Noctis had never been so glad class was out at last. The first time was easier because, well, it was the first, but also Ignis and Prompto made stuff like school more bearable. Now, he was just trapped in this world, learning mundane subjects he already had in lessons back Insomnia. It has been peaceful, at least, but he wanted to hurry up and find Luna already.
The dream situation didn't help either. He never saw that mysterious woman Arecia again, but he always felt she was probably watching. His dreams came to be filled with images and sequences foreign to him, playing back what seem to be an alternate version of Ace and his friends. They were soldiers, trained in magic to try and open a gate. This world has crystals as well, and created l'cie as its conduits for physical manifestation. They fought against a force that wanted to bring death to innumerable lives on this earth as a faster means of forcing open the gate.
And then, Noctis sees the gate once more. The Gate of Etro. It is no longer whole, instead burst from its hinges and utterly shattered. Darkness, chaotic night, pours from the gaping wound like an empty shell. Whatever was in there is now gone. Ominous voices, chanting in other languages, weave into portents of disaster in his mind. And he would force himself awake with sheer will before he screamed out of fear.
Always he saw that face of his own, with the eyes of the demons. And always he felt like someone slipped an icy knife into his back.
"Gee, Noctis, another bad night?" Ace chuckles, offering him a soda. The prince sits slouched over, nodding off.
"Nh... It's just... the motions..." He doesn't look at Ace. The image of the dead Class Zero is still burned into his mind. They seemed asleep, resigned to their fate. And yet, here they are now. He does take the soda though, and cools his throat a bit. It remains a mystery to him, exactly how to get out of this world.
Ace takes out the Academy Tribune and glances over the pages, slightly frowning.
"...Bad news?" Noctis finishes the drink quickly.
"There's been a rash of natural disasters around the world recently. Militesi's capital just suffered from a huge sinkhole..." Ace sighs, "And then you have the raving nuts about how this is the sign of the end of times and all that."
"Oh, don't I know it..." Noctis sighs, looking out at the peaceful day in the academy yard. Nine is back to his usual self, though another rejection will send him reeling again. The loud noise from the academy is probably the band practicing for once. The usual girls are in their cliques, walking to their next classes or gossiping.
Then suddenly, as if a filter were placed over his vision, the scenery changes tone. It becomes dark and red-hued with malice. Flames run across the buildings as people turn to daemons and tear into what were once friends. He feels his blood run cold when he sees himself mirrored. His eyes are a fiery red, and staining his hands is innocent blood.
"...Noctis?"
He gasps slightly, shaken out of the horrifying vision. Ace peers at him from the side.
"Err, you okay? You spaced out a lot in class too today."
"I-I'm fine..." Noctis sighs. Enough with the nightmares already, "Did you say something?"
"I was asking about where you came from. Has your memory improved?"
Noctis had the sense not to tell them he was from a faraway land, and he guessed Insomnia wouldn't be on their maps. So he had fibbed that he landed too hard to recall where he was from. As his mental aptitude seemed to improve, people get more curious.
"No... just nightmares."
"I see. You really should take Trey up on those therapy lessons."
"Ha, like I want to listen to diagnoses being thrown my way for fifty an hour?"
"Ehehe, true."
A sudden tremor nearly knocks them both out of the bench seats. It is not overly strong, but it is no mere shake. Several students yelp and give a surprised cry as they stumble or topple over onto their knees. There is the sound of some objects breaking from the academy building.
"W-whoa!" Noctis grabs Ace before he falls over, "T-thanks..."
Noctis nods slightly before frowning on the side. He feels an odd tingling at his fingertips. This sensation is familiar... Like when he had faced Leviathan, and his Armiger had activated fully for the first time with Luna's prayer. But it is only similar. Now it feels a bit like pain pricking, and growing like a flame licking across his hands. Shards of crystal float about, like that which come forth from his arsenal summoning. But they are everywhere...
"W-What is happening..." Ace breathes as he pokes one of the shards cautiously. It spins and levitates slowly, higher.
A larger tremor follows, and there is a sudden crack. It is loud, but there is not a fissure to be seen on the ground. Some students around them scream and are pointing frantically at the sky. The two young men look up and see what looks to be a shattered hole in the blue, revealing darkness behind it. Clawed hands grasp at the edges and pry, shattering the blue yonder like a material ceiling.
"What the..." Noctis can only stare.
The grinning face of Bhunivelze peeks through the hole like a madly peering jester. A pang, like an arrow of pain shoots into Noctis' head and he stumbles backwards, much to Ace's alarm.
"N-Noctis! Hey!" The blonde snaps out of his daze as he looks away from the thing in the sky.
Around them, people run about, amok in panic. Students trip over and run into each other, unsure of where to go to escape whatever that is in the crack of cosmos. The crystal shards in the air suddenly darken, and morph into what can only be described as large, black sludge monsters. The students run into some, and are swallowed as they scream. Once absorbed, the monsters take a humanoid form, now resembling a daemon.
"Argh..." Noctis clutches at his head. It was going too fast. All these images now crowding his head again... He is briefly brought lucid by Ace shaking his shoulder.
"We gotta get out of here!"
He pulls the other to his feet, and starts to run, only to turn and be cut off by a daemon.
"ACE!" Noctis shouts and, without thinking, summons his engine sword, slashing the daemon down with a fell stroke. That doesn't help with his splitting headache, and the world whirls a bit as he tries to stay standing.
"N-Noctis..." Ace looks like her has questions, but he ignores them and grabs Noctis' arm, "C-Come on!"
Those who could run away ran into the school buildings. Everyone else screams as they are either devoured or killed by formed daemons. It is carnage and chaos everywhere. Noctis can barely run in a straight line, just lagging behind Ace. This is all...
It has happened before.
Suddenly, time stops. He sees that woman Arecia again. Next to her is an armored figure and a pair of twin women. They stare at him intently amid the chaotic background. Their names seem to resurface in his mind from the muddle of dream-like memories swirling in his head. Arecia, Gala, and Diva...
"So you... are the last chosen one," The twins Diva speak as one, "From the far star of Eos, mother fal'Cie to the Astrals."
What? What are they talking about... Noctis cannot will himself to speak or move.
"The new crystals are now aligned," The armored one, Gala, speaks with a gravelly tone, "The creator has been brought forth, and traitorous Bladekeeper's plans agear."
Bladekeeper? Do they mean me?
"Pulse and Lindzei's plans concern us no longer, remember, you two? We are no different than the ones who tried to save your world it seems, boy," Arecia says calmly, "We will use the last of the influence we have on this world before we must resume our slumber and be destroyed. You must use that window to escape."
Escape? Where? The thing's coming from the freaking sky!
From the corner of his eye, he glimpses a sparkle of something. He cannot turn his head to look though. Was that a way out?
"We have been but willing pawns ourselves," Gala growls, "But now we are able to make one last choice... even if it is the wrong one."
"It is not. After all this time, we have been only ignorant of the true gift the original gods gave us," Arecia breathes out a puff of her magic smoke, "I believe this to be the right decision, and a fine last one."
There is a distant rumbling tremor, and subsequent booms, like a dull series of thuds on thick glass. Arecia looks up with the slightest of relief and resignation.
"Go, before the mad god-"
There is the sudden sound of shattering glass. Time violently resumes, lurching all who were stopped and flinging them to the ground. A monstrous, throaty voice calls out with demonic mockery at the feeble students.
"Foolish failures of weapons... Your Agito will never be! Now KNEEL to the force of the gods, imperfect and filthy lambs for slaughter..."
Noctis shakes his head to clear the fog as he picks himself up from the floor. He sees familiar boots near his face on the floor. Looking up, he sees that familiar crow, standing and looking up at the surrounding destruction. People run without looking. Was he actually there? Or was this all in his head?
"Ardyn..." Noctis seethes.
"Tick tock, king," Ardyn looks to him with something like a grudging look, "Best you go, lest you become another casualty again."
Noctis growls and tears his eyes from the man. Ace gets up beside him. The other students he saw in his dreams are all scattered about.
"Promise me you'll protect my children."
Noctis grabs Ace's arm and pulls him along, running for that odd spot he had glimpsed in the time stop. Debris, flaming from above, shatter into the ground around them like meteors. The grating sound the sky splitting, combined with the maddened roar of Bhunivelze, rings throughout the world. A checkered curtain encroaches on the spatial barrier of the space and they pull away to reveal leering Anubys and Set creatures, who begin their slaughter on the students.
"N-Noctis! Wait-" Ace's eyes are wide with fear as he is torn away from his crumbling world. He looks around frantically to see blood spill, "D-Deuce!"
There are too many screams.
Noctis pushes them away, out of his head. He blocks an incoming attack from a Set's axe with his father's sword, parrying it aside as he runs with Ace. The latter tries to pull away from him.
"Noctis, let go- My friends...!"
"I'm sorry, Ace!"
The glimmer sparkles before him on the ground. It looks to be some kind of portal that the others are blind to. With a final pull, Noctis throws Ace in first before jumping in himself, just before the smash of an axe cracks the ground. The last thing Noctis hears of the world being destroyed is the cackle of the jackal headed creatures and the roar of their mad god from the heavens. It sounds like laughter almost, set against the juxtaposition of screams in terror and despair. The laughter is thick and throaty, and somehow very familiar. He would have expected it to sound like Ardyn, but it didn't.
He couldn't think on that for long, however, as he and Ace begin to tumble through this grey and white portal, seeing no end nor beginning. Would this take him to Luna? He feels his consciousness slipping in this odd place, and he sees Ace is already knocked out.
I'm sorry...
He'd only managed to save Ace.