Chapter Text
Stealth sections really weren’t the prince’s forte. In fact, he skipped past them if it was an option in the video games he played. His typical response to instructions like “make your way through the warehouse unnoticed” was usually to kill the more troublesome of the guards and storm right through to the next checkpoint while grumbling about how dumb the level was. For what it’s worth, he also detested escort missions.
It made sense, then, that when he was presented with a real-life “make your way through the warehouse unnoticed” task, he was both wholly unprepared and also nervous as he’d ever been in his life.
The floor of the warehouse was bare concrete littered with broken glass, discarded chunks of wood, and rebar at seemingly random intervals. Outside, the sun was setting quickly and without any functioning interior lights it was becoming markedly more difficult to see the dangerous piles of noise making materials. The air inside the warehouse was damp, cold, and smelled a little like wet rotting wood.
Noctis was tense to the point of nausea, his heart pounding in his ears. His back was pressed up against a bare concrete wall and he wished, not for the first time, that he could just disappear right into the structure itself. His left hand was clasped over his mouth in a desperate attempt to quiet his breathing and his right hand trembled at his side, ready to reach between dimensions and grasp something sharp to throw.
Calm down, Princess, Noctis could almost hear Gladio in his head, assess and breathe and calm the fuck down.
Easier said than done, Noctis snarked at the internal Gladio, feeling almost faint. Still, he stopped in his progression through the hallway and breathed and contemplated how on Eos he could one day rule an entire country if he couldn’t even keep his cool now.
~
Noctis was going about his Sunday as normal. It was pretty much his only real day off per week, with no academic obligations and no royal obligations (with a few rare exceptions for major holidays, events, or the reception of visiting dignitaries). So Noctis had slept (a lot) and woke up fairly late in the afternoon as a result. He’d showered and had just gotten done getting dressed and drying his hair when his phone rang.
“Hey, Prom, what’s up?” Noctis asked.
“Oh, not much, friendo,” Prompto replied, “just wanted to know if seven or eight bags of Sour Patch Kids would be enough for tonight?”
The panic started there.
Noctis was at his front door, yanking on a jacket and boots like it was his job. “How about fourteen and two sleeves of Oreos?”
“Nah, I don’t think your pantry could handle that many,” Prompto answered dismissively.
“Can you stay on the line with me till we work this out?” Noctis asked. He ran down the hallway to the elevator.
“My manager won’t take too kindly to me doing that, I don’t think,” said Prompto.
“Does your manager know you’re on the phone at work?”
Prompto chuckled a little bit, but it was tense. “Oh, he will eventually if he doesn’t already!”
“Think you can leave the marshmallows alone this time?”
“Ha ha, nah, man. I gotta go, but let me know if you want me to pick up anything else! Bye!”
There was a dial tone in Noctis’s ear.
“Prom? Prompto?” He asked.
No answer.
“Fuck.”
The remainder of the elevator ride down to the lobby was far too slow for Noctis’s tastes, and he nervously tapped his fingers and his foot as the numbers slowly ticked down. There were several muttered curses in there, as well.
Noctis found Prompto’s location using the GPS on his phone and was running as soon as the elevator doors opened on the empty, spacious lobby. His knee twinged enough that he wished he’d stopped to grab his brace, but not enough to deter him from sprinting as fast as he could.
Prompto (or Prompto’s phone) was close enough that getting into a car - either grabbing the Star of Lucis from the building garage or flagging down a taxi - would just be a waste of time given the number of one-ways, traffic lights, and stop signs that he would have to navigate. Noctis took the first few moments of sprinting along the sidewalk to run through what he knew about the scenario, desperately trying to work out a plan on the move.
Prompto was being followed by at least seven people (possibly eight), he needed help as fast as Noctis could possibly do so, and he didn’t know enough about the people following him to make any informed choices about his own self-defense.
Noctis couldn’t use his Official “Oh, Shit” Code - not only was he only supposed to use it for emergencies involving his own person, but the kind of response that it would generate might end up putting Prompto in more danger. He couldn’t tell anyone that he was going to do what he was going to do because they would try to stop him, he would ditch them and go to help Prompto anyway, they would follow him, and whoever was near Prompto might hurt or kill him.
Noctis could only rely on himself to help Prompto out of this situation.
At least, that’s what he was going to tell himself and anyone who asked him why he would do something so godsdamned stupid.
After the incident with Noctis’s most recent almost-kidnapping, the Communications department had been made aware of the elaborate system of codes that Noctis and Prompto used. Communications didn’t know all of the codes, and they certainly wouldn’t know them immediately upon hearing them while listening in on a call between Noctis and Prompto, but they knew that codes existed, and that was enough.
Noctis had hoped beyond anything that whoever was monitoring his calls and texts today wasn’t paying too much attention to what had been said during the phone call and wasn’t looking too closely at his location. He especially hoped it wasn’t Ulric, Altius, or Ostium, because those three were definitely sharp enough to know when something was up and would be raising all kinds of hell in Communications about the situation.
It was maybe a mile and a half trek to where Prompto’s phone indicated, and it was the fastest that Noctis had ever managed to run that kind of distance.
He arrived on the street to find Prompto’s phone abandoned on the sidewalk (screen cracked), black scuff marks (presumably from someone’s tennis shoes) on the pavement, and a few scattered visible drops of blood. The blood was still wet and gleamed sickeningly in the late afternoon sunlight. Noctis shuddered.
And the panic that Noctis had felt before began choking him, sealing his throat and dulling his thoughts.
It took an embarrassingly long time before he was able to center himself and think through what to do next, and Noctis would be hard-pressed to admit that he had to sit against a building with his head between his knees in order to breathe right again.
“Just think,” Noctis said to himself aloud, “just stop and think. I’ve got blood, Prompto’s phone, and scuff marks - what happened and where would they have taken him if they got him?”
It had taken Noctis maybe six and a half minutes to cover the mile and a quarter distance. Assuming that they’d snatched Prompto as soon as he’d hung up the phone, that gave the hostiles around a seven minute lead. If they were smart they would be avoiding drawing attention to themselves and so would either be strictly obeying traffic laws in a getaway car or would have ducked into a nearby building (likely abandoned, or populated by people who wouldn’t ask too many questions) to keep from being noticed with Prompto.
Seven minutes by car would put the hostiles far enough away that Noctis wouldn’t be able to catch up without help, but an abandoned building a maximum of seven minutes away by foot wouldn’t be too hard to find.
Noctis nodded once to himself and decided that it was likely the assailants wouldn’t want to deal with rush-hour traffic and Crown City Police checkpoints in advance of the Founder’s Day festivities in the coming week. He stood up and used the blood on the ground as an indicator of where to begin his search.
~
Prompto couldn’t quite recall how many times he’d been hit, that was the trouble. Distantly, he knew that that was a problem, but his head throbbed too much for him to care properly.
Almost immediately after he’d hung up on Noctis, he’d heard footsteps running at him. Prompto had made to turn around, but something hard cracked him across the temple with enough force to make his teeth rattle and he crumpled. His legs skidded out from under him awkwardly and something warm dripped from the side of his skull into his ear and down his neck.
He’d been focusing too hard on the sudden high-pitched ringing in his ears and the blurriness of his vision to put up much of a fight when someone (someones?) had hauled him up off the sidewalk by his armpits.
Prompto’s head was heavy and hot and he remembered very little of the walk (drag? schlep?) to wherever it was that he had ended up. Prompto did know that when he was sat down in a chair the sudden change in position made him vomit, and he suddenly worried about a concussion more than anything.
One of the seven (eight?) badly-dressed men who had been following him was suddenly in front of him and talking at him.
“...going to tell us all he knows about his little friend the prince, isn’t he?”
“You– can all go to hell,” Prompto slurred.
Prompto tried to stand up and leave the room, but he was stuck to the chair by his wrists. He looked down, more than a little confused. Rope. No, paracord? Someone had tied him up? Why? And when?
Then someone’s boot was striking his chest hard enough to knock the chair completely over. He felt something crack.
Prompto definitely blacked out for a minute because he blinked and the chair was upright again and a hand was gripping his shoulder. What was going on, again? He couldn’t breathe.
“Now, let’s try this again. You’re gonna tell us everything you know about the prince’s security detail,” the man said, sounding like he was speaking through chowder, “or I’m gonna start taking fingers.”
In the corner of the space (room? cave? Or were they outside?) another man brandished a massive pair of…scissors? Nope, too big to be scissors. Those were. Prompto’s eyes squeezed shut in concentration.
Garden shears! The giant scissors were garden shears.
Prompto blinked and his brow furrowed. His head and his chest hurt way too much to focus effectively on anything, and he genuinely couldn’t figure out why someone would need garden shears in a…wherever it was they were. Why did breathing hurt so much? What the hell happened?
“Start talking!” The man demanded. “Tell me about the prince, now!”
The prince? Why would Prompto know a prince? Prompto didn’t interact with anybody but Noctis. Noctis was the prince. Tell them about Noctis? Tell them what about Noctis? No.
No. Prompto knew and felt that very strongly. No.
Prompto shouldn’t tell them about Noctis.
Prompto wouldn’t tell them about Noctis.
Not even if they took his fingers. Not even if they took his eyes. No.
Noctis was too important.
Noctis was too important to him.
When he replied, it was surprisingly clear, loud, and coherent: “I’m not telling you anything about him, you assholes!”
The expression of the man in front of him soured. He reached out, put a hand on Prompto’s chest, and pressed. Something in Prompto’s chest shifted in a way it was not supposed to shift.
Prompto screamed.
~
The warehouse that Noctis decided to enter was a couple minutes walk away from the last location of Prompto’s phone, and Noctis was immediately certain that it was the correct one by the couple of droplets of blood leading to a busted-in front door.
And so he crept through the structure’s concrete hallways, dodging piles of broken glass and metal.
The first distant, meaty thud and pained exclamation he heard nearly made Noctis vomit. Every muscle in his body tense, he’d continued his walk through the dim and confusing pathways.
Over the roaring in his ears, Noctis could hear voices (tenors and baritones, likely male) but couldn’t make out anything they were saying.
He sure as hell heard when Prompto yelled back at them, “I’m not telling you anything about him, you assholes!” And then Prompto shrieked and it echoed through the hallway and bounced around in Noctis’s brain and Noctis -
Noctis’s panic frothed into anger. Anger, because someone had taken his best friend. Anger, because his best friend was in pain. Anger, because Noctis could tell that all of this was because of him.
Anger is good, mind-Gladio cautioned, but you can’t let it make you reckless.
Can’t be reckless, Noctis acknowledged, Prompto’s in danger.
So instead of creeping through the corridors, Noctis stalked through the corridors.
The prince’s feet were silent, his posture crouched and dangerous. His hands tore into reality and extracted a short sword, well-balanced for both close-combat and throwing.
And he was so very, very angry.
When he came upon the first lone man in ripped jeans (he was wearing earbuds and looking the other way, it was far too easy) there was a single breath between Noctis noticing him and the man being unconscious on the ground, and no sounds to alert anyone else in the building.
Noctis pressed onward towards Prompto.
~
Marlow hadn’t necessarily agreed with snatching the blond kid in the first place. It was a massive risk and kidnapping the prince’s godsdamned best friend was one of the dumbest ideas he’d ever heard. Who knew what kind of security would be on him?
But Marlow had been soundly outvoted when Ricky brought it up, and the last time Marlow had tried to stand up to Ricky he’d walked away with a black eye.
A bad idea. This was a bad, bad idea.
After Ricky broke the kid’s rib, Marlow started to feel uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than he’d been at the beginning of the op, more uncomfortable than he’d been when he hit the kid with the baton, and more uncomfortable than he’d been with the concept of torturing information out of a teenager. Uncomfortable of a wholly unfamiliar variety.
There was pressure in the air. Marlow twitched a little. The spot on his arm where he’d broken it as a kid felt sore.
The kid they’d grabbed off the street (hunted him around the city like an animal) seemed to have trouble comprehending what Ricky was saying. Marlow raised the garden shears on command.
There was pressure. Marlow felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The air felt crispy and staticky, like someone had filled the room with helium balloons. Like lightning was about to strike.
Marlow barely even heard the kid scream, really. Breathing in and breathing out took effort. Oxygen was growing scarce. There was pressure.
He cast his eyes wildly around the room, but it seemed like he was the only one noticing anything that was happening. Marlow was alone in this sudden and inexplicable terror. The spaces in the dark corners of the room seemed to shimmer and buckle in on themselves. Marlow swayed in place and felt like was going to pass out.
A few moments passed after the kid’s scream trailed off - it seemed as if Ricky was being merciful and giving him a second to gather himself before continuing with the torture (why did this feel like it was the last time he’d see Ricky?)
There was a noise.
Marlow couldn’t decide if it was a dull roar or a high-pitched whine. It may have been both.
Like a rubber band snapping half, the pressure suddenly broke.
Marlow didn’t own a gun and didn’t carry a gun, and honestly he didn’t think it would’ve helped much against whatever it was that came into the room, but he did think he would’ve been comforted if he’d had one.
Something glinting and metal came flying through the doorway almost faster than Marlow could see. Across the room Ricky choked and raised his hands to his chest, and from where Marlow was standing he could just barely see bright red bloom on the back of Ricky’s shirt around the cross-guard of a sword before–
– blue . Crystal blue that skittered and sparked and shattered and pulled at the edges of space as Marlow understood it. Crystal blue that threw the black-clad form of a person into existence–
Ricky screamed a little, but it was a hoarse, weak, confused thing. The figure dressed all in black planted a boot on Ricky’s back and pulled out the sword with one hand.
It took Marlow a moment to make sense of what he was seeing.
Prince Noctis whipped around and Marlow saw and understood. Blood dripped from his sword onto the floor. Ricky collapsed onto the ground with a thud.
“Heard you were looking for me,” said the Prince. The grip on the sword shifted and the Prince threw the weapon directly at Marlow and shortly after vanished into thin air.
Marlow’s garden shears clattered to the concrete floor at the same time the sword sank deep into his chest, his shaking hands no longer able to support their weight. All of the air escaped his lungs all at once in a pitiful wheeze.
Nothing could prepare Marlow for reality tearing apart directly in front of him. In an instant, the edges of space and time were pulled apart and–
In the space between the edges, Marlow caught a glimpse of somewhere else. And the pain no longer mattered because the fear made his body numb. Prince Noctis emerged from that nowhere place, a grimace twisting his mouth down and his eyes a burning crimson, his hand coiled around the hilt of the sword he’d buried in Marlow’s diaphragm.
The hole in the universe snapped shut like the maw of a great beast clenching its teeth. Under the Prince’s sudden weight, Marlow’s knees collapsed beneath him and he crashed to the ground.
Marlow did not hear what Prince Noctis said next.
After what Marlow had seen in that nowhere somewhere everywhere place–
–there were things moving around in there. Hulking and cloaked in shadow and horrifying and smiling at him. They had too many teeth. They were blind. They saw him. There were things living in there in that place there were things there were things there were things–
Marlow was swallowed in the advancing embrace of darkness.