Gladiolus Amicitia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sword_chocobro) wrote2022-09-15 05:11 am
sword_chocobro) wrote2022-09-15 05:11 am
Entry tags:
Insomnia; Lucis, Eos. Thursday, 09/16 766. [09/15 FT].
After fighting their way through the daemon clogged streets of Insomnia, still overrun by the last remaining factions of the still-clinging Niflheim Empire, the area around the felt Citadel shockingly untouched. If it weren't for what they'd all just been through, the struggle it was to reach these gates again, and the darkness that still surrounded them, it would almost feel like it had been, those ten long years ago, when they'd approached those steps for the last time to meet with Regis in the throne room to see Noctis off on his fateful journey.
And, of course, someone was already there, waiting, though he moved toward them as they approached, his steps slow and steady on the concrete beneath his feet.
"Ifrit!" Ardyn Izunia began, tossing one hand dramatically to the side, and then his other joined it, lifting his open arms slightly toward the heavens as he tilted bac his head. "The Infernian. He doesn't share the Glacian's...fondness for mankind." He paused a moment, smiling almost wistfully into the distance. "But you can expect a...warm welcome.
"I shall await you," he concluded, lifting up a hand in a wave, "above."
With that, Ardyn turned, and, somehow, the darkness around them seemed to have dropped into a deeper darkness, causing him to disappear behind immuatable shadows. And just as they were sure he was gone, great jets of fire seemed to leap up out of nowhere in the space between the Citadel steps and where they had approached. A burning inferno that erupted, and then sizzled, and, in the shimmering air beyond, the Citadel had disappeared, repleaced by the massive figure of the god Ifrit, leaning his chin in his hand as he leaned on the arm of a mighty throne.
"Stay cool," Noctis breathed out. "He's gonna bring the heat."
And, despite his own warning, Noctis charged forward with determination, and, sure enough, Ifrit lifted his hand, almost casually, and another burst of flame erupted from it, shooting straight toward them. Dodging out of the way and pushed by the sheer force of the flames, Noctis hit the ground, cowering and groaning in pain, rolling around to extinguish the fire leaping over his uniform.
"Noct!" Prompto was there at his side now, hands patting him down to help the process. "Hang in there, buddy!
"Stay down," he added, catching his eyes and giving him a firm, reassuring nod before pushing himself back up to his feet. "We'll keep him busy!"
"Noct!" Ignis cried out from the side as Prompto rushed forward. "Over here! Quickly! Before he strikes again!"
But the hit had done more damage than he'd originally thought, pain ripping through him as he started to stagger toward the sound of Ignis' voice. He wasn't sure he'd make it, until, all of a sudden, the weight of his own body seemed lifted, as Gladio swooped in, took a hold of him, and helped guide him the rest of the way, to a barrier that would protect them from the next burst of flame.
"Here it comes!" Prompto called out, as he joined the others and they all ducked, arms and bodies protective around their king. The scorching heat overhead, the powerful winds that accompanied it, threatened to still fry them, even when they weren't directly in their path, and they held strong until it was finished.
"I've got your back!" Prompto promised, as he peeled himself away to one side; Gladio followed suite, dashing forward from the other side. And Ignis, pulling out a potion from his jacket, reached down to burst its healing power over him. "Here you go."
Regenerated and re-enforced, Noct steeled himself for another attack. "Let's go."
As they came closer to the throne, Ifrit stood, his incredibly tall body engulfed in flames, looming over them like a mighty moving tower as he swung his massive, hook-ended blade. His size made him slow, that was one point in their favor, although the trail of fire he left behind him, shedding flames and scattering them all around, definitely made for a heated battle. Charging in, swinging blades, firing bullets, smashing potions whenever one of them lagged, they threw everything they had at the god, their synchronocity matched as if it hadn't been nearly a decade since they'd all fought together, all four of them, like this. And, finally, when it seemed like they were finally making some headway, like they might actually have victory in their sights, Noctis did what only felt right, and called upon the other gods to see who might answer him.
And no one expected it to be Bahamut.
Slicing through the sky, a gargantuan sword, as tall and looming as any of the skycrapers of the city around them, decended, cleaving into the solid rock of the courtyard with a shower of sparks and fire. The force of it was enough to knock them all back, while something darted, fast and swooping, across the sky, far overhead. Winged Bahamut, coming to their aid, against his very own kindred Astral. Finally finding his position, his bladed wings spread with an echoing schink!, and the spectral form of dozens of blades surrounded him, a ring of deadly destruction that he now honed in on the battlefield below.
With a dramatic gesture of Bahamut's gauntleted hand, the swords rained down on the Citadel courtyard, aimed at their flaming target below. But Ifrit was quick, Ifrid all but danced along as the blades found cobblestones instead of his body. Finally, there was but one sword left, the large one in Bahamut's own hand, and when he decended toward Eos with it raised over his shoulder with the intention of swinging it down on Ifrit, Ifrit met it with his own, much smaller flaming sword that nonetheless caught and stopped Bahamut's.
And in that moment, while Bahamut had Ifrit held in place, the massive god glanced over to his Summoner; Noctis met his eye and nodded, reaching out to draw up his sword once again. Fling it out, over Ifrit's head, so that he could warp his way over to him, and then come crashing down on him with his sword ready to cleave through the Astral. Noctis warped away again as Ifrit stood there, paralyzed by shock and pain until he finally dropped heavily to his knees.
Then reached for his sword, and slowly pulled himself back up.
"So even that wasn't enough?" Gladio grunted, marveling with a newfound ripple of fear coursing through him, trying to push it away. He had, after all, been one of the few men to survive an encounter with Gilgamesh; surely, with the others at his side, they could handle this!
"It's turned for the worse!" Ignis observed, helpfully.
"Out of the frying pan, dot dot dot..." Prompto added, but there was a grin in it, an eagerness, a bolstering feeling that came with those familiar beats of banter, even though it had been so long since they've had the comfort of them, or the drive and inspiration to really cultivate them.
"We need to put this thing out!" Gladio directed with determination, and they all returned to the fray, energized by each other's words to counteract the devastation of Bahamut's failure. But if Bahamut couldn't do the job, maybe they could finish it for him.
Or maybe they just needed a little more help. As their battle raged on, steadily swinging their weapons and shooting their bullets of the Pyreburner, a voice seemed to call out, gentle but admonishing, the words indecipherable in that strange, lilting language of the Astrals. Gentiana...no, Shiva, the Glacian...suddenly appeared beside Noctis, as she had in several of Prompto's photographs so long ago, smiling over at him as his eyes glossed over with that strange purple glow that came from Summoning. And, with a burst of crystaline, icy wind, she began to transform, skin turning blue, hair turning white, accompanied by her sprites as she floated over to Ifrit and they began to circle around him, and then around Noctis, standing tall and bold and ready to defend him. Ifrit began to charge forward, and the ice maidens dispersed, soaring up into the air and spinning around, fast and faster to create an icy fury of wind to surround them. Shiva floated slowly forward, as Ifrit struggled against the frost extinguishing his flames, freezing him into place.
As she reached him, his mouth opened in a soundless shout; her small hands gently touched his chin as she leaned in to gently kiss that gaping lip. Pushed herself away and turned, before she had to see him shattering into thousands of glittering shards of ice, and though she flew off into the ether after that, her voice still lingered, words that only Noctis could understand, in the aftermath of this penultimate battle.
"What did she say?" asked Prompto, catching his breath and still in awe of the spectacle that had just played out before them.
"Told me..." Noctis said, slowly, with uncertainty, and an undeniable heaviness, "to bring back the Light."
"Then that's our next stop," said Gladio.
"On we go," Ignis agreed.
And so it was time to mount the Citadel steps, that long ascension that seemed all at once endless and not long enough. "At long last," said Ignis, as Noctis pushed through the doors into the entrance hall, "the Citadel."
"The throne," Noctis said, his voice gone slightly hollow with the implications now laid out bare in front of him, "is just ahead."
So they walked, with slow and heavy steps, through the empty, echoing chamber, forward to the throne room, when Prompto noticed something that...wasn't quite right.
"It's all lit up," he noted, gawking slightly at the glowing sconces on the pillars flanking their way.
"Guess he's expecting company," Gladio noted dryly.
"He wants this as bad as we do," Noctis murmured, on the edge of a sigh.
"Think the elevator's working?" Gladio wondered.
"Sure looks like it," said Prompto, as they approached the end of the long entrance hall to the elevator in question.
"He is really taking us by the hand," Ignis scoffed faintly with a certain disapproval.
"Eh." There was a certain note of finality to Noctis' dismissive shrug. "It'll save us the walk up."
So they all filed into elevator, and, just like the stairs up to the Citadel, the journey seemed to so long while simultaneously not being nearly long enough. It's descent also carried a weight so massive, it was a surprise the lift didn't just snap and fall from its presence.
"The throne room," said Gladio, in the effort to lift some of it by not having them all drift up in silence, "waits outside."
"Yeah," Prompto agreed, his voice wavering, and soft. "And so does Ardyn."
"Acting like he owns the place," Gladio added with a grunt.
"It's time," said Ignis, slow and measured and almost savoring each word, "to take it all back."
"It ends here," Noctis confirmed darkly. "Tonight."
The elevator's small ding seemed surprisingly loud, as did their footsteps down the empty hallways as they poured out from it and took those familiar steps toward the throne room.
"Remember how nervous we were?" Gladio asked with a sound almost like a laugh, passing through one of the reception chambers. "In front of King Regis the day we left?"
"That," Ignis recalled, "was the last time we were in here."
Noctis let out a soft scoff, though it seems slightly amused. "Feels like forever ago."
And, with that, they stood before the throne room door.
"Well," said Ignis, drawing in a deep breath. "Shall we, Noct?"
"Yeah," Noctis let out a breath of his own. "But..." He hesitated, a frown deep on his face, as he turned toward the three of them. "Hold on a sec. Prompto."
Prompto's attention snapped up immediately. "Hm?"
"Can I see your photos?"
"Uhmmm." Out of all the things Noctis could have said to him at that moment, this was clearly not what he had been expecting, and though he faltered a moment in confusion, he was quick with the firmness of his answer, already reaching for some. "Yeah."
"I just need one," Noctis said, quickly, firmly, and then he, too, faltered with expressing his meaning. "To...take with me."
"...o-oh," Prompto stammered out, as that meaning settled into place, and he nodded, lifting his eyes to look at Noctis and trying not to think about it too much. "Yeah. I...I get it. Um...." But he couldn't look for long, lowering his head as he stepped forward and handed the camera over. "You can take whichever you like."
But it didn't take long at all for Noctis to choose; ironically, it wasn't even a photo that Prompto himself had taken, but rather the one that Cindy had, after she'd fixed up the Regalia, them all posed around it, ten long years ago, after they came pushing it into the Hammerhead before their journey had even really begun.
"Now you can't beat that," Gladio said with approval. "A shot of all four of us together."
"Through it all," Ignis mused, "we had each other."
"Then it's settled?" asked Prompto, with a faint grin on his face. "That's the one? No backsies?"
"Yeah," said Noctis, looking down at the photo with a warm smile, though, when he looked back up at the others, there was a particular sheen in his eyes. Blinking it away, he tucked the photo carefully into his jacket, and turned to push open the doors to the throne room and the destiny that awaited him.
But nothing could prepare any of them for the scene that played out before them, the large and looming Lucian throne surrounded by bodies dangling from the vastly high chamber ceiling. The bodies of various Kingsglaive and Crownsguard in the same uniforms that they wore now. The bodies of King Regis and Lady Lunafreya and her brother Ravus, all of them somehow grotesquely preserved in a delayed state of decay, dripping with lifeless limbs from the chains that dangled them like morbid chandeliers around the throne and the Crystal behind it....and Ardyn sitting there in it.
"W-what?" Only Prompto seemed to be able to breathe out the words on all their minds, except perhaps for Ignis, saved as he was from witnessing this grisly sight. "What is that?"
And Ardyn just cocked his head their way, an all-too-familiar smile on his face, unchanged after all this time. "I'm afraid," he called out, over the steady clacking of their footsteps against the marble floor as they approached the looming throne, "you're out of luck. The throne brings you here?"
His smirk went crooked as he settled comfortably back into it and shook his head, laughing darkly. "It seats only one."
"Off my chair, jester," said Noctis, firm and unwavering, his eyes locked onto Ardyn. "The king sits there."
So fast they could barely even discern the movement, Ardyn was on his feet beside the throne, one of his boots slamming heavily onto the seat in which he'd occupied a mere second ago. He leaned forward, elbow to his knee, looking down for a moment before turning his head their way. "Oh, Noct," he breathed out. "How I have waited for this. Longer than you could ever know."
He moved his foot, slowly turning his body toward them now. "Tonight," he pronounced, "the dreams of the blood royal..." he reached out slowly, opening up his hand before slowly curling it up into a fist, "come to an end!"
"Spite's all that's kept him going," Gladio realized in a low grunt, watching the theatrics with a tight, cold steeliness in his spine.
"Talk about a grudge," Prompto murmured in response, eyes morbidly fascinated, unable to turn away, with a small sardonic laugh as if that could ease the fear gripping his stomach.
"Ardyn sits the throne?" Ignis guessed, his voice little more than a hoarse, disturbed whisper.
And Noctis responded in kind with a harsh exhale. "Not for long. This...is my ascension."
And with those words, Ardyn thrust out his hand sharply, sending out three bursts of dark purple light. They went sailing straight past Noctis, each one finding and smashing into the chests of his friends; with started grunts, they went flying back, fighting against the magic as it surrounded them with a black fog.
Fighting against it, however, proved futile.
They had no place in this, a battle of kings.
And so Noctis would have to move forward....alone.
[[ taken from the absolute mess of Final Fantasy XV's Chapter 14: 'Homecoming'. NFB, NFI, TBC! *inserts anticipatory heavy breathing* ]]
And, of course, someone was already there, waiting, though he moved toward them as they approached, his steps slow and steady on the concrete beneath his feet.
"Ifrit!" Ardyn Izunia began, tossing one hand dramatically to the side, and then his other joined it, lifting his open arms slightly toward the heavens as he tilted bac his head. "The Infernian. He doesn't share the Glacian's...fondness for mankind." He paused a moment, smiling almost wistfully into the distance. "But you can expect a...warm welcome.
"I shall await you," he concluded, lifting up a hand in a wave, "above."
With that, Ardyn turned, and, somehow, the darkness around them seemed to have dropped into a deeper darkness, causing him to disappear behind immuatable shadows. And just as they were sure he was gone, great jets of fire seemed to leap up out of nowhere in the space between the Citadel steps and where they had approached. A burning inferno that erupted, and then sizzled, and, in the shimmering air beyond, the Citadel had disappeared, repleaced by the massive figure of the god Ifrit, leaning his chin in his hand as he leaned on the arm of a mighty throne.
"Stay cool," Noctis breathed out. "He's gonna bring the heat."
And, despite his own warning, Noctis charged forward with determination, and, sure enough, Ifrit lifted his hand, almost casually, and another burst of flame erupted from it, shooting straight toward them. Dodging out of the way and pushed by the sheer force of the flames, Noctis hit the ground, cowering and groaning in pain, rolling around to extinguish the fire leaping over his uniform.
"Noct!" Prompto was there at his side now, hands patting him down to help the process. "Hang in there, buddy!
"Stay down," he added, catching his eyes and giving him a firm, reassuring nod before pushing himself back up to his feet. "We'll keep him busy!"
"Noct!" Ignis cried out from the side as Prompto rushed forward. "Over here! Quickly! Before he strikes again!"
But the hit had done more damage than he'd originally thought, pain ripping through him as he started to stagger toward the sound of Ignis' voice. He wasn't sure he'd make it, until, all of a sudden, the weight of his own body seemed lifted, as Gladio swooped in, took a hold of him, and helped guide him the rest of the way, to a barrier that would protect them from the next burst of flame.
"Here it comes!" Prompto called out, as he joined the others and they all ducked, arms and bodies protective around their king. The scorching heat overhead, the powerful winds that accompanied it, threatened to still fry them, even when they weren't directly in their path, and they held strong until it was finished.
"I've got your back!" Prompto promised, as he peeled himself away to one side; Gladio followed suite, dashing forward from the other side. And Ignis, pulling out a potion from his jacket, reached down to burst its healing power over him. "Here you go."
Regenerated and re-enforced, Noct steeled himself for another attack. "Let's go."
As they came closer to the throne, Ifrit stood, his incredibly tall body engulfed in flames, looming over them like a mighty moving tower as he swung his massive, hook-ended blade. His size made him slow, that was one point in their favor, although the trail of fire he left behind him, shedding flames and scattering them all around, definitely made for a heated battle. Charging in, swinging blades, firing bullets, smashing potions whenever one of them lagged, they threw everything they had at the god, their synchronocity matched as if it hadn't been nearly a decade since they'd all fought together, all four of them, like this. And, finally, when it seemed like they were finally making some headway, like they might actually have victory in their sights, Noctis did what only felt right, and called upon the other gods to see who might answer him.
And no one expected it to be Bahamut.
Slicing through the sky, a gargantuan sword, as tall and looming as any of the skycrapers of the city around them, decended, cleaving into the solid rock of the courtyard with a shower of sparks and fire. The force of it was enough to knock them all back, while something darted, fast and swooping, across the sky, far overhead. Winged Bahamut, coming to their aid, against his very own kindred Astral. Finally finding his position, his bladed wings spread with an echoing schink!, and the spectral form of dozens of blades surrounded him, a ring of deadly destruction that he now honed in on the battlefield below.
With a dramatic gesture of Bahamut's gauntleted hand, the swords rained down on the Citadel courtyard, aimed at their flaming target below. But Ifrit was quick, Ifrid all but danced along as the blades found cobblestones instead of his body. Finally, there was but one sword left, the large one in Bahamut's own hand, and when he decended toward Eos with it raised over his shoulder with the intention of swinging it down on Ifrit, Ifrit met it with his own, much smaller flaming sword that nonetheless caught and stopped Bahamut's.
And in that moment, while Bahamut had Ifrit held in place, the massive god glanced over to his Summoner; Noctis met his eye and nodded, reaching out to draw up his sword once again. Fling it out, over Ifrit's head, so that he could warp his way over to him, and then come crashing down on him with his sword ready to cleave through the Astral. Noctis warped away again as Ifrit stood there, paralyzed by shock and pain until he finally dropped heavily to his knees.
Then reached for his sword, and slowly pulled himself back up.
"So even that wasn't enough?" Gladio grunted, marveling with a newfound ripple of fear coursing through him, trying to push it away. He had, after all, been one of the few men to survive an encounter with Gilgamesh; surely, with the others at his side, they could handle this!
"It's turned for the worse!" Ignis observed, helpfully.
"Out of the frying pan, dot dot dot..." Prompto added, but there was a grin in it, an eagerness, a bolstering feeling that came with those familiar beats of banter, even though it had been so long since they've had the comfort of them, or the drive and inspiration to really cultivate them.
"We need to put this thing out!" Gladio directed with determination, and they all returned to the fray, energized by each other's words to counteract the devastation of Bahamut's failure. But if Bahamut couldn't do the job, maybe they could finish it for him.
Or maybe they just needed a little more help. As their battle raged on, steadily swinging their weapons and shooting their bullets of the Pyreburner, a voice seemed to call out, gentle but admonishing, the words indecipherable in that strange, lilting language of the Astrals. Gentiana...no, Shiva, the Glacian...suddenly appeared beside Noctis, as she had in several of Prompto's photographs so long ago, smiling over at him as his eyes glossed over with that strange purple glow that came from Summoning. And, with a burst of crystaline, icy wind, she began to transform, skin turning blue, hair turning white, accompanied by her sprites as she floated over to Ifrit and they began to circle around him, and then around Noctis, standing tall and bold and ready to defend him. Ifrit began to charge forward, and the ice maidens dispersed, soaring up into the air and spinning around, fast and faster to create an icy fury of wind to surround them. Shiva floated slowly forward, as Ifrit struggled against the frost extinguishing his flames, freezing him into place.
As she reached him, his mouth opened in a soundless shout; her small hands gently touched his chin as she leaned in to gently kiss that gaping lip. Pushed herself away and turned, before she had to see him shattering into thousands of glittering shards of ice, and though she flew off into the ether after that, her voice still lingered, words that only Noctis could understand, in the aftermath of this penultimate battle.
"What did she say?" asked Prompto, catching his breath and still in awe of the spectacle that had just played out before them.
"Told me..." Noctis said, slowly, with uncertainty, and an undeniable heaviness, "to bring back the Light."
"Then that's our next stop," said Gladio.
"On we go," Ignis agreed.
And so it was time to mount the Citadel steps, that long ascension that seemed all at once endless and not long enough. "At long last," said Ignis, as Noctis pushed through the doors into the entrance hall, "the Citadel."
"The throne," Noctis said, his voice gone slightly hollow with the implications now laid out bare in front of him, "is just ahead."
So they walked, with slow and heavy steps, through the empty, echoing chamber, forward to the throne room, when Prompto noticed something that...wasn't quite right.
"It's all lit up," he noted, gawking slightly at the glowing sconces on the pillars flanking their way.
"Guess he's expecting company," Gladio noted dryly.
"He wants this as bad as we do," Noctis murmured, on the edge of a sigh.
"Think the elevator's working?" Gladio wondered.
"Sure looks like it," said Prompto, as they approached the end of the long entrance hall to the elevator in question.
"He is really taking us by the hand," Ignis scoffed faintly with a certain disapproval.
"Eh." There was a certain note of finality to Noctis' dismissive shrug. "It'll save us the walk up."
So they all filed into elevator, and, just like the stairs up to the Citadel, the journey seemed to so long while simultaneously not being nearly long enough. It's descent also carried a weight so massive, it was a surprise the lift didn't just snap and fall from its presence.
"The throne room," said Gladio, in the effort to lift some of it by not having them all drift up in silence, "waits outside."
"Yeah," Prompto agreed, his voice wavering, and soft. "And so does Ardyn."
"Acting like he owns the place," Gladio added with a grunt.
"It's time," said Ignis, slow and measured and almost savoring each word, "to take it all back."
"It ends here," Noctis confirmed darkly. "Tonight."
The elevator's small ding seemed surprisingly loud, as did their footsteps down the empty hallways as they poured out from it and took those familiar steps toward the throne room.
"Remember how nervous we were?" Gladio asked with a sound almost like a laugh, passing through one of the reception chambers. "In front of King Regis the day we left?"
"That," Ignis recalled, "was the last time we were in here."
Noctis let out a soft scoff, though it seems slightly amused. "Feels like forever ago."
And, with that, they stood before the throne room door.
"Well," said Ignis, drawing in a deep breath. "Shall we, Noct?"
"Yeah," Noctis let out a breath of his own. "But..." He hesitated, a frown deep on his face, as he turned toward the three of them. "Hold on a sec. Prompto."
Prompto's attention snapped up immediately. "Hm?"
"Can I see your photos?"
"Uhmmm." Out of all the things Noctis could have said to him at that moment, this was clearly not what he had been expecting, and though he faltered a moment in confusion, he was quick with the firmness of his answer, already reaching for some. "Yeah."
"I just need one," Noctis said, quickly, firmly, and then he, too, faltered with expressing his meaning. "To...take with me."
"...o-oh," Prompto stammered out, as that meaning settled into place, and he nodded, lifting his eyes to look at Noctis and trying not to think about it too much. "Yeah. I...I get it. Um...." But he couldn't look for long, lowering his head as he stepped forward and handed the camera over. "You can take whichever you like."
But it didn't take long at all for Noctis to choose; ironically, it wasn't even a photo that Prompto himself had taken, but rather the one that Cindy had, after she'd fixed up the Regalia, them all posed around it, ten long years ago, after they came pushing it into the Hammerhead before their journey had even really begun.
"Now you can't beat that," Gladio said with approval. "A shot of all four of us together."
"Through it all," Ignis mused, "we had each other."
"Then it's settled?" asked Prompto, with a faint grin on his face. "That's the one? No backsies?"
"Yeah," said Noctis, looking down at the photo with a warm smile, though, when he looked back up at the others, there was a particular sheen in his eyes. Blinking it away, he tucked the photo carefully into his jacket, and turned to push open the doors to the throne room and the destiny that awaited him.
But nothing could prepare any of them for the scene that played out before them, the large and looming Lucian throne surrounded by bodies dangling from the vastly high chamber ceiling. The bodies of various Kingsglaive and Crownsguard in the same uniforms that they wore now. The bodies of King Regis and Lady Lunafreya and her brother Ravus, all of them somehow grotesquely preserved in a delayed state of decay, dripping with lifeless limbs from the chains that dangled them like morbid chandeliers around the throne and the Crystal behind it....and Ardyn sitting there in it.
"W-what?" Only Prompto seemed to be able to breathe out the words on all their minds, except perhaps for Ignis, saved as he was from witnessing this grisly sight. "What is that?"
And Ardyn just cocked his head their way, an all-too-familiar smile on his face, unchanged after all this time. "I'm afraid," he called out, over the steady clacking of their footsteps against the marble floor as they approached the looming throne, "you're out of luck. The throne brings you here?"
His smirk went crooked as he settled comfortably back into it and shook his head, laughing darkly. "It seats only one."
"Off my chair, jester," said Noctis, firm and unwavering, his eyes locked onto Ardyn. "The king sits there."
So fast they could barely even discern the movement, Ardyn was on his feet beside the throne, one of his boots slamming heavily onto the seat in which he'd occupied a mere second ago. He leaned forward, elbow to his knee, looking down for a moment before turning his head their way. "Oh, Noct," he breathed out. "How I have waited for this. Longer than you could ever know."
He moved his foot, slowly turning his body toward them now. "Tonight," he pronounced, "the dreams of the blood royal..." he reached out slowly, opening up his hand before slowly curling it up into a fist, "come to an end!"
"Spite's all that's kept him going," Gladio realized in a low grunt, watching the theatrics with a tight, cold steeliness in his spine.
"Talk about a grudge," Prompto murmured in response, eyes morbidly fascinated, unable to turn away, with a small sardonic laugh as if that could ease the fear gripping his stomach.
"Ardyn sits the throne?" Ignis guessed, his voice little more than a hoarse, disturbed whisper.
And Noctis responded in kind with a harsh exhale. "Not for long. This...is my ascension."
And with those words, Ardyn thrust out his hand sharply, sending out three bursts of dark purple light. They went sailing straight past Noctis, each one finding and smashing into the chests of his friends; with started grunts, they went flying back, fighting against the magic as it surrounded them with a black fog.
Fighting against it, however, proved futile.
They had no place in this, a battle of kings.
And so Noctis would have to move forward....alone.
[[ taken from the absolute mess of Final Fantasy XV's Chapter 14: 'Homecoming'. NFB, NFI, TBC! *inserts anticipatory heavy breathing* ]]