Noctis woke to the competing sensations of warm blood and cold water soaking his hair, of cool night air on his face and fire at his feet.

Reaching up with a shaking hand, he struggled to wipe his eyes clear. It didn't do him much good. Everything around him was star-studded darkness and flickering firelight, drifting smoke and silhouetted treetops. It was a familiar, even generic scene, one he'd woken to countless nights before. Other than the fact, of course, that he also seemed to be staring up at…the underside of a bathroom sink?

He frowned. That didn't sound like the kind of camping he was used to…

Then hearing returned: shouts and screams and explosions and the drone of Magitek engines. Dozens of Magitek engines.

And with a gasp, Noctis remembered. The dreadnought's missile had slammed into the upper floor of the house like a meteorite, punching through a wall, followed by the ceiling, to finally embed itself somewhere in the attic.

And then it had exploded, engulfing the entire upper story in a bloom of fire and shrapnel. The blast had flung Noctis through the bathroom door and into the mirror, which had near disintegrated at the impact. He'd rebounded to land hard on the sink, a large chunk of which now lay charred and soot-stained beneath a mound of what appeared to be most of the ceiling. Hence the reason for the starlit view, he noted, and the fact that he was left soaking in several inches of water, tiles, and broken glass, with a mess of mangled pipes hanging just above his face. Best of all, the walls seemed to be on fire.

He supposed he'd better get moving, then.

Hissing through tightly gritted teeth, Noctis levered himself painfully to his feet, using the remains of the sink to pull himself up. One of its ceramic edges cut into his hand—but the blood merely mingled with what was already seeping from the gashes littering his arms, soaking into the sleeves of his sleep shirt. His back hurt terribly, but not as much as his head. He should probably stop smashing it into things—especially mirrors, if the bloodied glass tumbling from his hair was anything to go by. Noctis snickered inanely to himself, and something deep inside his brain—the part that wasn't rattling loosely around, anyway—informed him that this was a bad sign. He stumbled forward anyway, bent nails and tarpaper and chunks of drywall digging into his bare feet.

As he staggered across the threshold of what used to be the bathroom door, Noctis nearly buckled in relief at the sight of his friends. Coated in blood and soot stains, they didn't look much better than him. But they were, blessedly, alive.

Or at least, they were for the moment. Prompto sat crouched inside a makeshift pillbox, having obviously created it in great haste with a piled-up mess of what might have once been their beds. With the composure of a hard-bitten professional, he was systematically taking out MTs, one at a time, as they crawled up the house and through the space where the second-story walls used to be. Ignis, daggers in hand, caught the few who made it through Prompto's line of fire, and Gladio, wielding a bedpost, was cracking skulls at the bedroom door.

But more streamed in after them—some leaping from dropships, others simply boiling up in waves from outside. There were so many—hundreds. It seemed Aldercapt had finally had enough of the rogue king of Lucis.

Noctis smiled darkly. Well, he'd be sure to make his execution as onerous an experience for the Emperor as possible. And he'd be damned if he'd let his friends go down with him.

His sword was nowhere to be seen among the warped and blackened floorboards, so he snatched up a long shard of broken ceramic instead and, pivoting, jammed it through the nearest MT. The improvised weapon bucked in his hand, gouging open his palm, but he didn't care. Filled with a cold, deadly sort of calm, he ducked a sword thrust he sensed coming at him from behind; whirling, he slashed open its wielder's throat. Another automaton lunged at him from the side; dodging its swing, he twisted away with the backslash, surprising the creature with an aggressive leg hook as he passed. Back and forth he parried and danced, heedless of the smoldering floorboards that burned his feet, toppling MTs with detached efficiency. He lost count of how many he killed.

And still more came.

Noctis swayed for a moment, the pain in his head nearly dropping him. But he clenched his teeth and forced himself upright, swallowing back the nausea, adjusting his blood- and sweat-slick grip as he sought out his next opponent.

Instead, he found himself nearly tripping over Ignis, his friend in the midst of freeing his dagger from an MT's chest. The wound wasn't enough to kill it, but had toppled it for the moment. Now, rather than finishing it off, Ignis staggered backward to regain his breath, his eyes catching Noctis' own.

Panting, he looked Noctis over. His gaze then swung out to sea, staring hard at the oncoming tide of dropships. Finally, it landed on something just behind Noctis' shoulder.

"Get him out of here!" he ordered it.

Then the MT was back on its feet, bearing down on him. Noctis rushed forward, intent on annihilating this creature that would dare to threaten his friend.

But something caught his arm and pulled him back, hard enough that the whiplash set his head screaming. He really did throw up this time, falling to his knees on the charred floor. A pair of powerful hands dragged him back to his feet, and through a haze of pain, Noctis recognized Gladio.

A trio of assassin MTs dropped from the sky and landed in front of them, glass and masonry crunching beneath their armored boots. With a growl, Gladio shoved Noctis behind him, then flipped the miraculously still-intact coffee table up into his hands. Gripping it at the joints of its heavy wooden legs, he was just in time to block the initial spin attack typical of the assassin models. Wood chips flew, and a noise like an axe-wielding drumline rebounded painfully around the inside of Noctis' skull. The creatures' assault tapered; Gladio seized the opportunity to drive the table forward, attacking as he would with his shield. The force of the blow, combined with the man's uncommon strength, sent all three assassins off the edge of the house and out into the darkness below.

"Time to go," Gladio said, his voice tense but low.

Then he was grabbing Noctis' arm and leading him down the stairs, holding the heavy oak table in his free hand like it was a stray pillow he'd plucked off the floor. Noctis stumbled blindly alongside him.

It wasn't until he caught sight of the Regalia, parked in the dull yellow glow of the highway lights at the bottom of the hill, that he finally understood what was happening.

"No…No, Gladio, we're not leaving them behind!" he said, wrenching his arm out of the man's grip.

Gladio didn't say anything, merely readjusted his hold to clamp more firmly around his bicep. Noctis struggled, knowing that pitting himself against Gladio on strength alone was an exercise in futility, but giving it his best attempt nonetheless.

"We can either walk out of here together, right now, or I can drag you. Your choice," Gladio said, his voice dauntingly matter-of-fact.

"Those are our friends back there!" Noctis yelled at him, his smoke-singed vocal cords making the shout sound more like the last wheeze of a dying accordion. "Your sister, Gladio! We can't leave them!"

"We can and we will." And Noctis knew, as he looked into his friend's chillingly expressionless face, and then looked deeper and saw the raging sea of sorrow it masked, that the King's Shield knew precisely the choice he was making.

And suddenly the MTs were on them, raining down from the smoke-clogged night. Noctis and Gladio fought for nothing but survival and each other, then, standing back-to-back as Gladio brandished his furniture and Noctis snatched up one of the fallen MT's blades. They fought until shells of armor lay in piles around them, miasma seeping away into the ground.

By the time the last automaton fell, Noctis was swaying, his body weak and trembling, and the lighthouse and everything around it had somehow doubled. Gladio tossed away the table and, resuming his hold, led Noctis down toward the car, now at a run. Noctis could do nothing but stagger and trip alongside him.

Then his Shield was dumping him into the passenger seat, jerking the seatbelt around his body and snapping it into place at his hip. This was followed by a vault over the doorframe that landed the big man directly behind the wheel—a surprising display of dexterity for someone his size. Twisting the key, Gladio jammed the gearshift forward, floored the gas, and tore out onto the highway.

MTs dropped from the sky all around them, though none had yet made it into the car. Noctis groped for the switch to close the top, but everything kept blurring into gibberish. His head screamed; he reached up to touch it, sure his skull was splitting apart—

Found you

Glaring lights and darkness alternated in painfully flickering patterns above. Gladio was muttering something about a tunnel, hoping there would be no surprises at the end. Noctis knew there would be—could have told him so, except he couldn't seem to make language work. He was still struck with horror, even so, as they were spit back out into the night and across the bridge spanning the place where the River Wenneth met the sea.

Because there, towering over them, impossibly big, was Leviathan. Her wings blotted out the stars, her fanged beak gaping.

Their eyes met, just for an instant—Lucis Caelum blue against glittering, eternal black. For the briefest moment, Noctis was back in his nightmares again, watching her rise from the waves with the sea daemon of Altissia.

What exactly have you done, little king?

Leviathan assessed him, slitted eyes narrowed—just as they had been in his dreams—contempt and a burning malevolence smoldering within her gaze.

"You…" she spat.

And then she dove for them.

Gladio yelled something vicious and largely unintelligible, slamming down the brake pedal and swinging the car around with a force that had Noctis briefly blacking out. When he came to, moments later, they were back in the tunnel, now screaming east. The echoes of Leviathan's enraged bellowing followed them down the road. They burst out the other side and tore past the Cape, Gladio still hissing obscenities under his breath.

Noctis stared at the burning house as they passed, watching helplessly as MTs and mechs swarmed over the hill. There was no sign of Ignis or Prompto, or Iris or Talcott or any of the rest. Beyond the buildings, he caught sight of Leviathan again, her silhouette rising from the sea, rearing up over the cliffs, implausibly vast compared to the tiny, moonlit figures below. Her gaze was sweeping the highway, hunting him.

Because Noctis knew, now, that Bahamut had found him. The god had found him and had sent the rest to retrieve him. Noctis knew it as surely as he had known the inevitability of his own, final sacrifice.

You thought it would stop at the mere death of your body?

And they were leaving their friends behind…to that. Memories overwhelmed him: Gladio, torn open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling of Aranea's dropship; Ignis, blown apart by Cryonades on a lonely hillside outside Lestallum; Prompto, his body twisted unnaturally, discarded on the floor in a writhing nest of Nagarani…

I shall destroy all those close to your heart.

"No," Noctis whispered.

Hardly comprehending what he was doing, he disconnected his seatbelt and opened his door. The highway blacktop blurred past beneath him.

"Shit, Noct!" Gladio yelled, grabbing the back of his shirt one-handed and yanking him back in. "What the hell are you doing?"

Noctis fought him off, snarling, and made for the door again. He wouldn't leave them behind. Not to face the wrath of the gods by themselves. He would die a thousand times more before he abandoned them to the Draconian's mercy—a Draconian that would undoubtedly be feeling vindictive at the absence of its pet sacrifice.

Sudden pain burst in his head—hard and swift, different enough from the earlier pain that it overpowered him entirely, and all he knew was darkness.

xxx

Ignis breathed a sharp sigh of relief as Noct and Gladio disappeared out the door. They had done what they'd needed to do. Now he knew Gladio was trusting him to finish the job that a Shield couldn't: to get the rest of them out alive.

"Are they gone?" Prompto called from behind his barricade of ruined furniture. Sweat slid into his eyes as he took aim at another MT. It mingled with the blood coating the side of his face, compliments of an exploding floor tile.

"On their way…anyhow…" Ignis gasped between breaths, thrusting his dagger into the guts of an approaching axeman. It twitched and fell woodenly to the floor, its face as expressionless as the day it was manufactured.

"Good, 'cuz I'm about out of ammo," Prompto hoarsely replied. He wiped the sweat from his face with an impatient motion and readjusted his hold on his weapon's grip.

Ignis had noticed, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the crack of Prompto's Death Penalty had grown more intermittent of late, though at this point he wouldn't have been able to say whether they'd been fighting for five minutes or a day.

"Then it seems that would be as good a sign as any to make a dignified retreat," Ignis declared, pausing to shove back the sleeves of pajamas that had been velvety soft and marvelously blood-free when he'd taken them to bed last night. "What say you, Prompto?"

"I say you're the boss, Boss," the blond replied, the fatigue in his voice somewhat undermining the breezy response.

"Well, then. After you." With a genteel flourish, Ignis motioned him toward the door through which Noct and Gladio had vanished only minutes earlier.

Then he whirled around to tear into a group of new arrivals, pulling from a reservoir of strength he didn't know he had to pummel, slash, elbow, and gouge. Prompto clambered out of his fortification and ran limping out the door, shattered masonry crunching beneath his stockinged feet. Ignis toppled the nearest MT off the side of the house with one last well-placed kick to the gut, then wheeled about to follow him.

They were brought up short by a veritable mob of Imperial troopers, pouring in through the front door and thronging the kitchen below. Their empty faces and glowing eyes lit up the room with a grotesque reddish hue, like a scene from half-remembered nightmares.

"Oh, bloody hell," Ignis muttered, at the same moment Prompto wheezed something that sounded a lot like "flaming doucheburgers."

Then, abruptly, the front wave of automatons fell. The deafening blast of a pair of high-caliber handguns filled the kitchen, rattling Ignis' already-throbbing eardrums.

Monica stepped from the storage room below their landing, peering up at them as she reloaded.

"Get down here!" she yelled, then disappeared back behind the door. Gunfire continued to roar from beneath the staircase, covering their course of retreat.

Exchanging a quick glance with Prompto, Ignis dashed for the stairs, taking the top half two at a time before opting to simply bail over the side for the rest. He staggered, barefoot, as he hit the floor, catching himself just before he stumbled into Monica's line of fire. Prompto landed behind him with a soft grunt of pain, but recovered his balance with the adroitness of a cat.

"Where's the King?" Monica shouted over the fray. The front ranks surged toward them as she paused to reload. Stone-faced, she snapped her arms back up, blasting into the armored, hollow-eyed mass with a ferocity that had those in the back taking pause.

"Secured," Ignis breathed, fervently hoping it was true. But if there was one single person in the world he would trust Noct's life to under such odds, it was indisputably Gladio.

Monica nodded. Then, without warning, she grabbed each of their arms and propelled them bodily into the storage room. Seconds later she was backing through herself, stopping only long enough to deliver a few parting shots before slamming the door shut behind them.

Ignis straightened in surprise as her fingers danced across an electronic keypad and a second door, solid and metallic, dropped down from the ceiling. The pandemonium from outside abruptly cut off, the clattering of blades and armor and the stuttering hail of small arms fire reduced to a drone of muted, thrumming undertones.

And now that he had a moment to catch his breath, he realized that the entire room was similarly fortified, heavy blast guards having sprung into being from the seams of the walls. As Crownsguard, and particularly the king's personal retinue, they had, of course, been briefed on the safehouse's emergency defense mechanisms. But Ignis had to admit to himself, rather shamefacedly, that he hadn't paid it as much attention as he should have done, allowing himself to become distracted with matters such as Ardyn and Altissia and the fall of Insomnia. Also, it had been ten years ago.

"Have you got the children?" he asked her as she hurried over to an open metal hatch in the floor.

"Yes, they're waiting down in the boat," Monica brusquely replied. "But none of us—the kids included—will be around much longer if we don't move."

"Aye-aye, Captain," Prompto replied, and hopped through the opening, shimmying down the ladder into the darkness below. Ignis followed, and Monica brought up the rear, pulling the heavy door shut behind them. Its locks activated with a hiss and a thunk, plunging them into a cavelike darkness that would have been complete if not for the small maintenance lights running the length of the shaft.

They descended for a long time—long enough for Ignis' flood of adrenaline to ebb, leaving him tired and sluggish. Muffled explosions rumbled overhead, shaking loose showers of gravel and sand. He began to shiver through the scant protection of his sleepwear as the air grew colder, and the ladder's metal rungs chilled his bare, battered feet. He wondered if they were traveling all the way down to the sea.

That question was answered soon enough as they emerged into a low cavern, its stony entryway opening straight out onto the moonlit ocean—similar to the basement berth over at the lighthouse, but with less infrastructure. That port, modest and unassuming as it was, at least sported the luxury of a platform, sitting area, and staircase. This one was essentially bare, wet rock slapped with a tiny strip of wooden pier.

But at least there was a boat attached to it. And, more importantly, the bedraggled, soot-stained figures of Iris, Talcott, and Dustin—all alive, if not necessarily quite as well as they could be.

"Prompto! Ignis!" Iris greeted, standing to hail them with one of her energetic head-to-toe waves. She was wrapped in the silvery foil of an emergency blanket, wearing only her thin moogle-patterned pajamas beneath.

Looking back and forth between them, her face flooded with anxiety when nobody else appeared. "Where're Gladdy and Noct?"

"They escaped in the Regalia," Ignis assured her, praying the statement would prove prophetic, just this once.

"Oh, okay," Iris said. "That's good…"

Ignis didn't miss the slight quaver in her voice. Glancing over at Talcott, huddled in his own blanket in a corner of the boat and looking slightly shell-shocked, he was suddenly reminded of the significant trauma these children had endured already—losing their parents and guardians to violence, then fleeing Imperial brutality not just once, but several times now.

His heart went out to them, remembering a similarly scarred Noct in the years after the Marilith attack. Ignis had done his best to help bear his charge's burdens, but he had been a child himself—unequipped for the complexities of navigating such delicate terrain. Noct hadn't ever been quite the same again, his naturally buoyant personality tempered with a certain reticence that he'd never entirely shaken. And though the emotional scarring had been relatively difficult to detect in Iris and Talcott's older counterparts—survival had brought them all back to their most basic needs during the Night, burying some of the more complex aspects of their personalities—he had nevertheless witnessed many of the same signs.

Ignis hopped the short gap into the idling motorboat. If they had thought Weskham's vessel was small, this one made it feel positively princely. He settled down next to Talcott, and Prompto collapsed on the last bit of free bench at his side.

For the next few minutes, all Ignis could manage was simple existence as his brain scrambled to regain its bearings, to readjust all his plans and strategies to account for this newest crisis. Monica was still standing at the base of the maintenance ladder, her fingers flying across an access pad. He could hear the children's breaths coming in quick little bursts, their eyes red and swollen from the smoke.

He straightened, reaching out to give Talcott's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "It will be all right," he said. Catching Iris' eyes, he continued, "I've never in my life known a pair more capable than King Noctis and his Shield. More likely than not, the two of them will have the entire Empire on the run by the time we see them again."

"Yeah, chin up, Iris," Prompto said. He shouldered away some of the blood that had seeped down his neck and into the collar of his smiley face-adorned sleep shirt. "I watched those two chuckleheads take down a mech once with nothing more than a barbell and a handful of fishhooks. They're probably off waiting for us in front of some cozy campfire right now while we freeze to death in the night."

"Yeah," Iris said, and her smile was more genuine this time.

Ignis twitched as Dustin, sitting in the pilot's seat, suddenly pushed the throttle into gear. The man had an acute talent for vanishing—not only from a scene, but awareness itself. Ignis understood, where many others did not, that this was part of what made him so dangerous.

Monica, finishing up at the access hatch, dashed across the cave floor and hopped into the seat next to her partner.

"Doors are sealed," she said. Handguns at the ready, she turned back toward the dock, covering their retreat.

Dustin nodded, and set them out to sea.

They hugged the shoreline at first, moving west along a rather dodgy route packed with tidepools and jutting black rock shelves. But Dustin navigated them through with ease, keeping their speed down and the engine as low as possible. And despite their hazardous nature, Ignis had to admit that the jagged outcroppings—together with the smoke-choked darkness of the night—were highly effective in screening them from any prying Imperial eyes—the formations crowded so closely around them that the besieged promontory remained wholly blocked from their view.

The pre-dawn winds were picking up, misting them all with spray and that faintly sunbaked, kelp-tinged smell of sand. Dropships hovered and hummed through the sky; but with their search patterns trained on the Cape itself and radars built for much bigger targets, Ignis knew none were likely to detect their tiny craft. The dreadnought had disappeared entirely, probably figuring its task had been completed with that first, devastating launch.

And quite honestly, it should have been. Ignis frowned, casting his memory back to those first few chaotic moments. It should have been…

"Something bothering you, Iggy?" Prompto asked, keeping his voice low as Iris and Talcott whispered between themselves.

"Many things," Ignis wryly replied. "Here, hold still." Digging a medkit from under the seat, he pulled out a wad of sterile dressings and set to work tending to Prompto's bloodied face.

After several moments of tweezing tile slivers from his wincing friend's jawline, Ignis continued, "Since you mention it, however, yes, there is one thing vexing me in particular. By all rights that missile should have killed us all. I can't understand how we survived."

Prompto shrugged, flinching as the movement pulled at his tender skin. "Isn't that the story of our lives? Don't look into a horse's mouth, or whatever…wait, that's not how it goes. Don't look at a free horse…or its mouth? Hang on…why should I be avoiding animal dentistry, again? Does this thing have offensively bad teeth? Help me out here, Iggy…"

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Ignis supplied, uncapping a tube of healing salve.

"Yeah. Whatever that means," Prompto replied. "Anyway—what I'm trying to say is, I'm not about to complain about successfully pulling one over on Death."

Ignis hummed noncommittally, but his friend hadn't seen what he had. Both Prompto and Gladio had woken after the missile had already detonated, to the fire and chaos and destruction that had followed. Ignis, with his own eyes, had tracked the projectile as it burned a path across the sky, blazing with the promise of certain death. Nobody survived a dreadnought launch at that range. Moreover, he had watched as Noct had turned to meet it, a strange smile on his face, his eyes somewhere else…

Ignis shook his head, frustrated; it was a puzzle that, for now, would have him doing nothing but chasing his own tail.

"I'm going to try giving them a ring," he told Prompto. Taping the last of the gauze into place, he handed him a potion from the kit's small stock.

"Wait…you have your phone?" the blond blurted, the curative sitting forgotten in his hand. "What, do you sleep with it in your pajama pockets or something? Pretty sure mine is in fifty-five flaming pieces all over the Cape. All I managed to save was my gun, and that's only 'cuz the Night made me into one of those nutbars who sleeps with it under his pillow."

"In fact I do," Ignis replied loftily, "thus the reason I am able to fly to our rescue once again. Now here's to hoping one of them hears the spare phone ringing in the dash…"

Prompto gaped. "We keep a spare in the dash?" he practically screeched.

"Of course," Ignis replied, as if Prompto had been questioning the need for the emergency Ebony living under the seats.

"And you have its number memorized?"

Ignis simply gave him a look.

"Okay, right…forget I even asked," Prompto said, his voice faint, and drank his potion.

Ignis' fingers were already flying across the keypad; he lifted it to his ear as the speaker began to repeat the same dull, electronic tone.

It cut off after six rings, replaced by a generic voicemail recording. Ignis hung up, trying not to let his worry show.

"It may simply be silenced," he said in response to Prompto's piercing gaze.

Privately reminding himself that Gladio and Noct were two of the most capable and resourceful men he had ever known, he sent a quick text with their status (all alive) and a summary of their immediate plans, kept deliberately vague, in case the phone should be intercepted. (What events might give rise to such a scenario, he didn't care to consider just now.) He was just weighing the likelihood of either Noct or Gladio's personal phones having survived the attack and had decided he may as well try them too when Iris gasped.

Ignis raised his head in alarm. The boat had finally left the sheltering rocks for more open waters; as it did, the Cape, now on the far end of the sound, moved into view. And despite having personally lived through its destruction mere moments ago, Ignis still found himself shocked at its magnitude.

The entire promontory was ablaze, the house no longer recognizable as anything that had ever been a habitable structure. Many of the smaller outbuildings and trees were gone entirely, replaced with what could only be described as a crater. Even the lighthouse was burning, the hardy stones of its foundation slowly blackening in the superheated flames. Imperials swarmed what little was left of their once-idyllic hillside—a place where the four of them had trained and relaxed and worked while Talcott and Iris happily talked their ears off—the MTs' armored boots trampling down the fences they had so painstakingly helped to repair and churning the garden into charred wasteland.

Cape Caem had become a second home—a place they had often turned to for refuge when the burdens of their quest had become too much. And now it was well and truly destroyed.

But behind that heartrending scene, rising up from behind the cliffs, loomed the real object of their attention.

Leviathan, very much awake, coasted in sinuous circles around the peninsula. She dove into the sea and emerged again in great torrents of water, hovering and twisting with an otherworldly grace that, for those who had never seen a god, strained the bounds of credulity.

"Oh, shiii—shkebob," Prompto breathed, casting a quick glance at Talcott.

Evidently she was angry, too, judging by her profusion of hisses and shrieks. Her tail writhed and coiled, snapping suddenly outward to sweep an entire battalion of troopers into the ocean. Water poured off her in torrents as she dove and then emerged again from beneath the waves, flooding the Cape in a deluge of seawater. Billows of smoke and superheated steam rose from the buildings' remains; the Imperial dropships edged backward, withdrawing to the safer airspace farther inland.

"What is it?" Iris asked. She was terrified and staring. Dustin abruptly decided speed was the better part of valor and yanked back the throttle. Even the unflappable Monica sat wide-eyed, her lips parted in dismay.

Ignis wasn't especially thrilled to see the god, himself; a scene very similar to this had been one of the last things he'd laid eyes on before they'd been claimed by the Ring. Carrying those fresh images into the darkness with him had been a hitch of fate he had never much cared for.

"It's killing Imperials and putting out some of the fires," Talcott said, his boyish voice trembling. "Is it on our side?"

"I severely doubt it," Ignis muttered. "More like engaging in a godly temper tantrum."

"Yeah, Leviathan tends to not be on anybody's side—except maybe her own," Prompto said, shooting the god an openly resentful look.

As the others broke into agitated conversation, Prompto leaned over and said in a voice meant for Ignis' ears alone, "She's after Noct, isn't she."

"I'd say it's a good bet," Ignis grimly replied. "I wonder if she seized advantage of the commotion caused by the Imperial attack to attempt to retrieve him herself."

"Well it doesn't sound like she's got him," Prompto remarked, his voice brightening a shade. "I'm thinking that right there is Exhibit A of 'god going bitchcakes 'cuz she's been thwarted beyond belief.'"

"We can only hope," Ignis murmured, feeling significantly less enthusiastic. "Unfortunately, I fear her presence here only indicates that the gods are perhaps not as like-minded in the matter of the prophecy's fulfillment as we had been led to believe."

Prompto's face went blank and still, an expression Ignis had come to learn meant the blond was nothing short of infuriated.

"If they think," he ground, "that they can make Noct the pawn of their dirty little games ever again, they're in for a serious kick in the balls. Courtesy of me. Because I will go straight into the Beyond or wherever they live and find whatever godly little penthouse they jerk themselves off in and deliver it myself. Don't think I won't, Ignis; we took down Ifrit and we can do the same with the rest."

"You'll get no argument from me," Ignis said. He thought of the fear in Noct's face when he had asked Gentiana about Bahamut's view on the prophecy, back at Claustra's Estate.

Ignis frowned. A niggling little suspicion, one that had been lodged in the back of his mind for some time now, ballooned into a sudden, horrible theory.

"Prompto…" he began hesitantly, glancing at the others. Iris and Talcott were leaning over Dustin's seatback, watching the mouth of the River Wenneth draw near and casting Leviathan's rampage furtive glances over their shoulders.

"…Yeah?" Prompto replied, disquieted by the sudden weight in his voice.

"Do you remember the Nagarani? Back during the Night."

He knew Prompto had been expecting a veritable smorgasbord of questions; obviously none of them had included this one in particular.

His eyes shuttered. "Why do you ask?"

"Did you ever share that experience with Noct?"

Prompto laughed strangely. "Noct and I talk about a lot of things. But you know that was one of the worst days of my life, Ig. I don't make a habit of sharing it. Or thinking about it. Ever."

Ignis pursed his lips. For several moments, all that could be heard was the drone of the motor and the hushed conversation up front, punctuated by the waves that slapped at the sides of the boat. With Prompto's reply, his theory had advanced to the status of near certainty. His stomach sank, a hint of nausea rising up to meet it.

Prompto frowned, peering at him more closely. "Why, did you?"

"No," Ignis replied heavily, "But he knows about it regardless."

"How?" Prompto asked, dismayed. "I mean, it's not like it has to be a secret from him—or Gladio either, for that matter—but I just didn't think any of us needed that kind of ugliness in our lives. Definitely no more than we've all got mucking up our pasts already."

Ignis sighed, and the sound was borne from the deepest recesses of his soul. "Yes, the past. Prompto, I suspect…that Noct did not spend those ten years sleeping, like he told us. And I fear Bahamut may have exacted a higher price from him than any of us know."

Prompto's jaw fell open.

Then, rather than the barrage of questions and protests and demands that Ignis expected, he went quiet for a long, long time. Ignis watched him stare ahead into nothing—but behind those bright blue eyes he knew Prompto's mind was rearranging everything it had heard and believed these past months, recasting it in a clearer light. Ignis' had been doing much the same.

Finally, Prompto looked up. Ignis met his gaze and realized that—though his friend was profoundly unnerved—he wasn't completely surprised. Somewhere deep inside, he had suspected too. They'd all known something was off.

"What kind of 'higher price'?" Prompto asked, his voice soft. And dangerous.

"I don't know." Ignis shook his head. "But I'm not certain Bahamut is the benefactor of humanity we've all been led to believe he is. Noct is terrified of him, though he does his best to hide it. I fear…" He broke off, not quite ready to breathe life into his imaginings just yet.

Prompto twitched like he wanted to leap to his feet and pace, but they were in a boat. A small one, at that. Instead, he sat and wiggled his leg, clenching and unclenching his fists with a wired, seething energy.

They lapsed into a fraught silence, but not before Ignis glanced up again to find Iris watching them. She quickly looked away, making a show of engaging Talcott in conversation.

Ignis felt the stirrings of unease and quietly nudged Prompto, warning him with a look that their discussion had best be tabled for another time. Prompto clenched his jaw, but indicated his agreement with a short nod.

They turned into the River Wenneth, leaving their burning home behind. In the distance, Leviathan's shrieks finally stilled.

And Ignis stared out into the night, worrying and hurting for his friend.

xxx

A/N: As always, reviews are appreciated! Thanks to all you lovelies who keep me so encouraged.