—
Fight. Try to survive. Succeed most times. Fail others. Far too many others.
Thus was the status of every living thing left on Eos.
Aranea was sick of it. Especially today. Especially in this case.
Daemons were one thing. Daemons were easy to hate. They'd lost their humanity. It was simple channeling all her rage into a fight against them. They were stupid and predictable. Know the species and you knew how to beat them. Always similar attacks. Always near the same level of danger.
But this… This wasn't what any of them were used to anymore. Of course there was the occasional survivor that had only lived as long as they had by pure luck – those who were dangerous because they were scared and selfish. But this…
She'd almost forgotten what it was like to face a steady human mind that wasn't just doing things out of fear of death.
Other than Ardyn, that was. The bastard. She wanted to stick her lance through his heart. She wanted to stick her lance through the hearts of those that would dare place her comrades and the cities in such danger.
Sick of it, sick of it, sick of it!
She was so sick of losing people.
Things were getting better. Everything had been improving with the new Wall and the new source of food…
And some assholes had decided to mess all that up because of some agenda.
Aranea needed to kill something. They needed to find these bastards and take them out.
But until then, she'd just have to make due with her current target practice.
Things were different tonight, Gladio realized. It had taken him a bit, given how distracted he was with the whole kidnapping matter, but this fight definitely had a different edge to it. He knew Aranea's style well enough to pick up on that by this point.
They'd been sparing frequently as of late. He hadn't been sure he was going to get more than that first fight, but she'd agreed to the second one with a lot less resistance. And then she'd agreed to the next. And the next. And the next. Until their spars became a regular thing. A regular… stress outlet. And a stress outlet was exactly what everyone needed given the situation they were in currently.
Missing friends. No leads. Endless searching. And Ardyn was hovering around.
Stress was exactly the reason Gladio hadn't caught on faster that what he'd been waiting for was happening. But then it hit him. Well, Aranea hit him. Hard. He'd blocked it, thankfully, but his teeth clacking together had been the wakeup call.
Aranea was not restraining herself like she normally would against an ally. Even when she wasn't specifically going easy on someone, she didn't normally wail on them like they were a daemon that had particularly pissed her off.
Right now, Gladio felt disconcertingly like prey.
He shoved back against her lance, using his superior upper body strength to his advantage since he couldn't match her in terms of speed.
She just backflipped gracefully, landing posed to spring again.
He circled right, keeping a close eye one her movements. "You good?"
"Yep," she grunted, eyes harder than usual. "Why, you not?"
"Just fine," he returned easily.
"Good, because I need a punching bag today." She propelled herself forward on the last word, heading straight for him with a frosty look he'd never seen from her before.
At least… not against a human target.
He called his shield to hand, bringing it to him just in time to intercept the strike – the strike that sent actual sparks flying upon contact.
Shit.
Gladio staggered back as the red blasting power from her lance stood the hairs on the back of his neck on end.
"Hey! You wanna cool it?" He gave up on blocking again and chose to dodge her next swipe. Right, Okay. She was usually faster, but right now she was relying more on her power, and his shield wasn't going to take too many hits like those last two.
"What's the matter, Muscles, can't handle me?" she taunted.
That… was a terrifying taunt, to be honest. The pure deadness of her tone…
"I shouldn't have to handle you like this!" He twisted out of the way again on his last word. She was not relenting.
"Gladio! 'Nea!"
Gladio huffed in exhaustion, relaxing as Aranea froze prior to her next murder strike. He wasn't sure whether to thank Prompto or strangle him. On one hand, Gladio had clearly been making some progress on cracking Aranea's shell this time. On the other, he didn't particularly want to be impaled. He'd been aiming more for getting her to finally break down in tears or something, not go into a blind murder rage.
"What," Aranea said flatly, still staring Gladio down with a tight grip on her lance.
"Uh…" Prompto blinked at the two of them, definitely having realized he'd cut into something. "There's a transmission! From the kidnappers!"
…Right. The Aranea egg could wait.
This was utterly asinine. And infuriating.
This absolute idiot was screwing over the world for his agenda while claiming it was beneficial to humanity.
Honestly. Leadership decided by nationality when none of the prior nations had existed for years? The geographical location of one's birth did not a leader produce. And to steal most of the leaders so that the entire workload was dumped on the ones they claimed to favor? Unhelpful to say the very least.
"Furthermore, the opportunity–"
"My, he certainly likes the sound of his own voice, doesn't he?"
Half the occupants at the meeting table – the full list being Ravus himself, Lunafreya, Gladiolus, Aranea, and the four Argentums – jumped at Ardyn suddenly making his presence known.
Ravus' scowl was so deep that it would likely dent his skull if he kept pushing it. For once, he agreed with Ardyn.
"Ardyn," Lunafreya chastised lowly, clearly still trying to listen.
"What?" Ardyn spread his arms. "He's repeated himself numerous times. I would hope you've all gotten the gist by now."
Ravus resisted rolling his eyes. He took back his agreement. Could Ardyn be more of a hypocrite if he tried? It would likely take some serious effort. Did anyone parade around dramatically and preen to the level Ardyn did? If so, Ravus hoped he never met them. Ardyn was quite enough on his own.
"He may inadvertently give away something we can use," Lunafreya said, her eyes still hard and locked onto the the same spot on the table.
Prompto groaned yanking at the longer tresses of his hair at the base of this neck. "Can't you, like, use your daemon powers to, like, pinpoint their location and beam over?"
Ardyn turned an amused raised eyebrow to him very slowly. "…Oh dear boy, bless your heart. I may be able to beam over as you say, but I do, in fact, need a location. The daemonic power within me unfortunately does not cover electronic signal triangulation."
Prompto opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then slouched in his chair. "…Okay, fair enough."
"Will you two can it?" Gladiolus snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, so sorry," Ardyn mocked.
…How had they all come to this? Not long ago, Ardyn's mere presence would have silenced everyone in a room in fear. Now he was squabbling with the others like school children…
"Why would they take them?" Aranea asked suddenly, obviously still focused on the broadcast instead of the harassment around her.
This time the raised eyebrow came from the hatted clone. Although it was hard to tell he even had eyebrows under that hat. "What, did ya miss 'is reasoning the first three times?"
Aranea didn't seem fazed by his sarcasm. She tapped her fingers on the table. "What part of his plan requires kidnapping them? Why not kill them? They had the chance. What they accomplished was a hell of a lot harder."
"Endearment…" Lunafreya mumbled. "Assassinating the others outright would to little to earn a trust in the peace and safety this man to claims seek."
"Right…" Gladio had his eyes scrunched shut. "You bust down the doors as a tyrant, people are gonna fight back. This guy is dropping the mercy card while he's trying to rally people to his side. He won't kill them and lose that if he can help it."
"Then that gives us more time to rescue them!" Evan pipped up for the first time since they'd all gathered.
Ardyn snapped his fingers. "That it does. And it also give you lot quite a bit to worry about here." He shook his head. "Oh dear, oh dear…"
"Are referring to something specific?" Ravus asked dryly. They had many worries at the moment.
Ardyn spread his arms wide, turning in a full circle. "Why, the whole city is hearing this! They'll be watching you now. Judging. Do poorly, and they lose faith. But if you do too well, then the people just might start to think this pest is right about the others not being needed…"
…What joy.
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