Hello! This one's a little different from the others so far in the sense that it doesn't focus on one character specifically. It's set at the end of the game sooo... mind the tags, we all know what happens at the end of that damn game.

I'm still super happy to see the reception this series is getting and I'm grateful for each one of you, thank you for being here and for encouraging me 3

Hope you enjoy!

Prompts:

No. 8: "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
Overcrowded ER | Outnumbered | "It's all for nothing."

Warnings: Implied/Referenced (Canonical) Character Death

Prompto is the first to regain his consciousness.

For a brief moment, he's disoriented, can't remember what it was that took him out. Nothing hurts, and he doesn't feel the aftereffects of any curatives either - they ran out years ago, but Noct spent an entire night making potions in the Glaive's quarters so they were able to bring a few with them to the Citadel.

The Citadel.

It all comes back to him in an instant, and he scrambles to his feet as fast as he can.

"Noct!" he yells, his voice bouncing around the empty throne room. Almost empty.

"Guys? Shit!"

He doesn't know what Ardyn did to them, but Iggy and Gladio are still lying motionless on the floor. Noct is nowhere to be seen.

Iggy's closest, so he drops down to his knees and pats his cheek.

"Iggy? C'mon, wake up."

Anxiously, Prompto presses two fingers against Ignis's jaw, breathing a sigh of relief when he finds a strong pulse.

Prompto pats his cheek a few more times and finally, Ignis stirs with a groan.

"Iggy! Ignis, hey!"

Ignis groans again and turns his head in Prompto's direction.

"Prompto?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. Listen, we gotta get going, Noct went after Ardyn alone, we gotta-"

The idea of Noct in danger is enough for Ignis to shoot up into a sitting position before Prompto can finish his sentence.

"Let's go, then. Where's Gladio?"

Prompto opens his mouth to answer but is interrupted by another groan, this time from Gladio.

"Just waking up, it seems," he says instead and, once he's sure Iggy's stable, goes to help Gladio sit up.

"Shit. What now?" Gladio asks once he's on his feet and briefed on the situation. "Any idea of where they went?"

They don't, but Prompto runs up to the throne with a promise to be back in a second. There's a huge hole blown into the wall and the last thing Prompto remembers is Ardyn up on the throne, so maybe he can figure out where they went from there.

Sure enough, the hole allows him to see across the entire city. Frantically, he searches for any sign of Noct, and then he spots them.

"Uh, guys?" he calls. "I don't think we can help him there."

Quickly, he hops back down to explain.

"They're like, flying. Or hovering, maybe. Just, they're really far up in the sky battling it out and even if we tried, we can't reach them there."

Prompto hates it, hates that Noct has to bear this burden alone. He's also not above admitting that he would really like to help give Ardyn a good beating, too. Payback for ten years ago, y'know.

Gladio curses, loudly, but his string of filthy words is interrupted by a deafening roar outside.

Daemons.

"Guess we got a new task," Prompto sighs, gun already cocked.

They can't let the Citadel be overrun by daemons, now that they've almost reclaimed it. Once they're inside, it'll be almost impossible to get them back out - like a cockroach infestation. Better to hold them off before they get inside in the first place.

He runs after Ignis and Gladio, ready to fight, but nothing could've prepared him for what awaits them outside.

Daemons, more than he'd ever seen in the same place, most of them the deadlier versions that had evolved during the Long Night. Ignis just narrowly avoids the blade of an iron giant, and Gladio is already charging one of the spider daemons.

Prompto takes a deep breath, steadies himself and starts firing.

We can't keep this up much longer, Prompto thinks desperately. His hands are trembling and a devastating number of his bullets are missing their marks. He's almost out of ammo, and his shiny new Flamebreath Cannon is long broken - smashed by an iron giant's first.

Gladio's barely standing, no longer able to attack in between blocking blows from all sides. He's bleeding from several wounds and it's only a matter of time until he's a touch too slow to block a deadly blow.

Ignis isn't faring much better. Watching him fight these days is fascinating. He's mastered the art of making it look effortless. But a few years into the Night, over a bottle of moonshine, Ignis confessed to him that it still takes a lot of effort to fight blind, and the more tired he gets the harder it is to keep track of his surroundings.

It's obvious, watching him now. He stumbles, misses hits he should land with ease, and his dodges are getting sloppier by the second.

They're going to die here, Prompto realises. They're outnumbered, no matter how many daemons they take out, more spawn to take their place. He can't tell how long they've been at it, but every cell in his body is screaming at him to stop, he can't keep going, no more-

He blinks wetness out of his eyes - sweat or tears, he's really not sure.

Prompto doesn't want to die like this, he really doesn't. He's survived so much, they all have. It's… it's not fair, for them to go out like this. They're prepared to die here today, sure, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. They deserve better, he thinks, they all do.

And then, the most wonderful and terrible thing he can imagine happens.

The sun rises.

Prompto freezes and nearly gets his head chopped off for it, but it doesn't matter; a few seconds later, the daemon who almost got him dissolves with a hiss as the light hits it.

Ignis told them, years ago, about the prophecy shown to him in Altissia, about the end of the world and what it'll take to prevent it. About Noct's destiny to die as a sacrificial lamb for the gods.

If the sun is up, Noct is dead.

Prompto drops his gun, vaguely aware of the sound it makes as it clatters to the ground. It clatters to the ground instead of dissolving into crystalline sparkles because of course it does, the magical connection to the Armiger is no more - it stopped existing the moment Noct stopped existing.

Next to him, Ignis drops to his knees, and Gladio roars with rage, but Prompto is silent. He turns his face up towards the sky, feeling the sun's warmth they'd been missing for so long, and the wetness of the tears streaming down his face.

Goodbye, Noct.

This one hurt me, not gonna lie.

The ending honestly confuses in the sense of... I'm not sure where the boys are, sure there's this scene where they're facing daemons in front of the Citadel and Noct walks up the stairs, but that's obviously not how it goes because in the actual story they're being knocked out by Ardyn, so I didn't even attempt to figure that stuff out, I just made something up but it doesn't matter because I can do what I want.

I forgot to ever plug my whump Tumblr here, it's hurtingmyfaves and I reblog stuff there sometimes, but I'm not very active and any writing I put on there is first posted here/to my main Tumblr (thisfairytalegonebad) and then reblogged to the whump blog, so you're not missing anything by not following it. It's just there if you're interested in more general whump content (like prompts, scenarios, gifsets etc.). I don't post any myself, but I'm very good at clicking reblog :)

Stay tuned for Prompto again tomorrow, and have a good start into the week!