Noctis climbed out of the car and pushed the door shut, without help, which stopped Ignis from trying to help in the first place.

There was an explosion nearby that made Prompto exchange looks with the others before he took off running.

"What's over there?"

"That's where he parked the stolen air carrier," Ignis said. Prompto came running back.

"Remember that karlabos we killed for Gladio's obsession with Cup Noodles? Its big brothers and sisters just destroyed the air carrier and leapt into the ocean," he said.

"Why'd they do that?" Noctis asked.

"Well, I might have squished one when I landed yesterday," Prompto said.

"And you didn't save the meat?" Gladio and Ignis said this in perfect unison.

"Kind of preoccupied with what the hell was going on with everyone," Prompto said.

"We should just get inside the property before any MT's show up to investigate the blast," Noctis said. Carbuncle chirped and shook out their coat before trotting inside the property line. Noctis followed suit leaving the others to catch up.

"Cor will be here tomorrow, hopefully, and then we'll leave two days after that," Prompto said, "But until then we have three days of having nothing to do."

"Speak for yourself," Gladio said, "Noct, I know you aren't going to like hearing this but unless you get some training on how to fight someone bigger than you, you're going to run anytime there's a fight from here on out until you're your proper size again."

"But I already know how to fight," Noctis said.

"As an adult. Right now, you've got a kid's body, which means, a whole different fighting style," Gladio said.

"You mean dirty fighting," Noctis said.

"Don't knock it too much there, after all, it's the only way a kid has a chance. Besides, you call the way we fight clean?" Gladio said.

"Fair point, so why do I need to learn kid style dirty fighting?" Noctis said.

"In case you end up separated from us and attacked by another imperial commander," Gladio said.

"Oh," Noctis said.

"It'd also be good to see if you can warp strike like this," Gladio said, "There's an area next to the garden we can use. First, we're eating lunch."

"I get why Noct has to do this but why us too?" Prompto said as he stretched in preparation for the training session.

"Because, dirty fighting is a great tactic for catching an enemy off guard," Gladio said.

"But, in case you haven't noticed, our enemies like to wear full plate armor," Prompto said.

"But the officers have a rather stupid penchant for leaving their necks and head exposed," Ignis said. Carbuncle chirped and looked rather pleased.

"What'd he do?" Prompto asked.

"Bit Caligo in the throat," Noctis said.

"Nice!"

"Alright, you're right that they wear armor and the officers are cocky enough to leave their heads and necks exposed, so we're practicing going for the eyes or throats," Gladio said.

"This isn't going to end well," Noctis said.

Noctis was right. A few elixirs later, and the damage was undone physically, but emotionally, Gladio and Prompto still weren't on talking terms for the moment. Noctis sat down waiting for Ignis to finish setting up the warp targets.

"Now summon that sword," Ignis said. Noctis called it out and focused. Carbuncle chirped and glowed red. He could warp again.

"Thank you," Noctis said. Carbuncle just gave him a foxy grin and preened. Throwing the sword as hard as he could he managed to warp to the first target but his arms were weak which led to him aiming for the ground and warping there before he dropped.

"Hmmm, so you have the ability to warp but not the ability to suspend yourself for long period of time," Ignis said.

"At least he can warp," Gladio said, "Get out the spear, we're sparring."

"What?" Noctis said. Even if he hadn't been physically a kid, he'd still have been exhausted.

"You heard me. If you want to be able to avoid being taken hostage, you're learning how to deal with someone my size when you're your current size," Gladio said.

"Fine." Noctis's desire to not be a target outweighed his desire for a nap. For the moment.

"We'll go ahead and work on making sure the supplies are in order," Ignis said.

"Fine," Gladio looked at Prompto who gulped and darted away.

"First, we're going to do this without you warping," Gladio said, "You already know about turning strength back on bigger daemons, but you've never had to deal with this much of a difference in size with even humans. If we come across any daemons while you're like this, you're running, you understand me." Noctis bristled but looked down. Yesterday was too fresh to ignore. He held his spear like he normally would and Gladio nodded before summoning a shield.

"Turn my force back against me!" He charged catching Noctis off guard. He landed on his butt and he stood up.

"Again!" Noctis couldn't block the attack! He tried to parry but he was too weak.

"Again! You can't keep attacking like that. Use your size and mine to your advantage!" Gladio charged at Noctis. It was like trying to deal with a beullette—oh. Right now his child self was the same size his adult self was to a beullette. He darted to the side and used the shaft of his spear to deliver a strike to Gladio's legs sending the older man stumbling forwards.

"Better!" Gladio said, "Now, Again!"

Noctis and Gladio limped in later for dinner.

"Productive training session?" Ignis asked from his seat at the table.

"If you mean by eating dirt, then yeah it was," Noctis said as he climbed onto a chair.

"Wash up, both of you," Ignis said. Nocits groaned before dragging himself up stairs. Gladio waited for the sounds of the bathroom door before he looked at Ignis.

"Took him a while, but he started to adapt to fighting like that. A couple more days of drills and the training he'd already had at that age might kick in," Gladio said.

"Wait, Noct was training at that age?" Prompto said.

"King Regis had Noctis in the training room before he could read," Gladio said, "It wasn't anything fancy, and he didn't start sparring until he was older and it was mostly sword training until I took over when he was ten."

"But I trust you didn't have him using live steel?" Ignis said.

"Of course not. That's tomorrow and I'm going to need your help," Gladio said clapping Ignis on the shoulder.

"Joy."

Noctis walked down stairs in one of his only remaining clean outfits of kid sized clothes: the yellow chocobo shirt and tan shorts. He hadn't bothered re-spiking his hair after his very quick shower.

"You look like a normal little kid like that," Prompto said. Noctis rolled his eyes and took a seat.

"I'm guessing you are out of clean clothes?" Ignis said.

"Almost, I still have that light blue shirt," Noctis said.

"I'll attend to it tomorrow after training is over," Ignis said. Noctis arrived at the table.

"How did training go?" he asked.

"It could have gone worse," Noctis said. Gladio arrived down stairs in this casual clothes and Prompto shifted nervously, "There were a couple of mishaps in the first part."

"What Noct is dancing around is Prompto broke Gladio's nose and poked his eyes very hard during an exercise on dirty fighting and Gladio may have kicked Prompto below the belt in retaliation," Ignis said, "Fortunately, Elixirs fix those kinds of injuries."

"Dirty fighting?" Talcott said.

"Yeah. If anyone grabs you, bite them, kick them, punch the nose, poke their eyes," Noctis said.

"Oh," Talcott said, "Become a cactuar!"

"Something like that," Noctis said. Dinner was served shortly after. If Noctis fed Carbuncle from the table, no one commented.

He was surrounded by water, trapped. A large form loomed overhead. Leviathan.

This bag of bones is unworthy. I shall devour it all until there is not even a spec like this insult of a king left! The jaws of the beast were swiftly coming for him— Noctis sat up panting. A nightmare. He flopped back on the bed. He wouldn't face Leviathan like this. Luna would fix him as soon as he managed to get to her in Altissia. It was already morning. A quick look over at the other beds showed that only Prompto was still asleep. It wasn't too early then. Noctis closed his eyes and the images returned. If that wasn't a sign to get out of bed, he didn't know what was.

Noctis walked down stairs still half asleep. He hadn't bothered spiking his hair yet. He'd worry about that after he'd woken up more.

"You're up early," Ignis said. Noctis just ignored him and sat at the table. Talcott wasn't up yet either. He played on his phone. He was trying to fight falling asleep where he sat ending up in a semi-zonked out state playing King's Knight based on where instinct and memory. He didn't register Promtpo's arrival. It wasn't until a strange sound near the door that he was fully jolted back into awareness. Cor. The Marshal of the Crownsguard was frozen in shock.

"Didn't anyone tell him?" Noctis asked.

"I was informed you'd been cursed, Your Majesty, not the exact nature of it," Cor said, "How does if affect you?"

"Right now, it's just me only smaller," Noctis said, "Before I only had my memories of being eight." Carbuncle finally made an appearance. The summons was also only half awake. Cor took the mythic creature's appearance in stride.

"You've arrived ahead of schedule," Ignis said.

"I'd heard reports of an explosion over near this homestead," Cor said.

"Oh, that would have been the stolen air carrier getting destroyed by daemons," Prompto said, "In my defense, there aren't a lot of places to land one of those."

"You managed to steal an air carrier?" Cor said.

"Prompto is just full of surprises," Noctis said.

"Indeed," Cor said.