I do not own Final Fantasy XV or any of the characters.
Fall
Nyx skidded to a stop in just inside the treaty room, watching as a guy in a white Niflheim military uniform with messy, shoulder-length white hair lay on the ground, shrieking in agony as his left arm burned. A small black ring rolled across the ground to the king, who picked it up and stood unsteadily. On the far side of the room, General Glauca stood from where he was kneeling, or maybe had fallen. His armor scraped lightly against itself and the base of his massive sword glowed red, as did the breaks in his armor. Nyx had never met him, but his reputation as a monster of a man who was said to be untouchable in battle preceded him.
"We need to go, you're majesty!" Crowe said urgently.
Glauca began to walk toward King Regis and Nyx hurled one of his daggers, but just as he prepared to teleport to it, Glauca backhanded the dagger, sending it across the room and resulting in Nyx crashing into an overturned marble table. Crowe and Pelna both moved to attack, but Glauca deflected their blades just as easily. Glauca raised his sword to attack Lunafreya and the king, but Nyx shoved himself up, hurling a lightning spell at him. Glauca spun, most of the spell hitting his sword harmlessly, but several bolts also blasting him in the right shoulder. Glauca shouted in pain, a chunk of his armor being blasted off, the edge glowing orange and instantly beginning to regenerate. Nyx hurled one of his blades and Glauca slashed it out of the air. Nyx hurled his other, bouncing it off of Glauca's helmet. He teleported to it, slamming his feet into Glauca, then teleported to his other dagger just as Crowe's lightning spell exploded into Glauca's back. Pelna teleported to a knife over Glauca and slashed downward, his dagger sparking down the back of Glauca's helmet. Nyx lunged forward, holding his daggers in reverse grip, and slashed at Glauca rapidly, Glauca deflecting the blades again and again, despite his being much bigger. He tossed a blade into the air, but as he teleported to it, Glauca caught it and slammed him into the ground. Then, as soon as Nyx was out of the way, Crowe's feet crashed into Glauca, knocking him back several steps. All three Glaives instantly hurled a ball of lightning at him, sending him exploding backward through the wall into the next room.
"Quickly!" the king said from behind them, even as Glauca began to stand, armor regenerating rapidly. "Through here!"
They stood, following the king out of the room and turned just as the heavy, metal door swung closed. Lunafreya ripped a piece of her dress off to wrap the king's left hand where his fingers had been cut off by Glauca.
"This leads to a hidden passageway," the king said. "Follow it. Once you're away, make for Altissia. Noctis awaits you there."
"Your Majesty..." Lunafreya trailed off, watching him in concern.
"You knew this was coming," Nyx said.
"Yes," the king nodded. "But it was the only way to draw their wrath from Noctis."
"Is that the way of our king?" Nyx growled. "To sacrifice Lucian sons to save his own!?"
"Nyx!" Crowe gasped.
"To save the world," Lunafreya said.
The king sighed. "See Luna safely to Altissia. This is not an order from a king to his Glaives. This is plea from one man to another. please, Nyx Ulric, keep her safe. For the future of all."
"The future," Nyx scoffed.
Crowe stepped in front of him, cupping his face and giving him a stern look.
"I can't believe this," Pelna said. "Everything we've done and...I'm done. I'm getting out of this city, and I'm going to survive."
"And we're coming with you," Nyx said. "And we're bringing Lunafreya."
Pelna sighed. "Aright. Fine. One last mission. Maybe today I'll get to be the hero."
"Here, take this," the king said, holding the ring out to Lunafreya. "It is time it was passed to another's keeping."
She accepted the ring and Nyx and Pelna pushed the doors open, walking out of it with the others following them quickly. However, they made it only halfway through the round chamber they were passing through before the King stopped, pulling his hand from Lunafreya's grasp, making her stop and turn back. His expression set into a determined mask and Nyx's eyes widened slightly. Then, the king raised his hand, his palm glowing before a crystal barrier began to form between them, growing upward from the floor rapidly.
"No, please!" Lunafreya pleaded, pressing her hands to the barrier, only for Crowe to pull her back. "Stop! Please! Don't leave us!"
"We need to go!" Crowe said urgently. "When he dies, we lose our magic!"
Nyx nodded, taking Lunafreya's left hand and turned, running away from the barrier and pulling Lunafreya behind him, Crowe and Pelna running along beside them. After a few minutes, they reached a small parking area with a pair of cars, one black and the other silver, waiting to be used. Nyx sat behind the wheel, gripping it hard and trying to calm himself. He was a coward. He shouldn't have run. He should have protected the king. That was his duty. Crowe rested a hand on his shoulder, seated beside him.
"He wanted us to protect her, not him," Crowe said as Pelna and Lunafreya climbed into the back.
"That doesn't make it right," Nyx said.
He took a steadying breath before speeding off, the tires squealing against the asphalt for a moment before the car lurched into motion. They left the tunnel onto a highway running below the main road to the palace. Nyx looked around at the city, hands wringing the steering wheel.
"What now?" Pelna asked. "How are we going to get her out of the city? Is there...Is there anyone else we can trust?"
"No," Nyx said. "As of now, we have to assume anyone not inside this car is a traitor."
"Not everyone," Crowe said. "Libertus."
"Who's that?" Lunafreya asked.
"A friend," Nyx said. "He's a Glaive. Not a fan of the treaty, but loyal. He's hurt, though. After our last battle, he's got a broken leg."
"Well how can he help, then?" Lunafreya asked.
Nyx glanced at Crowe, who gave him an apprehensive look. "He can sneak you out while we're drawing the Glaives and the Niffs away. Crowe, give him a call on your phone."
"I don't carry it when we're working," Crowe said.
"I do," Pelna said, pulling his out. "What's his number."
Nyx and Crowe both paused, wracking their brains for a moment before Nyx read off what he thought it was from memory.
After a moment of silence, Pelna grinned widely. "Libertus, it's Pelna...Yeah, we know. They started it when we were trying to take out that Niff fleet...Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker." He pressed the speaker button and held the phone between Crowe and Nyx's seats.
"Nyx, Crowe, are you there?" Libertus asked in a hushed voice.
"We're here," Nyx said.
"Are you okay?" Crowe asked.
"I'm alright, but it's not easy to slip away from Glaives with a broken foot," Libertus said. "Where are you? We need to get out of the city."
"We're working on that, but there's a complication," Nyx said.
"What?" Libertus asked. "Drautos? I don't think anyone's heard from him. Luche and one of the others were talking about it. It sounded like Drautos was supposed to contact them but hasn't."
"Drautos isn't the complication," Nyx said. "Libertus, the king is dead."
Libertus went silent for a long few seconds. "Are you sure?"
"He stayed behind to delay General Glauca while we got away with a package he needed kept away from Niflheim," Nyx said. "But we need help smuggling it out of the city."
"What can I do?" Libertus asked. "Even if we had magic, I've got a broken leg! I can't fight!"
"We don't need you to fight," Nyx said. "We need you to smuggle the package out. Can you do a pickup?"
Libertus is silent for a moment before groaning. "Alright, fine! Where and in how long?"
Just then, several bullets slammed into the side of the car, bouncing off the bulletproof glass and paneling. Nyx swore harshly, swerving before correcting, looking to the side at the airship flying along the road with them.
"Crowe, take the wheel," Nyx said. "Princess, keep your head down!"
Crowe grabbed the wheel as Nyx drew his daggers, looking to the dropship and seeing several Glaives, including Luche.
"What are you going to do with those?" Pelna asked. "You can't warp!"
"No," Nyx agreed. "But I bet it'll still hurt if I stick them with these."
"While being shot at!?" Crowe snapped. "Are you out of your mind!?"
"Well what do you suggest?" Nyx asked. "What, do you have a rocket launcher in the glove box?"
Crowe opened it, just for laughs, and pulled out a small submachine gun. Nyx stared at it for a moment, then shrugged, taking it and rolling down his window, slipping out to sit on the door before opening fire at the Glaives. He managed to hit one in the arm before they took cover. A Niff Magitek soldier fired back and Nyx ducked down behind the car. Just then, several Niff Magitek troops landed in the road and Nyx swore, dropping back into the car just as Crowe swerved around them, making Nyx smash his hand into the back of the window and drop the gun. He swore, taking the wheel back and shaking his head as several more bullets slamming into the car, the windows on that side now riddled with chips.
"Now what?" Pelna asked.
"You're making a mess of my city, Glaive!" a voice said over a loudspeaker from behind them, Nyx recognizing it as the head gate guard that had been giving him a hard time before. "I thought I told you not to go playing hero."
"I don't believe it," Nyx said.
"Leave the ship to me," he said. "Looks like you got a royal fare to see to."
The guard drove up beside them suddenly in a heavily armored troop transport and opened fire through the open passenger door. The ship fired back, as did the Magitek troops, but after a moment, they entered an overpass where Nyx floored it and the guard began to drop back. However, almost as soon as they left the overpass, a second ship began to fly down after Nyx and the others, the first ship with the Glaives stopping to deal with the guard, apparently. The second airship dropped three bipedal robots with heavy machine guns mounted under the main body, which they began to fire at them with from ahead on the road, which wrapped around in a loop. Instead of heading toward them, Nyx grit his teeth and swerved, punching through the guard rail. Crowe sucked in a breath and clung onto Nyx's arm, Nyx prayed he hadn't just killed them and clung onto the steering wheel, Lunafreya braced her arms against the ceiling to hold herself in her seat while they fell, and Pelna screamed, one hand against the top of the door to his left and the other grabbing the side of Crowe's seat.
The nose of the car crashed down on top of a building and it flipped once before crashing into its roof and skidding across the roof, spinning the entire way with Pelna screaming in a high, shrill voice, before finally coming to rest on the very edge, teetering.
"Move it!" Nyx said instantly, Crowe and Lunafreya both scrambling out of the car through the shattered windows, only for the car to tip and start skidding down the thin alleyway between the buildings.
Sparks flew from the roof of the car as is scraped the adjacent wall and Nyx threw the car in reverse, slamming on the gas, the tires squealing against the brick beneath them.
"That's never gonna work!" Pelna shouted.
Nyx cut the wheel and the car kicked out sideways before hitting an air-conditioning unit, Nyx and Pelna both being thrown out through the passenger side doors. Nyx caught the door handle and Pelna caught his leg, instantly swinging forward and through a window before yanking Nyx after him. Both crashed down on the floor and rolled to a stop before the car shot past, crashing to the ground.
"It worked," Nyx groaned, pushing himself up and sniffing, instantly plugging his nose. "Ugh! Pelna! Come on man, really?"
"Oh shut up!" Pelna snapped, tugging his wet pants away from himself and grimacing. "It's your fault for trying to jump the car!"
Nyx shook his head just as a heavy machine gun opened fire. They sprinted to a window to their left, seeing Lunafreya pushing herself up from a lower roof in front of them, holding her shoulder, as a walker landed in front of her and a dropship flew over above them. Then, a walker fell past directly in front of them, sparking and covered in gashes, and exploded somewhere below them.
"That's my girl!" Nyx said, looking down and realizing there was a scaffold built against that wall of the building he and Pelna were in. "Bad idea time again!"
"You're insane!" Pelna said as they both hopped out onto the scaffold.
"Yup, probably!" Nyx agreed. "Go!"
They both grabbed a bar above them and shoved off the wall hard, the entire scaffold tipping and beginning to fall. Above them, Crowe shouted in surprise, swinging into view a few levels up.
"Are you out of your minds!?" Crowe demanded.
"Don't look at me!" Pelna shouted back.
Then, the scaffold crashed down on the roof, crushing the walker, and the three Glaives sprinted to a door Lunafreya had fled too off to one side.
"Are you alright?" Crowe asked.
"I'm fine," Lunafreya said.
"The hell did you do to piss these things off?" Nyx asked.
"It's not me they're after, it's the ring," Lunafreya said.
"What's so special about this ring?" Nyx asked as they ran. "Don't tell me the future's really riding on it."
"He who wears the ring communes with the Lucii and commands great power," Lunafreya explained as they ran into a random room, all crouching behind a counter or bar, or something. Nyx wasn't paying that much attention to what it was.
"What kind of power?" Nyx asked, motioning for Pelna to call Libertus and tell him where to meet them.
"A forbidden one," Lunafreya said. "Sealed within the ring long ago."
"The Old Wall," Nyx realized. "I thought that was just a bedtime story."
Just then, something somewhere in the city roared, Nyx standing to carefully look out the window beside them.
"I can assure you it is not," Lunafreya said. "But the Lucii grant their power only to those they deem worthy."
"So that guy who tried it on back there, I guess he wasn't deemed worthy," Nyx said, remembering the man's arm burning.
"That was my brother," Lunafreya said.
Nyx sighed, shaking his head.
"These twelve years have changed Ravus," Lunafreya said. "He is bound by the past and lost in his lust for power."
Just then, several insect-like machines the size of Nyx's torso broke through the window, Nyx ducking out of their way and swearing.
"How the hell did they find us!?" Nyx demanded, drawing a dagger and stabbing one of the bugs with it as it tried to ram him again, his left hand holding it back.
Off to his right, Pelna caught the other for Crowe to kill. Crowe looked between the two, then over at Lunafreya, her eyes widening.
"Her hairpin!" Crowe said. "They're tracking it just like we did!"
"Give it to me," Nyx said, Lunafreya instantly handing it over. "Don't worry, Princess. I'm going to get you out of this city safely. I won't fail again."
"Again?" Lunafreya asked, seeing Crowe's gaze fall to the floor.
Nyx paused in trying to get the tracking device off the back of the hairpin before sighing. "I had a little sister once. She was killed when Niflheim invaded. I couldn't save her. I was as powerless then as I am now. I couldn't show her the future she wanted."
"True power isn't something that is found to those who seek it," Lunafreya said. "It comes to those who deserve it. Your sister wanted you to see a future too. Anyone would wish the same for family they love."
Nyx shook his head, snorting as he pulled the tracking device off finally. "You don't pull any punches, do you?"
Just then, there was a chorus of shrieks and roars and dozens of insects began to fly down at the room.
"Shit, go!" Nyx said, standing and darting for the door. "I'm over here!"
The bugs followed as Lunafreya was quickly led the other way by Pelna and Crowe, Crowe throwing a worried glance over her shoulder before she left.
"Do you hear me?" Drautos's voice asked over Nyx's communicator suddenly as Nyx drew his daggers. "Repeat, this is Drautos, over!"
Nyx skidded to a stop as a heavy machinegun walker dropped down outside the window to Nyx's left, shining a spotlight on him. "Your timing is impeccable, captain." He dove behind a cement pillar just as the gun roared to life. "How's your day been, sir?" The machine gun paused and he sprinted to his right, scrambling for the next pillar just as bullets began to rip into the wall just behind him.
"How the hell do you think!?" Drautos snapped. "Niffs have invaded my city, there are traitors in the Glaives, and I have no idea what's become of the king."
"Yeah, I've had a pretty great day too," Nyx said. "I just love playing with the Niffs toys." He sprinted for the next pillar, barely making it.
"Get serious, Nyx Ulric!" Drautos snapped.
"Alright, sir," Nyx said. "You want me to get serious fine. Don't play innocent when you and I both know that you're a filthy fucking traitor who tried to have Crowe killed!"
The moment the gun stopped firing, he darted around the pillar and leapt onto the walker's back. The walker was attached to a dropship by a pair of cables, so he jumped up onto the ship as it began to rise, hanging off of it as the insects swarmed up after him.
"That was the price for the king's choices," Drautos said. "It wasn't personal."
"No, well it most definitely is now," Nyx said, disconnecting, then swore as he slipped off the ship, barely managing to catch the back of the walker, dropping the tracking device.
Just as soon as it hit the ground, Lunafreya grabbed it and looked up, hurling it into the dropship's engine. Nyx groaned.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Nyx said.
Then, the insects that were swarming after the tracking device flew into the engine and it exploded, destroying them all and causing the dropship to begin to fall. Nyx dropped to the ground, then looked up as a second walker fell out of the dropship. He rolled onto his side just before it crashed down, missing him by an inch.
"Nyx!" Crowe shouted, sprinting over, Pelna staying with Lunafreya. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Nyx said. "Come on, we need to leave."
"Libertus is going to meet us in Section D," Crowe said.
"Right," Nyx nodded. "Let's make it quick."
The others all nodded and they made their way through the city quickly, careful to avoid being spotted by anyone.
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