all around him. But that was not the end. From every Lucii came forth more bonds and more power. Gifts he had never before asked for nor possessed came to him: the strength of every Lucii.
And through him they reached out to the others: each Lucii finding a bond to a Glaive and granting their own gifts alongside Regis'. The bonds formed once more between Regis and his retinue, as he acted as an intermediary for Somnus' magic to restore their connection to the crystal.
"Go now," Somnus said. "Lead Lucis back to the light."
