When Ardyn Izunia gets up, tips his ridiculous hat at them, and strides away, the bullet holes Prompto drilled into his head still bleeding black smoke, Gladio roars and rushes after him, broadsword raised high.
Ignis, who didn't even try to take a swipe at Ardyn, sticks out his cane and trips him with all the grace and lack of concern of a mean girl in a school anime. Gladio crashes into the metal catwalk, almost tipping off the edge, barely keeping his hold on the sword. The discordant, deafening twang of metal fills the entire cavernous space. Ignis stands to the side, hands on his cane, his scars unreadable, and doesn't make a move to help.
"Iggy," Prompto says, blinking, "what the fuck?"
Gladio's climbing to his feet with ominous calm. It's like Ignis' unexpected burst of insanity flipped some switch in him, from berserker rage to careful attention. "Yeah," he says, slowly. "Anything you want to share, Ignis?"
Ignis turns his back on him and starts towards the Crystal, mapping the walkway before him with measured taps. "He can't die, however much you swing your sword at him," he says. "But he can lead you into a trap. You're welcome."
With that, he seems to dismiss Gladio fully from his mind. He's almost to the Crystal now, skin washed out by the purple light. Prompto can't imagine voluntarily standing so close to it, especially after what it did to Noct just now. A holy relic or not, he's not ashamed to admit it gives him some major heebie-jeebies.
"Guys," he says and gets ignored again. Gladio's still boring holes in Ignis' back with his eyes. Ignis raises his hand, reaching out and arresting himself with his hand an inch away from the glowing spikes.
"Is he truly gone?"
"Yeah," Prompto says, swallowing. "Can we..."
Ignis spits a glob of blood-tinted saliva on the metal flooring under the Crystal and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
Prompto gapes. He's exhausted, covered in his own blood and daemon guts, floundering. He spent days being tortured and then hours fighting, he reunited with Noct and lost him again in a span of a day, he met an ancient monster - but this is still the most shocking thing he's ever seen. He'd be less astonished if Ignis sprouted wings and jumped into the air.
"Ignis Scientia," Gladio says, in a voice that raises goosebumps on Prompto's arms and back, "think of what you're doing."
Ignis turns to him; his face is placid, almost amused. "My lord Amicitia," he says, just shy of mocking, "how pious of you."
He doesn't try to reach for his daggers, but the air between them thickens anyway, becomes syrupy with violence. Prompto steps back, grateful for the bite of metal grating into his back, trying to keep them both in his line of sight. He doesn't understand. The practice of faith in Lucis is reserved to those of the Citadel, and Prompto's own introduction to the divine has been limited to witnessing Noct's skirmishes with gods, something that doesn't exactly inspire him to spirituality. But he has spent so much of his life watching people that he knows in his bones Gladio's going to draw with real intent, and that Ignis will meet his strike.
"Guys," he says again. "Guys!"
He wants to say something smart and profound and grounding, something that will make everything okay again. But his eyes and his throat are filling up with miserable heat instead, and all his words tie into an awkward, awful knot on his tongue. He steps between Ignis and Gladio, spreads his arms. "Please," he manages. "Please, I can't deal with this right now."
There's a moment - a very real, very long moment - when he thinks he's going to be swept out of the way, insignificant in the face of something he doesn't belong to. He spent endless hours spread on Ardyn's cross this way, caught in the same loop of misery: longing to be seen and found, afraid of being seen, and found, and abandoned again. His heart hammers and his mouth dries out; he stands between Gladio and Ignis, telling himself he should get out of the way, let them fight it out, let them -
"Fuck this," Gladio says, and whirls around to kick the rail, making the whole catwalk twang and jitter. "Calm your tits, Prompto, I'm not going to kill him."
Ignis narrows his eyes, and Prompto considers leaping at him and knocking him out before he can try to blaspheme his way into a fight again. But Ignis deflates, rubs at the edge of his scars.
"Right," he says, evenly. "What does it even matter?"
He moves to the railing, feeling his way awkwardly through each step, and slides down, stretches his long legs out, tilts his head back. "Doesn't matter," he says again as if talking to himself. "Doesn't matter at all."
"We can't leave the Crystal," Gladio says. He's pacing back and forth at the far end of the walkway, either doing breathing exercises or trying to talk himself out of murder. Prompto doesn't like the forced calm of his voice, although he'll take it over an explosion.
"Um, big guy," he says. "I've been doing inventory, and we have one potion, two bottles of water, and three ration bars to our name."
Ignis releases a tiny sarcastic huff of breath from where he's still sitting sprawled against the railing. Prompto winces with guilt. He took over their stash management after Altissia, when they had run out of potions mid-fight, and had been rudely reminded that their potion stock wasn't managed by Armiger fairies… He didn't do too badly, he thinks, except that then Ardyn happened. Whatever there had been, they must've spent it all fighting through the Keep.
Gladio waves his concerns away. "This place must have some resources," he says. "Daemons don't eat, and soldiers do. We'll find the mess and raid it, work from there. I've seen some vending machines, too."
Prompto's entire being rebels against the idea of being stuck here with the Crystal for days - months? - in the dark of Zegnautus Keep. It doesn't feel right. The Crystal doesn't say Noct to him: it gives him the same feeling the shores of Angelgard did when they got too close, the same deep, forbidding rejection. This can't be the task that Noct left them.
He's afraid to say this to Gladio. He's just Noct's high school friend; apparently, he's just Noct's secretly Niflhelm clone high school friend. He's not Citadel-born, and he's not Citadel-raised. If he raises his objections, Gladio might tell him that he can't hope to get it - that he'll never be one of them in this - and he can't afford it, not right now.
He turns to Ignis, not sure if he wants Ignis to contradict Gladio, or if he's afraid that Ignis will contradict Gladio and restart the fight he's been spoiling for. He can't get a proper read on Ignis right now, and it scares him. Something about Ignis hasn't added up since Altissia, in a way that can't be chalked down to just his injuries. Something was - is - very wrong.
Ignis doesn't do either of those things. He raises his head slowly, cocks an ear towards the entrance; his face is intent and still. "Something's wrong," he whispers, echoing Prompto's thoughts so neatly Prompto's afraid, for a hysterical moment, that he's read his mind.
There's a dull, popping crackle over their heads. Prompto whips his head up and sees that the murky light panels set high into walls of their cavernous space are dark. There's nothing left but the light of the Crystal, and the edges of the hall drop into deep inky shadows.
"Gladio," Ignis calls, climbing to his feet and summoning his daggers. "Get away from there."
BOOM!
Prompto can't see what's happening by the entrance, but the sound comes from there. Gladio's backing up to them, his greatsword in hand.
BOOM!
The Keep doors are heavy, all at least ten inches thick, set deeply into the walls. For all intents and purposes, it looks like somebody - something - is bowing them in from the outside. A lot of something.
BOOM!
"He turned off the lights," Prompto whispers. "He turned off the lights in the entire Keep and herded them all here."
His gun is in his hand and he doesn't remember when he got it out. Ignis shoulders him out of the way. He and Gladio get in position, covering Prompto, leaving him space to shoot. Prompto's mouth dries out. He's seen just about everything that Eos has to offer, from monsters to gods, by now. He's still afraid, every time.
The gate gives up with an unbearable whine of tortured metal. The daemons pour in.
Down by the elevator, they fought a great lot of them. But here and now, it feels like all the daemons of Gralea are packed into one narrow space. It's hard to pick out individual monsters; they coagulate into one undulating mass of gleaming eyes and slavering tongues, sharp teeth, mandibles, claws. They gibber and chitter and growl, and they're all waiting at the edge of the Crystal's light, straining forward but unable to cross the holy boundary.
"You might just get your wish, Gladio," Ignis drawls, his sarcastic tones audibly strained by the end of the sentence. Gladio grunts in response and rolls his shoulders.
With a great and sudden collapse of displaced air, a moan of the universe in distress, the Crystal behind them disappears.
Their flashlights come to life. Prompto doesn't have time to think anything beyond a workable fuck; he sees, in the narrow beam, daemons rising like a tidal wave. It's almost beautiful, in a macabre sort of way; Prompto thinks he's screaming, but he can't hear himself.
"Run," Gladio bellows into his ear, and all but throws him forward. Prompto grabs blindly for Ignis' hand and hauls them both into a desperate dash. Gladio's boots thud behind them, more vibration than sound. The air is overwritten by the long, undulating growl of hateful hunger.
Prompto's flashlight doesn't reach the end of the walkway. The way their luck is, there might be nothing - a drop - a dead-end - he runs, runs, runs. The sounds are coming closer. Ignis jerks him down, almost tripping him, and there's a swish where something sharp and enormous parts the air where their heads have just been. Prompto's thoughts blur together into a sort of exhausted and smeared aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah that feels like blood on his tongue. He's going to die running through the dark.
Gladio's hand is between his shoulder blades; Gladio pushes him with all his strength and momentum. Prompto lets go of Ignis' hand; he falls, grating the skin off his hands and knees, stunned. He scrambles to his knees. His flashlight catches the locked gate, just a handful of steps ahead of them. There's a sound behind him, a sharp wet sound of parted leather and flesh that he hears even over the baleful daemonic din. He whirls around.
Time dissolves further into a handful of instant camera photos, little flashes. Gladio, blood and guts spilling onto the thin metal, already halfway buried under the daemonic deluge. Gladio, still trying to swing his sword. Ignis, daggers gone, spear out, a clean, heartbreakingly beautiful somersault into the thick of daemons. The crystalline perfection of the potion knitting flesh whole. The sweep of the spear, one, two, entirely futile, but enough that Gladio pulls himself clear.
Something - a claw, a stinger, a blade? - emerges, dripping, high from Ignis' chest. His spear dissolves.
Prompto, released back into real-time, drops his left knee, steadies his elbow on the right, and starts shooting.
Gladio draws Ignis roughly off the weapon, hoists his arm over his shoulder. Prompto can't see Ignis' face, but his movements are jerky, uncontrolled, devoid of grace. Gladio cleaves a broad swatch with his sword, turns his head. Prompto meets his gaze and switches his weapon, praying that Gladio gets it. He fires a perfectly arched Gravisphere deeper into the throng.
Gladio throws himself and Ignis forward into a long and desperate lunge, barely clearing the edge of the spell, and Prompto pulls them forward. They scramble towards the gates, Prompto chanting please please please please under his breath as he scrabbles for his wristband.
The locks listen. They fall into the stairwell, and the door slides closed behind them.
"Up," Gladio pants, "I've got him." Ignis makes a strangled affirmative sound. Prompto's flashlight glints off his silver scars and bounces away.
They're in a narrow shaft leading up, higher into the fortress. Prompto tries to think of the map and figure out where they are, and gives up almost immediately. There's an elevator in front of them, dark and dead.
The gate they came through shivers under the first blow. Prompto mashes his wrist against the elevator controls, trying to make it come alive the same way he did with the door, and keens in frustration.
"Stairs," Ignis whispers. "Leave… me. I'll… hold."
"Shut the fuck up, Iggy," Gladio says. Prompto passes him his bandana, and Gladio folds it and presses, hard, against Ignis' shoulder. Prompto begins patting the walls around the elevator, absurdly like a character in a video game in search of the secret level. The air stinks of their terrified sweat, and of Ignis' blood.
A wall under Prompto's fingers gives, opening into a narrow, winding spiral of access staircase.
"Horrible safety regulations," Prompto's mouth says without an input of his brain. He scrambles up the stairs, and Gladio swears and thuds behind him, supporting most of Ignis' weight. "Can you even fit here, big guy?"
Gladio growls, and Prompto shuts up. The stairs are slippery and narrow, and he's busy trying to convince his feet and his lungs that they can't collapse yet. The booming sounds of the daemons battering the entrance come closer and closer together, each ringing the stairwell like a giant bell. Behind him, Gladio shakes the stairs with each plodding step. He swears at Ignis like he can't help it, a breathless litany of you can't and fuck you and Noct and don't you dare. Ignis' lungs produce sounds so quiet and awful that Prompto shouldn't even hear them over the noise. He does.
The stairwell is endless. His flashlight, when he stares ahead, doesn't catch anything but more metal and darkness. They're going to climb and climb and climb until they get overrun and eaten - they've already been overrun and eaten - it's useless, it's - Ignis is dying -
There's a mighty twanging crash below them, so loud that he thinks for a moment that it's the entire Keep breaking apart; and then a triumphant, hungry howl rises, a wave of sound that has nothing to do with living throats.
Prompto's body abruptly decides that it has enough energy for a sprint. He scrambles up with the desperate speed of a Duscaean centipede caught in a beam of light on the wall, his heart in his throat, and doesn't stop until his head hits an access hatch and he bites through his tongue.
"Ow," Prompto says. His mouth is full of blood.
"The lock, Prompto," Gladio pants. Prompto bruises his wrist banging it against the control panel. The lock takes just long enough to disengage that Prompto has time to decide that they're going to die trapped here.
The hatch opens.
Prompto flies up the rungs, then heaves Ignis' up as Gladio pushes him from below. Ignis bares his teeth mindlessly at Prompto as they jostle him; his face is a mask of agony, and mostly blood from his chin down. Even with Gladio's help, Prompto has to pull and heave until Ignis' dead weight clears the entrance, and they both sprawl on their backs on the metal grating.
Gladio pulls himself up and slams the hatch behind him. The daemonic howl is cut off abruptly: there's a staccato drum of Prompto's heart, and Ignis' exhausted panting moans, and Gladio's heavy breathing.
Prompto learns to the side and throws up bile, together with the blood from his bitten tongue, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Now… what?"
Gladio hauls him up to standing, then drops to his knees at Ignis' side. "Look around," he says, "try to do something. I'll keep the idiot alive for now."
Ignis raises his hand in a feeble but unmistakable rude gesture but doesn't open his eyes. Prompto blinks the tears from his eyelashes.
"Will take them some time to deal with the staircase," Gladio says. "If there's nothing useful, we fight. If there is - find it, Blondie, your luck's good."
He leans over Ignis with one of Ignis' daggers in hand, slashes a long line through his shirt, and Prompto turns away.
Their new refuge is cramped, the walls and the floor made out of the same ubiquitous and dull evil stronghold metal. But there's a semicircle of five smooth terminals, all dead or dormant, next to the opposite wall. He goes to investigate, trying his best to ignore the wet and awful sounds happening behind them. His best is not very good, in this instance.
The way the console is arranged makes Prompto think there should be a viewscreen or a window in front of it, but there's only dead steel.
The terminals don't oblige him by lighting up as he approaches, as he half-hopes. He searches for the place to scan his barcode, marveling at how by now it's practically a mundane action, not a momentous betrayal of a lifetime of fears. There's nothing. The console is smooth, and dark, and unwelcoming. He kicks it in frustration and stubs his toes.
(The room is no wider than six steps across. Gladio won't even be able to swing his sword properly. Prompto hates this space already and hates it especially as the place of their fast-coming last stand.)
Ignis' wet panting rises into an incoherent, uncivilized howl that makes the hair on the back of Prompto's neck rise. Gladio talks over him, a fond and steady litany, and Prompto bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds. He leans down to the console and starts mapping its screens with his palms, trying to leave no place untouched.
The middle panel bites him. He swears and flinches away, brings the heel of his palm to his mouth; a small drop of his blood is left in the middle of the glass. "The hell," Prompto says.
The entire console lights up. "Welcome, Director Besithia," says a mechanical and pleasant voice. "Manual controls engaged."
Despite everything, his first instinct is still to lunge forward and try and muffle the sound. He can't help hunching over, can't help throwing a quick, terrified glance at Gladio and Ignis, checking if they heard. This is a secret he hasn't told yet. This is too much.
Ignis is sprawled in a bloody welter of bandages and cloth, eyes closed, mouth half-open; his head is pillowed on Gladio's knees, and Gladio's murmuring something to him, too quiet for Prompto to catch over the panicked beating of his heart. Gladio's face is quiet and fond, eerily peaceful. Prompto blinks and sees a superimposed image of them sitting this way in one of the Insomnia parks when they were young, somewhere with cherry blossoms and cheerful people walking by. Gladio's holding Ignis' hand. Ignis seems to be holding back.
"Uh," Prompto says, arrested by the sight. He takes a deep breath and tells himself it's just like seeing the entire rollercoaster ride from the topmost point: terrifying, but gravity will take care of everything. "This thing seems to think that I'm Verstael Besithia. Because, y'know, he made - cloned - uh, me. It's kinda a long story."
"Lucky… us," Ignis whispers, with no apparent trace of irony.
Gladio raises his head. "Prompto," he says, "didn't Noct tell you already? I don't care if you're Aldercapt's long lost son, you're one of us. And if it means you can make this tin can save our asses, that's our win. And Besithia's loss, wherever the fuck he is."
"Nowhere," Prompto says, and rubs at his eyes. A bubble of hiccupping laughter rises in him, and he lets it break through. "Heavy artillery beats family therapy!"
The thing happening to him is too big to be called relief; he bounces on his toes and turns back to the console. If he's released from all his secrets - if he's allowed to survive the revelation of all his secrets intact - he'd rather they all live so he could enjoy it. "Okay," he says to the console. "Report?"
It takes him some time to get the hang of the information, a mix of numbers and diagrams on the screen, and the interpretation given by the mechanical voice. There are reports on Verstael's experiments that he sweeps through, wishing he could kill the guy all over again. There are tallies of mechanical damage. There are the infection numbers. All together they clearly add up to you are fucked.
Just as he thinks that, a first heavy blow falls on the access hatch. He whips around.
"Prompto," Gladio says, calmly. He doesn't stop stroking Ignis' sad and drooping hair and doesn't make a move to get off his knees. "Showtime. Do we buy you time or do we-"
His left thumb flashes a quick, soundless line across Ignis' throat.
"Not your fault either way," Gladio says. "Wouldn't have gotten this far without you, you know."
"Hear, hear," Ignis murmurs. He sounds drowsy now, almost serene. "Prop me up, Gladio."
"Guys," Prompto says. He wants to tell them that the generators feeding the lights were blown up; that the access shaft under them and the corridors beneath are so packed with daemons they light up a uniform red on the maps; that he doesn't know what to do. That he can't fix it.
"Time," he says instead. "I'll figure it out. And - Gladio, Ignis - I love you, you know?"
Gladio's grin is a quick, feral flash in the beam of light. "Same, Blondie. Now get to it, and don't turn around."
The daemons batter the hatch without rest. Each deafening bang makes the muscles of Prompto's back clench tighter and tighter. There are closer sounds of preparation, too, the whisper of leather, Gladio murmuring, Ignis' harsh, laboring wheeze. From the corner of his eye Prompto sees Gladio drag Ignis closer, prop him against the left console with his javelin on his knees.
Prompto makes himself look away. He takes a breath, long and deliberate, filling his lungs and counting to ten on the top of the inhale, and then lets it all out in a slow controlled gust. Then he dives in.
The assistant, sadly, is not a helpful (or even malicious) AI like in the comics: it answers Prompto's questions and interprets information for him if he asks, but it doesn't have useful suggestions. He has to find the right questions to ask by himself, and, Verstael Besithia's clone or not, he knows fuck all about Niflhelm military operation systems and interfaces. And the more he digs in, the more he hates them. Not just because he keeps running into detailed descriptions of war crimes, but because only a monster would design a search function this counterintuitive.
A blast of sound behind him. Gladio shouts something; the hungry, mindless roar floods the space. Prompto curls over the console, feeling acutely how defenseless his back is, waiting for the blow or bite.
Search. Search. Sweat slides down his temples and the back of his neck. The lights are out, the backup lights are out, the super-secret floodlights are out, fuck Ardyn. There are no turrets or robots or anything hidden in the walls, at least not in this particular access shaft. Behind him, Gladio stomps and pivots, and he must be using thrusts, not slashes for now. Dead daemons disappear, making it impossible to block the access hatch with their bodies. There's no laser grid. All the doors he can operate remotely are busted through. The search keeps giving him access codes to summon soldiers, except they're all out of control daemons, thanks for nothing.
In a sudden beat of silence, he hears Gladio grunt and falter. Prompto's stomach curdles in fear. Gladio falls back a step, second, and there's a whoosh of his sword again. Prompto's afraid to look at Ignis. Prompto's afraid, period.
"Come on," he hisses, "give me something. This old creep must've had something in reserve."
Blows, thuds; the stench of miasma is thickening, coating his nose and mouth with its licorice-and-bloody-mud flavor. He gags, leans in, starts inputting random search terms in desperation. Escape, no; rescue, no; save, no; weapons, a lot of completely useless bullshit. Flee - no, it doesn't like verbs - flight…
Gladio's back is against his, feverishly hot. Gladio's fighting silently now, saving his breath, and Prompto can feel him faltering. He risks a glance, sees Ignis thrust his javelin into a snaga when the thing's claws are inches from his face, and looks away.
"Initiate flight sequence, Director Besithia?"
What?
"Yes," Prompto says, "yes, whatever!"
"Repeated authorization required."
He slams his palm back on the panel, letting it bite him again. "Do it!"
"Flight sequence initiated, all personnel stand by. Flight sequence initiated, all personnel stand by. Flight…"
The fortress groans. It's a long and mournful sound of metal waking up, so loud that it subsumes even the hungry daemonic howls. It rattles the teeth in Prompto's head and makes his sinews vibrate like plucked strings. The floor rolls and bucks under his feet. Gladio's thrown back, and Prompto barely avoids getting squashed between him and the console. Even the monsters pause, raising their mournful and empty muzzles to the ceiling in confusion.
Prompto reaches out, grabs Ignis under his forearms, and drags him into the dubious safety of the console semicircle. Ignis' javelin clatters to the floor; his hands fall limply by his sides. On Prompto's other side Gladio steadies himself, panting.
The sound rises in an angry crescendo; gravity presses Prompto into the floor like an unkind hand - and lets him go with a pop that almost bursts his eardrums. Holy shit, he thinks, we're flying.
The daemons turn back to them. Gladio hefts his sword as if it hurts him. In the flashlight beam, Prompto can't tell if he's covered in miasma or his own blood or both; there's too much of it either way. The air stinks like an abattoir. "Now what?"
"No idea," Prompto says, honestly, and summons his gun. "Incoming!"
"Five miles," the assistant says.
It's a relief to be facing the monsters again, instead of waiting for one of them to get him in the back. A shitty kind of relief, but Prompto will take it. Prompto shoots, trying to clean space for Gladio to work, awash in sudden and exhausted clarity. He's got an entire fortress to fly, and it's useless to them; he's all out of ideas. They're about ten minutes from the end, he thinks. Ignis seems to be out, a mercy, and Noct is as safe as he can be.
"Seven miles."
An alberich sneaks past Gladio's guard, slices a long painful line down Prompto's thigh; he twists away from the worse wound, smashes the butt of his gun on the creature's head. Everything is slowing down; his hands are leaden, heavy. Maybe he should just -
"Ten miles," the voice says. "Entering the stratosphere. Director Besithia, further orders?"
Stratosphere, he thinks, muzzy remnants of geography lessons rising in him. He's shooting without taking aim, and it's about as useful as building a sandcastle in the rising tide. Troposphere, stratosphere, cloud layers… The sun…
Next to him, Gladio falls to one knee, blocks an overhand strike from the reaper at the last possible moment; the sparks glitter in the dark.
A flash of an idea lights up Prompto's exhausted brain.
"The sun," Prompto gasps. "Are there windows?"
"Yes, Director," the AI says, serenely. "There are observation ports all over the Keep."
"Open! Open ports! All of them! Stop ascent!"
The fortress shudders to a hovering stop, throwing him off his feet; he's shooting as he falls, trying to cover both Gladio and Ignis at once, and the daemons surge forward - there are fangs in his face, the drops of poison hovering on each sharp tip, there are claws and daggers - there's a grinding, awful, ratcheting noise behind them, loud even over the dim.
The sunlight pours in.
They share their last bottle of water and their last protein bars, sitting sprawled against the wall opposite the observation ports. The sunlight rolls over the fields of dark storm clouds above Gralea, painting them golden and purple and pink, and Prompto can't bear to look away. He set the course towards Tenebrae and recorded a repeating broadcast on Aranea's comm frequency, in hope that it will reach her before somebody panics and tries to shoot them out of the sky.
It pleases him, in some obscure way, that the old fortress will be of use for somebody. It's almost out of juice - he's pretty sure this is going to be its last flight - and somebody, likely them, will have to check it top to bottom to mop up the remaining daemons and make sure they don't bring the infection into Tenebrae, and to destroy the worst of the labs. But afterward, it will be a place of refuge, he thinks, imagining the clotheslines stretched across the narrow hallways, children playing in the empty labs, vendors setting up in the barracks. A good ending. He kinda hopes the stupid AI will enjoy this change in its career.
"Gladio," Ignis says, quietly, startling him out of his fantasy. "Prompto."
Prompto tears his gaze from the view and turns to Ignis. Ignis is reclining between Gladio's spread legs, half-leaning on Gladio's chest, looking so weak and pale he's almost translucent, the ugly edges of Gladio's redone surgical stitches peeking out from under the bandages. Prompto offered to go down and look for the nearest vending machine or infirmary, but Gladio said his handiwork should hold Ignis until the rendezvous with Aranea, and he'd rather Prompto not get jumped and murdered by the last lurking daemon somewhere. Ignis agreed after he woke up, but looking at him now, Prompto still wishes he insisted.
"Save your breath, Iggy," Gladio says. There are deep, painful shadows under his eyes, heavy grooves of worry on his forehead. But his arms are steady and gentle around Ignis. In a way, he seems more grounded - more real - to Prompto than he has ever since Altissia.
"It's important," Ignis whispers. "I thought - I thought there was no point. That there was only grief…"
He rolls his head to the side as if he wants to look at Prompto. The sunlight pours liquid gold over his washed-out, wounded fragility. The corners of his lips quirk up a bit. "If Prompto can summon sunlight for us at the edge of disaster… if we could survive this…"
"Spill, Igster," Prompto says. "Whatever it is, we'll deal with it."
"Together," Gladio adds, with an air of finality.
Ignis finds Gladio's hand. Ignis reaches for Prompto, too, and Prompto meets him halfway. Ignis' fingers are icy and brittle, and they shake a little.
"Noct's going to die," he says, simply and with great exhaustion. "I will tell you all I know… later."
He sighs; it's as if he's purged and bled of the last dregs of the despairing tension that held and spurred him. "I now believe we can stop it," he says. "I don't know how."
Thousands of horrified questions crowd Prompto's tongue; he meets Gladio's gaze and sets them all aside. "We'll figure it out," he promises. He squeezes Ignis' hand. "Now go to sleep."
In moments, Ignis is fast asleep. Gladio follows him several minutes later.
Prompto looks at the sunlight playing over the green of Tenebrae's mountains rising ahead and imagines Noct keeping watch over all of them, being proud of them. He salutes his vision, leans into Ignis' shoulder, and falls asleep.