"I'm ready for whatever secrets this cave is about to reveal. How exciting!" Elea said, her lack of fear somewhat refreshing, and reminded me to take in a deep breath before we went in.

"We're going in." I told the other two who followed in right behind me.

"Don't slack off now, or I'll find the captain before you two." Yura said, holding his weapon over his shoulder at the ready.

"You wish, just try to keep up with me." Elea said, joining in on the playful banter.

"This isn't a competition you two, this is a rescue. This is no time for jokes." I said, trying to remind them why we were here.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like that. Just trying to lighten the mood." Yura said apologetically.

"She gets so serious when it has to do with the captain." Elea tried to whisper to Yura.

Turning my head over to Elea, I narrowed my eyes in slight annoyance at that comment.

"I heard that." I said.

"Would you look at that! What a nice, er, rock!" Elea tried to point out on the ground to change the topic.

"Rocks?" I said looking down, pointing the flashlight attached to my shirt towards it.

Stopping in my tracks, I bent down in order to pick up some of the crushed rocks in the palm of my hand.

"What do you see?" Yura asked, standing over me, looking at the debris on the ground.

"I didn't know you were such a petrologist." Elea said, bending down next to me to pick up some rocks in her own palm to see what had interested me.

"I'm not." I answered, taking a closer look at the handful of rocks in my hand. "This wasn't like this before, something happened. We're close. There was a battle here, but he must've moved deeper in the cave for some reason rather than follow the rest of the Hunters out."

"How did you get all that just from those rocks?" Elea asked in wonder.

"These edges right here. See how they're cut straight? It's as if something slashed it." I explained, holding up one of the bigger rocks at eye level for her to see.

"By the looks of it, doesn't seem like the captain's hurt. I don't see any blood around here." Yura said, checking around the area with his light.

Standing up after dropping all of the rocks back on the ground, he was right. It calmed me down somewhat to realize Prompto seemed to be alright so far.

"He's gonna get an earful from me when I find him, making us worry about him like this." I said with a roll of my eyes, increasingly feeling hopeful and able to make light of the situation somewhat.

"I'd say you're the most worried one of all, you can't hide it from us." Elea said with a wink.

Hearing such a comment from her again, I turned to face her with a hand on my hip.

"I'd say he's not going to be the only one getting an earful from me at this rate." I said with an eyebrow raised.

"Hey, hey. I'm just kidding." Elea said with both of her hands raised. "Half kidding at least."

Turning around to walk further into the cave without saying anything else, we followed where the damage on the walls were leading us. The light attached to my shirt began to dim.

"Geez, not now!" I groaned in frustration, taking it off to hold in my hand to shake it a few times in a futile attempt to make it last longer.

"What happened? Your light? Do you have a replacement with you?" Yura asked me.

"I'd give you my replacement light, but this one I'm using is the replacement. The other one broke when we were fighting out there earlier. Sorry, I should've brought an extra one with me just in case. I'm clumsy so I usually bring more." Elea said.

"No. It's my fault for not paying attention. Plus, we aren't planning to stay in here too long anyways, so it'll be okay as long as we move quickly and cautiously." I told the both of them.

Walking on ahead, it became quiet between the three of us in order to hear any kind of noise to warn us for any possible daemon attacks or to listen for any indication to where our captain has disappeared off to.

"Well this is a bust. We haven't even been attacked once!" Elea spoke up after a while.

"She's right. There doesn't seem to be any daemons like I expected to find in here. I imagined something... Well, a bit more if I'm being honest with you." Yura agreed.

"Do you think he took all of them on himself? That's the only explanation." Elea suggested. "Geez... All of this boring walking is getting tedious."

"You had better not be letting your guard down, you hear me?" I said. "There's nothing safe about a cave like this where a Hunter who's as strong as Annie got hurt like that. We're at a disadvantage, we can't see in the dark like the daemons can. Get yourselves focused."

"Yes, ma'am!" Elea and Yura said at the same time.

"I do have to agree with you though, this has been a lot easier than what we thought it would be. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised myself... And I know that I can come off as a bit harsh at times, but I don't want to lose anyone out here. I plan to bring everyone back home safely."

"Hearing stuff like that come from you reminds me why I'm glad I joined your squad." Yura said.

"You're the best captain a Glaive could ever ask for!" Elea said with a thumbs up.

"Stop it. It's normal to not want your teammates to die, isn't it?" I asked, embarrassed at the sudden praise.

"I'm glad to fight alongside the Glaives. I know I'm younger than the rest of them, but I want to be able to keep up and be as strong as both of the captains one day." Elea admitted out loud.

"When the sun returns, becoming strong isn't something that we'd have to worry about anymore." Yura said.

"When that happens, how would you be able to cope without your regularly scheduled near-death experiences out on the field?" I asked, jokingly.

"H- hey! It's not like I go around asking those daemons to try and kill me!" Elea said with an exaggerated sigh.

Yura and I laughed at the light hearted teasing, Elea joining in with us as we walked. Talking like this with them, it helped clear my mind and I really needed that.

The longer we walked, the more I began to consider he wasn't here at all. Did we take a wrong turn at one point? The only indication of his presence were the scattered rocks or slashed walls every now and then but were far and few in between which made it hard to follow the right path at times.

It wasn't long after the battery on my light had unfortunately run out. From then on, I was depending on the light from the other two to see where I was walking. Everything was too quiet for too long which made me wonder what happened, until I heard it... A sudden booming noise echoed clearly in the distance.

"You guys hear that? It must be him!" Elea said, pointing towards the darkness.

"He might need our help. Are you going to be okay fighting without a light?" Yura asked me before we broke into a sprint to reach the source of the noise, getting louder with each step we took.

"After all these years without the sun, I'm used to fighting in the dark. Don't worry about me, I'm going to be okay." I answered.

"We'll be your eyes if you need." Elea said with a nod.

When we followed the end of the path towards to where we heard the noise, another loud boom that shook the walls caught me off guard. The source of the noise was a giant daemon which stopped us in our tracks at the horrifying sight of it. Surrounding the daemon were the scattered bodies of the smaller daemons I had expected the three of us to have fought through our way to get here.

"But they're all already..." I said in my shock, realizing all the daemons were already taken care of.

"Can't say I expected anything different when I first heard that noise coming from it earlier. The size of it is just incredible, even for a daemon." Yura said, looking up at the intimidating height of it.

"The final boss is never supposed to be an easy one and this one looks like it definitely packs a punch." Elea said

"If we're going to defeat this thing, we need to hit it hard all at once, faster than it can regenerate." I began, trying to come up with a quick strategy as I kept my eyes on it. "Considering its size, we'll need to surround it in order to overpower it to take it down. If you feel as though you're in danger, pull back immediately. There's no shame in trying to survive a battle we might not win, to be blunt, we escape if we need to and call for back up if we can't handle Tiny by ourselves."

Getting ready for battle, I motioned my hands for Yura and Elea to surround the daemon while I would aim for it's blind spot. The two had nodded once and we split up, not making any noise and turning off their lights as we moved in closer in order to not catch it's attention and ruin the element of surprise.

When I ran closer to the daemon, there was something wrong. It suddenly growled loud enough to make me cover my ears and back up a few steps. For seemingly no reason, the daemon had fallen over, motionless.

Without warning, my arm was grabbed and I was pushed onto the ground roughly. I felt something cold on my neck and a something heavy hold me down to where I couldn't move freely. Without any light, I couldn't see anything in front of me.

"W- WAIT!" I called out all of a sudden.

When I spoke up, there was movement from whatever was holding me down.

"Are you okay?!" Elea said when she ran over to the sound of my voice, her light turned back on. "Oh!"

"Did one of you do that? The daemon is dead but the captain isn't her-" Yura said when he walked over, shocked with what he saw when he turned his light back on. "Is that...?"

With the both of them shining their lights at me, I was able to see what it was that held me down on the ground, or rather who it was.

"Prompto?" I asked.

Twitch: Enrita11