A/N

Leonard Church814- I know that ship isn't very subtle, but the actual relationship thing isn't going to happen right away. And I went with that ship because I liked the idea so I ran with it and I know there will be people who don't really agree with it. What part in Chapter 3 is it like that? Also I know it may seem like the story is progressing fast, but there is reason for that. And I know the whole Prompto and Yang thing is a little awkward I just wanted to give prompto a little backstory before really delving into the story.

Chapter VIII: Hero

Nyx Ulric had escaped from Insomnia during the Empire's invasion. With the help of the now late, King Regis he was able to escape with his life. During the Empire's invasion of the Kingdom of Lucis the Imperials were able to successful cut off all outside communication, thus not alerting the rest of the Kingdoms to the invasion, leaving Nyx on his own to get to Beacon and on the run from the Imperials that had been hunting him down, including those he had called comrades in the Kingsglaive. The King had trusted Nyx with the ring of the Lucii, and with the future of Remnant.

"This sucks." Nyx said as he sat by a riverbed cleaning his face. "I don't even know where Vale is."

He finishes cleaning his face and strips of his Kingsglaive uniform, leaving a plain black shirt, fingerless gloves, and black pants. He grabs his Kingsglaive garments and hides them in a small ditch. He takes a seat by the riverbed and washes his hair. He then takes out his daggers and lets out a sigh

"Looks like I'm gonna have to make do without the King's magic." He said as he holsters his daggers in his pants. He then gets up and brushes himself off and makes his way to a nearby village.

The village he finds is a small village run by the Empire filled with mostly farmers and merchants with stone walls to keep out the grimm. He takes out some money from his pocket and counts how much funds he has.

"100 Lien, should be enough for a meal."

He makes his way to a ramen shop with stools on the outside of the shop and a grill in front of the stools and tables. He takes a seat in an empty stool and an old man comes out from the back of the shop.

"Can I get one bowl of pork ramen, please?" Nyx asks as he takes out 20 Lien and hands it to the shop owner. The owner counts the lien, nods to Nyx and heads in the back. Nyx takes a look around as he waits for his food.

"Sure is different from Insomnia." He said as he looked at all the merchants trying to sell chickens, rugs, groceries, and weird looking nic nacs. The shopkeeper comes from the back and lays a bowl of ramen in front of Nyx with chopsticks in the bowl.

"Thanks." Nyx says as he begins to stuff down the ramen. He finishes his food and hands the bowl to the shop owner and thanks him.

"Say." Nyx says as the shop owner turns around to head to the back "Are there any inns or motels in this village?"

"There's a small inn at the corner of that clothing store" The shop owner says as he points towards said clothing store.

"Thanks."

The man nods and heads to the back. Nyx heads to the clothing store and looks for the inn the old man had told him. He spots the inn and makes his way across the street when a group of kids surround him asking him for any spare lien. He takes some Lien and gives it to the children, they thank him and before he could put his money away one of the kids run past him and snatches the Lien and makes a run for it.

"Hey, give that back!" Nyx shouted as he attempted to chase the kid down, but lost track of him as the kid ran in an alleyway and disappeared.

"Shit!" Nyx said to himself as he looked into the alleyway, but was unable to find the thief. He heads out of the alleyway and notices a small group of five Imperial soldiers asking the villagers questions, thinking that they were searching for him, Nyx rushed back into the dark alleyway and put his back against the wall to where he was near invisible, and still had a good view of the soldiers. The soldiers then began harassing the villagers by knocking over their stands and taking their merchandise. The soldiers then make their way to a little hut near the merchant market and drag out an older man with grey hair, and wearing a greenish beat up jacket by his hair, with a young brunette girl around Nyx's age crying for them to let go of her father.

The Imperial soldier dragging the man drags him to the middle of the market area and drops him to the ground, the girl runs up to her dad and hugs him crying.

"This man has committed treason! He has conspired against our Emperor Aldercapt and must be punished!" Two Imperial soldiers walk up to the girl and her father and they grab the girl and pull her away from her father.

The old man tries to crawl for his daughter, but one of the soldiers kick him to the ground.

"Get on your knees, old man." The soldier said as he aimed his gun at the man's daughter.

"P-Please don't hurt my daughter, she had nothing to do with it. I beg of you." The man said as he pleaded with soldiers.
"I said on your knees!"

The old man slowly gets to his knees and looks at his daughter, who is crying and begging the soldiers not to kill her father.

"It's alright, Katie." The man said as he tried to smile through his tears "It'll all be alright."

The soldier aims his gun at the back of the old man's skull and prepares to execute him.

"Enough!" Nyx yelled as he made his way through the crowd of people that had be watching the whole ordeal.

The soldier stops and looks to where the voice had come from "Who are you?"

"I'm just a wanderer, but I'm sure that old man didn't do anything to deserve this!"

"He is a traitor to the Empire, and must be made an example of! Unless you would like to take his place… "Wanderer""

Nyx looks at the old man who had made his way to his crying daughter and is holding her while looking at Nyx "Fine. I'll take his place."

"Then come and kneel."

Nyx slowly makes his way to the Imperial soldier and gets on his knees as the old man had.

"Please." The man said gaining the attention of the soldier and Nyx "Leave the young man. He has nothing to do with this."

"Relax, old man. It's alright." Nyx said giving the old man a small smile.

The Imperial soldier aims at Nyx and begins to pull the trigger, but before he could Nyx draws his one of his kukri and stabs the Imperial's leg causing him to scream in pain. Nyx grabs the Imperial soldier's gun and uses him as a shield and fires at the two Imperial soldiers that had been standing next to the girl and her father. The other two soldiers get in front of Nyx, but don't fire because he still has one of the Imperials as a shield.

"Drop your weapons!" Nyx orders the soldiers, but they walk closer to Nyx. "Fine." Nyx shoves the soldier into one of the soldiers, causing them both to fall to the ground, he then tosses the empty gun at the soldier still standing and rushes at him before he could react. Nyx takes out his second kukri and plunges it into the soldier's chest, the soldier falls to the ground and Nyx picks up his weapon and fires at the two soldiers on the ground, killing them both. He drops the gun and reclaims his dagger from the soldier's leg.

Nyx turns towards the man and his daughter and walks up to them "You guys alright?"

"Th-Thank you, young man."

"No problem." Nyx replies as he turns and begins to walk away as the villagers move out of his way, out of respect and fear.

"Wait!" The old man calls out to Nyx "You said you were a wanderer. Do you need a place to stay for the night?"

"I could use a warm bed for the night."

Later

Nyx and the man he had saved are seated at a table in a small hut like home and the man's daughter brings them both a plate of food.

"Thanks." Nyx said as he smiled at the daughter who smiled back and takes a seat next to her father.

"So, why were you branded a traitor by those soldiers?" Nyx asked as he dug into the food.

"I've been digging around in the Empire's business and I found something, they didn't want found." The old man replied

"And what's that?"

"They are planning an attack on Insomnia, then the rest of the kingdoms but I do not know when."

Nyx stopped eating and sat there silently for a while "They already did…"

"What?!" The man shouted in shock. "H-How do you know? Did you see the attack?"

"I was there. I was meant to protect the king, but I failed."

"You're a Kingsglaive?" The girl asked looking at Nyx with an astonished look.

Nyx nodded "But now I have a different mission."

"What is it?" The old man asked.

"I-I can't say. Sorry."

Just then a knock is heard at the door. The old man gets up and opens the door.

"Yes?"

THe man is then kicked in the gut and is sent flying towards the table where Nyx is seated at

"Father!" The girl says as she goes to her father.

"I heard there was a Imperial killer being held in this "lovely" home." A man with brown, slicked back hair. "Where is he?"

Nyx gets up from his seat and stands in front of the two that had shared their home with him and draws his twin kukris

"I can't believe you betrayed King Regis, Lazarus!" Nyx shouted as he drew his daggers

"Well if it isn't the "Hero" himself, I thought Glauca would have killed you back in Insomnia. Looks like I'll have to finish it."

Lazarus draws his own set of daggers and rushes Nyx he leaps and attempts to slash at Nyx, but Nyx blocks the daggers with his own and kicks Lazarus through the door leading them both outside.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring any backup with you, Lazarus."

"As soon as I heard the report of our soldiers getting killed here, I knew without a doubt it had to be you, Nyx. And no one is going to have the pleasure of killing you but me!"

The two once comrades rush at each other and Nyx slashes at Lazarus' head, but he ducks under the slash and lands a slash of his own on Nyx's stomach.

"You're getting rusty, Hero." Lazarus said with a smirk.

Nyx does his best to ignore the pain from the cut and takes a fighting stance. The two clash daggers, blocking and parrying each other's attacks. Lazarus stabs Nyx's right hand, making him drop his weapon and tackles him to the ground, and takes him dagger and stabs Nyx in the shoulder making him scream in pain.

"This is what happens when you play hero. You should've learned that from Crowe." Lazarus begins to choke the life out of Nyx, he tries to punch Lazarus off of him, but is unsuccessful. His vision begins to blur and he begins to lose consciousness. He then remembers the words of King Regis and the promise he had made

"Please make sure Noctis gets this ring, this is not an order from a King to his Glaive. This is a plea from one man to another. For the future of Remnant."

Nyx's eyes open right up and he stretches for his kukri, he takes hold of it and stabs Lazarus in the stomach, causing him to loosen his grip.

Nyx gasps for air as Lazarus' grip loosens and kicks him off of him. Nyx stands up with his dagger in his hand, Lazarus attempts to get to his feet, but stumbles.

"You have no right to put Crowe's name in your mouth!" Nyx shouts as he plunges his kukri into Lazarus' chest and falls to his side.

The girl and her father run to Nyx's side and cover his wound with the man's jacket.

"I-I have to get to Vale." Nyx says then loses conscious and blacks out from the blood loss

Nyx wakes up early the next morning wincing in pain and notices bandages on his wounds and that he only has his boxers on. The girl hears him and brings him a glass of water. Nyx takes the glass and gulps the water, and the old man walks in.

"I'm glad to see you're still with us."

"What happened?" Nyx asked as he tries to sit up.

"Well after you defeated that man from the Imperial army you said something about needing to get to Vale and lost conscious."

"That's right. I have to get going." Nyx said as he put his clothes back on. And holsters his daggers.

"Relax, young man. I made a call to a friend. He owes me a few favours so I've asked him to see you to Vale."

"Thanks, old man. But you didn't have to. I'll make it to Vale on my own.

"And do you know where Vale is?"

Nyx stood there silently "Fair point. When is this friend supposed to get here?"

As if on queue there is a knock on the door.

"And there he is!" The old man heads to the door and opens it up. The two of them then head into the room where Nyx is.

"This is the man who will be seeing you to Vale." The old man says as he motions towards a tallish man, with a grey and white dress shirt, black short hair, and a red cape.

The man takes out a flask and takes a sip "The name's Qrow."

Qrow and Nyx head out of the house and towards a car parked outside of the village.

"Hey!" Katie calls out to Nyx just as he gets to the car causing him to turn towards the brunette haired girl "You never told us who you were!"

"No one important!" Nyx replied "Just a guy playing Hero!"

Nyx gets in the car with crow and the two drive off.

"So you've been to Vale?" Nyx asked Qrow trying to make small talk.

"A few times, plus I have some nieces attending Beacon Academy."

To be continued...