Day 48:
The storm raged, endless, above Insomnia. He grew numb to the pounding of thunder and the near-constant flashes of lightning. The whole sky had gone black, consumed by the Fulgarian's stormcloud. It must have reached well into Leide by then. Or farther still.
The last time Regis had moved so—seamlessly, without pause, shifting between the physical world and the In-Between with little more than a brush of his thoughts—must have been decades ago. He had forgotten what it felt like. He reached for power and found it there, at his fingertips, waiting to be used. Begging to be used. So he did.
He called fire and ice against the Fulgarian until the fire was cut from his blood and ran cold in his hands. He strode through the air as if it were solid, made weightless by the power of the Armiger. Though he had never gathered more than six spectral glaives, he used them to the utmost. A whirlwind of swords spun around him, cutting through Ramuh until his beard was messily trimmed and his robes were in tatters.
Every year he had toiled to protect the crystal, he paid back to Ramuh tenfold. Every second he had lamented Noctis' fate. Every time he had turned Reina away. Every day she had suffered through a lifeless Dream, he paid back.
The others moved around him. Through him. Without pause or hesitation, they fell back into what had once been comfortable routine. Cid's impossible leaps left him looking like a frog in the heavy rain. Clarus' heavy blows cleaved the Fulgarian, leaving canyons that crossed Regis' myriad of slashes. Cor wove between them, always where he was unexpected but most needed.
And Iris. His best friend's daughter. His little girl's Shield. If he had any qualms about granting the title to a fifteen year old, they dissolved but a few minutes in. She climbed Ramuh's cloak like an acrobat, swinging and dodging and making her way to the most vulnerable points. She sought them. And she struck them.
And then, quite suddenly, she stopped. Her sword stuck, still, in the back of Ramuh's shoulder and she stood in as stable a position as she could find, but she froze, staring wide-eyed into nothing.
"Iris!?" Clarus' bellow was just audible over the storm.
If she gave a response, Regis never heard. He forced his attention back to Ramuh as lightning flashed and struck at his shield. He focused on the fight, trusting Clarus to tend his daughter, until her words caught his ears once more.
"It's gone. Cor! Reina's magic is gone. I can't feel her at all anymore!"
Regis' blood ran cold. He fumbled for his ties to her. Though it was Noctis, not him, who shared magic with her, they were all a web of magic. He could find her, through Noctis.
Or he should have been able to.
But though he could feel Noctis, Reina was gone. The strands that had once bound her to them were sliced neatly. Just as her natural magic had been.
"She has been severed from us," Regis called out. "We can do no more than trust that she will hold without those ties."
She would have to hold out. All of Eos was counting on her, but—Gods forgive him—he cared very little for the world right now.
Through the raging of the storm came the ominous hum of a Magiek engine. Regis spared precious seconds tearing his eyes from Ramuh and was walloped across the middle by the Fulgarian's staff. He fell, thrown from the sky, and tumbled across the rooftop of the Citadel.
Someone grabbed his arm.
"You're too old to be rolling around on the ground." Clarus hauled him to his feet.
"Speak for yourself." Regis' voice came out a wheeze. A shooting pain accompanied each inhale. He winced and put his hand to his side, breathing shallow.
"Are you alright?" Clarus asked.
"A broken rib, nothing more." Or perhaps a few broken ribs.
He turned his eyes skyward looking for the source of the noise that had first distracted him. Surely it couldn't be a Magitek ship. Those had all been destroyed, or else they were ground-bound in Niflheim, without pilots or crew.
"Overhead." Regis pointed. "Does my eyesight fail me, or have the dead returned to life?"
"I won't say you aren't going blind…" Clarus said slowly. "But I do see a Magitek engine in the sky."
Ominous.
"Keep your eye on that ship." Regis resummoned the Armiger, which leapt up around him, throwing dancing blue lights across the roof.
"Then you keep your eyes on the fight," Clarus retorted.
"Very well." It was difficult to walk and appear dignified when any motion of his core was painful. He suppressed wince after wince and stepped off the edge of the Citadel, weightless once more.
In spite of Clarus' advice, Regis watched both Ramuh and the approaching ship until there was no longer any doubt that it was both an imperial vessel and that it was flying directly toward them. If they were going to fire on Lucis they should have done so already. Already Regis was in range of their canons. He should have made an appealing target as he was, unshielded.
But no fire rained down on them. The hatch of the ship opened and it lowered toward the Citadel, keeping well out of the fight—though not beyond reach of Ramuh's storm. Indeed, more than one bolt struck it. It remained aloft, though smoking.
"Heard you could use a hand." A familiar voice, half forgotten in time, shouted above the crack of thunder and the pounding of rain.
He knew that voice, though it seemed long years since he had last heard it. Longer, still, was the time since he had last heard it in person. Nearly twenty years.
"Weskham?!" Regis turned, this time with the foresight to throw up a shield and prevent a repeat of his tumble across the roof.
And there, impossibly, stood Weskham. In the open hatch of a Magitek engine. Beside him were Lunafreya, Ravus, and Gentiana.
"Prepared to serve, Sire." Weskham fired a shot from inside the ship. A bullet whizzed past Regis' shield and struck its target behind him. "I apologize for the delay. I had to kill an Astral to get here."
Weskham. Dear Weskham. Regis had never been happier to see him. He might have kissed him if not for the urgency of the situation, and the fact that Ramuh's staff cracked against the outside of his shield not but a second later.
Regis turned, mending cracks and gathering up a handful of ice. So the Hydraean was destroyed. As was the Infernian. When he felt, the ties that otherwise would have bound him to them were gone. Not cut, but vanished, as if they had never existed at all. Titan and Bahamut lived, still, however.
"Quit yer yappin' and get shootin'!" Cid's grizzled voice carried well even in the storm.
"Welcome back, Wes." Clarus said, as Weskham landed on the roof beside him.
"Pay attention," Cor said. "Talk when we're through."
"It's good to see you again, too, Cor."
Regis grinned in spite of himself. He dropped his shield and threw ice. It was more than a blast; it cracked over Ramuh's wet clothes and hair, freezing and spreading farther than it had any right to.
A familiar yet haunting voice whispered on the wind: "The Father King uses my gift well…" And six winged figures like fairies made of ice and snow flew past him.
Shiva. And Gentiana. In those few times they had met in person he could sense power about her. Never had he dreamed it could have been the Glacian's power.
She spun an icy tornado around Ramuh. His limbs cracked as he struggled to fight against it to no avail. The ice spread. Farther. Deeper. And the Fulgarian stared with eyes frozen open. For the moment, at least.
Regis mustered the Armiger. He had but seconds to strike. He twisted each blade around, primed and—
"King Regis! Hold!" Ravus' voice called over the storm. "Quickly, Lunafreya, cut his ties!"
Regis risked a glance to see Lunafreya standing on the edge of the Citadel tower, shielded by her brother, with her hands palm-together and her eyes squeezed shut. For a brief moment, concentration wracked her face. When her eyes shot open, they focused on Ramuh.
"I have it!" She shouted.
Regis needed no more approval than that. The Armiger shot forward, six bladed arrows locked onto their target.
The ice shattered on impact.
For one instant, Ramuh clung to life, digging fingernails into reality in a desperate bid for survival. When he slipped, a shocked terror crossed his face.
"This is death, Astral," Regis said. "Drink deeply from the cup you have condemned so many others to."
The world burst.
Or it seemed to. In a final crack of thunder, deafening in its volume, and a flash so bright it had Regis wincing away, lifting a hand to shield his eyes, the Fulgarian was gone. The spark of power that had been in Regis' blood for his entire life fizzled and faded. No more boon. No more pact.
Three Astrals had fallen. Two still remained.
Regis turned, descending to the Citadel rooftop and touching down lightly. Even then the contact reminded him how painful broken ribs were.
"Regis!"
If he had thought walking was painful, it was nothing to being hugged by a friend he hadn't seen in twenty years. Weskham knocked the wind out of him without intent or effort. Regis winced, pulling away automatically. He nearly wished he hadn't, for the look of concern it put on Weskham's face.
"You're hurt?" Weskham asked.
"Nothing that cannot be cured with some ice," Regis said.
"And a few weeks laying on your back," Clarus said.
Weskham gave him a knowing look and a grin. He squeezed Regis' shoulder instead. "Glad to see you're all still alive and kicking. I thought we might not make it in time."
"If you can kill an Astral," Cor said. "So can we. Now let's go."
He slid his sword back into its sheath and motioned to Iris.
"Will that transport of yours take us to Cauthess? Noctis has taken charge of the Archaean and I fear for his battle experience," Regis said.
Ravus' face hardened with annoyance.
"Noctis first," Regis said. "Then we reunite with Reina."
He seemed to have guessed the cause correctly. Ravus broke his gaze and turned away.
"Very well," he said, climbing back aboard the Magitek Engine.